Differences among Narrators in the Hadith of Abu Hurayrah on the Sea: Study of the Method and Flaws of Narration

Abstract

The current research aims to highlight the differences among the narrators of an important Hadith which accounts for half the rulings on cleanliness in Islam. It also aims to collect its scattered versions, authenticate them and study their chain of narration and flawness, and discuss the narrators who found flaws which led them to doubt this Hadith. The study will illustrate the distinctive place of Hadith of the Sea among scholars, showing its foundations and principles in shari’a. It will also illustrate the prominent status of famous Sunnah anthologies such as the grand nine books, which contain the correct preserved versions of the majority of Hadiths, whereas disputed faulty ones are assigned to other books.

This hadith gives a practical example showing that Imam Al-Bukhari did not commit himself to collecting all the correct Hadiths in his book, and that what he left out is more than what he included. In some cases he gave his judgement concerning correctness; additionally, he examined the social situation of the narrators and scholars whose hadiths he authenticated, while, when studying small-corpus narrators, he gathered circumstantial evidence to establish their social situation. The current work has identified an important rule for weighing Hadith in case of difference: when a number of trusted memorizers dispute a given narration from the maSdar (source), then it is possible that the disturbance originates in the maSdar itself, since this was not preserved, and the narrators reported what they had heard.

The paper recommends that special attention is paid to the grand universal Hadiths described as the foundation of Islam, and that significance should be given to the study of difference in hadith narration, which makes an important part of the foundation of the study of faulty hadith.