The Neglected Sunnah: Sunnat Alliih (The Sunnah of God) Rosalind W. Gwynne The present article is a contribution to the continuing discussion of sunnah. I hope to show the scholar who deals with texts referring to sunnah that he or she is not, when interpreting a text containing the word, confined to a choice between the sunnah of the Prophet, local sunnah, and the sunnah of the Companions and the early community. It is quite possible that the sunnah referred to is the sunnah mentioned in the Qur'an, namely, the sunnah of God. We must remember certain characteristics of Sunnah.' a) it is set intentionally by one having the authority to do so-the imam; b) it is meant to be imitated and not changed, and c) the imam who sets the sunnah shares responsibility for the deeds of thcse who imitate him. What seems to be missing from most discussions of sunnah is the fact that it is a Qur'anic notion as well. Joseph Schacht, for example, quotes no Qur'anic occurrences, not even in his 1963 article that asserts that the sunnah of the Prophet was precisely to follow the Qur7an.' Bmvmann's citation of Q 8:38 at the end of his discussion of the phrase madat sunnat aZ awwaZz% is the only Qur7anic instance of the word that he cites in his own voice; the othem are in quotations from al ShGfi'i, Ibn H i s h , and Rosalind W. Gwynne is an assoCiate professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TeMessee. A version of this text was delivered as a paper at the 203rd meet@ of the Americau Oriental Society, Chapel Hill, North Carolha, 19 April 1993. Another version will form part of a book-length study of argument in the Qur'an. 'Two useful discussioos of the concept are to be found in Bravmann (1972), pp. 123-98; and Morony (1984), p. 434. 2The works referred to are his Origins of Muhammodan Jurisprudence, An Introduc- tion to Islamic Law, and "Sur l'expression 'Sunna du Proph&te'." 456 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 0 4 a1 Baydiwi? Apparently neither Mustafa a1 Sibii‘? nor Mu4ammad al Khatib’ refer to the sunnah of God. The sunnah that God sets for Himself is certainly authoritative, un- changing, and meant to be imitated. But it is more important to note that God’s sunnah is also what God Himself does, what He has prescribed for Himself. Human beings know that God will inevitably do a certain thing because He has always done the same thing in the p s t . These are uni- versal and unchanging rules and, as such, can form the basis for logical arguments. The branch of modem legal logic called rule-based reasoning holds that such reasoning is prior to all other forms, since no com- munication-using the word in the concrete and not the metaphorical sense-can even take place until the interlocutors agree on certain rules, such as the rules of language! God may not be called an imam, but a book can be so called. The record of a person’s deeds is called imam in Q 36:12; the book of Moses is twice called an imam and a mercy confirmed by this book (Q 11: 17 and 46:12). The arbitration document of Siffm says that the Qur’an is to be taken as an imam (I3am-d Alliih n.d.). A1 Basan ibn Mubammad ibn a1 Hanafiyah (75/694-5) says: “The Qur’an is our imam“ (van Ess 1974), and Ibn Qutaybah quotes a khutbuh by the Umayyad caliph Stdaymiin ibn ‘AM a1 Miilik in which he directs the believers to take the Qur’an as an imam (‘Uyzin ul Akhbar 1964). The Qur’anic Verses The word “sunnah“ occurs fourteen times, plus twice in the plural. Eight of those times it is in the phrase sunnut Allah and once in the word sunnuti- when God is speaking. Four times it comes in the phrase sunnut ul uwwultn (sunnah of the ancients), and once it is annexed to previous prophets. The two occurrences of the plural sunan are asso- ciated with vanished nations. Q 3:137 comes after a passage forbidding usury, commanding obe- dience to God and the Apostle, praising various virtues, and urging people to seek God’s forgiveness of their sins: “Sunan have gone before 3Respectively on p. 135, n. 2 in Kitcib a1 Umm (Bul@ ed.), ii, 2; p. 121, 8 (Sunnat Allcfh); pp. 143-44 of Sirat Rasd Allcfh (Wiistenfeld ed.), 595 (Q 3:131/7); and p. 144 of Ta&i (Fleisher ed.) i, 176, 16. Bravmann’s citation of Q 8:39/38 is on pp. 147-48. ‘ S e e his A1 Sunna wa Mh-natuhafial Tashn- a1 I s h i : ’See his a1 Sunnah gab1 a1 T h 3 . Gottlieb (1968), especially pp. 1-49. Gwynue: The Neglected Sunnah: Sunnat All& 457 you, so travel in the earth and see what the punishment was of those who denied the Truth.” This is followed by a verse stating that this is a buyun (clear evidence) to all people and a sermon to the righteous. After a passage describing legal marriage comes Q 4:26:”God wishes to make clear to you and show you the sunan of those before you and to turn toward you. . .” That is followed by a passage on the avoidance of various forms of desire and vanity. In a passage recounting the actions of the unbelievers, God’s plan for them, and how the Prophet is to deal with them, the Qur’an says in 8:38: “Say to the unbelievers that if they desist, their past conduct will be for- given, but if they persist, the sunnuh of the ancients has gone before.” Q 1 5 1 3 is integrated syntactically with preceding verses describing earlier nations’ rejection of their prophets: “Thus We let it slip into the hearts of sinners, that they will not believe in it; and the sunnah of the ancients has passed away.“ This is followed by the comment that they would not believe even if a door were opened to them from heaven. Q 17:77 again addresses the Makkans who opposed the Prophet: “This was the sunnah of the apostles We sent before you; and you will find no change in Our sunnuh.“ The next verse directs the Prophet to establish regular prayers. Q 1 8 5 5 comes after a passage describing the Day of Judgment and the sinners’ first view of the Fire as well as the fact that everything has been explained in this Qur’an, but human beings are the most contentious of all things: “Nothing keeps people from believing now that guidance has come to them, and from asking their Lord for forgiveness, unless it is that the sunnuh of previous peoples should come upon them, or that punishment should come upon them face to face (or ‘suddenly’).” Q 33:38 comes immediately after the verse legitimating the marriage of the Prophet to Zaynab bint Jabh. Verse 36 eliminates the option of choice after a matter has been decided by God and His Messenger, verse 37 validates the marriage, and v e s e 38 says: “There can be no difficulty for the Prophet in what God has laid upon him as a duty, (according to) God’s sunnuh among those who have gone before; and the command of God is a set decree.“ Q 33:62 follows a description of the hypocrites’ stirring up of sedi- tion in Madinah: “They shall have a curse on them: wherever they are found, they shall be seized and killed [according to] sunnut AUuh among those who have gone before, and you will find no change in sunnut Alliih.” Q 3 5 4 3 comes after a recital of the powers of God and the impo- tence of all partners ascribed to Him. Though the Quraysh swore their strongest oaths by God that if a Warner came they would follow him, in fact they broke their oaths. Verse 43 says in part: ‘I. . . but the evil plot 458 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 0 4 will catch only the plotters. Are they looking at anything other than sunnut aZ awwalfn? You will not find any change (tub&) to sunnut AZEh and you will not find any turning aside (tuhwzl) of sunnut AZZdh.” Then in verse 44: “Do they not ttavel in the earth and see what was the end of those before them, and they were stronget than t h m . . .,” thus strengthening the warning with an argument u fortiori. Of the eleven occurrences of this ttavel-in-the-earth fotmula, three-3: 137, 3543, and 40:82-occut in ot next to sunnuh passages. Students of Mu‘tazili theology ate familiat with the next passage, Q 40:84-85, which explains that belief as the result of actually viewing one’s punishment does the dilatory believer no good, for it has come too late and only as the tesult of compulsion. Verse 82 has already invited the hearet to ttavel in the earth and see the fate of eatliet nations; verse 85 then says ”. . . [such has been] sunnut AZlrih which has gone befote (khulat) among His servants, and the @._finin were the losers in that“ Q 48:23 comes aftet a recital of God’s past and futute signs to, and protection of, the Prophet and the certain failute of his opponents: “[Such has been] sunnut AZZiih which has gone before, and you will find no tub- dd to God’s sunnah.” The Exegesis By definition, sunnah is a legacy of the past. Most exegetes gloss these passages with vocabulary pertaining to vanished nations, even though none of the sunnah verses in the Qut’an comes at the end of a te- cital of ignored prophets and peoples gone before. It is beyond the scope of the ptesent atticle to discuss exegetical material in detail. Whatever the fafsz? being used, much of the sunnah material will be found in the exegesis of Q 3:137, since that is the first occuttence, and much of that will refer to the fate of vanished nations, because of the pre- sence of the travel-in-the-earth fotmula. The word sunun is variously glassed as: punishment of the unbelievers (‘udhab);’ reward (thawiib) and punishment for repentance and the lack of it;* signs @‘Em: Abii ‘Ubay- dahp always the maverick); nations (umam); exemplary punishments (mu- ‘A1 Tabari (1388/1968), IV, p. 99. *Al F W b d i (1382/1962) quoting Ibn ‘ A b k . Much of the material here is spuri- ’Sezgin (1955), I, p. 103. ous, but this passage is less doubtful than some. Gwynue: The Neglected Sunnah: Sunnat All& 459 thuht sira bihd j2zim);Lo an abbreviation for ah1 sunan;'' and as the alternation (tuddwul) between believers and unbelievers in good and evil." A1 Tabari defines sunnuh as an example to be followed, set by an imam. A1 Tabarsi notes that the origin is "continuing in a particular di- ~ c t i o n ' ' (a1 istimrdrfjihuh) and quotes al Kalbi to the effect that every ummah has had a sunnah and a minhuj, "which, if they followed them, God was pleased with them." Let us remember how full the Qur'an is of path-imagery: sabzl (166 occurrences, plus 10 in the plural); sir& (45 occurrences); sunnah (14, plus 2 in the plut-al); shun-ah (1 occurrence at Q 46:18); u r i q (4); and tariqah (3, plus 2 in the plural); and minhuj (1, in conjunction with shir'a). All of these occurrences are potential sources of sunnah-material, as are such parallel passages as Q 43:8: "So We destroyed [people] stronger than these in power, thus the example of the people of old has gone before" ( m a f a mathalu a1 awwalfn instead of madat sunnat a1 awwalfn as in 8:38), to cite only one example of many. The exegesis of the two verses that come in passages dealing with marriage gives us more synonyms. Q 4:26 is held to refer to the in- cestuous marriage customs of previous nations (al Tabari, "Ibn 'Abbsis," a1 Suyifi), and so a bit of legal vocabulary begins to appear: shard'i', tuhrim (Ibn Sulaymiin 1969); subul (Abc 'Ubaydah); but some say sunun refers to these customs themselves, others to God's ban on these customs. The glossed version of the verse would then be something like "God wishes to make clear to you and show you His ban on the sunun of those before you and to turn to you . . .I' (Q 33:38), referring to the Prophet's marriage to Zaynab bint J a b h . This evokes from a1 Tabarsi a compari- son with God's way (tarQah and shurz'ah) of providing earlier pro- phets, specifically DZwiid and Sulaymh, with special marital privileges. A1 Suyiiti records that Ibn Sa'd said that it is God'sfari&h-another synonym-that prophets marry whom they want. Part of the vanished-nations t o p is the theme of behavior of the prophets' opponents and God's abandonment of them. Q 8:38 is said to refer to the day of Badr, so sunnut a1 awwalin includes both the Quraysh and earlier nations. According to a1 Tabari, Q 3:137 was consolation on the day of Uhud. In Q 1513, sunnut a1 awwalin means sirat a1 awwalin ("Ibn 'Abbis"); or it means waqa'i' A l l d h f m u n Wurhi min a1 umam (God's measures regarding the peoples gone before-al Suyiiti)-two "A1 3abari (1388/1968), IV, p. 99. "A1 Tabarsi (1333 AH), I, p. 507. '*A1 Suytili (1970), II, p. 78. 460 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 0 4 more synonyms. Q 17:77 is said to a d d m the Makkan opposition to the Prophet (al TabarT), and Q 33:62 the activity of the rnundfiqin ("Ibn ' A b k " ) in Madinah. It appeats that references to the fate of vanished nations were very much in the minds of Muslim commanders. After the battle of Qiidisiyah in 17/637, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqis wrote to 'Umar that "God has given us victory over the people of Persia, and granted them the sunun of their co- religionists before them, after a long war and a violent upset" (Barm'd AllGh n.d.). An interesting application of the concept of sunnat AZlrih can be found not in the exegesis of the sunnuh vetses themselves, but in discus- sions of the sin of Cain. A p r o p Q 531, in which Cain learns from a crow the custom of burying the dead, a1 Tabari explains: "The one of the two who killed his brother didn't know God's sunnuh with regard to cus- tom of [how one treats] the dead, so God sent the crow to teach him." Documents That Mention the Sunnah of God According to Schacht, the earliest document containing an authentic use of the phrase sunnat a1 nubi (sunnah of the Prophet) is the letter of Ibn Ibiid to the caliph 'Abd a1 Mllik, dating from 76/695. This text, how- ever, also mentions divine sunnah (a1 D a m - 1302 AH). Ibn IbZd re- marks that the imams of error, about whom God revealed verses Q 28:41, Q 2552, and Q 18:28, judge by other than God's revelation and follow their own desires without a sunnah from God. Basan a1 Basri, in his letter on qadar (fate) sent to the same caliph, quotes Q 40:85, concerning the ineffectiveness of believing only when one sees one's punishment with one's own eyes. He says: "This is God's sunnah: not to accept re- pentance that comes upon witnessing the punishment" (fitter 1933). Schacht notes that neither of these documents contains a single hadith and that the s m a h referred to by Ibn IbZ# comes from God and is ptecisely the Prophet's following the Qur'an. This makes it all the more curious that he neglects the Qur'anic material. Perhaps historians can speculate as to why comspondence with 'Abd a1 m l i k so often moved the letter-writer to use the term in question (Cook [1981] has identified "the letter to 'AM a1 M d i k as "almost a subgenre in itself"). We have another example in the Muwata', where Mdik (n.d.) quotes the bay'uh (oath of allegiance) of 'Abd Allfih ibn 'Umar to the caliph 'Abd a1 M d i k uqirru Zuku bi a1 sum' wa aZ td'ah ' a h sunnut AZlrih wa sunnat rusclihfimd istaa'tu ("I affirm to you that I will heed and obey according to the sunnah of God and the sunnah of His Prophet, insofar as I am able"). Gwynne: The Neglected Sunnah: Sunnat Allah 461 Imam al Shafi'i (1403/1983) uses sunnat Allah when talking about the proper performance of hajj: fa bi hadhii qulnii inna sunnat Allah ff 'ibii.dih 'an la yudkhal al haram ilia ibram. This follows a i,assage about Adam's hajj, Abraham's hajj, and so on, and various Qur'anic verses on the hajj. So the hajj is both Qur'an and sunnah. In fact, al Tabarl and lbn Hisham (Hamid Allah n.d.) quote a letter from the Prophet to the gover­nor of Yemen, 'Amr ibn l:lazm al �ri. containing the phrase ma'alim al hajj wa sunnatih wa Jartdatih but making no reference to sunnat al rasli.l. l suggest that those who doubt, for whatever reason, that the Pro­phet spoke of sunnat al rasli.l as something with a separate identity might have less trouble with his using the word sunnah for a discrete and pre­viously existing phenomenon external to himself, such as the hajj. In the passage from Kitab al Umm, al Shafi'i's concern is whether it is permissible to perfwne oneself before entering i/Jrtim, based by analogy upon a sunnah. The Prophet directed a Bedouin making the 'umrah to remove and wash the perfume-spotted gannent in which he had entered ihram, after determining that he had also washed his garment dur­ing the hajj: "What you did in your hajj, do in your 'umrah." If the problem was that the spots were not ordinary dirt but perfume, that hadith is from the year 8 AH, according to al Shafi'I, while a hadith from • A 'ishah that she perfumed the Prophet before ihram dates from the year 10 AH and so supersedes it. 'Umar banned perfume, but al Shafi'i says that the information from 'A 'ishah is better attested, that a dictum from the Prophet can be contradicted only by another dictum from the Prophet, and that there are others who contradict 'Umar, who also contradicts him­self. In conclusion, al Shafi'i says: "So how can it be permissible to abandon the sunnah which Almighty Allah has required humanity to fol­low, at a word from someone who talks that way?" There are abtidrth containing the phrase sumiat Allah. Wensinck's (1936) concordance lists such ahtidrth in the collections of al Bukhari, lbn Hanbal, and lbn Miijah. One of lbn Hanbal's examples says: "Sunnat Allah ta'iila wa rasulih abaqq 'an tuttaba' min sunnat Ibn Fuliin" ("The sunnah of Allah Almightly and of His Prophet are more worthy of being followed than the sunnah of so-and-so"). But as Schacht (1950) remarks, hadith is not identical with sunnah. l:lasan (1970), who accuses Schacht of "perhaps purposely" refraining from quoting the Qur'an on the subject, points out that hadith is not the only vehicle of sunnah. In any case, it is an interesting endeavor to discuss sunnah without relying exclusively on hadith. Where the scholar would perhaps be best advised to consider apply­ing the notion of the "sunnah of God" is in analyzing the many, many texts which speak of "a sunnah" or "the sunnah" without making it clear whose sunnah it is. For every text with a clear reference to the sunnah of 462 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 0 4 God, it seems thee are dozens that contain the word unascriw. Some of t h e texts are also hadith, including items in MSilik, a1 Dlrim-, Abii Diiwiid, and Ibn Miijah. Nonprophetic material includes such famous texts as ‘Umar’s letter to Abii Miis5 al Ash‘an- @amid All& n.d.), which mentions sunnah twice-fist in the phrase sunnah muttaba‘ah and second in the phrase min md h y s a f l Qur’dn wa h sunnah. In other wo&, both instances of the word am unascribed and undefined. Of the seventeen recensions of the letter consulted by Hamid All& (ibid.) for his compendium of political documents, only h - t h o s e of al Jiibiz, a1 MGwanii, and Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih-say sunnat a1 nabior s u m t naboih. In Kitab a1 Zrjd’, a1 Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn al Hamfiyah (van Ess 1974) refers constantly to the vanished nations, in which context he men- tions d sunnah three times, along with such associated notions as madat, khalat, subul, and so on, but does not actually use the phrase sunnat Alcih. As with ‘Umar’s letter, textual variants often consist precisely of the difference between, say, a1 sunnah and sunnat a1 nab& or between a1 kiab wa a1 sunnah and kitdb Allah wa sunnat nabQih. In conclusion, consider three of the letters ascribed to ‘Ali. The first two are numbers 487 and 519 from Safwat’s (1356/1937) collection and a= also in Ibn Abi a1 Ha&d. Among all the stylistic anachronisms, we find the phrase ‘allamahum (or ‘allamakum) a1 kitdb wa a1 hikmah wa al fani’id wa a1 sunnah (or a1 sunan). Now, thee may certainly be a core of genuine material in these two lettem, but aside from the Qur’anic for- mula a1 kitcrb wa a1 hikmah, it is probably not these phrases, which ex- hibit the priorities of a later period. The thid letter, number 466, is from ‘Ali to some of the Khawirij. Safwat quotes it from a1 Tabari and Ibn Qutaybah but not fmm Nahj a1 Bahghah, nor could I find it there. It is a terse indictment of the two arbiters at $iffin, who “went against the book of God, followed their own desites without any guidance from God, did not act accotding to the sunnah, and gave the Qur’an no role in the decision.” The order of references-wan, Qur’an (= huda, sunnah, Qur’an-is contrary to the later habit of mentioning sunnah after Qur’an. On that basis, I would argue that the text has as good a claim as any to authenticity, and that the reference is not to the practice of the Prophet or that of the community, but mther to the sunnah of God. Gwynne: The Neglected Sunaah: Sumat All% 463 References Bravmann, M. The Spiritual Background of Early Islam. Leiden: Brill, Cook, Michael. Early Muslim Dogma. Cambridge: Cambridge University a1 DammX, al-BanGdi. Kikib a1 Jawdhir. Cairo: 1302 A H . a1 EniziW. Tanwir a1 Miqba min Tafsir Ibn ‘AbbrSs. Cairo: A. H. Gottlieb, Gidon. The Logic of Choice. London: Allen and Unwin, 1968. Ham-d Alllh, M. Majmi‘at a1 Wathd’iq a1 SiydsQah. 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