Author: Josip Bolic

Destroying Hadith-Rejectors
Hadith Science is basically the second source of Islamic Law Sharia (after the Qur´an). Through
Hadith Science it was possible to reliably record the quotes, deeds and teachings of the Prophet saws.
(the Sunnah).
I would advice the reader to learn Hadith Science, its methodology and terminology, in order to have
a solid ground for understanding this topic.1 I personally have never met somebody rejecting Hadith
Science, without being terribly ignorant of its basics.

Refuting “arguments” of Hadith Rejectors

Firstly, they say: “All these Hadith collections like Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud,
whatever, were written 200 years after the Prophet saws. How could we possbily trust them, even with
chains of transmission?”
Answer: Here the problem already starts: the ignorance I was talking about. Who said that Islamic
Scholars started recording Hadith after 200 years?
There is no proof, that the Prophet saws ever prohibited writing down his quotes. But, there were
some Sahaba (Companions of the Prophet, First Muslims), who prohibited that, fearing that some
could mix up Gods Word with the words of the Prophet saws.2
But, pious Muslims, who knew the Qur´an by heart like Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As, the Prophet
saws literally ordered them to write down his quotes/ahadith.
There were 50 Sahabah with their collections of Ahadith from the Prophet saws. From the Tabeen
(second generation of Islam), there were 49 collections, and then 251 collections in the third
generation of Islam. Many of these collections do not exist anymore as books, since the content (the
Ahadith) was taken into the later Hadith collections.3 A example is the Hadith Collection of Hammam
ibn Munabbih, who was born only 28 years after the Prophet saws, and whose ahadith are all today in
Sahih Bukhari. Ibn Munnabihs Hadith collection today, can also be purchased.
The Sahabah, the companions of the Prophet, spread throughout the world, proselityzed people and
taught them about Islam, Islamic Law and conveyed the Ahadith of the Prophet. Abu Musa al-Ashari
had 300 students, at least 10 Sahabah went to the big city of Basrah, the Sahabi Abu Darda had 1.600
students, Ibn Abbas, Sahabi and cousin of the Prophet saws was active in Makkah, while Ibn ´Umar
was active in Medina, where three Sahaba were tasked with regularly teaching the children of
Medina.4
The wife of the Prophet saws Aisha, the companions Abu Huraira, Jabir, Ibn Khudayr, Anas ibn
Malik, Abu Musa and Abu Umamah narrate the description of the Prophet saws how to pray:
“"The Imam must be followed. So recite takbir when he recites it, and bow down when he bows. And
when he says 'Allah hearkens to him who praises Him', say '0 Allah, our Lord, praise be to You'. And

1For learning Hadith, ist Methodology and Terminology, see: https://www.islamic-

awareness.org/hadith/ulum/

2 Shaykh Muhammad Mustafa Al Azami, Studies In Early Hadith Literature, Indianopolis, 1978, page 25
3 Ibid, page 34-182, listing these collections and their authors
4 Al- Faryabi, Fadhail al-Qur´an, Riyad, 1989, page 129, al-Bayhaqi, Sunan al-Kubra, Hyderabad, 1344-1355,

6/124, Dhahabi, Siyar ´alam an-nubala, Beiurt, 1981, volume 2, page 344-346, Ibn Sa´d, Tabaqat, Leiden, 1909-
1917, volume 6/3
when he prostrates, you should prostrate. When he raises [his head] you should raise yours, taking
care not to raise [your head] till he raises his. If he prays sitting, you should all pray sitting." 5
This Hadith, this saying of the Prophet saws, with this wording, was narrated by seven Companions,
26 persons form the third generation of Islam, recorded at least 124 times in ten different cities across
the Islamic Caliphate. This is how Hadith was spread and recorded. This is why Muhaddithun (Hadith
Experts) would travel the world to record and memorize Ahadith.
The Prophet saws said: “Whoesoever lies upon me, he prepared his place in Hellfire”. 60
Sahaba/Companions heard the Prophet saws saying this. 60 Sahabah spread this saying throughout the
Islamic World, reocorded by Islamic Scholars, taught from teacher to student.
The great Islamic Scholar Malik ibn Anas (born in the year 93. Of Islamic Calender) wrote his Hadith
Collection Muwatta. Malik recorded from his teacher Nafi and he from the great Companion Ibn
´Umar and he from the Prophet saws. Hadith experts call this “th golden chain of transmission”.
Abu Hanifa (born in year 80) learned Islam from scholars ike ´Ata ibn Abi Rabbah, who learned from
200 Sahaba, who learned from the Prophet saws. One of Abu Hanifas teachers was also Sammak ibn
Harb, who learned from 80 Sahaba.
There were also scholars like Ibn Shihab az-Zuhri (born 47 years after the Prophet) who wrote ahadith
and conveyed them to his students like Ibn Ishaq (who wrote a biography of the Prophet saws) and
Ma´mar ibn Rashid, who wrote his Hadith collection.
The great Hadith scholar Abu Dawud at-Tayalisi (born in 133) travelled the whole Islamic world and
wrote his Hadith collection. The grreat Islamic Jurist Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi´ (born in 150)
wrote his Hadith collection and a 800-page summary of Islamic Law.
The Hadith Scholar Ali ibn al-Madini (born in 161) wrote his Hadith collections and also other Books
talking about the details of Hadith Science. His friend and the great Islamic Jurist and Hadith Scholar
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (born in 164) collected his 20-volume Hadith Collection (Musnad).
The historian Fuat Sezgin in his dissertatuion talked about the Written records in the first century of
Islam.6 The British historian Nabia Abbott published many early Hadith manuscripts from the forst
century of Islam.7
All this, before Bukhari and the others were even born.

The Ideological Fathers of Hadith Rejection

When people reject Hadith science, they do this having no clue how this science works and recycling
the nonsense which was made up by the Orientalists Ignaz Goldziher and Joseph Schacht.
Goldziher claimed, that Hadith could not be recorded and spread, since many people were still non-
Muslims in big parts of the Caliphate. He mentions how Sahaba had to teach people in Syria and Iraq

5Azami, The History of Quranic Text, Leicester, page 170-171 (graphic presentation of the Hadith and ist chains
of transmission)
6 Fuat Sezgin, Buharinin Kaynaklari, 1956 (Turkish)

7Nabia Abbott: Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri. I. Historical Texts. Chicago University Press 1957, N.
Abbott, Studies In Arabic Literary Papyri: Qur'anic Commentary And Tradition, 1967, Volume II, University
of Chicago Press: Chicago (USA)
how to pray, how people did not even know what sadaqat al-fitr is, the governor Utba ibn Nahhas
could not differentiate between the Qur´an and a poem etc.
His conclusions are hopelesly false. The Caliphate included a big territory and Islam aimes to root out
paganism and ignorance, thus, of course Sahabah were teaching people how to implement Islam. Thus
questioning the whole Hadith Science is unbelievably inane.
Thus, you could draw many conclusions about Goldzihers´ Jews: that rabbis regularyl rape children
ans their wives8, that Jews sell their daughters into prostitution9, that Jews despise all non-Jews and
want to enslave them10.
I think it is obvious, why it is apsurd to draw such general conclusions based on a couple of individual
examples, especially when Goldzihers sources are dubious. For example the claim that Utbah could
not differentiate the Qur´an from a poem: this story (riwayat) is not just false from the aspect of the
chain of transmission, but also logically. Utba died in the year 50, while Awana died in 85, so they
could not have met, as this riwaya falsely claims.11
Goldziher and other Western Historians claim that Hadith were almost exclusively transmitted orally,
since the chain of transmission include phrases like haddathana ,‫ حدثنا‬or akhbarana ,‫ اخبارنا‬which means
he told us, or he reported us.12
This conclusion is (as all the arguments of the Orientalists) based on false assumptions. As we have
seen, the ahadith of the Prophet saws were recorded since his life-time and shuyukh (teachers) wouzld
regularyl read from their Hadith collections and their students would note this as “he told us” and
there are many examples for that.13 Even Orientalists like Aloys Sprenger acknowledged that. 14
Goldzihers nonsense was uncritically accepted by Joseph Schacht, who repeated and even deteriorated
the errors and blunders of his idol.
Schacht tries to cast doubt, whether the golden chain of transmission is credible, since we do not
know, whether Malik met Nafi´, since we do not know when Malik was born. This is totally false.
Western historians have no clue about the basics of Islamic History. Most historians, even
contemporaries of Malik, record that he was bron in the year 93. The latest date which historians give
is 97. That means, that Malik was at least 20, if not 27 when Nafi´ died, and since both lived their
whole lives in Madina, they surely met.15
The core claim of Schacht, Goldziher and those like them is that Hadith were made up by Islamic
Jurists to find answers on jurisprudential questions.16 This claim is nonsense.
Fiqh (Jurisprudence) and Hadith Science are two totally different departments. Fuqaha (jurists) would
use Ahadith which were recorded and scrutinized by Hadith experts. Thus, it was possbile to be a
great Jurist but not a great a Hadith scholar.
Once the hadith scholar Sulayman al-´Amash (born in the year 61) was having a lecture, where a man
came in and asked him jurisprudential questions. Although a great Hadith scholar (al-´Amash appears
in the chains of transmission in Sahih Bukhar), al-´Amash had no answer. But, his student Abu Hanifa

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_cases_in_Brooklyn%27s_Haredi_community
9
10 Talmud
11 Azami, Studies, page 14
12 Like: Margoliouth, Omar's instruction to the Kadi, J.R.A.S. 1910, p. 308.,
13 Azami, ibid, page 293-300
14 Aloys Sprengler, J.A.S.B., 1850, page 109
15 Azami, ibid, page 244-245
16 Ignaz Goldziher, Muh. Studien, Hildesheim, 1961, volume 2, page 194, J. Robson, The Isnad, 1955, page 20
was sitting there and answered all questions. Al-´Amash was surprised and Abu Hanifa answered him,
that he derived the jurisprudential answers from the Ahadith that Al-Amash taught them.17
Schacht himself tries to give examples of “forging” ahadith by arbitrarily attributing them chains of
transmission, but the Islamic Scholar Mustafa Azami refutes every single example Schacht gave,
showing his logical fallacies, his poor Arabic and the bad mansuscripts that Schacht was using.18
But, lets leave historiography for a moment and lets just for a second use common sense: if Jurists
made up Ahadith to jutsify their claims, then how is it possible that weak ahadith (‫ )ضعيف‬or forged
ahadith exist? While “making up” hadith, why didn´t jurists take famous and reliable hadith
transmitters and concocted with them sound chains of transmission? Why is it that Islamic Hadith
experts record ahadith from anti-Islamic sects, like the Shiah, the zaydiyya, or kharijiyya?
Why is it that those “mean” and “prejudiced” Islamic hadith scholars record reports and hadith from
the enemies of Islam?
Schacht tries to answer this disastrous problem, by claiming that these sects lived with Muslims and
thus acquired the ahadith from the Muslims19, but this conclusion is false and again casts doubt
whether Western historians have any clue about the basiscs of history. The Shia, zaydiyya, kharijis
etc.were small vanishing minoirties and they hated the Muslims and waged wars against them. Even
today, the Shiah curse Muslims in their country Iran.
Some claim: “But Muslims are so prejudiced! They only accept Hadith Transmitters who are
Muslims!”
Answer: This is false. Islamic Hadith experts were very objective. They also accepted for example
Shias as reliable transmitters, as long as they had a good memory and did not change the reported
ahadith.An example would be the Shia transmitter Muhammad ibn Abdullah an-Naysaburi.
The Hadith Expert Abu Ishaq al-Juzajani (born in the year 180) says: “Not every heretic is a liar and
not every liar is a heretic, but lying is heresy enough”.20
A second essential claim of Goldziher and Schacht is their assumption, that chains of transmission got
more perfect as time passed, so Schacht makes the blunder by quoting early Jurists (Fuqaha), qutoing
Ahadith with incomplete and scrappy chains of transmission.21
As we said earlier, you do not learn Hadith science from books of jursiprudence (Fiqh). Thus,
Schacht knows nothing about the Hadith scholars, who were contemporaries or even older than the
jurists he quoted.
The Fuqaha themselves say: Our focus is to answer the jurisprudential question.This is the focus, thus
we do not need to quote the entire chain of transmission.
Let´s quote just one, but very signifant and famous scholar: Shafi´. He says about this: “Every Hadith
I have copied out (meaning in his books) with Munqati (full) chain of transmission , I have heard it
with complete chain or transmitted by well-known authorities relating from well-known authorities.
But I disliked quoting a Hadith which I did not memorize well. I lost some of my books but have
verified what I have remembered from what is known to scholars; I have made it brief, being afraid of

17 Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al.Kandahlawi, Awjāz-ul-Masālik ilá Muwattā Imām Mālik, 2003, publisher. Dar al-
Qalam, volume 1
18 Azami, Studies, page 238-244
19 J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence , 2nd edition, Oxford, 1959., page 260
20 Juzajani, Ahwal ar-rijal, introduction
21Azami, ibid, pages 222, 240, 250
its volume, and have given only what will be sufficient, without exhausting all that can be known
about the subject".22
Thus, Schacht quotes a hadith with its interrupted chain and then quotes later sources with the
“improved” version of the chain. Schacht literally embarrasses himself by overlooking the numerous
Hadith Experts, who lived before the Jurists he quotes, and who quote the Hadith with the full chain.
Schacht quotes a hadith with two chains, claiming that the great scholar Ibrahim an-Nakhai´ (born in
the year 50) was later added into the chains, to give them more credibility. As a source for the
incomplete chains, Schacht quotes the jurist Tahawi (died in 321). Well, Nakhai´ appears in older
books 150 years BEFORE Tahawi23, rendering Schachts conspiracy theory false.
Schacht and Goldziher use another oversimplified assumption: if a hadith is not mentioned in earlier
written sources, then it must be forged. This thinking is false. We also need to scruti ize the chain of
transmission. Otherwise, this assumption can easily be turned against Schacht: the great Islamic
Scholar Muhammad Ash-Shaybani (born in the year 131) had a own edition of Maliks hadith
collection al-Muwatta. Shaybani left out many ahadith. There is no reason to think that Shaybani did
not know about them or that he thought bad about these ahadith, in fact, he mentions these ahadith in
hsi other books. But, as scholars themseves say: We do not write down every single hadith which we
know. It is true that, if a hadith gets mention exclusively in later collections, that that requries a very
detailed scrutiny, but to automatically conclude that it is forged is insane and wrong.24
The sources of Jurisprudence are the Qurán, the Sunnah (praxis of the Prophet),analogy and
consensus. When the Sahabah (first generation of Islam) had a consensus, when they were
unanimously agreed upon a issue, all Muslims have to accept that, since nobody knows Islam better
than the Compainions of the Prophet saws themselves. But, if there is a difference of opinion
regarding a topic, then we look into the evidence and arguments of each side. Thus it occurred, that
Islamic Scholars would disagree with a Sahabi or Tabii´ and critisise his opinion. Malik for instance
would disagree with ´Urwah. If Islamic scholars invented ahadith and riwayat, then why are they
disagreeing with the opinions they themselves have made up? Well, obviously, they did not lie, but
were truthfull, in contrast to Western historians25
But, give credit where credit is due, there were Western historians who did not accept Goldzihers and
Schachts conspiracy theoriers at face value, but refuted them. Harald Motzki is, for instance, a
German historian who refuted Schachts theories in his book Analyzing Muslim Traditions: Studies in
Legal, Exegetical and Maghazi Hadith (2009). Jonathan A.C. Brown, Doctor of Islamic Thought from the
University of Chicago, concludes that Motzki convincingly shows that studies of early hadith and law by
Joseph Schacht and the late G. H. A. Juynboll ,,used only a small and selective body of sources, based on
sceptical assumptions which, taken together, often asked the reader to believe a set of coincidences far
more unlikely than the possibility that a hadith might actually date from the genesis of the Islamic
community.”26
The British historian John Burton concludes: “Some Western scholars, too, have expressed reservations
about the hypotheses of Goldziher and Schacht. My own position is that the wholesale rejection of the

22 Shafi´, Risalah, Cairo, 1940, page 431, see full discussion: Azami, Ibid, page 218-236
23 Abu Yusuf, Kitab al-athar, Cairo, 1355, page 141

24 Azami, On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Lahore, Pakistan, page 120-121

25 Ibid, page 63
26 Book review by Jonathan Brown of Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and Maghāzī

Ḥadīth. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 78 by Harald Motzki, Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort, Sean W.
Anthony, Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 131, No. 3 (July–September 2011), p. 473
hadîths as mere invention and fabrication misses the point that many of the hadîths can be shown to spring
from an ancient source in the primitive exegeses.”27

John Esposito, Professor for Islam at Georgetown University, says: “Accepting Schacht's conclusion
regarding the many traditions he did examine does not warrant its automatic extension to all the traditions.
To consider all Prophetic traditions apocryphal until proven otherwise is to reverse the burden of proof.
Moreover, even where differences of opinion exist regarding the authenticity of the chain of narrators, they
need not detract from the authenticity of a tradition's content and common acceptance of the importance of
tradition literature as a record of the early history and development of Islamic belief and practice.”28

Schacht wrote his book about Islamic Jurisprudence, where he tried to prove that early Islamic
Scholars rejected Ahadith. That is wrong. Schacht acknowledges, that the Qur´an we have today is the
same as at the time of the Prophet saws. But since that is the case, Schacht is ignoring all the verses
which explcitily order Muslims, to refer to the Prophet saws.
,,Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it. And whatever he forbids you from, leave it”
(Qur´an, surah Hashr, ayah 7)
,,Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “If you ˹sincerely˺ love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you and forgive
your sins. For Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
(Qur´an, surah Ali Imran; ayah 31)
,,But no! By your Lord, they will never be ˹true˺ believers until they accept you ˹O Prophet˺ as the
judge in their disputes, and find no resistance within themselves against your decision and submit
wholeheartedly.”
(Qur´an, surah Nisa, ayah 65)
,,And remember what is recited in your houses of the verses of Allah and wisdom. Indeed, Allah is
ever Subtle and Aware.”
(Qur´an, surah Ahzab, ayh 34)
In this last verse, God commands the wives of the Prophet saws to not just memorise the verses of
God (i.e. the Qur´an), but also a hikmah-wisdom. What is this? That is the Sunnah! These are the
quotes/ahadith, deeds and actions of the Prophet saws. His wives truly fulfiled this command. One of
the persons who narrates and transmitts many of the ahadith of the Prophet was his wife Aisha.
Besides that, God says explicitly in many other places in the Qur´an, that one has to refer to the
actions, deeds and sayings of the Prophet saws.29
But, to prove his fanciful theory, Schacht quotes some examples of jurisprudential cases, where he
claims that scholars rejected ahadith. At virtually every case, Schacht translates falsely, takes out of
context or even makes stuff up.30 It is truly weird how he tries to prove that Malik ibn Anas did not
consider Sunnah to be valid, while Malik explicitly mentions Sunnah as authority in hundreds of

27 John Burton, An Introduction To The Hadîth, 1994, Edinburgh University Press, p. 181.
28 J. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, 1998, Oxford University Press, p. 81.
29 The Holy Qur´an 7:157, also 59:7, see also: 5:44-49, and 12:40 and 33:36
30 Azami, On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Lahore, Pakistan, page 45-54
instances in his book al-Muwatta.31 The situation is no different to other scholars, even before Malik
who referred to the action or quote of the Prophet as a source.3233
Schacht falsely claims that early scholars only considered the Qu´ran as authority. If that is the case,
then they must have accepted Ahadith as well, since God explicilty orders numerous times in the
Qur´an to refer to the quotes/ahadith, deeds and actions of the Prophet saws.
Basically, hadith-rejectors are a bunch of conspiravy-theorists, who blindly believe that dozens,
hundreds and even thousands of Hadith Experts colluded with each other beyond all cities, lands and
continents, to forge thousands of ahadith and chains of transmissions and volumes of biographies of
transmitters, of whom some were trustworthy and reliable and others were not.

The Manusrcripts of the Hadith Collections

Thus, they say: “Bukhari claims that from 600,00 ahadith only 20,000 are authentic! See, how they
forged!”
Answer: Ignorance is very embarrassing, especially in regards to Hadith Science. Hadith experts
count ahadith this way: 12 Sahaba narrate a quote from the Prophet saws. That is counted as 12
ahadith. Ist the chain of transmission that matters, not the text (‫ )متن‬of the Hadith. These 12 Sahabah
would further narrate this Hadith to their students, and they to theirs...counting this way, we come to
600,000 ahadith. The British historian Nabia Abbott says:
“using geometric progression, we find that one to two thousand Companions and senior Successors
transmitting two to five traditions each would bring us well within the range of the total number of
traditions credited to the exhaustive collections of the third century. Once it is realised that the isnad
(chain of transmission) did, indeed, initiate a chain reaction that resulted in an explosive increase in
the number of traditions, the huge numbers (600,000) that are credited to Ibn Hanbal, Muslim and
Bukhari seem not so fantastic after all.”34
By the way, Bukhari himself states, that he did not include all authentic ahadith that exist in his Sahih,
since his book would be then truly too big.35
The Hadith Scholar Abu Nuaym al-Isfahani (born 336) wrote his Hadith collection al-Mustakhraj,
where he quotes all Ahadith from al-Bukhari, but through his chains, through his teachers,
independent of Bukhari. Thus, he shows the precision of Bukhari in writing and narrating.
Hadith-rejectors then start whining: “Why don´t you allow to attack Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim and
the other collections?! Are they God´s word?!
Answer: No. There are conditions to authenticate a Hadith. Bukhari and Muslim have interpreted
these conditions in such a narrow and demanding way and set such strict criteria, like no Scholar
before or after them. Throughout history, Hadith experts have always revised Bukhari and Muslim
and confirmed their authenticity. The only form of criticism that was brought up was by Imam
Daraqutni (major Hadith Expert) who claimed that there are some Hadith in Sahih Bukhari, where

31Malik ibn Anas, Muwatta, Cairo, 1951, page 92-93, 105, 124. 145-146, 248, 263-264, 274, 283, 313-314, 323,
325, 337, 340, 342, 414, 514, 644, 649, 663, 706, 725 ,720, 761, 773, 779, 782, 789, 805, 833, 853-854, 859,
870, 879, 892, 912, 950, 983, 993, etc.
32
33 Azami, ibid, page 69-72
34 N. Abbott, Studies In Arabic Literary Papyri, Volume II [Qur'anic Commentary & Tradition], 1967, University
Of Chicago Press: Chicago (USA), p.72
35 Abi Bakr Ahmad Ibn `Ali al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad Aw Madinah as-Salam, 1931 (1349 AH),

Volume II, Maktabat al-Khanji, Cairo & Al-Maktabah al-`Arabiyyah, Baghdad and Matba'at as-S'adah near the
State Department, Cairo, pp. 8-9.
Bukhari did not totally apply his strict criteria. So, there are ahadith, they are also great, but not so
great as Bukhari promised. This is the harshest criticism which was brought up.
You yourself are allowed to question the authenticity of a Hadith in Bukhari or Muslim, but you need
to bring evidence. There the problem lies: what could you possbly bring up, what 1200 years of
Islamic Scholarship could not find? Those people who question Sahih Bukahri, Sahih Muslim or even
Hadith Science in general are always such deplorable individuals, without any knowledge about it
Hence, you have hadith-rejectors who even question that Bukhari was the author in the first place:
“We do not have any mansucripts of Sahih Bukhari! The only student of him who copied the Sahih is
al-Firabri, and he was endorsed as reliable only 200 years later!”
Answer: Wrong. Besides al Firabri, other students of Bukhari copied his Sahih, too, like Hammad ibn
Shakir and an-Nasafi. And no, Firabri was endorsed by contemporary hadith scholars, like Abul
Walid al Baji. Besides dozens of manuscripts of Sahih Bukhari which are listed in the footnote36, there
are dozens of commentaries of Sahih Bukhari from other scholars, where they commented every
single hadith37, and also Bukhari worte other books like Tarikh al.Kabir.
Then they say: “But, why does Bukhari appear himself in the chains of transmission sometimes?
Doesn´t this indicate that the book was later changed by other people?”
Answer: No, and if you would start educating yourself you would not spew such nonsense. When a
teacher wrote a book he transmitted it to his students whoo copied it, and they would transdmitt it to
their students whou would copy it again etc. Thus, the students would mention the names of their
teacher they got the book from. Hence the name of the author appears in the book, sometimes at the
beginning of each chapter or even at every chain of transmission.
Some even tried to question the authenticity of al-Muwatta,claiming there are contradictory versions
of it. That is wrong. Al-Muwatta was written by Malik ibn Anas and it is transmitted by 93 persons.38
Also, the oldest manuscript of al-Muwatta comes from the life-time of Malik himself and the
mauscript was published by the British Historian Nabia Abbott39, who also published many other such
mansuscripts from the first centuries of Islam.

Hadith-rejectors attack Transmitters

Hadith-rejectors even try to question the reliabiliy of the transmitters themselves. For instance:” Abu
Huraira was Sahabi and narrates over 5000 ahadith from the Prophet although he knew the Prophet
only for four years. Other Sahabaha, much older, narrate significantly less ahadith. Wasn´t Abu
Huaraira making up?”

36 For example: Al-Qābisī’s manuscript, Al-Aṣīlī’s Manuscript, Ibn Saʿādah’s Manuscript, Al-Maqdisī’s
Manuscript, A Manuscript Read Back to Levantine Ḥadīth Experts, Al-Ghazūlī’s Manuscript, Al-Nuwayrī’s
Manuscript, A Secondary Copy of al-Ṣaghānī’s Manuscript, Ibn al-Muḥibb’s Manuscript, A Secondary Copy of
al-Baṣrī’s Manuscript (List is not complete by far)
37 List of names of 257 scholars throughout history who wrote commentaries on Sahih Bukhari:

https://attahawi.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/d8b4d8b1d988d8ad-d8b5d8add98ad8ad-
d8a7d984d8a8d8aed8a7d8b1d98a.pdf
38 Y. Dutton, The Origin Of Islamic Law: The Qur'an, The Muwaṭṭaʾ And Madinan ʿAmal, 1999, op. cit., note 6, p.

188. Fore more details see Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Zurqānī, Sharh ʿala Ṣaḥīḥ al-Muwaṭṭaʾ li-Mālik ibn
Anas, Volume I, op. cit., p. 6
39 N. Abbott, Studies In Arabic Literary Papyri: Qur'anic Commentary And Tradition, 1967, Volume II, University

of Chicago Press: Chicago (USA), p. 127

Answer: Firstly: It is difficult to conclude how many ahadith are narrated through Abu Huraira. There
are accounts of much lesser figures.
Secondly: When it says: narrated through Abu Huraira, it includes authentic ahadith which are truly
transmitted through him, and also forged ones that were falsely ascribed to him.
Thirdly: Abu Huraira was a young and poor man when he converted to Islam and came to Madina.
Hence, he lived in the mosque and was close to the Prophet saws, learning and memorizing from him.
Abu Huraira outlived other senior Sahaba for several decades. Abu Huraira lived to see the second
generation of Islam and narrated many of the teachings of the Prophet saws to them.
Fourthly: Most of what Abu Huraira narrates is corroboated through others. For instance the hadith of
the Prophet saws: “We are the last ones in this world but the first ones in the Hereafter”
Since the Qur´an is the last Revelation of God, we Muslims are the last community in history, but we
will be the best one in the Hereafter. Abu Huraira heard this hadith from the Prophet and Abu Huraira
further trasnmitted it to seven of his students. But, there were also others who heard the Prophet
saying this and transmitted this from him, like Hudhayfa ibn Yaman and Mu´awiya ibn Hayda. For
more on Abu Huraira, refer to the books in footnote.40
There is no reason to reject the reliability of the Sahaba. The Sahaba realized the evil of kufr and
paganism and accpeted Islam and spent over 23 years defending Islam from Pagan Arab tribes who
attacked it. Sahaba went through much hardship, brought their whole families and tribes against
themselves, which was a painful step especially for Arabs, who valued family over everything at that
time. They went through all of that, for Islam. Also, Sahaba narrated ahadith and reports which do not
present them in a good light. I have elisted just some examples in the footnote.41
Hadith-rejectors even claim that ahadith were made up in order to serve dinasties like the Umayyads.
This is a pathological example of how they base everything on assumptions, while never feeling
obliged to prove the validity of these assumptions. The founding father of the Umayyads was Umayya
ibn Abdushshams. There is not even a forged hadith that the Porphet saws ever mentioned him, let
alone praised him. Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan was one of the most significant Umayyad rulers. There
are a couple of ahadith wich show his piety and goodness, but there is only one Hadith where the
Prophet saws himself explicilty praises him42, even thoguh Muawiya was the brother-in-law of the
Messenger saws.
So, the claim that Ahadith were invented for dynasties is false, in fact, plenty of hadith warn rulers,
threaten them and praise the ones standing up to unjust rulers.43 Hadith Experts would criticise
transmitters who were close to the government44, many Hadith scholars were in conflict with

40 ´Abdulmun´im Saleh al-´Aliyy al-´Azzi, Def´a ´an Abi Huraira, oublisher:Dar al-Qalam, 1981, ´Abdullah ibn
´Abdul´aziz ibn ´Ali an-Nasir, Burhan
41 Musnad Ahmad Nr. 21745, Sahih Bukhari 4269

Sunan Abi Dawud 2643, Sunan an-Nasai 8541m Sahih Muslim 96

Musnad Ahmad 21432, Sahih Bukhari 30, Sahih Muslim 1661
Jami´at Tirmidhi 2017
42 Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Fadhail as-Sahaba, 1983, first edition, page 913-915
43 See: Ibn Hanbal, Ahmed. Musnad Ahmed. Edited by Shuayb Al-Arnaout and Adel Murshid, 1st ed., vol. 31 45,

Muassasat Al-Resalah, 2001., 126

44 See examples: Ibn Al-Junayd, Ibrahim. Su’alat Ibn Al-Junayd Li-Abi Zakariyya, Yaha b. Ma’in. Edited by Ahmed

Saif, 1st ed., vol. 1 1, Maktabat Al-Dar, Medina, 1988., 355, Ibn Hanbal, Al-‘Ilal Wa Ma’rifat Al-Rijal, Riwayat
‘Abdullah. Edited by Wasiullah Abbas, 2nd ed., vol. 1 3, Dar Al-Khani, 2001., 434, Ibn Abi Hatem,
‘Abdurrahman. Al-Jarh Wal-Ta’dil. 1st ed., vol. 3 9, Dar Ihyaa’ Al-Turath Al-‘Arabi, 1952. 230, Ibn ‘Adiyy,
‘Abdullah. Al-Kamil Fi Du’afaa’ Al-Rijaal. Edited by Adel Abdulmawjood and Ali Mawadh, 1st ed., vol. 7 9, Al-
government, like Malik ibn Anas or Ahmad ibn Hanbal. It is funny how the “arguments” of Hadith-
rejectors fell apart with a basic knowledge of Hadith Science and Islamic History.

Non-Islamic Sources
Patria Crone, one of the so-called revisionist scholars, who totally question the validiy of Islamic
history claimed, that Hadith Science can not be trusted, since early non-Islamic sources do not agree
witht the accounts in authentic ahadith. Ironically, Robert Hoyland, once a student of Crone and today
professor for early Arabic history, refuted Crones theories, showing the dubious character of the often
anonymous non-Islamic sources. Hoyland also shows, that the early non.Islamic sources affirm the
accounts in Islamic books.45 Hoyland also wrote a almost 1000-page long book in which he presented
and quoted various non-Islamic sources from the first centuries of Islam, mentioning the Prophet
Muhammad saws and Islam.46 Thus, Hoyland also refuted extremist Western scholars who in recent
time denied that the Prophet existed. Professor of Arab history Michael Morony notes that
non.Islamic sources regularly describe the same history as Islamic sources.47
Crone herself later denounced her theories, only to later come up with more insanities, like claiming
that Muslims only in later times saw Makkah as significant. “All mosques” from the early time of
Islam are “actually” directed towards Jerusalem. Her myths were imediately accepted by Dan Gibson,
Moshe Sharon and other so-called historians. The British Historian David King is a historian of Islam
and a expert for astronomy. He refuted her theories, exposing her false assumptions, mathematical
mistakes, and her general ignorance of the early methods of determining directions.48
Moshe Sharon also made up his inane theories. He claims that all the ahadith in the Hadith collections
mentioning the Jews and the encounters of the Prophet with Jews were forged.49 The Israeli historian
Zeev Maghen even claims that Jews never lived at that time in the Arabian Peninsula50. Of course
neither Maghen nor Sharon felt obliged to prove their claims of forgery: they take their assumptions at
face value.
The Jewish historian Haggai Mazuz wrote a book, showing that Islamic sources very accurately
describe Jews, their practices and beliefs. Also, Mazuz presents jewish sources showing that Jews
indeed lived at that time in the Arabian Peninsula. Mazuz says: “If so, the foregoing study of Islamic
sources, inferentially confirmed by Jewish sources, lends itself to three conclusions: the Islamic
sources presented above are in fact authentic, their reports about the religous and spiritual lives of the
Jews in Madina pass the historicity test- meaning ipso facto that the hypotheses concerning the
existence of the Medinan Jewish community pass this test as well.”51
But, lets put historiography put aside and, again, just use common sense: if Hadith Scholars forged all
that, then why didn´t they do that in favour of Muslims? All the Ahadith and Islamic Historiography
says, that the Jews were skeptic and even hateful towards the Muslims. Why didn´t the “forgers” of

Kotob Al-‘Ilmiyyah, 1997. 570, See: Al-Ajlan, Ibrahim bin Salih. Al-Muhaddithun Wal-Siyasah. 1st ed., vol. 1 1,
Risalat Al-Bayan, 2017.
45 Gregor Schoeler, The Biography of Muhammad, Routledge, 2014
46 R. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as others Saw it, Darwin Press, 1997
47 Michael G. Morony. International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Aug., 1999), pp. 452–453

48 D. A. King, "The Sacred Direction In Islam: A Study Of Interaction Of Religion & Science In The Middle Ages",
Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 1985, Volume 10, also: D. A. King's, "Astronomical Alignments In The
Medieval Islamic Architecture", Annals Of The New York Academy Of Sciences, 1982, Vol. 385, D. A. King,
"Science In The Service Of Religion: The Case Of Islam" in Astronomy In The Service Of Islam, 1993, Variorum:
Hampshire (Great Britain),
49 M. Sharon, The Decisive Battles, Studia Orientalia 101 (2007), page 301
50 Zeev Maghen, After Hardship, Berlin-New York, 2006, page 210 n.2
51 Haggai Mazuz, The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Madina, Leiden-Boston, page 102
Hadith just make up a convenient story, how all Jews immediately converted to Islam? But this just
shows the honesty and accuracy of Hadith Science but it also exposes how the “arguments” of Hadith-
rejectors and Western historians fell apart through the simplest scrutiny

There are other examples of Western historians taking their theories at face value. For instance, Abu
Sufyan narrates his encounter in Jerusalem with the Byzantine King Heraclius, who asked him about
Muhammad. This enocunter is, among other, narrated in Sahih Bukhari.52 The German historian
Stefan Leder claims this to be a forgery, since Heraclius was in the year 630 in Jerusalem, while Abu
Sufyan was in Makkah and converted to Islam.53 This is false. Actually, Heraclius was in Jerusalem in
the year 629 (the French historian Constantin Zuckermann wrote a whole book about that54), making
it very possible that he met Abu Sufyan.
Lets just logically think: how could the medieval European sources, oftenly written by anonymous
monks or authors, who used anyonymius sources and do not mention their sources at all, writing more
entertainment and literature instead historiography: how could this be possibly used to judge Hadith
Science? We Muslims were the only ones seeing historiography as means to find out what actually
happened, by criticially examining sources. Historiography is science.
The well-known British historian Bernard Lewis admitts that:

“But their careful scrutiny of the chains of transmission and their meticulous collection and
preservation of variants in the transmitted narratives give to medieval Arabic historiography a
professionalism and sophistication without precedent in antiquity and without parallel in the
contemporary medieval West. By comparison, the historiography of Latin Christendom seems poor
and meagre, and even the more advanced and complex historiography of Greek Christendom still falls
short of the historical literature of Islam in volume, variety and analytical depth.”55
Kuffar did not think this way. Writing about historical events was mere literature for them, story-
telling. It was not until the 19th century, that non-Muslims started criticiallyg examining sources. The
founder of modern Western historiography56 in this regard was the Prussian historian Leopold von
Ranke, who famously stated, that it is the job of a historian, to find out “how it actually happened”
(wie es eignetlich gewesen ist).
Thus, kuffar are falling back for 1200 years.

CONCLUSION
So, Alhamudlillahi rabbil ´alamin, for giving us Islam and such a careful, precise, caring and
intelligent ´Ulama.
If you are a hadith-rejector, it is time for you to leave your illusion. But if you keep blindly and
stubbornly denying Hadith Science, be at least quiet in the future and stop spewing nonsense and
misinformation. If you encounter a hadith which you personally do not like, then do not be dumb and
reject the whole Science. If you do not like Math, do not embarrass yourself by trying to refute it.

52 Sahih Bukhari, Nr. 7

53 Stefan Leder: Heraklios erkennt den Propheten. Ein Beispiel für Form und Entstehung narrativer
Geschichtskonstruktionen. In: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Band 151, 2001,
54 Zuckerman, Constantin (2013). Heraclius and the return of the Holy Cross. Constructing the Seventh Century.

Travaux et mémoires. Paris: Association des amis du Centre d'histoire et civilisation de Byzance. pp. 197–218
55 Bernard Lewis, Islam In History, 1993, Open Court Publishing, pp.104-105.

56 Hoefferle, Caroline (2011). The Essential Historiography Reader. Boston, MA: Pearson. p. 68.
Instead, ask a scholar to explain the hadith, learn Arabic to be able to understand the shuruh i.e.
explantions and commentaries of the Scholars and be able to question your prejudices and prec-
cOnceived beliefs and do not take them at face value.
Wa billahi tawfiq