The Meaning of Wujadah.

The Shaykh : Finally, we come to the term wujadah. Wujadah is a type of narration that Muslims in the early period sometimes needed, whereas Muslims today have no narration at all except by the method of wujadah. This is because, as you all know, there is no one in the Islamic world today who says, "So-and-so narrated to me, and he said, 'So-and-so narrated to me from so-and-so, and I heard it,' until the report reaches the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and then he narrates it to people." The previous details—haddathana, anba'ana, akhabarana, sami'tu, and so on—no longer exist among Muslims except for narration by the method of wujadah. So we say, for example, "Al-Bukhari narrated in his Sahih," and how do we know? We saw it in his book. Thus, our narration is by the method of wujadah, and nothing else. The scholars of hadith differed in the past regarding the validity of narration by wujadah, but the matter settled on a detailed distinction: if the book from which the one who found the hadith is quoting is a book whose attribution to its author is authentic, then this narration is valid. This is because the mind is reassured that so-and-so authored this book, and that the one who found the hadith is trustworthy in that he is quoting from a reliable book. This is the narration by wujadah, and it is what Muslims today, without exception, rely upon in what they transmit from books of hadith, tafsir, fiqh, and others. And what comes after that?