The great muhaddith, Shaikhul Islam Hafiz Abu Ismail Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al-Harawi Ansari (481 AH) said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book of Abu Esa Tirmithi is more beneficial than the books of Bukhari and Muslim. This is due to the fact that only a person of full knowledge can benefit from them, while this book (of Tirmithi), every faqeeh and muhaddith can benefit from it since he (Tirmithi) has commentated on each hadith and explained it.\u201d[1]<\/p>\n
This statement shows that a layman will not be able to really benefit fully from any of the above books of hadith. Simply knowing Arabic is not sufficient, let alone using a translation.<\/p>\n
There are two aspects of a hadith:<\/p>\n
Imam Muslim does not explain any of the two of these in clear words. As for the text of hadith and the fiqh or laws that are derived from them, then he has not mentioned anything about it. When it comes to the chain of the hadith, he has subtlety indicated to\u00a0points on it by simply bringing different narrations in a particular descending order. However, this method is so elusive that many muhadditheen totally over looked it. Only the extremely sharp muhadditheen have recognized and then tried to explain this aspect.<\/p>\n
As for Imam Bukhari, then the issue of the chain of narration is similar to Muslim in vagueness. As for the fiqh and laws derived from the hadith, then Bukhari has indicated to it in the title of each chapter. However he has done this in a very concise and vague manner. This has caused the scholars to give multiple interpretation to exactly what Bukhari is saying. Therefore a person will not truly understand what Imam Bukhari is proving simply by reading his book. It is imperative to study the many Arabic commentaries on the book. These commentaries use many technical terms which\u00a0can only be understood if someone has already studied Nahw, Sarf, Balagah, Mantiq, Fiqh, Principles of Tafsir, Principles of Hadith and Principles of Fiqh, \u00a0and other similar subjects.<\/p>\n
On the other hand after each hadith, Imam Tirmithi mentions the status of the hadith. If it is authentic he says such. If it is weak, he mentions the reason for it. Even then, only a muhaddith who has studied the principles of hadith and its many subjects will be able to understand it. This is why Harawi mentioned, that the muhaddith will understand and not that the layman will. As for the fiqh and laws that are\u00a0derived from the hadith, then Tirmithi explains this in two ways. One, he has a title which indicates to the law being derived. After mentioning the hadith, he briefly mentions the opinions of the scholars and the law they derived from the hadith. Again, since this is mentioned\u00a0briefly, a person who has studied fiqh will understand what is being said. Here as well, Harawi pointed out that a Faqeeh will be able to benefit. As for the layman, then he would need much more explanation which is not present in any of the early hadith compilations.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, we are living in a times when everyone has become an expert on Islam. Every Muslim wants\u00a0to be able to interpret the Quran and Hadith using the English translations available. We would not take up books of medicine and self-study to become a doctor because we understand that there are many technical terms that need to be explained to us by an expert physician. Similarly, there are many technical terms used in the hadith books that cannot be understood without a teacher. May Allah allow us to study our Deen under reputable scholars and practice what we have learnt.<\/p>\n
[1] Siyar A’lamin Nubalaa by Hafiz Zahabi Vol.18 Pg.513,\u00a0Tazkiratul Huffaz by Zahabi Vol.3 Pg.1189<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The great muhaddith, Shaikhul Islam Hafiz Abu Ismail Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al-Harawi Ansari (481 AH) said: \u201cThe book of Abu Esa Tirmithi is more beneficial…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[39,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-etiquettes-of-studying","category-usulul-hadith","wpcat-39-id","wpcat-27-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiqhulislam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}