Quranism: Difference between revisions

Qur'an only Islam

Within Islam the two largest sects are the Sunnis (up to 90%)^{[1][2][3][4][5]} and Shi'ites (approximately 10-20%).^[1][6][4][5] Together they make up almost the entirety of Islam. However, there is a small heretical group who are collectively known as "Qur'anists" (also referred to as Quraniyoon, Ahle Quran, or hadith rejectors). They reject the Hadith (oral traditions) and the Sunnah (example) of Muhammad, an integral part of Islam, and are viewed by mainstream Islam in much the same way as the Jehovah's Witnesses are viewed by mainstream Christianity (i.e. Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox etc).

Rejected as Apostates

According to Sunni and Shi'ite orthodoxy, the hadith literature is an integral part of the Muslim faith. The 11^th century Andalusian Maliki theologian and scholar Yusuf ibn abd al-Barr wrote in his Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa Fadlihi جـامع بـيـان أخذ العـلم وفضلـه (Compendium Exposing the Nature of Knowledge and Its Immense Merit):

According to many high-ranking figures at Al-Azhar University, a highly respected authority in Sunni Islam (and who also accept Shi'ite fiqh as a fifth school of Islamic thought),^[7] Qur'anists are not Muslims:

Contemporary scholars such as Gibril Haddad have commented on the apostatic nature of a wholesale denial of the probativeness of the Sunnah according to Sunni Orthodoxy, writing "it cannot be imagined that one reject the entire probativeness of the Sunna and remain a Muslim".^[8]

The Grand Mufti of Pakistan Muhammad Rafi Usmani has also criticised Qur'anists in his lecture Munkareen Hadith (refuters of Hadith); he states:

Problems with Quranism

A major problem with the Quranist understanding of Islam is the central place that the Messenger, Muhammad, plays in the Qu'ran. The Qur'an alleges that it is entirely composed of Allah’s commands, not Muhammad’s, yet the Qur'an itself orders Muslims to obey the Messenger.

This verse somewhat begs the question of what, exactly, it is that the Messenger commands, since the Qur'anists themselves subscribe to the idea that the Qur'an is the word of Allah (God) himself and not just Muhammad's inspired word. The Qur’an also commands Muslims to follow the Messenger’s example, yet the only place this example is established is in the Sunnah. Without the Hadith, one cannot know Muhammad. Without knowing Muhammad, there is no Uswa Hasana. Doubting the hadith thus opens up multiple lines of doubt about entirety of Islam. If one rejects the hadiths, that in-turn rejects Islam as a system by going against the orders of the Qur'an and, in the eyes of most Muslims, renders the rejecter an apostate/murtad/kafir (whichever may apply). Ultimately, to remain faithful to Allah and the Qur'an in the traditional sense, there is no alternative to the Sunnah of the prophet as embodied in the hadith.

Islam means submission (contrary to popular belief that it means peace), and more specifically it means submission to the will of Allah. Qur'an-only Muslims believe that the Qur'an clearly defines what exactly Allah's will is. But the case is not so clear.

For one thing, the Qur'an is full of contradictory verses and commands; sometimes commanding believers to seek out and kill pagans (Quran 9:5), other times commanding Muslims to leave pagans to practice their polytheistic religions in peace (Quran 109:1-6). Without the Hadith and the Sirah to give context to the Asbab al-Nuzul (Revelational Circumstances of the Quran) , the doctrine of Abrogation becomes untenable as there exists no clear timeline of which verses were revealed at which time and the Qur'an itself provides little to no evidence in this regard. The pacifist can decide to take from it a peaceful message by deliberately ignoring or twisting violent verses whereas the sadist can easily interpret a violent message by focusing on such verses as are found in Surah 9. Both Muslims could be selectively justified by the Qur'an because of its contradictory messages from Muhammad-in-Mecca versus Muhammad-in-Medina.

If one rejects the Hadith (ie. Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud), the Tafsir (e.g. Ibn Kathir, Ibn Abbas, al-Jalalayn, Maududi), and the History (ie. al-Tabari, Ibn Sa'd, al-Waqidi, Ibn Ishaq), then the entire historical context of the Qur'an, along with proof of Muhammad's existence is lost. It simply becomes an ancient Arabic document of partially incoherent, repetitive, and often-times confusing statements and commands. The reader is left with such questions as: "Who wrote this and why?" and "Who is Abu Lahab, and why are he and his wife going to be tortured?" and "Why don't these stories match the ones found in the Bible?" and "Who is 'Isa?".

The often-levelled charge by the Qur'an-only sects that "Sunni's and Shi'ite's are following a deviant form of Islam by introducing these man-made books," is also questionable, considering most of the narrators of hadith are the very same people who passed down the Qur'an itself. The first Muslims (Sahabah- companions of Muhammad, which include all four Rightly Guided Caliphs) who partook in the Hijra to Medina, were not Qur'an-only Muslims as far as we can tell, nor the generation of Muslims that followed the death of Muhammad (the Tabi'un). As far back as the Rashidun Caliphs, the idea of "Sunnah" was salient although this idea changed rapidly in the first centuries of Islam. Recording and sorting through these narrations in written form was to codify and clarify already existing beliefs - though admittedly much later than the time of Muhammad, with the majority of compilations recorded in the 9th century (for a history on this, see the Britannica entry on Hadith), leading to many Mawdu' (Fabricated) and Da'if (Weak) Hadiths being recorded.

It can be argued that Qur'an only Muslims often reject the Hadith, a fundamental aspect of mainstream Islam, simply due to it preserving the norms of the early Islamic community which are in flagrant contradiction to modern, liberal mores around consent, sexuality, freedom of belief, and human rights. They may deny this as the reason behind their rejection of Hadith, but this appears to fit the idea by many Quranists who accept Hadith essentially as a historical source for the emergence of Islam but dismiss it as a religious or law-giving one. Critics argue this approach is logically unfeasible - either the Hadith are a valid source of information for Muslims, or they are not. One should not be able to pick and choose which bits to keep and which bits to ignore when the 'good' and the 'bad' all originate from the same sources.

Other verses

The message (Qur'an) is explained and elaborated upon by the Prophet. Preserving the message (Qur'an) also requires preserving the Sunnah which explains the message, as the previous verse states.

This verse asks Muslims to follow everything Mohammad gives them, and abstain from everything he forbids. That means they are commanded by Allah to follow the Sunnah.

The following verse also describes him as “a good exemplar (uswatun ḥasanatun) for those who place their hope on God and the Last Day and invoke God often”, suggesting followers emulate him in general,^[9] which is of course impossible to do without his personal traits and actions (which rarely alluded to in the Qur'an alone) being recorded as extra-Qur'anic traditions.

The Sahabah / Companions of the prophet

Alongside instructions to obey Muhammad, we see his followers are also to function as an exemplary beacon for the rest of humanity^[10] in the Qur'an, giving way to mawqūf hadith, i.e. hadith from the companions of Muhammad / aṣ-ṣaḥābah,^[11] often referred to as 'The Sahabah' (where the isnad does not go all the way to Muhammad directly). As recordings of this are needed for future generations to know what the community was doing at the time.

Five Pillars of Islam

The concept "5 pillars in Islam" is practiced and preached widely in the Muslim world and is a crucial part of the Muslim way of life. Yet this concept is not described or defined in the Qur'an in any way. It is only found in the hadith. Looking at the pillars individually, four out of five of Islam’s Pillars would not make any sense without the Hadith, therefore making Islam impossible to practice.

Shahadah

These are Muhammad's words and are not found within the Qur'an. Therefore, Islam’s First Pillar is without basis in the absence of the works of Muslim historians Ibn Ishaq (704-770 AD) and al-Tabari (838-923 AD). If there is no definition as to what the Shahadah should be (or indeed if there is one at all), it can be any arbitrary phrase in any language (or not be carried out at all). In fact there are at-least three different shahadahs used by various Qur'anist sects.

Salah

Once again, the Qur'an does not provide all of the needed guidance. The “compulsory congregational prayer” is not described in the Qur’an at all. In fact, the Qur’an number of prayers could be interpreted several ways (Qur'anists do not even agree upon the number of daily prayers that should be offered. The various number of prayers should be offered are 0, 2, 3 or 5),^[12] and none of which depict exactly how to pray, while the hadith clarify five. The only explanation of the obligatory prostration is found in the Sunnah, i.e. Muslims are performing a ritual without Qur’anic precedence. Also in the prayer itself, certain Arabic recitations and verses are recited. The Qur'an does not give specifications for these recitations so unless one follows hadiths and traditions, the recitations can be anything for a Qur'anist.

Zakat

The terms of the Zakat are omitted from the Qur’an. The first to commit them to paper was Ishaq. A century later than that, Tabari referenced Ishaq’s Hadith. This practice is without basis in the Qur'an by itself.

Hajj

This is also missing instructions, as well as the purpose for the rituals described in the Quran.^[13] The only full explanations of the Hajj are found in the Sunnah. No aspect of the pilgrimage can be performed without referencing the Hadith. Muslims would not have this ritual without the Sunnah.

Sawm

Sawm, the final pillar of Islam is also not described in the Qur'an, the “perfect, detailed, and final revelation to mankind”. Though the Qur'an describes the fast, without the Hadith, Muslims wouldn’t know why they are fasting. The accounts of the meaning of Ramadan are in the Traditions, initially chronicled by Ibn Ishaq and then copied by the hadith compliers such as Bukhari, Muslim etc. and historians/exegetes like Al-Tabari.

Strangely, the one pillar that is actually described in the most detail in the Qur'an, is actually a borrowed pagan ritual Qusayy invented pre-dating Muhammad's Islam. Qusayy's family took a cut on merchandise sold during the “truce of the gods” fairs of Ramadan.

Islamic Law

This issue continues into many different aspects of Islamic law, as Islamic Scholar Michael Cook notes:

Sunni-Shia Split

There is nothing mentioned about how religious leaders are rightfully meant to be chosen, nor how religious laws are meant to be administered. With no direct instructions for a successor, or how to chose one (or them) in the Quran, there was a civil war almost immediately after Muhammad's death - which according to traditional accounts lead to the Sunni-Shia split. A quick summary of this can be read in this history.com article.

There is no actual direct concept of a political caliph (khilafah) in the Quran, which is central to both of the two most widespread branches of Islam, Sunni and Shi'i Islam. One can see all the ways this word is used on Quran Corpus here in the 'noun' sections, denoting general successors rather than the political leader of the Muslim community. In fact the term did not denote a distinct political or religious institution during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. It began to acquire its later meaning and to take shape as an institution after Muhammad’s death.^[14]

Other issues

Characters in the Quran

There are also characters supposedly contemporary to Muhammad such as Abu Lahab (Quran 111:1 (and his wife Quran 111:4)) and Zayd (Quran 33:37), who have no equivalents in biblical literature to refer to, that are named but not introduced formally - so the meaning of the verses and who they are is highly obscure (if not impossible to understand fully) without secondary literature.

Abrogation

Scholars of Islam developed the principle of Naskh (Abrogation) which is used to reconcile seemingly contradictory commandments (e.g. see: List of Abrogations in the Qur'an) in the Quran. This is where an earlier verse is 'abrogated' by new verses, and becomes no longer valid as the latest verse now applies.

The main issue specifically for Quranists is that the Quran itself does not come in chronological order of the time of revelation, but mostly follows a pattern of longer Surahs at the beginning getting shorter as one goes through the book. Only by using extra-Quranic material from traditions is it possible to come up with an order to know which ruling would abrogate which.

For example, many classical Islamic scholars (such as Ibn Kathir)^[15] believe that the verse commanding women to be confined to house arrest until death for a vague 'lewdness' (l-fāḥishata) charge:

Was then abrogated by a newly mentioned punishment for adultery:

But there is no obvious way to reconcile this without the extra traditions.

Verses that have no meaning and/or make no sense

Many verses lack any clear meaning without further context, a few (of many) are given below. For example it is impossible to know what the following verses are talking about by themselves (tafsirs generally link them to angels, though the third verse is sometimes also linked to humans reciting the Quran).^[16][17]

Similarly the versus below are often given fanciful/mythological explanations by commentators, far beyond would ever be possible to gather from the Quran itself:^{[18] [19]}

And again.

And.

And.

As well as (see the expansive explanation in Tafsir Al-Jalalayn).^[20]

There is no explanation of what the ten nights are.

Nor the four months.

Nor the Night of Determination (laylat-ul-qadr) - sometimes translated as the 'Night of Power'.

Nor the seven 'oft-repeated verses'.

In Islamic tradition the consensus view is that these seven verses relate to the seven verses of the opening surah al-Fātiha, as to be used as units of every prayer; which nothing in the text itself suggests, and there have been other minority opinions.^[21] Interestingly Allah is meant to be the speaker of all verses, so without extra-qur'anic material one would simply be left with a statement of prayer to himself, and no instruction/explanation of the reason for its inclusion (as a ritual prayer).

The same issue occurs with the final two 'prayer' surahs, 113 (Quran 113:1-5) and 114 (Quran 114:1-6), although these at least open with the statement 'say' (qul قول')^[22] however there is no context given for why, when and where they are supposed to be said found in the Qur'an.

In fact this happens to many verses throughout the Qur'an, where only later traditions clarify that the whole book is meant to be from Allah, and not just the parts of it that can be gained from reading the Qur'an alone; such as swearing oaths on himself, angels speaking, and the regular (and unnaturally sounding) third person voice.

Not mentioned are also verses that seem to be spoken by the jinn in surah 72 (surah al-jinn)^[23] beginning from verse 8 onwards, which one would not see as coming from Allah without extra-Quranic appeals.Even the whole of Surah 105 (Surah of the Elephant) is left unexplained, which we have to look to traditions and commentaries for the meaning and what it is referring to.^[24]

As are the first four verses of surah 90, as there is nothing to link the oath with the city of Mecca and it's meaning to Muhammad without extra-Quranic material.

Criticism of hadiths

Critics wonder why if these secondary texts/examples/revelations, which include the hadith as well as biographies of the prophet, are so important, they could not simply be included in the main holy book to avoid ambiguity and misleading scripture (not to mention schisms in sects across Islam). Especially when the Qur'an is claiming it is the preserved word of God - yet extra secondary revelations are needed to understand it and add to it, with many contradicting each other (see Contradictions in the Hadith and further examples from a Muslim website here) as well as the Qur'an itself (as this Islamic website shows), not to mention science (Scientific Errors in the Hadith) and common sense (see Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars: Remarkable and Strange Islamic Traditions).

The entire method of verifying isnads^[25] (a chain of narrators leading back to the prophet or his companions), and therefore the hadith, as being classed as authentic, good, weak or fabricated is also never mentioned in the Qur'an. These tell the reader whether they should be followed or not, so are of utter importance to the religion. However as Britannica notes, these are also a non-contemporary (to Muhammad or early companion's of his) invention:

This has resulted in many different large collections across different books, which examining them all and personally scrutinising these chains being such an enormous task, it is usually simply left to scholars to issue rulings on matters, rather than a personal reading.

Dr Joshua Little, on Dr. Javad T. Hashmi's YouTube channel gives a brief overview of 21 core reasons historians are skeptical of their historical value and accuracy in the video Oxford Scholar Dr. Joshua Little Gives 21 REASONS Why Historians are SKEPTICAL of Hadith. The list as he notes is in order of the weakest reasons to the strongest, i.e. the most damming points are found later in the video. As Joshua notes at 1:32:10, the first seven are the most trivial in comparison (though are still highly problematic and important to understand, and give context to the rest). If their historical value is of doubt then so are key parts of both Sunni and Shia scripture.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 Introduction
• 4:43 Hadith compared to other sources of history
• 12:15 Transmission of hadith vs Transmission of the Qur'an
• 15:46 Difference between oral and written preservation
• 18:42 Discussion on skepticism and revisionism
• 35:42 Meta-historiography; traditionalist dismissal that skepticism is fringe and outdated

1. 42:22 Prior probability of false ascription in religious-historical material
2. 47:13 The earliest extant collections were recensions from the ninth century onwards
3. 56:23 Hadith are full of contradictions
4. 1:03:51 A large number of hadith suspiciously look exactly like later religious sectarian, political, tribal, familial, and other partisan, polemical and apologetic creations
5. 1:08:45 Hadith talking about later terms, later institutions, later events, and later phenomena.
6. 1:11:51 Putative supernatural explanations for texts have a vanishingly low prior probability of explaining the existence of these reports
7. 1:27:48 Reports of mass fabrication
8. 1:32:04 Isnads rose relatively late, and became widespread even later
9. 1:44:33 Early usage of the word Sunnah was a generic notion of sunnah as good practice, which was not specifically Prophetical, and was independent of hadith
10. 1:52:44 A rapid numerical growth in hadith can be observed
11. 1:57:01 Absence of Hadith in early sources
12. 1:59:49 Retrojection of hadith; ratio of cited hadith changes from mostly ascribed to followers then to companions then to the Prophet
13. 2:09:02 Various peculiar correlations, descriptions, and content that don't make sense as a product of genuine historical transmission but make more sense as a product of later debates and later ascription preferences
14. 2:17:45 Hadith contradicting earlier literary and archeological sources
15. 2:21:08 Orality means less precision in transmission
16. 2:31:17 Extreme variation, early rapid mutation and distortion across the hadith corpus
17. 2:34:28 Artificial literary or narrative elements; Recurring topoi
18. 2:37:53 Hadith exhibit telltale signs of storyteller construction
19. 2:40:25 Exegetical reports about the context of the Quran are exegesis in disguise
20. 2:45:32 Recurring disconnect between the Hadith and the Qur'an in terms of historical memory
21. 2:50:30 There was no effective method for distinguishing between authentic and inauthentic hadith

• 2:58:03 Conclusion

In a separate video on the channel Sképsislamica, Joshua Little defends accepting a historical Muhammad as being the founder of Islam despite the issue's with hadith, called Did Muhammad Exist? An Academic response to a Popular Question, where from ~20:00 - 1:37:39, he elaborates on these, but this time focusing on biographical hadith, with the points raised adding even more weight to the arguments against their accuracy.

Additional Points

Differences between the Meccan - Medinan Split

As Mark Durie notes, there are stark differences between the Meccan and Medinan split of the role of Muhammad, in which he goes from a mere 'warner' to a military leader of a new theocracy requiring complete obedience alongside God.

Which is when the Qur'an shows this development, creating problems for Quranists. Critics content this change in theology shows a man-made difference in response to the surrounding circumstances rather than a consistent God as is claimed in Quran 35:43 (But you will never find in the way of Allah any change, and you will never find in the way of Allah any alteration).

See Also

• Uswa Hasana
• Wife Beating in the Qur'an

External Links

• Debate - Edip Yuksel vs. Ali Sina - Dr. Edip Yuksel, is a prominent member of the submitters (Qur'an-Only Muslims).
• The Jinn that Took Solomon's Ring - Hassan Radwan - YouTube video on a problematic verse for Quran-only Muslims

Links from Muslims

• Issues Concerning Ḥadīth - collection of articles dealing with hadith criticism, from the Muslim site Islamic Awareness
• A Look at Hadith Rejecters' Claims - from the Muslim site TheModernReligion, filed under "Pseudo-Islam Cults"
• Combat Kit To Use Against the "Quran Only" Muslims (article by a Muslim)
• The Importance of Hadith in Islam - by Professor Shahul Hameed, consultant for IslamOnline.net
• Various Issues About Hadiths - by Shaykh Gibril Fouad Haddad

References