بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Allah Almighty says in the Holy Quran “There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah ﷺ an excellent example…”^[1] The Almighty further says in his Glorified Book “O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger ﷺ …”^[2] The word Islam is an Arabic word and its meaning can be understood as “peace, purity, submission and obedience to the will of Almighty God.”^[3] Muslims therefore are on a mission in this world – to lead their lives as per the commands of Allah. Now as everyone understands, Allah being the King of the kings doesn’t directly communicate with each person as to how to live their lives. Rather He chooses a person in every nation and each time period whom He gives the gift of Prophethood – who is to teach the people the will of Allah. Allah sent down his Last Messenger – Muhammad ﷺ whose Message is to last till the Day of Judgement. As Allah Himself says in the Quran that the Prophet ﷺ is an excellent example for the mankind, as to how to lead one’s life so as to please Allah for the attainment of the Paradise. The Prophet ﷺ is thus a role model, whose obedience has been made compulsory for each and every Muslim till the Day of Qiyamah. It is on these lines that Ibn Kathir writes regarding the first Ayah above “This Ayah is an important principle, to follow the Messenger of Allah in all his words, and deeds, etc. Hence Allah commanded the people to take the Prophet as an example on the day of Al-Ahzab,^[4] with regard to patience, guarding, striving and waiting for Allah to provide the way out”^[5]

Types of Revelations

A question may arise here as to whether there is a distinction between obedience to Allah and obedience to the Prophet ﷺ. The answer to this question is No, obedience to Prophet is in essence the Obedience to Allah, as the Prophet ﷺ is a representative of the Allah on Earth. In order to understand why these two things have been mentioned distinctly in the second Ayah above, we need to go into the concept of revelations. Islamic Scholars classify revelations into two types – 1) wahi matlu i.e. the Quran and 2) wahi ghair matlu.^[6] The word matlu means ‘something that is to be recited’ while as ‘ghair matlu’ is ‘which is not to be recited.’ Thus, wahi matlu means the direct word of Allah revealed upon the Prophet ﷺ which is the Quran, and which was later compiled by the Sahaba (Radhi Allahu Anhum) in the book form. However, the text of Quran is not the only revelation that Allah sent upon the Prophet ﷺ but whatever the Prophet ﷺ said and meant as a command was also a revelation from Allah. This is substantiated by these aayat “Nor does He (The Prophet ﷺ speak of (his own) desire. It is only a Revelation revealed.”^[7] Mufti Muhammad Shafi in his tafsir of these aayat writes “The verses tell us that it is absolutely impossible for the Messenger ﷺ to forge lies and impute them to Allah. Nothing he utters is of his own wish or desire. He only conveys to the people what he was commanded to convey, in its entirety, without additions or deletions. An analysis of the various Traditions in Bukhari indicates that there are many categories or types of wahy [inspiration or revelation]. Type one is that in which the wordings and the meaning are both directly from Allah. This is called Quran. Type two is the one in which only the meaning comes from Allah, and the Messenger ﷺ expresses the meaning in his own words. This is called hadith or sunnah.”^[8]

In Sunan Abi Dawood it has been reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Verily I have been given the Quran and something similar to it along with it. But soon there will be a time when a man will be reclining on his couch with a full stomach, and he will say, ‘You should adhere to this Quran: what you find that it says is permissible, take it as permissible, and what you find it says is forbidden, take it as forbidden.”^[9] In another version of this hadith, the following has also been reported “But indeed, whatever the Messenger of Allah forbids is like what Allah forbids.”^[10] The ‘something similar to it’ referred to in this hadith is wahi ghair matlu. It is the part of Divine revelations that doesn’t form part of the Quran. This hadith makes it clear that the submission or obedience we talked about in the introduction must be as per both these types of revelations i.e. wahi matlu and wahi ghair matlu. In the Quran, Allah has ordered the Muslims to establish salah (prayers). However, the Quran doesn’t contain any details about the form of salah or the number of rakats to be performed in each prayer. Thus, we need to turn to what the Prophet ﷺ has taught and informed us about the subject, which as per the Quran is also from Allah. But, as these details about the salah are not contained in the Quran itself, they therefore form part of wahi ghair matlu. Thus, the words and sayings of the Prophet ﷺ are authoritative and must be followed.

Hadith and Hadith Science

After we have established that the actions and sayings of the Muhammad ﷺ carry an authoritative value in Islam, the next thing to figure out is how to know such teachings. For Sahabas (Radhi Allahu Anhum) during the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ, it was quite easy, as the Prophet ﷺ himself was their instructor. But for the generations who did not and will not see him ﷺ in this world, it was necessary that the saying and actions of the Prophet ﷺ must be communicated to them through preservation. The term Hadith thus came to be used for this purpose. Literally, the Arabic word hadith means statement, talk, news, conversation or communication.^[11] But in the sense that it is now commonly used, it specifically means the narration of the sayings, doings or approvals (Taqrir) of Muhammad ﷺ.^[12] With the reporting of the narrations, an issue of Hadith authenticity emerged during the earlier Islamic times. Unlike the Quran, which is divinely protected as has been revealed in it “Indeed, it is We who sent down the message [i.e., the Qur’ān], and indeed, We will be its guardian.”^[13], there is no such protection for the hadith. The Prophet  ﷺ even himself warned about hadith fabrication “There will be in the last of my nation a people narrating to you what you nor your fathers heard, so beware of them”^[14]

The absence of Divine protection for the hadith gave rise to extreme groups in the Islamic history – the Quranists and the hadith rejectors who reject all the hadith and consider them pseudepigrapha and the other group which lacks a particular name, but which considers all the hadith as true. It is pertinent to mention that one of the main reasons for the emergence of the hadith rejectors, is this blind acceptance of each and every hadith including those which are contradictory to the Quran and fundamental laws of nature. Hadith rejectors are thus in a sense a result of discarding the rigorous verification of ahadith, which had been prescribed by the great hadith scholars of the past. The issue of hadith fabrication was predicted by the Prophet ﷺ, as it has been reported that He ﷺ said, “There will be in the end of time charlatan liars coming to you with narrations that you nor your fathers heard, so beware of them lest they misguide you and cause you tribulations.”^[15] In fact hadith fabrication was so rampant in the past that scholars have written entire books on fabricated narrations known as Mouduat.

The issue of hadith fabrication was recognised early by the Muslim scholars who developed an entire field of knowledge known as ilm-al-hadith or hadith science to safeguard the pearls of the Prophet ﷺ. The history of hadith authentication began in the time of the Sahaba (RA) itself.  There are many reports documenting the Companions’ vigilance against misrepresentations of the Prophet’s ﷺ legacy. Ali (Radhi Allahu Anhu) is quoted as requiring an oath from any Companion who told him a hadith from the Prophet ﷺ that he himself had not heard.^[16] When the Companion Abu Musa al-Ashʿari (Radhi Allahu Anhu) told Umar (Radhi Allahu Anhu) that the Prophet ﷺ had said that if you knocked on someone’s door three times and they did not answer you should depart, Umar (Radhi Allahu Anhu) demanded that he find another Companion to corroborate the report.^[17] This discipline which started raw later developed into a full and complete discipline, with high standards required for authenticating narrations.

To understand this science, we need to first understand some terminology. A hadith is composed of two parts – sanad (pl. isnaad) and matan (pl. mutun). The sanad refers to the chain of transmission of the hadith from the person narrating it to the Prophet ﷺ and the matan refers to the actual content of the hadith. The verification of isnad is the most important step in hadith authentication, while matan is not so strictly verified, the reason for which will be highlighted later. The importance for isnad was recognised early on. In the early Islamic period, ahl al-ḥadīth scholars or those who debated them could not cite a hadith without providing their own isnād for the report.^[18] Revolving around the concept of isnad, the scholars developed a three-tier method for hadith evaluation.

Step 1 – Isnad:

As we have already highlighted the importance of isnad, it should not be surprising to know that a hadith without a sanad was rejected by the scholars. Imam Shafi made a famous declaration regarding the importance of isnad “The person who seeks knowledge without an isnad, not asking “Where is this from?,” indeed, he is like a person gathering wood at night. He carries on his back a bundle of wood when there may be a viper in it that could bite him.”^[19]

Step 2 – Rating Transmitters:

On their own, however, the knowledge of sanad could not deter a determined forger. A hadith could be made up, or inauthentic material could simply be equipped with a sanad and then circulated. Moreover, merely requiring someone to provide a source for a hadith they cited did not tell you if that source was reliable. The second tier of criticism thus involved identifying the individuals who constituted isnad, evaluating their reliability, and then determining if there were any risks that someone unreliable might also have played some part in transmitting the report.

A hadith transmitter was evaluated according to two criteria. First, his or her character, correct belief, and level of piety were scrutinized in order to determine if he or she was ‘upright’ (ʿadil). Second, and much more importantly, the transmitter’s corpus of reports and narration practices were evaluated to decide if he or she was ‘accurate’ (zabit).^[20]

Hadith transmitter criticism known as “ilm-al-jarah-wal-tadeel” is a sub-discipline within the discipline of hadith sciences. The discipline of narrator criticism began within the first three golden generations with great critics like Abd al-Raḥman ibn Mahdi (d. 198/814) and Yahya ibn Saeed al-Qattaan (d. 198/813) and is continuing even today.^[21]

The first step in this criticism was finding information about all the narrators in the sanad. A hadith whose sanad contains even one unknown narrator is not accepted as true unless corroborated.^[22] This first step, if applied to modern history, would wipe a large chunk of the world history we know today, as most of it has been narrated by unknown persons. The next step is to determine whether each narrator is adil or not. There are two conditions that must be met for this – 1) the narrator should be a Muslim and 2) He should be truthful. Determining whether he is a Muslim or not was quite easy, as the scholars were not concerned with any sectarian affiliation, and only checked whether the person claimed he was a Muslim or not.^[23] As to whether the person was truthful or not, and many ways were used for it. One is his general opinion in the public and second and more important all the narrations of the narrator would be collected, and his narrations would be checked against others narrating the same thing. If there were no or minor inconsistencies, he would be considered truthful but if they were major ones, he would be considered as unreliable. Imam Muslim describes the telltale signs of a weak hadith transmitter as someone who, “when his narrations are compared with those of people known for preservation [of hadith] and uprightness of character, his narrations do not concur with their narrations, or do so only rarely. If the majority of his hadiths are like that then he is rejected and not used in hadith.”^[24] Apart from these two main conditions, later further conditions were added to judge the character of the narrator – of age, of sound mind, free of sinful behavior and defects in honor,^[25]

The next step was to determine the zabt or accuracy of the narrator. There are two essentials in this – if the narrator is narrating from his memory, it should be sound and if he is narrating from his writing, he should know his letters correctly.^[26] This was also usually done by comparison of the narrations and statements of the truthful contemporaries of the narrator. The checking of zabt was necessary as it is quite possible that a formerly truthful and adil narrator transmits a wrong narration later on in his life due to improper memory because of old age or bouts of insanity. A very good example of the effect of zabt is on the book of hadith Al Mustadrak ala Sahihaen by Imam Hakim Nisharpuri in which he collected more hadiths on the same isnad as collected in Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim which as have been verified by the scholars to only contain authentic ahadith. As these books only contain verified isnad, it may seem quite obvious that other hadith collected with the same isnad would also be authentic. However, this is far from truth. Later scholars like Ad-Dhahbi have only authenticated half the ahadith from the book.^[27] This is because Al Hakim died after mere compilation of all the ahadith with those isnad and without having any time to revise the book. The result was that he didn’t have time to check for the zabt of the narrators. It is quite possible that many narrators who while narrating the hadith present in Bukhari and Muslim would have been zabit but later didn’t remain accurate while narrating the rejected hadith presented in the Mustadrak. If a narrator was both aadil and zabit, he is known as a thiqqa (authentic) narrator. A hadith is only considered as Sahih if all of its narrators are thiqqa i.e., fulfil the conditions of adl and zabt.

Scholars wrote entire books on narrators known as Kitab al Rijal (The books on narrators), in which they compiled biographies of the narrators and also contained critical analysis of the narrators. In case of conflicting analysis by different authors, the scholars would usually err on the side of caution and operate on the principle that ‘criticism supersedes approval provided that the reason for the criticism is provided.^[28] This shows the degree of caution and care taken by the scholars in authentication.

Step 3 – Al Ittisal (Contiguity of transmission):

The next step in authentication is verifying that the chain of transmission from the person narrating the hadith to the Prophet  ﷺ is connected. There is an entire science for the various terms used in narrations like akhbarna, samina, etc. but we will not go there for the sake of brevity.^[29] The main point here is that it was to be proved that every person narrating the hadith in the chain could have reasonably met with the person from whom he is narrating the hadith. Two important points are highlighted here-

Mursal narration: A hadith with a broken narration is known as mursal. For example, if a Tabaie directly narrates from the Prophet ﷺ the narration is broken as he never met the Prophet ﷺ. A mursal narration is considered unauthentic.

Tadlis: Tadlis occurred when a transmitter cited an isnad in an ambiguous manner, such as saying “so-and-so said,” implying that he had heard the hadith directly from the person when in fact he was omitting his immediate source for the hadith. The difference between a mursal narration and tadlis is that in the former, the chain is such that meeting of two narrators would not have been possible but in the latter, the meeting would have been possible. Thus, a Tabaie narrating directly from the Prophet ﷺ is a mursal narration as he could not have met the Prophet ﷺ. But a Tabaie narrating from a contemporary Sahabi directly while he heard the narration from another Tabaie and not the Sahabi himself but hid the name of the Tabaie is an example of tadlis. A question may arise here, wouldn’t the narrators engaged in tadlis be considered unauthentic as they lie about the source of the hadith. The hadith scholars have answered this question in the negative because the person reporting does not claim that they have heard the hadith from that source, and only say that it has been narrated by so and so. The usage of words while reporting is a key component here. The word Akhbarna means “I was informed by” showing that the person directly heard the narration from the person next in the chain, and if somebody did tadlis while using Akhbarna, he would be considered an untrustworthy narrator because of lying. Rather the word used in such narrations is ‘An’ which means ‘from’ or more clearly “It has been narrated from.” A narrator who is habitual in doing tadlis is known as a mudalis narrator. The narrations from such a narrator are usually considered authentic except when he narrates with ‘An,’ in which case, it is not considered authentic. Imam Shafi writes “Thus we said: We do not accept any hadeeth from any mudalis, until he says: ‘Haddathani’ or ‘Sami’tu’ (meaning until when he narrates a hadeeth in which he affirms of hearing that hadeeth directly from his Shaikh).”^[30] There are exceptions to this rule as have been given by Imam Shafi in this quote – 1) Another narration is obtained in which the entire isnad including the person omitted is mentioned; 2) Another narration is found in which the mudalis narrator doesn’t narrate with ‘An’ (Certifying that he heard the hadith directly from the person above him in the chain). The issue of tadlis and its result show the caution taken by the hadith scholars in verifying the authenticity of the hadith.

Corroboration

This is another method of checking authenticity though not necessary. If the same matn has been narrated by multiple companions and thereby forming distinct chains to the Prophet ﷺ, they are called as ‘shahid’ (witness) of each other. Multiple shawahid indicates the highest degree of authenticity in hadith. Similar narrations where there are multiple chains stemming from the same Sahabi are known as mutabah (parallelism). Such traditions also indicate a high degree of authenticity though not as high as in the first case.^[31]

Content or Matan criticism

Hadith scholars usually did not resort to criticism of the contents of the hadith. The reason is that it would have opened floodgates with people rejecting every narration which they find illogical owing to the inability to comprehend the same. As we have already said in the beginning, the Prophet ﷺ received revelations from Allah and as such could have said thing about the unseen which the average human mind fails to comprehend. Nonetheless, we know that early critics like Imam Bukhārī and Imam Muslim were willing and able to reject a hadith because they found its contents inherently flawed. In his entry on the transmitter ʿAwn ibn  ʿUmārah al-Qaysī in his ‘Great Book of Weak Transmitters,’ Imam Bukhārī noted that one of the unacceptable Ahadith he narrated was “The signs of the Day of Judgment are after the year 200/815.” He rejects the hadith because “these two hundred years have passed, and none of these signs have appeared.”^[32] In another work on transmitters, he criticizes Muhammad ibn Fadāʾ because he narrated the hadith “The Prophet forbade breaking apart Muslim coins in circulation.” He notes that Muslims did not mint coins until early Umayyad times; “they did not exist at the time of the Prophet  ﷺ.”^[33] Similarly, Imam Muslim rejects a hadith saying that there are five chapters of the Quran that are the equivalent of one-fourth of the holy book—a total of five-fourths. He calls this logical contradiction “reprehensible, and it is not conceivable that its meaning is correct.”^[34]

Hadith critics in the Sunni ahl al-ḥadīth tradition avoided relying on matn (textual) criticism because doing so would align them with the rationalist Muʿtazila, who judged hadiths by reason and the Quran rather than by transmission. The ahl al-hadth believed that authentic knowledge of the Prophet ﷺ’s teachings could only be preserved through the isnād (chain of transmission), not human reasoning. Admitting that a hadith could have a sound isnād but a flawed meaning would undermine this principle. Therefore, when they found a problematic meaning, they assumed the fault lay in the isnād, not the matn.^[35]

Conclusion

The science of hadith authentication stands as one of the most rigorous intellectual enterprises in human history. Each narration attributed to the Prophet  ﷺ undergoes a multilayered process of scrutiny before being accepted as authentic (sahih). From the verification of the isnād (chain of transmission) to the examination of each narrator’s integrity (ʿadālah) and precision (zabṭ), every link in the chain is carefully assessed through the discipline of ʿilm al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl (criticism and validation of narrators). The process further demands continuity (ittiṣāl) in the chain, ensuring that every narrator could have met and heard from the one above. This meticulous system, built upon centuries of scholarship, intellectual honesty, and divine reverence, reflects a level of scrutiny unparalleled in other historical traditions. Given the thoroughness of this process, it is highly improbable that any fabricated or unreliable report could survive the layers of verification imposed by scholars such as Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, and others. Hence, the authentic hadith corpus stands not on blind faith but on a carefully constructed foundation of critical methodology and historical precision.

1. Al Quran – 33:21 (Sahih International). ↑

2. Al Quran – 4:59. ↑

3. https://muslimunitycenter.org/what-is-islam/. ↑

4. The Battle of the Trench (Yawm al-Ahzab) was a time when a coalition of enemy tribes surrounded Medina, placing the Muslims under severe fear, hunger, and hardship. During this crisis, Muhammad ﷺ remained patient, steadfast, and actively worked to defend the community while trusting completely in Allah. In Surah Al-Ahzab (33:21), Allah commanded the believers to take the Prophet ﷺ as their example because he demonstrated perfect patience, perseverance, courage, and reliance on Allah. ↑

5. Tafsir Ibn Kathir – 33:21. ↑

6. https://islamqa.info/en/answers/77243/the-saheeh-sunnah-is-wahy-(revelation)-from-allah. ↑

7. Al Quran – 53:3-4. ↑

8. Maarif-ul-Quran – 53:3-4. ↑

9. Sunan Abi Dawood – 4604 (Authenticated by Shiekh Albani). ↑

10. Jami at Tirmidhi – 2664 (Authenticated by Shiekh Albani). ↑

11. https://ddeku.edu.in/Files/2cfa4584-5afe-43ce-aa4b ad936cc9d3be/Custom/Meaning%20and%20Place%20of%20Hadith%20in%20Islam.pdf. ↑

12. Ibid. ↑

13. Al Quran – 15:9. ↑

14. Sahih Muslim – 6 (int.). ↑

15. Sahih Muslim – 15 (int.). ↑

16. Abd Allāh b. al-Zubayr al-Humaydī, al-Musnad, ed. Habīb al-Rahmān al-Aʿzamī (Karachi: al-Majlis al-‘Ilmī, 1963), 1:2.  ↑

17. Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī, Muṣannaf, ed. Habīb al-Rahmān al-Aʿzamī (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1983), 10, 381.  ↑

18. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/authenticating-hadith-and-the-history-of-hadith-criticism#ftnt_ref6. ↑

19.  Jonathan Brown, “How We Know Early Hadīth Critics Did Matn Criticism and Why It’s So Hard to Find,” Islamic Law and Society 15 (2008): 170–71.  ↑

20. https://youtu.be/SkZXBufsWIY?si=FBMjkTI0PSAB6IvJ. ↑

21. Supra note 18. ↑

22. More on corroboration later. ↑

23. Supra note 18; Sectarian affiliations were sometimes important in determining the truthfulness of the narrators. ↑

24. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, muqaddimah [introduction].  ↑

25. Supra note 18. ↑

26. Supra note 20. ↑

27. Supra note 18. ↑

28. Supra note 18. There are however various exceptions to this rule. For detailed information, read the article provided in the footnote. ↑

29. For more information, refer to note 18. ↑

30. https://thewayofsalafiyyah.com/2015/05/18/principles-of-hadeeth-and-the-ruling-on-the-narration-of-mudallis-with-an/. ↑

31. Supra note 18. ↑

32. Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl, 3:306.  ↑

33. Al-Bukhārī, al-Tārīkh al-awsaṭ, ed. Muhammad al-Luhaydān (Riyadh: Dār al-Sumayʿī, 1998), 2:109–110. ↑

34. Muslim, Kitāb al-tamyīz, ed. Muhammad al-Aʿzamī (Riyadh: Matbaʿat Jāmiʿat Riyāḍ, [1975]), 147. ↑

35. Supra note 18. ↑