بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا محمد أفضل الأنبياء والمرسلين وعلى آله وصحبه ومن تبعه بإحسان إلى يوم الدين
Allah's aid is sought and His pleasure is attained by doing those things that He connected His pleasure to and none shall succeed in that save the one whom Allah purifies.
يٰأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ تَتَّبِعُواْ خُطُوَاتِ ٱلشَّيْطَانِ وَمَن يَتَّبِعْ خُطُوَاتِ ٱلشَّيْطَانِ فَإِنَّهُ يَأْمُرُ بِٱلْفَحْشَآءِ وَٱلْمُنْكَرِ وَلَوْلاَ فَضْلُ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَتُهُ مَا زَكَىٰ مِنكُمْ مِّنْ أَحَدٍ أَبَداً وَلَـٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُزَكِّي مَن يَشَآءُ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
Translation of meaning: Oh you who have believed, do not follow the footsteps of Satan. And whoever follows the footsteps of Satan - indeed, he enjoins immorality and wrongdoing. And if not for the favour of Allah upon you and His mercy, not one of you would have been pure, ever, but Allah purifies whom He wills, and Allah is Hearing and Knowing. [24:21]
Allah knows that there is much good in this month of Ramadan and He knows why I have decided to write this so may He forgive me of my sins and enter me into His mercy. Realise, may Allah grant you realisation, from the affairs of the religion is hadith and it is one of the most important matters. In these latter days many people have innovated and gone far astray and thus it becomes necessary to clarify the reality. I intend to narrate a narration and then criticise the chain in order to make apparent some of the consideration that must be taken in regards to hadith and in reality all transmitted matters.
I narrate on the authority of Abu Alfa Muhammad sharif bin farid who narrated from his teacher a Fulani jurist, the khateeb Muhammad al-Amin
From his father, Adam Kariangha who feared Allah in the Unseen
From his teacher, the muhaajir with his deen, Shaykh Musa Ma`lami
From his teacher, the gnostic Imam Ali Dinbu ibn Abu Bakr Ma`lami
From the light of the age, the Imam of the Awliyya – Shehu Uthman
Who revived the Sunna and Deen of Allah in the entire Bilad’s-Sudan
From his uncle the learned Qutb Muhammad ibn ar-Raj al-Fulaati
From the Indian master traditionist of Medina Abu’l-Hassan as-Sindi
From his teacher the renown and superb Muhammad al-Hayyati
From his teacher, the sublime jurist Abdullah ibn Saalim al-Basri
From his teacher Muhammad ibn `Ala’d-Deen known as al-Balbili
From his teacher the jurist Saalim ibn Muhammad known as al-Qayti
From a REAL shaykh of Islam, not yours who died as a mujassami
But the Shaykh al-Islam, the spiritual master Zakariyya al-Ansaari
From his teacher az-Zayn Ibn Muhammad famous as ar-Ridwaan
From his teacher Ibrahim at-Tanuukhi the one known as al-Burhaan
From his teacher Abu’l-Abbas Ahmad al-Hujaar the son of Abu Talib
From his teacher Abd’l-Lateef ibn Muhammad also known as Abu Talib
From his teacher Taahir ibn Muhammad ibn Taahir from Maqddasi
From his teacher Abu Muhammad Abd’r-Rahman ibn Ahmad ad-Dawni
From his teacher the learned Judge Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Kasaari
From his teacher the learned traditionist Ahmad ibn Ishaq ad-Daynuuri
On the authority of the author of the Sunnan as-Sughra, Imam an-Nisaai
In an absolutely sound prophetic narration on Uthman ibn Hunayf al-Basri
Who said “Once an unknown man came to the master of all mankind
And said: O Messenger of Allah, make supplication for me, for I am blind
Ask Allah to lift the veil from my eyes and to return to me my sight
He said to the old blind man in order to increase his faith with insight
Rise and go away from us, make ablution and pray two sincere rak`ats
With sincerity of intention and absolute resolve having prayed the rak`ats
Say: O Allah I beg and ask You, and I direct my soul entirely to You
By means of Your prophet Muhammad, Nabi’r-Rahma, I beseech You
O Muhammad! by means of you I direct myself to your Lord – Allah
That He will remove the thick veil from my sightless sight – O Allah
Let Muhammad intercede for me with You!” Ibn Hunayf then narrated
That the old blind man came back seeing clearly and totally elated!
So here we have a narration, which is transmitted in An-Nasaai, and there's a few things that must be noted, this narration is transmitted on meaning and not with the actual wording, but this isn't what we will be focusing on. Our concern here is the chain, there are two ways we can look at the chain, we can either start from the top (beginning from Uthman ibn Hunayf al-Basri, may Allah be pleased with him) or we can start at the bottom (beginning with me), we will start at the bottom.
So the very first thing we must consider is, me, who am I? If we can't come to know who I am and whether or not I'm trustworthy we will be forced to consider this transmission as weak. If however we can assert that I'm not some unknown then there are a number of things that must be considered, am I a liar? Am I precise? Do I mix narrations up such that I merge different narrations? These questions are very important as if I am a liar then the narration cannot be taken and if I am not precise the transmission can't be taken as sahih although it might be taken as hasan. Now lets assume that I am trustworthy and very precise, should we now go onto looking at the next person in the chain? No, not yet as if you look carefully at my words I didn't say "I took from" nor "I heard from" nor "it was said to me by" rather I said "on the authority of". This is very important as the implication is that I didn't hear this directly and hence there's a problem as even if I am trustworthy and precise it can't be assumed that I actually took this narration directly. If I didn't take the narration directly one would have to ask, is there a narrator he omitted? Why would he omit a narrator? Perhaps that narrator was liar? I actually took the narration from a Facebook post of Shaykh Muhammad Shareef, now this would be like someone sending a narration via a letter, there is a possibility that the letter/post is fabricated and the supposed sender never said what is attributed to them. I have mentioned these things just so that one may realise that the affair of hadith transmission is no simple matter, consider how we will have to look at each narrator in the chain.
What the reader must understand is that ahadith are transmitted and these transmissions must be assessed, it is very possible that one transmission of a narration is daif yet another transmission of the same narration is sahih. The scholars of hadith thus use very precise terminology, so you will find them say things like "this narration is sahih lighairihi (authentic due to a transmission other than it )" so what that tells you is "this chain isn't sahih but there is another chain that is sahih which transmits the same text". You may also want to note the following down, if a narration is only transmitted by one person, that is to say all transmissions go through one person, the term used for that would be "gharib" such a narration may be sahih but can never be mutawatir (mass transmitted) even if that one person produced a thousand chains through different people from him back to the best of creation صلى الله عليه وسلم .
After considering all of that we must now look at what is happening in our age, for some strange reason we have supposed hadith "scholars" like Al Bani who will criticise transmission, declaring this one daif and that one sahih, yet without possessing a chain. So lets just assume Al bani declares a hadith as sahih, the problem is he can't narrate it without his narration being daif lidhatihi (weak in itself) as there is a gap between him and the authors of the books he is getting these narrations from. Not to mention we haven't even consider if this man is trustworthy or not, so how then are people taking the judgement of this man so seriously? Note having a general ijaza to narrate from a specific book is not going to be accepted when we take hadith from someone as such an ijaza is more for baraka. But we should look to see how trustworthy Al Bani actually was, even tho his authentications seem meaningless to us lets just see if he was trustworthy.
الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا محمد أفضل الأنبياء والمرسلين وعلى آله وصحبه ومن تبعه بإحسان إلى يوم الدين
Allah's aid is sought and His pleasure is attained by doing those things that He connected His pleasure to and none shall succeed in that save the one whom Allah purifies.
يٰأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ تَتَّبِعُواْ خُطُوَاتِ ٱلشَّيْطَانِ وَمَن يَتَّبِعْ خُطُوَاتِ ٱلشَّيْطَانِ فَإِنَّهُ يَأْمُرُ بِٱلْفَحْشَآءِ وَٱلْمُنْكَرِ وَلَوْلاَ فَضْلُ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَتُهُ مَا زَكَىٰ مِنكُمْ مِّنْ أَحَدٍ أَبَداً وَلَـٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُزَكِّي مَن يَشَآءُ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
Translation of meaning: Oh you who have believed, do not follow the footsteps of Satan. And whoever follows the footsteps of Satan - indeed, he enjoins immorality and wrongdoing. And if not for the favour of Allah upon you and His mercy, not one of you would have been pure, ever, but Allah purifies whom He wills, and Allah is Hearing and Knowing. [24:21]
Allah knows that there is much good in this month of Ramadan and He knows why I have decided to write this so may He forgive me of my sins and enter me into His mercy. Realise, may Allah grant you realisation, from the affairs of the religion is hadith and it is one of the most important matters. In these latter days many people have innovated and gone far astray and thus it becomes necessary to clarify the reality. I intend to narrate a narration and then criticise the chain in order to make apparent some of the consideration that must be taken in regards to hadith and in reality all transmitted matters.
I narrate on the authority of Abu Alfa Muhammad sharif bin farid who narrated from his teacher a Fulani jurist, the khateeb Muhammad al-Amin
From his father, Adam Kariangha who feared Allah in the Unseen
From his teacher, the muhaajir with his deen, Shaykh Musa Ma`lami
From his teacher, the gnostic Imam Ali Dinbu ibn Abu Bakr Ma`lami
From the light of the age, the Imam of the Awliyya – Shehu Uthman
Who revived the Sunna and Deen of Allah in the entire Bilad’s-Sudan
From his uncle the learned Qutb Muhammad ibn ar-Raj al-Fulaati
From the Indian master traditionist of Medina Abu’l-Hassan as-Sindi
From his teacher the renown and superb Muhammad al-Hayyati
From his teacher, the sublime jurist Abdullah ibn Saalim al-Basri
From his teacher Muhammad ibn `Ala’d-Deen known as al-Balbili
From his teacher the jurist Saalim ibn Muhammad known as al-Qayti
From a REAL shaykh of Islam, not yours who died as a mujassami
But the Shaykh al-Islam, the spiritual master Zakariyya al-Ansaari
From his teacher az-Zayn Ibn Muhammad famous as ar-Ridwaan
From his teacher Ibrahim at-Tanuukhi the one known as al-Burhaan
From his teacher Abu’l-Abbas Ahmad al-Hujaar the son of Abu Talib
From his teacher Abd’l-Lateef ibn Muhammad also known as Abu Talib
From his teacher Taahir ibn Muhammad ibn Taahir from Maqddasi
From his teacher Abu Muhammad Abd’r-Rahman ibn Ahmad ad-Dawni
From his teacher the learned Judge Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Kasaari
From his teacher the learned traditionist Ahmad ibn Ishaq ad-Daynuuri
On the authority of the author of the Sunnan as-Sughra, Imam an-Nisaai
In an absolutely sound prophetic narration on Uthman ibn Hunayf al-Basri
Who said “Once an unknown man came to the master of all mankind
And said: O Messenger of Allah, make supplication for me, for I am blind
Ask Allah to lift the veil from my eyes and to return to me my sight
He said to the old blind man in order to increase his faith with insight
Rise and go away from us, make ablution and pray two sincere rak`ats
With sincerity of intention and absolute resolve having prayed the rak`ats
Say: O Allah I beg and ask You, and I direct my soul entirely to You
By means of Your prophet Muhammad, Nabi’r-Rahma, I beseech You
O Muhammad! by means of you I direct myself to your Lord – Allah
That He will remove the thick veil from my sightless sight – O Allah
Let Muhammad intercede for me with You!” Ibn Hunayf then narrated
That the old blind man came back seeing clearly and totally elated!
So here we have a narration, which is transmitted in An-Nasaai, and there's a few things that must be noted, this narration is transmitted on meaning and not with the actual wording, but this isn't what we will be focusing on. Our concern here is the chain, there are two ways we can look at the chain, we can either start from the top (beginning from Uthman ibn Hunayf al-Basri, may Allah be pleased with him) or we can start at the bottom (beginning with me), we will start at the bottom.
So the very first thing we must consider is, me, who am I? If we can't come to know who I am and whether or not I'm trustworthy we will be forced to consider this transmission as weak. If however we can assert that I'm not some unknown then there are a number of things that must be considered, am I a liar? Am I precise? Do I mix narrations up such that I merge different narrations? These questions are very important as if I am a liar then the narration cannot be taken and if I am not precise the transmission can't be taken as sahih although it might be taken as hasan. Now lets assume that I am trustworthy and very precise, should we now go onto looking at the next person in the chain? No, not yet as if you look carefully at my words I didn't say "I took from" nor "I heard from" nor "it was said to me by" rather I said "on the authority of". This is very important as the implication is that I didn't hear this directly and hence there's a problem as even if I am trustworthy and precise it can't be assumed that I actually took this narration directly. If I didn't take the narration directly one would have to ask, is there a narrator he omitted? Why would he omit a narrator? Perhaps that narrator was liar? I actually took the narration from a Facebook post of Shaykh Muhammad Shareef, now this would be like someone sending a narration via a letter, there is a possibility that the letter/post is fabricated and the supposed sender never said what is attributed to them. I have mentioned these things just so that one may realise that the affair of hadith transmission is no simple matter, consider how we will have to look at each narrator in the chain.
What the reader must understand is that ahadith are transmitted and these transmissions must be assessed, it is very possible that one transmission of a narration is daif yet another transmission of the same narration is sahih. The scholars of hadith thus use very precise terminology, so you will find them say things like "this narration is sahih lighairihi (authentic due to a transmission other than it )" so what that tells you is "this chain isn't sahih but there is another chain that is sahih which transmits the same text". You may also want to note the following down, if a narration is only transmitted by one person, that is to say all transmissions go through one person, the term used for that would be "gharib" such a narration may be sahih but can never be mutawatir (mass transmitted) even if that one person produced a thousand chains through different people from him back to the best of creation صلى الله عليه وسلم .
After considering all of that we must now look at what is happening in our age, for some strange reason we have supposed hadith "scholars" like Al Bani who will criticise transmission, declaring this one daif and that one sahih, yet without possessing a chain. So lets just assume Al bani declares a hadith as sahih, the problem is he can't narrate it without his narration being daif lidhatihi (weak in itself) as there is a gap between him and the authors of the books he is getting these narrations from. Not to mention we haven't even consider if this man is trustworthy or not, so how then are people taking the judgement of this man so seriously? Note having a general ijaza to narrate from a specific book is not going to be accepted when we take hadith from someone as such an ijaza is more for baraka. But we should look to see how trustworthy Al Bani actually was, even tho his authentications seem meaningless to us lets just see if he was trustworthy.
| Here we have video where that man was asked about Shaykh Sharawi (may Allah have mercy upon him), so he lies and claims that Sharawi believed that Allah is everywhere even tho we know this was not his position rather he was of the view (as is all of ahlusunnah) that Allah exists without a place, He is neither everywhere nor in a specific place. So how can Al bani be considered trustworthy? |
Perhaps one will say, "No he didn't lie rather he was quoting what was told to him regarding the position of Sharawi", even if we were to accept this it casts a shadow of doubt on him. If he just accepts whatever people claim (even tho he knows full well that the scholars of al azher do not claim Allah is everywhere) then how can we trust that this man didn't accept the false statements of others which lead him to wrongly classifying hadith and transmit lies claiming they were the potions of the salaf? People have taken this man as the final say on affairs in spite of the clear problems that I have mentioned.
Yet worse than that is this whole wahabi sect that calls itself "salafi", as this religion of ours is transmitted from people so let us examine this sect. These people claim to follow the salaf but what exactly is their chain? Their chain is, ibn abdul wahhab from ibn taymiyyah from the salaf, this is how they understand Islam. They look at what ibn taymiyyah said and look at what ibn abdul wahhab said and then they all split on who they follow after ibn abdul wahhab some following the puppets in saudi while others following other than them yet examine this chain. Did ibn taymiyyah meet the salaf? No. Did ibn abdul wahhab meet ibn taymiyyah? No. And you will notice that the real chains these people possess are going back to ibn abdul wahhab but they cannot produce a single chain from them to the salaf in which this "salafi" aqidah is transmitted. Rather what these people do is they misquote scholars, lie against scholars, quote fabricated statements and quote incorrect statements, then they say "this is the aqidah of the salaf", nay they lie and soon they will come to know. But lets just imagine that these people have a connected chain going from them, trough ibn abdul wahhab and then through ibn taymiyyah, to the salaf, it would be gharib. This is not a hadith such that a gharib narration can be accepted, no this is the entire religion and these people think that the entire religion goes through ibn adbul wahhab. They are like the Christians who take their beleifs through Paul, no they're wore as at least Paul met the disciples yet ibn abdul wahhab met none of the sahaba. Yet it gets worse, they claim ibn abdul wahhab revived tawheed, but last time I checked prophets revive tawheed hence why some said about these people "they follow a different religion and implicitly claim ibn abdul wahhab to be a prophet".
With Allah is every success and I hope that my words are of benefit. Oh Allah bring about benefit, there is no power nor might except by you, the affair is in your Hand.
Yet worse than that is this whole wahabi sect that calls itself "salafi", as this religion of ours is transmitted from people so let us examine this sect. These people claim to follow the salaf but what exactly is their chain? Their chain is, ibn abdul wahhab from ibn taymiyyah from the salaf, this is how they understand Islam. They look at what ibn taymiyyah said and look at what ibn abdul wahhab said and then they all split on who they follow after ibn abdul wahhab some following the puppets in saudi while others following other than them yet examine this chain. Did ibn taymiyyah meet the salaf? No. Did ibn abdul wahhab meet ibn taymiyyah? No. And you will notice that the real chains these people possess are going back to ibn abdul wahhab but they cannot produce a single chain from them to the salaf in which this "salafi" aqidah is transmitted. Rather what these people do is they misquote scholars, lie against scholars, quote fabricated statements and quote incorrect statements, then they say "this is the aqidah of the salaf", nay they lie and soon they will come to know. But lets just imagine that these people have a connected chain going from them, trough ibn abdul wahhab and then through ibn taymiyyah, to the salaf, it would be gharib. This is not a hadith such that a gharib narration can be accepted, no this is the entire religion and these people think that the entire religion goes through ibn adbul wahhab. They are like the Christians who take their beleifs through Paul, no they're wore as at least Paul met the disciples yet ibn abdul wahhab met none of the sahaba. Yet it gets worse, they claim ibn abdul wahhab revived tawheed, but last time I checked prophets revive tawheed hence why some said about these people "they follow a different religion and implicitly claim ibn abdul wahhab to be a prophet".
With Allah is every success and I hope that my words are of benefit. Oh Allah bring about benefit, there is no power nor might except by you, the affair is in your Hand.