Anti-Hadith liars are on the march again …

Yesterday I got an email from a sister in the USA who I am in regular contact with. Somebody has been posting anti-hadith propaganda to a sisters’ email forum she subscribes to, and she wanted advice on it. This particular tract can be found here at “Free-Minds, a place to discover Islam based on GOD Alone”. Notice the spelling of “GOD” in capital letters – typical of anti-hadith activists.

The piece, written by “Layth” (no other name is given), starts off encouraging Muslims to think for themselves, quoting this ayats from the Qur’an:

“And the example of those who reject is that who REPEATS (yan’iq) only what he hears of calls and sounds. Deaf, dumb, and blind; they do not understand” (Quran 2:171)

If one looks at other translations of this verse, it will become clear that the reference is to disbelievers, not to Muslims. It is a classic tactic of heretics of various kinds to use verses and hadiths which clearly refer to unbelievers, and interpret them as if they referred to Muslims – the Kharijites are the best-known for this. There is certainly no licence here to rule for oneself using one’s whims, which is what this author is doing.

Layth then introduces the irrelevance of the gap between the passing away of the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) and the work of the authors of the Sahih collections. Imam Bukhari was the son of someone who had studied under Imam Malik (who was of the followers of the Tabi’een), and himself studied with Imam Ahmad b. Hanbal, who was of the same generation. He then alleges that of 600,000 hadith which the Imam knew of, only 7,397 were authentic, which means 98.76% were lies. This is a complete lie – the few thousand which appear in the Sahih are those which were considered rigorously authenticated, not merely well-authenticated.

Another irrelevancy in this piece is that the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) was reported as saying that nothing should be recorded of his hadith. This hadith is sourced from Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal – an interesting choice, since this is one major collection which has not been translated into English, which leaves most of the readership unable to check the authenticity of the hadith. Even if it is authentic, the written compilations would have been used due to necessity, to prevent the knowledge from dying out. Remember that the Qur’an itself was not compiled until after the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) passed away, due to the large numbers of huffaz (memorisers of the Qur’an) who were being martyred in battle.

Towards the end of the piece, Layth makes the outrageous suggestion that hadith are an effort to replace the Qur’an with something else, and a passage from the Qur’an (10:15-18) referring to rejecting revelation and idol-worship. And this is an outright lie, because displacing the Qur’an has never been suggested, nor changing it. The Muslims from the time of the Sahaba to the present day have obeyed Allah and His Messenger (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam), because whoever obeys the Messenger obeys Allah. Islam is a revelation, and the sayings of the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) are part of the Revelation.

By the way, there is shoddy Arabic throughout this piece – references to “san’ad” (rather than the correct sanad, meaning chain of transmission) and “Sun’an” rather than the correct sunan (plural of sunnah). And he does not once give salaams on the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) in the entire article!