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The Sacred Hadith Project
By:
Dr. Ahmad Shafaat
PART I: THE SUNNAH AND
THE HADITH IN THE LIGHT OF THE QUR’AN
Chapter 1
The Qur’anic Usage of the Words “Sunnah” and “Hadith”
In the Qur'an "sunnah" means an
example that is set either by what someone does or by what is done
to someone. The Qur'an does not use the word in the sense that it
has now come to acquire in Islamic parlance. In almost all of its
Qur'anic usages the word involves divine punishment and not the
practice established by the Prophet for his followers. Thus in 8:38,
15:13, 18:55, and 35:43 we read of "sunnah
of people in the past". The context shows that this does
not mean what the past nations used to do but what was done to them
by God as a punishment. In 17:77 there is a reference to
"sunnah of those messengers whom We
sent before you (O Muhammad)" but this does not mean the
practice of the messengers but the practice of God in punishing
those who persecute the messengers. In 17:77, 33:62, 35:43, 48:23 we
read of "sunnah of God"
and the reference is to God's unchanging practice of punishing the
transgressors or disbelievers. In 3:137 the plural sunan is
used absolutely: "There have passed before
you, sunan. So travel on the earth and see how was the end of
those who rejected (the truth)." The meaning is once
again "past examples of divine punishment". The plural is again used
in 4:26: "God would explain to you and show
you sunan of those before you...". This is usually
translated in a positive sense by something like:
"guide you to the ways of the righteous
people before you," where righteous is added in the
translation. But in view of other uses of the word it should be
understood as the negative examples God made of the past people. At
the very least such a negative sense should not be excluded and we
should translate simply as: show you by the
examples of those before you, where examples can be both
good and bad. This would better explain why in this verse and the
verses following it there is a mention of God's mercy and
forgiveness "to you". The
meaning would be: by explaining various
matters and showing the examples of the past people God desires that
you would not follow those who would make you deviate far from the
right way and thus enable you to avoid the punishment that was the
lot of the deviants and instead receive his mercy.
The one remaining use of "sunnah" in the Qur'an is 33:38:
"There is no reproach for the Prophet in
what God ordained for him – sunnah of God concerning those who
passed away of old; and the command of God is a destiny assured."
Here the "sunnah" is not the conduct or practice of the
Prophet but rather the practice of God
Thus the Qur'an never talks of the sunnah of the Prophet
Muhammad or of any other prophet in the traditional sense of the
word. In almost all, if not all the Qur'anic passages where the word
sunnah is used it signifies God's way or system of dealing
with the disbelievers.
To appreciate fully this Qur'anic usage we need to remember the use
of the word "sunnah" in the Arab society at the time of the
Qur'anic revelation and before. In that society the word referred to
the customs, ancestral traditions, etc. by which the people ordered
their affairs. Since there was no developed system of law and its
enforcement, there were appeals only to this custom to settle any
disputes etc. In response to the Qur'anic message the pagan Arabs
often said that they are going to continue to follow the way of
their forefathers. The Qur'an is telling the pagan Arabs (and of
course to all other people with similar attitude): you say that you
have a sunnah from which you do not want to depart. Well,
then God also has a sunnah which he does not change and His
sunnah is that He punishes severely those who reject his
guidance. When in the Qur'an the pagans say that they are going to
stay on the path of their forefathers (5:104, 10:78, 31:21,
43:22-23) they do not use the word "sunnah" but still when
the Qur'an referred to the sunnah of God in punishing the
transgressors its first Arab hearers would have made the connection
and received a powerful message.
It is of interest here to mention also the word bid`ah,
meaning innovation. For the pagan Arabs it meant creating a way
different from the customary way. From a Qur'anic point of view,
however, many of the customary ways are bid`ah because they
are deviations from the way established by God, the way of the true
nature (fitrah) of humankind as manifested by the messengers
of God (30:30). One such bid`ah for example is the Christian
monasticism (57:27, where the verb bada`a is used to describe
the innovation). Because the way of the true fitrah is as old
as human beings, this way is shown by all the messengers of God.
Therefore a new messenger does not innovate a path different from
the one followed and shown by earlier messengers. This is the idea
that the Qur'an expresses in 46:9: "Say! I
am not bid`an among the messengers" which can be
understood in one or both of the following two ways:
-
I am not the first human being to have
been raised as the messenger of God;
-
I am not someone introducing a
bid`ah by departing from the way common to all the messengers
of God.
Turning to the word hadith, this
is used in the Qur'an to mean `an event or its
report', `story', or 'a
conversation or its subject', 'a
statement' (4:42, 78, 87, 140, 7:68, 12:6, 21, 101, 111,
23:44, 34:19, 45:6, 52:59, 56:81, 66:2, 68:44, 77:50, 88:1). It can
be used of the Qur'an (18:6, 39: 23 etc), of the conversation of
people (33:53), of misleading vain talk (31:6), of the stories of
prophets like Abraham or Moses (51:24, 79:15) and of stories of past
peoples (23:44, 85:17).
We need now to ask how far the Qur'anic usage of sunnah and
hadith correspond to the meaning of the words as they have
commonly come to acquire in Islamic tradition.
It is completely false to say, as some
Qur`an-only people do, that the Qur'an rejects all hadith
except the Qur'an. To the contrary, in 51:24, 79:15, 23:44,
85:17, the Qur'an refers to the revelatory and sacred ahadith
of prophets and peoples as they circulated before the Qur'an. This
Qur'anic usage is perfectly consistent with the use of the term to
refer to a reported statement or action of the Prophet Muhammad,
although admittedly the Qur'an does not use the word in specific
reference to him.
The same is difficult to say about "sunnah", since the
Qur'anic usage of the word is mostly in reference to divine
punishment and not in the sense of practices established by the
prophets for their followers. Of course the Arabic language allows
the word sunnah to be used in this latter sense. But the Qur'an does
not contain such a meaning. It is possible that the word entered
Islamic parlance from the pre-Islamic terminology duly modified in
the light of Islam: sunnah as the customary practice
established in the society by some ancestors was changed to
sunnah as customary practice established by the Prophet. If so,
there would be a distinct possibility that some of the attitudes
toward sunnah that went with the pre-Islamic usage of the
term, if not also some of the specific practices of that time, might
have entered Islam.
In the light of the above considerations should we discard the use
of the word sunnah? This is extremely difficult and for that very
reason inadvisable. We can continue to use the word but with the
awareness that the word is not derived from the Qur'an and
consequently might have imported into our tradition some undesirable
attitudes and practices.
The fact that the Qur'an does not talk about the sunnah or
hadith of the Prophet much less say that it is a source of
guidance is used by the Qur`an-only people in support of their views.
But more important than the terminology are the ideas that are
conveyed. We therefore need to go beyond the usage of the words
sunnah and hadith and see whether the Qur'an contains the
ideas that are meant to be conveyed by these words. That is, we need
to see whether in the Qur'an the mission of the Prophet was to
simply deliver the Qur'anic verses or whether his own practice and
words also were part and parcel of his message and mission. This is
what we now proceed to do in the next couple of chapters. |