How Scholars Know What Prophet Muhammad Really Said

Okay. Alhamdulillah.

[Silence]

Continuing in the fifth chapter, the chapter of vigilance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's observation authored by yesterday we spoke about the seventh narration, the narration of in which the prophet sallall.aii was narrated to have said, "The intelligent and the prudent is the one who holds himself to account and works for that which is after death." and and makes the bulk of his efforts for that which is after death. And the loser is the one who allows himself everything his self desires and then audaciously wishes that Allah would do for him. This narration was collected by who graded it acceptable. Now we spoke before about this narration and the meaning of it being correct and being a statement of wisdom. No doubt. However, that it has weakness in its chain of narrators, its chain of transmission, particularly a man by the name of Abu Bakr Abi Muriam who was a scholar of hadith and renowned and known for his truthfulness. however not known for his accuracy and this is this is a point here when we look at a a narrator and the reason I'm mentioning this narration again today is because yesterday after the after we concluded I was asked a a rather good question which I think mystifies a lot of people and that is if a narration is considered weak. It's a weak in irerration and we do not believe that it's the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's words per se. We can't affirm it or ascribe it to him with any kind of certainty. Then where do weak narrations come from? Right? That's a good nar that's a good question. You know there are three general buckets or three general categories. Let's say number one that which is authentic. We we consider this to be Allah's or we consider this to be the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam's words. The second category is that which is inauthentic and that is what we don't consider to be the prophet's words even though they are ascribed to him. And the third are fabrications. All right? Those things which were intentionally fabricated, made up and then ascribed to the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. So we have one category that we're sure of are his words. Another category that we are sure of are not his words. Those are fabrications. And then we have between those two extremes we have the no man's land of narrations which do not reach the level of authenticity for us to be able with any kind of certainty to say because that's a very big statement isn't it? imagine the responsibility in making such an audacious statement as the messenger of Allah said that is a huge statement that's quite a mouthful there are few other statements that carry such weight and there are few other claims that carry such significance. Why is that? When we look at humanity, we see people who are influential. But all of those influential people, scholars, you know, throughout history, these people, no matter what they say, their words in themselves are not an evidence. Their words thems are not innately an evidence. They need to have evidence in old in order to bolster their words to be able to say that's correct because except for the prophets and messengers. The prophets and messengers their words are innately evidence. Those words themselves are to be taken as evidence that those words of the prophets and messengers are not to be taken and weighed for you know to be correct. They are self-evidently correct and they are an evidence. They are the words by which all other words are judged. So the words of our prophet Sam are extremely weighty very grave because Allah says whoever obeys the messenger has obeyed Allah and the opposite meaning what's insinuated is and whoever disobys the messenger has disobeyed Allah. as a big thing. For this reason, the criteria that the scholars of Islam hold and the criteria that they have set up in order for a narration to be accepted as being the words of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam is extremely high criteria, very difficult. Only the best of the best with respect to narrators are going to be relied upon when we discuss authenticity. So when we say a narration is authentic, we are saying with reasonable certainty. What does that mean with reasonable certainty? without a reasonable doubt. These are the words, these are the actions of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam in this particular narration. When we have a weak narration, what that means is we are unable to obtain that level of certainty. Is it possible that a weak narration may have actually been the words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam but because of this weak narrator it is then not considered part of the authentic. It's possible. It's possible. However, in order for us to be able to rely on a narration, we have to be able to reach that level of reasonable certainty. Notice the words that I'm using, reasonable certainty. Right? And if a narration is inauthentic, this means that its chain of narration cannot bolster it to reasonable certainty. There is a reasonable doubt there. Right? Because the sunnah of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam was not narrated by one or two men. Not one or 2,000 men. Tens of thousands of people made it into the books of hadith. And from those tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people did not make it into the books of hadith. That is how many people are involved in transmitting the prophet sallall.aii's sunnah. And when we say people, we're not speaking about Joe Schmo, the guy at the grocery store. Oh yeah, I was around. I heard him once say this. Or, oh yeah, you know, I heard a companion once say such and such, some nobody. We're speaking about the best of the best of scholars. Someone that we are able to trace him from the moment he began studying until the day that he died, where he went, who he met with, who his Mashiah are, who his students are, who his peers were. And that's even more important because imagine this gathering here. We've got about what, 20 of us in here now. Imagine I say something, I make a statement, right? And then we all leave and then you know a couple months from now brother says yes I was in such and such gathering and I heard she Ali say one two three but everybody else that was there didn't hear that. Now we know what happened if is considered a trustworthy narrator. He made a mistake or it's likely he made a mistake or if he is an untrustworthy narrator, it means that he's playing some kind of games. Right? This is how the chains of narration work. It's not just one guy. Yes. When I compile a book Al Bkari compiled a book and then he mentions a narration he says one person narrates that this person narrates that this person narrates that's only the chain of narration that he chose for that book doesn't mean it's the only chain of narration. That particular narration may have sometimes up to hundreds of chains of narration with the same exact statement. Hundreds. Because if you imagine a major companion goes to some, you know, some town or some city, all the scholars of that town are going to descend upon this companion. And when he speaks, they're all writing. They're all listening. And then when they become very prominent after that companion has passed away, he goes to a town, all the scholars of that town will descend upon him and so forth. So we have dozens sometimes hundreds of people at every generation narrating that same narration. But then when we have a narration which is only narrated by one person and this one person is known to make mistakes and his peers did not narrate that narration. He's the only one right even though his peers who are more knowledgeable about that particular she's narrations didn't mention that narration now we put it in the pile of what's uncertain. That's what's called weak. It's called a weak narration. Now going back to that original notion that we mentioned and that is that a narration could be the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's words but then a weak narrator happens to make his way into the chain of narration and so the narration is graded weak because of him. Does that mean that we've lost a part of the sunnah? No. Why? Because the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam sunnah is repeated. The nature of it is that is repetitive. Right? This statement here, let's look at focus back on this statement. The intelligent, the prudent, the wise is a man who brings himself to account and places the bulk of his efforts in that which will be consequential after death. this statement in these exact words. If we were to say this is a weak narration, are there other narrations that hold this same exact meaning? Huh? There are probably dozens, maybe even hundreds of other narrations that hold the exact same meaning, just in different words. How about the Quran? Does the Quran contain this exact meaning, these same meanings? If you were to read the Quran, would you not come to this exact conclusion? That the intelligent is the one who brings himself to account and works for that which is after death and that the loser is the one who That's the moral of the story. That's what you learned from the Quran. That's what you gathered from it. Yeah, of course, that's exactly what you would the conclusion you would come to. Therefore, was any part of the Sunnah lost? No. There's no such thing as a critical part of the Sunnah being so weakly narrated that it is subject to loss along the way. Right? If something is very important, it's going to be said over and over and over. And there won't just be one verse or two verse, many verses and many narrations, right? And that is just speaking about the Quran and Sunnah. Then we go into the realm of what the companions said. And that's a a whole other level of narration and things that the companions learned from the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. And that is why it is a bigger issue than just one narration or two narrations. When a narration is graded authentic, it has to fit a larger scheme of themes. It can't just come out of left field. It has to fit a hand in a glove with the rest of the Quran and the rest of the Sunnah. Who tells us that this fits or doesn't fit? Who is it that tells us this? Is it the guy on Facebook or the guy on YouTube or Joe Schmo or Tom Dick and Harry? Or is it's the scholars of Islam and not just any scholars. We're talking about the upper 1% of scholars in our generation that will make these statements. And not only that, but even if a scholar who is the most major scholar of our time in all the world, if he were to make a statement, he can't just make that statement out of thin air. It has to trace itself back what? 1,500 years worth of other scholars going back to the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. His words have to fit into that. because there's no such thing as the Muslim discover something new about their religion that no one ever knew 1500 years before. That's not how this works. If you make a statement, an opinion, right? This is an opinion of a scholar. It has to be bolstered by other opinions. You can't just come up with it out of thin air. So, it is a it is a full ecosystem. You you you know when they speak about like how biologists for instance speak about species and their effects on the ecosystem, right? for instance the mosquito if if the mosquito disappeared tomorrow, what impact would that have? Oh, well, the creatures that eat those that rely on those mosquitoes would then die and then the predators that rely on those would then die and then it would reach all the way and impact human beings. It would impact the air. It would impact the ozone layer. It would impact, you know, whatever it is that they say. This is exactly how the Quran and Sunnah work. It is an entire ecosystem that if one part were to be removed, it will affect it all the way over here in a kind of butterfly effect. And that's why the prophets that's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said he says do they not and contemplate the Quran and come to the conclusion that if it was from other than Allah they would find much they would find much contradiction in it because a human being innately contradicts himself. It's it's human nature and it is only Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala who is able to go.

[Arabic recitation]