” Indeed, those who have believed and done righteous deeds – the Most Merciful will appoint for them affection.”
Quran 19:96
There is a claim that hadith is like Quran.
There is another claim that hadith is sacred like the Quran.
Both claims are not true.
However, this does not imply, in any way, that hadith data is not useful.
The word hadith is an Arabic word.
It means a report or a narrative.
For Muslims, it commonly refers to sayings, directly or indirectly, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
A hadith has two parts:
- A chain of narration.
- Its content.
The chain of narration may stop with the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
The chain of narration may stop with someone who met him.
The chain of narration may stop with someone who met someone who met him.
There may be gaps in the chain of transmission.
It seems to me that research into “chains of narration” was unique to Muslims.
It has its strengths and it has its weaknesses.
A hadith may be sound or unsound.
A hadith may have one part that is sound and another part that is unsound.
A hadith may be disputed as to whether it is sound or unsound.
A sound hadith is a hadith that has a sound chain of transmission and sound content.
In this blog, I have written about some hadiths and the reasons why I think they are not sound.
The following is one example of a sound hadith.
It has many chains of narration, but I am only taking one of them.
AlBukhari narrated, that Bishr bin Khaled narrated to them, that Muhammad bin Jaffar narrated to them, who narrated from Shu’bah, who narrated from Sulayman, who narrated from Abi Wail, who narrated from Abdullah ( bin Masud ), who narrated from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him :
ِ”One is with whom one loves”
Salihun 