The Hadith of “Khayr al-Qurun” and the Contradiction of Sanctifying Generations with the Qur’an, History, and Hadith Itself

The Hadith of “Khayr al-Qurun” and the Construction of Salaf Sanctity

The famous hadith of “khayr al-qurun,” or “khayr al-nas qarni,” is one of the most important intellectual foundations used by the report-centered system to construct the theory of the “sanctity of the Salaf.” This hadith appears in Sahih al-Bukhari, number 2652, with this wording: “Khayr al-nas qarni, thumma alladhina yalunahum, thumma alladhina yalunahum, thumma yaji’u aqwam tasbiqu shahadatu ahadihim yaminah, wa yaminuhu shahadatah”; meaning: the best people are my generation, then those who come after them, then those who come after them, then there will come people whose testimony precedes their oath and whose oath precedes their testimony. The same meaning also appears in Bukhari 6429 and Sahih Muslim 2533a. If this report is read in an absolute and ideological way, it has been taken to mean that the first three generations, especially the Companions, the Followers, and the Followers of the Followers, have an intrinsic superiority over later generations in religion, ethics, understanding of religion, and historical authority. From here, a theory was built in which the understanding, practice, and reports of the Salaf are presented as the criterion of religion. But when this report is weighed against the firm principles of the Qur’an, the clear realities of history, and even other hadiths found in the same books, a major problem appears. The problem is not only that this report can be misunderstood. The problem is that when an article of belief is built from it to sanctify generations, it quickly collides with the Qur’an, history, and the hadith inheritance itself.

The Qur’an and the Rejection of Calendar-Based Sanctification

First, it must be said that the Qur’an never sanctifies human beings on the basis of calendar time or chronological closeness to the Prophet. The Qur’an’s criteria are faith, taqwa, justice, righteous action, faithfulness to covenant, avoidance of oppression, and submission to truth; not whether someone was born in the first, second, or third century. In Surat al-Baqarah, against the logic of those who boasted in their communities and predecessors, the Qur’an lays down a clear law:

تِلْكَ أُمَّةٌ قَدْ خَلَتْ ۖ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَلَكُم مَّا كَسَبْتُمْ ۖ وَلَا تُسْأَلُونَ عَمَّا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ

Al-Baqarah 2:134 and 2:141

They were a community that has passed away; for them is what they earned, and for you is what you earned; and you will not be asked about what they used to do. This verse breaks the foundation of sanctifying generations. The Qur’an does not say that because one generation was closer to the Prophet, the understanding, conduct, and reports of that generation become the eternal criterion of religion. The Qur’an says that every community and every generation is judged by its own earning. They were responsible for their deeds, and we are responsible for ours. Historical precedence does not create intrinsic virtue. Chronological closeness to the Prophet does not replace taqwa, justice, and truthfulness. For this reason, if the hadith of “khayr al-qurun” is taken to mean absolutizing and collectively sanctifying the earliest generations, it collides with this Qur’anic principle. The Qur’an treats virtue as individual, ethical, and faith-based; not mass-based, generational, and calendar-based. In the Qur’an, even the son of a prophet is not saved if he is not upon truth; the wife of a prophet is not saved if she betrays the truth; the people of a prophet have no virtue if they do not accept the truth. How, then, can an entire generation be presented as “khayr al-nas” in an absolute and authority-making sense merely because of chronological closeness to the Prophet?

The Bloody History of the Earliest Generations

The second problem is that the same earliest generations, later sanctified under the title “the righteous Salaf,” were in actual history caught in the severest disputes, killings, wars, and political and religious fractures. Of the first four caliphs, three, namely Umar, Uthman, and Ali, died through political killing. Uthman was besieged and killed in Medina. Ali was assassinated in the atmosphere of civil wars and deep division within the community. These were not small or marginal events. They show that the very society close to the Prophet faced deep political and moral crises. In the Battle of Jamal, Ali ibn Abi Talib stood against a front in which Aisha, Talha, and Zubayr were present. Historical reports differ over the number of dead, but even the lowest figures speak of thousands killed; some reports mention around 2,500 dead from Aisha’s front and 400 to 500 from Ali’s front. At Siffin, the war was much wider; some reports speak of around 25,000 killed in the army of Ali and 45,000 in the army of Mu‘awiyah. Whether these figures are taken as exact or approximate, the main issue is clear: Muslims close to the age of the Prophet fell upon one another with the sword and shed one another’s blood.

Contradiction with Warning Reports

Here another hadith must be placed beside “khayr al-qurun.” In Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Iman, hadith 225 in some numbering systems, and also in Sahih al-Bukhari with several numbers, it is narrated from the Prophet:

لاَ تَرْجِعُوا بَعْدِي كُفَّارًا يَضْرِبُ بَعْضُكُمْ رِقَابَ بَعْضٍ

Do not return after me as unbelievers, with some of you striking the necks of others. Now the question is clear. If the first generation was “khayr al-nas” in an absolute and sanctified sense, then what does all this neck-striking by Muslim against Muslim in that very generation mean? If the hadith “la tarji‘u ba‘di kuffaran” is taken seriously, the civil wars of early Islam fall exactly under that warning. If this hadith is interpreted and it is said that what is meant is not doctrinal unbelief, then the hadith scholars themselves have accepted that hadith must be weighed by context, reason, the Qur’an, and reality. But if that is so, why in another place do they make hadith rule over the Qur’an and refuse critique? The internal contradiction of the hadith system becomes visible here. On one side, the hadith of “khayr al-qurun” is used to sanctify the earliest generations. On the other side, the hadith “la tarji‘u ba‘di kuffaran” places those same generations before the danger of returning to unbelief through bloodshed. On another side, the hadith of Ammar ibn Yasir in Sahih al-Bukhari 2812 says that Ammar will be killed by the rebellious and transgressing group; Ammar invites them toward God, and they invite him toward the Fire. Ammar was killed at Siffin in the army of Ali. So the hadith sources themselves, inside those first-century wars, identify one side as rebellious. This contradiction cannot be hidden with the slogan, “they were all mujtahids.” If all this blood can be justified through ijtihad, then what function does the hadith “la tarji‘u ba‘di kuffaran yadribu ba‘dukum riqaba ba‘d” have? If civil war, the killing of Companions, the killing of Followers, and the breaking of the sanctity of Muslim blood are all wiped clean by later interpretations, then why were all these warning reports transmitted? And if those warnings are serious, then how does generational sanctification remain standing?

The Reports of the Pond, Najd, and Declining Times

The hadith of the Pond also deepens the problem. In Sahih al-Bukhari 6585, it is narrated that a group of the Companions come toward the Pond, but they are driven away, and the Prophet is told that he does not know what innovations they introduced after him; they turned back. The hadith scholars usually restrict this report and say it does not refer to all the Companions. But this very restriction shows that the title “Companion” or “being close to the age of the Prophet” does not provide an absolute guarantee. If even in their own reports some of the Companions are driven away from the Pond because of what they did after the Prophet, then how can another hadith be used to make the entire first generation a criterion of purity and religious authority? The hadith of “the horn of Satan from Najd,” although it should not be hastily attached to the Umayyads or any specific group, still shows that the hadith sources themselves speak of great tribulations emerging within that Islamic geography. In Sahih al-Bukhari 1037, it is narrated that the Prophet prayed for Syria and Yemen, but when he was asked to pray for Najd, he said: there are earthquakes and tribulations there, and from there the horn of Satan will rise. Even if the geographical referent of this report is disputed, it shows that the hadith tradition itself cannot portray the history of the earliest Muslims as uniform, pure, calm, and sanctified. Another problem is the hadith “la ya’ti ‘alaykum zaman illa alladhi ba‘dahu sharrun minh” in Sahih al-Bukhari 7068; meaning: no time comes upon you except that the time after it is worse than it. This report appears to harmonize with the logic of “khayr al-qurun,” because it presents history as a continuous decline. But even this image does not fit the complexity of history. In history, after very corrupt and bloody periods, relatively more just or calmer periods have sometimes appeared. Sunnis themselves usually regard Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, near the end of the first century, as a ruler more just than many who came before him. So the moral history of human beings is not linear and simple, such that the farther we move from the Prophet’s time, the worse everything necessarily becomes. History contains rise and fall, decline and reform, oppression and resistance, corruption and awakening. The Qur’an teaches the same: the criterion is human action, not temporal distance.

Qur’anic Criteria: Truth, Taqwa, and Individual Responsibility

In the Qur’an, the majority is never the criterion of truth. The Qur’an repeatedly says that most people do not know, most people are not grateful, and most people follow conjecture. In Yunus 10:36 it says:

وَمَا يَتَّبِعُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ إِلَّا ظَنًّا ۚ إِنَّ الظَّنَّ لَا يُغْنِي مِنَ الْحَقِّ شَيْئًا

Yunus 10:36

Most of them follow nothing but conjecture; surely conjecture does not avail anything against the truth. And in Saba 34:13 it says:

وَقَلِيلٌ مِّنْ عِبَادِيَ الشَّكُورُ

Saba 34:13

And few of My servants are grateful. So the Qur’an does not accept mass-based or generation-based logic. Neither majority, nor antiquity, nor chronological closeness, nor fame, nor report, nor school of thought is the criterion. The Qur’an’s criterion is truth. If the first generation is upon truth, its truth is from its faith, righteous action, and justice; not from its date of birth. If that same generation commits oppression, sheds blood, produces tribulation, lies, or fabricates reports, its chronological closeness does not purify it. Most importantly, the Qur’an itself testifies regarding the society of the Prophet’s time that there were hypocrites in Medina and around it whom even the Prophet did not know:

وَمِمَّنْ حَوْلَكُم مِّنَ الْأَعْرَابِ مُنَافِقُونَ ۖ وَمِنْ أَهْلِ الْمَدِينَةِ ۖ مَرَدُوا عَلَى النِّفَاقِ لَا تَعْلَمُهُمْ ۖ نَحْنُ نَعْلَمُهُمْ ۚ سَنُعَذِّبُهُم مَّرَّتَيْنِ ثُمَّ يُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰ عَذَابٍ عَظِيمٍ

At-Tawbah 9:101

And among the Bedouins around you are hypocrites, and among the people of Medina are those who are hardened in hypocrisy; you do not know them, We know them. We will punish them twice, then they will be returned to a great punishment. This verse questions collective sanctification of the first generation from its root. If in Medina, at the center of the Prophet’s society, there were practiced and unknown hypocrites, then how can that entire historical environment be presented as the criterion of purity and religious authority? The Qur’an even says to the Prophet: you do not know them; We know them. How, then, can later human beings confidently cleanse everyone under the title “the righteous Salaf”?

Narrative Psychology and Conclusion

The final part of the hadith of “khayr al-qurun” is also worth considering from the perspective of narrative psychology. After sanctifying the earliest generations, the report pushes corruption in testimony and oath onto later generations; as if lying, false testimony, false oaths, fabrication, distortion, and moral corruption are problems of the future, not problems of those earliest centuries. But historical reality shows that the greatest political conflicts, the production of virtue-making reports, fabrication for the stabilization of power, and the use of religion to legitimize governments took shape in those very early centuries. Political courts, tribal rivalries, Umayyad and Abbasid conflicts, and the need for religious legitimacy were all contexts in which report could become an instrument of power. So if the hadith of “khayr al-qurun” is read in a limited, ethical, and non-legislative way, perhaps it can be said that it intends to honor those who sincerely saw the Prophet and believed with him. But if the theory of the “sanctity of the Salaf” is built from it, and the understanding, practice, and reports of the first three generations are made to rule over the Qur’an, then this report becomes an ideological instrument. The Qur’an gives no such permission. The Qur’an says every community is judged by its own action. The Qur’an says do not follow conjecture. The Qur’an says majority is not the criterion. The Qur’an says there were unknown hypocrites in Medina. The Qur’an says the sanctity of human blood matters. The Qur’an says the criterion of superiority is taqwa:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا ۚ إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ

Al-Hujurat 49:13

O people, We created you from male and female and made you nations and tribes so that you may know one another; surely the most honored of you with God is the most mindful of Him; surely God is Knowing, Aware. So khayr al-nas are not those who merely lived in a particular century. Khayr al-nas are those who, in every time and every place, believe in God, keep away from legislative shirk, honor human blood, place truth above the inheritance of their fathers, and make the Qur’an the criterion of religion. If someone lives in the first century and commits oppression, chronological closeness does not save him. If someone lives in the fifteenth century and sincerely returns to truth, justice, tawhid, and the Qur’an, temporal distance does not remove him from God’s mercy. The conclusion is clear: the hadith of “khayr al-qurun” cannot rule over the firm principles of the Qur’an. If generational sanctification, absolute authority of the Salaf, and the suspension of historical critique are built from it, it collides with the Qur’an, history, and even their own other hadiths. The final criterion is neither century nor generation; the final criterion is the Qur’an, truth, taqwa, justice, and righteous action.