Recordings › BukhariGate Part 1: Sahih Bukhari is NOT so Sahih -Mufti Abu Layth · 30 Aug 2018 › Segment 16 of 17
Replies to critics: Jonathan Brown, academic dialogue, going public, the Aisha debate
sahih saheeh sahih hadith saheeh hadith sound hadith al-bukhari imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari esha ishaa salat al-isha isha prayer night prayer masjed masaajid masajid mosque maaliki malikite malikiyyah maliki school muftis iman imaan eemaan eeman jahannam jahanam jahannum ulama ulema ulamaa shaikh sheik shuyukh shaykhs fitna fitan strife trial in sha allah insha'allah in shaa allah insha allah inshaa allah ibadah ibada ibaadah ibadat
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This segment1:40:37 to 1:48:34 · 7 min 57 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenThe problems with Bukhari should be discussed openly, because hiding them is what makes people lose faith. He finds Jonathan Brown's response emotional rather than academic and will take up the debate on Aisha's age.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth says that although he respects Jonathan Brown as a leading academic at Georgetown, Brown's response was emotional, mocking his pronunciation of a Maliki name when there were fourteen scholars of that name. He recounts sitting daily in the late nineties with an elderly shaykh renowned in Arabic grammar, discussing Sibawayh, the subject and predicate and the concept of ibtida, to show that belittling his knowledge misses the mark. He says he offered dialogue to another shaykh [?] and to Brown, who declined to discuss this topic. To those who ask why he went public and risked fitnah, he answers that the problems are the truth, that hiding them is what makes people lose faith, and that a published book would be public too; he objects to infantilising ordinary Muslims. He finds it irresponsible that several scholars shared Brown's chart showing Aisha as six as if it were a slap in his face, while he is called irresponsible for saying Bukhari cannot be proved sound beyond reasonable doubt. He says he will take up the debate on Aisha's age, having asked that the authenticity of Bukhari be discussed first in the same dialogue, and closes with a couplet from Jaun Elia that the only way to counter him is to crush him, thanking the audience for a long evening.
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the problems with Sahih al-Bukhari should be discussed openly rather than hidden from ordinary Muslims, because concealing them is what causes people to lose their faith.
“if we were just honest from the beginning people wouldn't lose their faith”
Category: method
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine1:40:37 to 1:48:34 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
hissy fit like what are you on about you think these people are going to allow me i must take their permission to challenge the foundations what what they almost worship sahil bukhari and a prime example with me i actually respect i show much love and respect to dr jonathan brown but that's a prime example he is a leading academic who is a lecturer and professor at i think georgetown university who's written academic works and knows how to discuss academically yet when i raised this claim it was nothing but an emotional response
you know oh mufti doesn't even know how to say these maliki names now look at this that you know i actually showed that this bunnami there were 14 scholars popular scholars by that name these guys don't even know that they wouldn't even know that they wouldn't even know five they wouldn't even know three and it was actually bonani wasn't even banani so why make a big deal trying to show you see this is to belittle these are the same tactics that just to show that oh this guy is really dumb and stupid he doesn't even know his arabic i used to sit with some
of the tons of arabic in their time sheikh abdullah in his age uh in in the late 90s was one of the most knowledgeable people on earth in arabic grammar he was he received awards from the arabic world he received awards from saudi he was deemed by people that the most knowledgeable of people on the book of sibo i used to say i just have a good banter with him actually i should regularly everyday sit very few people used to be there in fact nobody used to be there uh in the masjid at that time he used to come very early he's an old man
he's a huge banter he used to love the fact that i was maliki and i was of a pakistani or region he had never heard of that and so we used to always go on and i used to tell him my research in grammar because at that time i was obsessed about grammar arabic grammar and i used to tell him that what do you think of sibo way said this about the you know when it came to what is now known as the mukta and khabar and don't you find a clash in this or what about the concept of iptida doesn't have problematic when it doesn't have problems with trying to say this and there's a wormhill that don't exist or don't you think about this and don't you think and he used to find it very fascinating i mean obviously he was a don in this stuff but so don't you know
trying to belittle all my knowledge on these things or you don't know what you're talking about you know you know you underestimate me you know so this is what so this is the thing that these people were saying have an academic dialogue with these people and i extended the dialogue i extended a dialogue to shaykh assad i said have a dialogue with me i extended it to dr jonathan brown i said have a dialogue with me he said i won't have a dialogue on this topic i'll discuss other topics you're discussing this topic on social media okay
then people said why did you go public with this what do you mean why did i go public why should i hide this they're like yeah but this is gonna create a fitnah why is it gonna create a fit now why why it's the truth isn't it you want me to so basically what you're saying is i understand these problems but don't tell them let's pretend there's no problem but that's ridiculous this is where the problems come from you're doing it right now this is the problem if we were just honest from the beginning people
wouldn't lose their faith i you know i've spoken to many muslims who some who are ex-muslims and some who are borderline they may have left and come because of what was shoved down their throat based on this grand claim of the most authentic book on earth so this attitude of let's hide things from the common muslim i'm so against that like why and i said look oh would you have an issue with me writing a book and publishing it they said no i said but isn't a book for the public so the public can read a book but what they can't read social media and they're like yeah but you know that totally dumb people don't read
[Music] books i thought yes you know and you guys are the clergy what's wrong with you why are you so judgmental why are you so why'd you have to infantilize people like treat them like idiots but then you have no problem they have no problem broadcasting that the prophet married a six-year-old little girl and they think that's not problematic in fact after my debate on bukhari i saw several scholars share that several prominent you know dr jonathan brown came with this article about a chart showing that aisha was six years old
and and then several of them shared it as somehow as a kind of slap in the face for me and i felt like well that's not irresponsible trying to show that the prophet was a pedophile and you and you think this is irresponsible me trying to show that well just being honest that you can't actually prove this to to go back beyond reasonable doubt i mean you can have guesswork and yeah there's been variations but there isn't that comfort of mind it isn't there so you know that that kind of tranquility isn't there in it being uh sound beyond reasonable doubt so yeah so this is some of the the kind of criticism guys
it's gone on so long ever so sorry but i know so many people were asking me about this i've asked to debate them i've asked to debate them on this uh about the age of aisha inshallah i i will reach out and i will take that up the reason i didn't first immediately jump at that is because i kept insisting i said i said to dr jonathan brown i will debate you on the i'll have a dialogue with you on the age of aisha can we in the same dialogue the first part discuss the authenticity of bukhari because that includes the age of aisha and not vice versa and the second part we will within the same dialogue we can move on to the age of aisha
but he said no he was adamant i asked him on several occasions repeatedly please because you seem very learned and people you know they keep referring to back to you and you're sharing all these charts let's have a dialogue on so okay he wants it uh i think he's agreeable to it on the age of our isha so let's see how that goes let's see how i smash these chains to pieces or as the poet john elia who i've been rather fond of he says
see the solution to countering me is that you crush me he says otherwise on my otherwise left to my own devices i've never succumbed to anyone so if you want to crush my arguments by all means that's the only solution you've got
so people with that much love inshallah i'm gonna leave you guys to it you've been awesome wow i've really stretched this today so sorry about that but i really thought this was really important people kept saying you're not showing references you're not showing references so i thought okay what the hell let's let's show some at least inshallah so let's it's quite an evening that's what i'll say inshallah people if you're new to my page like it uh if uh likewise with youtube i do release clips all the time subscribe to it you can send me messages on both my pages on facebook you can follow
Paragraphs overlapping 1:40:37 to 1:48:34. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2018-08-30-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/s/16/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, August 30). Replies to critics: Jonathan Brown, academic dialogue, going public, the Aisha debate [Video, segment 2018-08-30-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/s/16/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "Replies to critics: Jonathan Brown, academic dialogue, going public, the Aisha debate." Video, segment 2018-08-30-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded August 30, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/s/16/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-08-30-S16, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Replies to critics: Jonathan Brown, academic dialogue, going public, the Aisha debate}}, year = {2018}, month = {8}, date = {2018-08-30}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/s/16/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/s/16/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2018-08-30-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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