Suppose you are a master chef who’s just concluded a one month long cooking training program in your city for a small cohort of 10 students.
You provided your students with a cooking manual that lays down the essential theory, the principles, the necessary do’s and don’ts of the art of cooking. You dictated the manual directly to your students and they wrote it down and memorized it by heart!
You also gave them hands-on training that taught them the actual cooking of, say, 10 dishes, practically implementing the theory and techniques of the manual.
You trained them in the 10 dishes so well that the art got established in the actual collective practice of the cohort such that each student followed the essentials in the exact same way.
Anyone who wishes to learn the actual cooking of the 10 dishes from these 10 students could just watch them doing the dishes and learn it! That is, the trade could be practically taught or passed on to the next set of students by each of these 10 previous students, without the need for any bookish help. The practice could be transmitted practically that is.
And, you perfected both the manual and the actual cooking of 10 dishes during the course itself, under your direct tutelage, without leaving any room for doubts regarding the basics after the program.
The manual and the practical together constitute the complete course material of the subject.
But, the tidbits of the program, your interactions with your students, your sayings, your likes and dislikes, your personal life, incidents and stories from the program, etc.; started to be narrated by your students after the program got over. So, these narrations (or reports) carry extra information that is trivial and secondary and not a part of the actual course material of the subject/program. These can provide only superficial details regarding the whole program; they add nothing to its actual course material.
Anyone willing to learn the actual material of the program would have no requirement to learn this extra stuff. It would suffice to learn only the manual and the 10 dishes practically, to grasp the entire knowledge and practice of the course/program.
Coming to the point now.
The Quran: Your cooking manual is symbolic of the Quran containing the core teachings, principles, the whole theory, the do’s and the don’ts (the obligations and the prohibitions, i.e.; the faraaidh/faraaiz and the hurmaat) of al-Islam.
The Prophet Muhammad ensured that his companions, in the tens of thousands, memorized the Quran in its final form during his lifetime itself. And then his companions taught it en masse to the next generations through uninterrupted and concurrent chains of mass transmission ensuring a remarkable preservation of the Quran’s text, its recitation, as well as the accent of the Arabs upon which it was recited for the first time by the people who received it firsthand from the Prophet.
The Sunnah: The practically transmitted art of 10 dishes is equivalent to the Sunnah/Sunnat, the core practices of al-Islam that were established and perfected under the Prophet’s direct supervision in his lifetime itself.
The Ahadith: The stories reported by the students is the equivalent to the ahadith that contain superficial or trivial details that don’t form a part of the core/fundamental/primary Islam since they were not instituted and perfected by Muhammad under his supervision in his lifetime!
Sunnah is different from the Ahadith thus! I think the cooking program example makes the difference clear enough. More on the differences and their implications coming up later in the article but before that, let’s have a look at the basic structure of a hadith!
The basic structure of a hadith
Technically speaking, generally, a hadith is a report about the sayings of, deeds/practices of, and incidents pertaining to, the Prophet Muhammad,
narrated by his companions (the Sahaaba),
and from the companions by those after them, and so on,
in series of transmissions until recorded down by collectors of hadith like Malik bin Anas in his book called Muwatta Imam Malik, Ahmad ibn Hanbal in his book Musnad Ahmad, Muhammad ibn Ismail al Bukhari in his Sahih al Bukhari, Muslim ibn al Hajjaj in his Sahih Muslim, etc.
We have already seen examples of ahadith (plural of hadith) in the first article on Aishah’s age. Let’s take another example here.
Yahya related to me from Malik from Yahya ibn Said from Amra bint Abd ar- Rahman that Aisha, the wife of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to pray subh and the women would leave wrapped in their garments and they could not yet be recognized in the darkness.” (Muwatta Imam Malik, Book 1, Number 1.1.4)
A hadith like the one above typically consists of three parts:
- The Sanad (pl. Isnaad) – it’s the chain of narrators who quote from their sources.
- The Taraf – the word and the manner of speech the quotation is started with.
- And the Matn – the actual content of the hadith.
In the hadith quoted above, the sanad consists of the people named here, each mentioning the person from whom the words or practices of Muhammad are quoted. The one who’s recorded the hadith (calls himself ‘me’) quotes from Yahya, who quotes from Malik, who quotes from Yahya ibn Said, who quotes from Amra bint Abd ar-Rahman, who quotes from Aishah, who mentions a practice of Muhammad.
Each of the people mentioned here, from ‘me’ to Aishah, is called a ‘raawi’ or narrator; and this chain of narrators is called the ‘sanad’, starting from the recorder (‘me’) to the Companion of Muhammad (here Aishah, his wife).
The words “related to me”, “from” (a’n in Arabic), “said” form the ‘Taraf’.
And the ‘matn’ is the actual content of the hadith, that is: “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to pray subh and the women would leave wrapped in their garments and they could not yet be recognized in the darkness.”
This is the basic structure of a hadith in the Islamic tradition. Having outlined this, let’s go back to the discussion on the status of the ahadith as a source of law and creed in Islam vis-a-vis the Quran and the Sunnah.
The Sunnah versus the Ahadith
(1) The ahadith weren’t perfected by the Prophet, the Sunnah was: As picturised through the cooking program example, the ahadith were transmitted and canonized upon the interest and discretion of some people much later after the Prophet’s death. It wasn’t a project initiated and perfected under the direct supervision of the Prophet.
The propagation and collection of ahadith was a voluntary initiative of individuals out of their love for the Prophet and the information associated with his life, like your students who loved and enjoyed your cooking classes would, some of them, on and off, tell this and that stories about you, your interactions with them, your personal stories, etc.! (More details on the documentation and canonization of ahadith coming up later in this article under the Quran versus Ahadith section.)
(2) The Sunnah is transmitted by Muslims en masse, the ahadith were transmitted through individuals: Some people remembered some incident or parts of an incident involving the Prophet and narrated it to some people. Someone recalling some saying or action of the Prophet during some event and then narrating it to others. These reports are thus isolated in nature, not mass transmitted, therefore called ‘akhbaar-e-ahaad’ (isolated reports).
(3) Sunnah is fundamental, ahadith are trivial: The reports/stories carry extra information that is trivial, of secondary/superficial nature, and not a part of the actual course material of the subject/program (or Islam). These can provide only superficial details, which, even if ignored, don’t compromise on the core subject, since these reports add nothing to the actual course material which in case of Islam comprises of the Quran and the Sunnah only, as illustrated through the cooking program example!
For example, suppose that chicken biryani was one of the 10 dishes that you taught your students. You used boneless pieces once, and on another occasion used bony pieces. Now, after the program gets over, one of your students reports that you taught them chicken biryani using boneless chicken. Another student reports that you used bony chicken. Of course, the type of chicken used has no importance in the practice (Sunnah) of cooking chicken biryani! The primary objective would be to know the critical ingredients, steps, and techniques required to cook chicken biryani. The type of chicken used is trivial hence irrelevant.
(4) The Sunnah is a collective-practical-living tradition, the ahadith are just isolated historical records: The Sunnah contains all the actionables demanded by the Quran from the Muslims, like purification of the body (tahaarah/tahaarat), the prayers (salaah/salaat), the fasting (saum), the Islamic tax (zakaah/zakaat), the major pilgrimage to Makkah/Mecca (the hajj), etc.
Take for example the purification of the body and the five daily prayers. While the Quran gave a basic outline of these, it was Muhammad who practically taught it to the Muslims, practically showing them how to purify the body to its perfection and how to pray from the start to the end.
In fact, these practices were well known and were being performed even before Muhammad, as part of the established traditions or practices of the Deen-e-Ibrahimi (the religion of the Prophet Abraham)!
So, when the Quran commanded the Muslims to purify their bodies and perform the five daily prayers, it wasn’t doing so in a vacuum, people already knew what that entailed and how it was to be performed; hence the Quran didn’t give the details. What it did was to add something to it as required to enhance its scope or relevance, or rectify any minor and major errors therein, or eliminate any elements of polytheism, remove any additions made to it that went against the established spirit of the religion, etc.
Muhammad too played the same role, and then on top of that actually demonstrated the things practically to a stage of perfection so much so that the Muslims learnt and practiced the whole thing and then taught it to others in the same manner such that well before the Prophet departed from this life, the practices got established as a living tradition, mass transmitted practically, concurrently, and uninterruptedly, hence so well established that there have been no debates and differences of opinions amongst scholars regarding these things!
A living tradition, in the sense that, to learn how to purify oneself and pray the five daily prayers, one need not read a book or go to a school or an institution. Just go to a mosque and observe the Muslims there, or go to a learned Muslim or teacher in your locality, and you will get to learn it practically by seeing and hearing from them/him directly and emulating/ copying them/him. It’s embodied in the collective praxis of the community, not dependent upon printed texts or formal schools.
It’s like to learn how to play football, you don’t have to sit with a book or go to a formal academy! You simply go to people who play the game and learn it directly from them or simply sit and observe the people playing it and learn it directly by mere observation of the phenomenon! It’s only when you want to become a professional in it, you go to specialized schools/academies and learn the intricate details and tricks from specialized coaches/trainers/experts of the field.
Similarly, to be a Muslim and practice the core Islamic tenets one need not study volumes of books or go to a school or madrasah. The Sunnah, that is the living tradition of the community, one simply has to emulate that and he/she would be good to go. Only to become an expert jurist or theologian, would one need to read loads of books and be trained in a formal academy or institution!
(5) All of the Sunnah isn’t documented in the Ahadith and all that is documented is not necessarily the Sunnah: Since the desired goal or objective of the reporters or narrators of ahadith wasn’t to document the whole of Islam, but only to document bits and pieces of Muhammadan history. So it’s quite natural that the books of ahadith don’t constitute the source texts of al-Islam. Therefore, it’s not the ahadith that determine the Sunnah, although some part of the Sunnah is indeed found in the ahadith. The Sunnah is preserved in the collective-living-practices of the community, not in books that record the ahadith, this should be clear from the cooking program analogy presented in the very beginning of the article!
This is the reason why the Sunni books of hadith record only the praying with hands folded and not the praying with hands by the side although that has been a widely held practice amongst notable scholars and large swathes of the Muslim population cross the Islamic world in the early generations of Islam.1
Let’s understand the above five points in light of this simple example of positioning of the hands while praying.
Placement of the hands while standing in prayer (Salaah): A case study to understand the difference between the Sunnah and the Ahadith
Standing (qiyaam) while performing the salaah is a fundamental/primary act within the salaah, established by the Sunnah, hence no sect of Islam, no sub-sect, no school of thought, no institution, no scholar has ever disagreed over it.
The Sunnis, the Shias, the Ibadis, all the three sects of Islam agree over it. All the sub-sects too, within these three sects, agree over it!
But how to stand, with hands folded or left hanging by the sides? If folded then where to place the hands – on the chest, or above the navel, or below the navel? That’s disputed and debated by the scholars. The various schools of thought, the sub-sects, and the sects, differ in their opinion on and practice of this issue.
The Shias and the Ibadis pray with their hands hanging by the side.
And the Maliki-Sunnis too do the same as above.
The Hanafi-Sunnis place their hands below the navel.
While the Shafaii-Sunnis put it anywhere above the navel.
The Hanbali-Sunnis, anywhere from the chest to below the navel.
The Salafi-Sunnis, strictly on the chest!
Such wide scale difference! Because, placement of the hands while standing in prayer is not a primary matter of prayer, it’s a trivial/superficial issue, hence the practice of it is various, and hence the established Sunnah on it is that any of the above ways can be practiced. The Muslims from the very beginning have practiced all the above ways of placing the hands and thus the various ways have become a part of the living-practical tradition or the Sunnah.
This can be better understood through the boneless chicken – bony chicken analogy used under point no. 3 above; so let’s relate it to the ‘placement of hands’ case now.
i. Chicken biryani was one of the 10 dishes that you taught to your students: Equivalent to salaah, one of the many practices taught by the Prophet to the Muslims.
ii. You used only boneless pieces once, on another occasion used only bony pieces, and on a third occasion used both boneless and bony pieces: Equivalent to standing in the salaah. Sometimes the Prophet would have stood with his hands by the side. Sometimes with his hands folded, anywhere, as per his convenience.
iii. Some of your students took up cooking chicken biryani with boneless chicken, some preferred bony pieces, some liked to have both bony and boneless pieces, as per their personal preferences or convenience. Thus all the three types of chicken became a part of the established practice of cooking chicken biryani: Equivalent to all the ways of standing with hands folded or hanging by the side became part of the established Sunnah of al-Islam, since some Muslims preferred one way over the other as per personal preference or convenience!
iv. Now, after the program got over, one of your students reported that you taught them chicken biryani and used boneless chicken. Another student reported that you used bony chicken. While no one reported the third incidence of using both boneless and bony pieces: Equivalent to some Muslims reporting that the Prophet prayed with his hands on his chest, some reporting that he prayed with his hands folded above the navel; while the other practices didn’t get recorded at all in the Sunni books of ahadith! This explains point no. 5 discussed above.
v. Of course, the type of chicken used, bony or boneless or both, has no importance here in the overall practice of cooking chicken biryani. The primary objective would be to know the critical ingredients, steps, and techniques required to cook chicken biryani. The exact type of chicken used is trivial and irrelevant. That can be chosen as per one’s tastes and convenience: Similarly, the primary objective would be to stand before God in prayer and not how exactly the hands are to be placed while standing! That can be chosen as per natural postural convenience or personal preference, all the above being correct and trivial part of the established practice (or Sunnah)!
vi. If anyone outside the program wants to learn the art of cooking chicken biryani, he has to simply follow the practical steps of anyone of your 10 students. One of your students would teach using bony pieces while another might teach it using boneless pieces, a third might teach using both. In all these three cases, the person learning from your students would inevitably learn how to make chicken biryani correctly irrespective of the type of chicken used: Similarly, if you are a new Muslim starting to learn how to pray, you go to any mosque belonging to any of the denominations/sects/schools mentioned above, and you will inevitably learn the primary matter, that is standing in prayer, correctly. And the secondary matter, that is the placement of hands, you’ll learn any one of the above and it doesn’t really matter which one, since it’s a secondary issue, all the above being correct and trivial parts of the established practice (or Sunnah)!
Thus, whatever the ahadith document about this isn’t something absolute or conclusive, therefore, irrelevant. So it is practically useless trying to determine which hadith is the most authentic or authoritative in this regard. No matter which hadith is authentic, the fact that this matter is so widely differed upon by the scholars is proof that it is a trivial/secondary matter hence one can follow whatever one gets to know from any teacher or group that one learns the practice(s) from; all of them being correct and part of the established practice (or Sunnah)!
I’ve already discussed the primary matters-secondary matters bifurcation of Islamic issues in my article no.16. I have discussed many critically related issues under this topic, like what if the differences are not genuine but arising out of the insincerity/ill-will or incompetence of the scholars? Do give it a careful read before moving ahead here.
Basically, whatever practices have been agreed upon by all the three sects and their sub-sects and schools throughout the history of Mohammedan Islam constitute the primary practices under the Sunnah.
The placement of hands being a secondary issue, the Sunnah or the established practice pertaining to it is that anything can be practiced. No one way is agreed upon by the scholars, implying no one way is the sole correct way; all the various ways being practiced are equally correct and constitute the secondary aspects of the Sunnah!
Thus the Sunnah not only gives us the primary matters by way of a practical agreement amongst the Muslims, but also give us what is not primary by way of practical disagreement amongst the Muslims! And in such cases, the Sunnah or the established practice is to practice whatever has reached the concerned person!
Raful-yadain as another case in point: Raful-yadain is the raising of hands (till the shoulders or ears) in salaah. Whether it is to be done before bowing down (ruku’) and after standing up again from the ruku’, is another question that exemplifies the arguments made above.
Authentic records of doing the raful-yadain are aplenty in Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the most revered books of Sunni hadith collections. But the record of not doing it are not to be found in these two books! Although it’s found in lesser venerated records like that of At-Tirmidhi, and that too much fewer in number. As a result, the Salafi-Sunnis swear against those who don’t do it!
Amongst the Sunnis, the Salafis, the Shafaiis and the Hanbalis do the raful-yadain before and after the ruku’, while the Hanafis don’t do it. There’s some dispute regarding imam Malik’s position on this issue.
The Salafis take the raful-yadain a tad too seriously, so much so that they attack and disparage the Hanafis for not doing it! The reasoning they employ goes like this:
If the most authentic books (named above) of Islam after the Quran are full of reports that narrate the Prophet doing the raful-yadain then how come you the Hanafis don’t do it? It’s likely that the hadith on doing raful-yadain didn’t reach imam Abu Haneefah (the scholar after whom the Hanafi school of thought and its adherents are named) hence he didn’t adopt that practice. But now that the ahadith on doing raful-yadain have reached you decisively, yet how on earth do you still neglect the practice?!!? How dare you prioritize the opinion of imam Abu Haneefah over the practice of the Prophet?!!? It’s blasphemous and tantamount to disobeying the Prophet!!
The point the Salafis miss is this:
Not doing raful-yadain before and after the ruku’ was widely practiced by early Muslims hence it was a part of the Sunnah2 but hasn’t been recorded in the books of hadith since the ahadith don’t contain the entirety of the Sunnah! As explained above. This being the reason why imam Abu Haneefah and imam Malik differentiated between the ahadith and the Sunnah3, just as I’ve done in this article!
Since imam Abu Haneefah and imam Malik considered the established practices (the Sunnah) to be the primary source of Islamic law, separate from the akhbaar-e-ahaad or the ahadith, they prioritized the widely held practice of not doing raful-yadain over the akhbaar-e-ahaad that report the doing of it. It’s as simple as that. It’s about recognizing the difference between the Sunnah and the Ahadith. The Salafis don’t recognize this difference. So there is a fundamental difference in their epistemology vis-a-vis that of imam Abu Haneefah and imam Malik. Therefore to say that the Hanafis commit blasphemy by preferring the opinion of Abu Haneefah over the practice of the Prophet is nothing but plain ignorance of the differences prevalent in the community of scholars over the basic principles of Islamic epistemology and jurisprudence!
It’s also due to the lack of acknowledgement that the differences of opinions amongst the scholars regarding raful-yadain implies that it’s a trivial matter, not something of fundamental importance, hence it doesn’t really matter whether one does or doesn’t perform it!
Now let’s conclude and summarize this part one of the article, with a table, before jumping to the next article for the detailed differences between the Quran and the Ahadith in terms of their scope and applications!
Summary of the status of Ahadith versus the Sunnah
| The Ahadith | The Sunnah | Comments/Inferences |
| The companions of the Prophet had different sets even after the Prophet’s death. There was no canonized set of ahadith even after the Prophet’s death. Compiled and canonized much later after the Prophet passed away. During compilation, different areas and scholars had different sets. | The core practices of Islam (the Sunnah) established prior to the Prophet’s death, under his direct supervision. | Impossible that the Prophet would have left something fundamental to Islam incomplete, to be compiled and canonized after his death! Therefore, the ahadith are not of a primary status in Islam. Sunnah is a primary source. |
Not transmitted en masse. Dependent upon isolated memories. | Transmitted practically, en masse. | Less certainty in ahadith. Thus, ahadith are a dhanni/zanni (uncertain) source. Primary matters (principles, faraaiz, hurmaat, primary items of belief/creed) cannot be extracted from the ahadith. Only history, fiqh (secondary rulings), secondary beliefs (theology) can be extracted from the ahadith. |
| Authentication required. Method of authentication is subjective. Thus, authenticity is subjective. | No authentication required. Each and every practice under the Sunnah is equally established. |