Question
Thanks for your answer, I agree with your answer up to a certain extent that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) prohibited to write Hadith with the means to securing the Qur’an from any erroneous addition as the part of scribes of the revelation. But this may be one aspect of this prohibition of writing Hadiths. I want to add another aspect by continuing your explanation, if you agree with me after reading my point of view .There may be some other reason involve in this prohibition.
But first we have to study the Quran and see that, does Qur’an also prohibit the Hadiths other than HADITHS OF GOD? And does Qur’an allow the Prophets to give the Hadiths other than God’s Hadiths (Qur’an)? Or does the Qur’an or God allow His Prophets to speak as his own initiative or makes any changes in it (Qur’an)? Or even explain it? And does Qur’an allow to go for any other book of Hadith other than HADITHS OF GOD, THE QUR’AN, which is complete, accurate, detailed and with out any errors or corruption.
We can find the answers from the following Verses of GOD from The Qur’an:
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“Have they not looked at the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all the things God has created? Does it ever occur to them that the end of their life may be near? Which HADITH, besides this (Quran), do they believe in?” (7: 185)
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“Among the people, there are those who uphold baseless HADITH, and thus divert others from the path of God without knowledge, and take it in vain. These have incurred a shameful retribution.” (31: 6)
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“These are God’s revelations (Quran) that we recite to you truthfully. In which HADITH other than God and His revelations do they believe?” (45: 6)
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“Which HADITH other than this do they uphold?” (77: 50)
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“When our verses are recited for them, those who do not expect to meet us would say, ‘Bring a Qur’an other than this (Quran), or change it.’ Say (O Muhammad), ‘I cannot change it on my own initiative. I simply follow what is revealed to me. I fear, if I disobey my Lord, the retribution of a terrible day.'” (10: 15)
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“Shall I seek other than God as a source of law, when He revealed THIS BOOK FULLY DETAILED?” (6: 114)
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“The word of your Lord is COMPLETE in truth & justice.” (6: 115)
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“…If it were from other than God, they would have found in it numerous contradictions.” (4: 82)
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“We have sent down the revelation (Quran), and we will surely preserve it.” (15: 9)
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“Indeed, this is an honorable scripture. Falsehood could never enter it in the past, present, or future; a revelation from the most wise, the most praised.” (41: 41-42)
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“and he ( Muhammad ) does not speak as his own initiative.” (53: 3)
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“Do not move your tongue with it (the Revelation) to hasten it. Its gathering and reciting is UPON US. When we recite it, follow its recitation. Its EXPLANATION is UPON US.” (75: 16 – 19)
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“We sent forth other Messengers before you and given of them wives and descendents. Yet none of them could bring a sign except by the permission of Allah, Every term has its books.” (13: 38)
After studying all the above verses of God, we can see that GOD does not allow us to uphold any other hadiths but HADITHS OF GOD and that is QURAN which is complete and without any errors and human corruption because GOD said “We will preserve it” (15:9) and none of the Prophet was allowed to make any changes or fabrications from their own self or even explain it, because its God who explain it to us “its explanation is upon US” (75: 19).
By keeping all these Verses of God in mind, how Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) could allow the writing of his “Hadiths & Sunnah” books? this is why Prophet Muhammad prohibited to writing of anything else from him EXCEPT QURAN.
We can see his saying in the following Hadiths:
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Ibn Saeed Al-Khudry reported that the messenger of God had said: “Do not write anything from me EXCEPT QURAN. Anyone who wrote anything other than the Qur’an shall erase it. “
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From Ibn Hanbal; Zayd Ibn Thabit (The Prophet’s closest revelation writer) visited the Khalifa Mu’aawiyah (more than 30 years after the Prophet’s death), and told him a story about the Prophet. Mu’aawiyah liked the story and ordered someone to write it down. But Zayd said. “the messenger of God ordered us NEVER to write anything of his hadith,”
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The famous book, “Ulum Al-Hadith” by Ibn Al-Salah, reports a hadith by Abu Hurayra in which Abu Hurayra said the messenger of God came out to us while we were writing his hadiths and said; “What are you writing?” We said, “Hadiths that we hear from you, messenger of God.” He said, “A book other than the book of God?!” We said, “Should we talk about you?” He said, Talk about me, that would be fine, but those who will lie will go to Hell. Abu Hurayra said, we collected what we wrote of Hadiths and burned them in fire.
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In the famous book, “Taq-yeed Al-Ilm“, Abu Hurayra said, the messenger of God was informed that some people are writing his hadiths. He took to the pulpit of the mosque and said, “What are these books that I heard you wrote? I am just a human being. Anyone who has any of these writings should bring it here . Abu Hurayra said we collected all these and burned them in fire.
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Again, in the book “Taq-yeed Al-Ilm“, Abu Saeed Al-Khudry said, “I asked the messenger of God a permission to write his hadiths, but he refused to give me permission.”
Abu Bakr at one point was not sure whether to keep what he knows of hadiths or not. He had collected 500 Hadiths during very long companionship of the Prophet Muhammed, but he could not sleep the night until he burned them.
Ali Ibn Abu Talib, the fourth Khalifa in one of his speeches said, “I urge all those who have writing taken from the messenger of God to go home and erase it. The people before you were annihilated because they followed the Hadiths of their scholars and left the book of their Lord.” (Sunan Al-Daramy)
Some people claim that the “Hadith & Sunnah” are divine revelations. Obviously, they are not aware that the criterion of divine revelations is PERFECT PRESERVATION. Since the so-called Hadith & Sunnah of the Prophet have been vastly corrupted, they can never meet the criterion of divine revelation. It is an acknowledged fact that the vast majority of Hadiths are false fabrications. Millions of Muslims thought, that obeying the God is obeying the Qur’an and obeying the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is obeying the Hadiths & Sunnah, but what God says about it? “Obeying the Messenger is obeying God.” (Quran 4:80), and “As We have sent among you a Messenger (Prophet Muhammad) from yourselves, to recite to you Our verses (Quran )….” (2: 151). Those who follow the Quran are following the Prophet Muhammed, those who are following the alleged Hadith and Sunnah are not following the Prophet but following those who wrote these books.
The number of hadiths collected and attributed to the prophet Muhammed is in the hundreds of thousands, as much as 700,000. As much as 99% of all these hundreds of thousands hadiths are pure lies and fabrications and were rejected by the early Muslim scholars who thought they can figure out which hadith is authentic and which is not. On the contrary, the remaiming 1% Hadiths which according to the writers of Hadiths books are the most authentic and Sahih Hadiths, but among these 1% Sahi Hadiths there are so many Hadiths which contradict with Qur’an or against the teaching of Qur’an, and there are many Hadiths which contradict with other Hadiths as well. Even then, we call these books of Hadiths Authentic & Sahi Hadiths and claimed these Hadiths as divine revelation.? And even then mostly Muslims are looking forward for details of Qur’an in these corrupted so called books of Hadiths. While God says that Qur’an is complete and fully detailed.
Malik Ibn Anas collected about 500 hadiths in his famous book, “Al-Muwattaa” (2) Ahmed Ibn Hanbal, collected about 40,000 hadiths, in his famous “Musnad” from among 700,000 hadiths. That is 94% lies and fabrications.(3) Bukhary collected about 600,000 hadiths and accepted 7,275 hadiths and considered 99% hadiths to be un-proven hadiths, lies and/or fabrications.(4) Moslem collected 300,000 hadiths and only accepted 4,000 of them, and refused about 99% of these collected hadiths.
This will give you an idea of how much corruption entered or tried to enter Islam from the back door. Now we should understand why God promised to preserve, protect and safeguard His book, the ONLY authentic hadith, the ONLY acceptable hadith, the BEST HADITH, the Quran. NO such guarantee was offered to the fabrications and lies of the fabricators and liars who tried to improve on God’s book, and called the Quran incomplete, undetailed and imperfect, and claimed that the Quran needs clarification by another book.
Not a simple number to ignore regarding God preserving His divine revelations as stated in (15: 9). “Absolutely, we have revealed the reminder (Azekrra) (Quran), and absolutely, we will preserve it.”
Seeing how much falsehood entered the so called Hadiths books (99%) would make any sincere Muslim understand the reason these books were so much corrupted.
One more criteria for God’s words is: “… If it were from other than God, they would have found in it numerous contradictions.” ( 4: 82)
On the authority of Al-Hasan bin Ali, the grandson of the messenger of Allah, who said : I memorized from the messenger of Allah his saying : “Leave that which makes you doubt for that does not makes you doubt.” narrated by Termithi, and Tirmithi said it is true and fine Hadith.
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) forbids the writing of his Hadiths because God knows that some sincere believers will get lost and will be looking into Hadith books for guidance,” (On the day of judgment) the messenger will say, ‘My Lord; my people have deserted THIS QURAN (25. 30).
So this is my opinion that why Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) prohibited the writing of his Hadiths.
I’ll be thankful if you please correct me & let me know whether my opinion is right or wrong.
Thanks for giving me your worthy time.
Thanks
Answer
The word “Hadith” is used in the Qur’an in its literal sense. It is not used as a term of the Muhadditheen implying narrations of sayings ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh). The referred verses of the Qur’an do not, therefore, apply directly to the work and efforts of the Muhadditheen or to reading or writing Hadiths. This point is so apparent that all you need to do is to refer to a good translation of the Qur’an to understand it.
As regards the narratives that you have cited, the basic narrative in this case is the one reported in Muslim, in which Abu Sa`eed Al-Khudriy says that the Prophet (pbuh) said:
لا تكتبوا عني ومن كتب عني غير القرآن فليمحه وحدثوا عني ولا حرج ومن كذب علي قال همام أحسبه قال متعمدا فليتبوأ مقعده من النار (مسلم، رقم الحديث 3004)
Do not write anything from me. Whoever writes anything from me except for the Qur’an, he should erase it. You may, however, narrate things from me as there is no harm in that. Nevertheless [be extremely careful in your narration, because] whoever intentionally ascribes anything false to me, he would be making his abode from fire.
It is interesting to note that in the cited narrative, the Prophet (pbuh) has categorically allowed people to narrate things from him orally but should refrain from writing down anything that he says, except the Qur’an. This point indicates towards the fact that the reason for the stated ‘prohibition’ of writing the sayings of the Prophet (pbuh) was primarily to safeguard any adulterations in the Qur’an. In other words, the ‘prohibition’ mentioned in this narrative was not absolute in its nature, but was actually limited in its scope till the time that the Qur’an was being revealed and saved in writing. After all, why would the Prophet (pbuh) allow oral narration of narratives and then prohibit writing them? It is obvious that the referred prohibition was for the comprehendible and understandable reason of safeguarding the Qur’an from any unauthorized additions and adulterations.
All of your cited narratives, in this regard, should be interpreted in the light of the foregoing explanation, as none of them mention either the reason for the Prophet’s referred prohibition or the background and context of the ‘prohibition’ reported in them.
The stated point that the referred ‘prohibition’ of writing Hadith was for the particular period of time during which the Qur’an was being revealed and saved is clearly substantiated by some of the points that you have referred to in your comment. For instance, had the stated prohibition been absolute in nature, then how could people like Abu Bakr (and also Omar) even think of compiling sayings of the Prophet (pbuh)? It should be noted that both these great caliphs destroyed their compilations for extremely wise reasons which were other than that ‘the Prophet (pbuh) had prohibited the writing of Hadith‘.
As for the work done by scholars like Imam Malik, Bukhariy, Muslim and their likes, it not only indicates the importance given to Hadith by the Muslims throughout history but also shows the required attitude that Muslim scholars should have towards Hadith. These references can by no means be interpreted to imply the ‘prohibition’ of writing Hadith.
You write:
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) forbids the writing of his Hadiths because God knows that some sincere believers will get lost and will be looking into Hadith books for guidance,” (On the day of judgment) the messenger will say, ‘My Lord; my people have deserted THIS QURAN (25. 30).
I agree with you that man has always been prone to imbalances. However, had this been the reason for the Prophet’s referred directive, then the Prophet would not even have allowed people like Abdullah ibn Amr to write his sayings or directed people to write his sayings for Abu Shah, at the time of last pilgrimage.
We must realize that the compilation of Hadith in itself has greatly contributed to the preservation of the initial history of the Muslims and is the sole source of our knowledge of the life and times of the Prophet (pbuh) as well as that of the Prophet’s wisdom and his understanding and application of the teachings of the Qur’an. It is indeed true that people can (and, in fact, do) develop an incorrect attitude of preferring these narratives ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh) even over the Qur’an, however, the right thing to do to safeguard such imbalances is to try to correct their behavior through education, rather than through destruction of knowledge.
With best regards,
Moiz Amjad
July 28, 2002