- Difference Between Sunnah and Hadith
- The Prophet’s Teaching
- How did the companions learn?
- How did the companions teach?
- Which companions narrated hadith?
- Who took hadith from the students of companion?
- Who took hadith from the students of the students of companions?
- Summary of an Authentic Hadith
- Did Sahih Bukhari or Sahih Muslim invent hadith?
Difference Between Sunnah and Hadith
First, you must understand the difference between the Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW) and hadith. Hadith just means “report.” A report is the act of describing something that happened in the past. In Islamic terminology, hadith has usually been used specifically for reports about the Prophet (SAW), whether they mention his actions or his words or his qualities.
So, when we talk about the “origin of hadith,” we refer to how information about the Prophet (SAW) became reports that were narrated, then recorded, then published into books we read today. The Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW) is what he actually did and commanded. Hadith are reports that record that Sunnah.
I also do not mean to discuss in this section the question “How do we know a hadith is authentic?” We will deal with this question in its own section. In this section, I want you to conceptualize how authentic hadith were passed down in theory, independent of how to verify them.
The Prophet’s Teaching
The Prophet (SAW) used to teach people Islam in speech and in practice.
His practice included:
- How he performed acts of worship
- How he judged in legal cases
- How he conducted himself in all affairs were observed by his companions
His speech included:
- His Friday khutbahs
- What he said in his gatherings in the masjid
- What he said to people asking questions
- What he said personally to people
How did the companions learn?
The wives of the Prophet (SAW) observed the Prophet (SAW)’s personal life and later narrated it to students, like Aisha (RA). Those who served the Prophet (SAW) personally also observed his personal life, like Anas (RA).
Some companions learned the Quran and Islam directly from the Prophet (SAW), like Ibn Masud (RA).
Some companions observed the Prophet (SAW)’s life and words by watching him and attending his gatherings, like Abu Hurairah (RA) and Ibn Umar (RA).
Some companions met the Prophet (SAW) a few times and heard a few statements from him which they remembered and narrated to people.
Many of the younger companions, like Ibn Abbas and Abu Hurairah (RA), learned the Sunnah from more senior companions after the Prophet (SAW) passed away, then they passed on what they learned.
How did the companions teach?
Some companions used to teach hadith in classes to many dedicated students, like Abu Hurairah (RA) and Ibn Abbas (RA).
They had many dedicated students who learned from them:
- Abu Hurairah (RA), a companion who dedicated himself to knowledge and stayed in the masjid listening to the Prophet (SAW) even while others became busy with work
- Saeed ibn al-Musayyab
- Abu Salamah
- Abu Salih
- Etc.
- Abdullah ibn Abbas (RA), the cousin of the Prophet (SAW) who learned from many senior companions
- Saeed ibn Jubair
- Ubaidullah ibn Abdullah ibn Utbah
- Ata ibn Abi Rabah
- Etc.
Other companions did not usually teach hadith to gatherings unprompted. Instead, they would narrate about the Prophet (SAW)’s Sunnah whenever situations arose which called for a hadith.
For example, the governor of Iraq once delayed the prayer, and Abu Masud al-Ansari (RA) went to him and said, “What is this? Don’t you know that Jibril came down and led the Prophet (SAW) in prayer, then led him in prayer [for each of the five prayers at their specified times], then the Prophet (SAW) said, ‘This is what I was commanded.'” (Sahih Bukhari and Muslim)
The hadith of companions who did not teach in classes to dedicated students were remembered and recorded by either whoever was present in the situation that prompted the hadith or their close family and friends.
The following are some companions and their main narrators:
- Aisha (RA), the wife of the Prophet (SAW)
- Urwah ibn al-Zubair (her nephew)
- Qasim ibn Muhammad (her nephew)
- Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab (RA), the son of the second khalifah of Islam
- Salim ibn Abdullah (his son)
- Nafi’ (his freed servant)
- Abu Musa al-Ashari (RA)
- Abu Burdah ibn Abi Musa (his son)
- Abu Bakr ibn Abi Musa (his son)
All of these companions had many other students who narrated from them according to who dedicated themselves to learning from them.
Which companions narrated hadith?
If you look into books of hadith, you will find that a group of companions is more prominent and another group of companions is rare. Aisha, Abu Hurairah, Ibn Abbas, and Ibn Umar dominate the hadith corpus compared to Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali (RA), the senior companions who became khalifahs after the Prophet (SAW).
There are three factors that affect the prominence of hadith from a particular companion:
- Knowledge: Someone who knew and learnt a lot had more to narrate than someone who knew very little.
- Desire for Narration: Some companions like Abu Hurairah liked to teach about the Sunnah, but other companions like Uthman and Ali (RA) spent most of their time on other things, like ruling.
- Length of Life: Someone who lived longer, like Anas (RA), had more time to narrate than someone who died only a few years after the Prophet (SAW), like Abu Bakr and Umar (RA)
- Number of Students: Someone who had many students like Abu Hurairah had more of his narrations recorded.
Who took hadith from the students of companion?
In the third and fourth generations, many scholars started specializing in hadith. They collected hadith from the many companions and students of companions they had access to and narrated those ahadith in classes. This group of people can be called the regional collectors.
For example, Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri in Madinah learned from Saeed ibn al-Musayyab (student of Abu Hurairah), Urwah (student of Aisha), and Salim and Nafi (students of Ibn Umar), among many others. He used to go around Madinah asking old men and women whether they knew of a hadith from the Prophet (SAW).
After collecting these ahadith, he used to teach them in classes to many students. This is how hadith classes started in earnest.
These collectors became the locus and source of many hadith because of their efforts. Many hadith mainly come from Zuhri from Urwah from Aisha or from Zuhri from Saeed from Abu Hurairah and so on.
A regional collector in the generation after Zuhri was Imam Malik ibn Anas, who wrote his seminal work the Muwatta, collecting much of the legal traditions of Madinah (and also a lot from other places).
At the same time as the regional collectors, there were specialized teachers who learned mainly from specific sources and taught those ahadith to many students in classes.
For example, Urwah ibn al-Zubair’s son Hisham learned hadith from him and taught them in hadith classes. These specialized teachers also often became the locus and source of many hadith. So, several hadith mainly come from Hisham from Urwah from Aisha (RA).
Who took hadith from the students of the students of companions?
In the fifth and sixth generations, many scholars started earnestly travelling all the major scholarly regions to compile ahadith. They compiled hadith from the regional collectors and specialized teachers of Makkah, Madinah, Kufa, Basra, Syria, Egypt, and everywhere else the companions settled and had students.
There were countless compilers in this stage, but those who stand out in the fifth generation include Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak, Abd ul-Rahman ibn al-Mahdi, and Wakee’.
Then, in the sixth generation, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal wrote his seminal work, the Musnad, where he compiled most of the hadith tradition into one book. The Musnad was not written to only include authentic hadith, but it contains almost every single authentic hadith that exists.
Summary of an Authentic Hadith
The journey of an authentic hadith started in the actions or words of the Prophet (SAW).
When a companion either taught it in a class or was prompted to talk about it after the Prophet (SAW), that is when the Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW) became a hadith (a report).
Then, one of his students or someone who was present in the gathering remembered the hadith that this companion narrated.
Then, regional collectors like Zuhri or Malik sought out students of companions or students of students to learn whatever hadith they knew and disseminate those hadith in large classes. Alternatively, specialized teachers who were close to those students or students of students taught the hadith in large classes.
Then, compilers like Imam Ahmad or his teachers learnt from regional collectors and specialized teachers of different parts of the Muslim world and the hadith was collected into books like the Musnad of Imam Ahmad.
For example, Umar ibn al-Khattab narrated the hadith, “Actions are with intentions […]” (Sahih Bukhari and Muslim) Alqamah ibn Waqqas heard it from him. Then, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim heard it from Alqamah.
Then, Yahya ibn Saeed al-Ansari (a regional collector in Madinah) learned this hadith from Muhammad ibn Ibrahim and disseminated it in his classes. He disseminated it to so many students that more than 10 people narrated this hadith from him, and the hadith was later recorded through many students in books like the Musnad.
Did Sahih Bukhari or Sahih Muslim invent hadith?
When you see the process above, you realize that Bukhari, Muslim, and other hadith compilers did not and could not have invented any hadith. That is because hadith were collected and compiled and taught in classes long before any of those books were written.
For example, the hadith of intentions is in Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. But, it is also in numerous other books through other chains. It was also recorded in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad before Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim were every written.
Ultimately, we know for sure that the hadith was taught and transmitted by Yahya ibn Saeed (d. 143 AH), since numerous students narrated it from him.
The role of books like Sahih Bukhari and Muslim was largely in classifying already known hadith, not in bringing new ones. In fact, if they brought new hadith, the scholars of hadith would have rejected them outright and said: The hadith of Madinah, Makkah, Iraq, and Syria have already been collected and compiled over many generations, so how did you get these new hadith no one found before you?
