Shia Hadith Sciences 101

[MuslimK]

Written by Farid
Original post link


Shia Hadith Sciences 101
   

  Bismillah wal salatu wal salam ala rasoolillah,
   

  In this thread, that will be updated every once in a while, I will include the basics that one needs to know about how to grade Shia hadiths. I will include a small amount of theory, but I will try to get to the implementation as soon as possible, since this seems to be the goal of most of the brothers. Furthermore, theory is much more complicated when we get deeper, and most chains can be graded based upon the basics.

   
  Firstly, there are four levels of hadith which are saheeh, hasan, muwathaq, and da’eef.

  A saheeh hadith in a hadith in which all the narrators are thiqaat Imamis.

  A hasan hadith is one in which all of the narrators are thiqaat Imamis, but there is one Imami that doesn’t have tawtheeq, but rather, only has been praised.

  A muwathaq hadith is a hadith in which all the narrators are thiqaat, but at least one is not an Imami.

  A da’eef hadith is a hadith in which there are unknown or weak narrators.

   
  Moving on, the ilmul rijal of Shiasm is based upon something very special. The praises and condemnations that are used in determining the status of a narrator isn’t based simply on the opinions of scholars, but also on the statements of the Imams. The main book that is used for this very practice is Ikhtiyar Ma’rifatul Rijal  by Al-Kashshi. Technically, the original book was lost, however, Al-Tusi, wrote a commentary/summary of the book which is pretty decent, and with it, we find statements by Al-Sadiq, Al-Baqir, and the rest of the Imams about their students.
   

  However, there are a few problems with this book. The main one is that it is based upon chains of narrations. So, in order to figure out if the Imam is praising or condemning the narrator, we first need to examine the chain up to him. Furthermore, in some cases, we will find a contradiction about a narrator. One hadith in praise of him and promising heaven, and another one condemning him, promising him hell. Both chains will be authentic. This will be a topic for another time. Inshallah if we reach a specific example, we will look more deeply into this.

   
  In any case, one should be aware that 95% of Shia rijali opinions will come from two individuals. Al-Tusi, in his books Al-Rijal and Al-Fihrist, and Al-Najashi, in his Rijal.

  Al-Tusi’s Rijal was my first, Shia rijal book. I was amazed by the size, since it came in a set of around twelve volumes. I had tons of cash on me that day. So, me and a friend picked up the whole thing and we place it on a table. Ironically, I quickly realized that it was only one volume long, and the rest were just other copies. I quickly opened it up, and found, to my surprised, thousands of names of narrators, without any commentary about them other than their name, usually their kunya, rarely a word of praise or condemnation, and extremely rarely something about their year of death. Here I was, thinking that Ibn Abi Hatim had a rival. Overall, out of the 6400+ narrators in the book, only around 200 have any tawtheeq or tad’eef. There are also 150 narrators that Al-Tusi mentions as followers of specific sects. I suggest that the brothers that feel at awe when it comes to stepping into a subject like this should take a good look at an online copy of the book. It is an extremely simple book, but yet, perhaps, the most significant rijal book.

   
  Specifics about Rijal Al-Tusi:   

  The first problem is that the book, as mentioned, includes little to no information about the narrators. However, the book is somewhat more useful when it comes to determining who is who. Al-Tusi mentions the names of the narrators and mainly classifies them into categories of when they narrated from each Imam. However, there seems to be an issue with how Al-Tusi does this since he has a chapter called “those who don’t narrate from the Imams” in which he includes narrators that he’s included in other chapters. For example, Mu’awiyah bin Hakeem, can be found under the narrators of Al-Jawad and Al-Hadi. Yet, he is also under the chapter of “those that don’t narrate from the Imams”.

   
  Fihrist Al-Tusi is the second book by the author, third if you count Al-Kashshi’s “abridgement”. In it, he mentions the names of narrators that have books, then he mentions his chain up to that book. He sometimes, though rarely, speaks about the narrator himself. You will at times find praise or condemnation though.
   

  Rijal Al-Najashi is perhaps the most loved Shia rijali book. He includes over 1200 narrators. The style of the book is similar to that of Fihrist Al-Tusi, in which he includes his chain to the books of the authors. He tends to speak more about the lives of specific individuals, even though it is somewhat rare. Due to Al-Najashi being only known for his book on rijal, Shia scholars tend to prefer his opinions over the opinions of Al-Tusi. Some claim that when a contradiction occurs, one should always take Najashi’s opinion. Inshallah we will examine this in the days to come.

   
  The final book that is sometimes considered to be important to rijal, is the Rijal of Ibnul Ghada’iri. The author mainly focused on weakening narrators. He mentions their names, and specifies why they are weak. Even though this book is very short, with only around two hundred narrators, you will find that the most detailed about narrators can be found in this book. Unfortunately, due to Ibn Al-Ghada’iri’s focus on weakening narrators, some contemporary Shias have chosen the opinion to weaken the book and view it as a forgery. However, when one examines the book, one will notice that Ibn Al-Ghadha’iri rarely ever contradicts both Al-Tusi and Al-Najashi. I’ve personally counted perhaps six direct contradictions when it comes to rijali opinions.  There are also some very important scholars that have accepted this book, and I believe that one of the very first things that one should do when getting into ilmul rijal is examine the opinions of those that are for and those that are against using this book as a tool for rijali needs.
   

  These five books are the tools that you will mainly need for breaking down hadiths. I wouldn’t be far away from truth if one were to say that 99% of direct narrator criticism can be found in these books.

   
  I’ll continue with the rest later. Any questions?

[MuslimK]

Sunni vs Shia Hadith Sciences Audio lecture:

Lecture: Introduction to Shia Hadith Sciences and Rijaal
Speaker: Farid
Venue: Beyluxe & Paltalk
Lecture Delivered on: August 20th, 2011

[Husayn]

I’ll continue with the rest later. Any questions?

Yes, regarding:

A saheeh hadith in a hadith in which all the narrators are thiqaat Imamis.

A few years ago Sheikh 'Uthman al-Khamis (I think) issued a challenge for Shiis to present a single sahih hadith with all thiqa Imamis in the chain - was this challenge ever answered?

I believe brother "Al-Hajjaj" from Haq Char Yaar actually schooled me once when I tried to reply to this (without even the slightest knowledge of 'ilm al-Rijaal).

Infact, I went to a couple of Sheikhs and not one of them could give me a proper answer (didn't seem that they even know about 'ilm al-Rijaal either).

It was a sobering experience.

[Optimus Prime]

Sunni vs Shia Hadith Sciences Audio lecture:

Lecture: Introduction to Shia Hadith Sciences and Rijaal
Speaker: Farid
Venue: Beyluxe & Paltalk
Lecture Delivered on: August 20th, 2011

I like Farid's accent.

[Hani]

I'm wondering if Najashi is even a qualified Rijalist, I know his book is most beloved since he authenticates a lot of people, but what sources does he use to authenticate them? There's quite a long period between him and all Shia narrators, what resources did he have exactly?

[Abu Muhammad]

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

It has been well over a year I have been following this forum. Very informative. May Allah reward all of the efforts of the brothers in this forum with Jannah, Amiin...

I'm posting in this existing topic since I felt my first post here related to the title above. It is about the criteria of authenticity of Shia hadith and my aim is to get to know the following:

I've encountered a few Shias of whom when presented weird Shia hadiths, would response that their criteria of knowing a sahih hadith is not thru sanad but when a hadith does not contradict Al-Quran. And they attribute this to Jaafar As-Sadiq.

Appreciate if knowledgable brothers in this forum (e.g. Bro Farid, Bro Hani) to shed some light whether we could find this methodology ever used by any major scholars of Shia. If yes, who are they and since when they pioneered this methodology? As far as I know, their classical scholars were mainly Akhbaris and they accepted all of their hadith as authentic while the modern day are Usoolis and they require sanad to proof the authenticity of a hadith.

Note: I know this is an absurd method though. Even a liar could say something that does not contradict the Quran and attributed it to their imams. How on earth then do they differentiate those uttered by a liar and those uttered by their Imams. Totally clueless...

[Farid]

وعليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته

Welcome to the boards my lurking brother. I'm glad you've signed up. =]

As you are aware, it is a method that cannot be utilized since most hadiths do not contradict the Qur'an. Al Kulayni points to this in his introduction of Al Kafi too.

Modern Shias that say this only do so because they do not have the ability to judge a narration. So they say things like, "it contradicts the Qur'an," or "Unlike you, we don't have a Saheeh book."

[Abu Muhammad]

Thanks bro Farid...

[Rationalist]

Its rare for a 12er Shia to say I don't know when they don't know the answer to a question. Instead they always have to come up with an answer which markets their sect to be appealing.

[GreatChineseFall]

Does anybody know of these books being online available, but also searchable or indexed? So no scanned pages?

[Farid]

All Shia hadith books are indexed, searchable, and scanned online.

[GreatChineseFall]

No, NOT scanned pages. If they are scanned, they can't be searched. With searchable I mean searchable by an algorithm like Google's algorithm or when you search typing Ctrl-F. If they are scanned pages of a book I can't do that.

And maybe it's handy to share links of some books (rijal books, not so much hadith books by the way)

[GreatChineseFall]

For thos that are interested, links to searchable(typed out) books, not scanned:

-Ikhtiyar Ma’rifatul Rijal  by Al-Kashshi/al-Tusi
-Ar-Rijal by Al-Tusi:
http://alhassanain.org/arabic/?com=book&id=349

-Ar-Rijal by al Najashi:
http://www.ebookshia.com/upload/bookFiles/1404724555_%D8%B1%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%84%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B4%D9%8A.pdf

-Ar-Rijal by Ibnul Ghada’iri:
http://aldar.zh-sh.com/upload/1401421447_q9.pdf.gz

I couldn't find a typed out version of al Fihrist though, maybe someone has seen it

[GreatChineseFall]

-What does raising it mean?
Abu  Abdullah  Al  Ashary,  from  one  of  our  companions,  raising  it,  from Hisham  Bin  Al  Hakam  who
said:

-Do they authenticate narrations sometimes that have been narrated by "one of our companions". What is meant by "our" anyway? Al Kulayni's companions?

-If someone narrates from his father, how do you find out who his father is?

[Farid]

- Raising means it is disconnected and the chain is not mentioned.

- They weaken "our companions" unless it is the companions of Al Kulayni. In that case they authenticate him.

- It is usually easy to find names of fathers in late books of Rijal.

[Abu Muhammad]

I came across this article in Al-Islam.org. with regard to the development of science of hadith. I post this "garbage" in this thread to serve as one of the references to the science of hadith according to Shia.

https://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/vol1-n12-3/outlines-development-science-hadith-dr-mustafa-awliyai

Interesting to read how they seem like trying to rewrite the history in there claiming, amongst others, that Shia preceeded Sunni in both compiling hadith as well as writing down biography of rijal al-hadith.




SIDE NOTE:

Ironically, some of the points raised by them just made the need for an infallible Imam useless such as:

1. "The Muslims who were the contemporaries of the Prophet had the advantage of personal recourse to him and chance of putting to him various questions regarding their social life. However, as long as the Prophet lived, and the source of Divine Revelation was in the midst of the Muslims, the great importance of recording his words was not fully realized. Nevertheless, soon after the Prophet's death, the Muslims realized the imminent need of recording the hadith so as to avoid the problems that would arise in the future generations."

2. "As we mentioned above, the Muslims recognized the need to record the words of the Prophet (S) right after his demise; because they knew that it was the only way to safeguard the future generations against various problems."

3. "This was the beginning of the science of hadith. Hadith served as the key to the understanding of the Qur'an, and became an addendum to the Book for the Muslims. However, as pointed out earlier, the Shi`ah had felt this need earlier during the lifetime of the Prophet himself."

That is why it is called "garbage". Even goes against their most important usul. Laughable…