Life of Ahmad — Page 271
as THE PHARISEE OF BATALA 271 means of their transmission. This kind of Hadith has nothing to do with any religious ritual or practice. It relates either to things and events of the past or to those of the future. Such Hadith should be accepted only with great care. It must be judged by the Quran, because there lurk in its transmission possibilities of all sorts of errors and misunderstandings which cannot be totally eliminated. A number of errors have, as a matter of fact, crept even into the most authentic collection of traditions. In Bukh a r i , for instance, there is the contradiction regarding the Mi‘r a j. In one tradition it is said that the Holy Prophet sa saw Moses as in the sixth heaven and in another Abu Dhar relates that he saw Abraham as (and not Moses sa ) in the sixth heaven. In the same book it is said that the Mi‘r a j took place while the Holy Prophet sa was quite awake but Malik and Shuraik bin Abdullah say that he was asleep at the time. Hafiz Abu Sakriyya bin Sharaf Naw a w i says the words: in the Hadith of Shuraik found in Bukh a r i and Muslim concerning the Mi‘r a j are a clear mistake (vide Minh a j , commentary on Muslim ). All a ma Taftazani points out in the Talw ih that he knows a Hadith of Bukh a r i which is a mere fabrication. In the we read that in both Bukh a r i and Muslim there have been reported some contradictions. Imam Naw a w i says, in vol. II page 90, commenting upon a Hadith of Muslim , that we are compelled to think that its narrators are not truthful.