This article is published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34, no. 3 (2017). Since the journal uses transliteration conventions that I do not prefer, and since the published version introduced some minor errors into the text, I’m providing this version of the manuscript, which is more correct. Download PDF
IS THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS? Tension Between Minimalism and Comprehensiveness in the Shariah
Summary: The comprehensiveness of Islamic law has been questioned seriously in the modern period by Muslim reformists like Rashīd Riḍā . Such reformists have used as evidence Qur’anic verses and Prophetic reports that seem to state clearly that the strictures of Islamic law are few and limited and that Muslims should not extend them to…
Did the Prophet Say It or Not? The Literal, Historical, and Effective Truth of Hadīths in Early Sunnism
Summary The article contends that ahl-al-hadīth did not view the historical reliability of hadīths through the epistemological lens of later Sunni legal theorists. It claims that the ahl-al-hadīths conceived of sound hadīths as providing what will define a historical certainty. It explores the extent to which the term ahl-al-hadīth, which means Partisans of Hadityh, was…
Critical Rigor vs. Juridical Pragmatism
Summary Modern scholarship has accepted the ‘backgrowth of isnāds’ in the early ḥadīth tradition, but this phenomenon did not occur without controversy among classical Muslim scholars. Ḥadīth critics were aware that material was being pushed back to the Prophet, a phenomenon they approached through the lens of ziyāda (addition). By examining works devoted to criticizing…
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…
Criticism of the Proto-Hadīth Canon: al-Dāraquṭnī’s Adjustment of the Ṣaḥīḥayn
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