Re: Imam Ali (as) Saying: Taken from Peak of Eloquence
they are not but if a narrater is verified as truthful by both shias and sunnis then the chances are that he is more trustworthy than one which is trusted by one side alone
that is so true sadly ...in english very little is avalible
1 or 2 are wellknown like lbn hajar's Tahdhib al-tahdhib
but biographies have been written by other scholars as well but they are not as widely known
Might be. Ibn Hajar wrote Tahdhib after the compilation of hadith collections had already existed so what he may have collected of biographies is not necessarily what the hadith collectors used.
One thing that sometimes I ponder about, for instance, it is commonly said Imam Bukhari collected near 600,000 ahadith out of which he approximately selected some 7000. Now out of the ones he rejected I can't for the life of me imagine that most of the narrators of those ahadith were not the same ones whose ahadith he accepted. I can't imagine a few liars being responsible for the rejected 593,000 ahadith. Just the rejection of such a large portion of the ahadith by them inherently casts doubts on the authenticity of the narrators of the veracious hadiths he accepted. If it were the other way around i.e. rejecting 7000, it would be much more plausible by having a few liars here and there.
I can't also imagine he was able to verify the biographies of 3-4 generations of narrators in such a short time. You know Imam Bukhari was 60 years of age when he passed away. That means he lived 21900 days. If he authenticated 600,000 ahadith along with their chain of narrators, that would mean 27 ahadith per day for all 60 years of his life. Now ofcourse he couldnt have started it when he was borh so lets say he spent 40 years of this life doing it then that bumps up the number to 41 ahadith per day. It is also said that he prayed Istikhara before writing down any hadith, so thats 41 istikhrara's per day or more. Given the mode of travel and other difficulties of those times, do you think it is possible? Again just being the devils advocate here but we should evaluate things from all perspectives.
The total number of verse in the Quran is 6346. Prophet Muhammad SAW spent 23 years preaching, meaning he spent one verse less than one verse per day (I know that is not the case but just comparing the volume of information). Do we realize how far we are stretching the talents of Imam Bukhari? Was it really so?
Re: Imam Ali (as) Saying: Taken from Peak of Eloquence
I think there is an extra zero there, I tought it was 70K hadeeth many he rejected, many were duplicates from diff sources. so you math would not work ni that situation.
Re: Imam Ali (as) Saying: Taken from Peak of Eloquence
Actually no. Here is an excerpt from Wiki (I know this is no authentic Islamic source but just a quick reference for now):
Already, in his eighteenth yearcitation needed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources)], he had devoted himself to the collecting, sifting, testing and arranging of traditions. For that purpose he travelled over the Islamic world, all the way to Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Iraq, seeking hadith narrators and listening to them. It is said that he heard from over 1,000 men, and learned over 600,000 traditions, both authentic and rejected onescitation needed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources)], and thus became the acknowledged authority on the subject After sixteen years’ absence he returned to Bukhara, and there drew up his al-Jami’ al-Sahih, a collection of 7275 tested traditions, arranged in chapters so as to afford bases for a complete system of jurisprudence without the use of speculative law, (see Islamic Law). His book is highly regarded among Sunni Muslims, and considered the most authentic collection of hadith (a minority of Sunni scholars consider Sahih Muslim, compiled by Bukhari’s student Imam Muslim, more authentic). Most Sunni scholars consider it second only to the Qur’an in terms of authenticity . He also composed other books, including al-Adab al-Mufrad, which is a collection of hadiths on ethics and manners, as well as two books containing biographies of hadith narrators (see isnad).
And one more thing, I do not intend to prove anything mathematically like Rashad Khalifa before someone pops in categorizing me as one of his followers but I merely using mathematics here as a means of forming some realistic statistics.
Re: Imam Ali (as) Saying: Taken from Peak of Eloquence
Healty mind!!!
The authenticity of Nehjul Balagha is evident from the quote attributed to Hazrat Ali about ears in and out. The saying attributed to him is definitely wrong and you yourself accepted that some sharks and snakes do give live birth. how can you now brush it aside that the source was wikipedia which is not authentic.
You also failed to answer the question about the writer of this book and when it was written.
Also eloquence is no criteria to verify who else other than him could have said this. i am not sure it is a test bench which can ascertain the saying of Hazrat Ali that Umar and Abu Bakar took my right. I see no eloquence in it but work of some mean and bigoted mind working centuries after Hazrat Ali left this world.
Re: Imam Ali (as) Saying: Taken from Peak of Eloquence
One more thing, the fact that Imam Bukhari rejected 99.98% of the ahadith he collected indicates that lies and fabrications were widespread about the Prophet SAW during that time. Obviously his book wasn't compiled immediately and when it was its not like today where communications are fast and it would become widespread in a matter of days. So the information passed down from generation to generation were still heavily intertwined with fabrications. Now I do believe and read in ahadith but I just don't award it the same status of revelation. The ones at least to me that are of vital importance are those which directly extend the Quranic commandments such Salat, Saum, Zakat, Hajj, Huqooq etc.
Re: Imam Ali (as) Saying: Taken from Peak of Eloquence
That would be a very broad argument. And if 99.98% of the ahadith did not have complete chain of narrators then how did the 0.02% escape that fate. And based on your argument then the absurd ahadith made it into sahih collections just because they had complete chain of narrations regardless of whether their text makes sense or not. The only thing that would seem acceptable is that the topics covered in those 0.02% of ahadith cover the majority of the topics in the 99.98% ahadith that were tossed out. This would also mean that the number of things known about the Prophet SAW were very few just they were known to many sources. If that is not the case then in my humble opinion I would have said topics for which Sahih ahadith could not be determined should have been kept instead of being tossed out for later verification. By doing this we narrowed our information considerably.
And let us examine this from one more POV, what was the purpose of hadith compilation. Was it not to verify that whether what is known about the Prophet SAW is correct or incorrect i.e. true or not true?
If we don't use hadith to find out about the life of the prophet and lives of his sahaba then what other source is there that is "credible" in your eyes? Anything surpassing 16-25+ years of research?
If we don't use hadith to find out about the life of the prophet and lives of his sahaba then what other source is there that is "credible" in your eyes? Anything surpassing 16-25+ years of research?
Good point. We have no other source besides hadith to know about the life of the prophet SAW.
Can you please elaborate just a few points on how the research was conducted?
If we don't use hadith to find out about the life of the prophet and lives of his sahaba then what other source is there that is "credible" in your eyes? Anything surpassing 16-25+ years of research?
Jaan Leva the purpose of finding the authenticity of Ahadith is not to cast doubt on them but to show that they cannot be used for passing fatwas in Religion credibly. A mutawatir Hadith with multiple chain of narrators has better probability of authenticity and similarly is the case of Ahadith which anre in conformity with Quran or which are explaining Quran, they have a fairly reasonable chance to be authentic.
However the issue is those which by pass the Quran and declare something forbidden which is not mentioned in Quran. Here is the catch, our scholars just basing on a chain of narrators ammended our religion like Rajam for Hudood, killing of apostates etc. The list is long but it will ignite a lot of minds which i want to avoid. Reading them to understand about the life of our prophet is necessary but passing religious fatwas solely on the basis of Ahadith which even have not been reported from multiple sources is what the root cause of all troubles in Islam.
People get furious that how can you reject what the prophet has said, the answer is that no one can reject what the prophet has said but is just a chain of narrators (all being present in same era and known to each other) is a rigorous enough criteria to accept something which on the face is controversial as saying of the prophet. Our scholars love to call Hadith collection as science of hadith, but they forget that scientific principles start from disbelieve until proven otherwise, while religion starts from believe until proven otherwise.
However the issue is those which by pass the Quran and declare something forbidden which is not mentioned in Quran. Here is the catch, our scholars just basing on a chain of narrators ammended our religion like Rajam for Hudood, killing of apostates etc. The list is long but it will ignite a lot of minds which i want to avoid. Reading them to understand about the life of our prophet is necessary but passing religious fatwas solely on the basis of Ahadith which even have not been reported from multiple sources is what the root cause of all troubles in Islam.
People get furious that how can you reject what the prophet has said, the answer is that no one can reject what the prophet has said but is just a chain of narrators (all being present in same era and known to each other) is a rigorous enough criteria to accept something which on the face is controversial as saying of the prophet. Our scholars love to call Hadith collection as science of hadith, but they forget that scientific principles start from disbelieve until proven otherwise, while religion starts from believe until proven otherwise.
Hope you understood
if any one say that Sahih Hadees is wrong although its chain is right then my brother its the problem with his understanding , not with the sahih Hadees
if he can't understand the sahih Hadees based on his modernized american mind he don't have the right to give fatwa that this hadees is wrong
Re: Imam Ali (as) Saying: Taken from Peak of Eloquence
Dear i dont know why you feel bad to read the Saying of Imam Ali (as) .
The only source is declare every saying and Hadith as right or fake is THE HOLY QURAN..
There is hadith and Hazrat Abu Bakar (ra) will he sardar in heaven of all old people' Now see the fabrication of that time narrator. ALLAH and HIS Prophet made it clear that " all human will be young in heaven" so this hadith is fabricated.. and narrator was lier..
Now you give me any thing from Imam Ali (as) saying which is forcing you to sayi incorrect..
please come forward along with one saying of imam Ali (as) OR find any writer of one saying, except Imam Ali (as)
How do you know the narrators brought their biases into research? Why would ANYBODY in their rightmind INVENT lies and attribute it to the Prophet and his sahaba?
We can agree on stuff like "narrators must have brought their biases...." but not on the hadith it self... its funny. How do we know that narrators had biases? If we know that for sure, then why don't we know the authenticity of the hadith for sure? Why are we so sure about character of the narrator and not what he is saying?