Where Do We Get Sunnah From?
So, if there arises a difference of opinion then, the importance of that particular act would be no more as a Fard? If so, that is very questionable way of defining Sunnah, imo. Moreover, the example of Ismaili fellow having totally different perspective of offering Salah would make it a perfect example that even rukoo/sujood/qayaam are not Fard. Hence, there must be a record of clear cut instructions issued by Prophet PBUH if you call Sunnah a source of Islam. Thanks
How do we learn prayer fasting Hajj etc in the first place ? Do we consult some book or acquire it from out parents and community around us? This is where we get Sunnah. Now comes the problem that if some bidat or innovation is passed as well from some point of time . Here a documented proof helps us . Sunnah is being recorded too but these documented proofs comes secondary to prove anything Sunnah. They are rather used in our school to disprove something is not Sunnah.
Holy Prophet(pbuh) was the authority in deen and he gave islamic teachings to the community and not individuals. He gave deen in two forms : quran and sunnat(call it whatever you want. Quran calls it milaat e ibrahimi). Now community transfered this practical nature of deen generations after generations. This amli tawatur has to be from day 1. today you might see our community transferring some supposed deeni amal in this way but its origin might be from some hadith(which is akhbar ahad) ; this cant be considered as deen since holy prophet didnt teach islam to individuals. He conveyed every injunction of deen to the whole community and he had 23 years for that. Now rafa yaden is not transfered to us by ijma. That is why there is ikhtilaaf in it. But there is no disagreement in deen. Nobody disagrees in 5 prayers or their rakats. Bcz generations have transfered this to us. Nobody has learnt this from hadith. You wouldnt ask for hadith reference if someone tells you to pray 4 farz rakat for asar. Now if something is farz, it is transfered to us as farz. we all know what are farz and what are nafal.