Authority of Narrations (1)

This is a bit less technical - and hopefully more interesting - discussing a major part of our law. Most of our law is based on narrations that are narrated by only a few individuals, and should we rely on such narrations?

Ideally we would only rely on narrations that we can have complete confidence in e.g. those that are reported by many to many (tawatur - تواتر). However, the vast majority of narrations do not reach that level and are potentially misleadingly called “single narrations” (khabar wahid – خبر واحد) – note that a narration narrated by several people is still called khabar wahid.

The validity of using these narrations, which do not reach certainty (and are thus called dhunun – ظنون), is a vital pillar of the most legal laws. In the next few blogs, I will briefly discuss how Shahid al-Sadr comes to the conclusion that it is valid to use these narrations as the basis of law. There are, however, some famous scholars of the past, who do not believe in their validity such as Sayyid al-Murtada.

The discussion will be in two parts:
1. Whether we can use khabar wahid at all
2. It we can use these narrations, what are the limitations of them e.g. only by trustworthy people?

The first part is a major discussion, and as I have noticed that technical topics have not been as well received, I will stay at a higher level, which will hopefully retain your interest!

There are several bases for relying on khabar wahid narrations:
1. Qur`an
2. Narrations
3. Rationality


The biggest and most important basis for relying on khabar wahid narrations is the verse of Naba in Surah Hujurat:

“O you who believe, if a fasiq (evil-doer) comes to you with a report, look carefully into it, lest you harm a people, whilst in ignorance, then be sorry for what you have done.”

This verse clearly shows the obligation in clarifying what the person says when they come on the condition that the person is fasiq. Now what is understood (mafhum - مفهوم) by this, is that there is no obligation of clarifying when the person who comes is not a fasiq. There are some more technical discussions (which I will not go into unless someone is interested) to conclude from this, that the narration of a just person is authoritative.


In the next blog, we will look at the objections to this line of argument and then move onto the other verse used....etc.