Sunnah vs. Hadith (Follow Up 4: Beard)
Question:
Dear Sir,
1- All ummah has consensus upon beard as sunnah then why dont you take it as sunnah?
2- You are right its easier to compare a hadith with quran but for experts only while a layman can accept without hesitation all those ahadith which are tagged as sahih.He doesnt have proficient knowledge of quran so could be able to compare the hadith with it.
Thank you so much for giving your precious time to answer our questions.
Answer:
1. As people say, every walnut is circular but not every circular object is walnut.
The Established Sunnah has been passed to us through the consensus of generations. This means all the content of the Established Sunnah is agreed upon by all Ummah. This however does not mean that whatever the Ummah agrees on is necessarily part of the Sunnah. There are things that the Ummah may agree on and they may be good things but these things may not be necessarily part of the Sunnah.
First, please bear in mind that there is in fact not a full agreement on the obligation of having beard. Most scholars consider it an obligation while some consider it desirable and a minority consider it optional.
Second, you perhaps agree that without any assumptions or inherited beliefs, having or not having a beard is not at all a religious matter. The question then is whether the Prophet (pbuh) made this a religious matter. We simply do not have any evidences to that effect. This is in fact one of the reasons that there are differences of opinion about the duty of Muslims with regard to beard.
When we look at the source of the belief in the religious nature of beard we find that this belief is based on certain interpretations of a few Hadiths, rather than the consensus of the Ummah that would go back up to the time of the Prophet (pbuh).
Accordingly we cannot consider beard to be part of the Established Sunnah.
However, keeping beard for men is inline with the nature by which the men are created. I therefore consider it more appropriate to keep the beard. This however is not because of any religious directives.
2. I can only repeat what I wrote in the previous answer:
"the method of assessing a Hadith needs to be derived on the basis of logic and rationality and not on the basis of what will be easier for layman. It will be the job of the scholars to submit a simplified version of their findings (based on a complicated analysis) to the public."
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Related Topics:
- Sunnah vs. Hadith
- Sunnah vs. Hadith (Follow Up 1: Imitating the Prophet - pbuh)
- Sunnah vs. Hadith (Follow Up 2: Criteria for Accepting a Hadith)
- Sunnah vs. Hadith (Follow Up 3: Definition of Established Sunnah)
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April 2013
Dear Sir,
1- All ummah has consensus upon beard as sunnah then why dont you take it as sunnah?
2- You are right its easier to compare a hadith with quran but for experts only while a layman can accept without hesitation all those ahadith which are tagged as sahih.He doesnt have proficient knowledge of quran so could be able to compare the hadith with it.
Thank you so much for giving your precious time to answer our questions.
Answer:
1. As people say, every walnut is circular but not every circular object is walnut.
The Established Sunnah has been passed to us through the consensus of generations. This means all the content of the Established Sunnah is agreed upon by all Ummah. This however does not mean that whatever the Ummah agrees on is necessarily part of the Sunnah. There are things that the Ummah may agree on and they may be good things but these things may not be necessarily part of the Sunnah.
First, please bear in mind that there is in fact not a full agreement on the obligation of having beard. Most scholars consider it an obligation while some consider it desirable and a minority consider it optional.
Second, you perhaps agree that without any assumptions or inherited beliefs, having or not having a beard is not at all a religious matter. The question then is whether the Prophet (pbuh) made this a religious matter. We simply do not have any evidences to that effect. This is in fact one of the reasons that there are differences of opinion about the duty of Muslims with regard to beard.
When we look at the source of the belief in the religious nature of beard we find that this belief is based on certain interpretations of a few Hadiths, rather than the consensus of the Ummah that would go back up to the time of the Prophet (pbuh).
Accordingly we cannot consider beard to be part of the Established Sunnah.
However, keeping beard for men is inline with the nature by which the men are created. I therefore consider it more appropriate to keep the beard. This however is not because of any religious directives.
2. I can only repeat what I wrote in the previous answer:
"the method of assessing a Hadith needs to be derived on the basis of logic and rationality and not on the basis of what will be easier for layman. It will be the job of the scholars to submit a simplified version of their findings (based on a complicated analysis) to the public."
-----------
Related Topics:
- Sunnah vs. Hadith
- Sunnah vs. Hadith (Follow Up 1: Imitating the Prophet - pbuh)
- Sunnah vs. Hadith (Follow Up 2: Criteria for Accepting a Hadith)
- Sunnah vs. Hadith (Follow Up 3: Definition of Established Sunnah)
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April 2013
