Infallible Words - Discourses on Hadith

281 Pages·2022·3.088 MB·English

by  Tahir Ridha Jaffer

Infallible Words
Discourses on Ḥadīth

Volume 1

Tahir Ridha Jaffer
Infallible Words: Discourses on Ḥadīth
Author: Tahir Ridha Jaffer
Publisher: Ansariyan Publications
First Print: 2022 - 1443 - 1402
Quds Press
Pages: 280
Quantity: 1000
Size: 152 x 228 mm
ISBN: 978-964-219-738-5
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CONTENTS
Transliteration Table .................................................................................. i
Introduction .............................................................................................. iii
1. An Analysis of the Probativeness of Medical Narrations ........................ 1
A Brief History of Islamic Medicine ........................................................ 4
Evaluating the Probativeness of Medical Traditions .............................. 19
Islamic Remedies and Placebos ............................................................. 26
The Debate on Islamic Medicine in the Ḥawza ʿIlmiyyah ...................... 31
2. Deciphering a Ḥadīth Compiler’s Creed and Milieu – the Case of al-
Ḥaskānī’s Shawāhid al-Tanzīl .................................................................. 36
Who was al-Ḥaskānī? ............................................................................ 38
Shawāhid al-Tanzīl – Where Faḍāʾil meets Exegesis .............................. 39
The Traditions that give the Impression of Sunnism ............................. 42
The Traditions that give the Impression of Shīʿism ............................... 52
Other Interesting Traditions ................................................................. 60
3. Constructing a Transcendent Tawātur from the Abrahamic Traditions
to Prove End Times Prophecy .................................................................. 68
Definitions of Tawātur ......................................................................... 72
Can Tawātur Transcend the Bounds of Faith? ...................................... 77
Potential Pitfalls of this Approach and how to Avoid them ................... 84
4. A Study of the Narrations about the Great Battle during the End Times
................................................................................................................. 92
The Final Battle in Sunnī Traditions .................................................... 97
The Final Battle in Shīʿī Traditions ..................................................... 126
5. Death and the Afterlife in Judaism, Christianity and Islam ............... 167
The Experience of Death .................................................................... 168
Life after Death ................................................................................... 173
Resurrection........................................................................................ 176
Accounting and Judgment ................................................................... 179
Paradise ............................................................................................... 183
Hell ..................................................................................................... 187
Summary ............................................................................................. 192
6. The Sermon of al-Sayyidah al-Zahrāʾ (a) Commonly Known as al-
Khuṭbah al-Fadakiyyah ........................................................................... 195
Sources ................................................................................................ 196
Narrators ............................................................................................. 202
The Sermon ......................................................................................... 207
7. A Critical Appraisal of Juynboll’s Views on Isnād ............................... 231
The Birth and Development of Isnāds .................................................. 231
Discussion on Tawātur ........................................................................ 236
The Common-Link Theory ................................................................. 243
Bibliography ........................................................................................... 253
TRANSLITERATION TABLE

ʾ ṭ
ء ط
a ẓ
ا ظ
b ʿ
ب ع
t gh
ت غ
th f
ث ف
j q
ج ق
ḥ k
ح ك
kh l
خ ل
d m
د م
dh n
ذ ن
r w
ر و
z y
ز ي
s h
س ه
sh h (or not
ش ة
transliterated)
ṣ
ص
ḍ
ض

Long Vowels Short Vowels
ā َ a
ا ــــــ
ū ُ u
و ــــــ
ī i
ي ــــِــ

(ṣ) :  - Peace and blessings be upon him and his family
(a) :  - Peace be upon him (or her, or them)
(atf) :  May Allah hasten his reappearance

i
INTRODUCTION

We dedicate this work to the pious ḥadīth scholars who have worked
tirelessly over the ages to impart the sayings of the Infallibles to the
believers – may Allah bless them all.
ii
INTRODUCTION

The field of ḥadīth studies has burgeoned and continues to grow rapidly
in the religious seminary (ḥawza ʿilmiyyah) today, with numerous
institutes devoted to research on the subject and countless tomes,
academic journals and advanced classes offered by renowned scholars
on the sayings of the Infallibles. With the advent of the internet and
adoption of the available technologies by research institutes affiliated to
the seminary, it has become increasingly easier to access material that
would previously require one to pore through large volumes in dusty
old libraries. However, like most human advancements, this has proven
to be a double-edged sword, since it has also given non-experts access
to material which they cannot comprehend correctly, leading to much
confusion in some quarters.
There is a vast scope for ḥadīth research and many of the modern
phenomena we see around us can be analysed through the lens of
ḥadīth. Second only to the Qurʾān, the ḥadīth constitutes a primary
source of beliefs, teachings and legislation in Islam. From the earliest
days, Muslims realized the importance of the aḥādīth and took great
pains to learn and preserve them, at times travelling to far off places to
collect and record the sayings of the Prophet (ṣ) from those who had
heard it first-hand. The Shīʿahs likewise regularly travelled to meet the
Imam of their time in order to get their religious queries answered and
benefit from their advice and teachings.
Given that the Noble Prophet (ṣ) and the chosen ones from his
progeny were divinely appointed guides who were tasked with teaching
the people, it is evident that they were the only ones from whom
Muslims could learn the correct meanings of the verses of the Qurʾān.
As such, one of the important functions of ḥadīth has been to give
iii
INTRODUCTION
insight to Muslim exegetes about the interpretation of Qurʾānic verses
and out of the numerous commentaries and explanations that have been
offered by scholars, only those that are based on the teachings of the
Infallibles are deemed to be most authoritative.
As time passed, due to various factors such as the fabrication of
ḥadīth by some unscrupulous individuals and groups, the rudimentary
nature of stationery on which ḥadīth had been written, the burning of
libraries, and the difficulty of making copies of texts, it became
increasingly difficult to decipher the meaning and intent of the sayings,
and distinguish the authentic traditions from the inauthentic ones. The
fact that most narrators conveyed the meanings of the aḥādīth rather
than the actual verbatim statements of the Infallibles only made things
more difficult. For this reason, scholars developed different sciences
that could be used to help in ḥadīth evaluation and interpretation.
These included, for instance, the science of rijāl (evaluation of
narrators), dirāyah (contextual analysis), fiqh al-ḥadīth (a study of the
purport and meanings of the aḥādīth), to name a few.
With the passage of time, the complexity of these sciences increased
as they were developed further by every subsequent generation of
scholars. A lot of time and effort was put into the evaluation and
interpretation of the aḥādīth and seminarians would sometimes spend
weeks discussing and debating the meaning of a single ḥadīth. It is
precisely for this reason that when a non-expert tries to argue and prove
his point using a ḥadīth, he actually undermines the great efforts of
ḥadīth experts by ignoring what they have to say about the ḥadīth in
question. Hence, it is paramount to realize the faux pas of quoting any
ḥadīth without taking the time to see what the experts have said about
it.
The misconception in the minds of some believers is that the
seminaries of Qum and Najaf are outdated institutions with scholars
who are detached from the realities of the modern and postmodern
world, and know nothing about the real problems faced by believers in
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