Decoding The Hadith: Of all troubles in Islamic discourses, few things are as contentious as the role of and use of hadith. While there is no controversy approximately the revered function of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the fervor of Muslims around the arena to observe his steering, the tries of Muslims to identify his genuine instance and to use it successfully are regularly fraught with difficulties and discord.
A small personal example from one of the authors’ childhoods, what he considers the youth of his perception in love for Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, may additionally assist illustrate some of the problems alluded to above. He become fifteen years old and have been within the United States for seven years.
Along with numerous friends from his mosque’s teenagers institution, he headed for Islamic Youth Camp, a mountain retreat for Muslim kids from across his country. They awakened at the beginning of fajr (pre-dawn) time to say their prayers.
They accumulated out of doors on a large lawn inside the pitch dark. The temperatures had been close to freezing, and the wind blew a deep shill into them as they pressed their shoulders collectively to hold heat. After the recitation of Surah al-Fatiha, the imam started to recite some verses.
As his recitation persevered for many mins, the boy may want to hear the teeth of among the more youthful boys chattering from the cold. During what appeared an interminable recitation in the first rak’a alone, a number of the children eventually started to cry from the ache the bloodless had started to inflict upon them. Their crying changed into without difficulty audible during the prayer.
The imam impassively persisted his recitation and accompanied the first rak’a with a comparable lengthy torturous second rak’a. At the quit of this prayer, the boy angrily approached the imam and requested, “What inside the international are you doing?
Didn’t you pay attention the youngsters crying from the bloodless?” He became met with a sneer and now acquainted recourse to hadith to protect his action or position, ” You have to examine your religion,” he sharply rebuked the boy.
The fajr have to be a long prayer. It turned into the Prophet’s habit to recite 100 verses for the duration of the first rak’a of fajr and 60 verses throughout the second one, and that’s the way fajr could be prayed on this camp.” He went directly to ask wherein the boy turned into from.
“Egypt and Los Angeles,” he spoke back. “Well, I am from Mecca al-Mukarrama,” he stated arrogantly, the usage of this proximity of starting place to the Prophet to mean advanced expertise of his sunna (instance).
An argument ensued among them – an grownup counselor and a fifteen-yr-old who refused to accept as true with that this behavior embodied the Prophet’s will or example. Ironically, the bloodless changed into too sour for them to stand out of doors to argue, so they went inside a camp lavatory, with a number of the boy’s friends taking note of the argument.
Every time either desired to quote a verse or a hadith, the entire institution would leave the bathroom and move outside, quote a verse or a hadith, after which pass back into the toilet to are seeking for safe haven from the cold.
This scene of comical madness become the boy’s creation to the controversies surrounding the use and misuse of hadith. At that age, of course, he changed into sick-ready in phrases of hadith information to counter the charges being hurled at him from the textbook Fiqh al-Sunna authored through al-Sayyid Sabiq.
As he grew older and began to examine and learn about the Prophet’s instance, he came to study that the imam had been right. In the book Fiqh al-Sunna, underneath the heading of “Recitation inside the Morning Prayer,” it states: “He [the Prophet, pbuh] could study from 60 to a hundred verses throughout the morning prayer.”
Seemingly, although, the imam had forgotten to say what turned into written on the subsequent line, “every so often he would recite surah Qaf, ar-Rum, at-Takwir, or az-Zilzal [al Zalzallah] inside the remaining rak’a.” For reference, those suras contain forty five, 60, 29, and eight verses, respectively.
The next line in the discourse maintains, “While touring, he would on occasion study the closing two suras of the Quran.” These surahs, al-Falaq, and al-Nass have handiest six and 5 verses, respectively. In one paragraph above, below the heading “Recitation after al-Fatiha,” this equal reference states:
“Here we will point out what Ibn al-Qayyim found out approximately the Prophet’s recitation following the Fatiha in extraordinary prayers. He commented, When the Prophet finished al-Fatiha, he would every so often make a lengthy recitation, and on occasion a quick one if he become journeying or similarly engaged.”
The imam also ignored to inform of a few other applicable hadiths and reviews of the partners. These are quoted in Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s ebook, Al Sahwa al Islamia baina al Juhud wal Tattaruf (The Islamic Resurgence between Unbelief and Extremism). In a chapter heading titled “The Inherent Defects in Religious Extremism,” he states approximately extremism:
“It repels people, and isn’t always tolerated by using the normal human nature…This is why the Prophet became indignant together with his honored associate Mu’az when he led the people in prayer and prayed too lengthy with them until one among them complained to the Prophet ﷺ.
The Prophet told him, ‘ Are you seeking to unfold dissension most of the human beings, Mu’az’? He repeated it thrice. This incident is quoted in Bukhari. In a comparable incident, he [the Prophet] stated to the imam, in a country of unheard of anger, ‘Some of you’re repulsive…
Whoever of you leads the human beings in prayer, let him shorten, for there can be in the back of him a person who is elderly, or weak, or with a few want.’ Quoted in Bukhari…
And Umar [ibn al Khattab], can also God be pleased with him, said, Do no longer make God hateful to his servants, inclusive of whilst certainly one of you is main the prayer, and he lengthens the prayer upon the human beings in order that it will become hateful to them. ” 1
The sunna of the Prophet ﷺ, the boy had discovered, will be used or misused, quoted entirely or selectively, relying upon the integrity and knowledge of the speaker. This non-public example, despite the fact that trivial, illustrates a whole lot of the difficulty Muslims face whilst dealing with the Prophetic subculture.
On the only hand, we all be given the guidance of the Prophet. On the alternative, his words are once in a while used now not in a look for truth but in assist of 1 person or group’s thought of what the truth need to be.
Note: 1Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Al Sahwa al Islamia baina al Juhud wal Tattaruf (The Islamic Resurgence among Unbelief and Extremism), Umma Books, pp.29-30.
Excerpted from the book “In Pursuit of Justice.”
Categories: PRAYER (Salat), ALMS (Zakat), SAWN (Fasting) HAJJ (Pilgrimage) & DUA (Supplications), Hadith and Tafseer, The Holy Quran, Quran Jaz 1- 114
Topics: Ushr and Zakat, Hijab, Arabic Corner, Faith, Islamic History, Biography, Sirat ul Nabi PBUH, Islamic Studies, Halal & Haram
