ARABIC: دراسة نماذج من الأحاديث التي أعلها الدارقطني بتعارض الوصل والإرسال في كتابه الغرائب والأفراد

An Empirical Study of Ahādith declared Muallal (defective) due to contradiction of narrators in chains (wasl and Irsāl) from the book (al-Gharāib and al-Afrād) of Imam al-Dārāquṭnī

Abstract

Authenticity of a hadith (Prophetic tradition) from the advent of Islam to the present age has been a matter of great importance to the Muslims; it is one of the two primary sources of Islam. Therefore, many hadith scholars throughout the Islamic history-such as Imam al-Dārāquṭnī- dedicated their lives to the study of prophetic traditions & laid ground rules to identify and separate the correct narrations from the wrong ones. A hadith is rendered suspicious by -among other things- a contradiction of narrators in the narration of the same hadith, which can occur either in the Sanad (the chain of narrators) or in the text of the hadith. This study attempts to discuss a variation of this contradiction, which occurs when one or more chains of narrators are connected, while other chains skip a narrator after the sahābi (a companion of Prophet ﷺ). The study includes methodologies & rules of the Scholars to resolve such contradictions as well as some practical examples of contradictory ahādith from the book al-Gharāib & al-Afrād by Imam al-Dāraquṭnī which detail the procedure of dealing with such contradictions, considering the rules & identifying the most accurate chain of narrators.