The Ruling on Those Who Reject Acting Upon the Sunnah, Including the Quranists

The Shaykh : There is a group of Muslims today who are widespread in many Islamic lands, and they are those who are called the Quranists, the Quranists. Just now, before I came to you, I had a brother from among our brothers, Ibrahim, this Abu 'Umar, who told me that he met a young man who came from America, and he said during the conversation that he does not believe except in the Quran. We know this, and I was in Damascus about twenty years ago when I met a young man in Aleppo who claimed this call. I said to him, "Do you pray?" He said, "Yes, I pray." I said, "Come, let me see you pray." He prayed, and he began the prayer with a supplication from his own invention. I said to him, "Where did you get this supplication from?" And this manner in general is not in the Quran, nor in the Sunnah which you have declared to be disbelief. The truth of the matter is that claiming that the Quran is the only reference and that the Sunnah has no role in explaining the Quran is disbelief in the Quran. The one who says that he does not believe except in the Quran is disbelieving in the Quran. That is because the Quran, in which the Lord of Mankind said: Here we mentioned just now the five prayers and how they are divided into categories. Where did you get these categories from? None of this is explained in the Noble Quran in this way, but it is the explanation of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), to whom Allah referred in the previous verse: , meaning that this verse implies that the explanation of the Messenger (peace be upon him) is divided into two parts: one is verbal, which is conveying the Quran to the community, conveying the Quran to the community, and the other explanation is explanation in the sense of detailing, in the sense of detailing. And therefore came the authentic hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and on this occasion I say that it is necessary to select these hadiths and present them to your students there so that the correct creed is established and they know the value of the Sunnah and the importance of referring to it along with the Noble Quran. I mentioned a hadith, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . That is because Allah says in the Noble Quran: . So the Sunnah is a science among the sciences, and it must be taken from the specialists in it. And whoever says, "This is authentic and this is weak," we say to him, "Are you a scholar of the science of hadith?" If he claims that, we say, "Bring it, let us see, prove the authenticity of this hadith in the way of the scholars of hadith. The original basis, as you know, the original basis for knowing authentic hadiths from weak ones is the chain of narration. The second position, or the second rank, in criticism is the criticism of the text, which is called in modern terminology today internal criticism. They call the criticism of chains external criticism, and the criticism of texts in hadith terminology internal criticism. If this internal criticism were applied to the minds of humans, the Noble Quran would become a subject of criticism, because the Noble Quran is not believed in by disbelievers, for example. If it were said to a disbeliever, "The story of Moses striking the rock and twelve springs gushing forth from it, and his striking the sea so that every part was like a great mountain," these things are not believed in by disbelievers, and they will say, "This is not correct," even though it is established by the Noble Quran and by mass transmission. The Noble Quran is not subject to criticism at all, but rather Muslims should understand it, and on this occasion we also mention this, in two ways, which were referred to just now: referring to the explanation of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), . You know, for example, in the books of jurisprudence, some rulings are not found in the Noble Quran, for example, the prohibition of a daughter through breastfeeding. This is not mentioned in the Noble Quran, but it is mentioned in the hadith, indeed in the authentic hadiths, and the most authentic of them is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . This hadith is from the explanation of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) which was mentioned in the Quran: . Then the Noble Messenger added this prohibition mentioned in his hadith: . Here the importance appears: what the Messenger of Allah has forbidden is like what Allah has forbidden. If we return now and understand that those who claim that they do not believe in anything of the Sunnah, only the Quran, they have disbelieved in the Quran, because the Quran commands us to refer to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in many noble verses, some of which we mentioned just now, and among them is: . Do you want to pray in the mosque?

The questioner : If Allah wills.

The Shaykh : So whoever claims that he is a Muslim but does not believe except in the Quran is not a Muslim, because he has disbelieved in many of the texts of the Quran. And the scholars of the Muslims, as you all know, say, "Whoever denies a letter of the Quran is not a Muslim." So what about one who denies many of the verses that include referring to the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him)?