Attack on the Sunnah
In the new wave of the war on Islam, an attack has been launched on the Sunnah of the Prophet (saw). This attack is being executed via certain scholars who are working on behalf of the enemy, selling their hereafter for the paltry gains of this life. The attack is centred around making the sunnah or the Hadith of the Prophet (saw) redundant by falsely claiming that they have not been transmitted to us via the authentic sources such as the Quran, for example Muttawatir transmission. As a result, they claim that any Hadith whether it is Sahih or not, should be rejected as a source of revelation in the matters of ruling. Some have gone beyond the transmission element to say the Hadith as a whole is insignificant in understanding the Quran and the religion of Islam. For them, Quran is the only genuine source of revelation and anything besides the Quran is not authentic and therefore should be treated with suspicion and doubt. As muslims we must recognise that this is something which is against the commands of Allah, especially when Allah in the Quran instructs us to use his Messenger as a means of understanding his Deen, which he has revealed to us. It is also a reference point for us if we face any disputes amongst ourselves. As Allah states in Surah An-Nisa verse 59,
“if you differ in anything amongst yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is better and more suitable for final determination”.
In a separate place he states,
“Whoever obeys the Messenger, has obeyed Allah”.
It is blatantly obvious from these verses that if we were to ignore the Sunnah then how do we go about fulfilling the commands of these verses of the Quran, because Allah attaches the Messenger to this particular order when instructing us to refer to Him. If we leave off the Sunnah then this part of the verse has no meaning. This dangerous narrative is designed to cast doubt on the use of Hadith, especially in the matters of ruling.
The enemies of Islam and their agents for a long while recognised that Islam is both an obstacle and a threat to their civilisation, because it is complete way of life with its own system that is incompatible with any other man-made system. The attack on the sunnah is a psychological attack designed to exterminate Islam from being a practical religion that offers solutions to all of our problems. If they were to ever succeed in removing the Sunnah from the equation then they could quite easily transform Islam into something alien, confining it to the corridors of history. It would become spiritual in nature and not posses the capability of address societal matters including the do’s and don'ts of conducting your relationship with others, despite Allah telling us in Surah Nahl,
“We have revealed to you the book which clarifies every matter”.
The enemies of Islam fully well understand what Hadith means to Islam and the Muslims, and as one American orientalist put it, “Islam is built on the ahadeeth more than the Holy Quran, however, if we remove all the ahadeeth that are lies, nothing would remain from Islam, and it would be just like the cactus fruit of Thomson”. Thomson was an American who went to Lebanon and when he was given the cactus fruit, he tried to take all the seeds out, by the time he had removed all the seeds there was nothing left in his hand. This is what they desire for Islam, remove the Hadith and there would be nothing left of Islam.
Another point to note is that when the Quran was being revealed, the Prophet (saw) was not merely tasked to recite the Quran but to also explain it clearly and with explanation, which again for us is the Sunnah and understood from Surah An-Nahl verse 44,
"…And We have also sent down unto you (O Muhammad) the Reminder, that you may explain clearly to men what is sent down to them, and that they may give thought”
If the Kufaar did succeed in removing the Hadith as source of a revelation and legislation, the Ummah would automatically lose the instructions for performing Salah, giving Zakat, carrying out our daily transactions, the method relative to matters such as ruling and re-introducing Islam at societal level. For example, there are more than 73 references in the Qur’an where Allah commands the believers to ‘Establish Salah’, however, the method of performing Salah is not mentioned, including the number of Rakats etc. Also there are more than 30 references on giving Zakaat in the Qur’an, but no mention as to the percentage or the number of times a year Zakaat is payable and who collects it and distributes it, this information is only held within the Sunnah. As I mentioned earlier, all of this is designed to make Islam into a spiritual religion like Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism or any the other religion of the world that exists today, devoid of any practical aspects and happy to be governed by secularism or capitalism.
To conclude, I present a famous Hadith (saying) from the Messenger of Allah (saw), which is collected by Imam Malik in his Muwatta and a statement from a famous Tabi'i. Both of these outline the importance of Sunnah in collaboration with the Quran. The Prophet (saw) said:
“I have left behind two matters. Those who hold fast to them will never go astray: The Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger”.
A renowned Tabi’i, Sufyan Thawri (ra) stated,
“If anyone wishes to associate himself with any form of knowledge, he should associate himself with the knowledge of Ahadith. For in this, aside from the knowledge of worship and the hereafter there is the best knowledge and instruction of how to conduct oneself in every field of everyday life”