Tawatur Not Recorded
‘ If there were no fiqh books ‘ is the same kind of assumption if there was no dictionary. These assumptions are against reality and human nature and how humans incorporate their knowledge of one generation. Fiqh books support ijma, just like dictionary supports the language being spoken, they do not become a primary source of knowledge themselves. However, if ever any doubt arises in the current ijma or tawatur, we refer fiqh ( just like we refer to dictionary ) to analyse and study whether those doubts are genuine and if yes, then what was the primary cause for that ( one cannot name more than one or two honestly ).
But for us living today how do we know that tawatur existed in that time and space? It doesn’t depend on the books but how do we know that in the non recorded era there weren’t differences and one just became dominant?
In this day in age it’s impossible to prove the authenticity of any written record that came into existence a hundred years ago, let alone what happened fifteen hundred years ago. Written history is not a chronologically written record of events. It is only a record of events that help the author prove his pre-conceived conclusion. Written history is a only single person’s statement, while in tawatur such a significant number of people are relating something that their conspiring about an event is simply inconceivable. There are a lot of books of history still available today that are completely biased. In the past, the history was only written by the conquerors – bias was inevitable. Ijma and tawatur is best humanly possible way that knowledge can be transmitted through history, bar none. It doesn’t guarantee that the knowledge being transmitted is correct, but it gives us a way to easily spot corruptions if they ever occurred. For further details see my comments in the following discussion: Discussion 29513