From the answers of an early Zaydi Imam
Two brief answers from Min Masāʾil al-Ṭabariyyīn — the questions of the Tabaristanis — in which the Imam (d. 298 AH) gives his working definition of two groups that loomed large in early Islamic theological debate.
In Min Masāʾil al-Ṭabariyyīn (Questions of the Tabaristanis), Imam Yaḥyā al-Hādī (d. 298 AH) offers concise yet pointed definitions of two groups that featured prominently in early Islamic theological discourse: the Ḥashawiyya and the Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth, the People of Hadith.
Both answers are given in the form the questioners posed them — a single question, a single reply — and both turn on the same concern: what happens to a person’s belief, and to a community’s law, when contradictory reports are accepted without being measured against the Book.
Definition 1
You asked: Who is the Ḥashawī?
Arabic
وسألت: عن الحشوي؟
[الجواب]: والحشوي فهو من حشا قلبه الأضداد المختلفة، وشغل ذهنه بالأحاديث المتضادة التي لا تأتلف أحكامها ولا تجتمع أسبابها.
Translation
The Ḥashawī is one who has filled his heart with conflicting and mutually contradictory beliefs, and occupied his mind with contradictory hadith reports whose legal rulings cannot be reconciled and whose underlying bases cannot be brought together.
Definition 2
You asked: Who are the People of Hadith?
Arabic
وسألت: من صاحب الحديث؟
[الجواب]: فهم الذين تركوا الاقتداء بالكتاب والقياس عليه، وأخذوا بالأحاديث المختلفة المتضادة التي لا يجوز التصديق بها عن رسول الله، وكأن الصواب عندهم ما رووه عن رسول الله، أو باطلاً، أو مضاداً لكتاب، أو مواتياً، كان حقاً في أحاديثهم – كأن لم يسمعوا بالحديث المجمع عليه عن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وعلى آله حين يقول: «إنه سيكذب عليّ كما كذب على الأنبياء من قبلي، فما أتاكم عني فاعرضوه على كتاب الله، فما وافق الكتاب فهو مني وأنا قلته، وما خالف الكتاب فليس مني ولم أقله».
Translation
They are those who abandoned following the Book and reasoning (qiyās) based upon it, and instead adopted divergent and contradictory hadith reports that should not be accepted as authentically from the Messenger of Allah. In their view, whatever they narrated from the Messenger of Allah was correct — even if it was false, contradicted the Book, or happened to agree with it — as though they had never heard the collectively agreed upon (mujmaʿ ʿalayhi) report from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), who said: “Lies will be attributed to me just as they were attributed to the prophets before me. Whatever comes to you from me, compare it with the Book of Allah. Whatever agrees with the Book is from me and I said it; whatever contradicts the Book is not from me, and I did not say it.”
“Whatever comes to you from me, compare it with the Book of Allah. Whatever agrees with the Book is from me and I said it; whatever contradicts the Book is not from me, and I did not say it.” — the report cited by the Imam in his answer
Read side by side, the two definitions describe an inward and an outward face of the same problem. The Ḥashawī is named for what has been packed into him: a heart stuffed with opposites, a mind busied by reports whose rulings will not sit together. The Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth are named for a method — the abandonment of the Book and of reasoning grounded in it — with the accumulation of contradictory material taking the place of a criterion for sorting it.
The criterion the Imam invokes against both is the one supplied in the report he cites: a narration is to be held up against the Book, and what conflicts with it is not to be attributed to the Prophet at all.
O God, send blessings and peace upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad.