Are non-Arabs exclusively responsible for introducing interpolations in Islam?

[Heba E. Husseyn]

Allama Iqbal & Ghulam Parvez have been quite upfront about dumping the blame on non-Arabs for the introduction of un-Quranic information in Islam.    It's an interesting point where there's much to say.

I personally  think the non-Arabs and Arabs are in it together.   Allama Iqbal and Ghulam Parvez considered that  the distortions were introduced into Islam by the interference of the non-Arabs. In other words, both  these highly literate men who were basically Quran alone followers  are of the opinion that the non-Arab Muslims were responsible for distorting Islam.  They have linked the term "non-Arab" with "Iranians." I think this expression can be somewhat misleading at present and can further ignite sectarian differences in the current explosive situation based on misunderstandings and lack of historical knowledge. It's definitely true that the Hadith compilers were mostly from ancient Persia (viz. Azerbaijan / Khorasan) at a time when Shiia Islam had not yet arrived in Persia (which now includes Iran as well). Distortions crept within Islam through the culture of Hadith. That's undeniable. Therefore, those Persian Hadith collectors like Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Nasai etc. ( mostly 2nd or 3rd generation converts from Zoroastrianism) who have largely contributed to the Sunni collections of Ahadith were/are well accepted by the Arabs. If the Arabs really didn't want the "ajamis" (as the non-Arabs were called) to introduce their distortions, why did they allow these Persian compilers to meddle with Islam?  Why didn't they stop  these Persians with questionable intentions who travelled all the way from Persia to Arabia claiming to have come with the task of collecting narrations of the "Prophet's companions"?  Why did the Abbasid Caliphs make them their guests and facilitate their work? 

Furthermore, Hadith involves not just the compilers but also the narrators who lived approximately 150 to 200 years prior to the compilers, whose "narrations" the compilers are supposed to have searched, acquired, scrutinized, nit-picked and edited into their collections. And these narrators were Arabs. Therefore, obviously the Arabs were just as complicit in the act of introducing interpolations as the non-Arabs.   

The Ommayads encouraged Hadith narrators like Abu Huraira and his various contemporaries, and their successors, the Abbasids, encouraged and entertained the Hadith compilers from Persia as their "honored guests."   Thus, both Arabs and non-Arabs are equally responsible for the distortion of Islam.   Though I appreciate the efforts of Iqbal and Parvez to track down the thieves who started the mischief of introducing unwarranted contents in Islam, we need to hold both Arabs and non-Arabs as the perpetrators of this crime.  Targeting one and exonerating the other wouldn't be right.

[N. Truth Seeker]

Very good one sister Heba.   You're right.  This distortion and interpolation business is a long and complicated one and participation of persians and arabs are equal.   This topic traces some very relevant aspects of the Hadith history.