A Critical Gadamerian Review of M. Syuhudi Ismail's and Muhammad Syahrur's Readings of the Hadith on Female Leadership

Abstract

The hadith of Abu Bakrah on the prohibition of female leadership (Sahih al-Bukhari nos. 4425 and 7099) has become a battleground for competing paradigms in contemporary hadith hermeneutics. M. Syuhudi Ismail classifies it as a temporal-local hadith, thereby opening space for female leadership across all public domains; Muhammad Syahrur, through the framework of al-sunnah al-nabawiyyah and the theory of al-hudud, positions such hadiths as products of the Prophet's historical ijtihad that are not absolutely binding. This article examines both readings through the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, particularly the concepts of Vorurteil (prejudice), Wirkungsgeschichte (history of effect), and the rehabilitation of authoritative tradition. The study is library research employing a descriptive-analytical-critical method, drawing on primary hadith sources, classical commentaries (especially Fath al-Bari), the works of both figures, and recent secondary literature from the past decade. The findings are threefold. First, Syahrur performs a prejudice against prejudice, precisely what Gadamer rejects as Enlightenment dogmatism. Second, Syuhudi's temporal-local classification lacks operational criteria that would distinguish it from the imposition of a contemporary horizon upon the text. Third, a more defensible reading, both hermeneutically and according to the manhaj al-muhaddithin, situates the commentarial tradition as a productive Wirkungsgeschichte while preserving the classical distinction between al-wilayah al-uzma and other forms of women's public roles.