Talk:Criticism of hadith

Explain "al-Tilawa bidun al-hukm"?

The article seems to suggest that parts of the Quran might have been lost in history, but that article gives the impression that there is no dispute regarding the original text. Could someone give further explanation of this apparent contradiction? Wnt (talk) 06:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

NPOV article

Isn't this article a bit slanted to the Quran alone movement (or claimed as cult by some muslims), and their rejection of hadith? 86.21.104.180 Faro0485 (talk) 15:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It's an explanation of the criticism, the explanation of the glorification can be found in the opposite article.

Partial revert

I've taken out some of the many Hadith added today, but kept the most pertinent of them displaying the opposing viewpoint. But some, like "Among the prisoners of war taken at the Battle of Badr those who were literate were released after each taught ten Muslims how to read and write." aren't really talking about the legitimacy/illegitimacy of the Hadith so were removed as extraneous. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 17:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Keeping this article out of the orphanage

I've started this section to keep tabs of what articles link to this one. I've just added a link to it from all the most relevant articles I could think of, but my concern is that an article of this nature will be removed from the See also sections of other Islamic articles so it might be necessary to put them back up from time to time. I'll check What links here from time to time, God Willing, and keep it up to date. Of course, anyone is welcome to modify the list, but please keep it tidy and only list actual articles, other pages aren't really important here. Thanks, Abd r Raheem al Haq (talk) 00:56, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

1. Hadith
2. Sharia
3. Rashad Khalifa
4. United Submitters International
5. Qur'an alone
6. Criticism of Islam
7. Science of hadith
8. Islam
9. History of hadith
10. Isra'iliyat

Nice start, but I would probably suggest you focus on trying to address the content issues this article faces. All content should be verified to independent, third-party reliable sources, without use of sources in a manner that results in original research (WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS). Articles such as this should report critiques made by the relevant people as opposed to using a tone which sides with criticism or refutation (WP:NPOV). Currently this article falls short in these respects, especially with regards to use of third party reliable sources, neutrality in tone and original synthesis. ITAQALLAH 01:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to do that, but I have only just started working on this article. I've scrubbed up the top two sections, but they need work still. I haven't done much else yet. I'll do some more tomorrow. It's late here. I just wanted to keep the list up here to prevent this article becoming an orphan again. Abd r Raheem al Haq (talk) 01:57, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I have edited the intro as it turned into a sceptical discussion about hadith rather than talking about the nature of the criticism. The first sentence from the Background section really illustrates a lot of the problems I mentioned earlier. I know you merely tweaked this passage but hopefully this shows that more fundamental changes are needed.

Whilst many Muslims during Mohammed's lifetime, ostensibly including Muhammad himself, are actually reported in the Hadith to have forbidden people from recording hadith, Caliph Umar II is believed to have altered this position and instead encouraged the collection and codification of Mohammed's sayings into formal libraries approximately 200 years later.ref:Jewish Virtual Library, Hadith

Looking at the source, it's clear that a) it's not reliable, not least because it cites Wikipedia itself; b) the source is not properly represented - this is self-evident once the source is read. Again, the tone of this section and others needs changing. I noticed you added that Umar II '[was] believed to have altered this position' which somewhat changes the implication of Umar II's role. It's important to ensure that changes reflect what the sources say, as it's otherwise difficult to justify the change in the first place. Regards, ITAQALLAH 02:41, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it's much better now. I don't know why that source was chosen, I'm pretty sure the orthodox, Muslim accounts have it the same way, but obviously they should be cited directly. I made a couple of minor changes to what you've added, but yeah, much better. It was late last night and I just wanted to get the article to a point were it was improved over how I found it and wasn't looking half done, then leave it as I was getting tired. Regards, Abd r Raheem al Haq (talk) 19:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I've finished giving it the once over. It needed so much doing that I had to make some pretty meaty choices. Hopefully it can be built back up now with quality content. I'll personally be looking to get more up, perhaps something on P. Crone's work to expand Western criticism section. Abd r Raheem al Haq (talk) 02:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Haven't looked over all the changes yet but I am interested in the use of 'directly' at the end of the intro passage. I think it implies that mainstream Muslims don't follow the Qur'an directly, which is obviously not a decision for this article to make. I think the best word here is 'only.' ITAQALLAH 16:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem with 'only' is that many Quranists do follow hadith, they just don't interpret the Quran by them. 19ers pray just like Sunnis, they obviously didn't get that from the Quran only. Hadith has an enormous influence on many Quranists, they just don't often recognise the fact. Quranists, in my experience, follow Sunnah until they see that some aspect of it is contrary to Quranic commandments, then they address that particular issue. They rarely start from the Quran alone, despite their own claims. I appreciate 'directly' isn't such a great way to put it, but it's difficult to find the right words, especially as Quranists have such diverse views on the issue themselves. I'll have a look at it now, see if it can't be put so there's no negative implication towards orthodox Islam. Abd r Raheem al Haq (talk) 22:31, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Right, I've done this:

Sunni and Shia Muslims accept the authenticity of the majority of the Hadith, though they often disagree over the authenticity of certain hadith or how others might be interpreted. Others, such as Qur'an alone Muslims, do not consider the Hadith to be an integral part of Islam and interpret the Quran without reference to them.

Abd r Raheem al Haq (talk) 23:00, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Blatant inaccuracies

(I've started this topic because I see a number of blatant inaccuracies that I plan to delete or replace one by one with referenced sources.)

1. Deleted the material from Sayyid Abdul Wadud about the Persian ancestry of the hadith collectors: "A number of scholars have pointed out that the six major sets of Hadith were all collected by Persians, rather than Arabs who might have had a direct lineage or knowledge of the prophet's life." But this is just not true. If the "major sets" of hadith refers to the six collections of the third century (composed ca. 225 to 275), then the issue of "direct lineage or knowledge" does not arise: knowledge cannot be based on lineage beyond a son and a grandson. Surely such priority of the knowledge of close progeny cannot continue for two centuries and more. If "major sets" refers to Malik's Muwatta (he died in 179 and had written his Muwatta by 150), then Malik claimed to be of Arab descent. But what does descent matter in this? Then, who are these "scholars": we need some specification. I can't imagine anyone but Quranists "pointing" out such things since From the first century Persians took the lead in the intellectual life--even the Quran reciters who were quite active in preserving the Quran were primarily Persian.
2. Deleted: Whilst many Muslims during Mohammed's lifetime, ostensibly including Muhammad himself, are actually reported in the Hadith to have forbidden people from recording hadith, Caliph Umar II is believed to have altered this position and instead encouraged the collection and codification of Mohammed's sayings into formal libraries approximately 200 years later. (Hadith Jewish Virtual Library, Hadith.)" This is clearly wrong. Umar II died in 720/101 (Marshall Hodgson, Venture of Islam vol 1, pg 244 for C.E. date and Ibn Kathir, Bidayah wal-Nihayah vol 9 pg 216 for Hijri date). So "200 years later" makes absolutely no sense. Also, "...is believed to have altered this position" needs clarification: who believes this "alteration"?UthmanMarwandi (talk) 02:40, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Possible sources of Hadiths

I have read many hadiths of Bukhari and Muslim; I have found that many of these hadiths are from other religious material found in Jewish Talmud (particularly the Gemara), and literature in Zoroastrian myths. If it is feasible for me to add which hadiths are exacted from either the Talmud and Zoroastrian literature...I will be happy to oblige.
RekonDog (talk) 05:59, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Move

This article should be moved to "Historicity of hadith" to better discuss both sides of the issue.Bless sins (talk) 00:13, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we could merge this article into History of hadith and then rename the latter to Historicity of hadith ? Al-Andalusi (talk) 21:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

That would be agreeable as well.Bless sins (talk) 22:17, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

"Quranist"

Please do not use the word "quranist". Nobody I see has ever used that word, other than a gay sect (Farouk A Peru´s sect), that constantly uses it, and since homophilia is forbidden in the Quran, it cannot be deemed serious. Instead "quran-alone" followers is often used. I corrected the article, and also corrected a few other things, and also added a link to my research. Peace Be With You.

Edit: 5 minutes later, the edit is reversed, for no sane reason. That is why wikipedia does not work. That might be why people have representative democracy. You should have suggestions for editing, with reason being the evaluator of information. Or else some lunatic might just edit things, in his very own world of nutcasedom.

And I am not going to spend time editing here as a researcher that did 10 years of research correcting things only for such a person to revert it. If you want to loose the best, keep ignoring this, and second rate is the best wikipedia will ever be.

Irrelevant points

I have deleted the following irrelevant information which has no place here

1. Mention of the word "Hadith" in Quran. Reason: The quran uses the word "hadith" as an Arabic word meaning conversation or any of its derivatives, it does not use it as the theological term "hadith" meaning the saying of the Holy Prophet Muhammad SAW. All scholars(muslim, non muslims) agree on this, therefore it has no place in this article.
2. I summarized the mention of Israr Ahmad. Firstly he is not that well known internationally, and secondly his "criticisms" were sourced to just one book of his. If he was so well known, then lot of third party sourced would have picked him up. Therefore he is given as much space as his notability allows.
3. I have deleted the criticism of "Clergy" and of "sunnah" which was included in the Pervez Iqbal section. As this is an article about Hadith, any comments on Mullahs have no place here.
4. I have removed the mention of Iqbal being "against" hadith and replaced it with him being "indifferent" to its use as a source of legal corpus. Reason: The very article which was being used as a source to synthesis information as to him being against hadith has as exact quote which says he was never against hadith. Therefore we should avoid SYNTH.

Anyone seeking to revert should provide arguments as to why these irrelevant things should be kept in the article. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 07:25, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@FreeatlastChitchat: Like I said in my first edit summary, there's only "some" content you deleted with which I have a problem with. Specifically, the deletion of the "Authenticity" category and I just added it back. Right now, it is sourced from a scholarly book by Israr Ahmed, who is a reliable scholarly source on this topic by any standard. Type "Israr Ahmed" in google books and you'll get many hits where he's been cited by other scholars, including "international scholars" (whatever that means.) Also, that sub category duly belongs on the "criticism of hadith" page since that in one of the most important aspect of the criticism. If anything that category should be expanded, which is something I can work on. It won't be hard to do, I just typed "hadith authenticity" in google books and there's enough sources to expand that category further. I'll take a look on JSTOR as well once the account processing in complete. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 15:59, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@Code16: I am removing Israr Ahmad due to blatant source misrepresentation, SYNTH and suspicion. If you look at the page of Israr Ahmed, it will be easy to see that 'He never wrote the book you are attributing to him'. Further more his amazon profile clearly shows that he never wrote this book. So who is this new and improved Israr Ahmad who wrote the book in question? He is this guy who writes inhouse books and is not even notable enough to get a Wikipedia article as far as I can see. Please do not expand the article with this kind of second grade sourcing. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 17:44, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@FreeatlastChitchat: Oh crap, my bad, it's indeed a different Israr Ahmed!! I haven't paid too much attention to this page so didn't do much digging, (my mistake.) The one who wrote the book is a professor at a university of Malaysia (http://www.iium.edu.my/irkhs/departments/qur%E2%80%99-sunnah/staff/israr-ahmad-khan). I agree the authenticity category shouldn't rely on just this professor primarily so have no problem if it's taken out (for now.) cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 20:49, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for restructuring the categories

@FreeatlastChitchat:,@Drmies:, @HyperGaruda:

The following structure would be better (and the material for it is already present.) It would fix the weight issues and is more logical. Scholars and their critiques should be placed in each category irregardless of their religious background:

• Authenticity
• Logical/Empirical flaws in the Hadith
• Theological Ccritique (primacy of the Quran)
• Ethical Ccontent

Thanks. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 07:56, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm, that's weird, Code16; I didn't receive your ping for some reason... I agree with structuring the article based on the contents rather than the critic's background. Can't help but thinking that the latter is (ethnoreligious) racism. By the way, I have de-capitalised part of your suggested titles. Not sure about the "logical flaws" section, but it could be part of "theological critique" or vice versa. - HyperGaruda (talk) 14:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

PS: I suspect that the pinging problem was due to adding the pings separate from your signature. Pinging FreeatlastChitchat and Drmies correctly. - HyperGaruda (talk) 14:07, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

yea, that's weird! I had no idea pinging doesn't work if separated from signature, I'll try and remember that lol. And I see your point about the "logical/empirical" section standing separately. Here's a modification:

• Authenticity
• Philosophical
  • Theological (subcategory)

Philosophical is general enough to contain ethical/logical/empirical, and theological can contain purely dogmatic arguments... Or just avoid the subcategory and roll those directly under philosophical. Either one works. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 16:42, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

• Again, I'm no expert, but you can't have something like "*Logical/Empirical flaws in the Hadith" since it sounds like original research. "Theological critique" or something like that sounds a lot better. Drmies (talk) 17:54, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good, let's keep it as general as possible and have 2 categories: Authenticity and Theological. All the logical/empirical/ethical and purely dogmatic critiques can be grouped under Theological. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 18:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Ping seems to have glitched, ty HyperGaruda for the summon. @User:Code16 and @Drmies I can see now that the sections have been vastly improved. I'll list my concerns here, listwise (OCD lol) and you guys can see how they should be addressed. I'll appreciate it if we discuss them one by one, i'll mark them resolved on this list once we reach consensus.

1. Kassim Ahmad has been mentioned Twice, once in the Background section, then in the theological section. He appears to be a non notable school teacher who has a bachelor's degree in Malay literature and language. I cannot even find his website on the internet, just a blog which has a "grand total" of like 22k views in the past 7 years. So clearly non notable according to wiki standards. In my opinion he should be removed.
2. Cyrus Hamlin has been quoted in the "background", but his words make no sense to be frank. I tried to find the exact quote but the edition given at the archives.org seems to be a different one than the one used by the editor who inserted the text. Anyway, the point is that Hamlin is talking, offhandedly, about how the Holy Quran is "not" the law of muslims. He does not mention hadith, or any criticism of hadith anywhere.Here is the book I used. Seeing that he has not gone in any details about hadith, rather talks about islamic law and the quran, we should remove him from the article as he has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
3. The quote from the "very hard to spell" book "Iþýk, Hüseyin Hilmi. Saadeti Ebediye-Tam Ýlmihal" at the end of background section appears to be out of place. It is a book about defence of hadith so what is it doing here? and in the background section? furthermore the book is non-notable. So that should be removed as well.
4. The Mu`tazila traditions have been sourced to "Azami, M. A., Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature, Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur, 92; cited in Akbarally Meherally, Myths and Realities of Hadith – A Critical Study, (published by Mostmerciful.com Publishers)". As these are self published book by non-notable authors this should be removed until a better source can be located.
5. "Abū Ruqayyah Farasat Latif" has been used as a source but his ref is dead linked. His dissertation can be [found here], please take a look see if this is reliable enough to be added as a citation. Otherwise I can just download the book and upload it to a more reliable repository.
6. Madelung and Harald Motzki are actually "in favor of hadith", so why have they been placed in the criticism section? Perhaps some rationale can be provided for this? Or else they can be just removed.
7. The "theological" section uses this source "Michael Cook, Muslim Dogma, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 9; cited in Aisha Y. Musa, Hadith As Scripture: Discussions On The Authority Of Prophetic Traditions In Islam, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 38; taken from Abdur Rab, Rediscovering Genuine Islam: The Case for a Quran-Only Understanding, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014, p. 198." Can this be cleaned up by citing the original book whose complete name seems to be "early muslim dogma a source-critical study". Abdur Rab, Rediscovering Genuine Islam: The Case for a Quran-Only Understanding seems to be a self published non reliable source.
8. Sam Harris is not commenting upon hadith at all as far his quote can tell. He is saying Islam is not a moderate religion. Well we can put that under criticism of Islam, but he is not saying anything about the corpus of hadith so we should remove him.
9. The entire section "Early prohibitions against hadith collection" is original research made from primary sources like direct quotations from hadith collections. It should be removed until reliable secondary sources can be found to back up these claims.

Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 06:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@FreeatlastChitchat Some good points. I just removed the remaining OR/primary you highlighted. Except for Muhammad Mustafa Al-A'zami who seems like a reliable source and his cited view is relevant enough here. I'm not sure if his book is self-published either, so I left it for now. As for Sam Harris, he's clearly talking about Hadith from an ethical point of view, so I think it belongs in that section. I know he's a critic of Islam, but he can't be removed on that basis, that would be against NPOV. And the remaining stuff in the background category, like Cyrus Hamlin's quote, is fine I think. It makes sense and does add to the general overview/background intel, but the section needs expanding for sure. Other then that, you mentioned some deadlink issue, if you can fix that it would be great, thanks. cӨde1+6^TP 13:10, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:Code16 Ty for the work done. I think you missed the Kassim reference when it appeared in the authenticity section again, I'll do that now. Regarding Hamlin; I fail to see where in the quote they are criticising Hadith? Hamlin is saying that the basis of Islamic law is the hadith(I am not sure he is saying even that as you can see from his book that he does not even mention the word hadith or traditions of the prophet or anything like that. Perhaps you can explain the quote to us as to how it is critical of hadith in its own. Same with Harris, he is saying that Islam is not a peaceful religion if it is taken literally. So what is wrong with that? If you read the complete context of his quote you will see that he is arguing about Islam being interpreted in a variety of ways, he says that the Quran, the Fiqh, and the Hadith are all being interpreted differently by different groups. So his criticism has nothing to do with hadith. If we include him, we can just as well include every critic of Islam here becasue they say Islam is a bad religion. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Once again, Harris' quote is relevant as he is directly quoting a hadith and then expanding on its ethical consequences. So your argument that his quote has "nothing to do with hadith" makes zero sense. And yes, any notable critic can be included in this article if their critiques are relevant to the Hadith literature. Seems to me your thinking reflexively and being defensive, instead of looking at the matter objectively. And as for Hamlin, I think it fits in the background as it gives weight to the subject matter of the article. But on this issue, if other editors agree with you, I'll drop my objection, it's not a big deal. cӨde1+6^TP 11:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:Code16 First of all Sam Harris writes a Sam Harris is talking about moderation in today's Muslim body, he has mentioned the word "hadith" just once in his entire blog. Here is the exact quote. He writes

While intelligent people can disagree about how "innocent" the theology of Islam is, a willingness to admit the obvious is a basic requirement of religious moderation. Any Muslim who will not concede that there is a death-cult forming in the Muslim world, is either part of that cult, or an obscurantist -- not a religious moderate. How will Muslim moderates view women and women's rights? They will feel what any person who is reasonably free of medieval dogmatism now feels. Equal rights for women is not even a question worthy of discussion among religious moderates, and it is not a subject about which moderate Muslims will have the slightest caveat. Anyone who believes that men should determine how women dress, or whether they receive medical attention, marry, divorce, practice contraception, or do anything else with their minds and bodies is not a religious moderate. He (or she) is a religious demagogue on a collision course with modernity.According to a literalist reading of the hadith (the literature that recounts the sayings and the actions of the Prophet) if a Muslim decides that he no longer wants to be a Muslim, he should be put to death. If anyone ventures the opinion that the Koran is a mediocre book of religious fiction or that Muhammad was a schizophrenic, he should also be killed. It should go without saying that a desire to kill people for imaginary crimes like apostasy and blasphemy is not an expression of religious moderation. A moderate Muslim will see no problem with another Muslim deciding to become a Christian, or a Jew, or an atheist. The essence of religious moderation is the understanding that a person should be free to interpret the data of the universe for himself, without fearing that he will be murdered for reaching an unpopular conclusion. We should note that this is a standard of enlightened tolerance that not even the former folk-singer Cat Stevens (now Yosuf Islam) could muster in response to the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses:

His blog is titled "Who Are the Moderate Muslims?" it ends with the words "There is no question that we must give Muslim moderates every tool they need to win a war of ideas with their coreligionists." So if @Drmies and HyperGaruda can give their opinions about this matter we can lay it to rest, because as far as I can Code16 will not remove him or Hamlin, no matter what I say. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 11:46, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Harris and Hamlin

What I'm reading in Harris' blog, is criticism on some of the rules in Islam and not on the hadith per se. The Hamlin quote seems fabricated or at least "rephrased", because I cannot find it in his book. A couple of pages later, something close to the quote is stated: It [Mussulman law] is founded upon various traditions and commentaries, and is no part of the Koran., but like Harris' blog, it is more like criticism on the shari'ah rather than on hadiths. - HyperGaruda (talk) 13:08, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

• Wait, Harris's quote is sourced from his blog?! Blogs aren't even allowed as a source, as far as I know. So yea, please take it out lol. It shouldn't have been in there in the first place... I will say though that most of the rules (I think all of them actually) that he's criticizing are sourced from the Hadith, but that's clearly not obvious from his blog anyway. I'll look for better sources for this issue when I have time later.
• As for Hamlin, the word "traditions" is almost synonymous with "Hadith". If you check Britannica's definition of hadith, you'll find: "record of the traditions" http://www.britannica.com/topic/Hadith. But in any case, as I said, I won't object to it if you guys wanna take it out as it's not really too important.

cӨde1+6^TP 23:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

A summary of this article should be included in the main Islam article

criticism of the hadith is fundamental to islam and history confirms this, excluding criticism of the hadith from the main islam article can only be described as religious bias and political pandering to the hadith hardliners, which should not be allowed to pervade any neutral presentation of a broad religion such as islam. i propose a summary of hadith criticism and its sources should be included in the main islam article's 'criticism' section. The5thForce (talk) 20:33, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Debate on the Hadith

Background: An article entitled Debate on the Hadith was created on 15 December 2015 and a speedy delete request was placed on it two days later.[1] This was denied with the comment "seems to contain additional material--not obviously duplicative enough for speedy. Consider a merge"[2] The person requesting deletion then converted the article into a redirect to the present article with the comment "merger" with a rationale at Talk:Debate on the Hadith#Merger, but did not move any of the contents. The article's creator asked for the "deletion" to be reviewed at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2015 December 19. During the discussion the creator reverted the redirect.[3] The DRV request was closed "Disagreements about this are resolved through the normal editorial process". The redirect was restored by the person requesting deletion.[4] I then restored the article and joined the talk page discussion. Unfortunately only the person requesting deletion and myself continued the discussion and I have been asked to revert my recreation of the article. Because I have absolutely no background knowledge of this topic I have no idea of what the article's status should be.

To be resolved: Should there be an article Debate on the Hadith (or similar)? If so should it have a different title? If not, should there be a merge of some of its contents here or should there merely be a redirect here? Maybe the article should be completely deleted. Thincat (talk) 09:25, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

that article Debate on the Hadith has some extremely valuable content and excellent sources, but the article itself is written informally, i believe that article and all or most of its content should be edited to meet the standards of wikipedia, and then a summary of it should be added to the main islam article along with a summary of Criticism of Hadith and Criticism of the Quran

The5thForce (talk) 12:16, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Are there any actual reliable 3rd party sources cited on that page? The editors on the defending side should list them here so it can be made clear if there's enough to merit an independent page. cӨde1+6^TP 02:38, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Hallaq's condensing

@Drmies, sir I noticed some key parts were missing when FreeatlastChitchat "condensed" the material from Hallaq. This particular material that he subtracted, I think, is very relevant to the subject matter. I've re-added the parts, and will be willing to reduce the sentence count further. But the actual content/research of the author is very valid content that I think deserves to be here. I think that FreeatlastChitchat's selection of the material is going a bit far. I'll also ping Malik Shabazz for expert opinion as you originally suggest, I hear that he's active again. cӨde1+6^TP 07:31, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

p.s. To Clarify: The point about the "mutawatir" hadith and its extreme rarity is very important. This is the point that was completely subtracted. I think we can keep condensing the word count sourced from Hallaq further, but the actual points need to be kept. I'm positive that experts on the subject will agree with me that this will benefit this article. cӨde1+6^TP 17:43, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi. I don't know very much about hadith, and even less about its criticism (despite my username, I'm Jewish, not Muslim). But if you're interested, I can offer you my opinion as an experienced Wikipedia editor. It would be helpful to have diffs of the edits that removed the material in question, or links to the article "before" and "after". Thank you. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:56, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Will do sir, below are the two relevant Diffs, including the original Hadith page edit. The content in contention is sourced from Wael Hallaq. It's clear that I have significantly condensed it (from around 600 words, to 300, including citation links etc.) So I think that the consensus is met (which was to condense material sourced from Hallaq.)

Current dispute

• 02:24, January 17, 2016

Original diff from November, which includes Hallaq's content restored by admin following FreeatlastChitchat's deletions

• 11:12, November 21, 2015

cӨde1+6^TP 21:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Code16. I hope FreeatlastChitchat will comment here as well. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 00:57, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Malik Shabazz I removed the following text from the article

The problem; however, which Ibn al-Salah was trying to solve is the rarity of this class of hadith which qualify as "mutawatir." This class of hadith is "virtually non existent". Such hadiths are so rare that Ibn al-Salah could only find a single hadith which met the mutawatir criteria in his own search. Ironically, that hadith found by Ibn al-Salah, which is narrated by a hundred independent sources, quotes the Prophet warning others against the fabrication of hadith. Later Islamic legal theoreticians, like Ansari and Abd al-Shakur managed to find a few additional cases of mutawatir hadith. Still, the total number of mutawatir narrations was still "short of even eight or nine." This small set also does not include the hadith which alleges the infallibility of Muslim Community's consensus, which is classed as "tawatur ma nawi", a lower probabilistic reliability rating than mutawatir.

My rationale is as follows. Hallaq is basically criticising about a so called mutawatir hadith But according to Hallaq; Salah himself wrote that this theory is Fringe and acknowledged that this kind of definition of mutawatir is not present in the repertoire of traditionists. Ibn-e-Salah's view was fringe even in his own time and many muslims were against it and called it radi aka garbage. Hallaq is arguing against a Fringe theory that was considered Fringe at its time and trying to browbeat someone. Even though Hallaq is a scholar this kind of discussion has no place here. This is a very old discussion which discusses a fringe theory. Hadith terminology#Mutawatir shows that mutawatir has never been used in this sense since Salah. Therefore it is a WP:FRINGE theory which should be given space, but not that much space. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 04:54, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

So apparently, FreeatlastChitchat thinks that Ibn al-Salah and his Introduction to the Science of Hadith is "fringe" (LOL.) This is funnier than his original accusation that I was "misrepresenting" Hallaq (turned out, he just misunderstood the terminology Hallaq was using.) There is a reason why Hallaq discusses him at length, and everyone can read the main articles to find out why. Also Mutawatir is STANDARD terminology, see Hadith terminology. So when FreeatlastChitchat says: "Hallaq is basically criticising about a so called mutawatir hadith" he is implying that this classification isn't real (when it obviously is.) And finally, why is this class of hadith significant? Well because of the following definition, stated on the main Hadith Terminology article: "A successive narration is one conveyed by narrators so numerous that it is not conceivable that they have agreed upon an untruth thus being accepted as unquestionable in its veracity." So it is the most authentic class of hadith and yet, it is "virtually non-existent." Therefore, obviously, this has relevance for the section entitled "Authenticity". cӨde1+6^TP 12:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@User:Code16 I have never claimed that Salahs entire work is Fringe. Only that his definition of "Mutawatir" has never been picked up. According to source the definition of mutawatir is this

On the other hand, Ibn al-Salah argued that if a hadith is present in both the Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim collections, then it can be considered "certain knowledge," merely based on the fact that both of these collections are regarded by Muslims has authoritative........The problem; however, which Ibn al-Salah was trying to solve is the rarity of this class of hadith which qualify as "mutawatir."

Now this is a Fringe definition, no one else regards this definition of mutawatir to be true, rather they define it as a hadith which has a lot of narrators, Halla has himself given this definition and pointed out that the number required is kinda arbitrary. The difference is simple. The Widely used definition of mutawatir is a hadith which is narrated by lots of people. Lets say 5 is the number required. Now when 5 people narrate anything it will be a mutawatir, even if only Bukhari has written about it. The definition used by Salah, which is fringe, says that any hadith which occurs in both Bukhari and muslim, which is usually called "sahi", will be called mutawatir. Salah himself acknowledges that his theory is Fringe and he was reprimanded for it. The classification is real, just the definition used by Salah is a new Fringe definition that did not catch on. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:19, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

OMG, now I know why you're so confused... You genuinely don't know what's going on (again! lolz.) You think al-Salah was trying to change the definition of mutawatir, but that's not what's happening here dude! The first part of the quote you posted is not some new definition of Mutawatir that al-Salah was pushing, as you have argued. That's what al-Salah, Bulqini and Nawawi were arguing be considered as "yaqini nazart" (page 85) not Mutawatir! The last part of the quote you posted is the reason why they were making this argument in the first place, because Mutawatir is almost non-existent. Once again: That is NOT (to quote you) "his definition of "Mutawatir" . The definition of Mutawattir is NOT in dispute, and al-Salah did not come up with any new definition for it. Mutawattir is defined on page 78 of the paper, very clearly (by the way, I should add the following quote in the article, to avoid further confusion on this point:)

"If this is the case, then what is the mutawatir? The common, and indeed indisputable, definition of this type of hadith is that it is any report that reaches us through textually identical channels of transmission which are sufficiently numerous as to preclude any possibility of collaboration on a forgery. The persons who witnessed the Prophet saying or doing a particular thing, or merely approving an act or event tacitly, had to have been sure of what they observed, and their knowledge of what they witnessed must have been based on sensory perception."

No one is disputing this definition above, least of all al-Salah (who searched harder than probably anyone to try and satisfy the above criteria.) When he realized that such hadith were almost "non existent" that's when he decided: "Hey guys, I've got an idea! let's just take Bukhari + Muslim as 'certain knowledge'! Phew, problem solved, am I rite?! w00t." And this is what other scholars criticized him for. But this actually SUPPORTS the inclusion of this content in the AUTHENTICITY section, because it shows the desperation of these scholars, on account of the sheer lack of authentic hadiths (and it wasn't just Al-Saleh, he spearheaded two separate "campaigns" by a number of scholars.) In fact, this line of thought is fairly relevant even today because there's an entire sect called Ahl al-Hadith, which kinda have the same view as al-Saleh, with even looser standards actually (however that's an entirely separate discussion....) Anyways, now with all of this said, I'll assume good-faith, as you apparently misunderstood (again) what the paper was about. So let's just call it at this point.... I think we can safely say we have a consensus. Agreed? cӨde1+6^TP 04:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

It's been almost 2 days, looks like we have consensus. cӨde1+6^TP 01:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

@HyperGaruda:, @FreeatlastChitchat:,@Thincat: Hi guys, admin EdJohnston wants me to ping you all to get some more comments on this thread. If you could please review it (especially the last comment on 19 January) that would be great. Thanks. cӨde1+6^TP 12:42, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I am replying to the ping. I got involved when there was a deletion review[5] of Debate on the Hadith (now deleted at AFD)[6] and I considered some editing to be far too aggressive. I commented at its talk page (also now deleted) and also above at Talk:Criticism_of_Hadith#Debate on the Hadith. At the time I had never even heard the word "Hadith" though since then I have read up about the subject. Sometimes it is useful to have a completely uninvolved person try and help a discussion but in this case I do not think I can help at all. The issues seem to be about WP:FRINGE, WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE and so on. I can't judge these things and I would have to do considerable study to develop any sort of useful critique at all. I have read the present article and I found it rather clearly written. Frankly, this surprised me and I appreciate the work that has gone into the article. I am also pleased to see the discussion going on here. However, I simply don't know whether the article has an appropriate encyclopedic content – however, it does read well. Congratulations and best wishes! Thincat (talk) 14:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

From the discussion so far, it appears that there was some misunderstanding about hadiths that are "certain knowledge" vs those that are "mutawatir", am I right? By the way, what does yaqini nazart mean? I'd really like to say something useful, but it is going to be difficult without access to Hallaq's paper. - HyperGaruda (talk) 15:44, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi guys, thanks for responding. HyperGaruda the paper is also available for free at http://globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/islam/fiqh/hallaq_hadith.html. And yaqini nazart is just "certain knowledge", as translated by Hallaq in the paper, on page 85. So basically, the other editor thought that Ibn-Salah was redefining "mutawatir" and thus the argument was fringe. However, those scholars were actually trying to argue that the criteria for "certain knowledge/yaqini nazart" can simply be lowered, so as not to include Mutawatir at all, due to the extreme lack of mutawatir/truly-authentic hadith. So instead of being fringe, it's a supporting argument for this content's inclusion in the Criticism of Hadith/Authenticity section. cӨde1+6^TP 16:25, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Not important for the dispute, but possibly worth noting: yaqini means "certain", and nazari means "speculative", "theoretical", or (per Hallaq) "mediate". This is opposed to daruri, which means "necessary" or "immediate". Hallaq first swaps the glosses of "acquired" (muktasab) and nazari, and then renders nazari as "acquired". I don't know if this is a mistake or his way of saying that the two terms have the same technical meaning in this context. Back to regularly scheduled programming... Eperoton (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

http://www.montypython.com/uploads/Films_FOLDER_Movies-102sqX.jpg cӨde1+6^TP 23:47, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I've read the paper; it is quite interesting. Now about your dispute, here is a proposal that 1) condenses the current two Hallaq paragraphs significantly, 2) ditches the undue weight on Ibn al-Salah's "Bukhari+Muslim=certainty" theory, and 3) keeps the main point that Code16 wants to see: mutawatir hadiths are the most reliable ones, but are also extremely rare. I have also toned down the weasels/POV wordings a bit: Wael Hallaq has argued that the most central problem associated with Prophetic hadith has been their authenticity. From the legal theoretician's point of view, hadiths can be divided into mutawatir and ahad: hadiths transmitted via numerous chains of narrators and the other hadiths respectively. The medieval scholar Al-Nawawi argued that any non-mutawatir hadith is only probable and can not reach the level of certainty. Scholars of Islam like Ibn al-Salah (d. 1245 CE), al-Ansari (d. 1707 CE), and Ibn ‘Abd al-Shakur (d. 1810 CE) could however only find a few hadiths that fell into the mutawatir category, totalling to "no more than eight or nine."

References

Pinging Code16 and FreeatlastChitchat to see if they agree. - HyperGaruda (talk) 09:59, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm kool with that =) Although, I think that the following sentence is a little vague/confusing and can be more definite: "...hadiths transmitted via numerous chains of narrators and the other hadiths respectively. " cӨde1+6^TP 11:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

• Agree. Although we can do a minor copy edit. "According to Wael Hallaq the central issue with hadith is it's authenticity. From the legal theoretician's point of view, hadiths can be divided into mutawatir and ahad: hadiths transmitted via numerous chains of narrators and the other hadiths respectively. The medieval scholar Al-Nawawi argued that any non-mutawatir hadith is only probable and can not reach the level of certainty. However scholars like Ibn al-Salah (d. 1245 CE), al-Ansari (d. 1707 CE), and Ibn ‘Abd al-Shakur (d. 1810 CE) found "no more than eight or nine" hadiths that fell into the mutawatir category. " FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:23, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

 Done with a bit of rearranging to hopefully clear up the vague passage. - HyperGaruda (talk) 10:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks HyperGaruda that's pretty much a perfect summary! cӨde1+6^TP 13:20, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Orthodox response

The "Orthodox response" appears to be suddenly controversial. The article shouldn't be a he-said-she-said collection of contradictary opinions; but that doesn't justify simply removing the section and all it's content William M. Connolley (talk) 17:03, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@William M. Connolley: Hello. Please, compare the following pages with this one: Criticism of the Catholic Church, Criticism of the Bible, Criticism of atheism, Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of religion. In all of these cases, committed Catholics, Bible believers, atheists, Christians and religious people in general have offered rebuttals to the points of criticism, but they do not have big subsections detailing those rebuttals. Why should this page be different? --RIPMamba (talk) 17:17, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Response should stay,totally connected to article topic, also important to note to ortodox muslims do not deny the existence of false hadith etc. Also always neutral point of view and balance should be on the first place. Promotion for and against should be on personal blogs etc. Also this is not general religion article, it one part of religion, it is about hadith. If there is response it should stay. 178.221.114.71 (talk) 17:22, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Once again, I am asking, why should we treat criticism of Islamic scripture differently than criticism of anything else? This article does NOT say that the criticism is correct. It simply details the points of criticism. Having point by point rebuttals is doing apologetics, and as I pointed out, it is special pleading. Read the above articles, they do not have point by point rebuttals from "Conservative Christians", or "conservative atheists". --RIPMamba (talk) 17:36, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I think if someone add good sourced content to that articles it would stay also there. I checked also some articles about criticisms and always can be found different opinions etc of critics and supporters, somewhere as own section somewhere included in the body of article. For example about Talmud where responses are into body of that article and for me it is totally normal, criticism of Judaism also the same, controversies about Scientology, even has own section of church response to controversies in that artice etc etc. 178.221.114.71 (talk) 17:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

It may be fine for you, but that is not how we write articles. We cannot have 1/6 of this article devoted to what responses Muslims give to Hadith criticism. I will wait for others to weigh on in this, but my opinion stands --RIPMamba (talk) 18:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, what you said is not true. The "responses" of the Church of Scientology are under the article of Scientology controversies. The article is meant to detail controversial incidents, and responses to controversies is a common theme. This is not a section about a controversy, but about a list of criticisms. It is TOTALLY out of line to give a list of rebuttals from Orthodox Muslims, because it is outside of the scope of the article, and is unlike what we do anywhere else. --RIPMamba (talk) 18:15, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

And what you said about Talmud is also a lie. There is no separate page that details a list of criticisms. I object to treating Muslim scripture in a special way. Every other article is NOT written like this. We do not devote 1/6 of the article about the Criticism of the Catholic Church to responses from traditionalist Catholic scholars. We do not devote 1/6 of the page on the article about the Criticism of the Bible to rebuttals from conservative scholars, why should we treat this as a special case? RIPMamba (talk) 18:17, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Own private opinions are good for own blogs, websites etc. At wiki as I checked content is made by consensus and sourced relevant content not by personal like or dislike of content or personal advocacy or promotion. I put back sourced content and other user too who opened talk page. Anyway anyone can open own space to make own content as and how want, but Wikipedia is something else.178.221.114.71 (talk) 18:19, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I never inserted my own opinion. I simply want this article to treat Islamic scripture the way it treats any other. Why do you think that criticism of Hadiths should be written differently that how we write the article about the Criticism of the Bible? RIPMamba (talk) 18:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I think if there is quality sourced content for that article too about response it would stay there. Hadith and Bible articles and topics can't compare also. And response about hadith criticism is short and well written and as someone who don't have any personal interest for and against don't see any problem about to there is response about what are false hadith /topic of that subsection/ and what are true etc. 178.221.114.71 (talk) 18:44, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

This debate may be over but I'd like to throw in a comment. Yes, having a orthodox section may be not following the pattern of other articles, but orthodox are so numerous compared to hadith deniers and so active, I think in this case it just makes sense to include them. As a practical matter they will include themselves and add criticism to the article anyway. --BoogaLouie (talk) 01:29, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Critism of Hadith/ about ablution

[copied from my (Louis P.'s) user talk page ]
There is a difference between "wajib" (obligatory) and "sunnah" (recommended). Washing one time is obligatory (wajib) , more than one time is recommended (sunna). That distinction is known from many other similar topics like the prayer. In some narratinos a prayer is done and in some its not. Its not a contradiction because it just means some prayers are Sunnah and some Wajib.So there is also no contraction in terms of being an example because that was common method to show, that something is obligatory or not. The same rule applies for ablution.

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/226422/the-obligatory-parts-and-sunnahs-of-wudoo

Whitemonth (talk) 22:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit 23.06.2020:

From Wikepedia "a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility or incongruity between two or more propositions". Thats not the case because its logically possible to wash my hands once and another time thrice. But there is another wrong preassumption, that everything in the hadith is always obligatory (Any source for that ?). There is difference between "saying" and "actions". If the prophet would SAY different things, it could be ambigous for the follower but ACTIONS are not the same. For example there are narrations where he is riding a camel , in another narrations he is riding a horse and in some he is walking. These are not cotradicting each other. It cant be said, its not clear what Muslims should do becaue all of them are allowed. In some narrations the prophet prays in certain times and in some not. These are not contradicting because both are allowed if the prayer is not obligatory. Contradicton would appear if he ORDERS different rulings. I hope its more clear

And what the reliability of the website "Uncorrupted Islam", the author is unknwon and there is no explanationn from credible person to the narrations. Looks like what christian missionaries do — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whitemonth (talk • contribs) 23:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit: wikiislam is not a reliable source and anyway is just citing the hadith (like the second source) without any scholarly opion how they understood this narrations or if they saw contradictions. How I said before , there is a difference between ORDERS and just ACTIONS. Only because there are narrations that the prophet sometimes walked and sometimes was riding a camel, there is no contradiction between them. Most of the narrations are like that and there was no contradcition seen. Maybe you have reliable sources where scholars saw contradictions between them — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whitemonth (talk • contribs) 06:07, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe there are not hadith where some observed ACTIONS of the Prophet are not held up as examples to obediently follow, but you are right wikiislam does not cite a scholar. At least for now I'm acquiescing to your deletes --Louis P. Boog (talk)

Another proposal for restructuring

RIPMamba Debresser Drmies (admin), HyperGaruda @RIPMamba: @Debresser: @Drmies: (admin), @HyperGaruda:
Greetings all you regular participants. (Sorry if I missed anyone)
I would like to propose a change in the structure of the article. Here's why:
I'll quote from the lede:

... Criticism of hadith takes several forms.

Within traditional Islamic hadith studies the focus is on evaluating the authenticity of particular hadith reports and whether they are attributable to Muhammad. Key elements that are examined are whether there are "other identical reports from other transmitters"; the reliability of the transmitters of the report; and "the continuity of the chain of transmission".

But that's the last you hear of this traditional Islamic hadith studies in the article except for how it missed disqualifying hadith that should not be sahih. It seems to me that traditional Islamic hadith studies is hadith criticism -- the original hadith criticism -- and the article should say something about it.

Another intro feature I think is lacking is why hadith and criticism of it is important.

To that end I have written a couple of sections for the article, that would follow the lede and precede the Arguments for existence of false hadith section. Since that section starts out

Among the scholars who believe that even sahih hadith suffer from corruption...

and since sahih hadith are hadith approved by traditional Islamic hadith studies, I think the flow of the article would be enhanced not damaged.

---

Importance of hadith and al-Shafiʿi

A number of scholars, (including Joseph Schacht, Daniel W. Brown) have credited the overriding importance of hadith of Muhammad in Islamic law/fiqh to second century scholar al-Shāfiʿī (767–820 CE), founder of the Shafi'i school of fiqh, who wrote/preached sometime around a century and a half after the death of Muhammad.

Prior to Shafi'i, Islamic legal scholars had regarded Prophetic sunnah as only one source of law among many -- other sources being the traditions of other caliphs and of leading early Muslims,(these legal pragmatist scholars were known as ahl al-raʿy); or rejected the authority of hadith because they thought there was no way to be absolutely certain about its authenticity (these speculative theologians were known as ahl al-kalām).

But Al-Shafi‘i preached that hadiths

"from other persons are of no account in the face of a tradition from the Prophet, whether they confirm or contradict it; if the other persons had been aware of the tradition from the Prophet, they would have followed it".

The fact that Shafi'i felt the need to continually insist on his point in his writing suggests (to Joseph Schacht) that he was not upbraiding the occasional deviant/heretic, but working to establish his doctrine as orthodoxy, something it had not yet become.

Belief that Muslims must obey the Prophet and follow his sunnah comes from verses in the Quran such as 3:32, 5:92, 24:54, 64:12. Hadith had been passed down by oral transmission until around the third century of Islam and some questioned how closely they followed Muhammad's actual teachings and behavior in authenticity and spirit, but Al-Shafiʿi argued that Muslims must obey the hadith using a "simple proposition: having commanded believers to obey the Prophet, God must certainly have provided the means to do so."

Al-Shāfiʿī thought hadith so important that even the Qurʾan was "to be interpreted in the light of traditions (i.e. hadith), and not vice versa", and that “the command of the Prophet is the command of God.”

Not only was Sunnah considered divine revelation (wahy), and records of it (i.e. hadith) the basis of Islamic law (Sharia), but the number of verses pertaining to law in the Quran are relatively few, while hadith give direction on everything from details of religious obligations (such as Ghusl or Wudu, ablutions for salat prayer), to the correct forms of salutations, and the importance of benevolence to slaves. In the words of J.A.C. Brown, “the full systems of Islamic theology and law are not derived primarily from the Quran. Muhammad’s sunna was a second but far more detailed living scripture, and later Muslim scholars would thus often refer to the Prophet as `The Possessor of Two Revelations`”.

Science of hadith

Main article: Hadith studies

"Criticism" of hadith in the sense of weeding out fraudulent accounts and establishing a core of authentic "sound" (sahih) hadiths -- was taken on by the classical Islamic science of hadith (ʻilm al-ḥadīth, also "hadith studies"). This science became a "mature system", or entered its "final stage" with the compilation of the classical collections of hadith in the third century of Islam, roughly a century after al-Shafiʿi's passing.

The establishment of this elaborate system of evaluating the authenticity of traditions science/discipline was important in Islam for a number of reasons: After the third century of Islam the triumph of Al-Shafiʿi's doctrine meant that the supreme importance of the Sunnah of the Prophet was undisputed. The status of Hadith as primary sources of Islamic law gave them great power as "ideological" tools in political/theological conflicts. But since hadith were transmitted orally over 100-150 years, until the classic collections of hadith of third century of Islam were compiled, there was no written documentation to verify the chain of transmission of a hadith. Forgery "took place on a massive scale" which threatened to undermine hadith's divine legitimacy of reports of the Prophet.

The system of judging the authenticity (sihha) of hadith is based on three criteria in hadith studies:

1. Whether a report was corroborated with "other identical reports from other transmitters"; such mutawatir hadith were reliable but very rare. For all the other numerous hadith that did not meet this criteria, evaluate ...
2. the "reliability in character and capacity" of the transmitters of reports with only one chain (isnad) of transmitters,
   1. (this did not apply to the companions of prophet (ṣaḥāba) transmitting in the chain because their character and competence was guaranteed "by virtue of their direct association" with Muhammad);
3. "the continuity of their chains of transmission".

These criteria in turn are based on other premises:

1. That "defects of corruption in hadith could be directly attributed to lack of character (ʿadāla) or competence (ḍābiṯ) in its transmitters";
2. that these "faulty transmitters could be identified";
3. and that while the transmitters might or might not be reliable, there was no need to question the concept of chains/isnads of the hadith as accounts "of the actual transmission history of a tradition."

Evaluation was "almost exclusively" of the chain/isnad of the hadith, and not the content (matn).

The work of ʻilm al-ḥadīth criticism of hadith is found in major collections of hadith (Kutub al-Sittah, "The six books") of the third century of Islam. Perhaps the most famous collector of hadith and practitioner of ʻilm al-ḥadīth, and author of one of the six books, Muhammad al-Bukhari, reportedly devoted 16 years to sifting nearly 600,000 narrations, and eliminated all but approximately 7400 (this includes different versions of the same report and repetitions of the same report with different isnad, i.e. chains of transmitters).

---

I'm sure there are other parts of the article that will need to be rewritten if these changes are made. Hope you think this will be an improvement and will give me some feedback. --Louis P. Boog (talk) 17:42, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

References

will wait a few more days before editing the article with proposed changes. --Louis P. Boog (talk) 22:26, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Some medieval guys opinion on the character of some person is entirely subjective and utterly irrelevant as to the validity of a claim. It's merely a distraction. The biographies could have been forged, the isnads could have been forged easily enough as well. Reminder that these were constructed in a totalitarian theocracy that had an agenda, dissident reports could have easily been suppressed in the manufacture of the tradition. The fact that there is so much utterly irrelevant information, is just even more damning, if the people in question could not think of any better proof than writing some essay on how a guy they supposedly talked to is of totally good character (I promise), then your credibility is already seriously strained. Even then, I would think that by far the most common source of misattributed tradition would precisely be those of "good" character, who would have the most motivation to insert what they in their mind thought of as good messages that would improve the faith. The original supposition, that all deviations could only possibly be the result of evil people just making things to insert devious evil messages, is almost laughably naive. Christians and Jews are often chastised for the existence of alternative versions of our scriptures, but if you look at the alterations, they are almost *always* to smooth embarrassing blemishes that are probably the result of a pagan past, or to improve a monotheistic interpretation. The alterations had the effect of making our religions *more like Islam*. The *oldest* traditions that we have discovered are always the *most polytheistic* in nature, and the most embarrassing. Because the primordial religion was not monotheistic as Islam claims, it was polytheistic. Similarly, I am convinced that the Hadith are largely a project by second century Ulema to smooth over what they saw as embarrassments or blemishes in the Koran, and to provide a larger basis for a system of law.2601:140:8900:61D0:241F:F3FC:97FD:C9F9 (talk) 02:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

This whole article needs to be rewritten it's all over the places

I removed a huge chunk of that was just references to wordpress blogs and random youtubers. And left whatever was cited to academic sources. However many of thee stuff is all over the place, not in the correct sections. Western Oriental Textual Criticism is mixed in with Islamic Textual Criticism, then many of those things are redundantly repeated word for word or paraphrased in other sections. I believe someone who actually academically specializes in this topic should rewrite it. Zegoy (talk) 01:00, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

For the record I'm responsible for some of this "references to wordpress blogs and random youtubers". Yes, the sources are not academic but I must defend the substance. Can there be any doubt that the hadith described below assume supernatural explanations?

Two Christian missionaries, Sam Shamoun and Jochen Katz, list a number of sahih hadith with supernatural elements they argue are in contradiction to "reason and common experience", and not meeting the "criteria of authenticity": trees that weep, human beings (Jews) turned into rats, into monkeys and pigs; stones that steal possessions (clothes) and run away with them, stones that talk—give salutations to Muhammad, or urge people to kill others (Jews); and monkeys that stone another monkey for adultery (A hadith not from Muhammad but from a Companion ‘Amru bin Maimun):

*"During the pre-Islamic period of ignorance I saw a she-monkey surrounded by a number of monkeys. They were all stoning it, because it had committed illegal sexual intercourse. I too, stoned it along with them."

Skeptic Abdullah Gondal asks, "How did this narration end up in the most authentic hadith book? Do monkeys have marriages too? Do you need four witnesses for monkey stoning? What was this companion [‘Amru bin Maimun] thinking? Is this supposed [to be] a twisted endorsement of Sharia stonings by the animal kingdom?"

--Louis P. Boog (talk) 04:37, 2 March 2021 (UTC)