[Searmoreibe]

Respected Brothers,

ASWK

The only purpose of writing this letter is to have Islah. I am not an Islamic scholar; I just want to be direct so please excuse me for my boldness in addressing the issues. I understand how tedious it is to go through lengthy mails on the net but this issue is so very important to me that I'd beg you to bear with it.

I am a sunni Muslim. I had a religious upbringing, during my college days after learning about religions & different sects & ideologies; I out grew my inclination towards Tablighi Jamat & tried to maintain a broader perspective of Islam accommodating views of several disciplines. (Pl don't read ghair muqallid here)

In the pursuit to learn more I came across hadith literature wherein I found a lot many hadith, which were not in accordance with Quran & common sense. In the most authentic books of hadith I found many unscientific, awkward, irrelevant, complex & misguiding hadith. The most troubling for me were about fate & destiny (Qadr), which says things as if we don’t have a free will at all.

Unfortunately I lost faith in hadith & subsequently it shook the foundations of my Iman as well and led me to stages of atheism but after reading people like Harun Yahya, Allama Iqbal, Stephan Hawking etc I managed to realize the existence of Allah (whatever Iman I am left with is due to reading their articles). The problem starts after this, what to follow next? There is a serious dilemma, now I suffer from major confusion & distress. It has affected my personal life & work in a very bad manner.

We often come across the claim that Quran is dependent on Hadith & not vice versa. Allah commands us to follow Deen but for that you have to go to hadith despite the fact that Quran says we have completed your deen, Quran seems to be insufficient without ‘Sahih Sitta’. The study of hadith has complex, contradicting parameters even the experts of hadith differ themselves in selection criteria. (How can I put my Iman on the basis of something that is disputed?) A deep study of hadith will expose how a particular sect/individual will bring related hadith to prove their point of view or argument, most of the inter Islam differences arises due to hadith. Ultimately I have lost Iman (faith) on hadith although those hadith that are in line with spirit of Quran can be taken into consideration as a rule but again it is easy to say than to implement because ironically every group tries to exploit this principle/rule & accommodate hadith accordingly.

Please note that I believe in accepting & admitting the truth no matter how bitter it is. (I am not talking about opinions here I am focusing on facts provided by others, you can’t ignore the facts even if they are put forward by your enemies). Instead of being apologetic why can’t we admit things like Mr. Abdur Raheem Green, who says that slavery is not abolished in Quran but it is not encouraged & that just & fair treatment is required for slaves. That’s an honest admission & approach.

I have read material on the indispensability of hadith but most of it is not convincing & often counter questioning i.e. how will we offer prayers? Do this & or that? I say if we don’t have authentic help does it mean that we accept whatever is available without checking or questioning it? Please see a poorly defended hadith regarding ‘rising of sun’ at http://www.albalagh.net/prophethood/...ice%20Bucaille. I am not impressed with this either http://www.answering-christianity.co...et_hadiths.htm.

I cannot accommodate all my queries/objections by writing/coping them here so I am giving many random references, facts & data provided by different people (Muqallids, Ahle hadith, Ahle Quran etc) some groups (anti Muslims, atheists etc) are off course against Islam too. My focus is on the content not the context. Please correct me if I have got the content wrong. I expect that you people are well aware of these sites on the net. Here I am giving reference of such resources as part of my query: -

A. Hadith for explanation of Quran: -

The basic argument for hadith is to understand Quran. It is said that we need hadith to explain Quran but all collection of hadith available is not sufficient enough to explain all of Quran. If hadith is required for this than it should ONLY be addressing Quran.

Please refer to these sites:
http://***************/hadith/bhadith.html
http://www.abc.se/~m9783/fiqhi/fiqha_e54.html
http://www.mostmerciful.com/abu-hurayrah.htm
http://www.quran.org/library/articles/hconspiracy.htm

B. Hadith to learn from/about Rasuallah (S) & Sahaba: -

I am aware Allah has commanded us to follow RasulAllah (S) at several places in Quran, I am not at all ignoring this fact. First of all if we take hadith literally & verbatim than many hadith will complicate the matter. The source to simplify things will itself makes it obscure. If the second purpose of hadith compilation is to learn/know about Rasulallah (S) than the compilers should have been more elaborate, comprehensive & focused.

If the ‘hadith of suckling an adult’ wasn’t there we didn’t have to defend it like this http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.a...=4806&CATE=120, even this explanation give rise to a lot of question. This hadith is not solving any problem, nor explaining Quran. Why at all hadith like these are there? Why didn’t Imam Muslim think of these issues, was he not far sighted?

Just an example of what hadith tell us: -In the famous book "Taa'oueel Mukhtalaf Alhadith " by Ibn Qutaiba Al-Dinory the story of Aisha (the Prophet's wife) telling Abu Hurayra; " You tell ahadiths about the prophet Muhammed that we never heard them from him" He answered (as Bukhary reported); "You (Aisha) were busy with your mirror and make up" She (Aisha) answered him; "It is you who were busy with your stomach and hunger. Your hunger kept you busy, you were running after the people in the allies, begging them for food, and they used to avoid you and get away from your way, and finally you would come back and pass out in front of my room and the people think you were crazy and step all over you." http://***************/abu-Hurayra.htm

Please check the hadith mentioned here
http://www.quran.org/library/articles/hadithmaa.htm
http://www.mostmerciful.com/comparin...d-hadeeths.htm

Than articles like these
http://www.*****************/ahaadee..._ahaadeeth.htm, which some school of thought like Tariqat followers reject.

I am not Ahle Quran, I am not against hadith, & I don’t have any prejudice either. I know that most of the above sites are from people who don’t want to believe in hadith; I can very well curtail their opinions or arguments but what about the FACTS they have provided?

My Questions: -

1. I believe that if you are convinced that the prophet himself has said some thing & still you don’t follow it or accept it than you are liable of denial. How can I be a ‘Munkar e hadith’ when I have serious doubts that the given Hadith are the exact words of the prophet? What is my position in ‘Shariat’ in this context?
2. There are various incidents in history & hadith that show that even Sahabis/Salaf/Imams/Ulemas did differ in their decisions/actions & sometimes they contradicted/confronted with each other from minor to major levels. Difference of opinion is ok but difference of principal in religion is not. Why can’t we analyze critically the actions/statements/decisions of the Sahabis/Salaf/Imams/Ulemas etc?
3. Why do we fix certain ‘terms’ as Rasiallahhuanuma r.a., Rehmatullah allai r.a. etc, after the names Sahaba, Imaams & Ulemas. What does Shariat say about it?
4. Why can’t we do away/discard/reject all those hadith that are not ‘Sahih’ (after correcting the Sahih off course), not relevant for fiqh & not appeals to common sense? After all it is not Quran, how can we given equal importance to anything besides Quran? In this context is the freedom of questioning is not allowed in Islam?
5. Sahih Muslim from Book 33, Number 6390 to Number 6408 at http://www.iiu.edu.my/deed/hadith/muslim/033_smt.html (Imp Book 8 Number 3371 & Book 8 Number 3373)

Sahih Bukhari Volume 8, Book 77, Number 593 to Number 600 at http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamen...i/077.sbt.html (Imp Volume 8, Book 77, Number 609)

& http://muttaqun.com/qadar.html

Please verify that the above hadith are ‘Sahih’, authentic & exact words of Rasulallah (S) or not? If they are not why they are in Sahih collection & if they are sahih how do they explain the concept of Qadr & Free will?

Appeal: -

I very humbly appeal to you in the name of Allah that please help me by answering all my queries as per my letter & if it is not possible for you than kindly at least answer my two questions (No. 1 & 5) on Hadith & Qadr. Please ask me for any clarification on my queries.

It’s my earnest wish that I get all my answers preferably only from Quran however you may refer ‘sahih hadith’ as a secondary source.

Please note that I understand you must be very busy in important works but kindly think about the condition of my Iman, AS THIS IS MY LAST RESORT & CHANCE TO SAVE MY FAITH. I sincerely hope that you will take it seriously. I pray may Allah reward you for the same.

Jazakallah

Yours Sincerely,

Tauhid Alam