The documentation of Hadith
“Chinese Whispers“
All the documentation of hadith present today, and which is regarded as ‘sahih‘, i.e. authentic, was collected over two hundred years after the death of the prophet Muhammad. The Prophet prohibited the writing of his hadith, and as a result, all the four khalifas who succeeded the Prophet also prohibited the writing of any hadith about the Prophet
(see: History of Hadith)
The prophet Muhammed himself when he died had no idea about any hadiths books.
We have more than one hadith in which the Prophet ordered the true believers not to write anything from him other than the Quran.
(1) Ibn Saeed Al-Khudry reported that the messenger of God had said,
“Do not write anything from me except Quran. Anyone who wrote anything other than the Quran shall erase it.” [Ahmed, Vol. 1, Page 171, and Sahih Moslim, Zuhd, Book 42, Number 7147]
(2) From Ibn Hanbal;
Zayd Ibn Thabit (The Prophet’s closest revelation writer) visited the Khalifa Mu’aawiyah (more than 30 years after the Prophet’s death), and told him a story about the Prophet. Mu’aawiyah liked the story and ordered someone to write it down. But Zayd said. ” the messenger of God ordered us never to write anything of his hadith”.
(3) The famous book, “Ulum Al-Hadith” by Ibn Al-Salah, reports a hadith by Abu Hurayra in which Abu Hurayra said the Messenger of God came out to us while we were writing his hadiths and said; “What are you writing?” We said, “hadiths that we hear from you, messenger of God.” He said, “A book other than the book of God?” We said, “Should we talk about you?” He said, Talk about me, that would be fine, but those who will lie will go to Hell. Abu Hurayra said, we collected what we wrote of hadiths and burned them in fire.
(4) In the famous book, “Taq-yeed Al-Ilm”, Abu Hurayra said, the Messenger of God was informed that some people are writing his hadiths. He took to the pulpit of the mosque and said, “What are these books that I heard you wrote? I am just a human being. Anyone who has any of these writings should bring it here. Abu Hurayra said we collected all these and burned them in fire.
(5) Ibn Hanbal in his Musnad book, narrates a hadith in which Abdullah Ibn Omar said, “the Messenger of God one day came out to us as if he was going to depart us soon and said, “When I depart you (die), hold to the book of God, prohibit what it prohibits and accept as halal what it makes halal.”
(6) Again, in the book “Taq-yeed Al-Ilm”, Abu Saeed Al-Khudry said, ” I asked the Messenger of God a permission to write his hadiths, but he refused to give me a permission.”
(7) The farewell Pilgrimage of the prophet Muhammed is a corner stone in the Muslim history. The Final Sermon given by the Prophet during this pilgrimage was witnessed by thousands of Muslims. There are however three versions of this sermon in the hadiths books. This by itself reflects the degree of corruption of the hadith books as this is the most witnessed speech of the prophet Muhammed.
1- First version, ” I left for you what if you hold on to, you will never be misguided, the book of God and my family. Moslim 44/4, Nu2408; Ibn Hanbal 4/366; darimi 23/1, nu 3319.
This is the version made up by the Shi’te Muslims.
2-Second version, “I left for you what if you hold on to, you will never be misguided, the book of God and my sunnah” . Muwatta, 46/3
This is the version made up by the Sunni Muslims.
3- Third version, “I left for you what if you hold on to, you will never be misguided, the book of God.” Moslim 15/19, nu 1218; Ibn Majah 25/84, Abu dawud 11/56.
This last version is the version hated by the Sunni and Shiite Muslims alike. This is the only version which conforms with the repeated assertion in the Quran that Muhammed’s message was only the Quran. Many Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims do not even know that this version of the sermon exists. In reality, they do not want to know, the truth hurts
Now to the “Chinese whispers” ……….
The process of corruption of any piece of information through the verbal transmission of that information through a number of people is what is called “Chinese Whispers“.
The following is an example:
The lecturer in a college course was talking about the verbal transfer of information, demonstrating the effect of verbal transfer of information on altering an original message.
He asked 10 people to come forward from his audience. He then asked 9 of them to leave the hall, and then gave the one in the hall a small piece of paper to read out to the audience …..
The man read the following extract from the Bible :
“After this Jesus went down to Capernaun in company with his mother and followers and his disciples, but they did not stay there long. As it was near the time of the Jewish passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There he found in the temple the dealers in cattle, sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Jesus made a whip of cords and drove them out of the temple, sheep, cattle, and all.”
After that, the lecturer took the piece of paper from the first man and put it in his pocket. He then called the 2nd man in, and asked the first man to repeat to the 2nd man the words that he had just read out from the paper.
The man said the following:
“After this Jesus went down to Capernaun in company with his mother and his disciples, and they stayed a long time. After that Jesus went back to Jerusalem. Beside the temple he saw people who were buying cattle and pigeons, he also saw money-changers. Jesus kicked them all out.”
Now the lecturer asked the third man to come in and asked the second man to repeat what he had just heard from the 1st man. He in turn said:
“After this Jesus went down to Jerusalem with his mother and some of his disciples and stayed for a couple of days …. After that Jesus went back to the temple. Beside the temple he saw people who were buying cattle and pigs, he also saw money-changers. Jesus shouted at them and told them they were wicked.”
Once again the next man came in , and the message was repeated as follows:
“One day Jesus was in Jerusalem with his mother where he was was for many years …. but one day Jesus left Jerusalem and went to a far away. Beside the temple he saw people who were buying horses and pigs, he shouted at them for having so much money and told them that money was wicked.”
By the time the next man narrated the same story it became:
“Jesus was born in Jerusalem and lived with his mother for many years there …. one day Jesus went to the market place in Jerusalem and in the market he saw people who were riding horses and selling pigs, he shouted at them for having so much animals and money asked them to give their money to charity for it is wicked.”
In turn, the next man said the following:
“Jesus was born in Jerusalem and lived with his mother all his life …. one day Jesus went to the market place in Jerusalem and in the market he saw people who were riding horses and selling pigs, he shouted at them for their cruelty to the animals and asked them to give up all their money or to make sure their animals are well fed.”
In turn, the next man said the following:
“Jesus was born in Jerusalem and lived near a market place where there were lots of people mistreating the poor pigs and whipping their horses ……… one day Jesus went to the market place and saw those wicked people who were only interested in selling their pigs, they were very loud and rude to him, so he did not reply back but cursed their money and left …”
The reader is now invited to go back and read the first account of this story and then once again read this last one which was only the 6th new narration!
What is also important to note is that this incident took place in a period of 10 minutes in a lecture, which would mean all participants would have good reason to remember the content of the message. What would be the case of thousands of hadith, most of them many pages long that were transmitted through many people and over a period of 200 years?
We must also note that the ten men in the lecture were all honestly trying to repeat the story as best as they can remember. We cannot accuse any of them of deliberately trying to corrupt the story they were narrating.
What this indicates is that the corruption in transmission is not due to bad character or the dishonesty of the narrator, but rather due to the altering of the facts through a sequence of verbal transmissions. These transmissions were from humans who cannot be expected to have tight proof memories.
Sadly, the scholars have assessed the authenticity of any hadith through a character reference of the narrators! If the narrator was of good character then they would label the hadith as authentic! How naive is this?
A story narrated across 200 years and by 6 to 10 different men in a chain, cannot in any way be authentic.
We should not be surprised to see God clearly telling us in the Quran to follow no hadith other than the Quran.
“Which hadith, other than this (Quran), do they uphold?” 77:50
“These are God’s revelations that we recite to you truthfully. In which hadith other than God and His revelations do they believe?” 45:6
“Among the people, there are those who uphold baseless hadith, and thus divert others from the path of God without knowledge, and take it in vain. These have incurred a shameful retribution.” 31:6
“God has revealed herein the best hadith; a book that is consistent, and points out both ways.” 39:23
“Let them produce a hadith like this, if they are truthful.” 52:34
“Therefore, let Me deal with those who reject this hadith; we will lead them on whence they never perceive.” 68:44
For a detailed historical account of the compilation of hadith please check the article: The History of Hadith
Quranic Truth 