defence of sunnah

 

Why was the Sunnah not recorded as the Qur’an was recorded?!


Many Orientalists in recent times succeeded in influencing the minds of some Muslims, so they were deceived by their writings and studies about Islam, thinking that they were based on objectivity, neutrality, fairness and impartiality in scientific research. Then they followed in their footsteps and repeated their claims for which they did not establish any evidence, but rather added to them from themselves. All of these and those spewed their poison in the name of research, knowledge and freedom of criticism, while they were far from true knowledge, sound research and honest criticism.
Thus, the writings of this group of Orientalists’ students and followers about Islam in general and the Prophetic Hadith in particular were no less than - if not more than - the Orientalists’ writings in raising doubts and casting doubt on the sources of Islamic law. These writings were in reality nothing but a mirror and echo of the Orientalists’ ideas that they were influenced by.

Among those who called for abandoning the Hadith and relying on the Qur’an was Dr. Tawfiq Sidqi, who wrote two articles in Al-Manar magazine entitled “Islam is the Qur’an Alone.” He was followed by Ahmad Amin in his book “The Dawn of Islam,” in which he devoted a special chapter to ideas and opinions about the Hadith, which did not depart in their entirety from the ideas and opinions of the Orientalists without attributing them to them. Then the banner was taken up after them by Mahmoud Abu Rayya, who wrote his book “Lights on the Muhammadan Sunnah,” in which he published allegations and accusations about the Prophetic Hadith, and mixed what was said by the Orientalists who preceded him, and those Muslims who followed their approach. His book came as a mixture of different opinions that were said to cast doubt on the Prophetic Hadith and its narrators, and to present the Sunnah as different, contradictory, and distorted.
Their purpose in doing so was to cast doubt on the Prophetic Hadith as a second source of Islamic legislation, by challenging the authority of the Sunnah and raising doubts about it so that Muslims would abandon working with it.
Among these doubts that the followers of the Orientalists have repeated is their saying: “If the Sunnah were necessary, God would have preserved it as He preserved the Qur’an in His Most High’s saying: {Indeed, it is We who sent down the Qur’an and will preserve it}, and the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, would have ordered its writing down as He ordered the writing down of the Qur’an” (1).
And their saying about the hadith in which the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, says: “Behold, I have been given the Qur’an and something like it with it”: “If this hadith were authentic, the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, would not have forbidden the writing down of the Sunnah, and he would have ordered its writing down as the Qur’an was written down. It is not possible for him to leave half of what was revealed to him among the people without writing it down, and then he would not have conveyed the message and delivered the trust in full to its people. Why did the Companions leave half of the revelation and not write it down? By neglecting it, they all become sinners” (2).
In response to this doubt, we say: Just as Allah the Almighty wanted this Shariah to remain and be preserved, He also wanted not to burden His servants with preserving it except to the extent that they could bear it and not to cause them great hardship in it. It is known that the Arabs were an illiterate nation, and scribes were rare among them, and writing tools were scarce and rare, to the point that the Qur’an was written on palm fronds, bones, and skins. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) lived among his companions after the mission for twenty-three years, and for this reason the assignment to write the entire hadith was an extremely difficult and arduous matter, because it includes all of his sayings, actions, conditions, and approvals (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and because this work requires a large number of companions to devote themselves to it, taking into consideration that the companions needed to strive for their interests and livelihoods, and that not all of them were good at writing, rather the scribes among them were few individuals, so the focus of these scribes from the companions was on writing the Qur’an and nothing else so that they could deliver it to those after them, complete and precise, without… A letter is missing from it.
For this reason, the obligation was limited to writing down what was revealed of the Qur’an little by little until the entire Qur’an was collected in the pages.
The fear of confusion among the common Muslims, as the Qur’an would be mixed with other things - especially in that early period when the revelation was not complete - was one of the important reasons that prevented the writing of the Sunnah.
Moreover, the preservers of the Sunnah during the era of the Companions did not experience what happened to the preservers of the Qur’an, as killing was rampant among the preservers of the Qur’an from the Companions. As for the Sunnah, the Companions who narrated the hadith from the Messenger of Allah - may Allah bless him and grant him peace - were many, and killing did not happen to them before the Successors received it from them.
Another reason is that the Sunnah was so complex in its events and incidents that it was not possible to collect it all with certainty. If the Companions had collected what they could, it might have been a reason for those who came after them to reject what they had missed from it, thinking that what was collected was the entire Sunnah.
Moreover, collecting it in books before the matter of the Qur’an was firmly established was subject to people turning to those books and abandoning the Qur’an, so they saw that they should be content with spreading it through narration and some private writings.
In addition to that, the Qur’an differs from the Sunnah in that it is an act of worship to recite it, it is miraculous in its arrangement, and it is not permissible to narrate it by meaning, rather it is necessary to preserve its revealed wording. If it were left to the memorizers only, there would be no guarantee that a letter would be added to it or taken away from it, or that a word would be replaced by another, while the Sunnah is intended for the meaning and not the wording. Therefore, God did not command creation to recite it, nor did He challenge them with its arrangement. It is permissible to narrate it by meaning, and in narrating it by meaning there is facilitation for the nation and an alleviation for them in bearing it and performing it.
He - may God bless him and grant him peace - conveyed the entire religion, and God testified to this conveyance, as He, the Most High, said: {O Messenger, announce that which has been revealed to you from your Lord. And if you do not, then you have not conveyed His message. And God will protect you from the people.} (Al-Ma’idah 67). The existence of the Sunnah among the nation alongside the Noble Qur’an is the most eloquent indication of the Messenger - may God bless him and grant him peace - conveying it to his nation, and thus he did not neglect half of what God revealed to His Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - as the claimants have claimed. Rather, everyone knows that the Companions - may God be pleased with them - enjoyed strong memories, aware hearts, and excessive intelligence, which helped them to preserve the Sunnah and convey it as they heard it, responding to the urging of their Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - to them when he said: : (May Allah make fruitful the man who hears a statement from me, memorizes it, and conveys it as he heard it, for there are many a conveyor who is more retentive than the one who heard it.) Narrated by Al-Tirmidhi and others.
Thus, what the Prophet - may Allah bless him and grant him peace - wanted to preserve and convey the Sunnah was accomplished, and by doing so - may Allah bless him and grant him peace - he conveyed the religion of Allah Almighty in full and did not omit anything from it.
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(1) Al-Manar Magazine (9/515)
(2) Lights on the Muhammadan Sunnah