Thursday, November 26, 2015

Quran is understandable without Hadith [1]

Quran according to itself is the miracle of the God; and a miracle by definition must be verifiable by people who witness it. Quran invites us to verify this claim by trying to bring a chapter like one of the Quran's.

And if you are in doubt concerning what We have sent down to Our servant, then bring a Surah like it, and invoke your helpers besides Allah, if you are truthful. (2:23)

The belief that Quran as the book that we are reading is the same as the divine message that was revealed long time ago, thus, does not require trusting the intermediary individuals along the history: each Muslim in any century can read the text and decide whether she finds it miraculous or not (Refer to Appendix I for further discussion).

Quran is revealed to be a reminder for all mankind:

You do not ask them any reward for it: it is just a reminder for all the nations. (12:104)

But how a message could be a reminder if it is not in an understandable form. And Quran is indeed simple and understandable by anyone:

Certainly We have made the Quran simple for the sake of admonishment. So is there anyone who will be admonished? (54:17)

Being comprehensible does not contradict with including unspecified names, quantities, etc. For example Quran mentioned the number of some particular keepers as 19 and explains that the story behind the number is intentionally left aside:

There are nineteen [keepers] over it. (74:30) We have assigned only angels as keepers of the Fire, and We have made their number merely a stumbling block for the faithless, and so that those who were given the Book may be reassured, and the faithful may increase in [their] faith, and so that those who were given the Book and the faithful may not be in doubt, and so that the faithless and those in whose hearts is a sickness may say, ‘What did Allah mean by this description?’ Thus does Allah lead astray whomever He wishes and guides whomever He wishes. No one knows the hosts of your Lord except Him, and it is just an admonition for all humans. (74:31)

Or as Quran explains it also includes some few ambiguous verses to test the ones who have sickness in their hearts:

It is He Who has revealed the Book to you. Some of its verses are absolutely clear and lucid, and these are the core of the Book. Others are ambiguous. Those in whose hearts there is perversity, always go about the part which is ambiguous, seeking mischief and seeking to arrive at its meaning arbitrarily, although none knows their true meaning except Allah. On the contrary, those firmly rooted in knowledge say: 'We believe in it; it is all from our Lord alone.' No one derives true admonition from anything except the men of understanding. (3:7)


Claim: Quran is not understandable without Hadith!


We explained above that Quran is a miraculous message that is independently verifiable (no need for Hadith to prove it) and independently understandable by the masses (no need for Hadith to explain it).
Hadith, on the other hand, is just a collection of sentences attributed to the prophet and is hence essentially part of the history; and the reliability of the details of the history is always questionable. To trust Hadith, one has to trust the honesty of the people who have carried them through the past centuries, and also to trust the skills of the Hadith historians, also known as religious Elders or scholars. Some Hadith-believers however not only use Hadith as a medium that explains the tradition, but also go way further and call Quran incomprehensible and introduce Hadith as the key to explain it in an understandable way. This has scared many Muslims from directly reading Quran without a Hadith-based interpretation offered by scholars.

This is an outrageous claim that disrespects Quran as the miracle of the God; this claim essentially implies that the God was unable to reveal an understandable book and we need to fix this flaw by attaching Hadith to it! Not only this outrageous claim is against common sense but as we show in the following it also contradicts with Quran as well as with Hadith. In this article we present this claim and show that it is in clear contradiction with Quran as well as with Hadith.

1. Contradiction with Quran


Here we list the verses in Quran that are in direct contradiction with the claim that Quran is not understandable without Hadith.

1.1 Quran as a miracle

Quran introduces itself as a miracle of the God, and challenges the deniers to bring a chapter like one of the Quran's:

And if you are in doubt concerning what We have sent down to Our servant, then bring a Surah like it, and invoke your helpers besides Allah, if you are truthful. (2:23)

How could this be a serious challenge if the deniers do not understand what Quran says?! How could one brings a new text and compare it with an incomprehensible text, and then conclude that the incomprehensible text is superior and divine?!

1.2 Pondering about Quran

Quran invites people to ponder about Quran and check it for inconsistencies:

Do they not ponder about the Qur'an? Had it been from any other than Allah, they would surely have found in it much inconsistency. (4:82)

This invitation makes no sense if Quran was incomprehensible for unbelievers.

1.3 Understandable by Jinns

Quran says that a group of Jinns overhear Quran and understand that it guides to the right way, and then believe in it:

Say, (O Prophet), it was revealed to me that a band of jinn attentively listened to (the recitation of the Qur'an) and then (went back to their people) and said: (72:1) “We have indeed heard a wonderful Qur'an which guides to the Right Way; so we have come to believe in it, and we will not associate aught with Our Lord in His Divinity”; (72:2)

The Jinns overheard Quran itself, and not an explanation of it. How could Quran be understandable by Jinns and not by human who were the actual target audience?!

1.4 Advising people of the book

In many cases Quran tells the prophet (pbuh) to say something to unbelievers or people of the book and invite them to the righteous paths:

Say to them: 'People of the Book! You have no solid ground to stand on unless you establish the Torah and the Gospel and all that had been revealed to you from your Lord. Indeed the message revealed to you from your Lord will aggravate insurgence and unbelief in many of them. So do not grieve for those who disbelieve. (5:68)

Such verses usually start with "say to them" which means that the exact words would be conveyed to them. However this conversation would be absurd if they could not understand the words Quran asks to be told to them.

1.5 Prophet to deliver the message

Quran specifies the prophet's duty to only deliver the message:

The Messenger is bound only to deliver [BaLaaGh] the message, whereafter Allah knows well all that you disclose and all that you conceal. (5:99)

In case there is confusion of what "deliver" means, Quran refers to itself using the same term "BaLaaGh", i.e., a message that is delivered (14:52)
However some badly mistranslate the following verse and name also "interpreting Quran" as one of the duties of the prophet:

We have revealed the Quran to you so that you could tell (ToBaYYeN) the people what has been revealed to them and so that perhaps they will think. (16:44)

Here the verse uses the word "ToBaYYeN", which means "to disclose", and can take different forms including by "telling clearly". This translation is consistent with the other usages of the verb in Quran, where it is used in contrast of "to hide":

When God made a covenant with the People of the Book saying, "Tell (ToBaYYeN) the people about it (Muhammad's prophesy) without hiding any part, therefrom, they threw it behind their backs and sold it for a very small price. What a miserable bargain! (3:187)

In the verse above the People of the Book have promised "to disclose" (ToBaYYeN) it to the people and "do not hide it". They apparently later break this promise and "hide" what has been "disclosed" (BaYYaNNa) in the book:

Indeed Allah curses, and the cursers, too, curse those who conceal the clear teachings and guidance We have sent down, after We have made these plain (BaYYaNNa) in the Book for the guidance of all mankind.(2:159)

Some however offered the confusing translation of "to make clear" for this word:

[We sent them] with clear proofs and written ordinances. And We revealed to you the message that you may make clear (ToBaYYeN) to the people what was sent down to them and that they might give thought. (16:44) (Saheeh International)

, which has led to the wrong interpretation that the Quran is unclear in its original form and this is the prophet's duty to "make it clear" for the public by interpreting it. Not only this translation is inconsistent with the aforementioned verse 5:99 that explains the duty of the prophet regarding Quran, but also inconsistent with the usage of the same term in the rest of the book. For example the same verb "BaYYeN" is used to refer to what the Quran verses are doing:

They ask you of (intoxicants,) wine and gambling. Tell them: "There is great enervation though profit in them for men; but their enervation is greater than benefit. And they ask you what they should give. Tell them: "The utmost you can spare." So does God reveal His signs: You may haply reflect (2:219)

The Christ, son of Mary, was but an apostle, and many apostles had (come and) gone before him; and his mother was a woman of truth. They both ate the (same) food (as men). Behold, how We show men clear signs, and behold, how they wander astray! (5:75)

Moreover, Quran uses the same root "BaYaN" to refer to itself (and not its interpretations)

This is a clear [BaYaN] declaration for mankind, and a guidance and a warning for those who preserve themselves from evil. (3:138)

Remind them of the Day when We shall call from every people a witness against them, and make you a witness over them, for We have revealed to you the Book as an [TeBYaaN] exposition of everything, and as guidance and grace and happy tidings for those who submit. (16:89)

As explained earlier the people of the Book were also tasked to disclose the book (using the verb ToBaYYeN in 3:187) and yet it is emphasized that the message is already disclosed by the God in the Book (using the verb BaYYaNNa in 2:159), thus translating ToBaYYeN in 3:187 as "to make clear" would contradict with the verse 2:159 whereas "to disclose" is a more sensible and consistent translation.

2. Contradiction with Hadith


Although this article argues only with Quran to show that Quran is understandable without Hadith, for those who do believe in Hadith we can still point out the contradiction between some well-respected Hadith and the claim that Quran is not understandable without Hadith. A very popular Hadith attributed to the prophet (pbuh) says "Whatever they brought to you from me verify it against Quran, if they agreed with it then I've said it and if contradicted with it then I have not said it" (Kitab al-Umm, Vol. 7, Page 16). But how can one verify the consistency of a Hadith with Quran if the Hadith itself is used to explain Quran?! ُThis would have the very basic pitfall of vicious circle.

3. Summary


In this article we challenged the claim that Quran is not understandable without Hadith and showed that it is inconsistent with both Quran and Hadith. Unfortunately this false claim has been used through the history to scare people from directly reading Quran and thinking about it. Instead the scholars would offer an interpretation (supposedly based on some Hadiths) for each verse and ask Muslims to take the interpretation in place of the actual verse. We hope this article encourages Muslims to put away the middleman and start pondering about what Quran says without the bias that they might have received from scholars or Hadith.

Appendix I: Quran and History


Currently there are multiple readings of Quran [2] [3], out of which 10 are more recognized. The differences between the readings are minor but sometimes lead to difference in the meaning. Also for each Muslim there are parts of Quran that is not quite comprehensible. A person finding a reading of Quran miraculous does not guarantee that all the vowels and words are exactly the same as the Quran that was revealed to the messenger. Although we belief Quran is a divine message because it is miraculous (and not because the history claims so), the very frequent historical evidence maximizes the probability that this Quran is very similar to the Quran of Muhammad. On the other hand, the key points in Quran such as monotheism, the judgment day, doing good deeds, and piety are repeated so often that minor differences cannot distort their spirit.

[1] This article is mostly inspired by an article with the same title from Mostafa Hosseini Tabatabaee
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qira%27at
[3] http://submission.org/verify_preserving_and_protecting_Quran.html

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