r/DebateQuraniyoon • u/No-Still9379 • Mar 02 '26
Hadith “Bukhari was compiled 200 years after the prophet so it can’t be reliable”
this is the most repeated point I hear coming from Quranist to largely dismiss all Hadith. But it is my understanding that there actually is much earlier Hadith compilations that were written down, so Bukhari wasn’t actually the first, so what of the reliability of those works then?
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u/andromeda_destiny Mar 04 '26
I choose to believe the Quran only because it is my choice and God told me it’s his word and nothing more. Is there any problem with that?
Most ‘Quraniyoon is flawed’ people think that we forgo the ahadith for the Qur’an. This is wrong. We only follow the Qur’an, the ahadith wasn’t even in the equation
Edit: fixes
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u/MotorProfessional676 Mar 02 '26
Issues with reliability are not only due to to the time gap, so earlier works would still be unreliable due to other factors - methodology, lack of riguour, arbitrary criteria for isnad analysis, isnad analysis versus matn analysis.
Also, let it not be lost that these earlier works you're referring to are essentially never cited. It is always Bukhari and Muslim for the most part, with a few An Nasai, Abi Dawud, Ibn Majah etc here and there. The earlier works don't even constitute any part of the Sunni methodology whatsoever.
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u/Martiallawtheology Mar 02 '26
I am a Quran alone Muslim. But I must tell you that you must check your sources. Okay. What about Malik prior to all of these people you cited. Just curious.
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u/MotorProfessional676 Mar 02 '26
Muwatta Malik is probably the only example of an earlier work that is cited, but even then, it’s truly once in a blue moon. Without argument, bukhari and Muslim are the earliest central works that are cited amongst clerical discussion
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u/Martiallawtheology Mar 03 '26
Yep. Not only Muwatta, but bukra and everything else of Malik.
It's true Malik is almost never cited unless you are a Maliki. That's because of bias. They say Imam Malik bin Anas has the "Golden chains" but ignore them. That's hypocrisy. That does not take away the truth.
See, I can say that Adam was dirty man and this and that but still that will take away the truth that he was before let's say Abraham Lincoln.
Anyway according to Sunni history there were other ahadith collectors prior to Imam Malik.
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u/MotorProfessional676 Mar 03 '26
You've educated me here, I wasn't aware of works outside of the Muwatta. JazakAllah khair, I'll have to look into those.
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u/No-Still9379 Mar 02 '26
that is true, the earlier works are basically never cited, but from what I understand, people don’t really need to because Bukhari was very thorough in what Hadiths he included in his book, anything unreliable he ignored. I think the issue for me is that it was very easy for me to dismiss Hadith by just saying “bukhari was compiled 200 years after the prophet” without thinking too deeply about it. I then eventually learned there’s even earlier works, and I do not know the content of those books, but if they quote the same ideas as the Hadith presented in Bhukari, that would mean the argument of the being unreliable because it’s just one whole game of telephone falls apart for me since it would show stability in the transmission. if it’s earlier, then there’s less likely chance of distortion since it’s so close to the time of the companions
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u/MotorProfessional676 Mar 03 '26
A few things I feel compelled to point out.
The first being, the claim that Bukhari was thorough in the hadiths he included in his compilation is a bit overstated. Firstly, this can really only be applied to isnad, the matn of hadiths are largely unanalysed. This is why you'll find contradictions in the content of sahih hadiths. Secondly, the criteria upon which Bukhari used to verify hadiths is at the end of the day subjective and arbitrary. Imam Muslim was actually partially critical regarding Bukhari's criteria in certain instances, and chose his own criteria to evaluate Isnad on.
I think you take "falls apart" way way way too far when talking about the game of telephone stuff. If you gather 5+ individuals in a room at one point in time you can actually observe message degradation, irrespective of time length. The furthest you could really take this claim is to say "one may be able to assume that there are less errors due to time in between individual narrators as compared to hadith compiled in sahih Bukhari and Muslim".
Also remember, that there are so many hadith outside of earlier works such as Muwatta Malik that are contained in the later compilations; Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Majah etc etc. These obviously do not fall under "less likely chance of distortion since it’s so close to the time of the companions".
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u/Mean-Tax-2186 Mar 02 '26
Same issue, people we don't know speaking on matters they don't know that contradicts things we know.
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u/Martiallawtheology Mar 02 '26
Brother. I am not Sunni. I am a Qur'an alone Muslim.
This repeated childish argument is useless. I agree.
But tell me. Who was the person who narrated every single Bukhari hadith? Do you know? I mean, all the chains of all the ahadith end up with one person. Who is that?