Oxford Scholar Dr. Joshua Little Gives 21 REASONS Why Historians are SKEPTICAL of Hadith

In the second part of our interview with Dr. Joshua Little, we discuss the views of historical-critical scholarship in regard to the authenticity question: Do hadiths reliably go back to the Prophet Muhammad?

Note: I was suffering from a fever during this interview... so I start to fade near the end -- apologies in advance!

You can follow Dr. Little on Twitter: @IslamicOrigins

You can watch Part 1 of this interview here:

42:47 Prior Probability
47:17 Lateness of the Sources
56:18 Full of Contradictions
01:03:50 Propagandistic Reports
01:07:38 Historical Anachronisms
01:26:13 Supernatural Elements
01:28:13 Reports of Mass Fabrication
01:33:49 Late Isnāds
01:44:30 The Early Usage of the Word "Sunna" Differs from the Classical Usage
01:52:43 Rapid Numerical Growth in Hadith
01:57:01 Absence of Hadith in Early Sources
02:08:55 Peculiar Patterns Inconsistent with Genuine History
02:18:10 Hadiths Contradict Earlier Sources
02:21:06 Orality Means Less Precision in Transmission
02:31:16 Extreme Variation, Rapid Mutation
02:34:29 Artificial Literary Topoi
02:37:52 Product of Popular Storytelling
02:40:34 Exegesis Pretending to be History
02:43:58 Quranic Amnesia: Discontinuity Between Quranic Milieu
02:50:26 No Effective, Consistent Method
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[rolandboston]

Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
4:43 Hadith compared to other sources of history
12:15 Transmission of hadith vs Transmission of the Qur'an
15:46 Difference between oral and written preservation
18:42 Discussion on skepticism and revisionism
35:42 Meta-historiography; traditionalist dismissal that skepticism is fringe and outdated

42:22 1) Prior probability of false ascription in religious-historical material
47:13 2) The earliest extant collections were recensions from the ninth century onwards
56:23 3) Hadith are full of contradictions
1:03:51 4) A large number of hadith suspiciously look exactly like later religious sectarian, political, tribal, familial, and other partisan, polemical and apologetic creations
1:08:45 5) Hadith talking about later terms, later institutions, later events, and later phenomena.
1:11:51 6) Putative supernatural explanations for texts have a vanishingly low prior probability of explaining the existence of these reports
1:27:48 7) Reports of mass fabrication
1:32:04 8) Isnads rose relatively late, and became widespread even later
1:44:33 9) Early usage of the word Sunnah was a generic notion of sunnah as good practice, which was not specifically Prophetical, and was independent of hadith
1:52:44 10) A rapid numerical growth in hadith can be observed
1:57:01 11) Absence of Hadith in early sources
1:59:49 12) Retrojection of hadith; ratio of cited hadith changes from mostly ascribed to followers then to companions then to the Prophet
2:09:02 13) Various peculiar correlations, descriptions, and content that don't make sense as a product of genuine historical transmission but make more sense as a product of later debates and later ascription preferences
2:17:45 14) Hadith contradicting earlier literary and archeological sources
2:21:08 15) Orality means less precision in transmission
2:31:17 16) Extreme variation, early rapid mutation and distortion across the hadith corpus
2:34:28 17) Artificial literary or narrative elements; Recurring topoi
2:37:53 18) Hadith exhibit telltale signs of storyteller construction
2:40:25 19) Exegetical reports about the context of the Quran are exegesis in disguise
2:45:32 20) Recurring disconnect between the Hadith and the Qur'an in terms of historical memory
2:50:30 21) There was no effective method for distinguishing between authentic and inauthentic hadith

2:58:03 Conclusion

[geronimojones]

For so many years, I’ve felt so disappointed and left uninspired by the vast majority of what we call Muslim scholars. I can’t count the number of jummah khutbahs I’ve left feeling disappointed in the imams. To put it bluntly, so many of our traditional scholars in the community come across to me as dogmatic, unconvincing, simplistic in their views, unable to think critically. They come across to me as uneducated, frankly.

Coming across Javad’s talks has been so refreshing. I feel like my iman is strengthened. May Allah reward you, Dr. Hashmi.

[fuuzug]

Dr. Joshua really needs to get better internet connection. Otherwise a very refreshing view on Hadith criticism

[PiratesRock]

First video I‘m watching, and I just want to say first of all thank you for the closed captions!

I‘m hard of hearing so, these CCs are a blessing for me and helps me to fully understand these videos.

And finally, keep up the good work, Dr. Hashimi!

[ziryabjamal]

Dr. Amir-Moezzi, inspired by Ibn Arabi, draws a distinction between Faith (Iman) that is essential and Doctrine (Aqeeda) that is incidental. Granted, the historical critical method can shake doctrines, but it cannot shake a believer's faith. (fulan ibn fulan)

[hyrunnisa]

This is wonderful. Thank you for this discussion. I absolutely enjoyed it and loved all of the points he made. I think its really important for us as muslims to not dismiss the historical secular criticisms and engage with it in a meaningful way. I also think that its a shame that the muslim community, even though they say we should use our reason, actually discourage it and insist on blind obediance and blind faith. If our religion or faith is really strong and true it should hold up to criticism and we shouldn't crumble to pieces when we hear things like this. My personal opinion is hadith is good to get an understanding of the life of the prophet as it was understood back then and maybe some historical context of the muslims of antiquity but I don't think people should be forced, shamed or coerced into practicing anything that is in hadith. You can still be a muslim if you don't want to follow hadith..and you are still muslim even if you do want to follow hadith and sunnah. It should all be personal choice and we should be accepting of each others differences.

[hakeem-ji]

Tons of knowledge sharing by both of you gents.. and very well articulated Dr. Little, thanks and best wishes

[clivegillis]

Dr Hashmi, I appreciate your patience in hosting this lenghthy and important presentation when you were clearly feeling unwell.

[aadilansareen]

Great interview. Josh's Australian internet letting him down though lol.

Would like to see more on point 21, in particular why the main method of hadith criticism is unreliable with detailed examples, exploring exactly how inaccuracies are formed. I think that's the key point that a traditionalist would hold on to, hoping the next interview explores this.

[hassanabdaladl]

Next time do 6 hours. Love the discussion. My sadness increases as every minute passes, because I'm getting closer to the end.

[Farhadmoh]

Hadith has created many Islamophobia and also led to high numbers of Ex Muslims. Anyone realise many her revert to Islam came to Islam after reading the Quran and not the Hadith. Salafis are stubborn and arrogant that because bukari or Muslim Hadith have be give authentic status, there can’t be any other new scholars after them refuting these Hadith.

[LittleMissReading]

This was great to watch. Thank you for your work guys 😊

[inhumanhyena]

Wow, absolutely blown away by the quality of this discussion. Thank you so much for bringing *Joshua Little on. I only knew of him from the first video you did with him and I definitely want to look more into his work. This was a really great discussion.

I think the most extreme opinion amongst Quran-Centric Muslims is that following hadith is a form of shirk. I'm Qur'an-Centric and don't consider it shirk, but believe hadith should be treated with a healthy bit *of skepticisim, especially where they appear to contradict the Qur'an and reason. The period in which they began being recorded widely in writing is shaky politically with a lot of mixed motivations and opportunity for corruption. I also don't generally trust the scholars responsible for collecting them based on some of the traditions they felt were reasonable or good to record in so-called "sahih collections". Ironically, though I generally disagree with Asharite "neo-traditionalism", John Brown (who I agree to be solid) has done some good research looking into how the classical scholars took hadith, and they often admit that even "sahih" hadith can mix up the *wording, which is significant. The more conservative scholars considered so few to be "mutawatr", and it seems even they who we expect would be the most biased, maintained at least some skepticism. Ayesha Y. Musa has a great book on the early debate amongst the "rationalists" and "traditionalists", though unfortunately we only have the "rationalist" arguments of al-Shafi'i's opponents whom he records. What's clear though, even in hadith reports themselves, is there was antagonism in the early Muslim community, and the debate isn't essentially "modern" as neo-traditionalist might portray it.

All that being said, the only sahih hadith for me is the Qur'an. I also don't consider any other hadith necessary for dîn, though I understand why the community is attached to them. Personally, if I see something that appears to be clearly ethically or rationally objectionable, I don't even care how Bukhari graded it. So you can see why I would consider this talk so valuable.

This will probably have a part 2...

[Abell_]

A fantastic BOMBSHELL of an interview! Fascinating and engrossing, excited for more!

[dodgysmum]

Finally a Muslim serious enough to accept the reality of the historical perspective (and Id argue its academic not specifically western), but then to move on from it and discuss what can be salvaged from a religious and cultural perspective.

[IbnAlHimyari]

We need time stamps, I have not watch this yet but I know it will be a great historical discussion on the reliability of Hadith.

[hakeem-ji]

Welldone Reza, you acted really well as a host this time 🌟

[whatamievendoing]

Been waiting a long time for this... clicked instantly!

[QuranTalk]

Peace God bless you. Glad I found your channel. I already listened to the interview twice. Second time around I noticed that your notes missed item #12 01:59:53 Retrojecting or Raising of Hadith incase you wanted to add that for others

[owncraticpath]

For any muslims reading, in my opinion, we should let the Qur'an speak.

I say this because if we apply or try to force the liberal agenda into it, in a way like the traditionalist wants to force their narrations, then we are like them.

Many things in the Qur'an does NOT fit the liberal view, it's just the case, even taking into account the "ambiguous" or debatable terms.

Therefore, you are free to reject, but if you believe this is the truth, then God knows better than us about morality.

And our moral codes change and have changed before, so i say, let us take the Qur'an as our rock, not our desires, nor the desires of sectarians either...

I recommend you the work of brother Sam Gerrans, i think he has some excellent points and his work is... work... a lot of work...

You don't need to agree with everything, but he got a very good base and many notations explaining why he diverges at some points, both in historical narrative, cosmology and in other fields.

Personally, i'm with him on the Petra thesis, i know many aren't, but i think expressions like the "mother of cities" and the fact that the people of the Prophet rejected the message is evidence that Masjid al Haram is now on ruins, and not the building people believe is "Masjid al Haram", so in this sense, altough i kinda hate the tag, we are revisionists.

But on other issues, we are not, at all...

The thing is again, to let the Qur'an speak, and do not push an agenda on it.

Another is the modern cosmology, mostly based on the unseen (observations from dubious organizations private or statal, which use technology unavailable to independent actors due to its cost or vice versa) which seem to contradict the Qur'an and observations by independent researchers. This is extremely controversial, but i urge the people to take the stance which makes more sense given the evidence, not the one we have been raised in, or the one social pressure pushes us to, a believer does not fear the blame of a critic... always remember that.

They will call us misguided, dumb, crazy, idiots, wrongdoers, kaafirun, this is a given if you are a true believer and speak up, prophets and messengers were called that as the Qur'an narrates to us, so don't fear standing for the truth, if you got evidence, based on what people would say to you, or you being discredited...

The Garden is worth it, if you truly believe.

This life is short. And full of pain, it isn't worth it being a sellout.

Salamun alaikum