Question: (b)

Define the following: [10] marks

1. ‘Sanad’ and its characteristics
2. ‘Matn’ and its characteristics
3. ‘Musannaf and Musnad’ collection of Hadis
along with examples of books
Answer:

1:Sanad is the part of Hadith which involves the chains of

transmitters from which the Hadith is in the form we have
today.Isnad is the plural of sanad.Transmitters are mainly
companions of The Prophert (P.B.U.H).The companions are of
high degree and several checks are performed before evaluating
the authenticity of A Hadith.Starting off,the transmitter should
be an adult sane Muslim who knows what he is speaking,must
be mature,and should be known for his trustworthiness.He must
have a good history of telling truths and being honest in every
matters.Moving on.The transmitter should not have a defective
memory nor should he be known to have spoken lies in his
life.Forward to the chains of transmission, these should go back
to the time of Holy prophet pbuh and the chain of transmission
should not be broken the person who is narrating someone elses
words should have met him atleast once in their life.The
transmitters hould be knowledgeable,the higher the
qualidication,the higher the chances of authenticity of a
Hadith.If the chain of transmission is broken the hadith would
be doubted to be fabricated or doubtful.
 1. ‘Matn’ and its characteristics

Matn is the parts of a Haith which involves the saying of the

Holy Prophet ,Matn is the main part of the Hadith even though
its importance is as significant as of the sanad. Several checks
are performed which evaluate the authenticity of A Hadith.First
of all,the Hadith should not go against any teaching of Quran as
the words of the Prophet explain the Quran in a better manner
nor do they contradict with the teachings of Quran and
Allah.Following that the Hadith should not contain something
that goes against natural facts for example if someone says that
the prophet said that the sun rises from the west is a hadith
which goes against natural facts and science.moving on,The
Hadith should not have severe punishments for a small sin nor
do they have many blessing for a small good
deed.Furthermore,the matn should not go aggaisnt the Prophets
family,companions,or the families of companions.Moreover,the
Hadiths should not go against a historic fact nor should it go
against a fact that if anyone else if they were present at that
situation would have narrated it.
In addition ,The hadith should be of pure arabci language as the
Prophet was from Makkah and purE Arabic was practiced
there,these are the checks performed to determine the aurhenitiy
of a hadith.
Musannaf and Musnad’ collection of Hadis along with examples of
books

The collection of hadees became an important part of

theological activity the early centuries of Islam. Two techniques
were mainly adopted result in two types of collections. One was
by means of sound links, traced b rout interruption to one of the
companions, in that case, it is called Mus derived from Sanad
meaning authority. The contents and the matter of h ahadis are
not taken into consideration in establishing the order, the deci
point being merely the name of the companion, the first
transmitter from Proph Muhammadh So the book begins with
the companions who were closest s the Holy Prophet, the four
Khalifas and other blessed companions, wie of the Prophet The
other leading Muslim men, people of Madinah and oth towns.
Under each individual or group there are different number of
ahadi Such collections are called Musnad' because every single
hadis can be traced back to a companion who, in turn, can refer
back to the Prophet Therefore the titles of the chapters are
Musnad of Abu Bakr, Musnad of Ab Hurairah, Musnad of
Aisha etc.
The most important and exhaustive of all the available musnad
works is that of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, founder of the
Hanbali school of law. His itt profound and vast knowledge of
ahadis, his pious and selfless life and his strong character
established his reputation as an Imam and one of the greatest
authorities on hadis in the Islamic world.
To assemble his musnad he collected over 30,000 hadees out of
some 750,000 narrated by around nine hundred companions
relating to widely varied subjects. It occupies an important place
in Hadis literature and preserves a great many traditions which
are not to be found elsewhere.

A Musnad is valuable for those interested in the views or

pronouncements attributed to a specific person, but is of little
value when the object is to discover ready answers to specific
questions on a single topic. This need explains the
rearrangement of the contents of the musnad, in a later
generation, according to topic. The ahadis have been grouped
into chapters and sub chapters according to their theme. For
instance, we find chapters on purity, prayers, fasting, zaka
pilgrimage, marriage and so on. Such a collection is called a
Musannaf which means 'divided up', because it divides the
ahadis according to their theme

The best known work of this type is al-Muwatta which contains

1720 hadees.compiled by Imam Malik bin Anas, founder of the
Maliki school of law.
Another compilation in this category is al-Musannaf of Imam
Abdul Razzaq l-Sanani which contains 11033 hadees.
To this category, also belongs the most important of all hadees
collections the Sahih of Bukhari and Muslim, the Sunan works
of al-Nasai, Abu Daud, Ibn Majah and Jami of Tirmizi.
Many other authors also compiled musnad or musannaf works
as extensive as those mentioned above but they did not achieve
the general recognition.