Imam ar-Razi & Ahad Reports

Again and again we find the accusation against Imām ar-Rāzī that he is a Hadīth rejector based upon a statement he has made in his famous treatise named, Asās as-Tadqīs. 

What the opposition doesn’t comprehend is their own ignorance of the science of Hadīth, for what the Imām states is not even close to being problematic as the opposition likes to imagine. Rather, his statement is actually in line with the statements of most scholars who have written on Hadīth sciences.

The Imām writes:

“The singular reports (Akhbār al-Āhād) are speculative (madhnūnah), for we unanimously agree that the narrators are not infallible. If they are not infallible, then mistakes and lies are possible for them.”

Thereafter he says about the narrations of the companions:

“It does not give knowledge of decisiveness and certainty (al-qat’ wa al-Yaqīn).”

Imām ar-Rāzī has outlined the absence of certainty in the narrations of companions due to them being singular. It is clear that he has stated this in the context of Ahād narrations and not unrestricted of all narrations. For if the narrations had reached mass transmission, then surely he views the narrations to give knowledge of certainty and decisiveness.

Regarding the statement about their infallibility, then this is unanimously agreed upon among the scholars of Hadīth and legal law (usūliyyūn)— this is as long as the narration does not reach the level of mass transmission (tawātur) since the point of infallibility becomes irrelevant there.

Another claim often heard is that Imām ar-Rāzī would say that in the Sahīhayn, there are fabrications of the heretics. Is this true?

The Imām states regarding Imām Bukhārī and Muslim:

“We have good assumptions (husn adh-dhann) regarding them and those who narrated from them, unless we observe a report that includes something rejected, then we cannot  attribute that to the Messenger ﷺ. We are certain that it comes from the input of the heretics and their fabrications regarding those Hadīth scholars.”

A few hints are taken from this:

1) Imām ar-Rāzī opines that the two Imāms of the Sahīhayn and their narrators are to be under good assumption from us.

2) If we find something in the narration’s wording that is problematic and rejected in its apparent, then we cannot ascribe it, i.e. that outward understanding to the prophet ﷺ.

Imām ar-Rāzī himself expressed his stance practically regarding narrations that contain problematic meanings and wordings within them, such as the narrations regarding Allāh not being one-eyed and so on, which is from the Sahīhayn. The Imām did not rule out the narration as a fabrication, nor did he say that the heretics fabricated it, rather, he moved on to find the root of the issue by saying:

“As for this narration that I have narrated, then it is of difficulty as it’s apparent necessitates that the prophet ﷺ expressed the difference between the God and Dajjāl to be, that one is one-eyed while Allāh is not, and that is far off [i.e. that the difference between Allāh and creation such as Dajjāl is drawn via the difference of one being one-eyed and the other not]. If the singular report (khabar al-wāhid) reaches this level of weakness in meaning, then it is necessary to believe that the statement was preceded by a certain contextual introductive statement. If that was mentioned then the issue is raised.”

In addition, Hāfidh Ibn Taimiyyah himself procrastinated on taking a singular narration as evidence in creed due to it not being mass transmitted. Regarding the narration, ‘Allāh was, and there was not other than Him.’ he said:

“If this Hadīth is a text [of evidence] in what it says, then [know that] it is not mass transmitted (mutawātir).”

(Naqd Marātib al-Ijmā’ 170)

He also says:

“The singular reports (khabār al-Wāhid) do not give knowledge of certainty except with contextual support (qarāin).”

(Minhāj as-Sunnah, 7/516)

He also said:

“Lie was very little among the Salaf. As of the companions, then it is not known from them who has made a lie against the prophet ﷺ, praise be to Allāh. However, mistakes, then most people are not safe from them, and even among the companions there were those who sometimes made mistakes, as well as those who came after them. Out of this reason, in what has been compiled in the Sahīh, that there are Ahādīth where it is known that they (some) are erroneous, even if most of the textual transmissions of the Sahīhayn (mutūn) are known to be truthful.”

(Majmū’ Fatāwā Ibn Taimiyyah, 1/249-250).