Post by Mahtab on Jan 1, 2015 6:59:25 GMT
Hadith, Arabic Ḥadīth (“News” or “Story”), also spelled Hadīt , record of the traditions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, revered and received as a major source of religious law and moral guidance, second only to the authority of the Qurʾān, the holy book of Islam. It might be defined as the biography of Muhammad perpetuated by the long memory of his community for their exemplification and obedience. The development of Hadith is a vital element during the first three centuries of Islamic history, and its study provides a broad index to the mind and ethos of Islam.
Nature and origins
The term Hadith derives from the Arabic root ḥdth meaning “to happen” and so “to tell a happening,” “to report,” “to have, or give, as news,” or “to speak of.” It means tradition seen as narrative and record. From Hadith comes the Sunnah (literally, a “well-trodden path”—i.e., taken as precedent and authority or directive), to which the faithful conform in submission to the sanction that Hadith possesses and that legalists, on that ground, can enjoin. Tradition in Islam is thus both content and constraint, Hadith as the biographical ground of law and Sunnah as the system of obligation derived from it. In and through Hadith, Muhammad may be said to have shaped and determined from the grave the behaviour patterns of the household of Islam by the posthumous leadership his personality exercised. There were, broadly, two factors operating to this end. One was the unique status of Muhammad in the genesis of Islam, and the other was the rapid geographical expansion of the new faith in the first two centuries of its history into various areas of cultural confrontation. Hadith cannot be rightly essed unless the measure of these two elements and their interaction is properly taken.
The experience of Muslims in the conquered territories of west and middle Asia and North Africa was related to their earlier tradition. Islamic tradition was firmly grounded in the sense of Muhammad’s personal destiny as the Prophet—the instrument of the Qurʾān and the apostle of God. The clue to tradition as an institution in Islam may be seen in the recital of the shahādah, or “witness” (“There is no god but God; Muhammad is the prophet of God”), with its twin items as inseparable convictions—God and the messenger. Islamic tradition follows from the primary phenomenon of the Qurʾān, received personally by Muhammad and thus inextricably bound up with his person and the agency of his vocation. Acknowledgment of the Qurʾān as scripture by the Islamic community was inseparable from acknowledgment of Muhammad as its appointed recipient. In that calling he had neither fellow nor partner, for God, according to the Qurʾān, spoke only to Muhammad. When Muhammad died, in 632 ce, the gap thus created in the emotions and the mental universe of Muslims was shatteringly wide. It was also permanent. Death had terminated the revelation embodied in the Qurʾān. By the same stroke, scriptural mediation had ended, as well as prophetic presence.
The Prophet’s death was said to have coincided with the perfection of revelation. But the perfective closure of both the book and the Prophet’s life, though in that sense triumphant, was also onerous, particularly in view of the new changing circumstances, of both space and time, in the geographical expansion of Islam. In all the new pressures of historical circumstance, where was direction to be sought? Where, if not from the same source as the scriptural mouthpiece, who by virtue of that consummated status had become the revelatory instrument of the divine word and could therefore be taken as an everlasting index to the divine counsel? The instinct for and the growth of tradition are thus integral elements in the very nature of Islam, Muhammad, and the Qurʾān. Ongoing history and the extending dispersion of Muslim believers provided the occasion and spur for the compilation of Hadith.
Historical development
The appeal of the ordered recollection of Muhammad to the Islamic mind did not become immediately formalized and sophisticated. On the contrary, there is evidence that the full development of Hadith was slow and uneven. Time and distance had to play their role before memory became stylized and official.
Literary tradition in pre-Islamic Arabia
The first generation had its own immediacy of Islamic experience, both within the life span of the Prophet and in the first quarter century afterward. It had also the familiar patterns of tribal chronicle in song and saga. Pre-Islamic poetry celebrated the glory of each tribe and their warriors. Such poetry was recited in honour of each tribe’s ancestors. The vigour and élan of original Islam took up these postures and baptized them into Muslim lore. The proud history of which Muhammad was the crux was, naturally, the ardent theme, first of chronicle and then of history writing. Both needed and stimulated the cherishing of tradition. The lawyers, in turn, took their clues from the same source. While the Qurʾān was being received, there had been reluctance and misgiving about recording the words and acts of the Prophet, lest they be confused with the uniquely constituted contents of the scripture. Knowledge of Muhammad’s disapproval of the practice of recording his words is evidence enough that the practice existed. With the Qurʾān complete and canonized, those considerations no longer obtained, and time and necessity turned the instinct for Hadith into a process of gathering momentum.
www.britannica.com
Nature and origins
The term Hadith derives from the Arabic root ḥdth meaning “to happen” and so “to tell a happening,” “to report,” “to have, or give, as news,” or “to speak of.” It means tradition seen as narrative and record. From Hadith comes the Sunnah (literally, a “well-trodden path”—i.e., taken as precedent and authority or directive), to which the faithful conform in submission to the sanction that Hadith possesses and that legalists, on that ground, can enjoin. Tradition in Islam is thus both content and constraint, Hadith as the biographical ground of law and Sunnah as the system of obligation derived from it. In and through Hadith, Muhammad may be said to have shaped and determined from the grave the behaviour patterns of the household of Islam by the posthumous leadership his personality exercised. There were, broadly, two factors operating to this end. One was the unique status of Muhammad in the genesis of Islam, and the other was the rapid geographical expansion of the new faith in the first two centuries of its history into various areas of cultural confrontation. Hadith cannot be rightly essed unless the measure of these two elements and their interaction is properly taken.
The experience of Muslims in the conquered territories of west and middle Asia and North Africa was related to their earlier tradition. Islamic tradition was firmly grounded in the sense of Muhammad’s personal destiny as the Prophet—the instrument of the Qurʾān and the apostle of God. The clue to tradition as an institution in Islam may be seen in the recital of the shahādah, or “witness” (“There is no god but God; Muhammad is the prophet of God”), with its twin items as inseparable convictions—God and the messenger. Islamic tradition follows from the primary phenomenon of the Qurʾān, received personally by Muhammad and thus inextricably bound up with his person and the agency of his vocation. Acknowledgment of the Qurʾān as scripture by the Islamic community was inseparable from acknowledgment of Muhammad as its appointed recipient. In that calling he had neither fellow nor partner, for God, according to the Qurʾān, spoke only to Muhammad. When Muhammad died, in 632 ce, the gap thus created in the emotions and the mental universe of Muslims was shatteringly wide. It was also permanent. Death had terminated the revelation embodied in the Qurʾān. By the same stroke, scriptural mediation had ended, as well as prophetic presence.
The Prophet’s death was said to have coincided with the perfection of revelation. But the perfective closure of both the book and the Prophet’s life, though in that sense triumphant, was also onerous, particularly in view of the new changing circumstances, of both space and time, in the geographical expansion of Islam. In all the new pressures of historical circumstance, where was direction to be sought? Where, if not from the same source as the scriptural mouthpiece, who by virtue of that consummated status had become the revelatory instrument of the divine word and could therefore be taken as an everlasting index to the divine counsel? The instinct for and the growth of tradition are thus integral elements in the very nature of Islam, Muhammad, and the Qurʾān. Ongoing history and the extending dispersion of Muslim believers provided the occasion and spur for the compilation of Hadith.
Historical development
The appeal of the ordered recollection of Muhammad to the Islamic mind did not become immediately formalized and sophisticated. On the contrary, there is evidence that the full development of Hadith was slow and uneven. Time and distance had to play their role before memory became stylized and official.
Literary tradition in pre-Islamic Arabia
The first generation had its own immediacy of Islamic experience, both within the life span of the Prophet and in the first quarter century afterward. It had also the familiar patterns of tribal chronicle in song and saga. Pre-Islamic poetry celebrated the glory of each tribe and their warriors. Such poetry was recited in honour of each tribe’s ancestors. The vigour and élan of original Islam took up these postures and baptized them into Muslim lore. The proud history of which Muhammad was the crux was, naturally, the ardent theme, first of chronicle and then of history writing. Both needed and stimulated the cherishing of tradition. The lawyers, in turn, took their clues from the same source. While the Qurʾān was being received, there had been reluctance and misgiving about recording the words and acts of the Prophet, lest they be confused with the uniquely constituted contents of the scripture. Knowledge of Muhammad’s disapproval of the practice of recording his words is evidence enough that the practice existed. With the Qurʾān complete and canonized, those considerations no longer obtained, and time and necessity turned the instinct for Hadith into a process of gathering momentum.
www.britannica.com
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