Difference Between Sunnah and Hadith (2)

Question:
How would a layman person like me distinguish between the actual Sunnah and non-Sunnah practices? What criteria would one use?

Response:
Let's take a few examples: Salat, Hajj, circumcision (khatna), beard, amamah, and miswak (washing teeth with a tree's branch).

While the first three practices are very much religious in nature and are followed by Muslims all over the world, the rest of the three are followed by a few Muslims claiming them to be religiously desirable or binding, but they don't have universal acceptance amongst Muslims the world over. The first three practices are Sunnah (even though circumcision does not find a mention in the Qur'an) while the last three are hadith-based practices.

The testing questions for hadith-based practices to qualify as Sunnah are these: I) Is the practice religious in nature? 2) Was it given by the prophet to all Muslims in a way that it started getting practised from day-one and has continued to date?

The answer is yes for the first three practices. Beard and amamah are regarded as Sunnah by some religious people based on a few mentions in hadith but not all practising Muslims the world over follow them. Many scholars in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world are beard-less and very few people put on amamah. Miswak is used by many religious people for cleaning teeth but a large number of them use other methods for cleaning them.

We do not find such variations amongst Muslims in the case of funeral prayers, burying the dead, Eid and Jumu'ah prayers etc. As we find in the case of beard, amamah, and Miswak.

In other words, there were practices which started right from the beginning and which are still unanimously followed by Muslims. And there are those which are hadith-based but aren't widespread. That's what distinguishes a Sunnah practice from a non-Sunnah one.

Interestingly, there is a widespread practice which hadith helps us in knowing that it wasn't introduced by the prophet as Sunnah but was simply allowed by him: Taravih in Ramzan after Isha. Although it is happening everywhere now, it wasn't so during the times of the companions.

I must also clarify that if a certain practice doesn't qualify as a Sunnah, it doesn't mean that it cannot be followed at all. People can wear beards and amamahs. But they should not claim that it is a practice given by the prophet to be followed by all, either as a binding requirement or as something religiously desirable.

A bid'ah is a condemned religious practice which has no religious basis even in hadith and yet some Muslims have introduced it as Sunnah. It is condemned because a false, misleading claim is made that it is a religious practice even though it wasn't introduced by the prophet, alaihissalaam.

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