Hadith: A Historical Case
BY ABU AL-ABBAS AL-SHAMIThe debate regarding the reliability of the Hadith Method is a popular debate of many grave implications today. In contemporary Islamic discourse, it is common to observe the absolute/partial rejection of hadith. Some Muslims, for various reasons, end up dismissing the content of numerous authentic reports, implicitly dismissing the methodology behind the verification of those reports. A careful observation of such approaches will show that they mostly do not stem from a coherent standard that is devised to objectively scrutinize reports. Rather, many of these dismissals are simply biased rejections of reports due to their “contradiction” with the said individual’s perception of key historical events or figures.
The problems that arise from such a defective approach to history are many, and perhaps they can be addressed in another context; however, many of these defective approaches to Islamic history stem from a lack of understanding of the methodology behind the verification of hadiths and historical reports employed by Muslim scholarship.
A simple analysis of the Hadith Method, even according to “non-Islamic standards”, is enough to display the objectivity and validity of the rigorous standard set by the hadith critics of the 1st – 4th centuries AH. In this paper, the Islamic Hadith Method will be evaluated in light of some protocols within the Western Historical Method.
Background
Textual criticism of reports attributed to the Prophet ﷺ goes all the way back to the 1st century AH. Evidence from that period suggests that the criticism of reports along with their transmitters was common practice among the hadith critics. For example, the renowned tabi’i, Ibn Sirin (d.110 AH), said:
They [the muhaddithin] used to not ask about the isnad [when transmitting reports]; however, once the fitnah occurred, they would demand: “list your transmitters.” [1]
Thus, it is evident that due to certain events that occurred within the 1st century AH, early transmitters of hadith deemed it necessary to question and ascertain the reliability of reports that were attributed to the Prophet ﷺ.
Another great example is what the notable muhaddith and hadith critic, al-Tirmidhi (d. 279 AH) , said in his book, al-‘Ilal al-Saghir:
Some uninformed individuals have disapproved of the hadith critics’ criticism of transmitters. However, we have found that several scholars from among the tabi’in had criticized the transmitters of hadith, such as al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 110 AH) and Tawus (d. 106 AH) , who both criticized Ma’bad al-Juhani. Sa’d b. Jubair (d. 95 AH) criticized Talq b. Habib. Ibrahim al-Nakha’i (d. 96 AH) and ‘Aamir Al-Sha’bi (d. ~100 AH) both criticized al-Harith al-A’war. Similar endeavors are reported through Ayyub al-Sikhtiyani (d. 131 AH), ‘Abdullah b. ‘Awn (d. 151 AH), Sulayman al-Taymi (d. 143 AH), Sho’ba b. al-Hajjaj (d. 160 AH) , Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161 AH) , Malik b. Anas (d. 179 AH), al-Awza’i (d. 157 AH), ‘Abdullah b. al-Mubarak (d. 181 AH) Yahya b. Sa’id al-Qattan (d. 198 AH), Waki’ b. al-Jarrah (d. 197 AH) , Abdurrahman b. Mahdi (d. 198 AH), and many others from the people of knowledge who had weakened and criticized transmitters. [2]
Thus, it is evident that Islamic scrutiny of hadith is a rich tradition inherited from the earliest centuries of Islamic scholarship and one the earliest forms of textual criticism to be implemented on historical reports and traditions. These critics seemed to think that there was a crucial need to scrutinize and evaluate the authenticity of reports attributed to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Eventually, a universal standard was set by the hadith critics, and many books were authored in clarification of their objective methodology.