Islam in This Regard
The previous chapter has already made it clear that Islam, in terms of the authenticity of its narration, undoubtedly stands out in comparison to all other religious or even general historical narrations.
Islam is the youngest of the three Abrahamic religions and, without doubt, also the most authentically preserved – a fact that no one with a reasonable approach to historical research would dispute.
The most evident features of this authenticity are:
- the early documentation of the Qur'an
- the widespread memorization of the texts
- the narration of tens of thousands of prophetic narrations, scholarly consensus, and statements of early scholars through chains of narration from the very beginning.
Regarding the general public, it is currently evident that neither Muslims nor non-Muslims possess any well-founded understanding of how Islam has been narrated. This is even more apparent in the case of Judaism and Christianity.
People who identify as Muslims generally have at least some superficial awareness of the aforementioned key characteristics of Islamic narration, yet their knowledge remains entirely superficial.
Non-Muslims, on the other hand, generally do not even have the slightest idea about Islamic methods of narration – which is rather peculiar, considering that the tens of thousands of narration chains in the Muslim hadith sciences11 represent a remarkable historical achievement.
The following account of a personal conversation with a Nigerian Christian, who was engaged in missionary work among Muslims, makes it quite clear that most non-Muslims do not even possess a rudimentary understanding – let alone any concrete knowledge – of the Islamic narration methodology.
During the conversation, I asked this man at one point whether he truly believed that, for example, al-Bukhari12 had found the hadiths he narrated on some stones or parchments in the desert. He simply responded, “Yes. Certainly. It must be something like that.”
Although there had been many discussions with people of differing opinions over the decades before this incident, I was astonished by this response. After all, this was someone who carried a few selected texts from the Sahih of al-Bukhari in his pocket for discussions with Muslims, ready to pull out one of the relatively well-known pseudo-arguments at an opportune moment.
When it comes to such purposes, al-Bukhari is, therefore, a familiar name to some. However, there is complete ignorance regarding the actual nature of the narration.
The previously quoted assumption about early hadith sciences – that it might have been based on some excavations in the desert – clearly demonstrates that the person in question had absolutely no understanding of this subject.
Especially since Christians have increasingly been exposed to textual criticism by scholars such as Bart Ehrman, they have – predictably – begun to search for possible weaknesses in the authenticity of Islamic narration in response, following the pattern: If one cannot solve the problem of a lack of authenticity in one's own scripture, then at least, one attempts to find the same problem, even if in a much weaker form, in the other.
In this process, Christians occasionally bring up the Qur'an itself. In doing so, certain claims are made that can already be identified as erroneous with even basic foundational knowledge.
Of course, it is evident that this approach from the Christian side does nothing to change the issue surrounding the lack of authenticity of the Bible.
This is in addition to the already mentioned fact that the difference between Islamic narration and other methods of narration is enormous. One must realize that the mere fact that no other tradition was passed down through chains of narration makes any comparison appear absurd.
Muslim narrators were so meticulous in preserving texts that they recorded even the slightest doubt regarding individual words or specific points in narration chains countless times – often without this having any impact on the overall meaning. Therefore, anyone who believes he can find a historical analogy for this is hereby required to provide the proof.
For this reason, even among non-Muslims, some scholars could not help but express their admiration for Islamic narration in a rather unbiased manner.
For example, David Samuel Margoliouth, a leading British Orientalist13, who passed away in 1940, said in this regard:
But though the theory of the isnad has occasioned endless trouble, owing to the inquiries which have to be made into trustworthiness of each narrator 14, and the fabrication of traditions was a familiar and at times easily tolerated practise 15, its value in making for accuracy16 cannot be questioned, and the Muslims are justified in taking pride in their science of tradition.
In other ancient records we have to take what is told us on the author's assertion: It is rare that a Greek or Roman historian tells us the source of his information.
German researchers especially have written “much on criticism of the sources”, endeavouring to trace the narrative of Biblical writers and others to the materials whence they were obtained.
Where those materials no longer exist, such endeavours can at best provide plausible hypotheses. In the works of Tabari, Baladhuri and Tanukhi the writers themselves spare us this trouble. […]
Margoliouth then mentions that, despite the high standards of the Arab historians, there are also some points of criticism – an issue that would, however, need to be addressed in a separate work on hadith sciences. Margoliouth, for example, refers to the previously mentioned problem of the so-called wadda'in, those individuals who deliberately fabricated hadiths and even created chains of narration for them.
As previously stated, it must be noted here that no one was more familiar with this phenomenon, nor understood it more precisely, than the hadith scholars themselves. Their expertise reached the extent that they could generally identify fabricated hadiths with ease, compile them in dedicated works, and even produce their own biographical collections on weak narrators and the wadda'in, the fabricators of narrations!
In conclusion, Margoliouth reaffirmed his statement regarding the precision and high value of Islamic hadith sciences when he said:
[…] Nevertheless the veracity of the most eminent among the Arab historians attains a high standard and renders their works of great service to humanity.
The findings mentioned in this chapter regarding the topic of Islamic narration should suffice as an introduction within the framework of this book and should also contribute to a better understanding of the narrations referenced later on.
The early Muslim scholars pushed the accuracy of narration to the absolute extreme. For the conditions of that time, these methods were undoubtedly the utmost that was achievable17.
Precisely due to this unique characteristic of Islam, which led to the preservation of its early sources, it is also much more feasible to extract the original doctrine of Islam and, consequently, the Islamic understanding of monotheism from these sources.
Notes
A hadith is a narration from or about the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. The entirety of such narrations is called Sunnah, and constitutes, alongside the Qur'an, the second primary legal source of Islam. (The plural of hadith is ahadith, but it is often adapted to English usage, as is the case in this book, for example: “the hadiths.”)
It should be noted that in the early period of Islam, it was common to refer to narrations from the first following generations as hadith as well. The distinction between hadith specifically for a narration from the Prophet and athar (pl. athar) for other narrations only became established later, though not all scholars of hadith adopted this differentiation.
In this sense, it is not incorrect to generally refer to the narrations of the first generations as hadith narration, hadith sciences, or hadith-related scholarly works. ↩
- The Sahih of al-Bukhari (194–256 AH / 810–870 CE) is the most well-known work of hadith narration. Al-Bukhari lived around 60 years. The narrations in the Sahih of al-Bukhari are regarded by Muslims (Sunnis) as the most authentic hadith narrations of all. Of similar rank is the Sahih compilation of the hadith scholar Muslim ibnu l-Hajjaj (204–261 AH / 820–875 CE). Muslim lived around 55 years. ↩
David Samuel Margoliouth was born in London in 1858 and passed away in the same city in 1940. From 1889 to 1937, he taught Arabic as a professor at the University of Oxford.
For the quoted statement, see page 20 in Lectures on Arabic Historians [Delivered before the University of Calcutta, February 1929] by David Samuel Margoliouth. ↩
Margoliouth clearly highlights here, at the outset, the incredible efforts that had to be undertaken to analyse the vast number of narrated texts, narration chains, and biographies. In the first three centuries, thousands of scholars and narrators dedicated themselves to this work, often devoting their entire lives to it.
Given this vast amount of material, it is not surprising that many people find it overwhelming. However, even among Muslims themselves, it is, of course, not required that every individual to be a hadith scholar. This makes it all the more important for the general Muslim community to have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of narration, even though most Muslims do not have the necessary awareness of this subject.
In any case, the achievements of the early hadith scholars are virtually impossible to replicate. Fundamentally, this also is not necessary, as this work was completed to a sufficient extent by the scholars of the first centuries. From my perspective, the lack of understanding of this point should be regarded as a distortion within modern hadith sciences.
The discrepancy between the methodology of the early and later hadith scholars (al-farqu bayna manhaji l-mutaqaddimina wa-l-muta'akhirina fi-l-hadith) is a crucial topic that is expected to receive significant attention in intra-Islamic discourse in the near future – and indeed must receive such attention. ↩
The phenomenon of the wadda'in – those who fabricated narrations for their own purposes – was well known to Muslim hadith scholars. They examined each of these narrations individually, and due to their extensive knowledge and the obvious flaws in the fabricated chains, it was easy to recognize that these were falsified narrations.
It should not be forgotten that Margoliouth was a historian and not a hadith scholar. The early Arabic works of historiography, such as the well-known work “Tarikhu l-Umami wa-l-Muluk” by at-Tabari, were in no way recognized as authentic by the hadith scholars due to their exceptionally high standards. On the contrary, at-Tabari himself points out these deficiencies in the preface of the mentioned work.
Nevertheless, Margoliouth was evidently astonished by the Muslim tradition, particularly by the vast number of narration chains. Although he primarily engaged with historical works and did not have a deeper insight into the analysis of asanid (chains of narration), he was very much aware of the significant difference compared to other historical narrations. Even these works of Islamic historiography are far more accurate, comprehensive, and detailed than any other historical chronicles, as Margoliouth explicitly states in this quotation!
This is to say nothing of the significant works of hadith narration, in which no statement is narrated except with its corresponding chain of narration, and – depending on the objective of the work – weak narrators were filtered out from the outset. ↩
- He apparently means here: … the value of hadith sciences in developing methods for narration with the highest possible accuracy – wa-llahu a'lam / and Allah knows best. ↩
- This raises, for example, the question of how it is possible that this topic receives little to no serious mention in the study of history at universities worldwide, especially in Western institutions. ↩