Speech No: N-363
Event: Al Hidayah 2025
Place: University of Warwick , UK
Dated: August 3, 2025
Category: English Speeches
Speech By: Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri
Description:
This video explains that, in comparison with the Western Historical-Critical Method, Islam possesses its own method for the verification and investigation of Hadith, described here as the Traditionalist Critical Verification Method, which is presented as more reliable and comprehensive and as having developed at least a thousand years before the Western method. It is further stated that history is never entirely neutral, because every researcher brings certain assumptions, intellectual commitments, and priorities to their work. The video argues that the methodology adopted by some Western Orientalists was not a purely neutral analytical exercise, but was shaped by objectives such as challenging Islam, denying Prophetic authority, and establishing intellectual and colonial dominance over Muslim societies. The discussion then explains that this critical method originally emerged in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, with figures such as Spinoza, for the textual criticism of the Bible, and that it was later applied to the Quran, Hadith, and Islamic law. It is further stated that the claims of Orientalist scholars such as Ignaz Goldziher and Joseph Schacht particularly the claim that Hadith reports and chains of transmission were fabricated in the second and third centuries after Hijrah have been academically challenged and refuted. The video also addresses what it describes as a misconception associated with Joseph Schacht: that Imam Abu Hanifa was unfamiliar with chains of transmission. It explains instead that Imam Abu Hanifa would often present legal rulings in scholarly jurisprudential gatherings without necessarily citing the full chains on every occasion, while having studied under a large number of teachers stated here as approximately 4,000 teachers through whom chains of transmission were preserved and transmitted. Finally, the video contrasts what it characterizes as the skeptical and non-believing approach of certain Orientalist scholars with the intellectual and spiritual outlook of Muslims and the Companions of the Prophet, which it presents as being founded upon love, faith, and affirmation of the Prophetic mission.
This video explains that, in comparison with the Western Historical-Critical Method, Islam possesses its own method for the verification and investigation of Hadith, described here as the Traditionalist Critical Verification Method, which is presented as more reliable and comprehensive and as having developed at least a thousand years before the Western method. It is further stated that history is never entirely neutral, because every researcher brings certain assumptions, intellectual commitments, and priorities to their work. The video argues that the methodology adopted by some Western Orientalists was not a purely neutral analytical exercise, but was shaped by objectives such as challenging Islam, denying Prophetic authority, and establishing intellectual and colonial dominance over Muslim societies. The discussion then explains that this critical method originally emerged in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, with figures such as Spinoza, for the textual criticism of the Bible, and that it was later applied to the Quran, Hadith, and Islamic law. It is further stated that the claims of Orientalist scholars such as Ignaz Goldziher and Joseph Schacht particularly the claim that Hadith reports and chains of transmission were fabricated in the second and third centuries after Hijrah have been academically challenged and refuted. The video also addresses what it describes as a misconception associated with Joseph Schacht: that Imam Abu Hanifa was unfamiliar with chains of transmission. It explains instead that Imam Abu Hanifa would often present legal rulings in scholarly jurisprudential gatherings without necessarily citing the full chains on every occasion, while having studied under a large number of teachers stated here as approximately 4,000 teachers through whom chains of transmission were preserved and transmitted. Finally, the video contrasts what it characterizes as the skeptical and non-believing approach of certain Orientalist scholars with the intellectual and spiritual outlook of Muslims and the Companions of the Prophet, which it presents as being founded upon love, faith, and affirmation of the Prophetic mission.
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