Reviving the Balance: The Authority of the Qur’an and the Status of the Sunnah‎ (2025)

Review Essay: Reviving the Balance: The Authority of the Qur’an and the Status of the Sunnah

The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 2018

ISLAM AND THE WEST: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE POSITION OF THE SUNNAH

Elixir International Journal, 2013

This article examines the position of the Sunnah of the Prophet in both Islamic espitemology and Western scholarship. The purposes are to scrutinize the perspectives of Islam and the West on the issue of Sunnah’s authenticity and to analyze its position in the Islamic espitemology and the Western scholarship. The method used to complete the writing is library study, which involve the collection of data and information, followed by their analysis to compare and contrast the differences. It is found that Islam firmly recognized the position of the Sunnah and the role that Prophet Muhammad played in bringing and teaching it. The West, however, are reluctant to acknowledge the position of the Sunnah and their denial is closely associated with their denial of Prophet Muhammad. The article implies that one needs to arm himself with a sound understanding of the Sunnah and to be well-versed in the knowledge to ensure that he is clear about the position of the sacred source of Islam, i.e the Sunnah.

review_ The Sunna and Its Status in Islamic Law: The Search for a Sound Hadith

True History of Hadiths and Sunna – A must reading for all Muslims and Non-Muslims who are interested in Theology

The Status of Sunnah in Islam

International journal of academic research in business & social sciences, 2023

M. Fethullah Gülen’s Understandig of Sunnah

The concept of Sunna in the Qurʾān and its exegesis: an analysis

MA Thesis, 2014

Boekhoff-vd Voort, N., "The Concept of Sunna Based on the Analysis of sira and Historical Works from the First Three Centuries of Islam", in The Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law, Adis Duderija (ed.), New York: Palgrave, 2015, pp 13-38

Rethinking Tradition as Revelation in Islam (A)

Fazlur Rahman referred to what he perceived was the “intellectual suicide” of traditional ulema. The person that rejects reason as a way for knowing revelation reduces his or her work to a rank of personal ponderings. Jurists refer to a responsible, sane person as a mukallaf. A person not in his or her right mind is not equipped to pronounce authoritatively on issues relating to religion. Pronouncing on matters relating to Islam require a person to be a mukallaf, to be in his right mind. To be in one’s right mind, requires the use of reason. The jurist that refrains from the use of God-given reason is not just ungrateful; he or she fails to meet the test of a responsible, sane or rational person. The person that refuses to use reason is irrational. An irrational person is insane. A mukallaf is a “sane” person. By abandoning reason, traditional exegetes and jurists forfeit their right to be treated as mukallafuna (plural of mukallaf). Accordingly, their right to pronounce with authority on Islam, in particular on exegesis and jurisprudence, is rendered problematic. The fact that traditional exegesis and jurisprudence are based on the rejection of reason renders the pronouncements of persons that do not use their reason unreliable. The Muslim umma waned because it turned from revelation to tradition. This transpired under the sway of persons with an aversion to reason. The failure to use reason because of the aversion to reason prevented Muslims from understanding and therefore following revelation. For following the guidance of Allah requires attaining knowledge of the Book of Allah. And accessing knowledge of revelation requires the use of reason. By prohibiting the use of reason in religion, traditionists prevent believers from approaching the Book of Allah, and hinder the pious from fi sabilillah: "The Qur’an was neglected almost entirely." "From the time the Muslim community abandoned the Qur’an and was overcome by confusion and error, its unity was lost." "The Muslim Ummah experienced these disasters because it had become alienated from the eternal truths of Islam." As a different writer put it: "the one and only reason for the social and cultural decay of the Muslims consisted in the fact that they had gradually ceased to follow the teachings of Islam." Another writer summed up the drift from revelation this way: "As the Muslim community began committing its oral cultural memories to writing in the mid-second century AH, the Qur’an was largely marginalized. As far as the Muslim laity were concerned, the Qur’an was ambiguous and susceptible to numerous interpretations. Hence, although the Qur’an was viewed as a major miracle, the only portion of it which was viewed as vitally important consisted in somewhere between 240 and 340 verses. Apart from these, the recorded Sunnah of the Prophet now became the primary text in dialogue with which the Muslim community’s “cultural memory” was to be molded. It was the hadiths that now served as the source from which the principles of Islamic jurisprudence were to be gleaned and as the basis for legal rulings on specific situations. So pivotal had the hadiths become that it was now possible to rely on them to the exclusion of all else, and impossible to dispense with them in favor of anything else." The turn from revelation to tradition produced troubling effects. "In consequence, the Qur’an’s role in Muslims’ lives was greatly diminished, their relationship to it now being restricted to recitation for the purpose of earning heavenly reward and gleaning moral lessons. The hadiths thus became the actual material out of which the Muslim mentality was shaped – until, that is, the hadiths themselves were superseded by a preoccupation with still other sources." The turn from revelation was problematic because: "the side effect that accompanied the collection of oral narratives was that – just as the leaders of the first Muslim generation had feared and cautioned against – people became so preoccupied with these narratives that they lost their focus on the Qur’an. The prophet attempted to prevent this. "Prophet made a point not to allow the Qur’anic text to be confused with any other. Similarly, he discouraged the Muslim community from preoccupying itself with any text other than the Qur’an, even if divine authority was claimed for it. God has rendered the Qur’an so complete that it contains the entire Islamic religion. It is the Qur’an that provides the explication of everything, while the Prophet’s example provides a comprehensive demonstration of how to apply everything taught in the Qur’an." The prophet did not want anything to compete with revelation. "The Messenger of God was determined not to allow believers’ minds and hearts to be occupied by anything that might set itself up as a rival to the Qur’an, or to let their attention be diverted by things far less worthy. Consequently, he warned the Muslim community against writing down, or concerning themselves with, anything but the Qur’an alone." Unfortunately, people insisted on becoming preoccupied with traditions. "However, once the Sunnah had been collected, the Muslim community did, in fact, neglect the Qur’an in favor of narrations of what the Prophet had done and said on the pretext that such narratives “contained” the Qur’an. They then abandoned the Sunnah narratives in favor of Islamic jurisprudence on the pretext that Islamic juristic texts tacitly included both the Qur’an and the Sunnah." The turn from revelation to tradition was catastrophic. But the abandonment of reason, which facilitated the turn from revelation to tradition in the first place, was also problematic. For without recourse to reason, no person is in a position to understand, let alone follow revelation. Reason is the “bridge” to knowledge. Without reason, a person will be unable to traverse the barriers placed on the highway to knowledge by traditionists. Persons that refrain from using reason place themselves at the mercy of persons that do not shy away from using their reason. They also place themselves at the risk of becoming inconsistent. "Scholars fell into inconsistencies by claiming that the Sunnah, while being an autonomous source of evidence for legal rulings, nevertheless occupies a lower status than the Qur’an. At the same time, they gave even solitary reports priority over the plain meaning of the Qur’an, which they had likewise designated ‘a solitary report." The alteration of focus from revelation to tradition was triggered by the repression of reasoning. Unfortunately, the result of the abandonment of reason in religion was confusion. For which rational person would expect better knowledge from tradition than from revelation? This research explores the causes and effects of the repression of reasoning on the Muslim civilization. It purposefully uses the cause-and-effect approach, in the belief that every cause produces an effect, and every effect takes place as a result of a cause. This is in keeping with the qadar or sunna of Allah. Persons that reject the relationship between causes and effects reject the qadar of Allah. They reject a significant part of the teaching of revelation. The renewal of Islam requires reconnecting with revelation rather than tradition, as it was tradition that triggered the fall of the Muslim umma, by endorsing the repression of reason and freedom, and failing to warn against the risks of turning from revelation to tradition. The fall of the umma was the result of the turn from revelation to tradition, triggered by the repression of reason.

"Without How": A Brief History of the Nature of the Qur'an in Islam

A brief history of the development of the modern Islamic concept of the eternality of the Qur'an in light of tawhid and its development from Mu'tazilite and Ash'arite theology. A defense of the Christian view of the Bible as the eternal Word of God in light of the trinity.