Did the Prophet (SAAW) forbid the recording of Hadith or his sayings or not? One party says he never prohibited it and the other says he did.
In either case both parties went about recording it, sooner or later?
Re: Hadith - Prohibition of Recording or not?
i dont think there was any such prohibition ...maybe a ploy by anti-hadith lobby to downgrade the importnace of hadith ironically by another hadith !]
Re: Hadith - Prohibition of Recording or not?
No there was no Prohibition by the Prophet SAW .. in terms of recording hadith or Qur'aan..
:)
Did the Prophet (SAAW) forbid the recording of Hadith or his sayings or not? One party says he never prohibited it and the other says he did.
In either case both parties went about recording it, sooner or later?
Some of the Quraishi chiefs prevented people from recording the Prophet’s traditions,
Abu Dawud’s As-Sunan; 2/176:
..Abdullah Bin Amr: People of Quraish told me not to record every single word
said by the Prophet (peace be upon him) since he was an ordinary human who
may be erring when he is enraged. I ceased the recording and told the Prophet of
their words. He pointed at his mouth with the finger and ordered: “Record every
thing. By the Prevailing of my soul I take the oath, nothing but truth comes out of
my mouth.”
Also recorded in:
Ahmed’s Al-Musned; 2/192 and 215
Al-Hakim’s Al-Mustedrak; 1/105 and 3/528.
So why would Prophet prohibit his sayings being written?
Although in Abu Bakr and Umar time hadith writting was stopped and hadith narration and writing was discouraged.
Re: Hadith - Prohibition of Recording or not?
What did Abu Bakr and Umar prohibit recording and narration of Hadith?
If they were rightly guided then how come they went against the wishes of the Prophet (SAAW)?
Re: Hadith - Prohibition of Recording or not?
One example from Abu Bakr
The following report has been within Ibn Abi-Mulaykah's incompletely transmitted Hadiths (mursal):
After the demise of the Holy Prophet, Abu-Bakr gathered people and said, 'You are reporting about the Messenger of Allah inconsistent narrations. People coming after you will be engaged in more intense discrepancy. Therefore, do not report anything about the Messenger of Allah, and if anyone asks you, you should refer to the Book of Allah as the arbitrator. You should thus deem lawful whatever is lawful therein and deem unlawful whatever is unlawful therein.'
Reference- Al-Dhahbiy: Tadhkirat al-Huffa¨ 1:32 and `Abd al-Ghaniy Abd al-Khaliq: Hijjiyyat al-Sunnah 394.
One example from Umar
It has been narrated on the authority of al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu-Bakr that `Umar, after he had received news confirming that people started to hold (or write) books, denied and disliked the matter saying,
'O people: I have been informed that you have started to hold books. Allah's most beloved books must be the fairest and the straightest. Now, I order you all to bring me all the books that you hold so that I will decide about them.'
Thinking that `Umar wanted to correct and submit the books to a certain criterion, all people brought their books to him. Instead, he set them all to fire and said,
'This is a false wish just like that of the Christians and the Jews.'
According to Ibn Sad, in his al-tabaqat al-Kubra,Umar said, 'This is a Mishna just like that of the Christians and the Jews.' (Mishna is the collection of precepts and customs which form the basis of the Talmud and is held to embody the contents of Jewish oral law)
References- Abd al-Ghaniy Abd al-Khaliq: Hijjiyyat al-Sunnah 395, Ibn Sad: al-tabaqat al-Kubra 1:140.
Re: Hadith - Prohibition of Recording or not?
none of these incidents even if true prove that shaykaheen were against hadith
abu bakr's reign was too short and involved totally with wars of apostasy and syria to have any official policy on this ...
but umar was particularly keen on sending elderly companions of humble origins with armies of conquest to make sure that the new converts were well versed in islamic teachings obviously this involved Quran and Hadith.
As in those days there were very few hadith recordings or writings the companions and their disciples themselves were the sources of hadith.
so we see that umar senr abu dharda , ubay b ka'b to syria
ibn masud and hudhaifa to iraq
qarazah b ka'b to kufa
muhammad b maslama to iran
later the disciples of these companions became important hadith narraters and kufa, basra and other cities came to rival medina in terms of scholars /hadith collectors in later generations.One can argue that step of umar to send these major companions to these cities was the crucial point that led to the dissemination of hadith knowledge amngst the common people.
one particular incident which proves that umar values hadith over anyone else's opinion is in sahih muslim regarding ubadah b sammit 's dispute with muawiyah over taking interest and ubadah quoting a hadith ] and umar supporting ubadah's stance