The Refutation of Those Who Doubt the Prophetic Hadiths on the Claim That Hadith Was Not Collected During the Life of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)

The Shaykh : As for the fact that they are not confident in some of the hadiths, I commented on a word in some of [the texts]. Why are they confident in some and not in others, when the issue they are raising is: "The hadith was only collected after the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)?" If that were the case, they would have no confidence in any hadith at all. Sufficient proof of the error, indeed the misguidance, of this claim, or of this lack of confidence, is that in that case, nothing would remain in the hands of the Muslims that conveys to them their glorious and radiant history at all. Because if any person raises many issues and doubts regarding the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), who was commanded to explain His Lord’s Book: You, O Messenger, are to explain to people what was revealed to them. If they doubt this explanation—that is, the hadith of the Messenger (peace be upon him)—then doubt will inevitably spread to the entire history of the Messenger, the entire life of the Companions, all the battles, and all of history. Nothing would remain for us at all. Knowing that the scholars of Islamic history, even among the disbelievers and the Orientalists, and the testimony of the enemy is sufficient—what do they say? "The merit is that which the enemy attests to." These people say: There is no history on the face of the earth more authentic than the history of the Muslims.
The history of the Muslims has no more authentic counterpart; so what can be said about the history of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and his biography in particular, which includes, first and foremost, his (peace and blessings be upon him) explanation of the Noble Qur’an? So this doubt means, as I said before, that these doubters should return to the first or second group. As for believing, no, as for saying: "No, we believe in the hadith, the necessity of the hadith, and that it is impossible to do without it; otherwise, people would come up with new religions in the name of Islam." In that case, we draw their attention to something I previously alluded to briefly: the way to know the hadith, which is the scholars of hadith.
The second point: It is not true what is circulated and broadcast on various occasions in lectures and writings in different magazines—and this is from the whispers of the missionaries and the enemies of Islam and the religion—that this hadith was not written and not collected until about a year and a half after the death of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). This is not true at all. This is based on authentic hadiths known to us, the hadiths by which we prohibit and permit, which indicate that the hadith was being written during the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and that he himself (peace and blessings be upon him) sometimes ordered the writing of a sermon he delivered to the people. For example, there is a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari from Abu Hurayrah who said: "Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As had more hadith than I did; he used to write and I did not." Look at this text: a Companion who was present with the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and kept company with his companion Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As in accompanying the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and receiving knowledge and hadith from him. He said, based on what he thought—and his thought was actually wrong, as established by the thorough investigation that came later—he thought that Abdullah ibn Amr had more hadith than he did. He explains by saying: "He used to write and I did not." So Ibn Amr was writing the hadith during the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him); and for that reason, Abu Hurayrah thought that he had more hadith than he did.
And we have from his preserved hadiths, with authentic chains of narration, what confirms Abu Hurayrah's statement that Ibn Amr was writing the hadith. There is a hadith in "Musnad Ahmad" and elsewhere from Abdullah ibn Amr—this very man—that he sat in a gathering with a group of polytheists, and they said: "How do you write down everything your Prophet says, whether in a state of satisfaction or anger? He is a human being?" So this doubt entered his heart, and he hastened to his Prophet to ask him to remove it, and he recounted to him the previous statement of the polytheists. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him, and you have heard this hadith in the recording: ; so the Messenger is telling him: Write down every hadith you hear from me. So he was writing the hadith. This is a second hadith.
And a third hadith from him—also from himself and his own person—that he was sitting around the Messenger (peace be upon him) and said: "We are writing the hadith from him." So a questioner asked him: "O Messenger of Allah, will we conquer Constantinople first or Rome?" He said: . This is what concerns me: this great glad tidings, and this must be preserved by you well so that you know that the future belongs to Islam. But this requires work for Islam and a correct understanding of Islam. The point of this is that while we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) writing the hadith from him, a questioner asked him. Therefore, there is even today a document known among the hadith scholars as the "Document of Amr ibn Shu'ayb from his father from his grandfather," and his grandfather is this Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As. A document means it was inherited by the sons from the fathers from the grandfather in writing. And there are other documents known in the books of terminology and the science of hadith. So this is sufficient for us as an example to refute this doubt which says: that the collection of the hadith did not begin during the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him).