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Sunnah versus hadith
41 segments in 27 recordings · 2017 to 2025 · 0 verified · 28 checked positions · hadith/sunnah-versus-hadith · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 18 Oct 2025
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs there a middle way between rejecting all hadith and accepting every hadith?
There is a middle way between rejecting hadith and hadith absolutism: Malik and Abu Hanifa distinguished Sunnah from hadith and accepted reports only if they do not contradict reason, the Quran, the living tradition or a principle of Islam. Mufti Abu Layth says Quranists should be met with love, not cornered, and recalls his own past anger.
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Earlier answers · 40 · newest first
2025 · 4
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.
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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
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.
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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
2023 · 6
19 Apr 2023video
LatestWhy does the practice of Madinah matter more than a single hadith?
Mufti Abu Layth says the inherited practice of Madinah, like its adhan, outweighs an isolated report, since not every Sunnah was documented and narrators made honest mistakes; this is why he favours the school of Madinah.
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10 Mar 2023video
What did Imam Malik's teachers teach him about hadith and Sunnah?
Rabi'a taught him that a practice transmitted by a thousand from a thousand outweighs a hadith passed one from one, the living tradition of Madinah.
machine1 min 15 s22:12on YouTube
10 Mar 2023video
Why did Imam Malik sometimes reject authentic hadith?
Malik would cite a hadith and say Madinah did not act on it, a devastating stance for later hadith-centred scholars, given his unmatched authority.
machine6 min 22 s31:02on YouTube
10 Mar 2023video
What is the difference between a hadith and the Sunnah in the Maliki school?
The school of Madinah is 'hadith relativist': it accepts a hadith where it matches the living Sunnah and not otherwise, since hadith is historical data and the Sunnah is the Prophet's teaching.
machine5 min 01 s37:24on YouTube
13 Feb 2023video
LatestThe birth of orthodoxy: a nameless main body and the hadith project
Orthodoxy means belief deemed correct by those with power. For two centuries the main body of Muslims had no name and was marked out by involvement in hadith.
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6 Feb 2023video
Is Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza consistent in how he criticises hadith?
Not fully, says Mufti Abu Layth: Engineer Mirza's rational critique of others' hadith stops short of scrutinising how sahih hadith were authenticated. Mufti still calls him a legend and a much-needed voice.
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2021 · 9
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.
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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.
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6 Oct 2021Malik Resources
Is there a sahih hadith on where to put my hands in salah?
There is no sahih hadith fixing where the hands go in salah; sadl, praying with the hands at the sides, is a sunnah of the school of Madinah without a hadith. Not every hadith is sunnah and not every sunnah was recorded in a hadith.
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14 Mar 2021video
Is distinguishing the Sunnah from hadith a modernist invention?
Mufti Abu Layth says distinguishing hadith from the Sunnah is the teaching of the madhhabs and of Imam Malik, not an invention of Muhammad Abduh, and that he does not treat Bukhari as special but judges every hadith by the same criteria. Qadhi's clip calls this separation a bigger problem than denying Jesus's return.
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14 Mar 2021video
Is separating hadith from the Sunnah a Hanafi and Maliki principle, and what does Mufti Abu Layth say about Salafi creed?
Distinguishing hadith from the Sunnah is the usul of the Hanafi and Maliki schools, not Abduh's invention, and Qadhi applies to Gog and Magog the very reasoning he condemns in others. Mufti Abu Layth adds that Salafi kalam rests on fabricated chains, such as companions debating whether the Quran is created, a debate that arose only around 190 to 210 AH.
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2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is distinguishing the Sunnah from hadith a modernist invention?
Qadhi calls the hadith-Sunnah distinction a modernist invention worse than denying the return; Mufti Abu Layth says it is what the madhhabs and Imam Malik actually teach, and that Bukhari is not beyond criticism.
machine4 min 32 s1:29:15on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is separating hadith from the Sunnah a Hanafi and Maliki principle?
The hadith-Sunnah distinction is Hanafi and Maliki usul, not Abduh's invention; Mufti Abu Layth lists Qadhi's inconsistencies and says Salafi kalam rests on fabricated chains.
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29 Jan 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do Hanafis defend Sahih al-Bukhari when their school differs from it?
Mufti Abu Layth says Bukhari has question marks and is not the gold standard; the guest says its canonisation was an Abbasid-era Athari project, and that for Hanafis the Athar of their own imams should rank highest.
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19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How do I find the true Sunnah in the hadith books?
The true Sunnah does not clash with reason, the Quran or Islamic principles, Mufti Abu Layth says, and the safer way is to take it from fiqh.
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2020 · 10
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.
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24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Doesn't the practice of Medina show that music is haram?
Not necessarily: Malik disliked music by temperament, but Medina after the Prophet was known for its musical instruments.
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4 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is hijama (cupping) a sunnah I should practise?
Mufti Abu Layth says hijama is an Arab custom rather than an Islamic practice, and nothing about it is proven scientifically.
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4 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Imam Malik prefer the practice of Medina over hadith chains?
Mufti Abu Layth says the chain was once subordinate to the living tradition of Medina; al-Shafii's isnad project replaced regional trust with loyalty to the chain.
machine10 min 15 s2:04:25on 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Have Muslims moved towards giving the Quran primacy over hadith?
The guest says the ummah has split: a traditional strand that in practice lets hadith override the Quran, and a growing body of thinking lay Muslims who already see the Quran as primary. Some scholars agree but are trapped in traditional discourse or silenced by dangerous circumstances.
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22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran prescribe stoning for adultery?
The Quran's penalty for adultery is flogging, not stoning, which the guest says entered Muslim law from hadith and is biblical in origin, so explaining Islam to the public must start from the Quran. Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees completely that the Quran must have primacy.
machine5 min 14 s7:38on YouTube
2019 · 2
17 Dec 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is growing a beard compulsory in Islam?
Growing a beard was an ancient Arab custom shared by Muslims and their opponents, not an Islamic requirement in itself. The command to grow it is worded like commands to dye the hair and pray in shoes that nobody treats as obligatory, and no sahih hadith says how to grow it.
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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.
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2018 · 7
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
Is hadith the same as the sunnah, and is hadith certain knowledge?
The sunnah is distinct from hadith and reaches Muslims through the living tradition of fiqh, not from hadith books. Hadith are khabar ahad, not certain knowledge, so the Ash'ari and Maturidi orthodoxy does not build beliefs on them, and the Hanafis and Malikis reject solitary reports that contradict reason or their principles.
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1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What is BukhariGate and why does Mufti Abu Layth say Sahih al-Bukhari is not reliable?
Sahih al-Bukhari cannot reliably be traced to its author because it reaches us through one transmitter, al-Farabri, whom nobody vouched for in his lifetime, and because transmission and memory reconstruct what they pass on. Mufti Abu Layth accepts hadith by the scholars' own standards, that a report not contradict reason, the Quran or an Islamic principle, while relying on the living tradition that Imam Malik called the Sunnah.
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30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Summing up: judge Bukhari like any other book; the deen comes through living practice
Bukhari should be read like any other hadith book, each report judged on its merits against reason, the Quran and established principles. The religion itself reaches Muslims through the living tradition of practice, not through this book.
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13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Calling to the Quran and Sunnah, not hadith; the winged horse on national television
Mufti Abu Layth calls people to the Quran and Sunnah rather than to hadith as such, since hadith must be sifted; the Dawkins and Mehdi Hasan exchange shows why religion must withstand reason.
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13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why hadith, not the Quran or fiqh, was corrupted: Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, Zuhri and forged chains
Mufti Abu Layth holds that early opponents corrupted hadith, not the Quran or fiqh, in the century before chains were demanded; this is why Malik relied on inherited practice and treated isolated reports as information, not creed.
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21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Does the Maliki school distinguish between hadith and Sunnah, and did Imam Malik ever reject a hadith?
Yes: the school of Madinah embraces the Sunnah while remaining critical of individual hadith, and Imam Malik rejected several reports when the practice of Madinah did not reflect them. He says he stated clearly that scholars differed on the report's grading.
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9 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Is every hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari authentic?
Not necessarily: Mufti Abu Layth says al-Bukhari did an excellent job, a hundred unreliable reports among eight thousand would be no big deal, and great scholars disagreed in their rulings.
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2017 · 2
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Premise two: hadith absolutism versus hadith relativism
Scholars were divided from the start between treating every authenticated hadith as binding and reading it against Islam's wider principles. Imam Malik and the school of Madinah left many sound-chained reports they did not hold to be the sunnah.
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11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Is judging hadith by their content a modern invention of jurists rather than hadith scholars?
Judging a report by its content is not modern; it goes back to Ibn Abbas and Imam Malik, who left authentic reports they did not hold to be the sunnah. Hadith absolutism displaced it only at times.
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