The American Orientalist R.Marston Speight and His Views on the Sunnah
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35516/Law.2025.10833Keywords:
Ḥadîth, Robert Marston Speight, Oral Tradition, Form criticism, Greek RhetoricAbstract
Objectives: This study aims to introduce the American orientalist Marston Speight, his writings on the subject of Hadith (Prophetic traditions), the key views he applied in analyzing Hadith texts, and his most notable claims regarding Hadith.
Methods: The study adopts an inductive approach to trace the life of Marston Speight, a descriptive method to outline his articles and research related to Hadith, and a critical-analytical method to respond to his major opinions concerning the Prophetic tradition (Sunnah).
Results: The study concluded that Marston Speight was one of the American orientalists who produced numerous writings and articles on Hadith. He followed the methodology of the American school of Orientalism, which employed missionary work in Arab countries as a means to disseminate orientalist ideas. He was also among those who claimed that the wording of Hadiths was altered, either intentionally or unintentionally, by narrators during the oral transmission period following the death of the Prophet ﷺ. In this, he applied the form criticism method, originally developed by Christian scholars for analyzing Gospel texts, to the texts of Hadith.
Conclusion: The study refuted many of the claims adopted by Marston Speight regarding the impact of oral transmission on the accuracy of Hadith narration. It also concluded that the method of form criticism he applied to Hadith texts is inappropriate, and that narrators in the first Hijri century were unlikely to have been influenced by Greek rhetoric. The study affirmed that misunderstanding the methodology of Hadith criticism contributed to misinterpretations about narrator behavior and changes in Hadith wording .
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Accepted 2025-07-24
Published 2025-08-28
