Early version. Transcripts and tags are labelled by accuracy tier. A position is shown only after two independent reviews have found it in his own words.
29 answers in 16 recordings, 2018 to 2023. 22 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
Thought Evolution
2018answers checked positions2023
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.
Mufti Abu Layth holds that people hostile to Islam brought the belief in Jesus's return in as Christian propaganda through hadith, which went undocumented for about a century and whose chains could be copied, and that this is why Imam Malik told people to rely on inherited practice over isolated reports.
“would you not attack Islam ideologically would you not put propaganda you would and that's what these people have done they did that they brought in their Christian baggage”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Sahih al-Bukhari cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt to go back to Imam al-Bukhari, since the Sultaniyya edition rests on the lost Yuniniyya, the recensions disagree, and the book's transmission depends on Farabri, whom no contemporary vouched for.
“the copies that go throughout the world all disagree with themselves hadith missing hadith les patched together we've got cut and paste job going on”
Mufti Abu Layth says the transmission of Sahih al-Bukhari cannot be established back to its author beyond reasonable doubt, because it rests on one unvouched transmitter whose students admit the copy was incomplete and altered, and whose copies disagree with one another.
“can we establish bukhari back to the imam with with confidence beyond reasonable doubt and the answer is we can't beyond reasonable doubt there is way too much conflict”
Mufti Abu Layth says that although Bukhari had other students who transmitted the Sahih, their versions were incomplete or did not reach later generations, so the book in fact reaches us through Farabri alone.
“there's been a lot of claims that we have sahil bukhari through all of these sources now that's a lie”
Mufti Abu Layth says the only transmission of Sahih al-Bukhari that reached later generations through teaching is Farabri's, and that copies found without teaching cannot be used to claim an independent connected transmission.
“so all these people online trying to say we've got transmissions that are connected look this is the problem they're not being honest”
Mufti Abu Layth says Farabri's own copy was incomplete and rearranged by his students, their copies differ in chains and hadith, and every later manuscript down to the Sultaniyya edition is a patchwork that still needed correction.
“these are all through fabri and they all disagree and it's not just little disagreements the actual names in the chains are missing as well”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Sahih al-Bukhari cannot reliably be traced to al-Bukhari because it reaches us through al-Farabri alone, whom nobody vouched for in his lifetime, that the deen is conveyed by the living tradition which Imam Malik distinguished from hadith, and that he accepts hadith only by the muhaddithin's own standards: a report must not contradict reason, the Quran and transmitted sources, or an Islamic principle.
“nobody that knew thoroughly in his lifetime ever vouched for him as a reliable person in hadith so we are taking all of this from one guy who nobody vouched for”
Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran was never transmitted through a sole transmitter but taught en masse, so problematising hadith does not problematise the Quran.
“if you problematize hadith then you by default problematize the Quran no you don't at all the Quran was never transmitted through a soul transmitter it was just taught on mass”
Mufti Abu Layth offers as his own theory that the early imams of the Ahl al-Bayt up to Jafar al-Sadiq were for the most part as the Shia describe them rather than Sunni, and that Imam Malik and Abu Hanifa, though on good terms with them, did not transmit from them because their views would have caused a political storm, while adding that this does not in his view make the Shia theological claims more authentic.
“that's in my view the reason why imam malik doesn't transmit views from uh imam jaffar it's the reason why uh imam abu hanifa doesn't transmit from them”
Mufti Abu Layth thinks Imam Malik and Abu Hanifa attended Imam Jafar's circles and kept his company but transmitted nothing from him to Sunni circles because the bulk of his teaching reflected the Shia da'wah, which they did not agree with, and he calls the explanation that they took only 'spirituality' from him absurd.
“i think that they did used to attend their circles where they taught generally about islam but i feel the bulk of the da'wah of those imams of albeit would reflect to a great part the shia dawa”
Mufti Abu Layth says he would not single out a particular hadith book, taking each hadith on its merits, but if anything he supposes he would call the Muwatta of Imam Malik the most authentic.
“I would not advocate a particular book uh I would say if anything the the most classic book we have of hadith is the m of IM Malik”
Mufti Abu Layth says that defending reports in Bukhari which portray the Prophet as bewitched or forgetting the Quran amounts to claiming the Prophet could err but al-Bukhari could not, when errors in the book's transmission are far more likely.
“the prophet could forget the quran the prophet could be clumsy the prophet could forget surahs and verses the prophet could do all of these things but bukhari could never have made a mistake”
Mufti Abu Layth says he has never been against Imam Bukhari, whom he regards as an outstanding though fallible hadith scholar, but holds that the book reaching us was altered in transmission, so reports in it that disrespect the prophets or concern killing should be treated with caution.
“he wasn't a prophet and he wasn't infallible and you have to remember the book that comes to us from him 100 of it is probably not from him but maybe 90 of it was his”
Mufti Abu Layth says that later transmitters and editors, even with good intentions, may have altered reports and names to match versions they knew, so that the same hadith appearing in other books need not be independent of al-Bukhari.
“my question to that is how do you know this is not a bounce effect or a ripple and boomerang effect that basically because imam buhari was a uh you know he was a great person”
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”
Mufti Abu Layth suggests, as food for thought, that the hadith system behaves like an evolving organism that, without consciousness, drives those engaged with it to standardise and correct it so that it survives.
“as a kind of psychosocial organism this belief system it would be driven to make people do that to kind of ensure its longevity to survive”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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.
