Hadith - what is it? Word meaning, definition

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Hadith are various legends describing the words, actions and habits of the great Islamic prophet Muhammad. This term has Arabic roots and means report, accounting or narration.

Unlike the Koran, which is a literary work recognized by all Muslims, hadiths are not the same single authoritative source for all branches of Islam. This article will answer the question of what the word "hadith" means, and also tell about the types and history of appearance.

Etymology of the word

As mentioned above, the word "hadith" comes from the Arabic language and means a message, a story about a person. In the plural in Arabic, the term sounds like ahadith. In religious terminology, hadith is a concept that describes statements, deeds, or stories about the Prophet Muhammad.

Typology

Depending on the content, hadiths can be divided into three main categories:

• The speech of the prophet.
• Prophet action.
• The attitude of the prophet to someone else's action.

Individual hadiths are classified by Muslim clerics and jurists as sahih (genuine), hasan (good) or daif (weak, unreliable). ATArabic sources say that only hadiths with the status of sahih can be fully trusted.

From the collections of interpretations of Islamic scholars, it is known that such hadiths have an authoritative and respected transmitter. This typology is based on their accuracy and reliability. However, different groups of Muslims and Islamic scholars may categorize hadith in different ways, depending on schools of law.

What is a hadeeth?

According to Islamic tradition, the term "hadith" refers to reports of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as his tacit approval or criticism of what was said or done in his presence. However, some sources limit the hadith to verbal reports, and the actions of the holy prophet and reports about his companions are part of the Sunnah, not the hadith. Experts in the interpretation of the norms and rules of Islam give their definition of hadith - that it is something attributed to Muhammad, but not mentioned in the Koran.

Other closely related terms have similar meanings:

• swag (news, information), which often refers to reports about Muhammad, but sometimes also to traditions about his companions and successors from the next generation;
• The term "Atar" (translated from Arabic as footprints) usually refers to traditions about his companions and successors;
• The word "sunnah" (custom) is also used in reference to normative Islamic custom.

History of the concept

To understand what a hadith is, let's look at the history of Muslims. Tales of lifeMuhammad and the early history of Islam were transmitted orally for more than a hundred years after the death of the prophet in 632. Historians claim that Osman (the third caliph after Muhammad and his lifetime secretary) forced Muslims to write down the Koran and hadiths. Shortly thereafter, Osman's activity was interrupted by outraged soldiers who killed him in 656. Then the Muslim community was drawn into the abyss of a civil war called Fitna. After the fourth caliph, Ali Ibn Abu Talib, was assassinated in 661, the Umayyad dynasty established itself as the dominant one.

They became representatives of the civil and spiritual authorities. The rule of the Umayyads was interrupted in 750 when the Abbasid dynasty took power and held it until 1258. Historians claim that the collection and analysis of hadith continued from the very first day of the Umayyad dynasty. However, this activity was mainly the oral transmission of information about the prophet from respected Muslims to younger ones. Even if any of these early hadiths were written down on paper, they have not survived. The hadiths and stories that we have today were written down when the Abbasids came to power one hundred years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Today, the collections of hadith, along with the Koran, continue to be an important spiritual source from which Muslims draw divine knowledge.

Relation of various branches of Islam to hadiths

Different branches of Islam (Sunnis, Shiites, Ibadis) venerate different collections of hadiths, while a relatively small sect of Qur'anists rejects them altogetherthe authority of any collection. Just as the Qur'anists are not a single community, Muslims who worship Hadith are also a heterogeneous group.

Muslims - adherents of the authority of hadith, in addition to the Koran, also revere collections of hadith, although not necessarily the same source.

• In the Sunni direction of Islam, the canonical collections of hadiths: "Sahih al-Bukhari" (the most reliable and important source, which contains 7275 hadiths), "Sahih Muslim" (divided into 43 books, contains 7190 hadiths), "Sunan an -Nasai", "Sunan Abu Dawood" (contains 5274 hadiths), "Jami at-Tirmizi" (contains 3962 hadiths, divided into 50 chapters), "Sunan Ibn Maja" (contains more than 4000 hadiths, divided into 32 books and 1500 chapters). The Sunnis, in addition to the main ones, have other collections of hadiths, which are divided into primary and secondary.
• The Shiites revere the following canonical collections of hadiths: al-Kafi, Man la yahduruhu-l-faqih, Tahdhib al-akham and al-Istibsar.
• Mutazilite collection of hadith - "Ibn Abu al-Hadid" (Explanation of the Path of Eloquence).
• Ibadi collection of hadith - "Musnad ar-Rabi ibn Habiba".

Interaction between the Qur'an and Hadith

The importance of hadith is secondary to the Qur'an, given that the doctrine of Islamic conflict of laws holds the Qur'an's dominance over the hadith. Despite this, some hadiths are historically equated with the Qur'an. Certain Islamic minorities even support traditions that contradict the Qur'an, thereby putting them into practice.over the holy book. They claim that conflicting hadiths cancel those parts of the Qur'an with which they conflict.

Some modern Muslims believe that the Holy Quran alone is enough to understand the norms of Islam. However, Muslims who follow traditional Islam believe that those who are guided only by the holy book deviate from the correct understanding of religion. Adherents of Islam who believe in traditions believe that it is impossible to interpret the Qur'an without the guidance of the hadith. Most Muslims argue that the Qur'an cannot be fully understood on its own and that the hadith is thus regarded as a secondary source of Islam.

Basic Hadith

The literary basis of the hadiths is the spoken messages that were widespread in Islamic society after the death of Muhammad. Unlike the Qur'an, collections of hadiths were not published during the life of the prophet or immediately after his death. Hadith were recorded and collected in large collections in the 8th and 9th centuries, that is, several generations after the death of Muhammad, after the end of the era of the "legitimate" Rashidun Caliphate.

Sunnah - book of hadiths

Sunnah is the collection of all hadith ever recorded. In fact, this is the basis of Sharia (legal, religious, moral and other norms of Islam). The book of hadith is not a biography of Muhammad, but is a collection of stories about him, his actions, sermons.

Meaning of Hadith

Hadith are considered by Islamic scholars as an important tool for understanding the Quran andcomments (tafsir) for the interpretation of the holy book. Some important elements that today are considered an ancient part of traditional Islamic practice and norms, such as the obligatory ritual practice of five prayers (obligatory Islamic prayers), are not actually mentioned in the Qur'an at all and originate exclusively from hadith. Also, only in the hadiths is the practice of rak'ah given, which is a set of prayer postures and movements that are accompanied by the pronunciation of the words of the prayer. All postures, movements and prayer words follow one after another in a strictly defined order, deviation from which is fraught with the invalidity of prayer. All prayer formulas and words must be pronounced in Arabic.

Hadith are a necessary part of Islamic philosophy, which serves to correctly interpret the norms of Islam. Hadiths explain to Muslims the subtle details of Islamic norms and concepts in areas about which the Qur'an is silent. The Qur'anic community, on the other hand, takes a critical view of hadith. They believe that if the holy book is silent about something, then this means that Allah himself did not consider it necessary to say about it. Also, the Qur'anists are convinced that hadiths that contradict the Qur'an should be strongly rejected as a perversion of the philosophy of Islam.

Elements of Hadith

Sanad and matn are the essential elements of the hadith. Sanad is the information that provides the path to the matn. The term "sanad" means a chain of narrators who heard and transmitted a hadith from Muhammad, naming all the previous ones.storytellers. Matn is the act or word of the prophet, which are transmitted by sanads (narrators). By the seventh century the line of narrators was considered correct, but later became branched and tracing the sources was difficult.

Reliability of Hadith

Another area of study of hadith is biographical analysis, which examines in detail the person who narrates the hadith. It includes an analysis of the date and place of birth, family ties, teachers and students, religiosity, moral conduct, travel and relocation, and the date of death of the person in question. Based on these criteria, the reliability of a person is evaluated. It also determines whether or not a person could actually transmit the story of the prophet, which is based on reliable and verified sources.

An example of one of the most famous and reliable hadiths of the prophet is the following: “The spouse who endures the difficult character of his wife, Allah will grant as many rewards as Ayub, peace be upon him, received for his steadfastness in relation to love. And the wife who puts up with the difficult character of her husband will be rewarded in the same way as Asiya, who was at the wedding of the Pharaoh.”