A SHORT COMMENT ON
REFORMIST TRANSLATION OF THE QURAN

Kassim Ahmad
22 May, 2006

The Arab scholar Dr Rashad Khalifa’s brilliant discovery of the awesome mathematical miracle of the Quran in 1974 was a turning point in the history of God’s final scripture. One can say that the post-1974 period is a completely new period for the world’s understanding of the Quran. The Quran is scientifically proved and validated as God’s final message to the world, thereby also scientifically proving the existence of God.

Mr. Edip Yuksel and his two co-translators, Layth Saleh al-Shaiban and Marth Schulte-Nafeh of this translation, are among the many thousand, may be millions, of people throughout the world who have benefited from Dr. Khalifa’s discovery and excellent translation. Mr. Yuksel and this writer must number among the thousands who were and are admirers and students of the late Dr. Khalifa. Now that Mr. Yuksel and his two colleagues have expressed their profound appreciation for his milestone discovery by this “Reformist Translation” of theirs, I am extremely happy and welcome the translation.

That this translation is superior to all traditionalist translations goes without saying, as it breaks out of the Hadith and traditionalist tafsir’s shackles (including the gender bias) that have for a thousand years robbed the Muslim community of its freedom of thought. In several ways, it is an improvement on Dr. Khalifa’s own translation. Off hand, I can cite two crucial words as examples. The words “to acknowledge” for “to believe,” and “conscientious” for “God-fearing” or “righteous” that are normally used, are to my mind a definite improvement.

The translation’s Notes are excellent. As the translators have made many cross-references, they are a mine of useful information that is a scholar’s delight.

The translation is not perfect, of course, even in terms of language, not to say the interpretations of those profound Quranic metaphors, allegories and even apparently straight-forward verses. I am also referring to the two historical and universal or idealistic dimensions of the Quranic message, which, as far as my quick glance at it informs me, is not taken into account in this translation. This appears to me the reason why it cannot satisfactorily explain the apparent superiority of the male to the female, the existence of slavery, and the harsher punishments – the historical aspect of 7th Century Arab social reality that the message engaged in, and the idealism towards which the message continuously pushes the Arabs and mankind forward and upwards.

Every generation has to interpret the Quran anew, just as our knowledge of God, Man and the Universe advances.

I am convinced that the world’s, including and especially the West’s, understanding and appreciation of the God’s Final Scripture, after more than a thousand years of misunderstanding and even aversion, will progress fast from now on until the world accepts this new Quranic paradigm in its radical new phase of life on this planet.

Kassim Ahmad is a Malaysian free-lance writer, living in Penang. He can be contacted at kasmad172@yahoo.com.my. His website is: www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com

JAWAPAN PENUH KEPADA ENCIK NORDI ACHIE (1)

Oleh: Kassim Ahmad

19 Mei, 2006

Saya telah membaca dengan teliti komen En. Nordin Achie terhadap artikel saya dalam Al-Islam, keluaran April, 2006 (h. 76-79). Saya mengucap ribuan terima kasih kepada beliau kerana berusaha membuat komen yang rasional, ilmiah dan membina. Sepanjang yang saya ingat, inilah sebuah komen di antara yang paling baik terhadap tulisan-tulisan saya yang bersifat keagamaan.

Pada permulaan tulisan saya yang tersebut, saya meningatkan pembaca betapa kita kerap menjadi tidak rasional apabila membincang isu-isu agama. Ini kerana bagi kebanyakan orang, agama soal kepercyaan; tidak boleh dimasukkan perhitungan akal dalam perbincangan-perbincangan ini. Sebenarnya, ini satu anggapan yang silap. Saya gembira kerana nyatalah En. Nordi Achie tidak termasuk ke dalam golongan ini.

Ada lapan, sebenarnya tujuh, perkara yang telah dibangkitkan oleh penulis ini. Saya akan jawab semuanya dengan lengkap.

Pertama, perihal Imam Shafi’e meletakkan Hadith separas dengan Quran, kenyataan saya dalam tulisan itu, dipertikai oleh beliau. Dalam kaedah fikah yang pokoknya diasaskan oleh Imam Shafi’e, dua ajaran pokok dalam Islam dirumuskan sebagai Quran dan Hadis. Yang lain, Ijmak, Qias dan Ijtihad sebagai tambahan. Kedudukan dua ajaran pokok ini didakwa ditentukan dalam sebuah hadis, tetapi hadis ini dibantah oleh sebuah hadis lain yang membataskan ajaran pokok kepada Quran saja (2). Dalam pada itu, mengikut Prof. Ahmad Ibrahim, yang menentukan kesahihan tafsir dan kesahihan Hadis ialah Ijmak, yang ditafsirkan sebagai muafakat Ummah (3).

Oleh kerana kedua-duanya dianggap ajaran pokok dengan Hadis dikatakan memainkan peranan menerangkan Quran, Hadis mestilah tidak boleh bercanggah dengan Quran. Inilah pengertian masyarakat umum, tetapi sebenarnya banyak hadis yang didakwa sahih (khasnya dari Bukhari dan Muslim) bercanggah dengan ajaran Quran (4). Saya akan memberi dua contoh saja di sini, iaitu hukum rejam untuk penzina yang telah berkahwin, dan hukum bunuh untuk orang murtad.

Dalam kes yang kedua, kebebasan beragama itu mutlak dalam Quran; tidak ada hukuman di dunia ini. Hal ini sangat jelas. Oleh yang demikian, hukuman bunuh dalam hadis itu bercanggah dengan ajaran Quran. Mereka yang mendakwa kebebasan ini hanya terbatas kepada sesiapa yang hendak menganut agama Islam, tetapi apabila telah memeluk Islam mereka tertakluk kepada hukuman hadis ini, nyatalah ingin menterbalikkan logika. “Bebas boleh memeluk apa-apa agama, tetapi apabila telah memeluk Islam, tidak bebas keluar!”

Dalam kes pertama, hukuman terhadap pasangan penzina, sama ada telah berkahwin atau tidak, dalam Quran ialah seratus rotan. Hukuman dalam hadis, yang membezakan antara yang telah berkahwin dan yang tidak, ialah rejam hingga mati. Hukuman ini diambil dari Kitab Taurat (6). Hukuman ini nyatalah berbeza dari hukuman dalam Quran. Ia tidak boleh dikatakan sama sekali penjelasan terhadap hukuman Quran. Ini perubahan atau pindaan terhadap hukuman Quran! Di sini nyatalah Hadith telah mengatasi Quran!

Harus diperhatikan bahawa sebenarnya terdapat dua pilihan hukum di sini, kerana dalam Ayat 5 yang berikutnya, kita dibolehkan meringankan hukuman ini hingga menagmpuni mereka, jika mereka bertaubat selepas itu. Di sini saya ingin menyebutkan dua dimensi dalam Quran: iaitu, satu dimensi sejarah dan satu lagi dimensi universal. Tiap benda atau idea itu abstrak selagi ia hanya wujud dalam imaginasi atau khayalan manusia. Tetapi apabila ia dimanifestasikan dalam sesuatu konteks, katalah masyarakat Arab abad ketujuh, atau masyarakat Eropah abad kelapan-belas, barulah benda atau idea itu menjadi konkrit. Demikianlah agama Islam, pada mana-mana zaman pun, pada zaman Nabi Ibrahim, atau zaman Nabi Musa, atau zaman Nabi Musa (jangan lupa mereka semua mukmin dan muslim), atau zaman Nabi Muhamad, ajaran itu abstrak selagi ia tidak dipraktikkan. Apabila ia dipraktikkan, agama itu mesti menangani keadaan yang wujud, di samping ia mahu membawa perubahan. Jadi, undang-undang dan peraturan-peraturannya, kecuali kepada perkara yang pokok, iaitu konsep tauhid, harus mengambil-kira dua dimensi. Pertama, dimensi sejarah atau dimensi realiti yang maujud; kedua, dimensi universal atau idealistik.

Hukuman dalam zaman dulu dalam mana-mana tamadun pun memang keras. Di England dalam abad ke-18, umpamanya, salah satu hukuman terhadap pencuri ialah potong kepala (7), bukan potong tangan, seperti di Semenanjung Arab dalam abad ke-7 Di beberapa tempat, saya telah menyebut Islam telah memberi dua prinsip hukuman, iaitu prinsip-prinsip keadilan atau hukuman setimpal, dan ihsan atau hukuman rahim. Apabila sesuatu hukuman yang dijatuhkan itu memenuhi tuntutan keadilan dan/atau memenuhi kehendak ihsan, maka itulah hukuman Islam (8).

Kedua, perkara Nabi Muhammad contoh yang baik bagi kita dan beliau dikurniakan akhlak yang tinggi. Apakah makna “contoh yang baik” dan “akhlak yang tinggi”? Nordin Achie mahu saya menghuraikannya dengan lebih panjang. Adakah ia terbatas kepada perkara-perkara besar saja, atau termasuk juga perkara-perkara lain, seperti adat orang Arab dan kecenderungan peribadi? Sebelum saya menjawab soalan ini, ingin saya tegaskan sekali lagi bahawa apa yang diikut oleh Nabi Muhammad ialah perintah-perintah Tuhan dalam Quran. Itulah sebabnya, mengikut sebuah hadis yang diriwayat oleh A’isyah, akhlak Muhammad ialah Quran. Hadis-hadis yang kita terima hari ini sebagai sahih, khasnya oleh Bukhari dan Muslim, ialah berita tentang perktaan dan perbuatan Nabi. Kita harus membezakan antara berita dengan kejadian yang sebenar, kerana kedua-duanya mungkin tidak sama. Ukuran yang saya pakai ialah Quran; jika ia selaras dengan ajaran Quran, baru saya terima berita itu sebagai sebenarnya sahih. Penulis kita dan semua sarjana Islam akur dengan ukuran ini, sekurang-kurangnya pada teorinya. Saya telah merujuk kepada risalah saya, Dilema Umat Islam – Antara Hadis dan Quran yang menghuraikan perkara ini.

Umpamanya, adat orang Arab lelaki ialah memakai serban atau tutup kepala, kerana ini sesuai dengan iklim di sana. Tetapi di Malaysia, dengan hawanya yang panas, ia tidak begitu sesuai. Adakah ini sunnah Nabi yang sunat kita ikut? Saya tidak fikir begitu. Jika Nabi Muhammad seorang Melayu, beliau juga akan memekai pakaian mengikut adat Melayu.

Dalam pada itu, tiap insan mempunyai kesukaan dan kecenderungan sendiri, yang mungkin berebeza dari insan lain, seperti suka makan ketam. Jika Nabi Muhammad suka makan ketam, adakah kita juga sunat memakan ketam?

Tuhan menyuruh kita ikut teladan Nabi Muhammad, selain teladan Nabi Ibrahim, kerana kekuatan iman mereka dan keteguhan perjuangan mereka menegakkan tauhid, termasuklah komitmen mereka kepada keadilan, kebenaran dan perasaan kasih saying sesama manusia. Perekara-perkara inilah yang harus ditekan dan diutamakan, bukan yang lain-lain yang bersifat adat setempat dan sezaman dan kecenderungan individu.

Juga kita dilarang oleh Tuhan membezakan antara nabi-nabi dan rasul-rasul-Nya, yang mana yang lebih baik dan yang mana yang kurang baik (9). Tuhan Maha Kaya. Insan yang diciptakan-Nya yang baik itu banyak, bukan satu. Konsep “insan kamil” yang diajar oleh golongan sufi tidak terdapat dalam Quran, kerana sifat sempurna itu hanya milik Tuhan.

Ketiga, hadis-hadis yang didakwa sahih yang bercanggah dengan ajaran Quran, saya dapati banyak juga. Dalam kiraan kasar, saya letakkan 40 peratusan yang terang-terang bercanggah dengan ajaran Quran. Kita tidak harus lupa akan wujudnya musuh dalam selimut, yang wujud dalam semua masyarakat dalam semua zaman, yang bekerja siang malam, untuk menggagalkan sesuatu ajaran yang baik Ini sunatullah. Ini satu cara yang paling berkesan untuk membezakan antara yang palsu dan yang benar.

Apabila saya bertanya kepada seorang pakar Hadis di Universiti Sains Malaysia, Dr. Muhammad Radzi Hj. Othman, pada tahun 1990 tentang hadis mutawatir (hadis yang mempunyai ramai pelapor dan dengan itu yang benar-benar sahih), beliau menjawab satu saja (10). Oleh yang demikian, mengapa kita mengajar anak-cucu kita menerima beribu-ribu hadis yang sebenarnya tidak sahih dam yang bercanggah dengan ajaran Quran pula?

Keempat, perkara perubahan undang-undang mengikut perkembangan zaman. Memang suatu sunatullah bahawa manusia berubah dan undang-undangnya pun berubah. Dulu kita hidup dalam gua, bercawat dan memperoleh makanan daripada memburu. Selepas itu, kita bercucuk tanam tetapi terpaksa berpindah-randah kerana mencari tanah yang subur (pertanian rendah). Kemudian kita mengamalkan pertanian pertengahan, tidak perlu berpindah-randah lagi tetapi memakai teknologi rendah (kerbau tenggala). Sekarang kita mempraktikkan pertanian tinggi dengan menggunakan teknologi tinggi. Oleh itu, peraturan dan undang-undang masyarakat pun berubah.

Tetapi, dalam konsep perundangan Islam zaman Muhammad ini, paradigma kita ialah Quran, yakni falsafah hidup kita tidak terkeluar daripada paradigma ini. Dari segi ini kita berbeza dari perundangan Barat setelah Europah memisahkan agama dari kehidupan duniawi dari tarikh Perjanjian Westphalia (24 Oktober, 1648) yang menamatkan Perang Agama Eropah yang berlarutan selama tiga puluh tahun. Konsep perundang Islam tidak, atau tidak seharusnya, lari dari konsep undang-undang alamiah (natural law). Tetapi apa yang sebenarnya berlaku ialah sebagian besar dari Syariah dicipta oleh manusia Islam sendiri (kaum fukaha). Ini telah disedari oleh ramai sarjana yang mengkaji perkara ini. Oleh yang demikian, Syariah ini tidak berbeza dari konsep perundangan positif (positive law) Barat. Yang berbezanya kita mendakwa Syari’ah itu perintah Tuhan, sedangkan Eropah mengatakan undang-undang mereka ialah perintah Raja atau Parlimen.

Kelima, dalam hal ini, seperti yang telah saya sebutkan dalam artikel awal saya, kita mesti berbalik kepada konsep perundangan yang cantik yang diajar dalam Quran dalam Ayat 4, Surah 59. Ayat ini menyebut dua sumber undang-undang, iaitu undang-undang dasar (Quran) dan undang-undang tambahan yang dibuat oleh pihak yang berkuasa dalam sesuatu masyarakat untuk melaksanakan undang-undang dasar tadi. Dalam konsep ini, yang berdaulat ialah Tuhan (kerapkali disebut dengan rasulnya kerana Tuhan tidak datang kepada manusia kecuali melalui rasulnya), bukan kerajaan, yang hayamempunyai kedaulatan nisbi. Tetapi kerajaan (frasa yang digunakan di sini pihak yang berkuasa, kerana, dalam zaman Muhammad, belum ada konsep kerajaan sehingga beliau sendiri mendirikan kerajaan setelah beliau berhijrah ke Madinah), sumber perundangan kedua, boleh menggubal undang-undang tambahan denga syarat undang-undang itu tidak bercanggah dengan undang-undang dasar yang termaktub dalam Quran.

Harus kita perhatikan juga bahawa Nabi Muhammad memainkan dua peranan. Pertama, beliau seorang nabi lagi rasul. Tugas beliau ialah menerima dan menyampaikan wahyu Tuhan (Quran) kepada bangsa Arab, dan, melalui bangsa Arab, kepada dunia. Ini telah beliau lakukan dengan sempurna. Kedua, beliau ialah pihak berkuasa, atau pemimpin, kepada bangsa Arab yang akhirnya mengikut beliau. Sebagai pemimpin, beliau bertanggungjawab memimpin bangsanya melaksanakan falsafah hidup atau paradigma Quran. Dalam tugas ini, beliau berjaya besar, tetapi setelah kira-kira tiga ratus tahun, bangsa beliau kembali menyeleweng kepada adat lama (11).

Ayat yang padat dan ringkas ini memberikan suatu konsep perundangan yang sangat cantik. Kepada panduan inilah kita harus kembali untuk menyelesaikan dilema umat Islam, akibat doktrin yang salah yang telah dilakukan oleh nenek-moyang kita kira-kira 300 tahun setelah Nabi Muhammad wafat. Kita tidak perlu pesimistik kerana kesalahan mereka (Imam Shafi’e dan lain-lain). Kita pasti boleh bangkit balik dengan syarat kita tidak mendewakan mereka dan membetulkan diri kita dengan segera dengan berbalik kepada ajaran Quran. Inilah ajaran nabi Muhammad yang sebenar. Walaupun, seperti kata Nordi Achie, Quran itu kalimah Allah, kalimah itu disampaikan melalui kesedaran dan perkataan Muhammad (12). Tuhan sebenarnya tidak bercakap seperti manusia bercakap. Apabila Tuhan bercakap kepada Nabi Musa, adakah nabi Musa nampak Tuhan? Tidak. Beliau hanya dengar suatu suara bercakap dalam bahasa beliau yang menyatakan Dia Tuan Musa (13).

Keenam, perkara “ulama”(diletakkan di antara koma kerana perkataan ini sudah berubah maknanya) yang telah diterima oleh masyarakat Islam sebagai pihak berkuasa dalam urusan agama. Hal ini jelas, kecuali mungkin dalam masyarakat Turki sejak Mustafa Kamal Attaturk menolak mereka dalam Revolusi Kebangsaan Turki pada 1922-24. Dalam semua negara Islam sekarang, golongan “ulama” melaksanakan pernana dan kuasa mereka sebagai “penasihat” melalui institusi-institusi Majlis Agama, Majlis Fatwa dan sebagainya, kecuali di Iran setelah Revolusi Iran pada 1979 apabila kaum mullah mengambil-alih tampuk kerajaan.

Ketujuh dan akhir, perkara kejatuhan umat Islam, kerana terpenjara dalam penjara-istana yang mereka buat sendiri, iaitu apa yang didakwa sebagai Syari’ah atau undang-undang Tuhan. Perkara ini telah saya sentuh di banyak tepat di atas dan tidak perlu saya perpanjang lagi.

Saya tidak mahu menutup jawapan saya ini dalam nada kecewa. Mengikut ajaran Quran, tiada siapa yang patut putus asa, kerana Tuhan Maha Pengampun dan Maha Penyayang dan mengampun semua dosa (14). Oleh itu, kita jangan putus asa untuk mendapat pengampunan Tuhan. Kita boleh menebus semula kejatuhan kita dengan mudah. Ada dua syarat saja. Pertama, kita kena membebaskan diri kita dari semua berhala, kecuali Allah. Jika kita telah mendewakan mana-mana nabi, seperti yang telah dilakukan oleh umat Kristen terhadap Nabi Isa, atau kita telah mendewakan golongan ulama kita, seperti yang telah dilakukan oleh umat Yahudi, kita harus membetulkannya dengan segera. Kedua, kita harus kembali kepada ajaran Quran. Ini tidak bermakna kita perlu menolak Hadith atau Ijmak atau Qias, atau pun falsafah Barat, atau mana-mana ajaran lain, tetapi kita perlu meletakkan ajaran-ajaran ini di bawah kritikan Quran. Syarat-syarat ini boleh kita penuhi, kalau kita mahu. Kita hanya perlu sedar bahawa kita semua, termasuk pemimpin-pemimpin kita, dari kalangan sekular atau agama, dari mana bangsa pun, tidak sempurna. Tuhan saja yang sempurna. Terhadap diri kita dan terhadap pemimin kita, kita mesti sanggup, dalam frasa Quran, “menyerukan kebaikan dan melarang kejahatan”(15). Inilah saja jalan yang selamat, jalan kejayaan dan jalan kemenangan.

(1) En. Nordin Achie ialah pensyarah Pusat Penataran Ilmu dan Bahasa, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. Komen beliau dimuat dalam majalah Al-Islam keluaran Mei, 2006, h. 76-78.
(2) Lihat Kassim Ahmad, Hadis – Satu Penilaian Semula (HSPS), h. 88-89.
(3) Lihat Ahmad Ibrahim, Islamic Law in Malaya (1965), h. 25
(4) Pembaca yang ingin mengetahi lebih lanjut tentang perkara ini, sila lihat risalah-risalah penulis, Kontroversi Hukum Hudud(KHH) (Julai, 2002) dan Dilema Umat Islam – Antara Hadisdan Quran (DUI) (Ogos, 2002).
(5) Quran, 24: 2.
(6) Lihat Kassim Ahmad, DUI, h. 25.
(7) Lihat Christopher Hibbert, The Rootf of Evil (1966); h. 71.
(8) Lihat Kassim Ahmad, Hadis – Jawapan kepada Pengkritik(HJKP) (1992); h. 72-73. Lihat juga nota 31, h. 73.
(9) Lihat Quran, 2: 136.
(10)Lihat Kassim Ahmad, HJKP, h. 29, nota 12.
(11)Inilah makna ayat Quran yang dahsyat yang berbunyi, “Rasul berkata: ‘Wahai Tuanku, kaumku telah membelakangkan Quran ini.’” (25: 30)
(12) “Inilah perisytiharan seorang rasul yang mulia.” (Quran, 69: 40). Ayat ini diulang sekali lagi dalam 81: 19.
(13) Lihat Quran, 20: 11-44.
(14) Lihat Quran, 39: 53.


Kassim Ahmad seorang penulis bebas Malaysia yang tinggal di Pulau Pinang. Beliau boleh dihubungi di kasmad172@yahoo.com.my Sila lawat laman web: www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com

Note: This is an extended version of Kassim Ahmad's interview with the Bosnian magazine. MBM

KASSIM AHMAD'S INTERVIEW WITH FARIS NANIC*

Penang, Malaysia
8th May, 2006


1. In the last decade you have been portrayed as an anti-hadith thinker in Malaysia due to your writings on certain aspects of fiqh and shari'a. What was the problem?

A. My book titled «Hadith – A Re-evaluation» (Malay original: Hadis – Satu Penilaian Semula) is self-explanatory. I am critical of the hadith both in terms of its content (Ar. matan) as well as its chain of narrators (Ar. isnad). I did not deny its existence, but I denied its pre-eminent place with the Quran, which is a new doctrine introduced by Imam Shafi'e (d. 820) two hundred years after the Prophet's death. That explains why the official corpus of Hadith (the so-called Six Books of Authentic Hadith of the Sunnis and three collections of the Shi'ah Hadith) did not come into existence until after Shafie introduced this doctrine that the Hadith/Sunnah is compulsory on the Muslims. This was done with his ingenious argument in his book, Al-Risalah, that obedience to the Messenger equals upholding of the Hadith and Sunnah. When we examine all usages of this phrase in the Quran, the meaning is clearly to obey God and to uphold the Quran.

Before this, there were personal notes and collections of hadith, but they were not official. They became official only after Imam Shafi'e introduced his new doctrine .

2. Bosniacs belong to the hanefi madhab and therefore have less problems with hadith role in jurisprudence. Do you think it is a universal muslim problem?

A. In principle, I think it is a universal Muslim problem. Everywhere the majority of Muslims consider the Hadith as on par or almost on par with the Quran. Muslims are taught to believe that without the Hadith, the Quran cannot be understood and without the Hadith the Prophet's role is somehow negated. All this is untrue and unreasonable. God Himself states that the Quran is complete and perfect. In some places in the Quran, the Quran is said to be the «words of an honourable messenger».(Quran, 69:40 & 81:19) Muhammad was entrusted with the Quran precisely because he was morally and intellectually fit to carry and deliver it to the Arabs and to mankind. This, we know, he did.

Of course, Muslims are taught that Prophet Muhammad was an illiterate man to deflect the Christian criticism that He copied the Quran from the Bible. But the Arabic word ummi means «gentile», not «illiterate».

3. You have presented a poetical metaphor describing muslims as those who have entered a shiny palace, lock themselves in and threw the keys out. What do you mean?

A. The teaching of the Quran is complete and perfect in the sense that it is the guidance for a spiritually adult human being, the last completed, perfected and up-dated Book of God. It is like the text for a University student. It does not teach you how to eat and dress or how to pray even, for that matter, because these things one has learnt at the primary level. All the rituals of prayer, fasting and so on were introduced during Prophet Abraham's time and passed on from generation to generation until the time of Prophet Muhammad and until today. (Quran, 2:128) So what we have learnt from the primary and secondary schools, as it were, are no longer taught in the Quran. The Quran is complete and perfect in the sense that all a spiritually adult human being needs to know he can know from a study of the Quran. The perfect system which the majority of Muslims mean is the minutely-regulated so-called Shariah law which regulates everything, even including on what day to cut your finger nails and what prayer to say while entering the toilet! This is their perfect system (the palace of my metaphor) of which they are extremely proud. Unfortunately, this is a prison! It is a prison, because it robs them of their freedom to think and to act.

4. Do you think there is a general lack of knowledge in the West on real muslim contribution to the human civilisation or there exists a deliberate manipulation and decrease of that contibution by the western science historians?

A. It is both. The enemity of the Jews and the Christians towards Islam is nothing new. It did not start with 9/11, as a great many people, including Muslims, tend to think. (Remeber the Crusades?)One form of this enmity is their conspiracy to deny Muslim contributions to many branches of modern knowledge. Read the books The Making Of Humanity by Robert Briffault and, Introduction to the History of Science, by George Sarton Vol. II to realise this. Many Westerners, as with others, simply take over their society's perjudices towards Islam without bothering to make their own investigations. But sooner or later, especially after 9/11 and with Huntington's thesis of the «Clash of Civilizations» between the West and Islam, the European and the American peoples will come to know the true Islam in the teachings of the Quran. The Muslims themselves, although still a minority, after Dr. Rashad Khalifa's brilliant discovery of the mathematical miracle of the Quran and criticism of the Hadith, have re-awakened to the truth of the Quran. Both these forces will combine to bring back the Quran to the Muslims and to the world, precisely at a time when both stand in great need of it.

5. If we agree that in approximately three centuries there has not been any muslim paticipation in revolutionary breakthroughs in scinece and philosophy, what is your opinion on the roots of such state of affairs?

A. The Muslim creative spirit, fired by the revolutionary teachings of the Quran, has been killed. That is the root cause. Note that the teachings of Muhammad (the Quran) came to free the then world of their burdens (of superstitions and false teachings). Who has killed this spirit? As usual, the enemies of truth and justice come in many garbs, including the Muslims. The Muslims themselves, like the Christians and the Jews, have created their own priesthood without realizing it. It is this priesthood that had created the Hadith and the so-called Sharia, both of which are not sactioned by the Quran.

6. In the light of actual unipolarism in the world and so far Malaysian principal stance for multipolarism and dialogue instead of conflict of civilisations, what do you think what should be general muslim position on dialogue amnog cultures and civilisations?

A. It is obligatory on Muslims everywhere to seek peace, but not peace at any price. It is obligatory on them to fight those who make war on them. The dialogue of cultures and civilizations is an important way to world peace, but not the only way. What do you do to a group that does not sincerely want a dialogue, but only wants to dominate you?

7. Some observers think that Malaysia, in the post-Mahathir era is not playing a significant role any more, outside regional considerations, namely ASEAN. Do you agree?

A. Yes, I do. Malaysia worships pragmatism and avoid philosophy like the plague. Even Tun Dr. Mahathir. So it is wise and good politics to be in the good books of Uncle Sam! But Tun Dr. Mahathir was slightly different. He was anti-colonial and anti-feudal from the very beginning.

8. Prime minister Badawi recently expressed dissatisfaction with certain tendencies in the Malaysian society and challenged civil servants to leave their posts if uncompetent to fulfill their tasks and duties. What is behind these statements?

A. The Malaysian bureaucracy is huge and costly, but productivity-wise it is declining. And people are complaining. That is the reason.

9. Energy and energy independence is one of the crucial factors of a country's independence and sovereignty. How do you envisage Malaysia's energy future and what do you think should be Malaysian standpoint on nuclear technology for energy production?

A. I think Malaysia, as all sovereign countries, should go to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Can we imagine what will happen to the deserts of Africa once we can turn them into gardens of green and feed the world population cheaply? That is what nuclear technology can do! Why don't we do it then? Because it does not benefit the oligarchy, which lives and prospers on peoples' miseries.

10. Malaysian government recently floated ringgit against major currencies. Is this because it feels the danger from 1998/99 Asian flu is over or because it has built enough measures to counter another speculative attack on its currency? What happened with other 1999 Mahathir's government mesures?

A. The entire world financial system is in danger of imminent collapse. It is usury-ridden and bankrupt. «The Great Disorder under Heaven» (Mao Tse-tung's phrase) that is now reigning in the world is due to this. The sooner we correct this, the better. But most leaders of the world belong to an elitist club that does not want to rock the boat. So they do almost nothing even though the Titanic is sinking! The real peoples' leaders are now few and far between. Where are the Sukarnos, the Chou En-lies, the Nehru's, the Nassers, the Ben Bellas and the Titos of today?

11. Proporodov Journal is a Croatian Bosniac Muslim minority magazine. Our readers are very interested in Malaysia's particular experience with various minority aspects. Therefore, two questions emerge. First, what is Malaysian goverment doing, bilaterally and multilaterally, to help Malay national minority in neighboring countries, especially Thailand? Second, what is the level of intregration of Chinese, Hindu, Tamil, Sikh and other minorities intoMalaysian society, especially in public sector like politics, military, diplomacy and alike?

A. Given the present situation of Anglo-American imperialist world hegemony and a divided Muslim world, nothing much can be done, although we should help the poor and the down-trodden in all countries. The answer to the second part of the question is that more can be done, because so far the integration of the various communities into a just Malaysian society is quite superficial. It can be upset by a major crisis. But I think such a policy would need a new humanist political philosophy. It cannot be achieved under a so-called liberal democratic system of the Western capitalist mould.

* Mr Faris Nanic is editor of Propordov Journal, a Croatian Bosniac Muslim magazine.

[I interrupt the serialization of Hadith: A Re-Evaluation to bring this interview Kassim Ahmad had with a Croation Muslim magazine. MBM]

KASSIM AHMAD'S INTERVIEW
WITH FARIS NANIC*

Penang, Malaysia
8th May, 2006


1. In the last decade you have been portrayed as an anti-hadith thinker in Malaysia due to your writings on certain aspects of fiqh and shari'a. What was the problem?

A. My book titled «Hadith – A Re-evaluation» (Malay original: Hadis – Satu Penilaian Semula) is self-explanatory. I am critical of the hadith both in terms of its content (Ar. matan) as well as its chain of narrators (Ar. isnad). I did not deny its existence, but I denied its pre-eminent place with the Quran, which is a new doctrine introduced by Imam Shafi'e. That explains why the official corpus of Hadith did not come into exixtence until after Shafie introduced this doctrine that the Hadith/Sunnah is compulsory on the Muslims.

2. Bosniacs belong to the hanefi madhab and therefore have less problems with hadith role in jurisprudence. Do you think it is a universal Muslim problem?

A. In principle, I think it is a universal Muslim problem. Everywhere the majority of Muslims consider belief in the Hadith as obligatory on them.

3. You have presented a poetical metaphor describing Muslims as those who have entered a shiny palace, lock themselves in and threw the keys out. What do you mean?

A. The teaching of the Quran is complete and perfect in the sense that it is the text for a spiritually adult human being, for the university level of education. It does not teach you how to eat and dress or how to pray even, for that matter, because these things one has learnt at the primary level. But for the majority of Muslims, this perfect system means that everything, even including on what day to cut your finger nails and what prayer to say while entering the toilet, has been stipulated for them! This is their perfect system (the palace of my metaphor) of which they are extremely proud. Unfortunately, this is a prison!

4. Do you think there is a general lack of knowledge in the West on real Muslim contribution to the human civilisation or is there a deliberate manipulation and decrease of that contibution by the Western science historians?

A. It is both. Sooner or later the European and the American peoples will come to know the true Islam in the teachings of the Quran. They will not be burdened by the Hadith-bound theology of the so-called ulama. The Quran will free them and they will in turn free us. This is what is likely to happen in the next thirty to sixty years.

5. If we agree that in approximately three centuries there has not been any Muslim paticipation in revolutionary breakthroughs in science and philosophy, what is your opinion on the roots of such state of affairs?

A. The Muslim creative spirit, fired by the revolutionary teachings of the Quran, has been killed. That is the root cause. Note that the teachings of Muhammad (the Quran) came to free the then world of their burdens (of superstitions and false teachings).

6. In the light of actual unipolarism in the world and as far as the Malaysian principal stance for multipolarism and dialogue instead of conflict of civilisations, what do you think what should be the general Muslim position on dialogue among cultures and civilisations?

A. It is obligatory on Muslims everywhere to seek peace, but not peace at any price. It is obligatory on them to fight those who make war on them. The dialogue of cultures and civilizations is an important way to world peace, but not the only way. What do you do to a group that does not sincerely want a dialogue, but only wants to dominate you?

7. Some observers think that Malaysia in the post-Mahathir era is not playing a significant role any more, outside of regional considerations, namely ASEAN. Do you agree?

A. Yes, I do. Malaysia worships pragmatism and avoid philosophy like the plague. Even Tun Dr. Mahathir. So it is wise and good politics to be in the good books of Uncle Sam! But Tun Dr. Mahathir was slightly different. He was anti-colonial and anti-feudal from the very beginning.

8. Prime minister Badawi recently expressed dissatisfaction with certain tendencies in the Malaysian society and challenged civil servants to leave their posts if they are uncompetent to fulfill their tasks and duties. What is behind these statements?

A. The Malaysian bureaucracy is huge and costly, but productivity-wise it is declining. And people are complaining. That is the reason.

9. Energy and energy independence is one of the crucial factors of a country's independence and sovereignty. How do you envisage Malaysia's energy future and what do you think should be the Malaysian standpoint on nuclear technology for energy production?

A. I think Malaysia, as all sovereign countries, should develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Can we imagine what will happen to the deserts of Africa once we can turn them into gardens of green and feed the world population cheaply? That is what nuclear technology can do!

10. Malaysian government recently floated ringgit against major currencies. Is this because it feels the danger from 1998/99 Asian flu is over or because it has built enough measures to counter another speculative attack on its currency? What happened with other 1999 Mahathir's government mesures?

A. The entire world financial system is in danger of imminent collapse. It is usury-ridden and bankrupt. «The Great Disorder under Heaven» that is now reigning in the world is due to this. The sooner we correct this, the better. Most leaders of the world belong to an elitist club that does not want to rock the boat. But the Titanic is sinking! The real peoples' leaders are now few and far between. Where are the Sukarnos, the Chou En-lies, the Nehru's, the Nassers, the Ben Bellas and the Titos of today?

11. Proporodov Journal is a Croatian Bosniac Muslim minority magazine. Our readers are very interested in Malaysia's particular experience with various minority aspects. Therefore, two questions emerge. First, what is Malaysian goverment doing, bilaterally and multilaterally, to help Malay national minority in neighboring countries, especially Thailand? Second, what is the level of intregration of Chinese, Hindu, Tamil, Sikh and other minorities intoMalaysian society, especially in public sector like politics, military, diplomacy and alike?

A Given the present situation of Anglo-American imperialist world hegemony and a divided Muslim world, nothing much can be done, although we should help the poor and the down-trodden in all countries. The answer to the second part of the question is that more can be done, because so far the integration of the various communities into a just Malaysian society is quite superficial. It can be upset by a major crisis. But I think such a policy would need a new humanist political philosophy. It cannot be achieved under a so-called liberal democratic system of the capitalist Western mould.

* Mr Faris Nanic is editor of Propordov Journal, a Croatian Bosniac Muslim magazine.

Hadith: A Re-Evaluation


Where Have We Gone Wrong?


The time is ripe for Muslims and for mankind as a whole to undertake a fundamental study of this great human crisis. At some point, somewhere, we have gone wrong. Where have we gone wrong? It will be recalled that modern secular Europe emerged in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in rebellion against the Catholic Church in particular and against religion in general to embrace secular humanism of the liberal or Marxist variety. For the last one to three hundred years it experimented with these social philosophies and systems and the experiments have proved a failure. Today the two philosophies and systems are seeking a synthesis. Can the synthesis be achieved? Can it answer mankind's present quest for a new spiritual philosophy?

As for the Muslims, the new and young Muslim society and state set up by Muhammad and his compatriots in seventh century Arabia developed and expanded so rapidly that within a century it had become an empire to comprise also Persia and Byzantium, and within two to three hundred years it had created a great world civilization. But, as quickly as it had arisen, so quickly had it declined and fallen. Today, the Muslim polity, science and civilization, great though they were in their time, are glories and things of the past. There seems to be no bridge linking their great predecessors of the early centuries and present-day Muslims.

The great question mark hanging over the Muslims and the entire mankind today is: Why? The short answer to the question, which is the thesis of this book, is that mankind, including the Muslims, have deserted the true teachings of God. The true teachings of God in the era of Muhammad is contained in His final scripture to mankind, the Quran. The People of the Scripture, i.e. believers before Muhammad, especially the Jews and the Christians, rejected Muhammad because they had idolized their own prophets and religious leaders and refused to acknowledge Muhammad's divine message. Modern secular rebellious Europe not only turned against their religious priesthood, in which action it was right, but also against religion altogether, in which action it was wrong. This is the cause of the present Western impasse.

As regards the Muslims, Muhammad brought them the Quran, described by God Himself as an invincible book, but no sooner did Muhammad die and leave them, they contrived to make Muhammad bring two books and, after bitter quarrels, they legislated, two hundred and fifty years later, that Muslims must uphold not only the Quran but also the hadith. However, in truth, since then, they followed the hadith rather than the Quran. This explains God's warning in the Quran that we have quoted earlier. So it came about that while secular Europe embraced either liberalism or Marxism, the Muslim world embraced the hadith, with the philosophies of secular humanism infecting the elites of Muslim societies, thus justifying the Quranic warning.


Avoiding Misunderstanding

Raising such a fundamental issue as this, it is difficult to avoid misunderstanding from both sides. The secular side, being more open-minded and tolerant, will simply dismiss this call to the Quran as antiquated, outmoded and irrelevant. Many secularists will simply not consider it. On the other hand, the traditionalist side, being close-minded and intolerant of dissenting views on matters regarded as their preserves, will raise a hue and cry and throw slanderous accusations into the debate.

One cannot be discouraged by the prospect. It is part of the social struggle to expose falsehood and confirm the truth. The secularists will be worthy opponents since they will be prepared to fight it out in open battles. Open debate is part of their secular tradition. The traditionalists are a different breed. Open debate is not part of their tradition. In fact, they came into being in Muslim society by killing open debate. Authoritarianism is their culture. Thus, slander, threats and falsehood will be their methods.

It will be claimed that the writer is trying to cause confusion and further divide Muslim society. This is far from the truth. The Muslims cannot be further confused and divided than they already have been for a long time. What worse confusion and division can there be than when Muslims fight and kill one another?

My aim is to try to establish the truth. My personal history bears testimony to this tendency. Like other Malays, I was born and brought up in an ordinary orthodox Malay Muslim family. However, my early interest in social philosophy took me on a long spiritual quest, over a period of thirty years, spanning liberal nationalism, Islamic liberalism and socialism, every single one of which each time sat uneasily over traditional Islam. The failure became obvious to me when the coherent integrated social philosophy that I was seeking eluded me. It was in the Islam of the Quran, scientifically understood, that I discovered the framework of such a philosophy.

Looking back, this is only logical, since the Quran contains the sure truth from God, while most of human teachings, as the Quran points out, are mere conjecture. But at that time, the Quran was, so to speak, covered up for me by the fog of hadith.

It will be claimed that calling the people back to the Quran alone will create a new sect, in addition to the sects that already exist. This is standing the argument on its head. Since the Quran is, in the first place, anti-sectarian, not only will it not create a new sect, but it will, on the contrary, eliminate all existing sects and reunite all Muslims. This is precisely what we want to do. History proves that under Muhammad the young Muslim society was completely united and there was no sect whatever. It is ironic that the Ahl'ul-Hadith who talk so much about following the example of the Prophet have completely abandoned this finest of his examples!

It will also be claimed that in rejecting the hadith as a source of law, we shall be rejecting the role of the Prophet. It will further be claimed that this is the first step to the ultimate rejection of the Quran! As for the first part of the claim, it is obvious to anyone that it was only through Muhammad that mankind received the Quran from God Almighty. That was his primary role — God's messenger — indeed his only role, as the Quran stressed several times. Was not this role great enough for Prophet Muhammad? Surely, it was.

As for the second part, it is too ridiculous to even think of it. But since the die-hard traditionists would stop at nothing to slander their opponents, one would lose nothing to spend a few lines exposing them. How can anyone, after calling the people back to the Quran, then reject the Quran? Even if he does, and this means reverting to disbelief after belief, how can that benefit him? He would lose everything, while the people, on the contrary, would benefit greatly by going back to the Quran.

The Muslims must re-possess critical consciousness and discard prejudice and group fanaticism. We must avoid throwing slanderous accusations at what we may not like at first. God Himself has taught us to verify things before we accept or reject them. No less an intelligent man than Sayyed Hossein Nasr who has said the following about those who deny the authority of the hadith:

It is against this basic aspect of the whole structure of Islam that a severe attack has been made in recent years by an influential school of Western Orientalists. No more of a vicious and insidious attack could be made against Islam than this one, which undercuts its very foundations and whose effect is more dangerous than if a physical attack were made against Islam.

How can this scholar, who has quoted a blasphemous hadith in the same book, spout this slander? Why should we Muslims, in possession of an invincible scripture from God Almighty, be afraid of the criticisms and even attacks of Orientalists? Such fear, in fact, reflects our own weakness. It shows that we are not sure of our own selves. The Quranic methodology should be a lesson for us. The Quran incessantly reproduces the false arguments of idol-worshippers and hypocrites and rebuts them with proofs and with better arguments. We should do the same to expose falsehoods and confirm the truth. The methods of suppression and slander are alien to the methods of truth.

Rejecting the authority of the hadith does not mean denying its existence. Some true reports of what the Prophet said and did outside the Quran as leader of his community and as an ordinary man must have been preserved. Such reports deserve to be treated as any other historical account whose authenticity must be judged against other historical accounts, against the higher authority of the Quran, and against rational criteria. While Quranic pronouncements are divine and are eternally binding on believers, those of Muhammad in his capacity as leader must be treated in accordance with the Quranic injunction regarding politico-social authority, i.e. that they are only conditionally binding. The conditions are that they do not contradict the Quran, they are binding only for the community of that time, and that for other communities of other times they only constitute as precedents to be followed or bypassed as and when deemed useful.

It should also be well understood that this re-evaluation of the hadith is in no way a slur upon our classical scholars. They understood and reacted to their problems as best they could. We who come after them are not bound by their solutions. As Muhammad Abduh has well said, "They are human and we are human. We learn from them but we do not [blindly] follow them." No doubt our re-examination constitutes a criticism. But this is normal scientific procedure. It has been done by all our great philosophers and scholars from the beginning, by Ibn Sina, al-Ghazzali, Ibn Rush, Ibn Taimiya, Shah Waliyullah, Muhammad Abduh and scores of others. We owe it to them and to ourselves to constantly practice this method. For how else can knowledge develop and society progress unless they continually be purged of errors. This accounts for the very important Quranic directive, repeated many times, to believers:

Let there be a community among you who preach goodness, advocate righteousness and forbid evil. These are the winners.

It must also be pointed out that this criticism and re-evaluation of the hadith that we are making is nothing new. Imam Shafi`i who first stipulated that the hadith should be accepted as a source of law had opponents that he himself described in his book. In recent times there were such proponents in Egypt, India and Indonesia. It may be that our treatment, thanks to recent developments in Quranic and hadith studies, is more systematic than previous efforts.

In this study we have adopted what may be termed as Islamic scientific methodology. In is unfortunate that today we associate scientific methodology to the Western empirical and rational methods, when, in fact, it was Islam that introduced this methodology to the West. The words of the English historian Robert Briffault deserve to be quoted in full:

"... It was under their successors at the Oxford school that Roger Bacon learned Arabic and Arabic science. Neither Roger Bacon nor his later namesake has any title to be credited with having introduced the experimental method. Roger Bacon was no more than one of the apostles of Muslim science and method to Christian Europe; and he never wearied of declaring that knowledge of Arabic and Arabic science was for his contemporaries the only way to true knowledge. Discussions as to who was the originator of the experimental method ... are part of the colossal misrepresentation of the origins of European civilization. The experimental method of [the] Arabs was by Bacon's time widespread and eagerly cultivated throughout Europe..."

However, the scientific methodology of Europe sought to bar supra-rational and supra-sensory knowledge from science. It is now admitted that this is inadequate to conform to the truly Islamic scientific methodology of combining sensory, rational and supra-rational knowledge to produce true integrated knowledge. Using this methodology, we take the Quran as our basis and starting point and subject all the evidence of the hadith, i.e. the hadith itself, the major classical writings on them and modern European and Muslim criticisms, to Quranic and rational judgements. We may, of course, take ten years to do this and produce five volumes that few will have the time and the stamina to read. Our purpose is different. Ours is to write a readable book for the general reader with enough matter for him to think and draw conclusions.

It is hardly necessary to state that this is a view offered to the reader for his consideration. God Almighty Himself has ordered us to read in His name, for doing that we cannot fail to develop our mind and increase our knowledge. A good book will do that positively; a bad one, negatively. Reading in His name, therefore, cannot but produce good results. Yet, the Muslims today are very bad readers. Centuries of subservience to bigoted religious authorities have shackled their minds. This subservience plus their deplorable ignorance of the contents of the Quran combine to make what they are today — a weak, backward and humiliated people. The time has come for us to break out of this prison. It is for this purpose that this study is undertaken.

Next: CHAPTER II REFUTATION OF THE TRADITIONISTS' THEORY

Hadith: A Re-Evaluation

Basing ourselves on this premise, we can make the following hypothesis. The rapid rise of the Arab nation from its dark period of paganism prior to Muhammad to become the most powerful and civilized nation in the world then, within a short period of time, is due to the new, inspiring, powerful and dynamic Islamic ideology of monotheism brought by Muhammad. The Arabs, under his and his immediate successors' leadership, discarded their erstwhile polytheism and super-stitions. They united to fight and struggle under the guidance of the Quran and set up a just social order. Because this struggle was based on divine truth and justice as contained in the Quran, it was invincible. It also gave rise to a great social movement, bringing forth with it outstanding political, military and intellectual leaders who helped to create the first scientific-spiritual culture in history.

This hypothesis, in contrast to the modernist or the traditionalist theses, appears to be the most helpful in our effort to understand the history and the decline of the Muslims. The modernist thesis, in brief, states that the Muslims declined because they have remained traditional and have not modernized themselves according to Western secular values. The traditionalist thesis, on the other hand, blame the secularization of Muslim societies and the neglect of orthodox Muslim teachings as the major cause of Muslim decline.

It is obvious that the modernist and the traditionalist theses cancelled each other. Furthermore, the modernists have to explain why the Turkish experiment with Westernized modernization failed. They also have to explain why developed Western societies such as the United States and Europe have been undergoing a multi-faceted crisis since the First World War, and why a new philosophical trend of thought critical of Western-type modernization has developed in Europe and America.

The traditionalists, on the other hand, must explain the failure of their system from the beginning when it was first formulated around the third, fourth and fifth centuries of Islam. Some Arab countries have hardly modernized and had been practicing the traditional system for centuries – why have these not progressed? If they have not progressed, it is idle to expect Muslim countries to progress if they implement the traditional system.

The answer lies in our hypothesis. The early Muslims rose to the pinnacles of success precisely because they were in possession of and practiced the powerful and dynamic Islamic ideology as preached in the Quran. They subjected other knowledge, local and foreign, to the discriminative teachings of the Quran. As long as they did this, they progressed. A time came when other teachings, local and foreign, gained the upper hand and submerged the Quran, as witnessed by the following Quranic prophecy:

The messenger will say, "My Lord, my people have deserted this Quran." We thus appointed for every prophet enemies from among the criminals, and God suffices as Guide and Protector.

After about three hundred years, extraneous harmful teachings not taught by Prophet Muhammad but skillfully attributed to him gradually gained a foothold in the Muslim community and turned them away from the dynamic invincible ideology that initially brought them success. This ideology, as we shall show, is precisely the hadith. This is the main cause of their downfall. It therefore follows that the purging of this harmful ideology, and with it other foreign modern ideologies, from the Muslim community, and their return to the original ideology brought by Muhammad in the Quran is the sine qua non for the regeneration of the Muslim community and for a new Muslim Renaissance.


Age of "Great Disorder"

The time has now arrived for the Muslims to examine their situation more critically and boldly. Actually, this perilous situation is not confined to the Muslims alone; it covers the entire mankind. A number of twentieth century philosophers, historians and social critics have unanimously stated that this century is the most critical century in human history. The late Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, described the century as "Great Disorder under Heaven." The American historical philosopher, P.A. Sorokin, has detailed the crisis of the twentieth century in his able book, The Crisis of Our Age, published in 1941. It is in this century that two terrible world wars occurred, and a third more horrible one might still occur, in spite of the end of the Cold War, to destroy the present civilization.

It is in this century also that an array of philosophies, ideologies, theories, systems that includes liberalism, Marxism, pragmatism, logical positivism, existentialism, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, Ghandhism, Maoism and religious traditionalism collapsed. When dominant existing philosophies and systems cannot solve the problems of human security and welfare, it is a sure sign that a very serious crisis is upon us.

A number of modern writers and poets, such as Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Y.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot, had expressed this atmosphere and sense of great crisis in their works. Listen to the loneliness and poignant sorrow of Eliot:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

and the deep despair and earnest prayer of Yeats:


Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world;
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.



This literature of pessimism and absurdity of life beginning in the twenties and thirties and continuing after the Second World War is, of course, a reflection of the great disorder currently existing in the world. This great disorder is evidenced by the great ideological cleavage, the continuous raging of the fires of war, the massive starvation and poverty in the Third World, the steep decline in public morality, world-wide financial and economic crisis and the inability of the United Nations to function effectively.

The Muslims had long lost their intellectual and political leadership of the world. The break-up of their empire in 1258 AD gave way to independent dynasties which continued until they were colonized by European powers beginning in the sixteenth right up to the early twentieth centuries. Then, with the rise of nationalism in Asia and Africa, nearly all of them regained their independence and set up sovereign nation-states.

However, the Muslims had ceased to be creative around the fourteenth century. Their period of intense creativity lasted three centuries from the ninth through to the eleventh. Their last great philosopher was the Arab Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406). Since that time Muslim intellect stagnated and even degenerated and Europe took over to develop dominant philosophies and disciplines along materialist and hedonistic lines.

After more than a century of modern reformism efforts initiated by Jamaluddin al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh, the Muslim world, a world as disunited as any other, have not progressed much. They have not been able to fight off the ideological influence and domination of the world power-blocs. They are not united in their Muslim purpose. Their economies are dependent and backward. Their sciences and technologies are non-existent. Militarily, they are weak and dependent on the big powers.

However, there has been much talk, since the early seventies, of implementing the Shari`a or medieval Muslim law and the setting up of an Islamic state. This is the slogan of the traditionalists who have taken over the reform movement of Muhammad Abduh. The examples of mullah rule in Iran since the great popular anti-Shah revolution and the Islamization programmes in some countries do not give support to the traditionalist alternative.

The main weakness of the Muslims is their disunity. This disunity takes the form in their inability to cooperate for the good of Muslims in individual countries and the whole Muslim world. It also surfaces in the form of conflicts and wars between Muslims, as typified by the Iran-Iraq war and the civil wars in Lebanon.

What is the cause of this disunity? The Muslims claim that they worship one God and follow His one religion. They also declare their religious brotherhood. How then are they so disunited? This is the mystery that we have to unravel. This is the reason for our re-evaluation of the hadith. Our hypothesis is that the hadith — in principle, a false teaching attributed to Prophet Muhammad — is a major factor causing disunity and backwardness among Muslims. Our study is to prove this hypothesis.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION: WHY WE RAISE THIS PROBLEM

... Therefore, congratulate My servants who listen to all views, then follow the best. These are the ones guided by God; these are the intelligent ones.

(Quran, 39:17-18)

All Muslims are required to uphold the hadith or sunna of the Prophet, i.e. the so-called Prophetic traditions, as a primary source of law apart from the Quran, according to the teachings of classical jurisprudence. Yet not many, indeed very few, realize that the basis of this jurisprudential theory was promulgated two hundred years after Muhammad's death by the famous jurist Imam Shafi`i (d. 204/820). What have come to be known as the `Six Authentic Books' of hadith of the majority Sunnite `orthodoxy' were compiled, precisely after the promulgation of this theory, by Bukhari (d. 256/870), Muslim (d. 261/875), Abu Daud (d. 275/888), Tirmidhi (d. 279/892), Ibn Maja (d. 273/886), and al-Nasa'i (d. 303/915) during the second half of the second and the beginning of the third centuries of Islam, between 220 and 270 years after the Prophet's death.

The `heterodox' Shi`ite minority sect has its own sets of hadith compiled during the third and fourth centuries, by al-Kulaini (d. 328 or 329), Ibn Babuwayh (d. 381), Jaafar Muhammad al-Tusi (d. 411) and al-Murtada (d. 436), who compiled sayings attributed to Ali.

Based on this Shafi`i theory and on what was later termed as the consensus of scholars, the hadith/sunna was propagated to and accepted by the Muslims as interpreter and complement to the Quran, implying thereby that the Quran needs an interpreter and is not complete in itself. Although the Shi`ites have not accepted the classical Sunnite jurisprudential theory in toto, they do accept the doctrine that the hadith/sunna constitutes a source of law on par with the Quran.


Background to this Study

In accordance with this Sunnite tradition, I also accepted this position when I wrote my book on modern Islamic social theory in 1981-82, although I qualified my acceptance according to Ibn Khaldun's formula, which requires all acceptable traditions to be validated by the Quran and rational criteria. However, this position, though a scientific one, is still not clear enough until in 1985 the works of an outstanding Egyptian Muslim scholar, Dr. Rashad Khalifa, particularly his The Computer Speaks: God's Message to the World, Quran, Hadith and Islam and his superb translation of the Quran have opened for me a way to solve the problem of the hadith. I therefore began to re-examine the hadith: how they came about; the social factors that brought them into existence; a review of the classical criticism; the actual place of the hadith in relation to the Quran; their negative effects on the Muslim community; their connections to the decline and fall of the Muslims; and the way out of this impasse.

I am convinced that the time has come for the Muslim community and their intelligentsia to critically re-evaluate the whole heritage of traditional Islamic thought, including theology and jurisprudence. This is because the traditional formulation was made by the society and intelligentsia of that time in accordance with their knowledge and level of understanding, and conforming to needs of that time. Now the situation has changed tremendously and there is no doubt that the traditional formulation must be reconsidered.

Since the emergence of the modern reformism movement of Jamaluddin al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Ridha at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, many studies have been made on the decline and fall of the Muslims. These include the works of thinkers like Iqbal, Malek Bennabi and Fazlur Rahman. However, the condition of the Muslim community has not changed very much and continues to be precarious. In comparison with other communities, especially those in Europe, United States, Russia and Japan, the Muslim community is the most backward, especially in socio-economic, scientific, technological and military fields.

What are the reasons for this backwardness? From the point of view of numbers, the Muslims, now more than a billion, have outnumbered the Christians, and from the point of view of natural resources, Muslim countries are among the richest in the world. Why, with such vast resources and possessing an infallible divine scripture, are the Muslims unable to compete with and surpass other nations?

This situation is exactly the opposite of the situation of their early ancestors who, within a short period of time, climbed the heights of success and created a great world empire and a great world civilization. These early successes which had astounded the world must have had their reasons based on the laws of historical change. What are those reasons? This is the greatest challenge facing Muslim intelligentsia at the close of the twentieth century and on the threshold of the twenty-first: to seek the true causes of Muslim decline and thereby to lay the ground for a new Muslim Renaissance.

As we have said, this study and review of our traditional formulation must encompass classical theology and jurisprudence. The hadith, of course, is at the core of these traditional disciplines.

Our present knowledge point to many factors that contribute to the rise and fall of nations, factors that are ideological, political, economic, social, cultural, historical, psychological, demographic, geographical, scientific, technological and military in nature. But it is also quite certain that within this pluralism of factors, not all play equally important roles. Technology can surmount geographical limitations; military strategy can overcome numbers; political leadership can offset economic weakness, and so on. Turning to the Quran as our infallible guide, we find the following statements that can give us a clue to the understanding of the problem under discussion.

"Surely, God does not change the condition of any people until they themselves change."

"That is because God does not change the blessings He had bestowed upon any people, unless they themselves change."

"If only the previous generations had some intelligent people who enjoined them from corruption, they would have been saved. But We saved a few of them, while the rest pursued their material things and became sinners. Your Lord never destroys any community unjustly while the people are righteous."

"We will surely give victory to our messengers and to those who believe, both in this life and on the day the witnesses are raised."

"You shall never waver, nor shall you worry; you are guaranteed victory for as long as you are believers."

All the above Quranic statements point to a people's ideology as the most important component in the determination of their fate. This means that insofar as a people is imbued with a scientific, dynamic and progressive ideology, that far will it climb the ladder of success. Conversely, insofar as a people revert to a previously held anti-scientific, static and regressive ideology, that far will it degenerate. The strong unambiguous statements about victory being granted to believers in both worlds necessarily follow from the definition of believers as those possessing and practicing the true scientific ideology.

HADITH - A Re-Evaluation
Kassim Ahmad

[Starting today, and twice a week (Wednesdays and Sundays), I will be serializing the English translation of Kassim Ahmad's Hadith Satu Penilaian. MBM]


AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION

I am grateful to my friend who has done a masterly translation of my book. I have had the draft of the translation since he finished it in late 1987, one year after the publication of the Malay original. I have had it put into my computer and left it there until recently when I thought that it was time to have it published.

I therefore went over it and made what additions and changes I think necessary after eight years since the book first saw the light of day. So, this is not an exact translation of the Malay original, although the format and the arguments remain the same.

Political considerations had led to the banning of the book a few months after it was published. However, after six years, I published a sequel, entitled Hadis — Jawapan Kepada Pengkritik (Hadith — Answer to the Critics) as my answer to several books that have been published to criticize me. This book, fortunately has not been banned. I have translated Chapter 7 of this book (Scientific Methodology for Understanding the Quran) and include it as Addendum in this translation, because I think it is an important and relevant matter to the topic.

I am also indebted to my friend Dr. Gatut Adisoma for his careful editing of the final draft. Both he and Edip Yuksel provided useful suggestions that I incorporated in this book. Any shortcomings that remain are due to the author.

KASSIM AHMAD
Bandaraya Tanjung,
Pulau Pinang – Malaysia,
31 August, 1995.


Postscript

My friend, Dr. Hassan Hanafi, of the Philosophy Department of Cairo University, has graciously consented to write a Foreword to this translation. In his letter to me dated 18 January, 1996, together with his hand-written Foreword, he stated that "I made it critical to initiate general debate. Praising is no good. Making a dialogue with you is better."

Since the publication of the Malay original in 1986, I have never been the one to refuse dialogue, even when the odds were against me. My dialogue with the Malaysian Theologians' Association just before the book was published was not concluded due to the Associations's refusal to continue. My dialogue with the Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (ABIM) one month after publication failed to produced any positive result because they made a negative unilateral judgement against me and my book in spite of their assurance given to me before the dialogue that no decision would be taken.

It is in the same spirit of wanting to solve this problem through dialogue that I accept Dr. Hassan's very critical Introduction to this translation. My slight surprise is Dr. Hassan's methods of criticism. He has combined arguments from both the traditional and modernist sources: that the Hadith as the second source of Muslim law has been the general consensus and cannot be questioned anymore (traditional argument), and that debating the Hadith is counter-productive as it is irrelevant to the modernization of Muslim society (modernist argument).

I think my book adequately rebuts both these arguments, so I shall not say anything further on that for now.

I do not accept Dr. Hassan's criticism for my using examples from Western cultural development as external and inapplicable. The world has developed to be internationalist since the European voyages of discovery in the 15th Century. In fact, it is truer to say with Iqbal that, with the advent of Muhammad (the first and last prophet sent to the entire world community), the world entered the modern Scientific-Technological Era. What we sometimes call modern Western civilization is, in fact, world civilization, since it contains contributions from all civilizations: Middle-Eastern, Greek, Roman, Persian, Arab, Indian and Chinese.

Dr. Hassan makes the astonishing assertion that the slogan "Back to the Quran" is common to all Salafi (reform) movements, whether they are reformers, conservatives or modernists. As far as I understand, Muhammad Abduh, the father of this movement, called for the rejection of mazhab and taqlid, and for the reopening of the door of ijtihad and critical assimilation of Western knowledge. His basic references are still the Quran and the Hadith. I have pointed out that herein lies the failure of this movement. The Hadith, and everything else, have to be judged by the Quran.

On this point, Dr. Hassan rightly replies that even the Quran can be criticized, as nothing is exempt from criticism. Dr. Hassan must have meant that men's understanding and interpretation of the Quran can be criticized, for the Quran is God's final revelation to mankind and has from the beginning been under divine protection. However, the true aim of criticism is to expose falsehood and establish the truth. In this sense, the Quran is criticism par excellence. It is therefore above criticism.

On that note, I leave it to the reader to make his own conclusion.

Kassim Ahmad
Bandaraya Tanjung,
Pulau Pinang,
28 January, 1996.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kassim Ahmad was born on 9 September, 1933 in Kedah, Malaysia. He took his Bachelor of Art's degree in Malay language and literature, but also read widely in political science and Islamic philosophy. He taught Malay language and literature for a time in the London School of Oriental and African Studies and then in a secondary school in Penang where he has been staying with his family since 1966.

He has written several books on Malay literature as well as on Islamic subjects.


FOREWORD

Hassan Hanafi
Professor of Philosophy
Cairo University

This book, Hadith — A Re-evaluation, of Kassim Ahmad is a real implementation of the Kantian principle evoked in the book, "Dare to Know" against the authority of the Church. In Islam, there is no Church. However, the common knowledge, the established notions and the popular creed play the role of an intellectual and ideological Church which denies freedom of thought and shackles free intellectual development.

The publication of such book in English does not represent any difficulty, either to the author, or to the public. Many authors in the last four centuries tackled the question of authenticity of the scriptures, Old and New Testaments, expressing much doubt about their historical authenticity. The public became accustomed to such critiques of sources applied in Biblical criticism in modern times. It was a big debate behind the Protestant rift, postulating Sola Scriptura. Notions of historical authenticity, narratives, oral tradition, revelation and inspiration became very familiar to the public in religious and literary studies.

The main thesis of the book is that Hadith has been compiled without permission, either from the prophet, or from the four Righteous Caliphs for fear of confusing it with the Quran, the first source of Islam. Because of the power struggles between different political factions, each pretender legitimized his claim by recourse to a saying of Prophet Muhammad in his favor. Pious Muslims such as Bukhari and Muslim tried to collect these sayings after verifying their authenticity. Even then, they were not free from prejudice, in favor of the established authority, the Sunnites. Shi'ite opposition had their Hadith compilations justifying their political claims. Gradually, people forgot the Quran as the first source of Islam in favor of the Hadith, the second source. Since many of Hadith narratives contradict the Quran and even contradict themselves, the necessity to criticize the Hadith emerges as a prerequisite for any socio-political change.

Most of these unauthentic narratives are more stringent, binding and compulsory. The Quran in such topics is more lenient. Al-Shafi`i (d. 204 H.) is responsible for this rigidity by blocking the law and narrowing the Ijtihad by making Hadith a second source of law more binding than the Quran and the Ijma' and minimizing the role of the Ijtihad, the fourth source of law. He initiated this movement of Ahl al-Hadith in opposition to Ahl al-Ra'y.

The Hadith debate is not new. It is already known in Western Orientalism since the last century and in contemporary Islamic thought.

Since Orientalists denied Islamic Revelation, not only the Hadith but also the Quran, and since they have been accustomed to Biblical criticism, they applied the same rules to prophetic narratives in Islam. Western public got used to this criticism since revelation and inspiration are the same. Christ is God, the Apostle is the writer. The ideas are inspired by the Holy Spirit while the words are chosen by the Apostle himself. Words can change according to the language, the education and the culture of the writer, while ideas remain the same. Narratives developed in history as personal witnesses. The narration is not a recording-machine, a simple transmitter of a message, but a living witness. Historical authenticity requiring a concordance in the message between the enunciator and the auditor is a mechanical notion of reporting. In the case of the Gospel, the writer understands, interprets and creates the message. The message becomes better transmitted, understood and communicated. The message is motivated by the intentions of the narrator, expressing his level of education and culture and revealing his loyalty to this or that group in the power struggle among the early disciples before Nicaea-I. Maturation or deviation, creativity or inauthenticity, development or falsification? Judeo-Christian tradition chose the first answer while Islam chose the second. Since Hadith went in a similar way as the Jewish and Christian scriptures, it has been judged as an unauthentic historical deviation.

Modern Arab and Muslim thinkers and reformers such as Syed Qutb have been accused of minimizing the role of the Hadith in favor of the Quran, irrespective of their motives, either similar or different from the Orientalists. Modern thinkers did not deny revelation, but they tried to liberate Muslim societies from dogmatic and rigid adherence to the texts and calling for Ijtihad, based on the spirit of Islam and the universal intentions of the Law. The general guidelines of the Quran help more than the details of the Hadith. The Asl has a more liberating power than the Fard. Many of the harmful laws and superstitious beliefs come from the unauthentic prophetic narratives. The Hadith diverges while the Quran converges.

Ancient scholars were aware of this problem of the historical authenticity or inauthenticity of the narratives. The Quran has been preserved in writing since the moment of its utterance. It has been collected, compared and standardized during the era of Othman, the fourth caliph. The Quran did not go through a period of oral transmission such as the Hadith. Ancient scholars invented a whole discipline, the science of Hadith to put some rules to verify the authenticity of the Hadith in history.

First, the analysis of the terms of the report into five degrees of certitude, from the more certain to the less certain, guarantees the direct testimony as the high degree of witnessing: I heard; He said; He ordered; He ordered us; They did.

Second, the multilateral report , the Mutawatir, is the highest degree of authenticity concerning the chain of reporters. It is the one transmitted by several reporters with four conditions, namely, first, a sufficient number which gives the certitude of authenticity and takes away all doubts; second, the independence of reporters from each other to prevent any possibility of connivance; third, the homogeneity of expression of the report in time through generations without oscillation between the well-known and the unknown; fourth, the concordance of the report with sensory evidence, with reason and with the course of events and the laws of nature to prevent mythological and superstitious infiltrations.

Third, the unilateral report, Wahid, is that one which fails one of the four previous conditions. It is hypothetical in knowledge but apodictic in action, while the multilateral report is apodictic in both knowledge and action. The authenticity of the unilateral report is guaranteed by the analysis of the consciousness of the reporter to verify its neutrality and objectivity, such as justice, unity, maturity, intelligence, good hearing and memory and speech ability, since a report is the passage from hearing to memorizing and finally to communicating. Ancient scholars even invented a side-discipline, criteria to evaluate a reporter's neutrality and objectivity, called Ilm al-Jarh Wa al-Ta'dil, a certain kind of a biographical description of the reporter, his personality, motives, inclinations, loyalties and affiliations.

Fourth, the transmission can be both written and oral, from hand to hand, and from mouth to mouth. The master can permit the disciple to report from this book handed to him (Munawala). The disciple can read from the book and the master agrees (Ijaza). This rule of written transmission excludes any possibility of alteration on falsification of the document.

Fifth, the report is not only the chain of reporters (Sanad) but also the report itself (Matn). The highest degree of certainty is the literal report, the message with the same words. If the message is transmitted in different words, with addition or omission, it becomes hypothetical.

In short, the whole science of Hadith aims to verify the historical authenticity of the narratives. The whole theory is based on a tripartite division of the Hadith: Authentic, Unauthentic and Undecided, on which judgement is suspended.

Ancient scholars, studying the Quran, also conceived the theory of abrogation and considered the development of the text and the historical contexts of the Quran and the Hadith. The later texts cancel the earlier texts as a source of law. The Quran is abrogated by the Quran, the Hadith by the Hadith, but never the Quran by the Hadith, or the Hadith by the Quran. In this case, it is called particularization, Takhsis, exception, Istithna' or restriction, Taqyid.

Ancient scholars also created side-disciplines to maintain the coherence of the judicial system such as the science of opposition and preponderance, Ilm al-Ta`arud wa al-Tarajih, in case of an apparent opposition between two Quranic verses, between Hadith narratives, between a Quranic verse and a Hadith narrative or between a Hadith unilateral narrative and reasoning by analogy or Qiyas. An opposition between a text and consensus, or Ijma', does not occur since Ijma' is based on texts and since it is not binding to future generations.

If this is the work of ancient scholars, what is the need to use Western culture as a system of reference? Is the book intended for Western readers to understand Muslim modernists, publicized in Western mass-media for fame? Western intellectual framework makes the thinker liable to be accused of Westernization and consequently of being uprooted from his own traditional culture. More knowledge of the ancient Hadith discipline and a deeper knowledge of Arabic help the modernist in expressing his case. No modernism is possible without digging deeper into the tradition. Modernism comes from within not from without. That is why the introduction of the book on the crisis of the age is off-target. Which age? Western age or Malaysian-Muslim age? The end of the twentieth century or the beginning of the fifteenth century? Peoples and cultures do not live in the same historical periods.

The constant reference to the Western culture as a frame of reference gives the impression that the main problematic of the book is a Western one. Biblical criticism is very common in the West because the Judeo-Christian scriptures passed through a period of oral transmission. The author refers constantly to Biblical criticism, to Western bibliography more than to Hadith studies and Islamic bibliography. Maybe the lack of knowledge of Arabic is an obstacle to dig in the classical sources and to use accurate Arabic technical vocabulary. The Christian calendar is more used than the Islamic one. The Islamic calendar was only used for the compilers of the Hadith. Only once both calendars were used, i.e. for Imam al-Shafi`i (d. 820 AD/204 H.)

The author refers to the Judeo-Christian tradition: Jewish oral and written tradition in the 5th century BC; the Jewish scholar O. Goldin, deviations of Christian fathers after Christ as a model of Muslim deviants after Mohammed, Christ seen as God by the Christians. Western cultural developments appear visibly in the book: the birth of modern secularism in Europe and its failure; European awareness of the importance of freedom of thought following the Arabs and their struggle for it, a model for the Muslims nowadays to follow; European success in pioneering science and technology; the opposition between religion and science in the 19th century as a model of the opposition between Hadith and science; European liberation from the authority of the Church and the establishment of Kantian principle, "Dare to Know," Western skepticism concerning the authenticity of the scripture, etc.

The author refers to many proper names, sociologists, such as Sorokin, and his book The Crisis of Our Age; doctors, like Maurice Bucaille, the French physician, member of the French academy of science, poets such as Yeats and T.S. Eliot, with quotations from their poems, and novelists, such as Dostoyevsky, Camus and Sartre.

Technically speaking, from within the science of Hadith, taking Islamic culture as a frame of reference, the following points can be made:

1. There is no general stand, accepting Hadith or rejecting it. There is only such stand concerning certain Hadith oscillating between authenticity and inauthenticity. The authentic Hadith is accepted, while the unauthentic is rejected, according to the tripartite division of Hadith.

2. There is no general acceptance or rejection of the whole Hadith, but of special hadiths concerning certain topics contrary to the Quran or to Hadith itself. Other hadiths are well-taken such as "No testament for the inheritor," "There is zakat in the sheep in pasture."

3. The Hadith is not only of two kind: authentic and unauthentic but it has different degrees of authenticity concerning the report (Matn) and the chain (Sanad). The literal report is more authentic than the free quotation. The multilateral is more authentic than the unilateral. The well-known, Mashhur, the discontinuous from the middle, Maktu', or from the end, Mursal, is less authentic.

4. The inference is based on the generalization of judgement from the part to the whole. The whole Hadith is discredited because of one discredited hadith. A better inference is the rejection of an unauthentic hadith because it is unauthentic, case by case, not as a whole.

5. The authentic hadith cannot be rejected. The probable hadith can be accommodated with the authentic hadith and the Quran by many devices: abrogation, particularization, exception, restriction, interpretation, etc.

6. The critique of the Hadith is one thing and its rejection is something else. Ancient and modern scholars criticized the Hadith in order to purify it from the unauthentic narratives. No one, Shi'ite or Sunnite, rejected it as a second source of law.

7. The critique of the Hadith can be made internally, according to the same rules put forward by ancient scholars — they were behind the birth of modern Biblical criticism, as Renan confessed — applying the rules of the Hadith to scrutinize the narratives of the Old and New Testaments in his volumes "Origin of Christianity" and "History of the People of Israel," The four conditions of the multilateral report, Mutawatir, are sufficient to guarantee the concordance of the report with reason and sensory evidence, called by the author logic, history and science. The author could have readjusted the old rules of criticism making them more rigorous rather than rejecting the hadith. No critics were more scrupulous than the ancient scholars. What the author offered in criticism is much less than what the ancient scholars created in laying the ground for modern criticism. Moreover, the book contains many generalities and some sweeping judgements which sometimes contradict historical facts or need more precise explanations, such as:

1. Muslims do not follow the Hadith and abandon the Quran, as the author says. No Muslim can be accused of abandoning the first source of law in favor of the second.

2. The opposition between the Quran and the Hadith does not exist, as the author says. No one says that minimizing the role of Hadith is a blasphemy, Kufr.

3. The Hadith is not a false teaching attributed to the prophet, as the author says. Only the unauthentic hadith is, not the authentic.

4. The prayers that Muslim are doing were not given, according to the author, during the Night Journey, al-Mi'raj, is a free and gratuitous judgement and have little impact on Hadith criticism, and goes against the general consensus.

5. The law of inheritance giving the female the half of the male is mentioned in the Quran before the Hadith. It is not misogynic since the female had no right to own or to inherit at all. Islamic law tried to change her status gradually. Besides, the unity of analysis is the household. Each has equal share, one and half.

6. Obeying the husband in optional fasting is not downgrading for the wife, but to solve the conflict of loyalty between performing an optional ritual, fasting, and a compulsory duty, the obedience to the husband.

7. The errors of al-Shafi`i, in case that there are, do not justify doubts in the Hadith, but the correction of his errors. Al-Shafi`i wanted to codify the legal system, not to obstruct the Quran or block Ijtihad.

In conclusion seven other points can be made:

1. Putting the Quran forward and the Hadith backward is a certain kind of higher bid that nobody would object. But why holding the Quran requires necessarily releasing the Hadith? Back to the Quran is a Salafi slogan uttered by all reformers, conservationists as well as modernists. The problem is in whose benefit. The same Quran can also be criticized on grounds of how it was written and compiled and on its interpretation. Nothing is exempt from criticism. Because of the higher bid, the Addendum "A Scientific Methodology for Understanding the Quran" is somehow outside the mainstream of analysis. It relates to another discipline, the Tafsir, not the Hadith.

2. Neglecting the Quran and substituting it for the Hadith as the reason for Muslim decline is common rhetoric. The decline cannot be due to one simple factor; there are socio-political and historical factors to be taken into consideration. The renaissance is not that simple, to be achieved by just coming back to the Quran and abandoning the Hadith. It has to be achieved by changing the socio-political conditions in the Muslim world. Back to the Quran is a double-edged weapon used by conservatism and modernism alike for social stability as well as for social mobility. Ethical and religious imperatives express the ought and not the is. Sweeping statements about the death of Muslim creativity after Ibn Khaldun is against historical evidence from Muslim creativity in astronomy, mathematics and philosophy from the 9th till the 12th centuries.

3. The theme is exciting, although not new. In this era of Islamic resurgence, doubting the authenticity of the Hadith comes at the front page in big headlines. It is a good chance for every modernist to hang upon and become famous, especially in Africa and Asia, in non-Arab-speaking Muslim world. Making a case, a hypothetical one, without any practical implications on the socio-political level is gratuitous. It is harmful more than useful. It generates dissent in society, splitting it to pros and cons in a time calling for national unity. It incites traditional Islam to defend itself against modernist thinkers. Since traditional Islam is the majority and modernist Islam is in minority, the modernist case will always be the loser. Modernism, instead of pushing society to more progress, generates a reaction against it. The modernist will be excluded, excommunicated and may be exterminated. In traditional societies, progress cannot be implemented with the denial of Usul. The challenge of modernism is not how to pray in the space shuttle because Muslims on earth have not yet solved the problems of their basic needs. Hypothetical fiqh was one of the reasons and expressions of decline.

4. The lack of Arabic technical terms, substituted then by inadequate English terms makes for a lot of misunderstanding. For instance, decisive and allegorical dichotomy does not correspond to Haqiqa and Majaz, Zahir and Mu`awal, Muhkam and Mutashabihat, Mugmal and Mubayyan, etc. Many other problems emerge from reading the Quran in English translation; for instance, `touching women' does not mean the literal touching, but of having sexual intercourse.

5. The author uses a lot of textual arguments to prove his case in spite of the limits of such arguments, which depend on language, historical context, counter-textual arguments, etc. Textual argumentation is a Salafi position, selective and double-edged. Many other problems are debated in theology and not in Hadith, such as freedom and predestination, the miracles of the prophets, the eschatological signs and the Messiah, faith and action, etc.

6. After all this debate and the division of the community into pro-Hadith and anti-Hadith groups, the simple very traditional conclusion is accepted by all. The Hadith cannot be rejected as a second source of law provided that it will not contradict the Quran! This is a unanimous conclusion. Why, then, the whole debate between the pro-Hadith and the contra?

7. In spite of all these remarks, the author was able to revive an old problematic with new courage. He put forward the importance of the multilateral report Mutawatir, the few number of verses containing the law (14 verses), the exemption of the law from all kinds of figurative speech, the necessity of a new kind of criticism of Hadith, not only of the chain of reporters, Sanad, but of the report itself, Matn, the importance of re-classification of the Hadith topically according to priority value-scale, putting social relations before the rituals, putting forward the contribution of ancient scholars in laying the grounds for Hadith criticism, the role of political disputes in the compilation of Hadith and even in formulating the wording.

8. The author, the former head of the Malaysian people's socialist party can concentrate more on the socio-political condition of Malaysia and fight for freedom and social justice. He can be more beneficial, more efficient and more able to forge unity for all the people in Malaysia, instead of splitting the nation on pure academic debate.

Cairo – Egypt,
18 January, 1996.

MENANGANI MASALAH BIROKRASI

Oleh: Kassim Ahmad
Kasmad172@yahoo.com.my

19 April, 2006

Birokrasi tidak dapat dielak dalam mana-mana organisasi, baik Kerajaan, mahupun swasta. Mereka merupakan kakitangan bergaji organisasi itu dan, pada prinsipnya, tidak termasuk ke dalam pimpinannya. Namun demikian, dalam Kerajaan kita hari ini, ia bukan saja satu masalah; ia sudah menjadi suatu penyakit kronik, yang kalau tidak diubati segera, boleh menggagalkan cita-cita dan dasar negara.

Birokrasi ini terdiri dari rakyat yang telah dididik dalam sistem pendidikan kita, dari mereka yang berkelayakan akademik paling tinggi hingga yang kurang berkelayakan akademik. Jika ada kecacatan dalam sistem pendidikan ini, ia akan zahir dalam birokrasi ini.

Apakah masalah-masalah birokrasi kita sekarang? Pertama, ketidak-cekapan bekerja. Masalah ini terbukti dalam kejadian-kejadian, seperti (a) tidak mengakui terima surat-surat yang diterima daripada orang ramai, (b) tidak atau lambat menjawab telefon dari orang ramai, (c) gagal atau lambat menyelesaikan masalah-masalah yang dikemukan oleh orang ramai. Kedua, ketiadaan kaedah atau sistem bekerja yang betul. Masalah ini terbutki dalam kes apabila pegawai-pegawai yang dihubungi oleh orang ramai tiada dalam pejabat, kerana bercuti atau sedang bermesyuarat dan tiada pegawai lain yang boleh menangani perkara-perkara yang dibangkitakan, dan dalam kes keputusan yang telah diambil tidak atau lewat dilaksanakan. Ketiga dan akhir sekali, dasar Kerajaan disabot melalui pembaziran, rasuah dan penyelewengan. Ambil kes pegawai-pegawai yang dihantar ke luar negara untuk mengkaji sesuatu perkara, katalah sistem pengangkutan awam, sistem pertanian dan sistem penebatan banjir. Apakah hasil-hasilnya? Adakah kita betul-betul telah belajar dan melaksanakan sistem-sistem yang baik dari luar negara ini di negara kita? Kita semua tahu sistem pengangkutan awam di sebuah negara jiran yang baik yang patut kita contohi.

Kata pepatah, tiada masalah yang tidak boleh diatasi. Demikianlah juga dengan masalah birokrasi kita. Tidaklah pantas dan tidak boleh dipraktikkan jika beban in ditanggung oleh Perdana Menteri seorang saja. Sejak beliau mengambil-alih jawatan Perdana Menteri daripada Tun Dr. Mahathir dan khasnya setelah beliau membentangkan Rancangan Malaysia Ke-9 di Dewan Rakyat, beliau menumpukan perhatian dan mengkritik birokrasi kita supaya ia menjadi lebih baik. Kaedah ini tidak akan berkesan atau berjaya.

Tugas menyembuh penyakit kronik birokrasi kita ialah tugas Kerajaan, parti dan seluruh masyarakat. Khasnya, ia tugas kepimpinan negara. Kita mesti ada suatu sistem yang baik dan berkesan untuk memilih dan mendidik birokrasi ini, supaya tidaklah berlaku kejadian apabila seorang pegawai bercuti, tidak ada pegawai lain yang boleh menangani masalah itu. Semestinya mesti diwujudkan suatu kaedah yang membolehkan beberapa pegawai lain mengambil-alih tugas itu sewaktu beliau bercuti. Perkara ini sangat mudah dilakukan. Mengapa ia tidak dilakukan menunjukkan sistem kita sangat lemah.

Tiap-tiap surat dari orang ramai mesti dijawab dengan segera. Tidak ada sebab ini tidak boleh dilakukan, kerana kita mempunyai banyak kakitangan dan teknologi komunikasi kita sudah meningkat jauh sejak beberapa dekad yang lalu apabila kita masih mengguna mesin taip.

Tiap masalah yang dikemukakan oleh orang ramai mesti diselesaikan dengan segera. Ini pun tidak susah untuk dilakukan. Perihal ia tidak dilakukan menunjukkan kelemahan sistem kita.

Lebih susah untuk diatasi ialah perbuatan sabot yang didorong oleh rasuah dan fahaman pembangkang. Masalah ini boleh diatasi melalui dua cara, iaitu pendidikan dan hukuman yang tegas. Birokrasi, Kerajaan, parti dan masyarakat kita mestilah dididik dengan falsafah humanis untuk berkhidmat kepada rakyat, seperti kita orang Islam berikrar dalam tiap-tiap sembahyang kita untuk berkhidmat kepada Tuhan, tanpa memikirkan ganjaran. Dalam falsafah ekonomi-politik neoliberal Barat yang ikut kita anuti, tiap orang bergelut untuk dirinya sendiri dan jin-jembalang membaham yang belakang sekali! Kita mesti ubah falsafah kebinatangan ini kepada falsafah kemanusiaan. Anehnya, dulu dalam zaman penjajah, pegawai-pegawai Kerajaan membahasakan diri mereke kepada orang ramai sebagai “Yang berkhidmat dengan taat kepada tuan”! Setelah merdeka, nampkanya, sesetengah birokrat kita ingin menjadi Napoleon kecil kepada orang ramai yang menggajikan mereka!

Islam mengajar kita berunding dalam semua masalah. Inilah kaedah yang harus kita pakai untuk menyelsaikan masalah-masalah birokrasi yang telah saya sebutkan. Tiap-tiap jabatan dan kementerian mesti ada mesyuarat mingguan atau bulanan untuk menyelesaikan masalah-masalah jabatan dan kementerian itu. (Sistem ini tentunya sudah ada, tetapi nyata ia tidak membuahkan hasil yang dikehendaki.) Mesyuarat-mesyuarat ini, yang semestinya dipengerusikan oleh ketuanya, mestilah bertujuan untuk menyelesaikan masalah-masalah, mengkaji keputusan-keputusan yang belum terlaksana untuk melaksanakannya dengan segera, dan mengenal-pasti kelemahan-kelemahan yang terdapat untuk mengatasi kelemahan-kelemahan itu. Mesti dielak supaya mesyuarat-mesyuarat ini tidak menjadi ritual atau adat untuk bermesyuarat semata-mata, sedangkan tujuan mesyuarat diabaikan, apalagi menjadikan mesyuarat-mesyuarat ini untuk tujuan-tujuan lain.

Ketua-ketua jabatan dan ketua-ketua kementerian, termasuklah menteri-mentarinya mestilah mengambil tanggungjawab penuh terhadap mesyuarat-mesyuarat ini serta melapor ke atas kepada Kerajaan dan kepada parti supaya Kerajaan dan parti senantiasa maklum apa yang sedang berlaku dalam Kerajaan dan boleh mengambil apa-apa tindakan yang perlu untuk membaiki dalam Parlimen, dalam Kerajaan dan dalam Perhimpunan Agung parti.

Kerajaan kita telah mendirikan tiga buah badan untuk membaiki sistem pelaksana dan penyampian, ialah Institut Integriti Nasional, dan dua Badan Bertindak Pelaksana Negara – semuanya dipengerusikan oleh Perdana Menteri sendiri. Kita harap badan-badan ini boleh memenuhi tanggungjawab yang diberikan kepada mereka, tetapi kita ingin mengingatkan bahawa badan-badan ini merupakan pembesaran birokrasi kita, yang sudahpun besar, dan memakan belanja tambahan pula! Lebih baik kita menggunakan badan-badan atau institusi-institusi yang sedia ada (mungkin dengan sedikit ubah-suai) dan menggunakan mereka untuk tugas-tugas ini. Perdana Menteri sendiri tidak perlu melibatkan dirinya dengan menjadi pengerusi kepada begitu banyak badan. Ini akan memakan masanya yang sangat berharga yang perlu digunakan untuk perkara-perkara yang lebih penting, seperti membuat dasar dan memastikan pelaksanaan dasar-dasar itu. Sebagai Perdana Menteri, beliau sudah ada kuasa dan tanggunjawab untuk memimpin dan mentadbir negara dengan adil dan saksama. Semua jentera dan sumber-sumber Kerajaan, malah semua rakyat dan sumber-sumber negara, boleh beliau gembelingkan untuk tujuan ini. Inilah yang harus beliau lakukan. Inilah yang dikehendaki oleh rakyat daripada beliau. Inilah misi nasional beliau.