EXPLANATION OF THE HADEETHS

The quizzes on this blog are really quite difficult without an explanation of the hadeeths. My criteria for finding a suitable explanation were that it needed to be:

• written by one of the kibaar ‘ulemaa (senior scholars)
• not too lengthy
• available in English with a good translation

I chose Shaykh Al-Uthaymeen’s Explanatory Notes on Imaam an-Nawawee’s Forty Ahadeeth Revised, 2008, published by Tarbiyyah Publishing, ISBN 0-9770581-3-1 or 978-0-9770581-5-0.

I bought mine on Amazon’s UK site  since I do not get out much! Later I realised that the minimal cost I paid for the book was because someone was subsidising it and distributing them as sadaqah jaariyah jazaahum Allaah khairan. Otherwise the book costs about £12.

If you need the matn (Arabic script) of the hadeeths then use the second edition (revised 2008, brown cover) rather than the first edition (2004, blue cover) since that first edition has many typos (errors) in the Arabic (but thankfully not in the English) that have been corrected in the second edition.

HADEETH MATN

If you are memorising the Arabic matn, then it is also freely available from all Islamic bookshops (as tiny pamplets) and numerous places on the internet (please use a reliable source). There are slight variations in wording that are authentic, so do not be alarmed if the wording in the quiz differs by the odd word here or there, so long as you have a reliable version in front of you.

AUDIOS OF THE HADEETHS

It is so much easier to learn hadeeths as a non-native Arabic speaker if you can hear the Arabic. I did find audios on the internet which do not involve people singing the hadeeths melodiously. The best of what I know is that melodious chanting of hadeeths is to be avoided. And Allaah knows best.