The Life & Character of the Seal of Prophets (sa) - Volume I — Page 28
Seal of the Prophets - Volume I 28 companions habitually documented Aḥādīth in writing, or that, narrators as a whole necessarily committed Aḥādīth to writing. A claim of this nature would most certainly contradict reality. Rather, the intention is to denote that the phenomenon of writing narrations had begun in the time of the Holy Prophet sa and then in future generations, expanded even further. Despite this, a significant portion of Aḥādīth has been based on verbal narrations. Moreover, collections existent today comprise narrations of both types. At this point it is essential to mention that some Aḥādīth contain an instruction of the Holy Prophet sa , that no words attributed to him except those of the Holy Qur’ān, should be committed to writing. 1 On the basis of this instruction, many individuals have inferred that the companions of the Holy Prophet sa did not commit Aḥādīth to writing. A rebuttal to this is that firstly, no inference can be accepted as true in opposition to a proven fact or occurrence. When the fact of the matter is that various companions did in actuality write the Aḥādīth of the Holy Prophet sa , no inductive argumentation can possibly hold weight against it. In actuality, these Aḥādīth are in relation to a special time period and unique circumstances. Moreover, this instruction is only meant for those people who were assigned the task of writing the divine revelations of the Holy Prophet sa. The purpose of this order was to ensure that no other material intermix with Qur’ānic revelation. There was no restriction upon the common people or in general circumstances. 2 ِ وَاللّٰه ُ اَعْلَم ُ بِالصَّوَاب A Fundamental Distinction between the Narrations of Ḥadīth & Sīrat Before this fundamental discussion is brought to an end, it is necessary to mention that although Muslim writers have given regard of a superlative degree to both the principles of Riwāyat and Dirāyat , they did not apply the same standards to every type of narration. Instead, in the likeness of an intellectual research scholar, they would either ease their standard or would make it more stringent, based on the purpose for which the narration was required. In other words, the criterion was made softer for certain fields of study and sterner for others. For example, Muḥaddithīn have employed very rigid criterion for 1 * Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitābuz-Zuhdi War-Raqā’iq, Bābut-Tathabbuti Fil-Ḥadīth wa Ḥukmi Kitābatil-‘Ilm, Ḥadīth No. 7510 * Sunanut-Tirmidhī, Kitābul-‘Ilm, Bābu Mā Jā’a fī Kirāhiyyati Kitābatil-‘Ilm, Ḥadīth No. 2665 2 And Allāh knows the truth best (Publishers)