3.8. THE CONTINUOUS HADITH: THE AHAD (SOLITARY HADITH)
The Ahad, or solitary Hadith (also known as Khabar al-Wahid), is a Hadith which is reported by a single person or by odd individuals from the Prophet. Imam Shafi’i refers to it as Khabar al-Khassah, which applies to every report narrated by one, two or more persons from the Prophet but which fails to fulfill the requirements of either the Mutawatir or the Mashhur. It is a Hadith which does not impart positive knowledge on its own unless it is supported by extraneous or circumstantial evidence. This is the view of the majority, but according to Imam Ahmad b. Hanbal and others, Ahad can engender positive knowledge. Some ulema have rejected it on the basis of an analogy they have drawn with a provision of the law of evidence, namely that the testimony of one witness falls short of legal proof. Those who unquestioningly accept the authority of Ahad, such as the Zahiri school, maintain that when the Prophet wanted to deliver a ruling in regard to a particular matter he did not invite all the citizens of Madinah to attend. The majority of jurists, however, agree that Ahad may establish a rule of law provided that it is related by a reliable narrator and the contents of the report are not repugnant to reason. Many ulema have held that Ahad engenders speculative knowledge acting upon which is preferable only. In the event where other supportive evidence can be found in its favour or when there is nothing to oppose its contents, then acting upon Ahad is obligatory. But Ahad may not, according to the majority of Ulema, be relied upon as the basis of belief (aqidah). For matters of belief must be founded in certainty even if a conjecture (zann) may at time seem preferable. As the Qur’an tells us, ‘verily conjecture avails nothing against the truth’ (al-Najm, 53:28) Ahad, being conjectural, does not establish the truth.
According to the majority of the ulema of the four Sunni schools, acting upon Ahad is obligatory even if Ahad fails to engender positive knowledge. Thus in practical legal matters, a preferable zann is sufficient as a basis of obligation. It is only in matters of belief where conjecture ‘avails nothing against the truth. Having said this, however, Ahad may only form the basis of obligation if it fulfills the following requirements:
a. That the transmitter is a competent person, which means that reports communicated by a child or a lunatic of whatever age are unacceptable. Women, blind persons and slaves are considered competent for purposes of reporting the Hadith; it is only in regard to being a witness that they suffer some disability.
b. The transmitter of Ahad must be a Muslim, which means that a report by a non-Muslim is unacceptable. However, the reporter must fulfill this condition only at the time of reporting the Hadith, but not necessarily at the time when he received the information. There are instances of Hadith, for example, reported by Companions pertaining to the acts of the Prophet which they observed before they had professed Islam.’
c. The transmitter must be an upright person (‘adl) at the time of reporting the Hadith. The
minimum requirement of this condition is that the person has not committed a major sin and
does not persist in committing minor ones; nor is he known for persistence in degrading
profanities such as eating in the-public thoroughfare, associating with persons of ill repute and
indulgence in humiliating jokes. Although the ulema are unanimous on the requirement of
uprightness of character (‘adalah), they are not in agreement as to what it precisely means.
According to the Hanafis, a Muslim who is not a sinner (fasiq) is presumed to be upright. The
Shafi’is are more specific on the avoidance of sins, both major and minor, as well as indulgence in profane mubahat. To the Maliki jurist, Ibn al-Hajib, ‘adalah refers to piety, observance of religious duties and propriety of conduct. There is also some disagreement among the ulema on the definition of, and distinction between, major and minor sins.
The ‘adalah’ of a transmitter must be established by positive proof. Hence when the ‘adalah of a transmitter is unknown, his report is unacceptable. Similarly, a report by an anonymous person (riwayah al-majhul) such as when the chain of transmitters reads in part that ‘a man’ reported such-and-such is unacceptable. The ‘adalah of a narrator may be established by various means including tazkiyah, that is when at least one upright person confirms it, or when the transmitter is known to have been admitted as a witness in court, or when a faqih or a learned person is known to have relied or acted on his report. But there must be positive evidence that the faqih did not do so due to additional factors such as a desire on his part merely to be cautious.
The qualification of ‘adalah is established for all the Companions regardless of their juristic or political views. This conclusion is based on the Qur’an which declares in a reference to the Companions that ‘God is well pleased with them, as they are with Him’ (al-Tawbah, 9:100). A person’s reputation for being upright and trustworthy also serves as a proof of his reliability.
According to some ulema of Hadith, such a reputation is even more credible than confirmation by one or two individuals. With regard to certain figures such as Imam Mlik, Sufyan al-Thawri, Sufyan b. ‘Uyaynah, al-Layth b. Sa’d, etc.Their reputation for ‘adalah is proof of reliability above the technicalities of tazkiyah.
d. The narrator of Ahad must possess a retentive memory so that his report may be trusted. If he is known for committing frequent errors and inconsistencies, his report is unacceptable. The faculty of retention, or dabt, is the ability of a person to listen to an utterance, to comprehend its meaning as it was originally intended and then to retain it and take all necessary precautions to safeguard its accuracy. In cases of doubt in the retentiveness of a transmitter, if his report can be confirmed by the action of his predecessors, it may be accepted. But in the absence of such verification, reports by persons who are totally obscure and whose retentiveness cannot be established are unacceptable.
e. That the narrator is not implicated in any form of distortion (tadlis) either in the textual contents (matn) of a Hadith or in its chain of transmitters (isnad). Distortion in the text is to add to the saying of the Prophet elements which did not exist, or to detract from its original content so as to distort its purport and mislead the listener. Tadlis in the isnad is to tamper with the names and identity of narrators, which is, essentially, not very different from outright forgery. One form of tadlis is to omit a link in the chain of narrators. The motive for
such omission is immaterial. Sometimes it is observed, for example, that a single weak link in
an otherwise reliable chain of transmitters is omitted with a view to showing the isnad reliable
in every part. Whatever the motive may be, a tadlis of this kind is, for all intents and purposes,
equivalent to forgery. However, if the narrator is a prominent scholar of irreproachable
reputation, his report is normally accepted notwithstanding a minor omission in the chain of isnad.
f. The transmitter of Ahad must, in addition, have met with and heard the Hadith directly from his immediate source. The contents of the Hadith must not be outlandish (shadhdh) in the sense of being contrary to the established norms of the Qur’an and other principles of Shari’ah. In addition, the report must be free of subtle errors such as rendering ab as ibn (‘father’ as ‘son’) or other such words that are similar in appearance but differ in meaning.
The three Imams, Abu Hanifah, al-Shafi’i and Ahmad b. Hanbal rely on Ahad when it fulfills the foregoing conditions. Abu Hanifah, however, has laid down certain additional conditions, one of which is that the narrator’s action must not contradict his narration. It is on this ground, for example, that Abu Hanifah does not rely on the following Hadith, narrated by Abu Hurayrah: ‘When a dog licks a dish, wash it seven times, one of which must be with clean sand.”
Abu Hanifah has explained this by saying that Abu Hurayrah did not act upon it himself. Since the requirement of washing is normally three times, the report is considered weak, including its attribution to Abu Hurayrah. The majority on the other hand, take the view that discrepancies between the action and the report of a narrator may be due to forgetfulness or some other unknown factor.Discrepancies of this kind do not, by themselves, provide conclusive evidence to render the report unreliable.
The Hanafis further require that the subject matter of Ahad is not such that would necessitate the knowledge of a vast number of people. If, for example, we are informed, by means of a solitary report, of an act or saying of the Prophet which was supposed to be known by hundreds or thousands of people and yet only one or two have reported it, such a Hadith would not be reliable. The Hadith, for example, that ‘Anyone who touches his sexual organ must take a fresh ablution’, is not accepted by the Hanafis. The Hanafis have explained: had this Hadith been authentic, it would have become an established practice among all Muslims, which is not the case. The Hadith is therefore not reliable. The majority of ulema, however, do not insist on this requirement on the analysis that people who witness or observe an incident do not necessarily report it. We know, for example, that countless numbers of people saw the prophet performing the pilgrimage of hajj, and yet not many reported their observations.
And finally, the Hanafis maintain that when the narrator of Ahad is not a faqih, his report is accepted only if it agrees with qiyas, otherwise qiyas would be given priority over Ahad. However, if the narrator is known to be a faqih, then his report would be preferred over qiyas. It is on this ground, for example, that the Hanafis have rejected the Hadith of musarrat, that is the animal whose milk is retained in its udders so as to impress the buyer. The Hadith is as follows: ‘Do not retain milk in the udders of a she- camel or goat so as to exaggerate its yield. Anyone who buys a musarrat has the choice, for three days after having milked it, either to keep it, or to return it with a quantity [i.e. a sa’] of dates.
The Hanafis regard this Hadith to be contrary to qiyas, that is, to analogy with the rule of equality between indemnity and loss. Abu Hanifah has held the view that the sa’ of dates may not be equal in value to the amount of milk the buyer has consumed. Hence if the buyer wishes to return the beast, he must return it with the cost of milk which was in its udders at the time of purchase, not with a fixed quantity of dates. The majority of ulema, including Malik, Shafi’i, Ibn Hanbal and the disciples of Abu Hanifah, (Abu Yusuf and Zufar), have on the other hand accepted this Hadith and have given it priority over qiyas. According to the majority view, the compensation may consist of a sa’ of dates or of its monetary value. Dates were specified in the Hadith as it used to be the staple food in those days, which may not be the case any more.
Imam Malik would rely on a solitary Hadith on condition that it does not disagree with the practice of the Madinese (amal ahl al-Madinah). For he considers the standard practice of the people of Madinah to be more representative of the conduct of the Prophet than the isolated report of one or two individuals. In his opinion, the Madinese practice represents the narration of thousands upon thousands of people from, ultimately, the Prophet. It is, in other words, equivalent to a Mashhur, or even Mutawatir. When an Ahad report contradicts the practice of the Madinese, the latter is, according to the Maliki view, given priority over the former. The Malikis have thus refused to follow the Hadith regarding the option of cancellation (khiyar al-majlis) which provides that ‘the parties to a sale are free to change their minds so long as they have not left the meeting of the contract’.
The reason being that this Hadith is contrary to the practice of the people of Madinah. The Madinese practice on this point subscribed to the view that a contract is complete when the parties express their agreement through a valid offer and acceptance. The contract is binding as of that moment regardless as to whether the ‘meeting of contract’ continues or not.
All the four Imams of jurisprudence have considered Ahad to be authoritative in principle, and none reject it unless there is evidence to suggest a weakness in its attribution to the Prophet, or which may contradict some other evidence that is more authoritative in their view.
The majority of ulema do not insist that the Ahad should consist of a verbatim transmission of what the narrator heard in the first place, although this is the most authoritative form of transmission in any kind of Hadith. They would instead accept the conceptual transmission of an Ahad, on condition, however, that the narrator understands the language and purport of the Hadith in full. Only then would the rendering of the Hadith in the narrator’s own words, which conveys an equivalent meaning, be acceptable. However if the narrator does not possess this degree of knowledge and is unable to transmit the Hadith in its original form, all the four Sunni schools are in agreement that his own rendering of the concept of the Hadith is unacceptable.
Some ulema of the Hanafi and other schools have held that conceptual transmission is totally forbidden, a view which is refuted by the majority, who say that the Companions often transmitted one and the same Hadith in varying words, and no-one can deny this. One of the most prominent Companions, ‘Abd Allah b. Mas’ud, is noted for having reported many ahadith from the Prophet and made it known that ‘the Prophet (S) said this, or something like this, or something very close to this’. No one has challenged the validity of this manner of reporting; hence the permissibility of conceptual transmission is confirmed by the practice of the Companions, and their consensus is quoted in its support. Having said this, however, accuracy in the transmission of Hadith and retaining its original version is highly recommended. This is, in fact, the purport of a Hadith from the Prophet which reads: ‘May God bless with success one who heard me saying something, and who conveys it to others as he heard it; and may the next transmitter be even more retentive than the one from whom he received it.’
Sometimes the transmitter reports a Hadith but omits a part of it. The question then arises as to whether this form of transmission is permissible at all. In principle, the narrator of Hadith, of any type of Hadith, must not omit any part which is integral to its meaning. For instance: when the omitted part consists of a condition, or an exception to the main theme of the Hadith, or which makes a reference to the scope of its application. However, the narrator may omit a part of the Hadith which does not affect the meaning of the remaining part. For in this case, the Hadith at issue will be regarded, for all intents and purposes, as two ahadith. It has been a familiar practice among the ulema to omit a part of the Hadith which does not have a bearing on its main theme. But if the omission is such that it would bring the quoted part into conflict with its full version, then the issue will be determined, not under the foregoing, but under the rules of conflict and preference (al-ta’arud wa’l-tarjih). In any case, the preferred practice is not to omit any part of the Hadith, as the omitted part may well contain valuable information at some point and serve a purpose that may not have occurred to the narrator himself.
In certain ahadith which are reported by a number of transmitters, there is sometimes an addition to the text of a Hadith by one transmitter which is absent in the reports of the same Hadith by others. The first point to ascertain in a discrepancy of this nature is to find out whether the Hadith in question was originally uttered in one and the same meeting/occasion or on different occasions. If the latter is the case, then there is no conflict and both versions may be accepted as they are. But if it is established that the different versions all originated in one and the same meeting, then normally the version which is transmitted by more narrators will prevail over that which is variantly transmitted by one, provided that the former are not known for errors and oversight in reporting. Consequently, the additional part of the Hadith which is reported by a single transmitter will be isolated and rejected for the simple reason that error by one person is more likely in this case than by a multitude. But if the single narrator who has reported the addition is an eminently reliable person and the rest are known for careless reporting, then his version will be preferred, although some ulema of Hadith do not agree with this. Additions and discrepancies that might be observed in the isnad, such as when a group of narrators report a Hadith as a Mursal whereas one person has reported it as a Musnad (that is, a Muttasil, or continuous) – will be determined by the same method which applies to discrepancy in the text. However, sometimes the preference of one over the other version may be determined on different grounds. To give an example, according to one Hadith, ‘Whoever buys foodstuff is not to sell the same before it is delivered to him.’
However, according to another report the Prophet has issued a more general instruction according to which the Muslims are forbidden from selling that which they do not have in their possession. The Hanafis have preferred the second version, as it is conveyed in broader terms which comprise foodstuffs as well as other commodities.
The Discontinued Hadith (al-Hadith Ghayr al-Muttasil)
This is a Hadith whose chain of transmitters does not extend all the way back to the Prophet. It occurs in three varieties: Mursal, Mu’dal and Munqati’. The Mursal, which is the main variety of discontinued Hadith, is sometimes also referred to as Munqati’. The Mursal is defined as a Hadith which a Successor (tabi’i) has directly attributed to the Prophet without mentioning the last link, namely the Companion who might have narrated it from the Prophet. This is the majority definition. The Hanafis, however, have defined Mursal as a Hadith that a reliable narrator has attributed to the Prophet while omitting a part of its isnad. The missing link may be a Companion or even a Successor, according to the majority, but it may be a narrator among the second generation of Successors according to the Hanafis. Since the identity of the missing link is not known, it is possible that he might have been an upright person, or not. Because of these and other similar doubts in its transmission, in principle, the ulema of Hadith do not accept the Mursal. According to al-Shawkani, ‘The majority of ulema of usul have defined Mursal as a Hadith transmitted by one who has not met with the Prophet, (S) and yet quotes the Prophet, (S) directly. The transmitter may be a Successor or a follower (tabi’ al-tabi’i) or anyone after that.’ Imam Ahmad b. Hanbal does not rely on it, nor does Imam Shafi’i unless it is reported by a famous Successor who is known to have met with a number of Companions. Thus a Mursal transmitted by prominent Successors such as Said b. al-Musayyib, al-Zuhri, ‘Alqamah, Masruq, al-Sha’bi, Hasan al-Basri, Qatadah, etc., is accepted, provided that it fulfills the following conditions.
Firstly, the Mursal is supported by another and more reliable Hadith with a continuous chain of transmitters, in which case it is the latter that would represent the stronger evidence.
Secondly, that one Mursal is supported by another Mursal, and the latter is accepted and relied upon by the ulema.
Thirdly, that the Mursal is in harmony with the precedent of the Companions, in which case it is elevated and attributed to the Prophet. The process here is called raf’, and the Hadith is called Marfu’.
Fourthly, that the Mursal has been approved by the ulema, and a number of them are known to have relied on it.
Fifthly, that the transmitter of Mursal has a reputation not to have reported weak and doubtful Hadith. For instance the Mursal transmitted by Said b. al-Musayyib or any one of the prominent Successors mentioned above is normally acceptable.’
When a Mursal is strengthened in any of these ways, especially when the Successor who has reported it is a leading figure and has met with the Companions, Imam Shafi’i would accept it. But even so, if the Mursal in question is contradicted by another Hadith which is more reliable, the latter will take priority.
The foregoing basically explains al-Shafi’i’s approach to the Mursal. Imam Abu Hanifah and Imam Malik, on the other hand, are less stringent in their acceptance of the Mursal. They accept not only the Mursal which is transmitted by a Successor, but also one which is transmitted by the second generation of Followers, known as tabi’ al-tabi’i. In support of this they quote the Hadith in which the Prophet is reported to have said, ‘Honour my Companions, for they are the best among you, then those who follow them and then the next generation; and then lying will proliferate.’
The differential approaches that the leading Imams have taken toward the reliability of the Mursal may be partially explained by the fact that Shafi’i and Ahmad b. Hanbal lived at a time when the distance to the Prophet was further extended. Hence they felt the need for continuity in transmission more strongly than their predecessors, Abu Hanifah and Malik.
The remaining two varieties of disconnected Hadith that need only briefly to be mentioned are the Munqati’ and the Mu’dal. The former refers to a Hadith whose chain of narrators has a single missing link somewhere in the middle. The Mu’dal on the other hand is a Hadith in which two consecutive links are missing in the chain of its narrators. Neither of them are acceptable; and the ulema are in agreement on this.
Sahih, Hasan and Da’if
From the viewpoint of their reliability, the narrators of Hadith have been graded into the following categories: (1) the Companions who are generally accepted to be reliable; (2.) thiqat thabitun, or those who rank highest in respect of reliability next to the Companions; (3) thiqat, or trustworthy but of a lesser degree than the first two; (4) saduq, or truthful, that is one who is not known to have committed a forgery or serious errors; (5) saduq yahim, that is truthful but committing errors; (6) maqbul or accepted, which implies that there is no proof to the effect that his report is unreliable; (7) majhul, or a narrator of unknown identity. These are followed by lower classes of persons who are classified as sinners (fussaq), those suspected of lying, and outright liars.
Hadith is classified as Sahih or authentic when its narrators belong to the first three categories. It is defined as a Hadith with a continuous isnaad all the way back to the Prophet consisting of upright persons who also possess retentive memories and whose narration is free both of obvious and of subtle defects.
The Hasan Hadith differs from the Sahih in that it may include among its narrators a person or persons who belong to the fourth, fifth or sixth grades on the foregoing scale. It is a Hadith that falls between Sahih and Da’if, and although its narrators are known for truthfulness, they have not attained the highest degree of reliability and prominence.
The weak, or Daif, is a Hadith whose narrators do not possess the qualifications required in Sahih or Hasan. It is called weak owing to a weakness that exists in its chain of narrators or in its textual contents. Its narrator is known to have had a bad memory, or his integrity and piety has been subjected to serious doubt. There are several varieties of Daif; Mursal is one of them. The ulema of Hadith, including Imam Muslim, do not consider Mursal to amount to a shar’i proof (hujjah). There are other categories of Daif, including Shadhdh, Munkar and Mudtarib which need not be elaborated here. Briefly, Shadhdh is a Hadith with a poor isnaad which is at odds with a more reliable Hadith. Munkar is a Hadith whose contents are inconsistent with a number of other reports, none of which can be preferred over the others.
According to the general rule, the overall acceptability of a Hadith is determined on the weakest element in its proof. Thus the presence of a single weak narrator in the chain of isnad would result in weakening the Hadith altogether. If one of the narrators is suspected of lying whereas all the rest are classified as trustworthy (thiqat) and the Hadith is not known through other channels, then it will be graded as weak. In scrutinising the reliability of Hadith, the ulema of Hadith are guided by the rule that every Hadith must be traced back to the Prophet through a continuous chain of narrators whose piety and reputation are beyond reproach. A Hadith which does not fulfill these requirements is not accepted. A weak or Daif Hadith does not constitute a shar’i proof (hujjah) and is generally rejected.
by M. H. Kamali
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