Hassan Ilyas Sahabs Post On Tawatur
Did the imams use ijma n tawatur as the criteria to endorse what is sunnah and what is not or they based their opinion on popular ahadiths circulating during their time? For example, growing beard, length of trousers above ankles etc are included at sunnah. On what bases, they decided what is deen what is not? How did they know which part of deen is obligatory, highly recommended, recommended (sunnat), optional (nafl), not recommended (makru) and forbidden? Was Fiquah not enacted as a low of the state, which people had no choice but to follow? What is the possibility that many bidah we see today were actually introduced by the islamic states who followed a particular school of thought and as a result became ijma n tawatur? In malaysia, all masjidz are under the state and all of them raise hand and prayer after they rise from ruku in the 2nd unit of fajr prayers. This is ijma n tawatur in malaysia with no variation among masjidz. This is an example how bidah is added i guess Was there any recorded history before the imams that can help us separate what is deen and what is not in fiquah? Will appreciate if anyone can answer my questions
What if fiquah is the one that turned a ritual into ijma n tawatur. What basis other than popularity of a particular ritual i muslims could they have probably used for classification of different acts that were being practiced by muslims into 5 or so categories from obligatory to haram?
I think we’re beating around the bush. Everything you said above has no effect on ijma and tawatur being the most reliable means of transfer of knowledge through generations, and it’s utility to trace back in time and find any corruptions. The first 100 years being undocumented was a natural phenomenon – that’s exactly how it should have panned out, but that’s a different debate. If you claim that something was changed, then you should substantiate that claim with an evidence. Just keep in mind that any credible evidence that you can bring forth, will only help to strengthen the utility of ijma and tawatur.
I agree that tawatur is the most reliable source of validating a historical practice but that is far from perfection. There is a significant risk that the beliefs and practices being followed thru generations were corrupted through intervention of state or other influencers. It’s not fair to claim that Quran and sunnah both reached us thru tawatur and therefore have the same level of authenticity. Quran was documented and learned by heart from the day one while sunnah remained undocumented for over 100 years and then state intervened and added and revived many ‘dead’ sunnah practices and rolled them out as tawatur. Many of them were identified and removed in Mazaaz by using ‘established historical facts’. However, no established historical fact can be more reliable than ijma and tawatur coz that is also a established fact. It is also hard to find a established fact against tawatur. Even if you find something like that, it’s hard to say what can be considered as established history. Many historically wrong facts are taught in primary school text books that become part of our collective knowledge and we belief it’s a established history. e g. all along i thought Pakistan won the 1965 war but now i found out the answer who won the war is not so simple and straight forward. All religions including Islam has suffered from tragedy of corruption in tawatur. It’s hard to correct such corruptions based on a story from a historian as those stories maybe fabricated for political or other motives. Quran also objects on the tawatur people continue following without validating it against the divine books and sanity. We should use the same criteria to correct tawatur – quran and sanity check. In summary: Tawatur is best but still prone to corruptions Quran is far more reliable than sunnah that reached us thru ‘tawatur’ Quran and sanity checks must be applied to correct sunnah practices not ‘established history’ or other historical stories.