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I have got a detailed article of Ameenuddin Islahi who has mentioned the negative & positive aspects of Ahadith,They coined them for good & bad.

I suppose you mean, Amin Ahsan Islahi ?

[not]

AoA,

My point was that Muslim and Mu'min (or Rasul and Nabi) are not interchangeable when used in the same discourse by the Quran. But when used separately they often refer to the same thing. I'll post some examples soon..

Take care.

Nabi and Rasul are used interchangeably in the Quran, unless they occur at the same place- there are other examples of such words (Muslim and Mu'min). The article above is using piecemeal verses, which is what the traditional scholars themselves are guilty of- you need to look at the Quran from a holistic perspective, and not only rely on translations..

yeah, I dont exactly recollect now what was I searching for when Google sent me here.. be that as it may, Google acted right for once..

I really appreciate the work undertaken by brother Joseph here. Of the forums you mentioned above, sunniforum was scary - I was on it for some time, but they cannot get over the madhhab issue - in fact its more of a deobandi-tablighi forum (so really a sub-sub sect of Hanafis)..

tc

Salamun Alaykum brother Joseph,

I read with some interest your article on Shortening of the Prayers. However, my counter-question is that does not that serve as a proof that ritual prayers are prescribed (i.e.- why would the Quran ask us to shorten the prayer in fear/danger if the form was fluid anyway)? What relevance do the verses of Shortening the Salah have for us today, does it simply mean that whatever regular form we are indulging in can be shortened when it becomes necessary to do so, or does it provide a clue to the importance of the Sunna ?

thanks brother Joseph for your insight. I am but a student and trying to learn and form my own opinions.. !

Salaam.

Salamun Alaykum brother Joseph,

I read with some interest your article on the issue of Slave Women, and this invoked in me the curiousity to know your opinion regarding whether the Prophet (sws) married Mariyah the Copitc or not ? The traditional understanding, afaik is that he did not need to marry her as sex with slave-women was permitted, and further the verses 33:50-52 do not make any mention of allowance for him to marry slave women. Or do you mean to say that the exception mentioned in 4:24 overrides the categories of women permitted for him (sws) ?

I would be grateful for your opinion on the same, and also whether there is any historical record of the Prophet having married Mariyah.

you could try the UI forum - more  open-minded, though less chatter there:

http://forums.understanding-islam.com/index.php

act. I sometimes wonder why we really need so many books and so many scholars - and we are still struggling to understand Islam, God alone knows how many more books and scholars would be needed for the same purpose ! Don't get me wrong, but I feel that if one adheres to Salah and Zakah and builds a relationship with the Quran, that much is sufficient for guidance... No book or scholar can really teach you to do that, though of course there remains an academic place for such discussions, the problem moreover is we are so unused to studying the Quran, that we will keep looking for external aids..

Salam.

many thanks for your references. I think we can also appreciate the fact that the motivation of the jurists in curbing the inherent flexibility of Islam was maybe to maintain social order. It seems after the death of the Prophet (sws) when Muslims spread outside Arabia, they encountered a plethora of new ideas and maybe that caused efforts to have structural limits on Islamic tradition.

In any case today, the preservation of the Quran is not so much an issue, especially with digitization available. I had read Prof. Fazlur Rahman's work sometime back and he comes to conclusions not much dissimilar from yours.

thank you for your insightful reply- I agree the Quran is the final judge, the Mizan, the Furqan and the Muhaymin for all tradition and previous scripture.

One could potentially understand Salah from the Quran and arrive at more or less the same form but I do get your overall idea. Also, did you know that the Hanafi jurists (one of the 4 schools) originally allowed one to say Salah in any language, gradually this ruling was forgotten..

btw, I mentioned the term "Quran-aloners" just to illustrate that there is a fallacy in their argument as well- that of rejecting any tradition whatsoever- I believe we should be content with calling ourselves Muslim, rather than Muqallid, Ahl-i-Hadith or Ahl-i-Quran or Ahl-us-Sunna. Well, even Muslim was turned upside down by the Submitters group of Dr Khalifa..

Your point about time-space context of the application of the Revelation is important, though you may be interested in knowing that Javed Ghamidi actually says that the source of Din is not the Quran, but the Prophet himself and thus, he raises Sunna to a second authority (albeit the Sunna defined by him are only a handful of practices like Salah, Zakah, Hajj, Jumuah, Eid, Ghusl, circumcision, et al).

I believe yes, sooner or later the large Muslim communities will have to reach to the point that tradition is fluid and it is the Quran only that is timeless. Albeit what I see is that even many converts in the West are not really reverting to a great idea but to a spiritual tradition (maybe due to the overponderance of materialism). A reconstruction of Islam is very much the need of the hour, and it has to be based on the Quran.

Take care.

[not]

Salam,
I was going through the interesting articles on your site, and while I agree that Sunna is distinct from Hadith, and is often conflated with the latter by traditional Muslims, I would also like to know your opinion on the following:

Do you feel that the Sunna (the practice of the early community) is binding on future generations of Muslims, particularly if it is not contravening any Quranic command?

As you may be aware, Javed Ghamidi is one scholar who answers this is in the affirmative, but then he also restricts Sunna to being only religious practices of the Prophet in nature (ie- not inclusive of all his practices). In fact, Ghamidi's teacher, Amin Ahsan Islahi who was a profound scholar from the subcontinent, critiqued the Quran-aloners with the argument that they are reducing the Prophet to be similar to a mere postman who delivered the Quran and went away in history.

I would be grateful for your opinion on the same, and the reasons thereof in either case (yes or no to my question).