Understanding Contradictions in Hadith Collections

For many Muslims today, collections of ahadith are treated as if they are almost equal to the Qur'an in authority. Yet the scholars who compiled these books themselves admitted problems:

• different chains reporting different wordings for the same event,
• reports that cancel each other,
• reports that clearly clash with Qur'anic principles of justice, mercy and logic.

Because they could not travel back in time, they developed complicated rules to “solve” contradictions: nāsikh–mansūkh inside hadith, “stronger chain”, “more numerous chains”, “we interpret this one metaphorically” and so on.

On this site we separate two big types:

• Hadith → Hadith: places where different ahadith disagree with each other about the same topic – number of rak‘āt, age of Aisha, rules of inheritance, ways the Prophet prayed, etc. Scholars sometimes called these ikhtilāf al-hadīth.
• Hadith → Qur'an: places where a hadith clearly contradicts the Book itself – for example, ideas of guaranteed paradise if you just recite something once, permanent intercession promised by a human, or punishments that go against the Qur'an’s rules.

This overview page explains the logic. The detailed examples are on:

• Hadith → Hadith contradictions
• Hadith → Qur'an contradictions

When scholars saw that two “authentic” reports were opposite, they did not simply throw both away. Instead they created systems:

• Jam‘ wa-tawfīq – try to combine both reports with a complicated explanation, even if the natural reading clashes.
• Tarjīḥ – declare one report “stronger” and the other “weak” by chain rules.
• Naskh – claim one hadith cancels the other in time, similar to how they used abolishment inside their fiqh.

These methods may reduce embarrassment for the school, but they do not remove the basic fact: human collections contain conflicting material. Allah never asked us to carry this burden.

Each contradiction example in the next pages will be short and clear:

• we show the first hadith (summarised),
• we show the second hadith or the Qur'anic verse that clashes,
• we explain in simple language why both cannot be true together,
• we highlight the Qur'anic principle that settles the matter.

You are invited to think, compare and use your own mind as Allah commands. Do not fear people who say “you are not a scholar”. Everyone will stand before Allah alone; no imam, sheikh, or compiler of books will carry our sins for us.