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- Forum > The Quran and Hadith, which is more authentic?
6/30/2009 3:26 PM The Quran and Hadith, which is more authentic? (1 Comments)
- Arpheel
- 21, United States
The Quran and Hadith, which is more authentic?
jun 30
The Quran and Hadith, which is more authentic?
Quran Add comments
By Mumin Salih
The Quran is considered like the backbone of Islam although the bulk of the religion is made from the sunna, or Mohammed’s traditions, which is based on his hadiths or sayings and considered second to the Quran in its importance. Practicing Islam is impossible without sunna because the Quran doesn’t explain anything about the Islamic rituals or sharia and refers Muslims to take Mohammed’s example which only comes through his hadiths (Q.59:7).
It is frustrating that whenever ‘intellectual’ Muslims are debated they become very quick to distance themselves from any hadith that seems implicate their religion, no matter how authentic that hadith was. Denying a hadith is an easy defence tactic by Muslim apologists in their effort to maintain the integrity of Islam. Their logic is that Islam doesn’t fall by the loss of one hadith or two because Islam is kept up by the Quran. On the other hand, those Muslims are not ashamed to quote other hadiths, no matter how unauthentic they are, to boost their argument. However, most ordinary Muslims remain strong believers in both the Quran and hadith, which they rightly consider to complement each other. The main stream Muslims consider those who deny the hadith as infidels who would eventually deny the Quran as well.
Behind the declared reason for denying the hadith is another undeclared, but true, reason. The hadiths come in detailed language and with several narrations that support each other, which leaves little room for word games or manipulating the meanings. On the other hand, the Quran comes in a vague abridged and self contradicting format that leaves more room to twist the language and meanings of its words. The Quran is covered with a thick layer of haze and some Muslims use that lack of clarity to argue and claim they can see a different picture from the others.
How authentic is the hadith?
There are different collections of hadiths that Muslims consider to be the most authentic; the most well known collections are Sahih al Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Other collections include Al Nissaey, Al Tirmithy, Ibn Dauod and Ibn Maja. Together, these six collections are called the authentic six, the Sahih Sitta.
The ‘science of hadith’ or ‘Ilmul Hadith’ is a well known and prestigious speciality in all Islamic universities. It teaches how those scholars managed to gather their collections and how they travelled the Islamic world to accomplish their objective. The methodology they used, considering its time, was exemplary. They studied each hadith in details; its text and its chain of narrations and classified them into grades according to their authenticity. Even by today’s standards, their scholarship and dedication to objectivity was amazing. Most of the two hundred thousand or so hadiths that were subjected to their thorough assessment were rejected and only a few thousands made it to their Sahih (correct) books. Their objectivity meant that many ‘good looking’ hadiths had to be rejected while others, not so good looking ones, had to be included. If Muslims can be proud of anything at all it is that objective academic approach adopted by those scholars who collected the hadiths.
Those early Muslim scholars, like Al Bukhari and Muslim, were no ordinary people; they were well informed highly educated and intelligent. In short, they were the geniuses of their time. It is laughable that some Muslims of today, with questionable knowledge and education, dare to dismiss the works of those scholars as faulty just because it happens not to go well with their biased opinions.
How authentic is the Quran?
Q.2: 106. Any verse We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We substitute with something better or similar. Don’t you know that Allah can do anything?
The above verse is a short answer to those who claim the Quran was preserved. The verse is a clear admission that the Quran contains contradicting (Muslims call it abrogated) verses, as well as verses that have been completely forgotten! But not to worry, Allah was capable to bring similar to those verses or even better!
Unlike the hadith, the collection of the Quran was politically motivated with none of methodology or high standards of scrutiny that characterized the hadiths’ collection. The vulnerability of the Quran lies in the fact that the presence of only one error, say a misplaced word or letter, is a good enough proof that the entire book is a hoax.
It is essential in Islam to believe that the Quran is the preserved word of Allah. Therefore, it has an unquestionable authenticity. Indeed the Muslims do not question the authenticity of the Quran, which is where their problem lay. The Muslims believe that the reason why Islam came to existence was the distortion which the previous holy scriptures were subjected to. In other words, the Muslims believe that Allah revealed the Quran with the determination to preserve it. With that in mind, one would expect Allah to have employed extra ordinary measures to preserve what is supposed to be the most important document to mankind. But He didn’t! On the contrary, all the circumstances created an ideal setting for the Quran to be lost, which it did.
* The Quran was revealed to Mohammed who was, as Muslims insist, illiterate and therefore unable to verify the accuracy of the scripts written for him by some volunteering scribes. Trusting Mohammed with the Quran is like trusting an illiterate person to edit a newspaper. With a document as important as the Quran, it would not be enough just to assume that the scribes were honest and trustworthy, especially that at least one of them, Abdulla Ibn Abi Al Sarh, admitted that he regularly made changes to the text of the Quran without Mohammed even noticing!(1)
* Although the Muslims claim that the Quran was completely written during Mohammed’s life time, but there is no acceptable evidence to support such a claim. It is logical to believe that the Quran was not properly written in the first thirteen years of Islam while Mohammed was still in Mecca because he simply didn’t have the resources to do it. One would expect writing the Quran to be Mohammed’s first priority after he assumed power in Medina, but he was too busy in wars to think of it.
After establishing his Islamic state in Medina, Mohammed could have ordered a formal recording, indexing and safe keeping of the most important document of Islam. Even he could have stamped it because he owned a stamp. But Mohammed did nothing of that, which indicates that he never took the matter seriously. In fact, there are reasons to believe that Mohammed actually benefitted from that chaotic state of the Quran. An undocumented Quran gave Mohammed the freedom to change his mind or contradict himself and get away with it because the earlier verses were forgotten or faded away from memory. Recording the ‘revealed’ verses in Medina took place in a casual manner that was carried out by whoever was available from those volunteering scribes. Some verses were written by more than one scribe, causing confusion, while others may never had the chance to be written at all, causing even more confusion.
* The Quran was revealed in the seventh century in Arabic, a language that had not yet a well developed script. Many Arabic words with different meanings shared the same script. The Arabs solved this problem by adding different numbers of dots to the letters that share the same appearance, but that solution came years after Mohammed’s death. As an example, the Arabic word harb, which means war, has the same appearance like a dozen other words with completely different meanings, like these:
حرب.خرب.حزب.جرب.حزن.جزت.حزت.خزن
(The above words mean: war, damaged, party, tried, sadness, rewarded, caused pain, stored)
If you strip the letters from their dots, all the words look exactly the same, and it was left to the readers’ common sense and intelligence to work out which particular word was meant by a particular script.
Ideally, for a better preservation of the Quran, Allah should have educated Mohammed and created the dots before ‘revealing’ the Quran.
The Arabs claim that their language is a superior language, hence chosen by Allah as His official means of communication. Other Muslims agree with that claim and praise the language as the most beautiful, without even speaking the language. The truth is that Arabic is a complicated language that is difficult to develop especially that it is now attached to the Quran, which is holding it back.
Even in our time, and after the ‘invention’ of the dots, reading an Arabic text is still a guess work. Arabic books and newspapers are printed without the diacritical marks to reduce the clutter around the words. The diacritical marks were ‘invented’ over a century after the dots. Without the diacritical marks, the fourth word in the above example, Jarab, could be read as follows: Jarraba=tried, Jurriba=has been tried, Jarab=plague, Jurub= suffering of plague!
* Writing technology in Arabia was very primitive and employed poor quality and perishable writing materials like palm leaves and bones.
Although we only read the Islamic history from it’s heavily biased Islamic sources, but we frequently stumble upon some historical facts like the following:
* Ibn Massoud was renowned among Mohammed’s companions as the most notable in his knowledge of the Quran; it is claimed that he recorded his own copy which he kept with him. Ibn Massoud’s copy of the Quran was significantly different from the official copy of Uthman, which he refused to recognize (2). Some verses were lost, even the ones kept in Mohammed’s own house! Aysha admitted that she used to keep the stoning verse under her bed until it was eaten by a goat! (3)
* AlHajaj Ibn Youssef Al Thakafi, the ruthless ruler of Iraq during the Umayyad dynasty, made many changes to the official Quran many years after Uthman(4).
* Political corruption, power struggle and instability characterised the period of Uthman’s rule. It was in such unhealthy political climate when Uthman ordered the compilation of the Quran.
* Uthman sent four copies of his official Quran to the various regions of the expanding Islamic state and kept one copy in Medina. None of those copies seem to have survived. There is no evidence that any of the old copies of the Quran we have today dates back to Uthman’s time. The oldest copy available, which is the manuscripts of Sanna/ yemen, dates back to many decades after Uthman and contains significant differences from the current copies of the Quran (5).
* Many Muslim scholars are aware of the weakness of the argument that the Quran was documented during Mohammed’s time. They claim that the Quran was preserved mainly in the Muslims chests, the written documentation was only a backup! Unfortunately for them, making such a claim is like digging the grave for the Quran because the main reason behind writing a formal copy of the Quran, and burning all the others, was to stop the disagreements between Muslims. The Quranic verses that were preserved in the Muslims’ chests were so different that they accused each other with kufr (unbelieving)!
The Quran is probably the least authentic document in Islam as evidenced from the state of confusion and disagreements that prevailed among the early Muslims. The early Muslims disagreed on what constituted part of the Quran and what didn’t. Ibn Massoud’s copy of the Quran included two chapters less than Uthman’s copy because he did not believe the last two chapters were actually Quranic chapters (2). Others reported that surat tauba (chapter nine, which contains 129 verses) used to be as long as surat Bakara (chapter two, which contains 286 verses) before the verses gone missing (2). Abdullah Ibn Umar reportedly said, ‘Let none of you say, “I have got the whole of the Qur’an.” How does he know what all of it is? Much of the Quran has gone’. Let him say instead, I have got what has survived (6). The enormous amounts of repetitions and contradictions could be an indication of some degree of duplication and manipulation of the original text.
According to the existing Quran, the penalty of adultery is only described in verses Q. 24:2 (flogging hundred lashes) and Q4: 15 (house detention) and nowhere in the Quran is stoning mentioned. However, Muslims agreed for fourteen hundreds years that the penalty of adultery is stoning to death because the verse, which abrogated the above two verses, was there and remains effective in its orders hukman even though its words were cancelled kawlan. We can add this logic to the pile of other bizarre justifications used by Muslims to understand the Quran. However, we have the right to ask: why Allah keeps in the Quran the obsolete verses and omits the valid ones?
References
1. Ali Dashti, 23 years, a study of prophetic career of Mohammed.
1. 2. Al Itqan fi ulum al Qur’an - Al Sayuti. ‘Arabic’
1. Abu Bakr al Suyuti, “al Itqan fi `ulum al Qur’an”, 1935/1354, pt 2, p. 25) ‘Arabic’
1. Ibn Maja,1944, Musnad Ahmed 25784 ‘Arabic’
2. Al Masahif- Sajistani ‘Arabic’
3. islam-watch.org
courtesy: http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/06/30/the-quran-and-hadith-which-is-more-authentic/
The Quran and Hadith, which is more authentic?
Quran Add comments
By Mumin Salih
The Quran is considered like the backbone of Islam although the bulk of the religion is made from the sunna, or Mohammed’s traditions, which is based on his hadiths or sayings and considered second to the Quran in its importance. Practicing Islam is impossible without sunna because the Quran doesn’t explain anything about the Islamic rituals or sharia and refers Muslims to take Mohammed’s example which only comes through his hadiths (Q.59:7).
It is frustrating that whenever ‘intellectual’ Muslims are debated they become very quick to distance themselves from any hadith that seems implicate their religion, no matter how authentic that hadith was. Denying a hadith is an easy defence tactic by Muslim apologists in their effort to maintain the integrity of Islam. Their logic is that Islam doesn’t fall by the loss of one hadith or two because Islam is kept up by the Quran. On the other hand, those Muslims are not ashamed to quote other hadiths, no matter how unauthentic they are, to boost their argument. However, most ordinary Muslims remain strong believers in both the Quran and hadith, which they rightly consider to complement each other. The main stream Muslims consider those who deny the hadith as infidels who would eventually deny the Quran as well.
Behind the declared reason for denying the hadith is another undeclared, but true, reason. The hadiths come in detailed language and with several narrations that support each other, which leaves little room for word games or manipulating the meanings. On the other hand, the Quran comes in a vague abridged and self contradicting format that leaves more room to twist the language and meanings of its words. The Quran is covered with a thick layer of haze and some Muslims use that lack of clarity to argue and claim they can see a different picture from the others.
How authentic is the hadith?
There are different collections of hadiths that Muslims consider to be the most authentic; the most well known collections are Sahih al Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Other collections include Al Nissaey, Al Tirmithy, Ibn Dauod and Ibn Maja. Together, these six collections are called the authentic six, the Sahih Sitta.
The ‘science of hadith’ or ‘Ilmul Hadith’ is a well known and prestigious speciality in all Islamic universities. It teaches how those scholars managed to gather their collections and how they travelled the Islamic world to accomplish their objective. The methodology they used, considering its time, was exemplary. They studied each hadith in details; its text and its chain of narrations and classified them into grades according to their authenticity. Even by today’s standards, their scholarship and dedication to objectivity was amazing. Most of the two hundred thousand or so hadiths that were subjected to their thorough assessment were rejected and only a few thousands made it to their Sahih (correct) books. Their objectivity meant that many ‘good looking’ hadiths had to be rejected while others, not so good looking ones, had to be included. If Muslims can be proud of anything at all it is that objective academic approach adopted by those scholars who collected the hadiths.
Those early Muslim scholars, like Al Bukhari and Muslim, were no ordinary people; they were well informed highly educated and intelligent. In short, they were the geniuses of their time. It is laughable that some Muslims of today, with questionable knowledge and education, dare to dismiss the works of those scholars as faulty just because it happens not to go well with their biased opinions.
How authentic is the Quran?
Q.2: 106. Any verse We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We substitute with something better or similar. Don’t you know that Allah can do anything?
The above verse is a short answer to those who claim the Quran was preserved. The verse is a clear admission that the Quran contains contradicting (Muslims call it abrogated) verses, as well as verses that have been completely forgotten! But not to worry, Allah was capable to bring similar to those verses or even better!
Unlike the hadith, the collection of the Quran was politically motivated with none of methodology or high standards of scrutiny that characterized the hadiths’ collection. The vulnerability of the Quran lies in the fact that the presence of only one error, say a misplaced word or letter, is a good enough proof that the entire book is a hoax.
It is essential in Islam to believe that the Quran is the preserved word of Allah. Therefore, it has an unquestionable authenticity. Indeed the Muslims do not question the authenticity of the Quran, which is where their problem lay. The Muslims believe that the reason why Islam came to existence was the distortion which the previous holy scriptures were subjected to. In other words, the Muslims believe that Allah revealed the Quran with the determination to preserve it. With that in mind, one would expect Allah to have employed extra ordinary measures to preserve what is supposed to be the most important document to mankind. But He didn’t! On the contrary, all the circumstances created an ideal setting for the Quran to be lost, which it did.
* The Quran was revealed to Mohammed who was, as Muslims insist, illiterate and therefore unable to verify the accuracy of the scripts written for him by some volunteering scribes. Trusting Mohammed with the Quran is like trusting an illiterate person to edit a newspaper. With a document as important as the Quran, it would not be enough just to assume that the scribes were honest and trustworthy, especially that at least one of them, Abdulla Ibn Abi Al Sarh, admitted that he regularly made changes to the text of the Quran without Mohammed even noticing!(1)
* Although the Muslims claim that the Quran was completely written during Mohammed’s life time, but there is no acceptable evidence to support such a claim. It is logical to believe that the Quran was not properly written in the first thirteen years of Islam while Mohammed was still in Mecca because he simply didn’t have the resources to do it. One would expect writing the Quran to be Mohammed’s first priority after he assumed power in Medina, but he was too busy in wars to think of it.
After establishing his Islamic state in Medina, Mohammed could have ordered a formal recording, indexing and safe keeping of the most important document of Islam. Even he could have stamped it because he owned a stamp. But Mohammed did nothing of that, which indicates that he never took the matter seriously. In fact, there are reasons to believe that Mohammed actually benefitted from that chaotic state of the Quran. An undocumented Quran gave Mohammed the freedom to change his mind or contradict himself and get away with it because the earlier verses were forgotten or faded away from memory. Recording the ‘revealed’ verses in Medina took place in a casual manner that was carried out by whoever was available from those volunteering scribes. Some verses were written by more than one scribe, causing confusion, while others may never had the chance to be written at all, causing even more confusion.
* The Quran was revealed in the seventh century in Arabic, a language that had not yet a well developed script. Many Arabic words with different meanings shared the same script. The Arabs solved this problem by adding different numbers of dots to the letters that share the same appearance, but that solution came years after Mohammed’s death. As an example, the Arabic word harb, which means war, has the same appearance like a dozen other words with completely different meanings, like these:
حرب.خرب.حزب.جرب.حزن.جزت.حزت.خزن
(The above words mean: war, damaged, party, tried, sadness, rewarded, caused pain, stored)
If you strip the letters from their dots, all the words look exactly the same, and it was left to the readers’ common sense and intelligence to work out which particular word was meant by a particular script.
Ideally, for a better preservation of the Quran, Allah should have educated Mohammed and created the dots before ‘revealing’ the Quran.
The Arabs claim that their language is a superior language, hence chosen by Allah as His official means of communication. Other Muslims agree with that claim and praise the language as the most beautiful, without even speaking the language. The truth is that Arabic is a complicated language that is difficult to develop especially that it is now attached to the Quran, which is holding it back.
Even in our time, and after the ‘invention’ of the dots, reading an Arabic text is still a guess work. Arabic books and newspapers are printed without the diacritical marks to reduce the clutter around the words. The diacritical marks were ‘invented’ over a century after the dots. Without the diacritical marks, the fourth word in the above example, Jarab, could be read as follows: Jarraba=tried, Jurriba=has been tried, Jarab=plague, Jurub= suffering of plague!
* Writing technology in Arabia was very primitive and employed poor quality and perishable writing materials like palm leaves and bones.
Although we only read the Islamic history from it’s heavily biased Islamic sources, but we frequently stumble upon some historical facts like the following:
* Ibn Massoud was renowned among Mohammed’s companions as the most notable in his knowledge of the Quran; it is claimed that he recorded his own copy which he kept with him. Ibn Massoud’s copy of the Quran was significantly different from the official copy of Uthman, which he refused to recognize (2). Some verses were lost, even the ones kept in Mohammed’s own house! Aysha admitted that she used to keep the stoning verse under her bed until it was eaten by a goat! (3)
* AlHajaj Ibn Youssef Al Thakafi, the ruthless ruler of Iraq during the Umayyad dynasty, made many changes to the official Quran many years after Uthman(4).
* Political corruption, power struggle and instability characterised the period of Uthman’s rule. It was in such unhealthy political climate when Uthman ordered the compilation of the Quran.
* Uthman sent four copies of his official Quran to the various regions of the expanding Islamic state and kept one copy in Medina. None of those copies seem to have survived. There is no evidence that any of the old copies of the Quran we have today dates back to Uthman’s time. The oldest copy available, which is the manuscripts of Sanna/ yemen, dates back to many decades after Uthman and contains significant differences from the current copies of the Quran (5).
* Many Muslim scholars are aware of the weakness of the argument that the Quran was documented during Mohammed’s time. They claim that the Quran was preserved mainly in the Muslims chests, the written documentation was only a backup! Unfortunately for them, making such a claim is like digging the grave for the Quran because the main reason behind writing a formal copy of the Quran, and burning all the others, was to stop the disagreements between Muslims. The Quranic verses that were preserved in the Muslims’ chests were so different that they accused each other with kufr (unbelieving)!
The Quran is probably the least authentic document in Islam as evidenced from the state of confusion and disagreements that prevailed among the early Muslims. The early Muslims disagreed on what constituted part of the Quran and what didn’t. Ibn Massoud’s copy of the Quran included two chapters less than Uthman’s copy because he did not believe the last two chapters were actually Quranic chapters (2). Others reported that surat tauba (chapter nine, which contains 129 verses) used to be as long as surat Bakara (chapter two, which contains 286 verses) before the verses gone missing (2). Abdullah Ibn Umar reportedly said, ‘Let none of you say, “I have got the whole of the Qur’an.” How does he know what all of it is? Much of the Quran has gone’. Let him say instead, I have got what has survived (6). The enormous amounts of repetitions and contradictions could be an indication of some degree of duplication and manipulation of the original text.
According to the existing Quran, the penalty of adultery is only described in verses Q. 24:2 (flogging hundred lashes) and Q4: 15 (house detention) and nowhere in the Quran is stoning mentioned. However, Muslims agreed for fourteen hundreds years that the penalty of adultery is stoning to death because the verse, which abrogated the above two verses, was there and remains effective in its orders hukman even though its words were cancelled kawlan. We can add this logic to the pile of other bizarre justifications used by Muslims to understand the Quran. However, we have the right to ask: why Allah keeps in the Quran the obsolete verses and omits the valid ones?
References
1. Ali Dashti, 23 years, a study of prophetic career of Mohammed.
1. 2. Al Itqan fi ulum al Qur’an - Al Sayuti. ‘Arabic’
1. Abu Bakr al Suyuti, “al Itqan fi `ulum al Qur’an”, 1935/1354, pt 2, p. 25) ‘Arabic’
1. Ibn Maja,1944, Musnad Ahmed 25784 ‘Arabic’
2. Al Masahif- Sajistani ‘Arabic’
3. islam-watch.org
courtesy: http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/06/30/the-quran-and-hadith-which-is-more-authentic/
7/2/2009 1:28 AMRe: The Quran and Hadith, which is more authentic?
Sunnah or Hadith is the second source from which the teachings of Islam are drawn. Hadith literally means a saying conveyed to man, but in Muhaditheen's terminology Hadith means sayings of the Prophet, his action or practice of his silent approval of the action or practice. Hadith and Sunnah are used interchangeably, but sometimes these are used for different meanings.
To deal with the topic it is necessary to know the position of the Prophet in Islam, because the indispensibility of Hadith depends upon the position of the Prophet.
Analyzing the problem we can visualize three possibilities:
1. The duty of the Prophet was only to convey the message and nothing more was required from him.
2. He had not only to convey the message but also to act upon it and to explain it. But all that was for the specified period and after his death Qur'an is sufficient to guide humanity.
3. No doubt he had to convey the Divine Message but it was also his duty to act upon it and to explain it to the people. His actions and explanations are a source of guidance forever. His sayings, actions, practices and explanations are a source of light for every Muslim in every age.
The learned men of the Muslim Millat are of the unanimous view that only the third point is the correct assessment of the Prophet's position in Islam. The Qur'an contains dozens of reminders of the important position of the Prophet. For instance the Qur'an says:
"And verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh unto Allah and the last day and remembereth Allah much." [Al-Ahzab 31]
According to this verse, every Muslim is bound to have the good example of the Prophet as an ideal in life. In another verse he has been made a 'Hakam' for the Muslims by Allah Almighty. No one remains Muslim if he does not accept the Prophet's decisions and judgements:
"But no, by thy Lord, they can have no real faith until they make thee judge in all disputes between them and find in their souls no resistance against thy decisions but accept them with the fullest conviction."[An-Nisa: 65]
While explaining the qualities of Muslims the Qur'an says:
"The answer of the believers, when summoned to Allah and His apostle, in order that He may judge between them, is no other than this: They say: we hear and we obey." [An-Nur: 51]
In many places the Qur'an has given its verdict on this issue. The Qur'an says:
"Obey Allah and obey the Messenger." [An-Nisa 59]
and
"Whatever the Messenger giveth you take it and whatever he forbiddeth abstain from it." [Al-Hashr: 7]
Qur'an is very clear in expressing its view on the position of the Prophet. According to the Qur'an the Prophet has four capacities and he must be obeyed in every capacity. He is Mu`allim wa Murabbee he is Shaari` one who explains the Book, he is a law-giver and judge, and he is a ruler. In all these capacities he is an ideal example for the Muslims. I am quoting a few verses of the Holy Book just to give a hint of this topic.
"Allah did confer a great favour on the believers when He sentamong them an apostle from among themselves rehearsing untothem the signs of Allah, sanctifying them in scripture andwisdom while, before that, they had been in manifest error." [Al-Imran: 164]
"And We have sent down unto thee the Message that thou mayest explain clearly to men what is sent for them."[An-Nahl: 44]
"For he commands them what is just and forbids them what isevil; he allows them as lawful what is good and pure andprohibits them from what is bad and impure. He releases them from their heavy burdens and from the yokes that are upon them." [Al-Araf: 157]
"O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the apostle, and those charged with authority among you. If ye differ in anything amonst yourselves refer it to Allah and His Apostle, if you believe in Allah and the last day." [An-Nisa: 59]
"It is not fitting for a believer, man or woman when a matterhas been decided by Allah and His apostle to have any optionabout their decision. If any one disobeys Allah and His apostle, he is indeed on a clearly wrong path." [Al-Ahzab: 36]
In all these verses, the Qur'an has explained various aspects of the Prophets personality. One can judge the importance of the Prophet from these verses. I am reminded of another important verse of the Qur'an, which is actually a verdict against those who do not believe in Hadith as an authentic source of law:
"If any one contends with the Prophet even after guidance hasbeen plainly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than that becoming to men of faith, We shall leave him in the path he has chosen and land him in Hell, what an evil refuge." [An-Nisa: 110]
The Qur'an while pressing the Muslims to obey the Prophet, goes a step further when it announces that the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him) is above all the limitations of time and space. He is the last Prophet and is a Messenger of Allah for the whole of humanity for all time to come.
Hadith is nothing but a reflection of the personality of the Prophet, who is to be obeyed at every cost.
Any student of the Qur'an will see that the Holy Book generally deals with the broad principles or essentials of religion, going into details in very rare cases. The details were generously supplied by the Prophet himself, either by showing in his practice how an injunction shall be carried out, or by giving an explanation in words. The Sunnah or Hadith of the Holy Prophet was not, as is generally supposed, a thing of which the need may have been felt only after his death, for it was very much needed in his lifetime. The two most important religious institutions of Islam are prayer and zakat; yet when the injunction relating to prayer and zakat were delivered, and they were repeatedly revealed in both Mecca and Madina, no details were supplied. Keep up prayers (aqimoo as-salaah the Qur'anic injunction and it was the Prophet himself who by his own actions gave details of the prayer and said: (Salloo kamaa ra'aytamoonee usaallee) "Pray as you see me praying."
Payment of zakah is again an injunction frequently repeated in the Qur'an yet it was the Prophet (peace be upon him) who gave the rules and regulations for its payment and collection. These are but two example; but since Islam covers the entire sphere of human activities, hundreds of points had to be explained by the Prophet (peace be upon him) by his example in action and in words.
The Ulama have discussed the question of Hadith in detail as a "wahyun khafee" and prophetic wisdom. I do not want to go into the details, but one thing must be stated clearly that there were cases when the Prophet, not having received a revelation, made a personal effort to formulate opinion through his own wisdom. Either it was corrected by revelation or it was approved. The importance of the Sunnah even as a second source of Islam was a settled issue for the Companions of the Prophet. I quote only one of the many examples: that of Mu`az ibn Jabal who said to the Prophet that he would decide according to the Sunnah if he did not find the solution of a problem in the Book. To quote Dr. Hamidullah:
"The importance of Hadith is increased for the Muslim by the fact that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) not only taught, but took the opportunity of putting his teachings into practice in all the important affairs of life. He lived for twenty three years after his appointment as the Messenger of Allah. He endowed his community with a religion, which he scrupulously practiced himself. He founded a state, which he administered as the supreme head, maintaining internal peace and order, heading armies for external defense, judging and deciding the litigations of his subjects, punishing the criminals and legislating in all walks of life. He married and left a model of family life. Another important fact is that he did not declare himself to be above the ordinary law which he imposed on others. His practice was not mere private conduct, but a detailed interpretation and application of his teachings." (Introduction to Islam page 23)
The man, therefore, who embraced Islam stood in need of both the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Actually Hadith is so important that without it one cannot fully understand the Holy Book and Islam or be able to apply it to one's life and practice.