Gifts of Knowledge

Previous post here. The Shaikh continues:

The Status of the Sunnah According to the Caliphs

After the Prophetic Sunnah has been established and authenticated, it has enjoyed among Muslims, both in the past and present, the same status enjoyed by the Noble Quraan in terms of the obligation to act upon it, to refer to it in disputes and to abandon one’s own opinion in favour of it.

Let us hear what ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ﵁ said concerning this. Al-Bayhaqī transmitted through his chain of narration that while he was on the pulpit, ʿUmar ﵁ said, “O people, an opinion from the Messenger of Allaah was always correct because Allaah the Almighty used to show him, but from us, it is merely conjecture and undue effort [takalluf].” For this reason, we see ʿUmar readily retracting his own position whenever a saying of the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ reached him concerning some incident or a new legal matter about which he had no knowledge of an established Sunnah. If a Sunnah were established, he would immediately and without the slightest hesitation, act upon it and refer to it.

Among the evidences for what we have mentioned is what Ibn al-Musayyib narrates, that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ﵁ used to say, “Blood money is paid to the paternal relatives, and a woman does not inherit anything from the blood money of her husband,” until Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk bin Sufyān informed him that the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ had written to him commanding him to give a share of inheritance to the wife of Ashyam al-Ḍibābī from his blood money. So ʿUmar retracted his [own] opinion and went with what he said, reported by Abu Dāwūd.

Another example is the report transmitted by al-Bayhaqī from Ṭāwūs, that ʿUmar said, “I adjure by Allaah anyone who has heard anything from the Prophet ﷺ concerning the foetus to [come forward and] tell us.” Hamal bin Mālik bin an-Nābighah stood up and said, “I was between two of my wives,” meaning two co-wives, “… when one of them struck the other with a tent pole, causing her to miscarry a dead foetus. The Messenger of Allaah ﷺ ruled concerning it that a ghurrah was to be given.” ʾUmar then said, “Had we not heard this, we would have judged in this matter differently. We were about to judge on it based on our own opinion.” Imām Ash-Shāfiʾi commenting on these reports and on ʾUmar’s stance towards the Sunnah said, “ʾUmar retracted what he used to judge by because of the ḥadīth of Aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk bin Sufyān, going against his own ruling. And he said regarding the foetus that had he not heard this Sunnah he would have judged differently, and said, “We were about to judge in it based on our own opinion.’”

Another example is the report narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim through Ibn Shihāb, from ʿAbdullah ibn ʿĀmir ibn Rabīʿah, “ʿUmar set out for Syria. When he reached Sargh, (a village in the valley of Tabūk on the route to Syria, according to Miftāḥ al-Jannah by as-Suyūṭī), he was informed that an epidemic had broken out in Syria. ʿAbdur-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf then informed him that the Prophet ﷺ had said, “If you hear that it has broken out in a land, do not enter it. And if it breaks out in a land while you are there, do not leave it in flight from the epidemic.” So ʿUmar therefore turned back from Sargh. Ibn Shihāb said, “Sālim ibn ʿAbdullah ibn ʿUmar informed me that ʿUmar only turned back with the people because of the report of ʿAbdur-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf.”

Another example is the report narrated by al-Bukhārī from ʿĀʾishah, may Allaah be pleased with her, who said, “ʿUmar had not taken the jizyah from the Magians until ʿAbdur-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf testified that the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ had taken it from the Magians of Hajar.”

These are just some of the reports transmitted from the second Caliph, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ﵁. He had many other similar positions. This was likewise the position of every Companion, among the khulafā and others.

Here are some of the stances of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr ﵁:

Qabīṣah ibn Dhūʾayb said, “A grandmother came to Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq ﵁ to ask him about her inheritance. Abū Bakr said to her, ‘You have no entitlement to anything according to the Book of Allaah, and I do not know of anything for you in the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allaah. So go back until I ask the people.’ He then asked the people. Al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah said to him, ‘I was present with the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ when he gave her one-sixth.’ Abū Bakr said, ‘Do you have anyone else [to corroborate this]?’ Muḥammad ibn Maslamah al-Anṣārī then stood up and said the same thing. Abū Bakr therefore implemented this ruling for her.”

Thus, from this quick review of the statements of the scholars and their positions in different eras, statements that are too numerous to enumerate, we can see that the Muslim community has continued and will continue to be in agreement that the Prophetic Sunnah must have an established place in the clarification of legal rulings—that it is proof in and of itself and that it is obligatory to refer back to it once its authenticity has been established. And that it is not permissible to issue a ruling on the basis of personal reasoning and opinion when the Sunnah concerning a matter has been established. And that legal rulings can be established through the Sunnah even when they have not been explicitly mentioned in the Quraan. This is on one hand.

On the other hand, the Sunnah is a clarification of the Quraan, an explanation of it, and provides details and specifics for what is presented in the Quraan in a general form.

All of these meanings are a matter of consensus among those whose statements hold weight. We do not know of anyone who deviated from this rule except the heretics [Zanādiqah] and the extremist Rāfiḍīs, whose disagreement does not affect the consensus. In fact, they are not [even] consulted if present, nor are they asked about if absent, because they parted from the main body of the Muslims, opposed them, and followed a path other than the path of the believers with their hostile stances toward the Companions of the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ. That stance which led to the rejection of the hadiths of the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ, the second source of Islamic Legislation, under the claim that they are the narrations of a disbelieving people.

And as a way of throwing dust in the eyes, the eyes of the gullible of course, they said, “We act upon the Quraan and restrict ourselves to it.” This is a claim that cannot fool people of intellect among the students of knowledge and people of faith.

And Allaah is the Granter of success.

Tagged: quraniyoon