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Hassan Ilyas Sahabs Post On Tawatur
Did hasan sahab here mean that being transmitted by tawatur doesn’t ensure that qaid e azam was the sole founder of Pakistan (there could be others but they just didn’t get tawatur level) or that just because it was transmitted by tawatur doesn’t mean the statement has any truth factor to it (granted by the mutawatir nature only)
Please correct me if I understood wrong. But what is the point of any information being transmitted by tawatur if it doesn’t ensure it being true?
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32 Replies
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Hassan Ilyas Sahabs Post On Tawatur
updated 4 years, 2 months ago
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32
Replies
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Hassan sb. answered this in the same article.
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So when it comes to for example sacrifice on eid. The prophet ﴾ﷺ﴿ did it that had been transmitted by tawatur. But it’s status in religion comes from the ijma is Muslims?
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Or was the status of the sacrifice also transmitted?
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How can find out if a particular practice is transferred to us through generations from the time of Prophet Mohammad SA and “there was no gap or change in the practice”? Browse the history or what?
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I believe it Is books of fiqh
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Is it the fiqh that determines ijma and tawatur? Since when fiqha has become a source of deen? What about growing a beard, is it a sunnah because the fiqh says so?
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No fiqh doesn’t determine ijma and tawatur. Ijma and tawatur is found within the practice of ummah. When we find something that the entire ummah is practicing today, we go back in history to find evidences for any breaks, major agreements/disagreements, or traces of initiation of the practice anew. Books of fiqh help us trace these evidences.
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The books of ahadith also contain historical events but because of the single source of the info, ahadith are considered less reliable as compared to what we get thru ijma n tawatur. How can something less reliable correct something more reliable? This is where i am confused.
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Please checkout this discussion, especially the videos posted by Yaseen sahab.
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If we find that two major fuqha disagree on a certain practice, as is evident in our classical fiqh books, then we know that historically ummah was divided on that practice. This violates the condition of ijma and tawatur, hence the practice can’t be considered as a sunnah. Sunnah is transmitted in such a strong manner that there’s no room for any disagreements. We may still spot some individuals disagreeing here and there due to misunderstanding or lack of knowledge, but overall such a huge population of people agree on sunnah that their conspiring on any matter is practically inconceivable.
Similarly, if we have an inclination that a certain practice was initiated at a later time, regardless of the source and reliability of our information, we can refer back to our books of fiqh to find out whether or not they mention that practice. If they don’t, then we have evidence that such practice was never a generally accepted practice among the ummah.
While the books of fiqh discuss things from the perspective of jurisprudence, and we may agree or disagree with their stance on various things due to various reasons, they also serve as excellent comprehensive resources on the practices of the ummah. Fiqh is a discipline that takes practices already found in the ummah, analyzes those practices, and explains their legal aspects.
Ijma and tawatur are the strongest means of transmission of any knowledge through history. The key point in this method of transmission is that at any point in time we can trace back any corruption that might have occurred along the way.
My respectable teacher Sajid Hameed sahab often uses an example to explain the concept of ijma and tawatur. He says that if you want to try out breaking ijma and tawatur, you can run a simple experiment yourself by conspiring with your local masjid’s imam. For the sake of this experiment, you can ask the imam to start saying Allahu Akbar instead of Samiallah Holiman Hamidah when rising from ruku in a namaz. There’s absolutely no chance that this corruption will go unnoticed without correction by people praying behind the imam. If you can’t change such a small practice at a local masjid, there’s no way that a practice transmitted through ijma and tawatur can be corrupted in presence of millions of people all over the world.
I hope that it helps.
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Sir, how do then bidahs start? Shouldn’t people just reject them outright?
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When some individual or a group of people do in fact conspire, or add an innovation due to lack of knowledge (or any other reason), we can always find out that it was in fact added later. Ijma and tawatur does not necessarily stop anyone from adding an innovation, but it allows us to trace it back in time.
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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
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In our cross checking of fiqh books it’s not necessary to know what sources the fuqha used, what their opinions about certain practices were, etc. Referring to fiqh is only used to establish if certain practices were common at the time, which is a period not very far removed from the time after the departure of prophet Muhammad SAW. Everything fuqha discussed is not necessarily sunnah. Sunnah is found in the ijma and tawatur of the ummah, and we can use fiqh books to cross check.
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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?
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Your question is not clear.
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What if fiquah is the one that turned a ritual into ijma n tawatur? Meaning it was not a tawature but fiquah picked it up based on a hadith and then it was enacted as the law by the muslim state and as a result it became a tawatur. How do we rule out this risk while validating tawatur? Bear in mind there was no recorded or establish history before fiquah. Example how can fiquah corrupt tawatur is fajr prayer in Malaysia that i have cited earlier .
What basis other than popularity of a particular ritual in muslims could the imams have probably used for classification of rituals into 5 or so categories from obligatory to haram? E g obligatory, recommended, optional, not recommended, haram etc.
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If a faqeeh tries to introduce an innovation on his own, it would get challenged by some other scholar/faqeeh or the masses, either way it wouldn’t fulfill the conditions of ijma and tawatur. The example you used for Fajr prayer has not been transmitted to us through ijma and tawatur, has it?
The 5 categories you are citing do not constitute a practice, but a jurisprudential concept – and even that doesn’t have unanimous agreement.
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What kind of evidence of challenge will be acceptable? Isn’t it going to be rejected as Khabre wahid (a single sourced info)
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If a faqeeh disagrees with another faqeeh, it’s stated in their books and the different fiqhs are followed by many people of the time. Khabar-e-wahid is something entirely different where a few people are relating their understanding of an incident.
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My point is how do we know the deen documented by Fiquah was based on ijma and tawatur?
There is at least a century wide gap between the prophet (SA) era and the imams and Islam had spread in many countries – that makes it hard for anyone to verify ijma and tawatur during those days with limited communication means.
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Read the history of islamic fiqh:
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I am aware of the history, but I think that you’re completely missing the point and looking at fiqh from the perspective of interpretation and application of laws. The cross check is only used to ascertain if a practice was accepted by all schools and the masses at the time. Do you really believe that if one faqeeh would insert a new practice into the religion, all other scholars would simply accept that practice as legitimate? That is inconceivable. I’m not saying that one would not be able to add an innovation, but another faqeeh would surely disagree, subsequently violating the conditions of ijma and tawatur.
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This is not where i have a confusion.
Figh is not necessarily based on ijma n tawature. Take for example Muwatta Imam Malik. The whole fiqha is based on ahadiths – khaber e wahid. Apparently they did not follow the principle of ijma n tawatur. Similarly there is a famous sayings from Imam Abu Hanifa, to ‘discard his view if one finds a hadith against it. This indicates they compiled the deen based on ahadith and some kiyas and not tawatur. Their views become the mainstream practice (so called ‘tawatur’) after the state enacted them as the law of the land and therefore it does not help verify ijma n tawatur that can be linked to what prophet SA gave us. In fact fiqha broke the ijma n tawtur that was being practiced during the first 100 years. After that deen was ‘corrected’ based on ahadiths.
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“Take for example Muwatta Imam Malik. The whole fiqha is based on ahadiths – khaber e wahid.”
Somewhat of an exaggeration, but still you’re missing the point. Whenever someone adds something to the practices of religion that are generally being followed at the time, either the masses won’t accept it, or there will be scholarly disagreements. This will violate the conditions of ijma and tawatur.
“…famous sayings from Imam Abu Hanifa, to ‘discard his view if one finds a hadith against it”
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with any works of Imam Abu Hanifah. He’s probably the first person in the Muslim history notorious for not accepting many riwayahs himself.
Finally, if you have any concrete examples of any practices that were added by the fuqha, accepted by the entire ummah, and were transmitted to us as religious practices, please feel free to share.
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1. A muslims state introduced a variant of a religious ritual e g. fajr prayers
2. People questioned it.
3. The State explained it as a ‘correction’ in the practice corrupted over the years and provides a hadith to support it.
4. People accept it
5. The next generations start defending it as ijma n tawatur by rejecting hisotrical evidence for bing ‘khaber e wahid.
This has happened in Malaysia for fajr prayers and the same thing must have happened when state insisted imam Malik to write his fiqha book so that ‘immut can unite on a single way of practicing islam’. The very motive of introducing fiqha was to eliminate the variants of practices that was popular in different parts of the muslim world or communities. The ijma and tawatur had already corrupted for some reasons and there was no way to correct it except for whatever ahathis were available at that time. Later it became a new ijma n tawatur and clericS like sir Ghamidi are trying to restore it to its original form and this generation is defending it as a deviation from the mainstream or ijma n tawatur.
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When a ‘correction’ is introduced by the state it becomes mainstream practice very fast. On the other hand, when a cleric objects on a mainstream practice, he is labelled as a ‘divergent’ and outcaste.
When Quran tried to correct them, the same problem popped up – they said how could we give up what our ancestors or baap dada were doing.
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That’s exactly the point in ijma and tawatur. You knowing the story of Fajr in Malaysia means that you can trace corruption back in time. Had it not been corrupted, there would be no story to tell. All scholars would be explaining the correct Fajr in their books.
On the baap dada example you’re right on too – people don’t easily give up what’s being transmitted through generations. That’s why whenever tawatur is broken we can easily find evidence.
Ijma and tawatur doesn’t guarantee that the practice being transmitted is right. All it means is that the practice was transmitted without corruption.
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Finally we are on the same page
There is a story for everything – even Quran got stories that we reject for their conflict with the mainstream. Why would anyone trust my story re Malaysia?
Only a State or an influencer (e.g a prophet or imam) can make a dent in tawatur. Like Saudi’s changed the pratice to wahabism in early 19th century and now everyone does rafa yadan as ijma n tawatur. So my point is the state has been using fiqha to ‘correct’ deen since the pre historical time – it was the state who decided on the official version of Quran and destroyed other variants.
The first 100 yrs after Prophet Mohammad SA was an undocumented era. We have no reliable record of state of affairs during that period. After that fiqha was rolled out in the muslim world that lost us the ijma and tawatur coming from the source of deen. I am not saying everything was changed but it did change a bit. At least the line between religion and culture was intermingled and many things become far more important than before.
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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.
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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.
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