Bismillahir-Rahmaanir-Raheem
'Here, we have a people who spent their lifetime in gathering hadeeth, traveling about it and gathering many routes, desiring shorter chains and unusual narrations.
These people can be divided into two: the First Category; those who genuinely make the striving to guard the Shariah to differentiate what is authentic from what is not, such people are commendable over this noble intention though Iblees often makes them busy with this away from what is specifically obligatory such as knowing what is obligatory upon them and making efforts to render what is imperative (in the Deen), learning the jurisprudence of hadeeth.
Someone might say but many of the Salaf such as Yahyaa bn Maeen, [Alee] Ibn Al-Madeenee, Al-Bukhaaree and Muslims all did that. The answer is that those Salaf combined the knowledge of what is important in the matters of the Deen and their jurisprudence with what they learn from hadeeth; shorter chains and little hadeeth aided them in achieving that, their time could achieve the two for them. As for this time (that the time of Ibn Al-Jawzee), routes of hadeeth have become longer, with many publications. What is in this book (of the Salaf) and other books (of the Khalaf), they are just different routes, so it is hard for anyone to attain the two goals together (knowing the hadeeth and its jurisprudence). You will see a muhaddith writing and listening to hadeeth for fifty years yet not comprehend what they contain, if something occurs to him in his Salat, he will have to hear what new learners of Fiqh who have been frequenting him for hadeeth will have to say. These are the people that give the critics of scholars of hadeeth a say when those critics say: ‘possessors of books who do not know what they have with them.’
Some of them might graduate and look at the hadeeth with him, but will still act with hadeeth which ruling has been abrogated. Sometime his understanding from a hadeeth will not be different from what an ignorant layman will understand…we were told that one of the muhadditheen reported from the Messenger of Allaah – sallallaahu alahyi wa sallaam – that he forbade a man from irrigating the farm of another man, then a group of people present said they had been in the habit of allowing their neighbours in farm make use of left over water from their own farms and that they would seek Allah’s forgiveness. All the people there including the reader of the hadeeth and the listeners never knew that what was intended in the hadeeth is a prohibition of a man having sexual intercourse with a female captive who is pregnant (for the former husband)!
One of our mashaayikh narrated that the Prophet – sallallaahu alahyi wa sallaam – prohibited ‘halq’ (instead of ‘hilaq’) before Salat on the day of Jum’ah; he told me that he remained like that for forty years not shaving his head before Salat (on Jum’ah). I told him that the ‘hilaq’ said is plural of ‘halqah’, that what was prohibited is gathering for any knowledge before Jum’ah…
Aboo Bakr Al-Abharee Al-Faqeeh said: I was with Yahyaa bn Muhammad bn Saa’id when a woman came and said: ‘O Shaykh, what will you say about a well which a hen fell into and died; is the water clean or impure?’ He answered: ‘O sorry, how did it fell inside the well?’ She said: ‘The well was not covered.’ He said: ‘Can’t you cover it well so that things will not fall inside?’ Al-Abharee then came in: ‘O lady, if the water changes then it is impure if otherwise nothing.’
Ibn Shaaheen wrote a lot of books on hadeeth the least of which was a Juz’, the bulk of it is ‘At-Tafseer’ which is about a thousand ajzaa, yet he did not know anything about Fiqh.
Some of them will present themselves to giving verdicts to save face but will pass verdicts that will make people laugh. One of them was asked about a matter of inheritance, he wrote in a verdict: do you want to re-distribute what Allaah has allotted...
The Second Category are those who heard a lot of narrations but with evil intention…just to know the shorter chains and the most strange narrations, they will travel round the cities to say ‘I met so-and-so,’ ‘I have chains other do not have,’ ‘I have hadeeth others do not have…’
Some will say: ‘So-and-so narrated to me in my second and third trip’ so as to make people know that he had suffered in gathering hadeeth yet he would have no barakah he would rather die learning.
All these people are far from good intention. They only seek to lord over the people and to pride with what they know. They follow rejected narrations about, and those that are strange. He might be opportune to have access to a juz of narration but hiding it from his Muslim brother so that he can be the only one to make the narrations yet he will die without benefitting anybody…
One of the Iblees plots against the learners of hadeeth is their mutual disparagement in quest for self-purification. They often hide under the façade of Jar’h wa Ta’deel which was used by the people of old to save the Sharee’ah. Allaah knows the intention…the people of old were not like that. Alee bn Al-Madeenee would narrate hadeeth from his father who was weak and he would tell the people the defect in the hadeeth…
The source of backbiting from Qur’aan reciters and devout worshipers is self-pride…as for heads and teachers it is when they claim to show mercy and sympathy to those whom they backbite…we ask Allaah to protect us from mild and plain backbiting…
Also from the plots of Iblees against the learners of hadeeth is narrating fabricated hadeeth without explaining that it is fabricated…
The Messenger of Allaah – sallallaahu alahyi wa sallaam – has said: ‘Whoever narrates a hadeeth about me who knows (or is made to know, as it is in a version) that is a lie, he is one of the liars (or one of the two liars)’…
Only Allaah can grant success.'
End of quote.
An abridgement from Talbees Iblees of al-Imaam Abul-Faraj Ibn Al-Jawzee pp.107-112, Daar Fikr Publication, 2006 Edition.
Click the link below for Part I:
