The Relationship between Qur’an and Sunna in Context

NOTES FROM THE IIIT CONFERENCE ON APPROACHING THE QUR’AN AND SUNNAH #2

[This is the second in a series of my notes on the International Institute of Islamic Thought conference on approaching the Qur’an and Sunnah held in Herndon VA. These notes are raw material for an edited report I will write on the conference later and represent my perception of the discussion. The proceedings will be published by IIIT at a later time. The Minaret of Freedom Institute thanks IIIT for the grant that makes the publication of these notes possible. Responsibility for any errors in the notes is mine alone.]

Second Session, Moderator: Hisham Altalib

Lecture by Mahmoud Ayoub
“The Relationship between Qur’an and Sunna in Context”

The Qur’an is the Word of God revealed to His Messenger Muhammad and the sunnah is what the Prophet said about it. I believe the Qur’an established the sunnah. It speaks of the sunnah, of bygone people and their Prophets, the sunnah of God in His Creation. The sunnah of Muhammad is not mentioned in the Qur’an as such, but there is an intimate relation between the Qur’an and the Prophet. Whatever the Prophet gives we should take and whatever he forbids we should accept not to do. In an even stronger statement we are told to listen to the Prophet as the ultimate judge. I say this in the present tense because I believe that is how it is meant to be taken. The sunnah is equated by imam Shafi`i with hikmah.

Hadith Qudsi is best considered extra-Qur’anic revelation. Hadith say the Prophet lived the Qur’an so the sunnah is best considered the living Qur’an.

The four rubrics of sunnah are the sunnah of morality (akhalqiyya), sunnah of worship (`ibadiyyah), creed (aqidiyyah), and the law (shar`iyyah, or faqhiyyah).

The relation of Qur’an to sunnah is the relation of wahiyy to irhân. We have ignored the sunnah of the Prophet where he always tried not to establish the hadd. When companions said they chased an adulterer to stone him the Prophet asked why did you not let him go home to repent and perhaps God would forgive him?

In the 21st century we need not water down the Qur’an and sunnah, but to read it as we read the maqasid, to understand it in the context of modern problems and situations.

Tafsir can be studied sociologically. They tell you much about the society in which they were written (esp. Ibn Kathir; you can tell he lived after the Crusades). We have been reading the Qur’an as a book science, geography, history—everything except what it calls itself, a book of guidance.
The word sunnah was used in the war between Ali and Muawiyyah in distinguishing between the sunnah that brings people together, not that takes them apart. When Umar came to khalifah Abu Bakr and suggested the Qur’an be put together in a book because the people who had memorized it were dying, Abu Bakr asked, “How can I do something the Prophet did not do?” So the idea of sunnah of the Prophet may precede the phrase.

The concept was expanded by Imam Malik to include the practice of the community at Medina. For the Shi`a it extends to the Imams until the greater occultation. Some include the Porphet, his companions and his successors (the Tabi`iin).

Imam Shafi` emphasized hadith rather than sunnah, and became the main architect of fiqh and all the madhâhib were influenced by his ideas. The sunnah gained importance as the time went by and became the measure of how Islam was fulfilled. The hadith were gathered together in the two Sahih for the Sunni and the four books of the Shia. We should also look at the sîrah sources as well. Ibn Ishak, Ibn Hisham, and a number of other classical sîrah works. Also dilâ`il in-nahûr (proofs of ideas in support of Muhammad’s Prophethood). We also have the shamâ’il virtues or character) books by Ibn Kathir and others that speak of the character and appearance of the Prophet Muhammad.

It may be objected that these books are legendary, and there is no doubt there is legend in the dalâ’il, but they tell us how people related to the life of the Prophet. Maybe next year we should have a program on the Qur’an alone, and the following year one on the sunnah alone, and then one on the to together as they affect our lives. We must not restrict ourselves to how the Prophet dealt strictly with criminals but how dealt with mercifully with slaves and women and every human being.
We have been reading the sunnah and perhaps he Qur’an with the glasses of a thousand years ago, or at least 500 years ago. We must put on new glasses, and there is much we can learn about the humanism of the sunnah.

Discussant: Muqtedar Khan

I felt tortured for 40 minutes, like a child before whom you dangled toys and them took them away. My understanding of hikmah is that it is inherent to humanity, related to wisdom as the divine propensity to doing the right thing. If we take it out of humanity and make it part of revelation then none of us has it, not even the Prophet to whom it had to be given. Also it implies that the entire sunnah is hadith al-qudsi and the category becomes meaningless.

If the Qur’an and sunnah complement each other, as you say, then how do we accommodate the relative authenticity of the sources? The example of the stoning is baffling in the light of the controversy over the ayat ar-rajm.

The moment we touch the transcendent Qur’an we humanize it. Is the sunnah the only interpretation of the Qur’an? An interpretation? Can we have our own “sunnah?’ I believe every generation must have two readings of the Qur’an, the muqâsid of the Qur’an, and the meaning in our time and space.

Ayoub: Hikmah is used in the Qur’an in two senses, one that everyone must have (including the Prophet) involving prudence, clemency, concern, etc.; but it is also something God gives to his Prophets (as in it is not right for a Prophet to whom God gives hukm that he should say, “Worship me instead of God”). I want to distinguish between revelation as wahiyy (as in the torah, injîl, and Qur’an) and as inspiration called ilhân as when God inspires someone with ideas. Perhaps the Prophet had both, but for me the life of the Prophet is exemplary for us and belongs not to Muslim history but to sacred history. To me Muslim history begins with the death of the Prophet. Many times he made decisions with which God did not agree and the Qur’an corrected him. Afterward the theocracy was replaced by nomocracy.

In the past we have understood part of the hadith as being interpretation of the Qur’an (tafsir) but I think there is more of the hadith that can be read that way.
I prefer to hold onto the authenticity of the Qur’an and scriptures as relevant to our lives. The Qur’an refers to a heavenly Qur’an and an earthly Qur’an. Is the former unbound by letters and sounds as the latter is? Zarkashi, the great historian of the Qur’an (whom I prefer to Sayuti) in his Burhân says when you read the Qur’an, you must read it as if it was revealed right now and for you—each time you read it. There are those who hear the Qur’an and learn from it; there are those who hear it as the companions heard it from the Prophet, and there are those who hear it as the Prophet heard it from Jibril, and there are he very few who hear it as Jibril heard it from the divine throne. Muhiyy called his tafsir The Ocean. Notwithstanding, there are questions of authenticity and if the Prophet is to live among us he must share in the vagaries of our existence.

Khan : What scares me in almost every tafsir I have read people are so sure of their interpretation. Rarely do they say this is so hard for me to understand. There seems to be a hubris. People are constructing narratives.

Ayoub: There are verses that say only God knows the full meaning of the Qur’an, esp. The ayât muhabashât. There is a great difference between Tabari and Sayyhid Qutb. We are not bound to follow any of them.

Sherman Jackson: Are there other ways of internalizing the Qur’an beyond understanding? You have translated ummayyîn with a certainty—

Ayoub: I’m sorry I didn’t sound more uncertain. The difference between tafsir and ta’wîl is the difference between exoteric and esoteric interpretation.

Kenneth (Abdul Hadi) Honorcamp: The problem is that we have skipped the muqaddamah and gone straight to the tafsir of a particular verse.

Ayoub: Ibn Kathir does go directly into the tafsir, but he wrote a separate book, which has been appended to it.

Ahmad Kazemi Mousavi: Ibn Arabi also said the Qur’an should be read as if it was directly revealed to that individual.

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad: This is part of its inimitability, that the Qur’an seems to speak to each of uss individually.

Ayoub: The Qur’an does not speak on its own. When Ali had the problem with the Khwarij he said do not argue with them on the basis of the Qur’an, but only on the sunnah.

Ahmad: The Qur’an has both general and particular meanings. The general meanings we share, but the particular meanings touch us individually.

Ayoub: It speaks to both our mind and our heart. In surah 59 is the interesting verse in which Allah says, “Were we to cause this Qur’an to descend upon a mountain you would find it torn asunder, etc.” This is correlates to the verse about God revealing Himself to a mountain before Moses. I can learn from the reading of any Muslim or any non-Muslim, like the books by Kenneth Craig.

Khaleel Mohammad: Ali said to the Khwarij “Let the Qur’an speak to you.”

Ayoub: Biblical Protestants want to apply the Bible literally. It is also affecting Muslims for example in the case of abortion.

Honercamp: Maddigan has an interesting book. Qur’an says “dhalil al-kitâb” at a time when there was no kitâb.

Ayoub: Because it means the divine communication, not something between two covers. In [?’]s Introduction to Sufism says the Qur’an, whatever its style, is scripture.

Ahmad: Literalism and selectivity are the problem, not personal reading.

[?]: In Bruce Lawrences’ book on the Qur’an he talks about the rebuttal of Mamun on the role of imagination.

Ayoub: Many times we read Qur’anic verses in isolation. This is why I say the Qur’an must speak through the tradition. Same for the Bible as in “I bring a sword to divide a son against his father and a daughter against her mother.”

Ahmad: Qur’an must be taken as a whole in context.

Ayoub: What is not muttawâtir cannot abrogate what is muttawâtir. The Qur’an may have been greater than what was handed down to us. We must not read the Qur’an as a mantra as magic or as entertainment.

Hisham Al-Talib: Millions who don’t speak Arabic memorize he Qur’an from Fatihah to an-Nas. Is this the inimitability of the Qur’an? Has anyone every memorized a book in a language they do not understand?

Ahmed Rafiq: The Hindus in Bali celebrate the birthday of the temple with the religious leader reciting the Veda from memory though he does not understand it.

Imtiaz Yusuf: Monks in Buddhism also.

Ahmad: There is a distinction between monks and priests and average Muslims.

Khan: My brother can recite the whole thing and he is not Hindu and knows no Sanskrit.

Ayoub: Sometime I would like to read with you all the first 15 verses of surat an-najm, the greatest piece of mystic literature. The sixth chapter of Isaiah is also great piece of mysticism.

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
Minaret of Freedom Institute
www.minaret.org

ImadadDean