# How should hadith be evaluated, and did the companions ever misreport the Prophet?

*A balanced approach to hadith, and how Aisha corrected the companions' narrations*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/ksqksrxndnw/s/14/
- Date: 2020-04-22 · Kind: discussion · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Shaykh Dr. Shabir Ally | Juxtaposing the Quran, Jumbling Aisha's age & Jinn Possession | MindTrap#16 (1:05:05–1:11:36)
- Status: a view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsQKsrXndNw&t=3905s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/ksqksrxndnw/

**Topics:** Text criticism, reason and the Quran; Reports demeaning women; Guest conversations

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Hadith should be judged one by one against the principles of the religion, observation and reason, as the earliest Muslims did before reason was sidelined. Aisha herself rejected several companions' reports, such as the dog, woman and donkey breaking the prayer, the dead punished by weeping, and the bad omen in a woman, showing how reports were misrelayed.

## Longer summary

The guest says his own approach to hadith is balanced: neither accepting them all nor throwing them out wholesale, but evaluating them one by one by the principles Mufti Abu Layth delineated, that a report should not contradict the major principles of the religion, which are known from many narrations and the Quran, nor empirical observation, nor reason. He says the earliest Muslims did this rational evaluation of content, but it was abandoned when the champions of tradition saw reason as antithetical to it, so that when a report was unreasonable even to them they looked for a fault in the chain instead, as Jonathan Brown has shown in an article. As a result later scholars accepted narratives that Aisha herself had rejected: when male companions related that a dog, a woman and a donkey break the prayer, she objected that they were putting women in the same breath as dogs and donkeys; when Ibn Umar related that the dead are punished because of their relatives' weeping, she said he had erred or forgotten, that the Prophet had said the dead is punished while the family weeps, and cited the Quran that no soul bears another's burden. Mufti adds that a scholar wrote a whole book on Aisha's corrections of the companions [?], and gives the report of a bad omen in three things, a house, a horse and a woman, which Aisha condemned, saying the Prophet had been quoting what the people of the jahiliyya used to say; he says this gives context to how hadith are sometimes misrelayed, and the guest agrees that narrators who heard part of a discourse passed on a misunderstanding.

## Sources and names cited

- Dr Shabir Ally (guest)
- Jonathan Brown
- Aisha
- Ibn Umar
- report: three things break the prayer the dog the woman and the donkey
- report: the dead are punished because of the weeping of their living relatives
- report: bad omen is in three things the house the horse and the woman
- al-Ijaba, on Aisha's corrections of the companions [?]
- a hadith must not contradict reason, the Quran and established Sunnah, or uproot a principle of Islam
- judging a report by its content (matn)

## Transcript (machine tier, 1:05:05–1:11:36)

[1:04:25] Willam you know Adele soon and well mu by you know that these three things but they actually mentioned let me buy in a Malayali film on all um naka de lo soon then we will accept it so now I'm just saying that that's but I do it except that other people obviously don't take such a radical stance when it comes to Bihari I've been a bit outspoken and critical on the Bihari thing I'm not sure if you've ever taken such a stance yourself share for or not really evil well I'm not studied as you

[1:05:04] are chef and the details of the hadith transmission and so on and especially as you mentioned about the manuscript of ali muhammad wa hari and how the rags actually come down to us but in my own approach to hadith which i I prefer to research was a balanced approach to hadith not accepting them all as they are and at the same time not throwing them out wholesale but taking them one by one and and evaluating them based on these principles which you have so eloquently delineated in mentioning the Arabic terms they should not contradict one of the major principles of our religion because those principles are

[1:05:44] known not from one narration they are known from many narrations and from the Quran itself they should not negate what what is known from empirical observations they should not go against reason more generally and and and so on so it did this kind of rational evaluation of the content of the Hadees this is what some of the earliest Muslims did but which we fail to do later on because there was this dichotomy between followers of the tradition and followers of reason and and those who championed the tradition saw reason as as something to be antithetical to the tradition so they

[1:06:24] didn't want to use reason in evaluating the traditions and as a result if something was really unreasonable to even to them they would try to find some fault in the in the chain of narrators and discounted on that basis Jonathan Brown has actually shown this to be the case in one of his articles regarding this but but by and large they did not want to use reason as you said this is the only religious community so disparage yeah and so they tended to accept things just because these were

[1:07:02] narrated by a reliable chain of narrators but when we look at those contents today we can see that if this was presented to and in fact we do see that there are narratives which came to be accepted later on by this great hadith scholars narratives that were rejected by the mother of the believers I share a jalaja on him case in point that there is a hadith that says that three things break the prayer the dog the woman and the donkey so when I should add yellow and have heard male companions of the prophet sallallaahu Selim relating this she said you guys are equating us with dogs and donkeys so you can yes meet she's not

[1:07:41] accepting this as a narrative from the Prophet Allah and she says it hostile a bit somehow like what a damn thing to say like how do you kind of equate us women to donkeys and dogs even though they weren't equated but they were adding them in it's like these in the same grade I'm the same price yeah say these things so if you you know putting us in the same yeah yeah putting us in the same breath like in a way yeah and it is noted that if norm are who was one of the prized companions of the prophet Isaiah cinnamon one of the most reliable sources of hadith of the Prophet

[1:08:20] sallallahu sallam he related that the dead are being punished due to the weeping of their living relatives and when I shared a deal on heard that she said no above the rock man which is her way of referring to him either aired or he forgot that what the Prophet SAW Silla must have said was that you know that the people are are weeping while the dead is being punished it's not that he's being punished as a result of the family weeping and then as a substantiation for the position that she

[1:08:57] was expounding and she said husband ah kita allah the book about is sufficient for us and then she recited the verse that says as they realize it was wrong so the unsold does not get punished or does not bear the burden of another soul so that idea that debt is being punished because of the weeping of the living relatives and and she thought that and she declared quite clearly that if nama must have made a mistake or he forgot another sim belong to that ship that she I mean she's amended made many amendments and

[1:09:36] certain scholars have even written a whole book at this particular book I've got called I think it's called a Harper will each other but it's it's about the Easter cut of I share of the eleven half on the companions but an interesting one just to add to that is the hadith that is transmitted I believe it's by Abu Huraira or the Allah and that you have a bad omen in three and it mentions that I shouldn't feel Allah that there is like a kind of we take for people who you know that you kind of take superstition but this bad luck so to speak in these

[1:10:13] three things that Fidel and for us that the house the horse and a woman that some women are unlucky now she I shall deal of on her amends that and she kind of condemns that transmission and says that it was actually the Prophet saying to someone that the people of jahiliya used to say she says that he heard somebody saying something and and he followed by commenting oh the people of jahiliyyah used to say that a shortened

[1:10:51] faith Allah that bad luck is in three things it's in a house a horse and a woman not that the Prophet himself said he he was quoting in saying oh do you know the people of JEA used to say and this is so important because what it gives so much context to how hadith or sometimes miss relay miss conveyed yeah yes yes we have narratives which that a person came in in the middle of the prophets discourse the lolly was at them and he only related the part that he heard and of course the part that he

[1:11:29] heard taken as a part away from the whole it happens to be a misunderstanding so so in the end oh I think you know the question was people are gonna think that if we if we take the the positions that we have taken here that we are somehow like against bihari or we are disbelieving in something that is essential to the face or something like this and the answer to that is no we are actually first of all giving great credit to the great scholars among Hardware I'm Allah he did the great work

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment KsQKsrXndNw/s/14. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/ksqksrxndnw/s/14/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.