Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Bismillāhi waṣ-ṣalātu wa-s-salāmu ‘alā Rasūlillāhi ﷺ. Ammā ba‘d:
As-salāmu ‘alaykum wa raḥmatullāhi wa barakātuh brothers and sisters.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you and to introduce you to a brand new show and a brand new podcast called The Hot Seat.
To understand a little bit more about The Hot Seat, we first have to understand the context of the modern-day world we find ourselves living in — in the year 2019. It is a world in which, perhaps, there are more doubts, misconceptions, and misinterpretations thrown around about the religion of Islam than in any other period in the history of mankind.
The internet is the number one source used by people globally to acquire information on any topic, and it is riddled and full of false notions and erroneous ideologies about the Dīn of Allāh عز وجل.
Our kids — ourselves — are being exposed to this kind of information on a daily, and if not daily, then at the very least weekly basis. Whether we know it or not, whether we choose to accept it or not, it is having an effect — on ourselves, our hearts, our minds, and ultimately our understanding of this beautiful religion.
To further complicate the problem, many of us find ourselves living in Western societies, where the governments, the social norms and pressures are constantly trying to redefine what is good and what is bad, what is accepted and what is rejected, what Islam is and is allowed to be, and what Islam is never allowed to be.
All of this, my brothers and sisters, ultimately leads to confusion, it leads to ignorance, and if Allāh permits, it can lead to misguidance.
The Hot Seat has therefore been designed — with the permission of Allāh alone — to counter these kinds of modern-day contemporary issues head on by using the knowledge and the guidance of the Muslims of the past, the early generations of Muslims, the best of generations.
There’s not a single Muslim on the face of the planet today who would doubt the fact that Allāh ﷻ completed our religion for us over 1400 years ago, and that that completed, holistic, perfect religion is just as applicable now in the year 2019 as it was back then.
We truly do have classical solutions for contemporary problems.
However, this isn’t your normal, average Islamic lecture series. First of all, it’s not a lecture — it’s a discussion between two parties, often opposing parties, in an attempt to reach the truth, bi’idhni’llāh.
And secondly — and perhaps more importantly — it’s a unique, one-of-its-kind, interactive podcast, where you, from the comfort of your own home, have the opportunity to vote for and choose the topic we’ll be discussing on the show.
You also have the chance to ask your own questions on these contemporary issues and to grill the speaker if you feel like he hasn’t been grilled enough on the show itself!
I’ll be releasing details of how you can do both of those things at the end of this episode, but for now — without any further ado — let’s get into this episode of The Hot Seat.
As-salāmu ‘alaykum wa raḥmatullāhi wa barakātuh.
Just before we get into this episode, I just want to mention: stick around until the end of this episode because we have a very special and exciting announcement for you guys.
We have a very, very important topic to discuss today — and that is:
The issue of the Sunnah and Ḥadīths. Are they actually part of the religion or not? And if they are part of religion, can we actually trust them? Have they been preserved or not?
So I want to start the discussion with a really, really simple question, and that is:
Why do you feel like the words of Allāh in the Qur’ān are not enough for you? Why do you have to turn to the words of a human being?
The answer to your question is: Allāh عز وجل is the one who commanded us to go to legislations from the Prophet ﷺ.
It’s Allāh who commanded us.
Allāh says in the Qur’ān — Allāh tells us, subḥānahu wa ta‘ālā, that the Messenger ﷺ — he came to teach two things.
He came to teach the Qur’ān and he came to teach wisdom.
Now, the Qur’ān — we all know what it is. It’s the Book of Allāh عز وجل.
So what else was Allāh referring to when He said that the Prophet ﷺ came to teach us ḥikmah, wisdom?
Does the Qur’ān have wisdom in it?
Then why are you saying that this has to be something other than the Qur’ān?
— First of all, the ayah says — and you know the Arabic language, and we’ve studied the Arabic language — that the “wāw” (و) that’s used, in its default position, the original usage of the “wāw” in the Arabic language, is that it shows that these two things are two separate things.
But you also know that there are many times in the Qur’ān where there is a “wāw” that comes, but it’s not referring to two separate things.
For example, is seeking help from Allāh not also worship, yet there is a “wāw” in between them?
— That’s why I said the default position is that the “wāw” in Arabic shows two separate things.
Like the āyah — what did it say that I mentioned? That he teaches the Qur’ān and he teaches wisdom. The “wāw” is there. So those are two different entities.
You’re now saying: but there are verses in the Qur’ān here or there where Allāh uses the “wāw” but they show the same thing.
— Yes, correct. Allāh mentioned — we’ll say that this is an exception. It’s an exception from that example. Because this is called: you’re taking a specific and you’re attributing it to a general.
That happens in the Qur’ān — but not in this situation.
Just because it doesn’t suit you, why can’t we use it in this situation?
For example, the kitāb mentioned in this verse — the one that you’re talking about — is the Qur’ān in general, and the ḥikmah is the wisdom found in the Qur’ān.
Very similar thing.
— It’s actually taking something specific from the same thing that is general.
Allāh is saying to the wives of the Prophet ﷺ:
"Mention what was read in your houses, what was recited in your houses."
And Allāh mentioned two things that were recited in their houses: the verses of Allāh, and wisdom.
We know that the Prophet ﷺ was not always talking Qur’ān. You and I both know that.
— I agree with that.
That’s the wisdom. Every day, every minute, every second — he wasn’t talking Qur’ān. He wasn’t reading Qur’ān. There was speech other than that which he was saying. That’s what the ḥikmah is referring to here.
That is what it’s saying.
The reason why I have an issue with this is because in another āyah in the Qur’ān, Allāh says:
“We revealed the Qur’ān upon you as a clarification for all things.”
So I return to the question:
Allāh, your Creator, is telling you that the Book contains everything you need to know. Why then do you feel like it doesn’t contain everything you need?
You see, you’re right — the Qur’ān clarifies everything to us. It does. It tells us everything that we need to know. And if it wants us to know more information regarding a matter, the Qur’ān has clarified for us who we need to go to, which is the Messenger.
Allāh says in another āyah:
“Muḥammad, We sent the Qur’ān upon you to clarify for the people.”
So Allāh clarified everything for us. He did — in the Qur’ān — because He told us what we needed in the verses that we needed, and the meaning that is in those verses, Allāh told us.
And whichever other verses we don’t understand their meaning — like:
“Establish the prayer.” “Give zakāh.”
These verses — we don’t know how to implement them.
So the Messenger ﷺ came, and he told us how we need to come and how we need to implement these verses, and what these verses mean.
So you’re right when you say that the Qur’ān clarified everything for us — it did.
It clarified everything by telling us what each verse means, and it also clarified for us by telling us to go to the Messenger ﷺ when there is a verse that’s ambiguous.
So the Qur’ān — yes — it did clarify everything to us.
Okay, let’s move on.
But that’s not the only verse where Allāh tells us to go to the Messenger.
Allāh says:
“Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allāh.”
So if one wants to obey Allāh, he has to obey the Messenger.
And if he doesn’t obey the Messenger — that person hasn’t obeyed Allāh.
Okay, I would still argue that because the Messenger brought the Qur’ān to us, even when you obey him in terms of what he’s bringing from the Qur’ān, one could say that obeying Allāh and obeying His Messenger is restricted to the Qur’ān only. One could say that.
But I really want to talk about a more specific—
No, but that question: “Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allāh” —
Anyone who restricts an unrestricted verse has to bring evidence for that.
Because the āyah says:
“Whoever obeys the Messenger…”
This obedience is in his speech, in his action, in what he got from the Qur’ān, and also anything he got from other than the Qur’ān.
It’s unrestricted.
So if you say it’s only referring to taking from the Messenger when he took it from the Qur’ān, I would say this requires evidence.
Fair point. I’ll bring my evidence right now.
تِلْكَ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ نَتْنُوهَا عَلَيْكَ بِالْحَقِّ فَبِأَيِّ حَدِيثٍ بَعْضَ اللَّهِ وَآيَاتِهِ يُؤْمِنُونَAllah says: “These are the verses of Allah, We recite them upon you with truth. Then in which hadith (speech) — the word actually in Arabic used is hadith in this verse — then in which hadith after Allah and His verses will they believe?”
Isn’t this clearly telling us not to follow the hadith and to stick to the Qur’an?
So the hadith that this ayah came down on — and the scholars mentioned — was سياق من المقيدة — the context explains it. It is that people were taking the speeches of others, other than Allah عز وجل. They were taking speeches from other than Allah, not the Messenger, and from other than the Messenger — because we brought evidence to say that the Messenger is an exception here.
Anyone who takes a speech other than Allah’s speech — subḥānahu wa taʿālā — then this person is what the ayah is referring to. Because if you say hadith here means hadith as we know it today, that wasn’t coined at that time. The word hadith was never called hadith at the time of the Messenger ﷺ.
So it’s an innovation?
— The definition, or the meaning, or the reality?
The reality and the word itself?
— No, the reality, no. It’s not an innovation. But the definition was coined after. The reason why it was coined after is because the Arabs at that time didn’t need to know what a hadith was. The ṣaḥābah didn’t need to be told, “This is what hadith means” and “This is not what hadith means.” They were ṣāliḥī, this was innate for them — like they didn’t need to know Arabic grammar, like they didn’t need to know uṣūl al-fiqh. These people didn’t need definitions.
Definitions came after when the non-Arabs started to take Islam and embrace Islam. And doubts started to creep into them. And ignorance started to increase. This is when terms became defined, but the definition and the reality of the definition was always at the time of the Messenger ﷺ.
So my point here is that the word hadith — the word hadith here — is not referring to the Messenger. And it's something we need to take on board, which is — we need to take the whole entire Qur’an together. We need to take the Qur’an together. This is not referring to the Messenger — it was referring to the Quraysh and the disbelievers who took the speeches of their forefathers over the speech of Allah and His Messenger.
But we have extensive verses, many, multitude verses, which instruct us — rather command us — that we need to follow the Messenger ﷺ.
Allah says: “Everything which the Messenger gives to you, take from him. And whatever he prohibits from you, stay away from.”
And the context of that verse — what the context in which it came down — was the Messenger and the battle that he had with the people of Banū al-Naḍīr. This ayah mentions: “Whatever the Messenger gave to you, take it from him.”
Just give us a summary of what the context was.
— Of course. It was talking about spoils of war, it was talking about booty. But the spoils of war and the booty is not only restricted to that. No one from the ṣaḥābah — the noble companions — understood it to be that.
Do you not think by the wording that Allah saying “whatever he gives you” is quite clearly talking about the act of giving — like you would give spoils of war?
Allah didn’t say “whatever he does, you do.” He said “whatever he gives you.” Don’t you think that’s quite clearly and quite obviously talking about the spoils of war here?
— But how did he give them the spoils of war? Based on a legislation from Allah, right? From the sunnah, right? He gave it through his own actions, yeah?
— It wasn’t detailed in the Qur’an who to give. He gave it through his own actions, no doubt.
So what he gave them ﷺ — he is unrestricted. Sunnah can be given, like “I gave these persons a couple of hadiths” — I could say that, it wouldn’t be wrong.
Let me flip the question to you. If I say, can that ayah be used as taking the Qur’an?
— Yes, I could use that for the Qur’an, yeah, it could.
But it’s not talking about the Qur’an, it’s talking about spoils of war?
— You’re correct. I’m just trying to show you that you can’t use this verse now because the ayah is only talking about spoils of war. He’s talking about the Qur’an and in this particular circumstance talking about spoils of war. But to take a specific example where Allah says “take this” and then to say “therefore we can take everything” — is a stretch.
— I’m saying the best people, who are the most eloquent of people, the companions — that’s what they understood it as.
Okay, let’s move on to the sunnah itself. Didn’t the Messenger ﷺ forbid the companions from writing down his statements and only stick to writing down the Qur’an?
Why?
— It is true that the Messenger ﷺ said to the companions: “Don’t write from me other than the Qur’an. And anyone who wrote other than the Qur’an from me, then wipe it.” That was something that the Messenger ﷺ said.
But there were also situations where the Messenger ﷺ said to a noble companion — who wanted a narration to be written for him or something that the Messenger said — and then he asked for it, and the Messenger ﷺ said to the companions: “Write for Abū Shāh.”
You see? So there were times that the Messenger ﷺ — his narrations were written in his presence.
You know the famous hadith of Abū Hurayrah — he said: ‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘Āṣ — he wrote more than I did in hadiths.
This also proves that the hadiths were written — not to mention the Messenger of Allah ﷺ — when ‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘Āṣ — the noble companion — Quraysh went to him and they said to him:
"Are you writing everything the Messenger of Allah ﷺ says? I mean he’s a human. He laughs, he jokes, he’ll say things out of anger sometimes, he’ll say out of joy..."
Do you write everything he says?
And so this made ‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘Āṣ shocked. So he went to the Messenger ﷺ, and he said:
"Yā Rasūlullāh, this is what they said to me."
And the Messenger ﷺ said to him:
اُكْتُبْ، فَوَالَّذِي نَفْسُ مُحَمَّدٍ بِيَدِهِ
“Write! I swear by the One in whose hand is the soul of Muhammad…”
لَا يَخْرُجُ مِنْ هَذِهِ إِلَّا الْحَقُّ
“Nothing comes out of this (mouth) except the truth.” (or as the Prophet ﷺ said)
So this is a clear statement of his.
Not to mention, Allah says in the Qur’ān:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا تَدَايَنتُم بِدَيْنٍ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى فَاكْتُبُوهُ ۚ وَلْيَكْتُب بَّيْنَكُمْ كَاتِبٌۢ بِٱلْعَدْلِ
Allāh says in that āyah:
“O you who believe, if you are going to take a loan for a specified term, then write it down.”
And those who write it, who testify to it — the witnesses — everything:
مِّمَّن تَرْضَوْنَ مِنَ الشُّهَدَاءِ
“…from among those you accept as witnesses.”
So I’m asking you a sincere question:
If we were told to write debt, why wouldn’t we write the Prophet’s life? Why wouldn’t we write his statements and his words? Why wouldn’t we write his interpretation of verses and what he said about them?
The answer to that question is: because hundreds of years later, we would end up in a situation where Muslims would actually equate that with the Qur’ān and believe that the legislative rulings coming from the Messenger, who was a human being, are equal to the legislative rulings coming from Allāh, who is our Creator — and his Creator.
And that is exactly the situation we find ourselves in today, is it not?
I mean, the Messenger ﷺ — one of the reasons he did say “don’t write whatever comes from me” at the beginning of Islam, which was abrogated at the end — it’s actually **abrogated — was that fear:
That people may not distinguish the Qur’ān from the Sunnah.
Exactly. One from the other.
Because people are going to read — you see, the difference between the Qur’ān and the Sunnah is that the Qur’ān’s wording is:
مُتَعَبَّدٌ بِتِلَاوَتِهِ
You worship Allāh by reciting every letter of the Qur’ān. That’s not the case with the Sunnah.
So if the people don’t distinguish one from the other, they would be saying, for example:
"Al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabbil-‘ālamīn" "Innamal-a‘mālu bin-niyyāt" "Innaṣ-ṣalāh…"
— not being able to distinguish one from the other.
So he didn’t want that to happen. He wanted people to know:
This is the Qur’ān, and this is what you pray ṣalāh with.
So other than that, there's no difference — in terms of legislation, in terms of judgment and ruling — you believe that the Sunnah is equal to the Qur’ān?
In judgment and ruling — yes, it is.
Then why does Allāh say:
أَفَغَيْرَ اللَّهِ أَبْتَغِي حَكَمًا وَهُوَ الَّذِي أَنزَلَ إِلَيْكُمُ الْكِتَابَ مُفَصَّلًا
“Is it anyone other than Allāh that I should take as a judge, while He is the one who revealed to you the Book, fully explained?”
Ṣaḥīḥ.
Again, another thing we need to go back to is: You can’t just take one verse and abandon the other verses. You have to take all of those verses together.
Again, what did we say at the beginning?
"Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allāh."
So in essence, if you take Allāh as a ḥakam (judge), you've taken the Messenger ﷺ as a ḥakam by default. Because that's all — the Messenger ﷺ is explaining what the Qur’ān has mentioned.
He’s even adding legislations from that which is not in the Qur’ān, but from Allāh. So it's Allāh who judged.
For example, the legislation of growing your beard is not found in the Qur’ān, but it’s found in the Sunnah — which the Messenger ﷺ took from Allāh.
Why?
I mean, you know the famous Roman leader who came to the Messenger ﷺ?
The man had shaved his beard and had a thick moustache.
So the Messenger ﷺ said to him:
"مَنْ أَمَرَكَ بِهَذَا؟" “Who commanded you with this?”
And he replied:
“My lord” — referring to his political leader.
Then the Messenger ﷺ grabbed his own beard and said:
"اللَّهُ أَمَرَنِي بِهَذَا، وَأَمَرَنِي بِهَذَا"
“Allāh commanded me with this, and He commanded me with this.”
Pause. Question here:
If it's important for us to know that, why didn’t Allāh mention it first in the Qur’ān?
"وَأَنزَلْنَا إِلَيْكَ الذِّكْرَ لِتُبَيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ مَا نُزِّلَ إِلَيْهِمْ"
“We have sent down to you the Reminder so that you may explain to the people what was sent down to them.”
Allāh already told us:
“Muḥammad, we sent the Qur’ān on you so you can clarify for the people.”
You see, the Messenger ﷺ, that’s his job, that’s his role — to explain things to you:
- How to live your life
- How to be a Muslim
- What to do and what not to do
That’s his job ﷺ.
And that’s why, when we dispute one another, and we argue with one another — we take it back to him.
"فَإِن تَنَازَعْتُمْ فِي شَيْءٍ فَرُدُّوهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَالرَّسُولِ إِن كُنتُمْ تُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ"
“If you dispute in anything, then refer it back to Allāh and the Messenger, if you truly believe in Allāh and the Last Day.”
I ask you a question:
We know what it means to bring it back to Allāh. And we know what it means to bring it back to the Messenger when he was alive.
But how do I bring it back to the Messenger ﷺ now?
How?
Because we can’t say that this verse is not implemented.
Of course it's implemented. The Qur’ān was sent down for it to be implemented.
So this verse says: Take it back to the Messenger ﷺ.
He's not with us right now. How do I take it back to him?
Okay. Out of sincerity, I would have to say that you brought a lot of evidences from the Qur'an.
You haven't answered my question. It's a difficult one to answer. But I also want to go on to another point, which is: if you say that Allah is commanding us to take the Sunnah of the Messenger, how do we know it's been preserved correctly? How do we know it's reached us correctly to this day?
So that answer to your question would have allowed me to move on to that point, which is: if you had said that after the Messenger's death, we have to take it back to his Sunnah. Because he's not with us anymore. It's his Sunnah that we're taking it back to. Allah only would say that if the Sunnah is preserved.
But do we not have weak hadiths? Do we not have fabricated hadiths? Do we not have hadiths that the scholars disagree on?
Without a doubt, there are. There are weak narrations. There are fabricated narrations. There are liars who try to lie about the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
But that doesn't dismiss that there are authentic hadiths. And you and I know that it wasn't the Quranians, the supposed Quranians, who came out and proved that these hadiths were weak. No.
It's the people who mentioned the Qur'an, the ones who mentioned the Sunnah as a source of evidence. They were the ones who showed these hadiths are weak. It is them who stood up to prove that these are authentic and these are weak.
As the poet said:
فَسُنَّةُ النَّبِي وَحْيٌ ثَانٍ عَلَيْهِ مَا قَدْ أُطْلِقَ الْوَحْيَانِ وَإِنَّمَا طَرِيقُهَا الرِّوَايَةِ فَافْتَقَرَ الرَّاوِي إِلَى الدِّرَايَةِ بِصِحَةِ الْمَرْوِي عَلَى الرَّسُولِ لِيُعْلَمَ الْمَرْدُودِ مِنْ مَقْبُولِ لَسِيَمَ عِنْدَ التَّظَاهُرِ الْفِتَنِ وَلَبْسِ إِفْكِرِ الْمُحَدِّثِينَ بِالسُّنَنِ فَقَابَ عِنْدَ دَلِكَ الْأَئِمْنَةِ بِخِدْمَةِ الدِّينِ وَنُصْحِحِ الْأُمَّةِ فَمَيَّزُوا أَمَا فَخَلَّصُوا صَحِحَهَا مِنْ مُفْتَرَى حَتَى صَفَتْ نَقِيَةً كَمَا تَرَى
It was the scholars who stood up and they distinguished the weak narrations from the authentic narrations. It was Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak. It was Ibn Jurayj. It was Imam al-Bukhari. It was Abu Nu'aym al-Fadl ibn Dukayn. Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ishaq ibn Rahuyah, Ali ibn al-Madini.
Not the so-called Qur’aniyoon.
These scholars are men, are they not? They're human beings, correct?
They're human beings, yes.
It's not from our belief and our creed as Muslims that human beings can make mistakes?
Yes, without a doubt.
So just to understand your position, you're saying we're entrusting our source of legislation in the religion to human beings?
I gave you an example at the beginning of the verse, that when you're taking debt from somebody—a witness—Allah ‘Azza wa Jal said in that verse:
فَاسْتَشْهِدُوا شَهِدَيْنِ مِنْ رِجَالِكُمْ
One or two men as witnesses. Allah said it. So I'm taking men for a witness on a worldly issue.
Correct.
Because a worldly issue is much smaller than a religious issue, yeah? A worldly issue is not as important as a religious issue.
Without a doubt.
But the thing here is, for example, Allah says:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوا
Another qirā’ah says:
فَتَثَبَّتُوا
If a fāsiq comes to you...
إِنْ جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ
If a fāsiq comes to you with news...
فَتَثَبَّتُوا
Verify it. That's what the āyah says. That’s the بِمَنطُوقِ الآيَة. The āyah directly says to us: if a fāsiq comes to you with news, then verify it.
What about if the person is not a fāsiq?
Then according to the āyah, then it's okay.
Yeah, we don’t need to verify, right?
Yeah.
So the āyah told me that if I see a reliable person who meets the conditions of integrity, is reliable, I don’t need to verify. I take his words.
So these conditions of integrity and reliability, and for example, strong memory, etc.—I’m assuming we got it from Allah and His Messenger?
They’re scattered all over the verses of the Qur’an. But that āyah is the backbone to use—that the people who are reliable... Because they say, “We take the Qur’an,” right?
Yes.
Well, they’re not taking the Qur’an, to be honest. Because I mentioned many āyāt that show that we need to take the Sunnah.
But for the sake of argument, let's say they take the Qur’an. Well, here it is.
Allah is saying:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوا فَتَثَبَّتُوا
And here we have a person who you wouldn’t say is fāsiq.
Do you really think someone like al-Bukhari, who came 250 years after the death of the Prophet ﷺ is reliable?
I mean, considering that there’s such a long time span between him and the Messenger—surely something could have gone wrong in that entire chain. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, mistakes happen.
I mean, if you’re alluding to that Imam al-Bukhari was the first person to write the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ—was he not?
No, of course he wasn’t.
Who preceded him then?
Imam al-Bukhari wasn’t even the sixth or seventh person who wrote hadith. There were many, many scholars before him who wrote hadith.
First of all, we have to understand: the same way that the Qur’an was written, and the same people who we trusted with the Qur’an, are the same people we’re trusting with the Sunnah here right now.
What do you mean by that?
I mean, look at the Sunnah right now. Look at the Sunnah.
The Sunnah was memorized and it was written. The Qur’an was memorized and it was written.
First of all, you need to know the ḥifẓ of the Qur’an.
How was the Qur'an protected? First it was memorized, right? Allah told us in the ayah, فَلْهُٓا آيَاتٌ بَيِّنَاتٌ فِي سُدُورِ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمِ وَإِنَّهُ لَتَنْزِيلُ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ نَزَلَ بِهِ الرُّوحُ الْأَمِينُ عَلَىٰ قَلْبِكَ لِتَكُونَ مِنَ الْمُنذِرِينَ بِاللِّسَانِ الْعَرَبِيِّ الْمُبِينِ That the Qur'an was memorized in the Prophet's chest. And then it moved on to the chest and the hearts of the companions. فَلْهُٓا آيَاتٌ بَيِّنَاتٌ فِي سُدُورِ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمِ It was compiled in the hearts of the believers. They memorized it. They kept it in their chest. And then after that, Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala came and he brought that whole entire Qur'an that was written. It just wasn't compiled. The Qur'an was written before Abu Bakr, but he brought it together. He did jama'a.
I need to give you the long, it will take us probably a bit, but the lines of poetry that Al-Imam Abu al-Qasim al-Shatibi in his Kitab Aqeelat At-Tarab al-Qasaid he mentions the story of how it took place. He says:
وَلَمْ يَزَلْ حِفْظُ بَيْنَ الصَّحَابَةِ فِي عُلَىٰ حَيَاتِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ مُبْتَدِرًا وَكُلَّ عَامٍ عَلَىٰ جِبْرِيلَ يَعْرِضُهُ وَقِيلَ آخِرْ عَامٍ عَرَضَتَيْنِ قَرَى إِنَّ الْيَمَامَةَ أَهْوَاهَا مُسَيْلَمَةُ الْكَذَّابِ فِي زَمَنِ الصِّدِّيقِ إِذْ خَسَرَ وَبَعْدَ بَأْسٍ شَدِيدٍ حَانَ مَصْرَعُهُ وَكَانَ بَأْسًا عَلَىٰ الْقُرَّاءِ مُسْتَعِرًا لَاذَ أَبَى بَكْرٍ لِلْفَارُوقُ خِفْتُ عَلَىٰ الْقُرَّاءِ فَادَّرِكِ الْقُرْآنَ مُسْتَطِرًا فَأَجْمَعُوا جَمْعَهُ فِي الصُّحْفِ وَاَعْتَمَدُوا زَيْدَمْنَ ثَابِتٍ لِلْعَدْلَ الرِّضَىٰ نَظَرًا فَقَامَ فِيهِ بِعَوْنِ اللَّهِ يَجْمَعُهُ بِالنُّصْحِ وَالْجِدِّ وَالْحَزْمِ الَّذِي بَهَرَىٰ مِنْ كُلِّ أَوْجُهِ حَتَّى استَتَمَّ لَهُ بِالْأَحْرُفِ سَبْعَةِ الْعُلِيَةِ كَمَا شْتَهْرَىٰ
Abu Bakr RA compiled the Quran. He felt that the people who were memorizing the Quran had died or were dying. And so he felt the need to compile the Quran. But the Quran was written before. The same with the Sunnah. The Sunnah was memorized and it was what?
Sorry, the Sunnah was memorized and compiled in its entirety at the time of Abu Bakr? No, no, no. Not Abu Bakr. Okay, so there's a difference. But I'm talking about both of them at the time of the Messenger. Both of them at the time of the Messenger. The Quran was written down in its entirety? Not necessarily compiled, but it was written down? All of the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ were either written or memorized. Same with the Quran. Either memorized or written. But more of the Quran was written than the Sunnah. Would you agree on that at the very least? Without a doubt. And then the Quran also was compiled in its entirety way before the Sunnah was. Again, the reason was because the people who were memorizing the Quran were feared to die. Yes. Whereas not the Sunnah. No doubt. I don't mind about the reason. The point I'm trying to make is if you're trying to say that the process was the same for the two, so you accept this one, why don't you accept this one? I don't think that's fair. I think the process in itself from a bird's eye view was similar. But the details distinguish that this one was compiled much earlier.
Let's take a step back. At the time of the Messenger ﷺ, the Quran was memorized and it was written. The Sunnah was memorized and it was written. Do you agree on that? Not necessarily. That's a general statement. When we look at the specifics, we just agree that more of the Quran was written than memorized in comparison to the Sunnah. Do you agree on that? It doesn't change my argument. The fact that something was more or less doesn't really— It completely changes it because there's more chance of this one being lost if it was written less. Whereas this one was written much more, there's less chance of it being lost. And that's exactly what we're talking about. Okay. That would mean that the Sunnah was written, an amount of the Sunnah was written that could be lost. So what do you mean by that? For example, when you said that the Quran, a lot of it was written. Yes. And I said to you, a lot of the Sunnah was written as well. Meaning all of the Sunnah was written. Yes. And it was also memorized. If you said that, yeah. And all of it was memorized.
If you said that, I'd trust it much more. The entire Sunnah was either written or memorized. Okay.
That's different. Memorization is different to writing. Do you agree?
For the Arabs, it was really the same.
They were a people who passed everything on by memory. So it's funny. I met a man who was an Arabic teacher.
He taught Arabic. He was an Arabic teacher. And I said to him, what, you teach Arabic? And he said Quran.
He calls himself Qurani. He's a follower of the Quran. So I said, how do you teach Arabic? And he goes, yeah, I teach it in Muruqayis, Anta'ala ibn Shaddad, Zuhair ibn Abi Sulma.
These are the books, you know, the Arabic poetry. So I said, you believe it's preserved? He says, yeah.
But you don't believe the Sunnah is preserved? The pre-Islamic poetry, we have it today.
It's written. We read it for you. Muruqayis was 150 years before the Messenger ﷺ.
The reason why the Quran wasn't sent down in one book, or even the small portions that came down, it wasn't done on papers, because Allah knew these people were people of Hifz.
Their memory was unique. And it's not fair that you compare something that was done at that time for its context and you want to compare it to yourself right now. It's incorrect.
You're looking at it wrong. If you want to know their reasons behind things, you need to look at how they were as people.
These people would listen to a poetry once, once, once, from a man.
All of it at once. He would hear it, and he'd memorize it. And that's how they passed it on.
When he died, Imam al-Shatibi said, كان العلم من قبل في صدور الرجال
Knowledge before was in the men's hearts.
Do you think Imam Ahmad used to come to a halaqah, and he would sit down, and he would read from a paper and a book?
These people knew thousands and thousands of narrations from the top of their heads. And they wouldn't get it wrong.
Their Hifz was Taqib, had solid memory. That's one. That's a form of preservation.
You can't deny, especially if you know the Arab tradition.
Number two is the writing. And I proved to you that the Sunnah was written at the time of the Messenger.
So at the time of the Messenger, the Qur'an and the Sunnah are both present. Preservation-wise, they're both present. No one can deny that.
Can I go and see a manuscript or something that was written by a companion in terms of the Sunnah?
There were Suhuf written by Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Asan. But that's what trickled into, you see what I mean?
Even the Qur'an right now, there's questions whether Uthman's Mus'haf is the one that's there or not.
Do you see my point? But the Qur'an today, you find it's just here.
This is the Mus'haf you're reading. You're not reading what Abu Bakr wrote with his hand or the Mus'haf that the companions wrote. Why do you rely so heavily on Bukhari then? So again, there was something I was going to say before.
So you said Bukhari wasn't the first person to write it. Okay, you proved that. Suyutah mentions in his alfiyah, he says The first person to write was Muhammad ibn Shihab al-Zuhri.
He was the tabi'i. He was the first person to write it. Now after that came people we can't tell who was before who.
They were all just at the same time. Ibn Jurayj, Hushayn ibn Maliki, Ma'mar ibn Mubarak. So we have Ibn Jurayj.
We have Hushayn ibn Bashir. We have Malik ibn Anas. We have Ma'mar ibn Rashid.
And we have Abdullah ibn Mubarak. These people all wrote it. These are the teachers of Bukhari.
Or the teachers' teachers of Bukhari. Do you see my point? Bukhari came after. The only difference between them and Bukhari is that Bukhari conditioned authenticity.
They didn't condition authenticity. They compiled everything. The other difference in the modern world at least you can see is everybody who follows the hadiths says Bukhari Muslim, Bukhari Muslim, Bukhari Muslim.
This is pretty much all you hear. And there's no doubt you yourself would admit that Bukhari's book of hadith is the most authentic. Is it not? Would you agree to that? Ok great.
So if you agree to that then obviously it has a special importance in the science of hadith or this methodology of hadith. And it doesn't escape the fact that he came 250 years later. Talk me through the process between the time of the companions and him.
How does that look? How can we be so sure? How can we trust that it hasn't been corrupted in those years? You see, Al-Imam al-Bukhari if his book gets lost right now and we don't have Bukhari all of those hadiths we have in other places. Really? Of course we do. What he did was, I told you this.
People don't understand this. If you get rid of Sahih al-Bukhari right now and you destroy it. Those hadiths are in Musallaf ibn Abi Shaybah, Musnad ibn Muhammad, and Muwatta ibn Malik.
Which are present today? Of course. Of course, they're in other books of hadith. The only difference is Bukhari, he picked those hadiths based on authenticity.
He conditioned something that no one preceded him in. He said, I'm going to condition authenticity. And the reason why he did that is because the ones before him, they needed to take every and anything that was attributed to the Prophet.
So the first stage was, just take the hadiths. Just take it, whether it's Sahih or not, don't worry. Just take the chain and write it down.
The second stage was, this is wrong, get rid of this one, get rid of this one, get rid of this one. This is Sahih, this is not. It was stages, it went through.
Phases, it went through. Bukhari's phase or the stage that he was going through was the hadiths are all Sahih. Okay, question here.
And that's why people quote Bukhari. Bukhari, because he's Sahih. The Ummah unanimously agreed upon this book.
Ijma' can sense that it's the most authentic book after the book of Allah, the Quran. Okay, pause for a second here. How far do we take this? Do we believe that every single letter was preserved from the hadiths? The way that we believe about the Quran? No, you're right.
The Quran, as I said to you before, the wordings, we are muta'abbadun bi tilawati. We are worshipping Allah on this ayah. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen.
You're worshipping Allah on every word, every letter. You're worshipping Allah with it. As for the sunnah, the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah is his speech, his actions, his consent, and his situation, his appearance, how he looked, how his manners were.
His manners, there's no words to observe. Okay, I'm talking about the Prophet's manners. I'm going to use my own wordings.
But that's a sunnah for us. The sunnah is also the Prophet's, the way he looked. Everybody would use their wording that they thought most appropriate for the appearance of the Messenger.
Okay, the Prophet's actions. Everybody would use their own ta'bir, their own wordings to show how the Prophet did in action. Do you not see how this is problematic, though, when you're saying this? Because we actually worship Allah based on these actions, and you're saying that they might not be preserved completely word for word.
Someone was just saying how he sees it, his opinion, his view. I mean, you can't say that's not the case. Right now, if two people saw an incident, you'd ask them both what happened.
You'd take a note down, and you'd say, this is what the eyewitnesses said. I agree that's the case. That's exactly how it is.
Are you taking their words word for word, verbatim, or are you using the meaning and the concept that's in them? Even if you're using the meaning, because when you convey something word for word, it's obviously much stronger than when you're just conveying a meaning. That's my question. How can you convey word for word an action that the Messenger's doing? There's no word for you to convey.
Exactly, that's my point. That's the danger of worshipping Allah based on these actions, whereas if you follow the Qur'an alone, you wouldn't worry about it. How is it dangerous? That's a leap.
Because the leap that I'm taking is that if somebody is conveying something that they saw, and I'm a normal human being, I'm not a prophet, I'm just a normal human being, and I'm conveying something that I saw, naturally, when I convey that, it's got my own filter in it. You have to admit that's the case. Okay, so you saw it, another person saw it, another person saw it.
Your story all seems the same, maybe different. It's like somebody saying, so-and-so is good, another person says he's righteous, another person says he's noble. All of them, I want to understand that they're discarding him and belittling him, and that's what I want us to understand.
We said that the hadiths of the Prophet ﷺ are divided into the Prophet's wordings, what the Messenger said, a.s. What the Messenger said, again, there are wordings that are verbatim, took from him word for word, like the adhkar. The adhkar and the da'iya are word for word, because we're worshipping Allah based on this now. There are wordings of the Messenger ﷺ that are narrated by meaning.
And when it comes to the Messenger ﷺ, this is the unique thing for the Qur'an and the unique thing for the Sunnah. The Qur'an, we worship Allah based on the wording and the meaning. The Sunnah, we're acting upon it based on meaning.
That's what matters. It's meaning that matters, not the wording. As long as the meaning that both parties are conveying or all groups are conveying, we'll take it.
See, this is a reliable person. A reliable person is telling you something. You've no reason to question his integrity.
You've no reason to question his morality. He's conveying a message to you. You have to accept it.
Okay, let's go back to Bukhari. Do you believe that all of the hadiths in Bukhari, in a general sense, are authentic? General sense, without a doubt. Okay, random question.
How many years did the Prophet ﷺ remain in Mecca for before he migrated to Medina? He stayed in Mecca for 13 years and in Medina for 10. He didn't stay in Mecca for 10 years? The Messenger ﷺ? No, he didn't. He stayed there for 13 years.
So a hadith found in Bukhari, narrated by Anas ibn Malik, Allah sent him as a messenger when he was 40 years old. Afterwards, he resided in Mecca for 10 years. One hadith.
Another hadith, which is where you obviously get your answer from, narrated Ibn Anbas, Allah's Prophet was divinely inspired at the age of 40, then he stayed in Mecca for 13 years. We have a book where you believe that in a general sense, all of these narrations are authentic. One of them says 13 years.
Another one says 10. It's impossible for them both to be right. Okay, but the chain to the Sahabi, who said this statement, is authentically transmitted from him.
If it's in Bukhari? The companion did say this. Okay. So now the companion got it wrong, you're saying? We don't believe the companions are infallible.
They can do mistakes. They can get it right. They can get it wrong.
That you need to know. We don't believe that the Sahabas are free from errors and mistakes. They're humans.
They can do it wrong. They can get it wrong. But I don't even believe the companion did it wrong here.
Okay, but before you move on to that. Okay, fine. I don't even think he did a mistake.
So how do you reconcile the two? It's easy because the Arabs, they rounded numbers off. That was a common thing. We know we call the Hadith of Imam Al-Nawwi, we call it 40 Hadiths of Nawwi.
We do. But it's 42 Hadiths. What do you do with the other two Hadiths? You say 40 Hadiths.
So the Arabs, they round off numbers. They round it off. So the companion rounded it off.
It's an Arab way of doing things. So the question here that I think you are trying to prove here is that Bukhari has weaker Hadiths in there. But that Hadith is authentically transmitted to the companion.
That's Bukhari's job. And it's him who brought you the two narrations. Don't think he doesn't know numbers.
He's just trying to show you that there's this view and there's that view. Okay? Both views can be reconciled. Okay.
Let's move on to a well-known statement that many people say. And that is a claim that one of the companions that narrated the most Hadiths is Abu Hurairah. Is that correct, first of all? However, he only spent a very short time, maybe four years, with the Messenger.
How can he have narrated so many Hadiths having spent such a short amount of time with him when other companions spent longer with the Messenger and didn't narrate as many Hadiths? So here we have to distinguish one from the other. I'm not saying that Abu Hurairah heard more Hadiths than any other companion. We don't believe that.
Or I don't believe that. Or do you believe? There are other companions who heard more Hadiths from Abu Hurairah. But he's one of the highest, right? He's one of the highest.
I want two things to be distinguished. Him hearing more Hadiths from the Messenger or him narrating more Hadiths. I'll give you an example.
I sat with you for one day. And another brother sat with you for ten years. That brother, me, who sat with you for one day, I talked about everything I saw that one day.
And the brother who sat with you for ten years, he chose not to talk about it. Right. So he knew more, but he chose not to.
So other companions, I wouldn't say they chose not to, but other aspects took over their lives. Like Abu Bakr, who was busy with Wilayah and leadership and controlling the Muslims, this and that. So everything Abu Hurairah was saying, they already knew it.
If he was lying, they would say, this man is a liar, he's a Kaddhab. We were with the Messenger. He didn't say this.
Number two. Abu Hurairah himself said it with his own mouth. He said that, he heard more Hadiths from the Prophet than me.
But the difference was, Ibadah overcame him. He got busy with Ibadah and worship of Allah. Whereas Abu Hurairah sat down in the Masjid and he would just read narrations.
Narrations, narrations, narrations. Another thing is, Abu Hurairah heard other Hadiths from the companions themselves. What do you mean by that? So he narrated from a companion who narrated from the Messenger.
So it wasn't all that which he heard from the Prophet directly. There are Hadiths that he wasn't alive to see. But he heard it from other companions like Abu Bakr and Umar and other companions he narrated from.
Okay. I want to understand exactly what you believe the Hadiths are. Because we obviously believe that we take our religion from Allah.
And the Messenger ﷺ was a human being. Where did he get his Hadiths from? Where did he get these things from? The ayah Allah says, The Prophet ﷺ never spoke from his own whims and desires. This is a revelation from Allah.
The Hadiths were a revelation? From Allah. So we're expected to say and believe that everything that the Messenger did from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep was a revelation. Whether it was the food he ate or anything that he did.
You just took my word out of context. So what do you mean? I said everything the Prophet ﷺ said. And you said everything the Prophet ﷺ does.
Okay. No problem. So this is restricted.
But we also believe the Hadiths are his actions. Do we not? So are you saying that his actions are not revelation? Not all of them. No.
The ayah didn't say that to you. How do you separate what's revelation and what's not? But the ayah didn't say that to you. Everything he does.
It says everything he said. Okay. We'll come back to his speech.
But for his actions, how do you separate what is revelation and what is not? So anything that the Messenger ﷺ did to get closer to Allah. He did it to get to. He did it to get closer to Allah.
And there is no evidence which comes from him or from another external source that proves that this is specific for him. As long as it's not specific to him and he did it to get closer to Allah. This is Ibadah.
He got it from Allah. But his speech ﷺ is from Allah. So his speech is revelation from Allah.
Let's go to the speech now. There were never times where he gave a verdict and then he was wrong and he had to come back and they had to give a new verdict. That never happened? Any statement, there are times that the Prophet ﷺ... So the first time he spoke, was that revelation? No, he gave Ijtihad.
It was his personal independent answer. Interesting. So he gave a fatwa ﷺ. He did Ijtihad from himself.
And then he got corrected for his Ijtihad. So in essence, when the ayah says, وَمَا يَنطِقُ عَنِهَا He doesn't speak without revelation. It means the ultimate conclusion that the Ummah will receive is a revelation from Allah.
So whether he said it first or not, what reaches us and what we implement is going to be what? It's going to be the corrected version. Okay, fine. We also know that when the messenger used to receive revelation, there used to be physical duress that was seen upon him.
Is that the case? So throughout his whole life, anytime he spoke, he's physically in duress? No, not every form of revelation. That wasn't all of his revelation. What did you mean then? Some of his revelations were hardship and some of them they weren't.
He wouldn't always have an excessive pain in the Qur'an that came down. Don't think to yourself that the revelation of the Qur'an was all in one particular form. No, it wasn't.
Sometimes it would be in different ways. For example, Jibreel came to him and he revised the Qur'an with him. The last year he came and this is a revelation.
He was teaching him the Qur'an. So there were times that the Qur'an came to him other than a bell and a noise that wouldn't make him sweat like that. So according to you and in the verse that you mentioned earlier, one of the messenger's job was to explain the Qur'an.
Why do we need that when Allah says, Why can't we just use our own intellect to interpret the Qur'an the way we want? Just like Allah is saying in this verse. As in like, why don't you ponder over it? Yeah, why do we need someone else's pondering? Why can't we just take the Qur'an and understand it the way we want to understand it? And read it and get whatever… What do you mean? So you're restricting the understanding of the Qur'an to the messenger's understanding. Is that correct? Allah is saying, Do not ponder, do not use your intellect.
So it seems to me that Allah is saying, Look at the Qur'an and use your intellect to interpret it. And you're saying… No, that's not what the ayah says. Okay, what does it mean then? The ayah didn't say, read the Qur'an and look what it interprets.
It says, ponder over it. And it doesn't dismiss that you ponder on the Qur'an in line with what the messenger came with. And that which his companions, the way they understood it.
It doesn't deny the pondering. When Allah said, Do they not ponder over the Qur'an? Or are there locks on their hearts? Or did they not ponder over the speech? Do they not ponder over the Qur'an? And if it were from someone other than Allah, they would have found in it a great difference. A blessed book that we have sent down to you, to ponder over My verses.
So what do these verses mean in English? Ponder over the Qur'an. Contemplate over the Qur'an. It doesn't dismiss that you ponder over the Qur'an and you contemplate over the Qur'an based on the way that the messenger of Allah explained it.
So when I ponder over the Qur'an, و أقيم الصلاة Establish the prayer. And I look at the word الصلاة, what it means. And how the صلاة brings me إِنَّ صَلَاتَتَنَهَا عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ That the صلاة prohibits a person from evil.
And I think, SubhanAllah, look how many evils that I would have done if I didn't have to go to the Jama'ah and pray in the congregation. I ponder over it like that. But not that, و أقيم الصلاة Yeah man, this ayah is powerful.
SubhanAllah, I don't have to pray Salah. That's not what the ayah is saying. The ayah is saying contemplate on the Qur'an على وفق ما جاء به النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم in a way that the messenger came with it and the way he explained it صلى الله عليه وسلم So I don't see a contradiction in the messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم commenting on the Qur'an and explaining the Qur'an and pondering over the Qur'an.
Okay, you brought a lot of evidences and you brought some quite convincing arguments about why we should follow the hadiths. But there are a couple of questions that still remain with me. We have certain hadiths that seem very very strange, very odd.
For example, there is a hadith in Bukhari that talks about Shaytan, the Satan, urinating in a man's ear. Surely we can, even if we don't reject hadiths in their totality, we can overlook these hadiths. The Qur'an is the one that instructed us to believe in the unseen.
دَلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ هُدًى لِلْمُتَّقِينَ الَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْغَيْبِ We believe in the unseen. So it's the Qur'an that told us to believe in the unseen. So that is something we should believe in.
It's from the unseen. And the sign of the Muttaqeen, the pious people is that they believe in the unseen. And subhanAllah, the reality of many people who I've seen who complain about sleeping paralysis and they say, oh look, I'm having problems in my sleep.
When they do the adhkar that the hadith instructed, they say, subhanAllah, I'm fresh, I wake up, I don't have that problem. I don't have that problem. So there is a reality to what the hadith has mentioned, without a doubt.
Okay, my second question relating to, not necessarily rejecting all of the hadiths, but rejecting some of them, is that, as you mentioned before, there are certain hadiths that have reached us through multiple chains. I think they're pretty reliable. If someone was going to say, I have to follow the hadiths, I'd be more happy to follow them than the one that has just come through one chain.
Is it okay to just take the ones that have come through multiple chains and ignore the ones that are singular chain narrations? This concept of the hadith becoming multitude and singular is a newly introduced matter. That wasn't the time of the Messenger and his companions. They never knew this concept of, oh, how many people said it? Okay, we'll accept it.
Oh, one person said it? No, I'm not going to accept it. And to be very honest with you, the Messenger, peace be upon him, only sent one person to nations. How? When? Like Mu'adh ibn Jabal, he sent him to the whole people of Yemen.
And he told the people of Yemen to take, or he told Mu'adh ibn Jabal to talk to them about Tawheed and Aqeedah, one man, by himself. So it was one or two people that would go, or one person would go. And they would go to teach the people about the sub-branches of the religion, or the creed or the belief of the religion? Fundamental issues, like Mu'adh, So la ilaha illallah was the first thing he was told to convey.
Okay, if you're claiming that the companions all understood that the Hadiths are part of the religion, and we should follow them, where did this concept of not following the Hadiths originate from? The history behind the rejection of the Hadith, it's an early thing that was done. The first group that did it were the Khawarij, who rejected the Hadiths. They rejected it and they just took the Quran.
You know the woman that came to Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha, that woman, when she came to Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha, she said to Aisha, why is it that when we fast, we have to bring back the fasting, but when we pray, we don't have to bring back the praying? Like the prayer that we missed. Aisha, the first thing she said to her, she said, are you Haruri? Are you Khawariji? Are you from the group, the Khawarij group? Modern day ISIS, are you from them? So she said no. The reason why Aisha asked is because the people, the Khawarij would reject Sunnah.
They would reject the Sunnah, they would only take the Quran. Supposedly, they would say they would only take the Quran. So they were the early people, and also the Rafidah.
The Rafidah rejected the Sunnah in totality. And great scholars came and they refuted them. From them is Sheikh of Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, who wrote a book on them called Minhaj Sunnah An-Nabawiyah.
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti has written a book called Miftah al-Jannah Fi ihtijaji bi al-Sunnah. Suyuti rahimAllahu ta'ala. Ibn al-Wazir al-Yamani.
He has a book called Al-Rawd al-Basim Fi al-Dab'i al-Sunnah abu al-Qasim, where he refutes those groups. So those are the early people. But the rejection of the Khawarij and the Rafidah was an ultimate, complete, unrestricted rejection.
It was al-raddu al-mutlaq of the Sunnah. Al-raddu al-Sunnah mutlaq without any reason. Totally, the Sunnah, we don't need it.
It's the Quran. Then came after them deviated groups, like the Mu'tazila, like the Asha'ira, who were known as Ahl al-Kalam. Who got affected by philosophy and that.
The Greek logians and their arguments. They now rejected the Sunnah partially. Partially rejection.
Raddu muqayyad. They rejected it when it's Khabar al-Ahad, we won't take it in Usul al-Deen or in Aqeedah, but we will take Khabar al-Ahad in Furoo al-Sharia, you know, in some branches of the religion. That's a form of rejection.
That's a step closer to the complete and ultimate rejection. And great scholars refuted them, like Imam al-Shafi'i in his Kitab al-Risala. He took time out for them.
And he proved that this Khabar al-Ahad is taken. And Imam al-Shafi'i and many other great scholars. Many other great scholars.
Then came a group in the 20th and the 21st century, whose rejection of the Sunnah became apparent. From the earliest people in this era and this time was a man by the name of Ahmad al-Qadiyani. And he's not the Qadiyani group that they follow.
It's another man who came up from Shiba Tukarrat al-Hindiya, came from the subcontinent, and rejected the Sunnah of the Messenger ﷺ. And then after him came Sayyid Ahmad Khan, and Abdullah al-Jakar, and Ahmad al -Din, and now became a group. After Ahmad al-Qadiyani, it became a group. But they weren't organized.
After that came an organization made by Ghulam Ahmad. He made an organization where he called it Ahlul Qur'an. And he used to bring, every month, he would bring out magazines in rejecting the Sunnah of the Messenger ﷺ. Now that's the subcontinent.
They were the early people to do that. Then came out after that the Arab world. It came into Ard al-Kinana, Egypt.
And the way they came to Egypt from was Muhammad Abduh, who took it from al -Afghani, Jabal al-Din al-Afghani. He took it from him, and it came. Muhammad Rashid Rida, he had a magazine that was called Majallat al-Manar, Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida.
One of the articles that came out on that magazine was called Al-Islamu Huwa al -Qur'an. Islam is the Qur'an only. And it was written by a doctor.
His name is called Tawfiq Siddiqi. And it's sad because Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida, he praised it, and he endorsed it. Subhanallah.
And you know Muhammad Rashid Rida, you know who he is. He's the man who Sheikh al-Bani said, I got affected by him in Hadith. But he repented from this.
Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida, at the end, he left that. He walked away from that. There's a Sheikh called Sheikh al-A'adami.
He has a kitab called Darasat fil-Hadith al-Nabawi. He refuted those arguments of Tawfiq Siddiqi. Then the second person who came out in the Arab world to push this, it was Abu Rayya.
He wrote a kitab called Adwa al-Sunnat al-Muhammadiyah, Abu Rayya. And Abu Rayya got refuted by the great imam, imam dhahabi al-asr of this time, the imam dhahabi of this era, Abd al-Humayyah al-Muallimi. Abd al-Humayyah al-Muallimi wrote a kitab called Al-Anwar al-Kashifa, where he refuted Abu Rayya's arguments, and what he put forward.
And ever since they came out, and they would come out, Allah will always make a people come out and to refute them. But this has no basis in the religion. Rather, the people who reject the sunnah, and they say we're only going to take the Quran, are kuffar, they're not Muslims.
I was going to ask, what is the ruling on these people? They're disbelievers. Based on the ayah, Allah says, وَكَيْفَ تَكْفُرُونَ وَأَنْتُمْ تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ وَفِيكُمْ رَسُولُهُ Allah says, وَكَيْفَ تَكْفُرُونَ How do you disbelieve? وَأَنْتُمْ تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ The verses of Allah are being read on you, وَفِيكُمْ and amongst you is the messenger. The messengers amongst you, for the early generation, physically meant he was with them.
But for us, it means the sunnah. What did the ayah say at the beginning? Why do you turn away from the Qur'an and turn away from the sunnah? And choose disbelief over it. That's what the verse is saying.
So anyone who turns away from the Qur'an and the sunnah, he is a disbeliever. He's not a believer. Sorry, just to clarify, is that even for the people who don't reject the hadiths totally, but they reject certain narrations? No, no, we're talking about the ones who reject it in totality.
Great scholars have transmitted ijma' ibn al-Qayyim transmitted ijma' ibn al -Hazm transmitted ijma' ibn al-Wazir al-Yamani is Kitab al-Dabb al-Rawd al -Basim, he mentions ijma' Suyuti mentions in his Kitab, he's Miftah al-Jannah, he mentions ijma' ibn Taymiyyah brings the ijma' There's no difference of opinion that these people are disbelievers. They're not Muslims. Okay, if we have people like this that we know in our friends or families, can we apply this ruling onto them? No, no, you don't individually apply it on people.
You guide them, you advise them, you speak to them. Generally, when it comes to kufr, you don't take matters into your own hand and place it on people. But anyone who rejects the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah in totality, is not a Muslim in general.
Okay, we have two minutes left on the show. What is your final piece of advice for anybody who rejects the sunnah? I want to say to you, you're opening the door for groups like ISIS to exist, whether you know it or not. It's your narrative that will make them spread.
How? It's because the sunnah is there to prevent anyone coming and making their own interpretation for the Quran. I'll give you an example. The Khawarij, when they wanted to fight against Ali ibn Abi Talib, and they saw Ali to be a kafir, and they saw Muawiyah to be a kafir, and Amr ibn Aas to be a kafir, and Abu Musa al-Ash'ari to be a kafir, and the noble companions to be kuffar, what was it that they were using? It's ayat.
But those ayat were not taken back to the sunnah. So that's the narrative, that's the type of people you're encouraging. Groups like that who just take a verse and just read it without taking it back to what the sunnah said, without taking it back to what the companions said.
I'll give you the Khawarij who killed Abdullah ibn Khabab. They killed him, and they killed his pregnant wife, and they brought the child out of his stomach, threw the baby on the floor. And then what did they say? They bring a hadith? No! They put the ayah, وَلَا يَلِدُ إِلَّا فَاجِرًا كَفَّارًا رَبِّ لَا تَذَلْ عَلَى الْأَرْضِ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ دَيَّارًا إِنَّكَ إِن تَذَرْهُمْ يُضِلُّ عِبَادَكَ وَلَا يَلِدُ إِلَّا فَاجِرًا كَفَّارًا They used that verse.
Sorry, English translation. It's talking about the story of Nabila'i Nuh. When Nabila'i Nuh, he said to Allah, Oh Allah, destroy these people.
Oh Allah, destroy these people and don't let anyone of them remain. Because what's gonna come from these people, the offspring that they're gonna have are disbelievers. So he's saying that Abdul Rahman Khabab's wife is pregnant.
The child that she's gonna give birth to is only a kafir. So let's kill her and nothing else is gonna come from her except evil. So they've taken a verse from the Quran and used their own intellect or their own reason or their own desires to interpret the way they want.
So the Quran, what narrows it down is the sunnah. What even narrows that more down is the companions. And then you and I don't need to say, what does this verse mean? How do we do it? No, we don't need that.
We already say, what did Allah say? Okay, how did the Prophet explain it? Okay, and how did the companions understand that as well? And then that's how we live our lives. Then we wouldn't have people throwing verses around like that and playing around with the text as they wish. Ustadh Abdul Rahman, it's been a pleasure as always.
That's all we have time for on this episode. JazakAllah khairan, once again for joining me. SubhanakAllahu bihamdika ashhadu an la ilaha illa anta astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk.
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