Methods of Assessing Hadith Authenticity in al-‘Irāqī’s al-Tabṣira wa-l-Tadhkira and Isnād-cum-Matn Analysis: Points of Convergence and Limits of Integration
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Abstract
Contemporary hadith scholarship in Indonesia often equates classical hadith criticism with isnād-cum-matn analysis (ICMA) and treats the results of dating as evidence bearing on authenticity. What has not yet been examined is the epistemic relationship between the two in post-classical muṣṭalaḥ texts, including what al-‘Irāqī (d. 806/1404) actually contributed beyond Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ. This article asks how al-Tabṣira wa-l-Tadhkira formulates the relationship between isnād and matn, at what level that formulation meets ICMA, and what results when both are applied to the same hadith. The corpus is al-Faryāṭī’s edition of the versified al-Tabṣira wa-l-Tadhkira, read alongside ‘Itr’s edition of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s Ma‘rifat anwā‘ ‘ilm al-ḥadīth. The method combines comparative textual analysis with case studies of four hadiths, one of them of disputed status, based on takhrīj, isnād bundles, and matn synopses. The findings show that the procedures closest to ICMA, namely i‘tibār, the detection of ‘illa through disagreement and isolated transmission, and ziyādat al-thiqa, are a faithful versification of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ; al-‘Irāqī’s explicit additions in the chapters examined are limited, the clearest being his correction of al-Tirmidhī’s definition of ḥasan. The two approaches converge at the level of procedure but yield two different claims: probative reliability (ḥujjiyya) and historical dating. In the hadith on intention (niyya), the classical verdict reaches the Prophet, whereas ICMA stops at Yaḥyā b. Sa‘īd al-Anṣārī, and the textual variants follow the branches below him. The article contributes a five-stage analytical model that keeps these two claims apart
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