Among the strangest modern intrusive phenomena is a group that claims to be Muslim but takes pleasure in discarding the Sunnah and insists it adheres only to what is found in the Qur’an, arguing that it is preserved by God’s promise in His words from Surah Al-Hijr: “Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will be its guardian,” and also relying on His words in Surah Al-An‘am: “We have not neglected in the Book a thing.”
This is a truth used to justify falsehood, for their understanding of the Sunnah— which they reject— is vague, and their interpretation of the texts is weak and flawed. So what is the Sunnah in reality?
Dr. Al-Sayyid Ahmad Jum‘ah Hasan Salam clarifies this in his scholarly paper titled A Study on the Sunnah: Quraniyyun in the Spotlight and the Evidences of the Sunnah’s Authority published in the sixteenth issue of the Academic Journal for Research and Scientific Publishing. He offers a comprehensive and definitive definition of the Sunnah.
This is the same definition adopted by the hadith scholars— the experts in the science of Hadith— among the most famous of whom are the authors of the six canonical books: Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Al-Tirmidhi, Al-Nasa’i, and Ibn Majah, along with other scholars like Al-Nawawi and Ibn Hajar Al-‘Asqalani. According to them, the Sunnah consists of: “The sayings, actions, approvals, physical and moral attributes of the Prophet ﷺ, and all other reports about him, whether before or after the start of his prophethood.”
Here, the Quraniyyun who deny the Sunnah face an unsolvable dilemma: the Qur’an contains general and specific, absolute and restricted verses, not to mention the varying human capacities in interpreting its verses— some are universally agreed upon in meaning, while others are subject to differing interpretations.
The Qur’an itself delivers a clear rebuttal to these deniers in multiple verses, such as in Surah Al-Nisa’:
“O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. And if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is the best [way] and best in result.”
And in Surah Al-Hashr:
“… And whatever the Messenger has given you— take; and what he has forbidden you— refrain from. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is severe in penalty.”
Also in Surah Al-Nahl:
“… And We revealed to you the Reminder so that you may explain to the people what was sent down to them, and that they might reflect.”
This rejectionist view of the Sunnah, while unfamiliar to mainstream Islamic thought, has roots that go back to the earliest days of Islam. History records a strange incident during the time of the Prophet ﷺ in which a man rejected the Prophet’s judgment even while standing before him and hearing it firsthand.
In Sahih al-Bukhari, from ‘Urwah ibn Al-Zubayr:
A man from the Ansar disputed with Al-Zubayr over water rights from a stream irrigating palm trees. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “O Zubayr, water [your land], then let the water flow to your neighbor.” But the Ansari said: “Is it because he is your cousin?”
The Prophet’s ﷺ face changed color, then he said: “O Zubayr, water [your land], then withhold the water until it reaches the wall.” Thus, he ensured that Al-Zubayr received his full right. Al-Zubayr said: “By Allah, this verse was revealed concerning this matter: ‘But no, by your Lord, they will not [truly] believe until they make you judge concerning that over which they dispute among themselves.’” Ibn Shihab added: “The Ansar and the people estimated the Prophet’s ﷺ statement: ‘Water, then withhold until it reaches the wall’ as being up to the ankles.”
In the modern era, it is as though the Prophet ﷺ is among us, precisely describing the Quraniyyun, whose depiction is found in Sahih al-Jami‘, in a narration from Al-Miqdam ibn Ma‘dikarib, who reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“A time will soon come when a man reclining on his couch will be told of a hadith from me, and he will say: ‘Between us and you is the Book of Allah; whatever we find in it to be lawful, we accept as lawful, and whatever we find in it to be unlawful, we deem unlawful.’ Verily, what the Messenger of Allah has made unlawful is like what Allah has made unlawful.”
Dr. Salam cited Imam al-Shafi‘i’s statement, in which he said:
“I know of no disagreement among the scholars that the Sunnah of the Prophet falls into three categories. They agreed on two, and those two categories may overlap or diverge. The first is when Allah revealed a specific text in the Book, and the Messenger of Allah clarified it exactly as stated in the Book. The second is when Allah revealed a general text, and the Messenger explained what was intended by God. These two categories were undisputed.
The third is what the Messenger legislated in matters where there was no text from the Book. Some said: God granted him, through His command of obedience and prior knowledge of His approval, the authority to establish rulings where the Book was silent. Others said: He never instituted a Sunnah without a root in the Book. Still others said: It came through God’s revelation, and His Sunnah is established by divine obligation.”
Therefore, all hadith scholars agree on the authoritative status of the Sunnah and that it must not be disregarded under any circumstance.
The first is where the Sunnah clarifies general content in the Book of Allah, such as the prayer—its times, form, and conditions for validity—or zakat, in terms of its types and required amounts.
The second case is when the Sunnah introduces rulings not explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an, such as the prohibition of marrying a woman alongside her paternal or maternal aunt. There is no explicit text in the Qur’an for this, but it is forbidden in the Sunnah. In Sunan Ibn Majah, Abu Sa‘id Al-Khudri reported:
“I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ prohibit two types of marriage: that a man combines a woman and her paternal aunt, or a woman and her maternal aunt in marriage.”
There were, in fact, isolated cases in the early centuries of Islam where certain hadiths were rejected—whether due to intellectual or political reasons, or out of doubt in the reliability of some narrators. For example, sects like the Khawarij and Mu‘tazila were known for rejecting certain prophetic narrations.
In the case of the Khawarij, their rejection of some reports was linked to their political hostility toward specific companions. As for the Mu‘tazila, they operated from rationalist principles, believing—according to their perspective—that certain hadiths conflicted with reason.
The Khawarij, on the other hand, “only accepted Sunnah reported by companions who did not participate in the Great Fitnah” between Ali and Mu‘awiyah and subsequent conflicts. They claimed the bizarre idea that “the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, committed polytheism after engaging in the civil war, so their religious knowledge is invalid,” ignoring the possibility of conflict between believers, which God Himself acknowledged in Surah Al-Hujurat:
“And if two groups among the believers fight, then make peace between them. But if one of them oppresses the other, then fight the one that oppresses until it returns to the command of Allah. Then if it returns, make peace between them with justice and be fair. Indeed, Allah loves those who are fair.”
These skeptical or rejectionist movements laid the fertile ground for the modern Quraniyyun movement, which emerged in India in the late 19th century. However, its influence later diminished due to the efforts of hadith scholars and the revival of narration circles.
Dr. Khadim Hussain Ilahi Bakhsh, in his book The Quraniyyun and Their Suspicions about the Sunnah (1989), states that “the call to rely on the Qur’an alone, without the Sunnah, in Islamic legislation began to spread in India toward the end of the 19th century, following the dissemination of ideas promoted by members of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s movement. However, its effects became particularly visible in Punjab, in central unified India.”
He comments further:
“What ill fate befell that region of the world, for from it emerged two destructive movements against Islam: Qadianism and Quraniyyism. In 1900, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian arose from that region claiming prophethood, and in 1902, Ghulam Nabi—known as Abdullah Chakralawi—began his subversive activity of denying the Sunnah entirely. He made the Jiniyan Wali Mosque in Lahore the headquarters for his movement, in addition to the Ahmad Raza Barelvi controversy which nearly engulfed all of India at the time.”
However, this trend of rejecting the Sunnah later found fertile ground in some Arab countries during the second half of the 20th century, where new promoters of the movement emerged—such as Ahmad Subhi Mansour and Rashad Khalifa—who revived this ideology in various cultural and political contexts.
The Quraniyyun, for their part, claim that the books of hadith—particularly Sahih al-Bukhari—contain speculative reports that do not yield certainty. They argue that reliance on hadith in legislation has led the Muslim nation into intellectual stagnation. Some even blame the Prophetic Sunnah for the civilizational backwardness of Muslims and cite Qur’anic verses to support their stance.
They often reference verses such as:
From Surah al-An‘am: “… We have neglected nothing in the Book …”
And from Surah al-Nahl: “… And We have sent down to you the Book as an explanation for everything …”
The truth is that this distorted understanding is not surprising coming from those who claim the Qur’an as their sole source for understanding Islamic legislation. Dr. Salem Abu ‘Asi, former Dean of the Graduate School at Al-Azhar University, refutes this view in an episode of The Quraniyyun: Between Claims of Renewal and Political Instrumentalization ” from the program Mawazin on Al Jazeera. He explains that the context of Allah’s words in Surah Al-An‘am — “We have neglected nothing in the Book” — does not refer to the Qur’an, but rather to the Preserved Tablet (al-Lawh al-Mahfuz), as indicated by the verse:
“There is no creature on earth nor bird that flies with its wings but are communities like you. We have neglected nothing in the Book. Then to their Lord they will be gathered.”
Dr. Abu ‘Asi adds that whoever denies the Sunnah is, whether knowingly or unknowingly, also denying the Qur’an itself, because Allah commanded the Prophet ﷺ to provide explanation (bayān), and explanation can only mean clarifying that which was not fully detailed in the Qur’an.
He supports this with the verse from Surah Al-Nahl:
“… And We revealed to you the Reminder so that you may explain to the people what has been revealed to them, and that they might reflect.”
He affirms that this explanation is a legislative function of the Prophet ﷺ, not merely a recitation of the Qur’an.
Among the absurd claims of the Quraniyyun, as cited by Dr. Salam, is their assertion that the Sunnah is not a form of divine revelation given by God to His Messenger ﷺ. They disregard the verse in Surah Al-Najm:
“Nor does he speak from [his own] desire. It is but a revelation revealed,”
as well as the logical impossibility that God would allow His Messenger to say anything contrary to His commands or prohibitions. They also ignore the verse in Surah Al-Haqqah:
“And if he had made up about Us some [false] sayings, We would have seized him by the right hand. Then We would have severed from him the aorta, and not one of you could have withheld [Us] from him.”
Generally speaking, looking back at the origins and history of the Quraniyyun movement, it was never widespread or dominant in any historical period. It remained limited to individuals rather than groups—until the modern era.
From an intellectual standpoint, the Quraniyyun can be divided into two types:
The first completely denies the Sunnah and rejects its authority in any form.
The second accepts certain elements of the Sunnah only when they align with reason, the modern age, or concepts of modernity.
However, the majority of those who follow this movement tend to reject the Sunnah entirely, making them closer to an extreme secularist stance in their approach to religious texts.
The Quraniyyun also claim that the delayed documentation of hadith raises doubts about its reliability, especially since the Qur’an was written down during the Prophet’s ﷺ lifetime, whereas the compilation of the Sunnah took decades. They pose questions like:
Why did the Prophet forbid writing down hadith in some narrations?
Why was hadith not transmitted with mass-level tawatur like the Qur’an?
They also argue that the documentation standards set by hadith scholars are insufficient, in their view, to guarantee protection from fabrication or sectarian bias.
The Quraniyyun’s skepticism about the recording of Prophetic hadith during the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stems from a narration found in Sahih al-Jami‘, in which Abu Sa‘id Al-Khudri reported that the Prophet ﷺ said:
“Do not write anything from me except the Qur’an. Whoever has written anything else should erase it. Narrate from me, and there is no harm. And whoever deliberately lies about me, let him take his seat in the Fire.”
They ignore the fact that this directive from the Prophet ﷺ was issued only in the early stages, and that his prohibition was specifically against writing hadith in the same document as the Qur’an, in order to prevent confusion or mixing that might mislead the reader.
But after the Qur’an was firmly memorized and documented by the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), this concern was no longer present.
Later on, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ permitted the writing of his hadith. In Musnad Ahmad, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘As said:
“I used to write down everything I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, intending to memorize it. But Quraysh forbade me, saying: ‘Do you write everything while the Messenger of Allah speaks in anger and in pleasure?’ So I stopped writing until I mentioned it to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He said: ‘Write, for by the One in whose hand is my soul, nothing comes out of me except the truth.’”
So why do the Quraniyyun mention the initial prohibition and ignore the later permission?
In the same episode of the Mawazin program, Dr. Ahmad Sanobar, Professor of Hadith Sciences at 29 Mayıs University in Turkey, responds by saying that hadith scholars practiced objective criticism and were not influenced by sectarian biases.
He points out that they weakened hadiths praising figures believed to be respected within their own circles, and authenticated others despite theological differences.
Memorization at that time was the primary means of preservation. The Arabs possessed strong memories, lived in a distraction-free environment, and oral transmission was accompanied by revision and critical evaluation from an early stage.
The science of Hadith is considered one of the most precise and complex Islamic sciences to emerge in the history of the Muslim Ummah. It developed over centuries of scholarly accumulation and critical scrutiny, beginning with the generation of the Companions, then the Followers (Tābi‘īn), and later the great scholars of al-jarḥ wa al-ta‘dīl (the science of narrator criticism and evaluation).
Some modern thinkers—particularly those influenced by Orientalists—have claimed that this science arose due to political motivations and under the influence of ruling authorities, and that the Sunnah was not preserved according to the rigorous standards promoted in Hadith collections.
However, an objective look at the pathways of Hadith transmission, its geographical spread, and the history of its compilation shows that such assumptions cannot withstand the rigorous scientific methodology applied by Muslim scholars in their critique of both the texts and their narrators.
But if this claim were true, then Sham (Greater Syria)—the political center of the Umayyad Caliphate—would logically have been the primary hub for Hadith transmission, given its proximity to the seat of power.
Yet the reality was quite the opposite.
The cities of Medina, Kufa, and Basra were far more active as centers of Hadith transmission. These regions, being relatively distant from political authority, allowed for the development of a more neutral scholarly environment dedicated to verification and precision.
A particularly sensitive issue—often raised by Orientalists and some contemporary critics—is the question of trusting the Companions who were involved in the major civil conflicts (fitan).
However, the Islamic scholarly approach views the matter from a different perspective. Despite the ijtihād-based disagreements and political disputes among the Companions, their integrity as transmitters of Hadith remained intact. They continued to narrate from one another, and their Hadiths were accepted—unless there was concrete reason to doubt their reliability.
One of the most profound statements summarizing this balanced approach is the saying of some scholars:
“We trust them because they fought, not in spite of their fighting,”
emphasizing that their truthfulness and piety are what drove them to strive and even fight for what they believed to be right—not because they were motivated by personal desire or worldly gain.
This perspective reflects a deep and realistic understanding of the civil strife, avoiding emotional judgments or political projections, and instead anchoring itself in a high moral and scholarly standard.
In this same context, Ibn ‘Abbas told ‘Urwah ibn Al-Zubayr that Abu Bakr and ‘Umar knew the Prophet ﷺ better than he did, in response to a disagreement on certain issues. This narration not only highlights the superior knowledge of the Companion generation but also affirms the ongoing scholarly dialogue across generations, despite differences in interpretation. It also reflects the humility of the scholars and their eagerness to seek the truth from those who preceded them—free of arrogance or narrow-mindedness.
Another crucial point worth noting is the pivotal role of Imam Mālik ibn Anas in the compilation of Hadith, particularly through his monumental work Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ. This book was not merely a collection of narrations, but the result of a precise methodology that combined narration and jurisprudence, transmission and critical analysis. It underwent rigorous vetting by Imam Mālik, who was renowned for his piety and meticulousness in accepting Hadith.
Thus, Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ stands as a practical testament to the seriousness and integrity of the first generation of Hadith scholars in organizing and preserving this science.
The mere existence of Hadith collections is not sufficient to determine the authenticity of the Prophetic Sunnah unless the reader understands a highly precise science known as ‘Ilm al-‘Ilal (the Science of Hidden Defects), which traces any potential flaws in the chains of narration (isnads) and the texts (matn) of hadiths.
Anyone unfamiliar with this science cannot speak about Hadith scholarship as a specialist, for it is this science that distinguishes between a hadith that appears sound in its chain and one that contains subtle defects discernible only to expert critics.
Not every hadith with a sound chain is necessarily judged to be fully authentic. The text must also be examined, narratives compared, and the conditions of the narrators assessed—including their dates of birth, when they heard hadith, and when they transmitted it.
It is this rigorous critical methodology that has made Hadith science unique among all historical sciences, in both its precision and strict criteria. Even some fair-minded Orientalists have acknowledged that Muslims developed a system for evaluating narrations that no other civilization had ever achieved.
Still, such recognition was not without contradiction, as a stream of Orientalist thought continued to cast doubt on the authenticity of Hadith collections and criticize their methodology using external standards that have no relation to the internal scholarly structure of Islamic tradition.
This skepticism often carried with it a deeply rooted distrust, sometimes stemming from religious, political, or elitist motives, viewing the Islamic tradition as a field ripe for attack and devaluation.
Nevertheless, it is ironic that Orientalism, despite its excesses, indirectly served Hadith scholarship by raising critical questions that prompted contemporary Muslim scholars to return to their heritage, re-explain and authenticate it, and defend it through new methodological tools.
Orientalism, in a way, forced scholars of the Muslim world to deconstruct its claims, compare methodologies, and highlight the superiority of the Islamic system of documentation, sparking a renewed scholarly awareness.
Thus, a fair-minded look at the history of the Prophetic Sunnah shows that it was never a chaotic body of narratives, nor the product of authoritarian manipulation. Rather, it was the fruit of collective scholarly effort, subject to strict verification, and the result of rigorous authentication processes by generations of scholars who dedicated their lives to distinguishing the sound from the weak, the connected from the disconnected, the accepted from the rejected.
Furthermore, the relationship between politics and religion was not a cause for corruption in Hadith, but often a reason for heightened critical vigilance, pushing scholars to tighten the standards of authentication out of fear of inadvertently supporting political propaganda.
What sets Hadith science apart is that it emerged in an environment that regarded speech as a trust, narration as a responsibility, and transmission from the Prophet ﷺ as a sacred covenant—accepted only from the trustworthy and only after critical scrutiny.
This realization should prompt us to rethink the many superficial claims that accuse Hadith tradition of fabrication without engaging it fairly or understanding the intricate sciences it entails.
For true critique must come from within the discipline itself. Anyone who criticizes from outside its framework issues judgments based not on scholarly tools, but on assumptions, misunderstandings, or ideological bias.
Hence, defending the Sunnah is not a matter of slogans, but of knowledge, investigation, and exposing the falsity of allegations with a critical awareness that distinguishes between legitimate scholarly critique and malicious attack, between methodological questioning and ideological hostility.
The Prophetic Sunnah is not merely a religious inheritance, but a comprehensive epistemological system grounded in an unmatched documentation tradition—one that the Muslim Ummah rightfully takes pride in.
It is enough to note that Islamic history includes scholars who devoted their entire lives to tracing narrators, collecting different chains of transmission, and differentiating the authentic from the weak—something unparalleled in any other civilization.
Dr. Abdul Jabbar Saeed, Professor of Sunnah and its Sciences at the College of Sharia at Qatar University, went even further in the same Mawazin episode, arguing that the Quraniyyun movement is being exported and supported by Western research centers aiming to deconstruct Islam from within, by targeting its Sunnah and legal foundations.
He points out that many Quraniyyun conferences are held in Western capitals, and that the most prominent figures of this movement reside in Europe and the United States, receiving financial and moral support to promote their ideas.
However, Dr. Sanobar prefers to focus on the intellectual motivations of the movement rather than just its political dimension. He notes that the Quraniyyun blame the decline of the Muslim world on heritage in general and the Sunnah in particular, ignoring the economic, political, and colonial factors that led to the collapse of educational and scholarly institutions in the Islamic world.
They also overlook the historical superiority of Islamic civilization, which preserved the sciences of Hadith for centuries across vast regions of the globe.
Still, the Quraniyyun movement faces enormous challenges—not only from traditional religious institutions but from practical reality itself, as many details of worship and transactions simply cannot be derived from the Qur’an alone. This makes their rejection of the Sunnah not merely a theoretical debate, but a practical impossibility.
In Surah An-Nur, a group of people is mentioned who claim to believe in Allah and His Messenger, yet they turn away from the judgment of Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. Their only justification for this attitude is doubt in Allah and His Messenger—a clear indication of a lack of true faith. Allah says in Surah An-Nur:
“They say, ‘We believe in Allah and the Messenger, and we obey’; then a party of them turns away after that. And those are not believers.
And when they are called to Allah and His Messenger to judge between them, at once a party of them turns aside.
But if the right is theirs, they come to him in submission.
Is there disease in their hearts, or have they doubted, or do they fear that Allah and His Messenger will be unjust to them? Rather, it is they who are the wrongdoers.
The only statement of the [true] believers when they are called to Allah and His Messenger to judge between them is that they say, ‘We hear and we obey.’ And those are the successful.”
Among the Quraniyyun’s grave misguidances, as noted by Dr. Salam, is their claim that “the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—his words and actions—does not have universal relevance across time and place.” Dr. Salam refutes this claim, stating that “what matters is the generality of the wording, not the specificity of the context.”
He adds that “saying the Sunnah is limited to the era of the Prophet ﷺ and his companions necessarily leads to the same claim about the Qur’an itself. But would any Muslim accept that the Book of Allah has an expiration date or geographic limit for its application? What then would remain of Islam?”
Dr. Salam repeatedly emphasizes that “the Sunnah is essential to the Qur’an. Both are indispensable to the religion. Just as Allah preserved His Book, He also preserved the Sunnah that explains and elaborates on it.” He further asserts that the Quraniyyun movement, “in all its forms, is outside the fold of Islam, sinful against the faith, even if it claims to be Islamic and associates itself with the Qur’an—its claim is false. They disbelieve in the Qur’an at the very moment they disbelieve in the Sunnah, for there is no separation between the Qur’an and the Sunnah—they both originate from the same divine light: the infallible revelation.”
And how do the Quraniyyun ignore Allah’s words in Surah Al-Ahzab:
“Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men, but [he is] the Messenger of Allah and the seal of the prophets. And ever is Allah, of all things, Knowing.”
If they truly believed that Muhammad ﷺ is the final prophet and messenger, how could they suppose that his words would be lost? Is this not a denial of Allah’s promise to preserve His message? Can it be imagined that Allah would allow His final message to be lost?
And what about Allah’s declaration in Surah Al-Ma’idah:
“… This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as your religion …”
Anyone who harbors doubts about any aspect of the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ should not pass judgment before rolling up their sleeves and studying the vast and intricate sciences of Hadith under the guidance of qualified scholars, in accordance with Allah’s command in Surah Al-Nahl:
“… So ask the people of knowledge if you do not know.”
Taqi al-Din Abu ‘Amr ‘Uthman ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Uthman ibn Musa al-Kurdi al-Shahrazuri al-Mawsili al-Shafi‘i, in his well-known book ‘Ulum al-Hadith (commonly referred to as Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salah), outlines sixty-five types of Hadith sciences, including:
Hadith terminology (Mustalah al-Hadith)
Hidden defects (‘Ilal)
Narrator evaluation (Jarh wa Ta‘dil)
Jurisprudence of Sunnah (Fiqh al-Sunnah)
Rare or obscure terms in Hadith (Gharib al-Hadith)
Methodologies of the Hadith scholars (Manahij al-Muhaddithin)
As for those who cling to the ground and whose low ambition keeps them seated, let them restrain their tongues—for the Sunnah of the Messenger ﷺ is a treasure overflowing with wisdom and noble character. Allah says in Surah Al-Ahzab:
“O Prophet, indeed We have sent you as a witness and a bringer of good tidings and a warner,
And one who invites to Allah, by His permission, and an illuminating lamp.”
