In my studies in the science of 'Ilm al-Jarh wa al-Ta'dil (the evaluation of isnad and ahadith), I have come to some insights that might benefit muslims that read this.
I find that we as muslims are divided in sectarian groups, while this isn't necessarily the case when it comes to ideology.
So it got me thinking, why is that? I believe one of those reasons is that our information stream to what is truth and false (haq and baatil) might be compromised.
In fact, I would argue it has been compromised since civil unrest broke out in the ranks when our prophet, peace and blessings upon him, passed away.
We as muslims must understand one thing and one thing only. The quran is Allah's word. And his last prophet is his messenger that he chose to inform us.
The sahaba made shifts to inform each other of what they had heard and seen in the presence of the Prophet.
So the chains started. The sunnah became diffused in a way that was acceptable (how ahle sunnah understands the fiqh of the 4 madhahib - and how we accepted those four as cannon).
The system of isnad has been conceived.
When fintah broke out, the highest of the ranks of the sahaba said:
name to us you men; those who belong to Ahl-al Sunnah, their ahadith were accepted and those who were innovators their ahadith were neglected.
After war they became more cautious about sources of information.
After the first century the science was developed enough to differentiate in the isnad system.
Different people had different methods in enquiring about the isnad within the first century.
If you go further in time, the transmitters increase in the next generations.
Geographical location of transmitters, for example, is a parameter defined to measure statistical anomalies.
If we take a random hadith, e.g.:
- - The prophet of Allah said something
- - 5 people heard it, of who we know they are trustworthy and accurate (the terms 'adl and dabt can be researched for further references).
- - Of these 5 people, they narrate it further to the second generation, to let's say 18 people.
- - of these 18 people, the narrators grow into a substantial sum of a third generation, which can be measured in charts.
A note to highlight: arabs were oral narrators, as opposed to their counter west european civilizations that relied more in codification.
This caused a flourishing of isnad and diffusion of ahadith. The reason is because every narrator and thus his narration, is a narration itself.
So all in all we have approx. 200.000 narrations that are out there. All of those are scrutinized on it's accuracy and trustworthiness ('adl and dabt).
If a narrator is 'aadil (trustworthy) and daabit (accurate), the classification of it's narration becomes acceptable.
For scale (i don't remember the exact number exactly) the narrations in bukhari and muslim are a total of 8.000 altogether.
Here comes the difficult part and the answer as to why the muslims on this planet are many in sectarian names.
Someone who may call themselves salafist/shia/progressive or whatever, may ask; "well, what is acceptable anyway?".
And I wouldn't blame you, because in this science, it is a very exhaustive yet (inshallah) rewarding topic.
By comparing every chain (i.e. every narrator on trustworthiness and accuracy in narration), it is clear to see errors and forgeries in narrations.
I've mentioned 'adl and dabt earlier. It would be statistically noticeable if hadith were forged on a large scale.
One of the parameters that measure statistical anomalies are the geographical location of narrators.
E.g. if we take a group of 100 narrators of the third generation, it isn't uncommon to see that they are scattered in such a geographical sense that you must acknowledge they could not have contacted each other to collaborate a forgery.
The result would be that of these 100, there would be independent narrators that would strengthen the original hadith's (plural, since every narrator produces a new narration in the isnad system) of the second generation. And this confirms the accuracy in the first generation.
Another parameter is the trustworthiness in political agenda of the narrators.
If we see a person that, due to civil unrest, were to forge a narration to politically advance his stance, this would affect the trustworthiness of this narrator.
There are of course other parameters, but these two will suffice to get a picture of the type of information we're dealing with and approximating its statistical validity.
This is the reason why there are nuance differences in the madhaahib. From differences in fiqh on where to place the hands during the prayer to differences in how to perform ablution. These differences are all accepted in canonical sense.
The reason is that the source in difference is approximated by the science of studying the isnad. And don't think for a second the muhaditheen (those who study narrations) are sleeping, for they take into account that narrators also travel and seek other narrators.
This makes it extremely complex where you would need a 3d graph to truly appreciate which parameter connects to another parameter.
The people of that time (second and third generations of muslims) documented it orally and some jotted it down.
After 200 years after the demise of the prophet, peace and blessing upon him, the codification took its course and due to this, we have narrations. If you study them academically within the context provided by the leading scholars, they are close to us in acceptability as if the prophet said them to us himself.
Please refer to Bayquniya for a summary of some terminology in the sciences of isnad
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