Some Thoughts On The No. Of Reports From Imams

[Cake]

(salam)

Some thoughts in my head that a brother told me to post on SC. Perhaps there will be something useful therein or perchance we could get a discussion going. Apologies for any mistakes in this. It is a rather late hour.

The number of narrations in Wasaa'il ash-Shi`a from each Imam:

Prophet (s) 6660

Imam Ali 4471

Fatima 35

al-Hasan 110

al-Hussayn 65

as-Sajjad 655

Al-Baqir 9679

as-Sadiq 37615

al-Kadhim 4091

ar-Ridha 4166

Al-Jawad 437

al-Hadi 552

al-Askari 268

al-Mahdi 178

(peace be upon them all)

There's another 900 that don't specify which Imam or that go through multiple Imams (e.g. Aabaa'/the forefathers of al-Baqir).

In terms of numbers, it is the total number of every single chain (e.g. if a hadeeth has 2 narrators in one tabaqah of the sanad, then there are two chains) that has been approximately counted (not manually!) rather than the perhaps less accurate number of hadeeths recorded (which can have multiple asaneed, yet be written once in matn).

I don't believe the numbers for anyone before, and probably including, as-Sajjad are accurate as there are many chains which go through as-Sadiqayn who report mursalan from e.g. the Prophet or Imam Ali. Reporting a hadeeth from Imam Ali through Imam as-Sadiq means we are really just depending on Imam as-Sadiq. So the "true" number of narrations, independent of later Imams, from the first five or six infallibles are far fewer.

I believe from my little knowledge so far that this is largely based on the lack of narrators - I'm thinking Imami narrators mostly - that survived from the times of the infallibles Imam Ali, al-Hassanayn, and to a lesser extent Ali bin al-Hussayn (peace be upon them). There were a variety of civil wars during Imam Ali's time, and a significant desertion of "followers" during his time as the civil wars continued without end in sight and became bloodier (think about the long years with Mu`awiya, and the necessary "massacre" of the Khawaarij), and there was a desertion during Imam al-Hasan's time, and during Imam al-Hussayn's time, because al-Hasan signed a treaty with Mu`awiya, and because of the persecutions and the growing anti-Shia environment as well as the development of Sunni "orthodoxy" (which naturally opposed "innovations" and "heresies", including the Shia in their eyes) during al-Hassanayn's time. These factors led to Imam al-Hussayn having little support against the new caliph Yazeed, so much so that he had to wait until the Kufans (and none other) pledged themselves to him, and then their loyalty was broken under duress. Hence, it perhaps should not be a surprise (though this does not decrease the sadness of it) that Kashshi reports murslan (or probably that Tusi preserved it as such) a narration from al-Fadhl who said:

ãØÚã¡ íÍíì Èä Ãã ÇáØæíá¡ ÃÈæ ÎÇáÏ ÇáßÇÈáí æÃÓãå æÑÏÇä æáÞÈå ßäßÑ¡ ÓÚíÏ Èä ÇáãÓíÈ ÑÈÇå ÃãíÑ ÇáãÄãäíä Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã¡ æßÇä ÍÒä ÌÏ ÓÚíÏ ÃæÕì ÃãíÑ ÇáãÄãäíä Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã.

al-Fadl b. Shadhan said: In the beginning of his affair, there was no one with `Ali b. al-Husayn Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã except for five people: Sa`id b. Jubayr, Sa`id b. al-Musayyib, Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mat`am, Yahya b. Umm at-Tawil, and Abu Khalid al-Kabuli – and his name was Wardan, his laqab was Kankar. Amir al-Mu’mineen Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã raised Sa`id b. al-Musayyib, and it was the grief (?, family for whom one grieves?) of the grandfather of Sa`id that bequeathed (to?) Amir al-Mu’mineen Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã.

(Speaking of persecution, I immediately recall hearing that Sa`eed bin Jubayr was executed by Hajjaaj bin Yusuf ath-Thaqafi for the former's tashayyu'. This would of course reduce the number of narrations that could have been narrated).

Thus, from what I have gathered so far, it seems to me that there were a lack of (surviving) followers for the first infallibles to preserve their narrations.

Of course, times and environments change and the use of taqiyyah becomes strongly pronounced and so al-Baqir and as-Sadiq (i.e. as-Sadiqayn) report thousands of hadeeths, while appearing as Sunnis to the Sunnis. Hence we know them as the founders (in a sense) of this Imami madhhab (and the Sunnis only really preserve some of their fatawa to my knowledge).

Then we can see that after as-Sadiqayn, a large amount of narrations are reported from al-Kadhim and ar-Ridha, though markedly less than the number from as-Sadiqayn. Then Imams 9-11 come and enough is narrated from them to be noteworthy.

Those arguing against Tashayyu' might use this as an argument against Tashayyu by raising a question mark over the "lack" of narrations from the later Imams. Well, there are narrations from the later Imams and so this has already answered the argument that we depend solely on as-Sadiqayn. But, more importantly, there are factors to be considered. Remember, the madhhab had been established by as-Sadiqayn, and so other than the responsibilities of clarifying and supporting the opinions of their forefathers, the later Imams (those after as-Sadiq) were not under the same pressure to explain and teach the Deen and so had less "new" information to give in response to questions. So their pronouncements - especially on fiqhi matters- were less needed, resulting in less narrations. Indeed, I wonder what proportion of narrations from al-Jawad and ar-Ridha are fiqhi in comparision to those from as-Sadiqayn.

The lack of narrations (in comparison to as-Sadiqayn) was especially pronounced after ar-Ridha's time. The Imams after as-Sadiq were then under alot more pressure (e.g. Kadhim being in prison for years, Jawad being under the nose of the caliph for much of his life and Askari spending most of his life under house arrest) and so the Shia began to depend on not the Imams in their time as these were inaccessible due to danger to the Imams or themselves, but on those before them, i.e. as-Sadiqayn, and hence chains of narrators were relied upon to go back through a couple of generations. For example, Ibn Abi Umayr narrating from a large variety of individuals in order to get the opinions of as-Sadiqayn. (e.g. Aside from Ali bin Ja`far, the brother of the Imam, only five narrators report more than a hundred narrations each from al-Kadhim in Wasaa'il). And when this happened, ilm ar-rijal began to be developed further (beyond the Imams telling the Shia who was a trustworthy source of Deen) with the opinions of Ali bin al-Hasan bin Fadhaal and al-Fadhl bin Shadhan etc. I could probably also draw in the impact of the underground Shia organisation established by the Imams which grew in power especially by the time of al-Jawad or al-Hadi (if I remember correctly).

Consider the rising of Qum as the main city of narrators with Ahmed bin Muhammad al-Ash`ari, al-Hasan bin Mahboob, Ibraheem bin Haashim etc. then Sa`ad bin Abdullah, Muhammed bin Yahya, Abdullah bin Ja`far al-Himyari etc.) where these major narrators depended on the previous Imams rather than their own due to physical distance, danger, persecution, and the watch of the caliphs. And even despite this, we still have some hundreds of narrations from the last few Imams, thereby dismissing this argument that the Qummis or Kufans invented much of Tashayyu and projected it back on the deceased Sadiqayn., as Ridha, Jawad, Hadi, and Askari (peace be upon them) would have been able to deny and dissociate from the Shia, not just on an individual or small group level, but in a way that exposed the heresy and mass fabrication that was being attributed to their forefathers.

I'll leave my thoughts there.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Cake

[Qa'im]

Interesting thoughts, thanks for posting up your research.

Through the numbers you can understand the position each Imam was in. As you noted, most of our ahadith going back to the Prophet (pbuh) and `Ali (as) actually come through al-Baqir and as-Sadiq. Although there have always been ahadith, it did not become a popular "trend" until the time of Zayn al-`Abideen and onward. You may have noticed that even in Sunni tradition, the majority of the ahadith coming from the Prophet (pbuh) go through only a few individuals - Abu Hurairah, `A'isha, Ibn `Abbas, Ibn `Umar, and Anas b. Malik. Every now and then you come across an Ibn Mas`ud, but it begs the question; where are the ahadith of big muhajireen like Bilal al-Habashi, Salman al-Farisi, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, Miqdad b. al-Aswad, Suhayb ar-Rumi, `Ammar b. Yasir, and many others, who have narrated very few ahadith if any. People who you'd otherwise think would have a lot to say. On top of this, there are very few companions who we deemed trustworthy. Nonetheless, these problems were solved through Imamate. al-Baqir (as) was called a mudallis by the Medinans, so he received permission to attribute all of his ahadith to Jabir b. `Abdullah al-Ansari. Even now, if you open up Malik b. Anas' Muwatta', all of Ja`far as-Sadiq's traditions go through Jabir to either the Prophet or Amir al-Mu'mineen.

Hadiths were not written during the Prophet's life, and on the contrary, the Sunni sources indicate that the Prophet ordered the people not to write his words. The explained purpose of this was so that his words were not mistaken as Qur'an. Moreover, his hadiths were sometimes abrogated by Qur'anic verses (such as wiping on khuffayn). Abu Bakr produced a book of ahadith, but ended up destroying his work in fear that he had been misquoting or misunderstanding the Prophet (pbuh). But by the time of al-Baqir and as-Sadiq, the ahadith narrating and collecting trend came into play. People at that time were even already producing rijal works, along with their usool notebooks and attributing most traditions with a full chain of narration. This is to our advantage, because these two Imams explicitly ordered their followers to write what they hear. So while the Sunni books had relied on 100-200 years of oral tradition, the first 70 years of which the hadith science had not yet been fully established - our hadiths were written after the establishment of the science, within the lifetimes of the Imams, with shorter chains and less room for accidental error. But there were some disadvantages too; these two Imams were far away from their base of support, because a move to Kufa would be pretty much an act of war. So their public selves were watered down so that they may not be harmed. This distance also allowed people to fabricate ahadith in their name and get away with it. There were famous sayings of other non-Imams that were being attributed to the Imams as well (a hadith of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya comes to mind).

Many of the later Imams spent time in prison and were killed at a young age. Their role in many cases was to confirm the ahadith attributed to their forefathers, and I've seen lots of examples of that. But by this time there were already scholars, books, judges, etc. with relative success. The only points of real confusion was whenever an Imam died.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Qa'im

[Cake]

You may have noticed that even in Sunni tradition, the majority of the ahadith coming from the Prophet (pbuh) go through only a few individuals - Abu Hurairah, `A'isha, Ibn `Abbas, Ibn `Umar, and Anas b. Malik.

I have seen the Sunnis argue that all of the ahadeeth of Abu Hurayra are reported by at least one other companion, except for a handful. But your point remains that only a handful of sahaba are reporting the majority of the ahadeeth of the Prophet. This becomes problematic if we poke holes in the `adaalah of any of these sahaba. For example, negating Aisha's `adaalah because she warred against Imam Ali (leaving aside this nonsense that she didn't know what she was doing or that it was all a conspiracy manufactured by Ibn Saba).

After acknowledging that most ahadeeth only come through a handful of sahaba, it probably reduces the number of muttawaitr ahadeeth that the Sunnis claim exist in their works.

And to add to this, the ikhtilaaf that exists between the companions and the generation that followed is perplexing in determining the truth, but also perhaps questions the validity of their knowledge. It reminds me of this hadeeth:

Úóáöíø Èúäõ ÅöÈúÑóÇåöíãó Úóäú ÃóÈöíåö Úóäö ÇÈúäö ÃóÈöí äóÌúÑóÇäó Úóäú ÚóÇÕöãö Èúäö ÍõãóíúÚÏò ÚóÚäú ãóäúÕõÚæÑö ÈúÚäö ÍóÚÇÒöãò ÞóÚÇáó ÞõáúÚÊõ áóöÈöÚí ÚóÈúÚÏö ÇáöøÚ

( Úáíå ÇáÓáã ) ãóÇ ÈóÇáöí ÃóÓúÃóáõßó Úóäö ÇáúãóÓúÃóáóÉö ÝóÊõÌöíÈõäöí ÝöíåóÇ ÈöÇáúÌóæóÇÈö Ëõãø íóÌöíÆõßó ÛóíúÚÑöí ÝóÊõÌöíÈõÚåõ ÝöíåóÚÇ ÈöÌóÚæóÇÈò ÂÎóÚÑó ÝóÞóÚÇáó ÅöäøÚÇ äõÌöíÚÈõ

ÇáäøÇÓó Úóáóì ÇáÒøíóÇÏóÉö æó ÇáäøÞúÕóÇäö ÞóÇáó ÞõáúÊõ ÝóÃóÎúÈöÑúäöí Úóäú ÃóÕúÍóÇÈö ÑóÓõæáö Çáöø ( Õáì Çá Úáíå æÂáå ) ÕóÚÏóÞõæÇ ÚóáóÚì ãõÍóãøÚÏò ( Õíáì

Çá Úáíå æÂáå ) Ãóãú ßóÐóÈõæÇ ÞóÇáó Èóáú ÕóÏóÞõæÇ ÞóÇáó ÞõáúÊõ ÝóãóÇ ÈóÇáõåõãõ ÇÎúÊóáóÝõæÇ ÝóÞóÇáó Ãó ãóÇ ÊóÚúáóãõ Ãóäø ÇáÑøÌõáó ßóÇäó íóÚÃúÊöí ÑóÓõÚæáó ÇáöøÚ ( Õíáì Çáí

Úáíå æÂáå ) ÝóíóÓúÃóáõåõ Úóäö ÇáúãóÓúÃóáóÉö ÝóíõÌöíÈõåõ ÝöíåóÇ ÈöÇáúÌóæóÇÈö Ëõãø íõÌöíÈõåõ ÈóÚúÏó Ðóáößó ãóÇ íóäúÓóÎõ Ðóáößó ÇáúÌóæóÇÈó ÝóäóÓóÎóÊö ÇáóúÍóÇÏöíËõ ÈóÚúÖõåóÇ ÈóÚúÖÇð .

Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from ibn abu Najran from ‘Asim ibn Humayd from Mansur ibn Hazim who has said the following: “Once, I said to (Imam) abu ‘Abd Allah (A) ‘It confuses me when I ask you a question and you give an answer. Then another person comes, you give a different answer for the same question.’ The Imam replied, ‘We answer people in a larger and reduced form.’ I then asked, ‘Did the Sahaba (companions of the Messenger of Allah) speak the truth or lies when narrating his Hadith?’ The Imam replied, ‘They spoke the truth.’ I then said, ‘Why then do they have differences?’ The Imam then said, ‘Have you not considered the fact that a man would come to the Messenger of Allah (S) and ask him a question and he would give him an answer. Then he would give an answer that abrogated the previous answer. Thus, Ahadith abrogated other Ahadith.’”

This is why we prefer one group of sahaba over another. And we have preferred Ahlulbayt and hadeeth ath-thaqalayn supports their knowledge.

Every now and then you come across an Ibn Mas`ud, but it begs the unfavoured question; where are the ahadith of big muhajireen like Bilal al-Habashi, Salman al-Farisi, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, Miqdad b. al-Aswad, Suhayb ar-Rumi, `Ammar b. Yasir, and many others, who have narrated very few ahadith if any. People who you'd otherwise think would have a lot to say.

Exactly. Thankfully alternatives to the traditional accounts and beliefs put forward by the Sunnis do survive to some degree, such as the Tragedy of Thursday which is even present in the Saheehayn.

Hadiths were not written during the Prophet's life, and on the contrary, the Sunni sources indicate that the Prophet ordered the people not to write his words. The explained purpose of this was so that his words were not mistaken as Qur'an. Moreover, his hadiths were sometimes abrogated by Qur'anic verses (such as wiping on khuffayn). Abu Bakr produced a book of ahadith, but ended up destroying his work in fear that he had been misquoting or misunderstanding the Prophet (pbuh).

You will find that the Sunnis convincingly refute this idea that the Prophet forbade the general writing of ahadeeth and that the people also forbade writing the hadeeth. The story that Abu Bakr burned his collection is dha`eef. It is true that the Prophet forbade the writing of ahadeeth at one point, but this is, as you said, to make distinct from the writing down of the Quran, they say. It is correct that for some decades, writing down was a less common and less favoured method and even looked down upon, because it was seen as an "easy" way to collect many ahadeeth very quickly as opposed to memorisation which required more effort.

But by the time of al-Baqir and as-Sadiq, the ahadith narrating and collecting trend came into play. People at that time were even already producing rijal works, along with their usool notebooks and attributing most traditions with a full chain of narration. This is to our advantage, because these two Imams explicitly ordered their followers to write what they hear. So while the Sunni books had relied on 100-200 years of oral tradition, the first 70 years of which the hadith science had not yet been fully established - our hadiths were written after the establishment of the science, within the lifetimes of the Imams, with shorter chains and less room for accidental error. But there were some disadvantages too; these two Imams were far away from their base of support, because a move to Kufa would be pretty much an act of war. So their public selves were watered down so that they may not be harmed. This distance also allowed people to fabricate ahadith in their name and get away with it. There were famous sayings of other non-Imams that were being attributed to the Imams as well (a hadith of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya comes to mind).

Well, major fabricators couldn't get away with it. Firstly, the worst of them, such as Abu'l Khattab were condemned in a widespread manner. Secondly, the Shia would tend only to stick to the more reliable ones. This partly explains why Tusi might say that fulan is was relied upon, such as for Hafs b. al-Ghiyath, which is then taken as tawtheeq by e.g. al-Khui. Thirdly, as written in post #1, `ilm ar-rijaal did begin to develop beyond the basics to combat such people.

As for the minor fabricators, generally, they are likely to be majhool or dha`eef. In addition, their hadeeths will be fewer, and also unsupported.

(wasalam)

Edited September 23, 2012 by Cake

[WilayaBlood]

Aslamalaykum,

@Cake

Brilliant thread brother, many will benefit inshaaAllah including myself.

@Qa'im

Good points as usual, can you elaborate further on the following points you made akhee....

. al-Baqir (as) was called a mudallis by the Medinans, so he received permission to attribute all of his ahadith to Jabir b. `Abdullah al-Ansari. Even now, if you open up Malik b. Anas' Muwatta', all of Ja`far as-Sadiq's traditions go through Jabir to either the Prophet or Amir al-Mu'mineen.

JazaakAllah brothers

[Qa'im]

It's not a strong hadith, but may be accurate:

Ãóäú ãóÖóì Úóáöíøõ Èúäõ ÇáúÍõÓóíúäö Ú ÝóßóÇäó ãõÍóãøóÏõ Èúäõ Úóáöíøò íóÃúÊöíåö Úóáóì æóÌúåö ÇáúßóÑóÇãóÉö áöÕõÍúÈóÊöåö áöÑóÓõæáö Çááøóåö Õ ÞóÇáó ÝóÌóáóÓó Ú íõÍóÏøöËõåõãú Úóäö Çááøóåö ÊóÈóÇÑóßó æó ÊóÚóÇáóì ÝóÞóÇáó Ãóåúáõ ÇáúãóÏöíäóÉö ãóÇ ÑóÃóíúäóÇ ÃóÍóÏÇð ÃóÌúÑóÃó ãöäú åóÐóÇ ÝóáóãøóÇ ÑóÃóì ãóÇ íóÞõæáõæäó ÍóÏøóËóåõãú Úóäú ÑóÓõæáö Çááøóåö Õ ÝóÞóÇáó Ãóåúáõ ÇáúãóÏöíäóÉö ãóÇ ÑóÃóíúäóÇ ÃóÍóÏÇð ÞóØøõ ÃóßúÐóÈó ãöäú åóÐóÇ íõÍóÏøöËõäóÇ Úóãøóäú áóãú íóÑóåõ ÝóáóãøóÇ ÑóÃóì ãóÇ íóÞõæáõæäó ÍóÏøóËóåõãú Úóäú ÌóÇÈöÑö Èúäö ÚóÈúÏö Çááøóåö ÞóÇáó ÝóÕóÏøóÞõæåõ æó ßóÇäó ÌóÇÈöÑõ Èúäõ ÚóÈúÏö Çááøóåö íóÃúÊöíåö ÝóíóÊóÚóáøóãõ ãöäúåõ

`Alī bin al-Ḥussayn (Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã) died, and Muhammad bin `Alī (al-Bāqir) would come to him (Jābir) out of him because he is a distinguished and honorable of the companions of the Messenger of Allāh (Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã) and narrated to them from Allāh (ÊÈÇÑß æ ÊÚÇáì). So the People of Madīnah said: ‘We have not see anyone as bold than this’ So when he saw what they said, he would narrated from the Messenger of Allāh (Õáì Çááå Úáíå æÂáå æÓáã). Then, the people of Madīnah said: ‘We have not seen anyone ever lie like this, he is narrating from someone who he has not seen.’ And when he saw what they said, he would narrate to them from Jābir bin `Abd Allāh. He (Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã) said: ‘They (people of Madīnah) would accept (declare truthful what he said), but Jābir bin `Abd Allāh would come to him (al-Bāqir) and he would learn from him (Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã)

Source:

1. al-Kulayni, al-Kaafii, vol. 1, pg. 470, hadeeth # 2
   
2. al-Kashi, Rijaal, pg. 43-44, hadeeth # 88
   
3. al-Mufeed, al-Ikhtisaas, pg. 63
   

[La fata illa Ali]

reads this on tashayyu today and wanted to share it but dont know authenticity:

https://sites.google.com/a/*******.org/www/hadiths/usool-sitta-ashar/asl-jafar-al-hadrami

æÐßÑ ÇíÖÇ Úä ÇÈì ÚÈÏ Çááå (Ú) ÞÇá Óáæäì ÞÈá Çä ÊÝÞÏæäí ÝÇäßã Çä ÝÞÏÊãæäí áã ÊÌÏæÇ ÇÍÏÇ íÍÏËßã ãËá ÍÏíËí ÍÊì íÞæã ÕÇÍÈ ÇáÓíÝ

And he also mentioned from Abu `Abdillah Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã that he said:

Ask me before you lose me, for surely if you lose me, you will not find anyone who will narrate to you the like of my hadith until the Master of the Sword rises.

[guest050817]

What an interesting thread, may Allah bless the ones who contributed. Would love to have read an entire book on this topic.