Talk:Hadith

I have removed the following due to the given reasons

1. Text attributed to Sadakat Kadri, Heaven on Earth, 2012. He is not a scholar of hadith, neither does he claim to be one. He has basically written a history through a journalist's perspective. Therefore his inclusion as a scholarly source is highly unreliable. We can take this to Reliable source noticeboard if someone is concerned about this.
2. Wael Hallaq has been given a huge amount of space which is undue weight. there are at least three reasons to this being undue. Firstly he is not even talking about hadith in general, (source misrepresentation) he is talking about PROPHETIC HADITH. A hadith which makes a prophecy(which are quite small in number compared to other hadith), and putting this view on all hadith is OR and blatant misrepresentation. Secondly, he, too, is not a scholar of hadith, rather of Islamic jurisprudence and law. Thirdly, he is not more important than the other highly notable western scholars who have been mentioned in the forked article Criticism of Hadith. Therefore I have removed him.
3. The views of Ghulam ahmad Pervez have been given the appropriate space as his notability require. consensus has already been established about this at the forked article Criticism of Hadith.
4. I have also removed the text sourced from Israr Khan. It has been proven here that Israr Khan is just a non notable run of the mill professor at some malaysian university who writes self published books.
5. The entire section Famous but unreliable hadiths has been deleted because it does not use a single source and is 100% Original Research.

Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:53, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Wael Hallaq, you're argument is beyond ridiculous. I've read the paper, and he's not just talking about hadiths which contain prophetic statements (you're clearly reading too much from the title of the paper.) I added the parts specifically dealing with hadith in general in his paper, most specifically the mutwawattir hadiths standard, which has nothing to do with prophetic hadiths specifically but all hadith. Do you even have a subscription to JSTOR? If not, how are you claiming it is a "misrepresentation"? lol. Secondly, the professor is a recognized expert in the field, good luck trying to convince neutral editors Wael Hallaq doesn't qualify as a reliable source. Your last point doesn't even make sense. Other scholars haven't made the same claims as this scholar, so why would we remove him? Let's see what neutral editors say. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb!

The title fo the paper is The Authenticity of Prophetic Ḥadîth: A Pseudo-Problem. Right there smack dab in the middle is the word prophetic hadith. I have read the paper and he is talking about prophetic hadith. You should read the entire work before coming to any decisions. His entire argument is about the prophetic hadith, even when he talks about "mutawatir" he is talking about the "mutawatir" hadith which are prophetic. Mutawatir and Prophetic are not exclusive, if that is your confusion. Mutawatir is the quality of the hadith, like a grade. And prophetic is the subject matter i.e kind. A simple analogy is going to the market and buying fruit. The Type of fruit is the subject of hadith, you can buy either mangoes or apples. Then comes the quality, as you can buy fresh fruit, packaged fruit, organic, GMO etc. So the two cannot be exclusive. Just as you can have GMO apples and corn, you have mutawatir Prophetic hadith. I assume you have no problem with the removal of Israr ahmad and other OR? Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 04:12, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Where you are getting the idea that "prophetic hadith" only applies to that set you are claiming? And that Hallaq is only applying it in that context? Please cite the exact sentence in the paper where the scholar defines "prophetic hadith" as only those hadith which are talking about some future event? Go ahead, show me. Secondly, I've read the entire paper, and I'm doubtful you have read it, since its obvious he is clearly talking about hadith in general. Also, I've created a request for mediation on this issue. Good luck convincing neutral editors that this is not a reliable source and whatever else objection you want to raise. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb!

p.s. typo was made in my edit summary, I meant there has been "no misrepresentation" of the source material, obviously. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 04:39, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, the word "hadith" in Arabic means "report." The term "prophetic hadith" (I'm pretty sure, in the context of the paper) means reports by the Prophet, in general. Nowhere in the paper does the author make the claim he is only talking about some specific subset of hadiths in Bukhari and Muslim, that is purely your own invention, and your whole argument therefore is based on Original Research. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 04:43, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

ok so you agree on other changes with only Hallaq being disputed? Lets discuss him and see. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 06:02, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

You're not discussing anything, you're just reverting. I already destroyed your argument with regards to Hallaq, and you can't counter it. But yes, sure, let's see what neutral editors have to say. The content dispute is already open. The main issue is Hallaq. Israr Khan I don't care too much about, and we can deal with that later. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 06:24, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:Code16 I am discussing, I pointed out everything that I had deleted and then gave the rationale for deletion. You disagree with me concerning Hallaq, I get that we will discuss that. I am asking, do you agree with my other deletions or do you disagree with them too? FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 06:29, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

lol, you know full well that I'm primarily interested in Hallaq's content, because that's the only thing I mentioned in my initial response on this thread (duh!) You also know your argument is a total fail on this point, so all you're doing is trying to evade. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 06:44, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Ok so you agree with the other deletions? A simple yes or no will suffice. If you agree I will make a new section titled Hallaq and we will discuss there. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 06:56, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

No, I haven't even looked at your other edits. We will discuss the Hallaq issue first, which you initially attempted to defend but failed. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 15:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• FreeatlastChitchat, I have reverted your latest revert (to User:Code16's version), because you two clearly have a content dispute and are edit warring. In other words, this is an administrative decision. I am pinging both of you so you know: if either of you revert again you will be blocked for edit warring.

  Now, to the matter at hand, where I have been asked for an opinion: you all need more opinions, from experts. You can't tell me that I'm the best one you can find on this subject matter. (Malik Shabazz, how well-versed are you on the topic of hadith?) I consolidated the references so it doesn't look like that text has so many references; yes, Code16, I find that the one scholar is given a LOT of weight with extensive quotes etc. (These quotes really should be condensed/removed.) The best thing you can do is trim it and find more sources. Doug Weller, maybe you have an opinion here also. Drmies (talk) 16:21, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• For a section that already has a substantial main article, the section Hadith#Criticism desperately needs to lose some weight. Wholesale removal of a section is not how it's done however, especially if it is (IMO) reliably sourced. I'd say: try to condense it down to the headlines in no longer than, say, one paragraph (about 5 sentences). The Criticism of Hadith article might be a bit more elaborate about Hallaq's point of view, but I doubt the necessity of including quotes. They seem to be easily paraphrased to a concise summary. In short: BE CONCISE.

About the reliability/representation of sources, it seems that FreeatlastChitchat at first just misunderstood the term "Prophetic" (Prophetic as in prophecy vs pertaining to the Prophet), but has finally acknowledged this. To me, the Hallaq-reliability discussion appears settled. The other problems that FreeatlastChitChat had listed, appear genuine, so I don't see much trouble removing those. - HyperGaruda (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@Drmies you will do just fine; and Shabaz was "made" to retire as far as my personal opinion is concerned(his is by far the dirtiest dysysop I have witnessed ever). However Dougweller is quite an expert so his input will be valuable. Now to matter at hand. The current version of the article has three basic problems which I will list below. We can discuss them together or separately as you wish. (Code 16 apparently agrees with my other edits, even though he does not wish to state it, I would also like to state that HyperGaruda is quite right, I misunderstood prophetic as being concerned with prophecy at first but I am certain now that it means pertaining to the prophet)

1. It has been proven here that Israr Khan is just a non notable run of the mill professor at some Malaysian university who writes self published books. Consensus has already been reached between me and Code16 that he is an unreliable source for content, as is clear from the discussion I linked. So I would like to contest his views being added here, or anywhere else for that matter.
2. Hallaq has been given a new section all by himself without any rationale. He is a western scholar so he should be included with other western scholars and given due weight. To be frank his weight should be LESS than other western scholars, as he is not a scholar of hadith per se. He is a scholar of law/jurisprudence, and as law is based on hadith he is also knowledgeable in hadith. But he cannot compare with other scholars whose main interest was hadith.
3. I would like to contest the creation of "authenticity" subsection. My argument is that this section is highly misleading. It leads one to assume that other scholars are against hadith for other reason, whereas in reality almost all scholars(both western and eastern) criticize hadith because they consider it as "inauthentic". So this section should not be created at all. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 17:14, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed with both @Drmies: and @HyperGaruda:. Thank you gentlemen for taking the time to look into this. I'll follow both your suggestions and take the following steps for now:

1. condense the material sourced from Hallaq considerably on the main Hadith page, into a single paragraph.
2. Include the details of Hallaq's paper in the main Criticism of Hadith article, but instead of quoting Hallaq, I'll paraphrase to mind the weight and also for concision.

Further opinions by expert editors are welcome. Also, a content dispute case has been opened on this issue as well at: [] cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 17:19, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Update: I've taken out Israr Khan's material since he isn't needed anyway now that Wael Hallaq is present. Also, please not that FreeatlastChitchat's 3rd point above actually SUPPORTS the creation of an "authenticity" section here (although he doesn't seem to realize it.) This is the main Hadith page, and its "criticism" section should highlight the main point of academic criticism of hadith, obviously, in clear and simple terms. FreeatlastChitchat has no choice to admit that "authenticity" is the main problem of hadith. He has also given up arguing that the paper misrepresented. Finally, his argument that Wael Hallaq is not a qualified expert "per se," doesn't even merit much of a response, given Hallaq's credentials. You can't be an expert in 'Islamic Law' without having a scholarly understanding of Hadith, since it is one of the most important sources of this entire academic field. This is why he published a peer-reviewed paper on it (how more obvious can his expertise on this issue get? The professor is publishing papers on this issue lol.) cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 17:52, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

More is better, Code16... Drmies (talk) 17:57, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• User:FreeatlastChitchat, I have made my opinion on the desysop of Malik known in enough places; let me just say that I wish he were still an admin and full-time Wikipedia editor. I saw he has made a couple of article edits recently and thought perhaps he might have time and inclination for an opinion. So yes, generalizing: the section is too long, the "chunks" sourced to the one scholar are too long. HyperGaruda's suggestions make sense to me. As for "authentic", that probably deserves its own discussion. I find that in content disputes it's always best to try and tackle one thing at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day either. Thank you all--let's continue this spirit of collaboration. Drmies (talk) 17:57, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
  • I second Drmies' comments, noting that I was also upset at the Malik desysop which took place while I slept (that'll teach me!). And hopefully some light will come out of the dispute resolution case. But I simply don't have time to do anything here, sorry. Doug Weller (talk) 18:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:Code16. Perhaps you can be kind enough to provide rationale for creating the authenticity section as a separate one because as far as I can see ALL the criticisms of hadith are about its authenticity. John Esposito criticizes it for its unreliable authenticity, so does Ignaz Goldziher. Patricia Crone is also questioning the authenticity of hadith. To be frank it is a quite simple to understand that western scholars will ONLY question the authenticity of hadith, they are not Muslims who can argue against it theologically. So again, my question remains, why has Hallaq been given a new section when his views are the same as these other western guys? Rationale for this undue weight should be provided. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 01:26, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Since you've given up arguing the other points, we'll proceed as if you are in agreement that Hallaq is a reliable source and that there is no misrepresentation of his paper. Now, as for this last argument of yours, it's also critically flawed and easily refuted.

You state: "western scholars will ONLY question the authenticity of hadith"

>>> This is a false statement and a blanket generalization. Notice Sam Harris (already cited in the article) criticizes the content of Hadith on ethical grounds, without any mention of its authenticity.

Your also claim: "ALL the criticisms of hadith are about its authenticity"

>>> This has already proven false regarding Western critiques above. And of course, it's also not true with regards to critiques currently categorized as Muslim (a weird distinction anyway which should be corrected, see below.)

Finally, you ask "why has Hallaq been given a new section when his views are the same as these other western guys?"

>>> The category is called "Authenticity". Just because it happens to contain Hallaq presently, doesn't make it his category. We already know that Muslims have also criticized the same thing (so they should definitely be in that category, along with everyone else.)

This brings up another important issue, concerning the current category structure for the criticism, which will also fix the weight issue. I think that the criticism categories should be based on Subject Matter. For example:

• Authenticity
• Logical/Empirical flaws in the Hadith
• Theological Critique (primacy of the Quran)
• Ethical Content

The material for creating all of these categories is already present. We know that Muslims have made critiques that aren't only specific to Muslims, as in, non-theological (e.g. ethical, logical, empirical critiques) which are already cited. And other Westerners also belong in authenticity and these other categories. Thus, it doesn't even make sense to categorize based on the religious background of the critics in the first place. So instead of taking the authenticity category OUT, we should be adding these other categories IN, and grouping all the present material accordingly. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 07:32, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

p.s. I've created a TP entry on the other page so as to restructure the categories according to the above. Once the categories there are fixed, we can include a single link on this page for the criticism section. Talk:Criticism_of_Hadith#Proposal_for_restructuring_the_categories cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 07:58, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:Code16 and Drmies I have failed to find any mention of "Sam Harris" in the article. Can you point him out to me? Secondly I'll just copy paste the text from the article and then perhaps CODE16 can point out where the "ethical" side of criticism has been mentioned.

1. Goldziher writes, in his Mohammedan Studies:"it is not surprising that, among the hotly debated controversial issues of Islam, whether political or doctrinal, there is not one in which the champions of the various views are unable to cite a number of traditions, all equipped with imposing isnads".^[1]. We see that he is talking about "ISnad" i.e the chain of narration and is therefore arguing about authenticity.
2. John Esposito notes that "Modern Western scholarship has seriously questioned the historicity and authenticity of the hadith", maintaining that "the bulk of traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad were actually written much later." Same here, he is questioning the authenticity.
3. Esposito mentions Joseph Schacht as one scholar who argues this, claiming that Schacht "found no evidence of legal traditions before 722," from which Schacht concluded that "the Sunna of the Prophet is not the words and deeds of the Prophet, but apocryphal material" dating from later.^[2][3] Here too, we see that he contests the "authenticity" of Hadith and calls it apocryphal at best.
4. Contemporary Western scholars like Patricia Crone noted that early traditionalists were "still developing the conventions of the isnad" and provided isnads that by later standards were sketchy/deficient though they were closer to the historical material. Later hadith, though they possessed "impeccable isnads", were more likely to be fabricated.^[4] Again the question of "Isnads" which is direct criticism of authenticity.
5. John Burton in his book The collection of the Quran (1977) argues that certain hadith which are widely accepted and used as a basis for formulating Sharia Law, were invented and forged to provide legal cover for the efforts to preserve the status-quo favoring the political elite.^[5] Authenticity concerns are glaringly obvious here.
6. Madelung has not criticised hadith as far as I can tell from his quoted work he has not criticised hadith, he seems to support it to be frank.
7. Harald Motzki said: "The mere fact that ahadith and asanid were forged must not lead us to conclude that all of them are fictitious or that the genuine and the spurious cannot be distinguished with some degree of certainty."^[6] He is criticizing authenticity of "some" ahadith, but is supportive of them in general. I am not sure why he is in the critics section? The man is saying that most of these traditions are good.

So please now tell me where are the WESTERN scholars who are questioning hadith on ethical grounds? Regards

FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 09:16, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:FreeatlastChitchat Check the main article Criticism_of_Hadith#Western_criticism. Remember this thread relates to content on both articles and Sam Harris is listed there. And I've already been advised by Nyttend ( here User_talk:Code16#Hadith_and_criticism_thereof ) to move all the chunks of criticism from this page to the main Criticism page, leaving only a short summary for the entire criticism combined. And check the other TP, we are already discussing the new structure. So just give this up already, you're not getting anywhere with this, clearly. cӨde1+6 ^LogicBomb! 17:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:Code16 I can see that you have been forced to remove everything that I asked you to remove early on. Thank you for that. This article looks good now, seeing that separate sections have been taken out and replaced with a short and concise summary. ty for undoing your own edits. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 04:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:FreeatlastChitchat The only important thing relevant here is that you're no longer challenging Hallaq as a source anymore, so we can end the content dispute. The content was eventually gonna get moved to the main page anyway obviously. cӨde1+6^TP 12:42, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I am a relatively new contributor to Wikipedia so forgive me if this question is retarded: What is the point of posting content in sections which have their own article? Shouldn't this article be relatively brief, explaining to non-Muslims and non-Arabic speaking persons what a hadith is, leaving them to further investigate specific aspects of hadith as included in the See also portion of the article? And also, after reading through this article there seems to be unnecessary repetition of information. Moldy loofah (talk) 06:35, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

24.88.249.59 (talk) 01:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Here is a copy of the paragraph from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith

Each hadith consists of two parts, the isnad (Arabic: 'support'), or the chain of transmitters through which a scholar traced the matn, or text, of a hadith back to the Prophet.[6][7][8] Individual hadith are classified by Muslim clerics and jurists as sahih ("authentic"), hasan ("good") or da'if ("weak").[9] However, there is no overall agreement: different groups and different individual scholars may classify a hadith differently. Now all of you, convert to Islam.. jkjk do what you want, you're going to hell anyways - a proud Christian!

Although I am not a Muslim. I considered the last sentence offensive against Muslim and should not be tolerated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.88.249.59 (talk) 01:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

bots must have missed it. --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:50, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Made a large edit here which Tokenzero noted had a number of problems. Amongst other things, I had tried to use the arabic plural form of hadith -- namely ahadith. At his suggestion I'm reverting my changes and will follow the MOS:ISLAM practice of using the singular form for plural as well, so I propose everybody use "hadith" -- not "hadiths" or "ahadith" -- as the plural of "hadith" in this article. ... in case anyone cares. --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:57, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@VenusFeuerFalle: can you give more explanation on why you deleted so much information here? such as:

Hi, I don't know how relevant this is to this page, but I found a Prayer book from the 1800s on archive.org. One of the authors is described as "Hadith" but I assume that means that the contents are part of the tradition of what Muhammad said as described on this page. I was thinking of making a link to the book from the external links section, but I'm guess there are many, many examples of such books. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:01, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Where does it say that? I leafed through the book and nothing was in a language I could understand except for the library sticker in the front. If the book reproduces selected Hadith as prayers, then yes it could be linked. It's hard to tell the context just by looking at it though. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:08, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Under authors, it lists "Ahadith," which I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, was another way of writing "hadith." It seems more likely that it is part of the author's name. The description on the page says "A work containing several prayers, especially prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad, the leading Fakih and Imams." Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:26, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Ithil Nan thayakkama kaatuvathai pondru na ethilum kaatuvathu illai endru rasool Saw kooriyathu

103.155.32.198 (talk) 18:46, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Would anyone be interested in a wikiproject on oral tradition? Kowal2701 (talk) 19:16, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

@NGC 628 mind explaining what your edits (some of which were falsely marked as WP:MINOR) are? You've been adding and deleting lots of text to the article without explaining anything 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 11:17, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I have been working on the subject for a long time. Instead of new subheadings for small details in the general page layout, I made merges to prevent unnecessary repetition of the same topics. Among the changes I made was the replacement of some vague expressions with understandable ones. I added sources to some information and provided new links. If you have any questions on a per-modification basis rather than a wholesale reversal, I would be happy to answer them.NGC 628 (talk) 11:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

The use of the word "purported" in the first sentence strikes me as unduly pejorative and subtly implying a particular stance on the academic and religious debates on the hadith. This has to do more with the connotation of the word than its strict definition, of course, but I worry that this kind of language is disproportionately used for Islam. However, I'm not an expert on Islam or the hadith, so I wanted to get a consensus about the way to write about this. "Reputed" could be a more neutral direct substitute, but I think the construction "attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad" probably best expresses the sense that the hadith are traditionally ascribed to the prophet but with varying degrees of historical plausibility, provenance, and religious orthodoxy. It also seems more in line with the way articles on other faith traditions discuss the provenance of similar texts (cf. Sayings of Jesus on the cross and Sutta Piṭaka).

Also, I'm a little confused as to when it's appropriate to use "hadith" as the plural as opposed to "hadiths." Is there some kind of distinction I'm not understanding (like the distinction between "people" and "peoples"), or is this something that needs to be standardized? Finally, in the second paragraph, "the Hadiths" is capitalized, which doesn't seem to be the case elsewhere. Walker Elliott (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2026 (UTC)