The Used Of Weak Hadith In Malaysian Fatwa On Muslim’s Inheritance

Abstract

Hadith derived from God revelation to the Prophet and it stand as the second authoritative arguments in Syarak after the Quran. Therefore, the reference of Hadith in the fatwa process is very essential. Even though the demised of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) have reach more than 1,400 years ago but legitimacy of hadith were carefully secured by hadith scholars through the resilient chains of narrators (sanad). Through the sanad, we could distinguish an authentic from a weak hadith. Hence, the knowledge of hadith in general and the sanad in particular, are part and parcel in the methodology of fatwa and should be attained by hadith scholars. As a result, a scholar who was appointed as Mufti or as fatwa committee member have to acquire the wisdom in order to assure the authenticity of the Hadith that was referred during the reasoning process (istinbat). Otherwise, such fatwa become as weak as the hadith denoted. Therefore, this study aims to identify fatwas that have used weak hadiths in their arguments (istidlal) especially in the Muslims inheritance dispute (faraid). This research was conducted qualitatively by doing contents analysis on the books of fiqh, hadiths, law provisions, as well as on the current fatwa. The results showed that there are weak hadith that have being used in the fatwa of inheritance under the subject of dhu arham. Thus, the study suggested that the fatwa should be reviewed in terms the reliability of the hadith, as it has connoted to the weak fatwa.