Dr. Sadik Ansari's Innovative Hadith Research Project

Dr. Sadik Ansari's innovative research reveals untapped details about the Prophet Muhammad's life, enriching our understanding of Islamic history.

### Pioneering Research on the Life of Prophet Muhammad: Dr. Sadik Ansari's Innovative Project
* 🎓 Dr. Sadik Ansari, an academic in Hadith studies and a lecturer at Charles Sturt University, discusses his **groundbreaking research** on the life of **Prophet Muhammad**.
* 🌍 Originally from Afghanistan, Dr. Ansari emphasizes the **importance of exploring lesser-known aspects** of the Prophet's life that are often **overlooked in traditional sources**.
* 📚 His project, SHub, aims to uncover details **beyond the 50 to 60 days** of information typically found in historical literature, as the Prophet's life spanned approximately **8,000 days**.
* 📝 Dr. Ansari highlights that many significant events, such as the **Prophet's interactions with the Jewish community** and the **care shown to animals**, are documented in Hadith but not in traditional Sira literature.
* 🔍 He points out that the beauty of the Prophet's life lies in the **details**, which provide **ethical and moral guidance** relevant to **contemporary issues**.
* 💡 The research also seeks to employ an **interdisciplinary approach**, combining insights from various fields to **enrich our understanding of the Prophet's life and teachings**.
* 📅 A conference is planned in Chicago at the end of the month, where scholars will discuss the findings from **over 4,000 Arabic volumes**, aiming to make this **valuable data accessible for further research**.
* 🤝 Dr. Ansari concludes by expressing hope that this innovative work will **bridge the gap between historical scholarship and modern applications**, fostering a **deeper connection to the teachings of Islam**.

Hello everyone and welcome to Blogging Theology. Today I'm delighted to talk to Dr. Sadik Ansari. You're most welcome, sir. Assalam alaykum, alhamdulillah. Great to see you. Dr. Sadik Ansari is an academic in the field of Hadith studies and is currently teaching with Charles Sturt University in Australia, where you are at the moment. It's late at night in Australia and it's just midday here in London. He's also currently working on a unique project called SHub. We're going to come to that in a minute. He's taken Arabic, Quran, and Islamic Studies in Egypt, Turkey, and the USA, and he's taught tertiary-level Islamic Studies both in Australia and the USA. His doctoral dissertation was on the role and rules of 'aql (reason) in text criticism of Hadith by the famous polymath Abu Jafar Tahari. He's originally from Afghanistan, and Sadik is a regular Blogging Theology listener from Sydney.

in Australia. So thank you very much for coming on today. This is going to be a very interesting podcast, I think, because you're involved in some very pioneering research into the life of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace. And can you tell us a bit about that and why it's so fascinating, and the research you're doing is very innovative. So could you just introduce us to what you and your colleagues are doing? Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me, Paul, by the way. I've benefited a lot, and I'll actually quote some of your interviews you've had with other serious scholars, particularly one with Professor Joel Haywood. Oh yes, and that's connected to this research. After I finished my PhD, I got introduced to this project. I had known of it before, but I started working for them. And basically, this project is based on the philosophy of what else can we find out about the life of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam.

how can it be more applicable today, right? Do we have all the information in our current books? Can we get more books? How can we use the Sir more as a map to guide us with ethical and moral issues or any problems that modernity throws at us? Um, and so, uh, but it's although it's a very academic-based, but it also has an application focus as well, how we can apply it to our lives. And so, the belief of the project was really, I think, it's that the beauty lies in the detail as opposed to what we normally know of that saying, right? They said the devil is in the details. The beauty of the Sir is in the details. And, uh, perhaps there's a lot of beauty that we can capture now, our S, you know, may Allah, like Imam Shafi says, may Allah bless our previous, the Salaf scholars, because they've left so much work to do for the later-on scholars. We really thank for all the scholarship in Islamic history. They've captured S so well, but sometimes the

attention may have been more on particularly matters that were relevant to the times when the books were written. Perhaps, for example, let's say wars and battles. They took a far larger share of attention. Now, those battles are very significant. I'm not trying to reduce their significance, but the amount of actual battle time in the life of the Prophet is very limited, and there are so many things happening outside of that as well. And so, this project is trying to get everything, as much as we can, to fill in the gap. So, if the Prophet's life was, I've heard numbers like his blessed 23 years of prophethood, that would be some 8,000 days. The current historical literature we have only covers up to like 50 to 60 days of information. Wow. There's a whole many, many hundreds and thousands of days that we actually don't have information about, or at least it's not in our popular books. Yeah, so this is sort of the background project. Yeah, so why is there a need to

go beyond the normal sources for S you because I think that's what you are doing. You're really looking in new, innovative, interesting areas. So, the project was, and here this is what I mention, Professor Joel Hang, and thanks to this series blocking theology. I remember listening to one of his podcasts last year, and in fact, after that is when I got in contact with Professor Joel, and we've been in touch since then. He gave an example that, and he's a, you know, as a professor in S, he's works quite famous. He gave an example that many things that are so important in S, we, it's not found. So, for example, when the process migrates to Medina, the leaders of the Ansar, the K tribe, they gift all the land of Medina that was not irrigated to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. That's a very important piece of information but not captured in the, you know, I's history books. So, just like that, our Islamic scientists, they really

very intricate and complicated like Hadith scientists. However, we haven't really had a bit of a, or perhaps let's say this interdisciplinary approach, which is very popular these days, that needs to also take place when it comes to the S. So, a lot of information that's in the Hadith sources, and I've spoken to some of the leading Hadith Scholars, and when I've told them about this project, they said, This is exactly what we've been dreaming of. So, information that there in the Hadith or in the commentaries of Hadith, that information about the person's life, all the companions, are not found in S books. Interesting. And so, yeah, I mean, can you give examples? What information can be found in Hadith books but not in the S books? What information are we? Yeah, uh, okay, just a few examples. Let's say, um, there's this famous incident, the pro after the conquest of Kber. Uh, there's an incident with two Jewish people from different tribes commit fornication. So, the leaders of them invite the prophet, and uh, they say

What should the Judgment be? And you know it's a famous incident, and the pro asks, What's the ruling in the taat? Yeah, and they give another ruling, and it's not really shown, but in Abu Da, for example, it mentions that the Prophet (PBUH) when the tat was brought in, and when he entered the, they called B, I forgot the Arabic term, midash, the word for like a synagogue or a madrasa of the Jewish community of in. When he welcomed, they gave him like a soft cushion thing to sit on. Yes, when the tat was brought in, he got off his position, off his blessed sitting place, and he placed the tat on that, and he himself sat on dry land. So, very a fine detail, but these things are significant. Another one that we found was when the companions of the Prophet were going to the pilgrimage. They went past an injured antelope, almost like a deer, and the Prophet (PBUH) appointed one companion to look after that antelope.

and when I was speaking to one of the researchers who's been involved in this research for like 10 years, he said, I knew of this incident, but I never knew who that companion was. And then in one narration, Who was the companion? And so in one of the narrations, it states explicitly that the Prophet appointed Abu Bakr himself, so to stand by the injured antelope, so that the whole army goes past, and this antelope is not further injured. Now, it's a small detail, but the significance that it speaks to us really changes. You can just see how much the significant, based on the significant companion the Prophet points. So, a lot of, like I said, beauty lies in the details. We really come out details. It's the beauty in the details. It's the other way around, as you say, and back because he was one of the great original companions of Islam, a very senior companion of the Prophet, and he was assigned to do.

what some people might think was a relatively minor task, but it signifies the importance of caring for animals that are injured or vulnerable. um, and this is the son of the Prophet upon P. So, this is something that we must imitate as well, our care for our animals, whether they be pets or animals in the world. So, it is very significant. Well, speaking of pets, since I've been involved in this project, and let me just make it clear, I've done a PG in Hadith study, so I'm not really, to be very honest, a serial expert, but I'm working on this project, and I'm organizing a conference where we're inviting experts. But I came across a narration that I never knew, that the wife of the Prophet Sall Ali wasall Maya, she had a pet dog called Mismar, and she went to Hajj with this pet dog, and she would spend on it and feed it, and even people would be afraid to approach her caravan because of the dog, and it

says that when her dog died, she really cried a lot. And she said, I was really... I've been really tested and, you know, overcome with grief because of my little details like this. Um, for me personally, it was the first time I was hearing it. There was another example I would share again from Hadi sources where um, uh, the companion B where he one of a woman in Medina. She had the highest house. She said B used to always come to my house and wait for f time to give the aan. Wow. And um, and you know, when he was coming uh, every time before he gave the aan uh, he would make this following Dua. I'll just see if I can quickly find it and read it. Oh, I don't know where my uh, my notes. M all here we go. Yeah. Oh Allah, I praise you and I seek your help so that you help qur enter into Islam so they can establish your religion. And she says, I never heard him one day not say this Dua, the great maay in calling to now you could imagine.

someone who's been tortured so much by the people of Quraysh yet praying for them to enter into Islam and then also so Islam grows and he's doing it like this is like a daily habit of his and she hears this this is her house she hears him climb her house give the Adhan but say this Dua before the Adhan so little things like this that my person have come across by it really again beauty lies in the detail and there's a lot aspect color little detail there really gives flesh color to that period but I've got to ask these a couple of questions because I know people will ask in the comments and I want to ask them as well the earlier two early Hadith so you mentioned one where the prophet of peace was sitting on a nice cushion and he got off it and placed the the Torah on this cushion and um so that people might be thinking so the Torah itself is being venerated the status of it is

being acknowledged, but what does that say about the prophet's attitude towards that Torah in terms of its integrity, its reliability, its truthfulness? Is it thereby implied that everything in that Torah has absolute truth, the same Torah that went back to the prophet Moses upon peace? Or is that an overstatement that there's something else happening here? As a scholar, how would you interpret that incident in terms of the caveats? Because the Quran has sometimes a critical relationship with the Torah. I think we can give examples. So, what do you think is going on there really in that kind of very symbolic act? Yeah, I mean, it definitely shows us that the essence, that if we go back to the basics, that the book is ultimately from Allah, the Quran mentions, and the prophet showing his reverence. And the prophet often speaks about this, that when there was no revelation upon him, he would rather imitate the people of

the book instead of the mush. The polytheist Arabs because, uh, you know, Imam always quotes that verse, so follow with their guidance according to this verse of the Quran referring to the previous prophets, of course. However, if a new revelation came that had to change it, then he'll go against that and try not to resemble them. But if he had a choice of polytheist me practice Orab practice according to who prefer the IM, theab people of the books practice. But I'm not an expert about this Torah or authenticity around the time, uh, but here we definitely in this incident, you know, the person asks for the Torah. He wants, he asks for the ruling in the Torah. Obviously, the Quran is clear that changing has taken place, um, and so that's we can't, you know, that's, that's a reality. Now, maybe acknowledging the changes taking place does not prevent us from, uh, respecting the book, right, overall. Perhaps is one thing that we can less so to speak, we're so venerating book contains Revelation, go God's word.

even it may not be completely perfect and so on. Okay, my second question is to do with that beautiful little story that Vig of the companion, the sister who had a pet dog. And of course, we know that in the Sharia, we're not supposed to have pet dogs in our homes, if you like. We can only own. There's a misunderstanding here amongst some. Oh, we can't have dogs at all. It's not true. But you can have dogs as guard dogs for security, for hunting purposes, and so on. But the word pet dog, which you use, suggests something more close and intimate than that. What's going on then? How do we understand that within the broader Sharia context? Do you think these are the type of conversations we need to be having? So, what do we do with this information? How does it affect our rulings? But how does it affect our attitudes, our ways of thinking, particularly as Muslims living in the West? Because we're not

living in a Muslim majority society and just just I'm just using your question to answer a Bora question you know most of Islamic history and this is my personal opinion our Scholars lived under Muslim rulership um and everything was Islamic around them they never ventured off and lived in you know the boat of Dar har or non-muslims you know we're living in a world where we are living in that so but however the companions lives particularly the mechan phase actually resembles Our Lives much more than sometimes Islamic the the bulk of the 1400 year Islamic history so sometimes it's it's really worth it to go to the S to look for fresh answers now of course I'm not saying we we we do away with without tradition and scholarship and and and this is something where Scholars need to analyze however there is a lot of Merit and benefit and always looking for fresh perspectives given our new circumstances that as Muslims we find ourselves particularly in the west and um and yes the dog issue is one that

there's been a lot of the pet dog wording was my translation. The Arabic just said she had a dog, so maybe that was my thing, but you can see from her affection and her crying over it that she had a close connection to it. So she could have had a dog that wasn't perhaps a pet dog. Now you've clarified that, which was a guard dog, and you know within the usual parameters, which she was just very fond of. I mean dogs can be very affectionate creatures, perhaps. So there's a nuance there which maybe we can't penetrate through time now, 1,400 years ago, but no, it's a fascinating example. One of the other reasons why, for example, an information like this or the Dua that I'm quoting, of this type of information, sometimes maybe authors did not seem to see it as significant to add to the prophet's life. But let's say if you're the companion or the children of the companion and you're

narrating the Hadith, or you're mentioning your father, you'll say, Well, I'm the son of that person who lost that finger in battle, and then there was a miracle of the Prophet that displayed for the companions, individual companions, has a lot of significance, and it gets recorded under their life stories. So, this goes to the type literature. So, this project that has been going on for more than 10 years, it started in Cairo in Egypt. They said, Let's capture anything that could be written relevant to the life of the Prophet, whether it's in books of Law, and as we know, it's not just the four Madhabs, but there's also commentaries and commentaries. Let's look at Hadith. Let's even look at all fields like theology works, even books of Arabic dictionary. Arabic dictionaries are a bit different when you look at the classical dictionaries. They sometimes, to give an explanation of a word explanation, they quote a Hadith of the Prophet or a verse of the Quran. So, this the Islamic

information in all these sources. So, they said they sort of put a rough timeline of the first 500 years, and they said initially they set out to collect a thousand books, and this was before the Chat GPT era. So, they came up with specific criteria. Every time any biographical data is mentioned, any person is mentioned, any timing is mentioned, because sometimes you have two separate narrations, the reader does not know they're actually connected, right? They're connected. So, by you finding this narration, bringing together across all these sources, sometimes it just adds light to an event that's already known, but it just gives better context or contextual light to it. So, yeah, so this was carried out by a team of scholars in Egypt, mainly graduates from AAR, and they were distributed these books. And in the history of the project, the researchers tell me that initially they were not expecting much information to come out from F books, yeah, but after the first 1,000 books, they decided to expand it.

much more, and they were getting a lot of information because, for example, the F books have to deal with, is a matter particularly, let's say, in the Han law books, is something abrogated or not abrogated. Sometimes a lot of the rulings change, so naturally, you fall into a discussion on the S. Like, I remember reading tah just, you know, from my own PhD days, for example, whether animal gut or animal intestines, does that break the woodoo of someone or not. Wow, and so IM tah quotes in inent where the proess was in Mecca, prostrating, and when camel intestines were put on top of him to use that look, he continued his prayer. That's just an example why Imam tah had no intention of having a seral discussion, but that's if that information especially is not in our s books. Well, it's very valuable information, and I had one example to share like that. For example, IB, if I'm not mistaken, he's a famous hanell scholar in his book.

while he's talking about the chapter of woodoo taking ablution, he mentions a narration that you know every time a person would leave his house, some of his enemies would follow him, throwing rocks and making him bleed. Wow, but he's only including that discussion because the context is on bleeding, whether that breaks woodoo or not. But when you look at it from the angle of does this give me valuable information on the life of the Prophet, well, it does, and sometimes a lot of the times these types of details are not in our normal C books, and there are hundreds of these. These are just some examples to give from different. I mean, we want to hear more actually because this is so, these vignettes, they're like little time capsules where very vivid, like the woman and her sister and her dog and the cushion with the Quan and now the Prophet Upon A be piece. It's horrible to hear it, but being attacked in that horrible way, bleeding. These are very, very vivid.

examples and uh gosh what can one say about them but do you have other examples information that can be found in Hadith books but not in the s books and that's the whole point isn't it that's right the things that are found in Hadith or in this example I gave was from a f book yes um look right now I'm I'm in touch with many of the scholars who's presenting in our upcoming conference and we can talk about that but for example uh one of the presenters is going to be presenting onani uh the prophet's cousin now she's the elder sister of uh s Ali the prophet's son-in-law uh now the prophet according to sources proposes to her before Islam uh but Abu Talib doesn't give her to him that's right She and the reason he gives from what I read was you know we've taken you know we've married our children to someone else from another tribe now it's our turn to give someone to them uh so just just looking at the

details of umani like from some of the data that this research provided was I found many things I'd never come across personally. I'm not an expert on her, but for example, it's quoted that she had some of the rocks in a house that the rocks that was sent in the elephant incident where the Abraha, the king, came to destroy the Kaaba, and then God sends in Surah Fil these birds with these rocks. I apologize, Allah sends these birds with these rocks, and she had some of these rocks in her house according to some narrations. And then speaking of umani, well, when did she actually become Muslim? Now, the official sources say she would become Muslim after the conquest of Mecca, right? Yet, there are clear narrations. In fact, when the prophet went to Mir, the night Ascension, according from one narration was based from her house. Another narration says from Kaaba, but in that narration, she clearly says we prayed Isa with the prophet, wasam, and

then when he came back we prayed F the morning prayer with him uh and she actually pleads for the prophet not to go out and tell the qu about his night journey to Jerusalem because she says they'll beely you yeah so yes it has been said she's become Muslim later on but but this is something sir Scholars I'm sure are well well aware many companions like abas the prophet's Uncle exactly when they become Muslim it's a bit of a question mark some of them formally or officially become Muslim let's say around the time of the conquest but it appears that perhaps they may have been Muslim much earlier on yeah just yeah they might they might have secretly believed but because of the persecution and so they might have had to keep and even the Quran points to this explicitly in Surah um in Surah fat that there are people in Mecca who believe that did not had not announced their faith for various reasons yeah yeah absolutely it reminds me on slightly different context Abdul Hakim M

Tim Winter in Cambridge in an interview on blogging Theology and elsewhere talking about what he calls submarines. This is his term, by the way, submarines. These are people in public life, say in Britain, in one case in Downing Street. He knew of someone who was a Muslim, but for various pressing reasons, he was not able to make it public. So, he calls them submarines. So, they're just beneath the surface. Now, this is not meant to be a sinister thing. This simply because their position and other factors make it very difficult indeed for them to make public, which is a very innocent thing that they simply are Muslim. Now, obviously, that situation is nothing like the persecution the companions suffered in Mecca, but there is, it's one end of the spectrum. So, yeah, and when we look at s, we find incidents like this, even the king of Abyssinia. Like, when did he really become Muslim? Even

other leaders, they show a lot of sympathy. Perhaps there were people that they could not explicitly announce their faith, um, and in our lives today as Muslims in a minority, minority in the West, uh, we might f-f-face more situations. It's a reminder not to judge people quickly. Uh, maybe it's also a reminder not everyone has to quickly change their name and reveal their identity and announce it on social media. And I'm aware of another scholar, and I won't say any more than that because I don't want to give their identity away, who I've been told, uh, is a Muslim, but publicly they are not. Um, I'd say no more than that, but they are very prominent. Um, but I won't say any more than that because I don't to uh, but um, but yeah, this very so you mentioned very briefly the a conference, uh, that you're uh, attending or participating in. Can you tell us a bit more about that and when it's happening? Yeah, so now that uh, the this data collection phase or filtering

they've covered, they've filtered more than 4,000 Arabic volumes. Wow, ofch to gather as much data, and again, I remind everyone that this was done before the chat gbt era. Now that that has completed, they have fed, they got Word documents, they've fed this data into a searchable engine, and now we can put in a word in, and based on that, like we put uman, and based on oman's name, I got almost, if I'm not mistaken, 200 entries. Wow, about obviously, there're repetitions, so we decided, we wanted to connect this with some of the leading Scholars and experts and Shakes and sheas of Syra, particularly in the west. And so, we're having a conference in Chicago U at the end of this month, and what we've asked is, we've chosen, whether they're in Academia or they're more prominent in the community, we've asked these experts to say, Look, you guys are the leading names, tell us a data set like this which

area would you be interested in so different academics and Scholars have asked for different topics and so we've sent them the data uh based on their topics of Interest. We have someone looking at the banua incident or the Jewish tribe banua and then you know there's that uh controversial incident where a lot of them get persecuted or I mean not persecuted sorry um executed sorry executed uh someone is doing that umani. Someone is a lot of focus people are trying to focus on the mechan face so daram speaking about secrecy if I can use secrety according to many sources that was the house that the companions women and men would would Gather in the first six years of the prophet's life and the prophet would prophethood era and he would give him uh instruction and teach them the Quran and it was a bit of a it wasn't very a public place they they would gather there secretly up to the conversion of uh that's the famous opinion so someone's looking at that finding uh so different episodes um and

So, these are experts in s and scholars, and we've given them this data, and they're analyzing it, and hopefully, they'll come to this conference, and it's only for scholars, so they can freely and comfortably express their views. We want them to look at the data and tell us how much does it help, firstly, present on the topics, but also see what is the role of looking for sources outside of the normal sources. So, the Arabic name for this project was called the project of the history of 's' from outside its expected sources. So, looking at how beneficial it is to use other sources in general and also this particular data set, and looking at advantages and disadvantages together. So, what kind of challenges can we expect, or can you expect, when trying to expand these available sources for 's'? What kind of challenges look dealing with such data that perhaps hasn't been dealt with before provides a lot of chances of advantages and opportunities that makes them more

relatable, but also some, uh, perhaps, uh, questions and difficulties that, and that's really why Scholars are needed. Uh, one is perhaps on authenticity, something that comes to my mind. How do you deal with different narrations, uh, of different levels of authenticity? And obviously, sometimes the answer might be different answers. They might, we might have different schools dealing with the, um, how to deal with historical data, uh, to speak with the, from a very strictly Hadith science perspective. S was not always seen as the most authentic of the Sciences. It was sometimes, you know, perhaps because a Hadith had dealt more often with law, and anything that had legal ramifications always had more importance. Uh, so yeah, so perhaps they'll have to look at that. How do we, how do we deal with different data that has different levels of authenticity? Um, these are, these are some of the challenges that they can come up with, and, but then there's other ones more epistemological or philosophical sometimes. What do we do when the S tells us one thing, but our

Islamic law might point us another way because our Islamic law was built over 1400 years. So, questions such as this are potential challenges. Yeah, yeah. I mean, one last might be, what if we don't have all the details? Like, we're looking for as much as we can, but maybe some things just have not survived. Yeah, it's interesting here because you're applying technology now, the latest technology, to this vast corpus of work. And that is a new thing. It's amazing. And also, you're meeting in Chicago. And I know, again, this is not for the first time, that cutting-edge Islamic scholarship is taking place within the English-speaking world and not within the Arabic world. And that, again, is a relatively new thing as well. It's no longer just happening within the heartland of Islam but in other places, particularly America, of all places. Hopefully, these learning centers will become beacons of light in the future if we have true research and true output.

obviously, if we can fund some of these things, it'll be great. I listened to a podcast with Mu Z and his book on Imari. Very, very interesting. And that happening in Dallas. Yes, I know you think Dallas, think of cowboys and stuff, but it's actually cutting Islamic scholarship as well. And this is the new world we live in, and all the better for it, I think. It's absolutely amazing breaking down these binary polarities between them and the Muslim world and us in the West. Actually, no, some pioneering work is happening in the West as well as in the Muslim world. So, this is just something personal about that. You know, every Ram recently, I've tried performing EA in Ramadan, you know, where you spend 10 days at the mosque. Many of my teachers in different parts of the Islamic world, I speak to them, and I mentioned, they said, Oh wow, you can do EA. I said, Yeah, of course. Why? And they said, Well, sometimes in our own countries, we're not able to because the

intelligence agency. Sometimes, if we do something like that, we get listed in the wrong books, or the mosques are not even open. Sometimes, I can't speak openly, but some very major Muslim countries that we think are the major places of learning, oh yes, major simple sunnas, cannot be practiced as freely as we can in the West. Yeah, this is a very, very profound and disturbing truth, actually. Often, we can practice Islam in some ways that we can't in the so-called Muslim world, but, and vice versa, we in the West can't say and do things because we get then labeled certain things, which you can freely, obviously, in the Muslim world. So, it's complicated, but yeah. So, what do you plan to do with this data? What? What? I mean, it's very good and fascinating and very worthwhile, but what's the end product, and what are you going to do with this data? Well, first of all, we want to have this data to be used primarily for research and

scholarship right and so this conference that I mentioned, the SRA Hub conference in Chicago, is the first step that we're doing this, uh, making it accessible to scholars. And, you know, sometimes you send one data and then the person requests, Can you search this word as well? Can you search this word as well? Right now, this data is not open. Even our scholars, they haven't been given open access to it. So, um, hopefully, we'll be hosting it, uh, at a particular website, something like we have quran.com, sunnah.com, maybe something that will have this data, at least first to researchers and then later on to others. Uh, there's other discussions that hopefully we would like to have with the scholars at this, um, conference, things like some people are suggesting, uh, Can something like an encyclopedia come out of this, like a serotype encyclopedia? And this is just a, uh, something, but we've had people outside of the academia and like books, uh, a group of um, uh, university students and people with background in 3D.

animation and AI content creation. They've been involved, and they've sought some help from this research and some of the research committee members with them have been working with them. They're called Everstar Studios. Maybe I'll send you a website you can put at the bottom. And they've produced within a year, mainly on a volunteer basis, some very interesting episodes of the S using AI technology. You put on The Meta goggles with a 3D, and we had a bit of a launch. They had a bit of a launch, Everstar, at the ISNA convention recently in Dallas, where people can see episodes of the S. They're also trying to design a game where they're rebuilding the Kaaba. Someone can play a game where they can rebuild the Kaaba. And also, they're exploring with this developing AI companions. For example, you see some of them are not companions but figures of S. So, you might see Imam Abu Jah and you might speak to him and say, Who are you? Why did they call

you Abu Jahel. He would strongly deny that I've seen. They're testing with it now because with this AI needs a lot of training and some of it is very interesting. Obviously, I know some of these topics can be controversial. Some people prefer not to see these faces. For me personally, I love the series that was produced by the Middle East on the life of Omar. So, I'm a bit, I'm a fan of these types of developments, but some people might not. But it allows people, children, to speak to companions and then learn from them instead of reading books. And so, there's many other applications beyond academia, but the first, the main one would be obviously for researchers and serious scholars. Absolutely marvelous. Well, I really look forward to hearing more about this. It's a very exciting development, I think, in this, going beyond the normal sources for finding fresh or, you know, not so fresh, but, you know, overlooked content, information, knowledge. Absolutely fascinating. So, please keep us in

touch that maybe come back on after inshah after the conference, which I think is the end of this month, isn't it? The 26th, 27th, uh, in Chicago. You say maybe m whatever, uh, inshah. You can come back and uh, tell us about those developments. But uh, yeah, maybe we can share some of the highlights and with the some of the schols and presenters themselves, hopefully maybe. Well indeed, no AB absolutely. Yeah, I think it's really important that we uh, you know, showcase this and and spread word about it uh, because it's always good to have fresh scholarship on on on this actually. So uh, well thank you very much indeed Dr. Sad. I do want to mention of course you are the brother of uh Dr. Mashid Ansari, uh, who has been a guest. She has been a guest on blog theology as well. So your brother and sister, both from Afghanistan originally, uh, you both got your PhDs, you're both Islamic scholars, you're both living in Australia, and you're both

doing pioneering work. I mean, what a remarkable family, uh, that you come from, and uh, and what a blessing to the um, uh, in from Afghanistan to Australia. So, that is a lovely, uh, thing to be aware of, folks, that we have two brothers and sisters there, not any other members of your family with PhDs that are Islamic scholars. It's just the two of you, not from my immediate family, no. Not your immediate, okay, so maybe family, so a great blessing indeed. So, thank you, uh, and um, we'll see you again in. Thank you.

Exciting New Discoveries in Sirah Studies with Dr. Sadeq Ansari

Blogging Theology

Pioneering Research on the Life of Prophet Muhammad

Sadik Ansari, an academic in Hadith studies, is conducting innovative research on the life of Prophet Muhammad, aiming to fill in the gaps in historical literature.

The project focuses on applying the Prophet's life as a guide for modern ethical and moral issues, highlighting the importance of details often overlooked in traditional sources.

With only 50 to 60 days of information covered in current historical literature, the project seeks to uncover and document the many hundreds and thousands of days that are not well-represented.

The Importance of Hadith in Understanding the Prophet's Life

Hadith sources contain unique information about the Prophet's life and his companions that is not found in S books.

Examples include the Prophet's compassionate actions towards an injured antelope and his appointment of Abu Bakr for the task.

Additionally, the Prophet's wife had a pet dog, Mismar, and the companion Bilal consistently made a specific Dua before calling for prayer, highlighting the significance of these details in understanding their roles and values.

The Prophet's Compassion and the Complexity of the Torah

The Prophet Muhammad, despite facing torture from the Quraysh, consistently prayed for their conversion to Islam and showed reverence for the Torah.

His symbolic act of placing the Torah on a cushion reflects his acknowledgment of its divine origin, while also recognizing the changes that have occurred over time.

The discussion of pet dogs in the Sharia highlights the need for fresh perspectives and interpretations, especially for Muslims living in non-Muslim majority societies.

The Significance of Dog Ownership in Historical Context

The woman's close connection to her dog, whether a pet or guard dog, highlights the affectionate nature of dogs.

A long-term project in Egypt has been collecting biographical data and relevant information about the Prophet's life from various sources for over 10 years.

The project's expansion after the initial 1,000 books has revealed valuable insights and contextual information about the Prophet's life and the challenges he faced.

Umani, the Prophet's cousin and sister of Ali, had a significant role in early Islamic history.

She possessed rocks from the elephant incident that aimed to destroy the Kaaba and had a key involvement in the Prophet's night journey.

The timing of her conversion to Islam is debated, with some narrations suggesting she may have been a believer earlier than officially recognized.

Project of the History of 'S' from Outside Expected Sources

The project has filtered over 4,000 Arabic volumes and created a searchable engine for data retrieval.

A conference in Chicago is bringing together leading scholars to analyze the data and discuss its impact on understanding 'S'.

The project aims to explore the benefits and challenges of using non-traditional sources for historical research on 'S'.

The Impact of Modern Technology on Islamic Scholarship

Modern technology is being applied to the vast corpus of Islamic law, which has evolved over 1400 years.

Cutting-edge Islamic scholarship is now thriving in the English-speaking world, particularly in places like Chicago and Dallas, challenging the traditional centers of learning.

The data being gathered aims to support research and scholarship, with plans to make it accessible to scholars and potentially creating an encyclopedia for wider distribution.

Everstar Studios: Pioneering AI in Animation and Content Creation

Everstar Studios has been using AI technology to produce interesting episodes and is also designing a game to rebuild the Kaaba.

They are exploring AI companions to interact with historical figures, providing a unique learning experience.

The studio's work has generated excitement and aims to offer fresh scholarship and knowledge beyond traditional sources.