>>23144682
>>23144677
>isnad system
it basically works like this, there's the chain (isnad) and the story (matn)

in arabic the isnad for this one is
>Yahya narrated to us, Waki‘ narrated to us, from Sufyan, from Ayyub, from Abu Qilabah, from Zahdam al-Jarmi, from Abu Musa — meaning al-Ash‘ari — may Allah be pleased with him.
then the eating chicken part is the matn.

then they get graded as strong (sahih) medium (hasan) weak (daif), all of these mean they pass inspection.
anyway! what determines their strength is solely the names written in the isnad.

this system was created hundreds of years after the life of muhammad, the idea is since the chain goes back to one of the companions of muhammad, then it has to be genuine, because no one could just write a fake chain, riiiight?
historians though just completely ignore the isnad system and focus on the matn instead, and analyze it using historical methods like literary criticism and sociopolitical context.
they do the opposite of what muslims do when appraising them, because as stated earlier, the system was created hundreds of years later, so authentic sayings of muhammad would be less likely to be following this chain system that hadn't been invented yet.

there's over half a million hadith, all saying wildly mutually exclusive contradictory things.
the notion that muhammad is historically clearer than Jesus is absolute silliness.