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Importance Of Weak Ahadith
Assalam u Alaikum,Greetings.
My question is that are weak Ahadith always false or are there any chance that they may contain true messages.Aren’t weak Ahadith judged too strictly like just because one Muhadaseen is too old etc and if we do something against a weak Hadith while knowing it is weak but in Qayamah it turns out to be a correct one,will we be punished?
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9 Replies
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Importance Of Weak Ahadith
updated 1 year, 2 months ago
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Replies
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Walikumsalam
Fabricated hadith are called mawdu. Its different from weak.authencity of hadith are checked by following criteria
1 – All narrators should be pious
2 – Good memory and precision
3 – Continuous isnaad from beginning to end
4 – The hadeeth is free from any oddness in its isnaad or text which contradicts Quran or other sound hadith
5 – The hadeeth is free from faults in its isnaad and text. A “fault” is a subtle problem that undermines the soundness of the hadeeth, which can be detected only by the well versed scholars of hadeeth.
Weak hadith doesnot meet more than one criteria set by mohadeseen. Thats why it create doubt. Majority ulema says not to draw any prinicple from weak ahadith as it may stray us away from right path. The strict criteria is necessary to distinguish between false and right. if you consider weak ahadith then certain biddah can enter in religion as evident from some sects.
There is possiblity that those hadith are correctly attributed. However, Islam as religion has reached to us based on Quran and sunnah. Both has reached us with Ijma and tawatur. You have to keep in mind what is basic message of Islam and act accordingly. Rest Allah knows better. Hope it helps
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Jazak Allah !!!
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Please also note that a hadith is not automatically rejected just because it has some issues in it’s chain of narration. What’s most important is to be able to comprehend what basis a hadith has in the two independent sources of Islam: the Quran and the sunnah.
Please refer to the following for principles of understanding hadith:
Also the book Fundamentals of Hadith Interpretation by Amin Ahsan Islahi is a great resource that can be downloaded from:
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https://youtu.be/R8xcgWBB5wE?si=KrrM5A4_6PcWk_Sr
Just saw this video and from what what Dt. Shabbir said from 14:50-17:10 bewildered me.
I did not know that such a big name like Ahmad ibn Hanbal could have a doctrine that even if there is a weak Hadith, we must give it priority over our own reasoning which to me personally sounds bizarre! Growing up, what I was taught is that one can’t rely on a Hadith unless it is Sahih or at least Hassan grade as most likely the prophet never said it and that the aunthenticity of Zaeef Hadith is not good. Anyone care to elaborate on Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s doctrine plz.
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Without understanding the methods of the Mutaqaddimin (early scholars), some of the hadith scholars view that it is absolutely acceptable to practice weak hadith and they rely heavily on expressions made by a few Mutaqaddimin hadith scholars, in particular Ahmad bin Hambal. However, the application of weak hadith by Imam Ahmad was not the rejected weak hadith, instead, it refers to hasan hadith.
According to Ibn-e-Qaiyyam as quoted by Ibn-e-Badran:
الأَصْل الرَّابِع الْأَخْذ بالمرسل والْحَدِيث الضَّعِيف إِذا لم يكن فِي الْبَاب شَيْء يَدْفَعهُ وَهُوَ الَّذِي رَجحه على الْقيَاس وَلَيْسَ المُرَاد بالضعيف عِنْده الْبَاطِل وَلَا الْمُنكر وَلَا فِي رِوَايَته مُتَّهم بِحَيْثُ لَا يسوغ الذّهاب إِلَيْهِ فَالْعَمَل بِهِ بل الحَدِيث الضَّعِيف عِنْده قسيم الصَّحِيح وَقسم من أَقسَام الْحسن وَلم يكن يقسم الحَدِيث إِلَى صَحِيح وَحسن وَضَعِيف بل إِلَى صَحِيح وَضَعِيف وللضعيف عِنْده مَرَاتِب فَإِذا لم يجد فِي الْبَاب أثرا يَدْفَعهُ وَلَا قَول صَحَابِيّ وَلَا إِجْمَاع على خِلَافه كَانَ الْعَمَل بِهِ عِنْده أولى من الْقيَاس
“The fourth principle (of Ahmed Bin Hambal when issuing Fatwa): accepting mursal hadiths and daef hadiths as evidence, if there is no other text concerning the matter that would contradict them. This type of hadith is given precedence over analogy (qiyaas). What is meant by daef, in his view, is not that which is batil (false) or munkar (odd), and not that of which any of the narrators was accused of lying, so that the report is rendered unacceptable and cannot be used as evidence. Rather the daef hadith, in his view, is a counterpart of that which is sahih, and that which is hasan comes under the heading of that which is daef. He did not divide hadiths into sahih, hasan and daef. In his view, the daef hadiths are of various levels, so if he could not find a sound report to contradict the daef hadith, or the view of a Sahabi, or consensus that was contrary to the daef hadith, it was more appropriate to refer to this daef hadith and use it as evidence, rather than turning to analogy.“
(Writes Ibn-e-Badran in Al-madkhal ila madhhab al-imam ahmad bin hanbal, Muassah al-Risalah, Beirut, Second Edition, Page 116)
Similarly, Ibn-e-Rajab Al-Hambali Concludes:
وكان الإمام أحمد يحتج بالحديث الضعيف الذي لم يرد خلافه، ومراده بالضعيف قريب من مراد الترمذي بالحسن
“Imam Ahmad used as evidence the weak hadith, which was not contradicted, and what was meant by weak is close to what al-Tirmidhi meant by Hasan“.
(Sharah ilal al-tirmidhi, 2/576 [Maktaba Al-Minar, Jordan, First Edition])
Therefore, the term weak hadith used by Mutaqaddimin scholars such as Imam Ahmed bin Hambal (d. 241 H) is a more general term that also includes hasan hadith which were called weak hadith during their time. The later scholars had then termed these weak hadiths as hasan hadiths.
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I see! Its a lot more clear now. So basically before the Sihah Sitta, the Hadith sciences were not developed enough to distinguish Hassan Hadith from Zaeef ones then. And It was only after the Hassan ones were distinguished from the truly Zaeef ones that scholars stopped relying on the truly Zaeef ones to develop fiqh and do ijtehad then?
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Hadith science like all other subjects has gone through a natural evolutionary process. It took three to four centuries for this science to take its complete form. Earlier scholars like Imam Malik at instances did not even mention the complete chain of narrators in his book ‘Muatta‘, instead he would write, “It reached me that the Messenger of Allah (sws) said….” or He may also say: “It reached me from so and so (a Companion) that….”, meaning that he would skip the names of one or two narrators in his chain because they are trustworthy narrators to him or he considers the source very reliable irrespective of the rest of the chain. For example, see: https://sunnah.com/malik/48/5 AND https://sunnah.com/urn/511170. However, because of amalgamation of fabricated Ahadith in high numbers in later times, it was inevitable that such categorization should be made more and more clear.
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I see. Thanks again Umer Bhai. So all the more reason to discard Zaeef narratives but taking Hassan ones into consideration then.
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For point of view of Ghamidi Sahab on Weak Ahadith, please refer to the video below from 31:00 to 42:30
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