The Epistemology of Testimony in the Islamic Tradition: Isnad, Jarḥ wa-Taʿdīl, and Tawātur as a Framework for Historical Knowledge

This study aims to reconstruct the epistemic architecture of the Islamic methodology of report transmission (Isnād, Jarḥ wa-Taʿdīl, Matn criticism, and Tawātur) as an advanced critical model addressing core problems within the contemporary epistemology of testimony. The paper demonstrates that Tawātur, when satisfying its normative criteria of independent transmission channels and the absence of defeaters, yields necessary, certain knowledge (ʿIlm Ḍarūrī) that eliminates epistemic and historical skepticism. This study provides a comparative epistemological analysis of testimony, contrasting Reductionism (Hume) with Anti-Reductionism (Reid, Coady, Lackey), while establishing the integrative Islamic model of regulated epistemic trust. Furthermore, through Bayesian probability and historical-critical analysis, this paper refutes late-invention theories and presents retrospective empirical verifications of historical events. Finally, it demonstrates that a categorical rejection of this transmission architecture logically entails a collapse into global epistemic skepticism, invalidating legal, scientific, and historical knowledge alike.