AUTHENTIC AHADITH
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Ṣaḥīḥ - transmitted through an unbroken chain of narrators all of whom are of sound character and memory. Such a hadith should not clash with a more reliable report and must not suffer from any other hidden defect.
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Ḥasan - transmitted through an unbroken chain of narrators all of whom are of sound character but weak memory. This hadith should not clash with a more reliable report and must not suffer from any other hidden defect.
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Ḍaʻīf - which cannot gain the status of hasan because it lacks one or more elements of a hasan hadith. (For example, if the narrator is not of sound memory and sound character, or if there is a hidden fault in the narrative or if the chain of narrators is broken).
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Mawḍūʻ - fabricated and wrongly ascribed to Muhammad (PBUH).
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Maqlūb - It is that hadith, in two different narrations of which the names of narratos have been changed
Hadith Terminology
Hadith are the collections of the reports purporting to quote what the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said verbatim on any matter.The term comes from the Arabic meaning "report" "account" or "narrative". A broader source including the deeds of Muhammad (PBUH) and reports about his companions is known as the Sunnah.
Each hadith is based on two parts, a chain of narrators reporting the hadith (isnad), and the text itself (matn). Muslim clerics and jurists classify individual hadith as sahih ("authentic"), hasan ("good") or da'if ("weak").
Ṣaḥīḥ (صَحِيْح) is best translated as "authentic".– as a singular narration conveyed by a trustworthy, completely competent person, either in his ability to memorize or to preserve what he wrote, with a muttaṣil ("connected") isnād ("chain of narration") that contains neither a serious concealed flaw (ʻillah) nor irregularity (shādhdh). A hadith that is ṣaḥīḥ ligharihi – "ṣaḥīḥ due to external factors" – is a hadith "with something, such as numerous chains of narration, strengthening it."
Five conditions to be met for a particular hadith to be considered ṣaḥīḥ:
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Each narrator in the chain of narration must be trustworthy;
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Each narrator must be reliable in his ability to preserve that narration, be it in his ability to memorize to the extent that he can recall it as he heard it, or, that he has written it as he heard it and has preserved that written document unchanged;
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The isnād must be connected (muttasil) insofar as it is at least possible for each narrator in the chain to have received the hadith from a predecessor;
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The hadith, including its isnād, is free of ʻillah (hidden detrimental flaw or flaws, e.g. the establishment that two narrators, although contemporaries, could not have shared the hadith, thereby breaking the isnād.)
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The hadith is free of irregularity, meaning that it does not contradict another hadith already established (accepted).
The Kutub al-Sittah (Arabic: الكتب الستة) are six books containing collections of hadith compiled by six Muslim scholars in the ninth century CE. They are sometimes referred to as Al-Sihah al-Sittah, which translates as "The Authentic Six". These are given in order of preference, A number of books were authored in which the author stipulated the inclusion of ṣaḥīḥ hadith alone but actually this was only achieved by the only two books:
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Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Considered the most authentic book after the Quran.
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Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Considered the next most authentic book after Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
The two major aspects of a hadith are the text of the report (the matn), which contains the actual narrative, and the chain of narrators (the isnad), which documents the route by which the report has been transmitted.The sanad, literally 'support', is so named due to the reliance of the hadith specialists upon it in determining the authenticity or weakness of a hadith. The isnad consists of a chronological list of the narrators, each mentioning the one from whom they heard the hadith, until mentioning the originator of the matn along with the matn itself.
The first people to hear hadith were the companions who preserved it and then conveyed it to those after them. Then the generation following them received it, thus conveying it to those after them and so on. So a companion would say, "I heard the Prophet say such and such." The Follower would then say, "I heard a companion say, 'I heard the Prophet.'" The one after him would then say, "I heard someone say, 'I heard a Companion say, 'I heard the Prophet..." and so on.
Another area of focus in the study of hadith is biographical analysis, in which details about the transmitter are scrutinized. This includes analyzing their date and place of birth; familial connections; teachers and students; religiosity; moral behaviour; literary output; their travels; as well as their date of death. Based upon these criteria, the reliability of the transmitter is assessed. Also determined is whether the individual was actually able to transmit the report, which is deduced from their contemporaneity and geographical proximity with the other transmitters in the chain.
Components of Hadith
HADITH AND SUNNAH
The Authentic Six الكتب الستة
