How Did Scholars Evaluate Hadith Narrators? | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed | Hadith Intensive 2023

The Science of جرح وتعديل — Critiquing and Validating Hadith Narrators

How is it such that you would be able to identify a narrator to be considered weak, or weaker, or not as strong, or as authentic, or as authoritative? How would you go about that process?

This study was known as the study of جرح وتعديل. Jarh means a sense of critique. Ta'deel means validation. جرح in Arabic means to wound someone — تجريح — like you have hurt someone, you've caused a wound on their skin. تعديل comes from the word عدل, which means to be just — عدالة — that they are upright and we have validated them.

So this science of علم الرجال was known as the science of the narrators — the knowledge of the narrators — that people would memorize the biographies of narrators. For example, you are narrating from a person named Abdullah ibn Zayd. Okay, who is he? Does he have other narrations too? Does he have students? Who were his teachers? Where did he live? Has anyone asked about who he is?

Yahya ibn Mu'in and the Work of Verification

So this concept — this science of جرح وتعديل — where the scholars would work to verify narrators. One of the greatest scholars of this science was Yahya ibn Mu'in, رحمه الله, a great scholar. He gave up his interest in narrating hadith — I mean, he still narrated a lot of hadith — but he committed himself to validating the scholars of hadith.

So he would do what I just said: go to a city and ask someone, "Have you heard of Zayd? Yeah, okay — how is he? Is he a good guy? Does he pray Salah in the masjid? Is he honest in business?" And no one felt — the scholars of hadith who would be the ones being questioned about — they never felt sensitive towards those questions, because they understood that it was to protect a greater task, which was the corpus of hadith. They never felt any way about, "Why is that person asking about me?" It was okay. It was acceptable.

But there was also a process in which this was done. So for example, if someone's background check — per se — like, we do background checks to hire someone at McDonald's, man. Now what's the worst they can do? Just give you burnt fries and the McFlurry doesn't taste as milky. But we do background checks on these things. You can't even get a job — and that's another issue for another time, especially in America. Such a great system that we have: if someone gets in trouble, they can never get out of trouble. But nonetheless, the idea of this person can't get a job without a background check — because it matters, they need to be validated.

How is it possible that someone can speak about hadith without being verified? Who are they? What is a background check like? This is a science of Jarh and Ta'deel — that you go ahead and critique someone, or you validate them and verify them.

Who Had the Right to Critique and Validate?

Who has the right to verify and critique? People who have the background in it, and people who are seen as a reference for this. It's not like — I'll give you a simple example. If someone is sick, and there's a physician here, or there are a few physicians, and they start deliberating about what type of medication that person should be given, and I chime in and say, "You know what? I think this is better — you should take Tylenol 500, that's the only one I know. Motrin, right?" And they go, "Oh wow, who are you?" I'm not a doctor. I just feel like this is correct. That person's opinion won't matter in this. "Oh, I think this scholar is not verified" — who are you to say that?

And I'm talking about at that time, right? So the people whose words and whose statements about other scholars were given any weight were scholars that were known for this science. That's what they did. They looked throughout the person's entire history — every aspect of their life. Their job was to make sure no one is lying, no one is cheating. And there were books that were collected just speaking about these narrators.

Knowing the Names of Narrators

Do you know how people like us in today's time struggle to know the names of Sahabas? You ask someone — it's our fault, it's my fault, it's all of us, as parents — it's our fault. How many Sahabas do I know? 20, 30, 40, 50? 10? And how many characters do I know from Marvel? A lot, right? I know everything about them. I know their entire history because they have spin-offs through which I can learn more about them.

Sahabas' names is what gives you a sense of connection to the Prophet ﷺ, because they were his students. These were people — forget that — they had that on lockdown. There's no leak over there. These were people who were studying the lives and names of someone who narrated a hadith once.

And in these books, when they talk about their biography, they focus on a few things. Number one: which region were they in? Hence, a lot of times, the names of these scholars would be given with their nisbah.

The Concept of Nisbah

For example, Bukhari. His name was not Bukhari. His name was Muhammad ibn Ismail. Calling him Bukhari is a nisbah — it's something that we have connected because he was known for that book. It's like calling Elon Musk "Tesla" — "Hey Tesla, how you doing?" Or "SpaceX." I don't think he would mind — he has interesting names, right? But that's what it's like, because that was his greatest invention. He was from Bukhara as well, so his book became known as Bukhari.

So for example, this is called ism al-mansub — like Hasan al-Basri. His name is not "Basri" — it's just from where? Basra. So this thing used to happen a lot where they would have a nisbah they would be known for. So someone would ask you, "Did Imam Bukhari narrate this hadith?" And you say, "No, no — Muhammad ibn Ismail does." And see how they react — they say, "I don't know that guy." So that's why you don't have the right to talk about it, right?

But the idea is: people that understood their lives and these scholars' lives would speak about them, and they would critique and validate.

Critique Was Not Done in the Open

How would they do it? Not in the open. Critique and validation was never done in the open, because the only people that needed to know were told about it. That's why it was so rare to know about these aspects. Who would know about the critique and validation of scholars of hadith? Scholars of hadith — because they're the ones that are narrating the hadith. So they would choose not to use this person anymore. They would choose to avoid a person over someone else, because they're the ones that were narrating it.

Their critique was not done in open spaces, because it didn't make a difference to most people. Most people were not going to go and narrate a hadith. The people that were narrating the hadith needed to know who is correct and who is incorrect. So this idea of "I'm just verifying my source so I can openly speak badly about scholars or negatively" — that doesn't have a precedent in our religion. That precedent has never been set, actually. That's a very dangerous road to tread upon, because it's never been done.

So this idea of Jarh and Ta'deel was done to protect the sacredness of our science of hadith, and therefore no one minded that it was taking place.

What Did the Scholars Look At? The Two Major Factors

What did these people look at? When analyzing a narrator, the scholars of hadith looked at two major factors — two major things. So for example, let's say I'm someone that is being looked at. I'm being observed, I'm being scrutinized. My life is there, not for the open public, but for these types of scholars that are looking at my understanding of hadith. What are they looking at?

Factor One: العدالة — Moral Uprightness

The first is العدالة — al-'adalah. Al-'adalah has to do with your moral uprightness. What does al-'adalah have to do with? Things that no one should be doing — such as lying. This is general stuff that even as a normal believer you should be avoiding. العدالة — justice, uprightness.

Factor Two: الضبط — Accuracy in Transmission

The second is called الضبط — al-dabt. Al-dabt means a person's accuracy in transmission. So this has to do with the person's — not their sins — but their just ability. Like, maybe you're a good person but you lack in that ability. Just because you're a bad basketball player doesn't mean you're a bad person. You just lack the skills to play that sport. Similarly, a person may be a good person, a good scholar, but they lack the dabt — the accuracy — of being a hadith narrator.

So these two factors — العدالة and الضبط — is what scholars would look at. It's what they would examine.