Status of Hadith Sciences Before the Sahihayn
The generations before Bukhari and Muslim were rich in their evaluation of narrators and analysis of the subtle defects and contradictions by different students in hadith.
If you opened any book of hadith narrators today, you would find judgements from scholars like Imam Ahmad, Yahya ibn Maeen, Ali ibn al-Madini, and other teachers of Bukhari and Muslim about most narrators.
There was also much discussion around collecting the chains of hadith to evaluate which chain is most reliable by these major figures in hadith sciences.
As such, Bukhari and Muslim did not invent the evaluation of narrators or the analysis of chains but rather inherited a rich tradition before them. Then, they built on top of that tradition two collections that symbolized the culmination of generations of collection, compilation, and analysis.
How the Sahihayn Set the Gold Standard for Sahih
Before the advent of Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, scholars largely divided hadith into two categories: 1) Authentic (called Sahih or Hasan), or 2) Inauthentic. So, any hadith narrated by honest narrators (whether Sahih or Hasan) with a connected chain that was not clearly contradicted by other students was considered authentic.
When Bukhari and Muslim wrote their respective Sahihs, they set themselves a higher standard of authenticity than typically required (even by themselves). As such, you even find hadith in other books of Bukhari, even those he called authentic, that he did not include in Sahih Bukhari.
They set this higher standard with three major changes to the typical way scholars classified authenticity:
- They required the best narrators, not Hasan narrators
- They required the best chains (those who were good at narrating from particular teachers), not just connected chains: For example, A student could be reliable in general but not from a particular teacher because he did not take proper notes from him.
- They raised the bar for evaluating subtle defects and contradictions between students
With these higher standards, Bukhari and Muslim collected authentic hadith to a level above the typical that others required. As such, their books became the gold standard of Sahih to the point that the very definition of Sahih was tailored after them to match their standards, and the lower term Hasan was invented for hadith that did not match their standards but were still considered authentic by other scholars.
Other Sahih Claims
Other scholars wrote Sahih collections after Bukhari and Muslim: Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn Hibban. Neither of them met the standards of Bukhari and Muslim.
Al-Hakim wrote the Mustadrak where he claimed to collect hadith that meet the standards of Bukhari and Muslim which they did not include in their books. However, he claimed any hadith matches the standard of Bukhari if all the narrators in the chain were used in Sahih Bukhari. He said the same for Sahih Muslim.
However, his claim is rejected because the standards of Bukhari and Muslim were much greater than just narrators. They also took into account the quality of chains (teacher-student relationships) and were experts of subtle defects, which Hakim did not account for.
The authentication of most later scholars was lenient and did not fully reach the standards of Bukhari and Muslim.
For example, Ma’mar was a strong student of scholars like Zuhri and others. However, Bukhari and Muslim understood that Ma’mar was not a strong student of Iraqi teachers, most likely because he did not go to Iraq with his notebooks and did not attend classes there carefully.
You will find that Bukhari and Muslim knew this and did not rely on any hadith of Ma’mar from Iraqi teachers, like Al-A’mash. However, later scholars like Al-Hakim said, “Ma’mar was a narrator in the Sahihayn, and A’mash was a narrator in the Sahihayn, so the hadith is authentic to the standards of the Sahihayn.” This is why it is necessary to be careful with later claims that a hadith matches the conditions of Bukhari and Muslim.
Modern Judgements of Sahih
Scholars like Shaykh Al-Albani and publishers like Darussalam have graded many hadith in the modern day and their gradings are easily accessible online.
However, their grading is often largely based on checking the reliability of narrators and the connectedness of the chain instead of a wholistic evaluation of all five conditions.
Absence of a Hadith in the Sahihayn
The majority of scholars said Bukhari and Muslim did not intend for their Sahihs to be comprehensive, so a hadith not being included in the Sahihayn is not evidence that Bukhari and Muslim considered it not Sahih.
Shaykh Akram and some scholars said Bukhari and Muslim intended for their Sahihs to be comprehensive, so a hadith not being in the Sahihayn is evidence Bukhari and Muslim did not consider the hadith Sahih.
I believe there is merit to both views. There is a certain standard of Sahih at which Bukhari and Muslim would never exclude the hadith from their books. So, if a hadith is excluded, that at least implies it does not reach the highest standard of Sahih. However, there is also a lower standard of Sahih where Bukhari and Muslim might decide to include or exclude the narration depending on their needs, so it is possible for hadith outside the Sahihayn to reach this lower level of Sahih.
Allah knows best.
What does Sahih mean?
There are two types of knowledge in terms of their authenticity:
- Definitive: Knowledge which is known to be true with zero doubt.
- Example: The sun rises from the east, the authenticity of the Quran, multiply transmitted Sahih hadith, etc.
- Non-Definitive: Knowledge that is known to be true but with the possibility of some doubt. It can still be strongly proen, but it has some room for doubt.
- Example: That it will rain tonight if the weather forecast says it will rain, Sahih hadith
Sahih hadith are a type of knowledge that is strongly proven, because of the narrators who transmitted it from. We are required to provisionally believe in Sahih hadith and act on them in the same way that any rational person should take an umbrella or prepare for rain according to a trusted weather forecast.
However, since Sahih hadith are non-definitive, their authenticity is not absolute. Their exact words are likely accurate but mistakes may be possible. Hence, Sahih hadith should be acted upon as the default of a Muslim in the absence of strong evidence otherwise.
Levels of Sahih in Hadith Collections
The reliability of a hadith can be ranked based on what Sahih collection includes them as follows:
- Muttafaqun Alayh: Both Bukhari and Muslim include them
- In Sahih Bukhari but not in Muslim
- In Sahih Muslim but not in Bukhari
- Neither in Bukhari nor in Muslim
A Muttafaqun Alayh hadith is the highest quality of hadith, and it is difficult if even possible to successfully argue the hadith is not authentic.
A Sahih hadith of Sahih Bukhari is the next highest in authenticity because of the carefulness of how Bukhari wrote his compilation.
A Sahih hadith of Sahih Muslim is the next highest in authenticity.
If a hadith is neither in Bukhari or Muslim, it is likely it does not reach the high standard of Sahih demanded by their books but it may meet a lower standard of Sahih that demands less scrutiny, like Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn Hibban who wrote their own Sahih collections.
Usually, those hadith have some sort of compromise in the standard for narrators or chains or avoiding defects. So, a hadith in the Sahihayn should not be compared in terms of authenticity to a hadith outside the Sahihayn even if other scholars graded the hadith to be Sahih.
Can we doubt the authenticity of a hadith in the Sahihayn?
Because Bukhari and Muslim were extremely careful scholars of hadith who accounted for very high standards of Sahih, a person requires a strong argument from hadith sciences to doubt a hadith in the Sahihayn.
It is rare to find hadith in the Sahihayn that can be fully doubted. Usually, people can only argue the hadith should be lowered to the level of Hasan, instead of Sahih or argue that a specific word or part of a hadith is questionable rather than the whole hadith.
A lot of people doubt hadith in the Sahihayn without any sophisticated argument or knowledge of chains or narrators but because they dislike what the hadith says. This is clearly poor methodology and following desires rather than seeking the truth.
