Sanad Validity and Social Validity: Hubbul Wathan Minal Iman within the Framework of Robert N. Bellah’s Civil Religion

Abstract

The maxim “hubbul wathan minal iman” (love of one’s homeland is part of faith) is widely invoked in Indonesian Muslim nationalist discourse, yet hadith scholarship consistently classifies it as weak (da’if) or fabricated (maudhu’). This gap between textual inauthenticity and massive social acceptance poses a methodological problem in public hadith studies. This article aims to verify the authenticity status of the maxim and to explain its functional persistence in nationalist discourse through Robert N. Bellah’s concept of civil religion and the living hadith framework. Using library research combining hadith verification (takhrij) and conceptual analysis, this study finds that textual authenticity and social validity operate on distinct logics. The maxim’s failure to meet strict historical authentication criteria does not preclude its function as a foundational element within Indonesian civil religion. This phenomenon parallels the generic invocations of God in American presidential rhetoric analyzed by Bellah, which require no strict theological accuracy to bind collective consciousness. The theoretical implication of this study suggests that contemporary hadith studies must clearly distinguish the criticism of textual authenticity from the criticism of social function in public discourse to approach public religious phenomena more comprehensively.