Re: The Status of Hadith in Shari'ah

Question:
Sir, while I state the question, let me first admit that I am an ordinary Muslim with no background in Islamic education.

There are some issues which are not mentioned in the Qur'an, yet their status regarding Halaal or Haraam is determined through various Ahadith. Bribery is one, which comes to my mind. A type of interest (riba) which deals with unequal exchange of six objects, including gold, is another. I believe we have concensus amongst all Fiqhs, at least on these issues. There may be many others, of which I may not be aware. But if we go by the logic that Hadith does not add to anything in the Qur'an, given that it was not available for a long time to the Muslims (in a book form), we cannot decide about 'hurmat' of either this kind of interest or bribery.

Comments?

Response:
Thanks for asking a good question. Before I go on to briefly respond to the two points you have raised in your question, I want to ask you whether these points do actually make any difference to the fact that I have mentioned in my statement on hadith, i.e. The ahadith that we resort to, to find out what is halal and what is haram, were not available in the first century Hijrah to a vast majority of the Muslim ummah.

That's an undeniable fact. If what you have mentioned in the question is correct then there is something seriously wrong somewhere, for which, the person who provides a solution deserves to be appreciated for solving the problem rather than be condemned for having done so.

I can tell you that the Qur'an has clearly condemned bribery in the following verse:

"Do not misappropriate one another's property unjustly, nor bribe the judges, in order to misappropriate a part of other people's property, sinfully and knowingly." (2:188)

As for the question of Riba al-Fadl, which, it is claimed, is the spot exchange of unequal commodities, I have written an article on the subject (please refer to: http://www.islamicissues.info/essays/kzaheer/economic%20issues/ribaalfadl.html) to prove that the entire concept is based on an incorrect understanding of certain ahadith that got misreported; otherwise, the prophet, alaihissalaam, had clearly mentioned that there was no riba except in credit transactions. That's exactly what the problem is when we start giving ahadith a status of independent source of Shari'ah. Things start getting confused.

Let me clarify once again that I am not against ahadith. How can a Muslim be against a collection of data about the life of his prophet, alaihissalaam. The only thing I am trying to emphasize is that ahadith haven't been compiled under the instructions or support of the prophet, alaihissalaam, the way it was done in the case of Qur'an. Ahadith, therefore, cannot add anything to the list of items that have been given to us in the Shari'ah through the Qur'an and Sunnah. However, they are a very useful source to get further details of what is mentioned in these original sources. One must be careful in ensuring that one benefits from this source in the light of the guidance of the Qur'an and Sunnah. If there is a conflict between these original sources and some ahadith, it is the latter that need to be conformed in accordance with the Qur'an and Sunnah and not vice versa.

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