[Biggest
Islamic
web site in the
U.S.]
P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087.
Phone: 410-435-5000.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are not necessarily
shared by editorial committee.
Responses (positive or negative) up to 250 words are welcome.
Names will be withheld on request.
--------------------------------------------
Are
Qur'an
and Hikmah (wisdom) the same? Is
Hikmah only in the Qur'an?
By
Kaukab Siddique
In a posting on WideMinds, a prominent
member of the Parwezi sect, Mr.
Bashir Abid, tried to claim that Muslims should
follow only the Qur'an because,
in his words, "The Wisdom is in the Qur'an
itself." He refers to Sura
17:23-38 which contains "principles and values"
and then quotes verse 17:39: "These
are (values and principles) among the Wisdom (Al
Hikmah) which your Sustainer
has revealed to you." From this verse, Bashir
Abid concludes : "in other
words, Qur'anic values and principles are
sufficient for the sustained growth and
development of an healthy society."
From this point he jumps to this strange
claim, typical of Parwezi sect
members, that "Therefore we don't need any
secondary source to look for
wisdom. It is absolutely childish view to think
that Al Kitab means Qur'an and Al
Hikmah means Hadith or Sunnah. The question is:
If Qur'an does not contain
Wisdom, then what does it meant for." (Quoted as
in Mr. Abid's message.)
REBUTTAL:
1. The Qur'an does NOT say that Allah revealed
ONLY the Qur'an to the Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh). The Qur'an gives us the prayer
of Abraham and Ismail (pbut)
which Allah answered by sending Muhammad (pbuh):
"Our Lord! Send among them a Messenger of their
own who will recite your
verses to them and teach them the Book and Wisdom
and purify them: For thou art
the exalted in Might, the Wise." (2:129)
Thus the messenger was to:
1) Recite the
verses revealed to him,
2)
teach the Book,
3) teach wisdom, related to the
Book,
4) purify them.
The tasks
of the messenger obviously go beyond merely
reciting or transmitting the verses
received from Allah.
The Qur'an later on affirms that Muhammad's
(pbuh) role is exactly as
defined in the prayer of Abraham and Ismail
(pbut). It says:
"It is He Who has sent among the unlettered
people a messenger from among
themselves, to recite to them His verses, to
purify them, and to teach them the
Book and Wisdom, - although they had been in
error manifest." (62:2)
Note that the BOOK and WISDOM (Hikmah) are
two SEPARATE items. The
Qur'an is NOT saying "the wisdom in the Book."
Then the Qur'an goes on to point out that
this role of the Prophet
(pbuh) is not only for the time when the Book was
being revealed in Arabia but for
the FUTURE too. [Read on from 62:2 with reference
to the "unlettered people."]
"Along with others of them, who have not
already joined them: And He is
Exalted in Might, Wise." (62:3)
So the Prophet (pbuh) is meant to teach
and purify people who were
not his immediate audience . This entire role of
the Prophet (pbuh) has been
preserved in the authentic hadith WHICH HIS
COMPANIONS NARRATED. All who knew
Muhammad (pbuh) and were faithful to his message
knew that his teaching of the
Qur'an and his wisdom plus his process of
purification of the humanity must be
preserved in its purity and transmitted.
----------------------------------------------------
The Qur'an, in addition to the verses
referred to above, also uses the
word HIKMAH in a variety of ways. There is HIKMAH
(wisdom) in the Qur'an
itself, as Bashir Abid noted from surah 17, but
that does not limit it to the
Qur'an. Here is an example of a verse which
clarifies the fact that HIKMAH (wisdom)
is not the same as KITAB (the BOOK).
"We bestowed al-Hikmah (wisdom) on Luqman ..."
(31:12) It does not mean that
Allah gave a Qur'an or a Book to Luqman,
The Qur'an is a powerful and eloquent Book. That
is all more the reason why
Allah sent it to us through the Messenger (pbuh)
so that we should not put our
own desires into its interpretation. The
teachings of the Messenger (pbuh) are
essential to Islam and have been preserved in the
authentic hadith owing to
the tremendous effort of his Sahaba (the blessed
companions). The scholars of
Islam made sure that the Hadith were preserved in
their purity. They still do
not come up to the excellence of the Qur'an but
they are the best human beings
could preserve.
Make no mistake about it, Hadith are the
revolutionary teachings of the
greatest revolutionary of all times. The Qur'an
has been applied to every aspect of
life owing to its interpretation, the Hikmah,
revealed to the Prophet
(pbuh). It is this Hikmah which is the irritant
to the sectarians who want to
destroy the purity of Islam. Just as Allah and
the messenger means Allah and the
messenger (and not Allah and Allah, which would
be redundant), Qur'an and Hikmah
means Qur'an AND Hikmah (not Qur'an and Qur'an,
which would be redundant.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003-05-30 Fri 23:55ct