Comment by Riaz Haq on April 2, 2019 at 11:47am

Islam and the State: A Counter Narrative
by Javed Ahmad Ghamidi

http://www.al-mawrid.org/index.php/articles/view/islam-and-the-stat...

The situation which has been created today for Islam and Muslims in the whole world by certain extremist organizations is an evil consequence of the ideology taught in our religious seminaries, and also propagated day and night by Islamic movements and religious political parties. The true understanding of Islam, in contrast to this, has been presented by this writer in his treatise Mizan.[1] This understanding actually constitutes a counter narrative. It has been repeatedly pointed out by this writer that when in a Muslim society anarchy is created on the basis of religion, the remedy to this situation is not advocacy of secularism. On the contrary, the solution lies in presenting a counter narrative to the existing narrative on religion. Its details can be looked up in the aforementioned treatise. However, the part of it which relates to Islam and the state is summarized below.

1. The message of Islam is primarily addressed to an individual. It wants to rule the hearts and minds of people. The directives it has given to the society are also addressed to individuals who are fulfilling their responsibilities as the rulers of Muslims. Hence, it is baseless to think that a state also has a religion and there is a need to Islamize it through an Objectives Resolution and that it must be constitutionally bound to not make any law repugnant to the Qur'an and Sunnah. People who presented this view and were successful in having it implemented actually laid the foundations of a permanent division in the nation states of these times: it gave the message to the non-Muslims that they are in fact second rate citizens who at best occupy the status of a protected minority and that if they want to demand anything from the real owners of the state must do this in this capacity of theirs.

2. It can be the dream of every person that countries in which Muslims are in majority should unite under a single rule and we can also strive to achieve this goal but this is not a directive of the Islamic shari'ah which today Muslims are guilty of disregarding. Certainly not! Neither is khilafah a religious term nor its establishment at the global level a directive of Islam. After the first century hijrah, when celebrated jurists of the Muslims were among them, two separate Muslim kingdoms, the Abbasid kingdom in Baghdad and the Umayyad kingdom in Spain had been established and remained so for many centuries. However, none of these jurists regarded this state of affairs to be against the Islamic shari'ah. The reason is that there is not a single directive found on this issue in the Qur'an and the Hadith. On the contrary, what everyone, including this writer, does say is that if at any place a state is established, rebelling against it is a heinous crime. Such is the horrific nature of this crime that the Prophet (sws) is reported to have said that a person who does so dies the death of jahiliyyah.[2]

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 5, 2023 at 7:54pm

#Muslim Convert Prof Jeffrey Lang : 97% of the #Quran teaches #ethics, relationship between #God and humans, faith and reason. Only 3% emphasizes rules but we are obsessed with them but all sermons are about rules, not the essence of #Islam https://youtu.be/kvomfF0Pjn4 via

@YouTube

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 9, 2023 at 9:56am

Saudi documenting Hadith to stop misuse by Islamic radicals, terrorists

https://www.awazthevoice.in/world-news/saudi-documenting-hadith-to-...

The Hadith documentation project is ordered by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman who believes that in the absence of this, the plethora of hadith in circulation are liable to be misused by terrorists and extremists.

The outcome of this project will have far-reaching implications in the Islamic world. It may be recalled that the death punishment for blasphemy prevalent in countries like Pakistan and radicals asking for beheading people for the same in India is justified by them on the basis of Hadith as Quran doesn’t ordain these harsh retributions.

A year ago in an interview with The Atlantic, an American magazine, MBS claimed that the misuse of hadith had become the key reason for division in the Muslim world into extremist and peaceful people.

“You have tens of thousands of Hadith. And, you know, the massive majority, are not proven and are being used by many people as the way to justify doing what they are doing. For example, Al-Qaeda followers, ISIS followers, they are using Hadith which are very weak, not proven to be true Hadith, to propagate their ideology.” The Crown Prince said.

Explaining it, he said: God and the Qur’an tell us to follow the Prophet’s teachings. At the Prophet's time, people were writing down the Qur’an, and also the Prophet's teachings. At this, the Prophet ordered that his teachings should not be written down to make sure that the main base of Islam remains the Holy Quran. So when we go to Prophet’s teaching, we have to be very careful.

MBS explained that the Hadith falls into three categories: The first one is called mutawatir. It means several people heard it from the Prophet, a few people heard from those few people, and a few people heard (it) from (those) few people. And that has been documented. Those are almost super strong, and we have to follow them.

According to MBS, there are around 100 Hadith in this category and these are the strongest.

In another interview with the Saudi television channel, MBS explained, “So, when we talk about a Mutawatir hadith, i.e., narrated and handed down from one group to another group to another starting with the Prophet, PBUH, these hadiths are very few in number, but they are strong in terms of veracity, and their interpretations vary based on the time and place they were revealed and how the hadith was understood at the time.”

He said, “The second category is what we call the individual Hadith. So, one person heard it from the Prophet and another person heard it from that person, all the way to the one who documented it. Or a few people heard it from the Prophet, a few people heard it from the Prophet, and one person heard it from those few people. So, if there is a one-person link in the lineage of the Hadith, we call it one-person hadith.”

“And this type of hadith, called ahad, is not as compelling as the mutawater hadiths; the ones narrated by a chain of groups, unless paired with clear Quranic stipulations and a clear mundane or worldly good to be had, especially if it’s a correct ahad hadith,” MBS explained.

The Crown Prince said this category needed a lot of sifting and research. ‘One should study whether it is true, whether it goes with the teachings of the Qur’an if it goes with the teachings of mutawatir, and if it goes with the interest of the people. And based on that, you use it or not.”

The third one was called Khabar. Someone heard it from the Prophet, etc, etc., and among the links are some that are unknown. Those are the tens of thousands of Hadith, and that you shouldn't use at all, except in one case:

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