Page 112 - Bigotry: The Dark Danger

Bigotry:
The Dark Danger

times even contradicting each another, has also led to hostilities
between some hadith scholars. For example, while Ikrima is a
reliable source in the eyes of Bukhari and several famous hadith
scholars, he is accused of lying by Muslim. Perhaps the most inter-
esting of these is the way that Bukhari, the author of the best known
book of hadiths in Islam, declares Abu Hanifa, the head of the Hanafi

school, to be "ghayr al-siqah," in other words "unreliable," and car-
ries not one hadith narrated by him. In the view of the most famous
hadith scholar, the founder of the most famous school is deemed
unreliable, yet much of the Muslim world regards the two of them as

the most trustworthy hadith scholars. The fact is there are as many
inconsistencies in the debates about the reliability of those who relat-
ed the hadiths as there are in the hadiths.

The founders of the four
Osman Hamdi Bey's oil painting
"Theologist," 1907 schools are of course worthy
Islamic scholars. However, the
foundation of the four schools
was in fact based on mutually
conflicting hadiths. Each
school based itself on the
hadiths it preferred.

110