Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 121
THE RENAISSANCE OF ISLAM 121 Prophet) as they considered the ahadees as neither authentic nor reliable and, therefore, not a source of guidance. The other group attached so much importance to the ahadees that they tended to subordinate the Quran to them. The Promised Messiah rejected both those positions as extremes and harm- ful. He pointed out that the Holy Quran was fundamental and supreme, and the ahadees were a very valuable source of light and guidance for the understanding of the Quran. He admitted the possibility that some ahadees lacked authenticity and validity. He drew attention to a saying of the Holy Prophet himself that if anything was attributed to him which was in conflict with the Quran it should be rejected, as he could not possibly have said it. Therefore, according to the Promised Messiah, the criterion was that unless a reported hadees was irreconcilable with the Holy Quran, it should be accepted as a source of the interpretation of the Quran. He also pointed out that a distinction must be drawn between the practice of the Holy Prophet (Sunnah) which had been transmitted to us through the centuries having been illus- trated by the conduct of the Muslims throughout the world, and the sayings of the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, which had been transmitted in the early stages orally from mouth to mouth, before they were collated through the efforts of the great Imams of hadees. The Sunnah was, therefore, a much surer source of guidance than the ahadees. Through this exposition, the Promised Messiah, on the one hand preserved a great treasury of understanding and insight contained in the ahadees, and on the other hand provided a sure criterion for excluding such ahadees from consideration whose authenti- city was open to question. He also pointed out that though crtieria laid down by the Imams of hadees for judging the reliability of a hadees were of great value, nevertheless, if events confirmed the authenticity of a hadees any technical factors that might tend to weaken the authority of the particular hadees could be overlooked. At the time of the advent of the Promised Messiah one of the great mis~onceptions current among the Muslim divines