The Falsity of Measuring the Sunnah Against the Qur'an

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The Falsity of Measuring the Sunnah Against the Qur’an

This article rejects the claim that hadith should be accepted only when it agrees with one’s reading of the Qur’an. In the author’s view, this slogan is not a defense of revelation but a strategy for escaping the authority of the Sunnah while pretending loyalty to the Qur’an.

The article builds its case on a simple premise: the Sunnah is itself revelation in meaning and a divinely mandated explanation of the Qur’an. If that is true, then setting the Sunnah up for judgment before a private, selective reading of the Qur’an is methodologically backwards. The Qur’an itself commands obedience to the Messenger and directs believers to take what he brings and leave what he forbids.

To strengthen the argument, the article cites prophetic warnings against the figure who reclines on his couch and says, “Whatever we find in the Book of Allah we will follow,” while dismissing the Messenger’s commands. It also collects strong statements from early scholars who regarded this slogan as a mark of deviation, because the Qur’an’s general commands often depend on the Sunnah for explanation, detail, and practical form.

The article therefore portrays the issue not as a subtle interpretive debate but as a foundational matter of authority. Whoever claims to honor the Qur’an while rejecting the Sunnah’s explanatory and binding role is, in effect, abandoning the Qur’an’s own teaching about the Messenger. That is why the author presents the slogan as both intellectually incoherent and religiously destructive.

Original publication

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