Questions Hadith Rejectors/Quranists have no good, logical answers to Credit to Bassam Zawadi for questions 1-14, but I also want to add some questions that I think are solid as well, and add to some of Bassam’s questions 1.) Why don't we have any record of early Muslims completely rejecting hadith? 2.) How do you know how to pray using the Quran alone? 3.) How do you know how much Zakah to pay using the Quran alone? 4.) The Quran says that men can beat their wives(Surah 4:34). But we know according to the hadith that this is meant to be a light beating that inflicts a spiritual punishment and not a harmful physical punishment (a light tap with a miswak to be specific). What is to stop a man from misinterpreting the Quran and beating his wife severely? 5.) It says in the Quran to shorten the prayer when you travel (Surah 4:101). How long do you have to travel in order to be eligible to have this privilege? How short do you have to cut the prayer? ——- 6.) The Quran says to cut the hand of the thief (Surah 5:38).Does the word 'cut' in the verse mean to cut off or to cut in the sense of making a mark, or could it be metaphorical and mean cutting off the resources of the thief? Also what’s to stop someone from interpreting this verse to cut of the hand of someone who’s poor and starving, or to cut someone’s hand for stealing candy, or to cut of a child’s hand if he/she steals? 7.) The prophecies of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) came true from the hadith, thus proving that there are divine revelations sent down to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) other than the Quran. How do you explain this? 8.) The Qur'an says that we must obey Allah and the Messenger (Surah 3:31-32,132; Surah 4:13-14, 59, 61, 64, 69, 80; Surah 24:56). There are two separate commands here. One is to obey Allah and the other is to obey the Prophet. In order to obey someone, he would need to issue a command. So if we want to obey Allah we have to do so by reading the commands of Allah in the Quran and adhering to them. If we want to obey the Prophet then we have to do so by reading the commands of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in the authentic hadith and adhere to them. Or is there another way? 9.) It says in the Qu'ran (Surah 33:21) that we have the Messenger as a good example to follow. How would we know his example without the traditions to turn to? 10.) We have different forms of reciting the Qur'an, which means that certain letters are taken away from the word or pronounced differently. Through authentic hadith, we know that these were accepted forms of reading approved by the Prophet (peace be upon him). But without hadith, how would we know this? Using the Qur'an alone, if I see that there are different forms of recitation then I would think that there is more than one Qur'an and I wouldn't know which one is correct. ————- 11.) In Surah 2:221, God forbids us to marry polytheist women. Yet in Surah 5:5, God says that we can marry the believing women and the chaste women from the People of the Book. This is a clear differentiation between believing women and People of the Book. You can't have a believing person today from the People of the Book who is not a Muslim. So if God were talking about the believing women from the People of the Book then He wouldn't have differentiated the "believing women" phrase from them. Furthermore, the believing people from the People of the Book were the ones who truly followed the teachings of Jesus and Moses, which are lost today. So by using the Quran alone, how do I know which verse was revealed first? Did Surah 2:221 come first and then God sent down Surah 5:5 making an exception or did God send down Surah 5:5 first and then send Surah 2:221 by completely prohibiting us from marrying the women from the People of the Book? 12.) Surah 24, verse 31 says "And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof" What exactly is this part that "appears thereof"? 13.) If the Quran is so easy to understand on our own, then why did Allah have some Muslims staying behind in Madinah in order to become very well versed in religion, while the others go out to the battlefield so that they can then come back to be taught (Surah 9:122)? ———— 14.) Allah says in the Qur'an (Surah 75:19) that the Qur'an will be recited. But then in the verse right after (verse 20) it is also said that the Qur'an will be explained. If the Qur'an is self-explanatory then the only thing that needs to be done is reciting it out. However, in verse 19 the function of reciting is done and then in the verse right after, the function of explaining is done. Clearly these are two different tasks, which mean that reading the Qur'an alone would not give you the full explanation required. It has to be explained through some other source. What is that other source? 15.) In Quran 4:11-12, it gives a general ruling of inheritance, and shows how much money each family member would get. Let’s take a hypothetical scenario. Imagine a man dies, and he leaves behind $24,000. He has one wife, three daughters, one mother, and one father. If we use the Quran alone to determine how much each family member will get, then the amount would exceed the $24,000. It would equal $27,000 which is more money than what the man left behind. Since we agree that Allah can’t possibly make a mathematical error, how would you as a Quranist solve this problem? The Quran doesn’t give any type of answer to the scenario. With the Hadiths however, this is not a problem as scholars of inheritance utilized the Al Awl method which come from authentic Hadiths themselves. ———— 16.) In Quran 65:4, it says that you can divorce woman who haven’t menstruated yet. Does this mean that you can marry pre-pubescent girls and have intercourse with them? If you use the Quran alone, then you would have to say yes. However with Hadiths and sources outside the Quran, we know that this is not the case at all. 17.) In Quran 4:6, it says that guardians should the test the orphans on their abilities until they reach marriageable age. What is that marriageable age? What abilities exactly? Some kids are mature before they reach puberty, and some are mature after. Some kids are skilled in certain areas than others. What if a guardian thinks that a child is mature, but that child hasn’t reached puberty yet? Can that child marry or what? Even if you say after puberty, that still doesn’t answer what is the marriageable age. 12, 13, and 14 years old can physically give birth so would this be the marriageable age? Or would it be 18 years old, or after college? ————- 18.) In Quran 9:25, it talks about the day of Hunayn. What is the day of Hunayn? What happened on that day? Some Quranists say that a battle happened, while others say that it was just a normal day, which one is correct? 19.) If Hadiths were invented 200 years later, how come nobody spoke up when Hadiths became widespread? How come nobody asked “What are these rules that you speak of, we don’t find them in the Quran”? 20.) What motive would people have if they invented Hadiths? What would they have to gain by doing that? ————- 21.) In Quran 9:29 it says to fight all disbelievers and to take Jizyah from the people of the book. The verses before and after don’t indicate the historical context, or how this verse should be utilized. What’s to stop someone from interpreting this verse like ISIS, and claim they must slaughter all disbelievers? We know from the Hadiths that Quran 9:29 was referring to a defensive battle of Tabuk with the Byzantine army after they killed a Muslim emissary, and that Jizyah is a small amount of money (less than zakat) that must be paid to the Islamic government. But since you reject Hadith, how much is the Jizyah? Should Jizyah just be taken from the people of the book, or does this include all disbelievers? Does this verse justify invading other nations, or should it be used for defensive wars? 22.) Why do you accept historical reports when it comes to other things in history, yet you don’t accept Hadiths? Shouldn’t you be consistent and reject all historical reports? —————- 23.) Using the Quran alone, doesn’t it indicate that many of its laws and rules must be enacted, and enforced at a governmental level? See Quran 2:228-233, Quran 2:178-182, Quran 2: 282-283, Quran 4:1-12, Quran 4:15-16, Quran 4:24, Quran 4:33, Quran 4:92, Quran 4:176, Quran 5:32-33, Quran 5:38, Quran 5:48, Quran 9:28-29, Quran 17:33, Quran 24:1-9, 12, Quran 65:1-4,etc If you don’t agree, then why did Allah put all these laws in the Quran in the first place? If you agree that the laws of Islam should be at a governmental level, then why do many of you Quranists support secularism, and liberalism? If you agree that many of these Quranic laws have to enforced on a governmental level, how would you know how to implement those laws, the conditions of those laws, and how those laws are supposed to be understood with the Quran alone. With the Hadiths it’s no problem, but if Quranists try to run a government, then they would fail horribly 24.) How do you know what passages from the Quran have been abrogated? 25.) If you believe that every single Hadith has been fabricated, what makes you think that the Quran was never tampered with? The same people who transmitted Hadiths were same people who transmitted the Quran, so how do you truly know that the Quran has been preserved? If you reply with “Well the Quran says it will be preserved” then that’s just a circular argument. 26.) If the Prophet pbuh received no other revelation other than the Quran, why does Quran 2:143-144, 187, Quran 59:5, etc refute that notion?