Term paper

Hadith and orientalism

Sadia yousaf zia1
Introduction:
Islamic sources are criticized by western scholars. Everything in Islamic culture
and jurisprudence is derived from the main sources of Islam that are Quran and
hadith. Muslims depends on these sources in better understanding of the religion.
In fact the study of Islam remains nothing if there is no Qur’an and prophetic
traditions in their true sense. The authenticity of Qur’anic verses and prophetic
traditions amazed these western scholars that they are afraid if they left everything
in their true sense then it is very difficult to stop Islam and Muslims to rule the
world.so first of all they studied these sources purposely to create doubts and
spread their malicious propaganda to harm Islam and prophet (peace be upon
him).They took their research as a tool.
Western studies of hadith:
There are five avenues Five Avenues of Western Study of the Islamic World (four
grew out of European colonial or diplomatic interests), the French study of Islamic
law culture in colonial North Africa, Dutch studies in Southeast Asia, British
studies of Persianate Islam in India, and European diplomatic interest in the
Ottoman Empire) and Semitic studies. These five dimensions of study Islam are
historical backgrounds. Muslim point of view and the western approach is totally
opposite in the mode of study.
Muslim Hadith Tradition and western trends of criticism:
Muslim approach of hadith tradition authenticated the saying of the prophet (peace
be upon him) by exclusively studying and counter checking the isnad and rijal.
Therefore we found more than one path to transmit a single matan e hadith.(ilmul
asma urrijal talks about biography of rijal who are transmitters of matoon. )There
are many of uloom ul hadith that talk about the different types of hadith and also
one hadith support another in this regard. The question of reliability arises in this
perspective but in Muslim traditions we find authentication with evidence and with
arguments. But here the misconception of western scholar arises when they have
their own methods to check authenticity by “historical critical method” and
1
PhD scholar, university of management and technology.

1
“common link theory”. When they critically observe the hadith traditions and the
historical sources, they not only criticized the matoon but put question mark
against isnad and rijal. So they created doubts about the transmitters (tabieen and
taba tabaeen) and said that the whole hadith realm is a forgery. 2 Because the
Muslim scholars created them and were found in written form around ninth century
AC, not from very beginning. The statement passed by Joseph schatch and adopted
by western scholarship deliberately. The provision is taken by Coulson, crown,
Juynboll, and many others. The opposite opinion is made by Dr,Mustafa Alazmi,
Fuat sezgin, Nabia abbot and many others are there. Now there is a third paradigm
prevailing in this regard that’s the tendency of maiden opinion that made by herald
motzki, Herbert berg and Gregor Schoeler but doing the same as done by earlier
scholarship.
Origin of modern historical critical worldview:
The Origin of modern historical critical worldview are the sources of history and
religions developed in Germany in 18th and 19th centuries. They do not Accept
what historical sources tells without question, Instead they interrogate them and
attempt to establish the reliability according to set of assumptions of Human
Society functioning. They put a question of what really happened.3
At the root of Historical Critical Method, three important developments Emerged
Post-Renaissance. A critical approach to the Renaissance rediscovery of the
Classical heritage of Greece and Rome,14th-16th centuries, Italian and French
humanist scholars were re-introduced to the range of the Classical Greco-Roman
heritage through manuscripts brought from the Muslim world and Byzantium. It
revealed the historical changes undergone by long reversed texts like the Bible.
Greek and Roman historians a cosmopolitan skepticism that European minds found
irresistible and introduced the model of the historian as detached with language as
a tool for rediscovering origins.
Historical critical method:
“The overall purpose of historical critical methods is to investigate what actually
happened in the events described or alluded.”4

2
joseph Schacht’s Origin of Muhammadan jurisprudence(oxford,1979)
3
Leopold Von Ranke (German historian)
4
Marshall I.H. (Ed).new testament interpretation: essays on principles and methods. Paternoster Press, Carlisle,
1992.

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The method is very important because they applied that method on bible to check
authenticity of bible and they also checked historical sources of their history.
Basic Assumption of HCM is Initial doubt about the authenticity of a historical
texts, general suspiciousness towards orthodox narratives.
Historical critical method is the method of :
Linguistic anachronism: “a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place” 5
Principle of analogy: it’s the uniformity of the situations or events naturally.
(Immutable laws of human society that shaped Human History)
Form criticism: Method of criticism combined the presumed doubt in the integrity
of texts with the modern critic’s confidence that the construction of these texts was
affected by very profane worldly interests.
Principle of dissimilarity: the book contents don’t match with one another.
Source analytical and tradition-historical approaches:
If we talk about study of sources some of these orientalists studied basic sources of
Islam like Mussanaf abd al razzaq6 is analyzed by source analytical approach in
which they take traditions texts with isnad like juynboll, matoon like schacht ,and
both like herald motzki. Harald motzki did his work regarding origins of Islamic
jurisprudence about the start of the era. He rejected the opinion of Schacht about
forgery of ahadees is done by jurists to aid their own maslak also proved that umer
bin denar and ata bin abi rabah and ibn e juraij7are those who earned that hadith
knowledge from makkan jurists. As for the second approach, Isnad-cum-Matn,
then this is when Motzki gathers all available chains of a tradition. The ‘common
links’ are highlighted and the Matns of the various ‘common links’ are analyzed.
Many a time each Matn will have distinct features which will show that there are in
fact different independent narrators of the Matn, not one actual ‘common link’ and
other chains are being fabricated as advocated by Schacht (and Juynboll). An
example is Motzki’s analysis of the assassination of the Jewish leader, Ibn Abī
Huqayq. He shows that there are various independent ‘common links’ which mean
that the origin of certain traditions is earlier than asserted by Schacht.

5
“Anachronism.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anachronism. Accessed 17 Jan. 2022.
6
Abd al razzaq b.Hamam alsan’ani,al-musannaf, ed. Habib al rehman,alAzmi,11 vols.(simlak,1391/1972)
7
Herald moztki,The mussanaf of abd al razzaq al san’ani as a source of authentic ahadith of the first
centuryA.H.”journal of near eastern studies 50:1(1991)1-21 accessed:http://www.jstor.org?stable?5454412

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 Likewise he supposed that abd ul razzaq had arbitrarily ascribed his material to the
four informents: ma’mar, ibn juraij,ath-thowri,and ibn uyaiyna. Then he applied
the method that Schacht proposed for certain common links in the isnad. The four
group of text are formed by these four main persons.in the group of text came from
ma’mar,28% material from al zuhri,25% from qata’da,11% from ayub,more than
6%from anoynumous person and 5%from ibn tawu’s. Ma’mar’s own statements
amount is only one percent.
Similarly the group of al thouri and the group of ibn uyayna,the group of ibn juraij
transmissions spread among 103 persons.after calculation of percential of each
transmitter he finally got the result saying:
“These profiles indicate that each of the four collections of texts has quite an
individual character.it seems very improbable that a forger arranging material in a
specific order and labeling them falsely would have produced such highly
divergent”8

Common link theory:

This is the method approached by joseph Schacht in his researches called common
link theory.by this method orientalists like juynboll and Schacht “Common link is
a term used for a hadith narrator who hears a hadith from an authoritative person
then he relies it on a number of pupils who in turn most of them broadcast again to
two or more students.”
The common link theory emerged when Schacht noticed that the majority of the
traditions tended to have a single common link whom he called N.N. This common
link would have his personal chain going back to the Prophet or some later
authority. Later generations would many a time invent Isnads and would change
the common link to another narrator or some other changes so as to improve the
tradition. N.N. would actually have been the person to have produced the tradition
and made it famous.9 These common links generally appear during and before the
time of Malik Ibn Anas (d.178/795) and AbuYosuf (d.181/798), which would date
the vast majority of the traditions to the beginning of the 2nd/8th century.

8
Herald moztki,The mussanaf of abd al razzaq al san’ani as a source of authentic ahadith of the first
centuryA.H.”journal of near eastern studies 50:1(1991)1-21 accessed:http://www.jstor.org?stable?5454412
9
Juynboll, G.H.A (2008) ‘Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of early Ĥadīth’,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.3, p.206-217,
Schacht, Joseph ‘An introduction to Islamic Law’ (1982) Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.11

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To give an example of the common link in practice, we can look at the famous
tradition of Malik Ibn Sa’sa’ah on the night journey which comes in numerous
Ĥadith texts. The following texts were consulted: Jami’ al-Tirmiđī39, Musnad
Aĥmad40, al-Mu’jam al-Kabir41, Şahih Muslim42, sahih al-Bukhārī43 and Sunan
al-Nasa’i44. What we find is that the Isnads go back to six individuals namely Abu
‘Awanah, Shaiban, Sa’īd Ibn Abī ‘Arūbah, Hishām al-Dastawā’ī, Hammām Ibn
Yaĥyā and al-Khalīl Ibn Marrah. All six are supposed to have heard the tradition
from one person, Qatādah (d.118/736), who is the common link in this instance
and responsible for the tradition. Likewise we can do the same for many other
traditions.10
Argument e silentio:
Another argument put forward by Schacht to support his theory for mass
fabrication, was the argument e silentio. Schacht classifies this method as the ‘best
way’ to determine if a tradition is fabricated and when it was fabricated. This
argument e silentio basically means that if a tradition was not utilised in a certain
time in a discussion where it would have been imperative to use, this meant that
the tradition was a later invention.11
Revisionist approach:
The approach is to negate all the corpus. Actually they did not believe on the oral
tradition so they think as all things as falsehood and have not any origin. The
literature is based on ancient manuscripts of Jews and biblical references are
forged in Quran and also Hades are the inspirations of biblical stories. Patricia
Crone and Michael Cook, (hagarism) are the examples of this approach.
Western scholarship on hadith.
There are many western scholars who worked on hadith literature with skeptic
approach. Listed here
Springer
Joseph Franz Schacht, An introduction to Islamic Law
Ignazgold zihr, inaugurated the critical study of the hadith's authenticity

10
Schacht, Joseph ‘An introduction to Islamic Law’ (1982) Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.11,
Herald moztki,The mussanaf of abd al razzaq al san’ani as a source of authentic ahadith of the first
centuryA.H.”journal of near eastern studies 50:1(1991)1-21 accessed:http://www.jstor.org?stable?5454412
11
ibid

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William Muir, Life of Mahomet
G.H.A Juynboll,muslim tradition
N.J.Coulson,Ahistory of Islamic law.
Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, hagarism
The western scholarship with the maiden approach with crictism, they objected
the previous scholars but also keep following the line and opened more ways to
critic.
Harald moztki,dating muslim tradition
Herbert berg, method and theory of Islamic origins
Gregor Schoeler,oral tradition.
Andreas Gorke,”first century sources for the life of Muhammad:debate”
The scholarship that counter response the whole critisim and had and opposite
opinion are list as
Zafar Ishaq Ansari, ”The early development of Islamic fiqh in kufah with special
reference to the works of abu yusuf and shaybani”
Dr. Muhammad Mustafa alAzmi,on schacht’s origins of Muhammadan
jurisprudence
Fuat sezgin,geschichte des arabischen schrifttums
NabiaAbbot,studies in Arabic literary papyriII-quranic commetery and traditions.
Fred M Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests,a translation of a volume of the
history of al-Tabari,Narratives of Islamic Origins,Muhammad and the Believers:
At the Origins of Islam
David S Powers,Studies in Qur'an and Hadith: The Formation of the Islamic Law
of Inheritance
Conclusion:
In conclusion the studies of western scholars about hadith are skeptical.it shows
their shallow understandings.we can state that Schacht’s ideas were ground-
breaking amongst Western scholars and he was the first to manufacture a
consistent method to approach hadees. Despite his efforts, later critiques have

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shown his methodology to be based on generalizations and at times a misuse of the
texts. We have seen two different styles of critiques in Azami and Motzki. Azami
tried to show that Schacht had misunderstood the majority of the texts he utilized
as evidence and that his methods were unscientific. Motzki shares similar concerns
with Azami in regards to the methods employed by Schacht and offers an
alternative. Although the alternatives are far more consistent and scientific, the
conclusions we can reach are restricted and at times inapplicable but moztki also
misunderstood to bring forth the common link theory provided by Schacht.
Although by studying all of their responses in this regard it could be possible that
more researches may come by better understandings of orientalism. Islam has
strong roots and basis are divine knowledge.so whoever able and intend to
understand the true knowledge blessed with its better understandings.