Sunnah vs Hadith (Case Study: Hands in Salah) | Mufti Abu Layth

as important as hadith is clearly a an important historical record and source within sunni islam that goes without say that that said it is never on the tarja of the quran especially um and and the scholars disagree amongst themselves they all agree that it's not in the directive of the quran but then they disagree in the uh attitudes towards it so imam malik and imam abu hanifa they very early on distinguished between hadith was sunnah so they said hadith is simply a

historical record a document it's a a data or or it's just a document let's say now sunnah is the practice so imam malik was very clear and imam abu hanifa too as well that every hadith is not a sunnah and not every sunnah was necessarily documented although most may be so it's like a venn diagram and you've got that so a clear example from the hanafi school where they argue this is the the

hanafis will state that right the hanafis will state that taraweeh was a sunnah to pray as 20 although and in jama'a although the uh and this is why umar radhiallahu and did it so so that's the hanafi argument even if the hadith isn't there the document isn't there but we know it was the practice otherwise so this was the argument presented by imam otherwise

so that's an example where they are saying that we know this to be the sunnah but it's not a hadith and the hadith that we do have we know not to be the sunnah so let me give you an example from the maliki side the maliki side is many because imam malik had the school of medina as a practice and he showed that so in uh let's say praying with the hands at the side we call this in the maliki madhab saddle right so you drop the hands at the side now this was the practice of many schools early schools of islam within sunni islam so

it was the practice of people like said great tabe the son-in-law of abu huraira it was the practice of said the student of um ibn abbas it was it was transmitted from ali well although it's um it's been challenged the narration but let's say the practice okay let's stick to the practices so

it's been transmitted from him hassan al-basri you've got um it's it's a in addition to that later later in egypt prayed the same way with sadal hands at the side the dawn of madinah imam malik prayed with his hands at the side it's also a transmission in the school of imam ahmad now that many people pray with their hands at the side in early islam it also happens to be the practice of the shia in jafari going right back they claim to albeit to

the al the the family of the prophet it also happens to be the practice of many of from an early splinter uh from a sprinter group in early islam the khawarij to kind of deviate away in very early islam but when they prayed they still prayed with their hands at the side so when you've got three separate entirely separate sects in islam the who want nothing to do with the other two sunni islam the main branch shia islam who all of these are entirely separate

kind of branches of islam yet they all pray with the hands at the side in sunni islam it was a minor it was look in in early islam there were many people but then it seems to get crushed because this is in the time of the taber in the students of the sahaba in the time of bani umayya and there's some theories i've heard certain scholars present certain theories i know it's also i i've i've heard uh sheikh hamza yusuf say as well who's also maliki um that this most likely was this practice of sadal praying with your arms at the side was

suppressed by the regime because it was the practice of the shia the uh the alan nabi so the family of the prophet and thereby they didn't want any familia i don't know any kind of commonalities and thereby they suppressed this practice i'm not sure how strong that is as an argument but that's also an argument people have made because the evidence clearly shows it to be very common in the time of bani umayya and as following bani umayya it seems to have become reduced within sunni islam

and today it's only alive in the maliki school in the school of medina and it's a shame that some maliki's nowadays they you see it doesn't matter how you pray whether you pray with your hands at the side or or you fold them or whatever you do but it's a shame that you guilt-trip people out of things because really as astonishing as this may seem there isn't a single sahih hadith to prove where to place the hands in prayer there isn't a single sahih adith the closest

hadith that they have within um sahil bukhari has huge problems because it doesn't mention that the prophet told them to do it it mentions omirna and then ismail says i think he's talking about the prophet and and and some people say maybe he's not talking all and if he hadn't said that it would have been okay but the fact he said that showed people were speculating who because he says we were commanded to place our hands above our hands and it triggered an amount of disdiscussion who commanded you so now the hadith doesn't say it

so people say well it must have been the prophet but when the narrator in the chain says i think he says he says i it appears to me that that's going back to the prophet now that shows that there's doubt because if i have to say that it creates a discourse so there is an and there's a great mauritanian scholar who um the father of muhammad al-amin

sounds a bit strange for the disease and he he has an amazing book i do have it somewhere where he brings all the rewards of holding the hands in prayer and shows every single one is weak and which is another fascinating discussion because it goes to show that the purpose of prayer could never have been never have been where you place your hands because otherwise this would have been such a um an emphasized point but yet the prophet sallallahu alaihi didn't emphasize it

and that's why one of the transmissions in the maliki school is if you do fold your arms fake however they come together there is no set manner in how to do it and this is why the great legend of uh the school of medina and the master of you know huge hafiz of hadith in fact the largest scholar of hadith in his day and age in the western world by western world we mean west from central to west africa and spain and portugal was ibn abdulbar and in his booklet curfew he states that

um you know he says mansa um he says that you can you can do months that you can do subtle or he says and it's interesting saddle there is no hadith or there are but some wickhadi so here you have in the school of medina a clear sunnah but it doesn't have a hadith and the hadith is not deemed to be the sunnah so this is a fascinating discussion it's uh it's always interesting and it's intriguing how many people are unaware of these discussions because they haven't maybe they haven't read them or they haven't studied them but these are

not hidden discussions they are very well known in the books of us right so