Causes of difference in the traditions and categories of narrators

Someone [1] asked Amīr al-mu’minīn about concocted traditions and contradictory sayings of the Prophet current among the people, whereupon he said:

Certainly what is current among the people is both right and wrong, true and false, repealing and repealed, general and particular, definite and indefinite, exact and surmised. Even during the Prophet’s days false sayings had been attributed to him, so much so that he had to say during his sermon that, “Whoever attributes falsehoods to me makes his abode in Hell.”

Those who relate traditions are of four categories, [2] no more.

[First : The hypocrites :] The hypocrite is a person who makes a show of faith and adopts the appearance of a Muslim; he does not hesitate in sinning nor does he keep aloof from vice; he wilfully attributes false things against the Messenger of Allāh - may Allāh bless him and his descendants. If people knew that he was a hypocrite and a liar, they would not accept anything from him and would not confirm what he says. Rather they say that he is the companion of the Prophet, has met him, heard (his sayings) from him and acquired (knowledge) from him. They therefore accept what he says.

Allāh too had warned you well about the hypocrites and described them fully to you. They have continued after the Holy Prophet. They gained positions with the leaders of misguidance and callers towards Hell through falsehoods and slanderings. So, they put them in high posts and made them officers over the heads of the people, and amassed wealth through them. People are always with the rulers and after this world, except those to whom Allāh affords protection. This is the first of the four categories.

[Second: Those who are mistaken :] Then there is the individual who heard (a saying) from the Holy Prophet but did not memorise it as it was, but surmised it. He does not lie wilfully. Now, he carries the saying with him and relates it, acts upon it and claims that: “I heard it from the Messenger of Allāh.” If the Muslims come to know that he has committed a mistake in it, they will not accept it from him, and if he himself knows that he is on the wrong he will give it up.

[Third: Those who are ignorant :] The third man is he who heard the Prophet ordering to do a thing and later the Prophet refrained the people from doing it, but this man did not know it, or he heard the Prophet refraining people from a thing and later he allowed it, but this man did not know it. In this way he retained in his mind what had been repealed, and did not retain the repealing tradition. If he knew that it had been repealed he would reject it, or if the Muslims knew, when they heard it from him, that it had been repealed they would reject it.

[Fourth: Those who memorise truthfully :] The last, namely the fourth man, is he who does not speak a lie against Allāh or against His Prophet. He hates falsehood out of fear for Allāh and respect for the Messenger of Allāh, and does not commit mistakes, but retains (in his mind) exactly what he heard (from the Prophet), and he relates it as he heard it without adding anything or omitting anything. He heard the repealing tradition, he retained it and acted upon it, and he heard the repealed tradition and rejected it. He also understands the particular and the general, and he knows the definite and indefinite, and gives everything its due position.

The sayings of the Prophet used to be of two types. One was particular and the other common. Sometimes a man would hear him but he would not know what Allāh, the Glorified, meant by it or what the Messenger of Allāh meant by it. In this way the listener carries it and memorises it without knowing its meaning and its real intention, or what was its reason.

Among the companions of the Messenger of Allāh all were not in the habit of putting him questions and ask him the meanings, indeed they always wished that some Bedouin or stranger might come and ask him (peace be upon him) so that they would also listen. Whenever any such thing came before me, I asked him about its meaning and preserved it.

These are the reasons and grounds of differences among the people in their traditions.