From the first century of Hijra, when political and theological sects emerged to discuss Islamic issues from different perspectives, to the present day, it is known that some groups or individuals have put forward ideas on hadiths that contradict the general acceptance. Today and in the recent past, some scholars, mostly from Egypt, who were largely influenced by orientalists, and some groups emerging in India have raised doubts about the soundness of the hadiths and their attribution to the Prophet; as a result, some extremists have argued that hadiths should not be trusted in any way and that the Qur’an should be completely sufficient, while some relatively moderate people have argued that hadiths about events (ghayb) such as the description of heaven and hell cannot be trusted.

The main claims of the opponents of hadith in the Islamic world can be listed as follows:

1-Thousands of hadiths cannot be transmitted reliably to later periods when the Prophet forbade the writing of hadiths; therefore, hadith books compiled and edited as late as the third (IXth) century cannot be trusted. As stated in the history of hadith, the Prophet forbade the writing of hadiths in general in the early periods when there was a possibility of his own words being mixed with the Qur’an, but he allowed some of his Companions to write in a special way and this prohibition was lifted after a while. The treaties made by the Prophet, the letters he sent to kings, tribal heads, his own commanders and governors, and the written orders he gave to the zakat officials are the first written documents of his hadiths. The sahîfs in which some of the Companions wrote or dictated the hadiths are also among the first written examples of the Sunnah. On the other hand, the Arabs attached as much importance to oral narration as to written literature in transmitting their culture to later generations, and they produced hadith scribes such as Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, who said that he never forgot anything he memorised (Ibn Ḥajar, Tehẕīb al-Tahẕīb, IX, 448). The first narrators of the hadiths, the Companions and the tābiīs, followed the Prophet’s advice, “Take what I have taught you and teach it to the people who cannot come here” (al-Bukhārī, “ʿImān,” 40) and “Let those who are here communicate it to those who are absent” (al-Bukhārī, “ʿIlm,” 9, 37) with religious responsibility and narrated the hadiths both in writing and orally. The claim that the prominent Companions narrated very few hadiths is baseless, and the statement that the Messenger of Allah was against the transmission of hadiths and would have had them recorded in writing if he had deemed it necessary is not accurate. Hadiths were edited as early as the first (VIIth) century, and by the second (VIIIth) century, almost no unrecorded hadith material was left unrecorded, and in addition to the musnads, works such as muwatta’, jāmi’ and sunnah, which were classified according to their subjects, were produced.

2-Since most of the hadiths were narrated in the literal sense, their attribution to the Prophet is doubtful. The issue of whether or not it is permissible to narrate hadiths not with the words used by the Messenger of Allah (saw) but with the same meaning and with slightly different words, or to what extent this is permissible, has been discussed by scholars since the early ages. It is also accepted by the scholars of eloquence that short and concise hadiths are compatible with this characteristic of the Prophet, who liked to speak succinctly, and it is known that narration with the meaning is not allowed in the prayer and dhikr hadiths that constitute the texts of worship. When various narrations of long hadiths are brought together and compared, it is seen that although there are differences between them, these differences are not so much to be exaggerated, and even if the words are different, the same meaning is expressed accurately. It is known that most of the hadith scholars from the time of the Sahāba did not tolerate even the change of attributive letters such as “waw” and “fā” in the text of the hadith during the narration, and did not even allow the substitution of a synonym for a word uttered by the Prophet, and that many hadith narrators in the first three generations did not consider it permissible to narrate with the meaning. Those who did not see any harm in narrating the hadith with the meaning stipulated that the people who would narrate the hadith in this way should be narrators who know the sciences of sarf, nahw and grammar, the difference in meaning between the words, narrate the hadith without lahin, and understand the meaning and intention implied by the words. Some scholars have said that narration with the meaning cannot be done by anyone other than the generation of the Companions, who are known for their superiority in eloquence and eloquence and who heard the words of the Messenger of Allah and saw him doing it. Scholars such as Imam Mālik, while allowing the narration of non-mufū texts with the meaning, stated that this was not possible in the words of the Messenger of Allah (saw) (Subhī al-Sālih, pp. 63-69). The diligence and meticulousness of the first generations, who meticulously discussed the hadiths among themselves in order to convey what they had heard and learnt from the Messenger of Allah to those who had not heard them in accordance with his command, and who had extensive experience in transmitting their culture by heart, should not be ignored, and it should also be kept in mind that after the compilation of the hadiths, narration by meaning was not permitted.

3-As of the first half of the first century of Hijri I, some theological and political factions took advantage of the fact that the hadiths were not written down, and the sayings they fabricated in favour of themselves and against their opponents entered even the authentic hadith books, and these were not sufficiently eliminated from the books. It is a fact that there are those who fabricated hadiths for the purpose of making the group they belonged to successful, leading people to religion or alienating them from religion as the heretics did, gaining personal benefit, etc., and those who resorted to various ways to ensure that the words they fabricated were adopted by Muslims. In fact, the muhaddiths invented the isnad system in order to prevent the damage to Islam caused by the words fabricated as hadith. With this system, the methods of receiving and narrating hadiths from a teacher are based on solid principles, and the principles of cerh and ta’dīl, which meticulously evaluate the hadith narrators in terms of honesty, reliability and the merit of narration, have enabled the elimination of weak and fabricated news. As a matter of fact, by applying these principles, the hadith commentators of every era investigated where and when a narrator was born, where he lived, when he started to study hadith, whom he befriended, his teachers, his students, and the extent to which he complied with the procedures of narrating hadith from its source; on the other hand, they revealed his behaviour, character, state of faith, soundness of mind and memory, and thus the extent to which he was reliable. The hadith commentators, who subjected a narrator to such a strict scrutiny before taking hadith from him, were not satisfied with this; they also observed him during his lifetime and checked his memory frequently, and when they detected a change such as mental decline, they announced to those concerned that no hadith could be taken from him. The most prominent feature of authentic hadith books such as al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī and Muslim is that the hadiths they contain were narrated by reliable narrators. The claim that they contain fabricated narrations is therefore untrue. Those who do not trust the narrations that come with the isnad system invented by those who know hadith as the word of the Messenger of God and consider it a worship to pass it on to later generations in accordance with the Prophet’s advice, how can they trust the narrations of history, culture and literature, which are considered an integral part of civilisation, and which are not transmitted with such care? Since the day when those who tried to fabricate hadiths by abusing the authority of the Prophet appeared, the knowledge and literature of rijāl and the sciences of understanding the narrations and eliminating the inconsistencies between them, which the muhaddithis developed in order to recognise and introduce the insincere hadith students, show that the hadiths were meticulously studied.

4-Hadith books contain many narrations taken from the Bible. To suggest that some hadiths were introduced into the books of hadith by Jewish or Christian narrators on the basis of their resemblance to some texts in the Bible is a product of delusion or ignorance, unless it is based on a purpose. It is a fact that some of the scholars of the Ahl al-Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt), after they became Muslims, mentioned some narrations related to their old culture without any ulterior motive, and that these reports, called Isrâiliyat, were introduced into religion by ignorant people. Hadith scholars have made great efforts to identify these and to criticise the baseless ones. Some of the information transmitted from the Ahl al-Bayt is true because it conforms to Islamic transmission, some of it is false because it contradicts the facts, and some of it is news whose truth or falsity is unknown (Ibn Taymiyya, XIII, 366). For this reason, the Messenger of Allah (saw) advised his companions to be cautious about the unknown matters in the Bible and did not deem it appropriate to confirm or deny such news (Bukhārī, “Tafsīr”, 2/11). Accordingly, there is no harm in transmitting the news of the Ahl al-Bayt in accordance with Islam, and these narrations are also useful in terms of revealing the fact that the prophets are fed from the same divine source. Instead of looking at the issue from this point of view and accepting that some of the news, judgements and ethical principles in all the heavenly religions will be the same, claiming that some hadiths similar to the narrations in the Bible were fabricated by the companions or followers who converted to Islam, It would be slanderous to suggest that narrators such as Ka’b al-Ahbār, a scholar of the Ahl al-Bayt, or Ka’b al-Ahbār, a scholar of the Ahl al-Bayt from the Ahl al-Bayt, influenced the Companions, who were famous for narrating many hadiths, and mixed Israelites into the hadiths through them.

5-The verses of the Qur’an express certainty because they come by way of tawātur, but almost all hadiths express conjecture because they are regarded as news-i wāḥid, i.e., their attribution to the Prophet is not certain, and religion cannot be founded on conjecture. According to Imam Shafi’i, towards the end of the second (VIIIth) century, there were some people who argued that hadiths, especially news reports, could not be a source in legal terms because they expressed conjecture (al-Üm, VII, 250, 254). It is not correct for those who do not trust the hadiths to say that they do not express certainty like the verses of the Qur’an. This is because submission and demonstration are completely different things. Although there are verses in the Qur’ân al-kerîm, the proof of which is not certain, no one has ever doubted these verses. On the other hand, the Qur’an, which considers the testimony of two people sufficient (al-Baqarah 2/282; al-Talaq 65/2), does not seek the condition of tawātur, and neither the Messenger of Allah nor the kings, Muslim commanders or tribesmen to whom he sent letters or instructions through only one person thought that the messenger should be more than one. The most important condition for the messenger is that his memory should be sound and his personality reliable. The hadith sciences and methods developed by Islamic scholars in order to protect the hadiths since the time when weak and fabricated news began to be mixed with the sahih sunnah are more sensitive and sound criteria than the conditions sought during witnessing. Although no news comes in the most reliable way like the Qur’ân al-kerîm, most of the Islamic scholars, especially muhaddithis, have reached a consensus on the certainty of the news narrated in a meticulous manner with the awareness that it is the word of the Prophet. In fact, in order for a news to be considered reliable, the condition that it must be narrated by a large crowd, as in the case of a mutawâtir narration, is never sought neither in diplomatic matters, nor in commercial matters, nor in any transaction of daily life. Since the realisation of such a condition is rarely possible, the reliability of the narrator is considered sufficient for his word to be accepted. Those who claim that the Qur’an is sufficient for understanding and living the religion, if they accept the indispensability of worships, should not ignore the fact that the performance of these religious ceremonies in the way they were performed in the time of the Prophet is only possible through hadith and sunnah. The greatest danger of ignoring the hadiths in understanding the religion is that personal opinions come to the forefront and, as a natural consequence of this, a great confusion will occur in religion because everyone considers his own understanding to be correct.

    The views that these reasons and similar views reveal that hadiths cannot be trusted, that the Qur’an contains everything, and that the Qur’an is sufficient for living the religion and that there is no need for hadiths have been put forward since the early ages. As a matter of fact, when the Companion Imran b. Husayn was talking about hadiths, a person present there said, “Tell us about the Qur’an”, which reveals the antiquity of these opinions. However, when Imrān said that prayer and zakat could not be performed without the hadīths, that person gave up his objection (Ḥākim, I, 109-110), which shows that those who wanted to solve the problems with the Qur’ān alone in the early days were moderate people who did not turn this view into an intellectual trend. In fact, it is not correct to claim that there is no need for hadiths based on the verses stating that everything is explained in the Qur’an (al-Nahl 16/89) and nothing is left incomplete in it (al-An’am 6/38). This is because the Holy Qur’an states that the Prophet was commissioned to explain the revelations of Allah (al-Nahl 16/44, 64). His explanations can only be established by hadith. In addition, the verses that require obedience to the Prophet and to abstain from what he commands and forbids (al-Hashr 59/7) make it obligatory to obey the commands and explanations of the Messenger of Allah, which can be established by hadith or sunnah. Therefore, the views of those who reject the ahkam hadiths on the grounds that some verses indicate that the authority to make judgements belongs to Allah alone are not consistent.

    Today’s opponents of hadith sometimes contradict each other. For example, while some of them claim that muhaddithis only criticise the scripts and do not engage in textual criticism, others state that both the scripts and texts of hadiths are criticised, and therefore something that is criticised cannot be considered a religion (Ḥādim Husayn Ilāhībahsh, pp. 233-238). Some members of the Ahl al-Qur’āniyyūn (Qur’āniyyūn) in India, who take a firm stand against the hadīths, argue that the Qur’ān calls Muslims to unity, but that unity and progress cannot be achieved unless the hadīth books, which consist of the narrations of random people and command obedience to the Prophet, are abandoned. They also say that books of hadith such as the Qutub al-Sitte are overrated and that these books were created by non-Arabs, especially Iranians, in order to harm Islam and Muslims (ibid., pp. 238-242). It is seen that those who claim that being contented with the Qur’an will ensure unity cannot even agree on how many times a day the prayer should be performed, let alone the number of rak’ahs and the way it should be performed, and thus they deny themselves.

    Some contemporary opponents of hadith, who adopted the unsystematised views of the Islamic groups that took a stance against hadith, tried to systematise their opinions by adding new ones to these views. The basis of this attitude, which began to emerge in the Islamic world at the end of the twentieth century, lies in the idea of criticising religious texts by considering them as human products (the method of historical criticism), which European researchers directed against the Bible. First the orientalists and then the Muslim researchers who were influenced by them wanted to apply this method to the Qur’an and hadiths, the religious texts of Islam, and instead of criticising the hadiths one by one, they thought of evaluating them more comprehensively within the framework of a system to be established. Accordingly, since trying to understand the hadiths by adhering to grammatical rules or investigating their attribution to the Prophet is not a productive way, it is a more accurate way to derive general principles from the hadiths and to provide solutions to the needs of the society according to these principles. This attitude replaces the Islam as understood by the muhaddiths and jurists with the Islam in their minds, which is a religion that is substantially different from it and closer to the life lived in the modern world, and their view of the authority of the Qur’an and hadith to issue rulings further clarifies this attitude. According to this view, the verses of judgement in the Qur’an are extremely few, and they should not be considered as legal texts outside the time and place in which they were revealed, but should be regarded as indirect legal material. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) should be regarded as a moral reformer rather than a prophet who brought legal solutions to emerging issues (Fazlurrahman, Islamic Methodology in History, pp. 10-11; a.mlf., IS, I/1, pp. 10-11). Modern scholars have argued, as did the commentators, that most of the hadiths have nothing to do with the Prophet and are the opinions of early jurists and muhaddithis. The owners of this mentality, who limit the legal solutions in the Qur’an and hadiths to the Prophet’s era, claim that scholars can make laws according to the needs of their own era.

    This article was included in the 15th volume of the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, published in Istanbul in 1997, on pages 27-64.