Re: Challenge for Hadeeth Rejectors
How can you even compare the hadith to the Quran? The Quran was revealed by an angel and delivered to the Prophet and you have to trust that its true, because the Quran says that its true. That's your logical starting point, and that's what hadith-collectors used as well as a starting point. You assume that whatever the Quran says = truth.
Then whatever you see - hadith or something some maulvi says or whatever - that contradicts the Quran = false.
If something is not directly contradictory to the Quran, because it wasn't mentioned in the Quran, then you apply Quranic principles to it. If principles aren't violated, then you proceed with common sense on that issue and hope you're not making an error.
The hadith were compiled by men, and they were written and recorded by men, and they were GENERATED by men as well, and delivered by men.
The Quran is not as such. The Quran was GENERATED by God, and delivered by an Angel. The time of compilation is important, because it was done soon after the Prophet's death - enough time that if any tampering was done, people would know, because there were people around that knew the Prophet and had memorized the Quran directly from him.
The written compilation of the hadith occurred some centuries later. That would give enough time for tampering to take place, and tampering DID take place, otherwise we wouldn't have Al-bukhari and Al-muslim and other compilers. What do you think the "science of the hadith" is? It was used to weed out inaccurate falsified "hadith" that were floating around. Basically people were attributing sayings to the Prophet (SAW), that he never uttered.
In the process of compiling, its possible things were left out, or hadith narrarations had some bias in them, and the tone of the sayings were changed.
Furthermore, the Quran doesn't guarantee the truth in written HADITH. It does ask you to follow the Prophet, but if you can't see that there is a difference between what the Prophet said and what was attributed to have come out of his mouth, then I don't know what to tell you.
Case in point - look on the internet. You'll find so many bogus, falsified, tampered with hadith that are put on there by either people who want to mislead you or who are misled themselves.
But they're out there, and in writing, and someone apparently said that these are true sayings of the Prophet. So how do you diffrentiate between those sayings and the ones in Al-bukhari?
Furthermore, you need to read up on the political history going on at the time when these compilations were occurring.
Some investigation might be worthwhile if done on Abu Huraira in particular. He narrarated more hadith than anyone else, I believe, and yet, he had very little contact with the Prophet. And there are other hadith that actually describe how on numerous occasions Aisha (R) had to scold Abu Huraira for narrarating inaccurate information that he "thought" was commanded by the Prophet.
There was one hadith our imam was narrating the other day - how Aisha (R) had to correct people from following Abu Huraira's advice on ghusl and fasting after sex during Ramadan. I don't know about you, but if Aisha (R) is recorded as saying that Abu Huraira is inaccurate, and yet the majority of hadith come from this guy...what conclusion can a logical person make from this?
So, hadith collections are full of contradictions. Despite that its a worthwhile literature to read through. Its quite educational and enlightening in many aspects.
