A Study of the Musnad Ahmad – 1

Muti Syed: Musnad Ahmad is a very large hadith collection—highly comprehensive. What did Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal have in view when compiling it?

Ammar Nasir: His intent was to produce a comprehensive compendium of hadiths that would serve scholars as a source. To this end he traveled to many hadith centers, then in the prime of youth began arranging the material of the Musnad—a task that continued until his death. By his own account, he possessed a corpus of seven hundred and fifty thousand reports, from which he selected the narrations of the Musnad. He was, however, unable to bring the work to final, finished form before passing away. Later his son, Abdullah bin Ahmad, organized it. Hence the book contains considerable repetition, and in places the arrangement shows some disarray; the reports of many Companions appear under other Companions’ sections.

Muti Syed: Allamah Tamanna Imadi, in his research on the Musnad Ahmad, claims that the attribution to Imam Ahmad is itself incorrect—that it was compiled later and merely ascribed to him.³² What is your view?

Ammar Nasir: In truth, with respect to the hadith corpus, Tamanna ʿImadi’s perspective is heavily colored by a kind of conspiratorial theorizing. His temperament inclines to exaggeration, and in his research, he often inflates matters and draws sweeping conclusions from scant evidence. When a predisposition or reaction gains the upper hand, reasoning becomes subject to emotion or to preferred outcomes—and such exaggerated conclusions follow. His work on the Musnad Ahmad is of that sort. Maulana Abd al-Quddus Hashimi also, influenced by him, presented a similar view in one of his writings;³³ in response, Allamah al-Albani wrote his treatise Al-Dhabb al-Ahmad ʿan Musnad Ahmad, setting out in detail its weaknesses.

Muti Syed: In your view, what is the basic weakness in his reasoning? Where has the confusion arisen?

Ammar Nasir: Historically the situation is this: the Musnad is transmitted from the Imam only by his son, Abdullah bin Ahmad, who held all his father’s notebooks. From Abdullah, the manuscript of the Musnad was transmitted by Abu Bakr al-Qatiʿi; from al-Qatiʿi, by Abu Ali al-Tamimi—known as Ibn al-Mudhahhib; and from Ibn al-Mudhahhib, by Abu al-Qasim Hibat Allah bin al-Husayn. This entire chain can be found at the very beginning of Musnad Ahmad. Now, that only Abdullah narrates from Imam Ahmad is understandable historically: due to the khalq al-Quran controversy, the Abbasid caliphs restricted him to his home and barred him from public assemblies and discourse. Thus, in the last thirteen or fourteen years of his life, Imam Ahmad worked at home on his notebooks and would hand installments of the Musnad over to his son Abdullah. Consequently, the opportunity to hear the Musnad directly from him—or to have it read back to him—fell to Abdullah (along with his brother and a paternal cousin).

After Abdullah, however, a question arises: at the time of audition, Abu Bakr al-Qatiʿi (from Abdullah), then Ibn al-Mudhahhib (from al-Qatiʿi), and then Abu al-Qasim Hibat Allah (from Ibn al-Mudhahhib) were all scarcely more than twelve to fifteen years old. That is, when Abdullah bin Ahmad died, al-Qatiʿi was about fourteen or fifteen; when al-Qatiʿi died, Ibn al-Mudhahhib was twelve or thirteen; and when Ibn al-Mudhahhib died, Abu al-Qasim was roughly the same age. In three consecutive links, then, very young narrators are auditioning and transmitting the Musnad. This is striking, and hadith scholars have noted it. For example, Allamah al-Kawthari, considering precisely this aspect, explains why Musnad Ahmad cannot match the Sihah Sittah in authority.³⁴

Further, hadith scholars acknowledge that al-Qatiʿi and Ibn al-Mudhahhib did not possess any special expertise in hadith—one may say they were not technical hadith masters. Al-Dhahabi writes that, since they were not meticulous experts, their inexperience led to errors in the texts and isnads at various points in the Musnad.³⁵ Other weaknesses are mentioned about both as well. In light of such data, Tamanna Imadi raises the question: if a genuine Musnad manuscript existed, why is it that—leaving aside many of Abdullah’s seasoned students—it is a youth, Abu Bakr al-Qatiʿi, who narrates it? And then why, further on, do Ibn al-Mudhahhib and Abu al-Qasim (both in early adolescence) transmit it? His perplexity is: why do boys seem to be at the forefront in transmitting such an important collection?

Muti Syed: So, is there no force in his argument? On the face of it, it seems a weighty objection.

Ammar Nasir: The question is indeed worthy of reflection, and historical reasons can be explored—but the conclusion Tamanna Imadi draws from it is very weak. He claims that neither did Imam Ahmad compile any Musnad nor did Abdullah transmit a manuscript of it; the whole thing was put together later and ascribed to them, being passed along covertly for two or three generations. Then, when hadith scholars and the various legal and theological factions realized it contained material of interest to all, everyone embraced it. This is a hypothesis of Tamanna Imadi. The overriding question for such a hypothesis is: who, and when, produced such a massive compilation of some thirty thousand reports? Al-Qatiʿi and Ibn al-Mudhahhib were neither expert hadith scholars nor major scholars who could accomplish this; so who forged all these reports? Tamanna Imadi’s answer is that al-Qatiʿi received the material from a certain Abu Bakr al-Shafiʿi, who was in reality Shiʿi though outwardly clad in Sunnism; al-Qatiʿi then ascribed it to Abdullah bin Ahmad and passed it to Ibn al-Mudhahhib. But this is mere conjecture; Tamanna ʿImadi offers no solid historical proof for it. His claims about Abu Bakr al-Shafiʿi are guesswork and sheer surmise.

Muti Syed: Beyond the Musnad manuscript itself, are there other historical indicators that Imam Ahmad did—or did not—compile a Musnad?

Ammar Nasir: Yes; there are many. Numerous statements are transmitted in historical sources from Imam Ahmad and from his son, Abdullah bin Ahmad, indicating the Musnad’s existence. For example, from Imam Ahmad it is reported: I compiled this Musnad so that it might serve scholars as a point of reference, to which one could return when differences arose concerning hadiths. It is mentioned that he selected it from seven or seven and a half hundred thousand reports. It is also related that he used to hand sections of it to Abdullah, instructing him: include this in such-and-such Companion’s musnad. Another report from Imam Ahmad states that he told Abdullah: had I included only those reports I deemed sahih, it would have been very brief; I also included weak reports, because my view is that when a weak narration does not conflict with a strong proof, I prefer it.

References to the Musnad also appear in the statements of some contemporaries of Imam Ahmad; Abdullah bin Ahmad mentions it at various points in his own works. In addition, there is mention of different hadith scholars who auditioned the Musnad from Abdullah, and later from al-Qatiʿi, or who obtained permission (ijazah) from them. While these figures did not each transmit a complete exemplar with their isnads, the historical information shows that Abdullah and al-Qatiʿi possessed a collection of Imam Ahmad’s narrations, and scholars turned to them to audition or transmit from that collection.³⁶ In other words, it is not the case that hadith scholars learned of some anonymous manuscript a century or two later and only then discovered that Imam Ahmad had compiled a Musnad. Independent historical statements attest to its existence.

Muti Syed: These two points are very important and clarify matters considerably. If the manuscript’s existence is historically established, and if one cannot even identify who allegedly fabricated such a large collection, then it becomes difficult to accept Tamanna Imadi’s conclusion.

Ammar Nasir: Not only that; there is another fundamental question. If someone fabricated the texts of all the reports recorded in Musnad Ahmad, those same hadiths are also transmitted—often with different isnads—by numerous other hadith scholars. If you survey the corpus, you will find only a handful of reports—if any—that appear exclusively in Musnad Ahmad and are not narrated by other compilers with their own chains. Virtually all the Sihah Sittah reports are found in Musnad Ahmad, but the compilers of the Sihah narrate them on their own chains. As for the narrations in the Musnad beyond what is in the Sihah, hadith scholars have identified them; they are found in other compendia as well. Thus, if the Musnad’s thirty thousand reports were forged under Imam Ahmad’s name, one would have to further concede that the same forgers also created separate isnads under the names of all the other hadith scholars and inserted those hadiths into their books. That is an utterly fantastical hypothesis.

Muti Syed: Another point I have seen discussed is that Abdullah bin Ahmad transmitted the Musnad from his father but also added many narrations of his own—some hadith scholars say nearly a quarter of the Musnad consists of his additions. Do such additions not affect the Musnad’s authority?

Ammar Nasir: That the Imam’s son added his own narrations to the Musnad’s exemplar is accepted among hadith scholars. But as to the number, people often, without investigation, estimate roughly a quarter of the Musnad. That estimate is incorrect. Contemporary researchers, having worked systematically on these ziyadat, have shown they are not so numerous—altogether around thirteen hundred reports. And even within these there is a further division: not all are new in wording; roughly a thousand are cases where Abdullah cites, via a different chain, the very same report his father narrated. Only between two hundred and two hundred fifty reports have a new matn that Abdullah included with his own chain.³⁷ These additions do not compromise the Musnad’s authority for two reasons: first, Abdullah’s additions are clearly identifiable; there is no mixing between the two types of material. Second, a hadith’s authenticity or weakness turns on its isnad; that principle applies equally to Imam Ahmad’s own narrations and to Abdullah’s additions. From a hadith-critical standpoint, then, including these ziyadat in the Musnad poses no methodological problem.

[To be continued]