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Essays on History, Religion, and Politics

Islam

A Summary of my PhD Research on the Aisha Hadith

February 25, 2023 by Joshua Little

Since the publication of Javad Hashmi’s article regarding my DPhil research, some readers have quite understandably asked for more details. The full DPhil thesis should be available soon (and will be made available on this blog), but in the meantime, I can at least offer a summary thereof to give a better idea of the … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Textual Analysis Tagged: Aisha, Child Marriage, Gautier Juynboll, Hadith, Harald Motzki, history, Islam, Islamic, isnad-cum-matn analysis, Joseph Schacht, Joshua Little, Muhammad, Muslim, Oxford, PhD, Prophet

Fred Donner, Pan-Abrahamitic Islam, and an Early Arabic Inscription about Muhammad

February 19, 2023 by Joshua Little

The hypothesis that early Islam—from the time of the Prophet to at least the second fitnah—constituted some kind of pan-Abrahamic or pan-Abrahamitic movement or coalition is widespread in recent secular, critical scholarship.[1] The earliest iteration of this hypothesis—which posited that proto-Islam was some kind of Judaeo-Arab alliance or coalition—can be found in Patricia Crone and … [Read more…]

Posted in: History, Methods & Debates, Quran Tagged: Abrahamic, Abrahamitic, Arabic, Believer, Believers, Community of Believers, Crone, Donner, Fred Donner, Hagarism, history, Inscription, Islam, Islamic, Joshua Little, Muhammad, Muslim, Muslims, Pan-Abrahamic, Pan-Abrahamitic, Patricia Crone, Prophet

The Origins of Early Sunni Hadith Criticism, Part 2: The Modern Debate

December 23, 2022 by Joshua Little

In Part 1 of this series on the origins of proto-Sunnī Hadith criticism (here), I outlined the traditional narratives on this issue, which are plagued by numerous contradictions and cannot be relied upon alone to resolve the historical question of exactly when and where the Hadith-critical method emerged. Now, in Part 2, I survey the … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Methods & Debates, Theory Tagged: criticism, Hadith, history, Islam, Islamic, Joshua Little

The Origins of Early Sunni Hadith Criticism, Part 1: The Traditional Narratives

December 12, 2022 by Joshua Little

In two previous articles, I outlined the basic method of proto-Sunnī Hadith criticism (here) and summarised the notable figures involved in its articulation, application, and transmission from the turn of the 9th Century CE onward (here). Both of these articles skirt around a fundamental historical question, however: when exactly did proto-Sunnī Hadith criticism originate or … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History Tagged: Hadith, Hadith criticism, history, Islam, Islamic, Joshua Little, Sunni

The Genealogy of Early Sunni Hadith Criticism

December 2, 2022 by Joshua Little

In a previous article, I outlined the basic methodology of proto-Sunnī Hadith criticism, which relied above all upon the collation and comparison of transmissions to establish the reliability of tradents. In the present article, I turn instead to the following historical question: who were the pioneers of proto-Sunnī Hadith criticism, and via whom did it … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History Tagged: Arabic, Hadith, Hadith criticism, history, Islam, Islamic, Joshua Little, Prophet, Sunni

A Summary of Early Sunni Hadith Criticism

November 15, 2022 by Joshua Little

There were diverse approaches or attitudes towards Hadith in the first few Islamic centuries, ranging from uncritical acceptance, to critical acceptance, to skepticism, to wholesale rejection. Ultimately, it was the critical acceptance of Hadith—the approach or methodology known as “Hadith criticism” (naqd al-ḥadīṯ)—that won out amongst the proto-Sunnī Hadith movement (ʾaṣḥāb al-ḥadīṯ) from the early … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History Tagged: Hadith, Hadith criticism, history, Islam, Islamic, Sunni

A Famous Report About Pious Fabrication in Hadith

November 9, 2022 by Joshua Little

Yaḥyá b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān (d. 198/813) was an important early Hadith scholar in Basrah and one of the founders of proto-Sunnī Hadith criticism, the movement or methodology that ultimately produced the Sunnī Hadith canon. For example, the Syrian Sunnī Hadith scholar Muḥammad b. ʾAḥmad al-Ḏahabī (d. 748/1348) summarised the history of Hadith criticism as follows: … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Textual Analysis Tagged: Fabrication, Hadith, history, Ignaz Goldziher, Islam, Islamic history, Isnad-Cum-Matn-Analysis, Joshua Little, Pious, Pious Fabrication

Why I Studied the Aisha Hadith for my PhD: Some Reflections on Religious Interpretation, Sunni Orthodoxy, and Islamophobia

October 28, 2022 by Joshua Little

In late September of 2022, I passed the final exam (viva/defence) for my PhD at Oxford University, pending minor corrections. The subject of my thesis was the famous and controversial hadith about the Islamic prophet Muḥammad’s marriage to his wife ʿĀʾišah bt. ʾabī Bakr at a young age: according to the dominant version of the … [Read more…]

Posted in: Current Affairs, Fiqh, Hadith, History, Islamophobia, Politics Tagged: Aisha, Aishah, Child Marriage, Hadith, history, Islam, Islamophobia, Joshua Little, Muhammad, Prophet

The New Historiography of Islamic Origins: A Review of Some Recent Trends in the Field

October 21, 2022 by Joshua Little

For many years, secular scholarship on Islamic origins and the first Islamic century was characterised by a relatively uncritical acceptance of 9th- and 10th-Century CE Islamic literary sources at face value and, consequently, a relatively uncritical acceptance of the conventional Islamic origins-narrative that predominates therein. In the context of the field of Islamic origins, the … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Methods & Debates, Quran, Theory Tagged: Fred Donner, Hadith, Hagarism, historiography, history, Islam, Islamic origins, Joshua Little, Michael Cook, Patricia Crone, revisionism, revisionist, Robert Hoyland, Stephen Shoemaker

Was Muhammad Originally Named “Qutham”? Resolving an Old Debate

October 20, 2022 by Joshua Little

In his ʾAnsāb al-ʾAšrāf, the Baghdadian litterateur and genealogist ʾAḥmad b. Yaḥyá al-Balāḏurī (d. post-270/883-884) recorded the following concerning the birth of the Islamic prophet Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (d. 11/632): As for Quṯam b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib: his mother was Ṣafiyyah bt. Jundub, the mother of al-Ḥāriṯ b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and he … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Textual Analysis Tagged: history, Islam, Joshua Little, Muhammad, Qutham
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