“Fake news” has always been a particularly striking statement for me as a journalist. Through my courses at Butler, this topic has come up quite a lot, and many of my classes are guided by the idea of preventing falsehoods. For example, in one class you will receive a zero on a story if a name is misspelled or facts are incorrect. This is done not to punish us, but to prepare us for a career where every word you type must be precise. However, often “fake news” is not news that is incorrect, but simply news that is biased. In the Hadith, Muslims have attempted to root out the falsehoods, but they cannot rule out the bias. Therefore, Muhammad’s behaviors are up for interpretation and disagreement. However, I think the point is not how accurate the Hadith is in terms of what Muhammad did, but rather, what the message is and if it aligns with the religion. I think it says a lot about the Islamic faith that they are able to admit that there were probably falsehoods in the Hadith. That is something that most Christians I know are unwilling to accept about the bible.
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