Some Rebuttals of Views Held by Disbelievers of Hadith (Munkareen e hadith) (6)

Quran and Hadith contain two types of principles- the worded principles and un-worded principles. The worded principles ate those which have come on the surface through wahi and these are found in the form of Words in the text of Quran and Hadith. The un-worded principles are those which are not found in the form of words in the text of Quran and Hadith and which do not come on the surface through wahi; rather they are discovered from Quran and Hadith through human intellectual exertions. The worded principles are called Islam/ sources of Islam; the un-worded principles are part of Islamic Thinking. The Quran and Hadith/ worded principles are Al -haque; Islamic Thinking is 'Haque'. ‘Al-haque’ is Allah’s Deed; whereas ‘Haque’ is human deed. Denial of Al-haque is 'kufr'- denial of Hadith means to deny that ahadith are interpretation of Quran. Denial of 'Haque' is 'Batil' / sin, in the light of al-maidah-44 and al-nisaa-59. Munkareen e Hadith deny ‘Al-Haque’, when they deny ‘ahadith’ as an interpretation of Quran, done by our Nabi ﷺ under wahi e khafi/ ghair matlu; but denying a particular hadith as not rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ is not denying ‘Al-haque’, if such a denial is based on knowledge, facts and fair intention not based on WHIMS and personal inclination. We have already discussed this point in many articles.

Some Munkareen e Hadith say Muslims have never adopted Hadith as qoul e Rasool s.a.w.w.; they adopt Hadith as 'qoul e Ravi'. It is a clear and BIG LIE. Muslims always act upon Hadith as qoul e Rasool narrated by narrators. If any Hadith is not considered as rightly attributed to our Nabi s.a.w.w. and resultantly is not adopted by people, it does not mean people reject quol e Rasool ﷺ; actually people reject what they do not consider qoul e Rasool; and they adopt what they consider qoul e Rasool ﷺ. Munkareen need to know adoption or rejection of a hadith is a matter of ‘eeman’; if people have ‘eeman’ about a hadith, they adopt it; otherwise they reject it. Allah gives people right to verify any information they receive; if people find any hadith wrongly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ, Allah gives them right not to adopt it; if people find any hadith as rightly attributed, they are under obligation to follow such hadith. It is not a strange phenomenon because two persons are never the same in terms of ‘eeman’. We cannot object that such practice of adopting or rejecting a ‘hadith’ is tantamount to adding to or deducting something from ‘Deen’; all provisions found in Deen cannot be practiced in the same situation. For instance, we reduce number of ‘rakat’ during travel; during travel we have to reduce number of ‘rakat’. Similarly if we do not believe that a particular hadith is rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ we are allowed not to adopt such a hadith, IF we have adopted all possible means to ascertain its authenticity. The process of adoption or rejection of a hadith should not be based on personal inclination or WHIMS; it should be based on uniform rational principles adopted for the purpose. This process is essentially different from what Munkareen e Hadith adopt. Munkareen exert their intellectual faculties to invent some provision as Deen which is not present already in the text of Deen i.e. Quran and Hadith; but Muslims exert intellectual faculties to declare their eeman in some provision of Deen out of already present text of Ahadith. Munkareen need to appreciate they cannot invent Deen; they can only declare their ‘eeman’ in the already present text i.e. Quran and Hadith.

Munkareen e hadith say hadith is qoul e ravi; it is not qoul e rasool ﷺ. Well ! if it is so, the question is which ravi's qoul is a hadith? We know there is a long chain of narrators/ravis for every hadith; if we start tracing back, we will be passing through various ravis/narrators whose qoul is the hadith, and ultimately we will find hadith is our Nabi's ﷺ qoul. The ultimate origin of hadith is qoul e Rasool ﷺ.

Another misconception propagated by munkareen e Hadith is that ahadith are selection or choices of narrators. Certainly it is not so. Actually once a narrator is convinced that a hadith is rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ (for this purpose, he looks into, among other things, contents of the subject hadith), he becomes bound to adopt and follow such hadith; it does not remain his selection or choice to adopt such a hadith of which he is convinced that it is rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ. A narrator's conviction that a hadith is rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ is not his choice or selection because a person's conviction can never be his choice or selection.

The Munkareen e Hadith object that in accepting a hadith, we actually equalize ‘sanad’ that is our Nabi ﷺ and sanad that is a narrator. This is a misconception as to 'sanad' that is Nabi Pak ﷺ and 'sanad' that is a narrator. They are not the same thing. The ‘sanad’ of Nabi ﷺ means the relevant principle (of Deen) has been revealed to the Nabi ﷺ ; in other words, the ‘sanad’ of Nabi ﷺ means the relevant principle has come on the surface through Nabi ﷺ. But ‘sanad’ of a narrator does not mean the principle he has narrated has come on the surface through that narrator. Actually narrator only finds out that the principle is rightly attributed to the Nabi ﷺ or not. If a narrator denies that the principle is rightly attributed to the Nabi ﷺ, it does not mean the principle has not come on the surface; there is every possibility that if a certain narrator denies a principle, some other narrator may endorse that such principle is rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ. Moreover, ahadith are interpretation of Quran. It is not that a principle contained in a certain hadith is not found in other ahadith. Actually the same principle contained in a hadith may be found in so many other ahadith; it means if a certain hadith, in view of a certain narrator, is not found to be rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ, the principle contained in such hadith may be found in so many other ahadith which may be found rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ, in view of other narrators. In short, ‘sanad’ of a certain narrator is not essential for existence of a principle contained in a hadith. A narrator decides a hadith is rightly attributed to our nabi ﷺ or not; he does not declare a hadith has come on the surface through him . So a narrator cannot be 'mallak' of a hadith, whose existence is essential for existence of a hadith. A hadith is a hadith with or without a narrator/ ravi. Hadith comes into existence when it comes out of mouth of our Nabi ﷺ; presence or absence of a ravi/ narrator cannot extinguish existence of a hadith.

Munkareen e Hadith are under impression that obedience to our Nabi ﷺ means not to obey anybody else. It is a misconception. Our Deen directs us to obey 'oolal amar'; our parents; men of knowledge and piety etc. Our Deen gives us two kinds of commandments to obey- the commandments coming from our Nabi ﷺ and commandments coming from specified categories of men/ women which are not prophets provided such commandments are not contradictory to the commandments of our Nabi ﷺ. To obey second kind of commandments is actually to obey first kind of commandments, with the difference that violation of first kind of commandments is 'kufr' (if combined with kufr bil eeman) and violation of second kind is called Sin.

Munkareen are also propagating that a hadith is authenticated by a non-prophet i.e. Ravi/ narrator, so it is not ‘Deen’. It is a misconception. Every person even having the least knowledge of Deen knows if 'asnad' of a hadith are not interconnected and if hadith cannot be traced back to our Nabi ﷺ, such hadith is not approved as sahih hadith, EVEN IF thousands of narrators have authenticated it. It means it is not 'sanad' of a ravi, which makes a hadith authentic; rather it is tracing back of it to our Nabi ﷺ which makes it authentic. The BASIC role of a narrator is not to decide whether a hadith is correct or not; his BASIC role is only to find whether it is rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ or not (and, of course, in the process he also looks into whether or not contents of subject hadith warrant to be rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ.  It is NOT that a specific group of narrators have to authenticate a hadith, otherwise the hadith would be considered as not rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ. Rather it is line of narration which makes a narrator qualified for narrating a hadith. It is travelling of hadith from the mouth of our Nabi ﷺ to the last listener/ ravi, which imparts reliability to narrators/ ravis; it is NOT a specific group of narrators who make a hadith reliable; it is tongue of our Nabi ﷺ who gives reliability to a hadith.

The Munkareen e Hadith say Hadith cannot be contents of Nabuwwah because we can reject a certain hadith as not rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ; They mean rejection of a hadith would mean rejection of nabuwwah. They need to appreciate when we reject a hadith, we actually do not reject qoul e Nabi ﷺ; we actually reject such hadith as not rightly attributed to our Nabi ﷺ.  They need to appreciate that  rejection of a hadith is not rejection of content of nabuwwah.

The Munkareen e Hadith say all acts of our Nabi s.a.w.w. are not Sunnah; Sunnah are only such acts which were widely known to the Muslim Community in the age of our Nabi s.a.w.w. They say, as against Sunnah, 'Akhbar e Ahad' are such sayings/acts of our Nabi s.a.w.w., which were done by our Nabi s.a.w.w. only to a single or a few Muslims, and such sayings/acts were not widely known to the Muslims in the age of our Nabi s.a.w.w. They say 'Akhbar e Ahad' are not Sunnah, because if 'Akhbar e Ahad' had been designed to be followed by the people at large, such 'Akhbar e Ahad' would have been made known to the people at large by our Nabi s.a.w.w. This logic presented by Munkareen e Hadith does not seem to be tenable when we see that no 'khabr e wahid'/ saying/act of our Nabi s.a.w.w. was prohibited by our Nabi s.a.w.w. to be made known to the people at large. And  no 'khabr e wahid/ saying/act of our Nabi s.a.w.w. was prohibited by our Nabi s.a.w.w. to be followd by the people at large (except those few acts which have been specifically prohibited in Quran and by our Nabi s.a.w.w). Now that 'Akhbar e Ahad' have been as much known to the people at large as our Nabi's s.a.w.w. those acts which have been called as Sunnah (by Munkareen e Hdith), we have to take 'Akhbar e Ahad' as Sunnah because our Nabi s.a.w.w. has not confined compliance of 'Akhbar e Ahad' to the original listners/ seeing persons of such 'Akhbar e Ahad'. Actually our Nabi's s.a.w.w. each and every act/saying is  follow-able by a Muslim as and when he comes to know such saying/act, and every act of our Nabi s.a.w.w. is Sunnah whether or not it is 'khabr e wahid'.

We may conclude because our Nabi ﷺ speaks only what is revealed/ 'wahi' to him, and because we know thousands of ahadith are not found in Quran, it simply means wahi is not confined to Quran.

Because our Nabi ﷺ acts what is revealed / wahi to him ﷺ and we know thousands of acts of our Nabi ﷺ are not found in Quran, it simply means wahi is not confined to Quran.

Because our Nabi ﷺ acts according to Quran, and we know thousands of actions/sayings of our Nabi ﷺ are not found in Quran in words, it simply means acts/sayings of our Nabi ﷺ are interpretation of Quran. In short, ahadith - sayings and acts of our Nabi ﷺ- are interpretation of Quran, done by our Nabi s.a.w.w. under wahi; and we have to believe in this fact; such a belief is part of ‘eeman’ (continued).