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Bukhari's Criteria Of Hadith Acceptance
Assalam Alaikum.. Going back 1200 years to the era of Imam Bukhari.. As of my understanding, among the many criteria to which a hadith must be authenticated (must) include it’s validation with Quran. Meaning, no matter how “Sahih” the “Sanad” (chain of narration, and narrators are) it should still always comply with the Quran. Correct?
But is it?
That’s my concern, I looked up quite a lot in the early biographies of Imam Bukhari, e.g. Fath Al Bari by Ibn Hajar Asqalani, and I found out that Imam Bukhari himself never had this among his criteria that a hadith must not go against the Quran. Is this true?
Assuming this is true, isn’t this the best argument against those who love to blind follow all Sahih Hadiths (i.e. those who equate Sunnah with Hadith) or those who say Islam = Quran and Hadiths… that the original collections of “Sahih” hadith, that they consider 100% correct, had no validation from Quran in the first place.. Shouldn’t this raise alarms?
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Bukhari's Criteria Of Hadith Acceptance
updated 1 year, 2 months ago
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First of all, the goal of any academic exercise should never be to just find arguments against others. The goal, instead, should be to understand the matter in as much depth as possible. If the result of our understanding goes against our own beliefs or practices, or those of others, then that should be accepted as such. If later on our understanding changes because of new data then we should accept our new findings in favor of our old beliefs.
Imam Bukhari did not compile a separate book or document where he explicitly laid out his methodology and criteria for accepting and rejecting narrations. Instead, his methodology and criteria are inferred from his actions and practices as a Hadith scholar, as well as from the introductions and prefaces to his famous collection of Hadith, Sahih al-Bukhari.
In Sahih al-Bukhari, you can find some indications of his methodology and criteria in the introductions to his chapters. While these introductions may not provide a detailed breakdown of his criteria, they reflect his focus on authenticity and reliability of narrators, and the consistency of Hadith with practices of Muslims. Later scholars and commentators have also discussed and elaborated on his methodology based on his work.
In my knowledge, Bukhari did not make any claims to verify the narrations in his book with the Quran.
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Thank you Faisal. jazakAllah khair. Can you please check the very last sentence you wrote, you mean to say “did” or “did not” ?
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Sorry about the typo. It has been fixed.
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