Rejecters of Hadith use the Big Lie Technique to Hide Within Muslims Ranks
by
Kaukab Siddique, Ph.D
Associate Professor of English
Sis. Bint Waleed posted my notes on "Essential Questions about Hadith"
on a number of discussion lists. One person known as Bashir Abid wrote
a "point by point"
rebuttal of my notes. As he is the elder of the professional anti-Hadith
sectarians on the
Internet, I'll look at some of his points.
Just about everything Bashir Abid wrote was borrowed from the writings of
G.A. Pervez but in the middle of his writing, Abid slipped in this
superb example of the big lie. Abid wrote:
"However, no scholar including Pervez
(taunted by Mullahs as Munkar-e-Hadith)
had ever rejected all the Hadith."
Readers should understand that Pervez is different from scholars who have
looked critically at Hadith. ALL scholars of Hadith looked critically at
Hadith narrations to make sure they were coming from the Prophet (pbuh).
The Prophet (pbuh) himself taught that
those who attribute Hadith to him falsely will be in hell fire.
The greatest narrator and teacher of Hadith, 'Ayesha
(r.a.) looked very critically at Hadith.
Imam Bukhari
was the greatest critic of Hadith of all times.
The issue here is not that Hadith should be looked at critically. [It
should be, just as we should be careful that
Qur'an
is not torn out of context. One favorite fragment from the Qur'an
for Field Marshal Ayub Khan,
Pakistani
dictator was: "...Obey those
in authority among you ..."
Anything can be torn out of context..]
The reason why Pervez went outside the fold of Islam was precisely
that he considered ALL
hadith unreliable. He made a systematic attempt to REMOVE MUHAMMAD (pbuh) from
Islam
and to reduce him merely to a glorious historic figure whose work would now
be replaced by
that of the central government or "markaze millat."
Bashir Abid seems to be hopeful that readers will not have seen his
group's book MAQAME HADITH
[sort of like the Bible of the Munkareene Hadith]. In that
book, Oervez
rejects ALL Hadith. He started what is now known as the "listing method."
He made a list of
Hadith, torn out of context, specially about sex, pre-industrial social
conditions in Arabia, war,
and other items which would offend the westernized mind.
He claimed that Bukhari includes "fabricated" hadith and ALL other
hadith, by name, are unreliable too.
Towards the end of MAQAME HADITH, Pervez answers an interesting
question and indicates clearly that he is against ALL Hadith.
The questioner wanted to know why we can't depend on Hadith. Surely ALL
Hadith can't be
fabricated! And he wanted to know that if Pervez thinks some of the Hadith
are fabricated he
should point which ones are and how he came to that understanding. Also, the
questioner said
that if you are willing to accept some of the Hadith which are genuine,
why don't you compile a selection of reliable Hadith.
Pervez not only rejected the offer but claimed that such an effort to
select genuine Hadith
would be a waste of time. Heis basic point is that
HADITH IN PRINCIPLE CANNOT BE
ACCEPTED AS PART OF ISLAM, to be obeyed and followed. He admonished the
questioner
by making fun of his suggestion. He wrote:
" If we accept Hadiths as worthy of following and then say that a
collection of Sahih Hadith
should be put together, it would indirectly mean that we are saying
that the
messenger of Allah (ma'az Allah) made a mistake and did not give a
collection of his statements
to the Ummah, and what he should have done, but did not do, now the
scholars of the Ummah should do." [Maqame
Hadith, page 220, translated from Urdu.]
He arrives at this view: "Even if a new selection were to be made from
the existing collections
of Hadith, how would we be able to say that these definitely are the
teachings of the messenger
of Allah, that all Muslims should follow them, and that the Hadith
we have declared fabricated
should be cast aside?" [Maqame Hadith, p.221] [4th edition, 1986]
Thus to say that Pervez did not reject ALL hadith is absurd. Under a
tremendous sense of
inferiority vis a vis the West
[which is also the hallmark of his followers], Pervez made a
stupendous effort to eject Muhammad (pbuh) from Islam.
Pervez is the kind of person governments love. General Musharraf
would have loved to hire him to fabricate a new Islam in which Hadith
would not be there to create a
problem for those who want the Qur'an to become like the Bible, open to
every interpreter's
whim and fancy.
Fortunately for Muslims, Maulana Abul 'Ala Maudoodi, may Allah fill his
grave with light,
was there to demolish the entire pious fraud of the anti-Hadith sophistry.
Hence the use of the
word "mullah" by Bashir Abid to refer to all those who uphold the
authenticity and decisive
force of the Hadith of Muhammad, peace be on him, in Islam.
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2004-12-21 Tue 11:04ct
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