Tawatur/mutawatir is rightly given lot of importance in Hadith, which means that if a same Hadith is transmitted through many chains then it is considered authentic. Many a times a Hadith that is considered weak bcoz of its narrators becomes more important bcoz of Tawatur (consistency).
A wikipedia definitionm of tawatur ( i don’t know how wuthectic) is as follows
“A hadith is said to be mutawatir if it was reported by a significant, though unspecified, number of narrators at each level in the chain of narration, thus reaching the succeeding generation through multiple chains of narration leading back to its source. This provides confirmation that the hadith is authentically attributed to its source at a level above reasonable doubt.”
While doing some research on a controversial (job-related) topic, i realized that many qoutes or studies are widely reported even among scientific circles despite being wrong. How frquently a certain qoute/fact/study is reported depends upon how important it is “deemed” by the audience and narrator rather than its merit. Few examples from everyday life:
Like, its so frequently said that no jew reported to twin towers on day of 9/11 wihtout anyoen knowing about source or how this information was acquired.
etc.
So my question is, Does Tawatur really mean that its more authentic?
Mutawatir simply means that there are multiple chains of narration. Scholars have come to the conclusion that having such chains deems the particular saying as an authentic utterance.
But there are other qualifiers for authenticity, some are:
1) The soundness and consistency of message with respect to other established utterings
2) The character of the narrators
3) The source narrators being of close proximity to the prophet Muhammad (SAW)
4) The full context is also available other than the narration chain names
5) Unbroken chain of narration
To be authentic it does not mean that something is supposed to be taken at face value as true. Rather some sahih hadith are quotes of Muhammad (SAW) quoting others and to the untrained mind it may seem that something is being sanctioned when in fact it is not.
As for lies, through the process of tracing narration this should be minimised.
Authenticity is a certificate given by a scholar deeming a given saying as passing the criteria for what is being checked i.e. completion of narration and widely transmitted, but it is not a license for saying something is true or not. Just heavily reliable or not.
Iconolclast to answer your question which essentially means
"is a widely reported hadith neccesarily a more authentic hadith"
I think it all comes down to "The character of the narrators" eventually ....
e.g in ur example narraters are e.g al-jazeera, the hindu and jang
but a report conflicting to this might come from reuters or BBC ...which might be deemed more authentic sources by a authority
a mutawatur hadith will have all the other characterisitcs of a sahih hadith
secondly a mutawatur hadith is one which is narrated by so many narraters that its impossible that they could have entered into a conspiracy and invented it
[quote]
Authenticity is a certificate given by a scholar deeming a given saying as passing the criteria for what is being checked i.e. completion of narration and widely transmitted, but it is not a license for saying something is true or not. Just heavily reliable or not
[/quote]
but if a hadith is authentic then it can safely be assumed to be the word of Holy Prophet and then its naturally true
Iconolclast to answer your question which essentially means
"is a widely reported hadith neccesarily a more authentic hadith"
I think it all comes down to "The character of the narrators" eventually ....
e.g in ur example narraters are e.g al-jazeera, the hindu and jang
but a report conflicting to this might come from reuters or BBC ...which might be deemed more authentic sources by a authority
a mutawatur hadith will have all the other characterisitcs of a sahih hadith
secondly a mutawatur hadith is one which is narrated by so many narraters that its impossible that they could have entered into a conspiracy and invented it
but if a hadith is authentic then it can safely be assumed to be the word of Holy Prophet and then its naturally true
maybe i dont understand what u are implying
^ I was just making allusion the the fact that if a hadith is in Bukhari or Muslim for a particular purpose it should not be used for another purpose until a scholar can say that its purpose is also relevant in another category.
Context of hadith are important and sometimes context is not fully known or understood. For example the hadith on music. Although there is no mention that it is haram, there is mention that it will be made halal, which then makes a person assume that in that time the issue of music must have been so obvious that it was not mentioned as haram. Others will not go to this level of thought and say that since music is not mentioned as haram and so on. Also, in some hadith Muhammad (SAW) has been quoted for quoting others and people have wrongly assumed that he was advising something.
So the utterance could be true, but it does not mean that the apparent meaning is also clear and if it is clear it is not to be taken as a ruling until the full context can be ascertained.
Additionally ... the method for authenticity is a statistical one it is based on likelihoods. So Sahih means that it has passed a criteria but not that it is true or false. Undeniably all Sahih are taken as true but many non-authentic hadith are also true, but their transmissions were not so thorough. Some fabricated hadith have clearer meanings than some tawatur hadith. Some fabricated hadith have large chains of transmission but schoalrs have still claimed them to be fabricated due to other reasons.
Iconolclast to answer your question which essentially means
"is a widely reported hadith neccesarily a more authentic hadith"
I think it all comes down to "The character of the narrators" eventually ....
e.g in ur example narraters are e.g al-jazeera, the hindu and jang
but a report conflicting to this might come from reuters or BBC ...which might be deemed more authentic sources by a authority
a mutawatur hadith will have all the other characterisitcs of a sahih hadith
secondly a mutawatur hadith is one which is narrated by so many narraters that its impossible that they could have entered into a conspiracy and invented it
but if a hadith is authentic then it can safely be assumed to be the word of Holy Prophet and then its naturally true
maybe i dont understand what u are implying
There are certain Ahadith where an incident is reported, so reporting a lack of it impossible.
I agree that with Mutawatir, it means that not so many people cud hae conspired, but so many people could just have reported it coz it appeared so relevant to a particular event in their lifetimes.
Also i have heard that certain Hadith are called Hasan bcoz they are mutawatir.
Personally for me tough ahadees are those which are mutawatir ,or have verified chain of narration but the text is so mind boggling and mind blowing. It is very hard for me to accept them as authentic/sahih ahadees.
Biggest one of them are the ones which report the age of Hazrat Aisha at consumation of marriage to be 9 years. No matter what kind of logic anybody presents to me about authenticiy of those ahadees but my mind does not accept them to be true.