Hadith As Sources For Critical Thinking

 

Chapter VII - Hadith As Sources For Critical Thinking

 

M. Bakri Musa

Adapted from my Qur’an, hadith, and Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking 2021.

July 26, 2026

 

H

adith are sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad, s.a.w., while sunnah, his recorded activities and customary practices. The operative word there is “attributed.” That is often forgotten or not brought to the fore on purpose. I am excluding here hadith qudsi, where the Prophet, s.a.w, was quoting or repeating what Allah had told him. Recorded with fidelity, those should be regarded as integral parts of the revelations.

 

“Attributed” because the Prophet, s.a.w, discouraged his followers from recording his utterances, believing that those could distract from and override the revelations he had received. How prescient was he!

 

Today and throughout Muslim history, controversies (often violent and never ending) over hadith have split the ummah. It is enough for some, like the Qur’anists, to dispense entirely with hadith and revert to or depend exclusively on the Qur’an. As the Tunisian philosopher Mohamed Talbi wisely observed, Qur’an unites, hadith splits.

 

Those Qur’anists however, are missing a precious gift by ignoring hadith and the associated literature. As Jonathan A C Brown writes in his enchanting book, Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenges and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy, hadith and their commentaries reflect the struggles of early Muslims in seeking balance between reason and revelation, reconciling science with religion, and crystallizing the eternal truths of religious texts in times of changing values and circumstances.

 

Between those who reject hadith (the Qur’anists) on one extreme and those who put hadith on par with if not superior to the Qur’an on the other, are the vast majority of Muslims where the traditional hierarchy stands:  Qur’an, the ultimate and unchallenged guide from Allah; followed by hadith; ijma (consensus); and then qiyas (analogical reasoning). At the local operational or retail level, the fatwas (edicts) of local scholars and judges. 

 

Prophet Muhammad, s.a.w., was the last and exclusive bearer of the revelations. That is the tenet of Islam. As such hadith cannot by definition as well as a matter of faith contradict the Qur’an. Where there are differences between the two or between verses within the Qur’an, those must only be apparent, not real. Meaning, we have not exhausted our ijma and qiyas to reconcile them. The efforts must continue. Nor can differences in revelations be simplictically dismissed through “abrogations” where later revelations take precedence over earlier ones. God’s words are perfect; they do not need re-editing much less abrogating.

 

A variant of the Qur’anist movement is the “Qur’an centric” approach where the focus is on reading the Qur’an to clarify its meanings, using materials from and within the text itself, as per Qur’anic injunction. 

 

Aware of human tendencies and weaknesses, the Prophet, s.a.w., wisely prohibited his followers from recording his deeds or memorizing his words. Those prohibitions notwithstanding, many of his companions and followers nonetheless committed to memory many of his utterances and recorded his many deeds as well as habits. Many would emulate his many personal habits and attire, such as sporting long beards.

 

Memories however, are just that; they are less a sponge to help you absorb everything, more a filter to retain what you desire. Memories of hadith are no different.

 

The collection widely viewed as the most sahih (authentic) is that of Imam Bukhari. He was not born till nearly 200 years after the Prophet’s death, that is, many generations later. We could be generous and assume that the recollections of those upon whom Bukhari relied upon were accurate and reliable. Afterall during his time, the pace of change was glacial. Today with the dizzying speed of change we could hardly remember events and things a mere decade ago. Who could recall the sweet voices of those switchboard ladies or the rotary analog phones of only a generation ago?

 

Bukhari in his piety, honesty, and humility admitted the limitations of his methodology of depending on isnads, the uninterrupted chain of narrators. In the introduction to his encyclopedic collection, he acknowledged that he may have included a few false and excluded other authentic hadith. Muslims in our fervor have forgotten his caution. Nor were those narrators neutral players and recollectors. They were for the most part members of the establishment of their time, with their bias (acknowledged or otherwise) towards maintaining the staus quo and that power that be. No surprise that the hadith collection of the shiites are substantially different from that of the sunnis.

 

Next:  A Critique of Traditional Approaches to Hadith