Sunnah


is the body of traditions and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. For Muslims, the sunnah is what all the Muslims of Muhammad's time supposedly saw, followed, and passed on to the next generations. However, what constitutes the Sunnah, and its interpretation, depends significantly on the specific Islamic sect and school of thought. Sunnis rely on six major canonical hadith collections to document the Sunnah, known as Kutub al-Sittah. For Shias, the sunnah is generally documented in Kutub al-'Arba'a, which give preference to hadiths attributed to the Prophet's family and the Twelve Imams. For Ibadis, the sunnah is documented in the two hadith collections Jami Sahih and Tartib al-Musnad. Sufis hold that Muhammad transmitted his sunnah, including his spiritual values, "through a series of Sufi teachers".
According to classical Islamic theories, the sunnah is primarily documented by hadith—which are the verbally-transmitted record of the teachings, actions, deeds, sayings, and silent approvals or disapprovals attributed to Muhammad—and alongside the Qur'an are the divine revelation delivered through Muhammad that make up the primary sources of Islamic law, beliefs, and theology. The sunnah is classified into different types based on Muhammad's actions: his specific words, his actions such as habits and practices, and silent approvals. However, some Muslims, such as Ahl al-Kalam, Kharijites, and Mu'tazilites, have distinguished between the Sunnah and Hadith, accepting the Sunnah as an authoritative practice while being critical of the Hadith's reliability as a source for Islamic law. The Quranist stance on the Sunnah varies from outright rejection to an approach that considers external sources as secondary and dependent on the Qur'an for verification.
Historically, in pre-Islamic Arabia, the term referred to 'manner of acting', whether good or bad and recording of it was also an Arab tradition. Later, "good traditions" began to be referred to as sunnah and the concept of "Muhammad's sunnah" was established. During the early Islamic period, it included precedents set by both Muhammad, and his companions. In addition, the sunnah of Muhammad was not necessarily associated with hadith. The strict focus of Muhammad’s example—especially as recorded in hadith—as the only authoratative source of sunnah was established later, particularly by the scholar Al-Shafi'i, in the late second century of Islam. The term then eventually came to be viewed as synonymous with the sunnah of Muhammad, based on hadith reports, distinct from other practices.

Definitions and usage

is an Arabic word that means:
  • "habit" or "usual practice" ;
  • "habitual practice, customary procedure or action, norm, usage sanctioned by tradition" ;
  • "a body of established customs and beliefs that make up a tradition" ;
  • "a path, a way, a manner of life" ;
  • "precedent" or "way of life".
Its religious definition can be:
  • "the Sunna of the Prophet, i.e., his sayings and doings, later established as legally binding precedents" ;
  • "All of the traditions and practices of the Prophet" of Islam, "that have become models to be followed" by Muslims ;
  • "the body of traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community" ;
  • "the actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad".
  • "Al-Hikma ", as per definition of Shafi'i school in his book, ar-Risala, based on his interpretation of Qur'an chapter Al Imran.
Islam Web gives two slightly different definitions:
  • "the statements, actions and approvals of Prophet Muhammad", ;
  • "anything narrated from or about the Prophet... either before or after he became a prophet, of his statements, actions, confirmations, biography, and his physical character and attributes".
It was first used with the meaning of "law" in the Syro-Roman law book before it became widely used in Islamic jurisprudence.

Sunnah and hadith

In the context of biographical records of Muhammad, sunnah often stands synonymous with hadith since most of the personality traits of Muhammad are known from descriptions of him, his sayings and his actions from hadith. According to Seyyed Nasr, the hadith contains the words of Muhammad, while the sunnah contains his words and actions along with pre-Islamic practices of which he approved. In the context of sharia, Malik ibn Anas and the Hanafi scholars are assumed to have differentiated between the two: for example Malik is said to have rejected some traditions that reached him because, according to him, they were against the "established practice of the people of Medina".

''Sunnah Salat''

In addition to being "the way" of Islam or the traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community, sunnah is often used as a synonym for rather than /, regarding some commendable action.

''Ahl as-Sunnah''

Muslims are also referred to as or for short. Some early Sunnî Muslim scholars reportedly used the term "the sunnah" narrowly to refer to Sunni Doctrine as opposed to the creeds of Shia and other non-Sunni Islamic sects. Sunnah literally means "face", "nature", "lifestyle", etc. In the time of Muhammad's companion, newly converted Muslims accepted and rejected some set of creed by using reason. So many early Muslim scholars started writing books on creed entitled as "sunnah".

In the Quran

The word "sunna" appears several times in the Qur'an, but there is no specific mention of sunnah of the messenger or prophet, i.e. the way/practice of Muhammad. Four verses use the expression "", which is thought to mean "the way or practice of the ancients". It is described as something "that has passed away" or prevented unbelievers from accepting God. "" appears eight times in five verses. In addition, verse 17.77 talks of both the way of other, earlier Muslim messengers, and of "our way", i.e. God's way:
This indicates to some scholars that sunnah predates both the Quran and Muhammad, and is actually the tradition of the prophets of God, specifically the tradition of Abraham. Christians, Jews and the Arab descendants of Ishmael, the Arabized Arabs or Ishmaelites, when Muhammad reinstituted this practice as an integral part of Islam.

History and etymology

Prior to the "golden age of classical Islamic jurisprudence", the "ancient schools" of law prevailed.
The traditions not directly sourced from hadith or practice of Muhammad and instead traced solely to some Sahabah were also acknowledged as a source of jurisprudence. These were regarded by scholars of Islam – such as Nawawi – as "unrecorded hadith" which, while not explicitly attributed to Muhammad himself – were clearly practiced by the first generation of Muhammad's followers. Al-Nawawi has listed Zubayr ibn al-Awwam's ruling regarding ethics of sitting down during eating and drinking in his book, Riyadh as Shaliheen, by basing the ethic in az-Zubayr practice, which was narrated by his son, Abdulah. Another manners and ethic ruling based on az-Zubayr is the prohibition of sleeping after Sübuh, as well as the one concerning the ethics of sitting down while drinking.
Other examples of this kind of sunnah also include:
  • the difference in the number of lashes used to punish alcohol consumption, Caliph Ali reported that — "All this is sunna";
  • Umar's deathbed instructions on where Muslims should seek guidance: from the Qur'an, the early Muslims who emigrated to Medina with Muhammad, the Medina residents who welcomed and supported the muhajirun, the people of the desert, and the protected communities of Jews and Christians ; hadith of Muhammad are not mentioned.
According to historians, the classical Islamic definition of sunnah as the customs and practices of Muhammad was not the original one.
In al-Ṭabarī's history of early Islam, the term "Sunnah of the Prophet" is not only used "surprisingly infrequently", but used to refer to "political oaths or slogans used by rebels", or "a general standard of justice and right conduct", and not "to specific precedents set by Muhammad", let alone hadith. An early theological writing by Hasan al-Basri also is "empty of references to specific cases" when mentioning "Sunnah of the Prophet".
Daniel Brown states that the first extant writings of Islamic legal reasoning were "virtually hadith-free" and argues that other examples of a lack of connection between sunnah and hadith can be found in:
According to one source, early Sunni scholars often considered sunnah equivalent to the biography of Muhammed. As the hadith came to be better documented and the scholars who validated them gained prestige, the sunnah came often to be known mostly through the hadith, especially as variant or fictional biographies of Muhammad spread.

Four Madhhabs

The golden age, starting with the creation of the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, and other schools of fiqh in the second century of Islam, limited sunnah to "traditions traced back to the Prophet Muhammad himself". The ancient regional schools of law, located in several major cities of the new Arab empire of Islam, including Mecca, Kufa, Basra, and Syria, had a more flexible definition of sunnah than is now commonly used. This being the "acceptable norms" or "custom", which included examples of Muhammad's companions, the rulings of the Caliphs, and practices that "had gained general acceptance among the jurists of that school".
Abū ʿAbdullāh Muhammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, known as al-Shafi'i, argued against flexible sunnah and the use of precedents from multiple sources, emphasizing the final authority of a hadith of Muhammad, so that even the Qur'an was "to be interpreted in the light of traditions, and not vice versa". While the sunnah has often been called "second to the Quran", hadith has also been said to "rule over and interpret the Quran".
Al-Shafiʿi "forcefully argued" that the sunnah stands "on equal footing with the Quran", both being divine revelation. As Al-Shafi'i put it, "the command of the Prophet is the command of God" This, though, contradicts another point Shafi made, which was the sunnah was below the Quran.
Sunnah of Muhammad outranked all other, and "broad agreement" developed that "hadith must be the basis for authentication of any sunnah",. Al-Shafiʿi's success was such that later writers "hardly ever thought of sunnah as comprising anything but that of the Prophet".