Quranists Network

by Mushu

Excerpt:

“But deliberate neglect or, as with some of the “modernists,” complete denial of the Sunnah is nothing but open contravention of the Holy Book.” [1] – Shah Shahidullah Faridi
From the traditionalist perspective, following the sunnah of the Prophet is an integral part of the faith and is commanded by the Quran itself. The charge levelled against quranists is of latent apostasy by way of rejecting Muhammad’s sunnah and authority via the renouncing of hadith literature. Rejecting the hadith is to reject the Prophetic sunnah is to reject the Quran is to reject Islam. This type of equivocation is achieved subtly and through levels of reasoning.
It is interesting that the quran never once mentions “sunnah of the Prophet”, but uses the word sunnah in many other instances. Perhaps even more interestingly, 33/38, 33/62, 35/43, 40/85 and 48/23 all refer to “Allah’s sunnah”. The argument for following the “sunnah of the Prophet” thus becomes a non-issue for quranists, given there is no explicit reference endorsing it as a valid source of guidance. That being said, no one claiming to be muslim, quranist or otherwise, would suggest rejecting the example of the Prophet as acceptable. The objection to the traditionalist position is the insistence that the example of the Prophet can only be found via hadith and one who rejects it has in turn rejected the Quran. The reality is the opposite: the only thing containing the example of the Prophet is the quran itself.

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