by Asma bint Shameem
QUESTION
Are the Hadeeth preserved?
Is it true that hadeeth was not written down until 300 years after the Prophet ﷺ?
🌿ANSWER🌿
Ahaadeeth are absolutely preserved since the time of the Prophet ﷺ.
It is NOT true that hadeeth was not written down until 300 years after the Prophet ﷺ.
Actually it is proven BEYOND DOUBT that Ahaadeeth were written down DURING the lifetime of the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam.
🔺Yes it’s true that the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam had INITIALLY asked the Sahaabah to not record hadeeth
🍃He Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam said:
“Do not write down anything from me except the Qur’aan.” (Muslim).
The ulama gave several reasons why he said that.
1. The prohibition to write down hadeeth was at the BEGINNING when the Qur’aan was being revealed and the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam did not want people to MIX the Qur’aan with hadeeth.
2. He ﷺ didn’t want them to write hadeeth on the same paper or material as the Qur’aan was written.
3. It was preferred to memorize hadeeth by heart rather than writing it down.
🍃 Imaam an-Nawawi said:
“The prohibition was in effect when there was the fear that (the words of the Prophet Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam might be mixed with the Qur’aan.
When that danger was no longer present, permission was given to write down (ahaadeeth).
And it was said that the prohibition mentioned in the hadeeth referred to writing ahaadeeth on the same page as Qur’aan, lest they become mixed and thus the reader would be confused when looking at this page.”
(Sharh’ saheeh Muslim)
🔺 Later this order of not writing hadeeth was ABROGATED and the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam actually INSTRUCTED the Sahaabah to write down hadeeth.
So the prohibition was ONLY TEMPORARY and only for SOME people and the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam ALLOWED the writing of hadeeth
📌PROOF:
🍃Abdullaah ibn Amr radhi Allaahu anhu said:
“I used to write whatever I heard from the Prophet Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam and wanted to learn it by heart.
Some people of the Quraysh dissuaded me and said,
"Do you write everything you hear from the Prophet, while he is a human being and sometimes he may be in anger as any other human beings may be?"
Abdullaah ibn Amr conveyed this to the Prophet Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam.
The Prophet Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam pointed to his lips and said:
“I swear by the One in whose hands is the soul of Muhammad: nothing comes out from these two (lips) except truth.
So (go ahead) DO WRITE.”
(Abu Dawood- saheeh)
🔺 That’s why many Sahaabah had their own ‘Suhuf’ (manuscripts) and personal collections of ahaadeeth by the time the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam passed away.
🔺 The Sahaabah had memorized the ahaadeeth well and had written them down very much IN the lifetime of the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam.
And thus, the ahaadeeth of the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam were well preserved.
🔺 Verification of the authenticity of ahaadeeth is a very serious issue and scholars have spent their ENTIRE lifetime studying and then verifying the authenticity of ahaadeeth.
In fact there’s a whole science to the study of ahaadeeth and their authentication.
It’s called “Mustalah al-Hadeeth”
🔺 When Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala promised to preserve this Deen, He did not just preserve the Qur’aan.
Rather He ALSO preserved the Sunnah through the Sahaabah of the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam.
That's part of the promise of Allaah
Allaah has guaranteed to protect His religion, which includes preserving His miraculous Book, and preserving the Sunnah of His Prophet Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam which helps us to understand the Qur’aan.
🍃 Allaah says:
“Verily We: It is We Who have sent down the Dhikr (i.e. the Qur’aan and Sunnah) and surely, We will guard it (from corruption).” (Surah al-Hijr:9)
Here in the above Aayah, Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala used the word “dhikr” and promised to guard it.
The word “Dhikr” here includes both the Qur’aan AND the Sunnah.
He did NOT use the word “Qur’aan” or “Kitaab” or any other word that could mean “just” His Book by itself.
Rather Allaah used the word “dhikr” or “reminder” because BOTH the Qur’aan AND the authentic Sunnah are means of guidance for us.
🔺 BOTH the Qur’aan and the authentic ahaadeeth are a source of legislation for us and BOTH the Qur’aan and authentic ahaadeeth are needed to truly understand and implement the orders of Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala.
That’s because the authentic ahaadeeth are an EXPLANATION of what the Qur’aan contains and it’s the PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION of its injunctions.
How else can a person know how much Zakaah to give or how many rak’aat in each prayer, or how to perform Hajj or how to slaughter an animal or how to implement all the ibaadaat and rulings?
The Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam showed us practically what Allaah wants from us.
And if that itself is “questionable”, Aoodhu Billaah, then how would the Deen be preserved?
How would people know HOW to practice the Deen if the very explanation of how to implement the Deen was lost?
🔺 So just as Allaah preserved the Qur’aan, He preserved the Deen by preserving the Ahaadeeth of the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam.
Allaah enabled the Sahaabah to memorize, and write down the ahaadeeth of the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam JUST AS they memorized and wrote down the Qur’aan.
The Sahaabah then passed that knowledge on to the next generation, the Tabi’een and they memorized it and wrote it down and preserved it well.
As more people came into Islaam, the need to preserve the authentic ahaadeeth was of utmost importance so Allaah enabled the scholars to develop a whole science that meticulously checked and verified the authenticity of the words, deeds and approvals of the Prophet sal Allaahu Alayhi wa sallam.
🔺 Utmost care was taken to record the noble hadeeth of the Prophet Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam in the most accurate manner.
The scholars developed a whole system of evaluating and criticizing the different narrators of hadeeth according to certain VERY STRICT CONDITIONS so as to check the reliability of their narrations, including their piety, knowledge, and even their mental health at the time of narrating hadeeth, when and where they traveled to, and who they met to hear or relay ahaadeeth.
🔺 The scholars even recorded the names of those that tried to corrupt the deen by fabricating ahaadeeth or narrate unreliable narrations.
This way they were able to protect and distinguish the authentic ahaadeeth from the fabricated ones and weed out the liars and their lies.
This is a very brief explanation of the science of preservation of hadeeth.
I could go on and on.
When you study the science of hadeeth and contemplate on how Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala preserved this beautiful and vital part of our Deen, it's literally MIND BOGGLING.
Subhaan Allaah it is just amazing and you immediately realize that none of this could even be possible in the slightest EXCEPT that it was the Divine Work of Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala.
🔺CONCLUSION
- it's proven beyond doubt that the ahaadeeth were preserved.
- it's part of an attempt to corrupt the deen by the opponents of Islaam to spread misconceptions regarding the preservation of hadeeth.
For more information, please see the following links
Read the book “Introduction to the science of hadeeth” in the following links
And Allaah knows best
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