Limitations of Early Islamic Sources

Last updated: May 30th, 2025 at 2:43 pm · Est. Reading Time: 9 minutes

Start of Criticism

Among modern historians, Goldziher was the first to raise serious concerns about Hadith traditions being an authentic source of history.¹  Many others, especially Western scholars, were convinced by Goldziher.²  Later on, Lammens added Sirah literature into the same category of doubtful historical sources.³

Flaws in Early Islamic Sources

1:  They are not contemporary to the events.  Sirah and Hadith are not primary sources of the history of the advent of Islam.  Secondary sources of history are always inferior to the primary ones.

2:  Both Sirah and Hadith had a long period of oral transmission before being written down.  The very process of their oral transmission for a long period raises doubts about their trustworthiness.  Consensus is that the written form of literature is more stable when being transmitted as compared to the oral form.  The longer a historical event remained oral before being subject to writing, the more doubtful its credibility is.⁴

3:  The genuineness of the list of successive persons credited with the transmission of an oral tradition (chain of authorities, Isnād اسناد) before being written is in question.⁵  Watt conceives the process of transmission somewhat as follows: “To begin with, the stories would be handed down informally in families and clans, and from older men and women to younger acquaintances.  Before the end of the first Islamic century, however, a few persons had begun to collect all the information they could about the life and campaigns of the Prophet Muhammad, and some at least wrote down what they had collected.  These earliest collectors of information, however, though they seem to have scrutinized their sources carefully and sometimes stated who they were, did not in every case give a complete chain of authorities going back to an eyewitness of the events.  It was only gradually that noting the complete chain of authorities became regular.  Ibn Ishaq, working in the second quarter of the second Islamic century, usually gives his authorities, but not always a complete chain, and he does not always repeat the words of the authority verbatim.  Waqidi, half a century later, is similar in method, but his secretary and follower, Ibn Sa’d, some twenty years later, always attempts to quote exactly and to give a complete chain of authorities.  The insistence on complete chains is to be associated with the teaching of Shafi’i, who was roughly a contemporary of Waqidi.  Once it became fashionable to find a complete chain of authority, scholars might have been tempted to extend their chains backwards to contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad.  Even when they thus added to the chains, however, their additions might have been sound, since they probably knew in a general way where their predecessors had obtained information from.  Still, this means even when the whole chain of authority is given, we cannot rely so fully on the early links of a chain as on the later ones.”⁶  If this is the case, some of the traditions, if not all, could be concocted at later times and then attributed to a reputed transmitter.

4:  The recording process of the Sirah and Hadith literature is biased.  Earliest recorders deliberately omitted material from recordings that did not ‘suit’ them.  Hence material that has reached us is selected, and important data has been deleted from it in a systematic way – a typical example of scientific bias.

Ibn Hisham (Ibn Hishām اِبنِ هِشَام) is one of the earliest Sirah writers whose work has survived.  His main source was Ibn Ishaq, who belonged to an earlier generation of Sirah writers.  In preface of his book, Ibn Hisham admits, “For the sake of brevity, confining myself to the Prophet’s biography and omitting some of the  things which Ibn Ishaq has recorded in this book in which there is no mention of the apostle and about which the Qurʾān says nothing and which are not relevant to anything in this book or an explanation of it or evidence for it; things which it is disgraceful to discuss; matters which would distress certain people; and such reports as Al-Bakkā’ī told me he could not accept as trustworthy – all these things I have omitted.”⁷  Here we get a classic example of deleting data.  Not only this, we get reasons for doing this – ‘things that are disgraceful to discuss’ (i.e., in the eyes of the public of that time) and ‘matters which would distress certain people’ (i.e., rulers).  Guillaume has worked meticulously to retrieve data deleted by Ibn Hisham and has demonstrated that some censored traditions were not politically acceptable to the rulers of the time, and some others were not religiously acceptable to the people of the time.⁸  For example, Ibn Ishaq includes Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib in the list of prisoners of war at the Battle of Badr. Ibn Hisham omitted his name.⁹  Similarly, Ibn Ishaq mentions abrogated āyah; Ibn Hisham omitted it.¹⁰

Early traditionalists were aware that material had been censored during the oral transmission phase due to political reasons.  For example, regarding the distribution of booty of the battle of Badr, Waqidi writes at one place, “ ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin Muḥammad related to me from Ja’far bin Muḥammad from his father that the Prophet apportioned a portion to Ja’far bin Abī Ṭālib as his reward.  But our companions do not mention it, and his name is not in the sources.”¹¹

5:  Some of the traditions are simply forged.  Early Islamic sources were aware that forgery was being committed.  For example, discussing the scribe of the Hudaybiyah Peace Treaty, Ma’mar writes on the authority of Abdur Razzaq (‘Abd al-Razzāq عَبدَالرَزاق), “I asked al-Zuhrī about this, and he laughed and said, ‘The scribe was ‘Ali ibn Abī Ṭālib, but were you to ask them” – by whom he meant the Umayyads – “they would say it was ‘Uthmān.” ”¹²

Unlike admitted account of Ibn Hisham of censoring the material in Sirah literature or Zuhri’s acknowledgement that forgery was going on in the recording of Sirah literature, no admitted account of forgery is documented for the Hadith literature.  However, circumstantial evidence to prove later forgery is abundant.  For example, Muslim bin Hajjaj (Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj مُسلِم ابن حَجّاج) (d. 875 CE), one of the Hadith collectors, writes down in his Sahih (Ṣaḥīḥ صَحِيج) that Salama bin Yazīd asked the Prophet three times what he thought of future rulers who would demand from the public to discharge their responsibilities towards a ruler but themselves would not discharge their duties towards the public.  The Prophet didn’t answer.  Then Ash’ath bin Qays pulled Salama aside and said, ‘Listen to them and obey them, for on them shall be their burden and on you shall be your burden’.¹³  This kind of stuff is concocted at the instigation of later rulers in Islam who were accused of not fulfilling their duties towards the public.  Two points are worth noting.  The narrator of this Hadith claims that he heard it from his father and does not give any further chain of transmission.  Second, the advice does not come directly from the tongue of the Prophet but from a Companion, and his words found place in Hadith literature because they are claimed to have been uttered in the presence of the Prophet.

6:  The traditions underwent distortion during transmission.  Early Muslim historians were aware of modifications in the content of traditions during passage through the chain.  For example, Ibn Hisham did not record one poem in the text he was writing because, according to him, there was a line in the poem that was a later invention.¹⁴  Modifications were done either by the addition of substance to the tradition or the combination of two different approaches into a single one.  Researchers have identified general trends that governed modification in traditions.  One was, quite naturally, the glorification of the Prophet Muhammad.  The other was the glorification of the forefathers of the transmitter himself.  Blackening of political opponents of the Prophet Muhammad and political opponents of the tradition transmitter was also practiced.¹⁵

7:  Some traditions are mutually contradictory.  Sirah or Hadith literature, which has reached us, is mutually contradictory even among the earliest sources.  Ibn Ishaq gives timing of murder of Asmaʾ bint Marwan and Abu ‘Afak after battle of Uhud but Waqidi gives dates of these killings in the week immediately after battle of Badr.¹⁶  Not only do different recorders disagree with each other on a particular matter, but the same recorder pens down contradicting reports and leaves the judgment of the correct version to the reader.  For example, at one place Waqidi notes about the expedition of Nakhla, “Ma’mar related to me from al-Zuhrī from ‘Urwa saying: The Messenger of Allah paid the blood money for ‘Amr bin al-Ḥaḍramī (عَمرو بِن الحَضَرمِى). He observed the protected month as it was until Allah revealed barā’a (بَرَاءَه).”  At another place he notes, “Abū Bakr bin Abī Sabrah (اَبُو بَكر بِن اَبِى سَبرَه) related to me from ‘Abd al-Majīd bin Sahl (عَبدَ المَجَيد بِن سَهل) from Kurayb, who said: I asked Ibn ‘Abbās (اِبن العبّاس), “Did the Messenger of Allah pay the blood money for Ibn al- Ḥaḍramī?”  He replied, “No.” Ibn Wāqid (واقِد) said: We are agreed that he did not pay the blood money.”¹⁷  Actually, entirely variant stories were circulating among Muslims during the second half of the eighth century CE about the events that took place during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad.  It is confirmed by two entirely contradicting traditions noted by Ibn Ishaq, who was active at that time, regarding the conversion of Umar bin Khattab.  In one version, he notes that he converted after listening to the Qurʾan recited by his sister Fatima.  In another version, Ibn Ishaq notes that Umar converted after listening to the Qurʾan being recited by the Prophet Muhammad.  Ibn Ishaq himself is so confused with this situation that at the end of his reports, he writes, “But Allah knows what the truth was”.¹⁸  Contradicting reports about historical events had bothered the earliest historians of Islam, who were using traditions recorded by earlier scholars.  Tabari admits that he has to note down conflicting reports of the events, which don’t make sense to Tabari himself.¹⁹  Which of the conflicting reports about an event to choose and which to reject is a dilemma for modern historians.

8:  The Sirah literature is not a verbatim transcription of eyewitnesses.  It has been altered to sound convincing to the reader of the time.  Describing events of Hunayn, Ma’mar narrates, “Al-‘Abbās said: I was the one holding fast to the reins of the Messenger of God’s she mule, trying to turn her away, and Abu Sufyān held fast to his leather stirrup.”²⁰  Scholars doubt that the stirrup was available to the Arabs of Prophetic times.  They insist that the use of the stirrup started as late as the Umayyad period.²¹  It means Zuhri, who is a link in the chain of transmitters of this tradition, glamorized it to impress his audience.

9:  Total reliance on written material came very late.  It is known that Sirah and Hadith literature was already in written form by the end of the first Islamic century, but later historians did not rely solely on the written materials.²²  They were still recording stories that were circulating orally.  Waqidi talks about one of his authorities, that he had read something in an old transcript of Urwah bin Zubayr.²³  It shows that Urwah bin Zubayr had written something which Waqidi included in his monograph, but other parts of the same tradition were still gathered from circulating oral accounts.

So, where do we stand?

All traditions in the Sirah and Hadith literature cannot be taken on face value to reconstruct the history.  Their critical analysis is necessary to use them.

Further Reading

https://historyofislam.org/sources-of-advent-of-islam

Endnotes

1. Ignac Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien: Vol. 1 & 2 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1889 – 1890).; Ignac Goldziher, Muslim Studies: Volumes 1 & 2, ed. S. M. Stern, Trans. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern.  (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966–1971).
2. See for example: Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islam, (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1905 – 1926).
3. Henri Lammens, Là Mecque a la Veille de l’Hégire (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1924).
4. Ronald J. Mason, “Archaeology and Native North American Oral Traditions,” American Antiquity 65, no. 2 (2000): 256 – 260. ; Ronald J. Crele, “On Using Oral History Collections: An Introduction,” The Journal of American History 74, no.2 (1987): 570–578.
5. Different ways of transmission of isnad are discussed by: Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967), 1:53 84.
6. Montgomery W Watt, Muhammad at Medina, (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 338.; See also: Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), 3, 163–165.
7. ’ Abd Al Mālik Ibn Hishām, The Prophetic Biography: Sīrah of Ibn Hishām, trans. Muhammad Mahdi Al-Sharif (Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah, 2013), 30.  See also: Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 691.
8. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013).
9. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 313n1
10. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 165, 166.
11. Muhammad bin ‘Umar al-Wāqidī, The life of Muḥammad:  kitāb al-Maghāzī, ed. Rizwi Faizer, trans. Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, and AbdulKader Tayob (London: Routledge, 2011), 11.
12. Rāshid ibn Ma‘mar, The Expeditions, ed. Joseph E. Lowry, trans. Sean W. Anthony, (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 28.
13. Imam Abdul-Husain Muslim, Sahih Muslim ed. Huda Khattab, trans. Nasiruddin Al-Khattab (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2007), 5:179, bk. 33, chap. 12, Hadith 4782.
14. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 693.
15. Montgomery W. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 337.
16. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 675, 676.  AND Muhammad bin ‘Umar al-Wāqidī, The life of Muḥammad:  kitāb al-Maghāzī, ed. Rizwi Faizer, Trans. Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail and AbdulKader Tayob, (London: Routledge, 2011), 85 – 87.
17. Muhammad bin ‘Umar al-Wāqidī, The life of Muḥammad:  kitāb al-Maghāzī, ed. Rizwi Faizer, trans. Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, and AbdulKader Tayob (London: Routledge, 2011), 11.
18. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 155–158.
19. Abū Jā’far Muḥammad bin Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, The History of al- Ṭabarī, ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater, trans. John Alden Williams (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 27:49.
20. Rāshid ibn Ma‘mar, The Expeditions, ed. Joseph E. Lowry, trans. Sean W. Anthony, (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 66.
21. Hugh Kennedy, The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State, (Routledge: London, 2001), 171–72.
22. For a discussion on written material from the first Islamic century, see:  Andreas Goerke, Harald Motzki, and Gregor Schoeler, “First Century Sources for the Life of Muhammad? A debate,” Der Islam 89, no. 2 (2012): 2–59.
23. Muhammad bin ‘Umar al-Wāqidī, The life of Muḥammad:  kitāb al-Maghāzī, ed. Rizwi Faizer, trans. Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, and AbdulKader Tayob (London: Routledge, 2011), 75.