07/01/2018
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, *"Convey from me even an Ayah of the Qur'an; relate traditions from Banu Israel, and there is no restriction on that; but he who deliberately forges a lie against me let him have his abode in the Hell.''* [Al-Bukhari].
Commentary: This Hadith contains the following three important points:
1. It stresses the importance of acquiring knowledge of the Qur'an and Hadith and imparting it to others. No matter whether one has more or less knowledge, he must communicate it to others. There is no justification to presume that preaching or inviting to the Message of Allah is the duty of religious scholars and those who are well-versed in this sphere. In fact, it is a duty upon every Muslim, so much so that if a person knows even a single Verse of the Qur'an, that is to say if he knows only one injunction of Allah, he is duty bound to communicate it to other people.
2. It allows the communication of Jewish Traditions but this permission is subject to the condition that such Traditions are not against the elucidations of the Qur'an and Hadith.
3. There is a stern warning on attributing any false saying to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. This demands strict scrutiny of Ahadith. If a Hadith does not have a reliable authority or whose chain of narrators has a false link or a person of doubtful integrity, that is to say if it is weak, then it is a serious offense to quote it as a Hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. There are various grades of weakness, and this requires deep knowledge of the narrators and principles of Hadith to know them since scholars who are expert in this discipline are few and far. The safest course for ordinary scholars is to refrain from stating such Ahadith which are weak, no matter whether the weakness is serious or slight.
