The Importance of the Sunnah and Hadith

The Importance of the Sunnah and Hadith

We live in a time — and there will always be times — where there are people who, for some reason, they didn't eat the right thing, they didn't learn, they didn't understand, or their IQ might be significantly low, and they have doubt in the hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ. In order to address that, it's very important for us to begin with understanding the sunnah: what is hadith, why do we trust that everything here is authentic.

You have people on TikTok, online — just because there's a hadith they don't like — they say, "Well, am I going to let a man tell me what to do? The Quran is enough, the Quran suffices me, I don't need this extra stuff."

Why Allah Sends Guidance

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when He created this universe, He did not create it in such a way that He would leave it and abandon it with no guidance. And this is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says: Did human beings think that they would just be left to their own devices, to do whatever they wanted?

No — there has to be guidance. Without following Allah's guidance, look at the destruction of the oceans, wars that are waged, look at the insanity, look at the prostitution — this is what happens when Allah's guidance does not reach human beings and they don't act on it. There must be guidance.

Why Allah Sent Messengers — Not Just a Book

Now, in what form does that guidance take? Why didn't Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just send a book from the sky? Why did He have to send messengers with the book? He addresses this in the Quran: if I had just sent a book — just dropped a book from the sky — people would have said "ah," they would have found some excuse not to follow it. "It's just a scripture, it's just a book, it could have been anything."

I want to give you an analogy. Imagine I give you a set of instructions — I want you to make me a painting. I want you to draw a human being, I want him to look this way, I want you to do this, and I give you this paper and I say go and do it. A lot of what I've written on the paper is up for your interpretation. I'm going to get a hundred different paintings. But what if I came and I drew the painting for you and I said, "Make this"? I'd get a hundred identical paintings.

And that's why it's very important — extremely important — to understand: the messenger is as important as the message. Or I can say it a different way: the messenger is the message. There is no Quran without Sunnah, there is no Wahi without Nabi. There is no way a text is going to launch from the sky and we're going to figure it out.

The Messenger Clarifies the Revelation

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says: "Be good to your family." How? What happens when there's an argument? What if my family is horrible? What if someone tried to kill me from my family? These are human and specific cases for which you need specific examples — and this is why Allah sent the Prophet, and all the prophets before him, to model the revelation. Because people don't follow instructions on a paper; they follow a human model, a real model that they can copy, that they can understand the details from.

Allah says: "O Muhammad ﷺ, I have sent you the dhikr — the reminder — to clarify to people what was revealed to them in the Quran."

So the Quran needs clarification, it needs elaboration, it needs an example — otherwise the Quran cannot be implemented on this earth. Does that mean the Quran is imperfect? Does that mean the Quran is corrupted? Absolutely not. But the messenger and the message cannot be separated — they are interlinked. This is the way Allah designed guidance.