Chinese Whispers

All hadith collections regarded today as sahih - authentic - were compiled more than two hundred years after the death of prophet Muhammad. The prophet himself prohibited the writing of his hadith, and as a result, the four caliphs who succeeded him also prohibited the documentation of any hadith about him. When the prophet died, no hadith books existed. Several narrations within the hadith collections themselves include the prophet's own instruction to his people to write nothing from him other than the Quran.

The Quran is equally clear on this matter:

[77:50] Which Hadith, other than this, do they uphold?

[45:6] These are GOD's revelations that we recite to you truthfully. In which Hadith other than GOD and His revelations do they believe?

[31:6] Among the people, there are those who uphold baseless Hadith, and thus divert others from the path of GOD without knowledge, and take it in vain. These have incurred a shameful retribution.

[39:23] GOD has revealed herein the best Hadith; a book that is consistent, and points out both ways (to Heaven and Hell). The skins of those who reverence their Lord cringe therefrom, then their skins and their hearts soften up for GOD's message. Such is GOD's guidance; He bestows it upon whoever wills (to be guided). As for those sent astray by GOD, nothing can guide them.

[52:34] Let them produce a Hadith like this, if they are truthful.

But what if we wish to study the hadith purely for historical purposes - not as a source of religious law, but simply to understand the life of the prophet? How reliable can collections compiled two centuries after the fact actually be? How does corruption enter any historical document in the first place?

The answer lies in understanding what happens when information passes through a chain of human beings.

The Classroom Experiment

A history teacher wanted to demonstrate to his students how information changes as it travels from person to person. He asked eight volunteers to leave the classroom, then read the following passage aloud to the one student who remained:

*Note: This example is illustrative. Real works can be found within the writings of Frederic Bartlett's research on memory and serial reproduction in his 1932 book, "Remembering", or within Bartlett's other documented serial reproduction experiments.

"The Battle of Ain Jalut took place in September 1260 in the Jezreel Valley of Palestine. The Mamluk sultan Qutuz led an army of around 20,000 soldiers against a Mongol force under the commander Kitbuqa. The Mamluks employed a tactical retreat to draw the Mongols into a trap, then surrounded them from the hills on both sides. Kitbuqa was captured and executed after the battle. It was the first major defeat of the Mongol army in open combat and halted their westward expansion into Africa and Europe."

The teacher folded the paper and put it aside. He called in the second student and asked the first to repeat what he had just heard.

The first student said:

"The Battle of Ain Jalut was in 1260, somewhere in Palestine. The Mamluks were led by a sultan — I think his name was Qutuz — and they fought the Mongols. The Mongols had a general who was captured and killed after the battle. The Mamluks pretended to retreat and then surrounded the Mongols. It was considered a very important defeat of the Mongols."

The second student said:

"There was a battle in 1260 in Palestine between the Mamluks and the Mongols. The Mamluk leader — I can't remember his name — defeated the Mongol army by pretending to run away and then ambushing them. The Mongol commander was killed. It was the first time the Mongols had ever been defeated."

The third student said:

"There was a famous battle in the thirteenth century somewhere in the Middle East. The Mamluks defeated the Mongols by tricking them into a trap. The Mongol leader was killed in the battle. It was the first time anyone had managed to stop the Mongols."

The fourth student said:

"In the thirteenth century, the Mamluks fought the Mongols in the Middle East and defeated them. They used some kind of trick or ambush. Their leader was killed. It was an important battle because the Mongols had never lost before."

By the time the fifth student repeated it:

"There was a battle in the Middle East where the Mongols were finally defeated for the first time. I think the Muslims defeated them — the Mamluks, or maybe another army. Both leaders may have been killed. It was important because it stopped the Mongols from advancing further."

The reader is invited to return to the original passage and read this last account again. The specific date has become vague. The sultan's name has vanished entirely. The tactical detail of the retreat and encirclement - the heart of what made the battle remarkable - has been compressed into "some kind of trick" and then nearly disappeared. The army's size is gone. The location has drifted from the Jezreel Valley to "somewhere in the Middle East." By the final account, the narrator is not even certain which side's leader was killed.

All of this happened within a single classroom session of under fifteen minutes. Every student was paying close attention and making a genuine effort to repeat what they had heard. Not one of them intended to distort the account. The corruption was not the result of dishonesty - it was the inevitable result of how human memory works. Memory does not store information verbatim and retrieve it intact. It stores impressions, and each retelling reconstructs those impressions as best it can, filling gaps with inference and shedding detail with every passing.

What This Means for the Hadith

Now consider what this means for the hadith. We are asked to accept that the words and actions of the prophet - many accounts running far longer and more detailed than the passage above - were accurately preserved through chains of seven, eight, or more narrators, passed from person to person across two full centuries before being committed to writing. If a five-person chain corrupts a short historical passage within fifteen minutes, what does a chain of seven or more people do to a detailed account of a conversation or event transmitted across two hundred years?

The hadith scholars answered this question by asserting that the character integrity of each narrator was the deciding factor for authenticity. If a narrator was known to be of good character, the hadith was labeled genuine. But the classroom example demonstrates precisely why this criterion is insufficient. Every student in that chain was of good character. Every one of them was honest. And the account was still unrecognizable by the fifth retelling. Honesty and accuracy are not the same thing. A narrator's integrity tells us only that they were not lying - it tells us nothing about whether what their memory reconstructed bore any reliable resemblance to what was originally said.

A narration passed across two centuries through six to ten people cannot, by any honest standard, be called authentic. This is why God instructs us in the Quran to follow no hadith other than His own Book - and why the prophet, in the authentic account consistent with that instruction, told his people to write down nothing from him but the Quran.

For further insight, please see: The history of Hadith (PT1)