The Prophet’s Actions as a Source for Legal Rulings in Islam

By Professor Sherman Abdal Hakim Jackson

(this is the conclusion from the article)

Conclusion:

There can be no doubt that the Sunna of the Prophet is a binding source of Islamic law and doctrine, second only to the Qur’an. In fact, in terms of its actual authority, the Sunna is actually equal to the Qur’an, as is clearly established by the Qur’an itself: “Whoever obeys the Prophet has obeyed God.” As Muslims, we are thus bound to submit to both the Qur’an and the Sunna. And there can be no question about the status of the Sunna of the Prophet among Muslims.

The question, however, is, “What is the proper way to follow the Prophet’s Sunna?’ It is unfortunate that in our times this question is routinely treated in the most sloppy and cavalier fashion. In fact, many have fallen into the habit of exploiting and abusing the Sunna of the Prophet for purely selfish or ideological reasons. They indiscriminately proclaim that it is obligatory to follow the Prophet in everything he did. And they insist that anything he did not do, we are forbidden to do.

This small pamphlet has outlined the manner in which the great scholars of Islam addressed the issue of how to follow the actions of the Prophet (saws). We may summarize their general conclusions as follows:

Whenever the Prophet’s action is understood to clarify already established in the Quran or his Sunna, that action takes on the same status as the thing it clarifies. It may be obligatory, recommended or permissible.

Whenever the Prophet’s action is understood to be spontaneous (i.e., it is not clarifying something already established), if the Prophet committed this action as a means of drawing near to God, most scholars hold it to be between recommended and permissible , thought some hold it be between obligatory and recommended.

If the spontaneous action is not understood to be for the sake of drawing near to God, the general consensus is that such actions are between recommended and neutral.

Given this perspective of the great scholars of Islam, it is interesting and, indeed, lamentable, that many Muslims today readily acknowledge that one does not have to pray two or four rakahs before and after Zuhr, but they will insist that one must wear a turban or ear with one’s bare hands. They allow for the divergence from action that Prophet did in an obvious attempt to draw near to God, but they allow for no divergence from actions that he clearly did not do for this purpose. Cearly, this is the result of a desire and attempt to impose upon the actions of the Prophet symbolic and ideological significance that he himself never attributed to them. And it is precisely this tendency that we must dedicate ourselves to eliminating from our personal and collective lives. For only when we commit ourselves to following the Prophet in the manner in which he intended for us to follow him are we likely to earn the pleasure of our Lord and reinvest the Prophet’s Sunna with the sweetness that it had for early generations of Muslims.

Islam is a marathon, not a fifty-yard dash. Given the average lifespan of a human being, a Muslim in his or her twenties will have to practice Islam for another fifty years. It is important to understand that different individuals need and are able to make use of different things at different times of their lives. A young man in his teens has little use for a medicare plan; a woman in her seventies has little use for a four-year scholarships to college. The Prophet, however, was a model for all people for all time. As such, his example might be likened to a medicine cabinet that has the cure for every disease but whose entire contents no individual need consume. A stingy person will not be cured of stinginess by imitating the Prophet’s courage in battle. A lazy person will not overcome slothfulness by focusing on the Prophet’s kindness and civility. A husband who suffers from an inflated male ego will not find an alternative modality of Muslim manhood in the manned in which the Prophet trimmed his nails. We ask God Almighty to direct our minds and our hearts, individually and collectively, to the proper way to follow the guidance sent through His Prophet Muhammad. And we ask Him to protect us from the pettiness of our fragile egos, the treacherous whisperings of our anxiety-ridden souls and the relentless machinations of Satan the accursed. Praise be to God. And may God’s blessings and salutations be upon His servant and His messenger, our beloved Prophet Muhammad, after whom there shall be no prophet, and upon his Companions, is family and his followers all.

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Also a link to a speech given by Professor Jackson at a fundraising dinner hosted by Inner-City Muslim Action Network

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