Ahsana Hadith vs Lahwal Hadeeth

A major concern for Muslims today is the over reliance on hadith written by scholars centuries after the death of the Prophet that the true message of the Quran had become diluted, and in many cases, suppressed and distorted, misleading the Muslims from the path of Allah. In exchange, the proponents of Hadith presented the Hadith as the path of the Prophet and his alleged words as the explanation of the Quran.

This blog will focus on specific issues based on popular hadith and some lesser known Hadith, but deemed as sahih by the Hadith Imams.  Some of this lesser known Hadith were all documented in the Sahih Bukhari, Muslim, Tarmidhi, etc.  They were lesser known perhaps because of the nature of the Hadith contents that has placed the prophet in a compromised position, and often seen as insulting.  But most Muslims do not know this though they hold tightly to the Hadith books, especially the Sahih Bukhari, often described as second only to the Quran.

The Quran is the primary source for the reminders of Gudance.

It shall be the benchmark to judge every Hadith whether they stood the litmus test against the narrations of the Quran.  

In essence, the Quran is the best Hadith (Ahsana Hadith)

12:2 Surely We have revealed it – 

an articulated reading (quranan arabiyyan)

that you may understand.

12:3 We relate to you the best narration (ahsana hadith)

with what we have revealed to you this, The Reading (Al-Qurana),

and though you were due to accept it, surely among the unaware.

 

39.23 Allah has revealed the best narration (ahsana hadith)

- a Scripture resembling each other oft-repeated.

Shiver from it the skins of those who fear their Lord,

then relax their skins and their hearts at the remembrance of Allah.

That is the Guidance of Allah, He guides with it whom is willing.

And whoever wants to go astray, then not Allah for him any guide.

Muslims reliance on the traditional Hadith is divinely foretold in the Quran, describing them as Lahwal Hadith, written to misled from the true path laid in the Quran.

31:6. And of the mankind who purchases, 

diverting narration (lahwal hadith)

to mislead from the path of Allah without knowledge,

and takes it in ridiculously.

Those for them is a punishment humiliating.

 

7:185 Do not they look in the dominion of the heavens and the earth

and what Allah has created of everything

and so perhaps that has verily come near - their term?

So in what narration (hadith) after this will they believe?

If we take a look at the original meaning of the word lahwal, it was something that diverts our attention.

Quranic literature has a poetic and textual articulations that is very structured, in deliverance and explanation.  As noted in 31:6, the meaning of Lahwal was described explicitly for the purpose of misleading the audience, as shared in the Classical Lexicon.

This nature of Quranic textual hermeneutics is key to it self explanation in a narrative often expressed in allegorical manner for its relevance in contemporary readings.

A major argument for the proponents of Hadith is that the Quran was incomplete, that many details had been left out and need to be described in the Hadith literatures.