Over the past few years, a significant number of friends and students have requested a list of suggested book readings for my various classes on Hadith Studies. Others over the past few years have asked my opinion about certain works or whether they are appropriate for the level of the enquirer. Recently, I was reminded of a promise to compile a short list of works I would consider useful reading material for a student and have thus decided to take out a few minutes to compose this post, keeping in mind the various levels of readers and the need for conciseness.

An excerpt translated from the Dars-e-Tirmidhi of Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani. 

It is essential to learn about the different authors who narrate many of their aḥādīth taʿlīqan. We shall cite a few here.

 An excerpt translated from the Dars-e-Tirmidhi of Mufti Taqi Usmani. 

Attaining aḥādīth from a shaykh technically is known as taḥammul (تحمل) and this branches off into 5 types.[1]

In the Name of Allāh

There are 2 things:

1) the authenticity of Hadith; in which the status of the Hadiths’ text and chain is concerned, and

2) the authority of Hadith; in which the authority that Hadith holds in Islamic rulings is concerned.

In the following hadith the Messenger of Allah (Salla’Llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) draws a comparison for our understanding and make clear the example of knowledge and its recipients.

The following is an excerpt from Muftī ‘Abd al-Mālik’s book “al-Madkhal ilā ‘Ulūm al-Hadīth al-Sharīf”[1] on the use of computer programs to locate and grade hadīths. In this excerpt, Muftī ‘Abd al-Malik, seeing the abuse of these programs, sets out to clarify several misconceptions regarding them. Although the author’s contention lies mainly in the usage of computer programs to locate and grade Hadith, his insights are equally applicable to internet searches, printed books, and computer searches in other sciences as well. No doubt computer programs have immense benefit and can open many avenues when searching for hadīth, but everything needs to be put into perspective, and that is what this article hopes to achieve. An idiomatic translation was adopted to make the article more reader-friendly. – Muntasir Zaman

Title: Al-Madkhal ilā ‘Ilm al-Sunan

Author: Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī Tahqiq: Muhammad ‘Awwāmah

Other Details: pp.969 + 94, vol.2, $35 (hardback), ISBN 978-9933-503-59-8

Two of the primary terminologies of Hadith are Ṣaḥīḥ and Ḥasan. Although the absence/weakness of only 1 of the 5 conditions of Ṣaḥīḥ (ḍabṭ) make the Hadith Ḥasan, they are not on the same level, rather, they’re almost opposites. For this reason, using ‘Ṣaḥīḥ’ and ‘Ḥasan’ synonymously or together doesn’t seem accurate, as they both have qualities that oppose each other, main quality being that; the memory of a Ṣaḥīḥ Hadith’s narrator is complete whilst the memory of a Ḥasan Hadith’s narrator is defective. So what does it mean when the likes of Imām Tirmizī (رحمه الله) label one Hadith with both terms?

Second only to the Arabs, the Bengali-speaking Muslims make one of the largest linguistic groups in the Muslim world.^([1]) A significant number of the British Muslims are also of Bangladeshi origin.^([2]) It is a shame, therefore, that the majority of those who grew up in Europe, America and Canada know very little of their family history, culture and heritage. This includes the profound legacy of ḥadīth.

Question:

I have read one of your recent articles and I wanted to know, what is the legal requirement for someone to be considered a knowledgeable scholar whom we can take knowledge from? Is Isnad (chain of transmission) one of the requirements and is there any evidence for this deduced from the sources?

Also, I have noticed that Isnad is not usually mentioned by the scholars as a prerequisite for someone to be considered a Mujtahid. Can one therefore be self taught?