Hadith

Hadith ({{lang-ar|الحديث}}, Arabic pl. ahadith; in English academic usage, hadith is often both singular and plural) are traditions relating to the sayings and doings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his companions, or sahaba. Hadith collections are regarded as important tools for determining the Sunnah, or Muslim way of life, by all traditional schools of jurisprudence.

Bridges between Muslim and Western scholars

Currently there is little communication between the world of Muslim hadith scholarship and Western academia. Muslim scholars reject the Westerners as 'Orientalists' who are hostile to religion in general and Islam in particular. Western academics tend to dismiss Muslim scholars as irrelevant, bound as they are to millennia-old hadith evaluations that the Westerners regard as inherently flawed, since the evaluations were done with an eye to faith and using antique methods.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

However, some Muslim scholars have undergone the full Western academic training and found themselves mediating between these two very different worlds. Notable among these was Fazlur Rahman (1911-1988) who argued that while the isnads of the hadith may often be spurious, the content, the matn, can still be used to understand how Islam can be lived in the modern world.

Related Topics:
Fazlur Rahman - Matn

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~