a response to zombiejihadi's disgust with quranists

mosprob:

A post by zombiejihadi caught my eye last night, titled “My Disgust with Quranists”. Her thoughts flowed quite nicely and she captured the mood of many muslims who are exasperated by what they see as a dismantling of well-established truths by people within Islam. She’s clearly intelligent, so I’m hopeful that one day that feeling of disgust will subside, and perhaps be replaced with a feeling of mutual respect for quranists. Perhaps this can act as the first step to reconciliation.

zombiejihadi:

I’m tired of this hipster Islam garbage that’s going around tumblr. “I don’t follow the hadith. I’m a Quranist.” Really? Really?

To suggest that islam based on the quran alone amounts to “hipster Islam garbage” is tantamount to saying the quran guides people to hipster garbage. I know that’s not what was meant by the above, but that’s what it suggests. The quran doesn’t guide to hipster garbage, it guides to the most upright:

17/9 Indeed, this Quran guides to that which is most straight, and gives glad tidings of the believers. Those who do the righteous deeds, that for them is a reward great.

This is why quranists feel satisfied with the quran. As far as we’re concerned, the quran reforms the soul, and gives us the guidance needed to live as moral beings. The frustration expressed by zombiejihadi is understandable, but we should think carefully before denouncing people who disagree with us as stupid. The quran claims to be fully detailed and contains an explanation for all things:

6/114 So is other than God I desire as a judge, and He is who descended to you the book detailed? And those who We brought to them the book, they know that it is descended from your Lord with the truth, so do not be from the doubting.

12/111 Verily there is in their stories a lesson for people of understanding. It is not a narration invented, but a confirmation of which was before it and a detailed explanation of all things and a guidance and mercy for a people who believe.

Now, of course, one might still might think we’re wrong, and that’s absolutely fine. But differences of opinion and variances in reading were a hallmark of the golden age of islamic civilisation. Al Andalus was the perfect example of a melting pot of differing ideas which produced a prospering and progressive society. How about we honour our heritage, and allow ideas to stand or fall on merit?

Really? The hell with hadith. The hell with the sunnah. At this rate you might as well be saying the hell with prayer and the hell with Muhammad. Oh, yeah. I went there. Because that’s what you are saying when you say that the hadith don’t matter.

No, this is not the conclusion quranists reach. The “sunnah” of the messenger is contained within the quran, not in hadith books. Remember, Allah has made His book detailed and complete, which means that the example of the Prophet is beautifully elucidated in the quranic ayat.

Just about everything we know about Muhammad (saws) comes from hadith. Through him, we have come to understand Islam and what it means to be Muslim. Without knowing his life, we know nothing. We wouldn ‘t know how to pray. We wouldn’t know which qualities make a good person and which make a bad person.

Hmm, that would mean the quran contains nothing? To me, this is one of the more depressing realities we see amongst muslims today: we are so disconnected from the quran we see it as almost useless. What it means to be muslim is the entire purpose of the quran, yet the claim is that without hadith we can never know what it means to be muslim! Quranists do not tag the definition of islam to the personality of the messenger, because its definition has been fully defined in the quran. Remember, the messenger was also muslim, who lived by the teachings of the quran. If you wish to be like him, you must do what he did and implement the quran in your life.

How can any Muslim say that the hadith are worthless?! Because they were written down several years after Muhammad (saws) had passed? Really? Is that it?

Not really. This is a common misconception. Quranists do not generally reject the authority of hadith due to their veracity, rather they reject their authority because Allah forbids believing in hadith in the quran:

77/50 So in what statement [ḥadīthin] after it will they believe?

68/36 What is with you? How do you judge?
68/37 Or (is there) for you a book, therein you study?

How can you believe hadith as authoritative after reading the above verses? How can you derive religion from a text other than the quran?

It’s called having faith, people! We have faith that the Quran and sunnah have not been corrupted. We have no way of knowing for sure. It takes FAITH. We have faith in Allah that our Quran AND hadith are protected. […] How can any Muslim even begin to question this?! Faith, people, FAITH. You either have it or you don’t. Enough of the Quranist bull.

Then surely you can respect someone’s right to reject your particular belief? I do not have faith that hadith is from Allah. I have faith that the quran is from Allah. I consider both beliefs to be justified, given the evidence I have. So perhaps we can respect each other’s beliefs, without referring to them as “hipster”, “garbage”, “nonsense” etc.

Do you want to know what I find most disturbing about this ridiculous Quranist movement? The fact that without hadith, we have no knowledge of the context in which each ayat was revealed.

If the context of revelation was a vital detail, surely Allah would have detailed it in the quran to begin with?

1/5 You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help

Do you need the context of revelation for the above verse for you to understand it? If no, why would you need to know the context of revelation for the other verses in the quran?

Did it ever occur to you Quranists that we Muslims have been able to counter Islamophobic spins on the Quran, time and time again? How many verses have they taken out of context that we have corrected? How were we able to do so? By knowing the hadith. By knowing the tafseer.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t occur to traditionalists that much of the islamaphobic material out there comes from hadith literature and its effect on the quran. Killing apostates, stoning for adultery, severing limbs as punishment, men having unlimited sex-slaves, niqab, keeping women at home etc. are the type of issues islamaphobes have a field day with – none of which have any origin in the quran. The “context” provided by hadith and so-called authentic tafseer are actually the very cause of the problem. This is no more evident than when it comes to the issue of apostasy. The quran makes it clear that you are not to force anyone to believe, yet the “context” given to us by hadith states that apostates can be forced to believe, and if they do not yield they must be executed.

Without hadith, the Quran is up for all kinds of interpretations. And how are the Quranists going to combat these interpretations when they themselves believe that the Quran is allowed to be interpretted by the individual?

Agreed. The quran is up for all kinds of interpretations. Allah allows this. How we counter disagreeable interpretations is via the method commanded by Allah in the quran: discussing in the best of ways and demonstrating upright behaviour. The non-muslim can interpret the quran whichever way he sees fit. If he comes up with an interpretation that you think is wrong, why not share yours and have a discussion?

Enough with this Quranist nonsense.

The quranist position is not going to simply disappear. What’s happening is that more and more people are getting direct access to the sources of the ulema, and many simply don’t like what they’re finding. There is a huge disparity between what the quran teaches and what the ulema have dictated as islamic. Hadith is only a part of the equation. A dismissive attitude merely satisfies the ego, it doesn’t actually address the issue.

So in that regard, I’m not concerned with what garbage you spread around the internet because that’s all it is- garbage. Not Islam. My concern is for the Muslims actually caught up in it.

It always amuses me how some people, after bashing the beliefs of muslims who do not agree with them, dress their actions up as “concern for unaware muslims” or “exposing falsehood” etc. Let’s be honest. Ranting about how other people’s beliefs are “bull” is not an act of someone concerned. We would expect those who are concerned about oh-so-misguided quranists to engage in a more complete manner, and at least respect the intelligence of those who they are feeling concerned for and not refer to their position as ridiculous and stupid.

Please, just stop. We all have enough to answer for on the day of accounting. You don’t want this to be one of them. You really don’t..

Scaremongering is generally not a very effective way of arguing. However, zombiejihadi should perhaps reflect on the following:

17/36 And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those (one) will be questioned.

Pleading ignorance on that day will not suffice. Hence we are left with no choice but to read the quran ourselves with sincerity and follow our convictions. In that respect, it is not for any mortal to tell us what we want and don’t want to answer for on the day of reckoning – we will answer for what we believed, how we behaved, and how we used our God-given faculties to reach our conclusions. In contrast, those who believe in following tradition and “fourteen hundred years of scholarship” may in fact be standing on shaky ground:

33/67 And they will say: “Our Lord! Indeed we obeyed our chiefs and our great ones, so they led us astray from the path.”

2/170 And when it is said to them, “Follow what Allah has descended,” they say, “Rather, we will follow what we found upon our forefathers.” Even though their fathers did not understand anything, and not were they guided?

Quranism is not a gimmick, nor an Internet fad. Embracing the quran as fully detailed and as the true guidance to the straight path was not only the way of the messenger, but undoubtedly the way of those who followed him. And as a contemporary ideology, it is not one to be easily discarded as garbage.