Do you know the "golden chain" (Silsilat al-Dhahab) of hadith transmission?

It goes: Malik → Nafi' → Ibn 'Umar

It's the most reliable chain of hadith transmission according to the major hadith masters, especially Bukhari, because Ibn 'Umar was a companion of the Prophet, Nafi' was his very close student and stayed with him for a very long time (he was originally his slave), and Malik was a master in hadith. All of them stayed for a long time in Madina.

In theory, the stars were aligned for a flawless isnad.

Showing this isnad doesn't necessarily bring certainty, or bring errors and approximations, would mean the most reliable isnad of the hadith corpus is... unreliable.

That's exactly what we will show now. This chain is all but reliable, not because of Malik but because of Nafi' (and also because of the multiple versions of the muwatta but that's another story).

We will study Nafi' and his multiple contradictions.

Of course, hadith scholars with their black belt in intellectual gymnastics tend to challenge all the transmitters from Nafi' but they will never challenge Nafi' himself, because he is a semi-god (!) in hadith science. If there is an error in transmission it MUST BE because of his students, it CAN NEVER BE him contradicting himself.

Introducing the story of the jariyah and meat slaughtered by a woman. To wrap things up, there is a story of a maidservant (jariyah) who slaughtered a sheep which was about to die, and the Prophet told people they should/could eat the meat.

This hadith is used in fiqh in order to allow people to eat from animals slaughtered by women.

Here an excerpt of the different chains:

Do you know, Sufyan ibn Uyayna, the very famous imam from Makkah?

1️⃣Al-Razi: Super reliable (thiqah imam), "the most reliable students in the hadith of Zuhri were Ibn Uyayna and Malik".

2️⃣Ali b. Al madini: who is stronger than Ibn Uyayna in the hadith of Zuhri? (save this one) So, when I see Sufyan from Zuhri, I'm pretty confident that: "the hadith really comes from Zuhri".



Example: we ask Sufyan about a hadith "are you sure?? Because Ma'mar says it's Zuhri→Sa'id b. al Musayyib (mursal)!"

He's overconfident: "yes I'm sure". shamela.ws/book/8493/261#…

Let's say we have a hadith that goes back to a sahabi, and he mass transmitted it to its students.

In the hadith, he says "The Prophet said x, y, z" or he says "On the authority of the Prophet: x, y, z".

Does it mean he ABSOLUTELY heard it with his own ears?

Not at all. We assume that when a sahabi narrates something from the Prophet, it means he was there, and he was a direct witness.

This was not always the case, far from it!

Here are 6 examples showing sahabas MIGHT narrate hadiths they didn't hear/narrate things they didn't SEE.

No one should be allowed to burn the mushaf except Uthman b. 'Affan 🤓

https://twitter.com/DrShadeeElmasry/status/1659565686719496194

Abd-alMuttalib: "By Allah, we do not want to fight [Abraha]. So far as this House (the Ka'bah) is concerned, it is the House of Allah; if Allah wants to save His House, He will save it, and if He leaves it unprotected, no one can save it."

Both Sunnis and Shias accept this story

Do hadiths imply certainty?

When you read a hadith, does that mean the report is accurate and the story REALLY happened?

Sunnism has been taken over long time ago by hadith-absolutists who claim "hadith implies certainty".

Actually for sunnis, you have 2 groups: Group 1: Sahih ahad hadith DOESN'T IMPLY certainty according to Ash'aris, Maturidis, Usul scholars. Hadith implies "adh dhan": presumption.

Group 2: Sahih ahad hadith IMPLIES certainty according to Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn mindah, and muhaddithin in general.

Fasting on Mondays and Thursdays:

1. In the Mishna:

sefaria.org/Shulchan_Arukh… 2. From Abdallah ibn Dinar, from Ka'b al Ahbar (the rabbi) when he was telling tales in Damascus, deeds are presented on every Monday and Thursday:

shamela.ws/book/71/31132

Ramadan: what early sources say if you intentionally break your fast (i.e. sexual intercourse)?

1. There is the famous hadith in al Bukhari that goes up to Abu Hurayra: the man should fast 60 days, or free a slave, or feed 60 poor people.

shamela.ws/book/1681/10002 2. The same hadith is narrated by a major student of Abu Hurayra, Saeed ibn al Mussayib, but without attributing to Abu Huraira, in a mursal form.

Was Abu Hurayra mistakenly added in the other isnad? Why would a major student of Abu Hurayra narrate it through another route?

Have you ever heard of 𐩧𐩢𐩣𐩬𐩬 or Raḥmānān?

It was the way Southern Arabs called God or Allah, according to archaeology and Late Sabaic inscriptions.

"Al-Rahman" (الرحمن) is most probably an arabization of this name of God. This name has no specific link whatsoever to Mercy: archives are full of uses of "Rḥmnn" in various contexts, such as invoking power, protection and health from this entity.

This name was used by both Christians and Jews in Yemen and Southern Arabia.

Qas/storytellers. This is a crucial topic. Can't stress this enough.

Storytellers were a plague.

Problem: some major hadith spreaders were in fact qusas. Example: Qatada.

"and Qatada was storytelling (doing qas) on us"

shamela.ws/book/8361/1462…

https://twitter.com/JonathanACBrown/status/1612823435394031617

Other context, showing us the relationship between these storytellers and the rulers:

"Umar b. AbdulAziz ordered a man, while in Medina, to do [qas] to the people, and gave him 2 dinars every month, and when Hisham b. AbdulMalik arrived, he made 6 dinars for him every year."

Has anyone listed all the occurences of "Rahman" and of "Rahim" in the Qur'an, and analyzed the context in which these two names of Allah were used? What is the general feeling of each name?

What are your conclusions?

Exhaustive list below, the names voluntarily left in Arabic. Of course the idea in this exercice is to completely "let the text talk alone", that's why I voluntarily didn't use:
-neither hadith,
-neither tafsir,
-neither Arabic rules (fa'lan form of madda r-H-m).

Only the text and the text alone, according to its context.

Your thoughts?

Some exmuslims are just normal and honest people who end up finding highly disturbing "sahih" ahadith, and who don't have the tools to understand how, why and by whom these ahadith were made up. Alhamdulillah we have history books, 'ilal books and our brains to process these. Once you understand how cruel, brutal and misguided were both umayyad and b. Zubayr regimes were, you understand how war-waging-cruelty-praising ahadith popped up and how "jihad-as-a-way-of-life" became the normal way during the decades following the death of the Prophet ﷺ.

Achilles' heel of Muslims are 3:

1. Unscientific ahadith (fly in the glass, sun prostrating under the throne every night). Ka'b Al Ahbar words turned into prophetic ahadith.

Generally attributed to: Abu Huraira, Ibn Abbas, Abu Darda, Abu Sa'id al Khudri. 2. Awful and crual behavior attributed to the Prophet ﷺ: great focus on jihad, killing babies is ok, murders, eyes removal, etc.

Generally made-up stories by Umayyad rulers in order to justify their own ruthlessness, and Ibn Ishaq's legends he transmitted.

All false.