It just occurred to me that all six authors of the Sihah al-Sittah were either Persian or were born and died in areas which were part of historic Iran.
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thabet
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johnpi
The bizarre hadith of Bukhari and Abu Dawud.
From Introduction to The Book of Hadith:
It cannot be denied that there has been an unwarranted elevation over time of the Hadith as a source of guidance in competition with the Qur’an itself, to the extent that verses of the Qur’an which appear to conflict with favourite Hadith may be declared to be abrogated by other verses which agree with the Hadith in question. This idolization of Hadith contradicts the incontrovertible truth that the Qur’an alone should always be referred to as infallible guidance even if the Hadith have been second only to the Qur’an as the basis of Islamic law.One striking example will suffice to show the many conflicts between the Qur’an and the Hadith: The Qur’an clearly allows freedom of religion, but both Bukhari and Abu Dawud include the bizarre Hadith, If anyone leaves his religion, then kill him. (Bukhari 52:260). Similarly, a very early source, the Al-Muwatta’ of Malik ibn Anas (d.179/795), states that anyone who leaves Islam for something else and divulges it is called upon to repent, but if he does not turn in repentance, he is killed. The penalty of death for apostasy is repeated elsewhere in Bukhari: Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him (Bukhari 84:57). Another Hadith (Bukhari 83:37) holds that death is required in three cases: for a murderer, for a married person committing illegal sexual intercourse, and for one who deserts Islam. In this last case, historical evidence makes it clear that the apostates referred to here can be identified with those who are waging war against the Muslim community, and I will return to this critical point in due course.
The most oft-quoted Hadith in Bukhari, If anyone leaves his religion, then kill him, can be questioned on the grounds that its chain of transmission (isnad) goes through a source whose narrations were rejected by Imam Muslim because of the accusations of some scholars that the man concerned (‘Ikrimah) was a liar who also accepted gifts from various political authorities.
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aziz
An old, provocative post about hadith by Yursil I came across at another (now defunct) muslim blog:
The opposite of Taqlid is the approach taken by the Ahl ul Hadith (People of Hadith), otherwise known as Salafi’s or Wahabi’s. Their influence has been far and the printing press has been their friend indeed. Wrapped in source texts they seek every answer in between marks on paper, not realizing the heaviness of those texts and the burden they bear.
Hadith were an attempt at capturing the Amal (Manners) of the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم) in a supplementary way for future generations. They were not meant to replace those who the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم) himself described as his inheritors and those who the Quran praises. Reading Hadith to achieve those manners is possible for pieces here and there, but at the same time it is quite like parents communicating to their child only through one way text messages. Such an approach is insufficient to handle the needs of transmitting the fundamental expressions of our faith (including ritual prayer) much less raising a well rounded person.
Today’s Muslims are, for the most part, like such children.
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aziz
President Obama quoted Hadith this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, which is an event of some significance, apparently.
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aziz
Wang Daiyu has created several very cool desktop wallpapers that feature a map of China and the famous hadith of the Prophet, “seek knowledge, even as far as China”. I love how “Peace be upon him” looks in Chinese.
Incidentally, he also has compiled some defenses of that hadith from its detractors.
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thabet
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Tariq Nelson
An article in Newsweek on the effort to reinterpret Islamic theology
Momentum is building within the Muslim world to re-examine what had seemed immutable tenets of the faith, to challenge what had been taken as literal truths and to open wide the doors of interpretation (ijtihad) that some schools of Islam tried to close centuries ago.
Personally, I believe that an ‘American’ Islam will take a different shape than that of the Muslim World
