TRANSLATOR'S NOTE iv

 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION v

 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION vii

 FOREWORD By Prof. Hassan Hanafi of the University of Cairo xi

 CHAPTER I Introduction: Why we raise this Problem 1

 CHAPTER II Refutation of the Traditionalist's Theory 21

 CHAPTER III Source, Basis and Effects of the Hadith 50

 CHAPTER IV Criticism of the Hadith 76

 CHAPTER V Conclusion:

Return to Prophet Muhammad's Original Teaching — the Quran 106

 ADDENDUM A Scientific Methodology for Understanding the Quran 126

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 152

 INDEX 157

I have undertaken this translation of Dr. Kassim Ahmad's important book, entitled Hadis — Satu Penilaian Semula in its original Malay, published in Malaysia in 1986, because I thought that a wider readership of this book is beneficial. There has also been much pressure from the non-Malay literate public to translate it.

I have undertaken this translation voluntarily and also as a process to educate myself. By any yardstick, this is an important subject. I am therefore obliged to Dr. Kassim for having agreed to allow me this opportunity.

At the time of this translation, Dr. Kassim's book has been banned by the authorities in Malaysia. The efficacy of banning a book, whose very purpose depends on readers exercising critical and fair judgement, does not do justice to the intellectual growth of our people. I hope that this ban will be lifted.

May God bless those who seek to obey Him and His messenger and who uphold the Scripture.

                                                                                                                 Translator

This book consists of five talks on the same topic, "Hadith — A Re-Evaluation" at the National University of Malaysia organized by the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. The background to these talks has been given in Chapter I.

This subject truly needs a larger volume and a much more comprehensive research. I have had to take a short cut due to the particular circumstances of the talks. I sincerely hope that the book achieves its purpose.

I would like to express my highest appreciation and thanks to the University's Department of Anthropology and Sociology (with the kind permission and blessing of the University's authorities) which was brave enough to organize these talks, in spite of the "sensitive" nature of the topic. I would like also to thank the Hon. Minister for Education who intervened to allow the talks to go on after they were first cancelled by the University authorities.

I must also thank the just and fair-minded people of Malaysia who spontaneously rose to demand that the talks be held.

I owe a debt of gratitude to several friends who, at my request, have gone over the drafts of the talks and made useful comments and criticisms. I am also very grateful to many ordinary people in Malaysia and Singapore and to friends in the United States who gave me their unstinting encouragement and support as I wrestled to prepare and complete the talks.

I am grateful to my friend who has done a masterly translation of my book. I have had the draft of the translation since he finished it in late 1987, one year after the publication of the Malay original. I have had it put into my computer and left it there until recently when I thought that it was time to have it published.

I therefore went over it and made what additions and changes I think necessary after eight years since the book first saw the light of day. So, this is not an exact translation of the Malay original, although the format and the arguments remain the same.

Political considerations had led to the banning of the book a few months after it was published. However, after six years, I published a sequel, entitled Hadis — Jawapan Kepada Pengkritik (Hadith — Answer to the Critics) as my answer to several books that have been published to criticize me. This book, fortunately has not been banned. I have translated Chapter 7 of this book (Scientific Methodology for Understanding the Quran) and include it as Addendum in this translation, because I think it is an important and relevant matter to the topic.

I am also indebted to my friend Dr. Gatut Adisoma for his careful editing of the final draft. Both he and Edip Yuksel provided useful suggestions that I incorporated in this book. Any shortcomings that remain are due to the author.

My friend, Dr. Hassan Hanafi, of the Philosophy Department of Cairo University, has graciously consented to write a Foreword to this translation. In his letter to me dated 18 January, 1996, together with his hand-written Foreword, he stated that "I made it critical to initiate general debate. Praising is no good. Making a dialogue with you is better."

Since the publication of the Malay original in 1986, I have never been the one to refuse dialogue, even when the odds were against me. My dialogue with the Malaysian Theologians' Association just before the book was published was not concluded due to the Associations's refusal to continue. My dialogue with the Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (ABIM) one month after publication failed to produced any positive result because they made a negative unilateral judgement against me and my book in spite of their assurance given to me before the dialogue that no decision would be taken.

It is in the same spirit of wanting to solve this problem through dialogue that I accept Dr. Hassan's very critical Introduction to this translation. My slight surprise is Dr. Hassan's methods of criticism. He has combined arguments from both the traditional and modernist sources: that the Hadith as the second source of Muslim law has been the general consensus and cannot be questioned anymore (traditional argument), and that debating the Hadith is counter-productive as it is irrelevant to the modernization of Muslim society (modernist argument).

I think my book adequately rebuts both these arguments, so I shall not say anything further on that for now.

I do not accept Dr. Hassan's criticism for my using examples from Western cultural development as external and inapplicable. The world has developed to be internationalist since the European voyages of discovery in the 15th Century. In fact, it is truer to say with Iqbal that, with the advent of Muhammad (the first and last prophet sent to the entire world community), the world entered the modern Scientific-Technological Era. What we sometimes call modern Western civilization is, in fact, world civilization, since it contains contributions from all civilizations: Middle-Eastern, Greek, Roman, Persian, Arab, Indian and Chinese.

Dr. Hassan makes the astonishing assertion that the slogan "Back to the Quran" is common to all Salafi (reform) movements, whether they are reformers, conservatives or modernists. As far as I understand, Muhammad Abduh, the father of this movement, called for the rejection of mazhab and taqlid, and for the reopening of the door of ijtihad and critical assimilation of Western knowledge. His basic references are still the Quran and the Hadith. I have pointed out that herein lies the failure of this movement. The Hadith, and everything else, have to be judged by the Quran.

On this point, Dr. Hassan rightly replies that even the Quran can be criticized, as nothing is exempt from criticism. Dr. Hassan must have meant that men's understanding and interpretation of the Quran can be criticized, for the Quran is God's final revelation to mankind and has from the beginning been under divine protection. However, the true aim of criticism is to expose falsehood and establish the truth. In this sense, the Quran is criticism par excellence. It is therefore above criticism.

On that note, I leave it to the reader to make his own conclusion.

Kassim Ahmad was born on 9 September, 1933 in Kedah, Malaysia. He took his Bachelor of Art's degree in Malay language and literature, but also read widely in political science and Islamic philosophy. He taught Malay language and literature for a time in the London School of Oriental and African Studies and then in a secondary school in Penang where he has been staying with his family since 1966.

He has written several books on Malay literature as well as on Islamic subjects.

This book, Hadith — A Re-evaluation, of Kassim Ahmad is a real implementation of the Kantian principle evoked in the book, "Dare to Know" against the authority of the Church. In Islam, there is no Church. However, the common knowledge, the established notions and the popular creed play the role of an intellectual and ideological Church which denies freedom of thought and shackles free intellectual development.

The publication of such book in English does not represent any difficulty, either to the author, or to the public. Many authors in the last four centuries tackled the question of authenticity of the scriptures, Old and New Testaments, expressing much doubt about their historical authenticity. The public became accustomed to such critiques of sources applied in Biblical criticism in modern times. It was a big debate behind the Protestant rift, postulating Sola Scriptura. Notions of historical authenticity, narratives, oral tradition, revelation and inspiration became very familiar to the public in religious and literary studies.

The main thesis of the book is that Hadith has been compiled without permission, either from the prophet, or from the four Righteous Caliphs for fear of confusing it with the Quran, the first source of Islam. Because of the power struggles between different political factions, each pretender legitimized his claim by recourse to a saying of Prophet Muhammad in his favor. Pious Muslims such as Bukhari and Muslim tried to collect these sayings after verifying their authenticity. Even then, they were not free from prejudice, in favor of the established authority, the Sunnites. Shi'ite opposition had their Hadith compilations justifying their political claims. Gradually, people forgot the Quran as the first source of Islam in favor of the Hadith, the second source. Since many of Hadith narratives contradict the Quran and even contradict themselves, the necessity to criticize the Hadith emerges as a prerequisite for any socio-political change.

Most of these unauthentic narratives are more stringent, binding and compulsory. The Quran in such topics is more lenient. Al-Shafi`i (d. 204 H.) is responsible for this rigidity by blocking the law and narrowing the Ijtihad by making Hadith a second source of law more binding than the Quran and the Ijma' and minimizing the role of the Ijtihad, the fourth source of law. He initiated this movement of Ahl al-Hadith in opposition to Ahl al-Ra'y.

The Hadith debate is not new. It is already known in Western Orientalism since the last century and in contemporary Islamic thought.

Since Orientalists denied Islamic Revelation, not only the Hadith but also the Quran, and since they have been accustomed to Biblical criticism, they applied the same rules to prophetic narratives in Islam. Western public got used to this criticism since revelation and inspiration are the same. Christ is God, the Apostle is the writer. The ideas are inspired by the Holy Spirit while the words are chosen by the Apostle himself. Words can change according to the language, the education and the culture of the writer, while ideas remain the same. Narratives developed in history as personal witnesses. The narration is not a recording-machine, a simple transmitter of a message, but a living witness. Historical authenticity requiring a concordance in the message between the enunciator and the auditor is a mechanical notion of reporting. In the case of the Gospel, the writer understands, interprets and creates the message. The message becomes better transmitted, understood and communicated. The message is motivated by the intentions of the narrator, expressing his level of education and culture and revealing his

loyalty to this or that group in the power struggle among the early disciples before Nicaea-I. Maturation or deviation, creativity or inauthenticity, development or falsification? Judeo-Christian tradition chose the first answer while Islam chose the second. Since Hadith went in a similar way as the Jewish and Christian scriptures, it has been judged as an unauthentic historical deviation.

Modern Arab and Muslim thinkers and reformers such as Syed Qutb have been accused of minimizing the role of the Hadith in favor of the Quran, irrespective of their motives, either similar or different from the Orientalists. Modern thinkers did not deny revelation, but they tried to liberate Muslim societies from dogmatic and rigid adherence to the texts and calling for Ijtihad, based on the spirit of Islam and the universal intentions of the Law. The general guidelines of the Quran help more than the details of the Hadith. The Asl has a more liberating power than the Fard. Many of the harmful laws and superstitious beliefs come from the unauthentic prophetic narratives. The Hadith diverges while the Quran converges.

Ancient scholars were aware of this problem of the historical authenticity or inauthenticity of the narratives. The Quran has been preserved in writing since the moment of its utterance. It has been collected, compared and standardized during the era of Othman, the fourth caliph. The Quran did not go through a period of oral transmission such as the Hadith. Ancient scholars invented a whole discipline, the science of Hadith to put some rules to verify the authenticity of the Hadith in history.

First, the analysis of the terms of the report into five degrees of certitude, from the more certain to the less certain, guarantees the direct testimony as the high degree of witnessing: I heard; He said; He ordered; He ordered us; They did.

Second, the multilateral report , the Mutawatir, is the highest degree of authenticity concerning the chain of reporters. It is the one transmitted by several reporters with four conditions, namely, first, a sufficient number which gives the certitude of authenticity and takes away all doubts; second, the independence of reporters from each other to prevent any possibility of connivance; third, the homogeneity of expression of the report in time through generations without oscillation between the well-known and the unknown; fourth, the concordance of the report with sensory evidence, with reason and with the course of events and the laws of nature to prevent mythological and superstitious infiltrations.

Third, the unilateral report, Wahid, is that one which fails one of the four previous conditions. It is hypothetical in knowledge but apodictic in action, while the multilateral report is apodictic in both knowledge and action. The authenticity of the unilateral report is guaranteed by the analysis of the consciousness of the reporter to verify its neutrality and objectivity, such as justice, unity, maturity, intelligence, good hearing and memory and speech ability, since a report is the passage from hearing to memorizing and finally to communicating. Ancient scholars even invented a side-discipline, criteria to evaluate a reporter's neutrality and objectivity, called Ilm al-Jarh Wa al-Ta'dil, a certain kind of a biographical description of the reporter, his personality, motives, inclinations, loyalties and affiliations.

Fourth, the transmission can be both written and oral, from hand to hand, and from mouth to mouth. The master can permit the disciple to report from this book handed to him (Munawala). The disciple can read from the book and the master agrees (Ijaza). This rule of written transmission excludes any possibility of alteration on falsification of the document.

Fifth, the report is not only the chain of reporters (Sanad) but also the report itself (Matn). The highest degree of certainty is the literal report, the message with the same words. If the message is transmitted in different words, with addition or omission, it becomes hypothetical.

In short, the whole science of Hadith aims to verify the historical authenticity of the narratives. The whole theory is based on a tripartite division of the Hadith: Authentic, Unauthentic and Undecided, on which judgement is suspended.

Ancient scholars, studying the Quran, also conceived the theory of abrogation and considered the development of the text and the historical contexts of the Quran and the Hadith. The later texts cancel the earlier texts as a source of law. The Quran is abrogated by the Quran, the Hadith by the Hadith, but never the Quran by the Hadith, or the Hadith by the Quran. In this case, it is called particularization, Takhsis, exception, Istithna' or restriction, Taqyid.

Ancient scholars also created side-disciplines to maintain the coherence of the judicial system such as the science of opposition and preponderance, Ilm al-Ta`arud wa al-Tarajih, in case of an apparent opposition between two Quranic verses, between Hadith narratives, between a Quranic verse and a Hadith narrative or between a Hadith unilateral narrative and reasoning by analogy or Qiyas. An opposition between a text and consensus, or Ijma', does not occur since Ijma' is based on texts and since it is not binding to future generations.

If this is the work of ancient scholars, what is the need to use Western culture as a system of reference? Is the book intended for Western readers to understand Muslim modernists, publicized in Western mass-media for fame? Western intellectual framework makes the thinker liable to be accused of Westernization and consequently of being uprooted from his own traditional culture. More knowledge of the ancient Hadith discipline and a deeper knowledge of Arabic help the modernist in expressing his case. No modernism is possible without digging deeper into the tradition. Modernism comes from within not from without. That is why the introduction of the book on the crisis of the age is off-target. Which age? Western age or Malaysian-Muslim age? The end of the twentieth century or the beginning of the fifteenth century? Peoples and cultures do not live in the same historical periods.

The constant reference to the Western culture as a frame of reference gives the impression that the main problematic of the book is a Western one. Biblical criticism is very common in the West because the Judeo-Christian scriptures passed through a period of oral transmission. The author refers constantly to Biblical criticism, to Western bibliography more than to Hadith studies and Islamic bibliography. Maybe the lack of knowledge of Arabic is an obstacle to dig in the classical sources and to use accurate Arabic technical vocabulary. The Christian calendar is more used than the Islamic one. The Islamic calendar was only used for the compilers of the Hadith. Only once both calendars were used, i.e. for Imam al-Shafi`i (d. 820 AD/204 H.)

The author refers to the Judeo-Christian tradition: Jewish oral and written tradition in the 5th century BC; the Jewish scholar O. Goldin, deviations of Christian fathers after Christ as a model of Muslim deviants after Mohammed, Christ seen as God by the Christians. Western cultural developments appear visibly in the book: the birth of modern secularism in Europe and its failure; European awareness of the importance of freedom of thought following the Arabs and their struggle for it, a model for the Muslims nowadays to follow; European success in pioneering science and technology; the opposition between religion and science in the 19th century as a model of the opposition between Hadith and science; European liberation from the authority of the Church and the establishment of Kantian principle, "Dare to Know," Western skepticism concerning the authenticity of the scripture, etc.

The author refers to many proper names, sociologists, such as Sorokin, and his book The Crisis of Our Age; doctors, like Maurice Bucaille, the French physician, member of the French academy of science, poets such as Yeats and T.S. Eliot, with quotations from their poems, and novelists, such as Dostoyevsky, Camus and Sartre.

Technically speaking, from within the science of Hadith, taking Islamic culture as a frame of reference, the following points can be made:

1. There is no general stand, accepting Hadith or rejecting it. There is only such stand concerning certain Hadith oscillating between authenticity and inauthenticity. The authentic Hadith is accepted, while the unauthentic is rejected, according to the tripartite division of Hadith.

2. There is no general acceptance or rejection of the whole Hadith, but of special hadiths concerning certain topics contrary to the Quran or to Hadith itself. Other hadiths are well-taken such as "No testament for the inheritor," "There is zakat in the sheep in pasture."

3. The Hadith is not only of two kind: authentic and unauthentic but it has different degrees of authenticity concerning the report (Matn) and the chain (Sanad). The literal report is more authentic than the free quotation. The multilateral is more authentic than the unilateral. The well-known, Mashhur, the discontinuous from the middle, Maktu', or from the end, Mursal, is less authentic.

4. The inference is based on the generalization of judgement from the part to the whole. The whole Hadith is discredited because of one discredited hadith. A better inference is the rejection of an unauthentic hadith because it is unauthentic, case by case, not as a whole.

5. The authentic hadith cannot be rejected. The probable hadith can be accommodated with the authentic hadith and the Quran by many devices: abrogation, particularization, exception, restriction, interpretation, etc.

6. The critique of the Hadith is one thing and its rejection is something else. Ancient and modern scholars criticized the Hadith in order to purify it from the unauthentic narratives. No one, Shi'ite or Sunnite, rejected it as a second source of law.

7. The critique of the Hadith can be made internally, according to the same rules put forward by ancient scholars — they were behind the birth of modern Biblical criticism, as Renan confessed — applying the rules of the Hadith to scrutinize the narratives of the Old and New Testaments in his volumes "Origin of Christianity" and "History of the People of Israel," The four conditions of the multilateral report, Mutawatir, are sufficient to guarantee the concordance of the report with reason and sensory evidence, called by the author logic, history and science. The author could have readjusted the old rules of criticism making them more rigorous rather than rejecting the hadith. No critics were more scrupulous than the ancient scholars. What the author offered in criticism is much less than what the ancient scholars created in laying the ground for modern criticism. Moreover, the book contains many generalities and some sweeping judgements which sometimes contradict historical facts or need more precise explanations, such as:

1. Muslims do not follow the Hadith and abandon the Quran, as the author says. No Muslim can be accused of abandoning the first source of law in favor of the second.

2. The opposition between the Quran and the Hadith does not exist, as the author says. No one says that minimizing the role of Hadith is a blasphemy, Kufr.

3. The Hadith is not a false teaching attributed to the prophet, as the author says. Only the unauthentic hadith is, not the authentic.

4. The prayers that Muslim are doing were not given, according to the author, during the Night Journey, al-Mi'raj, is a free and gratuitous judgement and have little impact on Hadith criticism, and goes against the general consensus.

5. The law of inheritance giving the female the half of the male is mentioned in the Quran before the Hadith. It is not misogynic since the female had no right to own or to inherit at all. Islamic law tried to change her status gradually. Besides, the unity of analysis is the household. Each has equal share, one and half.

6. Obeying the husband in optional fasting is not downgrading for the wife, but to solve the conflict of loyalty between performing an optional ritual, fasting, and a compulsory duty, the obedience to the husband.

7. The errors of al-Shafi`i, in case that there are, do not justify doubts in the Hadith, but the correction of his errors. Al-Shafi`i wanted to codify the legal system, not to obstruct the Quran or block Ijtihad.

In conclusion seven other points can be made:

1. Putting the Quran forward and the Hadith backward is a certain kind of higher bid that nobody would object. But why holding the Quran requires necessarily releasing the Hadith? Back to the Quran is a Salafi slogan uttered by all reformers, conservationists as well as modernists. The problem is in whose benefit. The same Quran can also be criticized on grounds of how it was written and compiled and on its interpretation. Nothing is exempt from criticism. Because of the higher bid, the Addendum "A Scientific Methodology for Understanding the Quran" is somehow outside the mainstream of analysis. It relates to another discipline, the Tafsir, not the Hadith.

2. Neglecting the Quran and substituting it for the Hadith as the reason for Muslim decline is common rhetoric. The decline cannot be due to one simple factor; there are socio-political and historical factors to be taken into consideration. The renaissance is not that simple, to be achieved by just coming back to the Quran and abandoning the Hadith. It has to be achieved by changing the socio-political conditions in the Muslim world. Back to the Quran is a double-edged weapon used by conservatism and modernism alike for social stability as well as for social mobility. Ethical and religious imperatives express the ought and not the is. Sweeping statements about the death of Muslim creativity after Ibn Khaldun is against historical evidence from Muslim creativity in astronomy, mathematics and philosophy from the 9th till the 12th centuries.

2. The theme is exciting, although not new. In this era of Islamic resurgence, doubting the authenticity of the Hadith comes at the front page in big headlines. It is a good chance for every modernist to hang upon and become famous, especially in Africa and Asia, in non-Arab-speaking Muslim world. Making a case, a hypothetical one, without any practical implications on the socio-political level is gratuitous. It is harmful more than useful. It generates dissent in society, splitting it to pros and cons in a time calling for national unity. It incites traditional Islam to defend itself against modernist thinkers. Since traditional Islam is the majority and modernist Islam is in minority, the modernist case will always be the loser. Modernism, instead of pushing society to more progress, generates a reaction against it. The modernist will be excluded, excommunicated and may be exterminated. In traditional societies, progress cannot be implemented with the denial of Usul. The challenge of modernism is not how to pray in the space shuttle because Muslims on earth have not yet solved the problems of their basic needs. Hypothetical fiqh was one of the reasons and expressions of decline.

3. The lack of Arabic technical terms, substituted then by inadequate English terms makes for a lot of misunderstanding. For instance, decisive and allegorical dichotomy does not correspond to Haqiqa and Majaz, Zahir and Mu`awal, Muhkam and Mutashabihat, Mugmal and Mubayyan, etc. Many other problems emerge from reading the Quran in English translation; for instance, `touching women' does not mean the literal touching, but of having sexual intercourse.

4. The author uses a lot of textual arguments to prove his case in spite of the limits of such arguments, which depend on language, historical context, counter-textual arguments, etc. Textual argumentation is a Salafi position, selective and double-edged. Many other problems are debated in theology and not in Hadith, such as freedom and predestination, the miracles of the prophets, the eschatological signs and the Messiah, faith and action, etc.

5. After all this debate and the division of the community into pro-Hadith and anti-Hadith groups, the simple very traditional conclusion is accepted by all. The Hadith cannot be rejected as a second source of law provided that it will not contradict the Quran! This is a unanimous conclusion. Why, then, the whole debate between the pro-Hadith and the contra?

6. In spite of all these remarks, the author was able to revive an old problematic with new courage. He put forward the importance of the multilateral report Mutawatir, the few number of verses containing the law (14 verses), the exemption of the law from all kinds of figurative speech, the necessity of a new kind of criticism of Hadith, not only of the chain of reporters, Sanad, but of the report itself, Matn, the importance of re-classification of the Hadith topically according to priority value-scale, putting social relations before the rituals, putting forward the contribution of ancient scholars in laying the grounds for Hadith criticism, the role of political disputes in the compilation of Hadith and even in formulating the wording.

7. The author, the former head of the Malaysian people's socialist party can concentrate more on the socio-political condition of Malaysia and fight for freedom and social justice. He can be more beneficial, more efficient and more able to forge unity for all the people in Malaysia, instead of splitting the nation on pure academic debate.

The `heterodox' Shi`ite minority sect has its own sets of hadith compiled during the third and fourth centuries, by al-Kulaini (d. 328 or 329), Ibn Babuwayh (d. 381), Jaafar Muhammad al-Tusi (d. 411) and al-Murtada (d. 436), who compiled sayings attributed to Ali.

Based on this Shafi`i theory and on what was later termed as the consensus of scholars, the hadith/sunna was propagated to and accepted by the Muslims as interpreter and complement to the Quran, implying thereby that the Quran needs an interpreter and is not complete in itself. Although the Shi`ites have not accepted the classical Sunnite jurisprudential theory in toto, they do accept the doctrine that the hadith/sunna constitutes a source of law on par with the Quran.

Background to this Study

In accordance with this Sunnite tradition, I also accepted this position when I wrote my book on modern Islamic social theory in 1981-82, although I qualified my acceptance according to Ibn Khaldun's formula, which requires all acceptable traditions to be validated by the Quran and rational criteria. However, this position, though a scientific one, is still not clear enough until in 1985 the works of an outstanding Egyptian Muslim scholar, Dr. Rashad Khalifa, particularly his The Computer Speaks: God's Message to the World, Quran, Hadith and Islam and his superb translation of the Quran have opened for me a way to solve the problem of the hadith. I therefore began to re-examine the hadith: how they came about; the social factors that brought them into existence; a review of the classical criticism; the actual place of the hadith in relation to the Quran; their negative effects on the Muslim community; their connections to the decline and fall of the Muslims; and the way out of this impasse.

I am convinced that the time has come for the Muslim community and their intelligentsia to critically re-evaluate the whole heritage of traditional Islamic thought, including theology and jurisprudence. This is because the traditional formulation was made by the society and intelligentsia of that time in accordance with their knowledge and level of understanding, and conforming to needs of that time. Now the situation has changed tremendously and there is no doubt that the traditional formulation must be reconsidered.

Since the emergence of the modern reformism movement of Jamaluddin al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Ridha at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, many studies have been made on the decline and fall of the Muslims. These include the works of thinkers like Iqbal, Malek Bennabi and Fazlur Rahman. However, the condition of the Muslim community has not changed very much and continues to be precarious. In comparison with other communities, especially those in Europe, United States, Russia and Japan, the Muslim community is the most backward, especially in socio-economic, scientific, technological and military fields.

What are the reasons for this backwardness? From the point of view of numbers, the Muslims, now more than a billion, have outnumbered the Christians, and from the point of view of natural resources, Muslim countries are among the richest in the world. Why, with such vast resources and possessing an infallible divine scripture, are the Muslims unable to compete with and surpass other nations?

This situation is exactly the opposite of the situation of their early ancestors who, within a short period of time, climbed the heights of success and created a great world empire and a great world civilization. These early successes which had astounded the world must have had their reasons based on the laws of historical change. What are those reasons? This is the greatest challenge facing Muslim intelligentsia at the close of the twentieth century and on the threshold of the twenty-first: to seek the true causes of Muslim decline and thereby to lay the ground for a new Muslim Renaissance.

As we have said, this study and review of our traditional formulation must encompass classical theology and jurisprudence. The hadith, of course, is at the core of these traditional disciplines.

Our present knowledge point to many factors that contribute to the rise and fall of nations, factors that are ideological, political, economic, social, cultural, historical, psychological, demographic, geographical, scientific, technological and military in nature. But it is also quite certain that within this pluralism of factors, not all play equally important roles. Technology can surmount geographical limitations; military strategy can overcome numbers; political leadership can offset economic weakness, and so on. Turning to the Quran as our infallible guide, we find the following statements that can give us a clue to the understanding of the problem under discussion.

Basing ourselves on this premise, we can make the following hypothesis. The rapid rise of the Arab nation from its dark period of paganism prior to Muhammad to become the most powerful and civilized nation in the world then, within a short period of time, is due to the new, inspiring, powerful and dynamic Islamic ideology of monotheism brought by Muhammad. The Arabs, under his and his immediate successors' leadership, discarded their erstwhile polytheism and super-stitions. They united to fight and struggle under the guidance of the Quran and set up a just social order. Because this struggle was based on divine truth and justice as contained in the Quran, it was invincible. It also gave rise to a great social movement, bringing forth with it outstanding political, military and intellectual leaders who helped to create the first scientific-spiritual culture in history.

This hypothesis, in contrast to the modernist or the traditionalist theses, appears to be the most helpful in our effort to understand the history and the decline of the Muslims. The modernist thesis, in brief, states that the Muslims declined because they have remained traditional and have not modernized themselves according to Western secular values. The traditionalist thesis, on the other hand, blame the secularization of Muslim societies and the neglect of orthodox Muslim teachings as the major cause of Muslim decline.

It is obvious that the modernist and the traditionalist theses cancelled each other. Furthermore, the modernists have to explain why the Turkish experiment with Westernized modernization failed. They also have to explain why developed Western societies such as the United States and Europe have been undergoing a multi-faceted crisis since the First World War, and why a new philosophical trend of thought critical of Western-type modernization has developed in Europe and America.

The traditionalists, on the other hand, must explain the failure of their system from the beginning when it was first formulated around the third, fourth and fifth centuries of Islam. Some Arab countries have hardly modernized and had been practicing the traditional system for centuries – why have these not progressed? If they have not progressed, it is idle to expect Muslim countries to progress if they implement the traditional system.

The answer lies in our hypothesis. The early Muslims rose to the pinnacles of success precisely because they were in possession of and practiced the powerful and dynamic Islamic ideology as preached in the Quran. They subjected other knowledge, local and foreign, to the discriminative teachings of the Quran. As long as they did this, they progressed. A time came when other teachings, local and foreign, gained the upper hand and submerged the Quran, as witnessed by the following Quranic prophecy:

Age of "Great Disorder"

The time has now arrived for the Muslims to examine their situation more critically and boldly. Actually, this perilous situation is not confined to the Muslims alone; it covers the entire mankind. A number of twentieth century philosophers, historians and social critics have unanimously stated that this century is the most critical century in human history. The late Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, described the century as "Great Disorder under Heaven." The American historical philosopher, P.A. Sorokin, has detailed the crisis of the twentieth century in his able book, The Crisis of Our Age, published in 1941. It is in this century that two terrible world wars occurred, and a third more horrible one might still occur, in spite of the end of the Cold War, to destroy the present civilization.

It is in this century also that an array of philosophies, ideologies, theories, systems that includes liberalism, Marxism, pragmatism, logical positivism, existentialism, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, Ghandhism, Maoism and religious traditionalism collapsed. When dominant existing philosophies and systems cannot solve the problems of human security and welfare, it is a sure sign that a very serious crisis is upon us.

A number of modern writers and poets, such as Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Y.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot, had expressed this atmosphere and sense of great crisis in their works. Listen to the loneliness and poignant sorrow of Eliot:

and the deep despair and earnest prayer of Yeats:

This literature of pessimism and absurdity of life beginning in the twenties and thirties and continuing after the Second World War is, of course, a reflection of the great disorder currently existing in the world. This great disorder is evidenced by the great ideological cleavage, the continuous raging of the fires of war, the massive starvation and poverty in the Third World, the steep decline in public morality, world-wide financial and economic crisis and the inability of the United Nations to function effectively.

The Muslims had long lost their intellectual and political leadership of the world. The break-up of their empire in 1258 AD gave way to independent dynasties which continued until they were colonized by European powers beginning in the sixteenth right up to the early twentieth centuries. Then, with the rise of nationalism in Asia and Africa, nearly all of them regained their independence and set up sovereign nation-states.

However, the Muslims had ceased to be creative around the fourteenth century. Their period of intense creativity lasted three centuries from the ninth through to the eleventh. Their last great philosopher was the Arab Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406). Since that time Muslim intellect stagnated and even degenerated and Europe took over to develop dominant philosophies and disciplines along materialist and hedonistic lines.

After more than a century of modern reformism efforts initiated by Jamaluddin al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh, the Muslim world, a world as disunited as any other, have not progressed much. They have not been able to fight off the ideological influence and domination of the world power-blocs. They are not united in their Muslim purpose. Their economies are dependent and backward. Their sciences and technologies are non-existent. Militarily, they are weak and dependent on the big powers.

However, there has been much talk, since the early seventies, of implementing the Shari`a or medieval Muslim law and the setting up of an Islamic state. This is the slogan of the traditionalists who have taken over the reform movement of Muhammad Abduh. The examples of mullah rule in Iran since the great popular anti-Shah revolution and the Islamization programmes in some countries do not give support to the traditionalist alternative.

The main weakness of the Muslims is their disunity. This disunity takes the form in their inability to cooperate for the good of Muslims in individual countries and the whole Muslim world. It also surfaces in the form of conflicts and wars between Muslims, as typified by the Iran-Iraq war and the civil wars in Lebanon.

What is the cause of this disunity? The Muslims claim that they worship one God and follow His one religion. They also declare their religious brotherhood. How then are they so disunited? This is the mystery that we have to unravel. This is the reason for our re-evaluation of the hadith. Our hypothesis is that the hadith — in principle, a false teaching attributed to Prophet Muhammad — is a major factor causing disunity and backwardness among Muslims. Our study is to prove this hypothesis.

Where Have We Gone Wrong?

The time is ripe for Muslims and for mankind as a whole to undertake a fundamental study of this great human crisis. At some point, somewhere, we have gone wrong. Where have we gone wrong? It will be recalled that modern secular Europe emerged in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in rebellion against the Catholic Church in particular and against religion in general to embrace secular humanism of the liberal or Marxist variety. For the last one to three hundred years it experimented with these social philosophies and systems and the experiments have proved a failure. Today the two philosophies and systems are seeking a synthesis. Can the synthesis be achieved? Can it answer mankind's present quest for a new spiritual philosophy?

As for the Muslims, the new and young Muslim society and state set up by Muhammad and his compatriots in seventh century Arabia developed and expanded so rapidly that within a century it had become an empire to comprise also Persia and Byzantium, and within two to three hundred years it had created a great world civilization. But, as quickly as it had arisen, so quickly had it declined and fallen. Today, the Muslim polity, science and civilization, great though they were in their time, are glories and things of the past. There seems to be no bridge linking their great predecessors of the early centuries and present-day Muslims.

The great question mark hanging over the Muslims and the entire mankind today is: Why? The short answer to the question, which is the thesis of this book, is that mankind, including the Muslims, have deserted the true teachings of God. The true teachings of God in the era of Muhammad is contained in His final scripture to mankind, the Quran. The People of the Scripture, i.e. believers before Muhammad, especially the Jews and the Christians, rejected Muhammad because they had idolized their own prophets and religious leaders and refused to acknowledge Muhammad's divine message. Modern secular rebellious Europe not only turned against their religious priesthood, in which action it was right, but also against religion altogether, in which action it was wrong. This is the cause of the present Western impasse.

As regards the Muslims, Muhammad brought them the Quran, described by God Himself as an invincible book, but no sooner did Muhammad die and leave them, they contrived to make Muhammad bring two books and, after bitter quarrels, they legislated, two hundred and fifty years later, that Muslims must uphold not only the Quran but also the hadith. However, in truth, since then, they followed the hadith rather than the Quran. This explains God's warning in the Quran that we have quoted earlier. So it came about that while secular Europe embraced either liberalism or Marxism, the Muslim world embraced the hadith, with the philosophies of secular humanism infecting the elites of Muslim societies, thus justifying the Quranic warning.

Avoiding Misunderstanding

Raising such a fundamental issue as this, it is difficult to avoid misunderstanding from both sides. The secular side, being more open-minded and tolerant, will simply dismiss this call to the Quran as antiquated, outmoded and irrelevant. Many secularists will simply not consider it. On the other hand, the traditionalist side, being close-minded and intolerant of dissenting views on matters regarded as their preserves, will raise a hue and cry and throw slanderous accusations into the debate.

One cannot be discouraged by the prospect. It is part of the social struggle to expose falsehood and confirm the truth. The secularists will be worthy opponents since they will be prepared to fight it out in open battles. Open debate is part of their secular tradition. The traditionalists are a different breed. Open debate is not part of their tradition. In fact, they came into being in Muslim society by killing open debate. Authoritarianism is their culture. Thus, slander, threats and falsehood will be their methods.

It will be claimed that the writer is trying to cause confusion and further divide Muslim society. This is far from the truth. The Muslims cannot be further confused and divided than they already have been for a long time. What worse confusion and division can there be than when Muslims fight and kill one another?

My aim is to try to establish the truth. My personal history bears testimony to this tendency. Like other Malays, I was born and brought up in an ordinary orthodox Malay Muslim family. However, my early interest in social philosophy took me on a long spiritual quest, over a period of thirty years, spanning liberal nationalism, Islamic liberalism and socialism, every single one of which each time sat uneasily over traditional Islam. The failure became obvious to me when the coherent integrated social philosophy that I was seeking eluded me. It was in the Islam of the Quran, scientifically understood, that I discovered the framework of such a philosophy.

Looking back, this is only logical, since the Quran contains the sure truth from God, while most of human teachings, as the Quran points out, are mere conjecture. But at that time, the Quran was, so to speak, covered up for me by the fog of hadith.

It will be claimed that calling the people back to the Quran alone will create a new sect, in addition to the sects that already exist. This is standing the argument on its head. Since the Quran is, in the first place, anti-sectarian, not only will it not create a new sect, but it will, on the contrary, eliminate all existing sects and reunite all Muslims. This is precisely what we want to do. History proves that under Muhammad the young Muslim society was completely united and there was no sect whatever. It is ironic that the Ahl'ul-Hadith who talk so much about following the example of the Prophet have completely abandoned this finest of his examples!

It will also be claimed that in rejecting the hadith as a source of law, we shall be rejecting the role of the Prophet. It will further be claimed that this is the first step to the ultimate rejection of the Quran! As for the first part of the claim, it is obvious to anyone that it was only through Muhammad that mankind received the Quran from God Almighty. That was his primary role — God's messenger — indeed his only role, as the Quran stressed several times. Was not this role great enough for Prophet Muhammad? Surely, it was.

As for the second part, it is too ridiculous to even think of it. But since the die-hard traditionists would stop at nothing to slander their opponents, one would lose nothing to spend a few lines exposing them. How can anyone, after calling the people back to the Quran, then reject the Quran? Even if he does, and this means reverting to disbelief after belief, how can that benefit him? He would lose everything, while the people, on the contrary, would benefit greatly by going back to the Quran.

The Muslims must re-possess critical consciousness and discard prejudice and group fanaticism. We must avoid throwing slanderous accusations at what we may not like at first. God Himself has taught us to verify things before we accept or reject them. No less an intelligent man than Sayyed Hossein Nasr who has said the following about those who deny the authority of the hadith:

It is against this basic aspect of the whole structure of Islam that a severe attack has been made in recent years by an influential school of Western Orientalists. No more of a vicious and insidious attack could be made against Islam than this one, which undercuts its very foundations and whose effect is more dangerous than if a physical attack were made against Islam.

How can this scholar, who has quoted a blasphemous hadith in the same book, spout this slander? Why should we Muslims, in possession of an invincible scripture from God Almighty, be afraid of the criticisms and even attacks of Orientalists? Such fear, in fact, reflects our own weakness. It shows that we are not sure of our own selves. The Quranic methodology should be a lesson for us. The Quran incessantly reproduces the false arguments of idol-worshippers and hypocrites and rebuts them with proofs and with better arguments. We should do the same to expose falsehoods and confirm the truth. The methods of suppression and slander are alien to the methods of truth.

Rejecting the authority of the hadith does not mean denying its existence. Some true reports of what the Prophet said and did outside the Quran as leader of his community and as an ordinary man must have been preserved. Such reports deserve to be treated as any other historical account whose authenticity must be judged against other historical accounts, against the higher authority of the Quran, and against rational criteria. While Quranic pronouncements are divine and are eternally binding on believers, those of Muhammad in his capacity as leader must be treated in accordance with the Quranic injunction regarding politico-social authority, i.e. that they are only conditionally binding. The conditions are that they do not contradict the Quran, they are binding only for the community of that time, and that for other communities of other times they only constitute as precedents to be followed or bypassed as and when deemed useful.

It should also be well understood that this re-evaluation of the hadith is in no way a slur upon our classical scholars. They understood and reacted to their problems as best they could. We who come after them are not bound by their solutions. As Muhammad Abduh has well said, "They are human and we are human. We learn from them but we do not [blindly] follow them." No doubt our re-examination constitutes a criticism. But this is normal scientific procedure. It has been done by all our great philosophers and scholars from the beginning, by Ibn Sina, al-Ghazzali, Ibn Rush, Ibn Taimiya, Shah Waliyullah, Muhammad Abduh and scores of others. We owe it to them and to ourselves to constantly practice this method. For how else can knowledge develop and society progress unless they continually be purged of errors. This accounts for the very important Quranic directive, repeated many times, to believers:

In this study we have adopted what may be termed as Islamic scientific methodology. In is unfortunate that today we associate scientific methodology to the Western empirical and rational methods, when, in fact, it was Islam that introduced this methodology to the West. The words of the English historian Robert Briffault deserve to be quoted in full:

It is hardly necessary to state that this is a view offered to the reader for his consideration. God Almighty Himself has ordered us to read in His name, for doing that we cannot fail to develop our mind and increase our knowledge. A good book will do that positively; a bad one, negatively. Reading in His name, therefore, cannot but produce good results. Yet, the Muslims today are very bad readers. Centuries of subservience to bigoted religious authorities have shackled their minds. This subservience plus their deplorable ignorance of the contents of the Quran combine to make what they are today — a weak, backward and humiliated people. The time has come for us to break out of this prison. It is for this purpose that this study is undertaken.

Any study of the hadith and sunna must, of necessity, be based on the Quran. Everything said about the hadith must be subjected to the critical scrutiny of the Quran and science. Only what passes this test is acceptable.

The word hadith means `news,' `story' or `message', while the word sunna means `law,' `system,' `custom' or `behavior.' In the hadith literature, the word hadith carries the meaning of a report of an alleged saying or action of Prophet Muhammad. Therefore, although sunna originally refers to the customary behavior of the Prophet, in the hadith literature both the terms sunna and hadith carry a similar meaning.

The Four Arguments of Traditionists

The Ahl'ul-Hadith or the Traditionists did not distinctly emerge in Muslim society until the second Islamic century, more than a hundred years after the Prophet's death. There is a big gap between the Prophet and the first legal digest that contains some traditions, i.e. the Muwatta' of Imam Malik (d. 179 AH). It is historically known that the `four guided caliphs' — close companions of the Prophet — not only did not leave us any collection of traditions, they did not make use or made very little use of traditions.

Nevertheless, against all odds, the Traditionists prevailed in insisting the hadith/sunna was binding on the Muslims from the beginning. They claim to derive this authority for the hadith from the Quran itself, as we shall presently show. They cannot do otherwise than make this claim, for without the authority of the Quran as the basis of its legitimacy, the hadith is automatically rejected. It will be seen that this claim is false.

They put forward four principal arguments. Firstly, the hadith is also Divine revelation. Secondly, God's command to the believers to obey the messenger means that they must uphold the hadith. Thirdly, the Prophet is the interpreter of the Quran and the hadith is necessary in order to understand and carry out Quranic injunctions. Fourthly and lastly, the Prophet is an example for the believers to follow, and his sunna is binding on the believers.

We shall discuss these four principal arguments of the Traditionists in detail and show that they are false.

Argument One: `Sunna is Revelation'

Their claim that hadith/sunna also constitutes revelation is based on the following Quranic verses:

God Himself states in the Quran that it is He Who explains the Quran. This means that the Quran explains itself. Taking this cue and examining the use of the word hikmah, occurring twenty times in the Quran, it is obvious that it refers to the teachings of the Quran, or to general wisdom that all prophet-messengers or moral teachers were endowed with. The following Quranic usage will illustrate :

Again the word `wisdom' in the following verse:

We have endowed Luqman with wisdom, for he was appreciative of God.

where the wisdom in question refers to general wisdom of spiritual teachers.

Muhammad Ali in his translation of the Quran mentions al-Hikmah as one of the names of the Quran based on the verse 17:39 that we have quoted above.

Further evidence that the words hikmah or hakeem with the meaning `wisdom' can be seen from the following:

These are the revelations and the message of wisdom that we recite to you.

Y.S. By the wise Quran! You are indeed one of the messengers.

It should also be note that the word hakeem in the Quran meaning `wise' without exception refers to God, as for example:

Our Lord, and raise among them a messenger who would recite for them Your revelations and teach them the scripture and wisdom and sanctify them. You are the Almighty, the Wise.

Glorifying God is everything in the heavens and the earth; He is the Almighty, the Wise.

Based on the above Quranic evidence we can make two conclusions. Firstly, the word `wisdom' quoted by Shafi`i in verse 2:129 refers to the ethical teachings of the Quran. Secondly, general wisdom has been endowed to all prophets. Can we, therefore, infer that Prophet Muhammad taught wisdom to his community through his leadership of the community? The answer is, of course, Yes. History proves that. But that wise leadership is also consequent upon his acting strictly in accordance with the ethical teachings of the Quran. All this wisdom is contained in the Quran, although some hadith may also have preserved that wisdom. The case for upholding the hadith apart from the Quran is, therefore, not proved by this argument.

Further examination of the use of the words `sunna' and `hadith' in the Quran gives interesting information. The word `sunna' is used in the Quran to refer to the divine system or law and to the example of the fate suffered by ancient communities. None refers to the behavior of the Prophet. The two usages are illustrated in the following verses:

What should alert Muslims is the very close resemblance of this theory to the much earlier Jewish theory of written and oral revelations. The Jewish Talmud, consisting of the Mishnah and Gemara, the equivalent of Muslim Hadith and Sunna, is a body of oral teachings of Jewish rabbis and jurists based on their interpretations and expositions of the scripture over a long period. In the words of the Jewish scholar Judah Goldin,

"...[It was believed that] along with the revelation of the Written Torah was a revelation of an Oral Torah, that is, that interpretations of and deductions from the Scriptures must have accompanied the Scriptures themselves has at least this to recommend it: no written text, particularly if it is meant as a guide for conduct, can in and of itself be complete; it must have some form of oral commentary associated with it. This much however is clear : from the fifth century BC onward there was a conscious effort on the part teachers to expound the canonical books of the Torah, to make clear its meaning and its applicability. `To make clear the Torah of the Lord and put it into practice, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances' (Ezra 7:10) was not only the programme of Ezra but of the colleagues whom he attracted to himself, the Soferim ... It was the Soferim who made what was implicit in the Book of the Torah of God explicit and intelligible ..., and under their tutelage too, as times required, enactments and decrees were issued. Such teaching and legislation as the Soferim conducted through their schools and councils were carried on orally, in order to carefully distinguish between what was the Written Torah, Scripture, and the body of exegesis, interpretation by [word of] mouth, Oral Torah."

This historical testimony is self-explanatory. The theory of two revelations that the Traditionists had propagated is Jewish in origin and had its beginning in the teaching of scholar-priest Ezra, idolized by the Jews as the son of God, and his followers.

We should note that this theory, built with such elaborateness, is demolished by the Quran in just two words with its declaration that the Prophet believes in God's words:

`Uphold the Hadith'

The second principal argument advanced by the Traditionists relates to God's commandment to the believers to obey the messenger, which they have interpreted to mean belief in the hadith/sunna. Shafi`i used this argument as his principal argument and tirelessly repeated it in his book, al-Risala. He said,

O you who believe, you shall obey God, and you shall obey the messenger and those in charge among you. If you dispute in any matter, you shall refer it to God and the messenger, if you truly believe in God and the Last Day. This is better for you and provides you with the best solution.

Any gained spoils that the messenger gives you, you shall accept, and whatever he forbids you, you shall desist from.

Never, by your Lord, will they be considered believers, unless they ask you to judge between them, then find no hesitation whatsoever in their hearts regarding your judgement, and unless they submit completely.

The Traditionists desire to convey two ideas by these quotations. Firstly, the messenger is an independent power to be obeyed apart from God. Secondly, obedience to the messenger means upholding the hadith/sunna. Are they right in these?

It seems obvious that obedience to the messenger in the above verse and in other similar verses means obedience to God, since the messenger is not an independent agency. As messenger, he was the agency that delivered the message, and obedience to him was equivalent to obedience to God. As stated in the Quran several times, "The sole function of the messenger is to deliver the message." It should be noted that the Quran uses the word `messenger' and not `Muhammad'. The obedience is, therefore, to the messenger, that is, to the message that he brought from God. In short, God and messenger in this context constitute one concept which should not be separated.

We have said earlier that the Quran explains itself. Such verses where obedience to God is coupled with obedience to the messenger is explained by other verses where obedience is made due only to God. The following are examples:

A question may still be asked: Did Muhammad the messenger not pronounce and act outside the Quran? It is only too obvious that he did and must have done so. He did so as leader of the then Muslim community and as an ordinary human being. Under such circumstances, the Quranic directive regarding leadership and obedience in verse 4:59 applies: that the people are duty-bound to obey their rightful leader or leaders in so far as he or they do not trespass the bounds of God. We may assume that Muhammad, the leader and the man, would not have said or done anything contrary to the divine message he brought, after he knew the message. Therefore, the truly genuine hadith can only be the ones that do not contradict the Quran.

Certain decisions he made as leader of the community that history has recorded must necessarily be circumscribed by the conditions of the time. The Madinah Charter is a good example. Although the principles of religious freedom, inter-communal equality and unity, local autonomy and just government underlying the charter conform to the teachings of the Quran, the forms they took were conditioned by the circumstances then prevailing. In the same manner, his decisions on other matters concerning methods that the Quran, for obvious reasons, does not stipulate were determined by historical circumstances and do not bind the Muslims after him. History records that this was precisely the attitude of the four righteous caliphs, although they did consider those decisions as precedents. That past decisions are precedents is normal legal procedure.

Argument Three: `Hadith Interprets the Quran'

The Traditionists claim that Prophet Muhammad is the interpreter of the Quran, and that this interpretation is obtainable through the hadith. Without the hadith, they assert, we cannot understand and carry out the commands of God in the Quran. A typical statement of the Traditionists is as follow:

Commenting on these verses, one writer said that the Prophet detailed general or universal matters in the Quran, such as the times and number of prostrations of prayer and the rate of zakat or obligatory charity; the Prophet clarified matters that were not mentioned in the Quran, such as the time of imsak (early morning just before dawn when fasting begins in Ramadan); the Prophet specified general commands in the Quran, such as division of family property where, it was claimed, that the hadith forbid any share for children who killed their parents; and the Prophet defined the limits of Quranic orders, such as determining the methods of carrying out the punishment for cutting off the hand.

It is clear from the above that what is meant by the Traditionists is the role of the Prophet as leader, contained in the Quranic concept ulil-amr (those in authority) that has already been explained.

As regards explaining and interpreting the Quran, Quranic statements and historical evidence have shown that it is not given to Prophet Muhammad or to any subsequent teachers to do so fully and all at once. The Quran, being from the omniscient knowledge of God, cannot all be understood fully, except through a prolonged process of rational understanding and scientific studies. The long history of Quranic exegeses prove this. The Quran itself attests to this when it declares about the allegorical verses:

No one knows their correct interpretations, except God and those well-grounded in knowledge.

While this verse refers only to the understanding of allegorical verses, God clearly states that it is He who teaches and explains the Quran. This means, on the one hand, that the Quran explains itself and, on the other, that God will, at the proper time, give man the necessary knowledge to understand it. The various discoveries and findings of modern science within the last four hundred years have thrown light on the meanings and corroborated the statements made in the Quran fourteen centuries ago when modern science was not yet born.

Mode of Prayer

The Traditionists invariably asks: If we do not have the hadith, how do we pray? This shows that they have not studied the Quran nor Arab history prior to Muhammad carefully. The Quran clearly states that the obligatory prayers and all other religious observances of Islam were originally taught to Abraham. All the prophets and their true followers since Abraham practiced them, but, as the Quran also informs us, later generations, including the Arabs at the advent of Muhammad, had lost these prayers. The prayers of the Arabs at the Shrine at the time were described by the Quran as "no more than deceit and alienation."

It should also be noted that the very early revelations, such as the chapter 73 entitled al-Muzzammil which was the third in order of revelation, already mentioned salat and zakat, indicating that these religious observances were well-known and were being practiced. This is confirmed by early historical sources, such as Ibn Ishaq's biography of the Prophet. All these conclusively prove that our salat prayers today were not originally given to Muhammad during the Night Journey, as the Traditionists claim.

A moment's thought will also make us realize that we do not learn how to pray from the hadith. We learn to do so from our parents and teachers who inherit the practice through the generations from the first source, that is Prophet Abraham.

Although the Quran needs no longer teach us how to pray, since we have learnt and practiced it from the time of Abraham, still it gives us the main features of salat prayer, i.e. the normal ablution (5:6), the abnormal ablution (4:43), the proper dress (7:31), standing and facing the qiblah (2:144), the times (11:114, 17:78, 24:58, 2:238, 30:17-18 and 20:130), the bowing and prostrating (2:43,125,3:42, 22:77, 48:29), using moderate voice when saying prayers (17:110), not calling anyone else besides God in prayer (72:18) and modified mode of prayer at unusual times (4:101,103). It is quite obvious that many important details regarding the mode of prayer are given in the Quran.

It should be remembered that the Quran repeatedly teaches the people to be concerned with doing good sincerely and not to be concerned with form. It is obvious why this should be so. An obsession with form would defeat the purpose of an action. The incidence of Saudi Prince Sultan Salman who accompanied the American space mission, Discovery, in 1985 and who exposed the inability of the traditional Saudi ulama to answer the question of how he should pray in the space shuttle was a good modern illustration of the error of obsession with form.

Argument Four: `The Example of the Prophet'

This is the fourth and last argument of the Traditionists: that the Prophet constitutes a good example for the believers to follow, and following his examples means following the sunna. They base this argument on the following verses of the Quran:

The messenger (pbuh) is a perfect man. He is the foremost example to be followed in all aspects and fields, except in those that cannot be followed.

According to the hadith scholar, M.M. Azami,

If we consider the Prophet as the model for the community, the Muslims have to follow his example in every way, especially as they have been specifically commanded to do so by Allah.

Even the late modern scholar Prof. Fazlur Rahman talks of the existence of the exemplary conduct of the Prophet. However, if we look at the context of verse 33:21 quoted above, it is clear that it does not refer to every detail of the Prophet's behavior, such as his eating, dress, sleeping and other personal habits. Actually, it refers to the Prophet's faith in God's help and victory. The verse is put in the middle of the account of the Battle of the Allies when the believers were really shaken and thought that the cause of Islam was lost. Nevertheless, it would not be wrong if we derive a general meaning for this verse that the Prophet provided a good example for Muslims to follow. The Prophet's example is none other than his staunch faith in God and strict adherence to the Quran.

That the phrase uswah hasanah, meaning `a good example' in this verse, refers to one's conviction, stand and struggle, and not to one's personal behavior, can be proved by its usage, twice, for Prophet Abraham who was a staunch monotheist. Verse 4 of Surah 60 explains the meaning of the phrase:

A good example has been set for you by Abraham and those with him. They said to their people, "We disown you and the idols you set up besides God. We reject you, and you will see from us nothing but enmity and opposition until you believe in God alone."

The above verse explains the meaning of uswah hasanah as referring to one's religious conviction, ideological position and struggle. This is an instance of how the Quran explains and interprets itself.

It is unreasonable and unthinkable that God would ask the Muslims to follow the prophet's personal mode of behavior, because a person's mode of behavior is determined by many different factors, such as customs, his education, personal upbringing and personal inclinations. The prophet's mode of eating, of dress and indeed of general behavior cannot be different from that of other Arabs, including Jews and Christians, of that time, except regarding matters which Islam prohibited. If the Prophet had been born a Malay, he would have dressed and eaten like a Malay. This is a cultural and a personal trait which has nothing to do with one's religion.

So were the methods of the Prophet's wars and his administration of the Medina city-state. The weapons he used, such as swords, spears, arrows and shields, were in accordance with the prevailing technology. Today, with the development of modern weapons, the Muslims obviously cannot fight with the medieval weapons used by the Prophet, although they must emulate his staunch faith in God and complete adherence to God's teachings.

In political administration, the same Islamic principles operate. Some examples: sovereignty of the people under God's sovereignty, government based on just laws, complete freedom of religious worship, obedience to God and due obedience to leaders, leadership to be exercised by those who are competent and morally upright, and government through consultation. However, methods and the institutions vary according to time and circumstances. The methods and institutions used by the Prophet are not universally and eternally binding.

Actually, the ways of the Prophet were in strict conformity with the teachings of the Quran. He held firmly to the Quran and obeyed its injunctions. Therefore, following the example of the Prophet means upholding the Quran. The claim of the Traditionists that the Quran is general and requires the hadith to explain it and make it specific is based on a false understanding of the Quran. This claim has been partially dealt with here. It will be fully dealt with in Chapter V where we shall discuss the comprehensiveness of the Quran as a guide.

The Quran is Complete, Perfect and Detailed

The hadith writers' allegations are clearly misleading. To say that the Quran is incomplete or unclear can only be blasphemous. Such an opinion belittles God's power by implying that He gave us an incomplete or unclear product. It is just like the Christian Bible insisting that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and then on the seventh day He had to take a break. In the Quran, God tells us that He created the heavens and the earth and God does not need to take any breaks for such is the power of God.

Also consider the following:

But still, how do we come to a solution for a problem that we have to solve by ourselves, for example, when Prince Sultan Salman wanted to pray aboard the space shuttle Discovery? God answers:

There are some matters whereby God clearly spells out exactly what we are required to do. The rights of individuals, ownership of property, the rules of marriage and divorce, the laws of inheritance, penal laws, the rules of witness, dietary laws, the methods of ablution, and so on are all clearly detailed in the Quran.

At other places, whenever God pleases, He provides us both the principles and the methods. Let us explore further the issue of penal laws. The punishments of hand-cutting for theft and a hundred lashes for adultery mentioned in the Quran are forms, not principles, of punishment. Furthermore, these forms are connected to specific historical circumstances.

What, then, are the Quranic principles for punishment? There are two, or one can say three, if we include the principle that all crimes must be punished and not overlooked. The two principles are: firstly, that every crime must be punished in accordance with the severity of the crime, i.e. the principle of equivalence; and secondly, the principle of mercy, as evidenced by the following verses:

Similarly, God provides us the guiding principles and the detailed methods of dividing property for inheritance purposes.

The man shall get a share of what the parents and relatives leave, and the women shall get a share of what the parents and the relatives leave, be it small or large, a decreed share.

This verse therefore sets the principle that men and women can inherit property.

God decrees what you shall bequeath for your children; the male shall get the share of two females.

It will be seen that the above verses establish the general principle of inheritability by both males and females, while at the same time fixes the portions. The question arises: are the fixed portions of two for men and one for women historically determined or absolute? Is it fair that working women who also share the burden of family expenses be given less portion? At a time when women looked after the home and men were sole breadwinners, such portioning was fair. But when economic conditions change and women bear equal burden, is it allowed for us to make adjustments, implying that we consider the second verse as historically determined? (Hint: the above verses also talk about will; see also 2:180, 240). This is something, as in many other matters, that Muslim society, through council and through their rightful leaders, must decide.

The Quran also makes provisions for Muslims to handle problems in difficult or extraordinary circumstances. For example, foods that are forbidden to eat under normal circumstances, like pork, become permissible out of necessity and not by choice.

Thus, the Quran contains guidance and solutions to handle all of our affairs. The Quran is complete, perfect and detailed. If God "leaves anything out" of the Quran at all, it is only because God has put in place, elsewhere throughout the Quran, sufficient guidance with which human beings can guide their lives.

As Islam discouraged religious practices, such as monastic life, it also prohibited questions relating to details on many points which would require this or that practice to be made obligatory, and much was left to the individual will or circumstances of the time and place. The exercise of judgement occupies a very important place in Islam and this gives ample scope to different nations and communities to frame laws for themselves and to meet new and changed situations. The hadith shows that the Prophet also discourages questions on details in which a Muslim could choose a way for himself.

God does not mention some things altogether or in detail for two reasons. Firstly, like the regular prayer, because He has taught mankind these things before Muhammad. Secondly, because such things concern the forms their principles take at different times and different places. These forms are therefore decided by the society's council or by customs or by personal preference. The principles of decision-making through council, or through customary usage, or through using reason are clearly enunciated in the Quran.

It is clear that the Quran, being the last of God's scriptures to mankind, is the only infallible source of our guidance.

Other sources, including previous scriptures as well the hadith/sunna, are subject to Quranic criticism. What passes this criticism is acceptable; what fails is automatically rejected. This is plain, as the following verses state:

Shall I seek other than God as a source of law, when He revealed to you this Book fully detailed? Even those who received previous scripture recognize that it came down from your Lord, truthfully. Therefore, you shall not harbor any doubt.

... Those who do not rule according to God's scripture are the unjust.

You should judge among them according to God's scripture and do not follow their ideas, and beware lest they divert you from some of God's revelations to you. If they turn away, then you should know that God wants to punish them for their sins. Indeed, many people are wicked. Is it the laws of the days of ignorance that they want to apply? Whose laws are better than God's, for those who are firm believers?

Those who fabricate false doctrines are the ones who do not believe in God's revelations. They are the liars.

Shall we treat the Muslims like criminals? What is wrong with you? How do you judge? Do you have another book that you apply? One that gives you anything you want?

So, do the hadith writers have another book that they apply? One that gives them everything? Is this why God revealed the earth-shaking verse that we have quoted several times?

The messenger will say, "My Lord, my people have deserted this Quran."

We cannot, therefore, use any other book other than the Quran to make our laws and punish the guilty, attributing these laws to God. But what do the hadith writers say? They say that anyone who does not accept the hadith books immediately become unbelievers. They insist that the hadith, although it is not the Quran, must be accepted. To them the hadith is "the other book that they apply, one that gives them anything they want," as the Quran puts it precisely and beautifully.

What does God say to these allegations?

To place the hadith on an equivalent footing with revelation is to create another source of guidance – an idol. This is the major problem with the hadith. When we invite them to believe in God alone through the Quran, they hesitate, but when we throw in the false hadith and other false teachings, then they are happy!

In conclusion, the theory or doctrine that the hadith is an equal source of guidance with the Quran, propounded by Shafi`i, is the most important aspect of the hadith question. Even though we totally reject this doctrine, we do not reject the hadith as a secondary source, provided that it does not contradict the Quran. On this view also, we say that the hadith is an important source of early Muslim social history. We shall have more to say about this in the last chapter.

According to the Traditionists, Prophet Muhammad left two legacies to his followers: a divine scripture and his sunna. We shall show later that this hadith is a fabrication. As a matter of fact, history has fully shown that at the time of the Prophet's death, only the completed written Quran, duly arranged into chapters by the Prophet, existed as his only legacy. It was not yet compiled into book form, but complete writings of it on parchments and other writing materials were kept in the Prophet's house and other houses of the Prophet's scribes. The Prophet also taught many Companions to memorize the Quran following the chapter arrangements he himself had made.

During the second caliph Abu Bakr's administration, Abu Bakr himself ordered the Prophet's secretary, Zaid ibn Thabit, to compile the Quran into book form, taking care that all its contents were corroborated by two or more witnesses. When the third caliph, Uthman, prepared his official version of the Quran for dissemination throughout the length and breadth of Islam, he based it on this version. Thus, the Quran fully satisfies the requirements of a well-corroborated text.

The Quran itself proclaimed the completion of Islam and of Muhammad's mission eighty-one or eighty-two days before Muhammad's death with the following famous verse:

Although some traditions may have existed during the time of the Prophet, thus giving rise to his prohibition, their number doubled and tripled only several decades after his death. At the time of their compilations, stretching over a period of two to four centuries after his death, they existed in hundreds of thousands. The compilations were made against Muhammad's expressed order, but the Traditionists argued that this prohibition was conditional to his desire to avoid mixing traditions with the Quran. When this condition no longer existed, the prohibition was lifted. However, a historical report exists stating that thirty years after the Prophet's death, the prohibition was still on, showing that it had never been lifted.

As we have seen, what came to be regarded by the Sunnites as the `Six Authentic Books' compiled by Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Daud, Ibn Maja, Tirmidhi and al-Nasa`i, and the four Shi'ite compilations by al-Kulaini, Ibn Babuwayh, al-Murtada and Ja`afar Muhammad al-Tusi did not exist at the time of the Prophet's death, as the Quran did, but were made between 210 and 410 years later. Why were the compilations not made earlier? Does not this fact alone show that the hadith was a new development, not sanctioned by the Prophet?

Several modern hadith scholars claim that they possess new evidence to prove that the hadith were written down at the time of the Prophet. They were memorized and handed down from generation to generation until the second and third Islamic centuries when the official compilations were made. The still unanswered question, even if we were to accept the claim, is this: "Why was the official compilation not made earlier, especially during the time of the righteous caliphs when the first reporters, i.e., the eye witnesses, were still alive and could be examined?" When we remember that there was an alleged statement by the Prophet, made at his final Pilgrimage Oration and heard by tens of thousands, exhorting his followers to hold on to the Quran and his sunna, it is most unreasonable not to expect the great early caliphs to order the writing down and compiling of the Prophet's sayings. That none of them did so could only mean that the Prophet never made the statement, and that it was a later invention attributed to him.

The answer given by the Traditionists that the hadith was not written down during the time of the Prophet to avoid confusing them with the Quran is not satisfactory. Not only did it contradict their own claim that the hadith were already being recorded during the lifetime of the Prophet; several documents of the Prophet, such as the Medina Charter, his treaties and letters, had been written on his orders. The hadith too could similarly be written down by indicating that they were hadith, and not the Quran. However, this constraint no longer apply when the Quran was completed, written down and compiled into a book, and the fear of mixing the Quran with the hadith was no longer a valid concern. Yet the hadith was not immediately compiled. The only conceivable reason why they were not compiled was precisely the Prophet's standing order prohibiting it. It is apparent that later generations ignored this order.

We also have later historical sources which say that the Caliph Abu Bakr burnt his notes of hadith (said to be 500 in all) for fear that they might be false, and that Caliph Omar ibn Khattab cancelled his plan to compile the hadith because he did not want to divert the attention of the Muslims from the Quran to the hadith. It is quite possible that these statements said to have been made by the first two caliphs are false, having been fabricated by upholders of the hadith in order to prove that hadith had already been written down at this early stage, but were not compiled by Abu Bakr and Omar not because of the Prophet's prohibition (which they must know), but because of other reasons.

Due to the fact that early historical writings about Muhammad and the early Muslim society were not done until a hundred or a hundred and fifty years after the Prophet's death, such as the works of Ibn Ishaq (d. 150) and Ibn Sa`d (d. 168), it is impossible to obtain documentary evidence (apart from the Quran, of course) on the precise position of the hadith/sunna between the time of the Prophet's death and the time of these works. However, Ibn Sa`d, an early major historian, showed that the first three caliphs did not use the hadith at all. In any case, it is interesting to note, as we have seen in Chapter II, that the phrases `the prophet's hadith' or the `the prophet's sunna' are never used in the Quran. This shows that these concepts did not exist in Arab society at the time of the Prophet. On the other hand, the phrases `tribal sunna' or `the sunna of the people' to mean `customs' were in vogue. It is this concept of sunna that was later transformed to mean the Prophet's practice.

Basing ourselves on the Quran, we learn that a community did not break up into sects after the coming of divine revelation to them except due to jealousy and to vested interests. When jealousy and considerations of vested interests overcame them, divisions occurred and sects emerged:

He has decreed for you the same religion decreed for Noah, and what is revealed herein, and what was decreed for Abraham, Moses and Jesus. `You shall uphold the one religion, and do not be divided.' It is simply too difficult for the idol worshipers to accept what you advocate. God is the one who brings towards Him whomever He wills; He guides towards Himself those who submit. They became divided after knowledge had come to them due to sheer jealousy. If it were not for a predetermined decision, they would have been judged immediately. Even those who inherited the scripture continued to harbor doubts. You shall preach and uphold this scripture as commanded and do not follow their wishes.

You shall hold fast to the rope of God, all together, and do not be divided. Be appreciative of God's favors upon you; you used to be enemies and He reconciled your hearts. By His grace, you become brethren. God thus explains His revelations for you that you may be guided. Let there be a community among you who preach goodness, advocate righteousness and forbid evil. These are the winners. Do not be like those who became divided and disputed among themselves, despite the profound revelations that had come to them.

The above verses explain two things. Firstly, the divine revelations brought by Muhammad and other messengers, although true and beneficial, were hard to accept by the idol worshipers. They accepted them for a while and then lapsed into their former condition. Secondly, they reverted to their former condition because of jealousy towards one another and because of their love of material things. In short, human propensity for materialism and jealousy for one another made it difficult for them to follow the teachings of the prophet-messengers, including prophet Muhammad. These are the factors that cause division into sects and factions after the teachings had come to them.

We shall see that many hadith began to emerge and multiply at the same time as the emergence of divisions in the early Muslim community in three civil wars, beginning under Ali's rule right up to the end Mu`awiya rule. The relations between these two phenomena were direct: power struggles giving rise to divisions led to the fabrication of hadith to support each contending group, and the fabrications of hadith further deepened divisions. It is clear that the division originated in the power struggle to fill the post of caliph to succeed the Prophet, but hadith were fabricated to use the name of the Prophet to bolster politico-religious sectarianism.

Political Conflicts

A study of original sources, such as Ibn Sa`d (d. 230/845), Malik Ibn Anas (d. 179/795), Tayalisi (d. 203/818), Humaydi (d.219/834) and Ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) will show that all `four guided caliphs' made use of very little sunna in their administrations. The very term "the Prophet's sunna" was never used by the Prophet himself and did not emerge until the sixth and seventh decades after the Prophet in the administration of Omar Abdul Aziz (d. 720), and was first used by him. But later sources, such as Ibn Qayyim (d.691/1292), had connected the names of the great caliphs Abu Bakr and Omar ibn Khattab with the practice of following the sunna. It is clear that the `authentication' of the sunna was carried out by the Traditionists to ward off opposition to the hadith by using the names of these two great authorities.

The development of the hadith, it seems, began in the form of stories about the Prophet, told by professional story-tellers, as praises for Ali and Abu Bakr and as guidance in matters permitted and prohibited. These were later given the form of hadith.

Compositions in the form of eulogies for Ali and Abu Bakr which came into being after the Prophet's death reflected the first political conflict between supporters of Ali (the Shi`ites) and those of Abu Bakr (the Bakriyya). Ibn Abi'l-Hadid (d. 655/1257), commentator of the compilation of famous sayings attributed to Ali Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balaghah, admitted that it was the Shi'ite party who began to create hadith eulogies. He said,

It is abundantly clear from the above evidence that one of the sources of hadith forgery at the early stage was the political rivalry between the supporters of Ali and those of Abu Bakr, which continued unabated until Uthman's administration and then to the enmity and conflict between the Shi`ites and the Umayyad. This and other sources were pointed out by a modern Arab historian, Dr. Ahmad Amin, in his book The Dawn of Islam. According to him, five factors were responsible for the fabrication of hadith. These are political conflicts between various factions, differences of opinions regarding matters of theology and jurisprudence, materialistic ambitions among certain religious scholars, the desire to promote good and forbid evil by fabricating hadith to encourage and to discourage (tarhib wa-targhib), as well as to provide a medium for transmitting good teachings from non-Islamic sources.

Although most of these hadith forgeries can no longer be found in the classical compilations, anyone who studies the hadith carefully and objectively can still observe the characteristics mentioned above. Hadith eulogies for the Companions in the Mishkat-ul-Masabih compilation still portrayed political conflicts between the Shi'ite faction and the followers of Abu Bakr and shows that the hadith was fabricated by the factions to support their respective sides. Note the following hadith:

Anas reported that the Prophet ascended Uhud with Abu Bakr, Omar and Uthman. It trembled with them and so he struck it with his foot and said: "Be firm, O Uhud, and verily on you there are a prophet, a truthful man and two martyrs." (Bukhari)

Zerre-b-Hubaish reported that Ali said:

"By One who splits seeds and creates breath, the illiterate prophet gave me a covenant: `Nobody except a believer will love me, and nobody except a hypocrite will hate me.' " (Muslim)

The above traditions have been picked out at random from many others as examples to show the characteristic partiality of hadith. The obvious omission of Ali in the first hadith points to its fabrication by his detractors: there was no other reason why Ali was not in that company. The second one takes the opposite side, having the Prophet affirm Ali's faith and condemn those who maligned him.

We shall be taking a lot of time if we are to give examples of each type of hadith fabrication. It is not necessary. We shall be satisfied with quotations from a few hadith scholars, namely Ahmad Amin, Fazlur Rahman, Goldziher and M.M. Azami.

(a) Ibn 'Adli stated, "At the time when a forger of hadith by the name of Abdul Karim ibn Abu al-'Auja was taken to the place of hanging, he said, `I have forged four thousand hadith for you whereby I prohibited and permitted.'"

(b) In the same book the author further noted, "Muslim reported from Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Said al-Qattan, and from his father, who said, `I have never seen good people telling more lies in any matter than when they do with the hadith.' Muslim explained these words: `The lies were not intentional.' Some people who forged false hadith were motivated by good intentions, i.e. they sincerely believed that all that they had heard were true. In their hearts there was no desire to lie, and they repeated what they had heard. Then other people picked up from them because they were deceived by their outward show of truth."

(c) That opposing political parties tried to influence public opinion through the medium of the hadith and used the names of great authorities of Tradition is a fact no one conversant with the early history of Islam may deny.

(d) ... Every stream and counter-stream of thought in Islam has found its expression in the form of a hadith, and there is no difference in this respect between th