A major cause of conflicting ahadith in Shaikh Tusi's Tahdhibain

Shaikh Tusi strove to resolve the confusion regarding conflicting ahadith (i.e. those which conflict with Shi'ite consensus) in his book Tahdhibul Ahkam (which he later summarised into a shorter book 'Al Istibsar', both are collectively referred to as Tahdhibain) by gathering most of them (instead of only reporting the ones which he considered permissible to act upon, as had been the methodology of the earlier scholars such as Shaikh Kulaini, Shaikh Sadooq and Shaikh Mufid) and explaining each of the conflicting hadith. This post sheds light onto why those conflicting ahadith came into existence in the first place.


جاء في أخيار معرفة الرجال، المعروف برجال الكشي، للشيخ الطوسي (جلد ٢ ص ٨٥٥) عن علي بن محمد القتيبي، قال، قال أبو محمد الفضل بن شاذان سأل أبي رضي الله عنه، محمد بن أبي عمير، فقال له: إنك قد لقيت مشايخ العامة فكيف لم تسمع منهم؟ فقال: (قد سمعت منهم، غير أني رأيت كثيرا من أصحابنا قد سمعوا علم العامة وعلم الخاصة، فاختلط عليهم حتى كانوا يروون حديث العامة عن الخاصة وحديث الخاصة عن العامة، فكرهت أن يختلط علي، فتركت ذلك وأقبلت على هذا

It is reported in Rijal al Kashi (Vol 2 Page 855) from Ali b. Muhammad al Qutaibi, who said: Muhammad al Fadal b. Shadhan said: My father (ra) asked Muhammad b. abi Umair:

"You have met non-Shia hadith scholars, then how come you did not record ahadith from them?" Ibn abi Umair replied: "I used to listen to their ahadith, but then I saw that many of our peers would gather knowledge from non-Shias as well as Shias both, which resulted in mix-ups to the extent that they would mistakenly narrate hadith of non-Shias while claiming it to be from the Imams and narrate hadith of the Imams while claiming it to be from non-Shias. I did not want this to happen to me, so I stopped that (listening to non-Shia ahadith) and adopted this approach (of only recording ahadith from the Imams)."

Grading

Ayatullah Kamal al Haidery (Advanced lecture on Usul al Fiqh: Link): Sahih (Authentic)
Ayatullah Sistani (Ikhtilaf al Hadith): Sahih (authentic)