Hadith and Sunnah

Overview

Recall questions on the difference between the two, isnad and matn, the grading of reports, and the major collections.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is the difference between a hadith and the Sunnah?

   Model answer

   A hadith is a single report of something the Prophet said, did, or allowed to pass without objection. The Sunnah is the pattern of practice that the body of such reports establishes, and it is the Sunnah, not any one report, that carries normative force. Muslims can therefore accept the Sunnah on a point while disputing the strength of a particular report about it.

2. 2

   What two parts make up a hadith, and why does the structure matter?

   Model answer

   The chain of transmitters, the isnad, and the text itself, the matn. Because reports circulated orally before being collected, the tradition made the chain the primary test: who reported this, from whom, were they reliable, and could they plausibly have met? A whole discipline of transmitter biography grew up to answer those questions.

3. 3

   Why did the collection of hadith become urgent when it did?

   Model answer

   Within a century of the Prophet's death reports were being invented to support political factions, legal positions and theological parties, and the generations who had seen him were gone. Ninth-century scholars responded by travelling widely to gather reports and by grading them, so that authority would rest on something more than the fact that a saying was in circulation.

4. 4

   How are hadith graded?

   Model answer

   By the soundness of the chain and the coherence of the text: sound, good, weak, and fabricated. A separate distinction concerns spread. Reports carried by so many independent chains that collusion is implausible are treated as far stronger than a report resting on a single line of transmission, and jurists differ over how much weight a solitary report can bear.

5. 5

   Which collections do Sunni Muslims rely on?

   Model answer

   Six books hold canonical standing. The compilations of al-Bukhari and Muslim are treated as the most rigorously sifted, followed by those of Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa'i and Ibn Majah. Earlier works, notably Malik's Muwatta, remain in scholarly use, and legal schools also draw on their own founders' collections.

6. 6

   How does the Shi'a hadith tradition differ?

   Model answer

   Twelver Shi'a Muslims use four principal collections, beginning with al-Kulayni's al-Kafi. They accept reports transmitted from the Imams as well as from the Prophet, because the Imams are held to preserve his teaching authoritatively, and they weigh transmitters partly by attachment to the Prophet's family. The result is a partly different corpus, which is one reason Sunni and Shi'a law diverge on practical matters.

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