Question from Angelica

Angelica said...

Asalamu Alaikum:
I am a muslim and beleive in Allah and mohamad as his final messnger but I personally do not put full faith in hadiths- as they were written years after the Prophets death, by human beings who could have manipulated and changed things around and thrown things in there as they saw fit. I know we are supposed to treat the teachings of the prophet as the word of Allah but i really just dont trust a bunch of men compiling facts and treating them like Allah(swt)'s spoken truth no matter how "authenticated" they may be based upon how much everyone trusted and respected them. They are human too. I treat the hadiths as knowledgeable wisdom that i try and learn from not gods spoken truth. But do people who dont follow hadith pray? Thanks so much for ur time!! Salamz =)

1:25 AM

Reply from Sheikh Mohammed-Umer Esmail:

First of all, it is not true that the Ahadith were compiled or written years
after the Prophet's {salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam} death. The Ahadith were
written even in the time of the Prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam).
Please refer to my presentations on this at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shariaretreat/files/Hadith/

You will probably have to become a member in order to access the files.

The Ahadith were written in the time of the Prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) and were preserved during the subsequent generations. Imam Bukhari, Muslim etc only compiled them in chapter form.

Secondly, it is not correct that "we are supposed to treat the teachings of
the prophet as the word of Allah" and it is not true that the "men" that have been referred to in the email "treat[ed] them like Allah(swt)'s spoken truth." After all, the Quran reached us through those very "men" as well. In order to understand this correctly, it must be borne in mind that there are two types of "wahy" (revelation). Wahy Matloo and Whay Ghair Matloo.
The Quran falls under Matlooand the Ahadith fall under Wahy Ghair Matloo. All of the the Quran is Qati (definitive proof) without any doubt in its transmission to us as its protection has been promised by Allah and it has reached us through tawatur (succesive chains of transmission with excessive narrators in every era). While not all the Ahadith are Qati (definitive proof) as not all of them reached us through tawatur.

That is where we have another two types of transmission:

Mashoor
Khabar Wahid

Most of the Ahadith fall under those two.