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How We Know Early Ḥadīth Critics Did Matn Criticism and Why It’s So Hard to Find
Summary Western scholars generally agree that early ḥadīth critics limited their authentication of ḥadīths to examining isnāds. The argument that these critics took the matn into account has relied on material of dubious reliability or on works produced after the formative period of the Sunni ḥadīth tradition. By providing examples of matn criticism from the…
New Data on the Delateralization of Ḍād and its Merger with Żā’ in Classical Arabic
Summary The history of the phoneme ḍād and its merger with the phoneme żā’ has proven enigmatic. By presenting data from Old South Arabian speech communities and lexical data from the Islamic tradition, this article brackets a period of ḍād / żā’ free variation between the fourth and mid-eighth centuries CE. These data support the…
Criticism of the Proto-Hadīth Canon: al-Dāraquṭnī’s Adjustment of the Ṣaḥīḥayn
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The Social Context of Pre-Islamic Poetry: Poetic Imagery and Social Reality in the Mu’allaqat
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Even If It’s Not True It’s True: Using Unreliable Ḥadīths in Sunni Islam
Summary Sunni Islam is at heart a cult of authenticity, with the science of ḥadīth criticism functioning as a centerpiece designed to distinguish authentic attributions to the Prophet from forgeries. It is thus surprising that even after ḥadīth scholars had sifted sound ḥadīths from weak, mainstream Sunni Islam allowed the use of unreliable ḥadīths as…
The Egyptian Gazette
Egypt’s future in Western eyes By Nayrouz Talaat – The Egyptian Gazette Tuesday, July 19, 2011 03:04:50 PM CAIRO – When a friend recently told me that Professor Jonathan Brown was visiting Cairo, I was determined to arrange an interview. My aim was to learn from the experiences of an American citizen-cum-Islamic researcher. It is…