This is our third installment in the Basics of Islam Series dealing with the Hadith and how it affects Muslim theology.
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Hadith Search Engine: www.searchtruth.com
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Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Muhammed and the Hadith:
So this is from Sahih Bukhari, volume 1, book 1, number 3, page 2. Truth came to him when he was in the cave of Hurah. An angel came to him and said, read. He, Mohammed said, I cannot read. Then he took me and he pressed me until I couldn’t stand it.
This happened again a second time. Then he took me and he pressed me a third time until I couldn’t take it. Then he let me go and said, read in the name of the lord who created man from a cloth, and your lord is the most generous. And that was the first revelation of the Quran. Cool.
Well, once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist Islamic extremists. These are the terrorists of the country. They’re random terrorists and brutal endeavors. Newsflash America. These Muslim extremists are, are alive and well.
They are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast, the official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. Alright.
Welcome back to truth about Muslims podcast. Okay. Let’s do that one again. You always get tongue tied. I wanna No.
Flares. Alright, man. Alright. Welcome to truth about Muslims podcast. We’re back.
Yes. And today, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the Hadith and, Mohammed. Right. This is series, about what what do we name the series? I think we named it the basics of Islam because a lot of people were asking.
That’s a that’s a good title. Islam 101. Right. And this is the 3rd installment. That’s right.
Of a 100 part series. A 100 part series. That’s an exaggeration. Yeah. Seriously, if you can’t stand the first three, just give them and go to the next, podcast.
You don’t have to stop listening. We’re still here. We got like 30 other episodes. So, anyway, we we ended and I mentioned that we were gonna talk a little bit about this idea of hadith. I I say it’s the meat and potatoes of the religion because a lot of the practices that you see that Muslims engage in day to day don’t come from the Quran, but rather the Hadith.
Yeah. Right. Because I’ve read the Quran and, you know, like, bits and pieces done papers on it, and, it didn’t seem like it had all of the the rich, directives, I guess, that that I hear from Muslims. Right. Most of the the Quran has more to do with sort of the nature of God and judgment.
Mhmm. I would say is the overarching themes. But in the hadith, you have sort of the daily practices. And in the hadith, you have so many different things. Right there at the beginning, I recited a portion from the hadith that gives us the, inspiration behind the Quran.
So, Mohammed was there in the cave. He encountered the angel Gabriel. It pressed him and said read and did it 2 other times. And on the 3rd time, he finally recited something in it. What he recited is the first revelation 96, surah 96 1 through 5 recite in the name of the lord who created created man from a clot recite.
And your lord is most generous who taught you to write with the pen, taught man what he knew not. So that was the first revelation. Can we stop for a second? Mohammed. I have a question.
What is the Hadith? Well, it’s a collection of things that Mohammed did, and said and Not written by him? No. Mohammed never actually wrote anything. It’s believed, by Muslims that he was illiterate, and people have disputed that.
But so far as the Muslim accounts go, he was illiterate. Wait. But he introduced the Quran. Right. And the Quran is a recited text.
It’s not actually Oh, got it. Yeah. So others would read it. They well, they would he would recite it. Others would memorize it, and then they would recite it.
And so the Quran doesn’t actually get copied down until later. Some Oh, recited meaning, like, it wasn’t written down. Exactly. He spoke it. Exactly.
And it it’s not even so much like he’s reading a text. It’s like it’s it’s poetry, really. It’s the singing and it’s, we have that one, podcast with Peter Riddell. Listeners, if you wanna go back, there’s a a series there on the Quran and there’s even, playing of a recitation from a young Saudi. Right.
That was that was really cool. So with the Hadith, it’s more about what Mohammed, did. It’s reports really about what Mohammed did. So how much are you talking about? How many volumes are you talking about here?
Oh, man. You you have 6 what are called authentic or sahi hadith. So, sahi just means authentic legitimate Like verified. Verified hadith. And the reason they have to be verified now, what you have with hadith, I’ve heard it described as the telephone game and that is a terrible, terrible, unfair description.
What you have is the, accounts that people would hear. So you have the isnad which is chain of transmission, which would be like Trevor heard that Howard said, that Katie said, that Benjamin said, that Chloe said, that this person heard Mohammed say this. And the ISNAD is that chain, meaning Trevor, Howard, Katie, Benjamin, Chloe to that person. That’s the it’s not, the chain of transmission. Okay.
Now, some people would say, well, it’s like the telephone game. Let me explain. And they’ll do it with 5 people. And by the end, you’ve played the telephone game. Oh, right.
It’s completely different. Totally wrong. This isn’t an oral society. Telephone game is a really funny thing to see. Go to an oral society and try the telephone game and watch your jaw drop and go, wow.
Yeah. They actually and plus, you’re not whispering it in someone’s ear and trying to mess them up like you did in the telephone team. Right. You know, you people out there. That’s right.
I was one of them. So in oral society, meaning they would tell the stories or recite the Right. The passages exactly. Mhmm. And they would they would they would even recite the chain.
And so the chain of transmission. Now if there’s anyone in that chain that was known to be a liar, then they would throw it out and say, well, it’s an unreliable hadith. That person’s known to be a liar. Get rid of it. Wow.
So, like, for me in Brazilian jujitsu, you have to know who’s whose master is under your masters, you know. I mean, whose master’s over your masters. Yeah. If you just show up and wear a black belt and say I got this from a guy named, Right. You know, Tito.
Right. In in Venezuela, you know, that’s not gonna right. Okay. So I get it. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors.
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Zweimer Center. And what does the Zwehmer Center do? Talks about Muslims and and tells them on the computer that we love you. Very nice. The Swimmer Center equips the church to reach Muslims.
The Swimmer Center has been educating people about reaching Muslims before it was cool. Yeah. So, there’s a chain of tradition, a transmission, I mean, that goes on the hadith and then there’s also the matin or the content of the hadith. And so, the hadith content is filled with very interesting things and, I mean, everything you could ever want to know, like, the proper way that you should eat chicken. I mean, there would be details in there about how Mohammed ate, what Mohammed did, what Mohammed said.
Like I said, there’s more written about Mohammed, I would argue, volumes themselves. So, if I had Oh. All the authentic hadith standing here, they’d stack 6 volumes themselves. So if I had all the authentic hadith standing here, they’d stack as tall as me. So you’re saying, like, an encyclopedic Yes.
And it’s all about Mohammed. All about Mohammed and encounters things that he said or did. So time out. Is it, like, kinda like how we compile people’s sermons? Like, you know, like, people in the past that, you know, we like Tozer or, somebody like that where somebody has, like, sit down and transcribed or written down sermons and then published it?
So think about it from the instant sort of. But if you think about it from this perspective, a lot of Muslims are not presumptuous about the day of judgment and God’s mercy and so many people don’t understand why. But if you look at this one hadith from the hadith from the book of, it’s called Sahih Muslim, number 39, number 6,761. The prophet said there is no one who will be admitted to paradise based only on his deeds. A man said, not even you, oh messenger of Allah?
He said, not even me, except that Allah wraps me in mercy. So if you wanna know why Muslims are always talking about the mercy and the compassion of Allah, it’s not about deeds alone. They get it from this hadith. So if you walk into a mosque and an imam is teaching, would he be teaching other Quran or the hadith? Both.
Both. Wow. And I would I would argue that most of the teachings I’ve heard come from the hadith. There will usually be a recitation of the Quran, a brief explanation, and then a life principle that comes from the hadith. Is the hadith divine?
No. Not at all. So it’s not like the Quran No. In stature. It should not be held in that that same level of stature.
You use the Quran to interpret the hadith. So it’s almost like a tool, like a research Commentary maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Commentary or Right.
That’s interesting. And so it’s almost like a living commentary because it’s Mohammed’s life and how he lived out the principles of Islam and recorded in these Hadith. Okay. So but you had mentioned and I don’t know if I can say this. I might have to edit this.
But you had mentioned before that a lot of people don’t know that account of Mohammed when he heard, the call to read. Right. Because there’s a lot of debate about what actually happened there in that cave. In all the different hadith, you have this encounter with an angelic being. Muslims would argue that it’s the angel Gabriel, but you have Mohammed being afraid.
Some would argue terrified and these all come from the different hadiths and they would say when revelations comes upon Mohammed, that he would act strangely and Christians have used these hadith to argue that Muhammad was probably under some sort of spiritual possession from a demonic force. And I’ve always said, I don’t think you make any friends by arguing that Mohammed was under some sort of spiritual possession. Why don’t you just allow Muslims to, have their belief and talk with them about what you can talk about? Right. That would close down the conversation pretty fast.
It it would. And and to be quite frank, I think it’s just not loving. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, back to that 3rd great theology, loving someone as you love yourself. I would feel greatly offended and discouraged if somebody came along and said you believe a bunch of fairy tale nonsense when you look at the Bible.
That would that would not make me wanna hang out with that guy. Or Jesus is demon possessed. There you go. And and I’m pretty sure the Pharisees made that accusation. Alright.
Wow. That’s that’s cool. Okay. So keep going. Yeah.
So you have all of these hadith, and I’m telling you, like, if you can imagine, anything you would want to know is in the hadith. You know, how what what shoe you should put on first. I’m not exaggerating. Why there are more, demons active in the sunset rather than the rest of the day. What What you should walk yeah.
Everything you could imagine is in the hadith. So, like, if you’re let’s say, you know, for us as a Christian, we a lot of the more, I guess, academic academically minded, Christians would read a lot. They would do research, read articles, and such. Do Muslims that are devout look at the hadith by themselves? So you have training schools just like you have Christian bible colleges, you have seminaries.
And in the madrasas, in some of those areas, younger students are taught the Quran and the Hadith. Oh. And in their training seminaries, yes, you would definitely learn the hadith and you would memorize hadith. Really? But most of the hadith is just passed down.
Like, they don’t know why they do a certain thing. They just learn from their parents to do a certain thing. And if you tie it back, you can go and look and there’s a hadith that talks about it. Interesting. So there’s a website called search truth.
Uh-huh. And if you look at search truth, you can actually search all 6 authentic hadith and you can search by keyword. You can see all of the hadith that talk about, the strange and unusual things, if you wanna know rules or I’ve even had some Muslim friends ask me, hey, is there a hadith about this? And I’ll just look it up real quick and and tell them, yeah. There’s a hadith that mentions this.
You are traveling so you don’t have to fast because you’re going this many days, you know, by travel. It it it sounds really Oh, it’s comprehensive. Complicated. Well To know I mean, to know to know You could I don’t I don’t know that you could know. I don’t think you could know all of it.
But if you’re ever curious about why a Muslim does something, it’s probably in the Hadith, and it’s probably something Mohammed was doing. Alright. This week’s sponsors. CIU. CIU.
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Real world review. Kids say. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. Now, are there groups of Muslims that, emphasize one hadith over another? You know, that’s a good question.
I don’t know. I think that there probably are some hadith that are more upheld by some schools of thought than others, but I don’t know for sure about that. I know the the 2 that are most recognized by the majority of Muslims are Sahih Bukari, which is b h u k a r I Mhmm. And Sahih Muslim. Those are the 2 that are most often quoted and referenced.
And so when, when people start to look into the hadith, are there times where something will be emphasized that wasn’t emphasized before amongst, like, all Muslims because of somebody bringing it out to light? You know how Christians will have certain aspects of our theology that somebody will bring out, some preacher, pastor, and it’ll also, you know, go across Absolutely. I think probably the most controversial things that are happening right now in in the hadith have to do with, feminism and women’s rights because the hadith are incredibly misogynistic, negative towards women. And so there are some women scholars right now that are calling for a reinterpretation of hadith. So for instance, somebody may have heard, 3 things nullified prayer, a donkey, a dog, and a woman.
So that’s a hadith and it’s an authentic hadith. And so women have been oppressed by this hadith, but then there are other hadith where, for instance, one of Muhammad’s wife, Aisha, who’s one of my favorite characters in the Muslim tradition, Aisha would say that there were times where she would lay in between Muhammad and the qibla, the place to the direction of the prayer, and there was no issue. And so, she would argue that this hadith was probably unauthentic. And so, some Muslim scholars, particularly women, are arguing for a reinterpretation of what Trying to discredit some hadith that have been believed. Mhmm.
Wow. Yeah. There’s another hadith about women that’s incredibly negative that says that, that I believe it was Mohammed saw a vision of hell and, a majority of its inhabitants were women. Oh, man. And so you can see how these hadith would the women would feel that these need to be reinterpreted because they’re incredibly negative towards women.
The idea of the testimony of a woman only being worth, half the testimony of a man. You 2 women to testify against a man. Oh, I was gonna ask how does that work? Because they’re deficient in their religion. So when they call for a reinterpretation, who do they who do they call to?
Who do I? The scholars, the scholars, they’ll argue that there are other hadith that discredit this one person who has been discredited already in his other hadith and he should not be included in the authentic hadith. There’s a lady named Fatima Murnissi that’s a Moroccan sociologist who’s done some really interesting work. If you’re interested in studying about hadith and the reinterpretation, or reconsideration of authentic Hadith, she’s one that you should look at. And so, are there scholars that are coming on board?
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. See, that’s the thing. I mean, Islam is, an on it’s undergoing and it will be an ongoing sort of, of, you know, reformation for a 21st century interpretation.
There are those that are gonna be on the side that want to argue that, we need to reconsider these things to move forward Mhmm. In our religious aspirations. And then there are those that are gonna say, nope, Society might be moving forward, but we have the perfect thing that we need right here and we shouldn’t change at all. So when you talk about fundamentalism, fundamentalist Muslims, they are Is this a reaction to some of this kind of Yep. Moderate Sure.
Liberal ish, you know? Mhmm. Sure. Yeah. No.
There’s plenty of hadith that are quite negative and plenty of hadith that reference jihad and war and give just reason for war and these are the ones that more moderate Muslims would want to reinterpret and say, no, this was sufficient for the time, for this transitionary period, but we need to reinterpret these for the 21st century. You know, Islam isn’t under attack like this And a fundamentalist would say, no. Islam is under attack and we do need these hadith and this is how we’re gonna call for, most of the Muslim world to action. Yeah. But wouldn’t it, be, a disintegration of Muslim theology to fundamentalist to see women trying to call for a reinterpretation?
Well, see, that’s the thing. It’s often argued that women don’t have, a say in Islam and that this is a western thing. Right? Mhmm. But there is a hadith where Mohammed said 2 thirds of the religion can you take from the little ruddy one, which was actually Aisha’s nickname.
And that Aisha was not only did she give Hadith because she’s she gives quite a few Hadith. Like, people would say, I heard this person say that this person say that this person say that Aisha said that Mohammed said. And when Aisha said it, people listened because she was the closest to Muhammad. No. And so she gives hadith, and then she also discredits people’s hadith.
So there are hadith about her discrediting someone else’s hadith saying But they but they’re still in there. So they don’t, like, cut them out. They do. Once once somebody’s discredited, they will remove it. So if there’s a negative hadith and Aisha says, you know, that this person’s a liar or this person must have misheard, Some of those hadith can be removed and so the the the the hadith are not fixed, in other words.
And that’s what they’re arguing right now over what Hadith should and shouldn’t be in there. There there’s not a fixed set that will be forevermore. Right. So are you saying that there’s still, like, text in one of the hadith that will discredit another hadith, but they’re still in there at the time being because they haven’t been examined? Oh, I think so.
Yeah. Like, I mean, there’s like, I mentioned the the text about the dog woman and Right. A donkey and Aisha’s, essentially discrediting it, but both hadith are still present there in Bukhary. Interesting. Okay.
So a quick question about who writes these hadiths. The first people, they’re the ones that are very close to Mohammed? Well, you had to have heard him say it. So there’s the hadith where you say, I heard Mohammed say this, and that’s what most of the hadith are. There’s another type of hadith, I believe it’s called hadith Qudsi, which would be the I heard Muhammad say that God said this.
And it’s not the Quran, but it’s Mohammed saying that God says, Allah says this. So it’s like kinda adding Higher. Adding to the Quran, but it’s still in the hadith, so it’s not divine. Yeah. No.
It’s not adding to the Quran, but it’s it’s it’s held up there higher than just Mohammed saying something. It’s God’s Mohammed saying that God said something. So do they separate that? Do they is that in a separate hadith? No.
They’re all in the same Okay. Hadith. Hadith. So they’re just gonna intermingled in there? Right.
So these are people that are close to Mohammed enough that they have relationship with Mohammed? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You need to be a reliable source. So it’s not his son.
Some weird dude coming out. Yeah. Talking crazy. Right. Because I was wondering that would kinda ruin, the validity.
And there are a lot of hadith like that, but those are not the authentic ones. Like I said, there’s only 6 volumes of the authentic hadith, and then there’s plenty of hadith that have been just discredited or said that that’s a weak Hadith. Alright. So, this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where, if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad.
So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. You had mentioned 2 hadiths that were popular, today, the most popular today. Why are they more popular than others? Which ones? The ones that you mentioned.
Do you remember what you said? The No. You you had said these are the 2 most most read or something like that. Oh, the the ones about jihad, probably. That’s what you’re saying.
And it’s interesting because See, see how I misrep I misrepresented what you had said. That’s right. This is dangerous. So jihad, actually, the the most, proper reading of jihad according to the hadith most often is is war. The hadith about the internal struggle is actually quite rare, but that’s the one that most Muslims cite.
So that’s one of those scenarios where even the most, kinda ambiguous hadith has actually taken precedence over the other hadith. Oh. So it’s a it’s a interesting part of the religion and I think most people don’t recognize that they think that it probably comes from the Quran, but it’s really the hadith. You’ll see people brushing their teeth a certain way with a little stick. It’s in the hadith.
I’m really I can’t over exaggerate how much is there. You know how we, in the west have been extremely influenced by, was it their time of the renaissance, where we were looking at sources, original sources? You know, like, we were reading the original texts. We wanted to get back and not just hear commentaries of. Do you find that with Muslims, there’s a sense of powerlessness because they don’t know the hadith?
There’s so much that could be said in the hadith that they didn’t know about and they’re doing something wrong? I I think so and that’s why I think there’s a kind of a battle between the reformers and the fundamentalist because they’re both reaching for the text that the vast majority don’t know and so they don’t know who to believe about the text. They’re reaching for the text to bolster their their side. Their argument. They’re they’re pulling things out of the text to argue for reformation.
They’re pulling things out of the text to argue for going backwards. I mean, for instance, I was just looking at this Hadith. It’s one that I think is, interesting. I I always say, you know, you could ask a Muslim, you know, do you have sin in your life and you might get the answer no. Well, there’s a hadith that was narrated by Abu Huraira who has a lot of hadith, by the way, that says the messenger of Allah said, right, all of my followers sins will be forgiven except those made public.
That is when a man commits a sin at night and then makes it known during the day even though Allah has screened him in the night. So when you go to a Muslim and you say do you have sin in your life, what you’re really asking him to do is something horrible, to bring something that is screened and shielded at night by the grace and mercy of Allah to public and shame himself publicly and also, you know, his family or whoever else. Wow. But that that’s a Hadith. That’s out of Bukhari.
That’s a honor shame paradigm thing that we’ve been talking about. Wow. That’s that’s amazing. So there’s there’s just filled with Hadith. You should go on search truth, type in some interesting words that you’d like to look up in the hadith.
If you’ve ever wondered why do Muslims sit this way when they pray or why do they hold their hands here when they pray, why do they eat this, why don’t they eat this, It’s all in the hadith. One of my favorite ones, I had a student recently who was taking a world religions course from another professor and he was teaching something on Islam. And so he came to me and he said that the professor had told him, if you could teach us something about Islam, if you could teach the professor something about Islam, he didn’t currently know that they would get an a on their presentation. So, of course, he comes to my office and he says, what could I say that he doesn’t already know? Now, this is this is Dave.
Right? Dave Cash. He’s like a walking encyclopedia. Yeah. He knows.
And so, I I was scoring through the hadith and I was like, oh, here we go. There’s one hadith that says that Mohammed is actually the brother of Jesus because they have the same father. And I said What? You need yeah. There’s a Hadith.
You guys look it up and search truth. This will force you to go to learn how to use the hadith search tool. It says that Mohammed and Jesus are brothers because they have the same father. Now, I’m not saying this is a case for Jesus being the son of God. I don’t think that’s what the hadith is saying at all.
I think he’s saying they have a spiritual connection with Allah. They’re both messengers of Allah. They’re prophets of Allah. That’s what the text means. So don’t use that as an evangelism tool.
But what I told the student to use it as is at the end of your presentation, you need to say to the professor that Mohammed and Jesus are 2 brothers from another mother and that’s something you didn’t know about Islam. And I don’t know if they did it or not. Oh, man. I still don’t know. I gotta ask.
We yeah. We need to hear the end of that story. It’s like a cliffhanger. Yeah. So that’s in the Hadith.
Wow. Okay. So, we got, how many more in this series? A 100? A 101.
Right. Yeah. We’ll probably do a little bit about, Islamic law. We really need to do the common ground, the nature of God. Do we worship the same God?
That’s a question that keeps coming up from people. And we get a lot of hits on articles whenever we publish stuff like that. Yeah. So we need to talk about the do Muslims and Christians worship the same God, the character and the nature of God according to Islam, the attributes of God. Yeah.
There’s a lot there’s a lot there. Okay. Maybe we’ll we’ll break it up with an interview or 2 as well. We’ve got, just to give you guys a heads up, we’ve got, Peter Riddell coming actually coming into the studio this time. Cool.
That’s gonna be coming up. And we’ve got, Matthew Stone who’s gonna be coming up. And then we’ve got 4 or 5 guys coming up here in the next month that are just gonna be stellar. So I’m excited. Yeah.
I’m really excited to meet actually Peter Riddell in person. Get that Australian accent going. Right. Right. Right.
So, yeah. I hope he doesn’t hear this. Anyway, give us a shout out on truth about Muslims. Good on you, mate. On the truthaboutmuslims.com and, zwemberscenter.com and Itunes reviews.
Alright? So thank you so much for listening. We’ll see you next week.