Research › Hadith studies › Authenticating hadith
59 answers in 32 recordings, 2018 to 2023. 47 with a checked position in his own words.
Indexed so far: 259 of 1,859 recordings (1,904 answers, 2014 to 2025). Anything below may change as the rest are indexed. Limits of the data
Oldest first. A checked position shows what he holds, then the sentence he says, word for word from the transcript, with its moment. Years without one list the answers that have not been checked yet. Recordings not yet indexed may hold more.
· Is the hadith of the crying tree trunk authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says the stories of the tree crying for the Prophet are unreliable.
“the tree started crying and the Prophet came and put his hand on it these things are unreliable these stories”
9:30TranscriptCite 2018-02-09-S03corrected
· How does he view the Salafi movement, and is hadith narrator criticism a divine science?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Salafi movement, having begun as a courageous iconoclastic rejection of tradition, became as dogmatic as what it opposed once established, and that narrator criticism (ilm al-rijal) is a human science open to revision and disagreement rather than a divine one.
“it is not a divine science it is something that men have come up with”
14:06TranscriptCite 2018-02-21-S04corrected
· Can a hadith narrated by Jabir alone be mutawatir?
Mufti Abu Layth says hadith grading is not settled by a majority, so that he is entitled to follow the hadith critic who weakened a narrator rather than those who graded him reliable.
“why should I go with majority why I mean why is this a democracy all of a sudden”
19:41TranscriptCite 2018-02-21-S07corrected
· What Imam Malik transmitted: no return of Jesus, Zuhri's reports, the pig passed in peace
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Imam Malik deliberately left the hadith of Jesus's return out of the Muwatta, transmitting only a fraction of al-Zuhri's reports, and that Malik's refusal to accept isolated hadith blindly is the approach to follow.
“is this a coincidence that Imam Malik doesn't bring any hadith to do with Jesus coming back but then he brings this hadith to show that Jesus said to the pig that go with peace”
1:02:25TranscriptCite 2018-03-13-S17corrected
· Why do almost all the hadith about Jesus returning come through Abu Hurayra?
Mufti Abu Layth says he does not believe the Prophet said the hadith about Jesus coming back, since almost eighty percent of them come through Abu Hurayra alone, who learned from Ka'b al-Ahbar and Abdullah ibn Salam, some of his reports appear elsewhere as Ka'b's words from the Torah, and none comes from Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali or Uthman.
“I don't believe the Prophet said these things about Jesus coming back I honestly don't”
10:26TranscriptCite 2018-04-01-S04corrected
· Does Ali's saying about wiping the socks prove that religion is not based on reason?
Mufti Abu Layth says the report attributed to Ali that the bottom of the khuff would deserve wiping if religion were by opinion is weak in its chain and absent from several versions, that Malik's Muwatta records wiping both top and bottom, and that rituals are practices rather than claims against reason.
“this hadith I don't personally even in that narration I don't accept it to be sorry there are huge problems in the chain”
1:01:59TranscriptCite 2018-04-09-S13corrected
· Is the hadith about women wearing perfume being zaniya authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says the perfume report is not sahih and is a lie attributed to the Prophet, because it rests on a single chain through the weak Thabit ibn Umara from the little-known Ghunaym ibn Qays, and some early authorities did not attribute it to the Prophet.
“this hadith is not sorry okay it is not sorry this hadith is life life people and this is a lie attributed to the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam”
3:05TranscriptCite 2018-05-04b-S02corrected
· Is a woman's prayer rejected if she wears perfume to the mosque?
Mufti Abu Layth says the report that a perfumed woman's prayer is not accepted until she bathes is not from the Prophet, rests on unknown and weak narrators, and is followed by no one.
“that hadith is utterly utterly unacceptable as a hadith from the prophet salallahu alaihe salam whether these things somehow above herrera said them or not is a different story but nobody accepts these rulings”
25:47TranscriptCite 2018-05-04b-S05corrected
· Is the chain of the apostasy hadith through Anas reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says the chain of the apostasy report through Anas is also problematic, because of a narrator with Mu'tazili tendencies and Qatada's known tadlis, and that the report clashes with reason, the Quran, the Prophet's life and the principles of Islam.
“the other thing is that it clearly clashes with all three it clashes with reason I slammed giving you freedom of belief a clashes with the established sources the Quran and the clear life of the Prophet”
38:35TranscriptCite 2018-05-10-S09corrected
· Do the angels curse a wife who refuses her husband in bed?
Mufti Abu Layth says he believes the hadith about a wife who stays away from her husband's bed is weak and unacceptable, clashing with the Quran.
“there's this hadith which is weak I believe it's unacceptable utterly clashes with the Quranic clashes with the authentic sana clashes with the principles of Islam”
3:50TranscriptCite 2018-07-08-S02corrected
· Thanks for the correction, but the chain is still flawed
Mufti Abu Layth says that one should be grateful when people point things out.
“I first of all know we should be grateful when people point things out hamdu lillah man lam yasha Kareem a slim ish couldn't love whoever does not is not grateful to people is not grateful to Allah”
7:36TranscriptCite 2018-07-08-S03corrected
· Are the chains of the 'women lack intellect' hadith sound?
Mufti Abu Layth says all the chains of the report have some problem, so it is not unquestionably sound.
“all of these people have some problems the reason I'm highlighting this is to show that look when these narrations already have AE they have problems in the chain they have these are not unquestionably sound”
38:45TranscriptCite 2018-07-29-S06corrected
· Is there an authentic hadith that a wife may never refuse her husband sex?
Mufti Abu Layth says that the report that a woman may not refuse her husband cannot be attributed to the Prophet without blasphemy, and challenges his critics to bring one version of it whose chain he cannot show to carry weakness or hidden defects.
“this kind of blasphemy is not attributed to our prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam you bring me one hadith one hadith that I can that cannot be criticized”
6:21TranscriptCite 2018-08-03-S02corrected
· Imam Bukhari's own practice: transmission by meaning, hidden names, a Khariji narrator
Mufti Abu Layth says Imam Bukhari set a gold standard for authenticity but did not always apply it himself, since he transmitted by meaning, concealed the names of problematic teachers and narrated from a Khariji, so the narrators of his book are not all beyond question.
“my problem per se is not with imam buhari imam buhari even though he didn't stick by his rules and to be fair he also bent the rules just like people before him”
53:32TranscriptCite 2018-08-30-S09corrected
· Who vouched for Farabri? Baji, Sam'ani and whether transmission implies reliability
Mufti Abu Layth says no contemporary who knew Farabri ever declared him reliable, that the later attributions to al-Baji and al-Sam'ani are unsupported in their own works, and that a scholar transmitting from someone does not make that person reliable.
“nobody who actually knows him ever vouched for him as reliable”
1:17:48TranscriptCite 2018-08-30-S13corrected
· What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Bukhari report of the wolf and the cow that spoke?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Bukhari report of the talking wolf and cow is absurd, since animals do not grasp concepts such as purpose and future events, that its chain is poor, and that the phrase radi Allahu anhuma attributed to the Prophet is an anachronism from a later age.
“these words came much after like weave like muslims we use these words when we're gonna speak about the Companions”
24:52TranscriptCite 2018-09-01-S07corrected
· Is the chain of the hadith that the Prophet died of poison reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the chain of the poisoning report is unacceptable because Yunus was faulted by early critics for his memory and al-Zuhri does not state that he heard it.
“I will show the contradiction and then also show from the chain perspective why it is unacceptable.”
3:26TranscriptCite 2018-09-17-S02corrected
· Is the hadith about women praying in the darkest part of the house authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says the narrations about a woman praying in the darkest part of her house are either fabricated or very weak.
“we can go on and on with these narrations these narrations are either fabricated or very weak they clash with the sahih hadith”
29:48TranscriptCite 2019-05-04-S05corrected
· Can reports from Shia sources about Hasan and Husayn be trusted?
Mufti Abu Layth says he believes Hasan and Husayn wore earrings, that dismissing every Shia report as a lie is prejudice, and that accepting the Khariji narrator Imran ibn Hittan, who praised Ali's killer, in Sahih al-Bukhari while rejecting Imam Jafar's reports is a hypocrisy.
“we can't take from imam ja'far or any of the Shia Imams if it's in a Shia book when they're describing that Hussein used to wear earrings why oh because it's coming from that's just stupid”
36:09TranscriptCite 2019-07-24b-S09corrected
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Quran is ambivalent towards those who leave Islam and prescribes no killing of apostates, and that the report 'whoever changes his religion, kill him' rests solely on Ikrima, a Khariji whom Imam Malik and companions distrusted.
“really the attitude of the Quran is one of ambivalence it doesn't really care although people act like oh my god kill the apostate kill the apostate that's all nonsense”
1:18TranscriptCite 2019-07-25-S01corrected
· Are the hadith about Aisha's young age authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says he can show that every chain brought to prove Aisha's young age is massively flawed.
“I will show you how each and every one of these chains that you bring is massively flawed”
7:31TranscriptCite 2019-09-19b-S03corrected
· Where did the idea that Aisha was six or nine come from?
Mufti Abu Layth says the narration of Aisha being six and then nine seems to come from her nephew Urwa, who was trying to combat rumours about her.
“the genesis of this rewire of her being six and then nine it comes from her nephew trying to combat those rumors”
57:54TranscriptCite 2020-07-14-S13corrected
· How did hadith scholars know narrators who died a century earlier were reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says the later hadith critics, when declaring narrators trustworthy, do not say how they came to know that.
“when they declare these these narrators to be thick, they don't tell you how they came to know that they are trustworthy”
2:16:28TranscriptCite 2020-08-04-S26corrected
· Is the hadith that Aisha was married at six authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says the hadith on Aisha's age at marriage is fabricated, attributing it to Hisham and noting that all its transmitters at the lower level are Iraqi.
“you need to think for yourself see the evidence and realize that look it's true this hadith is fabricated it's been fabricated by hisham all the people that transmit it are iraqi”
1:17:12TranscriptCite 2020-08-24-S20corrected
· Are there other narrations of Aisha's age besides Bukhari's?
Mufti Abu Layth says every single chain of narration about the age of Aisha was fabricated, which he rephrases as engineered.
“Every single chain of narration to do with the age of Aisha was fabricated.”
1:27:50TranscriptCite 2020-10-27-S14corrected
· Are the hadith about the evil eye authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says the hadith on the evil eye are baseless and all problematic.
“it was something that was necessary and we don't find it so the ahadith are baseless they're all problematic”
1:06:33TranscriptCite 2020-11-15-S08corrected
· How could hadith chains and texts have been standardised over time?
Mufti Abu Layth says editors who standardise variant chains and texts to match the majority, even with good intentions, erase evidence of how reports were actually transmitted, and that this may also have happened unnoticed with the classical hadith collections.
“you're standardizing a model and this is exactly what may have happened in the past see you're just catching it out now because ahmad shakir highlighted this”
2:10:28TranscriptCite 2021-01-26b-S26corrected
· How could Abu Hurayra narrate 5,000 hadith after only two years with the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is implausible that Abu Hurayra, who spent about two years with the Prophet, narrated some five thousand hadith, that false memories likely entered his reports, and that Sunnis should themselves reject reports that are factually impossible.
“i definitely think that a lot of you know there was a lot of um maybe false memories being transmitted and stuff like that”
2:50:19TranscriptCite 2021-01-26b-S34corrected
· Can al-Firabri, the transmitter of Sahih al-Bukhari, be trusted?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Firabri, the transmitter of Sahih al-Bukhari, is somewhat dubious and that there must be some level of suspicion towards him.
“so he's somewhat dubious um i think i'm not saying he's evil or is bad or something but he's somebody there must be some level of suspicion”
58:17TranscriptCite 2021-02-09-S11corrected
· Why does Bukhari accept a narrator who praised Ali's killer while Shia narrators are rejected?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is prejudice and a double standard that al-Bukhari accepts as trustworthy a narrator who openly praised Ibn Muljam for killing Ali, while reports from Imam Jafar and the other Shia imams are rejected because they come from Shia sources.
“so why do we accept the the one who's praising the person who murdered the ali like this is just this is just ridiculous like we are just so drowned in prejudice and bias”
1:54TranscriptCite 2021-02-15-S01corrected
· Is the hadith in Bukhari about Jesus coming down reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Bukhari on purpose referred to his teacher Muhammad ibn Yahya by names he was not known by, so as to deceive his readers.
“avoiding the name that he's known by so as to deceive the readers or the listeners into thinking this is one of his other teachers”
2:42:00TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S35corrected
· What is wrong with the other Bukhari and Muslim chains on Jesus's return?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qutayba heard a fabricated hadith from a known forger, dropped him and presented it as heard from al-Layth, which puts at least a question mark over him.
“there was a famous forger who quraiba sits with he hears this hadith from laith he doesn't hear it he hears khalid he drops him and himself presents it as though he heard it from leith”
2:49:33TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S36corrected
· Are the Sahih Muslim reports about Jesus's return reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says one narrator from Abu Hurayra in a Sahih Muslim chain for the return transmits no other hadith and is a ghost who does not exist.
“he doesn't transmit any other hadith and what's shocking is he doesn't exist this guy is a is a ghost right there are the attacks that transmit from abu hurairah”
2:56:02TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S37corrected
· Is there a single hadith on Jesus's return with a flawless chain?
Mufti Abu Layth says every single chain he examined among the strongest reports in Bukhari and Muslim has a problem in it.
“where he said this is it doesn't leave there's no doubt how is there no doubt all of these chains are problematic single chain has had a problem in it”
3:02:57TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S38corrected
· Is the hadith of Aisha about Jesus and the Dajjal reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says only one transmitter relates from Aisha the report with Jesus in it.
“he transmits this hadith of jesus he's the only one to transmit it from aisha check this out people i want you to grasp this”
3:07:30TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S39corrected
· What does the Ibn Mas'ud hadith about the end of time say, and is it reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says one report begins with the statement that the Christians claim Jesus will come back, which shows the belief creeping in.
“there is this hadith of namaste begins by saying that the christians claim jesus will come back you see this belief creeping in”
3:11:09TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S40corrected
· Who was the blind narrator of the return hadith who relied on his slave girl?
Mufti Abu Layth says a narrator in one of the chains who transmits that Jesus will come back is not reliable.
“check this out this is a person who's transmitting this that jesus will come back not only is he not reliable and people”
3:14:47TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S41corrected
· Can the hadith about Jesus's return be questioned?
Mufti Abu Layth says eighty percent of the hadith on Jesus's return come through Abu Hurayra alone.
“you know eighty percent of these entire hadith are just through abu hurairah just through him and almost 50 percent of the entire narration is just through one man”
3:18:27TranscriptCite 2021-03-02-S42corrected
· Why does Mufti Abu Layth say the Bukhari chain for Jesus's descent is unreliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says the first Bukhari chain for Jesus's descent is unreliable because al-Bukhari left the names of Ishaq and Salih ambiguous, which he says al-Bukhari did on purpose with teachers' names so as to deceive readers, as al-Dhahabi and Ibn Hajar record, and because al-Zuhri was known to insert his own words into reports and to make mursal reports reach the Prophet.
“buhari actually is known on several occasions to do to to kind of make names ambiguous so as to deceive his readers”
1:36:44TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S23corrected
· What problems does Mufti Abu Layth find in the Sahih Muslim chains for Jesus's return?
Mufti Abu Layth says the second Bukhari chain passes through Qutayba, who once concealed a known forger in a chain and presented the report as heard from al-Layth, and that the Sahih Muslim chains pass through Yunus ibn Yazid and other narrators whose transmission from al-Zuhri the critics faulted, with al-Zuhri recurring in each.
“there was a famous forger who quraiba sits with he hears this hadith from laith uh he doesn't hear it he hears khalid he drops him and himself presents it as though he heard it from leith”
1:45:57TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S24corrected
· Who are the problematic narrators in the Sahih Muslim reports on Jesus's return?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Sahih Muslim chains for Jesus's return include a narrator who suffered memory loss, a narrator who cannot be identified and could not have met Abu Hurayra, a major mudallis whose reports some critics discarded as fabrications, and Abu al-Zubayr, whom Abu Hatim did not consider reliable.
“years before his death he suffered huge memory loss and possibly dementia and this is why he becomes unreliable and he's in this chain”
1:51:37TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S25corrected
· Is there a single hadith on Jesus's return with an unproblematic chain?
Mufti Abu Layth says every chain he examined for the strongest reports of Jesus's return in Bukhari and Muslim has a criticised narrator, so Qadhi's claim that they leave no doubt fails, and that accepting a report because al-Bukhari included it while ignoring critics who were his equals or seniors is arbitrary.
“all of these chains are problematic every single chain has had a problem in it”
1:59:21TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S26corrected
· Is the hadith of Aisha about Jesus and the Dajjal reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says the hadith of Aisha on Jesus's return rests on a lone transmitter, an undervalued narrator who dictated some forty-one thousand reports from memory in Isbahan with at least a thousand errors and whose version alone has the Dajjal emerging from the Jews of Isbahan, which he finds suspicious.
“he's the only person to have ever said that and that's where he was massively undervalued now you tell me is that not suspicious”
2:07:05TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S27corrected
· What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Ibn Mas'ud hadith on the end of time and Jesus's return?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Ibn Mas'ud report of the return opens by noting the Christians' claim that Jesus will return, which shows the belief creeping in, has unidentifiable narrators in its chain, and ends with life regrowing from a seminal fluid sent from beneath the Throne, a detail he calls preposterous.
“ibn masawa begins by saying that the christians claim jesus will come back you see this belief creeping in”
2:07:40TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S28corrected
· Who was the blind narrator of the return hadith who relied on his slave girl?
Mufti Abu Layth says a transmitter of the return reports, Yazid, went blind, lost his memory and relied on his slave girl to check what he doubted, which shows the state of some of those transmitting these hadith and why they can be questioned.
“he became blind later on in life and his memory naturally got weak fakhana yesterday so how would he know what is going on he would get his slave girl to he would ask her whatever he was doubtful about”
2:11:50TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S29corrected
· Can the hadith on Jesus's return be questioned, and how many of them depend on Abu Hurayra?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that reports which go against reason may be questioned, that eighty percent of the hadith on Jesus's return come through Abu Hurayra alone and about half through one man, and that the other companions cited are obscure, so no unquestionable hadith establishes the return.
“bring me one unquestionable hadith just one to prove this that there's no question about anything in its chain”
2:14:44TranscriptCite 2021-03-14-S30corrected
· Why does the practice of Madinah matter more than a single hadith?
Mufti Abu Layth says he greatly favours the method of the school of Madinah.
“there's so much volumes can be written on how this is why I so favor them the method of the school of matina”
11:42TranscriptCite 2023-04-19-S02corrected
How many of these answers cite each (guest speech left out). Cited means named as evidence or discussed, not necessarily accepted: open the answers to see which.
These answers state a view in order to discuss it, often to reject it. They are never read as his position.
Cite a statement by its id: Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment id, with the date and the address of its page. Citation formats
