Al-Nisa’i's Approach in Reporting Hadith Narrations by the Trustworthy among Those Who Had Memory Lapses in his Book Al-Sunan

Abstract

This study investigates Imam Al-Nisa’i's approach in reporting the narrations of authentic narrators who suffered from memory lapses in his book Al-Sunan Al-Sughra known as al-Mujtaba. This study is important as it is vital to know the impact of memory lapse on the narrations of authentic narrators, who are considered trustworthy and reliable. The scope of this research does not include those whose memory lapse was insignificant, such as those who had the memory lapse immediately before death, those who had a few narrations after lapsing, those who had minor lapsing that did not affect their narrations, or those who were not proved to have lapsed. In this study the definition of memory lapse is presented along with an explanation of the way used in verifying lapsing and a discussion of its subsequent and ensuing issues. After this, the importance of studying the narrators with memory lapse and the books written on the topic are presented. Next, those who were conclusively proved to have suffered from memory lapse in al-Nasai's book are investigated and tracked down. In so doing, the scientific method of hadith narrators is followed in explaining the approach of al-Nisa’i.