Abstract
The determination of hadith belonging to the Prophet is one of the most important and complicated issues of Hadith discipline. This issue which started since the Prophet Mohammed passed away, allowed the hadith scholars to determine many criterias to investigate the authenticity of the narrations. These criterias have become a body of rules in Hadith methodology. However, these rules contain some problems although they are the most suitable method to actualize the investigation. However, some scholars had put so much effort on narrators and saned, so they passed over to criticize the text. This is an effectual determinant on many narrations as it is on the narration of “Love Arabs for three reasons. Because I am Arab, Quran is Arabic and the language of Heaven’s people is Arabic.” This statement is attached to the Prophet and so it is named as hadith. The different judgments about this hadith’s authenticity are noticeable. Some hadith scholars rated this hadith as sahîh while others accept it as mevzu‘. These different judgements cast doubt on the belonging of narration to the Prophet himself. Although the existence of all doubts some reference books such as tafsir and hadith commentaries scribes this narration and implies the acceptance of authenticity of the narration. One of the reasons for this problem is not to criticize the text of narration as its narrators. But it is obvious that the main part in a hadith is its text. İgnoring the critical of the text is an absence. The criticalness of the text becomes more important in the situations that the criticism of narrators gives you different results such as in the case of “Love Arabs…” narration. This is a chance for us to prove that a narration should be criticized by two angles; text and narrators. This method provides a protection of authentic narrations by combing out the wrong words.
In this paper, I researched the narration of “Love Arabs for three reasons” by criticizing its text and narrators. I ascertained that the first book that express the narration is Mesâʾilu Harb written by al-Kirmânî. I also found out that this narration has no place in Kütüb-i Sittah or Tis‘ah or more extensively in any books that written in the first Hijri IV. century. This situation causes negative thoughts about the authenticity of the narration. In fact, there are opponent judgements of hadith scholars about it. Based on different jurisprudences about its narrators, this narration is rated by hadith scholars as many different results such as mevzu‘, daîf, hasen, sahîh and no authentic originals. As a result of the examination of all of the tarîks together, I decided that this narration is muttasil and ferd. I also exemined isnâd of the narration. This narration has same three narrators in its first three tabakas. There are positive comments about them by the angle of carh and ta‘dil. But the fourth narrator Yahyâ b. Büreyd is judged as daîf (weak). The fifth narrator A‘lâ el-Hanefî is accused with kizb (dishonesty). These two narrators are the weakest rings of the narrators’ chain. However, the other narrators after these two are judged as sika. Therefore, judging about this narration as mevzu‘ (accomandation) is not possible.
In this research, despite the many scholars’ judgments it came to the conclusion that the narration is highly weak by the angle of its narrator’s chain. So, it is a problem that the hadith scholars have judged as hasen or sahih about this narration. In addition, there are also many weak elements in its text. A text criticism is based on its content’s suitability to the Quran, sunnah (tradition) and historical facts. It also expected that the content should not be opposed to the Prophet’s position and his mission. So, I compared the narration’s content with the certain principles of the Prophet. It also came to the conclusion that the narration has many problems from this angle. Despite this narration is judged as merfu‘ in the content of the Prophet's asking for Arabs to be loved by their race and language conflict with his principles in substance. Accordingly, I judged this narration daîf by its saned and text. This research also claims that the saned criticism is not sufficient by itself. It should be supported by text criticism. In the cases of one of these criticism absences, the conclusions could be fallible.