Islamic Science of Hadith: Difference between revisions

The Islamic Science of Hadith (in Arabic 'ilm al-hadith علم الحديث) is the Islamic study of hadith, their sources, their narrations, and how much they can be relied upon as a source of religious truth. The traditional [[Sunni]] study of hadith attempts to establish the relative trustworthiness of various different hadith by studying the chains of narration (called an isnaad إسناد plural asaanid أسانيد) that are attached to the text of the hadith (the actual text of the saying of the prophet being called a matn متن). By evaluating the plausibility of a given chain of narrators, and the known facts of the narrator's religiousity, trustworthiness, and orthodoxy, Sunni hadith science claims that the veracity of a given saying of the prophet can be determined with absolute certainty. Hadiths recieve grades from the tradents (known in Arabic as muhadiththun محدثون) based off of these criteria, the grades being Sahih (صحيح), Hasan(حسن), Mawdu'(موضوع), and Da'if(ضعيف), with sahih being the highest grade and da'if the weakest. The Sunni tradition generally agrees that all of the hadith of [[Sahih Bukhari|Sahih Al-Bukhari]] and [[Sahih Muslim]] are hadith but beyond this almost all other books of hadith contain hadith which are disagreed upon in the nature of their hadith. The various traditional schools of jurisprudence as well as the salafis have different scholars who have given different ratings to various hadith. Some prominent muhadiththun such as the salafi [[Shaykh Al-Albani]] enjoy widespread esteem in the Muslim community, and their judgements on which hadith are sahih and otherwise fit for usage in religious ruling enjoy wide acceptance.

Transmitters are the individual links in the chain of isnad. They are the individuals who carry the report through history to the one who ends up writing it down. The origins of the hadith are the [[companions]] who would (theoretically) have been around the prophet at the time he did and said the things which are recorded. According to the (unquestioned) presuppositions of the Islamic science of hadith, the companions and their followers and their followers after them more or less instantaneously recognized that the deeds and words of the prophet would be a sunnah or tradition that would form the basis of religious authority in Islam, and immediately set about setting up a culture of oral transmission and recorded isnads so that the veracity of these hadith reports could be  

The grades of a given hadith can be Sahih (صحيح), Hasan(حسن), Mawdu'(موضوع), and Da'if(ضعيف). Sahih are considered the carry religious authority second only to the [[Qur'an]] itself, but hasan hadith may also be used for religious rulings. Mawdu' and da'if hadith cannot be the basis of rulings but can be referenced for general religious inspiration, although many Muslims disapprove of using them even in this circumspect fashion.