Page 35 - World Religions I - Islam

into English, wrote, "It has been unanimously agreed that Imam Bukhari's
work is the most authentic of all the other works in Hadith literature put
together. The authenticity of Al-Bukhari's work is such that the religious
learned scholars of Islam said concerning him, 'The most authentic book
after the Book of Allah (i.e. Al- Qur'an) is Sahih Al-Bukhari.'" In his careful
investigation, Imam Bukhari accepted as authentic only 7,275 out of
300,000 hadith which he heard.
o Jami' of At-Tirmidhi (died AD 892/279 AH)
o Sunan of Abu Dawud (died AD 888/275 AH)
o Sunan of Ibn Maja (died AD 886/273 AH)
o Sunan of An-Nasa'i (died AD 915/303 AH)
• The authors were not the writers themselves, but were compilers and editors who drew
together information "passed to them" and produced it.
o The Hadith are second only to the Qur'an in importance.
o The majority of Islamic practices (such as the Five Pillars of Islam) and elements of jurisprudence are drawn
from the Hadith.
• "So far from the Qur'an alone being the sole rule of faith and practice to Muslims, there is not a single
sect amongst them whose faith and practice are based on it alone."97
• "Tradition, rather than the Qur'an, has formed both law and religion for the Moslems [sic]."98
• "The Koran does not make explicit all of its commands; not even all those which are fundamental.
Thus it enjoins prayer, but not how it is to be performed; the form of canonical prayer is based
entirely on the Sunnah."99 Because the Hadith clarifies the Qur'an or contains additional material not
existent in the Qur'an, the Hadith often supplants the Qur'an as an authority. Islamic schools of
jurisprudence regard the Hadith as important tools for understanding and clarifying the Qur'an. The
Qur'an itself is not sufficient enough, despite its claim of clarity in 5:92.
o A sub-category of Hadith known as Hadith Qudsi (or Sacred Hadith) are sayings of Muhammad but are
regarded as the words of God.
• Hadith Qudsi differ from the Qur'an in that the former were revealed in a dream or through a revelation
and are expressed by Muhammad indirectly, whereas the latter are allegedly are the direct words of God
transmitted through the angel Gabriel.
• The Sunnah also consists of biographies of Muhammad known loosely as Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of
God) or sirah.
o Sirah literature includes a variety of heterogeneous materials containing stories intended as historical
accounts and used for veneration.
o It is often noted that a coherent image of Muhammad cannot be formed from the literature of sirah, whose
authenticity and factual value have been questioned on a number of different grounds.
• The fact that no sirah work was compiled during the first century of Islam.
o The earliest and most comprehensive sirah was written by Ibn Ishaq (died AD 765), although
none of his manuscripts exist today. The later sirah of Ibn Hisham (died 833) are supposedly
taken from that of Ibn Ishaq, although by his own admission his works omit "areas that might
have caused offense" and "shameful things."100
• The many discrepancies exhibited in different narrations found in sirah works.
• Later sources claiming to know more about Muhammad than earlier sources.
o The compilers of the 8th century (Ibn Ishaq and Ma'mar) knew little about the death of
Abdullah, the father of Muhammad. Suddenly in the 9th century, the historian Waqidi tells not
only of Abdullah's death, but how he died, where he died, what his age was, and the exact place
of his burial.
• Discrepancies compared to non-Muslim

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