Bernard Lewis Testifies to the Greatness of the Science of Hadith
Orientalist Admissions on the Superiority of Hadith Criticism
The strength of the Islamic hadith tradition is not merely asserted by Muslim scholars. Even non-Muslim historians and Orientalists have admitted that Muslim scholars developed a sophisticated system for criticizing reports, examining chains of transmission, preserving variants, and distinguishing reliable narration from fabrication.
“From an early date Muslim scholars recognized the danger of false testimony and hence false doctrine, and developed an elaborate science for criticizing tradition. ‘Traditional science’, as it was called, differed in many respects from modern historical source criticism, and modern scholarship has always disagreed with evaluations of traditional scholars about the authenticity and accuracy of ancient narratives. But their careful scrutiny of the chains of transmission and their meticulous collection and preservation of variants in the transmitted narratives give to medieval Arabic historiography a professionalism and sophistication without precedent in antiquity and without parallel in the contemporary medieval West. By comparison, the historiography of Latin Christendom seems poor and meagre, and even the more advanced and complex historiography of Greek Christendom still falls short of the historical literature of Islam in volume, variety and analytical depth.”
Bernard Lewis, Islam in History, Open Court Publishing, 1993, pp. 104–105.
Foreign documentation:
https://books.google.com.eg/books?id… false&f=false
This is a direct admission that Muslim scholars recognized the danger of fabricated reports early on and developed a systematic science to address it. Lewis explicitly says that the Muslim scrutiny of chains of transmission, collection of variants, and preservation of transmitted material gave medieval Arabic historiography a level of professionalism and sophistication without precedent in antiquity and without parallel in the medieval West.
“But though the theory of Isnad has occasioned endless trouble owing to the inquiries which have to be made into the trustworthiness of each transmitter and the fabrication of traditions was a familiar and at times easily tolerated practice, its value in making for accuracy cannot be questioned and the Muslims are justified in taking pride in their science of tradition.”
Margoliouth, Lectures on Arabic Historians, p. 20.
Archive documentation:
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet…e/n31/mode/2up
Margoliouth admits two important points at once: first, that the isnad system required extensive investigation into the reliability of every transmitter; and second, that despite the problem of fabricated traditions, the value of isnad in producing accuracy “cannot be questioned.” His conclusion is explicit: Muslims are justified in taking pride in their science of tradition.
These statements are powerful because they come from non-Muslim historians, not from Muslim polemical sources. Both admissions recognize that the Islamic science of transmission was not a careless or primitive method. Rather, it was a disciplined scholarly system that examined narrators, preserved variants, and created a level of historical criticism unmatched in the ancient world and medieval West.
Read more in:
The Authenticity of Hadith: Orientalists Admit the Superiority of Islamic Isnad Science