Criticism of hadith

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Criticism of ḥadīth^{[Note 1]} or hadithical criticism is the critique of ḥadīth—the genre of canonized Islamic literature made up of attributed reports of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.^{[1][Note 2]}

Mainstream Islam holds that the Sunnah—teachings and doings of Muhammad—are like the Quran, divine revelation to be obeyed, but the "great bulk" of the rules of Sharia (Islamic law) are derived from ḥadīth rather than the Quran. However, Quranists reject the authority of the hadiths, viewing them as un-Quranic; they believe that obedience to Muhammad means obedience to the Quran;^[3][4] some further claim that most hadiths are fabrications (pseudepigrapha) created in the 8th and 9th century AD, and which are falsely attributed to Muhammad.^[5][6][7] Historically, some sects of the Kharijites also rejected the hadiths, while Mu'tazilites rejected the hadiths as the basis for Islamic law, while at the same time accepting the Sunnah and Ijma.^[8]

Criticism of ḥadīth has taken several forms. The classical Islamic science of ḥadīth studies was developed to weed out fraudulent accounts and establish a "core" of authentic (i.e., "sound" or ṣaḥīḥ) ḥadīth compiled in classical ḥadīth collections. But some Muslim thinkers and schools of Islam contend that these efforts did not go far enough. Among their complaints is that there was a suspiciously large growth in the number of ḥadīth with each early generation;^{[9][Note 3]} that large numbers of ḥadīth contradicted each other; and that the genre's status as a primary source of Islamic law has motivated the creation of fraudulent ḥadīth.^[12][13]

These critics range from those who accept the techniques of ḥadīth studies but believe a more "rigorous application" is needed (Salafi Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi)^[14] in preparation for updating and re-establishing Sharia law; to those who believe it is important to follow the Sunnah but that the only handful of ḥadīth (mutawātir ḥadīth) are of sufficiently reliable basis to accept (19th-century modernist Sayyid Ahmad Khan);^[15] to "deniers of hadith" or "Hadith rejectors" who believe that the ḥadīth are not part of the Sunnah and that what Muslims are required to obey is contained entirely in the Quran (20th-century modernists Aslam Jairajpuri and Ghulam Ahmed Perwez).^[16]

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