On Hadith

These answers are from Free Minds. Thank you to everyone who took part in the study/survey and to Free Minds forum.

Do you primarily reject Hadith on the basis of authority or authenticity?

• I am perhaps not a true Qur’anist because I tend to accept the Hadith that make sense or seem reliable. I do, however, realize that hearsay is inherently unreliable and especially regarding religion there is a lot of motivation for fabrication. Hence I accept those Hadith that do not conflict with the Qur’an and seem beneficial.
• Too many of them to read, life is short, I just want to follow God and his Messenger. The Quran is the authoritive messenger and miraculously it continues to authenticate itself. God knows Muhammad knew this.
• I reject the concept of “hadith” as Divine Revelation and as anything more than examples (true or false, good or bad). E.g. salaat is an example pieced together from lots of different pieces of paper, and then the only reason to follow that is to keep congregation-prayer organised. Salaat is in the Qur’an, but I think that Sunnis and Shia simply take the “pray as you see me praying” hadith out of context and think that every little thing (e.g. number of rakat) is important. Indeed, Qur’anic prayer is better than whistling and clapping hands. It is easy to see how changing the words of a hadith would change its meaning, and it is no surprise that people start worshipping it. To say that a “Qur’an-alone” Muslim just rejects a HADITH is inaccurate because he or she might be rejecting its rendering or interpretation (e.g. what was the context of the saying, if it is true)? Secondly, authority is irrelevant since it will be compared to the Qur’an. If consistent with the Qur’an, it is a good example (but not obligatory until someone can prove so from the Qur’an). Ahadith are not themselves little entities or “scraps of authority/authenticity”:
• “And say: Surely I am the plain warner. Like as We sent down on the dividers, those who made the Quran into shreds.”
• 15:89-91 They are words as real as those which I am writing here. They will be authoritative if you want them to be, or if you think that they are based on your interpretation of Qur’anic ayat, and just because you know that my exact words here are authentic (because this is what I wrote!), authenticity has nothing to do with my intention. If you report my words by word of mouth and give to them your interpretation/understanding, then maybe in two hundred years they can be passed on as philoophical law. This will obviously happen to someone who is in charge of a movement such as Islam in the 7th century, and unlike Muhammad (SAW) among his associates, I am not going to be seen as “important” by mine. Muhammad (SAW) had to make many decisions in his day because he was the leader, but where the decisions are judgements of conduct etc., it is to be remembered that he only judged by the Qur’an (5:48-49) and that his judgements are examples (see notes for 2:124, 3:31-32, 5:48-49, 8:1 and 24:54 of the commentary). Etc. etc. the arguments go on. Besides that, most ahadith were fabricated in their day (99% of Bukhari’s initial collection and 99% of Muslim’s initial collection apparently). Where they contradict the Qur’an, only a senseless person would accept them as obligatory or even as suggestible. Only someone who thinks they can prove two sources of Revelation from the Qur’an will think that we even need the ahadith to be Muslims. The Qur’an is partly contextual (e.g. sacred months), but just because it is not a history textbook nor a book that teaches us Arabic, it does not mean the Qur’an is not complete and fully-detailed for guidance in the Islamic manner of life.
• Instead of reject, i prefer the act of ‘questioning’ hadith regardless of both
• Sahih Ahadi is not good enough even for history and hadeeth can have no religious authority. Although I do not reject hadeeth as a source for linguistic evidence (barring explicit interpretations), I do not reject the historical accuracy of mutawaatir or mutawaatir al-ma’any if they are not self contradicting or in contradiction with the Quran, nor do I conflate hadeeth with linguistic works on Classical Arabic.
• I’ve been at this for longer than I thought. I feel like all of this (including me) is getting so old. Although it is still a worthy cause, and hopefully it will come to fruition one day. I am pretty quiet about my being a Quranite in my personal life and don’t run towards contact with other sunni/shi’ite, whatever kind of Muslim, as I suffered from a lot of belligerent rejection when I understood and was ready to embrace Quranist Islam and try to rally others to it without all of the Islamic titles. A lot of the heated arguments here on free-minds also caused me a lot of disillusion about other Quranites and their agendas and willingness to cooperate, work with, treat well and commit to comprehend each other and achieve solutions. There’s a lot to forming a community and many ways to do it, Quranists still aren’t able to come to common ground in order to make a first step. Many of us are just modern westerners who like or wanna be just this. Many of us really do not want to form a community. I understand the fears and I think they are merited unfortunately. It’s been over 10 years for me and I don’t see that anything has changed. I remember being 18 and 19 writing on Quranist blogs. Wow.
• It’s more about some hadiths being illogical and incompatible with my sense of spirituality/humanity.
• I reject hadith generally on both bases (authority and authenticity); however, I do give consideration to some hadith having what seem to me to be worthwhile points for reflection, that also seem to me to be completely consonant with the teaching of the Quran.
• I personally know some Sunnis who only follow ahadith because they are told to. They agree with my views.
• I agree with you about accepting wisdom wherever it can be found, even in hadeeth. If I read a hadeeth and it has something interesting to say I will take the good from it still and leave the bad. But I don’t accept them as a religious authority.
• Look, being honest – I only discovered this denomination yesterday but their basic ideology appealed to me (and I will dig deep in the coming days) so I shared it here with you to judge. And as expected, there are people who appreciate a tolerant approach (example – forbidding stoning) while others put their faith in orthodox Islam (Old is Gold?)
• What do we know for sure? That the Holy Qu’ran is not corrupted. Everyone agree on that? We consider the Prophet as the perfect man, hence he was chosen to guide the people and what was his message and miracle – The Qu’ran, the word of God.
• Most arguments hint that the holy Qu’ran is incomplete and we need additional sources to complete our faith.
• But can we honestly say that the Hadith’s are accurate? Hadith is described as Islamic tradition. And tradition is known to be lost/altered or affected by external factors.
• I am saying if there’s the possibility of inaccuracy – we must re-evaluate our stance.
• Personally, I rather hear it from the horses mouth rather than a second or third party. Qu’ranites are still Monotheists who consider Prophet Mohammed as the messenger of God which I believe is basically your Shahada and calling them Kafir’s or the like is unjustified.
• Reason/common sense isn’t such a bad thing after all =)

Please leave a comment below!