WHY DISCARD ALL THE HADITH?

Often we are criticized for trying to follow the Quran as our only source of religious guidance. This criticism usually comes from the hadith and sunnah advocates who insist that the saying and the deeds that are attributed to prophet Muhammed must also be followed.

Recently, I have had a lengthy argument with a Sunni-Sufi, a vehement advocate of hadith and sunnah, who has devoted his life to discredit the mathematical structure of the Quran by any means, including lies and misrepresentation of facts. This person repeatedly posts criticism on an Internet computer bulletin board against those who do not believe as he does. His postings are cherished by all blind followers of hadith and sunnah, and by the opponents of the mathematical structure of the Quran. On the other hand, there are also people on Internet who ask questions and discuss the issues because they are interested in learning. One such person posted the following three questions for me to answer.

1. How can you claim that several sahih (trustworthy) hadiths are necessarily false while you cite only a few sahih hadiths which have debatable contents? Is this not a generalization from scanty data?

2. Why do you assume that either all sahih hadiths should be rejected or all of them should be accepted? Why not judge each

hadith based on its individual merit accordingly to all the available data about its isnad (chain of narrators), and so on?

3. Suppose we cease to use hadith as a source of information about the Prophet, his life, and his career. Then we notice that the Quran itself says very little about the Prophet’s life. It also says nothing about how the Quran was compiled. The historicity of the Quran is based on hadiths. It is from hadiths that we know how the Quran was compiled. It is also from hadith that we know about the life that the life of the Prophet.

Following are my answers and counter arguments to the above questions and arguments:

If any book contains lies (of which we have more than just a “few” examples), then, the book loses its credibility. If you see dozens of repeated fabrications introduced as sahih hadith, then, how can you still rely on other narrations of the same book?

Judging each hadith on its individual merit may seem attractive for those who are not satisfied with God’s book, but it is a waste of time and a self-deceptive method. If the names of narrators cannot provide authenticity about the source of the hadith, then, our only guide for deciding on the content of hadiths will be our personal wish or our current inclinations. How can we decide which hadith

has merit? How can we decide which hadith are accurate? We may say “by comparing them with the Quran!” But, what does this really mean? If it is “me” who will compare a hadith to the Quran, if it is again “me” who will judge whether it contradicts the Quran or not, then, I will end up with “hadith” which supports “my” personal understanding of the Quran. In this case hadith cannot function as an explanation of the Quran. They will be a confirmation or justification of my understanding of the Quran; with their literarily tasteless, grammatically lame language…. Furthermore, what about hadiths that bring extra duties and prohibitions?

Again, there are many hadiths about the prophet’s life that you cannot accept with a sober mind. They are narrated repeatedly in many so-called authentic books. We cannot create a history out of a mish-mash of narration by a subjective method of picking and choosing. We can create many conflicting portraits of Muhammed out of those hadiths. As for pure historical events that have no moral and religious implications, they are not part of the religion, and we don’t need them for our salvation. I never said “we should not read hadith.” In fact, we can study hadith books to get an approximate idea about the people and events of those times. We can even construct a “conjecture” about the history, without attributing them to

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