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INTERPOLATIONS BY HADITHS Under the circumstances, to come up with concepts of sins and good deeds with the intention of making additions to the Quran, clashes with the verses of the Quran, some of which we have quoted in Chapter 2. If a given hadith tries to explain something supposedly not clearly expounded or if certain new concepts are put forward, concepts not existing in the Quran related to good deeds, sins, sunna or acts not forbidden by God but looked upon in horror and disgust by Muslim scholars, that hadith would necessarily be a false one. This leads us to another consideration. If a given hadith does not clash with the Quran, with another hadith and with logic and makes no addition to religious concepts, should we accept it as true? The answer is: “We are not in a position to give an answer to what we do not know.” How can we? All the hadiths in circulation have their source in the books of the transmitters of a pack of lies. Moreover, since we have the Quran, infallible in every respect, why do we have to have recourse to the hadiths? Since the Quran explicitly states that we must not abide by conjectural prescriptions, we must surely beware of hadiths every one of which being a matter of conjecture. How can we, in 1400 AH, sort out the contradictions, the paradoxes, the lies and the illogicalities that infiltrated them during their collection in 200-300 AH? All these vain efforts are the result of failing to see the Quran as a complete book; this failure had in fact grave consequences. To illustrate our argument we are giving below ten examples. 1) MATHEMATICALLY COMMENSURABLE PRAYERS?Hadith:You may consider this hadith not in contradiction with the Quran, nor in conflict with another hadith or is in any way illogical; yet you may be sure that it is a contrived hadith,for there is no such information in the Quran. There are also hadiths that say that the salat performed after having performed one’s ablutions using the miswak (stick of wood beaten into fibers at one end and used as a toothbrush) is twenty-seven times or seventy times superior to the salat performed with ablutions performed with one’s turban on. 2) BEWARE THE LEFT HAND!Hadith:During the courses conducted by certain traditional religious groups, the hands of children, who use their left hands while eating, are beaten till they become red and swollen, and those who sleep at night flat on their belly are woken up from their sleep and beaten; a consequence of such hadiths in circulation. 3) CEREMONIES ON THE OCCASION OF BIRTHHadith:The reader may not see any irrelevance in this hadith. Yet there is no prescription to this effect in the Quran. It follows that this hadith that has no place in the Quran is a contrivance. A fabricated hadith may be harmless, but so long as it adds something that does not exist among the religious prescriptions, it is concocted. The reason of some fabrications may be the attempt at giving the religion an attraction as we briefly mentioned in Chapter 5. However, no matter what the reason may be, to add what is of human origin to God’s word is nothing but treachery. 4) SHOULD BLACK DOGS BE KILLED?Hadith:In Sura The Cave, youth and dogs are mentioned. The youth in question are praised and there is nothing against dogs. If you cannot remember the relevant verses, if you do not know the hadith that told that during the lifetime of the Prophet dogs wandered in mosques, if this hadith does not seem illogical to you, you may conclude that since this hadith introduces into the religion something that the Quran does not mention, it must be counted out, so should all the hadiths that speak against dogs. Such hadiths lead some people to consider dogs as unclean and the most faithful of animals have been outcast. There are an infinite number of hadiths about the animal kingdom. For instance, in a hadith it is said that a cock had crowed because it had seen an angel and that the donkey brays when it sees the Devil. (see Sahihi Muslim). According to another hadith, the rat is a Jew and does not drink camel’s milk because of this (see Sahihi Muslim, Zuhd). Again a hadith alleges that the crow is a pervert (see Bukhari, Hanbali Musnad). The fact that the camel was created from Satan is a phenomenon that biology should look into! (see Hanbal, Musnad). There are also hadiths that claim that the cat was created as a consequence of a lion’s sneezing and that the swine was a consequence of an elephant’s sneezing (see Al Majruhin). All these hadiths have caused religion to be considered illogical and irrelevant. According to those who argue that the hadiths are necessary in order to fully understand the Quran, these hadiths also that figure in reliably hadith books must be given credence. If they think otherwise, it follows that they accept the fact that the Quran is the only reliable book and that for religion they have to refer solely to the Quran. If, however, they take these hadiths to be literally correct, well then … 5) EATING IN GOLDEN AND SILVER PLATES PROHIBITEDHadith:There is nothing to suggest such a prohibition in the Quran. Such interpolations are made by those who deem the contents of the Quran to be insufficient. 6) PUNISHMENT FOR CUTTING A WOMAN’S FINGERSHadith:Be it a man or a woman, the compensation for cutting the finger of someone may be exacted from the culprit, but there is no such prescription in the Quran. People may award compensation according to the prevailing conditions of the time. Even though such a punishment may have been meted out sometime in history, no person of sound mind can argue that it has a universal validity and that camel should be the unit of measure. On the other hand, the above hadith does not stand to reason in that for three fingers the award is thirty camels while for four fingers the number drops to twenty. 7) CIRCUMCISION OF WOMENHadith:Circumcision is not prescribed in the Quran, either for men or women. Anyone who thinks that circumcision is a contraceptive measure may have it carried out. It is certainly not a Quranic prescription. Yet, the hadith gave it a religious connotation. What is more, this is performed on women for the sake of making them appear more beautiful for their men! O you who extol Ghazzali and style him as the proof of Islam and the ornament of religion, who consider him as the peak of wisdom, and who equate the hadith with the verses of the Quran, have you had your women and daughters circumcised? If you haven’t already, why don’t you do it now? Or would you be of those who do not follow the sunna? Don’t you know that those who look askance at such invented hadiths are to be considered outcasts? It is unfortunate that these interpolations have made religion into a system of impractical practices. It is furthermore regretable that such information has found a place in the work of important personages like Ghazzali. 8) MAGIC TREE! GIGANTIC MOLAR AND IMMENSE SKINHadith:Hadith: Hadith: Hadith: These descriptions not contained in the Quran are mere additions. Heaven and hell are described in the Quran. Ignoring the descriptions of the Quran means to disregard the Quran’s depiction of them. There are a great many depictions of heaven and hell in the hadiths. Whether they stand to reason or not, they must not be taken into account. Hadiths can be accepted neither in application nor in theory as they are of no consequence whatsoever. 9) PROPHET’S COMMANDING ABLUTION FOR THE EATER OF CAMEL FLESHHadith:There is nothing in the Quran to suggest such a thing. Therefore this hadith also is an interpolated one. There are sects who have enjoined a person who eats camel flesh to perform ablution. In Chapter 36, we shall study the manner of performing the ablution. 10) GHAZZALI’S PRESCRIPTION FOR SALVATIONHadith:Hadith: It is incumbent upon us to recommend those who may not be familiar with this to get a copy of Ghazzali’s prescription for salvation (Ihyau Ulumuddin book). Ghazzali’s contention is that the man who thinks he will attain salvation by following his intelligence will never reach his objective. In his arguments with philosophers there had been times when Ghazzali reached unattainable heights, but he unfortunately failed to excel in the fields of canonical law, hadiths and mysticism. HOW TO RECONCILE THESE HADITHS WITH ISLAM?Having stressed the fact that a hadith cannot be a source of Islam, we evaluated the hadiths according to:1. The Quran 2. Other hadiths 3. Logic 4. Interpolations of hadiths and revised our conclusions, which once more corroborated our opinions. Some of the hadiths we examined contradicted the Quran, some were clashing with other hadiths, some were paradoxical, while others were mere additions. To avoid stuffing our book with further encyclopedic data we produced but ten instances in every chapter. We hope that our undertaking will enable people to perceive the light shed by the Quran and the darkness enveloping the hadiths. We wonder whether the members of the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi and Hanbali sects still contend that these hadiths are worthy of being considered part of God’s religion. If so, they must abandon them altogether. If, moreover, these hadiths are considered unreliable, the mentality of the sects will automatically suffer a reversal and the sects themselves will, of necessity, be rendered null and void. The consequence will be the victory of the only source of religion, the Quran; God’s will! We saw in Chapter 2 that the Quran was in fact a complete work wherein everything was explained sufficiently. And in the course of the last four chapters, we produced samples of hadiths to enable our readers to be convinced that the Quran is indeed the sole source of Islam. If this fact has been made plain enough, return to the Quran, take stock of what have been demonstrated regarding your traditions and conventions that may have been generated from sectarian practices and hadiths. Abandoning all your preconceived habits, start then from the very beginning by returning to the Quran. If you still insist on your former convictions, why not pore over the Quran again and again and revise the hadiths in Its light. |