The Methodology of the Ḥadīth Critics (al-Muḥaddithūn) in Evaluating Narrations
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Abstract
The muḥaddithūn’s methodology of ḥadīth criticism served to safeguard the Sunnah against fabrication and error and support sound Islamic reasoning amid expanding transmission and increasing turmoil (fitan). This study examines the integrated structure, critical tools, and practical application of this methodology, focusing on how critics established criteria for accepting or rejecting reports and verified the accuracy of transmission chains and texts. An inductive, analytical, and comparative approach is employed to examine transmission practices, critical principles, and procedures of systematic comparison and preference (tarjīḥ), culminating in a case analysis of a textual addition transmitted by a single narrator. The analysis identifies four principal findings. First, ḥadīth criticism operates as an integrated verification system whose evaluative procedures are mutually reinforcing. Second, authenticity depends on a combination of coherence, narrator reliability, transmission precision, and freedom from shudhūdh and ʿilal, extending assessment beyond the apparent soundness of the isnād. Third, narrator trustworthiness does not preclude error, making comparison across transmission routes essential for identifying subtle discrepancies. Fourth, the applied case demonstrates that tarjīḥ proceeds through traceable evaluative indicators, clarifying how critical principles inform judgments concerning additions transmitted by individual narrators. These findings establish the importance of evaluating narrator credibility alongside comparative evidence from transmission chains and texts. The study contributes an integrated account of the relationship between methodological principles and practical judgment, positioning the muḥaddithūn’s critical tradition as a historical model of disciplined verification.
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