Orientalists argue that few hadiths were narrated by the Companions due to the Prophet’s prohibition of writing them down, that most of the narrations that fill the corpus of hadiths have nothing to do with the Prophet Muhammad, and that they were invented by Islamic jurists in the second (VIII) and third (IX) centuries in order to find solutions to new issues that arose. They also claim that the hadiths contradict each other due to the fact that they were put forward by people belonging to different views, and that some of them were compiled from the Torah, the Bible and old superstitions. Among the reasons why Orientalists came to different conclusions about hadith are that they gave too much value to people such as al-Wāqīdī and Abū al-Faraj al-Isfahānī, who were not accepted as reliable by Islamic scholars, and also to shāz, gharīb, and even mawḍū narrations that were not used as evidence. It is impossible to reconcile the Orientalists’ attempt to explain hadiths by looking at whether they are appropriate according to historical events or not, and their assertion that even the most authentic hadiths were fabricated at a certain time and for certain purposes with the claim of being scientific. The basic idea behind their attitude is the prejudice that Islam is not based on divine revelation (Sayyid Husayn Nasr, p. 91).

According to G. H. A. Juynboll, the Austrian orientalist Aloys Sprenger was the first to claim that most of the hadiths were fabricated. Juynboll shows that he was more sceptical than Reinhart Dozy, Weil, and William Muir, who accepted that at least half of the hadiths in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī were authentic (The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature, p. 1). There is a difference between the attitude of Ignaz Goldziher, who did the most extensive research on the hadith and whose words were accepted as authentic by later orientalists, and the attitude of the Italian orientalist Leone Caetani and the priest Henri Lammens, who could not help being openly anti-Islamic. Nevertheless, all of them are united in their conviction that hadith does not have the credibility to be considered the second source of Islam after the Qur’an. Some of the opinions of Goldziher, who presented his views on hadiths in Volume II of his Muhammadanische Studien (I-II, Halle 1889-1890) (Etudes sur la tradition islamique, trc. Leon Bercher, Paris 1952), are of a nature to give a general idea about the views of orientalists on hadith. Goldziher argues that in the beginning hadiths did not amount to much, but later this amount increased with the fabricated narrations, and as evidence for this, he states that the Companions narrated very few hadiths, that they were extremely meticulous during narration, and that the Prophet did not allow the writing of hadiths in the early days, As a result of this, he says that many scholars in later times did not approve of the writing down of hadiths, and from this point of view, he claims that Muslims fabricated the hadith that reads, “I was given the book and its analogue” (Goldziher, AÜİFD, XIX, 223-235). To evaluate the evidence showing that the hadiths were transmitted to later generations by extremely meticulous narrators, especially the Companions, in a way to the detriment of the hadiths, as Goldziher does, can best be explained by ignorance of the religious excitement of the first representatives of Islam, their devotion to the Messenger of Allah, and their belief that religion could only be understood correctly through his practices. As a matter of fact, some of the Companions, although they were meticulous in narrating hadith, felt obliged to narrate hadith even on their deathbed in the face of the verses that forbade a person from concealing what he knew. On the other hand, it should be considered natural that some of the Companions, who lived a long life, narrated what they heard and learnt from the Messenger of Allah upon the events they encountered and narrated more hadith than their short-lived companions. His statement that the hadith, “Whoever knowingly fabricates a hadith from my mouth, let him prepare for his place in Hell”, which was unanimously narrated by the Ashara al-mubashshara, included in the works of many hadith scholars, especially the authors of the Qutub al-Sitta, and accepted by even the most meticulous muhaddithis as the sole example of a trustworthy hadith, was produced by muhaddithis in order to prevent fabrication (Etudes sur la tradition islamique, pp. 162-163), essentially shows that Goldziher does not value any scientific criteria. It is surprising that he claims that the hadīth, which has an important place in religion, was fabricated (al-ʿAḳīda wa al-sharīʿa, p. 44), despite the fact that it is found in all reliable books of hadīth, that it is in accordance with both the spirit of Islam and the verse that says, “Everyone does according to his own temperament and disposition” (al-Isrā 17/84), and that it has nothing to do with the historical development that Goldziher takes into account when evaluating hadīths. 44) is surprising.

Goldziher’s assertion that “most of the hadiths arose spontaneously in the provinces” and that they “came into being to support a positivist view” (Etudes sur la tradition islamique, p. 217) reflects the general opinion of Orientalists about hadiths. The examples he cites from Sunan al-‘Abī Dāwūd and Sunan al-Tirmidhī to support his view that Muslim commentators themselves point to the regional character of many narrations are in fact narrations of a companion who settled in a city, perhaps heard from the Messenger of Allah alone, or which have regional characteristics for other reasons. Some hadiths that are referred to with expressions such as “This is the hadith of the people of Damascus; this is the hadith of the people of Hijaz” because the people of the city who narrated from a Companion narrated the hadiths they heard from him only in their own region are narrations called “relative ferd”. Such narrations, which Subhī al-Sālih analyses under the heading of “the influence of the neighbourhood in the hadīth’s compilation” (Hadīth Sciences and Hadīth Istılılahları, pp. 39-41), reflect some of the characteristics of hadīths before their compilation. These narrations, called “Efrād al-büldān”, do not constitute a large portion of the hadīths, contrary to Goldziher’s claim. According to works such as Efrād al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, the sahīḥs of Bukhārī and Muslim, which contain thousands of hadiths, contain at most 200 such hadiths. It is not possible to reconcile those who fabricate hadiths to support their political or theological views with rigorous and reliable hadith narrators. In his article “The Place of Hadith in Islam”, Goldziher claims that Muslims attributed the meaning of “revelation bestowed on the Prophet Muhammad” to the word “wisdom” in order to make hadiths the second religious source after the Qur’an. Goldziher points to the verses indicating that other prophets were also given wisdom and says that wisdom was not exclusive to the Prophet Muhammad. In reality, there is no Islamic scholar who claims that wisdom was given only to the Messenger of Allah, and it is clear that the fact that other prophets were given wisdom does not prevent it from being given to the Messenger of Allah. James Robson is among those who repeat Goldziher’s claim that hadith was accepted as a second source as new issues arose in the Islamic world (EI2 [Fr.], III, 24-25).

Goldziher (Sezgin, The Sources of Bukhârî’nin Sources, pp. 11-15), who ignores the evidence that the hadiths began to be written down at the time of the Prophet, and who confuses the works of compilation and classification, argues that there is contradictory information on this subject in Islamic sources and therefore dates the beginning of compilation to the third (IXth) century. The intentions of the Orientalists who think so are different from those who seem to be more moderate by stating that the activity of editing began in the second (VIIIth) century. The aim of the latter group is to put forward the idea that from that date onwards, writing was trusted and therefore the tradition of preserving hadiths by memorising them was abandoned. The aim of those who started in the third (IXth) century is to create the opinion that the hadiths could not be preserved in a sound manner because they were not written down until a later date, and to prepare the ground for the view that the hadith editors collected the narrations that fit their own views and fabricated hadiths as they saw fit.

Goldziher tried to raise doubts about the reliability of some important hadith authorities in order to prepare a basis for his thesis that hadiths were not transmitted reliably to later periods, and for this he chose Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, who played a primary role in the official collection of hadiths. He chose Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, who played a primary role in the official compilation of hadiths, for this purpose. At the request of Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan, who wanted to make Masjid al-Harām, Masjid al-Nabawī, and Masjid al-Aqsa, he claimed that he fabricated the hadīth that reads “It is not right to make an expedition to any mosque except Masjid al-Harām, Masjid al-Nabawī, and Masjid al-Aqsa” (Bukhārī, “Ṣalāt fī masjid Mecca”, 1, 6, “Ṣawm”, 67; Muslim, “Ḥajj”, 415, 511, 512) (Etudes sur la tradition islamique, pp. 41-53). The Shi’ite historian Ya’qūbī, whose views on this subject he benefited from, claimed that ‘Abdullah b. Zubayr, who ruled over Mecca and Medina, was the first person to perform the pilgrimage. Zubayr, who ruled over Mecca and Medina, forced the Syrians on pilgrimage to pledge allegiance to him, ‘Abd al-Malik recited the above hadith narrated by al-Zuhrī to the pilgrims and said that one could also go to al-Aqsa for pilgrimage, built a dome on the rock there, covered it with a silk cloth and prevented them from going to Mecca for pilgrimage (Tārīḫ, II, 261), but he did not mention that al-Zuhrī had fabricated this hadith. Goldziher, however, accepted this false incident as fact and specifically stated that Zuhrī had fabricated the hadith in order to cast doubt on his reliability, and other Orientalists later adopted this claim (IA, VI, 945, 957). It is inconceivable that ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan, who was known for his jurisprudence and meticulousness in narrating hadith, would attempt such an act, which no Muslim would dare to do and which no one would accept, at a time when many of the Companions and great tâbiîs were still alive. If such an event, which was of utmost importance for Muslims, had taken place, it would certainly have been mentioned in other sources. It is also known that the Dome of the Rock was completed in 72 (691), that Mecca was essentially in the hands of the Umayyads from that date (M. Mustafa al-Aʿ zamī, Menhej al-naḳd ʿinde al-muḥaddis̱în, pp. 127-131), and, more importantly, that Zuhrī and ‘Abd al-Malik first met around 80 (699). Examples of Goldziher’s ignorance or deliberate misinterpretation of some Islamic issues are not few (M. Mustafa al-A’zamî, Hadith Literature of the First Period, pp. 10-18; for Goldziher’s method and views, cf. DİA, XIV, 105-111).

In his work Annali dell’Islam (History of Islam), Italian orientalist Leone Caetani claimed that “even the most perfect isnads, which consist of the most trustworthy names, were organised and virtually invented by the hadith scholars at the end of the second century, perhaps in the third century” (I, 86). The fact that he did not base this heavy accusation against the isnad system, which is the first level of the reliability of hadiths, on any document proves that he did not hesitate to speak with conjecture and guesswork even on the most important issues. The fact that he ignores the use of nearly 200 isnads even in one of his own sources, Ibn Ishaq’s small volume al-Sīrah, which was written in the early second (VIIIth) century, is due to the fact that he accepts that isnads, like hadith texts, were invented later (ibid., I, 88). One of the examples of Caetani’s prejudgement about hadiths is the following: The Dutch orientalist Reinhart Dozy, who, like all other obscurantists, insulted the Qur’an and the Messenger of Allah (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī by claiming that the Prophet had fabricated the Qur’ān and attributed it to God, but also found half of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī “worthy of the title of authentic even by the most scrupulous critics” and said that most of the hadiths were preserved orally and that they were usually written down in the second century of the Hijrah (ibid. century (Dozy, I, 161-165), which Caetani characterises as “an optimistic confidence that let itself go without caution” (History of Islam, I, 90). According to him, the hadiths in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī and Ṣaḥīḥ al-Muslim are merely a framework of the religious, political, and social conditions at the most advanced stage of Islam. These hadiths are not what the Prophet said, but what the Muslims of the second century of the Hijra wished he had said (ibid., I, 91).

Henri Lammens argues that the Prophet Muhammad’s early death did not allow him to rework the Qur’an and fill in some of its gaps, and that hadith had to be a source of reference in order to reveal the non-existent sunnah or to establish existing ideas, which is why hadith texts were reproduced very carefully and meticulously. He claims that the hadiths contain quotations from the Bible, such as the “Lord’s Prayer”, which is almost unaltered, and cites as an example the parable of “What your right hand gives, let not your left hand know” (Islam Beliefs and Institutions, pp. 70-72). The fact that this wise statement is derived from the divine source, “If you give alms openly, that is good for you; but if you give it secretly to the poor, that is better for you” (al-Baqarah 2/272), is of no importance to him.

David Samuel Margoliouth argues that the Prophet Muhammad did not leave any ruling or religious decision after him, that the Sunnah practised by the early Islamic community was the custom of the ancient Arabs, that it had nothing to do with his Sunnah, that the Prophet did not lay down any rule that was not based on the Qur’an (The Early Development of Mohammedanism, pp. 66, 70, 76), sharing the general opinion of orientalists that jurisprudential rulings and decisions were attributed to the Prophet (MW, II/2, p. 115).

Reynold Alleyne Nicholson also argues that the muhaddithis attributed many contradictory hadiths to the Prophet. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson claims that the muhaddithis attributed many contradictory hadiths to the Prophet and could not find the opportunity to compile them, He also argues that some of the Companions, such as Abū Hurayra, considered it permissible to keep dogs because they owned fields, and that Ibn ‘Umar revealed his deficiency in this regard by saying, “Abū Hurayra owned a field” (Izziyya Ali Ṣāḥā, Majellat al-buḥūs̱i al-Islamiyya, pp. 284-285). Alfred Guillaume, continuing Nicholson’s claim that there are many hadiths that contradict each other, argues that the hadith stating that “a person who says ‘Lā ilāha illallah will enter Paradise even if he steals and commits adultery” (Bukhārī, “Tawḥīd”, 33) and the hadith stating that “a person with an iota of arrogance in his heart will not enter Paradise” (Muslim, “Îmān”, 147), He cites the hadiths stating that “the one who commits adultery cannot be a believer at that time” (Ibn Māja, “Fitan”, 3) and says that it is impossible to reconcile them with each other, and he also mentions the hadiths in favour of and against drinking water while standing or performing ablution while standing and suggests that such narrations should be subjected to serious textual criticism (Islam, pp. 106-111).

The claims of these two orientalists that there are many hadiths that contradict each other and that they are not subjected to textual criticism do not reflect the truth. In fact, although there are hadiths that seem to contradict each other, they are very few compared to other hadiths. Islamic scholars, in order to understand the hadiths correctly and to distinguish the authentic ones from the weak and mawḍū ones, have put forward principles related to textual criticism as well as script criticism since very early times, and they have tried to solve such problems by means of measures such as shâz, munkar, muztarib, mensuh, which they have developed especially for narrations that seem to be contradictory to each other. Imam Shafi’i’s Iḫtilāf al-ḥadīs̱, Ibn Qutayba’s Taʾwīl al-muḫtelifi’l-ḥadīs̱ (for the taʾwīl of the hadīths mentioned by Guillaume and Nicholson, see pp. 143-145, 164-169, 212-215, 432-433) reveals that these principles, which had been applied by the muhaddithis from the beginning, were compiled into a book at an early period (see also MUHTELLIFÜ’l-HADÎS). The allegation that Abu Hurayra considered it permissible to keep dogs because he had a field and needed a guard dog, and that Ibn ‘Umar accused him of fabricating the hadith on this subject by saying, “Abu Hurayra has a field”, has nothing to do with reality. It does not seem possible that Ibn ‘Umar, who said, “Abū Hurayra is better than me and knows better than me what he narrated” (Ibn Ḥajar, al-Iṣāba, VII, 438) and later narrated this hadīth himself with the addition of “field dog” (Muslim, “Musāḳāt”, 56), accused Abū Hurayra (see EBÛ HÜREYRE).

It is inconceivable that Alfred Guillaume did not understand al-Zuhrī’s famous remark about the organisation of hadiths. Zuhrī stated that those who thought like him were not in favour of writing down the hadiths until they were forced to do so by the emirs, and Guillaume considered this statement of his as the clearest evidence that muhaddithis fabricated hadiths under the pressure of the emirs (The Traditions of Islam, p. 50). It does not seem logical to consider this statement, which has nothing to do with fabricating hadiths, as Zuhrī’s betrayal of himself and other muhaddithis. Duncan Black Macdonald deals with the same issue from another perspective and argues that some of the muhaddithis who relied on their memory and opposed the writing down of hadiths caused a delay in the editing movement until the middle of the second (VIIIth) century, which led to the loss of hadiths (Development of Muslim Theology, pp. 76-77).

Although the writing of hadiths was prohibited for a certain period of time, it is known that some of the Companions continued to write them with special permission from the Prophet, and that this prohibition encouraged the Companions and their followers to memorise the hadiths meticulously. Guillaume and Macdonald only took into account some narrations in line with their claims, and did not attach importance to other narrations that would clarify the issue.

Joseph Schacht, like Goldziher, argued that such hadiths were fabricated by Islamic scholars living in the second (VIII) and third (IX) centuries, since he was of the opinion that the Prophet never thought of doing or saying anything of a legal nature and that he was not authorised to do so. Schacht’s bold claims in his Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (trc. Mustafa Ertürk, Islamic Fiqh and Sunnah, Istanbul 1995), which was highly acclaimed by observers, were answered by Muhammad Mustafa al-A’zamî in On Schacht’s Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Although it is a historical fact that hadiths on political, theological and even legal issues were fabricated, it is also a fact that they were not included in the authoritative fiqh books due to their timely detection and evaluation by the hadith authorities. Schacht’s claims that the isnad system was started at the beginning of the second (VIIIth) century or at the end of the first (VIIth) century at the earliest, and that the scripts were prepared arbitrarily and carelessly by those who wanted to base their ideas and beliefs on the early authorities (for his criticism, see A’zamî, Islamic Fiqh. A’zamī, Islamic Fiqh and Sunnah, pp. 202-252, for his other views on hadith see also pp. 30-32, 43, 45, 54-58, 144-145; a.mlf., Hadith Literature of the First Period, pp. 194-222) is a natural consequence of his view that no hadith of the Prophet existed in the first (VIIth) century. Schacht also dismissed as baseless the statements of scholars such as Ibn Sīrīn, who said that isnād began with the first fitna in Islam, and gave validity only to his own claims in this regard.

Philip Khuri Hitti claims that Muslims regarded hadiths as the product of revelation just like the Qur’an, whereas most of them were taken from the Bible, especially the Gospels. In order to prove this, he claims that the hadith (Musnad, II, 90; Tirmidhi, “Birr”, 31) that the Prophet did not give permission to a man who asked permission to beat his slave who had committed a crime, but advised him to forgive him seventy times a day, was taken from the Gospel of Matthew (18/21, 22), and that Jābir b. Abdullah’s account of the battle of Jābir b. Abdullah in Medina was taken from the Gospels. Abdullah (Muslim, “Ashriba”, 141) was taken from the Gospel of Matthew (15/30-38), which states that Jesus fed 4000 people in the same way (Islam and the West, pp. 105-107). James Robson (MW, XLI/1-4, p. 174), who adopts the same view, argues that such narrations emerged as a result of Muslim contact with Christians and were intended to spread the belief that the Prophet was not inferior to Jesus in performing miracles (MW, XLI/1-4, p. 174).

The claim that Muslims accepted hadiths as the product of revelation like the Qur’an does not fully reflect the reality. Although some scholars have said that Jabrāil brought the Sunnah to the Prophet like the Qurʾān (al-Dārimī, “Muḳaddima,” 49; ʿAbd al-Ghāliḳ, p. 337), the vast majority of Islamic scholars regarded the hadīth as a second source after the Qurʾān, a work of revelation and inspiration distinct from the Qurʾān, and never considered it a product of revelation like the Qurʾān (cf. Importance). On the other hand, it is out of the question that the Prophet, who strongly warned Muslims against becoming like the Ahl al-Bayt (Bukhārī, “Anbiyāʾ,” 50; Muslim, “ʿIlm,” 6), benefited from the Bible. Since it is known that the attribution of the words in the corrupted Bible to the Prophet Îsâ is not certain, and that the Messenger of Allah forbade accepting or rejecting these statements (Bukhārī, “Iʿtiṣām”, 25; “Tawḥīd”, 51), it is impossible for him to disobey his own prohibition and for the muhaddithis to disobey the Prophet’s command. If these words in the Bible have not been tampered with, it is natural that the two prophets, who were fed from the same divine source, would say similar words and show similar miracles.

Theodorus Willem Juynboll, in his article “Hadith” in the first edition of the Encyclopédie de l’Islam, dealt extensively with the issue of fabrication of hadiths based on Goldziher’s views; he blamed all muhaddithis by stating that muhaddithis transformed the words and deeds of the Prophet into a form suitable for the ideas of the new time and produced many hadiths suitable for their purposes; Juynbol, like other obscurantists, argued that Christian beliefs, the anecdotes of the Bible and apocryphal books, Jewish ideas, and the theories of Greek philosophers were utilised; and that hadiths were fabricated on religious subjects such as the principles of theology, ethics, halâl and haram, civil and criminal law, manners, the afterlife, creation, and past prophets. He wanted to arouse suspicion on all hadiths by stating that hadiths on religious subjects were fabricated. On the other hand, he did not mention the struggle waged by the true muhaddithis and the method of criticism developed by them in order to frustrate the plot of the malicious fabricators, nor did he mention the fact that those who fabricated hadiths were not hadith authorities and therefore not everyone trusted their narrations and that these sayings were not included in the works of important muhaddithis. Although Juynboll states that Muslims did not approve of the movement of fabricating hadiths, he claims that they tolerated the fabrication of hadiths on the subject of tergīb and terhīb, claiming that they provided extenuating circumstances for the sayings attributed to the Prophet, especially those in the form of religious and moral maxims. However, in all books on fabricated hadiths, the so-called zāhīds who claim that they fabricate hadiths for the sake of Allah are regarded as the most harmful class who are not aware of the spirit and meaning of hadiths (Kandemir, pp. 56-61). Juynboll’s statement that “Abū Hurayra’s truthfulness was not accepted by many people and was met with strong objections” is intended to discredit Abū Hurayra for narrating many hadiths, and his statement that “Even the hadiths containing the greatest time discrepancies were deemed worthy of trust by the general public” is just unfounded claims aimed at raising doubts about hadiths. His untrue views in the article “Hadith” were answered by Ahmad Muhammad Shāqir in the Arabic translation of this encyclopaedia (DMI, VII, 230-247).

One of the issues that the Undersecretaries emphasise the most is the assertion that the muhaddithis directed all their efforts to the criticism of the script and did not engage in textual criticism, considering the narrations that were perfect in form as reliable. However, the criticism of the hadith scrip, which was developed by muhaddithis in order to determine the degree of soundness of the hadiths, is a kind of pre-screening of the narrations, and then the hadith texts are examined to determine whether they are contrary to the Qur’an, the mutawâtir sunnah, reason, senses and observation and historical facts. According to these criteria, Muhaddithis accepted the presence of a defect in the wording and meaning of the hadith as a sufficient reason to suspect it. Since early times, studies in the field of textual criticism have been the subject of extensive research. Examples of these studies are Salāhaddin b. Aḥmad al-Idlibī’s Menhej naḳdi al-metn ʿinde ʿulamāʾi al-ḥadīs̱i al-nabawī (Beirut 1403/1983), Misfir b. Gurmullah al-Dumaynī’s Meḳāyīṣ naḳdi mutūni al-sunna (Riyadh 1404/1984), Muhammad Lokmān al-Salafī’s Ihtimām al-muḥaddis̱īn bi-naḳdi al-ḥadīs̱ senadan wa metnen (Riyadh 1408/1987) and Muhammad Thāhir al-Jawābī’s Juhūd al-muḥaddis̱īn fī naḳdi text al-ḥadīs̱ (Tunis 1991).

Although there is a grain of truth in the idea that the Orientalists’ views against hadīth and sunnah stem from their inability to understand Arabic texts (Hatiboğlu, pp. 84-94), it would be too optimistic to attribute the opposition to this reason alone. Émile Dermenghem, who thought like the obscurantists that the hadiths were unreliable, was undoubtedly more realistic when he said that the books written by orientalists “contain sketchy ideas and are destructive in nature” (The Life of Muhammad, p. 4). Johann W. Fueck, who avoids polemics in his works and seems to have a more fair-minded view of hadith and Sunnah, also confirms this opinion. According to him, the Islamic system of criticism was successful in weeding out the spurious elements that were wanted to be added to the hadith. For this reason, the material on which the Sunnah is based is authentic. “Some Orientalists who claim that the Sunnah is an invention of the first two centuries and that it merely reflects the opinions of later generations about the Prophet and his companions seriously underestimate the great influence of Muhammad’s personality on his companions,” Fueck argues, adding that the obscurantists’ acceptance of every juridical Sunnah as fabricated until proven so feeds a scepticism that knows no bounds and is based entirely on personal desire (Studies on Islam, pp. 99-111).

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