Is it possible to narrate hadiths today?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Hadiths are included in basic hadith resources with their texts and chains of narrators. It is possible for those hadiths to be conveyed to people by qualified scholars. There is no need for oral hadith transfers today, unlike the first centuries of Islam.

Riwayah (narration) means to convey a hadith with its chain of narrators and to attribute it to the person who said it.

It became necessary to observe some conditions (rules) during narration so that the statements of the Prophet (pbuh) would be reported truly and they would be protected from the mistakes and lies of the narrators. The most important condition is that the narration must have a chain of narrators reaching the Prophet (pbuh). In additions, the narrators and the text must have some characteristics.   

The necessity of a chain of narrators in narrations occurred after the incident of “fitnah (mischief)” in the early period. It is debatable what fitnah it was but it is possible to say that the use of the chain of narrators became widespread before the first century of the Migration ended. The use of the chain of narrators became an indispensable element of hadith narration as of the beginning of the second century of the Migration. People started not to take into consideration the statements reported by those who did not mention the chain of the narrators of the hadiths. 

After all hadiths were recorded in the books in the second and third centuries and after they were classified under certain headings, hadiths started to be reported from books along with oral narrations.  

Narration from books brought about some ease and laziness in narrators. That hadiths were recorded in the books with some shorter chains of narrations led some narrators to slackness in terms of memorization, recording and meticulousness. 

This state, which started to be seen after the fourth century of the Migration and which increased in size, caused Ibnus-Salah (d. 643/1245) to say that it was not possible to decide that hadiths were hasan and sound based on the chains of narrators of those periods because hadiths were recorded in the reliable books in the periods when narrators were very careful and meticulous. According to him, the chains of narrators in the reliable books written in the first four centuries are enough and reliable to decide whether hadiths are sound or hasan. Some mistakes occurred in the chain of narrators after that period due to the reasons mentioned above.

Therefore, according to Ibnus-Salah, it is necessary to refer to the reliable and famous books written before the middle of the fifth century (before 450 H) in determining sound and hasan, i.e. acceptable hadiths.

Narration of hadiths through chains of narrators even after that period aims to honor the method and to attain blessings. That is, the narrators regard it as a means of honor and blessings for their names to be included in a chain of narrators reaching the Prophet (pbuh). Actually, it is possible to determine whether a hadith is sound or hasan based on the chains of narrators included in the books written much earlier. Besides, since the use of the chain of narrators in those books is shorter, that is, the number of narrators is fewer, the possibility of making mistakes is less.   

Hadiths are narrated through chains of narrators reaching the Prophet even today too.

However, it should be considered as a means of honor and blessing. It is impossible and unnecessary to decide whether a hadith is sound or hasan based on those chains of narrators because it is not written in the books whether all of those narrators are reliable in terms of the science of hadith.

Besides, it is possible to decide based on shorter and much more reliable chains of narrators included in the books of the first four centuries. 

To sum up, it is possible to narrate hadiths through chain of narrators reaching the Prophet (pbuh) today and there are narrations like that. However, the aim of those narrations is to attain honor and blessing, not to decide on the soundness of the hadiths.

In addition, it has a symbolic aim too: the practice of narrating hadiths through chains of narrators, which is peculiar to the ummah of Muhammad, is maintained without any interruption.

If there is no such aim, the shortest and safest method is to refer to reliable books and to report hadiths from them. Thus, it will be unnecessary to repeat the chains of narrators that are so long and that include so many names, reaching today.

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