David Hume (1711 -1776) in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding attempted to spell out a methodology for criticizing narrated traditions which, many centuries before Hume was born, has been thoroughly developed by early Muslim Sunni scholars of Hadith. Hume, for instance, emphasized the need to investigate possible contradictions among the testimonies of eyewitnesses, the need to scrutinize their integrity, making sure whether such eyewitnesses (or broadly 'relaters') had an interest in what they report, or whether such relaters were prone to narrate prodigies and events which starkly contradicted reason. In fact, Hume articulates a ruling which has long been held by Hadith scholars as a maxim. He says, "A man delirious, or noted for falsehood and villainy, has no manner of authority with us". All these parameters and much more have been discussed in great detail by the prominent scholar Abū 'Amr ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (1181-1245) in his seminal work Introduction to the Science of Hadith.
Bookmarks