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Fatwa #1447912 August 2006Canada

In regards to the following saying of the holy prophet s.a.w: "do not write down anything of me except the Quran. whoever writes down other then that should delete it

Question

In regards to the following saying of the holy prophet s.a.w: "do not write down anything of me except the Quran. whoever writes down other then that should delete it". (Ahmed, vol.1, pg171...also sahih muslim),

I would like to know the context in which the prophet s.a.w made this statement and is this a justification for saying that the ahadith of the prophet s.a.w are not a part of deen?

Answer

It is due to total ignorance and desire to follow one’s Nafs that would drive a man to reaching such a conclusion that the Mubaarak Ahaadith of Rasulullah [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] are not part of Deen. The reason for the prohibition found in the above Hadith is that this was said by our beloved Nabi [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] in the earlier days of Islam where the noble Qur’aan were written on many different things and were kept by many people. The Sahaaba [radhiallaahu anhu] at this time had not had that amount of experience with the Qur’aan to understand the style of its Aayaats.

For the above reason, there was a possibility that if the Ahaadith of Rasulullah [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] had to be written down, the Sahaaba [radhiallaahu anhu] would accidentally regard the Ahaadith of Rasulullah [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] as part of the Qur’aan. Once the Sahaaba got used to the style of the Qur’aan and could distinguish between the Qur’aan and Ahaadith merely by reading them once. Nabi [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] had permitted them to write down his Ahaadith. Imaam al-Tirmidhi [ra] had compiled a whole chapter of Ahaadith in his famous Tirmidhi in the section ‘Kitaabul Ilm’ regarding the permissibility of writing the Ahaadith of Rasulullah [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam]. (Darse-Tirmidhi vol.1 pg.36)

and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai

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