This is an extraordinary admission, as the “verifiable chain of transmission” itself consists of written records: the lists of the names of the people who passed on a particular hadith, orally but without the slightest change, until it was finally written down in the ninth century. There were some earlier hadith collections, according to Islamic tradition, but they have been lost, and the earliest extant hadiths we have don’t contain any chain of transmission at all. The chain of transmission itself in general seems to have been a ninth-century invention that was intended to help Muslims distinguish authentic hadiths from forgeries; the problem with this method, however, was that chains of transmission could be forged as easily as the hadiths themselves were.
In any case, Muhammad Nuruddin is here saying that Islamic history didn’t rely on written records at all, because it had these reliable chains of transmission. So he appears to be trying to account for the fact that the hadiths are so very late by asserting the reliability of those who supposedly passed them on by word of mouth. The fact that chains of transmission were invented, as well as revised and altered, he does not consider.
For more on this, see my books Did Muhammad Exist? and Muhammad: A Critical Biography.
“Islamic History Does Not Rely on Written Records,” Tempo.co, September 28, 2026 (thanks to Andrew Bostom):
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – At least four times a month, Muhammad Nuruddin regularly preaches at various mosques. On Saturday, July 18, 2026, for example, he delivered a dawn session at the Grand Mosque of Kebayoran Residence in Bintaro, South Tangerang, Banten. An alumnus of Al-Azhar University in Egypt, he also frequently discusses Islam on social media. “I want to reach young people,” Nuruddin said.
Speaking to Tempo journalists Yosea Arga, Friski Riana, and Erwan Hermawan, as well as photographer Tony Hartawan, Nuruddin conveyed his criticism of the views of Mun’im Sirry. He said Islamic history was built on a verifiable chain of transmission and did not rely on written records….
Tony says
Islam’s Muslims will lie and deceive against Non-Muslims because force, coercion, violence, and terrorism are the ultimate Muslim tools to gain ultimate power and control. Genocidal Allah in Qur’an 8:39 commands, “And engage in war with them[Non-Muslims] until there will not be sedition and the religion will be completely to Allah…”
Public Funding is a privilege that should NOT BE granted to organizations that are against the US Constitution or Western Constitutions. Totalitarian Islam and its Muslim Organizations including Muslim Schools and Mosques are against the US Constitution due to Muslim funding, teaching, and promoting discrimination, segregation, hatred, rape, violence, totalitarianism, and terrorism against Non-Muslims to make Islamic Law supreme. Islam’s Muslims are murderous, Totalitarian Terrorists of Allah operating as a Criminal-Terrorist-Gang Enterprise under Islamic Law to ultimately conquer the enemies of Allah, the Non-Muslims, with Islamic Law DBA Islam(Qur’an 8:60; 9:5, 29, 111; 49:15, etc.).
somehistory says
There is a game….with various names….where the players all sit and one whispers into his neighbor’s ear…a phrase, a sentence, a few words. The hearer then whispers what he hears…or thinks he hears… into the ears of the next closest person. This continues until the words have been heard by all players. The last to hear, then speaks aloud what he has heard. The results can be really funny.
It is very rare, if it ever happens, that the words spoken by the last person are the same as those spoken by the first person.
There are laws about hearsay in the U.S. One person saying the very same words spoken by another are considered unreliable. Especially over time, memory gets distorted. And one can easily make up supposed conversations, if they may so choose to do (liars are known for this)
If they didn’t need a ‘written’ form of their filth, why do muzzies become enraged when a page of the filth is torn, or smudged, etc.?
No muzzie can be expected to tell the Truth unless he is threatening to murder, rape, lie, steal or destroy what belongs to others.
40 rounds says
Funny, SH, I was just thinking the same thing (think it’s called telephone) and it clearly points out the differences between Islam and Judaism/Christianity. We have thousands of years of written word, written by hundreds of witnesses in the form of scripture
somehistory says
Thank you 40. We called it ‘gossip.’
Whenever someone posts a comment about something they heard, etc. others want the “sources” from where the report comes. Demanding links, calling on the poster to prove….
But, we are supposed to accept that muzzies can keep it straight without writing a word….
They can’t even keep things straight among themselves….disagreements over who should be the supreme ruler among the sects; and different clerics proclaiming what is the real thing from the pretend prophet…
It’s all just a large bucket of balderdash. Evil filthy, balderdash.
Siddhi Nasranni says
That reminds me of a 1st world war communication system, that passed along the trenches
from the Captain to the runner.
The runner was totally perplexed as the soldier told him, ” Send 3&4 Pence ( 3 shillings & 4 pence, we are going to a dance.!!!!
What the Captain said was, ” Send re-enforcements, we’re going to advance.
somehistory says
An apt illustration. of what happens.
James Lincoln says
somehistory,
I actually participated in that game in a senior leadership course that I took.
It was hilarious!