Aisha’s Critique of Authentic Hadith Content

NOTES FROM THE IIIT CONFERENCE ON APPROACHING THE QUR’AN AND SUNNAH #10

[This is the tenth in a series of my notes on the International Institute of Islamic Thought conference on approaching the Qur’an and Sunnah held in Herndon, VA. These notes are raw material for an edited report I will write on the conference later and represent my perception of the discussion. The proceedings will be published by IIIT at a later time. The Minaret of Freedom Institute thanks IIIT for the grant that makes the publication of these notes possible. Responsibility for any errors in the notes is mine alone.]

Session 10, Moderator: Sami Catovic
Paper Presentation by: Jasser Auda
“Aisha’s Critique of Authentic Hadith Content”

There is much groundwork that needs to be done before we can venture into certain areas to the general public. I will not talk about reinterpretations of hadith, but about authenticity: what does it mean? Sometimes we have narrations of hadith that go against Islamic ideals of the muqasid. It is a great problem that delays various reform projects, whether political, social, economic, or even spiritual. Reform is not to Westernize Islam, but to make the universals once again reign over the particulars. This realization is the reform that is needed. The Shariah is all about justice, mercy, common good, and wisdom. Ibn Qayyid adds that any ruling that turns from justice to injustice, from mercy against mercy, is not about Sharia at all. Shatabi says the particulars cannot void the universals. Ghazali spoke of the illusionary maslaha. How do we deal with these cases? I start with two examples from Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her).

There is a maqsid that overrides all others in `adl (justice). We find this in the Qur’an. There is a difference between contradiction and difference. Contradictions cannot be reconciled. As Ibn Taymiyyah said, often there is an opposition in the mind of the faqih rather than in reality. If hadith A opposes B, consider that A may be said in peacetime and B in wartime. Perhaps A was said to a rich person and B to a poor person, or A was said to someone in a peculiar circumstance and B to someone in an ordinary circumstance.

At-tarjîh means preference. We prefer sahih over da`îf, but I don’t understand a tarjîh between two narrations both with golden chains.  Malik reconciles such contradictions, for example over raising hands in prayer, to say both are valid. Abu Hanifa made brilliant reconciliations. There are different methods of reconciliation, such as reinterpreting meanings, making assumptions about context, etc. There is a huge myth that the companions never make mistakes by even a letter, but anyone familiar with the hadith books knows for every narration there are variations.

Aisha has corrected some of the companions on their narrations. Her knowledge was extensive, deep, and very personal, and everyone knows she was a genius. Therefore, she had the authority to reject hadith, but her method of rejection is telling. For example, “How is it you would tell me such and such, when the Qur’an says so and so (to the contrary)?”

According al Hakim, etc. Aisha heard Abu Hurairah say, “The child of adultery is the worst of the three.” She said “He had an inaccurate hearing and an inaccurate delivery” and that he was speaking of a particular person who was the child of adultery and also was the worst of the three. Further she quoted Qur’an [no one bears burden of another]. In another case she recited a narration by quoting Qur’an that Allah puts on no soul more than it can bear.  In a third she rejected bad omens by quoting Qur’an. In another she asserts that Abu Hurairah didn’t hear the whole hadith when he quotes Prophet saying there are bad omens in women. The surprise is that most people supported Abu Hurairah’s narraton rather than Aisha. ? sides with Abu Hurairah calling her analysis nonsense using arguments that are themselves nonsensical in that they employ factors involving issues of later eras that are inherently irrelevant to a companion of the Prophet.

Zarkasha and As-Sufi say Aisha had corrected almost every companion, but mostly Abu Hurairah. Asked if Muhammad had seen his Lord Aisha responds with the Qur’anic dictum no human vision an encompass him.

Regarding the hadith of stoning one scholar challenged it on the grounds that the Qur’an prescribes a half punishment for slaves and “half of a stoning” is meaningless.

Discussant: Aisha Musa

Eight hundred years ago the scholars discussed these things, then why does the general mindset of the Muslims prevent us from informing the general public?

Auda: The problem is the public opinion is highly politicized and the scholar sometimes prefers to protect the public.

Discussant: Mahmoud Ayoub

I feel you have understated the problem. Not only Aisha but Umar criticized Abu Hurairah. Ibn Hanbal gives hundreds of hadith from her, yet no one contends with her for the most part. Some of the hadith you quote need more contextualization than you have provided. We need o look at the isnad, the matn and also the context if we can have one. For example, at the end of Tabari’s history he writes “In this year the dogs of the desert came to start biting people.” Dogs carry parasites. The so-called hadith used to justify killing apostates is not a hadith in the proper sense. It is a modern approach to relate this to la ikraha fi’din. The context of that verse was two persons who had been forced to accept Christianity.

Response by Jasser Auda

Most of the time the context is missing. Often it doesn’t matter, but sometimes it does. Sometimes there is a context but it is provide by less reliable narrators than the hadith.

Ayoub: Where context is needed it is not just historical but cultural.

Auda: There is a deliberate effort to keep methodologies that come from elsewhere out of  traditional Islamic scholarship.

Ayoub: I wonder if hadith has an equivalent to the bab al nuzûl found in Qur’anic studies.

Auda: The presumption is that hadith is a general rule not limited by context.

Ahmad: I was always a great admirer of Aisha’s scholarship, which your systematic analysis has made me appreciate even more. A factor in the problem of presenting controversial ideas to the general public is the fear that the public will be unable to follow such arguments and turn against hadith altogether, leaving them to their own uniformed interpretations of the Qur’an. Another problem is our own fear of discrediting ourselves before the public by taking unpopular positions. We need to feel that we have encountered and satisfied ourselves in our own minds of the objections of the scholars who do not agree with us before we face the public.

Auda: Sometimes the scholars are afraid of people. Shaikh abu Zahra told Qaradawa that scholars are afraid of the public and then admitted that he did not accept the verse of stoning but was afraid to speak in public.

Mousavi: We need a mechanism to determine maslaha. We cannot revive ijma, we know that. Why not revive the office of Grand Mufti?

Auda: There is politics in a Grand Mufti or in determining maslaha, so that is a problem.

Mousavi: But the Shia are independent.

Ayoub: They have independent income.

Khaleel Mohammad: Have you heard of the attempt inTurkey to reevluate hadith.

Auda: Yes. I think this is valuable, but we need to train the publc to have a sophistication in dealing with hadith.

Ahmed Rafiq: The evaluation of matn is very important.

Auda: This has been long recognized but it has been applied selectively. One scholar acknowledging the authenticity of the hadith on women leading prayers calls the matn da’if because the implication goes against the accepted position. Some of these are funny, like the Prophet’s question as to why pollute the water by standing and urinating as meaning squatting and urinating would not dirty the water. Or “silence means consent” implies that if a woman says “yes” it is a denial.

Ayoub: Relying on the matn can become too subjective and lead to all kinds of problems. We need to do the hadith some service by finding a way to popularize hadith literature, especially among the young. We could include books including both Sunni and Shia hadith.

Honercamp: Thereis a problem of people failing to cite their hadith sources.

Auda: Ayoub’s article on religious freedom published in Islam and Christianity is available online.

Auda: I have met people who have read IIIT books and iternalized the ideas so well they think they are theirs.

Sami Catovic: The belief in a higher standard is well established in our tradition in the area of `aqîda. When I was younger and I came across a hadith that struck me as strange I neither rejected it out of hand nor embraced it, but made further inquiry. How do you avoid the subjectivity Dr. Ayoub is talking about?

Auda: I don’t accept the separation of objective from subjective. Subjectivity is the reality of anyone who says anything. If only one person in the world says something is a matter of jusice then it is not a matter of justice.

Jamal Barzinji: I don’t think you did justice to Aisha in the paper in discussing her methodology. Why can’t we redevelop her methodology. This work may cause a shock wave in the Muslim world, but it is needed. There is a terrible fear of intellectual terrorism. Even Qaradawi hasn’t come out clearly against the verse of stoning. We are advocating that if there is a majlis fatwa it should be where the scholars can feel safe. Given the conceren of the earliest scholars over avoiding fabricated and erroneous hadith, why can we not rid the ummah these unacceptable hadith?

Auda: Politics played a role. Schacht and others noted that some hadith are fabricated and then tried to undermine the entirety of Islam, and so there is a reaction against that.

Safi: I shouldn’t let subjectivity prevent me from saying what I think is true; rather let others correct my mistakes. No methodology will be perfect. The locus of knowledge is not the text but the human being. There is a hadith that Allah does not remove knowledge from a society by removing it from the hearts of knowledgeable people, but by removing the knowledgeable people.

Iqbal Unus: I found a concocted hadith in Imam Ghazali that said a doormat is better than an infertile woman.

Safi: In this type of book, taghrib at-tahid, which is not establishing fiqh rules, this kind of hadith is ok.

Mehmet: What can you say to criticize Aisha’s methodology.

Auda: When you read about wakat al-jamal she made mistakes in the details that were revolutionary and caused a lot of bloodshed, but as a scholar she was one of the best.

Ahmad: I want to address Dr. Ayoub’s concern that evaluation of hadith based on matn may introduce subjectivity to the process. Of course Jasser is right that we cannot completely eliminate subjectivity, but it can be minimized. That is why we need methodology. Relying on sanad can also be subjective which is why the scholars created a methodology for dealing with it. Failing to do so with the matn results in the selectivity that Prof. Auda has pointed out.

Ayoub: We need a measure of respect for our scholars. Ihyâ Ulûm ad-Dîn is a great book. I am unaware of any sanitization. I know of no scholar who was perfectly faithful to their methodology. I read the hadith about the doormat and the since most Arabs didn’t use a doormat I think that we need to be careful about the Arabic word.

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
Minaret of Freedom Institute
www.minaret.org


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