Israel Khan said: "
It (Bukhari) is considered Sahih"
There are two parts of the Hadith in Bukhari (or any other collection of Hadith):
- One is its (Sanad) or chain of narrators reaching Muhammad. Bukhari is termed as Sahih or authentic because of the narrators being the trustworthy persons (as per Asma-ur-Rajal or names and character of the narrators described in the chain).
- The other part of a Hadith is the "matan" or its text or wording or the saying of Muhammad. Bukhari never said that the narrators had always conveyed the exact words of Muhammad.
- Discussion about the correct meaning or interpretation of Hadith is termed as "darayat" or its understanding .
- If a Hadith contradicts with Quran then either it is to be rejected forthwith or the Hadith is interpreted in such a way that the contradiction is resolved.
Right?
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[Quran 7:185] Have they not looked at the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all the things God has created? Does it ever occur to them that the end of their life may be near? Which HADITH, besides this (Quran) do they believe in?
[Quran 31:6] Among the people, there are those who uphold baseless HADITH, and thus divert others from the path of God without knowledge, and take it in vain. These have incurred a shameful retribution.
[Quran 39:23] God has revealed herein the BEST HADITH; a book that is consistent and points out both ways (to heaven and hell). The skins of those who reverence their Lord cringe therefrom, then their skins and their hearts soften up for God's message. Such is God's guidance; he bestows it upon whomever He wills. As for those sent astray by God, nothing can guide them.
[Quran 45:6] These are God's revelations (Quran) that we recite to you truthfully. In which HADITH other than God and His revelations do they believe?
[Quran 52:34] Let them produce a HADITH like this (Quran) if they are truthful.
[Quran 68:44] Therefore, let Me deal with those who reject this HADITH(Quran); we will lead them on whence they never perceive.
[Quran 77:50] Which HADITH other than this do they uphold?
Hadith and the Corruption of the great religion of Islam | Submission.org - Your best source for Submission (Islam)
A
hadith has two independent portions. The first is called its chain (
sanad/سند ) of the narrators via whom the text has reached the muhaddith who has collected it and recorded in his book called a collection of
Ahadith. The second portion is called the text (matn/متن).Jan. 26, 2016
Ibtidā' Al-Sanad/اِبْتِدَاء اَلْسَنَد [Beginning of the Chain of ...
The author collected in this book the names and biographies of all, or most, of the
hadith narrators mentioned in the
six canonical hadith collections. These six books are
Sahih al-Bukhari and
Sahih Muslim and the four
Sunan books by
Al-Nasa'i,
al-Tirmidhi,
Abu Dawood and
Ibn Majah. The biographies relate to the standing of each narrator relating to his narrating ability which is referred to in Arabic as
`Ilm al-Rijāl.
Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal - Wikipedia
The process of collection and validation is explained in detail in
"A Textbook of Hadith Studies: Authenticity, Compilation, Classification and Criticism of Hadith" by Mohammad Hashim Kamali. Most of the validation effort concentrated on the “chain of transmission” which records how the oral information was passed down from person to person before it reached the hadith collector.
There was much less emphasis on assessing the actual text of the hadith to consider whether it was likely to be something that the Prophet (pbuh) might have said. This is discussed in
"Authentication of Hadith – Redefining the Criteria" by Israr Ahmad Khan.
One unfortunate side-effect of the collection and validation effort of scholars such as Bukhari is that some Muslims think that all the hard work of validation has been done by these historic hadith collectors. The attitude is that if a hadith is in a collection such as Bukhari or Muslim, then automatically it must be a “sahih hadith” i.e. a “sound or authentic hadith.” Indeed the collections of Bukhari and Muslim are referred to as "sahih collections".
The Muslims who hold such a naive belief are not the ones who have been trained in hadith studies.
Properly trained hadith scholars (such as the authors of the books mentioned above) are well aware that the hadith in collections such as Bukhari vary from highly reliable to relatively unreliable. Instead it is Muslims who have been brought up to believe that they must accept what they are told without critical thinking who are prone to believe that if a hadith is in Bukhari, it must be accurate and true.
How reliable are Hadith? Some are contradictory.
'A number of the Companions have permitted the conveyance of Prophetic hadiths in their meanings rather than their wordings. Among them: 'Ali, Ibn 'Abbas, Anas ibn Malik, Abu al-Darda., Wathila ibn al-Asqa', and Abu Hurayra ( may Allah be wellpleased with them! ) Also, a greater number of the Successors, among them: the Imam of imams al-Hasan al-Basri, al-Sha'bi, 'Amr ibn Dinar, Ibrahim al-Nakha'i, Mujahid, and 'Ikrima.
Ibn Sirin said: 'I would hear a hadith from ten different people, the meaning remaining one but the wordings differing.' Similarly, the Companions' wordings in their narrations from the Prophet ﷺ have differed one from another. Some of them, for example, will narrate a complete version; others will narrate the gist of the meaning; others will narrate an abridged version; others yet replace certain words with their synonyms, deeming that they have considerable leeway as long as they do not contradict the original meaning. None of them intends a lie, and all of them aim for truthfulness and the report of what he has heard: that is why they had leeway. They used to say: 'Mendacity is only when one deliberately intends to lie.'
'There is a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ relevant to the issue narrated by Ibn Mandah in Ma'rifa al-Sahaba and al-Tabarani in al-Kabir from 'Abd Allah ibn Sulayman ibn Aktham al-Laythi [= 'Abd Allah ibn Sulaym ibn Ukayma] who said: 'I said: 'O Messenger of Allah! Verily, when I hear a hadith from you I am unable to narrate it again just as I heard it from you..' That is, he adds or omits something. The Prophetﷺ replied: 'As long as you do not make licit the illicit or make illicit the licit, and as long as you adduce the meaning, there is no harm in that.' When this was mentioned to al-Hasan he said: 'Were it not for this, we would never narrate anything.'
Imam Al-Ghazalî
The word "dirayat", taken to mean a comprehension of hadiths, has been used in contrast with "riwayat", which means the mere narration of a hadith. Such hadiths emphasize the necessity of understanding hadiths, the superiority of understanding hadiths over merely narrating them, and the low number of people who understand hadiths as opposed to those who just narrate them.
Dirayat al-hadith
