Dirayat al-hadith: Difference between revisions

'''Dirayat al-ḥadith''' (Arabic: درایة الحدیث) (lit. comprehension of [[hadith]]) is a branch of hadith-related [[Islam|Islamic]] disciplines. This discipline is concerned with the narration and comprehension of hadiths. There are differences between [[Shiite]] and [[Sunni]] definitions of dirayat al-hadith. Many works have been authored concerning dirayat al-hadith.

The term "dirayat al-hadith" is a complex phrase out of the words "dirayat" and "al-hadith". The former is from the root, "d-r-y"(د-ر-ی), which means understanding, knowing, or comprehending. This is a particular sort of knowledge achieved via some premises and by reflection, or it is a sort of knowledge achieved not by usual methods, rather by unusual procedures, or a sort of knowledge followed by doubts.

In [[Shi'a|Shiite]] [[hadith]]s, the word "dirayat", taken to mean a comprehension of hadiths, has been used in contrast with "riwayat", which means the mere narration of a hadith. Such hadiths emphasize the necessity of understanding hadiths, the superiority of understanding hadiths over merely narrating them, and the low number of people who understand hadiths as opposed to those who just narrate them.

It seems that the use of the word "dirayat" in these hadiths has been very influential in the emergence and terminology of "dirayat al-hadith" among Shiite scholars.

The word "dirayat" and its cognates have been used in [[Sunni]] [[hadith]]s narrated from [[the Prophet (s)]], though sometimes with different words, such as "knowledgeable people are concerned with observation (al-ri'ayat) and unwise people are concerned with narration (al-riwayat)". In another hadith from the Prophet (s), the person who knows and understands hadiths has been preferred to one who just narrates them.

There is no history of classifying the discipline of [[hadith]] into riwayat al-hadith and dirayat al-hadith among Shiite scholars of hadith. However, some contemporary Shiite scholars have made similar distinctions, which is an adaptation of the classification made by [[Sunni]] scholars of hadith.

[[Sunni]] scholars of [[hadith]] have not usually examined and criticized the above definitions of dirayat al-hadith, but it might come under consideration in two respects: first, from the viewpoint of the relation between dirayat al-hadith and its sub-disciplines, such as the [[science of rijal]]; and second, from the viewpoint of the relation between dirayat al-hadith and riwayat al-hadith. Given the above definitions, all disciplines of hadith may be included within these two classes.

With regard to the relation between riwayat al-hadith and dirayat al-hadith, it should be said that the relation between dirayat al-hadith and the texts of hadiths has sometimes been taken to be like the relation between an exegesis and the text that it interprets or that between judgments and events, and sometimes it has been taken to be like the relation between [[usul al-fiqh]] and [[fiqh]] or [[nahw]] (Arabic grammar) and i'rab (that is, modulation of words and declensions).

The classification of [[hadith]]-related disciplines into fiqh al-hadith (understanding hadiths), the [[science of rijal]], and dirayat al-hadith is a recent classification that has come to be widely accepted and known. Though this has been an attempt to improve upon the extant classifications of the disciplines of hadith, there are reservations about its applicability to, and inclusiveness of, all disciplines of hadiths as they are conceived by early scholars. Notwithstanding this, there is no doubt that [[Shi'a|Shiite]] scholars have long been attentive to the distinction between issues of dirayat al-hadith and the science of rijal. In addition to the science of rijal and dirayat al-hadith, another hadith-related discipline has also been mentioned as "'ilm al-asnad", and the former two have sporadically been taken to be its sub-disciplines, though they take them all to be independent of one another.

It is obvious that for [[Shi'a|Shiite]] scholars, unlike [[Sunni]] scholars, dirayat al-hadith and the [[science of rijal]] are not identical; they are completely independent. Thus Shiite scholars did not take the science of rijal to be part of dirayat al-hadith and took discussions about the chains of narrators of hadiths in the science of rijal and dirayat al-ahdith to be of totally different characters: in the latter, the general principles governing such chains are discussed, and in the former, individual instances of the narrators are considered as to, say, whether they are reliable or not. In practice, however, since dirayat al-hadith draws upon the results of the science of rijal, it is common for some issues of the science of rijal to be discussed in dirayat al-hadith, such as [[al-jarh wa al-ta'dil]] (that is, taking a narrator as reliable or unreliable), introduction of trustworthy books of the science of rijal, and contradictions in reports about a narrator of hadiths.

This discipline has also been called "'ulum al-hadith" (sciences of [[hadith]]), "mustalah al-hadith" (terminologies of hadith), and "usul al-hadith" (principles of hadith). Among [[Shiite]] scholars, however, the term "dirayat al-hadith", or sometimes "diraya" for short, is most commonly used. And for Shiite scholars, the term, "usul al-hadith", has come to refer to the main books of hadith, such as [[Al-Kutub al-Arba'a]] (The Four Books).

The formation of dirayat al-hadith should be taken to be a result of extensive interactions between scholars of [[hadith]], scholars of [[fiqh]], and those of [[kalam]]. The path has sometimes been different for [[Shiite]] and [[Sunni]] scholars. For Sunnis, some issues of dirayat al-hadith came under focus since the period of [[sahaba]] ([[the Prophet (s)]]'s immediate companions). There are cases of works written about some issues of dirayat al-hadith which date back to the late second century/early 9th century. [[Shafi'i]] is the first to have written about this in his ''al-Risala''.

Some terminologies of [[hadith]]-related disciplines are formed in the 3rd/9th century. In this period, scholars of hadith and the [[science of Rijal]] discussed some issues of dirayat al-hadith in the introduction of their books; issues such as the manners of hearing a hadith and delivering it to others, types of acceptable and unacceptable hadiths, and classes of [[:category:narrators of hadith|narrators of hadiths]]. According to Nur al-Din 'Itr, ''al-'Ilal'' by al-Tirmidhi (d. 279/ 892), which is published at the end of his collection of Hadith, known as ''Jami' al-tirmidhi'', is distinguished for its definitions of some terms in dirayat al-hadith.