New article: Quran Vs Hadith : compilation, preservation and transmission

[Wakas]

**Arguments Against the Common Claim that the Quran Came to Us in the Same Way as Hadith**
(i.e. same people and method)

Download PDF:
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/PDF/QuranVHadith.pdf

Please click on link for original format with clickable links:
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/QuranVsHadith.html

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1. **The Quran Was Recited and Memorized VERBATIM, Unlike Hadith**
The Quran was transmitted word-for-word (verbatim) by its reciters and memorizers. In contrast, almost all hadith are transmitted "riwayah bil ma'ana" (with meaning or gist), meaning they are passed on in paraphrased form, not verbatim.

 

2. **Direct Supervision of the Prophet in the Compilation of the Quran**
The Quran was recorded during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad under his direct supervision, either through memorization or by writing. While some argue not all parts were recorded during his lifetime, it is widely accepted that most of the Quran was compiled in his presence or immediately thereafter.

 

3. **The Quran is the Word of God, While Hadith Are Human Words**
The Quran is universally considered the direct, unaltered word of God. In contrast, hadith are the alleged words of the Prophet Muhammad, recorded and narrated by human beings, subject to human error and interpretation.

 

4. **Public Recitation of the Quran Facilitated Mass Memorization and Transmission**
The Quran was recited publicly on a daily basis, creating a widespread environment conducive to memorization and transmission. It is said to be the most recited and memorized book in the world. Public recitations of hadith, on the other hand, did not exist at the time.
 

5. **The Quran Was Compiled Before the Civil Wars That Disrupted Islamic Unity**
The compilation of the Quran into its final form took place before the turbulent period of civil wars, which led to political and sectarian rivalries. This period is known to have introduced challenges to the authenticity of hadith transmission. In contrast, the Quran's compilation occurred in a relatively stable context, minimizing risks of later alterations. In fact it is famously said the "isnad" (chain of narration) was only needed after this due to fabrications.

 

6. **Massive Fabrication of Hadith vs. Minimal Fabrication of the Quran**
It is widely accepted that there was significant fabrication in the transmission of hadith. By contrast, there are very few, if any, documented cases of Quranic fabrication.

 

7. **The Need for Authentication in Hadith Transmission**
The methods used to filter and authenticate hadith—such as the isnad (chain of narration) and narrator criticism—emerged because hadith were not transmitted with the same communal consensus as the Quran. There is no comparable "science of Quran" to authenticate its verses. It wasn't needed!

 

8. **The Quran Was Memorized by Hundreds or Thousands; Hadith, Not So Much**
During the early period of Islam, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of Quran memorizers. No such equivalent exists for hadith. For example, during the battle of Yamama, hundreds of Quran memorizers are reported to have died, but there are no reports that mention casualties among hadith memorizers – it wasn't a thing to be mentioned!

 

9. **Memorizing the Quran Is Different from Memorizing Hadith**
Memorizing the Quran, a fixed and structured text, is categorically different from memorizing the fluid, diverse, and lengthy hadith reports. The Quran also benefits from rhythmic prose and other mnemonic devices that aid memorization—tools that are absent from hadith. Quran explicitly states it was made easy to remember, [e.g. 54:17].

 

10. **The Quran is Universally the Same Across Sects**
Despite differences in sectarian beliefs, all major Islamic sects (Sunni, Shia, etc.) have the same Quran. In contrast, each sect has its own collection of hadith, reflecting the varied interpretations and transmissions.

 

11. **Early Muslims Exercised Caution in Transmitting Hadith**
While Quranic recitation and transmission were actively encouraged, there was significant caution regarding the transmission of hadith during the early years of Islam. Bans on hadith transmission were imposed across the Muslim world for decades after the Prophet's death [source].

 

12. **Hadith and the Quran Are Not on the Same Epistemic Level**
Even with rigorous methods for authenticating hadith, no human-authenticated text, no matter how meticulously verified, can be placed on the same epistemic level as the Quran. For example, there is much dispute today over which hadith are truly "sahih" (authentic), with scholars disagreeing on the reliability of narrators and reports, e.g. Imam Malik, Daraqutni, Albani.

 

13. **The First Four Caliphs Took Formal Steps to Preserve the Quran, But Not Hadith**
The first four caliphs made significant efforts to preserve the Quran. In fact, they actively discouraged the transmission of hadith, with some even ordering the destruction of collections. The preservation of hadith, in contrast, was not a priority in the early caliphate.

 

14. **Zayd ibn Thabit: The Key Scribe of the Quran vs. Hadith**
Zayd ibn Thabit, probably the most prominent scribe of the Quran, is cited in only a handful of hadith isnads (about 5 out of approximately 15,000 in Sahih Bukhari and Muslim).

 

15. **God's Protection of the Quran vs. No In-built Protection for Hadith**
The Quran is said to be protected by God (15:9, 39:28) and its authenticity supported by internal challenges e.g. find contradictions/variance within it, bring a chapter like it etc. Hadith collections, by contrast, are filled with contradictions and varying versions of events, with no in-built checking mechanisms.

 

16. **Hadith Gained Mainstream Legal Status Only After Imam Shafi'i**
While the Quran was universally acknowledged as the primary source of law from the beginning, the legal use of hadith as a source of law did not go mainstream until the time of Imam Shafi'i. Shafi'i is credited with elevating hadith to an equal footing with the Quran, which significantly altered the way Sunnah was defined.

 

17. **Most popular Quran transmission is from Hafs**
Who is considered strong in Quran narration but weak in hadith narration.
Conversely the most prolific hadith narrator is Abu Hurayrah yet he is not known for being a Quran memorizer or Quran reciter.

 

18. **Dating of Earliest complete Manuscript: Quran vs. Hadith**
The earliest extant carbon-dated manuscript of the Quran (such as the Sanaa manuscript, Topkapi) is approximately 200 years after the Prophet. In contrast, the earliest complete manuscript of Sahih Bukhari dates to about 450 years after the Prophet, underscoring the differences in the preservation timelines of the two texts.


19. **Earliest carbon dated extant manuscript**
For Quran it is to the time of prophet (e.g. Birmingham Quran).
For hadith it is a tiny fragment of Malik's Muwatta (approx 200 years after prophet).
Some claim Sahifa Hammam ibn Munabbih is the earliest but this is a reproduction of the original and there is no carbon dating.


20. **Question over transmitter of Sahih Bukhari's Primary Copy**
The version of Sahih Bukhari that forms the basis of the widely accepted text today is transmitted through his student, Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Firabri. However, no contemporaries of Firabri are known to have explicitly vouched for his reliability—e.g. no one is recorded as describing him as thiqa (trustworthy). There is perhaps not even a record of any peer making a positive statement about him. It seems he is not well known by his immediate peers.

 
#####

To end here are some interesting (albeit ultimately unverifiable) reports about hadith from the first 3 Caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman:

In Tadhkirat al-huffaz, al-Dhahabi cites:
Daughter of Abu Bakr, ʿAʾishah is reported to have said:
"My father collected Hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and it was five hundred Hadiths. One night, he was very uneasy, tossing and turning much. I also felt uneasy because of this, so I said, 'Are you turning because of an ailment, or have you heard news that upset you?' In the morning, he said, 'O daughter, bring the Hadiths.' I brought them, and he asked for a flame and burnt them. I said, 'Why did you burn them?' He said, 'I feared lest I die while they are with me containing narrations that I heard from a man whom I trusted and whose narrations I considered to be correct while in reality they are not; then I would have quoted incorrect narrations from him.'"

Abu Bakr addressed the people after the Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) passing, expressing concern over disagreements arising from narrations of the Prophet's sayings. He advised:
"You relate from the Messenger of Allah, upon whom be God's peace and benediction, traditions regarding which you disagree, and consequently severer controversy shall occur among people. So relate nothing from the Messenger of Allah, and when asked by anyone, you can say: The Book of Allah is the arbitrator between us. Deem lawful what it considers lawful, and deem unlawful what is considered unlawful in it."
Reports from Shu'bah, from Sa'id ibn Ibrahim from his father, that Umar detained Ibn Mas'ud, Abu al-Darda', and Abu Mas'ud al-Ansari,  saying to them "You have narrated hadith abundantly from the Messenger of Allah. It is reported that he had detained them in Medina, but they were set free by Uthman.

Abu Hurayrah, asked by Abu Salamah whether he used to narrate traditions as freely in Umar's time as he was then doing, replied "No, for if I had tried, 'Umar would have had me whipped."


Narrated 'Ubaidullah bin `Abdullah: Ibn `Abbas said, "When the ailment of the Prophet became worse, he said, 'Bring for me (writing) paper and I will write for you a statement after which you will not go astray.' But `Umar said, 'The Prophet is seriously ill, and we have got Allah's Book with us, and that is sufficient for us.'
Sahih al-Bukhari 114

"the hadith multiplied during the time of Umar then he called on the people to bring them to him, and when they brought them to him, he ordered them to be burned." Afterward he said "a Mishna like the Mishna of the People of the Book" (mathna'a ka mathna'at ahl al-Kitab)
Ref: Ibn Saad's "Tabaqat" (Volume 5)

Umar would say to his governors: "Be exclusively devoted to the Qur'an, and diminish the annotations of Muhammad, and I am your partner."
Ref: The History of al-Tabari [reference]

Ibn Sa'd, and Ibn Asakir reports from Mahmud ibn Labid that he said: I heard Uthman ibn Affan addressing people from over the pulpit: It is unlawful for everyone to narrate any hadith he never heard of during the time of Abu Bakr and that of Umar. Verily that which made me abstain from narrating from the Messenger of Allah was not to be among the most conscious of his Companions, but I heard him declaring: "Whoever ascribing to me something I never said, he shall verily occupy his (destined) abode in Fire."
Ref: "Hadith Literature, Its Origin, Development & Special Features" by Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, p23


Background:
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/Hadith_in_Quran.htm
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/Quran_True_Sunnah_of_Messenger_Naveed.htm
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/Rethinking_Tradition_Modern_Islamic_Thought.htm
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/Quran_clear_complete_detailed_explained.htm

References:
http://islam-and-muslims.com/islamic-books-online.html
THE SAHIFAH OF HAMMAM IBN MUNABBIH
BukhariGate by Mufti Abu Layth
Quran and hadith manuscripts
QuranTalk blog
chatGPT.com

More articles:
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/

[good logic]

Thanks Wakas.

Of course if one believes in GOD and believes GOD, then this following sentence summarises all GOD s words v humans words:
"Wa Man Ahsanu Mina Allah Quila"--- Who s better at telling the truth of things than GOD?---

Only the trust in GOD, His words and guidance will succeed.
GOD has confirmed for us that He is the sole authority,the sole judge and source for His one and only Deen/religion to all humanity.
All other hadiths are irrelevant and should be checked. Qoran is the check point/ctiteria of GOD s laws /deen/system.
GOD bless you.
Peace.

[hawk99]

Peace Wakas,

    Outstanding article, Number 10 sums up your point of view brilliantly and leaves no room
for a counter argument that makes sense.  Thank you.

God bless you

                               

[Wakas]

Spread the article brothers.


I have added another:

21. **Even the most attested hadith have issues**
The hadith considered most mutawatir (mass-transmitted)—"Whoever lies about me (intentionally) will enter Hellfire"—shows variation in its wording. [reference]
Likewise, the Prophet's Farewell Sermon, arguably the most widely witnessed hadith, exists in multiple versions with significant differences. For example, some versions instruct followers to uphold: (1) the Quran alone, (2) the Quran and Sunnah, (3) the Quran and Ahl al-Bayt, while others omit this instruction entirely. Among these, version (1) appears to be the most widely attested. [reference]
If even the most broadly transmitted hadith contain discrepancies, it follows logically that less well-attested hadith should be approached with even greater scrutiny and caution. Thus, even the most widely attested hadith cannot equal the Quran in terms of its textual integrity and precision.

[Anoushirvan]

From Sunni islam perspective, that some hadiths forbid hadiths to put into writing doesn't mean that hadiths are banned from use.
It just mean that at the beginning, they were to be orally kept.
And after some centuries, it can understandable that they should be put into writing to not forget them.
From that perspective, one major purpose of Qur'an is to give a divine anointing to the Sunna of Muhammad.


From Qur'an-alone perspective, hadiths are banned from use, and whether they are retained orally or written is irrelevant.
This perspective is based on the reading of specific verses banning the use of other narrations than those of Qur'an.

While I fully agree that Qur'an wasn't meant to be accompagnied with hadiths or sunna, this raises a series of troubling questions which amounts to: who was this Qur'an-alone early community ?

To begin with: were Muhammad, Abu Bakr, Umar, etc, until let's say Mu'awiya, and the community they ruled, following only Qur'an ?

If they weren't, especially if Muhammad was following additional rules besides Qur'an, like stoning for adulterers, then the game for Qur'an-alone approach is over: since even the earliest community having received Qur'an didn't follow it alone but with additional rulings, then there is no point banning hadiths along with Qur'an.

From theological perspective, if even Muhammad and his community were not following Qur'an alone, then Qur'an-alone approach has no theological legitimacy because God would likely not have sent Qur'an in order to follow it alone to a guy and his community that didn't bother doing it.

On the other hand, if Muhammad and his community, until Mu'awiya were Qur'an-alone followers, then we have some historical concerns.
There are many early Syriac chronicles and testimonies that the early Muslims behaved more like ISIS than like the kind of behaviour that is advertised by Qur'an-alone followers nowadays.
E.g., 4000 peasants killed, the gatekeeper of a monastery killed, people captured for slavery, etc.
Even in Islamic tradition, some events like the Ridda wars are questionable w.r.t. Qur'an-alone approach.

So, if the first Muslims followed only Qur'an, then they certainly had a very different understanding and interpretation of it than what is advertised by Qur'an-alone followers nowadays.

Or maybe there is another option ?

Next, assuming the early Muslim community followed only Qur'an, then we have to explain how hadiths and Sunna came into the play.

Of course, a theological argument of why hadiths and Sunna were introduced is that Shaytan strives to alter the verses and revelation of Allah.
But this is only a theological argument, not a rational argument.

That is, if people only followed Qur'an until some point of time in history, and suddenly started composing hadiths after that, then this activity must have been pushed by some pressing need.
Explaining the existence of hadiths by the mere wish of some early Islamic scholars to obliterate Qur'an is none but plot theory.

Unless perhaps, there was a very compelling reason to indeed obliterate the meaning of Qur'an.
And for this compelling reason to appear, there must be something deeply buried inside the meaning of Qur'an, that was likely obvious at that time, but that we likely fail recover today.

[Fusion]

Peace all,

Been reading this thread and just wanted to share a few thoughts based on what I understand.

The topic is about Quran vs Hadith in terms of how they were compiled and preserved. And yes, there is a clear difference. No doubt the Quran was memorized, recited daily, written down early, and has remained consistent across all sects. That alone makes it stand apart from hadith books which came much later and have a lot of variation, even in those called sahih.

But I want to mention something that has been on my mind for a while. We say the Quran is protected, as it says in 15:9, and we trust that. But that statement is inside the book itself. In other words, the Quran says it is protected and then we use that same verse as proof that it is protected. That becomes a circular claim. We are still dealing with a historical record, like any other ancient text. God did not write it in the sky or carve it into stones for all of humanity to see directly. So the claim of preservation is based on faith in what the book says about itself. I am not saying that makes it invalid just that we should be clear about the basis.

Another point is about the role of the Prophet. During his life, people were told to obey him. Verses like 4:59, 33:36, 59:7, 24:63, and importantly 33:57 all show that. And this was not just about reciting verses. The Prophet had to make decisions, face real situations, respond to events, give rulings. Sometimes he was corrected by God, which shows he had the space to act and lead. So during his lifetime, following him included trusting his judgment in matters that may not have been explicitly written down. That was also part of the lived transmission of the message.

Now some say only Quran matters and hadith are irrelevant. But here is where Anoush's point becomes important. If the early companions people close to the Prophet went into expeditions, made rulings, interpreted verses in ways that seem off to us today, then either they misunderstood the Quran badly, or they saw something in it we are not seeing now. Just saying they all became misguided right after the Prophet is too simplistic. That was the first generation of Muslims. They were the first transmitters of what they understood the message to be. This has to be part of any honest discussion about transmission.

I am not talking about ritual hadiths like number of rakahs or other details (as pointed by Waqas in another thread of Anti Hadith.... I am talking about how the Quran was lived in society, how it was applied, how decisions were made. That side of transmission is also real, even if it was not written in the form of the Quran.

So yes, I agree the Quran stands alone in terms of protection and clarity. But the early human side ; leadership, judgment, memory, and behavior also played a role in how Islam was practiced and passed on. If we ignore that, we risk flattening the full picture.

Also, the Quran is meant for all of humanity, not just a specific group in history. So the strongest argument for its authenticity is not just in tracing manuscripts or chains, but in what it does to the individual. When a person, with no agenda, reads it with an open heart and says out loud, this book is from the Lord ; that is the real test. That is what makes it different. I have read other scriptures too, and from all of them, I can say without hesitation, the book that came closest to truth is the Quran.

[Wakas]

When reading historical reports one must be careful of the potential bias and inaccuracies, e.g. if there was someone on the losing side writing about what happened they may be selective, exaggerate, and/or lie.
Further one must take into consideration some Muslim general or soldier may not have done things 'by the book' as the saying goes.

When it comes to crime and punishment there is less than one might think on this in Quran:
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/Quran-crime-punishment-expiation.html


In terms of the sources used by the earliest Muslim community, I'm sure there was a mix:
https://mypercept.co.uk/articles/kitab-hikma.html
Quran + hikmah/wisdom, and this could cover a wide range of sources, e.g. in addition, common sense, logic, what is considered fair/normal/appropriate via local custom, if one knew of an example from prophet first hand for the same situation then I'm sure the companions/caliphs did use his example but its has been recorded they did things differently also. The term "sunnah" had a much wider scope in meaning.
Naturally as Islam spread there were new situations all the time, so people would have done things differently. At the same time the limitation on collecting hadith, sharing hadith was gradually fading away. Political and polemical rivalries would have nurtured all sorts of hadith.
As time goes on the variation across the Muslim lands widened. This wide variation in rulings and practice across the Muslim land bothered Shaafi (170yrs after prophet) so he tried to minimise this by tying it to textual evidence (i.e. Quran and authentic prophetic reports). The culture of hadith exploded during and after his time.
Eventually this hadith centric position won out. A move towards orthodoxy/orthopraxy followed. Muslims projected into the past based on their present practice and almost certainly fabricated reports to support their current positions. Hence the mess we have today.

[Fusion]

Understood. My point was not about whether the reports are accurate, but that their early influence shows how unclear the Quran-alone model became soon after the Prophet. That confusion itself is worth thinking about.

That is why I raised the point about early behavior. If the earliest generation acted in ways that later needed hadith or extra clarification, then something in the transmission even if not the text became unclear. And even if those historical records are disputed, their long term influence shows that the Quran-alone model, in practice, was not as simple as we think.

Just sharing this as part of the broader picture on transmission, not as a rejection of Quran or a defense of unreliable hadith.

[Anoushirvan]

Historical chronicles from non-Arab sources in the 7th CE may very well contain exaggeration at some degree but nevertheless they collectively show a trend that the Arab conquest was not at all peacefully.


They either explicitly mention Muhammad, or mention a prophet of the Arabs.
So it's clear that the Arabs doing the conquest were identified by the same rulers as in the Islamic tradition and not by some obscure Muslim general or soldier.

Also there is no mention at all of Islam or Qur'an in those early reports, so apparently the Arabs during the conquest were not interested in spreading a new ideology first.
It wasn't a conquest to spread Islam or Qur'an.

It's also a bias to discard them on the ground that they do not please them or they do not fit our theory.
They are there and we have do with them.


W.r.t. Qur'an, I see mostly three options to try to account for those sources:

Option 1: those early Muslims were following Qur'an plus hadiths or customs (in this case that allowed conquests for spoils, not in self-defence).
So this was a kind of proto-Sunni Islam, and therefore Qur'an plus additional traditions were already at the core of the Islamic system at its beginning.


Option 2: those early Muslims were early Qur'an alone followers but had a very different understanding of Qur'an than what we do today.
Then how come that such a gap in understanding is possible ?

Option 3: perhaps the most disturbing one, we are actually mistaken in believing that those Arabs, including their rulers, knew Qur'an and were following it, be with hadiths or without.
Qur'an either appeared later, or the situation among the Arabs was much much more complex than assumed.

But that option would much more easily explain why Islam is made of Qur'an plus Sunna, as a kind of synthesis of different traditions.

[Wakas]

I forgot to mention, that in terms of early islam, I consider Fred Donner's work on the believers movement to be most likely.

Background:
https://youtu.be/5RFK5u5lkhA
http://islam-and-muslims.com/Donner-Muhammad-and-Believers.pdf