Beyond Verification: Hadith Sciences, Sufi Historiography, and Epistemic Pluralism in Early Modern Islam

This paper reexamines hadith sciences in early modern Islam, arguing that beyond their conventional role in textual verification, they functioned as critical arenas for negotiating epistemic authority, historical authenticity, and spiritual legitimacy. Through close analysis of an eighteenth-century South Asian debate between Shāh Walī Allāh (d.1762) and Fakhr al-Dīn Dehlavī (d.1783), two prominent muḥaddithīn deeply embedded within Sufi traditions, the study reveals how hadith criticism served as an adaptable intellectual framework rather than a purely exclusionary discipline. While Walī Allāh deployed rigorous isnād scrutiny to challenge the widely claimed genealogical link between Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Fakhr al-Dīn employed the same methodological rigor to reaffirm its historical plausibility, underscoring hadith scholarship's inherent interpretive flexibility. By foregrounding their nuanced engagements, this paper expands scholarly understandings of early modern Sufi historiography and demonstrates how hadith criticism mediated complex epistemological negotiations concerning inherited spiritual traditions, textual authenticity, and competing religious identities.