Message #11032

[Heba E. Husseyn]

Walaikum Salaam and hi sis!  Aw, that discussion must have been some headache!!   

Asma-ur-Rijal is just another stylish expression to dupe the blind Hadithers.  The "ulemas" call it "an unique art of research on people."  The references or information for determining the correctness of a Hadith i.e. Asma-ur-Rijal, are usually taken from various books written by the medieval imams, often relating to the biography or part of the biography of famous personalities.  Whatever it researches about the people, whether their identity was correct or whether they were who they claimed to be or what might have been their social, political, legal status etc. etc. is not the point.  Even if these facts are correctly determined, it has no bearing on the authenticity of the Hadith itself.  What needs to be the focus of attention while verifying the correctness of the Hadith is the substance contained in each Hadith.  If that's humbug, then hell with asma-ur-rijal and hell with isnad.  That hadith is garbage. Period.

Moreover, most Hadith compilers and the Hadith followers themselves do not care a fig about asma-ur-rijal.  For example there's one asma-ur-rijal I know of which is correct but the Hadith narrations ignore it.  Ayesha’s biography through accounts of Asma-ur-Rijal reveals that she was 17 when married to the Prophet and 19 when she came to live with him.  Historically and realistically this is quite definitely correct.  But this isn't accepted by any of the Hadith narrations.  There was a man by the name of Imam Waliuddin Muhammad Abdullah Al-Khateeb who was supposed to be an expert on asma-ur-rijal i.e. verifying the truth about people.  In his mishaat asma-ur-rijal he has noted  that Aisha's older sister, Asma, was 10 years older than Aisha.  He further notes that Asma died in the year 73 A.H. when she was 100 years old.  From this, other important issues have been computed.  When the Prophet migrated to Medinah, was the start of the Islamic Hijri calendar taken as 1 A.H.  If Asma was 100 years old during the time of her death in 73 A.H., then her age can be easily be  calculated at the time of Hijrah which would be 100 minus 73 = 27 years.  If Asma was 10 years older than her younger sister, Aisha, then during Hijrah Aisha would be 17. And since Aisha is said to have begun living with the Prophet (pbuh) two years after the nikah or marriage, that means she must have been at least 19 years old when she went to live with the Prophet.  But all Hadith narrations have ignored this asma-ur-rijal and insist that she was 7 years old during the nikah and 9 years old when she went to live with the Prophet.   Totally false.

If you check the writings of the Hadith promoters, their sea of exaggerated praises about the liars who have compiled the different Hadith collections will first make you sick and will then make you roll in laughter. 

For example I quote the following which is an excerpt from the publisher's forward who has compiled the Hadith collection of Sunan ibn Majah, another pocket full of tall lies.  It goes without saying that the heightened boast and the embellishment as stated below concerning the works of the Hadith compilers are bang opposite of the truth. 

"It is a well-known fact that the painstaking efforts of scholars gave Ahadith a high degree of reliability next to Qur'an. When the Ahadith had been read over carefully, revised, corrected and expounded in the light of the principles of Hadith sciences like Jarh (invalidation), Ta'dil (validation), and Asma'ur-Rijal, the stage for the recording of Ahadith was set. Thanks to the exhausting efforts of Hadith scholars and their deep sense of responsibility, the Muslim nation got, in addition to Sihah Sittah (the Sound Six books of Hadith) a vast treasure that included Musannafat (Hadith compilations according to subject-headings), Jawdmi' (comprehensive books of Ahadith), Sunan (collections of legal and doctrinal Ahadith), Masanid (Hadith compilations according to complete chains), Ma'ajim (compilations arranged according to names of Companions or regions or names of teachers of compilers)" ..

and the hilarious blah blah blah goes on and on shamelessly without the slightest of concern that such formalities are futile if the contents of these Ahadith violate or contradict the Quran.  Regardless of asma-ur-rijal or isnad etc. the sort of bullshit which the contents of 90% of Ahadith consist of, cannot possibly be called "sahih" which means "correct."  The whole world knows that they're anything but "correct."  Forget about all those bombastic expressions to dupe the naive faithfuls like "science, physics or chemistry" of Hadith.  Concentrate on what the contents say.  Even if a Hadith conforms to the tests mentioned above but it's substance goes flatly against the dictates of the Quran, that "science" becomes useless and such a hadith has only one destination - the gutters.  It has to be dumped deep inside the gutter.  The real and only test of a Hadith lies in its level of compatibility with the Quran.  The Quran is the sole Criterion of right and wrong as confirmed by Allah Almighty Himself.  There can be no arguments after that.

I would also like to add that by now the deceit and fabrication of the Hadith culture has become so well established that even those 10% or 5% that might sound decent cannot be accepted as the "sayings of the Prophet."  It must be known that even these few decent ones have the same source.  However, I have no objections if these few are retained, but let NOT anyone attribute them to the Prophet (pbuh).  That wouldn't be right at all.  Either the source should be officially stated by mentioning the names of the narrators or compilers or just let the source remain as some anonymous persons who came a century after the passing away of the Prophet.


To read about the discrepancy of the much talked about isnad, check our post:
Ever thought of the fallibility of isnad