Contesting the Authenticity of the Hadith Sanad

One of the most heated debate on the Prophet Traditions criticism is the issue of concerning the chain of transmitter or what is popularly known as sanad which consequently determine the validity of a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad. Even Muslim scholars consider sanad to be part of the religion of Islam. In contrast to this stand, Leone Caetani, one of the Italian orientalists who is famous for his historical works on Islam, tried to blatantly criticize the chain of transmitters of the hadith as well as review them in an approach and method he himself promoted. This paper attempts to explore L. Caetani’s thoughts about the chain of transmitter of the Prophetic Traditions by applying literature study and descriptive-analytic methods. The result of this research is that L. Caetani assumes that sanad is not an integral part of the teaching of Islam but Muslim scholars but rather an adoption from the Arab tradition. In addition, it also implies that the existence of sanad is only the image of the name of the Prophet Muhammad and his narrators, and the narrators of hadith are people who cannot be followed and do a lot of practice of falsification in his narrations. Abstrak: Sanad hadis merupakan salah satu rangkaian terpenting dalam membuktikan sahih dan tidaknya sebuah hadis Nabi Muhammad. Bahkan sarjana Muslim menganggap sanad merupakan bagian dari agama Islam. Hal ini berbeda dengan pandangan Leone Caetani salah satu orientalis Italia yang terkenal dengan karya sejarah tentang agama Islam. Ia berusaha mengkaji ulang tentang sanad hadis dan memberikan kritikan terhadap sanad yang dianggap penting oleh umat Islam. Untuk mengupas pemikiran L. Caetani tentang sanad hadis dalam artikel ini, penulis menggunakan metode studi pustaka dan deskriptif-analitik. Hasil dari penelitian ini ialah L. Caetani berasumsi bahwa sanad bukan ajaran agama Islam melainkan sarjana Muslim mengadopsi dari tradisi orang Arab, adanya sanad hanya pencitraan nama Nabi Muhammad dan para perawinya, dan para perawi hadis merupakan orang-orang yang tidak bisa diteladani dan banyak melakukan pemalsuan dalam periwayatannya. Keywords: Leone Caetani, orientalis, sanad, hadis

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