Overview

The umma is experiencing trauma. The umma is experiencing trauma because it exchanged the Book of Allah for books of traditions, resulting in sectarianism. To follow tradition rather than revelation is to treat persons as superior to Allah. Which person is a better guide than Allah? It is evident that the state of the umma changed. Allah said He does not alter the state of people until they change what is in themselves (Q, 13: 11). The umma used to be on top of the world. At present it finds itself nearer to the other end. The umma went from hero to zero. Why? The Book of Allah was not enough for the umma. It wanted more. So it turned to the ways of its forefathers. It turned from revelation to follow tradition. That is the chief cause of the umma's downfall. The reorientation from revelation to tradition was triggered by an enchantment with tradition. The turn was assisted by the repression of reason. The repression of reason enabled tradition to mount a coup d'état, to usurp the place of revelation. The ""coup"" corrupted knowledge and triggered turmoil in the umma. The turn from revelation to tradition was backed by the assertion that tradition, too, was revelation. This rested upon problematic exegesis, which asserts that everything the prophet uttered was ""revelation"" from Allah. From then, matters went from bad to worse. Jurists did not pause at merely treating tradition as revelation (wahy). They further treat tradition as tanzil, what Allah ""sent down."" But traditions are not the words of Allah. They are not even the words of the prophet. Traditions are paraphrases of paraphrases of what Muhammad allegedly said or did. They are not verbatim. Traditions are hearsay. To treat the words of mere persons as ""revelation"" is an expression of cavalier exegesis, exhibiting a failure to differentiate the rulings of Allah from reports of persons. The traditional ulama persisted in the promotion of tradition at the expense of revelation until tradition surpassed revelation. It was treated as a ""judge"" of revelation. This represented a reversal of the relationship between revelation and tradition. Revelation was subordinated to tradition. The Book of Allah was subordinated to books of traditions. This was a breakdown of rationality. Reversing the relationship between revelation and tradition harmed the umma enormously. Turning to tradition from revelation was tantamount to a relapse into shirk, following the way of the forefathers rather than the Book of Allah. Allah prohibited ""adding"" to revelation in chapter 69: 44-46 of the Book. Those who do not judge by what He ""sent down"" are referred to in the Book as unbelievers, rebels, and wrongdoers (5: 44-45, 47). The prophet prohibited the recording of his sayings, too. But hawkish rulers, in defiance of the prophet's prohibition of the recording of his traditions, asked ulama to record the traditions. The effects would be troubling. The Mongols erased the Abbasids when Abbasid rulers acted in keeping with the tradition according to which ""the blood of the kafir is halal for the believers."" Encouraged by this tradition, the Abbasids murdered a group of Mongol traders, as well as three ambassadors dispatched by Genghis Khan to ask for justice. This brazen defiance of the Book of Allah resulted in the deaths of a million persons in the reprisals that followed. Anti-rationalism also resulted in the deaths of five thousand philosophers, murdered by Musa al-Hadi in 786, during the mihna (inquisition). This was a ""reign of terror,"" a persecution of intellectuals by the adherents of traditions. But there was barely a whimper expressed at this atrocity. Anti-rationalism plunged Muslims into stupefaction and, due to the resulting backwardness, rendered the umma vulnerable to external assaults.

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