There are a few reasons why I'm reading Hadith by Dr. Jonathan Brown. First, I'd like to know the authenticity of ahadith. Second, I'd like to the strength of proofs which rely on ahadith (and that relies on the first point). Finally, I'm interested in how early Islam was practiced, and how the Sunni tradition was developed.
Recent orientalists studies have put ahadith to doubt (though they were not the first to do), so I wish to begin my journey in investigating these claims, both from the Sunni scholars as well as from the orientalist and modernists (such as Falzur Rahman). I don't particularly know what books or papers this investigation will involve, but Dr. Brown's book seems like a good start, in addition to Falzur Rahman's Islam. To be clear, this investigation1 was prompted by Dr. Joshua Little's appearance on Dr. Hashmi's channel, which I hope to revist after reading this book.2
There's also another investigation which I hope to pursue, and that's the proof for Islam. Thus I also hope to read Yaqeen's book on this matter by Mohammad Elshinawy, in addition to Apostate by Joram van Klaveren (though I'm not actually sure if that'll have more refutation than proof).
Finally, I'm really interested in early Islamic history. Mostly what sparked my interest here were the questions above, but I found it interesting how orientalists seem totally unable to answer this question. The variety of answers provided by academics matches the variety in regards to who the "original" Jesus was. It reminds me of a few verses from the Qur'an:3
Of what do they question one another?
Of the mighty tiding,
whereon they are at variance.
No indeed; they shall soon know!
Again, no indeed; they shall soon know!
So, what parts of the book do I care about most? Here they are:
I'm skipping the chapters pertainting to how ahadith are used in different domains, such as Sufism, theology, and so on. I definitely hope to come back to them, ان شاء الله, but they don't seem relevant to my goals for now.
I also hope to read the following papers from Dr. Brown: The Rules of Math Criticism: There are no rules and How We Know Early Hadith Critics Did Matn Criticism and Why It's So Hard To Find.
I don't know how much I'll keep reading, whether more or less than what I've posted here, but I hope that by writing this article, my intent has become clear. I'm also aware that I'll by no means become a hadith expert, but that was never my goal. I merely want to know what academics are saying. May Allah guide me towards the truth.
1: "Investigation" makes me sound really cool, so I shall keep using that term!
2: I did not watch the entire video. I skimmed for important points. The one that was most interesting to me was his use of Bayesian statistics (I'm too lazy to find the timestamp, but it's when he talks about prior probabilities and miracles)
3: Translated by Arberry in his work The Koran Interpreted