Umar ibn al-Khattab , Hadith, Mishna & Talmud, Distraction from Quran

The book; “Hadith As Scripture: Discussions on the Authority of Prophetic Traditions in Islam” By Aisha Y. Musa,  Phd^[1] is a great research work on the subject. A review reveals that this book treats the debate among Muslims over the authority of Hadith, which by the ninth century had been raised to the level of scripture. The author’s main purpose is to show that modern Muslim thinkers who question its status as a source of law are not the first ones to do so and thus cannot be dismissed as inauthentic aberrations or the results of a western, colonialist plot to undermine Islam. The book, “Hadith as Scripture” provides an intriguing introduction to these debates.” Many of today’s Muslims view the hadith almost as sacrosanct and thus grant it the treatment of revealed scripture. The twin claims of Musa’s historical argument are unimpeachable: the acceptance of hadith as a second source of scripture alongside the Qur’an was not a foregone conclusion and Imam Shafi’i’s role in making it so was significant”. 

Umar ibn al-Khattab and the Question of Hadith

Because of Umar’s status in Islamic history and tradition, the details of the objections attributed to him deserve careful examination. Umar ibn al-Khattab was among the most important early Muslims, one of Mumammad’s (pbuh) closest companions, a champion of Islam, and the second man to lead the Muslim community after Mumammad’s death. As the second of the four rightly guided Caliphs (al-khulafa’ al-rashidun), Umar’s reputation for piety and dedication to Islam has been both legendary and unquestioned among Sunni Muslims throughout history. His opinions on religious matters are also highly respected.

In her 1996 Harvard dissertation, Linda Kern has examined the figure of Umar in the Hadith of al-Bukhari, and some of her observations are of particular interest to the present study. First, Kern’s observation that

 “[a]ccording to the common wisdom, Umar’s jealous protection of the divine message earned him his most popular laqab [honorific] of al-faruq, or the one who zealously ‘distinguished’ between God’s word and any potential alteration of it.”

This portrait of Umar, which Kern paints for us from al-Bukhari reveals why Umar is a lightening-rod figure in the controversies over Hadith.

Scattered throughout various genres of Islamic literature from the third/ninth century onward are reports that ascribe to this legendary figure strong objections to the writing and transmission of Hadith.

Taken together, the details of these stories make a powerful impression and corroborate Kern’s view that in these stories Umar “radically separated the authority of the Messenger from his Message . . . [and] distinguished the Book as an independent truth source to which no stipulations could be made.”

This is a particularly important aspect of the controversies over the Hadith as a source of scriptural authority because that authority rests on the belief in Prophetic authority and the duality of revelation.

The first story Ibn Sad narrates about Umar’s attitude toward the recording of the Hadith occurs in the section where he recounts his appointment as Caliph (Dhikr istikhlaf Umar). He cites a story from Sufyan ibn Uyayna (d. 198 AH), on the authority of al-Zuhri that

“Umar wanted (arada) to write the Traditions (al-sunan), so he spent a month praying for guidance; and afterward, he became determined to write them. But then he said: ‘I recalled a people who wrote a book, then they dedicated themselves to it (aqbalu alaihi) to it and neglected the Book of God (wa-taraku Kitab Allah).

The wording of this story is very direct and leaves no doubt as to what Umar feared might happen if he were to commit the Traditions (al-sunan) of the Prophet to writing: that, like people before them, Muslims might turn their attention to that book and neglect the Qur’an.

Who those people were is not specified in this story. However, the other stories found elsewhere in the Tabaqat are equally clear in wording and give additional detail.

The Grandson of Abu Bakr

The next story that Ibn Saad recounts about the Commander of the Faithful and his attitude toward the Hadith is found in volume five of the Tabaqat. It is related to the authority of al-Qasim ibn Mumammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Siddiq (d. 106 AH)—the grandson of Abu Bakr, another of Mumammad’s (pbuh) closest companions and the first of the rightly guided Caliphs who led the Muslim community after his death. When al-Qasim was asked by his student Abd Allah ibn al-Ala’ (d. 164 AH) to dictate Hadith, he refused, saying;

“the Hadith multiplied during the time of Umar; then he called on the people to bring them to him, and when they brought them to him, he ordered them to be burned.” Afterward, he said, ‘a Mishna like the Mishna of the People of the Book,’ (mathna’a ka mathna’at ahl al-Kitab).”

_{[The Talmud has two components; the Mishnah (משנה‎, c. 200), a written compendium of Rabbinic Judaism’s Oral Torah; and the Gemara (גמרא‎, c. 500), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term “Talmud” may refer to either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara together]}

“From that day on,” Abd Allah ibn al-Ala’ continues, “Al-Qasim forbade me to write Hadith.”

As in the first story, what disturbs Umar is the writing of a book that will compete with the Book of God.

Hadith, Mishna & Talmud

He compares the written Hadith with the Mishna of the People of the Book. In Judaism, the Mishna serves much the same function that the Hadith have come to serve in Islam. It is a codification of the Oral Law and contains rulings related to the details of ritual purity, prayer, marriage, divorce, and so on. The Mishna and the Gemara together make up the Talmud, which is the most important book in Judaism besides the Torah.

Hadiths as Distraction from Quran

However, Umar is credited with objecting to not only the writing of the Hadith, but also to transmitting them. Perhaps the strongest and most compelling story about Umar’s attitude toward Prophetic traditions is found in volume six of the Tabaqat. Here, Ibn Saad relates the story of Umar’s instructions to a delegation of companions that he is sending to the region of Kufa to serve as administrators. He orders them not to distract the people from the Qur’an with the transmission of Hadith.

Again, the wording attributed to Umar is significant: “la tasadduhum bil-aHadith fa-tashghalunahum jarridu al-Qur’an wa-aqillu al-riwayat an rasul Allah” (Do not distract them with the Hadiths, and thus engage them! Bare the Qur’an and spare the narration from God’s Messenger!).

Several things are important about this particular story:

The first issue concerns the wording, and the second concerns one of the transmitters of the story. Umar is giving strong and direct commands in this story: “la tasadduhum bil-aHadith fa-tashghalunahum” (Do not distract them with the Hadiths, and thus engage them!). Umar follows this up with another equally direct order that deserves careful attention:

“Jarridu al-Qur’an.” The Arabic verb jarrid is the imperative of the second form of j-r-d, literally meaning to make something bare. According to Lisan al-Arab, when used with the Qur’an as its object, as it is in this story, it means not to clothe the Qur’an with anything. In the Lisan, Ibn Mannur specifically quotes Ibn Uyayna (d. 198 AH), from whom Ibn Saad relates this story, as saying that jarridu al-Qur’an means not to clothe the Qur’an with Hadiths (ahadith) of the People of the Book. However, in this case, Umar’s next words indicate the source of the stories (al-ahadith) with which the Qur’an should not be clothed—al-riwayat an rasul Allah—narration from God’s messenger. In reporting this story from Ibn Uyayna, Ibn Sa’d does not indicate that Ibn Uyayna offered other than a literal understanding of Umar’s words.

Yet Umar clearly has not strictly forbidden such narration: “jarridu al-Qur’an wa aqillu al-riwayatan rasul Allah” (Bare the Qur’an and be sparing with narration from God’s Messenger.). It is not talking about the Messenger or what the Messenger may have said that troubles Umar.

What troubles him is the possibility of generating something that would rival the Book of God. In the previous stories, Umar’s concern was that writing down the Traditions would do so. In this story it is clear that he fears any narration of Prophetic Traditions will do the same thing. [He was so right]

Taken together, these stories indicate that writing and transmitting the Hadith was a commonly accepted practice—it is only after careful consideration that Umar rejects the idea of putting the Hadith in writing, and then takes the drastic step of calling for and destroying what others had written of the Hadith.

This suggests that Umar’s actions represent a radical departure from the prevailing norm. In that case, Umar, in keeping with his image as the defender of God’s Book, is acting in response to something that is competing for status and authority with God’s Book.

According to these stories, Umar strongly opposed both the writing and the transmission of Hadith—not because he disapproved of writing or of sharing information, but because he feared that they would gain a status equal to or even greater than that of the Qur’an itself. Even if these stories do not truly represent the attitude, commands, and actions of Umar, they do represent him as the archetypal defender of God’s Book at a time when some people saw the Prophetic traditions as competing for status and authority with God’s Book.

The decision of Umar was accepted and adhered to by following rightly guided Caliphs,  companions till over a century later when the Companions passed away .

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^[1] Hadith As Scripture :Discussions on the Authority of Prophetic Traditions in Islam  By Aisha Y. Musa,  Phd https://www.amazon.com/Scripture-Discussions-Authority-Prophetic-Traditions/dp/1137491094