Guiding the good people, explaining the comprehensive news

To His Eminence Sheikh Dr. Abdul Karim Al-Khudair

Part of the commentator's introduction

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and may God’s prayers and peace be upon His servant and Messenger, our Prophet Muhammad, and upon all his family and companions. Now then:

Many books have been written on the subject of documenting the Sunnah, the types of books, the methods of their authors and their objectives, so there is no need to elaborate here by mentioning them. Rather, we note that after the era of documenting, in which the original books were written that narrated the hadiths with chains of transmission, people were unable to study them, let alone memorize them. So, the people of knowledge resorted to making them easier and more accessible to students, so they wrote summaries stripped of chains of transmission in all chapters of the religion, so that students of knowledge could memorize them. They wrote on beliefs, worship and dealings, jihad, the biography and tribulations, the great battles, asceticism, holding fast and other chapters of the religion that fall under His saying: “Whoever God wants good for, He gives him understanding of the religion.” (1)

Memorizing and studying these summaries became a serious matter for students to follow under the guidance of their sheikhs. They would start with the shortest of them, then the next one that was longer, then the next one until the student qualified to study the original books that focused on the chains of transmission.

Among the chapters that scholars have been interested in and have followed in their writings and parts are the comprehensive hadiths from his comprehensive speech that are of interest to Muslims in general and students of knowledge in particular. Each author has collected what he saw as comprehensive of rulings and many meanings in brief, concise words. Al-Nawawi, may God have mercy on him, is considered one of the most prominent of those who collected such hadiths in one part in his famous book, The Forty Nawawi Hadiths. It includes, despite its brevity, comprehensive and principles that no Muslim can do without, whether he is a student of knowledge or otherwise. Every hadith contains a principle of the Shari’ah. In collecting this number, there is a hadith: “Whoever memorizes forty hadiths for my nation will be resurrected on the Day of Resurrection in the company of the jurists.”

The hadith scholars agreed that it is weak, except that it is in the virtues of deeds, and the majority work with weak hadiths in the virtues of deeds. Al-Nawawi mentioned in the introduction to the Forty Hadiths the agreement to work with weak hadiths in virtues, and this agreement that precedes the agreement that al-Nawawi narrated is invalidated by the presence of the opponent. It remains to be worked with as a saying of the majority with conditions that they stipulated. Al-Nawawi is one of those who see working with weak hadiths in the virtues of deeds, and despite that he mentioned that his reliance in collecting the Forty Hadiths was not this hadith, but rather it was following the example of the eminent imams and preservers of Islam who preceded him in such a collection, and they are a large group that cannot be counted from the eminent ones who are known for their virtue, knowledge, and piety.

Among the scholars who wrote on this topic is Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Saadi (may Allah have mercy on him), the author of the book before us. However, since the Sheikh did not consider the above-mentioned hadith to be authentic, and he believed that weak hadiths should not be used in virtuous deeds, An-Nawawi relied on them. Rather, he did not rely on the hadiths that he collected, but rather on the hadiths that he believed that students of knowledge were in dire need of. So he collected nearly one hundred hadiths that were in fact comprehensive hadiths, and that is why he named his book Compendiums of “Akhbar.” Some people have circulated a distorted name for this book, which is: Uyun Al-Akhbar. The addition to the name of the book: Compendiums of “Akhbar” is by adding an adjective to its noun, while the original is: Al-Akhbar Al-Jami’ah, so Compendiums is an adjective for the news.

(Jawami’) is the plural of (Jami’a) 3, and what is meant by it is a short, concise speech in its structure that carries more meanings than its actual wording, and (al-Akhbar) is (khabar), and khabar is sometimes used to mean a hadith and sometimes a trace; what is meant by it here is the collection of hadith.