The Garden of the Gnostics

The Garden of the Gnostics (Bustan al-'Arifin)

By Imam an-Nawawi (translated by Aisha Bewley)

Now let us turn to those hadiths which are said to be the basis of Islam and the roots of the deen. They the bedrock of Islam and the core of the science of law and knowledge. We will mention them in this section because one of them is the hadith, "Indeed actions only go by intentions." They are very important, and should be the first to be dealt it. Scholars have differed a great deal about their number. Shaykh Abu 'Amr 'Uthman ibn 'Abdu'r-Rahman (known as Ibn as-Salah) attempted to compile them and distinguish which they are. I can add nothing whatsoever to his precision and perfection. I have just condensed some of what he mentioned, and added a bit to it which he did not mention.



Part of good counsel lies in attributing the benefit received to the one who gave it. Whoever does that adds to his knowledge and his state. But whoever omits that or plagiarizes from someone should not profit by his knowledge, nor should he receive any blessing in his state. The people of knowledge and favour continue to ascribe benefits to the ones who gave the good counsel. We ask Allah for success in this always!

After weighing what the various Imams have said about which hadiths are central to Islam and after considering their disagreement about their number, and which hadiths they actually are, Shaykh Abu 'Amr said, "I arrived at twenty-six hadiths."

Read the rest of the book from Aisha Bewley's website.