Indeed, those who disbelieve in Allah and His messengers and wish to discriminate between Allah and His messengers and say, “We believe in some and disbelieve in others,” and wish to adopt a way in between – Those are the disbelievers, truly. And We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating punishment. (Qur’an: Surah An-Nisa, ayaat 150-151)
We need to give a serious attention to what “discriminate between Allah and His messengers” means. We see this tendency of believing in the Qur’an but not in the Ahadith in many Muslims brothers/sisters these days, unintentionally discriminating between Allah and the holy Prophet. Their two main arguments to support this idea are:
Argument 1: “We should give primary importance to our only holy book ‘Quran’ and not to any other book.”
Many innocent Muslims agree with this argument not knowing that they are, however unintentionally, somewhat repeating the trend set by the ruler Akbar.
Deen-e-ilaahi was an example of this fitnah that we are witnessing today. Akbar emphasized on believing in God, loving Him, worshiping Him but leaving issues like prophethood and implementing religious laws aside. We need to remember that this idea stemmed from a political way of thinking and had nothing to do with religion.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy made the same mistake and so did M.K.Gandhi for the sake of nationalism to unite Hindus and Muslims. Unfortunately even maulana Abdul kalam Azad seem to have fallen a prey to this mistake.
The Messenger has believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord and [so have] the believers. All of them have believed in Allah and His angels and His books and His messengers, [saying], “We make no distinction between any of His messengers.” And they say, “We hear and we obey. [We seek] Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the [final] destination.” (Qur’an: Surah al-Baqara, Ch. 2, ayat/verse 285)
Those Muslim brothers/sisters who think following the Sunnah is not important should reflect on the above ayah earnestly. It’s like believing in Allah but refusing to believe in the messengers or believing in some and disbelieving in others. Just like the Jews; And of the people are some who say, “We believe in Allah and the Last Day,” but they are not believers. (Surah al-Baqara, Ch. 2, ayah/verse 8). The Jews believed in Allah and the Hereafter but refused to believe in Prophet Jesus and prophet muhammed (may peace be upon them both).
Secondly, munaafiqeen (hypocrites) claimed to believe in Allah but adhering to Sunnah became a burden on them. In a way, they did believe in Allah but refused to believe in prophet muhammed (pbuh). That’s why Allah emphasizes in the Quran over and over to obey the messenger. The enormity of obeying the Messenger can be concluded from the following ayah:
He who obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allah; but those who turn away – We have not sent you over them as a guardian. (Surah An-Nisa, Ch. 3, ayat/verse 80)
And similar commands for obeying the Messenger are repeated in several ayaat/verses in the Qur’an. For example:
And We did not send any messenger except to be obeyed by permission of Allah. (Surah An-Nisa, ayat/verse 64)
In Surah Ali-Imran, Ch 3, ayat 132,
An-Nisa, Ch. 4, ayaat 13, 59, 69,
Surah al-Ma’idah, ch. 5., ayat 92,
Surah al-Anfal, ch. 8, ayat 1, 20, 46,
Surah at-Tawbah, ch. 9, ayat 71, and the list goes on.
Argument 2: “following the Hadith books, even the authentic Hadith books, leads to the division of Muslims into sects.”
Although the Muslims who put forth this argument are only thinking of the betterment of the Muslim ummah yet we need to realize that this is a very naïve argument that our innocent Muslim brothers/sisters put forth. First of all Qur’an makes it clear that dividing the ummah into sects is haraam/forbidden.
Furthermore there are various ayaat in the Qur’an wherein we find that we are to call ourselves “Muslims” (click here to know more). We are observing a very shameful trend in the Muslims these days. Many of the Muslims call themselves “Muslims/ mumin” but are very hasty to exclude other Muslims from the fold of Islam.
Imam. Being compatible with a particular Imam doesn’t mean that we should start calling ourselves by their names. The problem is that we read only books of one particular sect that makes us think that only a particular Imam or scholar is correct while others are wrong. Alhamdulillah, this problem can be eradicated by comparing various view points of various Imaams on a specific issue. It can also be taken as an important step towards taking the ummah out of this menace of sects and the hatred against each other.
Islam without Ahadith is incomplete.
When we give it a serious thought, we find that Islam without the Ahadith is incomplete. For example:
- Burial. Nowhere in the Qur’an is mentioned how the Janazah must be carried out.
- Marriage. Neither do we find any ayah about how to perform Nikah.
- Prayer. In Qur’an we are commanded to establish Salah but we don’t find the number of fard and sunnah prayers mentioned anywhere in the Qur’an, nor do we see any ayah that explains to us how we should perform Salah.
There are numerous issues that can never be understood and numerous acts of worship that can never be accomplished if we only try to believe in the Qur’an and not the Ahadith. Most of the acts of worship are only named in the Qur’an. It’s the Ahadith that expound on those acts of worship and explain how to achieve those acts. Some of them are: fasting, Hajj, Sacrifice, Zakah, etc.
Lastly, if one doesn’t follow Ahadith then it means that he/she is not following the Qur’an either because as already mentioned, there are numerous ayaat/verses in the Qur’an that command us to obey the Messenger. And one can only obey the Messenger by obeying his orders.
Say, “Obey Allah and obey the Messenger; but if you turn away – then upon him is only that [duty] with which he has been charged, and upon you is that with which you have been charged. And if you obey him, you will be [rightly] guided. And there is not upon the Messenger except the [responsibility for] clear notification.” (Qur’an: Surah an-Noor, Ch. 24, ayat/verse 54)
An-Noor 