Tawātur in Islamic Thought

Suheil Ismail Laher is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and Lead Faculty at Boston Islamic Seminary, Faculty Associate in Quranic Studies at Hartford International University. He previously served as Academic Dean at Fawakih Institute for Classical Arabic, where he remains a Senior Curriculum Advisor. He received an MA in Religious Studies from Boston University, and a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University.

• List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgementsIntroduction: What is Tawātur?1. Historical Overview: Background and Trajectory2. Theology: Tawātur as a Bulwark against Error3. Hadith Sciences: How True is a Narration?4. Legal Theory: The Quest for Certainty5. Qur’an and Reading Traditions: Clarity and Conundrums6. Hadith Literature: Trajectory of Tawātur7. Orthodoxy: Inner Circles and the Big TentConclusion: Knowledge, Then and Now’Appendix A: Scholars who Labelled Hadiths as MutawātirAppendix B: List of Hadiths Labelled as MutawātirGlossaryBibliographyIndex

Suppose a large group of people, incapable of collusion, corroborate one another’s report of an event they all witnessed first hand. Should I take this corroborated reporting to establish with certainty the content of the reported event? With unusual patience and eloquent presentation, Laher delineates a thousand years of debate on the implications of this inquiry. This book is an accomplishment and will be a rewarding read.