Most scholars group the main aspects of the methodology of the Companions in preserving the Sunnah into the following seven categories: prudence in narrating the Hadiths, verification and substantiation of the Hadiths before accepting them, critique, discussions and assessment of the narration, travelling for search and confirmation of the Hadiths, memorisation, practice and writing of the Hadiths. Some scholars refer to these aspects as ‘rulings’, ‘methods’ or ‘ways’ instead of methodology.
1- Prudence in narrating the Hadith:
Because of the fact that the Sunnah is a revelation and a sacred Source for this religion, the Companions were very careful when narrating what the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said or did. This vigilance was illustrated in:
l Avoiding narration unless they had to. ‘Abdur-Rahmaan Ibn Abi Layla said: “I have met with 120 Companions from the Ansaar (supporters of the Prophet), none of whom would narrate a Hadith or answer a question of fatwa unless he absolutely had no choice but to do it. One would have to go and ask another instead of him, so much so you would keep going from one to the other until you get back to the first one you asked.”
They understood that they were conveying the message brought to them by the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, and that people see it as such, thus everyone wanted the other to do that because they may know it better. This, however, should not be construed to mean they avoided spreading the message or teaching Islam to others. This prudence indicates they were fully aware of their role and its significance. They would rather let others, who may be more knowledgeable, do the job, but once they had to do, they did it in the best way possible.
lLimiting or discouraging the narration. This attitude was adopted for the purpose of protecting the Sunnah because it minimises the possibility of mistakes or forgetfulness that may otherwise cause people to doubt the Sunnah or mistrust the narrators. This trend was strongly encouraged by Caliphs Abu Bakr, radhiallah ‘anhu, and ‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab, radhiallah ‘anhu, and was accepted and practiced by the Companions. This attitude is founded on the famous Hadith narrated by many Companions: “It is sufficient - for one to tumble into lying - to narrate or repeat everything he/she hears.” [Al-Bukhari and others]
lEncouraging narration from knowledgeable Companions. To strike a necessary balance between being cautious and insuring the transmission of the religion and the spreading of its teachings, the Companions who had a great deal of knowledge - like those recommended by the Prophet - never hesitated to narrate, write or teach the Sunnah. There are hundreds of narrations that encourage such practice so long as it is done in the right manner.
lOpting for verbatim narration. Guided with instruction in the Hadith, “May Allah bless the person who hears a statement from me and conveys it as he/she heard it,” the Companions did all that was humanly possible to keep their narration verbatim of what they actually heard from the Prophet. There are many reported incidents, which testify to this fact. Having such natural mastery of the Arabic – that was common among them - and the fact that they saw and heard the Prophet say, do and explain to them his teachings repeatedly, as well as their understanding of the need for verbatim transmission of narrations, all combined to make it easy for them not to cause changes as they narrate any Hadith.
2- Verification of the Hadith before accepting itThis is an important tool that the Companions established to safeguard the Sunnah against any foreign material interference and accidental or deliberate mistakes. This was a common practice amongst all of the Companions when receiving or narrating the Sunnah.
Imaam Ath-Thahabi mentioned this practice, in one of his great books, addressing the issue of Hadith memorisers. He said that it was one of the ways used by of the four Caliphs to protect the Hadith. For example, Abu Bakr was asked to rule in the case of a grandmother who came asking for her right in inheritance, he said that he knew of no amount due to her neither in the Book of Allah (i.e., Qur’an) nor the Sunnah of the Prophet. But when Al-Mugheerah told that he has witnessed the Prophet give one-sixth of the total amount of the inheritance, he asked him if he had witness to substantiate this claim. And when Muhammad Ibn Maslamah witnessed to the truth of that figure, Abu Bakr accepted it and gave the grandmother exactly that.
In the case of ‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab, Ath-Thahabi mentioned many incidents that testify to the fact that he always ascertained the narration when it was necessary to do so. He narrated that Maalik Ibn Aws heard ‘Umar say to ‘Abdur-Rahmaan Ibn ‘Awf, Talhah Ibn Az-Zubayr and Sa’d Ibn Abi Waqqaas: “I ask by Allah, Who maintains the Heaven and Earth! Did you hear the Prophet say: ‘I am not to be inherited, whatever I leave is to be given in charity’? They said: ‘Yes, Allah is our witness.’” [Ahmad]
After narrating the above incidents among others, Imaam Ath-Thahabi repeatedly asserted that the verifications were not meant to doubt the truthfulness of any of the Companions rather they were necessary to establish a standard of care and respect for what the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said or did. They did that for themselves and to institute a tradition to be followed and honoured by all who come after them.
In summary, it is essential to note the following about this method:
lThe purpose was to protect the Sunnah, not to doubt one another. All of the Companions are trustworthy as clearly stated in the Qur’an, and doubting their trustworthiness can certainly damage one’s faith.
lThe purpose, also, was to establish a method and set an example to be followed by the rest of the Muslim nation. The truth, however, remains that Companions used to accept narration conveyed by any one of them. Their request of witnesses or that the narrator gives an oath that he is saying the truth was to establish the methodology, so that people would not take narrating a Hadith lightly. This fact may further be supported when considering that:
lSometimes they required a witness while at others they had the narrator give oath or reminded him of how serious it is to lie against the Prophet. This variation indicates that the purpose was actually to establish awareness of the significance of narrating the Hadith rather than set up a requirement of having more than one narrator as a condition for its authenticity.
lThere are a very large number of narrations, which indicate that in many cases the Companions had actually accepted Hadith from one narrator without seeking any substantiation or verification.
3. Study, critique, and assessment of the narrationsOf the ways the Companions used to preserve the Sunnah, properly learning and studying it, was perhaps the most important. They refer to this using terms like, “Tadaarus” and “Muthaakarah,” both of which indicate a studying that involves more than one person as well as a mutual exchange of knowledge and ideas. The results of this “studying and discussing” were manifold.
Learning the Sunnah correctly, free of mistakes was one of the goals, and so was the firm memorisation of it. And since it was physically impossible for a large number of the Companions to have equal time access to the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam these discussions were the means through which the narrations known to only a few individuals were passed on to many others, thus expanding the circle of narrators.
Books such as Jaami’ Bayaan Al-‘Ilm by Ibn Abd Al-Barr and Al-Jaami’ Li Akhlaaq Ar-Raawi by Al-Khateeb have many authentic narrations from the Companions bearing witness to the effectiveness of these discussions in preserving the Sunnah.
Another aspect of the Companions’ methodology in preserving the Sunnah was the critical assessment and evaluation of what they narrated and taught to one another. Anytime a Companion felt what he heard from another had a problem, he or she would critically analyse it and give his/her opinion about it. A major example of this effort by the Companions was demonstrated by Badruddeen Az-Zarkashi who wrote a book in which he collected more than seventy narrations in which one Companion, ‘Aa’ishah, the Mother of the Believers was reported as having corrected other Companions’ narrations based on her assessment of the narrations in light of the Qur’an and the Hadith.
4. Travelling in search of the Hadith
Another great effort they made was traveling in search of the Hadith, for after the death of the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam the Companions moved to different places within the Muslim land, and travelling became an essential method of Hadith collection, authentication and preservation. Here are a few examples of the Companions’ travel for the sole purpose of confirming certain narrations:
Jaabir Ibn Abdullaah travelled a whole month to Ancient Syria only to verify one Hadith. [Al-Bukhari]
One of the Companions travelled to visit Fudhaalah Ibn ‘Ubayd and told him that he came not to visit him but only to ask him about a narration that they both heard together from Prophet and he was hoping that Fudhaalah had the complete wording of that Hadith. [Abu Daawood]
One of the Companions left his home in Madinah in order to meet Abu Ad-Dardaa’ in Damascus only to have Abu Ad-Dardaa’ confirm a narration which this Companion had already heard from the Prophet. [Ibn Abd Al-Barr]
The Companion Abu Ayyoob travelled all the way to Egypt to ask ‘Uqbah Ibn ‘Amr about one Hadith. Abu Ayyoob told ‘Uqbah that the two of them were the only living Companions who have heard that Hadith directly from the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam and he wanted to confirm the Hadith from ‘Uqbah . [Ahmad]
5-Memorisation of the Hadith
Muslims – one generation after the other – did all that is humanly possible to preserve the texts of the Qur’an and the Sunnah as accurate as they received it from the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Besides the extra effort they exacted to develop the Methodology, the Companions benefited from a talent that came naturally to them, one that was truly befitting to the main undertaking of that methodology - the verbatim transmission of the Sunnah. This unique quality of the Companions was that they enjoyed powerful memories. It was easy for anyone of them to commit to heart any number of narrations and retain them as such for a very long time.
This quality was not specific only to the Companions but rather was a common feature of the Arab society as a whole. Many scholars - Muslims and non-Muslim alike - established the fact that the Arabs of that era were masters of language, and their society had a profoundly strong oral tradition. The known narrator of poetry, Hammaad, for example, was reported to have memorised at least one hundred long poems for each letter in the Arabic alphabet. That is more than 2,800 pieces of poetry. Powerful memory was a source of pride for them and they placed more confidence in it than in writing, they believed that writings could be tampered with. Some even took this pride to extreme levels, they would not write anything down for fear that may be taken as indication of defective memory.
Obviously, the Companions who had more passion for preserving the Sunnah than poetry and literature used this powerful quality to protect and maintain the Sunnah. Imaam Ad-Daarimi narrated that the Companion Abu Hurairah, radhiallah ‘anhu, said: “I used to divide the night into three parts. In the first, I would perform the optional night Prayer, in the second I would sleep, and in the third I would spend committing Hadith to my memory.”
Actually, all of the Companions considered this an honor and a blessing, for they were encouraged to do so by the saying of the Prophet: “May Allah make radiant (bestow vigour upon) anyone who heard what I said and committed it to his memory until he is able to convey it to another. Perhaps the person who hears it from him can have a better understanding of it than him.” [At-Tirmithi]
On the other hand, the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, also taught the Companions two aspects that brought a needed balance to the use of memorisation in conveying his Hadith, namely the importance of writing, and the need of being moderate in all matters. This fact complemented their efforts in establishing a sound and well-rounded methodology.
The phenomenon of “Memory Power” continued to be a general character of the Arab society well into the third and fourth centuries of Hijrah, the time by which all of the Sunnah was collected into books and records. But the diminishing of its prevalence in the society with time did not minimise the role memory played in the preserving of the Sunnah. “Memory Power,” or Dhabt - proficiency in narration, as it later came to be known - became an essential part of the standards used to judge authenticity. Judging the narrators memory power is central in what we know as the science of “Al-Jarh wa Ta’deel.”
