Hadith Musnad And Musannaf
The collection of Hadith became an important part of theological activities in the early centuries of Islam. Two techniques were mainiy adopted resulting in two types of collections. One was by means of sound links, traced back without interruption to one of the companions, in that case, it is called Musnad derived from Sanad meaning authority. The contents and the matter of the ahadis are not taken into consideration in establishing the order, the decisive point being merely the name of the companion, the first transmitter from Prophet Muhammad PBUH. So the book begins With the companions who were closest to the Holy Prophet PBUH, the four Khalifas and other blessed companions, wives of the Prophet, other leading Muslim men, people of Madinah and other towns. Under each individual or group there are different number of ahadis.
Such collections are called ‘Musnad because every single hadis can be traced back to a companion who, in turn, can refer back to the Prophet PBUH. Therefore the titles of the chapters are Musnad of Abu Bakr, Musnad of Abu Hurairah, Musnad of Aisha etc.
The most important and exhaustive of all the available musnad works is that of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, founder of the Hanbali school of law. His profound and vast knowledge of Hadith, his pious and selfless life and his strong character established his reputation as an Imam and one of the greatest authorities on Hadithin the Islamic world.
To assemble his musnad he collected over 30,000 ahadis out of some 750,000 narrated by around nine hundred companions relating to widely varied subjects. It occupies an important place in Hadis literature and preserves a great many traditions which are not to be found elsewhere.
A Musnad is valuable for those interested in the views or pronouncements attributed to a specific person, but is of little value when the object is to discover ready answers to specific questions on a single topic. This need explains the rearrangement of the contents of the musnad, in a later generation, according to topic The Hadith have been grouped into chapters and sub chapters according to their theme. For instance, we find chapters on purity, prayers, fasting, Zakat, pilgrimage, marriage and so on. Such a collection is called a Musannaf which means ‘divided up because it divides the Hadithaccording to their theme.
The best known work of this type is al-Muwatta which contains 1720 ahadis, compiled by Imam Malik bin Anas, founder of the Maliki school of law.
Another compilation in this category is al-Musannaf of Imam Abdul Razzzaq al-Sanani which contains 11,033 ahadis.
To this category, also belongs the most important of all ahadis collections i.e., the Sahih of Bukhari and Muslim, the Sunan works of al-Nasai, Abu Daud. Ibn Majah and Jami of Tirmizi.
Many other authors also compiled musnad or musannaf works as extensive as those mentioned above but they did not achieve the general recognition.
Shia compilation of Ahadis
Shia Musims also accept hadis as a source of teaching that helps to explain the Quran and gives guidance for every day living. They, however, consider only those ahadis as reliable which are based on the authority of Hazrat Ali and his twelve male descendants through Hazrat Fatima, the daughter of the Holy Prophet. They are considered as inspired teachers and as transmitters of teachings from the Holy Prophet PBUH.
They have, therefore, their own works on this subject and hold the following four works in high esteem:
1) Al- Kafi fi ilm al-din- “The Sufficient in the Science of Religion” by Muhammad bin Yaqub al-Kulini. (died 328 A.H.)
2) Man la Yahduruhu al- faqih “He has no Legal Expert Present” by Muhammad Babuya (died 381 A.H)
3) Tahzib al-ahkam-“The Revision of Judgements” and al-Istibsar “The Perspective” by Muhammad al- Tusi (died 460 A.H.)
