9. The Efforts of the Scholars to Preserve the Sunnah:

For many reasons, some people invariably tried to lie about the Prophet and make up hadith and say they heard it from the Prophet. These people had various motivations, but their final destination was clearly mentioned to us by the Prophet, that they should be ready to take their seat in the hell fire.

One of the biggest sources of liars about the Prophet were the deviant groups, who tried to re-enforce their deviant ideas by producing fake hadith. Some scholars have reported that the first deviant group to start producing fake hadith was the Shia, who had no evidence from the Qur'an or Sunnah and so they tried to fake hadith. In any case, we will try to mention some of the efforts of how the scholars tried to combat these deviant groups and their fake hadith:

1. Requiring a full isnad (chain of narrators) for each hadith before accepting it. As we all know every hadith is composed of two parts: sanad and matn. The sanad means the chain of narrators, which starts with the person who heard the hadith from the Prophet, then the person who heard from him and so on. The matn is the actual wording that the Prophet said. Before adding a hadith to their collection, the scholars required that they hear the entire chain of narrators for it up to the person saying the hadith.

2. After hearing the sanad, the scholars used historical evidence to expose liars who had just invented the hadith. This is because the scholars had books detailing narrators of hadith, which were of course mostly scholars and their students. They knew during what years they lived, and in what cities they lived and so on. Therefore, they can expose inaccuracies in the sanad which prove that the person is lying.

3. The books about the narrators also included information about each narrator such as: how religious he was, if he attended prayers, if his beliefs were correct, if he belonged to any deviant groups, if he was ever known to lie etc. Therefore, after checking the historical accuracy of the sanad (to ensure that every narrator met with the previous one in the chain and so on), the scholars also checked to ensure the character of each narrator.

4. The scholars developed the science of "Al-Jarh wal Ta'deel", also known as "Ilm Ar-Rijal" (the knowledge of men). This basically included the books mentioned earlier which contain a listing of narrators, and information about them. This science allowed scholars to classify narrators into classes based on the strength of their memorization and their Islamic character. Therefore, hadith would be taken only from people with good character who have good memorization. If someone has good memorization but sometimes makes mistakes in memorization, the hadith may be taken but is put into a lower class.

5. Classifying hadith into classes. This includes "motawatir" hadith (narrated by a large number of people in every generation of the chain of narrators), then sahih, hasan, da'eef and finally mawdoo' (fabricated). They depended on the following factors in this classification:

• Having a continuous sanad (chain of narrators) with no gaps.

• The character of the narrators

• The quality of the memorization of the narrators

• The matn (wording) of the hadith does not contradict the Qur'an or other sahih hadith.

• The hadith does not have any subtle reasons in the sanad that makes it weak (called 'illa in Arabic).

• Having other hadith with the same meaning to back the hadith up.

6. Exposing liars and fabricators by letting all Muslims know that they are liars and warning people not to listen to any hadith from them or take their word for anything.

7. Writing books that include "mawdoo' hadith", or fabricated hadith, and proving why they are fabricated. These books are written to warn Muslims from taking such hadith as true.

8. Checking for signs of fabrication in the wording of the hadith. This can include the style of the wording, as the Prophet was known to be extremely eloquent in his wording. It also includes checking that the wording does not contradict the basics of Islam, and that it doesn't contradict things known for sure by the human mind. It also includes checking for historical accuracy if the hadith is reporting an action during a certain time and so on.

10. Conclusion:

In conclusion, after the very quick and brief discussion in this article, we hope that it will be clear to all Muslims that the Sunnah was memorized and written during the time of the Prophet Mohammad, and that it was officially collected very early in Islam. We also hope that Muslims now have a better idea about some of the efforts of the scholars of Islam in ensuring the accuracy of the hadith that they have reported in their books.

Now that we are confident about the Sunnah, the next subject that Muslims should learn about is the "hojjiyat Assunah", or the Authority of the Sunnah. In that discussion, we shall talk about the different types of the Sunnah, and our obligation towards it, and we shall prove that it is obligatory on every Muslim to follow the Sunnah of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh). Please see the link below to visit the article on the "Authority of the Sunnah".

May Allah (swt) guide us all to the right path.