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Land of Israel and Jewish heritage
A series from the book written by Naveed Anjum
Qur’anic stories and Israiliyat, cont’d
Hadiths and Source Documents, cont’d
Mufti Muhammad Shafi says of Isra’iliyat:
Judaica or Isra’iliyyat are narratives, which have reached us through Jews and Christians. It may be noted that the early commentators used to write down all sorts of narrations, which reached them from an identified source. Many of these narrations were straight from Judaica.
A Sunni site, islamic-awareness.org, states:
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We find that Wahb Ibn Munabbih and Ka`b al-Ahbar are considered as trustworthy narrators of Hadith because they transmitted the Islamic traditions faithfully along with isra’iliyyat traditions. Just because they had also transmitted isra’iliyyat traditions along with the Islamic ones does not make them ‘untrustworthy’ or ‘fabricators’ of Hadith because they did not attribute these isra’iliyyat traditions to the Prophet (P).
Here the point to be noted is in bold words: “they did not attribute these isra’iliyyat traditions to the Prophet (P).” It means that Prophet Muhammad was not supposed to have quoted these israiliyyat traditions. The question arises: If Prophet Muhammad did not quote these traditions, where did Wahb Ibn Munabbih and Kab al-Ahbar find it? What resources did they use to get this information and introduce these Israiliyyat into the traditions of Islam, which, according to Muslim resources, are used to understand the incomplete stories in the Qur’an? Of course, it was from Old Testament and Jewish traditions. That means, if any verse in the Bible or Jewish traditions is not in contradiction to the Qur’an, regardless whether it is considered in Islamic traditions as an Israiliyyat or not, we cannot properly reject it. I assume that I have made my point clear. Based on the set of rules described above regarding authenticity of Israiliyyat, any traditions that directly contradict the Shariah and Qur’an, then, Muslims reject.
(To be continued…)