Can’t Verify Hadith = Forbidden to Believe Them

  1. P1: Quran says we must verify all the news that we get before believing it
  2. P2: We can’t verify that any single hadith spreader didn’t fabricate the chain of narration in the first place
  3. C: Quran commands that we reject that hadith.

    [Quran 17:36] You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.

    [Quran 49:6] O you who believe, if a wicked person brings any news to you, you shall first investigate, lest you commit injustice towards some people, out of ignorance, then become sorry and remorseful for what you have done.

    So how do we know the hadith spreader was not someone with a strong political bias and uses that incentive to spread false hadith, and how do we know this hadith spreader was not a hypocrite? Not even the prophet himself knew the hypocrites:

    [Quran 9:101] Among the Arabs around you, there are hypocrites. Also, among the city dwellers, there are those who are accustomed to hypocrisy. You do not know them, but we know them. We will double the retribution for them, then they end up committed to a terrible retribution.

    The so called “science of hadith” still ultimately depends on the foundational assumption that those individuals who spread the hadith did not fabricate the chain of narration they claimed. The Sunnis say “these were righteous people” as the coping mechanism to accept them. However, how could they know these were righteous people if prophet Muhammad himself was not given the divine knowledge that distinguishes hypocrites from the believers/righteous-people? Thus, we cannot verify that those individuals that spread hadith did not fabricate the chain of narration itself, and per Quran, we are thus forbidden to believe them.

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