I have a deep passion for the sciences of Prophetic narration, or what has been termed
Mustallah al-Hadīth or
‘Ulūm al-Hadīth by various contemporary scholars, as do many people who have been brought up in an environment of studying under scholars and contemporary
Muhaddithīn who are particularly proficient in
hadīth and their various aspects such as Shaykh ‘Abdullah al-Juday and Shaykh Suhaib Hasan or Shaykh Muhammad Sālim wald Udūd (may Allah preserve them all). The whole subject is a truly fascinating area of study.
But what has been specifically on my mind of late has been the whole topic of
criticism – by that, we mean criticising those who narrate
hadīth to ensure they are not making mistakes or even worse, lying – which is what the science of
hadīth has always been traditionally called:
al-Jarh wa Ta‘dīl, or possibly translated as “the Science of Disparaging and Approving Narrators.”
I say ‘possibly’ because this is the whole crux of the matter. The English translation seems very negative and will always require a detailed explanation as to the job of the
Muhaddith when it comes to appraising a narration and the entire chain of all its narrators from the person who related it to the Muhaddith himself all the way to the Successor (
Tābi‘ī) and then the Companion (
Sahābi) and then the Prophet (
sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam).
Anyway, my intention is not to give an introduction to this science, rather what has fascinated me is what kind of relationship did the people of
Naqd (or those
Muhaddithīn who specialised in finding hidden faults in various narrators) actually had with those narrators. What I mean by that, is that often, a major
Muhaddith such as Yahya b. Ma‘īn or Imām Ahmad would critically take a narrator down, often quite publicly, and yet know that narrator personally as well.
Can you like
imagine that? Remember of course, our major scholars have preserved this science of ensuring only the best and most authentic
hadīth get narrated without personal bias and subjectivity against various characters in our history. They had nothing to gain personally, had no conflict of interests, and if there ever were, it would be stamped down upon and spotted very quickly by the other
Muhaddithīn who would not fail to take note of such behaviour. Yet still, can you imagine, meeting and seeing a person who on all accounts was a really nice, righteous, decent Muslim yet for some reason or the other, was a danger to the science of narration either through his mistakes, his poor memory, his ignorance, his deviance in
‘aqīdah or some other factor?
There are hundreds of books that detail this science of hadith, starting from the
Muqaddimah of ibn al-Salāh to the present day
Tahrīr ‘Ulūm al-Hadīth of Shaykh Juday, and they all detail the various nuances and skills required as well as all the different types and variations of faults that are to be discovered in the chains of narrations. Yet, in my experience so far, and certainly not from my bookshelf, I have not yet come across a detailed study into the psychology of the earlier
Muhaddithīn in how they preserved any sort of relationship with a narrator they knew yet had criticised or rubbished his hadīth. And if anyone does have something, then please do share it.
I for one would love to understand and master that psychology. We know in our present times and experiences that the art of criticising has been understood to a certain degree. Winters wrote that “Criticism is infectious.” I’ll add then that if this is so (and it most certainly is), then “to respond must be the plague.” And we know more as well. Look at blogs for example. If you were to take a random sample of blogs and monitor them for a while, you’ll find that all they effectively are (in the main) is a critique of various things such as society, ideas, politics, people, religion, etc. Indeed, have a think about the media as a whole and you’ll suddenly discover that the massive majority of what we hear, read, or see is one massive bundle of criticism. Frankly, one could say that us writers / authors / bloggers / lecturers / teachers / journalists / commentators (basically all of us) do nothing else but criticism. Even when we praise, we criticise!
It’s amazing. And I think we should understand its principles a lot more than we attempt to do if it is going to consume so much of our time, because as long as we are more constructive and objective in what we do, then criticism is not necessarily all that bad.
But what lessons have we learnt in modern times, or what questions can we at least ask ourselves to answer? Let me suggest a few:
- Have you all noticed how the more anonymous you make yourself, the easier it is to take another person down?
- Have you noticed the more you distance yourself from someone, the easier it is to be angry at them?
- Have you seen how you can ‘cuss and slate’ someone when they are not there but do nothing when they’re in front of you?
- Have you realised how easy it is to say something, whether negative or positive, when you don’t have to worry about the consequences, or you don’t believe you have any responsibility with respect to what you say?
- Have you seen how easy it is to make reconciliation on the phone, but face to face becomes so much harder?
- Isn’t it interesting how deep the statement, “Look me in the eye” now seems?
- Have you noticed how easy it is to even praise someone lavishly in their absence, much more so than when you are with them? On the same note, you feel like praising someone or something they’ve done but possible perceptions of others makes you hesitate, due to your identity being known?
All these things are very real, and happen all the time to a lot of us. Take this blog for example: there was an (unfortunate) time not too long ago when comments were not moderated and people would write in their 20s, 50s and even 100s of useless comments, virtually all of them anonymous or hidden behind some irrelevant pen-name. They would say the most crazy things, the most ridiculous and baseless criticism and at the same time, the most silliest and over-exuberant praise, all I suggest fuelled by the absence of any inter-personal contact and that devilish air of power than anonymity offers; once comments become moderated and people had to register, then the stat-counters show more and more readers but not even 1% of the numbers of comments – indeed cyber-silence is golden, Alhamdulillah!
And all this goes to show how interesting the psychology and interaction would have been between the scholars of old who were criticising for very valid
Deeni reasons and yet had to deal with all the rest of the fallout that must have been inevitable as a result of that. We sit here and lap up all the glory of their hard work but my Goodness, it must have been a stressful job dealing with it.
I was thinking the same thing recently when a group of us met some people that we would have no doubt criticised very easily due to their deviations in the fundamentals of Islam, yet when we were interacting with them, they suddenly became all…well…human! The alarm bells started ringing and confusion started to set in – the whole criticising and disparaging thing wasn’t so easy anymore was it now?
Another take on this could be the recent ‘riots’ at the possible filming of Monica Ali’s new book about Brick Lane, where the majority of the people who were being interviewed didn’t have a clue who she actually was and hardly any of them had even read her book and what she was meant to have said.
Indeed, this follows the general pattern of complaint/riot/anger/criticism and the like; it is far easier to do when we don’t have to think about it, when we don’t have to worry about the consequences, when we don’t have to work out the logic or rationale behind our actions or statements etc.
So is it a surprise then when we read the severe warnings from the Prophet (
sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) to be careful what our tongues say for how often does a single, loose and often instantly forgotten statement come back to haunt the one who uttered it so heedlessly?
May Allah protect us and guide us to that which He loves, Ameen.
The very least this little piece should make us all do, primarily myself as I sit here writing it, is make us reflect how we should conduct ourselves when we naturally criticise, how the early Muslims would do it, how to understand the psychology involved behind it, how not to absolve ourselves of our responsibility to criticise deviation and threats to our pure
Deen and yet understand how to deal with the very real difficulties of applying these principles in politically and socially sensitive times today.
