Islam's Reformers .pdf

The book Usûl al-hadîth by the great scholar ImâmMuhammad al-Birghiwî is very valuable. Dâwûd al-Karsî wrote acommentary to this book in 1251 A.H. (1835) which wascommented again by Yûsuf Effendî of Harput in 1292 (1875)and was printed in Istanbul a year later. The following passageis translated from that Arabic work:“All the hadîths reported by a person who was known tohave lied when reporting any hadîth are called mawdû’ ormuftarî hadîths, for there was the probability that all the hadîthshe reported were made-up, slanderous. As it is seen, in usûl alhadîth,a hadîth called mawdû’ does not have to be made-up,for, even if the person who was caught in his lying with onehadîth repented and became pious, all the hadîths he reportedwould still be said to be mawdû’. The book Tadrîb by Imâm as-Suyûtî and also many of the hadîth scholars say that this is so.The heretical groups, in order to lead Muslims out of the rightpath, and apostates, in order to trick Muslims, invented hadîths.And some tekke shaikhs invented hadîths in order to encourageto worship and to frighten against sinning. It is harâm to inventhadîths with such good intentions, and it is kufr if it is intendedto trick Muslims. The hadîths praising the sûras in the tafsîrbooks of as-Sa’labî, al-Wâhidî, az-Zamakhsharî, al-Baidâwî andAbû ‘s-Su’ûd are claimed to be mawdû’ by some ignorantpeople. It is obvious that the hadîths that praise the sûras al-Fâtiha, al-An’âm, al-Kahf, Yâ Sîn, ad-Dukhân al-Mulk, az-Zilzâl,an-Nasr, al-Kâfirûn al-Ikhlâs, al-Falaq and an-Nâs are sahîh.The authors of these books quoted in their books the hadîthsthat were claimed to be mawdû’ because they considered themas sahîh, hasan or at least da’îf, or because they had conveyedthem just as they were from the hadîth scholars whom theydepended on, or because they would not admit that they weremawdû’. With the help of the fairly certain presumption, it canbe decided if a hadîth is sahîh; it cannot be known for certain.There are many hadîths which the majority of hadîth scholarssaid to be sahîh but which other scholars of this branch did notsay so. Many others were not able to understand whether theywere sahîh or not, for it was very difficult to understand if ahadîth was sahîh. It could be understood only with presumption;it could not be understood certainly. In order to make sure that ahadîth is made-up, one of its narrators had to say, “I inventedthis”; or it should have been known for certain that the person- 279 -