Sunnah Tawatur And Ijma
Ijma and tawatur contain Sunnah but all ijma and tawatur is not Sunnah. There are other factors that need to be considered in principle when establishing something as Deen. We need to first discuss principles of Sunnah because I am getting this feeling that we are considering all of ijma+Tawatur = Sunnah, which is not the case always. Please give it a read, just for a refresher and then we’ll talk about issue of beard. Discussion 56177
The confusion stems from equating the Ijma and Tawatur of Christians with that of Muslims. For an Ijma/Tawatur to be held valid it is important that the transmission (from original source) is carried out by a population so overwhelming in numbers that the concept/idea/text they’re forwarding to forthcoming generation is rendered completely secure without any shred of doubt. In case of Christians, when Jesus (AS) left this world, he had but 12 followers (his apostles). It was not until 300 years later that Christianity gained a considerable number of followers (Roman Empire’s adoption of Christianity as state’s religion). Therefore, interpolation of Christian scripture became inevitable since there was a significant gap in history (between Jesus (AS)’s departure and the adoption of Christianity by a significant population). During this period there existed no consensus (by a significant population) who could verify what they’ve received is uncorrupted and whatever was passed on to forthcoming generations was done either by Christian individuals or small groups of Christians. This, however, was not the case with Muslims. Even when Prophet(pbuh) was alive whole of the Arabian peninsula had embraced Islam, his last sermon is estimated to have been attended by over 100,000 Muslims. It is due to this overwhelming amount of Muslims who transmitted the message directly from the source ( Prophet(pbuh) ) to the forthcoming generations, that there remains no doubt regarding the historicity of the message that we have received.