Thursday, November 27, 2008
My quest in becoming a better muslimah through the readings of the authentic hadith
Posted by Inspired Muslimah at 10:56 PM
Surat al Fatiha 5-7: "Thee (alone) we worship; Thee alone we ask for help. Show us the straight path, The path of those whom Thou hast favored; Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who went astray."
This is what we all strive for; direction in the right path. Recently I have been finding solace in relying on the Quran and authentic hadiths. With my limited knowledge of Islam, I find the hadiths to be the perfect bridge from the Quran though I know the Quran is the only perfect book written since it is from Allah (s.w.t). I am on a journey to learn as much about Islam as I can because while I enjoy learning from others, its time to start exploring myself.
According to the Cambridge history of Iran there are six major hadiths collections. Al-Sihah al-Sittah, is literally the translation for authentic six.
According to University of southern California, compendium of Muslim text, they state there are 4:
Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim,Sunan Abu-Dawud, and Malik Muwatta.
I will start my personal journey with Sahih Bukhari and will strive to share my knowledge with others, inshallah.
BACKGROUND
Sahih Bukhari is a collection of sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), also known as the sunnah. The reports of the Prophet's sayings and deeds are called ahadith. Bukhari lived a couple of centuries after the Prophet's death and worked extremely hard to collect his ahadith. Each report in his collection was checked for compatibility with the Qur'an, and the veracity of the chain of reporters had to be painstakingly established. Bukhari's collection is recognized by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world to be one of the most authentic collections of the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh).
Bukhari (full name Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ismail bin Ibrahim bin al-Mughira al-Ja'fai) was born in 194 A.H. and died in 256 A.H. His collection of hadith is considered second to none. He spent sixteen years compiling it, and ended up with 2,602 hadith (9,082 with repetition). His criteria for acceptance into the collection were amongst the most stringent of all the scholars of ahadith.
It is important to realize, however, that Bukhari's collection is not complete: there are other scholars who worked as Bukhari did and collected other authentic reports. Sahih Bukhari is divided into nine volumes, each of which has several books.
Labels: advice, Hadith, islam, New muslims, quran
2 comments:
Sahih Bukhari, and Muslim are the two I usually stick to but many other hadiths with reliable translation are also acceptable. If you want to know the autenticity of a hadith I do have the email of a strict Sheikh (I don't ask him for rulings [I prefer to consult somone studied in fiqh rather than than the sahabiyat and seerah for istilall]but I know he studied the authenticty of narrations [this was his major per se in becoming an Imam] if you would like to ever find out if one is consider weak, false, sahih, and why.
As for how I gain the context, first I ask for ALL hadith on the subject (I then find out how reliable they are as sources---their chain of narration, and when historically they were from in the seerah of the Prophet's S.A.W life). After these two things are done, I find the original source of the hadith, and read its translation in Arabic (I have my husband translate word for word for me to make sure the English translator did not add text (in the subject of hijab and jilbab most translators add things about covering the face and hands when face and hand are never used in the original arabic). I rad what the scholar who recorded before the hadith, and after it, because in the case of the argument for niqab being fard, they often cite the green "veil" Aisha R.A narrates a woman was wearing to prove that not only did the Prophet's wive cover their faces, or about it is best to ask for things behind a screen. If one reads the whole accounts of these two hadiths Aisha R.A says the woman with the veil has green skin, and this would not be visible if she wre fully veiled, or that in the screen hadith, the Prophet S.A.W encouraged women to use henna to make their hands different from the hands of men (so obviously gloves were never a requirement of hijab). Sorry for writing so much! If only I'd studied prayer as much as hijab:D
Thanks for help sis and please write as much as you want. I am going to follow your advice word from word as to how I will begin my study of the ahadith. I never looked at it from that approach. I have some one who can translate for me as well so that is a good idea. Thanks sis
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