Musnad Imam Ahmad
By Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (3)
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Details
The Musnad of Imam Ahmad is considered one of the Kutub at-Tis'ah (9 Books of Hadith) and it contains close to 40000 hadith with around 10000 repeating. It is organized into compilations of the ahadith narrated by each companion and it begins with the ten Sahabah who were promised Jannah while they were still alive. It was said that there doesn't exist a single a fabricated hadith in this compilation. However this saying is not completely accurate, If what is intended by this statement is that not a single one of the men in the asaneed (chain) is a lair then this is true. However, ahadith can be deemed fabricated due to the matn (text) having odd content, or it contradicting an authentic agreed upon hadith or established Islamic principle or the narrator is simply mistaken as mentioned by Shaykh Sulayman al-Alwan in his audio fatwa regarding this issue.
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (رحمه الله) said in Majmu' al-Fatawa (1/248):
Those narrators who may make mistakes in narration but do not deliberately tell lies about the Prophet (ﷺ) are the ones from whom you will find reports narrated in the Sunans, the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, and similar works. This is in contrast to those who deliberately tell lies. Ahmad did not narrate from any of them in his Musnad. Hence al-Hafidh Abu'l-'Ala' al-Humadhani and Shaykh Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi disputed as to whether there are any mawdu' (fabricated) ahadith in the Musnad. Al-Hafidh Abu'l-'Ala' denied that there could be any mawdu' hadith in the Musnad, whereas Abu'l-Faraj affirmed that and stated that it contained hadiths that were known to be false.
There is no contradiction between the two views, because the report that is mawdu' according to the terminology of Abu'l-Faraj is that for which there is proof that it is false, even if the one who narrated it never deliberately told lies about the Prophet (ﷺ) and, rather, made a mistake. Therefore he narrated in his book Al-Mawdu'at many hadiths of that nature.
Many scholars disputed with him concerning many of the hadiths that he listed in his book (as being fabricated), and said: There is no sound evidence there (about some particular hadith) to prove that it is false; rather they explained that some of these hadiths had been proven to be sound.However most of what he mentioned in Al-Mawdu'at were false reports according to scholarly consensus.
With regard to al-Hafidh Abu'l-'Ala' and others like him, what they meant by mawdu' is that which was fabricated and made up, which the narrator deliberately and falsely attributed to the Prophet (ﷺ).
Commentaries on the Musnad:
- Hashiyah as-Sindi Ala' Musnad al-Imam Ahmad, by Abul-Hasan Muhammad ibn Abdul-Hadi as-Sindi.
- Nafathat Sadr al-Mukmad Wa Kurrah Ayn al-Mus'ad Bi Sharh Thalathiyat Musnad al-Imam Ahmad, by Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Salim as-Safareeni.
- Ukwud az-Zabarjadi Ala' Musnad Ahmad, by Jalal ad-Deen as-Suyuti.
- Al-Fath ar-Rabbani Li Tarteeb Musnad al-Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal ash-Shaybani, by Ahmad as-Sa'ati.
- Bulugh al-Amani Min Asrar al-Fath ar-Rabbani, by Muhammad Abdul-Wahhab Buhayri.
The translation of this book is still in-progress. The publishers expect it will be 18 volumes once completed.