Hadith & Talmud

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This page began as a list of parallels between rabbinic literature and hadith texts, but has now slightly expanded to include parallels between hadith and a variety of other earlier sources as well, such as with the Bible (separated into New and Old Testaments), and then other literature more generally, although the bulk of parallels listed are still with rabbinic texts. If you find a hadith that has a parallel with a pre-Islamic text and it's not mentioned below, please send it to me so that I can add it!

Huge thanks to @IanCook321, @yosef_akiva and @hadithworks who have done a lot of the legwork in identifying the parallels below. In terms of actual resources out there which compile such parallels (other than this one which is, to my knowledge, the best and most comprehensive out there so far), see Levi Jacober's PhD thesis from 1935, titled "The traditions of Bukhari and their aggadic parallels" (link to full thesis), as well as this new, albeit briefer, blog post by Bilal Muhammad. In the future, I hope to help create some statistics and/or visuals to help convey some of the data below, for example, the proportion of parallels that go back to rabbinic sources, to biblical sources, to Christian literature, etc.

All entries are in the following format:

Short description

  • Rabbinic text:

  • Hadith:

  • Credit/source:

Parallels with rabbinic texts

Sahih al-Bukhari

The righteous (Muslims, Israel) are like a palm tree

  • Rabbinic text: Genesis Rabbah 41:1 (cf. Psalm 92:12)

  • Hadith: * Hadith: Sahih Bukhari 61

  • Credit/source: Levi Jacober, The traditions of al-Bukhārī and their aggadic parallels, pp. 143-144

Religious knowledge decreases in the End Times

An angel appointed over a pregnancy asks God about its destiny on a set of binary outcomes

Defecate to the east or west to avoid defecating towards the direction of the holy site

Pray for more rain, then pray for less rain

Moses and the Angel of Death

Satan appearing in the form of a beggar seeking bread/food\

A parable with people in the upper part of the ship questioning those in the bottom part creating a hole in it and endangering all of them

It is permissible to lie in order to maintain peacetime

The 70 or 99 names of God

Fasting and hellfire

Mercy was created with the beginning of the world

God's mercy overcomes God's anger

The sun asks permission from God to move and rests below God's Throne

  • Rabbinic text: Leviticus Rabbah 31, Sanhedrin 91b

  • Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari 3199

  • Credit/source: Levi Jacober, The traditions of al-Bukhārī and their aggadic parallels, pg. 118

  • Other parallels: the tradition of the sun prostrating/bowing to God is also found in the Syriac Alexander Legend, which says that when the sun sets, "it bows down before God, its Creator". Credit: Sean Anthony.

A tree in Paradise that is the length of a one/five hundred year journey

Earth's fire as a fraction of hell's fire

It is evil to inquire about how creation came about

Three cleansing or pious acts are needed to undo the acts of evil spirits/Satan during the night

Praying adjacent to sunrise and sunset, followed by attributing evil to the one that prays exactly at sunrise or sunset

Five animals that can be killed in any circumstances, including in sanctified situations, one of them being the rabid dog

An angel appointed over a pregnancy asks God about its destiny on a set of binary outcomes

  • Rabbinic text: Niddah 16b

  • Hadith: * Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari 3333

  • Credit/source: Levi Jacober, The traditions of al-Bukhārī and their aggadic parallels, pp. 123-124

David walks halfway in the night, prays, and returns to sleep

A man selling land, not gold, followed by giving it to a newly married couple

Keeping the faith while being executed with iron combs

A global fire during the end of the world

Your whole body rots except for a lower-rear bone from which you will be resurrected

Demons are stopped by a barrier of fire/flames when trying to eavesdrop on heaven

The taste of fruits

Do not walk outside during the night because that is when there are bounds of demons out

Wipe with your left hand, not the right, after defecation

If someone is good, God gives them afflictions out of love

Black cumin as a generalist herbal medicine

  • Rabbinic text: Berakhot 40a; Tractate Kallah 3

  • Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari 5687

  • Credit/source: Multiple commenters on this thread and one in this tweet.

  • Note: Black cumin can also be found in many ancient Greek texts. According to one user, "black cumin is one of the famous ancient herbs used in oriental antiquity for its healing and cooking properties" (see full comment here). The hadith has likely adopted this tradition from Near Eastern folk medicine more generally.

Put on your right shoe first, take off your left shoe first

Adam's height

The most righteous generations were the earliest ones

What Helps You When Dead? Not Wealth, Not Kin—Just Your Deeds

Those in Paradise will eat from Behemoth and Leviathan

A heavenly tree whose size equals a multi-hundred year journey

Passageway into Paradise allowed, or all your sins are forgiven, if your young chilren die

A good dead is only counted if it is also backed up by the intent of the doer

On the explanation for why the childs color differs from the parents

A dream as a small fraction of a prophecy

The five secrets (keys) of information unseen by anyone but God

A man has himself burned and his ashes spread across the seas to avoid judgement

When a man commits a sin a first time and repents, forgive him; for the second time, forgive him; for the third time, forgive him

  • Rabbinic text: Yoma 86b

  • Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari 7507

  • Credit/source: Levi Jacober, The traditions of al-Bukhārī and their aggadic parallels, pp. 95-96

Sahih Muslim

If someone intends to do a good deed but cannot complete it, they are still rewarded for it

Childs sex determined by which parent emits their seed first

Earth's fire as a fraction of hell's fire

Child is only created from part of the semen

Eat seven dates to avoid an illness

The Ending of a Man’s Life Erases—Or Redeems—His Earlier Years

Sperm takes shape into child with supernatural assistance after 40 days in the womb

Substituting a disbeliever into hell for a believer to go into heaven

Resurrecting bodies with rain dew

The rising of the sun from the west

A man’s limbs will testify about him on Judgement Day

Jami at-Tirmidhi

500 years of travel between each of the heavens

Adam learns the names

  • Discussed in Saqib Hussain, "Adam and the names," BSOAS (2024), pp. 14ff.

God creates the scripture 2,000 years before creation

Sunan Ibn Majah

Fasting on Mondays and Thursdays

Loans are greater than charity

It is permitted to eat fish and locusts

Sunan an-Nasa'i

Dogs preventing good from entering a home

When a man dies, angels receive him positively or negatively according to his life's works

Sunan Abu Dawud

The Messianic era will last for 40 years

A young faithful is pointed up to know where God resides

When you see the moon, repeat this formula 3 times!

Riyad as-Salihin

No eating while standing, no drinking while standing

Al Adab al Mufrad

Plant the sapling if you can before the end

Mishkat al-Masabih

Don't yawn while praying

The unbeliever as a cedar tree suddenly uprooted

Ibn Hanbal

Who is rich? Who is wise?

Al-Tabari

Korah's wealth

Slandering Moses for adultery

Sahifah of Hammam ibn Munabbih

  • See this post for a detailed listing of rabbinic and biblical parallels with the hadith in the Sahifah of Hammam ibn Munabbih

Miscellaneous

  • Several angels appearing across many hadith in a range of sources seem to be derived from Jewish sources. This is discussed in Budge, Angels in Islam, pp. 47-48. A post of the discussion can be found here.

  • A male-bird tricks a lady-bird into sleeping with him by promising something that he can't actually give her. This finds parallel in a hadith attributed to Solomon (not Muhammad). The hadith sources, rabbinic text, and attribution of the find is all here: https://sites.google.com/site/elonharvey/publications-more/solomon-s-birds-extra/birds-traditions

  • The three types of jinn. Rabbinic text: Hagigah 16a. Quotation: "Sages taught: Six statements were said with regard to demons: In three ways they are like ministering angels, and in three ways they are like humans. The baraita specifies: In three ways they are like ministering angels: They have wings like ministering angels; and they fly from one end of the world to the other like ministering angels; and they know what will be in the future like ministering angels." https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/135612.36?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en . Hadith: "Abu Tha'labah al-Khushani said, the Messenger of Allah (sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam) said, "The Jinn are of three types, a type that has wings, and they fly through the air, a type that looks like snakes and dogs and a type that stops for a rest then resumes its journey." (reported by al-Tahawi in Mushkil al-Athar, 4/95, and by al-Tabarani in al-Kabir, 22/214. Shaykh al-Albani said in al-Mishkat (2/1206, no. 4148): al-Tahawi and Abul-Shaykh reported it with a Sahih Isnad)". Quoted from https://islamqa.info/en/answers/2340/types-of-jinn

  • Various hadith on the Throne and Footstool of God. This division is first found in rabbinic tradition, e.g. see bChagigah 14a:6-7.

  • Quoting Bilal Muhammad: "In Ṭabarānī’s Muʿjam al-Kabīr, Shaddād b. Aws narrates that the Prophet said, “Poverty is more becoming for the believer than attractive bridle straps are for a horse’s cheeks.”[8] The same saying is attributed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib in Kulayni’s al-Kāfi.[9] The Talmud quotes a similar expression from a “folk saying that people say”: “Poverty is good for the Jewish people like a red bridle for a white horse.”[10]" The Talmudic passage Bilal Muhammad is citing is Chagigah 9b.

Parallels with the Bible

With the New Testament...

Matthew 7:3, Luke 6:41 / Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 592, Kanz al-Ummal, hadith 44141, Sahih Ibn Hibban 4597 (credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1m8wssp/hadith_parallel_matthew_73/)

Matthew 10:37 / Sahih al-Bukhari 14, Sahih a-Bukhari 15

Matthew 13:3-9 / Sahih al-Bukhari 79 (credit: Jacober, pp. 147-148)

Matthew 18:10-14 / Jami at-Tirmidhi 3538

Matthew 20:1-16 / Sahih al-Bukhari 3459 (credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1jsp0f4/gospel_of_matthew_and_hadith_parallel/ )

Matthew 20:16 / Sahih Muslim 855a (credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1jqljo3/hadith_parallel_so_the_last_shall_be_first/)

Matthew 23:10 / Sahih Muslim 2249a (credit: https://x.com/GabrielSaidR/status/1918364161135853962)

Matthew 25:31-46 / Al Adab Al-Mufrad 517

Luke 23:34 / Sahih a-Bukhari 6929

John 20:29 / Ahmad 12578

Acts 5:38-39 / Sahih Muslim 2930a (credit)

1 Cor. 2:9 / Sahih al-Bukhari 7498. For more detail, see Clivas & Schulthess, "On the Source and Rewriting of 1 Corinthians 2.9 in Christian, Jewish and Islamic Traditions (1 Clem 34.8; GosJud 47.10–13; a ḥadīth qudsī)," pp. 194-195. Helpful graphic.

1 Corinthians 12:12, 25-26 / Sahih Bukhari 6011, Sahih Muslim 2586a (credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1m8cikm/hadith_parallel_1_corinthians_12/ and https://x.com/GabrielSaidR/status/1951254406432727211)

Revelation 13:16 / Musnad Ahmad 22308

Revelation 16:12 (also Isaiah 11:15; Isaiah 19:5) / Riyad as-Salihin 1822 — The Euphrates will dry up

With the Old Testament...

Gen 1:26 / Sahih Muslim 2612e (God created Adam in his own image)

Deuteronomy 20:1-9 + Joshua 7 + Joshua 10 / Sahih Bukhari 3124 (see visual here)

1 Samuel 16:7 / Sahih Muslim 2564 (credit: https://bliis.org/research/the-israiliyat-problem )

1 Kings 3:16-28 / Sahih Bukhari 3427

Isaiah 11:15; Isaiah 19:5 (also revelation 16:12) / Riyad as-Salihin 1822 — The Euphrates will dry up]

Isaiah 11:6-9 / this hadith (credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1jn80du/hadith_parallel_isaiah_11s_eschatological_vision/)

Isaiah 52 / Sahih al-Bukhari 2125 (credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1jxj4lc/hadith_parallel_isaiah_42/ )

Ezekiel 39:9 / Sunan ibn Majah 4076 (credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1jpmbbc/hadith_parallel_ezekiel_39/)

Ecclesiastes 7:28 / Sahih al-Bukhari 6498 (credit: Jacober, pp. 132-133)

Parallels with other sources

The gods love for uneven/odd numbers

The salamander and hellfire

The blindness in the right eye of Dajjal

  • Texts: Zechariah 11:15-17 describes a worthless shepherd with a damaged right eye and a severed arm. Some later Christian theologians interpreted this figure as the Antichrist (Jerome, Commentary on the Prophet Zechariah 3.11.15; Didymus the Blind, On Zechariah 11). Also see the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel. Pseudo-John seems to contain much more detailed parallels with this tradition, though: see here.

  • Hadith: Mentioned in numerous hadith

Angelic intercession for believers

  • Texts: Multiple second Temple Jewish early Christian writings: 1 Enoch 15:2; 39:5; 47:1-2; 104:1; 4Q400 1:15-20; T. Levi 3:5; T. Dan 6:2; 3 Baruch 11:4, 9; 12; 15; Apoc. Moses 33-38.

  • Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari 659, Sahih al-Bukhari 3229

Various eschatological doctrines

  • See Ali Akbar, "The Zoroastrian Provenance of Some Islamic Eschatological Doctrines," Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses (2020), pp. 86-108.

The Euphrates drying up uncovering a mountain of gold

Only women, not men, can wear silk and gold

Whoever tells a lie about me deliberately, let him take his place in Hell

  • The title of this one is the hadith. This passage warns against fabricating hadith. It resembles curse formula found at the end of texts or inscriptions across the ancient Near East warning the audience not to modify or efface the composition. For example, near the end of the Book of Revelation, we read: "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll." Two Ethiopian inscriptions with these curse formula, listed in George Hatke, “May He and His Kin Be Eradicated and Uprooted: Curse Formulae in Aksumite Royal Inscription,” Folia Orientalia (2023), pg. 56, read "May he who effaces this inscription be blinded" and "O Lāt, let there be blindness and a scab and starvation for he who would efface the inscription". It occurs in several South Arabian inscriptions, e.g. "And may ʿAmm shame the one who will violate this memorial" (see Giovanni Mazzini, "Ancient South arabian inscription BynM 5: A new interpretationand semitic parallels," Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy (2020)). It occurs in some Safaitic inscriptions: "may he who would efface (this writing) out of jealousy be thrown out (of the grave) by a loved one" (Ahmad Al-Jallad, "Ancient Allah: An Epigraphic Reconstruction," Journal of Semitic Studies (2025), pg. 22).

The human body has 360 joints

  • Sahih Muslim 1007a

  • As documented here, this idea has precednet in pre-Islamic, ancient Chinese and Indian medical texts.

People's age in paradise

  • Bilal Muhammad writes: "In Sunan al-Tirmidhī, there is a ḥadīth on the authority of Muʿādh b. Jabal that the Prophet said that the people of Paradise would be “thirty years of age or thirty-three years.” [Jami at-Tirmidhi 2545] Sean Anthony suggests that this may come from fourth century Syriac Christian exegetical sources, which say that Adam “was created at the age of thirty”, Jesus “came to baptism at the age of thirty years”, and “that believers would be resurrected at an age ‘attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ,’ i.e., ~30-33.” [https://x.com/shahanSean/status/1797765325775360012]"

  • Credit: https://bliis.org/research/the-israiliyat-problem

Only Jesus and Mary were untouched by Satan at their birth

  • "This protection of Mary and her children from Satan was also a topic of interest for the Muslim Hadith tradition. Thus, in one hadith [Sahih al-Bukhari 4548] it is said that only Jesus and Mary were left untouched by Satan at their respective births. In saying this, the hadith tradition awakened echoes of the Catholic doctrine of original sin, which also maintains that it is exclusively Jesus and Mary who were born without original sin and who are therefore protected from Satan" (Muna Tatari and Klaus von Stosch, Mary in the Qur’an: Friend of God, Virgin, Mother, University of Chicago Press 2021, pg. 169)

Shia hadith?

The above only covers Sunni hadith. One post has been made pointing out a parallel with Shia hadith. I will more properly categorize these if a greater number are identified in the future. A second Shia parallel is listed above, in the New Testament section, for Matthew 7:3, Luke 6:41. Bilal Muhammad has also observed a few parallels with Shia hadith in this post, under the sections "The rarity of a good woman" and "Seven Seals".

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