ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Light On the Muhammadan Sunnah Or Defence of the Hadith Musnad Ahmad A question may be raised that for what reason we made no reference to Musnad Ahmad among books of hadith that were discussed elaborately, despite its being more extensive in narration and all-inclusive than them, to the extent that it was said to contain forty thousand traditions!

with its author being a great leader having one of followed school of thought adopted by numerous communities of Muslims? My reply to this being that, I made no detailed mention of this book or other Masanid books – which number so many – only due to the fact that the ulama’ have discussed them judging them to be unfit for argumentation and debate, and not dependable.

But I found it proper to shed light upon Musnad Ahmad, which being the most famous of them, so as to reveal for the Muslims its real state and lay bare its position among books of hadith, to be a criterion by which all other Musnads should be measured. With this we can be satisfied and in no need of talking about other books.

I will initiate with a foreword manifesting the status of Musnad books in general among hadith books, and level of narrations contained in them, discussing then Musnad Ahmad. Musnad Books Other Than al-Sihah al-Sittah: The Musnad books are those books in which every Companion would privately report a hadith, with no regard to categorization.

Their compilers used to bring together in the Musnad of every Sahabi all of his traditions whether correct or defective, hence it is absolutely improper to use whatever recorded in them for argumentation. Ibn al-Salah, in his Muqaddimah says: The Musnad books can never reach the level of the five books: Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abi Dawud, Sunan al-Nasa’i and Jami‘ al-Tirmidhi.

Also they are neither fit for argumentation as in the case of those books, nor dependence can be there upon all the traditions cited in them, like Musnad Abi Dawud al-Tayalisi, Musnad Ubayd Allah ibn Musa and Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and their likes.

The authors of these books used to report in the sanad of every Companion all the traditions heard from him without any commitment to their being fit for argument, the fact leading them to be lower in rank than those five books – though being high due to highness of their authors – beside their like of categorized books.