Ok thank you, is there a chance the Hadith might not be authentic?
The compilation of ahadith was not based upon "chance" -but rather upon high probability, low probability, likelihood, possibility, improbability, impossibility and a few other measures.
It is a human effort to preserve the narrations attributed to the Prophet :saws: based on a very strict and meticulous method by individuals whom the majority of Muslims -including myself- believe to have been very sincere and truthful in their efforts to preserve the strongest narrations.
Even then, since I do not know the unseen, and wasn't present at the time the statement was first coined, i can only do my best to comprehend, ponder, and confirm/deny when presented with a case especially concerning justice vs injustice, and this is the situation of people more knowledgeable than myself. Even then, i must be ready to humbly accept the truth when Allah :swt: confirms or denies a notion long held by myself since He is the Owner of truth - and i would no doubt be a stupid idiot if i rejected the truth after previously having held false notions such as the existence of ten armed godesses, and three-in-one and one-divided-by-three gods, or notions that my forefathers were gods whose every word were to be accepted without question, or that i should fight against true believers who are on the path of obvious haqq -simply because some ancestors of mine fought against them, or that i shouldn't read the Quran because it is not the religion of my forefathers ..... It would be quite unscientific innit?
The respected scholar who penned the hadith questioned its authenticity, put it through some critical benchmark tests, then decided it was sufficiently strong enough to add to the book which he had reserved for stronger narrations.
But - i'm sure you will agree that there is the possibility -even if remote- that a mistake was made at the hospital (if you were born in a hospital that is) when labelling you, or that your mother commited adultery and then attributed paternity to you falsely and thereby deceived your teachers into calling you mustafa ibn xyz ... and genetic testing would either confirm or deny that, I'm sure you'd agree that that's a sound minded and scientific method.
There also a possibility that some false attibutions or mistakes, or slight variations due to memory retention made it through to some of the books.
Then you might say the same thing regarding the Quran, also a possibility - but a very very low probability in my opinion - to the extent that i can back its teachings myself and vouch for its authenticity, more so than someone else can vouch for and back the claim that the sun rises in the east -and that it will continue to do so every day.
Or maybe even the very existence of God, i can vouch for it more than a person can vouch for the existence of america despite never having been there themselves - since the evidence for God's existence is stronger than the evidence that america exists, therefore, proving to me that egypt exists wouldn't dent my faith in the existence and justice of God, but would rather strengthen my faith - it's called yaqeen - happy ?
