Tajribaty ma al-Ijaz al-Ilmi fi al-Sunna al-Nabawiya
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Tajribaty ma al-Ijaz al-Ilmi fi al-Sunna al-Nabawiya (My Experience with Scientific Inimitability in the Prophetic Sunna) is a scholarly treatise by the Hadith scholar Salih bin Ahmad Rida examining the methodological rules and criteria for evaluating scientific inimitability (al-i'jaz al-ilmi) in Prophetic traditions.
Background and Purpose
The treatise originated as a research paper presented at a scholarly symposium in Medina dedicated to the rules and guidelines governing scientific and medical inimitability in the Prophetic Sunna. Rida decided on the topic after meeting Muhammad Salim bin Shadid al-Awfi at a Quranic conference hosted by the College of Sharia and Islamic Studies in Sharjah. Al-Awfi had examined Rida's earlier two-volume compendium, al-Ijaz al-Ilmi fi al-Sunna al-Nabawiya (published by Maktabat al-Obeikan in Riyadh, comprising 1,560 pages and approximately 900 documented hadiths), and encouraged him to contribute a study on the subject. Rida structured the paper to reflect on his practical experience in compiling that book and to apply methodological controls to its topics.
Structure and Contents
The author organized the treatise around seven principal components:
- The linguistic and technical definitions of inimitability (i'jaz) and the formulation of a preferred definition.
- The nature of the miracle (mu'jiza) granted to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
- The underlying secret of inimitability in the Quran.
- The facets of inimitability derived from the Quran.
- The facets of inimitability present in the Prophetic Sunna.
- The methodological guidelines (dawabit) for asserting inimitability.
- The author's practical methodology and execution in his encyclopedic work on the Sunna.
Concepts and Methodology
Rida notes that the technical terms i'jaz and mu'jiza were not widely used in the earliest Islamic era; the Quran instead employed terms such as aya (sign), bayyina (clear proof), and burhan (demonstration), while classical Hadith scholars compiled works under titles like alamat al-nubuwwa (signs of prophethood) or dala'il al-nubuwwa (proofs of prophethood). He formulates his preferred technical definition of a miracle as an extraordinary matter that God manifests through His prophet, or knowledge He reveals in the prophet's speech, which no human being in his era has the capacity to produce, serving as an evidential proof of his prophethood. The qualification "in his era" is intended to encompass scientific realities stated in revelation that were imperceptible to seventh-century audiences but became verified through modern empirical discoveries.
In setting forth controls for scientific interpretation, Rida emphasizes that textual interpretation must strictly conform to classical Arabic syntax, semantics, and rhetoric as understood by the Arabs at the time of revelation, cautioning against forcing external, contemporary concepts onto sacred texts in violation of established linguistic norms.
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