Sanad: Chain of Narration

Quranic Verse

"O you who have believed, if there comes to you a disobedient one with information, investigate, lest you harm a people out of ignorance and become, over what you have done, regretful. 49:6"

Hadith
  • Those who lie about me, then let them find their position in Hellfire.
  • The best of generations is my generation, and then the generation that comes after that, and then after that.
  • Every Monday and Thursday, actions are lifted and I love that my actions are uplifted while I am fasting.
  • The best prayer that is done after the obligatory prayers is that of the night prayer.
Dua'a
  • May Allah help us be people of truth, who don’t follow our desires or follow assumptions.
  • May Allah help us be people who seek the truth, who are harmonious, who respect the sunnah, who live in accordance to the quran and the sunnah, who try to revive within our communities the virtue of our scholars, the verifying capabilities of our scholars, and the meticulous methodology of our scholars.
  • May Allah show us truth as truth and help us to follow it and show us falsehood as falsehood and keep us from it.
I - Verifying the Source of Deen is Essential
  • When we hear something happens in the world, our first inclination is to verify it, to assure it comes from an authentic source.
  • One of the most essential questions that we ask is: what is the Deen? And an elemental part of that process is knowing the source of the information, to verify it.
  • Jibreel came directly to the Prophet (saw) and asked him, while touching knee to knee, to verify what was understood, what was known.
  • We can see that you must go directly to the source to verify the information that you take as truth.
  • Science of Verifying Reports and Science of Narrators of Those Reports
    • No other civilization can track every link over 15 centuries of Islamic scholarship
    • We have over 550,000 narrators of the tradition and we know their
      • Names
      • Dates of birth
      • Character traits
      • Where they lived early on in their life and later on
      • Where they died
II - There is a Reality to Things
  • We possess three means of discovering truth/if something is real
    • Intelect - for example: knowing that 1+1 = 2
    • Experience - for example: knowing that fire burns
    • Honest/Truthful Reports - for example: knowing that the Revolutionary war happened and we can verify it through undeniable reports.
III - The Sanad is from the Deen and Without Sanad Anyone Can Say Anything - Abdullah bin Mubarak
  • A central part of our religion is the preservation of what we have inherited.
  • We know every single link that has brought us the Qur’an - it is present in the mind, hearts, and on paper.
  • We cannot say that we know about Islam by what we learn through Google, attending a Islam 101 class, a social media post, etc.
  • Currently, some people say that they will only take the Qur’an and won’t take the Hadith, but we received both in the same way - through a link that starts at the Prophet (saw) and is tracked through the centuries.
  • If you were to study Imam Nawawi, you would study with a shaykh, who studied with a shaykh, until you reach Imam Nawawi.
  • We cannot go to the Qur’an, discredit all of the work that has gone into the religion, and say that I can extract my own scholarship.
  • How do we know that the Kaaba is where the Kaaba is? Through unbroken chains of narration of people who make tawaf around the Kaaba.
  • Today we have people who will look at the Quran, disregard all scholarship, and say that the ayah: Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al- Aqsa, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him of Our signs
  • Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Seeing. 17:2 means that the Prophet (saw) didn’t go to Jerusalem, but only a few kilometers from the Kaabah. This is empty speech.
IV - We Must Study Islam Through the Purview of the Chains of Our Tradition
  • This is the most credible way to understand our tradition.
  • Take this logic and apply it to everything you know about the Deen.
  • It is not credible to decide that Salah is 3x day, not 5x, because of Isnad and Ijma.
  • Dr. Akram Nadawi published 55 volumes of the female scholars who relayed hadith, and he said he could have written 60, but his teachers told him to publish it.*
  • Today people want to change everything about the religion, for the sake of modernity, to the point that it would no longer be considered religion.
  • Our goal is to live up to what the Prophet (saw) expects of us in the 21st century - this isn’t easy and requires us to know the entire 15 centuries of work to inform us and teach us how to fulfill it.

*55 Arabic volumes. The 314 page “Introduction” has been published in English as, al-Muhaddithat: the women scholars in Islam. London. Interface Press. 2007

V - Vet Those Who You Take Information From
  • It is not acceptable that people jump to conclusions about Muslims after a shooting.
  • We want information to be verified and the same is required in order to know our Deen.
  • Muhammad ibn Sireen said, “ This knowledge is a matter of your Deen, so be very selective who you take your Deen from.”
  • Don’t take things on face value, vet your scholars.
  • Just because someone has 10 PhDs, or is on TV, or is on the minbar does not make what they are saying true.
  • We cannot say that simply because you hear a piece of information that it is true. We must verify, even at the interpersonal level when a family member says something about another family member.
  • How to vet:
    • Are they credible and trustworthy?
    • Are they credentialed?
    • Are they peer reviewed?
    • Do they have chains of transmissions?
    • Do we know where they studied?
  • When you hear something, go to the source and verify it.
  • It is oppression (thulm) to spread false rumors.
  • If you are someone who acts upon rumors or misinformation then you are oppressive and harmful.
  • Break your back to ascertain the truth because it is a matter of deen.
Questions
  1. How does the Hadith of Jibreel teach us to verify what we know about our Deen?
  2. How is the Sunnah as reported in broadly narrated and transmitted (mutawattir) Hadith essential to the preservation of the fundamental elements of our Deen?
  3. Why is it dangerous to accept “knowledge” of our Deen from sources that are disconnected from the meticulous scientific methodological approach to Islamic scholarship?
Ramadan Prepation
  • Are you ready for Ramadan?
  • We all have skeletons in our closet for sins that we’ve accrued between the last Ramadan and this one.
  • Must start to prepare from now - so every second part of the khutba from now on will focus on Ramadan.
Actions Between Now and Ramadan
  • Pray all 5 prayers on time
  • Make 100 istighfaar every single day
  • Begin to fast - at least Mondays and Thursdays
  • Pray at least 1 rakah of witr