Message #1405

[N. Truth Seeker]

On matters like these, I wouldn't make too much distinction between Bukhari's times and the present.  Even if the task of constructing narrations have stopped now (or at least I hope it has), the practice of readily giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone who leads the jamaah wearing a beard and a khimar is still very much there.  In the past, narrations were not just constructed, but constructed and reconstructed and then again reconstructed.  Those who have really scrutinized the history of Hadith with a completely unbiased approach have confirmed that majority of narrations (if not all) which we read today have been revised again and again no less than 10 times since the past 1100 or 1200 years.  If this is the pathetic history of narrations, how can one be expected to trust the chain of narrators?  It's only the metality that's never changed.  Just as the blind subservience to the writings and orders of imams was commonplace in Bukhari's time, it's much the same now.  Some Muslim groups living in the West have tried to come out of this 'trance' and perceive for themselves.  But it's not been easy for them.  If they make their views public, they're either unofficially ostracized or talked of as "heretics."  This reminds me of the very apt analogy of the medieavel inquisitors with today's radical so-called Muslims in the post The Inquisition and unpleasant analogies.  Anyone who hasn't read this piece yet, I'd request you to check it now.

May Allah (The Most Bountiful) have mercy on the hardworking ones among the Ummah, for they maybe very few, but they are there.  And may Allah (The Greatest) bless the final Messenger, ameen.  May He accept my heartfelf prayers.

Thank you for this good piece of work sister zeynab.  you courage and dedication is commendable.

  to everyone