مبہمات الحدیث کی توضیح وتشریح: مولانا سہارن پوری کی بذل المجہود کا اختصاصی مطالعہ

Explanation and Interpretation of the Ambiguity in Ḥadīth: An Expressed Study of Maulāna Sahāranpūrī’s Bazl-ul-Majhūd

Abstract

Mubhamāt-ul-Ḥadīth (Anonymity in Prophetical Narration) is an integral branch of the prophetical narrations. This Labyrinthine branch of the knowledge is foremost significant and profoundly technical how to detecting an anonymous and vague person mentioned in the transmission or text of a Ḥadīth. There may be one of various reasons for ambiguity in the chain and the text such as the brevity of the tradition; because of contempt or askance; for the sake of reverence; a narrator was not attracted by his mentor (Moḥadīth), so instead of mentioning this Moḥadīth by name, he mentioned vague words; he is mentioned in ambiguous terms due to forgetting his pedagogue’s name. Eliminating this ambiguity also generates many benefits: for instance, the recognition of ambiguity may lead to abrogation of a divine commandment or directive; the merits and scholarship of a companion (of the Holy Prophet) might be known; one’s year of embracing Islām might be known etc. That is why narrators and commentators focus strenuously to resolve the ambiguities in the prophetical narrations. Various methods used to resolve these ambiguities for example: consultation from the alike parallel chains (Mutābi’) and the similar text (Shāhid) of prophetical tradition/narration; from historical and biographical archives, from the annals of ambiguous literature and commentaries of Ḥadīth books. This research work focuses on customary legal norms of Maulana Saharanpur about detecting and resolving the ambiguity in the Prophetical narrations mentioned in Bazl-ul-Majhūd. At some places, the supplementary discussion about the other commentators of the topic is also associated in this study.