Refuting the behavior of the Anti-Hadith community in understanding the Qur'an - Why we cannot understand the Qur'an without following the right discipline of knowledge

As we have talked in the previous discussion, the Anti-Hadith community tend to interpret the Qur'an merely based on their personal opinions, without following the proper discipline of knowledge. This behavior of not understanding the Qur'an through the guidance of knowledge has been mentioned equivocally by Allah in the following verses :

وَمِنْهُمْ أُمِّيُّونَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ إِلَّا أَمَانِيَّ وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ ﴿البقرة: ٧٨﴾

"And among them are unlettered ones who do not know al-Kitab (the Scripture) except in wishful thinking, and they are nothing but assuming" ( al-Baqarah: 2/78 )

This verse explained the situation of a group from Bani Israel, the people of Prophet Musa as., who did not possess any knowledge in the scripture that Allah revealed upon them through the Prophet, except ideas that they created from their own mind.

Looking closely to this verse, we found out that the phrase "they are nothing but assuming" used the arabic word "az-zhann" which means "to assume". The word "zhann" was very famous in Arabic; it has been used pervasively to refer to the action of implying something with uncertainty, that is implying something without proper knowledge about the real condition of the business. It is because only through knowledge, the condition of "yaqiin" (certainty) is achieved. When someone try to imply something without certainty, they are actually guessing the right proposition, while they did not really know whether the proposition is valid or not, or whether it is right or wrong. They did not have the real, decisive knowledge about the nature of the business which they could use as a tool determine the "truth value" of the said proposition.

For example, let make an example of a man who says: "It might be raining today". He is actually implying something based on certain observation, that is the condition of the sky being dark, but he never has the real knowledge of the truth value within this proposed claim. And suppose that later, the rain did not drip for the day and the man was proved wrong. So, he has already made a wrong guess; in other words, he has implied something that is not true or something that contradicted the reality.

However, the man did nothing wrong in this case, because he has made his proposition that the rain will fall down based on a tool, that is the knowledge he gained through observing the dark condition of the cloud. This is not a decisive knowledge that talks about an ultimate, certain judgement regarding to either the rain will be falling down or not, but it is nonetheless, an intermediary knowledge that serves as a way to create a probability which tightens the gap between the truth and the false. By looking at the condition of the cloud, the man gained knowledge and he knew that the statement that he created in his mind: "The rain will be falling today" would contain truth or at least create a closer possibility to the truth. So, even though, he is later proved wrong, he is forgiven for such "natural" observation and that he has made the observation through an intermediary knowledge.

However, the same behavior cannot be applied to the Qur'an. As the words of God, the Qur'an contains ultimate truth which cannot be disapproved by any means. Thus, it is not possible to say that certain verse contains the probability of being false, as Allah's words can never be false. The Qur'an cannot be judged with the attribute of "zhann" or uncertainty. It must be judged with the attribute of "yaqiin" (certainty), which can only be achieved through channeling Qur'anic views through the correct discipline of knowledge derived from understanding the contents of the Qur'an to the very depth of its core. This is the most important point that can be extracted from verse 2/78 above. Although this may sound difficult at first, but through following this discipline of knowledge we are talking about, understanding the Qur'an will not be that difficult. This is why Allah mentioned the easiness of understanding and remembering the Qur'an in the verse :

وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْنَا الْقُرْآنَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ ﴿القمر: ١٧﴾

"And We have certainly made the Qur'an easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?" - [ al-Qamar: 54/17 ]

To explain about this condition more, we will see several verses from the Qur'an that support the denial of this kind of behavior.

بَلِ اتَّبَعَ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا أَهْوَاءَهُم بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ فَمَن يَهْدِي مَنْ أَضَلَّ اللَّهُ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن نَّاصِرِينَ ﴿الروم: ٢٩﴾

"But those who wrong follow their [own] desires without knowledge. Then who can guide one whom Allah has sent astray? And for them there are no helpers." - [ ar-Ruum: 30/29 ]

وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يُجَادِلُ فِي اللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ وَيَتَّبِعُ كُلَّ شَيْطَانٍ مَّرِيدٍ ﴿الحج: ٣﴾

"And of the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge and follows every rebellious devil." - [ al-Hajj: 22/3 ]

وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يُجَادِلُ فِي اللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ وَلَا هُدًى وَلَا كِتَابٍ مُّنِيرٍ ﴿الحج: ٨﴾

"And of the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge or guidance or an enlightening book [from Him]" - [ al-Hajj: 22/8 ]

Introduction to the Anti-Hadith or Anti-Sunnah - What is Anti-Hadith and who follows it

1.1 What is Anti-Hadith or Anti-Sunnah?

Anti-Sunnah or Anti-Hadith is a doctrine emerging from Islam that claim the Qur'an as the only valid source of Islamic teachings, thus, rejecting the Sunnah / the Hadith as part of Islam. This doctrine call upon people to hold only to the Qur'an as the only source of guidance for humankind, which means that it does not accept the Sunnah as part of Islam. The followers of the Anti-Hadith doctrine claim to follow what Islam taught them and that their ideology originates from the pure teaching of the Qur'an. As so, they call themselves "Ahlul Qur'an", "Quranists", "Quran-aloners", "God-aloners" and some other label that did not fit with their personification, if viewed extensively through the framework of Qur'anic understanding.

Instead, this group has deviated from the righteous path of Islam by misinterpreting many of Qur'anic contents, causing deviations and denial for even the basic tenets taught by Islam, that has been accepted and practiced for centuries, not just through blind faith and acceptance by the next generations that follows the previous, who carried this teachings, but through rigorous studies and researches by tracing the tenets back into the beginning of Islam, done by scholars and experts of Islam. In other words, every Islamic tenets and teachings denied by the doctine were known to have existed at the early time of Islam with utmost certainty. People at the time witnessed the practices and beliefs as so, the teachings were known to be part of Islam and approved by the Prophet of Islam himself, and the practice continued after his death.

We will talk more about this later, Insya-Allah.

1.2 The origin of the Anti-Hadith doctrine

The talk about the origin of the Anti-Hadith doctrine may require a dedicated book to be written about it, but we will explain in summary here. It is said that people who denied the authority of Prophet Muhammad's commandments (صلى الله عليه وسلم) from his tongue has existed since the time that the Prophet was still living. However, their number was very small and they were recognized as the "munaafiqeen" - those who hypocritically shows their adherence towards Islam, but they actually hated Islam with infidelity and became the enemies of the Muslims from the inside.

Among the first people known to suggest the idea that Islam was built on the foundation of the Qur'an alone was Syed Ahmad Khan, an Indian scholar and politician. While not being a scholar trained in Qur'anic knowledge, he brought many new, radical interpretations to the Holy Book and rejected traditional interpretations by prominent scholars of the Qur'an such al-Imam as al-Hafizh Ibn Kathir, al-Imam al-Hafizh Ibn Jarir at-Thabari and al-Imam al-Hafizh Abu 'Abdullah al-Qurthubi. Many of his understanding violate the core tenets of the Qur'an itself. He suggested that al-Hadith has no legal connection towards Islam.

One another popular personality was Ignaz Goldziher (1850 - 1921). He was a Jewish Hungarian scholar of Islam. Despite of being Jewish, he possessed an intense affection towards Islam and made his way into studying Islam deeply, until he received various recognition for his intellectual works in the study of Islamic philosophy, tradition, literature and other aspects related to Islam. However, he rejected the Hadith and suggested that it contradicted to what the Islam was at the time of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. His rejection was a result from his weak understanding to the traditional method used by the muhaddithin (ahlul hadith or scholars of hadith). The fallacy within his idea has been proved wrong by other scholars, including traditionalists and orientalists.

These two people became several of the early founder of the Anti-Hadith doctrine. Due to the fact that they were related to Islam in such a close way, the doctrine quickly gained its way through Islam by the ideology presented by these people through the influence in their speech, discourses, intellectual works and movements.

1.3 What the Anti-Hadith community did - Their behavior in understanding the Qur'an

The Anti-Hadith community was well-known for their hold of not accepting anything other than the Qur'an as their religious hold. Resulting from this, they have a grotesque tendecy of understanding the Qur'an based on their personal opinions, without putting it on the right trail of knowledge. They did not have a neat thought governed by disciplined fields of knowledge or systematic methods to guide them in understanding the Qur'an, in comprehending the different aspect of teachings which constituted the Holy Book. This is because most followers of the doctrine are not from people educated about Islam. They did not know most part of Islamic history, therefore, they did not understand (or understand very little) the origin of Islam, how Islam was first introduced at the Arabian peninsula, how its teachings were carried and spreaded by the Prophet and his companions, passing through many phases of acceptance and rejection as times moved, and how Islam was taught and practiced by that generation and many more aspects need to be comprehended to be able to understand the relationship between Islam and its Holy Book, the Qur'an.

As a result of this presumptuous behavior, what they have done is none other than corrupting the Holy Book by transforming it into a book filled with human "man-made" ideas and thoughts. They have produced wrong interpretations not guided by correct knowledge taken from the Qur'an itself. This wrong interpretations, in turn, caused the most important and critical tenets of Islam to be negated without proper understanding and concern to its underlying subjects. Many foreign ideas were introduced into Islam, contaminating the virtuous nature of this sublime religion. We will explain about how this situation happened throughout the posts of this blog.

Various examples that could be given here including their suggestion that the 5 times daily prayers were not mentioned by the Qur'an. Instead, it only mentioned 3 times. Some of the Anti-Hadith followers even interpreted the word "sholaat" in the Qur'an as a mere concept and not ritual movements of body like what has been done by most Muslims today. Others tenets including praying for women is obligatory even though they were in period, Solat al-Jumu'ah (Friday Prayer) did not exist, zakah was not about paying money, but simply a form of "spritual purification" and many more. Because the Anti-Hadith doctrine interpreted the Qur'an basing on their personal opinion, many of them possessed unsimilar beliefs, thus resulting in multiple, yet different beliefs and tenets to be introduced in the same Anti-Hadith community. Hence, it is very difficult to classify them because they did not have a standard or organized forms of beliefs.

1.4 What the Anti-Hadith community did - Their behavior in understanding the Sunnah

The methodology they used in understanding the Hadith is the same as their way of understanding the Qur'an: Using only random opinions not based on the right trail of knowledge. They did not channel their thought to follow a guided path of understanding. Everything they knew about the Qur'an was simply forms of personal interpretations that has no source or nothing to do with Islam and its underlying aspect of teachings.

Though the Anti-Hadith community were known for disapproving the Hadith, some of them used certain Hadith to protect their ideology from rejection. Many of them used the Hadith for the purpose of denying the authority of the Hadith itself and and supporting the "Qur'an-only" tenet.

As-salamu-'alaikum and Welcome to the Blog for Refuting the Anti-Hadith / Anti-Sunnah Doctrine

All praise be to Allah, peace and blessing be upon the Messenger of Allah, upon his honorable companions and all his relatives.

As-salamu'alaikum and welcome to all visitors.

This blog was created for the purpose of refuting the Anti-Hadith / Anti-Sunnah doctrine. For those who do not yet know what this doctrine is, or who its followers are, we will give a short definition here. Anti-Sunnah or Anti-Hadith is a doctrine emerging from Islam that claim the Qur'an as the only valid source of Islamic teachings, thus, rejecting the Sunnah / the Hadith as part of Islam. This doctrine call upon people to hold only to the Qur'an and reject the Sunnah. For more introductory explanation about the Anti-Hadith doctrine, we welcome our beloved visitors to follow this link.

Introduction to the Anti-Hadith or Anti-Sunnah - What is Anti-Hadith and who follows it?

The Anti-Hadith followers have the tendency to understand the content of the Qur'an by translating it through their personal opinions, not governed by any disciplined knowledge and systematic thinking. Thus, many of their notions contradict with the teachings of the Qur'an itself. This, in turn, causes so much deviation and false ideas to be introduced, desecrating the purity of Islam as the only accepted religion of Allah. In order to proof all our said claims and not just mentioning some empty facts, we have gather all our resources in the form of facts, information, organized methods and evidences from the pool of the Qur'anic itself, based on the correct discipline and methods of comprehension.

Thinking our resposibility to uphold the teachings of Islam and purify the Qur'an from the stain of the Anti-Hadith doctrine, this blog was created to fend off the ideas and claims originating from the doctrine, so that this sublime objective could be achieved. We seek to educate the Muslims outside there about the existence of this doctrine and what it hold to, creating awareness among themselves, so that they may be guarded with the necessary info in protecting their beliefs from distortion caused by this doctrine. Here, we will present clear and explanative arguments as to why the teachings of the Anti-Hadith followers were ultimately wrong and their claim of themselves as true followers of the Qur'an are nothing but void. This is because, it is they who have disobeyed the tenets asserted by the Qur'an itself.

Finally, we would like to present our hope that our beloved readers would take care to prevent themselves from becoming from those who were mentioned by the verse :

وَمِنْهُمْ أُمِّيُّونَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ إِلَّا أَمَانِيَّ وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ ﴿البقرة: ٧٨﴾

"And among them are unlettered ones who do not know al-Kitab (the Scripture) except in wishful thinking, and they are nothing but assuming" ( al-Baqarah: 2/78 )

And the following verses :

بَلِ اتَّبَعَ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا أَهْوَاءَهُم بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ فَمَن يَهْدِي مَنْ أَضَلَّ اللَّهُ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن نَّاصِرِينَ ﴿الروم: ٢٩﴾

"But those who wrong follow their [own] desires without knowledge. Then who can guide one whom Allah has sent astray? And for them there are no helpers." - ( ar-Ruum: 30/29 )

وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يُجَادِلُ فِي اللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ وَيَتَّبِعُ كُلَّ شَيْطَانٍ مَّرِيدٍ ﴿الحج: ٣﴾

"And of the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge and follows every rebellious devil." - ( al-Hajj: 22/3 )

وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يُجَادِلُ فِي اللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ وَلَا هُدًى وَلَا كِتَابٍ مُّنِيرٍ ﴿الحج: ٨﴾

"And of the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge or guidance or an enlightening book [from Him]" - ( al-Hajj: 22/8 )

The main purpose of this blog is to refute the anti-hadith doctrine and we have explained the reason why the doctrine is not valid to be binded to Islam and its teachings. We are very happy to invite readers to visit the following link:

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We hope that our readers are among those who are granted by Allah with his blessings of sincerity and enthusiasm in protecting this beloved religion from lies, deceptions and deviations done by people attributed to disloyalty, who has nothing in their heart except hatred to the truthful essence Islam. Without knowledge which can lead them to the path revealing the ultimate truth of Allah, they live in the dark hatch of their ignorance. Then, they want to breathe the poisonous air of their corrupted believes to the heart of those who strongly cling to the reality of Islam, causing endless doubt and uncertainty about the nature of Islamic teachings and beliefs. Little did they know that only through knowledge gained by working the healthy minds on understanding the truth itself will they reach its tower of victory, making Allah, the one and only God deserved to be worshipped, pleased with their actions.