Literal Hadith  

Hadith is an Arabic word which literally means "speech", "report" or "account" and is generally understood to specifically mean traditions relating to the deeds and utterances attributed to the prophet Muhammad.

The'Hadith' are divided into two groups:
The first is 'Hadith Qudsi' which is considered as 'sacred hadith'. These are attributed to God making a complimentary revelation through the Prophet and 'Hadith Sharif' or Noble Hadith' attributed to the prophet Muhammad himself.

Hadith are accepted by 'muslims' as basis for Islamic law (shari'ah), and are regarded second only to the Quran.

Most famous collections of Hadith are named 'sahih' or "authentic Hadith" of Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (d.256 AIHijra/870 Christian Era) and Husayn Muslim ibn aI-Hajjaj (d.261 / 875) These two Sahihan (plural of Sahih) are considered the two most authoritative of the six well established collections.

Others include the hadith of Abu Dawud (d.261 /875),Ibn Maja (d.273/886), Tirmidhi (d.279/892 A.H.), Malik ibn Anas - the first collection ever written and Musad of Ibn Hanbal.

Many other hadith are found in such books as the Hilyat at Awliya (Adornment of the Saints) of Abu Nu'aym.

There are also the small collection of 'Forty Hadith' of Nawawi considered by Hadith advocates to be of the greatest importance and the essential minimum for 'muslim' education.

The Bukhari and Muslim collections were compiled about two centuries after Hijra and their authenticity 'proved' by the criterion of 'isnad' or a chain of transmission.

This method was based on the assumption that it was unthinkable for God-fearing men to lie about matters, which they held sacred.

The Shi'ite muslims call Hadith by an other name: 'Khabar' meaning news. For them the authenticity of a hadith is guaranteed not by `isnad' which begins with the companions, but by its transmission through Ali, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, and the Imams of Shi'ism.

The Shi'ite collections which were made during the Buyid period are considerably larger than the Sunni ones, and contain references to the Imams not found in the Sunni collections.

Seholars have often said that the Hadith have been invented in order to justify some legal opinion or school of thought; this is undoubtedly true and even the early compilers rejected large numbers of Hadith as fabricated.

The Hadiths range from the ones, which are patently, or pointlessly false, to the ones, which blatantly contradict the Quran,- despite clear statements in the Quran that nothing can abrogate God's words.

There are also polemical Hadith, which were invented as propaganda to support one or another party in dynastic and political struggles, and other Hadith which have nothing objectionable in their content, but which the prophet could not have uttered for historical reasons.

A Hadith may be true in the sense that it is a narrative wholly consistent with the message of lslam, but ascribe it as a 'quotation' of the prophet Muhammad, simply to add authority, is blasphemy.

The prophet may well have manifested all the possibilities of Islam by act, thought, speech or gesture. Yet it is inconceivable that all the possibilities should be discoverable in the received cannon of Hadith.

To mimic every detail of the prophets' daily personal routine would not be practical or reasonable in many walks of Iife and neither is it a required act of faith.

In the first centuries the standard by which Hadith were measured was that of 'isnad', the advocates of hadith of later times added another, one of verisimilitude in the eyes of a growing community, who were deeply religious but uneducated.

Then there grew up a corpus of Hadith which were clearly impossible historically, and yet were repeatedly quoted and rarely questioned. They had an 'authenticity of spirit' about them and therefore were not challenged. This consensus of silence was in fact an acceptance, even though the Hadith could not be traced back to the Prophet.

To the informed mind this may appear an anomaly, which reflects little credit on Islam's intellectual integrity, a confusion which it would be desirable to rectify. To do so would call into question the 'faith' of Muslims, yet this is exactly what the Quran does.

Much has been wrongly attributed to the prophet Muhammad and by the use of 'Hadith' to add weight to their personal interpretations, the advocates of 'hadith and sunnah' have defiled Islam.

By using the prophet Muhammad's name, the 'muslims' have transformed his purpose and diverted the people to following many false traditions and customs instead of studying and applying the teachings of the Quran. A Hadith may be true in the sense that it is a narrative wholly consistent with the message of Islam, but ascribe it as a 'quotation' of the prophet Muhammad, simply to add authority, is blasphemy.