Why Reject Hadith and Sunnah?
My personal understanding
In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
For most Muslims Hadith (the reported sayings of the prophet Muhammad) and Sunnah (the reported actions of Muhammad) form a major portion of their religious understanding and practice. With so many followers of Islam using these sources, why do I reject them as part of my religion?
For the first part of my answer let’s take a short look at the history of Islam as God gives it to us in the Quran. We know from Verse 22:78 that Abraham first used the term “Muslims” and God founded Islam through Abraham. Yet we do not follow Abraham’s Hadith and Sunnah. Instead we follow the practices of the religion that God blessed us to have through Abraham and God’s own words — the Quran, which He sent to mankind through Muhammad.
When I first became a Muslim, all I knew about was traditional Islam. And so I began trying to become a traditional Muslim. I read reams of confusing instructions on how to live as a Muslim. It seemed overwhelming.
I tried to read the Hadith, which I had been told I must read in order to understand the Quran. By this time I had been reading the Quran for about five years and it was clear and understandable to me. But when I read the Hadith I was totally confused. They made little sense to me, especially as they often contradicted each other. It wasn’t until a few years later when a Muslim friend pointed out the following verses that the distinction between them became clear to me:
39:28–29 - An Arabic Quran, without any ambiguity, that they may be righteous. God cites the example of a man who deals with disputing partners (Hadith), compared to a man who deals with only one consistent source (Quran). Are they the same? Praise be to God; most of them do not know.
Even more important for my guidance, God tells us in several verses of the Quran not to follow any other sources besides His words for our religion. Here are some of those verses:
6:114–115- Shall I seek other than God as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed? Those who received the scripture recognize that it has been revealed from your Lord, truthfully. You shall not harbor any doubt. The word of your Lord is complete, in truth and justice. Nothing shall abrogate His words. He is the Hearer, the Omniscient.
12:111- In their history, there is a lesson for those who possess intelligence. This is not fabricated Hadith; this (Quran) confirms all previous scriptures, provides the details of everything, and is a beacon and mercy for those who believe.
39:23 - God has revealed herein the best Hadith; a book that is consistent, and points out both ways (to Heaven and Hell)….
45:6 -These are God’s revelations that we recite to you truthfully. In which Hadith other than God and His revelations do they believe?
77:50 -Which Hadith, other than this, do they uphold?
God also tells us that if Muhammad had delivered other teachings besides the Quran he would have been punished and the revelations given through him would have stopped.
69:44–47 -Had he uttered any other teachings. We would have punished him. We would have stopped the revelations to him. None of you could have helped him.
All of these verses make it clear that God wants Muslims to follow only His words. He does not want us to follow any other source for our religion as Verses 6:114–115 above say.
If God does not want us to follow these sources, when and why did they get started?
According to Wikipedia the first Hadith were not recorded until many generations after Muhammad’s death. Then the Hadith were reviewed and collected “into large collections during the 8th and 9th centuries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnah), [also] generations after the death of Muhammad… over 1,000 km (620 mi) from where Muhammad lived.”
And according to the Britannica website the Sunnah was finally codified in the late 8th century. Thus, neither the Hadith nor the Sunnah was written down for many generations after the prophet’s death and also many generations after the lives of any actual eye witnesses to the events of that time.
As for why Muslims began deviating from the clear commandments of the Quran and began recording and using the Hadith and Sunnah, we have only to look to the following passage from the Quran, which describes Satan’s reaction after he refused to follow God’s command to prostrate before Adam:
7:16–17 -“…I will skulk for them on Your straight path. I will come to them from before them, and from behind them, and from their right, and from their left, and You will find that most of them are unappreciative.”
Also, we know that most humans are idolatrous by nature:
12:106 -The majority of those who believe in God do not do so without committing idol worship.
Finally, God’s system requires that all believers must go through the test, so He allows fabrications to develop as part of that test:
29:2 -Do the people think that they will be left to say, “We believe,” without being put to the test?
6:112 - We have permitted the enemies of every prophet — human and jinn devils — to inspire in each other fancy words, in order to deceive. Had your Lord willed, they would not have done it. You shall disregard them and their fabrications.
From my own experience I understand how difficult many find it to give up the Hadith and Sunnah, which they followed for their whole lives. It did not happen all at once for me, but once I made the decision to follow only God’s own words in His Holy Quran, my life began to blossom in ways I could not have imagined. Now I am happier than I ever knew was possible. All praise and glory goes to my Creator!
