Revelation, Radicalisation and Tradition in Islam: Rethinking Tradition

The rejection of reason accelerated the turn from revelation to tradition. The result is confusion and alienation from revelation.

The turn from revelation to tradition was triggered by the rejection of reason. For the turn from the Book of Allah to follow books of manmade traditions rested upon flawed reasoning. It rests on a poor rendering of three verses in the Book of Allah. These verses encompass the verse saying that we have "a good example in the prophet," that "whatever the messenger gives you, take it," and that Allah exhorts us to "obey Allah and the messenger." But the Book of Allah also refers to Abraham as a good example. Besides, does it follow from the prophet being referred to as a "good example" that we should follow books of traditions? This is a non-sequitur. The verse that is rendered to suggest that we should take "whatever the messenger gives us" refers to the distribution of war booty, not his traditions. This is a further non-sequitur. The verse that renders heeding the messenger as meaning "following traditions" conflates "obeying the messenger" with "following traditions." This is another non-sequitur. All three reveal flawed knowledge of revelation based upon fallacies. This should not be a surprise as these "arguments" were proffered by persons that rejected reason. It is not surprising that their "arguments" are less than reasonable. Further errors followed. These errors enabled the transmutation of Islam into its traditional and Islamist forms. The errors encompass the teaching of predestination in traditional Islam and the teaching of jihad al-talab in militant Islam, as a sixth pillar of Islam. The first rendered Muslims passive at home, while the second encouraged a militant posture abroad. As a result, traditionists "equate" the revelations of Allah with texts reported in paraphrase by persons that were not prophets. This is tantamount to treating the books of traditions as "partners" of the Book of Allah. It is tantamount to "scriptural shirk." Is it possible to ascribe "partners" to the Book of Allah without ascribing a "partner" to Allah? Are these reports the words of God? Are they even the verbatim words of the prophet? The reason the umma is experiencing difficulties it turned from Allah to the prophet, from the Book of Allah to the books of traditions, to rituals. In brief, the umma became traditional. But Islam is not traditional, except in so far as it re-iterates the messages of the previous revelations, the Tawrat and the Injeel. The Book of Allah is revolutionary. It warns us not to follow traditions of the forefathers tainted by shirk. Not everyone listened. Accordingly, the umma is paying a price for its heedlessness. As a result of the turn from revelation to tradition, the umma is drifting. The transformation or re-invention of Islam as political Islam or Islamism was enabled by the conflation of terms that require being kept separate. There are no synonyms on Quranic Arabic. Words that were fused and confused encompass revelation and tradition, jihad in self-defense and aggressive jihad, sunna and hadith, wahy (inspiration) and tanzil (revelation), udwan (hostility) and qital (fighting) as well as nahy (discouragement) and tahrim (prohibition). The corruption of the knowledge of key words, enabled by the repression of reason, corrupted the knowledge of Islam. The intention was to make traditional" practices palatable and acceptable. The words whose meanings changed encompass: wahy, hikma, ibadat, salat, hawa, jihad, qalb, and mutashabihat.