Why I am not a Quranist: Why the Sunnah is necessary.
Further to my recent article explaining why the Sunnah and Hadith are distinct, some readers have raised objections with regard to my criticism of ‘Quran-only’ Islam.
This article will address those criticisms, and underline why I believe ‘Quranist’ Islam leads to absurdity and cannot be rationally defended.
Quranism weakens the case for the Qur’an
How do I know the Qur’an I read and study, and dedicate my life too, is the original?
How can I be sure that this text was not changed, altered, edited or forged?
Bear in mind, we do not have a complete text from the time of the Prophet and at least a few decades after him, only fragments of various lengths.
Indeed, according to researchers putting together manuscript extracts from the first century of Hijrah altogether, accounts for 83% of the Qur’an.
This might sound like a lot, but in reality this means we have 16 percent of the Qur’anic manuscript missing from the first century.
The problem is compounded for a Quranist, if they reject the accepted narrative of the birth of Islam and subscribe to exotic accounts of the Prophet being from Petra and so on.
This is because they cannot even state where/when the Qur’an originates from with confidence, let alone point to any manuscript and say ‘Yes this is the original Qur’an, and it has not be changed’.
In view of this, you could not claim that any written manuscript, even if very old, confirms the historical authenticity of the Qur’an.
So why isn’t this a problem for Sunnah believing Muslims?
We don’t rely on written transmission as the primary route to authenticate the historical integrity of the Qur’an.
Instead we submit that given the historical fact, that Muslims spread across the world, and divided into sects within a short period of the Prophet (pbuh), it would be implausible for all those different groups, to come to agree on the same text by accident, or design at any later point.
Logic dictates that the universal agreement on the Qur’an is because the Qur’an was orally transmitted, memorised and conveyed to the whole Muslim community during the Prophet’s time.
This is why even today, the memorisation (hifz) of the Qur’an ensures that Muslims could easily reconstruct the text even if all copies were somehow lost.
In exactly the same way, how could all sects of Muslims, divided by geography and bitter historical conflict, come to agree on the two Eids? Or circumcision for boys? Or the units of the five daily prayers? Or the prohibition of a menstruating woman fasting?
Surely some groups and regions , at least, would have resisted the latter additions?
Not all of them suddenly changing their practices magically at the same time?
At the very least there would be some evidence of resistance to these post- prophetic additions? Alas, there is none.
Both the Qur’an and Sunnah are established by the same means, the ijma (unanimity) of all Muslims from first period onwards and the tawatur (perpetual transfer) of each generation to the next.
If one rejects this methodology for the Sunnah, one must do so for the Qur’an.
Otherwise you must accept that the Sunnah -at least those parts that are dharuri (necessary for life as a Muslim) – are equally historical authentic as the Qur’an, and strongly attributable to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
The Sunnah is the rope of Allah
The Qur’an isn’t something for each individual to interpret and follow, alone and in private.
Every person recreating the word of God, in their own image.
It is the basis of a ummah – a worldwide community- united by common beliefs and practices.
The Qur’an stresses the Muslims must unite and hold onto the rope of Allah:
“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided…”
Al Qur’an, 3:103
The Qur’an stresses that the practices we have been given were originally taught to Ibrahim (PBUH) after he prayed to be taught the rituals of worship by Allah:
“Our Lord! And make us submissive unto Thee and of our seed a nation submissive unto Thee, and show us our ways of worship, and relent toward us. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Relenting, the Merciful“
Al-Quran, 2: 128
Moreover the Qur’an mentions the congregational prayer of Jummah (62:9), the importance of bowing together in Salah (Q 2:43) , observing the well-known months of Hajj as a group (2:197) and its ‘manasik’ i.e. rituals (2:200).
The Qur’an mentions Salah as an existing and known practice, and thus does not mention its details.
Morever, it makes it clear that each religious community is to observe its own rites (5:48) not that each individual or group can reimagine the meaning of every word individually, thus making communal unity, all but impossible.
Is the definition of Sunnah arbitary?
It has been argued that Sunnah can be defined arbitarily, and practices can be claimed to be preserved and later not preserved, upon observing a divergence.
Here it is important to note that Sunnah does not relate to matters of intepretation, or those that require study by scholars.
Any agreement upon these cannot be determined as being universal, as there remains the possibility of variations in views that were lost, or reliance on the same faulty later source, such as a lone narration.
Sunnah, is instead, the living practice of Muslims. It relates to the basic practices each Muslim needs for daily life. This is what early scholars described as ilm-al-amma (knowledge known to the muslim masses)
No so-called ijma from the Prophet (saw) on stoning for adulterers, prohibiting music, allowing sex slavery, can be accepted because scholars widely agreed on these. We need strong proof that the Prophet and his generation agreed on something and Khabar al wahid, is not reliable evidence of this.
Practically, Sunnah is not demonstrable in beliefs, or other laws. It relates to worship, cleanliness, birth, death and rites of passage. On these matters one can confidently establish a complete consensus from one generation to the next.