An Introduction to the Science of the Hadith

Abstract

Contemporary western scholarship on the hadith literature largely ignores most of the relevant secondary scholarship, namely, that produced by premodern hadith specialists, including the discussions and assessments found in the rijal literature, the `ilal genre, and other works. Perhaps this neglect is born of the conviction that as religious persons, pre-modern scholars were incapable of “doing” real history. Or perhaps it reflects the suspicion that their assessments were designed exclusively to vindicate doctrinally correct hadiths. Neither assumption does justice to the traditional field of hadith studies. It is thus fitting to understand this discipline, not only because attention to the secondary literature is a requirement of responsible scholarship in any field, but also because doing so can benefit the modern reevaluation of the hadith literature. The first step toward understanding traditional hadith scholarship is to know its terminology. In English, there may be no better introduction to this terminology than Eerik Dickinson’s translation of Ibn al-Salah’s (d. 643/1245) classic work. In addition, the book briefly addresses some of the defects that could appear in the hadiths, contradictions in their isnads (chains of transmission) or matns (texts), such as when one transmitter relates a tradition with an incomplete isnad and another transmitter provides a complete one, various subdisciplines of hadith studies and other matters. Ibn al-Salah’s book can help correct certain modern misunderstandings about the nature of traditional hadith scholarship and the technical meanings of such basic terms as sahih, da`if, munkar, and tadlis. To give an example, the traditional discipline is often faulted for rating as sound (sahih) hadiths that can be recognized as ahistorical. This presupposes, incorrectly, that sahih means authentic. Yet Ibn al-Salah indicates that classifying a hadith as sahih means no more than saying that its isnad and its variants satisfy certain formal criteria. He asserts that, therefore, such a classification does not ...