Why did Abu Bakr (ra) burn 500 hadiths?

The Details of the Question

- Aisha (ra) narrates:
My father had collected five hundred hadiths of the Prophet. On the night he did it, he tossed and turned in bed. I asked, “Do you have an illness or have you heard something?” In the morning, he said, “My daughter! Bring me the hadiths that I gave you.” I brought them. He wanted some fire and burned them. When I asked him why he burned them, he said, “I do not want to die having these hadiths with me because I am afraid that there are hadiths that are not originally as they are reported though I heard them from people whom I trust; I am afraid to narrate them that way.”

- Is the reason why Abu Bakr (ra) burn the hadiths the unreliability of the people he heard them from?

The Answer

Dear Brother / Sister,

Imam Dhahabi does not confirm the narration that Abu Bakr (ra) had about 500 of hadiths the Prophet (pbuh) collected in a book and that he destroyed them because he thought that the one who collected the hadiths might have made some mistakes. (1)

Dhahabi’s statement, “Allah knows but this news is not sound” was reported by Muhammad Hamidullah as the statement of Abu Bakr (ra) and it was misunderstood as follows: He did not regard it appropriate to narrate hadiths. (2)

It is clearly seen in Kanzul-Ummal that the statement above does not belong to Abu Bakr (ra). (3)

The fact that Abu Bakr (ra) narrated 142 hadiths from our Prophet (pbuh) is enough to refute the claim that he was against the narration and collection of hadiths. Six of those hadiths are included in both Bukhari and Muslim, eleven of them only in Bukhari and one only in Muslim. The 142 hadiths narrated by Abu Bakr (ra) was brought together by Abu Bakr Ahmad b. Ali al-Marwazi under the name “Musnadu Abi Bakris-Siddiq”. (4)

It is possible to explain Abu Bakr’s narrating few hadiths with his living in a period when the need to transmit hadiths was not felt very much and when everyone remembered the Prophet (pbuh) vividly and with his caliphate period being very short.

As for the details after this short information:

According to a narration some writers report from al-Hakim an-Nisaburi, Aisha (ra) stated the following:

My father had collected five hundred hadiths of the Prophet. On the night he did it, he tossed and turned in bed. I asked, “Do you have an illness or have you heard something?” In the morning, he said, “My daughter! Bring me the hadiths that I gave you.” I brought them. He wanted some fire and burned them. When I asked him why he burned them, he said, “I do not want to die having these hadiths with me because I am afraid that there are hadiths that are not originally as they are reported though I heard them from people whom I trust; I am afraid to narrate them that way”

In some narrations of this text, some other concerns of Abu Bakr (ra) about the destruction of the aforementioned copy exist:

… Or there may be a hadith that I am not sure of and (based on this hadith), people can say, “If the Prophet had said this, Abu Bakr should have known about it.” I will narrate a hadith to you, but I cannot be sure whether I know that hadith exactly or not.” (5)

Some hadith scholars report the hadith above about “Abu Bakr’s (ra) virtues and his hadith narrations” while some others present it as evidence on issues such as “writing the hadiths in the period of the Companions” and “compilation of hadiths in the form a book”.

Despite his doubts about both its chain of narrators and its text, Ibn Kathir interprets it as follows: “Perhaps Abu Bakr burned only the hadiths that he had at that time.” (6)

According to Suyuti, Abu Bakr (ra) may have collected hadiths that he had not heard from the Prophet (pbuh) personally in that copy. Other Companions narrated those hadiths from him. As a matter of fact, this was the case in the hadith “Grandmother’s right to inheritance” and the like. According to Suyuti, Abu Bakr (ra) must have feared that the people from whom he received the hadiths might be mistaken and that he might cause them to spread. (7)

Contemporary researchers and scholars such as Muhammad Hamidullah, Muhammad Ajjac al-Atib, Abdurrahman b. Yahya al-Muallimi, Talat Koçyiğit, Cemal Ağırman, Akram Diya al-Umari generally report the news above while dealing with the issue of “writing hadiths in the period of the Companions”. (8)

The oldest source to which this news, which is attached great importance by hadith scholars, is attributed is al-Hakim an-Nisaburi. As a matter of fact, while Dhahabi mentions this news based on him (9), other authors only point out Dhahabi’s attribution to him.

The chain of narrators mentioned for the news above is as follows:

Bakr b. Muhammad as-Sayrafi Muhammad b. Musa al-Barbari al Mufaḍḍal b. Ghassan Ali b. Salih Musa b. Abdillah b. Hasan Ibrahim b. Umar (Amr) at-Taymi ← al-Qasim b. Muhammad Aisha.

Although it is very famous among hadith scholars, the chain of narrators of this news received objections from some scholars. For example, according to Dhahabi, this news is not sound (sahih). (10)

Ibn Kathir states the following, “The news is quite gharib in this aspect and that Ali b. Salih mentioned in the chain of narrators is not known.” (11)

After reminding the opinions of those two authors, Abdurrahman al-Muallimi says, “This news is not soundand he states that besides Ali b. Salih, whom Ibn Kathir mentions, there are some other narrators who were criticized but he does not give a certain name. (12)

It is reported that al-Bukhari wrote نظر فيه about Musa b. Abdullah b. Hasan. (13) It is stated that this word was used by al-Bukhari for “narrators whose hadiths will not be accepted under any circumstances”. (14)

In addition, Muhammad b. Musa b. Hammad al-Barbari (213-294/828-908) was criticized also by ad-Daraqutni as follows: “He is not strong in the science of hadith.” (15)

This news was subjected to some criticism in terms of its content as well as its chain of narrators. We need to state in particular that some of the narrations we have, contrary to the claims, show that Abu Bakr (ra) was not against writing hadiths. As a matter of fact, according to what Anas b. Malik reports, Abu Bakr (ra) wrote a long hadith containing the zakah rates determined by the Prophet and sent it to him. This hadith narrated by Ahmad b. Hanbal comes with the following chain of narrators: “Abu Kamil (Muzaffar b. Mudrik al-Khurasani) Hammad b. Salama ← Thumama b. Abdillah b. Anas b. Malik ← Anas b. Malik”. (16)

As far as we can see, there is no significant criticism about those narrators.

The news indicating that Abu Bakr (ra) later burned the hadiths he had collected was also criticized by some hadith scholars. For example, according to Ibn Kathir, the hadiths heard from the Prophet must be thousands more than the number mentioned in the news. (17)

To put it briefly, in addition to the various problems of the chain of narrators and its text, the fact that this news is attributed to a person of late period instead of classical and basic sources, that it is reported with a single chain of narrators and that there is no mutabi and shahid (being gharib), the reliability and even its existence is very doubtful in our opinion. (18)

References:

1) Dhahabi, Tadhkiratul-Huffaz, 1/5.
2) Sahifa of Hammam Ibn Munabbih, pp. 38-39.
3) Muttaqi al-Hindi, 10/285-286, hadith no. 29460.

4) Published by Shuayb al-Arnaut, Beirut 1390/1970, trnsl. Ahmed Davudoğlu, Istanbul 1981.
5) For this narration, see adh-Dhahabi, Tadhkiratul-Huffaz, Vol. 1, p. 10; Jalaluddin Abdurrahman b. Abi Bakr as-Suyui, Jami’ul-Ahadith (Cairo, nd.), Vol. 25, p. 120 (no.27730); Ali al-Muttaqi, Kanzul-Ummal fi Sunani’l-Aqwal wal-Ahwal (Beirut: Muassasatur-Risala, 1981), Vol. 10, p. 285 (no. 29460)).
6) For Ibn Kathir’s thoughts in this direction, see Ali al-Muttaqi, Kanzul-Ummal, Vol .10, p. 285 (no.29460).
7) see as-Suyuti, Jamiul-A
hadith, Vol. 25, p. 120 (no.27730). For the evaluations of as-Suyui, see Ali al-Muttaqi, Kanzul-Ummal, Vol. 10, p. 285 (no.29460).
8) See Muhammad
Hamidullah, Muhtasar Hadis Tarihi ve Sahifa-i Hemmam İbn Münebbih, transl. Kemal Kuşçu (Istanbul: Bahar Yayınevi, 1967), p. 41; Muhammad Ajjaj al-Atib, as-Sunnah Qablat-Tadwin (Cairo: Maktabatu Wahba, 1988), pp. 309-310; Abdurrahman b. Yahya al-Muallimi, al-Anwarul-Kashifa (Beirut: al-Matbaatus-Salafiyya, 1986), pp. 37-38; Talat Koçyiğit, Hadis Tarihi (Ankara: Ankara Üniv. İlahiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, 1988), pp. 41-42; Cemal Ağırman, “Hadîs Edebiyâtının İntikal Safhaları ve Kitâbet Meselesi,” Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 5:1 (2001), p. 161; Akram Diya al- Umari, Hadis Tarihi, transl. İsmail Kaya (Konya: Esra Yayınları, 1990), p. 14. respectively  
9) Acting upon the various words of this news, which Dhahabi reported in his book named Tadhkiratul-Huffaz
, we scanned the computer programs such as Shamila and Alfiyya but we did not come across this news in any of al-Hakim’s books, and we could not find any other source in terms of a name or book.
10) Dhahabi, Tadhkiratul-Huffaz
, 1/5.
11) For Ibn Kathir’s thoughts in this direction, see Ali al-Muttaqi, Kanzul-Ummal, Vol. 10, p.285 (no.29460).  
12) see al-Muallimi, al-Anwarul-Kashifa, p. 37.
13) Ibn
Hajar al-Asqalani, Lisanul-Mizan (Beirut: Muassasatul-Alami, 1986), Vol. 6, p. 123.
14) see Abdullah Aydınlı, Hadis Istılâhları Sözlüğü (İstanbul: Hadisevi Yayınları, 2006), p. 97.

15. adh-Dhahabi, al-Mughni fid-Duafa, tahq. Nuruddin Itri (Aleppo: Darul-Maarif, 1971), Vol. 2, p. 637; Mizanul-Itidal fi Naqdir-Rijal, tahq. Ali Muhammad al-Bajawi (Beirut: Darul-Marifa, 1963), Vol. 4, p. 51; Ibn Hajar, Lisanul-Mizan, Vol. 5, p. 400.
16) see A
hmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, 1/11.
17) For Ibn Kathir’s thoughts in this direction, see Ali al-Muttaqi, Kanzul-Ummal, 10/285-286, (no. 29460).

18) For some evaluations that the news cannot be sound in terms of both the chain of narrations and the text, see Tevhit Bakan, Çağdaş Şîi Bilginlere Göre Hadislerin Yazılması,” Atatürk Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 26 (2006), pp. 125-127: For information, see Mutlu Gül - Hüseyin Kahraman, Hz. Ebū Bekr ve Hz. Umer’in Hadis Tedvīnine Bakışları ile İlgili Rivayetlerin Tahlili, Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 56:1 (2015), pp. 139-143.

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