Sunnah: Encyclopedia - Sunnah

Sunnah

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Sunnah (Arabic: سنة) means “way” or “custom”, and therefore, the sunnah of the prophet means “the way of the prophet”, or what is commonly known as the Prophet’s traditions. Terminologically, the word ‘Sunnah’ in Sunni Islam means the deeds, sayings and approvals of Muhammad during the 23 years of his ministry, and this means that whatever he did during his ministry as a prophet and messenger of Allah is considered a sunnah, which Muslims are recommended to follow. In Shi'a Islam, the word 'Sunnah' means the deeds, sayings and approvals of Muhammad and the twelve Imams who Shi'a Muslims believe were chosen by Allah to succeed the prophet and to lead mankind in every aspect of life.

Sunnah - Legality of Sunnah

The Sunnah, therefore, is the second source of Islamic law after the Qur'an, and is incorporated in many books of hadith.

The prophetic example of Sunnah is considered to be obligatory by most Muslims. A few Quran Alone Muslims follow only the Quran and reject all sunnah and hadith as sources for Divine Guidance or religious law. Many advocates of liberal movements within Islam claim that prophetic sunnah should be followed in matters of ritual and worship, but may be questioned in the case of Islamic law.

Sunnah - Sunnah and Hadith

The Sunnah is the way or deeds of Muhammad in Sunni Islam, and the way or deeds of Muhammad and the twelve Imams in Shi'a Islam, while Hadith is a collection of the narrations and approvals. The two words are interchangeable when referring to the Traditions, but actually there is a difference between the two. Hadiths are classified according their status, in relation to their texts (matn) and their chain of transmitters (isnad). Scholars of Hadiths have studied the Sunnah from their context (matn) as well as from their transmitters (isnad) in order to establish what is true and what is false from these hadiths. These were influential in the development of early Muslim philosophy and modern scientific citation.

Through research on the transmitters of Hadith (isnad), scholars of the science of Hadith came up with the system of knowing the different categories of Hadith, and how to evaluate the text (matn) in order to establish if the text is correct, good, weak, or false. There is a tradition both of historical biography (Ilm ar-Rijal) of Muhammad and of validating hadith — isnah or “backing”.

Sunnah - Sunnah and Fiqh

Sunnah must be made distinct from both fiqh, which are opinions of the classical jurists, and the Qur’an, which is revelation, not record. It is one of many terms in Islam which are difficult to translate out of Arabic without loss of meaning. History further complicates the translation since different assumptions about sunnah dominated Islam in past eras.

Sunnah - Early Sunni Scholars

Early Sunni scholars often considered the Sunnah as being equivalent to the sira, as the hadith were poorly validated, and contemporary commentators on Muhammad’s life were better known. As the hadith came to be better documented, and the scholars who validated them gained in prestige, the sunnah came to be known mostly through the hadith, especially as variant or fictional biographies of Muhammad spread, in part from the Christian world, some of them very slanderous. Classical Islam often equates the sunnah with the hadith.

Sunnah - Modern Sunni Scholars

Modern Sunni scholars are beginning to examine both the sira and the hadith, with an eye to justifying modifications to the fiqh, or jurisprudence, which was largely drawn from past interpretations of both. The sunnah in one form or another would retain its central role in providing both a moral example (sira) and ethical guidance via Muhammad’s own social rules (hadith) in Sunni Islam, and via Muhammad and the twelve Imams in Shi'a Islam.

See also

• sira
• hadith
• fiqh
• isnah
• Ilm ar-Rijal
• bida

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Sunnah", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki