Hathout Legacy Lectures: Introduction to the Science of Hadith

Please reserve one ticket which will grant you access to all lectures. This program is an 11 session class over 5 ½ weeks.

The Hathout Legacy Lectures are a new offering by the ICSC, meant to both commemorate and revive the emphasis of Dr. Maher Hathout on the need for a thorough understanding of Islam and its original sources. He helped pioneer an intellectual approach to Islamic education for the American Muslim community grounded in faith and based on critical thinking.

This course is a comprehensive introduction to the classical branch of ‘Ilm al-Hadith (the Science of Hadith), intended for the Western Muslim audience. It is divided into two modules, seeking to answer the two natural questions that come to mind when hearing or reading a saying of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH):

1. Did the Prophet actually say this? In other words, how did our classical scholars authenticate and classify hadiths? We look at the different gradations of hadith, issues in authenticating hadith through its chain of transmission, and the different types of hadith collections. This is the topic of Module 1.

2. If, based on the methods of Module 1, we believe that the Prophet said what is reported, then how do we understand and apply the hadith? This is the topic of Module 2, which explores such issues as the role of hadith in Islamic law, the different types of hadiths (e.g., hadiths of manners versus laws), and the different schools of thought on the authority of hadith depending on the strength of the hadith, its relationship to the Quran, and the context in which it is said.

It is an 11 session class over 5 ½ weeks.