Why I'm Studying Hadith...

I just got an email which excerpted from an article about how laypeople (i.e. you and I--non-scholars) misinterpret and misquote hadiths. Great premise...because it's so widespread amongst Muslims these days. In fact the growing interest in Islam and in-depth study of it is excellent, yet too many people thing that they can understand the Qur'an and Sunnah with no regard to how scholars have interpreted it.

C'mon, admit it, how many times have you heard someone (or have said yourself), "from what I understand this ayah to mean, we should/should not..." or, upon hearing a narration from the seerah for instance, say, "See, this proves that in Islam,...." Never mind that the story could be (in the words of my hadith teacher) "hocus pocus", never mind that there are detailed rules and provisions for interpreting ayat and ahadith...face it, we like to throw it all out the window and adopt a self-styled scholarship where we take our own understandings of the texts and then from there decide which scholar to agree with or disagree with. We all become (in the words of a certain Floridian...) the epitome of "Shaikh Shady" where we're throwin' our *own* fatwas left and right. Usually because intellecually we don't want to accept what we might suspect to be true. Usually. And then really, even though our conclusions may differ, in the end we end up not too far off from where Amina Wadud and the other Proggies ("progressives") are at. Twist a text here, ignore another there, and we're on our way to all sorts of shady conclusions and practices.

So here I am in this hadith class which is *not* covering interpretation of hadith, rather we are learning the terms scholars use to classify hadith, and their methods of grading hadith. We focus a lot on case studies where we try to put ourselves in their shoes and research narrators and narrations in a given hadith, and then go to what the scholars decided as to the authenticity of each one.

So at first I'm like almost dozing out in each class because it's so technical and abstract...what's a shaadh hadith, or a mu'allal one or what's the difference between a munqati' and maqtoo' chain. So I ask the teacher..."ummmm, Ustadh Ahmad, why are we studying this? After all, we're not going to be hadith scholars ourselves...so what will we use this for?" His answer was basically so we can understand the words of the scholars themselves and to know where they are coming from when they discuss the strength of hadith. And, most importantly, he added, to combat the nightmare of (to take from M.AlShareef): "the night of the living layman." He said that one of the single most important things in our time is to convince the average Zaid and Amr that "Look, you don't know anything, okay? So keep your mouth shut before you start telling everyone what's right and wrong. Ask someone who knows before you become a self-styled scholar." (his words, not mine!)

okay, okay, I said, fair enough...and go back to dreaming of tree diagrams of hadith narrations...

I didn't actually realize the full weight of his words until we got into takhreej a few days later. Takhreej is the process in which a hadith is evaluated to determine if it is authentic or not. It involves diagramming who the narrators are and how they narrated the hadith, the strength of their memories and character, uncovering mistakes in narration and hidden defects in the transmission of the Prophet's sayings from one narrator to another. Of course we ourselves are not doing the whole process on our own and coming up with our own rulings, but rather we just analyze the chain for possible defects and questionable links, then we look at what scholars of past and present said about that particular chain.

Siraj and I were working on a project where we were analyzing two narrations which weren't matching--one had words added which weren't in the other narrations. So we were like, "Well, couldn't there just have been two situations?" We found other clues that indicated very strongly (to us) that this was the case. So we were rather pleased with what we thought was insightful thinking, then went off to research it in the books of takhreej the next day. Out of hundreds of books (we did a computerized search) we found not one scholar who had come up with our idea. Further proof of our brilliance? Think again.

"This goes to show you," said Ustadh Ahmed after we tried to convince him of our logic, "that *alllll* the specialists in the field were working under the unspoken understanding that it was one situation and one hadith. You two, the non-specialists, came to a different conclusion. Therefore, you should question your logic, not theirs."

Profound, no?

Only then did the true nightmare of the living layman hit home. Here's our problem: our logic seems so accurate and precise to us, but to one who is deeply immersed in the study of the deen, the matter will appear completely different.

The example that has been repeated so much that it is stale is worth repeating: can a layperson possibly diagnose a serious disease with the same accuracy and precision as a doctor?

And as the saying goes, "A quack doctor may destroy your life, but a fake scholar will destroy your hereafter."

Back to that article I had read about not misquoting hadith...It was good, but there was some serious issues in it that I felt were misleading. To wit:

The author states: "Don't draw big conclusions from a small statement [i.e. hadith] unless you study the context."

Ummm...how about this one: "Don't draw big conclusions period!" Yes, the hadith are there for us to read and benefit from, but we always have to be careful from drawing our own conclusions from them, especially if they are "big conclusions." And what about the context? So you read the whole text of the hadith, so what? Do you know if it was abrogated, or if there is another statement in the thousands of other hadith that qualifies it? If a person doesn't know all that, it's probably safer not to draw big conclusions.

Another verrrry dangerous statement: "Remember that the first principle of Hadith authenticity test is that it must not contradict Quran."

Absolutely not. The practice of "naqd-ul-matn," or "textual criticism" or hadiths has become a widespread problem. Many khateebs in the US throw around statements like, "This hadith is in Bukhari [or Muslim] but the text of it contradicts the Qur'an, so we can't accept it." Or, "This hadith contradicts sound intellect, and since there is no contradiction between sound intellect and authentic hadith, the hadith must be inauthentic." Yikes, talk about an example of "unsound" intellect right there!

Hadith scholars operate on much more profound principles than "first up, let's see if the text contradicts the Qur'an." This is a very dangerous proposition, especially coming as a recommendation to laypeople. Hadith scholars look at the chain of narrators and evaluate the authenticity of the chain of narrations and *never* (in the words of the teacher, not mine :) look at the text of the hadith with no regard to the sanad, or chain or narrators. And one of the most important principles of understanding hadith is: "There is no contradiction between an authentic hadith and the Qur'an...and any supposed contradiction is in the mind of the person, not between the Qur'an and Sunnah." And since all the hadith in Bukhari and Muslim are agreed-upon that they are sahih (authentic), any attacks on their authenticity from supposed contradictions with Qur'an or "intellect" are obviously mistaken.

So, although it has been grueling, I am pretty grateful that we are studying hadith this term. We're almost up with the hadith portion and so we'll be getting into Usool al-Fiqh in a week or so...another fruitful topic for wannabe laypeople!

More thoughts and ramblings from our classes as they come insha'Allah!!