Hadith: What orientalists and modernists get wrong - with Dr Jonathan Brown

Dr Jonathan Brown joins us this week to engage in an in-depth discussion about the Hadith corpus and why contemporary arguments forwarded by orientalists and modernists lack rigour. He takes us on a journey of informed exploration of some of the key personalities and thinkers of early Islam and the lengths they went through to determine the veracity of a tradition attributed to the Messenger of Allah (saw). His books include The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon, Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oneworld, 2009) and His most recent book, Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenges and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy (Oneworld, 2014), was named one of the top books on religion in 2014 by the Independent. He is the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. As always, you can comment your thoughts below. You can donate to the show here: Find us on: Twitter: Facebook: Instagram: Telegram: Presenter: Website Archive: #TheThinkingMuslimPodcast The Thinking Muslim Podcast Episode 86 0:00 - 1:16 Introduction 1:16 - 10:19 Definition of Hadith and its value in Islam 10:19 - 13:20 Does the Quran and Sunnah have equal precedence? 13:20 - 17:09 Why Sunnah of the Prophet is important 17:09 - 24:14 Quran without Sunnah; Sunnah in Islamic law 24:14 - 24:43 Does the Quran authorize the Sunnah? 24:43 - 27:16 What is the Sunnah? 27:16 - 29:29 Connection between the Sunnah as a source of Shariah and as a rule of action 29:29 - 30:07 Do Hanafis regard the Wajib as a lesser obligation than Fardh? 30:07 - 39:19 Are sunnah and hadith synonyms? How to know the Prophet’s Sunnah? 39:19 - 53:48 Hadith collection in the first 200 years after the Prophet, why did Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim compile and verify Hadiths? 53:48 - 55:28 The emergence of Hadith criticism based on isnad 55:28 - 59:48 Arrangement of Hadith books topic-wise and with complete isnad to Prophet Muhammad 59:48 - 1:06:21 Did the Hadith compilers appeal to the ruling class? 1:06:31 - 1:10:51 What blinds Western scholars to diverse assumptions about history? 1:10:51 - 1:16:33 How does a questionable Hadith not raise serious issues in usage? 1:16:33 - 1:39:52 The criteria for determining the authenticity of a Hadith 1:39:52 - 1:48:13 Relationship between a Hadith scholar and a Jurist (Muhaddith and a Mujtahid) 1:48:13 - 1:56:48 Comments on Abu Hurairah’s Hadith reports as misogynistic 1:56:48 - 2:03:40 Islamic law on a person’s rejection of Hadith 2:03:40 - 2:03:56 Additional resources