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Newsletter for February 2012
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Watch what you read !
Of late, controversy has raged on whether the oft-quoted hadith
"Do not compel your children on your norms (or customs) because
they have been created for a time which is different from your
time." allegedly from Imam Amirul Mu.mineen (a) was in fact his
statement or was it attributed to him? A reliable research
scholar has probed this and he avers that the first scholar who
raised doubts about this so-called hadith
was Shahid Murtaza Mutahhari in the Sixties. In one of his
speeches he said that this hadith is not to be found in any
Shi'a source of hadith, not even later collections in which weak
ahadith were also included such as Biharul Anwar. New software's
of hadith reveal that this is not
found in any of the early four collections of ahadith: Al-Kafi,
Man la Yahdhuruhul Faqih, al-Istibsar or Tahdhibul Ahkam. Nor is
it in the famous Nahjul Balaghah nor in the later collections
either, not even in 110 volumes of Biharul Anwar! So it is not
in a single Shi'a collection of ahadith.
Some Shi'a writers and speakers have often , quoted it, but it
goes back to a non-Shi'a source, in the 20th volume of Sharh
Nahjul Balaghah by a Sunni scholar, Ihn Abil Hadid al-Mu'tazili
(d. 656 AH). After writing the commentary on the sayings of
Imam' Ali AS in Nahjul Balaghah, Ibn Abil Hadid, in the last
volume of his book, starts a new section, more or less an
addendum, where he has compiled sayings of Imam 'Ali that had
not been included in Sayyid Razi's compilation of Imam AS'
sayings in Nahjul Balaghah. Ibn Abil Hadid, however, began that
last section with an interesting disclaimer: "This is the end of
what [Sayyid] ar-Razi, Ahul Hasan (I'.a.) has compiled from the
sayings of Amirul Mu'minin (a.s.) in Nahjul Balaghah, and we
have given its commentary by the help of Almighty Allah. And now
we shall mention what [Sayyid] ar-Razi has not mentioned from
what the people have attributed to him [i.e, Imam 'Ali AS]. Some
ofthem are famous and some of them are not that much famous but
have been attributed to him, and some of them are from sayings
of wise-people other than Imam 'Ali AS. But as they sound
similar to his words of wisdom and consisted of useful words of
wisdom, we did not want our book to be devoid of it since it is
like an addendum to the book, Nahjul Balagha." (Sharh Nahjul
Balaghah, vol. 20, p.251.)
It is in this last section that Ibn Abil Hadid quotes the saying
under discussion.
Quoting a statement without any sanad (an ascription) and with a
disclaimer mentioned earlier does not give any credence to that
statement. And that is why it cannot be attributed to Imam' Ali
AS without proper verification. Shahid Murtaza Mutahhari in his
1966 speech said: "Lately a statement is been attributed to the
Master of the Pious as follows: 'Don't raise your children on
your morals because they have been created for a time which is
different from yow' time.' This statement has not been seen [in
collections of hadith] in the sense that it is not in Nahjul
Balaghah, not in the Four Books, nor is it found in the later
compilations of hadith books which have included weak ahadith
such as Biharul Anwar. This statement has become popular ouly
recently, that is, the attribution of this statement to Amirul
Mu'minin is not more than 60 years old. This hadith is not found
in the books that have been written a century ago. An old
history book, Nasikhut Tawarikh, in the section on biography of
Plato [the ancient Greek philosopher], quotes Plato's statement
that 'don't raise your children on your morals as they have been
created for a different time'. This may explain that the first
person to attribute this statement to Amirul Mu'minin AS perhaps
has made a mistake or was from a group who had an agenda."
(Islam wa Muqtaziyat-e Zaman, vol. 1, p. 274)
Many ahadith have been attributed to The Prophet SAWW by the
hadith manufacturing plants of the Umayyads and Abbasids. One
such is the "Khulafau Rrashidun" hadith that has been proven to
be a fabrication to justify Mu'awiyah's dynastic rule and the
succeeding Abbasid regime. This is not to say that we should not
ponder Plato's statement or apply it if it is beneficial, but to
attribute it as a hadith from Imam Ali AS sans any verifiable
chapter and verse evidence is misleading.
courtesy: Ali Abbas Qureshi
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