The Importance of Ḥadīth

From the translation of Imam an-Nawawī's biography by Sheikh ʿAbdul Ghanī ad-Daqr

 

An-Nawawī the Muḥaddith

The scholars of the Revealed Law have made consensus that the best science after the Book of Allah is the science of ḥadīth. Indeed, the rulings in the Qurʾān have many aspects that are brief and comprehensive and can only be expounded by way of the ḥadīth of Allah’s Messenger, and the same goes for the general and the specific as well as the abrogating and the abrogated. Allah the Exalted says: “And we have sent down the Reminder to you so that you can make clear to mankind what has been sent down to them so that perhaps they will reflect.” [an-Naḥl 16:44] Thus, the ḥadīth are an exposition and a source of legislation, and after the Noble Qurʾān, they are the greatest tool for the faqīh, the theologian, the preacher, the one who is concerned with the Arabic language, and so on and so forth. The sun does not take notice of the own who points out its existence and its immense benefit.

[Translated from Al-Imām an-Nawawī: Shaykh al-Islām wa al-Muslimīn wa ʿUmdat al-Fuqahāʾ wa al-Muḥaddithīn wa Ṣafwat al-Awliyāʾ wa as-Ṣāliḥīn (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 1415/1994), p.54]