We believe that all the mathaaibs are taken from the Quran n sunnah, in light of this ,I wanted to ask you akhie, What is the view if a Hanafie follower wants to take or follow a view from the Shafie mathab or vice versa, 4 eg this ruling about the wudhu ? because according to him/her the proof is more stronger than the other? or equaly valid?

Jazakallahu khair, Walaikum salaam:)

There are many ways one can determine if they truly met one another:

1) Their students or peers clearly stated such, as they saw them meet.

For example, we know Imam Ahmad met Ash-Shafi’i etc why? Students attested to it, peers attested to it, and they attested to it.

2) They were in the same area, near the same age, and narrated from the same people. In such a case one could determine that they did indeed meet each other.

In the case of Habib and ‘Urwah, if memory serves me correctly, I believe Ibn Abdul Barr’s argument was that Habib actually narrated from people who were older than ‘Urwah and many who died before ‘Urwah died. So they argue that such a meeting could have occurred by the fact that they lived during the same era and narrated from the same people, so they should have met.

It is very probable that they did meet based upon these two factors, however, the Shafi’is would say that it is doubtful and certainty must be brought. Not only that, just because you meet someone does not entail that you HEARD or took hadith from him. That is where the dissent occurs anyhow. Did he actually take hadith from ‘Urwah in person?

Usually the chain of narration will in fact tell the scholar. How? There are methods by which the scholars narrated from one another. I will compile a research paper on this for SI readers another day. For now, let me give 3 main examples:

A) Haddathanaa – It was narrated to us [by]…[then the name of the person that narrated said hadith to them]

B) Sam’itu (I heard)….

C) ‘An (from)

The first two cases definitely prove that the narrator took that hadith directly from that person. As for C, that he simply said “from”, then the situation becomes vague.

This type of narrating is vague due to the fact that the narrator IS NOT STATING HOW THEY RECEIVED THE NARRATION. In fact, this has been called ” ‘an’anah ” by the scholars of hadith. Unfortunately, many great scholars for whatever reasons, did not take care to say HOW they received the hadith. There is a problem, in fact, with many well known narrators with Tadlis – which is like masking who they truly heard it from.

Here is an example to make my point:

Layth
Rand
Jibril

So one day Layth meets Rand and Rand tells him through a very long chain that begins with Jibril that “The Prophet Muhammad said: ‘Smiling is a type of charity.’ ”

Lets say Layth knows of Jibril and decides that he will just report this from Jibril excluding Rand from the chain. So the chain would read:

Layth عن (‘an – from) Jibril…

So Layth has “masked” Rand. Sometimes this was done by the scholars because they had taken hadith from the one they are relating from already, though did not take this hadith from them.

Sometimes, and this certainly happens quite often (an example would be Hajjaj ibn Artah who is mentioned in the article above) is that they do this “masking” while knowing the person they are “masking” is weak in memory or even a fabricator, or they held that he was ok to narrate from, while others deemed that person defective in memory! There are some incredibly astute Imams who did this, and it is of great danger as well as import when going over chains of hadith!

Now back to the issue of Habib and ‘Urwah. When you look at all of the reports, at least all that I have seen and that have been mentioned by the Imams, Habib reports vaguely using عن (from) ‘Urwah. So he is not stating HOW he took this hadith from ‘urwah. Generally this would not be a big deal except that Habib, according to the earlier Imam Ibn Khuzaymah, did not actually HEAR anything from ‘Urwah.

This fact has been reiterated from many Imams, such as, Ibn Hibban, Ad-Daraqutni, Hafith Ibn Hajr who says in his Taqrib of Habib ibn Abi Thabit, “Thiqah (trustworthy), an great jurist, and he had alot of Irsaal and Tadlis!” [entry 1084] Also At-Tirmidhi says Imam Al-Bukhari rejected this hadith and also stated that Habib ibn Abi Thabit did not hear from ‘Urwah at all! Yahya ibn Al-Qattan, known as the Leader of Believers in Hadith, also reiterated this verdict. [At-Tirmidhi actually mentions these quotes in his Sunan!] Imam An-Nasa’i also states such in his Sunan after narrating this hadith.

Obviously, some disagreed such as Ibn Abdul Barr and the Hafith of his time Ibn ‘Adi who had nothing but praise for Habib ibn Abi Thabit (may allah be pleased with him amin).

An Imam in hadith of our era, Hafith Shu’ayb Al-Arna’ut in his commentary of the Taqrib of Ibn Hajr, defends the view of Ibn Abdul Barr and criticizes the view of Hafith Ibn Hajr, Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn Hibban and others.

Also the late Hafith Al-Ghumari argues the same as Ibn Abdul Barr in his Al-Hidayah the commentary (takhrij) upon Bidayat Al-Mujtahid. He basically says that Habib ibn Abi Thabit was narrated by the two Shaykhs in their Sahih’s (Bukhari and Muslim) and that there is no proof for the claims of those who say he performed tadlis here. He even goes on to quote 6 narrations that lead to A’ishah on this topic, and in his view, lead this narration to possibly be Mutawatir! He quotes the Hanafi Imam, Imam Muhammad Ash-Shaybani saying, “and this is a well known report from ‘A’ishah!”

Hafith Ghumari, though, ends his discussion, which is over 6 pages long, by stating that he is only looking at this hadith due to the null claims made about it and to refute those people who say it is weak, and then he says,

“And after all this has been said, this hadith is abrogated by the noble verse.”

So I hope this clarifies the matter better for you insha’allah!

was-Salam,
Abul Layth

Also, how do we determine what time the Prophet said or did something. The Shafi’is maintain that if the hadith is correct, then it was before the verse was revealed. The surahs of the Quran we usually know what time they were revealed, but for hadith, unless there is some hint in the hadith itself (unlike in this hadith, where there is no indication of the time), how is that determined?

This article is good proof that all the maddhabs are based on the Quran and sunnah, and it is not easy to determine for laymen (and even scholars) which position is correct. Therefore, taqlid is the only way. The salafis make everything simpler than it is. If one reads their books, he will think that his positions are absolutely and incontrovertibly true. May allah reward you for your efforts, and preserve you so that you can continue writing the proofs for the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali maddhabs.