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Text criticism, reason and the Quran
66 segments in 36 recordings · 2018 to 2022 · 0 verified · 55 checked positions · hadith/authentication/text-criticism-and-reason · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 19 Aug 2022
19 Aug 2022video
LatestWhat did the classical Maliki scholars say about the satanic verses story?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Maliki scholars, Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi and Qadi Iyad among them, rejected the story as fabricated, and that al-Tabari records the narrations but concludes they are false.
machine4 min1:14:40on YouTube
Earlier answers · 65 · newest first
2022 · 1
19 Aug 2022video
What does the Quran say against the satanic verses story?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Suyuti repeated Ibn Hajar's mistake, while the Quran rules the story out: the Prophet does not speak from desire and Satan has no power to speak in his voice.
machine7 min 51 s1:26:29on YouTube
2021 · 12
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDid the Prophet really spy on a boy he thought was the Dajjal?
The Ibn Sayyad and Dajjal reports are absurd and insult the Prophet's dignity, and their contradictory accounts of who and where the Dajjal is show they are not revelation.
machine12 min 36 s2:30:54on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
How does Yasir Qadhi answer the objection that Jesus killing pigs and refusing jizya makes no sense?
Qadhi's clip concedes that one early authority held Jesus died a natural death, and answers the objection that the return reports are irrational, Jesus killing pigs and refusing jizya, with 'Allah said so' and the claim that there will be no middle category between Islam and the Dajjal.
machine2 min 39 s32:51on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Is Yasir Qadhi consistent about whether Gog and Magog could be hidden underground?
In one clip Qadhi says it is not impossible, since Allah is all-powerful and Ibn Taymiyya's rule allows what astounds the mind, that thousands live underground; in another he says he cannot believe a tribe has been trapped for four thousand years. Mufti Abu Layth asks where the consistency is.
machine2 min 40 s55:19on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Ibn Mas'ud hadith on the end of time and Jesus's return?
The Ibn Mas'ud report has unknown narrators, opens by noting the Christians' claim that Jesus will return, and ends with life regrowing from a seminal fluid sent from beneath the Throne, a detail Mufti Abu Layth calls preposterous and uses to argue that such reports can be questioned.
machine3 min 58 s2:07:24on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How does Yasir Qadhi answer the objection that Jesus killing pigs makes no sense?
In the clip Qadhi admits one early authority held that Jesus died, and answers objections to Jesus killing pigs and refusing the jizya with 'Allah said so'.
machine2 min 36 s1:36:30on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has Yasir Qadhi been consistent about whether Gog and Magog could be hidden underground?
Mufti Abu Layth sets an older Qadhi clip defending the Gog and Magog hadith as 'not impossible' against his later statement that he cannot believe it.
machine4 min 13 s1:57:36on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Ibn Mas'ud hadith about the end of time say, and is it reliable?
The Ibn Mas'ud report has unknown narrators, opens by citing the Christians' claim that Jesus will return, and ends with life regrowing from a fluid sent from beneath the Throne, which Mufti Abu Layth calls preposterous.
machine4 min 05 s3:10:42on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet tell people to drink camel urine as medicine?
Mufti Abu Layth says camel urine is not medicine and the Prophet never really told anyone to drink it; the report is weak in its chain and, if taken at all, reads as a rebuke.
machine6 min 30 s1:26:20on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
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 narrated so much after about two years with the Prophet, that Umar restrained him, and that impossible reports such as the Ruqayya comb story should be rejected by Sunnis themselves.
machine9 min 15 s2:50:05on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How do I find the true Sunnah in the hadith books?
The true Sunnah does not clash with reason, the Quran or Islamic principles, Mufti Abu Layth says, and the safer way is to take it from fiqh.
machine1 min 09 s1:33:27on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Sahih al-Bukhari really say God dangled in front of the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Bukhari report of God 'dangling' before the Prophet is unacceptable, and any hadith that clashes with reason or the Quran must be rejected.
machine12 min 35 s1:58:33on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Was the woman who refused the Prophet in Bukhari's divorce chapter his wife?
The chapter's reports are confused and defenders strain to reconcile them; he says hadith scholars, like doctors, were institutionalised in their field.
machine5 min 58 s48:31on YouTube
2020 · 10
15 Nov 2020video
Are the hadith about the evil eye authentic?
No: he says the evil eye hadith rest on weak or criticised narrators and odd reports, and a belief so important would have come from many companions and the Quran. He calls them baseless.
machine12 min 11 s56:07on YouTube
12 Oct 2020video
Writers who place Aisha in her teens, and how narrators exaggerated ages
Several modern writers conclude that Aisha was in her teens at marriage, and the speakers explain the hadith's figures as numbers garbled and exaggerated downwards by narrators. Khadija's age, by contrast, was exaggerated upwards from about twenty-eight to forty.
machine4 min 05 s5:13on YouTube
9 Oct 2020video
Can a hadith be rejected because it goes against reason?
Mufti Abu Layth says reason is what immediately tells you whether a hadith is sahih, and that an early classical text on hadith says so.
machine4 min 12 s0:01on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet really order Jews and Christians expelled from Arabia?
Mufti Abu Layth finds the hadith ordering the expulsion of Jews and Christians from Arabia suspect, since the Prophet traded with a Jewish man days before he died, and sees it as a later fabrication.
machine10 min 45 s2:07:28on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
How do I make sense of the hadith that the Prophet banned mut'ah?
Mufti Abu Layth says the reports on the banning of mut'ah are inconsistent and contradict each other, so they are hard to rely on.
machine2 min 33 s1:01:01on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Is the hadith about conquering Constantinople authentic?
It may be authentic, since Constantinople symbolised Byzantine power, but he feels many further hadith about it were fabricated to encourage campaigns.
machine1 min 16 s1:46:03on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How reliable is the story of the first revelation in the cave?
The guest doubts the historicity of the cave story, attributing it to al-Zuhri; Mufti Abu Layth says he would take the whole description with a pinch of salt.
machine5 min 38 s57:30on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can Sahih al-Bukhari be proven to be the book Imam al-Bukhari wrote?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that what is really mutawatir is the living tradition, not any hadith, and that Sahih al-Bukhari cannot be proven to be Bukhari's exact book since it rests on one unvouched transmitter, Farabri. Each report should therefore be weighed against reason, the Quran and the principles of Islam like any other hadith.
machine3 min 59 s1:01:06on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How should hadith be evaluated, and did the companions ever misreport the Prophet?
Hadith should be judged one by one against the principles of the religion, observation and reason, as the earliest Muslims did before reason was sidelined. Aisha herself rejected several companions' reports, such as the dog, woman and donkey breaking the prayer, the dead punished by weeping, and the bad omen in a woman, showing how reports were misrelayed.
machine6 min 31 s1:05:05on YouTube
16 Feb 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Is it Sunnah to drink camel urine as medicine?
No, you should not drink camel urine: he calls it nonsense and says the report is problematic in its chain and its text, even though it is in al-Bukhari.
machine4 min 55 s0:00on YouTube
2019 · 1
28 Sep 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
If some hadith are unreliable, doesn't that make the Quran unreliable too?
No: the Quran was passed on en masse as a recited living tradition, so doubts about particular hadith chains do not carry over to it.
machine7 min 37 s1:58on YouTube
2018 · 41
30 Nov 2018Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
What evidence suggests Aisha was older than nine when she married?
Mufti Abu Layth argues that a six-year-old could not have been the help the Prophet needed, and that the battle reports, her earlier engagement, her age at death and her memory of a Makkan verse point to her being at least seventeen.
machine5 min 16 s10:27on YouTube
20 Sep 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
What is the war-wager hadith paradox?
Mufti Abu Layth presents the report that the Prophet was commanded to fight people until they believe, which hadith dogmatists call mutawatir, and notes that the same scholars agree no one may be fought merely for disbelief or compelled into Islam.
machine7 min 54 s0:00on YouTube
20 Sep 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
If a mutawatir hadith has to be reinterpreted, what does that say about hadith transmission?
Mufti Abu Layth says that because its defenders must reinterpret a report they call mutawatir, the transmission system itself is shown to be fallible rather than airtight.
machine7 min 49 s7:54on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
How can the same poison kill one companion at once and the Prophet three years later?
The story contradicts itself: the companion who ate the food died at once, so the same poison cannot have killed the Prophet three years later, and the Prophet in Muslim's version says Allah would not let the woman do it.
machine3 min 42 s6:49on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Does the hadith that the Prophet died of poison contradict the Quran?
Yes, in Mufti Abu Layth's view: the Quran promises that Allah will protect the Prophet from the people, and it describes cutting the aorta as the punishment for one who forges revelation, so a report that the Prophet died that way humiliates him.
machine2 min 16 s10:31on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Why does Mufti Abu Layth reject the Bukhari report of Sulayman and the hundred women?
The report of Sulayman going to a hundred women in one night is absurd and disrespects a prophet, and its moral that God punished him with a disabled child paints a troubling picture of God. A report that clashes with reason, the Quran or Islamic principles goes out of the window.
machine3 min 55 s18:15on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Bukhari report of the wolf and the cow that spoke?
The Bukhari report in which a wolf and a cow speak eloquent Arabic about purpose and the future is absurd, Mufti Abu Layth says, and the phrase radi Allahu anhuma placed in the Prophet's mouth is an anachronism from a later age.
machine3 min 55 s22:10on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What does the Bukhari report that Shaytan touches every newborn except Mary and Jesus mean?
The Bukhari report that Shaytan touches every newborn except Mary and Jesus makes even the Prophet Muhammad subject to the devil's touch while exempting the two figures of Christian doctrine, which Mufti Abu Layth presents as a Christian idea in the collection.
machine2 min 38 s26:05on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
The first problem: Bukhari's semi-divine status above the Quran in practice
Sahih al-Bukhari has been given a semi-divine status that in practice places it on par with or above the Quran, which he rejects outright. The Quran always takes precedence, and Bukhari is a book like the other hadith collections.
machine5 min 17 s6:33on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Nonsensical Arabic in hadith 5492: the alcohol slaughtered by fish and sun
The closing words of hadith 5492 are nonsensical Arabic that early scholars crossed out as an error. Later commentators should admit this rather than strain to make sense of it.
machine3 min 59 s32:03on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Summing up: judge Bukhari like any other book; the deen comes through living practice
Bukhari should be read like any other hadith book, each report judged on its merits against reason, the Quran and established principles. The religion itself reaches Muslims through the living tradition of practice, not through this book.
machine7 min 53 s1:32:44on YouTube
12 Aug 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
What is the hadith about Abu Hurayra, the thief and Ayat al-Kursi?
The report has Abu Hurayra guarding the zakat treasury and releasing a thief three nights running despite the Prophet calling him a liar, until the thief teaches him to recite Ayat al-Kursi before sleep. Mufti Abu Layth calls it fabricated or mis-transmitted and contrary to the Quran and Sunnah.
machine5 min 14 s0:00on YouTube
12 Aug 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Did Abu Hurayra learn to recite Ayat al-Kursi at bedtime from a devil?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects the report as blasphemous: it has the devil teaching Islam while the Prophet confirms it, against Imam Malik's principle that everything of the deen came from the Prophet. It also portrays Abu Hurayra as clumsy and disobedient and the Prophet as tolerating theft.
machine2 min 37 s5:14on YouTube
3 Aug 2018Responding to Refutations
How should Muslims decide which hadith to accept and which to reject?
Follow Imam Malik: accept some hadith and reject others. A report is accepted if it does not clash with reason, the Quran, the transmitted and corroborated Sunnah such as the practice of Madinah, or a principle of Islam; otherwise it is treated with caution.
machine3 min 26 s15:35on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Did the Prophet say women lack intellect and faith?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the report, though in al-Bukhari, is a false attribution to the Prophet, and that he once took it as a joke but now holds it inauthentic.
machine6 min 30 s0:00on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Does the Quran say most people in hell are women?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran speaks of mankind as a whole, all created weak, and never divides the people of hell by gender, so the report clashes with it.
machine6 min 23 s6:30on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Why do the versions of the 'women in hell' hadith contradict each other?
Mufti Abu Layth says the versions disagree on which Eid it was and whether the women were addressed privately, so the male narrators heard it second-hand from someone unknown.
machine3 min 48 s12:53on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Do women really curse more than men, as the hadith says?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says men swear more than women across cultures and ingratitude is shared by both, so the report's reasons are factual errors.
machine7 min 03 s16:41on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Is not praying during menstruation a sign of weak faith?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says women refrain from prayer during menstruation because the religion told them to, so calling it a lack of faith is absurd and the report is a misattribution.
machine6 min 58 s23:44on YouTube
8 Jul 2018Responding to Refutations
What is the point of checking a hadith's chain of narrators?
Chain criticism exists only to judge whether a hadith's content is sound; content against reason, the Quran or Islam's principles is a problem. Treating Bukhari as infallible is nonsense.
machine2 min 35 s13:53on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Is the chain of the apostasy hadith through Anas reliable?
The alternative chain of the apostasy hadith through Anas is also weak: it includes a narrator with Mu'tazili tendencies and Qatada, who is known for tadlis, and the report clashes with reason, the Quran and the Prophet's life.
machine3 min 58 s35:16on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Would the Prophet really call a woman wearing perfume a fornicator?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says calling a woman a fornicator is the crime of qadhf under Quran 24:4, punished by the Malikis whatever the intention, and the Prophet was never obscene, so the report insults him.
machine9 min 15 s10:32on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Where the story came from: polemic, the poisoning report and the ajwa dates
Mufti Abu Layth believes the story is misconstrued, possibly fed by polemical rumours of the time, and notes it contradicts the hadith that ajwa dates protect from magic.
machine5 min 09 s25:03on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
When should a hadith be rejected, and can a Muslim refuse a religious command that makes no sense?
A hadith is accepted only if it does not contradict reason, the transmitted sources or an established principle, as Ibn al-Jawzi wrote; the companion who refused an order to jump into a fire shows reason rightly judging a command.
machine5 min 12 s1:09:12on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Did a tree really cry for the Prophet, and why does Mufti Abu Layth reject the hadith?
Mufti Abu Layth does not hold the crying-tree reports to be established: their chains are problematic and Muslims cannot call other religions' miracle stories absurd while accepting their own; the Prophet's greatness does not depend on a tree.
machine2 min 37 s1:17:02on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Is the second coming of Jesus proven by the Quran or by the fact that most Muslims believe it?
The second coming cannot be proven from the Quran, as Hassan Ali concedes, and the fact that most Muslims believe it only reflects what they were taught as children, as with folk tales of Ya'juj and Ma'juj. The hadith on it have chain problems and, more importantly, details that clash with Islam.
machine3 min 54 s1:19on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
On what principles can a hadith in Bukhari be rejected, and may ordinary Muslims do so?
A valid chain is not enough: a report must not go against reason, the established Quran and Sunnah, or the principles of Islam, and the Hanafi-Maturidi majority require mutawatir hadith for creed. Lay people may suspend a hadith that troubles them while seeking guidance; the gecko hadith is given as a report Mufti Abu Layth considers made up.
machine3 min 55 s18:17on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
If I doubt one hadith in Bukhari, will I end up doubting the Quran?
The warning that doubting one hadith leads to doubting the Quran is scare-mongering: Bukhari and Muslim are not the word of God, some of their reports must be rejected, and the deen does not fall apart from questioning. Mufti Abu Layth says Jesus is not going to come but treats the matter as a difference of opinion, not a sectarian one.
machine5 min 12 s22:12on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Why would Jesus need to come back at all?
Mufti Abu Layth says the reasons given for a return do not hold together: the Dajjal simply melts, hatred of Jews contradicts Jesus's own message as a Jew preaching compassion, and killing pigs contradicts a report in Malik that Jesus was peaceful towards pigs.
machine2 min 40 s13:02on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
What are the main problems with the hadith about Jesus returning?
Mufti Abu Layth says the return narrations conflict with the Quran, the Sunnah and Islam's principles, rest on solitary reports that cannot found aqidah, and contradict one another, from Constantinople to who the Dajjal is. He notes that the hadith of Jibril on faith and the Prophet's answers on the signs of the hour do not mention Jesus.
machine2 min 07 s15:42on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
If faith is no longer valid, why a judge? Psychology of testimony and detail
Testimony is tested through its details, and excessive detail is a warning sign; Mufti Abu Layth sets up this frame for examining the hadith of Jesus's return.
machine2 min 37 s50:12on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
The details of the Jesus hadith against the Quran: sword, judge, Jews, world peace
The details of the return hadith, conversion by the sword, universal Islam, the killing of the Jews and world peace, contradict the Quran and the Prophet's life and mirror the gospels.
machine5 min 14 s52:49on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
What about the Dajjal? Doesn't Jesus have to return to kill him?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Dajjal is not a man: the reports are defective or refer to the devil, he is absent from the Quran, and the narrations conflict and are tied to a conquest of Constantinople that happened centuries ago.
machine6 min 34 s1:07:11on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
The white minaret of Damascus: places that did not exist in the Prophet's time
Hadith placing Jesus's descent on a white minaret in Damascus describe a structure that did not exist in the Prophet's time; Mufti Abu Layth says such reports appeared once Damascus became the Umayyad capital.
machine5 min 16 s1:12:25on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Israiliyyat in hadith: man in God's image and creation on the Sabbath
Reports such as man created in God's image and creation on the Sabbath are Biblical material that Malik and Ibn Taymiyya rejected; Mufti Abu Layth says the Jesus narrative shows the same Israiliyyat influence.
machine2 min 38 s1:17:41on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Three conditions for accepting a hadith; Ibn Uthaymin and the Jassasa report
A hadith is accepted only if it does not contradict reason, the Quran and established Sunnah, or uproot a principle of Islam; the Jesus reports fail this test, and even Ibn Uthaymin rejected a sahih Dajjal report on such grounds.
machine2 min 38 s1:20:19on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Summary of the case against a second coming; Ibn Hazm on hadith against reason
There is no second coming of Jesus in Islam: the reports contradict the Quran, Sunnah and principles, are single-transmitter reports not creed, contradict each other, parallel the Bible, and are absent from the Quran and the Prophet's definition of faith.
machine2 min 39 s2:19:16on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Why does he reject the hadith of the tree crying for the Prophet?
The religion is built on reason, so one standard must apply to all religions: a tree that reasons and cries cannot be accepted while other faiths' claims are called absurd. He also urged his critics to reject the demeaning reports about the Prophet, which they instead affirmed.
machine3 min 56 s5:12on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Why do the hadith about Safiyya's marriage contradict each other?
Nearly all the reports come through one companion, Anas ibn Malik, who was a teenager at Khaybar and died decades later, and they contradict each other on almost every detail, so none can be taken as it stands. Only two facts are certain: Safiyya left with the Muslims and later became the Prophet's wife.
machine7 min 52 s11:37on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Could the Prophet have married Safiyya right after Khaybar?
No: she was a widow and the Quran requires a waiting period of four months and ten days, so a marriage at Khaybar would contradict the Quran. The companions only assumed a marriage because they saw the Prophet veil her and took a victory meal for a wedding feast.
machine5 min 15 s19:29on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
How should Muslims judge hadith that say the Prophet took Safiyya on the night of Khaybar?
Weigh them against the Quran and the Prophet's character: the story contradicts the widow's waiting period, the verse on no compulsion and everything known of his conduct, and all its versions come from one conflicting source. Mufti Abu Layth says relaying it is a lie against the Prophet and the picture it draws is rape.
machine5 min 12 s35:13on YouTube