Hadith
- Arabic:
- Ḥadīth (“News” or “Story”)
- Related Topics:
- ʿilm al-ḥadīth
- isnād
- al-kutub as-sittah
- Ṣaḥīḥ
- matn
Hadith, corpus of the sayings or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, revered by Muslims as a major source of religious law and moral guidance. It comprises many reports of varying length and authenticity. The individual reports are also called hadith (plural: hadiths). The word hadith is derived from the Arabic root ḥ-d-th—signifying “to happen,” “to occur,” or “to come to pass”—and encompasses a range of literal meanings, including “conversation,” “discussion,” “speech,” and “small talk.” In English the term is translated variously as “report,” “saying,” or “tradition.” It is closely related to Sunnah (literally “established custom or habitual practice”), which in an Islamic context refers to the norms and practices affirmed or instituted by Muhammad.
For Muslims, hadiths are among the sources through which they come to understand the practice of Muhammad and his Muslim community (ummah). As such, they constitute an important source, second only to the Qurʾān, for law, ritual, and creed. Hadith also informs different fields of Islamic learning (ʿulūm; singular: ʿilm) and cultural production, including history, theology, Sufism, literature, poetry, and belles lettres. The vastness of the Hadith corpus, numbering in the hundreds of thousands of reports by some estimates, and its exponential growth in the earliest years of Islamic history presented challenges for Muslims, from the ruling elite to scholars to lay followers. While the development of a systematic science of Hadith (ʿilm al-ḥadīth) mitigated some of these challenges, the place of these reports in Islamic intellectual culture remains a much-discussed and at times contested issue.
Development and early transmission
Understandings of the origins of Hadith and its transmission vary significantly depending on a number of factors, including one’s approach to this literature from within the confessional spectrum and one’s historiographical approach. It is helpful to begin with an overview of the dominant Sunni and Shiʿi Muslim understandings, which locate the origins of many hadiths in the lifetime of Muhammad.
According to the prevalent Muslim view, during Muhammad’s lifetime he was the ultimate authority for his followers on all aspects of this faith tradition, conveying divine guidance (which was communicated piecemeal in the form of Qurʾānic verses), theology, cosmic history, and law as well as the minutiae of ritual and personal comportment. His Companions (Ṣaḥābah; those who personally interacted with him and witnessed his behaviour) observed and recorded all manner of his actions, preferences, decisions, and wisdom. Their ignorance or their uncertainty on a host of issues prompted questions. The answers were duly committed to individual or communal memory. A number of the Companions recorded some of these reports in writing. In due course, the Companions, especially those who enjoyed intimate, regular, and prolonged contact with Muhammad, became repositories of information, which they conveyed as a matter of religious duty and as a sacred trust to subsequent generations of Muslims.
Emergence of hadiths as a literary form
Upon Muhammad’s death the issue of whether Muslims should write down and compile reports attributed to him became a matter of dispute. Recording Muhammad’s traditions presented a variety of challenges. First, verification of the accuracy of these reports was difficult. Unlike the text of the Qurʾān, which Muhammad himself taught to his community and which many had memorized and written down before his death, numerous reports were unknown to more than one or two of the Companions, and forgery and false attribution were rampant. There was the additional possibility that writing down the hadiths might inadvertently elevate their sanctity vis-à-vis the Qurʾān. Ultimately, the resolution of this debate favoured writing, and the Companions as well as successive generations devoted themselves to collecting and compiling traditions attributed to the Prophet and to learning how to differentiate inauthentic or compromised traditions from the authoritative ones. The collection and canonization of a standardized written text of the Qurʾān, a process which spanned several decades after Muhammad’s death, was mostly completed during the rule of the third caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (died 656). The impetus to record, compile, and authenticate traditions gained traction and strength after this landmark process.
The earliest decades of hadith transmission can best be described as a time of ad hoc, informal, and spontaneous conveying of information about Muhammad by many of the Companions, from his closest confidantes and family members to those who had met him only in passing. The transmission occurred as a response to specific questions that arose within the Muslim community as well as in informal study circles devoted to religious knowledge. Awareness of the power and authority of these words to shape actions and beliefs across the nascent Islamic empire also led to fabrication of reports in the interests of buttressing personal views with the authority of the Prophet. Some Muslim scholars, perceiving the dangers of the spread of inauthentic traditions, devised a host of methods to guard against forgeries.
By the second century of Islamic history, hadiths had come to have a characteristic literary form, comprising the isnād (a chain of narrators listed in chronological order from Muhammad and his Companions onward) followed by the matn (body text) conveying the substance of the information by or about Muhammad. The isnad (a term derived from the Arabic verb meaning “to support or hold up”) listed names of the transmitters (ruwāt; singular: rāwī) or narrators of any given tradition in order to facilitate verification of that tradition. Additionally, technical terms used in the isnad could convey whether the transmission had been oral or written and whether it entailed direct contact between the conveyor and recipient of the hadith. The following is one example of a hadith (with the isnad and matn) from the compendium Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī (died 870), one of the most authoritative Hadith collections of the Sunni Muslims.
Muḥammad ibn Bashshār narrated to us; he said that Yaḥyā narrated to me and said that Shuʿba said [to him] that Abū al-Sayyāḥ told him on the authority of Anas on the authority of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that he said [concerning religion], “Facilitate matters (for people) and do not make it difficult and give them good tidings and do not make them turn away (from religion).” Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, “Book of Knowledge”, section 11.
The majority Muslim view locating the origins of many hadiths in the time of Muhammad himself, as described above, does not preclude scholarly debates about the utility of the Hadith corpus as a source for verifiable knowledge and actionable precedent. For example, some early proponents of the Muʿtazilī theological school opposed using a type of hadith known as khabar al-waḥīd. They considered these reports, which were narrated by single transmitters in the generations after Muhammad, less reliable than reports which were known to two or more transmitters in every generation. Those who favoured the use of khabar al-waḥīd as legal proofs focused more on whether the transmitters in the isnad were reliable rather than on the number of transmitters. Such discussions are well attested in the early period of Islam and continue into the modern era.
Irrespective of disagreements about the veracity or legal value of an individual hadith, the system of verification through isnads spread beyond hadith transmission to other fields of learning and literary production. Compilations in the areas of history and literature and even in the sciences such as astronomy or medicine featured isnads that confirmed the pedigree and reliability of their contents.
Sectarian differences
Within the first few decades of Islamic history, disputes over who would succeed Muhammad as leader of the Muslim community led to long-term sectarian divisions. Sunni and Shiʿi Islam are the two main sects which trace their roots to this political division. In simplified terms, Shiʿis, who comprise a small but significant minority, believe that succession to the Prophet should remain within his family and that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (died 661), his cousin and son-in-law was his rightful heir. Further, they believe that leadership should remain among Muhammad’s descendants through the marriage of ʿAlī and his daughter Fāṭimah (died 632). Sunnis, who today make up more than 85 percent of Muslims worldwide, did not assert the primacy of kinship to Muhammad as a criteria for succession nor did they believe that leadership should be limited to the specific lineage of ʿAlī and Fāṭimah. These early political disagreements ultimately give rise to deeper and broader legal, theological, and cultural cleavages across Muslim history.
This article deals primarily with Sunni Hadith, and it is important to bear in mind that the domain of Shiʿi Hadith transmission differs from it in some significant ways. Several major distinctions are as follows. For the Shiʿis, the term “hadith” may refer to a report on the authority of the Prophet or those selected male members of the Prophet’s family who were believed to have inherited his spiritual and political leadership (called imams). Furthermore, the narrators who are considered authoritative are most often those who are respected within the Shiʿi tradition. While this does not preclude the presence of Sunnis in the chain of transmission, it does mean that Shiʿis relied on different networks of transmission. With respect to individual reports, the Shiʿi corpus of Hadith does have some overlap with that of the Sunnis, particularly with respect to legal traditions. However, the canonical Shiʿi corpus contains numerous reports about the virtues of the family of Muhammad. His daughter Fāṭimah, her husband ʿAlī, and their descendants are the focus of veneration in many reports that either do not exist in the Sunni corpus or are not given the same importance. In a similar vein, some of Muhammad’s Companions are granted a higher stature in the Sunni reports. Two such examples are Abū Bakr (died 634) and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (died 644), the first two caliphs to succeed Muhammad, who were not deemed as rightful leaders by the Shiʿi.
Such discrepancies in the hadith corpus reflect and sustain the divergent views of Sunnis and Shiʿis regarding political and spiritual leadership after the death of Muhammad, which is at the root of the sectarian split. Finally, it is important to note that Hadith did not exercise the same pervasive influence in early and classical Shiʿi intellectual culture. Nevertheless, Shiʿis did develop their own canonical collections, ancillary biographical tradition, and methodological approaches to the Hadith, which roughly parallel Sunni efforts in this arena and will be described further below.
Regional dispersion, writing, collection, and canonization
Whereas the earliest stage of hadith transmission history was marked by localized, informal, ad hoc narration of reports, subsequent stages witnessed dispersion of reports across Muslim-ruled lands as well as increased collection and writing of reports along with a greater concern for standards of authenticating hadiths. This stage ultimately led to the canonization of selected collections among the Sunnis and Shiʿis.
Over the course of the 7th to 10th century, the Muslim-ruled polity grew rapidly from a small state in central Arabia to an empire spanning from southern Spain in the west to Central Asia in the east. Hadith was among the cultural goods that were carried across this expansive empire. It was transmitted by scholars as well as by those who had little claim to religious learning. The former were often invested in a more systematic and purposeful perpetuation of this knowledge for sundry purposes. The latter may have simply wished to partake of sharing in and enlivening the memory of the Prophet. In this early period, memorization and the oral relaying of Hadith were considered the most reliable means of preservation and transmission. Gradually, writing of reports became more widespread.
The history of Hadith compilation can be tracked in part through the development of different genres of compilations, each with its own purpose and topical concerns. The earliest of such works is likely the ṣaḥīfah, a notebook of reports generally compiled by a single transmitter. Topics and the level of organization of the ṣaḥīfahs varied significantly, as did the diligence in recording the reports with complete isnads. In the earliest decades of Islamic history, before the late 8th-century introduction of paper to the Middle East, materials such as parchment, papyrus, bark, and even bones were commonly used as writing material. Ṣaḥīfahs, which were private or semiprivate records of religious lore circulated among Muslims, could include hadiths or other types of historical reports (known as āthār) on topics such as battles or history and biographical accounts of early Muslims. As such, they offer a fascinating portrait of early Islamic society.
The genre known as muṣannaf represents the first effort to systematically compile reports, be they hadith reports, whose ultimate authority was Muhammad himself, or reports attributed to other leading authorities of the first generations of Muslims. The interest in organizing and presenting these reports according to their utility for legal debates is a distinguishing feature of this genre. The earliest and most well-known work of this genre is the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik ibn Anas (died 795), a compilation of hadiths, Companion reports, and the opinions of Mālik himself. Other early works of this genre include the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī (died 826) and the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Shayba (died 849). Organized according to subjects such as ritual purity, prayer, charity, marriage, divorce, and business transactions, the muṣannafs may be seen as a record of contemporaneous legal discussions and debates. Such works, moreover, did not aim to present a thorough record of all known opinions on a given issue but rather selectively represented opposing sides as well as the opinions of the compiler.
The musnad genre marks yet another stage in Hadith history. As compilations of all the hadiths recorded on the authority of selected Companions, the musnads evince a more encyclopaedic concern with compiling a range of hadiths and arranging them according to their isnads (from which the name musnad is derived). The leading work of this genre is undoubtedly the Musnad of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (died 855), an impressive collection of approximately 27,000 hadiths. Ibn Ḥanbal is said to have scrutinized nearly 750,000 reports, sifting out forgeries and keeping only those which he deemed to be reliable. A story attributed to his son states that Ibn Ḥanbal was preoccupied with this task, asking for his notes to be brought to him for corrections even on his deathbed.
An interesting social feature of hadith transmission is women’s participation in the production and dissemination of religious knowledge. Because musnads are organized according to the name of the narrating Companion, the contributions of female Companions can be more easily discerned. Two of the wives of Muhammad, ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr (died 678) and Umm Salamah (died c. 680), are among the most prolific of the Companions who relayed hadiths on a variety of topics. In subsequent eras women continued to be recognized as authoritative transmitters of hadiths and religious knowledge in general. Although their participation rose and fell because of socioeconomic factors and trends in Islamic intellectual history, the phenomenon of women’s engagement as well-known respected teachers of religious knowledge is intriguing and remarkable.
As hadiths were collected, their applications for Islamic law (sharia) were being systematized. They were used in tandem with other sources, such as the reasoned opinions of the Companions and later generations of leading scholars. Established customs and traditions could also serve as legal precedents. In the early 9th century Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (died 820), the eponymous founder of one of the four main Sunni schools of legal interpretation, articulated the framework of legal methodology that would come to prevail for many Sunnis. Ultimately, al-Shāfiʿī and other leading scholars elevated hadiths as legal proofs second only to the Qurʾān and paved the way for a continued encyclopaedic engagement with these reports.
It is important, however, to emphasize that the broad consensus that Hadith should be central to deriving Islamic law did not translate into acceptance and application of every hadith. Literalism was by no means a forgone conclusion with respect to Hadith or even the Qurʾān. Islamic scholars debated the interpretation of Qurʾānic verses as well as of hadiths whose provenance was considered “sound.” Further, because there was significant disagreement about which hadiths were sound or weak, legal scholars had latitude in how they cited them as proof-texts for their rulings. The sheer quantity of hadith reports, the existence of contradictory reports on specific topics, and the variety of interpretive approaches yielded tremendous diversity in legal recommendations and injunctions on most issues.
The impetus to collect, classify, and authenticate hadiths to maximize their utility for legal discussions reached its apex in the 9th century with the publication of ṣaḥīḥ and sunan compilations organized according to legal topics similar to those of the muṣannafs. However, these works did not include reports of the Companions but rather focused solely on reports of the Prophet deemed most sound by their compilers. Al-Bukhārī (died 870) and Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (died 875) were reputed to be among the most stringent of these scholars. Over time, their contributions, both entitled Al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ (“Compendium of Authentic Hadith”), eventually gained status as the most authoritative collections of Sunni Hadith and are revered by many Sunni Muslims. Alongside these two collections, four other compendia are considered authoritative. These are the sunan collections of the scholars Ibn Mājāh (died 886), Abū Dāwūd (died 889), al-Tirmidhī (died 892), and al-Nasāʾī (died 915). Together these works are labeled as al-kutub al-sittah (“the six books”) and are generally considered the most reliable hadiths for Sunni Muslims. Shiʿis, on the other hand, considered the following four to be the most authoritative compilations: Kitāb al-kāfī of al-Kulaynī (died 941); Kitāb man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh of Ibn Bābawayh (died 991); and Tahdhīb al-aḥkām and al-Istibṣār, both compiled by al-Tūsī (died 1067).
The canonization of these works was a gradual process. Even today the judgments of authenticity and accuracy enshrined in these compilations are understood to be relative. These collections contain the hadiths that are generally considered most likely to be accurate. Furthermore, works compiled after the dissemination of the canonical collections have challenged the reliability of some of the hadiths in those collections. They have also identified additional reports that meet the criteria of these compilers but were overlooked. Among both Sunnis and Shiʿis, additional compilations gained popularity because of their use in sermons and writings that were circulated beyond the scholarly classes. Two prominent examples are Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn of al-Nawawī (died 1277) circulating among Sunnis and Nahj al-Balāghah, a selection of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib’s sermons and letters, compiled by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (died 1016), widely acclaimed among Shiʿis.
Hadith sciences (ʿilm al-ḥadīth)
Forged hadiths circulated during Muhammad’s lifetime, and the problem of forgery worsened after his death. One widely circulated hadith asserts that Muhammad cautioned, “Whoever lies on my account, his abode will be Hell-fire,” suggesting the seriousness with which such an offense was viewed. Nevertheless, forgery persisted. At times, forgers, realizing that assertions on any given topic would have greater authority through attributions to Muhammad himself, would fabricate reports that plainly contradicted the spirit of Muhammad’s message as well as historical fact. At other times, forgers may have had pure intentions. Acting out of a sincere desire to encourage norms such as charity, piety, or observance of ritual, such forgers may have fabricated sayings that echoed the messages of authentic reports. Both types of forgeries were denounced by Hadith scholars. The latter were considered more pernicious because they could be harder to detect as forgeries. In addition to the problem of forgery, scholars grappled with reports that were somewhat accurate but contained mistakes in transmission, either in the text (i.e., matn) of the hadith itself or in the isnad.
Development and evolution of Hadith sciences
Ascertaining forgeries and classifying hadiths became essential to scholars because Hadith was considered a critical source of Islamic law and creed from the earliest decades of Islamic history. These efforts gained momentum over the course of the 7th and 8th centuries and ultimately led to the articulation of a subfield known as ʿilm al-rijāl (“the science of hadith transmitters”), ʿilm al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl (“the science of critiquing [transmitters] and ascertaining the reliability [of their reports]”), and ʿilm al-ḥadīth (“the science of Hadith”).
Biographical dictionaries (ṭabaqāt) documented numerous men and women and their networks of hadith learning. Each formulaic biographical entry supplies information such as the name of the transmitter, genealogy, provenance, and birth and death dates. Other information to situate him or her in the world of hadith learning could include the names of people from whom the narrators acquired knowledge as well as those whom they taught. Journeys taken in order to learn hadiths are also mentioned given that direct (face-to-face) oral transmission was deemed the best way to learn reports. Journeys in the quest of religious knowledge (riḥlah fī ṭalab al-ʿilm) became a hallmark of this field by the mid-9th century. Scholars distinguished themselves by their devotion to collecting hadiths from sources dispersed throughout the Islamic world irrespective of the hardships such journeys entailed. Finally, biographical entries often included qualitative assessments—that is, the judgment of peers about whether the subject of the biography was reliable, pious, and of sound memory and reputation. In addition to biographical dictionaries, chronicles and geographical dictionaries were used to situate transmitters in a broader context and enable meaningful assessment of their qualifications and abilities to narrate individual reports.
While ʿilm al-rijāl and ʿilm al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl focused specifically on the transmitters, ʿilm al-ḥadīth articulated the etiquette and standards of the discipline as well as guidelines and definitions of terms concerning the hadiths themselves. Al-Rāmahurmuzī’s (died 961) Al-Muḥaddith al-fāṣil bayna al-rāwī wa al-wāʿī is the earliest known work in this genre and is a systematic presentation of the field of hadith learning, its virtues, and the qualifications necessary for hadith transmitters. Other scholars followed with their own expositions of the fields, including al-Ḥākim al-Nīsābūrī (died 1012), al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (died 1071), and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī (died 1245). Each work is a reflection of the individual scholar’s approach to the field and its standards and also serves as a reflection of the state of this field in his day. Taken together, the manuals of hadith transmission help reconstruct the evolution of the Hadith sciences across centuries.
Qualifications of transmitters and classifications of hadiths
The qualifications of a transmitter, as well as classification of individual reports themselves, were important concerns for the field. The following prerequisites were essential for trustworthy transmitters: faith, reputation for truthfulness, maturity, being of sound mind, and possessing a good memory. Furthermore, narrators were expected to understand the content of the traditions they transmitted, relay the report(s) verbatim rather than in their own words, and possess sufficient knowledge of Arabic to understand how oral expression or phrasing of a report may impact meaning.
Within the first century and a half of Islamic history, scholars also began to distinguish between narrators whose function was the memorization and accurate transmission of reports (orally or in writing) and narrators who had mastered the field of hadith learning. The latter had deep knowledge of individual transmitters across Islamic history, including their qualifications and relative standing, and would be able to discern the different types of hadiths and distinguish the authoritative from the unreliable ones.
In this vein, scholars developed a complex system for the evaluation and grading of individual reports. At the most basic level, hadith reports were divided into three categories: (1) ṣaḥīḥ (sound, accurate), (2) ḥasan (fair), and (3) ḍaʿīf (weak). Additionally, a profusion of terms were used to describe and grade both the chain of transmitters (isnad) and the text (matn). For example, the most authoritative hadiths, such as the type found in the Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj, included at least one trustworthy narrator in every generation from the time of the Prophet onward. These hadiths’ isnads were categorized as muttaṣil (continuous, uninterrupted) or marfūʿ (going back to Muhammad himself). Isnads for which one or more narrators could not be verified were termed maqṭūʿ (broken, interrupted) or mursal (incomplete). Ones that were deemed to be forgeries were labeled as mawḍūʿ. These terms and others are treated in detail in the manuals of hadith transmission. The precise meanings of the terms evolved over time, and the manuals reflect these changes and record scholarly disagreement over technicalities.
Hadith and other areas of Muslim life
Use of Hadith was by no means confined to law. The sanctity of these reports and the ways in which they served to preserve and enliven the memory of Muhammad across time and place guaranteed them a currency in multiple areas of scholarly, literary, and cultural production. The example of Sufism, defined as a focus on the mystical inclinations within Islam, is illustrative. Sufi scholars and practitioners tended to draw on and amplify hadiths that focus on the development of the spiritual self, asceticism, and the human striving for connection with the divine. Hadiths were also deployed to legitimize Sufism’s more formal structures of brotherhoods (tariqas), hierarchies of initiation, and rituals that were articulated from the 9th century onward.
Because hadith learning was so esteemed, excellence in this pursuit could result in a higher social rank and reputation. Achievement as a scholar of Hadith became an important status marker for scholarly families. In communities where religious learning was often transmitted intergenerationally, families could transmit social capital by immersing themselves in the study of Hadith. Scholarly lineages were sometimes created and reproduced around the enterprise of hadith learning.
In the sphere of popular culture as well, hadith reports served to construct cultures of piety and encourage the masses to imbibe values and habits promoted by scholars, rulers, or preachers. Historical records of the 12th and 13th centuries, for example, confirm the practice of public readings of short topical hadith collections generally intended to exhort listeners to greater piety, virtue, and asceticism. Some readings had a ceremonial value sanctifying occasions such as the ascent of a dynast or the birth of a child.
Reception of Hadith by Western academics
In the modern period Western academics, who may themselves be Muslim or non-Muslim, have also examined Hadith literature and have been interested in its potential as a historical source for early Islam. Their historical and historiographical methods have sometimes led them to alternative accounts of the formation of Hadith. Western academic study of Hadith can be traced to the late 19th century with William Muir’s (died 1905) study entitled The Life of Mahomet (1857–61). Following him, Ignáz Goldziher (died 1921) produced a more systematic and thorough examination of available sources. Though this field is characterized by a broad range of methodologies, approaches, and conclusions, it is nonetheless viewed by some Muslims to be fundamentally compromised by its roots in Western Orientalist scholarship and the backdrop of European imperialism. For example, stereotypes and tropes of Muhammad as an imposter and as a lustful conquest-driven false prophet, which are attested in medieval and early modern European literature, helped rationalize Western Christian colonial ventures and have coloured frameworks applied to historical sources such as biographical literature and the corpus of Hadith.
With regard to the historicity of Hadith, the spectrum of positions in Western studies of Islam ranges widely. A radically skeptical minority approach denies that Hadith originated with Muhammad and posits instead that the entire foundation narrative of Islam is apocryphal. According to this view, all hadiths are fabrications dating primarily from the 9th and 10th centuries. From this perspective, Hadith functions to promote the foundation mythologies of Islam as well as theological, legal, and sectarian tendencies that proliferated in the formative period. In contrast to this skepticism, many Western scholars generally accept the broad outlines of the Muslim account but maintain that each report (or cluster of related reports) must be evaluated independently to ascertain historicity. They have proposed their own methods for dating and situating hadiths. These include statistical analyses of data derived from isnads and their accompanying texts as well as historical analyses of the content of selected hadith reports. They have also scrutinized linguistic features, regional circulation of traditions, and possible authorship (in the generations after Muhammad). Ultimately, cross-fertilization between academic and confessional scholarship has generated a more-detailed historical understanding not just of the origins of Hadith but also of its social, political, theological, and legal significance.
Hadith and contemporary Muslim discourse
Discourse concerning the use and significance of Hadith among Muslims continues into the modern period. Muslim reformers and political movements—who, beginning in the 19th century, sought to explain why once robust Muslim societies had been overpowered by Western empires—engaged in debates that reflect Muslim absorption of or reaction against Western understandings of Hadith literature.
Some Muslim thinkers, such as Chiragh Ali (died 1895) in India, rejected the notion that hadiths could be verified and reliably serve as a source of laws or beliefs. According to this view, at best, hadiths may be understood as historical relics that convey some information about the life of Muhammad and his community. The Ahl-e Qurʾān movement of the early 20th century gained traction in the Indian subcontinent and promoted the view that Islamic doctrine and practice should be derived solely from the Qurʾān and not from Hadith.
By contrast, other reform movements staked out a position that Hadith must continue to inform and guide all aspects of a believer’s existence. For them, it was the neglect of Hadith as a source of guidance that threatened the fabric and vitality of Islam. Movements that advocate this point of view include the Ahl-e Ḥadīth movement, the Salafiyyah (who strive to emulate the “pious ancestors,” or salaf), and those who subscribe to Wahhābism, the ideology underpinning the Saudi monarchy. Alongside these opposing poles of Muslim discourse there is also the articulation of intermediate positions that selectively draw on Hadith to inform debates on issues such as bioethics, environmentalism, and modern international relations. Scholars who advocate for the integration of Prophetic reports in such contexts harness the persistent power of Hadith to grant the authority of “tradition” to their positions, even if such positions are innovative and radical departures from centuries of earlier Islamic scholarship.