Diversification of Hadith according to Al-Allama Al-Hilli and Its Impact on Hadith Criticism Methods

Abstract

The old scholars used to rely on Hadiths, either due to their popularity or believing that Hadiths often align with rational and customary evidences, like al-Sayyid al-Murtadha, or as a form of religion giving a duty which must be done, like al-Sheikh al-Tusi, where criticism according to them was presenting Hadith to these evidences, and the method of chain-based criticism (sanad) did not exist this concept at that time.
We can refer to the method of the ancient Imami scholars for authenticating Hadith as the "system of evidences," which relies on the approved evidences for the issuance of Hadith from the Imams (peace be upon them). This involves the presence of Hadith in the books of known and reliable narrators. However, as time passed between the later Imami scholars and their earlier, some of the approved al-Asul books were studied, and the Hadiths taken from the approved al-Asul were confused with those taken from the non-approved ones. There was also confusion between frequently repeated them in al-Asul books and those that were not frequent.