Why Prophet Muhammad is innocent of the
fabricated that fills the hadith books
Millions of Muslims all over the world have been brought up to believe that the collections of hadith by Bukhari and Muslim and others provide the authentic words and teachings of prophet Muhammad. These collections have been labelled 'sahih' (authentic). The majority of these hadith portray a chain of narrators leading to a 'Chinese whispers' narration, attributing it to the prophet. A typical narration would be: A said that B said that C said ....... that G said, that the prophet said! Often the chain extends to seven names or even more, yet for some reason the hadith advocates still deemed these hadith to be the authentic and genuine sayings of the prophet! It is also claimed with unjustified certainty that every person in the chain, not only was totally honest, but that he had an infallible memory enabling him to accurately narrate incidents that took place one hundred or two hundred years earlier!
The hadith advocates have devised a very simple criterion for the assessment of any hadith. To them, the validity of any hadith is dependant on the integrity of the narrator! They will tell us that hadith no 374 (for example) is a genuine hadith because the narrator has been checked for good character! Even if the integrity of each person in the chain is deemed to be beyond question, what about the errors that occur merely through the effect of a 'Chinese whispers' chain? For demonstration of this concept please refer to: Chinese Whispers
Needless to say, common sense dictates that this farcical process should have never been employed. The only reliable method by which to test the authenticity of any hadith was totally ignored!
Since the authenticity of the Quran, being the un-corrupted word of God is not a matter of dispute, then it would make better sense to assess the authenticity of any hadith by determining whether it is in harmony with Quranic truth or in fact, it is in violation of Quranic truth. Sadly, the hadith scholars are not interested whether any one hadith contradicts the Quran or not. When there is a clear contradiction between a Quranic verse and a hadith, they do not hesitate in labelling the Quranic verse as one that has been abrogated by a hadith!
For details of this great lie against the Quran please check: The lie of Quranic Abrogation
All the time, the scholars should have been checking the content of the hadith itself rather than the character reference of the narrators!
It must be stressed that testing the authenticity of any hadith is not for the purpose of approving the hadith as a source of religious law. The reader of the Quran should be well aware that God sanctions the Quran to be the sole source of religious law:
Shall I seek other than God as a lawmaker when it is He who has brought down to you the Book fully detailed? 6:114
Testing the authenticity of any hadith is only relevant for historic purposes and for the benefit of those who wish to research the life of the prophet. As we shall see later, the prophet himself prohibited his people from writing or documenting his hadith, which makes the whole collection of hadith books a very dubious matter indeed.
Consequently, if we try to apply the only logical criteria for assessing the hadith (its compliance with the Quran) we are immediately faced with serious contradictions between a large number of hadith on one hand and the Quran on the other hand. However, if we accept that the prophet of God would have never taught anything that violates or contradicts the Quran, we must conclude that any hadith which contradicts the Quran, which is attributed to the prophet, is indeed a lie and a fabrication which the prophet is innocent of.
Our starting point is to examine the following two contradicting hadith.
In the first hadith it is reported that the prophet said to his people shortly before his death:
"I have left you the Quran and my sunna"
Yet in another hadith the prophet commands his people quite the opposite:
"Do not write down anything of me except the Quran. Whoever writes other than that should delete it." (Ahmed, Vol. 1, page 171.....also Sahih Muslim )
In accordance with accepting the Quran to be the best criteria to judge the authenticity of any hadith, let us look into these two hadith and proceed to determine which of the two is in harmony with the teachings of the Quran.
To do so, it is essential to refer to a number of Quranic verses:
1- The Quran confirms that the only sunna is the Sunna of God. Nowhere in the Quran is there any mention of a sunna for Muhammad!
You will find that there is no substitute for the Sunna of God. (33:62....35:43.....48:23)
2- The Quran instructs all Muslims to follow the Quran Alone. This is found in numerous verses such as:
These are God's revelations that We recite to you with truth, so in which hadith other than God and His revelations do they believe?" 45:6
Shall I seek other than God as a lawmaker when it is He who has brought down to you the Book fully detailed? 6:114
The above Quranic verses confirm the following matters:
a- That the Sunna of God is the only sunna.
b- That God commands us to follow the Quran as the only source of religious law.
As a result, we must conclude that in no way would the prophet of God have uttered words against the commands and words of God, neither would he have advocated to have a sunna of his own which the believers should follow.
Immediately, we must discard the hadith that says: "I have left you the Quran and my sunna"
The Quranic words above indicate that prophet Muhammad could not have ever said such words. This hadith violates the Quran and must be regarded as a fabrication and a lie against the prophet.
When we inquire further, we actually find the correct version of the hadith above and it reads:
The Messenger of Allah said, "I left for you what if you hold on to, you will never be misguided, the book of Allah." (Muslim 15/19, nu 1218; Ibn Majah 25/84, Abu dawud 11/56).
This is the hadith that conforms to the Quranic verses above.
In accordance with the instructions left by the prophet as per the second hadith, we find that for the first 200 years after the death of the prophet, the writing of his hadith was prohibited. Historically, the absence of any documented hadith for two whole centuries also confirms that the prophet never left his people with anything but the Quran, and that the second of the above hadith is the correct one.
We know that out of all the hadith collections regarded as 'sahih' (authentic) today, the collection of Al-Bukhari was the first to be documented. Al-Bukhari was born in the year 194 After Hijrah. For more details about the history of hadith please see the following pages:
The aim of this research is to demonstrate numerous examples of the very clear contradictions between various hadith that are described by the hadith scholars to be authentic and the Quran. This research aims to demonstrate to the reader how prophet Muhammad is totally innocent of the thousands of fabricated hadith that are falsely attributed to him.
Important Note: It has been the habit of the followers of hadith to try to discredit anyone who questions the authenticity of hadith. Immediately, they would accuse him of not accepting prophet Muhammad as God's messenger, and other equally unfounded accusations! However, if it can be shown that these hadith, which they call authentic, contain an abundance of contradictions with the Quran, then this research in actual fact becomes a genuine defence of the integrity of prophet Muhammad and not the contrary. This research aims to prove that prophet Muhammad would have never preached nor taught anything that contradicts the Quran, and this would automatically exonerate him from all such fabricated hadith.
It is not possible to detail all the contradictory hadith as their number is immense, so the following are a good selection of these glaring contradictions.