THE METHODS IN DETERMINING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE HADITH

Abstract

The hadith text that shows Hazrad Muhammad’s life style, utterances, deeds, and declarations regulate Muslims morals and lawful lives, and are accepted as the secondary source only next to the Gracious Koran. Muslims call the narratives attributed to Hazrad Muhammad His sunnah or hadith. In Islam both concepts have been attributed to Him (pbuH). Accordingly, Muslims regard the Prophet’s utterances, deeds, reactions to any incidents happened while He is absent or present as sunnah, and all these were compiled of as hadith. The scholars of Islam split hadith into the divisions of ‘sound’ (ṣaḥīḥ), ‘fair’ (ḥasan), and ‘weak’ (ḍa‘īf). While ṣaḥīḥ and ḥasan are considered as of the sorts of ahadith that are acceptable, the ḍa‘īf is considered to be falling into the category of the ahadith that is mardūd (unaccepted). To examine the certificate (sanad: the chain of conveyors), the text, and the conveyor (rāwī) of any hadith is to evaluate its degree of acceptability (its being maqbūl) and its degree of unacceptability (its being mardūd). If there isn’t any disconnection in the chain of conveyors in respect to a hadith, or if there isn’t any fault with its conveyors, or if the text of the hadith isn’t deformed or distorted, and if the hadith isn’t inconsistent with neither the Gracious Koran nor the Authentic (Ṣaḥīḥ) Sunna,then that hadith is considered maqbūl, and may be carried into effect, and is also considered as an evidence of shar’ī (lawful) kind, whether it is of the ṣaḥīḥ or the ḥasan. But if a hadith doesn’t have any of these qualities, it is rejected, and never to be carried into effect. According to this, any mardūd hadith is rejected if its chain is broken, or if any of its conveyors is vilified (becoming the target of the act of ta‘n) by anyone, or if there is any inconsistency with the Gracious Koran and the Authentic Sunna, or if its text is somehow deformed or distorted affiliated with flaws.