Hadith of the Ark Hadith of the Ark The Hadith of the Ark () is a tradition narrated from the Islamic prophet Muhammad by different narrators such as Ali ibn Abu Talib, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari (known as "Sadiq") and Abd Allah ibn Abbas. In this tradition, Muhammad compares his household ("Ahl al-Bayt") to Noah's ark, the only way to salvation in a sea of darkness, deviations, innovations and passions. According to Shi‘ism, the Twelve Imams are the Ulu'l-Amr, who are like the ark of Noah, and refers to them. Both Shi'a and Sunni scholars agree that prophet narrated this hadith. The Hadith is as
Criticism of Hadith According to Racha El Omari, early Mutazilites believed that hadith were susceptible to "abuse as a polemical ideological tool"; that the "matn" (content) of the hadith -- not just the "isnad" -- ought to be scrutinized for doctrine and clarity; that hadith "supported by some form of "tawātur"", i.e. by a large number of "isnād" strands, each beginning with a different Companion, were valid. In writing about "mutawatir" (transmitted via numerous chains of narrators) and "ahad" (any ahadith that is not "mutawatir") and its importance from the legal theoretician's point of view, Wael Hallaq notes the medieval scholar Al-Nawawi argued