A Manual of Hadith

Rating:
Summary: A Pastoral Summary
Review: A Manual of Hadith by Maulana Muhammad Ali should not be regarded as a comprehensive or _per se_ theological work. It is clearly pastoral and missionary. It has a pronounced ideological bent that places it squarely in the camp of modernization and humanism as subordinated to Islamic traditions on the Sub-continent. The reader should bear in mind that the collection must have been assembled and translated in the first part of the 20th century.

The author claims to be a devoted Muslim, and Muslim tradition suggests that he should be accepted as such baring strong evidence to the contary. The modernizing humanist branch of the Salfia movement _al la_ Muhammad Abduh is certainly controversial and less vocal than that of Sayid Qutb and his ilk, but must surely be in the realm of Islam and its evolving theology.

If the doctrinaire Qutbis give a Westerner an excellent argument for atheism or Buddahism, A Manual of Hadith (viewed as a document from a certain time in India) redeems Islam and is moreover an effective missionary missive to English speaking peoples.

Rating:
Summary: A Pastoral Summary
Review: A Manual of Hadith by Maulana Muhammad Ali should not be regarded as a comprehensive or _per se_ theological work. It is clearly pastoral and missionary. It has a pronounced ideological bent that places it squarely in the camp of modernization and humanism as subordinated to Islamic traditions on the Sub-continent. The reader should bear in mind that the collection must have been assembled and translated in the first part of the 20th century.

The author claims to be a devoted Muslim, and Muslim tradition suggests that he should be accepted as such baring strong evidence to the contary. The modernizing humanist branch of the Salfia movement _al la_ Muhammad Abduh is certainly controversial and less vocal than that of Sayid Qutb and his ilk, but must surely be in the realm of Islam and its evolving theology.

If the doctrinaire Qutbis give a Westerner an excellent argument for atheism or Buddahism, A Manual of Hadith (viewed as a document from a certain time in India) redeems Islam and is moreover an effective missionary missive to English speaking peoples.

Rating:
Summary: A Sanitized Selection
Review: In his brief introduction to this work, Mr. Ali states that he has spent 45 years devoted to the task of translating basic Islamic texts into various languages. In this work, the wisdom of a seasoned translator surely shines forth. Here he presents 690 hadith (513 taken from Bukhari), selected exclusively from the most reliable sources. However, in addition to the translation, he also contributes informed introductions to each section, beginning each with Qur'anic citations as well as what I find to be non-controversial, remarkably non-sectarian synopses (Ali was taught in the Ahmadiyyian school, but throughout offers interpretation that is tenable by more than just that school) of the importance of the hadith to Islamic theology. Informative footnotes are throughout. So mindful is he as a translator of the nuances missed in translation that, when pertinent, he comments on possible meanings lost when moving from the original to the target language. Though there are certainly other works that delve more deeply into exegetical issues, I have found fewer sources that more accessibly offer the Hadith in English.

The only drawback, for which I cannot bring myself to deduct a venerated "amazonian star", is that during the publication period Ali was not able to collect the needed resources to produce a similar treatment of the historical or prophetical hadith - an ommission that I regret.

Rating:
Summary: A Sanitized Selection
Review: This collection, dependent heavily on Bukhari, sanitizes what Bukhari himself reduced: the then-known collection of over 400,000 haditha to over 7000. The original 9th Bukhari's compilation runs about 1300 pages with over 7000 haditha.(You can find Bukhari's full text collection online.) The really odd and frightening stuff is in the full Bukhari version. One never knows with these collections what hazrat Mohammad really said since they were collected 150-200 yrs after he lived and are subject to the collators preconceptions about what Mohammad would, in fact, have said. Remember, there is no canon for these sayings. I gave my copy away after taking pains to download the full electronic collection.

Rating:
Summary: A review for students of Arabic
Review: This is a superb resource for students of classical Arabic. Arabic and English texts are set side by side on the same page, only the essence of each hadith is presented (eliminating long isnads and variations of the hadith), and the Arabic texts are fully voweled. This is the ideal work for an intermediate level between textbook readers and slogging through real old Arabic texts. The editor's notes and introductions are interesting, providing insight into at least one Muslim's view of the meaning and relevance of hadith in modern times. Whatever weaknesses this book may possess it was good enough to lead me to a deeper study of the original sources.

Rating:
Summary: A Good All-around Sampling of Hadith for the Student
Review: Unlike the other reviewers of this book at this site, I am not a Muslim, and while I would like to think that I have some appreciation of sectarian differences in Islam I cannot say that I understand the nature of the polemic cited in the other reviews. The book is a fine, shipshape collection of hadith with Arabic text and English translation, arranged in an intelligent order; it is hardbound as well, so it is an excellent value to anyone starting out the study of hadith. My interest in the book was as a student of Arabic. As any literate Arab would be familiar with at least the more common hadith, most students of Arabic would be happy to have a reference on the subject which is informative and intelligent without being overly exhaustive, which is exactly what this book is.