USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts
A hadith (pl. ahadith) is composed of two parts: the matn (text) and the isnad (chain of reporters). A text may seem to be logical and reasonable but it needs an authentic isnad with reliable reporters to be acceptable; 'Abdullah b. al-Mubarak (d. 181 AH), one of the illustrious teachers of Imam al-Bukhari, said, "The isnad is part of the religion: had it not been for the isnad, whoever wished to would have said whatever he liked
The leading reports are from Al-Bukhari, Muslim, At-Tirmidhi, An-Nasai, Ibn Majah, and Abu Dawood which are known as the six most authentic books (As-Sihaahus-Sittah). ..the validity of a hadith depends solely on its agreement with the Quran and the grading of a hadith depends on the reliability of the chain of narrators who reported it
in order to do this, the reporter studied the characters and the life of every single person who were mentioned in the chain of narrators
the utmost care was exercised not only in reporting the exact words, but also sifting through the characters of persons who reported them
if a single person in the chain of narrators is reported to be of doubtful character or unreliable, then the entire hadith is either rejected or this fact is noted down and specifically mentioned...the Imams who undertook this enormous task of compiling and reporting the hadiths exercised great care in their lifetime effort
This is very well said. One thing to realize is that the ahadith are a form of wahi or revelation like the Quran. The difference between them is that the Quran is the kalaamullah, meaning the very speech of Allah is Allah's own words exactly as He said them. The ahadith are inspiration from Allah, but not necessarily Allah's exact wording/speech. I hope that difference is clear.
The next thing to be considered as my brother neves touched upon is the character of the people reporting these hadith. The sahaba (ra) were of the utmost character generally. The ones closest to the prophet were of impeccable character and integrity. There was always one or more sahaba in the presence of rasulullah (saw) at all times (his wives are sahaba as well so private time with them counts as being in the presence of one of his companions all the time). During the lifetime of the prophet (saw) hadith were being copied down and memorized just as the Quran was. It never got mixed because hadith both in their level of detail, and their wording is obviously different from the words and cadence of Quran. The sahaba themselves used to question one another on the authenticity of what they reported about the prophet. It must be understood, that these people were fearful of the punishment of Allah to attribute something false even unintentionally, to either the Quran or to the sayings of the prophet (saw). They feared it lest they should be responsible for leading people astray with false information, because people will trust them and what they said about the prophet (saw), sometimes without question, so they were very attentive and scrupulous about that.
Despite what some people say about hadith, the compilation process and the checking of their authenticity started in the prophets lifetime, not after. The only thing was that the process became more sophisticated as time went by, because obviously the sahaba would get old, the prophet died, and people became further removed. The result was that the scholars of that time (who were usually the students of the sahabah they were getting their info from) started cataloging ahadith by subject matter and context. The cataloging of ahadith was an arduous task that took a lifetime to achieve. Each and every single hadith was scrutinized for their authenticity on every level imaginable. The chain of narrators was the first thing to be checked. If even one person who reported something that was said to be what the prophet said, had any flaws the hadith was then in question. Perhaps the person was known as unreliable, maybe their memory was weak, maybe they did not attend the masjid often, maybe they were cruel, whatever kind of shortcoming they had that might even remotely negatively affect their reputation or character was looked into. Then the subject matter of the hadith had to be checked against the backdrop of not only other hadith, but Quran most necessarily, and also the totality of Islam. Does the subject matter, details, contexts, general jist of the so-called hadith go against the essence of islam? If so it may be either categorized as weak, or false altogether and discarded. Two or more people in the chain of narrations questionable? The hadith was either dismissed or categorized as weak IF the contexts were in line with other strong ahadith and/or Quran.
Not just a few people undertook this but many. The process was not a secret one but transparent for all the muslims to know about and to see. Much like the compilation of Quran, so much double, triple, quadruple checking went on to make sure that these sayings were absolutely accurate. The most accurate of them all are included in what neves mentioned as the six authentic books of ahadith. From these is what you see most muslims quote from.
The ahadith are necessary because many of them serve as the explanation on Quran's verses. These are the hadith of tafsir or deeper meaning/explanation. In Quran Allah tells us that the speech of the prophet is not of the prophet's on doing. This means all of his speech, not just when he recited Quran. Hadith was the talking of the prophet, and his dispensing of valuable wisdom.
The worth of hadith have always been questioned even by the munafiqeen of his time. They would say to the prophet that they will only follow Quran and not what he said. The prophet (saw) warned against that type of thinking then, and it still stands today. What they failed to realize is that if they felt they could trust Quran as was stated by Muhammad, why then was other stuff so questionable? If he had the audacity to "make up" his own hadith, then what made them so sure he was speaking the truth about the revelation of Quran? After all, no one else was receiving it besides him, so how could they make sure?
Many people, even some muslims, say that hadith cannot be trusted because they were compiled officially after the death of the prophet (saw). What they don't seem to think of is that Quran was only officially compiled after his death as well. The people who compiled Quran are the same exact people who compiled the hadith too. So how can they be trusted with one enormous task, and then on the other hand be completely untrustworthy with an equally important task?
I'm not saying you trust one or the other, just trying to explain the best I can.
