ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A Probe into the History of Hadith Part Two In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful The Prophet of Islam Muhammad (P) passed away leaving behind two valuable assets as his religious legacies for his followers, viz., the holy Qur'an and his Descendants.

He urged upon his people to adhere to them firmly and never to part with them.[^1] The holy Prophet during his life-time had explained to the people all the Qur'anic truths, and, in the form of hadith, he had promulgated all the Islamic learning concerning faith, doc­ trines and tenets among all his followers. About the narration of hadith he had said, "May Allah bless a person who listens to hadith from me, receives it thoroughly and conveys it to those who have not heard it!

There are a large number of people who communicate learning to the wiser and more intellectual persons than them ".[^2] Now, we shall see what the members of the Islamic polity did to the holy Qur'an and to the holy Prophet's Descendants and how they carried out the orders concerning the hadith. These people ousted the members of the holy Prophet's family from the general society and compelled them to live in seclusion.

They subjected them (the holy Prophet's Descendants) to an inexpressible harassment.[^3] And when they succeeded in snatching and wresting power, they tried to separate the holy Qur'an and the hadith which were the real interpreters of the holy Qur'an, in a bid to interpret the holy Qur'an as they desired and wished.

The holy Prophet's sayings and his mode of life, generally known as "Sunnah", were the main obstacles in the diplomacy of the Caliphs and powerful repeller of the attacks of the adversaries, so the Caliphate saw no other way out but to disarm its opponents of this powerful weapon. In the beginning, Abu Bakr decided to get the possession of this weapon exclusively for himself.

With this objective in view, he collected five hundred hadith of the holy Prophet (P), but after some time he found that that would not serve his purpose, because it was not possible to limit the hadith then, so he burnt up all these traditions.[^4] In those days, it was indeed, impossible to restrain people from narrating or writing the hadith and to compel them to benefit from those hadith only which Abu Bakr had collected.