Verifying Narrators in Hadith | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed | Hadith Intensive

The Importance of Short Chains in Hadith

Similarly, when it came to hadith, the goal of these compilers of these books and these scholars of hadith was to find a chain that was the shortest to the Prophet ﷺ. The shorter it was, that meant that there were less people in between, and less people that were strong — it creates a stronger sentiment. And now rather than me having to cross-reference five people, I only have to cross-reference three people. And those three people are already well-known.

And if they were well-known, you wouldn't even cross-reference them. Like if a person, a narrator of hadith, was not known within the circles of scholars, that was considered to be a flaw within them. That if you are a narrator of hadith, why are you not known in your own circles? It wasn't about being known in public spaces.

The Storytellers (القصّاصون) vs. Scholars of Hadith

That was the job of what we would call the qassasun, the storytellers. The storytellers were such — storytellers at that time were very dominant. They were well-known. They were the ones that would have the biggest audience in front of them. But no, it was a fact that no one would ever accept a hadith from them. Because they were what? Storytellers.

What do storytellers do? Exaggerate. They sometimes even — what we say — add masala, add spice, and they can even lie. There's no such thing as exaggeration in hadith.

So they would have the biggest gatherings. But the hadith was never accepted.

The Story of Imam Abu Hanifa's Student

So one day, one of the students of Abu Hanifa, rahimullah, walked into a masjid. Remember, Abu Hanifa was teaching fiqh and hadith. And in the same masjid, in a different part, there was a man who was a qassas — a storyteller — and he was telling a story, he was really into it, he was really enthusiastic, very excited.

So this youngster thought, where should I go? That seems like it's good, but this is really popping here. So he went ahead and sat with the storyteller. The next student that walked in was Imam Muhammad, rahimullah. He walked in thinking, of course I'm going to go to my class.

So later on, Abu Hanifa said to the other student, "Why did you go there?" He said, "You know, because I wanted to see what was going on — everyone was sitting there, there was a big crowd, so I went there." He said, "Okay, that's fine. You will perhaps get masses of people to follow you, but you will never have masses of people to learn from you. Because he went for masses of people to listen to him. But not people that will learn from him."

We have his name recorded. He doesn't have many students, that person. Now Imam Muhammad became one of the strongest students of Imam Abu Hanifa, rahimullah.

So the qassasun — the storytellers, for the sake of the example — were well-known in the area, but they were never accepted within the circles of hadith. And the scholars of hadith were actually not as well-known amongst the public, because they were not coming out giving lectures every day. Their classes were very specific to a niche audience. But they were well-known within their circles.

Cross-Referencing Narrators: الجرح والتعديل

So if you didn't know a person's name, it was either because he's not a strong narrator, or because he has not entered within the circle of the scholars of hadith. So they would cross-reference him. Like how Ustadh Ta'aseer was saying, they would actually have delegations. We'll talk about jarh wal ta'dil.

They would have groups of people that would go to a community, and they would say, "Do you know so-and-so person? His name was Abdullah ibn Hamid." And they would say, "Yeah, of course we know him." "Oh, you know, how is he? Do you do business with him?" "Yeah, I do." "How is he? Has he ever lied to you?" "Does he come for salat on time?" Like — imagine someone asking behind your back if you come for salat on time.

And guess what? Because the treasure of deen was bigger than them, there were no sensitivities attached to it. It wasn't like, "How can they ask about me?" They're not asking about you. They actually don't care about you. That's just the reality of the fact. They don't care about you. They care about the deen that you're trying to spread. So if you are not accepted, and if you're someone that is compromised, you are compromising our sharia.

That's why we care about you. We are not people that are known, or people that care about us, because of where we came from and who we are. They care about us because of what we hold. And if we're not able to uphold it correctly, then they have the right to criticize correctly.

This is how deep they would go. They would literally go to the extent of asking about their salat. There was one narration — Ibn Ali mentions one of the narrators of Bukhari, which he was unsure about — he found out whether or not he would miss the Fajr sunnah, to make sure his dabt was established.

The Integrity of Imam Abu Hanifa in Business

Imam Abu Hanifa was a merchant. By trade, he was a merchant. His father was a merchant. Amongst the poor, he was known to be wealthy. He had a partner in his business who used to handle all of the buying and selling, and he was the person doing all the trade. Imam Abu Hanifa had set up a business and was what you would call in today's time a sleeping partner.

So there was one of the trades that they had which brought the most profit, and he used to sell textile. He sent his partner, they went ahead, sold all of the merchandise, came back, and he says, "This was the most profit we made till today." And Imam Abu Hanifa is very happy going over the finances — so much profit was made.

Then his partner says, "Imam, there's one problem though. It's not a big deal, but I just want to let you know, because I know you care about these things." He said, "One container of our textile had a flaw in it — the lining wasn't straight, it was actually tilted. But when I sold it, I told the people that the majority of it was flawed. But by the time I found out, it was a little late, so I did sell some of it without informing people. What I did — because I know you care about this — I took the profit of that container and I've already separated it."

So Imam Abu Hanifa says to him, "Can you accurately say that this profit is not from that container? One is to separate based upon percentage, and one is to separate based upon actual profit." He said, "No, I can't say that. I know the percentage was separated." He said, "I will not take any profit from this transaction. I will not take a penny from it."

So he said, "What should I do with it?" "You can keep all of it. You're my partner. This is up to you. I'm not taking anything." And since Imam Abu Hanifa didn't take it, his partner didn't take any of it either. You make something unique become common again — which is honesty and integrity in business. It became common because of people like them.

The Number of Narrators and the Books of Hadith

So going back to it, the number of narrators in between the narration will make a difference. Imam Bukhari is known that in his book, he has most commonly khumasi — meaning there are five narrators between him and the Prophet ﷺ. And he also has a few ruba'i, where there are four narrators between him and the Prophet ﷺ. And he has a handful — some scholars say seven, some say five — thulathis, where there are only three narrators between him and the Prophet ﷺ.

But when you look in a book like Muwatta Imam Malik, the majority of his narrations are thulathis. Hence, the cross-referencing and the challenging of his book is harder to do, because there are only a few narrators between him and the Prophet ﷺ — and he is a tabi'i. Though he came later, he was still a tabi'i.

Imam Abu Hanifa has a musannaf as well — a collection of hadith that he would use to teach his fiqh — that has the majority of narrations with only two or three narrators between him and the Prophet ﷺ. So they came earlier. And because of that, if the narration that they used was not in Bukhari and Muslim, that does not mean that their narration was weak. It means that that weakness came perhaps between that window — in that era in which they lived — and when those imams came. Because the imams came 150 years later, some of them 100 years later.