Prophet Muhammed and the definition of "Sunnah"

by Nawaz A. Raheem

Sunnah is a behavioural concept - whether applied to mental or physical acts and denotes not merely a single act as such but in so far as this act is actually repeated or potentially repeatable.

A Sunnah is not just a law of behaviour but a normative moral law: the element of moral "ought" is an insuperable part of the meaning of the concept of Sunnah. In its original sense, therefore, Sunnah indicates the doings and Hadith the sayings of the Holy Prophet, Hadith being the narration and record of the Sunnah but containing, in addition various prophetical and historical elements.

According to the view dominant among more recent western scholars, Sunnah denotes the actual practice which, through being long established over successive generations, gains the status of normativeness and become "Sunnah".

This theory seems to make actual practice - over a period - not only temporarily but also logically prior to the element of normativeness and to make the latter rest on the former.

It is obvious that this view derives its plausibility from the fact that since "Sunnah" is a behavioural concept, what is actually practiced in a society over a long period, is considered not only its actual practice but also its normative practice.

This is especially true of strongly cohesive societies like the tribal ones. But surely, these practices could not have been established in the first place unless ab initio they were considered normative.

Sunnah and Hadith are the secondary sources from which the teachings of Islam are drawn. The content of Prophetic Sunnah did not exist outside the Quranic pronouncement on legal or moral issues.

Indeed, the Quran speaks, in more than one place of the "Sunnah" of God that it is unalterable in connection with the moral forces governing the rise and fall of the communities and nations (Holy Quran 33.V 62; 35. V 43). Here it is only the ideality of the action pattern of one being, Viz God, that is involved.

Now the same Quran speaks of the "exemplary" conduct of the Prophet (33. V 21). When the word of God calls the Prophet's character "exemplary" and "great" is it difficult to believe that from the very inception the Muslims should not have accepted it as a concept?

There is a prevailing two - fold criticism by the Western scholars, firstly that Sunnah and Hadith are a collection of the behaviour patterns of the Arabs in general - stretching back even to pre-Islamic times. Secondly that a need for recording the doings (Sunnah) and sayings (Hadith) of the Holy Prophet may have been felt only after his demise.

Among the modern Western scholars, Ignez Goldziher, the first great perceptive student of the evolution of the Muslim Tradition (although occasionally uncritical of his own assumptions) had maintained that immediately after the advent of the Prophet his practice and conduct had come to constitute the Sunnah for the young Muslim community and the identity of pre-Islamic Arab Sunnah had come to cease.

After Goldziher, however, this picture imperceptibly changed. The Dutch Scholar Snuck Hurgronje, held that Muslims themselves added to the Sunnah of the Prophet until almost all products of Muslim thought and practice, came to be justified as the Sunnah of the Prophet.

Certain other notable authorities like Professor H. Lammens and Dr. D.S. Margoliouth of Oxford came to regard the Sunnah as being entirely the work of the Arabs, both pre-Islamic and post-Islamic the continuity between the periods having been stressed.

The concept of the Sunnah of the Prophet was both explicitly and implicitly rejected. Joseph Schacht in his 'Origins of Mohammedan Jurisprudence' seeks to maintain that the concept "Sunnah of the Prophet" is a relatively late concept and that for the early generations of the Muslims Sunnah meant the practice of the Muslims themselves.

This development in Western Islamic studies is consequent upon the conceptual confusion with regard to Sunnah.

The reason why these scholars have rejected the concept of Prophetic Sunnah is that they have found that greater part of the content of the Sunnah was the result of the free thinking activity of the early legists of Islam who, by their personal Ijthihad (Judgement) had made a deduction from existing Sunnah.

Further, especially in the second and in the third centuries, the whole content of the early Sunnah comes to be verbally attributed to the Prophet himself under the aegis of the concept of the "Sunnah of the Prophet".

The above assumptions are essentially correct about the development of Sunnah as such and not about the concept of the "Sunnah of the Prophet".

The Sunnah of the Prophet was a valid and operative concept from the very beginning of Islam and remained so throughout. Indeed, during the life - time of the Prophet, it was perfectly natural for the Muslims to talk about what the Prophet did or said, especially in a public capacity.

The Arabs, who memorized and handed down poetry of their poets, sayings of their soothsayers and statements of their judges and tribal leaders, cannot be expected to fail to notice and narrate the deeds and sayings of one whom they acknowledge as the Prophet of God. Rejection of this natural phenomenon is tantamount to a grave irrationality, a sin against history.

The Sunnah of the Prophet was much too important to be either ignored or neglected. This fact is just out like a restive rock in the religious history of Islam, and any religious or historical attempt to deny it is a ridiculous frivolity: the Sunnah of the community is based upon, and has its source only in the Sunnah of the Prophet.