Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 18
18 CUSTOM AND TRADITION AND THEIR RESPECTIVE VALUE IN MUSLIM LAW. Next to the Holy Quran, the Muslims have been given Sunnat [custom] for their guidance in religion. Sannat is the custom of the Holy Prophet or the explanation and application of the injunctions of the Holy Quran in the practical life of the Holy Prophet. The Holy Quran enjoins the observance of prayer, for instance, but it does not explicitly fix the number of rale' ats for each different prayer. But custom fully explains this and all other inductions of the Holy Quran which need to be done practically for their due observance. To regard custom and tradition as one thing is an error. Custom came into existence along with^ every injunction that was revealed in the Holy Quran, and-it. w. as. fully established by the Prophet himself in his own life-time, whereas the savings of the Prophet remained in the course of oral transmission fqrjmx)r. e,tban a century after the Holy Prophet and were then collected and arranged. The Holy Quran and the custom are simultaneous whereas tradition pro- perly belongs to a later period. Almighty God and His Holy Prophet had charge of two things only. Almighty God made known His will to the world through His Word, while the Holy Prophet's duty it was to explain the injunctions of the Quran in a practical way. This he did by turning the injunctions into practice and thus expounding the maxims of WOiw^ It is an error to regard tradition as giving the necessary details. Before tradition was collected and recorded, Islam had been fully esta- blished upon earth and its ordinances were the guiding rules of