To “game the system” means to manipulate or exploit the rulesi and processes of a system to one’s advantage, often in a way that wasn’t intended or is unfair. It’s like finding a loophole to win a game, get ahead in a competition, or benefit from a situation, even if it goes against the spirit of the rules. “Gaming the system” usually implies that someone is using clever or sometimes sneaky tactics to achieve a goal, often at the expense of others or the integrity of the system itself.
The Shorter, the Better
In the case of Hadith, the credibility of any Hadith among Sunnis lays heavily on the Isnad, and a shorter isnad gives the impression of higher reliability than a longer isnad. This was signified with the understanding that a shorter isnad signified being closer to the prophet and thus being deemed more righteous. As stated in the book Muhammad’s Legacy in Medieval and Modern World, by Jonathan Brown, p. 48:
As one early hadith scholar phrased it, ‘A close isnad is closeness to God.’…Muslim scholars sought out shorter and shorter isnads, rarer and rarer hadiths, as a way to gain precedence, fame, and respect in their religious culture.
So, a common form of gaming was trying to make the chain of narrators appear shorter than it was. Below are different tactics that are utilized even in the most revered compilations of Hadith.
Criteria Variations
Many scholars of Hadith differed regarding the criteria required to authenticate that one person narrated to another in their chain of transmitters (isnad) of any of their recorded Hadith. The more loose a compiler was with their criteria, the less individuals they would need to include in their chain of transmitters.
Two of the most revered Hadith Scholars among Sunni Muslims are Bukhari (d. 265 AH) and his student Muslim (d. 261 AH), yet they had different requirements for which Hadith they considered Sahih. For example, Bukhari believed that for a hadith to be considered “muttasil” (connected), it had to be proven that both the person who transmitted the tradition and the one who received it were living at the same time and had met each other. On the other hand, Muslim disagreed with this condition. Muslim believed that it was sufficient for the transmitter and recipient to have lived in the same time period, even if they hadn’t necessarily met. In Sahih Muslim, if a narration didn’t meet this criterion, Bukhari would reject it as “Sahih” (authentic) and consider it “maqtu” (with a broken chain in transmission). This means he would not accept it as a reliable source of information.1
Despite Bukhari and Muslim using more stringent criteria than most compilers, the challenge is that there is no guarantee that the two people, even if they were contemporaries and met, actually transmitted said Hadith from one of them to the other.
Lecture Halls
Additionally, it is worth mentioning that at that time, there were many Hadith teachers who used to lecture to assemblies with people in the thousands. Since speakers were obviously not a thing back then, the classes often utilized relay men throughout the space to repeat the teacher’s words for the people sitting far away to hear. Such people heard only the relay men and not the master himself. The question then arises whether they could truthfully claim to have heard the tradition from the teacher himself.2
It is said that because of this, Abu Hanifa (d. 120 AH), the founder of the Hanafi Fiqh (school of law), required the people transmitting in a chain to not only to have met the one transmitting the Hadith but to have heard it with their own ears directly from the teacher’s mouth, and on top of that for it to be fully remembered by the recipient, and approved by the teacher before they can claim to be a transmitter of the Hadith.3
He Reported To “Us”
An even more dubious practice committed by some Muhaddithin (the scholars and transmitters of Hadith) was to use the words akhbarana ( أخبارنا / “he reported to us”) and haddathana ( حدّثنا / “he narrated to us” ) when narrating Hadith. For example:
“al-Hasan al-Basri, on many occasions, says, “Haddathana Abu Hurayrah” (“Abu Hurayrah narrated to us”), although he never met Abu Hurayrah. He explained that when Abu Hurayrah narrated such traditions, he was present in the city where the narration took place.
Similarly, other masters of Hadith would use the word haddathana in connection with Companions, intending it to convey that the people of the cities where the Companions had narrated the traditions in question had heard them. The muhaddith al-Bazzar writes that al-Hasan al-Basri claimed to have heard traditions from persons whom he had never met, explaining it by saying that his people had heard the traditions from those persons.
This kind of circumlocution which cast doubt on the authenticity of the traditions, for if the narrator had not heard a tradition from a master himself, he had obviously heard it from some intermediary. Since he had not disclosed the intermediary’s nameit was not possible to know whether he was reliable or not, and one could only take it on trust that he was.”4
Broken Chains
In Hadith sciences, a “broken chain” refers to a gap or omission in the chain of narrators (isnad) of a Hadith. A broken chain occurs when there is a missing link in the chain of transmission, meaning that one or more narrators in the chain are not identified or missing from the narration. This missing link can make the Hadith less reliable or even weak, depending on the significance of the missing narrators and other factors. Conveniently, this rule by most Hadith scholars does not apply when a “trusted” companion narrates a Hadith in the first person when they were not the original one to witness such a narration.
For example, Ibn ‘Abbas, the fifth most prolific narrator of Hadith, was presumed to have been born in 619 CE, making him no more than 13 years old when the prophet died, yet he has ~1660 Hadith from the prophet attributed to him. Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar was presumed to be born in 610 CE, making him no more than 23 when the prophet died. Yet, he is the second most prolific narrator of Hadith, with 2630 narrations of the prophet attributed to him. Abu Hurayra is the most prolific narrator of Hadith, with 5374 narrations of the prophet attributed to him. Yet he only joined the Muslims in Medina during the last two to three years of the prophet’s life.5
In the book Muhammad’s Legacy in Medieval and Modern World, by Jonathan Brown, p. 20, it states:
Since Companions like Ibn ‘Abbas and Abu Hurayra only knew the Prophet for a short time, they apparently amassed their vast numbers of hadiths by seeking them from senior Companions. Abu Hurayra is thus rarely recorded as saying ‘I heard the Prophet of God say…’ – more often he simply states indirectly that ‘the Prophet said…’
A simple example of this can be observed in the following Hadith by Abu Hurairah. It is well understood that Abu Hurairah did not join the Muslims until after the Battle of Khaybar in 628 CE, yet there is a Hadith in Sahih Muslim 115 that gives a testimony of that battle. If Abu Huraira was not present for this battle, then he must have got the narration from someone else if one is to even entertain the possibility of its authenticity, yet the supposed companion that this narration came from is omitted from Abu Hurairah’s narration.
It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira: We went to Khaibar along with the Apostle (ﷺ) and Allah granted us victory. We plundered neither gold nor silver but laid our hands on goods, corn and clothes, and then bent our stops to a valley; along with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) there was a slave who was presented to him by one Rifa’a b. Zaid of the family of Judham, a tribe of Dubayb. When we got down into the valley the slave of the Messenger of Allah stood up and began to unpack the saddle-bag and was suddenly struck by a (stray) arrow which proved fatal. We said: There is a greeting for him, Messenger of Allah, as he is a martyr. Upon this the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) remarked: Nay, not so. By Him in Whose hand is the life of Muhammad, the small garment which he stole from the booty on the day of Khaibar but which did not (legitimately) fall to his lot is burning like the Fire (of Hell) on him. The people were greatly perturbed (on hearing this). A person came there with a lace or two laces and said: Messenger of Allah, I found (them) on the day of Khaibar. He (the Holy Prophet) remarked: This is a lace of fire or two laces of fire.
حَدَّثَنِي أَبُو الطَّاهِرِ، قَالَ أَخْبَرَنِي ابْنُ وَهْبٍ، عَنْ مَالِكِ بْنِ أَنَسٍ، عَنْ ثَوْرِ بْنِ زَيْدٍ الدُّؤَلِيِّ، عَنْ سَالِمٍ أَبِي الْغَيْثِ، مَوْلَى ابْنِ مُطِيعٍ عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، ح وَحَدَّثَنَا قُتَيْبَةُ بْنُ سَعِيدٍ، – وَهَذَا حَدِيثُهُ – حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الْعَزِيزِ، – يَعْنِي ابْنَ مُحَمَّدٍ – عَنْ ثَوْرٍ، عَنْ أَبِي الْغَيْثِ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، قَالَ خَرَجْنَا مَعَ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم إِلَى خَيْبَرَ فَفَتَحَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْنَا فَلَمْ نَغْنَمْ ذَهَبًا وَلاَ وَرِقًا غَنِمْنَا الْمَتَاعَ وَالطَّعَامَ وَالثِّيَابَ ثُمَّ انْطَلَقْنَا إِلَى الْوَادِي وَمَعَ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم عَبْدٌ لَهُ وَهَبَهُ لَهُ رَجُلٌ مِنْ جُذَامٍ يُدْعَى رِفَاعَةَ بْنَ زَيْدٍ مِنْ بَنِي الضُّبَيْبِ فَلَمَّا نَزَلْنَا الْوَادِيَ قَامَ عَبْدُ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَحُلُّ رَحْلَهُ فَرُمِيَ بِسَهْمٍ فَكَانَ فِيهِ حَتْفُهُ فَقُلْنَا هَنِيئًا لَهُ الشَّهَادَةُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ . قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ” كَلاَّ وَالَّذِي نَفْسُ مُحَمَّدٍ بِيَدِهِ إِنَّ الشَّمْلَةَ لَتَلْتَهِبُ عَلَيْهِ نَارًا أَخَذَهَا مِنَ الْغَنَائِمِ يَوْمَ خَيْبَرَ لَمْ تُصِبْهَا الْمَقَاسِمُ ” . قَالَ فَفَزِعَ النَّاسُ . فَجَاءَ رَجُلٌ بِشِرَاكٍ أَوْ شِرَاكَيْنِ . فَقَالَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ أَصَبْتُ يَوْمَ خَيْبَرَ . فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ” شِرَاكٌ مِنْ نَارٍ أَوْ شِرَاكَانِ مِنْ نَارٍ ” .
Sahih Muslim 115
https://sunnah.com/muslim:115
The only way to potentially reconcile this without rejecting all their hadiths narrated by these individuals for events that predated them is to claim that they narrated these Hadith from another companion. By omitting the name of the other companion from the chain of narrators, it makes the isnad seem shorter than it actually was.
Birth and Death Dates
A significant tool in determining the authenticity of the isnad is knowing the birth and death of an individual in the chain of transmitters. This information will indicate that the two people in the chain of transmitters, at a minimum, lived in the same time period. If they did not, then the best case is that the Hadith has a broken chain, and the worst case is that it is a fabrication.
Many Hadith can be discarded by this fact alone, except the date of birth and death of individuals back then, including the transmitters of Hadith, is not well established. This is not limited to even relatively unknown transmitters. There is much uncertainty regarding the exact dates of birth and death of many of the most prominent individuals, including the prophet’s wife ‘Aisha, the Hadith scholar Ibn Shihab az-Zuhri, the companions Abu Bakr and Umar, and even the prophet himself. If the history is unclear for such notable individuals, how less reliable should we consider it for the multitude of individuals listed in the isnad to be more lenient to make transmitters longer in age to shorten their isnads?
Centenarians
We see evidence of this in the disproportionate amount of Hadith marked as “authentic” (sahih) that often rely on individual narrators who lived long life spans (mu’ammarun), including a number of centenarians. It could be argued that since these individuals lived longer, it only makes sense that they would narrate more Hadith, but another reason is that including more who lived longer lives will also create a shorter chain of transmitters (isnads) and therefore be given the illusion of being more reliable.
Evidence for this motivation is that these longer-living narrators appear to be more prolific from Hadith originating in Kufa. The reason for this is that in these areas, the companions of the prophet who resided there died relatively soon after the prophet, e.g., Ibn Masoud, Ibrahim al-Nakhail, Ali, and his family. Therefore they needed to find clever ways to shorten their isnads. Otherwise, their Hadith would not be considered as sound. So it makes no sense as a product of genuine historical transmission as if there were more longer-living (mu’ammarun) in Kufah but makes perfect sense as a reflection of the specific Kufan needs to compensate for the creation of straightforward and especially short islands.
The historian G. H. A. Juynboll wrote an article on this subject entitled “The Role of Mu’ammarun,” which covers the extremely long-lived people who are inserted into chains to close gaps in Hadith transmission. In short, are we to believe that Hadith transmitters just happened to coincide with many people who lived for 100+ years? Or is it more likely that individuals who wanted to provide more validity to the Hadith they support inserted these individuals into their chains to close the gaps and shorten their isnads?
One of the most prominent Hadith transmitters is Imam Al Tabarani who was born in 260AH in Tabariya, ash-Sham. He narrated hadiths from more than one thousand scholars (Muhaditheen). He traveled extensively to many regions to quench his thirst of knowledge, which includes Syria, Haramayn Tayyibayn, Yemen, Egypt, Baghdad, Kufa, Basra, Isfahan, etc. He wrote many volumes and volumes of hadith books and was considered the most sought-after transmitter of his time. Sayyiduna Abul ‘Abbas Ahmad Bin Mansoor has stated that he narrated three hundred thousand Ahadees from Imam Tabarani alone.
But Al-Tabarani’s isnads border on the impossibly short. According to Hadith Muhammad’s Legacy in Medieval and Modern World, by Jonathan Brown, p. 49:
While ninth-century scholars like al-Bukhari generally narrated by isnads of four, five, six, or seven transmitters to the Prophet (and in al-Bukhari’s case twenty-eight instances where he narrated by only three), one hundred years later al-Tabarani still regularly narrated hadiths with four-person isnads. In one case we find him narrating a hadith via only three people: Ja‘far b. Hamid aJ-Ansari ← his grandfather ‘Umar b. Aban ← the Companion Anas b. Malik, who showed him how to perform ablutions like the Prophet.
Funny enough Al-Tabarani lived for exactly 100 years dieing in 360 AH.
Child Transmitters
In Hadith sciences, the age requirement for reliable transmitters of Hadith is that they should have reached the age of maturity and intellectual competence. This typically means they should be mentally mature and capable of understanding and accurately transmitting the Hadith. The exact age at which one is considered mature can vary in different contexts and among scholars, but it generally aligns with the age at which a person is considered an adult in their society. However, a common practice was to include the names of children deemed to be five years or older in the books as authorized recipients of traditions.
Aside from the ridiculousness of such practices, as stated in the excerpt above, this poses a more practical problem. It is one thing to know that the transmitter is only five years old. It is another when it is unclear if the transmitter was a child or an adult when they originally heard the Hadith. It is very likely that someone might have heard the Hadith when they were a child and not of sound mind, but later on, be taught the Hadith at an older age, but make their isnad to remove that intermediary.
For example, ‘Abd al-Razzaq was an eighth-century Yemeni hadith scholar who compiled a hadith collection known as the Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq, and when he died in 211 AH at the age of 80, his student, Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Dabari, who transmitted his work was not more than 7 years old.6
Despite this being stated by the Khatib, Kifayah, p. 64 and Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature p. 23, others claim that it was al-Dabari’s father who transmitted it to his son at an older age and that al-Dabari omitted his name from the transmission and only put his own which would reduce the length of the isnad.
Ijaza
Another common practice was that of “ijaza” (permission for transmission). According to p. 45 of “Hadith Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World” by Jonathan A.C. Brown:
“Ijaza for transmission meant that instead of reading an entire hadith collection in the presence of an authorized transmitter, a student might only read part of it and receive ‘permission’ from the teacher to transmit the rest. Although it was a less rigorous form of authentication, ijaza still provided scholars with isnads for books. Although this practice existed in some forms even in the ninth century, by the mid 1000s it had become very common. Al-Hakim al-Nayasburi, author of the massive Mustadrak, thus gave a group of students an ijaza to transmit his works provided they could secure well-written copies of them.
Of course if you could get an ijaza for a book you had not actually read in the presence of a teacher, you could get ijazas for any number of books that the teacher was able to transmit. This led to the practice of acquiring a ‘general ijaza (ijaza ‘amma)’ for all the books a teacher had. In the 1000s many scholars also accepted the practice of getting ijazas from teachers one had not actually met at all through writing letters. This ijaza for the non-present person (ijaza al-ma’dum)’ meant that scholars could acquire ijazas for their infant children or even for children not yet born!“
Generational Transmission
Having a very old transmitter transmit their traditions to the youngest children before their death approaches allows them to have the shortest possible isnads back to the prophet and have the most credibility for their traditions to be passed on. A clear indication of this is that the Hadith that are considered the most authentic, more often than not, have isnads transmitted generationally and not laterally within a given generation among peers of the same age group. For example, a Muslim (d. 261 AH) did not narrate from his teacher Bukhari (d. 265 AH). Nor did any of the compilers of the sitta – Ibn Majah (d. 273 AH), Abu Dawud (d. 275 AH), al-Tirmidhi (d. 279 AH), and al-Nasa’i (d. 303 AH) – narrate from each other despite all being contemporaries.
Conclusion
In the intricate world of Hadith transmission, the quest for shorter isnads revealed the lengths to which some transmitters and compilers went to enhance the credibility of their traditions. The temptation to take Hadith and find ways to create new shorter isnads to make their narration of the tradition the focus of learning was just too high. Individuals motivated by gaining prominence and authority for the traditions they narrated resorted to subtle and not-so-subtle manipulations of the isnad to create ever more concise and uninterrupted chains of narrators for their Hadith. As stated by the second-century scholar of Hadith, Yahya b. Sa’id al-Qattan, regarding the transmitters of Hadith:
- Imam Abu Hanfiah Life and Work by Shibli Nomani p. 162
- Imam Abu Hanfiah Life and Work by Shibli Nomani p. 139
- Imam Abu Hanfiah Life and Work by Shibli Nomani p. 138
- Imam Abu Hanfiah Life and Work by Shibli Nomani p. 139-140
- “Hadith Literature, Its Origin, Development & Special Features” by Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi p. 15
- Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature by M.M. Azami p. 23
- Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature by M.M. Azami p. 70 & Hadith Muhammad’s Legacy in Medieval and Modern World, by Jonathan Brown, p. 76
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