What did the most influential or the greatest man or the Perfect Man say? He said everything that needed to be spoken for our good. What we need to know from his sayings to let us assert that we have known the kernel or not missed essential hadith? Given thousands of sayings and voluminous collections known as hadith books that so few people are fortunate enough to read cover to cover – although it would take only a season of rigorous reading to read the entire corpus sans repetitions – one may at least turn to certain selections. Before I list some recommended selections, one should also beware of those who too readily bring a hadith to close the discussion. One should consider why the Companions in general took great care not to quote the Prophet too readily/write hadith. There remain the problems such as:
-missing the context and any subsequent statement modifying what one had heard
-frailty of human agency involved in mediation of transmitting words/meanings/interpretation of words – we know hadith are primarily transmitted not ad verbatim but as translated/paraphrased by the transmitter,
-the fact that it was with great difficulty that the right to write/publish hadith was won,
-such eminent jurists as Abu Hanifa were so circumspect regarding invoking hadith in legal matters,
-it took almost two centuries for hadith centric position/framing of Sunnah of Imam Shafi to get wide acceptance (though contested from earliest times till date from some quarters),
-very few hadith on tafsir – so central an enterprise – stand criticism of hadith authorities,
-hadith corpus continues to be open ended and there continue debates on classification of authenticity of this or that hadith and generality of hadith corpus doesn’t pass the test of tawatur/certitude of sorts – scholars have counted mutawatir hadith on fingers and thus declared the generality of hadith corpus to be short of certitude.
One should recall Abu Dawood’s distillation of whole Hadith corpus in the form of four Hadiths that said to be enough for one’s religion – “Actions are by intentions,” “ “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself,” “A sign of one’s excellence in his Islam is ignoring what does not concern him.” “The lawful is clear and the unlawful is clear and what is ambiguous is better left alone/returned to God.” In Abu Hanifa’s advice to his son we find additional fifth stating “The Muslim is on whom others are safe from their tongue and hands.” The second hadith listed here was interpreted by Imam Nawawi and others as referring to the brotherhood all humans share on account of being the progeny of Adam. Shah Waliullah’s following remarks on Abu Dawud’s selection are pertinent: “…In order to perform prayers properly, the first hadith is sufficient. In order to prevent the precious life from being wasted, the second hadith is sufficient. – To protect the rights of relatives, friends and neighbours is mentioned in the third hadith.
– The hesitations and doubts that can occur due to differences of evidences or disagreements of scholars are settled by the fourth hadith.
One may also consider certain traditions in which the Prophet (PBUH) himself expressed what is essential to religion or its key feature. He said “Ad-Din-un Nasiha” – “religion is nothing but sincere counsel and seeking to spread the good.” Or “Righteousness is that about which the soul feels at ease and the heart feels tranquil. And ithm (sin) is that which wavers in the soul and causes uneasiness in the breast, even though people have repeatedly given you their legal opinion.” The hadith of Gabriel is also widely said to present the essential religion. Let us state its definitions of Iman, Islam and Ihsan (in Bukhari’s version) key contents. Iman (Faith) is to believe in Allah, His angels, (the) meeting with Him, His Apostles, and to believe in Resurrection.” Islam is to “worship Allah Alone and none else, to offer prayers perfectly to pay the compulsory charity (Zakat) and to observe fasts during the month of Ramadan.” Ihsan is to “worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you cannot achieve this state of devotion then you must consider that He is looking at you.” Ihsan, as Allama Anwar Shah Kashmiri noted, is from husn paida kerden – cultivating beauty. One may take cognizance of the refrain faith and righteous action in the Quran and express Iman in more philosophical language as attachment to the Real/Absolute and affirmation of the saving Message (brought by Revelation) of righteous living or consequences of actions. Resurrection is belief in accountability of actions. Angels convey the Message and manifest God’s power. So Iman is fundamentally about affirmation of the Self, /loyalty to our ultimate concern. Moral living is a requirement of theonomous reason or the fact that we are bestowed with conscience and intelligence that judges.
An attempt to sum up forty ahadith that have traditionally been widely compiled and disseminated as constituting facilitation for paradise – besides the above mentioned there are, in Nawawai’s compilation, five well known pillars, faith in providence/ divine decree, sincerity, following well known/established path/sunnah and avoiding innovations, modesty, good character, detachment, faith in mercy and forgiveness – would also show that essential hadith are well known and the only thing needful is to act on them. Muslim communities do know what is central to their religion even if there may be widespread illiteracy or one may think they are ignorant of this or that book or classical scholar.
Given so much importance on spreading the good news, on propriety in dawah work, on prioritization of divine mercy, on din as easy/sha’ria as shortest/straight path to felicity, on intentions, one needs to note, in the context of reigning debate and controversy on hadith amongst sects/schools, the following points from Khaled Abou El Fadl’s Speaking in God’s Name a formidable scholar before one invokes a particular hadith to delegitimize or judge whole communities and believing masses or issue this or that fatwa that restricts divine mercy or leads to despair.
For a Muslim who accepts the authoritativeness of the Prophet’s commands, the issue becomes distilling the authorial core that, in fact, can relate back to the Prophet. Assuming that one can do so – assuming that the Prophetic core is recognizable and reachable – then the same analysis that applies to the Qur’ān will be pertinent for the Sunnah. If I sincerely believe that the interpretive community was in error in understanding the Prophet’s injunctions, as a matter of conscience, I am obliged to dissent. Nevertheless, I believe that in the vast majority of traditions, this Prophetic core is unreachable. In the vast majority of traditions, the different forms of authorship are thoroughly intermingled with the Prophetic authorship, and it is practically impossible to differentiate between the various authorial voices. It must be emphasized that I am not talking about authenticity of the traditions – I am not claiming that the vast majority of Prophetic traditions are apocryphal. I am arguing that since the Prophet was a human being who, unlike God, is subject to mundane historical processes, his legacy cannot exist outside the context of human mediation and the human authorial process.
And
I do not reject the traditional methods of authentication (known as ‘ilm al-ḥadīth), but I do argue that these methods need to be more historically grounded. Branding a particular transmitter, in the chain of transmission, as reliable or unreliable is helpful but not conclusive. The life of each individual is complex and heavily contextual, and it is not possible to sum up such a life in a single judgment such as reliable or unreliable. Furthermore, claiming that a specific tradition is authentic or unauthentic, by itself, is not particularly probative. The issue is not whether the Prophet said or did not say something but what role did the Prophet play in a particular report.
Concretely, upon examining the totality of historical circumstances, we might be able to conclude that a specific report tells us much about the Prophet, or we might conclude that a report tells us far more about the historical context of the transmitters than anything else. The concept of authorial enterprise forces us to understand the Prophetic reports not just as Sunnah, but as history as well. In addition, the notion of authorial enterprise plays a significant role in understanding the interpretations attached to any report. Even if we assume that the Prophet did, in fact, make a particular statement, the words and phrases of the statement do not reach us in a vacuum. The words and phrases often reach us with a meaning or set of meanings attached to them.
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