This response was removed in r/quraniyoon so posting it here
If God intended Muslims to follow “authentic” hadiths, we would have seen something very different in the historical record:
On the one hand, what we do see is that hadith authentication processes were largely created under the Abbasid’s, beginning over 100 years after the prophet’s death.
On the other, we also see that Uthman decided to standardize the Quranic codex approximately 18-19 years after the prophet’s death. And the reason he did it then was because of concerns that many of those who had memorized the Quran were dying off. He was motivated by preservation.
Now, if hadiths were central to our theology, then the processes for their preservation and authentication should have emerged in parallel to the codification of the Quran itself. In fact, we would have expected the Prophet to ensure the memorization of his every word and example in the same way he ensured that there were many people who had fully memorized the Quran in his time.
We would have also expected that the Prophet’s closest companions would have reported the most ahadith, having spent the most time with him.
But neither of these two things happened.
(We have early reports suggesting that the Prophet forbade his companions from writing down what he said or did to prevent the situation we find ourselves in today.)
The hadith literature is an example of what always happens in history around the legacy of a transformative person: mountains of narrations and misattributions to that person.
Why?
Because of their influence; their voice and legacy become an expedient source of power. That’s not to say that everyone involved the formation of hadith as a parallel structure to the Quran is necessarily exploitative. But it is to say that historically things get messy and tend to devolve quickly from their point of origin.
Which is why God was absolutely clear that He is actively preserving His last message to humanity (15:9). Because if it were left to history’s usual progression, it would have devolved long ago. By telling us that He is protecting it, God allows us humans, who witness the inevitability of historical erosion in our lives, to rest easy. In that way, His last message is the exception to the pattern we would otherwise expect.
Significantly, God offers NO such assurances about the hadith and sunnah of the Prophet.