applying their so-called historical method is that they are projecting the kind of agnostic mentality prevalent in many academic circles today on to the mentality of a traditional Muslim scholar of Hadith. They think that for him also the questions of religion could be treated in such a 'detached' manner as to enable them even to 'forge' sayings of the Prophet or to accept them into the traditional corpus without the greatest care. They do not realize that for men of the early centuries and especially the religious scholars the fire of hell was not an abstract thought but a concrete reality. They feared God in a way which most modern men can hardly imagine and it ispsychologically absurd that, with a mentality to which the alternative of Heaven or Hell is the most real thing of all, they should commit the unpardonable sin of forging prophetic sayings.

Ideals and realities of Islam On page 86 Saturday, January 5, 2013 @ 4:45pm