Huffington Post recently published an article titled “The Source of Muslim Extremism” authored by Mike Ghouse (described as “a speaker, thinker, and a writer” who “offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day”). He argues that all violence and intolerance committed “in the name of Islam is coming from a single source; the secondary books. The Quran is the only authentic book and we cannot go wrong with it. Until we reject those other books, we don’t have a prayer.”
Among these “secondary books” Ghouse identifies the Hadith, which contains the words and deeds of Islam’s prophet Muhammad: “As a first step towards fixing our problems, we need to rehabilitate the Hadith.” By this he means that any hadith not “compatible with the statements that God is just and the Prophet is a mercy to the mankind” are to be expunged.
“Let’s stick to the Quran, we simply cannot go wrong,” concludes Ghouse.
What to make of this argument?
First, it should be noted that it is not original to Ghouse; this position belongs to a small sect of reformist/heretical (depending on who you ask) Muslims known as “Quranists.” Their movement, Quranism, goes back decades with echoes even earlier. It holds “the Qur’an to be the only authentic source of Islamic faith. Quranists generally reject, therefore, the religious authority and authenticity of hadith, Sunnah, and reject traditional Sharia Law, with the assertion that they are false attributes to the Islamic Prophet Muhammed. This is in contrast to the Sunni, Shia and Ibadi doctrines, which consider hadith necessary for Islamic faith.”
The benefits of rejecting all textual sources but the Quran should be obvious. The corpus of Hadith literature is immense and seems to have something to say about every conceivable topic. Sahih Bukhari—the most authoritative collection which Muslims hold second to the Quran in legislative importance—is nine volumes of Muhammad’s words and deeds on countless topics of minutia. (Thus, “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘When you drink (water), do not breath in the vessel; and when you urinate, do not touch your penis with your right hand. And when you cleanse yourself after defecation, do not use your right hand.’”)
Many forms of appalling behavior—from drinking camel urine to “adult breastfeeding”—are justified by finding some reference in the Hadith. Although the Quran suggests that only Allah may torture with fire, a Sahih Bukhari hadith documents Muhammad using fire as a form of torture. Accordingly, the Islamic State referenced this hadith in their fatwa to justify burning a Jordanian pilot alive.
While Quranism resonates with the Western mentality—it’s simply the Islamic version of Protestantism’s sola scriptura—it is heresy in the Muslim world. Mainstream Muslim scholars, including so-called “moderates,” regularly and often denounce Quranists as apostates from Islam. They point out that Quran 33:2 commands Muslims to follow Muhammad’s example; and his example—his sunna, which 90 percent of the world’s Muslims, the Sunnis, are named after—is derived from the Hadith.
Of course, this is precisely why many lackadaisical Muslims (quietly) favor the elimination of the Hadith. As one more fervent cleric complained, based on the Quran alone, “much of Islam will remain mere abstract concepts without Hadith. We would never know how to pray, fast, pay zakah, or make pilgrimage without the illustration found in Hadith…”
Surely that is welcome news to lukewarm Muslims?
Unsurprisingly, then, Quranists are regularly persecuted and sometimes killed for their position: Rashad Khalifa, an eccentric Quranist, was found stabbed to death in Tucson in 1990; India’s Chekannur Maulavi disappeared in 1993 under “mysterious circumstances” and is believed to be dead; Egypt’s Ahmed Subhy Mansour was denounced by and fired from Al Azhar University, imprisoned, and finally exiled.
Still, of all strategies dedicated to creating a “moderate Islam”—most of which have no theological basis and are simply built on Western projections of itself onto Islam—Quranism is commendable in that it is at least methodologically viable.
Unfortunately, its thesis is built on a faulty premise: Even if every single Muslim was to reject the Hadith and other “secondary books,” that wouldn’t change the fact that the Quran is saturated with violent and intolerant teachings that need little supplementation from secondary literature.
Well over a hundred verses call for nonstop war, or jihad, on non-Muslims. If the “infidels” are beaten and refuse to convert to Islam, they must live as third class subjects and pay tribute “while feelingly humbled” (e.g., 9:29). The Quran also prescribes draconian measures—crucifixions, whippings, amputations, stonings, and beheadings—as punishments; and it requires the absolute subjugation of women (e.g., 4:34), with particularly devastating results for non-Muslim women.
In short, the first premise of Quranism—that “The Quran is the only authentic book and we cannot go wrong with it,” to quote Ghouse—may ease the daily life of the Muslim, but it brings no solace to the “infidel.”
An interesting perspective on reforming if possible but I have my doubts. Another angle is to question why the resistance to adapting to modernity as apposed to keeping the status quo understandings of 1400 years ago. The tribal societies of 1000 years ago like the NZ Maori, the Australian Aborigine and even the North American Indian societies are all now trying to write their various histories based on generational memories and recollections. How really authentic can all that be when compared to modern histories documented as it all happened? I guess this is a challenge for the future generations if they really want to know about their past.
Assuming that one cannot go wrong with the Quran also assumes the conclusion rather than argues for it. If the Quran, too, has egregious errors and violent texts, then it, too, will lead the reader “wrong.”
Islam can only sustain itself by predation. It belongs within the violent tribal rivalries of Arabia, and nowhere else. It has always thrived on the predatory conquest of other cultures, indeed this is its only means of growth. It has nothing positive to offer in terms of cultural goals except predation and exploitation of the accomplishments of others. It is therefore intrinsically and essentially aggressive. The Qur’an preaches this bellicose message unambiguously and so the Hadith writings are not strictly necessary. Conquest is Islam’s ‘raison d’être’ and once it loses this impetus it stagnates. The whole corpus of Islam’s ‘sacred’ texts should be treated with the contempt they deserve, for as literature they are all alike abject, benighted and primitive. Their message is one of violent hatred to all outside of the tribe, or ‘ummah’. Take the violence from Islam and you remove its soul – a good thing in my view.
Hadith seems like a sex and war manual.
It seems to me that, if reformers truly wanted to purge Islam of its violent, supremacist teachings, they’d have to not only reject the hadiths, but also almost the whole of the Qur’an after Muhammad’s escape to Medina. And, if that, then what would be left?
So, what is the solution to this dilemma, the insurmountable culture gulf between Islam and the rest of the world? If such a solution exists it has remained illusive for over 1400 years. What is the likelihood that a complete reformation will eventually take place when the dominant attitude in the infidel west is denial of the obvious? Given these circumstances it seems the only “solution” is for the west to recognize and correct
their obsequious, delusional, politically correct attitudes towards the Muslim world and develop and implement a comprehensive, political and military strategy designed for containment and isolation.
That much of the dominant Muslim world sits on very large deposits of fossil fuels that remain essential to
all of the industrialized west, isolation will likely only be possible when the west drastically cuts its currently essential need for these fuels and this will not be accomplished with wind, solar, geothermal or any other pipe dream of the clueless, intellectual, idealistic elites holding that view. Nuclear, at present, especially given the ultimate success of thorium reactors, is the only option with any chance of success over the short term, perhaps the next 50 years. Couple that with a successful, widespread, global introduction of electric and natural gas powered transport of goods and people, would perhaps motivate the majority of the Muslim world to discard it’s now 1400 year old, isolationist, ancient, barbaric traditions which they adamantly believe are sacrosanct and sanctified as directed by the Qur’an, Hadith and Sunna, the immutable words of their version of God, Allah, as revealed to and by the prophet, Muhammad. What has so far proven to be impossible.
And, in the time it takes the west to wean itself from its dependence on whatever fuels the sustenance and wealth of the Middle East and their absolute devotion to Islam, it had best equip, train and maintain powerful, technically dominant militaries to squelch the violent terrorism and wide spread insurgencies, driven by the
ultimate economic stagnation and decline from within, that are sure to occur as the current, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, bigoted Middle East, determined to take the world back to the 7th century, implodes. Hopefully, without too many shots being fired and western blood spilled.
The Koran remains for all Muslims, not just “fundamentalists,” the uncreated word
of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places; its ideas are absolutely true and
beyond all criticism. To question it is to question the very word of God, and hence
blasphemous. A Muslim’s duty is to believe it and obey its divine command.
Islam devotes a great amount of energy to the kafir or infidel (non believers). Not
only is the majority (64%) of the Koran devoted to the kafir, but also nearly all of the
Sira (81%) deals with Mohammed’s struggle with them. The Hadith (Traditions)
devotes 32% of the text to kafirs.
Koran abounds in contradictions. Certain passages of the Koran are abrogated by
verses with a different or contrary meaning revealed afterwards. sura 2.105:
“Whatever verses we [i.e., God] cancel or cause you to forget, we bring a better or its
like.” Since all the passages preaching tolerance are found in Meccan, i.e., early
suras, and all the passages recommending killing, decapitating, and maiming are
Medinan, i.e., later: “tolerance” has been abrogated by “intolerance.” For example,
the famous verse at sura 9.5, “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them,” is said to
have canceled 124 verses that dictate toleration and patience.
The totalitarian nature of Islam is nowhere more apparent than in the concept of
jihad, the holy war, whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and submit it
to the one true faith, to the law of Allah. To Islam alone has been granted the truth:
there is no possibility of salvation outside it. It is the sacred duty—an incumbent
religious duty established in the Koran and the traditions—of all Muslims to bring
Islam to all humanity. Jihad is a divine institution, enjoined specially for the purpose
of advancing Islam. Muslims must strive, fight, and kill in the name of God.
The following are just a sample of a few verses from Koran regarding infidels:
3.28. “Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends, guardians, and
councilors in preference to the believers.”
9.5 “When opportunity arises, kill the infidels (non believers of Islam) wherever you
catch them.”
9.5-6: ” Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them.”
4.76: “Those who believe fight in the cause of God.”
8.12: “I will instill terror into the hearts of the Infidels, strike off their heads then,
and strike off from them every fingertip,”
8.39-42: “Say to the Infidels: If they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall
be forgiven them; but if they return to it, they have already before them the doom of
the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of
it God’s.”
2.256: “But they who believe, and who fly their country, and fight in the cause of God
may hope for God’s mercy: and God is Gracious, Merciful.”
It is a grave sin for a Muslim to shirk the battle against the unbelievers— those who
do will roast in hell.
8.15, 16: “Believers, when you meet the unbelievers preparing for battle do not turn
your backs to them. [Anyone who does] shall incur the wrath of God and hell shall be
his home: an evil dwelling indeed.”
9.39: “If you do not fight, He will punish you severely, and put others in your place.”
Those who die fighting for the only true religion, Islam, will be amply rewarded in
the life to come.
4.74: “Let those fight in the cause of God who barter the life of this world for that
which is to come; for whoever fights on God’s path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome reward.”
It is abundantly clear from many of the above verses that the Koran is not talking of
metaphorical battles or of moral crusades: it is talking of the battlefield.
POLSKA
Thanks for this useful article.
It explains the Quranism where ideas behind ‘Simple Islam’ ( http://simpleislam.weebly.com/hadith-en ) seem to derive from.