The Islamic history is meaningless?
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Peace,
Respectfully.We must be aware and acknolwedge that most of the hadith narrated by all those men are not from the messenger/prophet Muhammad but rather attributed to him. Back then, a person would say i heard my grandpa say this and that from the prophet Muhammad and the story/line/sentence/word was immediately taken as The Truth, without checking.
This is where they've failed, unfortunetaly.
May God guides us all.
Peace. -
The book that i recommend to you is definitely a good read and it will answer many of your questions. Anyway as per your questions about the hadith i would like to qoute something from history itself,
"The emerging Hadith-movement, however, saw their task as reporting, with the purpose of promoting legal fixity and permanence. In the extant works of the second century, most of the legal and moral traditions are not from the Prophet but are traced back to the Companions; however as the decades passed these traditions came to be ascribed to the Prophet himself, perhaps inwardly propelled by their definition of authenticity.The nature of the emerging Hadith-movement can be proven by one well-known fact, undisputed even by the most orthodox of Muslims. The classical traditionalists themselves argued that ?moral maxims and edifying statements and aphorisms may be attributed to the Prophet irrespective of whether this attribution is strictly historical or not".
The above statement is testament to the fact that interpretations of different people that spanned about 300 years were attributed to the prophet irrespective of the fact that the prophet himself said it or not. In other words interpretations by different people that spanned about 300 years were given a divine stamp by attributing them to the prophet. The architect of this design was Imam Shafi, one may very well call him the founder of the hadith movement. For interpretations to be valid they have to be in line with the Quran and the changing times. This is not so in many of the cases. In the earliest days of Islam with all the sectarian tensions, political intrigue and people vying for power deviations occurred to serve the personal agenda of some people and as a result of which they deviated from the teaching of the Quran and those deviations were preserved for all times for everyone to follow when the Hadiths received divine sanction. To put it in another way the interpretations of the earliest generations of Islam were made mandatory for everyone to follow. Interpretation is a human activity and naturally errors will be made whether deliberately or innocently. To claim that interpretations, in this case the earliest interpretations(Hadith) are to be followed without question is wrong pure and simple. So here is my question can a particular set of interpretations explain all there is that is in a divine book. Hence Quran is everything the rest is just interpretations. The next time when you hold the book of Hadith in your hand remember that it is not a divine book but that it contains the interpretations(Ijtihad and Ijma) of the earliest scholars of Islam.
"Most of the Hadith corpus is, in fact, the Sunnah-Ijtihad of the first generations which after a serious struggle received the sanction of ijma?, or the adherence of the majority of the Community".
Slam
Thanks a lot regarding your informations.
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I'm skeptical of Islamic history as a whole. If Christian and Jewish tradition are to be viewed with suspicion, I don't see why Islamic tradition should be exempt. I'm a cynic though and can live with that. And I'm not an arab so it does nothing to effect my national, or ethnic identity.
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I'm skeptical of Islamic history as a whole. If Christian and Jewish tradition are to be viewed with suspicion, I don't see why Islamic tradition should be exempt. I'm a cynic though and can live with that. And I'm not an arab so it does nothing to effect my national, or ethnic identity.
You have a good point there
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Peace all
History is written, amended, edited and sanctioned by Rulers and/or Victors, it is rarely accurate.
However, factual evidence, such as archives, documents, archaeological findings, forensic evidence, etc.
are always more trustworthy, but more difficult to get a hold of. -
To your original question. Islam has a very rich history. If you want to read about the contribution of Islam over the centuries I recommend a book by the name of 'Islamic Jurisprudence' by C.G. Weeramantry. It was after reading this book that i started to see religion as a positive force rather than a negative one. It kinda changed my worldview if you know what i mean.
cool, thanks for the recommendation... i will check these books out D
peace handshake
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Slam zees,
Thanks for your kindness about the book, but on the other hand there are many Muslims on this blog rejected all the saying of the Prophet Muhammad. Because of Islamic history is consisted of Islamic faith, so we cannot deny the practiced of the Prophet wrote in hadith. One said that " Who guarantees Bukhari, Muslim and others " and I also got the information that even the Prophet cannot guarantee any person. could you clarify this point?
Wassalam
You are right there when you say that Islamic history is the story of our faith. After the Quran was revealed there has been a long chain of interpretations(which comprise of our history) starting from the prophetic hadith and ending with the interpretations of the four schools of thought. If hadith which is the earliest interpretation to date is taken as a human activity liable to errors than i believe there is no harm in considering them (what is wrong is to consider them as infallible). The subsequent interpretations are to be treated as such as well. Interpretations do shape our religion. To just cut them off like they never existed is not the right thing to do. What is the right thing to do is to evaluate them critically as against the Quran and human reason before accepting them. The major error that was made by our islamic interpreters over the centuries was that they did not critically evaluate the previous interpretations while making their own interpretations thereby carrying forward the previous interpretative mistakes to the next generations. After that new interpretations were outlawed by a popular decree known as the closing of the gates of Ijtihad. After which we have been languishing in darkness with reformists calling for the reviving the of the right to interpret their religion. In my personal opinion what Islam needs is reform and not only reform but serious reform. I am a reformist by the way.
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something you said (Zees)
"he major error that was made by our islamic interpreters over the centuries was that they did not critically evaluate the previous interpretations while making their own interpretations thereby carrying forward the previous interpretative mistakes to the next generations. After that new interpretations were outlawed by a popular decree known as the closing of the gates of Ijtihad. After which we have been languishing in darkness with reformists calling for the reviving the of the right to interpret their religion. In my personal opinion what Islam needs is reform and not only reform but serious reform. I am a reformist by the way."
you believe no islamic 'scholar/interpreter' critically evaluated previous interpretations? That seems to odd to comprehend
you seem like a reformist except i don't understand what actions you're trying to undertake.
there are people who actively seek knowledge about their religion, would you not call them mujtahideen?
Not everyone is intrinsically motivated to evaluate, critique and learn. so what then?
how do you establish ijtihad if some people believe they are undertaking the process? Remember also not everyone is vocal on their opinions due to fear of majority...
also not every sunni follows a madhab, my family for example..
Salam
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hi all, islamic history was distorsed by islamic enemies,
they goals was brought the moslems to confuse all about they history.
ex the shiffin war, jamal, and all the fitna cases has the views that all sahaba is kufr and miss the quran.
we need the real effort to deconstruct the islamic history to clear the sahaba of nabi from distortion -
Peace,
Respectfully.We must be aware and acknolwedge that most of the hadith narrated by all those men are not from the messenger/prophet Muhammad but rather attributed to him. Back then, a person would say i heard my grandpa say this and that from the prophet Muhammad and the story/line/sentence/word was immediately taken as The Truth, without checking.
This is where they've failed, unfortunetaly.
May God guides us all.
Peace.salam,
the salaf has aware about fake of hadits, so they create the greatfull discipline so called mustholah al hadits in its the salaf can found and trace back the originator of hadits via matan and sanad analyses, some doctors like imam ahman bin hanbal, muslim, bukhori etc applicated those discipline to mesh the hadist/himawan
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History isn't just about "fake hadith, battle of the camel, fitna of khawaraj or whatever, etc"
History is beyond that! history, think about cultural artifacts of muslims of the time, architecture, colour, art, technology..
all people have history and its all significant in its meaning. if you're purely looking at it for hadiths perspective then it seems the history of the formation of hadith has had influence on the 4 imams for a specific purpose. you wouldn't know that without history.
everything plays it's purpose, history isn't always clear and can be distorted but it gives an idea or an image that we can gauge off.
salam.
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something you said (Zees)
you believe no islamic 'scholar/interpreter' critically evaluated previous interpretations? That seems to odd to comprehend
you seem like a reformist except i don't understand what actions you're trying to undertake.
there are people who actively seek knowledge about their religion, would you not call them mujtahideen?
Not everyone is intrinsically motivated to evaluate, critique and learn. so what then?
how do you establish ijtihad if some people believe they are undertaking the process? Remember also not everyone is vocal on their opinions due to fear of majority...
also not every sunni follows a madhab, my family for example..
Salam
What I refer to in this instance were the earliest interpretations which were not critically evaluated by any of the scholars. These earliest interpretations are popularly known as the hadith interpretations and they were not critically evaluated because they were sanctified by Imam Shafi and made a law onto itself. Imam Shafi believed that sunnah was a ideal concept rather than a living concept and based on this fact he made the mistake of making hadith interpretations as a source of law by attributing them all to the prophet. This act in itself was the first nail in the coffin of Ijtihad(or the closing of the gates of Ijtihad). The errors that were inherent in the hadith interpretations were carried forward and were even made part of the law without due examination of these earliest interpretations. Needless to say that these created problems for the coming generations and these problems coupled with the later developments resulted in the closing of the gates of Ijtihad.
Being a reformist I want what all the reformists want which is to revive the original system of Islam that was based upon Ijtihad(independent reasoning) and Ijma(Consensus of community) as opposed to the system that is in practice today which is based upon taqlid(blind following) and Imamat(infallible imam). According to this system which is prevalent today Imams and sheiks depend upon the knowledge of previous interpretations to guide people and glorify the past imams and are ready to fight anyone tooth and nail if anyone dares to mention change in the old ways. One can surely see what has that brought us today with all the chaos and turmoil in the Muslim world. These taqlidi muslims or sheiks or imams form the majority of the muslim or sunni world today. They oppose Ijtihad on the ground that no one today is fit enough to perform Ijtihad. Given that there are some people who are performing Ijtihad but they live on the borders of the society and are condemned by the mainstream Muslims. This is what we wish to change to make ijtihad acceptable by the mainstream Muslims today. Mujtahid is anyone who based upon the knowledge of Quran and the critical evaluations of the previous interpretations and in tandem with human reason attempts to update the Islamic laws. When it comes to laws the taqlidi muslims remain in firm control of it and are in no mind of giving up the activity to the mujtahids. My family does not follow any particular madhab either, which is a good thing in itself as it means that you are not blindly following a madhab but are doing what you deem right. That is the spirit of Ijtihad.
Something I copied from a reformist book,
??he actual content of the Sunna of the early generations of Muslims was largely the product of Ijtihad when this Ijtihad, through an incessant interaction of opinion, developed the character of general acceptance or consensus of the Community, i.e. ijma?.??
?Reformists condemns the post-Shafi?i consensus that the Sunna is not a living practice of interpretation, that instead it goes back to the ideal Sunna of the Prophet?
?The idea of Hadith that we have inherited is a latter one. The lawyers of the ancient schools of law like Abu Yusuf, Awza?i and Malik based their legal work on the ?living Sunnah? and through personal judgement interpreted their materials freely to elaborate the law. The emerging Hadith-movement, however, saw their task as reporting, with the purpose of promoting legal fixity and permanence. In the extant works of the second century, most of the legal and moral traditions are not from the Prophet but are traced back to the Companions; however as the decades passed these traditions came to be ascribed to the Prophet himself, perhaps inwardly propelled by their definition of authenticity. The early lawyers resisted this trend. They maintained different criteria.?
?The nature of the emerging Hadith-movement can be proven by one well-known fact, undisputed even by the most orthodox of Muslims. The classical traditionalists themselves argued that ?moral maxims and edifying statements and aphorisms may be attributed to the Prophet irrespective of whether this attribution is strictly historical or not.? (196544) Most of the Hadith corpus is, in fact, the Sunnah-Ijtihad of the first generations which after a serious struggle received the sanction of ijma?, or the adherence of the majority of the Community. In addition to the necessary chains of narrators growing backwards, the nature of the corpus changed also the living Sunnah had been primarily geared towards behavorial norms, but the Hadith came to incorporate legal norms, religious beliefs and principles as well. ?
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few things i don't understand, if imam shafi made this law, why wasn't there a big uproar if so why don't we hear about it.
how did imam shafi and the other imams get their title..
how would ijma happen?
When it comes to laws the taqlidi muslims remain in firm control of it and are in no mind of giving up the activity to the mujtahids.
i can understand why.. you threaten their beliefs. one they have no reason to doubt because so many people follow that path.
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few things i don't understand, if imam shafi made this law, why wasn't there a big uproar if so why don't we hear about it.
There was uproar about it. See here
http//mypercept.co.uk/articles/Rethinking_Tradition_Modern_Islamic_Thought.htmHis book "Risala" is almost entirely an argument for his view. If his view was blatantly obvious and mainstream, there would be no need to write a 300 page book detailing the case for it!
Why we dont hear about it? I like the wisdom it is the victor's history that goes to school.
As a sidenote, I bought the English translation of the book for a dirt cheap ?10 including delivery, and plan to read and critically review it in the future. So much to do in so little time.
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thanks for that, i'll look into it during the week.
thing is even if there was a big uproar his view was established, maybe he wasn't popular in his time but later after his death because of his works and justifications were there for people to see? maybe i'm just guessing
Zees, this dude used his own "ijtihad" to come up with a system of following islam however it's not accurate, he innovated an idea that is held so strong today.. ijtihad is important but i think knowing history is too.
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There was uproar about it. See here
http//mypercept.co.uk/articles/Rethinking_Tradition_Modern_Islamic_Thought.htmHis book "Risala" is almost entirely an argument for his view. If his view was blatantly obvious and mainstream, there would be no need to write a 300 page book detailing the case for it!
Why we dont hear about it? I like the wisdom it is the victor's history that goes to school.
As a sidenote, I bought the English translation of the book for a dirt cheap ?10 including delivery, and plan to read and critically review it in the future. So much to do in so little time.
Peace Wakas
Where did you buy the book for ?10?
peace
hope
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Peace,
Respectfully.We must be aware and acknolwedge that most of the hadith narrated by all those men are not from the messenger/prophet Muhammad but rather attributed to him. Back then, a person would say i heard my grandpa say this and that from the prophet Muhammad and the story/line/sentence/word was immediately taken as The Truth, without checking.
This is where they've failed, unfortunetaly.
May God guides us all.
Peace.in all time there is always born some ulema or the hadits guard. they spent all the time to clean and clarity the sunna from the distortion, many orientalist from the west spent the time to hit the sunna, they attributed the backward projection theory to weakness the common link of the hadits transmission, but unfortunately the old song of orientalist is not worthy if they faced to mustolahul hadits methodology.
himawan
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in all time there is always born some ulema or the hadits guard. they spent all the time to clean and clarity the sunna from the distortion, many orientalist from the west spent the time to hit the sunna, they attributed the backward projection theory to weakness the common link of the hadits transmission, but unfortunately the old song of orientalist is not worthy if they faced to mustolahul hadits methodology.
himawan
Yeah right...
it always "the west".. blame the west.. the west is 'shaytan'.. (the devil) etc..
Wake up dude..Salam / Peace
