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Hadith studies is the academic study of
hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...
, a literature typically thought in
Islamic religion Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number 2 billion worldwide and are the world's second-largest religious populatio ...
to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the
Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
as transmitted through chains of narrators. A major area of interest in hadith studies has been the degree to which hadith can be used as a reliable source for reconstructing the biography of Muhammad, in parallel to the Islamic discipline of the
hadith sciences Hadith sciences ( ''ʻilm al-ḥadīth'' "science of hadith") consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in the study and evaluation of the hadith. ("Science" is used in the sense of a field of study, not to be ...
. Since the pioneering work of
Ignaz Goldziher Ignaz is a male given name, related to the name Ignatius. Notable people with this name include: * Ignaz Brüll (1846–1907), Moravian-born pianist and composer who lived and worked in Vienna * Ignaz Bösendorfer (1796–1859), Austrian musician ...
, the sentiment has been that hadith are a more faithful source for understanding the religious, historical, and social developments in the first two centuries of Islam than they are a reliable record of Muhammad's life, especially concerning the formation of Islamic law, theology, and piety during the
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...
and early
Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...
eras. Among other reasons, historians are skeptical of understanding the historical Muhammad through hadith due to the late date for when the hadith compilations were made, the sentiment that their chains of transmission (
isnad In the Islamic study of hadith, an isnād (chain of transmitters, or literally "supporting"; ) refers to a list of people who passed on a tradition, from the original authority to whom the tradition is attributed to, to the present person reciting ...
) were a secondary development, and the prevalence of falsified hadith. In addition, there has been skepticism concerning whether the methods of the hadith sciences can reliably discriminate between authentic and inauthentic hadith. Despite this, recent methodological developments by scholars like
Harald Motzki Harald Motzki (1948–2019) was a German-trained Islamic scholar who wrote on the transmission of hadith. He received his doctorate in Islamic Studies in 1978 from the University of Bonn. He was a professor of Islamic Studies at Nijmegen University ...
have shown that some hadith can be traced as early as the late seventh or early eighth century. While hadith studies was preoccupied with the question of authenticity during the twentieth century, the scope of the field today has broadened to address questions such as what role hadith played in the intellectual and social histories of Muslim societies.


Emergence of hadith


Hadith and Sunnah

The earliest schools and scholars of Islamic law—starting around a century and a half after the death of Muhammad—did not all agree on the importance of Prophetic sunnah and its basis, the basis for which was the group of hadith ultimately attributed to Muhammad and his followers. Opinion ranged from prophetic hadith being one source of law among others (such as caliphal tradition or reports going back to Muhammad's followers), as was held by the ''ahl al-raʿy'' to outright rejection of hadith on the basis of their potentially tenuous historicity, as was held by the ''ahl al-kalām'' (referred to by some as "speculative theologians").


Hadith canonization

A sizable shift in practice in favor of the tradition of prophetic hadith and its basis for Islamic law (''
fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica
''Fiqh'' is of ...
'') came with
al-Shāfiʿī Al-Shafi'i (; ;767–820 CE) was a Muslim scholar, jurist, muhaddith, traditionist, theologian, ascetic, and eponym of the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. He is known to be the first to write a book upon the principles of Isl ...
(767–820 CE), founder of the
Shafi'i school The Shafi'i school or Shafi'i Madhhab () or Shafi'i is one of the four major schools of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), belonging to the Ahl al-Hadith tradition within Sunni Islam. It was founded by the Muslim scholar, jurist, and traditionis ...
of law. According to this school of thought, prophetic hadith override all other hadith. It is unlikely that consensus yet existed for this view at this time as Shafi'i would come to spend great effort on establishing and promulgating his views over other ones. For those who criticized the reliability of hadith on the basis of their long phase of oral transmission, al-Shafi'i responded by arguing that God's wish for people to follow Muhammad's example would result in God ensuring the preservation of the tradition. Sunnah became a source of divine revelation ('' wahy'') and the basis of classical Islamic law (
Sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...
), especially in consideration of the brevity dedicated to the subject of law in the Quran (which, for example, does not comment in detail on ritual like
Ghusl ( ', ) is an Arabic term that means the full-body ritual purification which is mandatory before the performance of various Islamic activities and prayers. For any Muslim, it is performed after sexual intercourse (i.e. it is fardh), before Fri ...
or
Wudu ''Wuduʾ'' ( ) is the Islamic procedure for cleansing parts of the body, a type of ritual purification, or ablution. The steps of wudu are washing the hands, rinsing the mouth and nose, washing the face, then the forearms, then wiping the head, ...
, An-Nawawi, ''Riyadh As-Salihin'', 1975: p.203 or
salat ''Salah'' (, also spelled ''salat'') is the practice of formal ibadah, worship in Islam, consisting of a series of ritual prayers performed at prescribed times daily. These prayers, which consist of units known as rak'a, ''rak'ah'', include ...
, the correct forms of salutations, An-Nawawi, ''Riyadh As-Salihin'', 1975: p.168 and the importance of benevolence to slaves. An-Nawawi, ''Riyadh As-Salihin'', 1975: p.229) Al Shafi'is advocacy played a decisive role in elevating the status of hadith although some skepticism along that of earlier lines would continue.


Hadith authentication and collection

Once (authentic) hadith had attained their elevated status among the group inspired by al-Shafi'i who sought to establish Islamic practice on the basis of the
Sunnah is the body of traditions and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. The sunnah is what all the Muslims of Muhammad's time supposedly saw, followed, and passed on to the next generations. Diff ...
(Muhammad's deeds and sayings), the focus shifted amongst advocates of this group (who were called the ''ahl al-sunnah'', or the "People of the Sunnah") to delineating between reliable or "sound" (''ṣaḥīḥ'') with unreliable hadith. The field that arose to meet this need came to be known as the hadith sciences (''ʻilm al-ḥadīth''), and this practice had entered into a mature stage by the 3rd century of Islam. The hadith sciences helped undergird the triumph of Al-Shafi'is prioritization of prophetic hadith which became the primary sources of Islamic law and also became "ideological" tools in political/theological conflicts. A challenge the hadith sciences had to confront was the massive scale of hadith forgery, with
Muhammad al-Bukhari Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī (; 21 July 810 – 1 September 870) was a 9th-century Persian Muslim '' muhaddith'' who is widely regarded as the most important ''hadith'' scholar in the histor ...
claiming that only ~7,400 narrations of 600,000 he investigated met his criteria for inclusion. Even among those 7,400, a large fraction were variants of the same report, but with a different chain of transmitters (
isnad In the Islamic study of hadith, an isnād (chain of transmitters, or literally "supporting"; ) refers to a list of people who passed on a tradition, from the original authority to whom the tradition is attributed to, to the present person reciting ...
). The criteria for establishing the authenticity (''sihha'') of hadith came down to corroboration of the same report but from different transmitters, assessing the reliability and character of the transmitters listed in the chain (although Muhammad's companions, the
sahaba The Companions of the Prophet () were the Muslim disciples and followers of the Islamic prophet Muhammad who saw or met him during his lifetime. The companions played a major role in Muslim battles, society, hadith narration, and governance ...
, were excluded from this as their association with Muhammad immediately guaranteed their character and competence), and the lack of gaps in the chain. By implication, defects in hadith might assumed to be associated with the lack of character (''ʿadāla'') or competence (''ḍābiṯ'') of its transmitters. It was also thought that such faulty transmitters could be identified and that the isnad was a direct reflection of the history of transmission of a tradition. Evaluation rarely looked at the content (
matn Matn () is an Islamic term that is used in relation to Hadith terminology. It means the text of the hadith, excluding the isnad. Use A hadith is made of both an isnad (chain of transmission) and a matn. A hadith would typically adopt the f ...
) of a narration as opposed to its isnad. Ultimately, evaluations of hadith remained haphazard between authors until the practice of the hadith sciences was standardized by
Ibn al-Salah Abū ‘Amr ‘Uthmān ibn ‘Abd il-Raḥmān Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Kurdī al-Shahrazūrī () (c. 1181 CE/577 AH – 1245/643), commonly known as Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, was a Kurdish Shafi'i hadith specialist and the author of the seminal '' Intro ...
in the 13th century. It is through the lenses of this framework, supplemented by some additional work from
Al-Dhahabi Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Atharism, Athari ...
in the 14th century and
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (; 18 February 1372 – 2 February 1449), or simply ibn Ḥajar, was a classic Islamic scholar "whose life work constitutes the final summation of the science of hadith." He authored some 150 works on hadith, history, ...
in the 15th century, that Muslim scholars since understood the discipline. The first collections to be accepted as authoritative among Sunnis by the tenth century CE were the Sahihayn, referring to
Sahih al-Bukhari () is the first hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar al-Bukhari () in the format, the work is valued by Sunni Muslims, alongside , as the most authentic after the Qur'an. Al-Bukhari organized the bo ...
and
Sahih Muslim () is the second hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj () in the format, the work is valued by Sunnis, alongside , as the most important source for Islamic religion after the Q ...
. Even as the set of canonical texts grew, the Sahihayn remained the core of the canon, with Sahih al-Bukhari typically being viewed as the most pre-eminent of the two. The tenth century CE also saw the inclusion of another two collections to form a Four-Book canon, including the
Sunan Abi Dawud ''Sunan Abi Dawud'' () is the third hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. It was compiled by scholar Abu Dawud al-Sijistani (). Introduction Abu Dawood compiled twenty-one books related to Hadith and preferred those (plural of ...
and Sunan al-Nasa'i. This grew into a Five-Book canon in the twelfth century, when
Sunan al-Tirmidhi ''Sunan al-Tirmidhi'' () is the fourth hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. It was compiled by Islamic scholar al-Tirmidhi in (250–270 AH). Title The full title of the compilation is (). It is shortened to , , , or . The t ...
was added. In the same century, the modern Six-Book canon, known as the ''
Kutub al-Sittah (), also known as () are the six canonical hadith collections of Sunni Islam. They were all compiled in the 9th and early 10th centuries, roughly from 840 to 912 CE and are thought to embody the Sunnah of Muhammad. The books are the of al ...
'', emerged. Depending on the list, the sixth canonical book was the Sunan ibn Majah, the Sunan of
Al-Daraqutni Ali ibn Umar al-Daraqutni (; 918–995 CE / 306–385 AH), was a Sunni Muslim scholar and traditionist best known for compiling the hadith collection '' Sunan al-Daraqutni''. He is commonly celebrated in Sunni tradition with titles such as "Im ...
, or the Muwatta of
Malik ibn Anas Malik ibn Anas (; –795) also known as Imam Malik was an Arab Islamic scholar and traditionalist who is the eponym of the Maliki school, one of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence in Sunni Islam.Schacht, J., "Mālik b. Anas", in: ''E ...
.


Reliability of hadith


Lateness of prophetic attribution

Also throwing doubt on the doctrine that common use of hadith of Muhammad goes back to the generations immediately following the death of the prophet is historian Robert G. Hoyland, who quotes acolytes of two of the earliest Islamic scholars: *"I spent a year sitting with
Abdullah ibn Umar ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (; ), commonly known as Ibn Umar, was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a son of the second Caliph Umar. He was a prominent authority in ''hadith'' and law. He remained neutral during th ...
(d.693, son of the second Caliph, who is said to be the second most prolific narrator of ''ahadith'', with a total of 2,630 narrations)Siddiqi, M. Z. (1961, 2006). ''Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Development, Special Features and Criticism''. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust. p.27 and I did not hear him transmit anything from the prophet"; *"I never heard Jabir ibn Zayd (d. ca. 720) say 'the prophet said ...' and yet the young men round here are saying it twenty times an hour".Fasawi (d.890), ''Kitab al-Ma'rifa wa-l-ta'rikh'', ed.A.D. al'Umari (Beirut, 1981), 2.15 (Jabir ibn Zayd) Hoyland, ''In God's Path'', 2015: p.137 Historian Robert G. Hoyland, states during Umayyad times only the central government was allowed to make laws, religious scholars began to challenge this by claiming they had been transmitted hadith by the Prophet. Al-Sha'bi, a narrator of hadith, when hearing of this, criticizes people who just go around narrating many prophetic hadiths without care by saying he never heard from Umar I's son ‘Abdallah any hadith from the Prophet except just one. Hoyland vindicates Islamic sources as accurately representative of Islamic history.
Gregor Schoeler Gregor Schoeler (born 27 July 1944 in Waldshut, Germany) is an Arabist and Islamicist with German and Swiss citizenship. His areas of research are the biography (Sīrah) of Muhammad, the Islamic system of teaching and transmission, Hadith, classi ...
writes:
"He oylandshows that they on-Islamic sourcesare hardly suitable to support an alternative account of early Islamic history; on the contrary, they frequently agree with Islamic sources and supplement them."
The creation of politically convenient hadith proliferated. Even in the present day, and in the buildup to the first
Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...
, a "tradition" was published in the Palestinian daily newspaper ''Al-Nahar'' on December 15, 1990, reading: "and described as `currently in wide circulation`", and it quotes the Prophet as predicting that "the Greeks and Franks will join with Egypt in the desert against a man named Sadim, and not one of them will return".


Isnads

Reza Aslan Reza Aslan (, ; born May 3, 1972) is an Iranian-American scholar of sociology, writer, and television host. A convert to Evangelicalism, evangelical Christianity from Shia Islam as a youth, Aslan eventually reverted to Islam but continued to wr ...
quotes Schacht's maxim: `the more perfect the isnad, the later the tradition`, which he (Aslan) calls "whimsical but accurate". Isnads are thought to have entered usage three-quarters of a century after Muhammad's death, before which hadith were transmitted haphazardly and anonymously. Once they began to be used, the names of authorities, popular figures, and sometimes even fictitious figures would be supplied.Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, p.72-73 Ibn Rawandi, "Origins of Islam", 2000: p.118 Over time, isnads would be polished to meet stricter standards. Additional concerns are raised by the substantial percentages of hadith that traditional critics are reported to have dismissed and difficulties in parsing out historical hadith from the vast pool of ahistorical ones.Crone, P., ''Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law'', p.33 Ibn Rawandi, "Origins of Islam", 2000: p.119-120 This perspective casts doubt on traditional methods of hadith verification, given their presupposition that the isnad of a report offers a sufficiently accurate history of its transmission to be able to verify or nullify it and the prioritization of isnads over other criteria like the presence of anachronisms in a hadith which might have an isnad that passes traditional standards of verification.Goldziher, I., ''Muslim Studies'', v.2, London, 1966, 1971, pp.140-141, quoted in Ibn Rawandi, "Origins of Islam", 2000: p.117


Biographical evaluation

Another criticism of isnads was of the efficacy of the traditional Hadith studies field known as biographical evaluations (''ʿilm al-rijāl'')—evaluating the moral and mental capacity of transmitters/narrators.
John Wansbrough John Edward Wansbrough (February 19, 1928 – June 10, 2002) was an American historian of Islamic origins and Quranic studies and professor who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was vi ...
argues that the isnads are should not be accepted, because of their "internal contradiction, anonymity, and arbitrary nature": Neva & Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies", 2000: p.430 specifically the lack of ''any'' information about many of the transmitters of the hadith other than found in these biographical evaluations, thus putting into question whether they are "pseudohistorical projections", i.e. names made up by later transmitters.


Effectiveness of hadith sciences

In general, historians have cast doubt on the historicity and reliability of hadith for several reasons, including that the
hadith sciences Hadith sciences ( ''ʻilm al-ḥadīth'' "science of hadith") consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in the study and evaluation of the hadith. ("Science" is used in the sense of a field of study, not to be ...
. The following problems have been identified in hadith science methodology: # Arose long after hadith and isnads had originated and become widespread # Often relied on vague or unspecified argumentation and criteria # Produced a highly contradictory collection of texts # Authenticated many hadith containing anachronism or manifestly false content # Involves circular reasoning # Often relied on intuition # Involved motivated reasoning that, in turn, produced "a consequent denial of, disregard for, or even obfuscation of inexpedient evidence".


Common-link theory

Common-link theory is an approach in hadith studies which seeks to identify the origins or earlier versions of hadith by comparing reports that have the same content (matn) but have different chains of transmission (isnads). If the chains of transmission converge on a single figure, then that figure may be taken as the original collector of fabricator of the tradition, depending on one's approach or conclusion. Common-link theory originated in the works of
Joseph Schacht Joseph Franz Schacht (, 15 March 1902 – 1 August 1969) was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading Western scholar in the areas of Islamic law and hadith studies, whose ''Origins of M ...
and G.H.A. Juynboll. In his 1950 book ''
The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence Joseph Franz Schacht (, 15 March 1902 – 1 August 1969) was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading Western scholar in the areas of Islamic law and hadith studies, whose ''Origins of M ...
'', Schact introduced the concept of the "Common Link" (CL) to refer to the earliest point at which multiple chains of transmission (isnads) intersect. For Schact, the CL was equivalent to the point of origins of the tradition. Later, G.H.A. Juynboll would elaborate on and systematize earlier earlier applications of common-link theory. Importantly, he introduced the notion of a Partial Common Link (PCL), which represents points of convergence of multiple isnads taking place among transmitters located after the common link themselves. In other words, a group of traditions may converge at one transmitter, and that transmitters version of a tradition may converge among yet other versions at what is ultimately the common link. While Schact believed that the common link was a legitimate purveyor of the tradition in question, Juynboll introduced the idea of a "seeming" CL or PCL, meaning that while several isnads may converge at a particular common link, the common link themselves may be artificial. In reality, several isnads may have been fabricated and, in this case, a particular transmitter only turns up as a common link because several later figures falsely attributed the same tradition back to them. It is up to the investigator to determine if a CL or PCL is authentic, and Juynboll argued that the historical plausibility of a common-link is raised the more PCLs converge on it. Another term Juynboll introduced into common-link theory was a "spider"; this refers to single strands of transmission that completely bypass the CL of many other versions of a report in finding their way to the original figure believed to have conveyed the tradition. Juynboll sees such "spiders" as fabricated isnads. Juynboll referred to attempts to create isnads bypassing the CL or PCL as "dives". Direct forerunners to the ICMA approach, involving the combined study of the isnad and matn, included Jan Kramers' 1953 article "Une tradition à tendance manichéenne" and Josef van Ess in his 1975 volume ''Zwischen Ḥadīṯ und Theologie''. The formal development of ICMA would only come with the work of
Harald Motzki Harald Motzki (1948–2019) was a German-trained Islamic scholar who wrote on the transmission of hadith. He received his doctorate in Islamic Studies in 1978 from the University of Bonn. He was a professor of Islamic Studies at Nijmegen University ...
,
Gregor Schoeler Gregor Schoeler (born 27 July 1944 in Waldshut, Germany) is an Arabist and Islamicist with German and Swiss citizenship. His areas of research are the biography (Sīrah) of Muhammad, the Islamic system of teaching and transmission, Hadith, classi ...
, and
Andreas Görke Andreas () is a name derived from the Greek noun ἀνήρ ''anēr'', with genitive ἀνδρός ''andros'', which means "man". See the article on Andrew for more information. The Scandinavian name is earliest attested as antreos in a runestone ...
in the 1990s.


Isnad-cum-matn analysis

In the 1990s, hadith historians developed a method known as ''isnad-cum-matn'' analysis (ICMA) as an alternative approach compared with traditional hadith sciences towards identifying the origins and developmental stages of hadith traditions. ICMA was invented twice independently in two publications that came out in 1996, one by Harald Motzki and the other by Schoeler. The primary advocate of ICMA in the initial stages of the development and application of the method was Motkzi; Motzki believed that the oral transmission of hadith would result in a progressive divergence of multiple versions of the same original report along different lines of transmitters. By comparing them to pinpoint shared wording, motifs and plots, the original version of a hadith that existed prior to the accrual of variants among different transmitters may be reconstructed. In addition, Motzki believed that a comparative study of the differences between reports could enable the identification of particular manipulations and other alterations. Put another way, ICMA seeks to date and trace the evolution of
hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...
by identifying how variation in the text or content (''matn'') of a hadith correlates with the variation in the listed chain of transmitters (''isnād'') across multiple versions of the same report.


History of the field

Modern academic study of hadith began with
Ignác Goldziher Ignác (Yitzhaq Yehuda) Goldziher (22 June 1850 – 13 November 1921), often credited as Ignaz Goldziher, was a Hungary, Hungarian scholar of Islam. Alongside Joseph Schacht and G.H.A. Juynboll, he is considered one of the pioneers of modern aca ...
(1850–1921), especially in the second volume of his work '' Muslim Studies'' (1890), and
Joseph Schacht Joseph Franz Schacht (, 15 March 1902 – 1 August 1969) was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading Western scholar in the areas of Islamic law and hadith studies, whose ''Origins of M ...
(1902–1969), in his ''
Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence Joseph Franz Schacht (, 15 March 1902 – 1 August 1969) was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading Western scholar in the areas of Islamic law and hadith studies, whose ''Origins of M ...
'' (1950). The general sentiment has been that hadith do not constitute a reliable corpus of sources that go back to the historical Muhammad. This includes the body of legal hadith, which was hard to trace back to a time before the end of the first century after the death of Muhammad. According to Wael B. Hallaq, as of 1999 scholarly attitude in the West towards the authenticity of hadith has taken three approaches:
since Schacht published his monumental work in 1950, scholarly discourse on this matter (i.e., the issue of authenticity) has proliferated. Three camps of scholars may be identified: one attempting to reconfirm his conclusions, and at times going beyond them; another endeavoring to refute them and a third seeking to create a middle, perhaps synthesized, position between the two. Among others, John Wansbrough, and Michael Cook belong to the first camp, while Nabia Abbott, F. Sezgin, M. Azami, Gregor Schoeler and Johann Fück belong to the second. Motzki, D. Santillana, G.H. Juynboll, Fazlur Rahman and James Robson take the middle position.
These figures believed that forgery began very early and such forged material went on to contaminate what would be collected into the authentic group of hadith, with only a small number of hadith actually originated with Muhammad or his followers. In his ''Muslim Studies'', Goldziher states: "it is not surprising that, among the hotly debated controversial issues of Islam, whether political or doctrinal, there is not one in which the champions of the various views are unable to cite a number of traditions, all equipped with imposing ''isnads''".


Reception of the field


Traditionalist response

Against critics claims that oral transmission of hadith for generations allowed corruption to occur, conservatives argue that it is not oral transmission that is unreliable but written transmission. In fact oral transmission was "superior to isolated written documents" which had "little value" unless "attested by living witnesses". In contrast, the reliability of oral transmission was "assured by the remarkable memories of the Arabs". Orthodox Muslims do not deny the existence of false ''hadith'', but believe that through the work of hadith scholars, these false ''hadith'' have been largely eliminated.Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. "Shi'ism", 1988. p. 35.
Al-Shafi'i Al-Shafi'i (; ;767–820 CE) was a Muslim scholar, jurist, muhaddith, traditionist, theologian, ascetic, and eponym of the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. He is known to be the first to write a book upon the principles ...
himself, the founder of the proposition that "sunna" should be made up exclusively of specific precedents set by Muhammad passed down as hadith, argued that "having commanded believers to obey the Prophet" (citing Quran 33: 21), "God must certainly have provided the means to do so."


Academics in Turkey

Academic hadith studies in modern times is usually viewed unfavorably amongst scholars with more traditional inclinations or Muslim scholars operating out of madrasas. In
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
, the first favorable reference to Western scholarship on hadith came from Zakir Kadiri Ugan (d. 1954), titled ‘Dinî ve Gayri Dinî Rivayetler’ (‘Religious and Non-Religious Narrations’), published in the Turkish journal ''Dârülfünûn İlâhiyat Fakültesi Mecmuası'' which operated from 1925 to 1933. This paper also represented the only significant academic work on hadith from Turkey in its time. Ugan criticized the lack of analysis of the content (matn) of hadith in traditional work, and criticized the doctrine of the 'collective probity of the Companions' (''taʿdīl al-ṣaḥābah'') as leading to an undue acceptance of the reliability of Muhammad's followers. Academic hadith work would be continued later by Muhammed Tayyib Okiç (d. 1977), who also established the tafsir and hadith faculties at
Ankara University Ankara University () is a public university, public research university in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the History of the Republic of Turkey, formation of the Turkish republ ...
. Okiç did not believe that Western criticism was absolutely impartial, but he did believe that there were some who were moderate and unbiased.
Henri Lammens Henri Lammens (1 July 1862 – 23 April 1937) was a Belgian Orientalist historian and Jesuit, who wrote (in French) on the early history of Islam. Education and career as a Jesuit Born in Ghent, Belgium of Catholic Flemish stock, Henri Lammens ...
was biased but, for Okiç,
Ignaz Goldziher Ignaz is a male given name, related to the name Ignatius. Notable people with this name include: * Ignaz Brüll (1846–1907), Moravian-born pianist and composer who lived and worked in Vienna * Ignaz Bösendorfer (1796–1859), Austrian musician ...
, was objective. He encouraging his students to familiarize themselves with Western work and the languages. One of his students, Talât Koçyiğit, went on to translate four papers by James Robson (d. 1981) into Turkish and critiqued Goldziher in one article. Koçyiğit also believed that some critics were impartial but took a dimmer view of Goldziher. Okiç’s other student, Mehmed Said Hatiboğlu, followed Goldziher's conclusions and had limited qualms with the majority of hadith academics. Hatiboğlu influenced later modernist scholars who went on to establish the journal ''İslamiyat'' (1998–2007) and two publishing houses. In the second half of the 20th century, the Faculty of Theology at Ankara trained a generation of scholars that engaged with and in Western hadith studies. Works by Wellhausen, Goldziher, Schacht, and
Montgomery Watt William Montgomery Watt (14 March 1909 – 24 October 2006) was a Scottish historian and orientalist. An Anglican priest, Watt served as Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh from 1964 to 1979 and was also a prom ...
were translated into Turkish. The number of theology faculties grew and, by 2017, there were 81 accepting students. This sizable growth concurrently led to a sizable growth of students in academic hadith and Islamic studies. Considerable translation of Western works occurred in turn, with several theses beginning to appear on the phenomena of Western academic studies, and a broader engagement with Western work in general. Today, the main camps can be divided into "Istanbul-based traditionalists; Ankara-based modernists; and finally ''Kur’ancılar'' (''Ahl al-Qurʾān'')" where the primary points of contention are the
Sunnah is the body of traditions and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. The sunnah is what all the Muslims of Muhammad's time supposedly saw, followed, and passed on to the next generations. Diff ...
(and its relevance to modern times) and the authenticity of hadith. The primary issue voiced by traditionalists is that rejections of the authority of the historicity of hadith will cause future generations to abandon the Sunnah; modernists rebut that this concern stems from a misunderstanding of the mission of Muhammad leading to an acceptance of statements attributed to him that could not be true.


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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Criticism Of Hadith Hadith
Hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...
Quranism