Wow, Muslim Karaites. (Sad, you see? would be a good theological pun-allusion here.)

Shaheen, the simplest question usually addressed to those who desire that path (of avoiding the hadith, despite the warnings (in the hadith!) of avoiding the Prophet's words - while the Qur'an says: "if you love Allah, follow the Prophet; Allah will love you, forgive your sins, and Allah is the Clement and Merciful One":

the simplest question is, the Qur'an specifies five prayer times: How should we pray, what form should that take, and how does the Qur'an specify that? It doesn't, and so absolutely the Salat/Namaz must be taken from the hadith - rejecting the corpus en toto is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I would not argue with the need for classically liberal muslims who are frustrated with the culturally staid and formally rigid scholars/ 'mad mullahs' (or the "bearded monsters" as an Indian friend describes them)... but has the classical liberal muslim crowd much more to offer intellectually, in Desiland-India/Pakistan or the Arab world? Secular nationalism seems to have run aground, ethnic and tribal identies seem resurgent as a reaction to globalism - what Amy Chua described as a "World on Fire" - and left-wing/communism/atheist secularism are all complete misfits... I should like to see some liberal, social democrat, secular (not atheistic, mind you) opposition to the 'mad mullahs' in Pakistan - but where are the sane and intelligent ones who can answer the lunatics, and refute them from their own texts?

last to Matthew: 'Karaites' is logical, but the corpus of the Talmud stands in a different relation to the Torah than the Hadith does to the Quran - not to mention that the Jews themselves say the Torah we have now was written in Babylon from what scraps and memories the Jews had of the Temple Torah - it would be better to compare the Talmud to the Tafsir and theological/philosophical texts composed by medieval muslims.

The hadith have their own internal and external critics, but one can criticize (hide-bound and literalist) interpretation, or (bigoted and anachronistic) practices based on mis-readings of the Qur'an or hadith, without rejecting the source texts themselves. Where are the faithful intellectuals to do so, after Dr. Fazlur Rahman (to name one, whose faith and intellect were both sound)?

Dawud,

without wanting to go too deep in the theological debate (it wasn't my point): avoiding the hadith, despite the warnings (in the hadith!) of avoiding the Prophet's words - while the Qur'an says: "if you love Allah, follow the Prophet; Allah will love you, forgive your sins, and Allah is the Clement and Merciful One"

That verse is usually interpreted differently by Quranists (you follow the prophet's leadership when he was alive, or you follow him by following the Quran - in any case, following the Hadith, since they are considered fabrications, is not considered following the prophet). In addition to that, the emphasis is put differently from the Sunnis. Where the Sunnis insist on that verse (and the Hadiths which cames centuries later as the only way to follow the prophet), Quranists insist on those verses which explicitly forbid to follow any other hadith besides the Quran or to blindly follow other human beings.

the Qur'an specifies five prayer times

Actually it doesn't, it barely mentions only two or three, according to different understandings (Sunni included). The Sunna specifies the rest (form, number, details...). I'd let you debate that one with Quranists if you're interested, but to sum up the usual points of view, they either reinvented many different ways to pray, or they simply kept the Sunni way without considering it mandatory (absence of specification being equated with flexibility).

I would not argue with the need for classically liberal muslims...

I'm not sure I understand your point on that paragraph, so I would just insist on the distinction between Quranists (the main topic of this entry, a religious sect/branch whose adherents can be liberals or not) and Liberals.

Great post, very interesting. But what did you mean about them not finding their target audience? I didn't really get your point here. Who are they talking to, then -- themselves, or non-Muslims?

Oh, and I think Qadhafi has at some point declared that Hadith should be ignored too? He always was ahead of his time.

alle, I haven't seen organized proselytizing really - this is still a rather spontaneous unorganized branch. That said, through Internet, since that's the main vehicle of proto-organization of its adherents (including for those who shared such "proto-ideas" prior to the mass adoption of the WWW) - they seem to speak to a general audience and define themselves against Sunnism.

That is ok, but, if there's some intention, at some point, to proselytize, and become some mainstream branch of Islam, chances are most of their converts are going to come from within Islam. The potential market is among those Muslims who are not fully confortable with the Sunna, or don't have a good conscience about not being good practicing Muslims (understand: good practicing Sunnis), yet do not make that leap of abandoning their faith or identity. In terms of potential market size, this is probably your average non traditionalist or fully practicing (like praying 5 times a day on time/don't drink/fast/no sex before marriage/etc.) Muslim. At least a significant proportion - if not a majority - in those Arab countries which are often thought to be the most "Westernized" or "Liberal" (a terrible abuse of language, but practical for the lazy shortcut it provides here).

I wrote before about how the weak stance of Arab Liberals on national causes didn't help them catch a better share of the ideological market (most obvious examples being Israel/Palestine, Iraq, etc.). The same kind of weakness might be of disservice to this sect (though to be fair, you see it less today than right in the post 9/11 heat peak).

So I wouldn't dismiss the idea that countries like Tunisia or Lebanon (its Muslim/Sunni part) could even have majorities adhering to such a branch of Islam, or Morocco/Egypt/Jordan have significant populations of them, as long as this is not perceived to be some import threatening their Arab/Muslim identities, weakening them or dividing them on their national causes or as a synonymous for Western lackeyism.

I would like to take issue with this article when it says 'many Quranis would put the emphasis on the Quran’s first command (“educate yourself”) and its call for individual reason in interpretation as opposed to imitation for example'

The Quran doesn't have a 'first command' because the 'first revelation' is a historical opinion and therefore unquranic (I'm presuming the article points to 'iqra' and interprets it to mean 'read').

Speaking as a long-time Quranist, I must assert that the Quran resists these 'pillar' formulations very much. The 5-pillars of Islam, if one looks into the Quran, is but a myth.

Rather, I would suggest looking into strongly worded commands like 'have you not seen those who DENY ad-deen' (107/1)

Another comment I have is to respond to Mr Hogan who said 'the simplest question is, the Qur'an specifies five prayer times: How should we pray, what form should that take, and how does the Qur'an specify that? It doesn't, and so absolutely the Salat/Namaz must be taken from the hadith - rejecting the corpus en toto is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.'

My response: Yes, the Quran doesn't specify how to pray but is as-salaat 'prayers'? Sir, I humbly ask you to look through how the Quran uses the word and you will find the ritual prayer to be but another myth incorporated into Islam.

Sunnis often ask me, 'the Quran doesnt teach our prayers so how do you pray'. My succinct answer is : Yes the Quran doesn't teach me how to pray so why would I bother with the 'how'?

I would question your evaluation of throwing out hadith as 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater'. The Quran is such a book that it protects its exclusive rights to author our religion. It doesn't consider any other source of information as authoritative at all. I am not relying on the exegesis of an obscure exegete on a single miscontextualised verse to assert this. That would be akin to feeling a drop of water on one's hand during a clear sky and claiming a monsoon is here. No, the Quran rather actually shows a monsoon like assertion on its exclusivity. At any random point, it will assert to you that it is all you need for the role it asserts.

thank you.

Another comment I have is to respond to Mr Hogan who said 'the simplest question is, the Qur'an specifies five prayer times: How should we pray, what form should that take, and how does the Qur'an specify that? . . . .

For the record, Dawud asked that, not me.

The above post is mine, fyi.

One last comment. Mr Hogan wrote 'The hadith have their own internal and external critics, but one can criticize (hide-bound and literalist) interpretation, or (bigoted and anachronistic) practices based on mis-readings of the Qur'an or hadith, without rejecting the source texts themselves. Where are the faithful intellectuals to do so, after Dr. Fazlur Rahman (to name one, whose faith and intellect were both sound)?'

I would highly question Fazlur Rahman's soundness of intellect as he asked the question 'And if all hadith are given up, what remains but a YAWNING CHASM of 14 centuries between us and the prophet?'

This question betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the Quran. The Quran doesn't consider any information beyond itself to be necessarily credible, let alone vital. Rather, what Sunnis fear of losing are cultural manifesations of a superficialised version of Islam. In this version of Islam, for example, 'salaat' is reduced to a mechanical ritual whereas in the Quran , as-salaat refers to a state of divine connection, generated by the choice of one's actions.

The Quran must be allowed to outlay and explain it's own system of interpretation and this it does extremely well. There is no yawning chasm , dramatic as it may sound, as Fazlur asserts.

Farouk A. Peru
fa_peru@yahoo.com

Ah, my apologies. I confused your names there and once more again.

Very interesting topic. I myself am a Koranist. I think the real issue is should Koranist focus their efforts on Sunni Muslims or on non Muslims. After all other than Sunni/Shia Muslims, who else asks the question "how do you then pray?". The leap from Sunni Islam to being a Koranist is a big one. I am not sure the Arabs would leave a traditional oriented Islam that Sunnism represents. Many hadiths are Arab like and goes with their cultures. But whats important is Koranist ensure that Sunni/Shia Islam not remain the only spokespeople for the prophet Muhammad. Koranist need to make the world know the difference between Koran and Sunni/Shia Islam. Then at least they have kept the Koranic message independent of traditional Muslims. The author talked about the internet. I think this is true, the Koranist are only found in the net. It is still in its infancy. But whats important is the koranist movement is not over zealous like the Salafi brand which burned out upon examination. It couldn't maintain itself and overexposed itslef. The koranist are moving slowly, which is good.

The author talked about not having a national cause to rally people around. It is impossible for the Koranist to have a national cause as the Koran does not promote one. I find most Koranist as fair and would support any cause that is just and not simply side with "Muslims" against others. The Koranist don't see the world as us versus them and therfore they can not be compared with Arab nationalism or Sunni'Shia sectarianism.

What the Koranist now need is some more publicity. Religious discourse is dominated by states who are all sectarian. There are no Koranist society that have political influence at a state level. The Sunnis naturally fear the Koranist and try to distrubt them. Working from the West is a good idea. I don't think that the label "Western" would stick with the Koranist since the West did not author the koran and have never been known to even support it. How can the Koran be labeled Western?

Very interesting topic. I myself am a Koranist. I think the real issue is should Koranist focus their efforts on Sunni Muslims or on non Muslims. After all other than Sunni/Shia Muslims, who else asks the question "how do you then pray?". The leap from Sunni Islam to being a Koranist is a big one. I am not sure the Arabs would leave a traditional oriented Islam that Sunnism represents. Many hadiths are Arab like and goes with their cultures. But whats important is Koranist ensure that Sunni/Shia Islam not remain the only spokespeople for the prophet Muhammad. Koranist need to make the world know the difference between Koran and Sunni/Shia Islam. Then at least they have kept the Koranic message independent of traditional Muslims. The author talked about the internet. I think this is true, the Koranist are only found in the net. It is still in its infancy. But whats important is the koranist movement is not over zealous like the Salafi brand which burned out upon examination. It couldn't maintain itself and overexposed itslef. The koranist are moving slowly, which is good.

The author talked about not having a national cause to rally people around. It is impossible for the Koranist to have a national cause as the Koran does not promote one. I find most Koranist as fair and would support any cause that is just and not simply side with "Muslims" against others. The Koranist don't see the world as us versus them and therfore they can not be compared with Arab nationalism or Sunni'Shia sectarianism.

What the Koranist now need is some more publicity. Religious discourse is dominated by states who are all sectarian. There are no Koranist society that have political influence at a state level. The Sunnis naturally fear the Koranist and try to distrubt them. Working from the West is a good idea. I don't think that the label "Western" would stick with the Koranist since the West did not author the koran and have never been known to even support it. How can the Koran be labeled Western?

I am somewhere in the middle of all of this. I find many Sunnis revere Mohammad almost to the point of shirk (polytheism). Case in point is the recent post I did on my blog with a bunch of Sunnis going crazy over a supposed hair from the beard of the Prophet.

I also think there are many hadith out there, ones that are accepted by all schools, that seem to me to actually violate teachings, ideas and the spirit of The Qur'an. I have no doubt that many hadith are fabricated and came about as historical and political changes made to fit the time in which they were created.

However, I am not willing to throw it all out. I think for myself and hence reject anything I come across that violates The Qur'an and I dont care which scholar or which school says it is okay. At the end of the day I must stand before God on judgement day and answer for myself.

"However, I am not willing to throw it all out. I think for myself and hence reject anything I come across that violates The Qur'an and I dont care which scholar or which school says it is okay. At the end of the day I must stand before God on judgement day and answer for myself."

One thing you must ask yourself is "whose hadith are you to follow". All sects in Islam are sects because they have their own hadiths. Although I do understand your objective, it is not possible since the hadiths for the most part have a legal function intending on achieving a certain behavior or a certain act. You simply can not use subjective criteria to reject hadith since Sunni Muslims will say you are following your desires. Plus people would reject whichever hadith suits them and no two person will have the same criteria. Its not something that Koranist can do since it is not sustainable and make it without anything solid. I would look at hadith as an indication of how early Muslim societies evolved. But I would not look at it as something representing the prophet I guess what I am trying to say is you can not both a koranist and Sunni. They are different religions since the sources of their understanding differ. Thats why all Sunni scholars would not consider Koranist as Muslims. And for good reason since the two differ significantly. I do not see myself following the same religion as Sunni/Shia do. Which is why many Koranist do not bother emphasising propagating to Sunni/Shias rather then Jews, Christians or atheist. In fact I have many similarities with Christians who reject the trinity than I do with Sunnis.

Koranist,

You write "People would reject whichever hadith suits them......"

Maybe you wouldn't, I wouldn't. I don't judge a hadith by those terms. If I did I probably wouldn't be a member of any monotheist faith.

The fact is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all ban things that I personally like. So if picking a religion and what to follow in it was based on "what suits" me I'd probably have no religion at all.

Since what I follow is not based on things as arbitrary as this, I don't worry about it. As to what others do, which hadith they follow or don't, I don't really care. As long as they don't seek to impose it on me or others, I could care less.

Worrying too much about what others do, or don't do, is a huge problem today, no where more so than in Muslim communities.

I never claimed to be a "Koranist" nor do I really claim to be a "Sunni" although I find some things of merit in both ideas. I reject the idea put forward by yourself, and others, that I have to give myself a label of any kind.

I'd reject it from a Salafi extremists and I reject it from you.

When you say that "they are different religions since the sources of their understanding differ" you are basically pronouncing takfir on all Sunnis and Shi'a. If you are a Koranist and feel that YOU have the right view of religion and say Sunnis and Shi'a follow a different religion you are doing nothing different from radical Shi'ites and Salafi Sunnis.

When you start pronouncing takfir on other Muslims you have become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

What Islam needs is the mindset that some Christians do who call themselves and are accepted as "Non Denominational Christians". We need a "Non Denominational Muslim" movement to start, but if "Koranists" insist on your clearly described exclusivist ideas then they would again be part of the problem, not the solution.

Islam has enough groups, sects and people willing to pronounce themselves as the followers of the true religion and everyone else as kufar. Seems like "Koranists" are no different.

Dear Abu Sinan,

I salute you on your inclusivist stand. However, it doesn't seem to me that Koranist was suggesting that Sunnis and Shias were kafireen. Rather, they have different sources and different approaches.

To me, when Allah says the only deen in His sight in Al-Islaam, it doesn't necessarily exclusively refer to what we see in the world as 'islam'. Rather, 'al-islam' refers to the acquisition of salaam (peace, fulfilment) in this life and the next. This is divine philosophy and there are manys paths to this. Please see 29/69 where Allah acknowledges 'subulana' (our pathS, in plural).

It's all about personal conduct, not labels.

Koranist,

I didn't say Quranists need a national cause, I said they need to have firm stances on national issues.

For example, Quranists are quite critical of other Muslims regarding antisemtism or fundamentalism. That's good. If your objective is to please Westerners who share your views, you might be taking the right approach. If you really aim at having an impact among those you're criticizing, then being at least as vocal on other issues such as the roots underlying such phenomena is also needed.

I am not sure the Arabs would leave a traditional...

Dude, you need some education about "the Arabs". "the Arabs" is not a monolithical traditionalist minded herd.

Shaheen Bey,

Thanks for this, I normally hate religious discussions as they tend to fall into the flailing about or the hackneyed. I confess I have rather strong sympathies to Bou Snan's position, although perhaps with unorthodox ... something.

Regardless, my first reaction to the description - not one I have heard before, an Anglophone thing? - is this sounds rather like the Rationalist school, eh? Of course you know why I chose the name of this blog.

Shaheen, when I wrote about 'classically liberal muslims giving critique' - I meant of extremist and literalist lines of thinking, and by liberal muslims I mean muslims whose faith is Islam but who embrace free speech and free markets, as protecting both their rights and prosperity.

However, as a critique of hadith, though I'm not fully in agreement with the line that the Ankara theological school has taken in the past, I think the studies of hadith currently going-on are worth paying attention to:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/139433

Intellectually and theologically, a lot of the most ambitious work is being done by a group of scholars based in Ankara, Turkey, who expect to publish new editions of the Hadith before the end of the year. They have collected all 170,000 known narrations of the Prophet's sayings. These are supposed to record Muhammad's words and deeds as a guide to daily life and a key to some of the mysteries of the Qur'an. But many of those anecdotes came out of a specific historical context, and those who told the stories or, much later, recorded them, were not always reliable. Sometimes they confused "universal values of Islam with geographical, cultural and religious values of their time and place," says Mehmet Gormez, a theology professor at the University of Ankara who's working on the project. "Every Hadith narration has ... a context. We want to give every narration a home again."

Mehmet Aydin, who first conceived the Hadith project four years ago, when he was Turkey's minister of state for religious affairs, says it is obvious that in the seventh century, the time of the Prophet, life was very different. One Hadith, for instance, forbids women from traveling alone. In Saudi Arabia, this and other sayings are given as a reason women should not be allowed to drive. "This is clearly not a religious injunction but related to security in a specific time and place," says Gormez. In fact, the Prophet says elsewhere that he misses those days, evidently in his recent memory, when women could travel alone from Yemen to Mecca. In its first three centuries "Islam was interacting with Greek, Iranian and Indian cultures and at every encounter [scholars] reinterpreted Islam according to new conditions," says Gormez. "They were not afraid to rethink Islam then."

L.,

The reason I also don't want to go overly theological is because I dread an invasion of loons.

Family of yours truly is also an unorthodox version of Abu Sinan, with some members having shifted overtime to complete rejection of the Hadiths - though refusing the adoption of any denomination except "Muslim period", despite their views being quite often close to those expressed among many Quranists - so I'm biased in favor of Abu Sinan's inclusive position rather than the above nevrotic's.

Anglo phenomenon, mostly yes, in the sense of a(www semi-)organized denomination. Definitely majority Western Muslim so far. Though this branch appears to me to be the closest to the Rationalist school indeed, I'm unsure it deserves the label. Reading their websites, some of its adherents claim rationalism while being quite dogmatic frankly (I guess you can only expect your average human to be that). For some, part of their neo-mythology is that they're the heirs of the Muatazali school (which objectively hasn't left many historical prints as to its theology, so this could be more of a Wikipedia reader identification than a real understanding of that historical denomination).

So to sum up, as is, today, it is the most rational and individualist I'm aware of. It doesn't mean it is fully or will always be.

To me, it evokes protestantism in the 16th century, with few marginal xtian adherents rejecting certain kinds of obscurantism in their part of the world through religious reform. Where protestantism created new dynamics, including within other denominations, so could this one. And where protestantism evolved to have its own obscurantism, so could this one.

A critical factor of success at this infancy stage is, where Luther understood the need to support xtian defense against the Turks in parallel with his critic of his fellow xtians, so should the too many Quranists who haven't made that shift yet towards their fellow Muslims.

Dawud,

the Diyanet (the official Turkish Islamic authority) has already gone as far as abrogating a few mysoginist Hadiths. Such a positive step tends to confort my opinion that one of the worst disasters that befell on (Sunni) Islam was the demise of a credible califate with the authority to modernize on a continuous basis. Short of that, a strictly individualist, rationalist, branch which can do that work instead is needed.

Dawud quoted Mehmet Gormez, '"Every Hadith narration has ... a context. We want to give every narration a home again."

My response:

This is indeed how you play the hadeeth game. A hadeeth has several ways of being neutralised. You could come up with another one somewhere which abrogates it. You could get some random shiekh somewhere to say, 'I dont trust this narrator in the chain'. You could get someone to reclassify it on the pretext that the first classifier failed to take something in that event into account. It's a game, really.

I for one fail to see how we can discern 'God's will' when it is us humans who decided just what represents God's will.

Could I summarize, Shaheen, your view as "Quranists shouldn't include in their rejection of the wrongful traditionalism and obscurantism of Sunni and other Muslims an additional wrongful rejection of their legimitate rights and interests as communities that may be unduly oppressed, persecuted, or targeted."

Farouk,

When he wrote "I do not see myself following the same religion as Sunni/Shia do. " then it is a clear statement of takfir, unless you think "Koranist" thinks he is a following a religion other than Islam. It is very clear that "Koranist" thinks that he/she has the "right" version of Islam and the Sunni and Shi'a are practicing a different religion.

That is most certainly an open statement of takfir if I have ever heard one.

Anyway, I worry about any new religious line of thought because they usually end up adding more BS to the mix. It is clear from some here that Koranists can be just as exclusive as ultra extremist Salafists. That is something we can do without. Take a look at the "Wahhabist" (for lack of a better word) bent in Saudi. In the rush to destroy all "bid'ah" (innovation) in Islam they go ahead and remove some and add a lot of their own, all to suit their own particular cultural issues.

Muslim leaders need to wise and learn if they don't change their ways they stand to loose a whole generation of followers. The world is not small anymore, they cannot rely on the ignorance of the masses like they could before.

My wife and I keep our family as far away from most "Muslim" organisations as we can. We have found there is no quicker way to become disenfranchised with Islam than to spend too much time with Muslims!

If "Koranists" are anything like the guy above I'll be sure to avoid them with the same zeal I avoid the ultra Salafi loonies around.

Matthew, that, and that if they want to proselytize, then they better even be quite vocal in favor of those legitimate rights and interests.

I have to say I rather like Bou Snan's obs supra. That's very level headed. I think, though, with respect to the next to last obs, the issue is "there is no better way to hate a line of thought than to be around the drooling ideologues."

It can be religion, it can be politics - but beni Adam, beni Adam.

(PS: Hogan, you are a bad man, you really are.)

Lounsbury,

"Drooling ideologues". I like that, in our case they tend to drool onto their beards, then onto their abnormally short thiab.

Shaheen and Mathew,

It would be my opinion that if other Koranists are exclusive and takfiri in mindset as those seen here, it would be best if they didnt try to spread their views. The Sunni/Shi'a split is enough.

It might sound odd as a convert, but I am not big on missionary religions and I am certainly not the type to try and spead any religion.

In that I guess I am more Jewish in nature. I came to Islam via my own readings, not Muslims. Good thing, had I had a large interaction with Muslim communities and Arabs before I converted I would have ran the other direction!

LOL!

It would be my opinion that if other Koranists are exclusive and takfiri in mindset as those seen here

A minority is, but the one you've seen here is probably more a case of "disassociation" (the "I want to be with the cool kids on the block" crowd I was describing in my entry). Morons turning other Muslims off a formula that could otherwise answer a real need.

Abu Sinan:That is most certainly an open statement of takfir if I have ever heard one

F: Maybe Koranist could clarify for us?

Abu Sinan:Anyway, I worry about any new religious line of thought because they usually end up adding more BS to the mix. It is clear from some here that Koranists can be just as exclusive as ultra extremist Salafists. That is something we can do without. Take a look at the "Wahhabist" (for lack of a better word) bent in Saudi. In the rush to destroy all "bid'ah" (innovation) in Islam they go ahead and remove some and add a lot of their own, all to suit their own particular cultural issues

F: Well that's really sad because the Quran itself is very pluralistic. I wouldn't care to associate with such people.

Abu Sinan:My wife and I keep our family as far away from most "Muslim" organisations as we can. We have found there is no quicker way to become disenfranchised with Islam than to spend too much time with Muslims!

F: LOL, indeed. Reading the Quran is what keeps me muslim.