Jombang — Mohamad Arif Sugiarto, a student in the Master’s Program for Quranic Studies (S2 IAT) at the Faculty of Ushuluddin and Islamic Thought, UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, presented his research findings at the Muktamar Turats Nabawi (MUTUN) and the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Indonesian Association of Hadith Studies (ASILHA), held at Ma’had Aly Hasyim Asy’ari in Tebuireng, Jombang, East Java. The presentation took place during Parallel Session II on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, from 10:00 to 12:00 WIB.

At this academic forum, Mohamad Arif Sugiarto presented an article titled “The Construction of Authority in Hadith Literature: The Integration of Textual Validity and Scholarly Legitimacy in the Thought of Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī.” His research examines how the authority of Hadith literature is established through the interplay between the methodological validity of the texts and their acceptance by the scholarly community across generations, focusing on the ideas of the Indian Hadith scholar Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī.

The study addresses the issue of religious authority following the era of Hadith codification. As Hadith literature became the primary reference for the transmission of religious knowledge, questions arose regarding the factors that grant a specific text authority within the Islamic scholarly tradition. While contemporary academic studies have frequently explored the canonization of Hadith through sociological and historical lenses, such approaches are not always integrated with the internal epistemological framework of the Islamic scholarly tradition.

To address this, Mohamad Arif examines the thoughts of al-Dihlawī as presented in the chapter Ṭabaqāt Kutub al-Ḥadīth (The Tiers of Hadith Books) from the work Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah. This section serves as a foundation for formulating an understanding of how authority is established within Ḥadīth literature, based on the Islamic intellectual tradition itself.

The research employs a qualitative approach utilizing historical-intellectual analysis. This analysis is conducted through two primary parameters: al-ṣiḥḥah and al-shuhrah. The concept of al-ṣiḥḥah refers to internal methodological validity—specifically concerning the process of selecting sanad (chains of narration) and ensuring the absence of defects in the transmission of reports. Meanwhile, al-shuhrah denotes socio-scholarly legitimacy, which is cultivated through the acceptance, commentary, transmission, and utilization of a text by successive generations of scholars in the process of deriving legal rulings (istinbāṭ).

Using these two parameters, this study categorizes Ḥadīth literature into several tiers based on its status and epistemological function within the Islamic scholarly tradition.

In the first and second tiers, al-Dihlawī places works that constitute the "core canon," including al-Muwaṭṭa’, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Sunan Abī Dāwud, Jāmi‘ al-Tirmidhī, and Sunan al-Nasā’ī. This group holds a significant position because it integrates methodological rigor—regarding the quality of narrations—with broad scholarly recognition and practical application.

Conversely, the third and fourth tiers encompass literature outside the core canon—an "extra-canonical reservoir"—such as the Musnad collections, the Muṣannaf works of ‘Abd al-Razzāq and Ibn Abī Shaybah, as well as texts that compile weak narrations, such as al-Ḍu‘afā’ by Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Kāmil by Ibn ‘Adī. In the mapping of this research, these works serve an important function as sources for gathering and tracing historical accounts (riwayat), even though their status differs from that of the literature that serves as the primary reference in normative legal argumentation.

The fifth level constitutes a critical demarcation zone: it encompasses accounts that are popular among jurists (fuqahā’), Sufis, or the general public, yet lack an adequate foundation within authoritative literature. This analysis emphasizes that the popularity of an account does not, in itself, render it a reliable source of law if it lacks a sufficient connection to the authoritative framework of ḥadīth literature.

One of the primary contributions of this research is the development of an understanding of ḥadīth canonization that extends beyond a narrow focus on the major canonical collections, taking into account the function of literature existing outside the canon. Consequently, the formation of authority within ḥadīth literature can be understood through the interplay between methodological quality, reception by the scholarly community, and the role a work plays in the evolution of Islamic knowledge.

This research also reinforces a sociology-of-knowledge perspective by highlighting the significance of collective scholarly reception in the establishment of literary authority. The reception of these works by scholars across generations is not viewed merely as an isolated social process, but rather as an integral part of the relationship between a work’s methodological validity and its historical legitimacy.

Furthermore, Mohamad Arif’s study links the thought of al-Dihlawī with the concept of a "discursive tradition"—as developed by Talal Asad—and the notion of "epistemic authority"—as explored in the work of Wael B. Hallaq. This connection serves to explain how the authority of texts within the Islamic tradition is shaped through a process...