Authority of Narrations (3)

The second verse that is used to validate the usage of this kind of narration, is that in Surah Tawbah, verse 112:

"And it does not beseem the believers that they should go forth all together; why should not then a company from every party from among them go forth that they may apply themselves to obtain understanding in religion, and that they may warn their people when they come back to them that they may be cautious?" (Shakir)

Scholars using this verse believe it implies that the people (who the experts of religion return to) must heed the warnings of these experts of religion and this “heeding” is absolute i.e. not dependent on the people reaching certainty about these experts, and thus punishable if not followed.

There is a long discussion but the most potent argument against this line of reasoning is that this may give credence to the idea that an expert should be listened to, but is irrelevant to the discussion we are having about relying on a trustworthy person transmitting a narration.

This verse is thus not seen in the same light as that in Surah Naba, and is not considered to be useful in this discussion.

We have now discussed the main verses from the Qur`an that are used, and we will now move onto narrations. It is important to note, that it is clearly not possible to use narrations that are of this category i.e.khabar wahid to determine the authority of these narrations, otherwise it would be a circular argument.

We thus have to consider only narrations that must be correct because they have been narrated by many independent people at each generation since the time of the Prophet (SAW) i.e. tawatur. This is authoritative because of the extreme unlikelihood of every one of the narrators (who are examined to be trustworthy) to have lied independently and reached the same conclusion (Shahid al-Sadr uses a rational calculation of probabilities argument to discuss the implausibility of this being wrong). This will be the focus of the next blog!

Authority of Narrations (2)

Apologies for the delay since the last post - I don't have internet at my new place! Anyway, we have so far discussed in brief, the largest and most important basis for relying on khabar wahid narrations (the verse of Naba in Surah Hujurat). It is very much based on using the maf-hum. However, there are two main reasons to object to interpreting this verse in that way:

1. This is a linguistic discussion, which considers the verse to be similar to the phrase: “if you have a boy as a child, then circumcise him”, which does not have a mafhum because you cannot infer from this phrase that if you don’t have a boy, then you don’t circumcise him, as the circumcision is reliant on the condition being fulfilled i.e. from the verse, we cannot make the inference above. The best way to understand this further is to consider the various possible meanings of the verse:
a. A report – if a fasiq comes with it – you have to look into it
b. The report of a fasiq – if a fasiq comes with it – you have to look into it
c. The person who comes with a report/narration – if he (or she) is a fasiq – you have to look into it

The objection (likening the verse to the circumcision phrase) makes sense if we consider the second meaning of the verse, but this seems least likely, as the verse does not really imply that the report has to be the report of a fasiq. Therefore, this objection is not a valid objection.


2. At the end of the verse, the reason (ta’lil – تعليل) is provided for the ruling i.e. “lest you harm a people, whilst in ignorance”. Therefore, every narration that does not result in certain knowledge, requires clarification and research. This includes narrations coming from just individuals.

This can be explained by considering the phrase: “don’t eat this pomegranate because it is sour”. This order not to eat the pomegranate is qualified by it being sour, and it can be inferred from this that you should not eat all sour things, even if it is not a pomegranate. Similarly, from the verse, you can infer that anything that might harm others because you are not resulting in certain knowledge, is not authoritative, and requires clarification/investigation.

There are two main answers to this point that the reason for the verse (ta’lil) seems to contradict what is understood above (mafhum):

A. This assumes that the ta’lil (reason of the verse) should be understood over the mafhum (the implication of the verse). However, it could be argued that the mafhum is a special case of the general ta’lil. The response would be that there is no mafhum at all because of the ta’lil. And therefore, this answer is not correct.

B. The ta’lil (reason of the verse) does not actually contradict the mafhum because of the meaning of جهالة. Above, it has been translated as ignorance, meaning the lack of knowledge but this is the meaning of جهل, and جهالة actually has the meaning of doing something silly. Therefore, although taking a narration from a just person may be something that is without complete knowledge, it is not something silly, and the argument does not apply!

Therefore, Shahid al-Sadr considers this verse to be a complete and valid basis for using narrations transmitted by a trustworthy person even if it does not make you completely confident in it being correct.

In the next blog, we will look at other pieces of evidence (one other verse of the Qur`an, and then perhaps some narrations/other disucssions).