Fatwa #145993 October 2006Sweden
One of my brothers said that we should follow bukari and muslim hadith only because they are the most authentic hadiths.
Question
Asalamualaikum,
One of my brothers said that we should follow bukari and muslim hadith only because they are the most authentic hadiths. He brought up many issues and now half of my brothers seem to pix and mix on what they doing
- He mentions a hadith that Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhiwasallam) never pray more than eight rakaats in and out of Ramadan. From what I understand, this hadith is in the category of night prayer which means tahayud prayer, but he said that taraweeh and tahayud is the same namaz. However, in Ramadan we call taraweeh. He said that in Arabic taraweeh and tahayud is the same.
- He also mentioned that why we follow sahaba praying taraweeh 20 rakaats, while in bukari saying that Nabi prays 8 rakaats. Will we follow Nabi or Sahaba?
- He said that why we should follow only imam abuhanifa for example when a man pray his hand must be below the novel, but in bukari, the hand must be at the chest. Imam Abuhanifa said that if we find something more authentic, forget about his. Why hanafi doesn’t change?
- He said we should study and if we find something in bukari hadith, we should change it because all hadiths in bukari are right. If we don’t change, that means we don’t follow sunnah of Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhiwasallam )
Please Advise
Jazzakumullah Khairan
Answer
Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullah
Brother/Sister in Islam
At the outset, it should be painted out that all the Ahadith are not in Bukhari and Muslim. It was also not the intention of Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim to compile all the Ahadith, they may have stated themselves that there are other Ahadith besides what we have compiled. It is also not correct for an uneducated person in Shariah to approach Ahadith directly and make own deductions of Shariah. That is not done in secular & worldly issues. No patient picks up a book of medicine and makes his own diagnosis of his sickness. Such a person will be threading the path of disaster. He would die. If this is accepted, how disastrous it is to approach Quran & Hadith directly and make ones own conclusions, that will be the spiritual death of the person. In worldly knowledge, we trust experts and follow them. In Shariah, we should trust the Fuqaha & follow them. They had profound knowledge of Shariah. They were experts in every field of Shariah. How can we ignore them and rely on our own selves. Such an attitude and approach is not conducted in worldly issues, why in Shariah then. Kindly refer to our article on Taqlid on this site.
The issue of Taraweeh being 20 Rakats is proven through the Ijma (consensus) of the Sahaba. Rasulullah (SAW) instructed us to follow the ruling and guidance of the sahaba.
The eight Rakats referred to in the email is Tahajjud Salah & not Taraweeh. I have discussed this else where on this site.
Mufti Ebrahim Desai
Please Note: Listen to live discourses and advices given by Mufti Ebrahim Desai throughout this Ramadhan streaming on WWW.RADIORAMADHANCROYDON.COM Every alternate day after Fajr. 5:30am and after Taraweeh at 10:15pm. Also 10:00am everyday, Q/A 2:00pm and after Asr Majlis 5:15pm. All times are according to British standard times.