Book Review: Sunnate Nabavi aur Hamara Tareeqa e Fikr o Amal

Sunnate Nabavi aur Hamara Tareeqa e Fikr o Amal

Author: Dr. Yusuf alQarzawi, pages 272.

This book seeks to explore the corruption and manipulation of Hadith literature in its various forms and then goes on to suggest ways and means to interpret aHadith to suit contemporary needs; and as expected of the author, it adopts an approach that borders on liberalism.

He says that there are three things which have been done to corrupt aHadith:

1. Exaggerations (gulu)

2. False attributions to invent bidaat

3. Incorrect derivations by naïve people

And that three things need to be checked while studying any Hadith:

1. Authenticity

2. Context

3. Concurrence with nass

He explains that meticulous care should be taken about the authenticity of the Hadith if it involves deriving legal issues from it, and the same care need not be taken with fazail/raqaiq/azkar… but there’s a limit to this. 

The learned scholar proceeds to debunk almost all aHadith that deal with fazail and raqaiq. We do know that many a Hadith has been fabricated in good faith to motivate people to do good and abstain from evil, just as many have been fabricated for ulterior motives, and we need to be cautious of both. Why we need to exercise caution even with the former ones has been dealt with in detail. But by the end of the first chapter, the reader gets skeptical and suspicious of every Hadith that falls in that category. My personal reservations about a certain book on Fazail notwithstanding, such sweeping allegations on a huge corpus of Hadith literature makes one sit up and take notice.

The author laments that some people have been rejecting even Sahih aHadith because they cannot understand their import. He advises them to first seek out a reasonable interpretation of a Hadith before rejecting it as fake, and that there is no reason why it should be rejected when it has been classified as authentic, simply because it does not confirm to one’s logical premise. He then explains in detail how weak aHadith on fazail can be identified and what are the conditions they should meet before being accepted as worthy of narration. 

One thing I found disturbing was the author’s emphasis on illat (rationale). He says that the illat would determine the hukm (command). This apparently contradicts Shah Waliullah Muhaddis Dehlvi’s stand in Hujjjatullah alBaligah in which he avers that the command would be followed irrespective of its illat. For instance, the illat of allotting a son twice the share of inheritance as compared to the daughter is that the male is expected to shoulder the financial burden of the family. But this command would remain the same even when the illat is not met, i.e. even if the son is handicapped or not burdened with the financial responsibility of the family for any other reason. Take another example. Ramal was performed during the tawaf of the 7 AH Qaza Umrah to show the pagan Makkans that the Muslims of Madinah are physically fit and have not been weakened by the Madinah climate. After the conquest of Makkah the next year, this illat no longer existed, but the command of ramal continues to this day.

However, Dr. Qarzawi tries to determine the validity of a Prophetic command on the basis of its illat. For instance, he cites aHadith in which the Prophet ﷺ has warned against having the lower garment trail below the ankles and commanded Muslims to avoid doing so. He then cites other aHadith in which the reason provided (illat) for this command is that such a gesture amounts to arrogance. He also quotes a Hadith in which Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq ؓ  tells the Prophet ﷺ, “O Messenger of God, a part of my lower garment keeps falling below the ankles no matter how much I try to keep it up (i.e. it keeps slipping down)”. At this, the Prophet replied, “You are not of those who do so because of arrogance”. The author then concludes that it is permissible to let the lower garment extend below the ankles if the person concerned is not doing so out of arrogance. I do not agree with the author’s deduction here. Allow me to explain why:

1. How would a person decide for himself that he is not being arrogant? Even Abu Bakr Siddiq had to be told by the Prophet ﷺ that his case does not amount to arrogance.

2. In fact, Abu Bakr Siddiq used to tie his lower garment sufficiently high, but it used to slip down on its own. It is not that Abu Bakr deliberately wore garments that extended beyond the ankles.

3. The Prophet ﷺ himself used to ensure that his own lower garment did not extend below the ankles despite the fact that he did not have a shred of arrogance in him.

4. There is a Hadith in which a man, Ubaid bin Khalid ؓ , whose lower garment was extending beyond the ankles, was reprimanded by the Prophet ﷺ. When he submitted that what he was wearing was but an ordinary piece of cloth and that there was no arrogance involved in it, the Prophet showed him his own lower garment which exposed half his calf and asked him if his own example was not sufficient for him to emulate!

All these four points show that the illat does not determine the command, and that care should always be taken to ensure that one’s lower garment does not extend beyond his ankles. No person should wear long trousers and then plead humility by saying, ‘Oh, but I’m not doing so out of arrogance’!

The author uses the same logical deduction to dismantle several other Prophetic commandments like eating with the hands, sitting on the floor while eating, women requiring a mehram companion while travelling, sighting the moon to mark the months etc. On the pretext of preferring the ‘spirit’ of the Prophetic command over its words, it seems the author has sought to deviate from the established Sunnah. In doing so, he has been audacious enough to self-determine the spirit and the illat behind the Prophet’s commands. I fear that this liberty that the author has taken, to suggest why the Prophet has commanded what he has commanded, in order to suggest an illat behind the Prophet’s commands such that they confirm to the etiquettes of Western lifestyle, would encourage many others to do the same, eventually opening up the floodgates to innovations in deen.

Dr. Qarzawi further explains how idioms and historical contexts should be taken into consideration while deducing lessons from aHadith and how ignoring these can lead to misinterpretation of the Sunnah. He insists that words employed by the Prophet ﷺ have been misunderstood, that ‘touching’ an unrelated woman does not amount to a major sin because the Prophet was actually referring to fornication here, and that a photograph is simply a ‘reflection’ and not the tasweer that the Prophet has forbidden.

In conclusion, I would say that this book should be read with a pinch of salt, employing ample amount of discretion. Take it as a stepping stone to explore more on this topic. The Sunnah and the Hadith are, after all, very important sources of the Islamic creed, second only to the Qur’an. And in the author’s own words, the Qur’an is much more dependent upon the Sunnah than the Sunnah is upon the Qur’an. We are not only required to study the Sunnah in depth, but we also need to gain a thorough understanding of the way in which it should be studied. May Allah be our guide on this wonderful journey. Amen.

- Dr. Parvez Mandviwala