"Allah
revealed unto you (Muhammad) the Scripture and Wisdom, and taught you that which
you knew not." (an-Nissa' 4/113)
The Wisdom here
referred to, means the Sunnah.
And He
said:
"Our Lord!
And raise up in their (the Arabs) midst a messenger from among them who shall
recite unto them Your Revelations, and shall instruct them in the Scripture and
in Wisdom..." (al-Baqarah 2/129)
And He said
instructing the wives of His Prophet:
"And learn
that which is recited in your houses of the Revelations of Allah and
Wisdom." (al-Ahzab 33/34).
And Allah, The
Praiseworthy said:
"And
whatsoever the Messenger allows you to do, do it. And whatsoever he forbids,
abstain (from it.)" (al-Hashr 59/7).
The Messenger
(peace be upon him) said:
"I was
given the Qur'an and its equal in addition to it." (Abu Dawud)
From all this
one can learn that the rule of the Sunnah is almost equal to the rule of the
Qur'an in affirming the faith and the practices of Islam, indeed the Sunnah is a
clarification to the Qur'an and an explanation of its general concepts, as
Allah, The Exalted said:
"And We
have revealed unto you the Remembrance (adh- Dhikr) that you may explain to
mankind that which has been revealed for them." (an-Nahl 16/44)
Remembering
all this no one is allowed to reject the sound Sunnah on the pretext that it is
not authentic, or we accept only what is mentioned in the Qur'an. If this claim
is true, then those people should not pray because the acts and the performance
of prayers are not mentioned in the Qur'an, the same is true about the rites of
pilgrimage, ablution, and many daily performances which are mentioned in the
Qur'an in general terms only. Moreover, we should not exaggerate in allegorical
interpretations of the Sunnah, and try to philosophize it, because the Prophet
(peace be upon him) did not intend that, rather he spoke in clear simple terms
in order for people to be able to understand him, and be right in practicing
their faith. It is true that some hooks of Sunnah and Hadith contain fabricated
stories and sayings but this should not obstruct us from seeing The Truth and
finding it in the many collections which do contain sound and authentic hadiths
and stories, because the scholars of Sunnah and Hadith, such as al-Bukhari,
Muslim, Ibn Majah, at-Tirmidhi, an-Nassa'i and many others cleared the matter
for us hundreds of years ago, may Allah reward them the best of rewards in the
Hereafter.
17. With respect to the Attributes of Allaah, then the Salaf affirmed them upon their apparent meanings, while relegating the knowledge of their exact nature to Allaah, in opposition to the Mufawwidah and the Mu'attilah - the both of whom deny the meanings of the Attributes, with the former relegating the knowledge of their meanings to Allaah and the latter distorting and interpolating the meanings to other meanings not reported from the Salaf, such as their interpolation of Istiwaa to Isteelaa and their interpretation of hands (yadaan) to mean power and so on. [SP Note]
18. The
meaning of this hadith is that a believer goes to war with unbelievers, and a
non-believer kills the believer Muslim so he enters Paradise because of him
losing his life for the sake of Allah, however, after that the non-believer
accepts Islam and becomes a believer then dies as a true believer, and he in
turn enters Paradise, so the killer and the killed enter Paradise. This
indicates to us the Mercy, Favor and Generosity of Allah to His
creatures.