MENYINGKAP RAGAM TEKS HADIS

(Kajian Hadis tentang Rukyat al-Hilal Riwayat Imam Muslim)

Abstract

The Qur'an and the Sunnah, as the two primary sources of Islamic
law, continue to present interpretive challenges that contribute to scholarly
disagreements. One notable example concerns the prophetic traditions (hadith)
on ru'yat al-hilal (crescent moon sighting) for determining the beginning of the
Islamic lunar month. An examination of Sahih Muslim (Al-Maktabah AlShamilah edition) reveals significant textual variation among the narrations.
Eight traditions (Nos. 5, 10–16) either omit the term ru'yah or its lexical
derivatives, or preserve alternative textual formulations, while ten traditions
(Nos. 3, 4, 6–9, and 17–20) explicitly employ the term ru'yah and its related
expressions. These textual differences correspond to the diversity of
transmission chains (isnad). Ideally, the available narrations should produce no
more than two principal textual forms, reflecting their original transmission
from the two primary Companions, Abu Hurairah and Ibn ʿUmar. However,
the existing multiplicity of textual variants obscures the originality of the
transmitted wording. Regardless of the long-standing debate over the
permissibility of transmitting hadith by meaning (riwāyah bi al-maʿnā),
historical evidence demonstrates that the Prophet's diverse practical precedents
(fiʿliyyah), together with differences in narrators' interpretive capacities and
transmission tendencies across various isnads, have contributed to the
emergence of multiple textual versions of the same hadith. Consequently, these
textual variations have generated diverse legal interpretations and
understandings within the Islamic scholarly tradition