Haya Al Alfalah Forum

Quran(33:21)

لَّقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِى رَسُولِ ٱللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌۭ لِّمَن كَانَ يَرْجُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَٱلْيَوْمَ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَ وَذَكَرَ ٱللَّهَ كَثِيرًۭا ٢١

Indeed, in the Messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for whoever has hope in Allah and the Last Day, and remembers Allah often.

This Ayah establishes that the Seerah should be the most relevant subject matter for any human being in the world. However, that is not the case today.

So where did we go wrong?

The answer is simple: the problem is not the Seerah—it is us. We are looking at Seerah the wrong way.

What are the main points you would propose to someone who says that we don't need Hadidth, the Quran is enough? This Ayah itself gives a point, though, but what other points do you think one should consider in a counter?

There is a lot of work done by Muslim scholars on Munkir e hadith but I would like to give this argument that comes from a non-Muslim military historian, Russ Rodgers.

He points out that Hadith reports especially about battles like Battle of Badr contain extremely detailed logistical information:

exact routes taken
timing of movements
number of people
no of camels
distribution of spoils
duration of travel and return

Now think about it:
In modern warfare, even with advanced tech, logistics is the hardest thing to get perfectly right and often mistakes are possible.

So Rodgers argues:
When he put all of logistical data from Battle of Badr and others in an algorithm it checks out
How could people, centuries later, fabricate such consistent, precise, and realistic logistical details—again and again—purely from imagination?

This strongly suggests the authenticity of the hadith corpus.

This is a good one. I face two types of Munkir-e-Hadith, one who are non-muslims and say that the Quran is a book but Hadith is not authentic, and the second who are muslims but don't agree to follow the Hadith. My general response is like this:

For Non-Muslims:
Think of it this way: every law needs a manual.
The Constitution says "freedom of speech," but courts, precedents, and explanations define what that actually means in practice. Similarly, the Quran is the law, and the Hadith is the documented life and explanation of the one appointed to implement it. You wouldn't throw away the operating manual of a complex system, especially one verified and preserved by thousands of scholars over 1400 years, with a rigorous chain of transmission (isnad) that no other civilization has ever replicated.

Muslims who Reject Hadith
Ask them simply:

"Show me how to pray using only the Quran."

They can't. The Quran commands prayer 17+ times, but never once describes it step by step. If they pray, they're already following Hadith. Rejecting Hadith while practicing Islam is a contradiction they're living every single day.
Also, the Quran itself says:

"Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it" - Surah Al-Hashr 59:7

Rejecting Hadith is, by the Quran's own words, rejecting a Quranic command.

I’ve always found the preservation of Hadith literature remarkable. The way scholars have taken care of each and every aspect of it is commendable.
The chain of narrations, detailed biographies of each narrator and not to mention how strict the scholars were about those narrators and everything else. It is clear for anyone who looks into that it is one of the most rigorously preserved historical traditions.
Muslim or Non-Muslim only the ignorant deny it

Also,
It is interesting how Orientalists have double standards in this regard as well. We see extreme skepticism towards Islamic sources from them. Yet the histories of Alexander the Great are accepted even though written centuries later.