The Myth of Hundreds of thousands of Ahadeeth!!!

By: Shahid Bin Waheed شاهد بن وحيد

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الحمدلله رب العالمين والصلوة والسلام على اشرف الانبياء وسيدالمرسلين نبينا محمد صل ا لله عليه وعلى آله واصحابه وازواجه اجمعين - امابعد

All the praises and thanks be to Allaah, Sustainer of the Universe, and blessing and salutation to be the most distinguish of the Messengers and foremost among the Prophets, our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allaah be on him and on his wives, children and Companions.

The myth that there are hundreds of thousands of Ahadeeth احاديث which were allegedly complied hundreds of years after Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم has always been very aggressively put forth by the Kuffar, Pseudo-Muslims and/or Pseudo-Islaamic cults without any supporting evidence [as usual]. To spread this disinformation two notorious Murtadds are also very active i.e. Murtadd-e-Azam Osama Abdallah [of website answering-christianity] and Murtadd Akbarally Meherally [of website mostmerciful.com]. However, in this treatise we will examine the truth and inSha Allaah impeach the Kuffar while also quashing their absurd claim/s.

The total number of Ahadeeth احاديث reported from Rasool Allaah رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم only goes in the thousands. Imaam Bukhari’s [رحمته الله] Kitaab ‘al-Jamius Saheeh’ only contains 9082 Ahadeeth احاديث, including all sorts of narrations and repeats and about 2230 without repetition. Sahih Muslim contains about 2179 Ahadeeth احاديث without repetition.

What then is the status of all other Ahadeeth احاديث? The answer can be found in the terminology of the Muhadditheen محدثين. When one thing is heard from ten different persons and these ten personas relate this to you, then according to the Muhadditheen محدثين, you have heard ten things. This is so because the subject matter and then ten different sources are all listed down, resulting in ten different narrations. Ahadeeth احاديث are also classified in this manner, where one Hadeeth حديث may have been related via ten chains of narrators, so in Hadeeth حديث terminology, this is counted as ten Ahadeeth احاديث.

Besides this, almost all Muhadditheen محدثين also regard the speech, practices and conditions of the Sahaabah صحابه رضي الله عنهم as Hadeeth حديث. Since according to them, besides the Ahadeeth-e-Nabwi [احاديث نبوى], the speech, actions and conditions of Sahaabah صحابه رضي الله عنهم are also included amongst Ahadeeth احاديث. Since there was a great number of Sahaabah صحابه رضي الله عنهم, thus, their speech, actions and conditions are also many. This is the reason of large number of Ahadeeth احاديث but not as many as the enemies of Islaam like to project.

There are six famous books of Ahadeeth احاديث which are called Six Principle Works الاصول السته or sometimes الصحاح السته ‘The Six Authentic Books.’ These six books of sahih Ahadeeth احاديث declared to be the best in terms of their accuracy, utility and general acceptance. ‘الصحاح السته The Six Authentic Books’ consists of the following:

Sahih Bukhari
Sahih Muslim
At-Tirmidhi
Abu Da’ud or Abu Dawud [Sunan]*
an-Nasa’i [Sunan]*
Ibn Majah

* Sunan is a book in which there are Ahadeeth احاديث related to laws and orders namely Sunan Abu Dawud and Sunan an-Nasa’i.

Also Muslims must not fall for the trickery of anti-Islaam and/or ignorant Muslims’ and/or Hadeeth rejecters’ claim that Ahadeeth احاديث were written 200/300 hundred years after the Prophet of Islaam رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم , which in fact is not true, Ahadeeth احاديث were re-written while being compiled into Sahihian صحيحيان etc. Since at that time and/or era printing press was not invented yet, and neither existed copiers etc. Everything has to be written and then rewritten by hands. Notice there is extreme difference between the terms written and compiled (compilation). In order something to be compiled, it has to be written and/or be in existance. Therefore, the facts is that Ahadeeth احاديث were already in existance and/or written long before, they were compiled into books like Sahih Bukhari صحيح بخاری and/or Sahih Muslim صحيح مسلم or else.

Let us also look in the dictionary!

compile

com·pile [ kəm pl ] (past com·piled, past participle com·piled, present participle com·pil·ing, 3rd person present singular com·piles)

transitive verb

1. put things together: to gather things together from various places to form a whole

2. create something by gathering things: to create something by gathering things together

3. computing translate computer language: to convert a computer program written in a high-level language into an intermediate language (machine language) using a special program (compiler)

[14th century. From French compiler , of uncertain origin: probably from Latin compilare “to plunder, plagiarize,” literally “to heap together,” from pila (see pile¹).]

In Thesaurus we find the following!

1. (v.) To bring together:

• assemble

• aggregate

• muster up

• amass

• band

• cluster

• combine

• convene

• convoke

• gather

• group

• herd

• marshal

• mass

• muster

• pool

• rally

• round up

• bunch

• disperse (antonym)

• scatter (antonym)

• divide (antonym)

• disband (antonym)

2. (v.) To put together or compose from materials gathered from several sources:

• anthologize

• collect

• assemble

• gather

• garner