The Lenience of Virtue-recorders in the Traditions about the Virtues of the Family of the Prophet (a)

The well-known principle of leniency in dealing with narrations about recommended actions (al-tasamuh fi adillat al-sunan) that is often referred to by hadith scholars and especially the jurists among them, is based on the traditions of (من بلغ) which can be found in both the Shia and Sunni classical sources. The most common interpretation of these traditions is that there is no need of conducting an extensive investigation into the validity of such reports. Some are of the view that, due to this principle, not only the juridical reports but also the traditions relevant to beliefs, history, biographical literature, exegesis and the virtues of the family of the Prophet (a) have not been seriously scrutinized and verified. The article at hand tries to evaluate the validity of application of the principle of leniency on traditions about the virtues of the Prophet’s family. By examining the basis of this principle and exploring the views of the Shia scholars, it becomes evident that in reality most of the traditions about their virtues are outside the scope and purview of this principle. Only a few of the virtue-traditions that come from non-infallibles may be validated by means of this principle. Similarly, it can be evinced from the available evidence that this principle of leniency was never really applied to such traditions by the ‘virtue-recorders’ of the each of the two schools of though. These evidences sometimes take the form of testimonies that the authors of works about the virtues of the family of the Prophet (a) give in their preambles, which gives us a clear idea of their views regarding such traditions.