Page 110 - Bigotry: The Dark Danger

Bigotry:
The Dark Danger

Where Did Fabricated Hadiths Come from?

The words claimed to have been said by our Prophet (pbuh)

and accounts regarded as representing the practices of our Prophet
(pbuh) were written down only centuries after his demise. Of the
authors of the famous Kutub al-Sittah (The Six Books), consisting of
six books of hadiths, Bukhari died in Hijri 256, Muslim in 261, Tir-
midhi in 279, Abu Dawud in 275, an-Nasai in 303 and Ibn al-Majah

in 273. Furthermore, Shiite hadith books are different, and some
Sunnis and Shiites do not recognize one another's books of hadiths.
The Shiite books of hadiths were prepared more recently. Of the
famous Shiite collectors of hadiths, al-Kulayni died in Hijri 329,
Babawayh in 381, Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Hassan Tusi in 411 and
al-Murtadha in 436.

Before Bukhari, no attempt was made to differentiate between

hadiths on the basis of their degrees of validity. The efforts to divide
them into "trustworthy" and "weak" began with Bukhari. However,
examination of the hadiths shows that these endeavors were unsuc-
cessful. Not only weak hadiths, but even totally fabricated ones were
disseminated under the name of Islam and increasingly grew in
numbers.

It was impossible to prevent that state of affairs at that time

because six or seven generations had passed from the death of our
Prophet (pbuh) until the writing of these books, and the famous
books of hadiths in which these hadiths are related involve chains of
transmission to, and from, six or seven people. When the hadiths in
question were narrated, even the link after the link after the link after
the Prophet (pbuh) had passed on. In other words, the people who

could have confirmed whether or not the people who handed those
hadiths on were speaking the truth were themselves dead.

108