Topics › Hadith studies › Quran-only movement
Quran-only movement
58 segments in 9 recordings · 2017 to 2025 · 0 verified · 10 checked positions · hadith/quran-only-movement · Feed
Segments on this topic per year
Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 18 Oct 2025
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow the dialogue came about: a guest who waited two hours at the last meetup
The guest waited two hours at the previous meetup, said his followers wanted a dialogue, and tonight Mufti Abu Layth wants to hear a Quranist make the case for the Quran-only position.
machine2 min 40 s4:52on YouTube
Earlier answers · 57 · newest first
2025 · 27
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy does Mufti Abu Layth see the Quran-only movement as a reaction of anger?
Mufti Abu Layth sees the Quran-only movement as a reaction of anger, sometimes justified, to hadith that are misused, such as the Bukhari report on Aisha's age, the report on killing apostates and reports used to justify abuse; the question is what Quranists actually mean by rejecting hadith.
machine3 min 12 s7:32on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs the Quran-only position an argument from epistemology or from principle?
The guest says the Quran-only position rests on principle, since God refers earlier communities only to their books, and is confirmed by epistemology, since hadith are contradictory and insulting; Quranists reject the religious authority of hadith, not history or narrations as such.
machine6 min 51 s18:31on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Quranists accept any Sunnah of the Prophet?
Both agree the Quran is central, but the guest says the Quran names only two sunnahs, of earlier peoples and of God, and that the Prophet's own clarifications were not preserved and so cannot have been necessary; Mufti Abu Layth presents this as the school of Madinah's Quran-centred view with other sources orbiting it.
machine5 min 13 s24:01on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs the Prophet Muhammad the most beloved of creation and a mercy to the worlds?
The guest holds that God's sending of the messenger, not the Prophet himself, is the mercy, and that calling him the most beloved of creation is unprovable celebrity worship; Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet is a mercy for the worlds and that if some are more beloved than others one must be at the top.
machine5 min27:42on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy did Mufti Abu Layth challenge hadith in BukhariGate, and can the Prophet be called the most beloved of creation?
Mufti Abu Layth says his hadith criticism, including BukhariGate, was driven by reports that insult the Prophet, whose honour comes before Muslims' own; the guest says calling the Prophet the most beloved of creation is unprovable and a lie against God, and that the Quran favours Abraham, whom Muhammad is told to follow.
machine7 min 13 s43:36on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhat is the 'wisdom' the Prophet teaches alongside the Book in 2:129?
The guest holds that the wisdom taught alongside the Book is the Quran's own application and is found in the Quran itself; Mufti Abu Layth says the primary reading of 2:129 is that the messenger teaches the Book and, separately, the wisdom, and himself purifies the people.
machine5 min 51 s51:35on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes 16:44 mean the Prophet explains the Quran, or that the Quran clarifies earlier scriptures?
Mufti Abu Layth reads 16:44 as showing the Prophet's role in explaining the revelation, as nearly every tafsir does; the guest says the verse is about the Quran clarifying earlier scriptures to the people of the book, and points to 5:15 as naming a single source.
machine4 min 44 s57:24on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the 'light' that came with the clear book in 5:15 the Prophet or the Quran itself?
The guest reads the light of 5:15 as an aspect of the book itself, arguing from the pronoun in 5:16 and the conjunction in 33:7; Mufti Abu Layth presents the view of the mufassirun that the light is the Prophet and accepts the guest's reading as one interpretation while objecting that the others are not negated.
machine6 min 48 s1:02:02on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can 'light' in 5:15 refer to the Prophet, or only to guidance and the book?
Mufti Abu Layth says the primary readings of 'light' in 5:15 are guidance or the Prophet, as many mufassirun held, and that the guest's reading as the book is acceptable but may not negate the others; the guest says the word cannot refer to a human and that the mufassirun inserted the Prophet from presupposition.
machine9 min 01 s1:08:12on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow do Quranists perform Hajj and apply Islam without the fiqh tradition?
The guest says the application of Islam is all in the Quran: his group performs Hajj in months other than the usual days, since the Quran speaks of plural months, and Ramadan is fully detailed; he does not rely on the fatwa tradition.
machine2 min 45 s1:18:06on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow does a Quranist pray salah?
The guest's prayer has no unit count: after wudu he seeks refuge, reads al-Fatiha by his own choice and a full chapter, then prostrates once with supplication, filling the prayer time as the moment dictates; in congregation the imam leads a single long prostration and prayers last up to an hour, three times a day.
machine6 min 20 s1:19:58on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How do Muslims know how to pray if the Quran does not spell it out?
Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims know how to pray from an unbroken living tradition of more than 1,400 years, father to child, documented in the books of every century; the guest asks why God describes prayer in the Quran if it must be learned at the mosque, and why two prayers are silent when 17:110 forbids silence.
machine4 min 51 s1:27:01on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quranist prayer have any set structure?
The guest's prayer has no set structure: it changes in the moment, may include hours of prostration or prostrating mid-recitation when a verse moves him, and its purpose per 29:45 is to restrain immorality; he says Quranists may also pray like Sunnis, minus words not from God.
machine5 min 45 s1:31:46on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy does the guest's prayer have no fixed number of units, and what counts as wudu?
The guest's prayer is about duration and connection rather than numbers of units, with an imam supplying structure only in congregation; prostration, kneeling and standing are components without a set order, and wudu is as 5:6 describes it, without the tradition's additions.
machine5 min 07 s1:36:54on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes the Quran alone say what breaks the fast?
The guest says 2:187 shows that eating, drinking and intercourse break the fast by making them lawful at night; Mufti Abu Layth says the verse does not explicitly forbid them by day, so the Quran-only reader is inferring by reason rather than reporting what God said.
machine4 min 25 s1:42:01on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can the Quran be used to call the Prophet the best of creation?
The guest says calling the Prophet the best of creation is an unprovable inference contradicted by verses and reports favouring Abraham; Mufti Abu Layth says the guest rejects inference for that title while relying on inference to say what breaks the fast.
machine3 min 36 s1:47:07on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs the daytime ban on eating and intimacy in Ramadan stated in the Quran or inferred?
The daytime prohibition of eating and intimacy in Ramadan comes from 2:187 by mafhum al-mukhalafa, an adverse inference Mufti Abu Layth accepts but which is not the explicit reading, so some verses need the tradition's explanation; the guest says each reader is rewarded according to his understanding.
machine5 min 35 s1:50:43on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIf reason helps us understand the Quran, does the reasoning of earlier scholars matter too?
Both agree reason is essential to understanding revelation; Mufti Abu Layth adds that by the same logic the reasoning of the Prophet, the Companions and the scholars before us is a valuable reservoir, not his reason alone, and the guest demands the Prophet's own explanation.
machine2 min 56 s1:56:30on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does 3:188 mean everyone who likes praise will be punished?
The apparent reading of 3:188 threatens anyone who loves praise for what he has not done, which troubled the Companions until the Prophet explained it as concerning tyrants and the arrogant; the guest reads it as a warning listing traits a believer must shed.
machine6 min 06 s1:58:33on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it a sin to enjoy being praised?
The guest holds that 3:188 describes people buying into the worldly life, exulting in what they have and loving praise for what they have not done, and that such people are punished; pressed, he confirms that anyone with these traits faces punishment.
machine6 min 07 s2:04:39on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIf most people love praise and are punished, how is God the most merciful?
The guest says most people are mushrikun according to the Quran and that God is merciful in giving them messengers and exits, so those who refuse to reason deserve punishment; guidance follows the attributes God has set, not chance.
machine3 min 14 s2:10:46on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Mufti Abu Layth bring up 3:188 against the Quran-only position?
Mufti Abu Layth cited 3:188 because its apparent reading is harsher than the Prophet's explanation, showing that the reasoning of those who came before is valuable; the guest says he asked for the Prophet's book of explanations and was pointed back to the Quran.
machine4 min 51 s2:14:00on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is Mufti Abu Layth's case for keeping the Islamic scholarly tradition?
The guest restates Mufti Abu Layth's view as relying on the tradition for a few hard verses and says the Quran's overall message has no such problems; Mufti says the 1,400-year tradition beginning with the Prophet's Sunnah is invaluable and discarding it is a disservice to Islam.
machine5 min 10 s2:22:37on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy do Quranists reject the Islamic tradition as a whole?
The guest says Quranists differ in interpretation but agree that the Islamic tradition is riddled with errors, and that Mufti Abu Layth's BukhariGate work leads people to Quranism; Mufti says the guest's own prayer choices came from the tradition and objects to disrespect towards the people of the mosque.
machine7 min 08 s2:26:38on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why are two of the daily prayers recited silently when 17:110 says not to be silent?
The silent prayers come from the living tradition Malik described, handed down from the Companions' descendants; Mufti Abu Layth reads 17:110 as being about crying out to Allah, neither in despair nor in silence, rather than the five prayers, citing 8:35 where 'prayer' means whistling and clapping.
machine10 min 12 s2:31:09on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes the Muwatta show that the Companions' practice had already changed by Malik's time?
The guest cites a Muwatta report that a Companion's contemporary recognised nothing of the Companions' practice except the call to prayer, as proof the religion had changed; Mufti Abu Layth says the report refers to those in governance and that Malik throughout his works transmits the living practice of Madinah.
machine5 min 05 s2:42:52on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How should Muslims engage people with very different views of the religion?
Those with very different views still come from love for the religion, and the only way forward is dialogue and humanising one another; the guest says the Quran is the only thing that can unite Shia and Sunni, and both sign off warmly.
machine2 min 58 s2:46:26on YouTube
2021 · 5
20 Nov 2021video
What does the Mufti think of Quran-only Muslims?
Mufti Abu Layth commends Quranists' love for the Quran but feels they have misunderstood the living tradition. Most of the ummah, Hanafi and Maliki, were hadith relativists who put the sunnah before hadith.
machine2 min 02 s0:00on YouTube
25 Oct 2021video
Will Allah judge someone who follows only the Quran by the Quran alone?
Mufti Abu Layth will not speak on who is saved: he finds it arrogant for a human to presume where anyone ends up, since Allah's mercy encompasses everything. We should concern ourselves with our own path.
machine4 min 30 s2:36on YouTube
25 Oct 2021video
Did Muslims learn how to pray from hadith books?
No: the practice of Islam reached us through the living tradition, taught from parent to child, not through hadith collections compiled two centuries later. Quranists are not one group, and many only doubt the accuracy of hadith.
machine2 min 37 s4:30on YouTube
25 Oct 2021video
Should I debate Quranists?
No: arguing never changes anyone's mind and only breeds hatred, so give your view if asked and see Quranists with compassion. He finds their case weaker than they think, since fiqh was built on the living tradition, not on hadith.
machine5 min 45 s7:07on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Should we throw away hadith altogether?
No: he says the hadith tradition is a beautiful, unparalleled record of the Prophet that should be filtered for corrupted reports, not discarded.
machine2 min 37 s2:22:31on YouTube
2020 · 23
28 Aug 2020video
Does Edip Yuksel believe in praying five times a day?
Mufti Abu Layth thinks Edip Yuksel accepts the five prayers but not as the primary objective. Mufti calls rejecting all hadith the opposite extreme to hadith dogmatism, since all we know of early Islam comes through the living tradition.
machine8 min 13 s0:01on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Why follow hadith if the Quran is complete?
Mufti Abu Layth follows hadith because some of the hadith and Sunnah are clearly accurate and the Prophet legislated in addition to the Quran.
machine1 min 14 s1:44:49on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
The guest's background: languages, translations, books, Beltways and a constitution for Turkey
The guest describes his languages, his Turkish and English translations of the Quran, his books on the number 19, his unpaid religious work, his Beltways transit project, a proposed Netflix documentary and a draft constitution for Turkey.
machine8 min 29 s4:28on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Edip Yuksel write a reformist translation of the Quran?
The guest describes translating the Quran with Rashad Khalifa and says the Sunni religion distorted the message, beginning with adding Muhammad's name to the shahada; he calls Sunni and Shia translations deliberate distortions and says the Quran was betrayed through hadith.
machine8 min 32 s12:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Was the hadith literature a conspiracy against the Quran?
The guest says the hadith corpus is a deliberate conspiracy against the Quran by its enemies, including the Umayyads, and that reports such as the Banu Qurayza massacre and the killing of a woman critic were fabricated to justify later rulers' crimes.
machine6 min 30 s21:29on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the guest think every hadith is fabricated?
The guest says not every hadith is evil, but truth is mixed with falsehood and even genuine sayings cannot be a source of religion, since the Quran makes God the only source of law and limits the messenger's duty to delivery.
machine3 min 54 s27:59on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Were the Prophet's judgements meant to bind Muslims after his death?
The guest says the Prophet's authority as judge and leader was for his lifetime only, that his bay'ah was a reciprocal social contract in which women voted, and that his messengership ended once the Quran was delivered, so obeying the messenger cannot mean obeying Bukhari.
machine6 min 31 s31:53on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can Muslims do ijtihad from the Quran alone?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees with the guest that making Islam Bukhari-centric is a problem, as his BukhariGate series argues. The guest says the Quran declares itself easy to understand and that whoever thinks it difficult or rejects its clear verses loses access to it.
machine2 min 36 s38:24on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can hadith be sifted with criteria, or must the whole corpus be rejected?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet's practice survives as a living tradition in fiqh and that he accepts a hadith only if it passes reason, the texts and the principles. The guest replies that narrators who fabricated a stoning verse forfeit all credibility, like a false witness in the Quran.
machine3 min 53 s48:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does any hadith actually explain the Quran?
The guest challenges hadith followers to find a hadith that explains the Quran, says the Quran uses the word hadith negatively and sunnah only for God's law, and holds that descriptive reports are history, not religion.
machine6 min 37 s52:50on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is the miracle of the number 19 in the Quran?
The guest says the number 19 proves the Quran is God's word letter by letter and that Muslims otherwise have no objective evidence for its divine origin; he recounts a Turkish scholar insisting the bismillah has twenty-one letters rather than nineteen.
machine6 min 34 s1:26:59on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What numerical patterns does the guest find in the Quran's word counts?
The guest lists word-frequency symmetries in the Quran, such as dunya and akhirah 115 times each, month twelve times and day 365 times, and says the number 19 is a test that most people fail.
machine5 min 11 s1:33:33on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How does the guest's number 19 differ from Bible numerics, and how does he read 74:29-31?
The guest says 19 is a test most people fail, distinguishes his system from Ivan Panin's Bible numerics, and retranslates 74:29-31 as describing a precise, obvious mathematical structure rather than scorching the skin in hell.
machine6 min 30 s1:38:44on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Could the number 19 patterns in the Quran be a coincidence or a human habit?
The guest says the 19 structure cannot be chance or subconscious habit, that mathematicians cannot refute it, and that 19 appearing only in chapter 74 and being unveiled in 1974, nineteen times seventy-four lunar years later, is a prophecy.
machine7 min 43 s1:45:14on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Rashad Khalifa claim to be a messenger of God?
The guest says Rashad Khalifa did claim to be a messenger, not a prophet, commissioned to unveil the miracle of 19, and that the Quran calls Muhammad the last prophet rather than the last messenger. Khalifa held the last two verses of Surat al-Tawba to be interpolations.
machine3 min 55 s1:52:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why was Rashad Khalifa assassinated?
The guest says Rashad Khalifa was declared an apostate by a 1989 Madinah gathering under Ibn Baz and killed within a year by a group linked to al-Qaeda, and he lists coincidences of the number 19 around the murder, Y2K and the 9/11 attacks.
machine5 min 12 s1:56:52on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does khatam al-nabiyyin mean the last prophet or the best prophet?
The guest understands khatam al-nabiyyin as the last prophet, since the Quran addresses all people until the end of the world, and says the Quran gives the time of the end of the world.
machine1 min 20 s2:16:30on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is Mufti Abu Layth's own position on hadith compared with the Quran-only view?
Mufti Abu Layth is a Sunni who is critical of parts of the hadith literature without rejecting it wholesale, and he opposes labelling Quran-only Muslims as deviants or misguided.
machine1 min 19 s2:20:30on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the number 19 structure work in all the readings of the Quran?
The guest says the 19 structure is found in the Hafs reading, where it revealed two spelling errors and two added verses, and that the Warsh reading differs little; he also expresses regard for Ghulam Ahmad Parwez.
machine2 min 35 s2:21:49on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What does Edip Yuksel think of Sam Gerrans?
The guest respects Sam Gerrans as articulate but says his failure to see the number 19 leads him to invent arbitrary meanings for the initial letters, and that 19 is a divine test of one's bigotry.
machine2 min 38 s2:26:56on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If you reject all hadith, how do you know how to pray?
The guest rejects every hadith collection, including Nahj al-Balagha, as a source of religion, and says the objection that the Quran does not detail the five prayers is a circular argument built on fabricated details.
machine3 min 55 s2:32:11on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the word salat mean in the Quran according to the Quran-only view?
The guest defines salat from the Quran as solidarity rather than ritual: with God, which is remembrance and connection, and with people, which is the secular Friday gathering; the essence is dhikr, not physical form.
machine3 min 54 s2:38:46on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does prayer have to be physical, or is remembering God enough?
The guest is not against the physical form of prayer but says it is only an expression; the one necessary component of salat according to the Quran is conscious connection with God, so one may pray sitting or while travelling.
machine2 min 34 s2:42:40on YouTube
2019 · 1
24 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Quran say there are three or five daily prayers?
The Quran does not spell out the number of prayers, but Sunnis, Shia and Ibadis all hold there are five, which Mufti Abu Layth takes as proof of an early living tradition that preceded the hadith books. The Shia combine the five rather than reducing them to three.
machine3 min 21 s0:01on YouTube
2017 · 1
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Can an ordinary Muslim reject a hadith that seems irrational?
An ordinary Muslim should refer puzzling hadith to scholars rather than reject them, but may decline to act on a report that clearly clashes with Islam's universal teachings. Going through the hadith books one by one is not the duty of the unskilled.
machine7 min 50 s1:42:08on YouTube