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Essays on History, Religion, and Politics

Joshua Little

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 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

“Common Links” as the Creators of Hadith: A Case Study of a Syrian Prophecy about the Antichrist

October 27, 2022 by Joshua Little

Ignaz Goldziher famously argued that Hadith largely reflect not the life and times of the Prophet and his contemporaries, but rather, the historical contexts and interests of later generations of Muslims: Closer acquaintance with the vast stock of ḥadīths induces sceptical caution rather than optimistic trust regarding the material brought together in the carefully compiled … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Textual Analysis, Theory Tagged: al-Dajjal, Antichrist, Common Link, Common Links, Gautier Juynboll, Hadith, Harald Motzki, history, isnad-cum-matn analysis, Joseph Schacht, Joshua Little, Juynboll, Motzki, prophecy, Prophet, Schacht

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

“The Quran was revealed in Three Places”: A Critical Analysis of a Hadith about the Holy Land

October 20, 2022 by Joshua Little

In his al-ʾItqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾân, the famous Egyptian Sunnī Hadith scholar al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) mentioned the following hadith: Al-Ṭabarānī cited [a hadith] in [his al-Muʿjam] al-Kabīr, from the transmission-path of al-Walīd b. Muslim, from ʿUfayr b. Maʿdān, from Ibn ʿĀmir, from ʾAbū ʾUmāmah, who said: “The Messenger of God said: “The Quran was revealed … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Quran, Textual Analysis Tagged: Abbasid, Hadith, history, Holy Land, Islam, Jerusalem, Joshua Little, Levant, Prophet, Quran, Stephen Shoemaker, Syria, Umayyad

The Hadith of the Cloak: A Critical Analysis

October 20, 2022 by Joshua Little

I was asked on Twitter to apply an isnad-cum-matn analysis to the famous “Hadith of the Cloak”, an exegetical hadith relating to Q. 33:33. There are actually several hadiths that seem to be referred to as such, including a tradition attributed to ʾUmm Salamah, and another attributed to ʿĀʾišah. In this article, I will be … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Textual Analysis Tagged: Aal al-Bayt, Ahl al-Bayt, Aisha, Aishah, Ali, Cloak, Fatima, Fatimah, Hadith, Hadith of the Cloak, Hasan, history, Husayn, Islam, Joshua Little, Prophet, Shia, Shii

The First Caliph Who Translated Foreign Knowledge: Analysing an Early Arabic Tradition

October 19, 2022 by Joshua Little

There is a classic debate in some modern scholarship on the history of early Arabic scholarship and learning: when did Arabic scientific writing commence? More specifically, the debate is about which caliph oversaw the first translation of ‘foreign’ scientific, philosophical, and related works into Arabic (i.e., the famous Arabic translation movement): was it an Umayyad … [Read more…]

Posted in: Hadith, History, Textual Analysis Tagged: Abbasid, Abbasids, al-Mansur, Arabic, Baghdad, Caliph, Caliphate, Golden Age, history, Islam, Joshua Little, Science, Translation, Translation Movement

The Arab Destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria: An Analysis of a Another Popular Myth

October 19, 2022 by Joshua Little

In a recent article, I explored a popular myth about the destruction of pre-Islamic Persian books and knowledge during the great Arab conquests, based on an improbable story that can be found in certain extremely late Arabic sources. There is however another, similar myth, which is perhaps better known than the first: that it was … [Read more…]

Posted in: History, Islamophobia, Textual Analysis Tagged: Alexandria, Arab conquests, Great LIbrary, history, Islam, Islamophobia, Joshua Little
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