Ahmad B. Hanbal's attitude of a hadith in Al-Musnad and it's evaluation

Abstract

Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855), during his illness which ended with his death, asked his son 'Abdallah to remove the following hadith from al-Musnad: "When the Messenger of Allah said "This group from the Quraysh will destroy the Ummah", they asked "What would you order us (in this case)?". He replied "If so people should stay away from them!" Ahmad b. Hanbal thinks that this hadith contradicts other narrations. According to his son 'Abdallah, the narrations that this hadith contradict it is the hadiths that the Prophet ordered to obey the administrators and be patient with the mistakes caused by them. However, the scholars who came later made different evaluations about this attitude. According to one of these evaluations, Imam's attitude is that the hadith is contradictory, as it draws attention in its own statement, that is, it contradicts with other narrations that regulate people's relationship with the administrators. This interpretation is important in terms of narrating the same hadith by famous hadith scholars like Bukhari (d. 256/870) and Muslim (d. 261/875). Because, according to this interpretation, non-authentic narrations can be found in the works of Bukhari and Muslim, al-Cami'u's-sahih. However, these two authors claim that their books contain only authentic hadiths. However, the examinations made on both the narrator chain and its text show that the contradiction claim cannot be true. As a matter of fact, all four people who narrated the hadith were considered reliable by both narrator critics and Ahmet b. Hanbel. Thus Ahmad b. Hanbal includes a large number of hadiths of these narrators in his al-Musnad. It is possible to say that the hadith is not contradictory in terms of text. For, dozens of hadiths similar to both the first and second sentences of the hadith were reported by Ahmed in al-Musnad. According to the second claim, the reason for Ahmad b. Hanbal to take this hadith out of his book is political. According to this claim, Imam made such a request in order to get along well with the administration of the period. Because, in this period, Abbasid government ended the Mihna process, which had put the hadith scholars in great trouble, and began to pursue a softening policy against them. Ahmad b. Hanbal also responded positively to the management's desire for reconciliation, and for this reason he wanted to remove the hadiths that ordered to take a hard attitude towards the cruel ruler. But this claim does not comply with Ahmad b. Hanbal, because at that time he became a community leader thanks to his attitude towards power. According to the third comment on this issue, Ahmad b. Hanbal's attitude towards this hadith is that it could be abused. As a matter of fact, Imam himself personally said that some of ahl al-bid'ah brought this hadith as evidence and took harsh attitudes towards power. Essentially, we have other data that reinforce this final interpretation. As a matter of fact, Ahmet removed other hadiths that ordered the armed struggle against power from his book. As it is understood from this attitude, Ahmad b. Hanbal does not want the actual and armed struggle against cruel rulers to cause chaos and mischief in society. So it can be said that Imam's attitude regarding the hadith in question is about the concerns in the relationship between society and the administrator. However, this anxiety concerns especially the second sentence that recommends that "people stay away from such administrators".Because, during the period of Imam's life, some groups such as al-Mu`tizilah caused social disintegration by using such hadiths as evidence. In short, in the case under study here, his concern about "contradicting other narrations" should be understood in light of the ideal administrator-society relationship he attempts to establish in his al-Musnad.