The two main sources of information from within Islamic faith are the Qur’an and the Hadith. We talked about the Qur’an last week. The Hadith are the sayings and actions of Muhammad. Akbar Ahmed writes that scholars collected and authenticated ‘genuine’ hadith, which involved intensive research, trying to ascertain a chain of people who had actually heard the saying and could trace it directly to the prophet. Centuries ago, Imam Bukhari selected about 7,300 from 600,000 purported sayings (18-19). This did not happen, however, until nearly 200 years after Muhammad’s death! (815-912 A. D.; Farah, 187).
Haneef writes (29): “A divinely-revealed Book might contain God’s guidance, but a Book was not enough; someone was needed to translate that guidance into action, to live it. And that someone was not to be an angel or a super-human being but a man like other men, a man from among the community to which the guidance was immediately addressed, who would serve as a living example to others and would give concrete form to the laws which God had revealed amidst the varied conditions of ordinary human existence.”
Thus, the hadith “deal with all facets of his life, from the most personal matters to the conduct of war and the affairs of state.” It and the sunna reveal the life and behavior of Muhammad.
The hadith are not considered properly to be authoritative, that is, canonical (Farah, 36). However, for practical purposes, they are treated as if they were inspired. In fact, in a footnote, Esack (16; fn. 1) writes that the number of hadith varies depending on the degree of acceptability.
Muslims recognize three types of hadith:
- Sound hadith – These are faultless and their chain goes back with no weakness; although Esack admits that even their scholars can only date these hadith to within 100 years of the beginning of Islam (132; fn. 9).
- Beautiful/good hadith – The chain is not entirely complete or the reliability is somewhat in doubt.
- Weak – There are serious doubts because the narrator or chain is unreliable or because its doctrine is questionably unorthodox.
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In 819 A. D., a scholar named al-Shafi’ used the sunnah exclusively for the precedent set by the Prophet, which was authenticated by reliable hadith. Al-Shafi’ argued that the sunnah should be regarded as co-equal in authority to the Qur’an. Yet Farah says that the sunnah is not canonical (36).
The Qur’an and the Sunna (narrated in the hadith) make up Sharī’ah law, that is, Divine law. Farah (155) tells us that the Sharī’ah encompasses legislation derived from the Qur’an and the Hadith. The Sharī’ah is Islam’s constitution upon which is based Islamic jurisprudence, known as Fiqh. Muslims make no distinction between the spiritual and the secular (156).
Farah makes an enormous admission on page 86: “The numerous stories and legends created ‘were added for homiletic purposes or to demonstrate the supernatural origin of his knowledge’” (quoting H. A. R. Gibbs, Mohammedanism, 1953, pg. 41).
I close with a statement made by our brother Dave Miller in his book, The Qur’an Unveiled, which I would encourage you to buy: “Islam is not to be judged on the basis of how its devotees have conducted themselves over the centuries. Members of virtually every religion and philosophy including Christianity, have committed terrible atrocities. …The credibility, validity, and divine authenticity of any system of belief must not be determined on the basis of the failures, misconceptions, and weaknesses of its practitioners. Instead, whether a religion has a supernatural origin must be ascertained on the basis of its sources of authority – its foundational fountainhead(s) from which its practice and dissemination are spawned. …For Islam, the matter is equally simple. Islam’s validity stands or falls on the question of the inspiration of the Quran” (Miller, i).
If you are trying to convert a Muslim, learn what you can about the Qur’an. My thoughts can only help point the way.
Paul Holland
