I haven't been super active on this sub reddit lately, compared to my first few months on it where I shared some of my thoughts and feelings regarding Islam being false.
I now feel some sense of importance in continuing to share my thoughts on Islam's validity, to encourage more critical thinking, and help speak out.
Early on, I felt the urge to constantly find ways to debunk Islam, and showcase why it's an evil religion of some sort.
Over time however, I started wanting to be less involved with Islam. Realizing Islam is not true unlocked quite a bit of freedom in my life, and gave me opportunities to explore several different things.
It also sparked my curiosity in learning about the universe, studying philosophy, psychology etc
I felt like there were no limits to what I could achieve, and I didn't want this new freedom to be limited by me constantly learning about ways to disprove Islam.
In addition, I also felt like I was becoming more negative, since a lot of my thoughts revolved around the negative aspects of religion and Islam, and I kind of wanted to get that negativity out of my life.
I started having more sympathetic thoughts on religion, and tried to express my thoughts through posts like this: https://www.reddit.com/exmuslim/comments/i6w9xu/thoughts_on_religion_postislam/
I knew the religion was false, but I wanted to see a more positive side of it, this meant listening to somewhat biased sources, and reading from not only muslim sources, but also just some leftist pro-islam sources on topics like Biographies of Muhammad etc
It's a bit difficult for me to pin point, exactly why I've had this shift, but I hypothesize it is due to a soft spot I have for Islam, simply because of the amount of family, and good people I know that embrace Islam.
I see a lot of people living blissfully as muslims, some conservative muslims as well, donating, and taking care of others for the sake of God. My parents and siblings themselves, finding so much peace through their prayers and conviction in God.
Especially since I didn't have any really negative experiences as a Muslim (simply lost faith while trying to be more convinced), I wanted to become more tolerate of Islam, and I thought this was possible.
I thought I could appreciate the beauty of Islam, things like the community and art it brings through mosques, the Quran recitations, Azaan, simply the ritual of prayer in congregation, as well as some wisdom that the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet might bring.
You can wonder, even as an ex-muslim, that maybe that's what Islam is really about, sure it got corrupted by wanting power, as well as having disturbing aspects, but could we cherry pick rather than nit pick?
Maybe appreciating those things could also make religion less of a sensitive subject for us with our families.
These are the things I thought were possible, and to some extent still do, yet there are still some problems.
I have some Hindu friends, and while they aren't believers by any means, it seems like they have a much more reasonable relationship with the religion.
They'll simply go to the temple to feel a sense of peace and community, enjoy the rituals and move on with their lives.
I believe Jewish people also have somewhat of a similar relationship to the religion, as there are a lot of atheist Jews.
So what is it? Is it just that Hindus and Jews are just practicing the culture?
I don't think so as a lot of these practices such as going to the temple are religious based.
It also doesn't seem like if people are just doing these things, that it makes a lot of sense to try and criticize religions and show inaccuracies.
Can we have that for Islam?
I would hope so, yet I see some problems that make it hard to tolerate Islam, even if we wish to.
As I mentioned before, I wish I could tolerate and be at absolute peace with Islam, simply because I have a lot of loved ones that are connected to it, and it doesn't feel great having such negative views on their purpose of life. Especially since it isn't their fault for believing in Islam.
Yet the reality is, this is hard to do, without forcing yourself to be ignorant, due to three reasons I found.

Islam might be worse than we would like it to be

I once read someone say "The less afraid you are of the truth, the further you are from it"
This seems pretty profound when I think about Islam.
I want to stay in my comfort zone, by thinking Islam isn't so bad, so that I can still be at peace with the fact that my family and friends practice the religion.
However, the reality is, Islam has quite a disturbing history.
Let alone the fact that this history was written by Muslims themselves for the most part, and that what actually happened in Arabia could even be worse (hypothetical, but just things like how they treated people could have been a lot worse than how they're told)
There are so many examples of things the Prophet and the Quran didn't have to say, that would've made Islam a lot more tolerable, yet it just had to be there.
For example, hadith describing how the Prophet told people about his uncle Abu Talib being in Hell, racist comments about Ethiopians having heads like raisins, women being inferior to men in intelligence, killing apostates.
Quran verses about fitnah being worse than killing, disbelievers being the worst of creatures etc
These are not things most Muslims hear about as they grow up, and if it weren't for these things Islam would probably be easier to tolerate, but once you know them, it becomes hard to try and be at peace with Islam, doing so would just make you ignorant, trying to protect a religion that clearly did not do enough to make itself seem like a pure peaceful religion.

Islam prevents critical thinking to a point where it prevents society from progressing

This is one of the reasons, I have convinced my self to continue to spark doubts in people about their faith.
Do most Muslims cause harm to society? From the looks of it probably not, yet what Islam does cause is credulity. Lots of it, as Muslims we accepted Islam as the truth, without questioning, and were ready to defend it in any case.
I remember even when I was in 4th or 5th grade, being with my friends group and having conversations, some what protesting against going to sex-ed classes, because it was un islamic.
I was definitely prepared to defend my religion against anything.
When you don't question things, and you just accept things as they're told to you, it becomes very hard for society to progress.
Society is built on the questioning of previous ideas, and coming up with better ones.
As a muslim, you're not programmed to do that.
Hence, we see the results of this in Muslim countries like Pakistan, where the culture has stayed very stagnant

Islam prevents Muslims from having different opinions on moral decisions/decisions in general

This ties closely to the point above, but I just think it's sad how Muslims so confidently accept and defend teachings of Islam that are clearly immoral/don't fit with current times.
Things like Muhammad marrying his adopted sons wife, a 6 year old, having sex slaves.
Even things like the Burqah, it's sad how many Muslim women simply accept it, even though it has such a sad history ( the story of Umar telling Muhammad to cover his wives )
Another one is Muslims choosing not to adopt kids, because as they grow older they wouldn't be mahrams.
Not being able to question immorality, makes Islam all the more difficult to tolerate.

Islam has way too strong of an influence on a muslims life

This is a big one, the Hindus and Jews I was talking about earlier, for many of them religion didn't play that big of a role in their lives.
Hinduism and Judaism are both extremely old religions, which is surprisingly good in the aspect that it doesn't have historical records of the prophets/gurus, so they don't have an exact manual on how to live every second of their lives.
We have records of what Muhammad used to say when he went in and out of the washroom, to what hand he ate food with.
There's too much detail about Muhammad, and all of this gets added into a Muslim's life.
So even if we try to ignore the bad sides of Islam, and just focus on the good, it becomes close to impossible, because everything a muslim (practicing one) does is somewhat related to Islam.

The benefits of Islam we experience are not as great as they sound, and other religions probably have better benefits.

I mentioned before that the community aspect of religion is a positive, but maybe that is just some confirmation bias.
I definitely remember having a lot of fun with my friends in mosques, however there was definitely a lot of judgement.
Pressure of not being religious enough was there, uncles and teachers always judging you for how bad you were etc.
I don't know how great the community really is once you're no longer a kid.
The other benefits like the sounds of the Quran Recitation and the Azaan, although beautiful, probably aren't enough to tolerate Islam as a whole without encouraging critical thinking and exposing some of the things we don't learn as muslims.
For those of you that are still reading let me know what you think. This post wasn't meant to be anything super insightful, but just wanted to share a few of my thoughts, and become somewhat more active in this community again, and create more impact.

How does one go about approaching circumstances and situations of such nature?

How I lost my faith as a hafiz

Wrote this a while ago, didn't get the chance to post it. Seen a few hafiz apostate stories in the past week or so. This isn't my refutation of Islam as that would require much more than a post, rather just my story of how I lost faith.
Throughout my life, religion has played a big role. Everything I’ve done, I’ve always envisioned religion being the bigger purpose in my life, and that my religiosity is the only thing that really matters. I’ve thought about achieving big things in this world, but have always considered the real goal to be connecting to Allah and attaining salvation
I wasn’t raised in a strict household, but very practising. My parents both prayed 5 times a day, dad would go to the masjid everyday, memorized some portions of the Quran. My mom would regularly attend Islamic/Quranic classes etc
None of it was forced on me but religion was pretty important in my house, and we were all encouraged to follow it, and I think me and my siblings all accepted that
I started praying when I was 7 years old, and I became pretty devout in praying everyday, although we were excused for fajr till we got older lol
I had also started reading Quran with a qarisaab around this time, and finished naazirah of the Quran(reading by looking) when I was 10/11
After that, I continued the Quran classes with my qarisaab, and was still consistent in my prayers. This was when I was 10/11
I didn’t really go to a madrassa during this time, but my mom did sign me up for some weekly Islamic classes at one point
I think all of these factors made religion very important to me, and for some reason I felt like everyone needed to follow religion
In middle school, I became one of the religious kids. Although I wasn’t one of those kids that would wear a thobe and topi to school, I was known for being “halal”
I would often ridicule people for haram relationships, going to dances/parties etc
This actually made people dislike me in middle school, although I didn’t find out about that till the end of middle school 😂
At the end of middle school, around age 12/13 I started Hifz
During this time, religion started taking a big part in my life
I started having daily madrassa for 3 hours a day after school
In the summers I would go full time, so 6+ hours a day
In madrassa, I excelled(humble brag). I was getting my memorization done pretty quick, would never get into arguments with my teachers, and got top 3 places for most of my Quran exams. I was known as sort of a goody two shoes in madrassah
At 15, I led taraweeh for the first time after having memorized half the Quran
At 16, I finished my hifz. This was one of the happiest days of my life, I got lots of love from my family, all the teachers at madrassah congratulated me, my cousins were all congratulating me, we had a party which a lot of people got me gifts/cash, it was a pretty good time
I started leading taraweeh at bigger places, now that I had finished memorizing the Quran
On khatam day(completion of Quran in taraweeh), again I would feel lots of love, and express lots of gratitude towards Allah
After finishing, my teacher also offered me to teach at his madrassah in the summers, I would be a hifz teacher listening to students Quran, assigning them new lessons etc I spent a few summers doing this
Throughout all this time, I remained very devout. I didn’t have many doubts but a few things did creep up. I used to sometimes think about the possibility of Allah not being real, I was kindof shaken when I learned about concubines, I had also seen some exmuslim videos like Abdullah Sameer, Gondal and they did take me away from the “Islam is 100 percent true, there is no doubt”
However these things didn’t matter much to me, my faith was relatively strong and any doubt I discarded as a lack of my understanding rather than a flaw with Islam
They didn’t change anything about me, I was still praying, going to the mosque, staying away from haram things etc I remember staying home for things like parties, even though my Muslim friends were going. Didn't get faded haircuts because of fear of it being haram, didnt listen to music because I was scared it would become a haram addiction
People would ask me things like why I don’t go about having fun and that I should “live a little”. I would become defensive hearing questions like this, I always made it seem like people were weak for fulfilling their desires, and that I have a joy of missing out since I have something bigger to look up to, and am more disciplined
While I do agree that desires aren’t the only way for someone to have fun, I do think that there was some insecurity in me, and that I did envy people having fun, and just made up excuses like “people are weak for fulfilling their desires”
Keep going in the story, and now I was leading jummah prayers in my school, became an exec at a muslim club in my school, and even got a job as a teacher at a madrassah
I also had a nice group of religious friends and teachers that I would regularly meet
I started college shortly after, and still not much changed
I found Muslim friends, we would all pray namaz together, go to programs in the masjid etc
College didn’t bring any new haram to my life or challenge my faith, since I wasn’t taking courses likes philosophy, religion or science
So pretty much, after all this time, I think my religiosity was pretty cemented and my brain had been severely washed
However all this time, my inner skeptic didn’t come out
I remember being afraid to come on this sub, because I didn’t want to fall into doubt. I knew of it, would see the first couple of posts and as soon as I saw something that seemed to expose/insult islam I would quickly hop off.
My faith was strong due to emotional reasons, but I wanted to be more convinced
I didn’t want to base my life on blind faith, and I wanted more reasons to believe in Islam
I came across conversations between Hamza Ali Abbasi and Harris Sultan. Hamza brought a rational perspective of why he came back to Islam from atheism, I wasn’t just hearing people talking about taking leaps of faith
I started listening to people like Shabir Ally, who cleared your a lot of absurd things in Islam, and he also gave rational reasons to accept Quran as the word of God. He cleared up doubts at the time like “what if Muhammad made the Quran up”
I came across Mufti Abu Layth, and in my opinion he’s the best! He strongly encourages using reason, as thats the only way of being convinced of the truth
He also cleared up a lot of absurd things in Islam, and gave rational reasons for things like why A’isha wasn’t 9 etc
I got hooked onto reason lol, I wanted to find rational reasons for everything in Islam, and I was convinced that I can defend Islam through these rational reasons and not just have to resort to “Allahu a’lam”
I started to realize that the traditional understanding of Islam was bs and counter reason, Hadith are fabricated etc
I became somewhat active in the progressive Islam community, and I started to feel like I was coming across the true Islam (irony ahead)
I started looking into Islamic Philosophers like Ibn Rushd, as well as newer age philosophers like Muhammad Iqbal
This concept of reason, also led me to start learning more about western/eastern philosophy in general
Even though I had always heard to stay away from philosophy as it “shatters your faith”
Keep in mind this is also around when quarantine started, so I had lots of time
Learning basic philosophies made me come across a couple things
The concept of existentialism- I was learning about people discuss the meaning of life, why we are here, what is our purpose,what happens after we die
I was hearing very rational opinions, and I had this thought, “what if religions were just created to answer these questions”
I read some thoughts like “religion was created when humans developed the intellect to ask questions they didn’t have answers for”
This did take me by surprise, but it wasn’t convincing enough, how can I know that religions were created.
I dug a bit deeper, I came across stories of Jesus. How when a child’s father died, Jesus told her that she will meet him in heaven
And I was just thinking, if someone told me that after my father died, I would want to believe in it without being rational, simply for the emotional comfort.
So another thought came up “what if religion only got adopted by the masses because it fulfilled a real emotional need, the need of purpose, the ability to deal with death etc”
The thought of religion having been created just to fulfil an emotional need disturbed me, but the problem was IT MADE SO MUCH SENSE
There was however another thing which kept me attached to religion, I would think “Religion can’t be man made, because how else did we get our ethics”
The thought was basically, ethics -> thus God
I started looking into the history and philosophy of ethics
I came across a legend, Immanuel Kant
He proposed a law of ethics that wasn’t bound by religion
He talked about how we need to judge actions based on the outcome of everyone performing those actions, and seeing how they would affect nature
An analogy given was that of stealing, if I steal something, then we should look at what would happen if everyone was stealing, we would run into a cycle of people stealing things from each other, and back constantly. This would halt any progress, and thus it is unethical.
I was just thinking like damn, we really didn’t need God to figure that out
Which made me think, what if ethics can just be boiled down to reason and what feels right?
I thought about how people in the past would have struggled to maintain order due to the lack of prisons, judicial systems etc
I also realized that the reason we would need some laws is because not everyone will use reason to determine right and wrong, a lot of people will just do what they feel and this would result in them breaking order
So it begged the question, how can order be maintained without prisons/judicial systems if not everyone is going to use reason to determine right from wrong
Well, what if people did good things because they were scared of being punished for eternity after they die? This made another case for religion to be needed
So now after understanding these two things, it made me think
“Religion helped maintain order, by prescribing laws that if not followed would result in severe punishment in the afterlife, promoted good by promising eternal pleasure in the afterlife, gave people purpose by telling them things like God created the world for you, God watches you etc”
All of this convinced me that religion made a lot of sense to exist, but it made a lot of sense for ALL OF IT TO BE MAN MADE
After realizing this, I felt a strong sense of clarity, with a real sense of feeling like my life was a lie. I had a strong gut feeling that I had discovered the truth, all the quotes like “truth hurts” , “ignorance is bliss” , “you can’t handle the truth” all of a sudden had a much more profound meaning to me now
I thought all of this was covered up, and only found when people use reason to uncover it
Nevertheless, I went to pray after coming to this level of clarity, as I still had that habit
And right when I raised my hands and started reciting the Fatiha, the prayer felt completely empty. I didn’t feel any spiritual connection, I didn’t feel like I was talking to anyone, or that anyone was listening, it kind of just felt like an exercise ritual
I started looking into cosmology, and it made me realize how insignificant we are
I started looking into evolution, and for the first time was able to accept “this makes so much sense for it to be how species originated”
I looked into the history of religions, and came across discoveries of statues, and drawings in caves from 30-40k years ago, and that people were always looking for belief systems
I stumbled upon a phase of nihilism.
I kept thinking, is everything I do really just going to perish, when I die is that really just going to be it
This made me pretty depressed for a while, and I kind of had hoped that I didn’t go down the rabbit hole of reason. Sort of like, I was more at peace just not questioning and just staying a muslim. However I couldn't forget what I had just learned. Once again the quote kept coming to me "ignorance is bliss", while I was ignorant(following Islam without using reason), I was in a blissful state.
I thought, maybe I will never be able to be at terms with what I have discovered, and lose all motivation to do anything in life
Luckily I did come to terms with this shortly, and have realized that life is so precious and that I am lucky to have the opportunity to exist as a conscious being
The problem was, it was hard to accept that my life had been a lie
Also, how I can know for sure that Islam is a man-made religion
I had to look into Islam, and try to find out if there were any hints of it being the truth
I went through reasons to believe
Scientific miracles, word counts, Quranic eloquence, prophecies
All of these things which were once convincing, had lost their impact on me. I was easily able to come up with refutations that were far more convincing than the claims
I thought, maybe I have no reasons to believe it is the truth currently, but I still felt like Islam is a good religion, teaches good things, can help me live a good life, and might contain wisdom that was ahead of its time
I got a Quran translation and started reading it in chronological order
I came across accounts of Allah talking about how he is upset with the pagan religions, how they are misguided, how he will punish them, how he destroyed the tribes of Ad, of Thamud of Lut, of Shuayb etc
The Quran kept talking about punishment
I came across a petty God, one that would get angry at iblees for not bowing down, one that would punish Adam and Eve for committing a sin that he destined
I came across many repetitive stories
I came across many stories which I had once believed, but just seemed way too unbelievable now
I just couldn’t accept that this was from a God that created this entire universe, that he was so petty and cared about such small things
I couldn’t fathom why God would dedicate a whole chapter to someone that insulted the prophet
I started looking into the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, and realized the Quran could have just been a product of things Muhammad didn’t agree with, things he knew, and things he wanted
I was shocked to see how the order of revelation was so relevant to the life of Muhammad.
Ex: Someone talked bad about Muhammad = revelation cursing the person(abu lahab), Muslims suffering in times of difficulty = Stories of previous prophets tests. Revelation regarding Muhammads wives, how people should enter his home etc
The Quran seemed very scaremongering, showing a very angry God with the casual “oft most forgiving most merciful” to end an ayah
I looked into more hadith and realized how superstitious the prophet was, how many immoral things he engaged in, how many outdated things he was engaged in. How closely the life of the prophet was related to what was revealed to him
After thinking about it carefully, the concept of Heaven/Hell didn’t make sense
God was too involved in clear worldly man made things
I had even lost the thought that Muhammad was a great man, quite the opposite
Any progressive thoughts I had about Islam, I felt like Islam was actually the opposite
I looked into the history of Islam’s spread, came across the multiple battles Islam was involved in, how dhimmis were taken, and it just seemed like Islam was just a way to get power
It all came crashing down, I am learning more weird stuff about Islam everyday
However I have come to peace with it
I have embraced the ability to create a purpose in my life, as Sartre puts it "existence precedes essense", which is simply: You're not born with a purpose, you create a purpose.
I have embraced the opportunity to explore the world, and understand things
Life is simply an opportunity for me now, and there are so many things to do
I just have this one life, and I feel free knowing that I am not restricted by a 1400 year old religion anymore
I have came out to a few friends which I knew would be accepting, and they have mentioned noticing a change in me and how I am a lot more open minded. I don't plan on coming out to my family, as it would sadden them and think that they raised me wrong, and I also don't want to take away their peace by telling them my doubts in Islam.
I no longer think of gays as abnormal/disgusting, don’t think of disbelievers as inferior, don’t need to picture good non Muslims being burnt in hell eternally
Instead of only being able to look up to Muhammad , I have found several amazing people to learn from, teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Aristotle, Plato, Sartre, scientists like Carl Sagan, Einstein, modern day people like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Robert Sapolsky
I am embracing actual spirituality, rather than just bowing down 5 times a day aimlessly
I came across this quote which blew my mind
“ Everyone has two lives, the second one begins when we realize we have just one “ - Confucius
Life is great now, and I’m looking forward to the future
Occasionally, I come across some "smart" muslims and wonder, how can such a smart person believe in Islam with such conviction, since it seems completely man-made to me, but it reminds me of another quote
"It is easier to fool a man, than to convince them that they have been fooled" - Mark Twain
Then it hits me again, we as Muslims have all been brainwashed to a point where it’s harder to convince ourselves that we’ve been brainwashed than it was for us to brainwash in the first place.

A detailed explainer “Why Quran and not Hadith?” Part I

The objective of the write-up is neither to insult the companions of the Prophet of God nor to question what was said by the Messenger. This is a fact-based analysis of the claims made in the name of the Prophet of God.
Primary document Quran
Islam is a continuation of earlier monotheistic faiths, as detailed in the obsequious primary document Quran. It has no central religious authority, no rite of passage and no official clergy, no official calendar, no official symbol, and no official dress. Just one 100% internally verifiable look-up book, the Quran.
Let us start with the premises that are rooted in the Quran, our Al Furqan, "The Criterion".
Quran is the undisputed primary source of our Deen. Quran itself is the explanation and above all, God's preemptive use of the very same terms the sectarians use for their sources as a warning. God describes the Quran as the "Best Hadith" Quran 39:23 and the "Best Tafsir" Quran 25:33 Let us not settle for less than the best that God has to offer.
This whole sectarian mess can be traced to the curse of "different interpretations". Quran cannot be interpreted differently if one were to stick to the Quranic guidelines of how to interpret the verses of the Quran found in the Quran itself.
Islam is the ultimate do it yourself religion both on an individual level and a community level. Islam is definitely not based on "reviews" of others, it is all about research and understanding of God's words directly, using the God-given faculties of observation, reason, and logic. Failing to do so opens the possibility of being declared less than ‘cattle’ by God Himself.
Unlike the third parties review methodology, the reason and logic methodology have a huge advantage; besides the only methodology sanctioned in the Quran itself (in fact, detailed foolproof guidelines of interpretation of the Quran are embedded in the Quran as one would expect from a Divine message) anybody, Muslim or non-Muslim who uses these embedded guidelines will arrive at the same conclusion unless one breaks the established rules of logic, sound research, and rational thought.
Since man has a forgetful nature, a few reminders. Let us start out by reminding ourselves how God in His own words describes the basis of knowledge;
7:52 "For We had certainly sent to them a Book based on knowledge, which We explained in detail (Arabic: fasalnahu), a guide and a mercy to all who believe"
Now let us remind ourselves what it is that will stand abandoned when all is said and done.
25:30 "And the Messenger will say: O my Lord! my people deserted this Quran." Notice only the Quran is mentioned here.
God's most powerful Declaration:
Before enforcing and/or accepting other than the Quran as a source of our Deen let us see the manner in which God affixes His stamp on the Quran in the most powerful manner.
" ..."What thing is greatest in testimony?" Say, " Allah is witness between me and you. And this Qur'an was revealed to me that I may warn you thereby ..." Quran 6:19
And since Quran is our Furqan, hence, any claim of additional Wahi (revelation) will have to match this level of endorsement in clear terms before it can be accepted as Wahi. Needless to say, nothing comes even close.
The sectarian claims that the messenger of God was given wisdom (separate) and additional revelations other than the Quran doesn't solve their issue. Once God declared that Quran is the Best Hadith 39:23, the Best Tafsir 25:33, is fully detailed 6:114, is complete 6:115 and that the verses of the Quran are already in an explained state 17:12, it stands to reason that the claimed God-given wisdom of the messenger and/or additional revelations will mirror and fortify all these declarations of God and not weaken them.
Real sayings of the Messenger of God
And let us refresh our memories a bit more and review what God instructs the Prophet of God to say repeatedly in the Quran;
The real authorized sayings of the Prophet of God:

“ …….. I only follow what is revealed to me (إن أتبع إلا ما يوحى إلي)…… “ Quran 10:15
“ …….. I only follow what is revealed to me (إن أتبع إلا ما يوحى إلي)…… “ Quran 46:9
“ …….. I only follow what is revealed to me (إن أتبع إلا ما يوحى إلي)…… “ Quran 6:50
“ …….. Only I follow what is revealed to me (إنما أتبع ما يوحى إلي) ……” Quran 7:203

The repeated use of (إنما) and (إلا) in the above verses leaves no room for anything other than what is Revealed in the Quran to be followed; “doing more” than what is revealed is not an option. God perfected the Deen. Adding to or subtracting from perfection renders it imperfect. Besides Quran 7:203-204 only restricts the listening to the Quran, so, if there were additional revelations then these verses would be either expanded to include other than the Quran or not necessary to begin with.
Then this:
Say, "Of your 'partners' is there any that can lead you to the Truth?" Say, "Allah leads to the Truth. So, who is more worthy of being followed? The One Who shows you the Way or he who finds no way unless he is guided? What is amiss with you? How do you judge?" Quran 10:35
So now, should you follow the guided Prophet or directly follow the ONE who was doing the guiding?
Additional Revelations issue
Allow me to address the additional Revelations issue in greater detail since it is related. The changing of the Qaba, the incident of the honey, the cutting of the palm tree and a few others are all routinely used out of context, along with the bit about the Hikma, to try and prove that the Prophet of God received Revelations in addition to the "official" Revelations in the form of the Quran.
Needless to say, we need to exclusively follow these very same revelations for which the messenger of God is on record to have publicly declared them as revelations. Let us also take in the severity of failure to deliver the complete message. If the messenger of God had failed to deliver the message as per God's extremely strict instructions, verbatim and publicly announcing them, God would have killed him by severing his aorta.
This obviously excludes any additional claims of revelations by third parties, even if the claims are ascribing them to any messenger of God-especially single third-party narrators paraphrasing such claims as opposed to a public declaration where a large number of witnesses would have been present and they too would have been on record testifying to the very same claim, preferably in a verbatim manner.
Additionally, it is clear from several verses that the revelations were in defined Surahs (chapters) and not loosely scattered reports. Quran 47:20 for one.
Furthermore, the messenger of God was made to say that his recitation of the Quran was for guidance and nothing else was mentioned. Continuing from the previous verse:
And to recite the Qur'an." And whoever is guided is only guided for himself; and whoever strays - say, "I am only of the warners." Quran 27:92
Similarly, using selective Quranic verses to try and justify the indefensible position that whatever the Messenger said were all revelations doesn't add up. If that was so, then in those instances where God corrected the messenger, was God actually correcting Himself? An absurd notion to begin with. ref. Quran 9:43, 80:1-10, 66:1. But that is the beauty of the Quran. Whenever attempts are made to sneak falsehood into it, this invariably results in easily spotted contradictions, a touchstone we cannot thank God enough for.
The following two verses are a clear case in point yet again. There is no difference between the obedience of God and the obedience of His messenger.

"O you who believe! obey Allah and His Messenger and do not turn back from Him while you hear" 8:20 2. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger and transgresses His limits - He will put him into the Fire to abide eternally therein, and he will have a humiliating punishment. Quran 4:14

In both the above verses, it is clear that the words to be heard and the limits both belong to God, the clear use of the singular (عَنْهُ) in 8:20 and (حُدُودَهُ) in 4:14 leaves no doubt whatsoever. If there were more than one disobedience by turning away or more than one limit, then here is where God would have separated them for our understanding.
Hence, the easiest way to obey the messenger is to exclusively follow what the messenger exclusively followed, nothing more nothing less. Because what he followed and what was revealed to him to recite as a guidance were all in Surah form and God collectively labeled these publicly proclaimed revelations as the Quran and declared Himself as the witness over it.
In light of the clear arguments from the Quran, our Furqan, it is time that all Muslims should fire their respective sect leaders and then follow it up with denouncing all sects. Islam is what the Quran says it is and pointing out this all-important fact does not make anybody a Quranist or Ahl al-Kalam or a Hadith rejector, whatever that means.
Just to be clear this is not something new, as the sectarians would want you to believe. This issue can be traced back to the exact same era when Hadith were illegitimately elevated from mere historical records to religious scriptures. In fact, Al-Jahiz is on record to have called the Haithers Al-nabita, the contemptible. This from the guy who beat Charles Darwin on evolution by over a 1000 years. No wonder the Mutazili theologians were ostracized by the usual suspects.
Imam Shafi is on record to debate with Muslims who objected to other than the Quran as a source of Deen in the eighth century. This is recorded by Imam Shafi in his Jima`al-`Ilm. In fact, both Al-Shafi'i and Ibn Qutayba refer to those Muslim opponents of the Hadith as Ahl al-Kalam. Al-Shafii's work responded to this group that rejected all claims in the Hadith literature. The argument of those Muslims was based on the same Quranic facts that Muslims today use, that God declares the Quran as an explanation of everything (16:89). Rejecting Ahad (based on third-party single narrators) is in no way an insult to the Prophet of God. In fact, rejecting impossible to verify claims in the name of the Prophet of God is the duty of every faithful.
By the way, over 99% of all Ahadith are Ahad.
To cut to the chase, the logic is simple and clearly laid out in the official message of God in no uncertain terms; the sects want to impose their own laws on people, God on the other hand categorically forbid believers from Judging (يحكم) by anything other than what was Revealed (أنزل). To ensure that whatever was Revealed was actually delivered publicly, God instructs the messenger to do exactly that (بلغ) announce/convey/proclaim/deliver the Revealed (أنزل) message. Whatever was not publicly conveyed and declared as a Revelation by the messenger should not be taken as a basis for judging because doing so will render one as a disbeliever (كافر).
Please read that last sentence again.
Hence, there may or may not have been communication between God and His Prophets other than the official message like the Quran, but our focus must be on what was explicitly declared by the Prophet of God to be the revelation. God communicates with His Prophets or for that matter with ordinary human beings as is indicated in the Quran. In fact, the Quran is clear that God communicates with all His creations even innate objects like heavenly bodies, the Earth and the Moon are mentioned, among others.
But here is the thing, the Wahi that is intended as a guide or injunctions for us as human beings and Jinn etc is in fact clearly defined in the Quran and was delivered publicly by the messenger and declared as Wahi. God stamped it by announcing that God Himself is the witness to the revelation of the Quran.
In short, if it is not in the Quran, please don't call it Islam.
Here are the relevant verses;
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to Allah] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of Allah, and they were witnesses thereto. So do not fear the people but fear Me, and do not exchange My verses for a small price. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed then it is those who are the disbelievers. Quran 5:44
and
O Messenger, announce (بَلِّغْ) that which has been revealed to you from your Lord, and if you do not, then you have not conveyed His message. And Allah will protect you from the people. Indeed, Allah does not guide the disbelieving people. Quran 5:67
To further elaborate on this all-important issue, in order for it to be classified as a Revelation, it is necessary for it to be announced, a public act by definition as demonstrated by the use of the word (بَلِّغْ) and the context elsewhere in the Quran. Quran 7:61-62. and 7:67-68 and 46:23. And this announcement must be done by the messenger himself and he must declare it to be a Wahi for it to become part and parcel of the official message. It is certainly not left to any third party(s) to deduce from his actions or inactions.
In order to settle the matter of a public announcement in the above verse, God comforts the messenger of God not to worry about public declarations of the Revelation to the people because God will protect you from the people. The mention of the people here and all the related verses buries assigning any value to a single narrator, which will be 99.9% of Hadith literature as previously mentioned, which is the actual number. It especially negates claims of where it was supposedly communicated in private.
In addition, a single narrator's claim that it was made in Public is by definition problematic. Interestingly, 100% of the so-called Qudsi Ahadith falls into this latter category. Furthermore, there is no provision for implied or deduced Revelation on the basis of not being able to come up with an "explanation" for a particular verse. Nor does declaring something other than the officially revealed as "additional Revelations" under the disguise of "explanations" have any merit. The "best" explanation of God is just that, the best.
Why is this extremely important? Because if one were to use anything other than the Revealed word of God, as defined in the Quran, to judge others, then in God's own words, as pointed out in the above verse and worth repeating here:
" ........ And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed then it is those who are the disbelievers". Quran 5:44
Imagine that !!!
That automatically takes care of what Obey the messenger means yet again. In fact not making the Revelation as the sole basis of Sharia is an option that cannot be ignored, If one were to venture out and actually judge others on anything other than the Revealed message then that will turn one into a disbeliever, as the verse above declares. The seriousness of the issue is further cemented in the subsequent verses by adding wrongdoers and the defiantly disobedient to the mix. This was true of those who received Revelations before us, and it is the same for us.
Please read and reflect on the verses from Quran 5:44 till 5:69 to fully understand the fundamental principles of Revelations.
Of course, there are many more relevant verses but the above is a very quick way of settling the counterclaims of the sect scene.
No Muslim in their right mind rejects Hadith if by the new and un-Quranic meaning of Hadith one means sayings of the Prophet of God. But any claim in the name of the Prophet of God must be evaluated in light of the message of God he delivered himself. As per the Quran, we will be labeled as liars if we fail to back our claims with four upright witnesses even for a social claim, let alone those claims that have a direct bearing on the message of God.
The sect games, of course, quote verses devoid of context to promote the indefensible notion that every word that came out of the messenger's mouth was a revelation/inspiration. Except, the seriously wanting claim falls apart when it is pointed out to them that if that was so then when God corrected and even admonishes the messenger for what he said and did, this would mean God was actually correcting Himself. Case in point Quran 80:1-12 Quran 66:1 and others.
Keeping the above verses in mind and yet pushing people towards crude perfectionism in terms of how they should dress or look, what they should eat, how should they pray or indeed what should they say, is the hallmark of oppressors, especially when threats of physical harm are added to the equation.
True perfectionism is the province of God alone and only God can match one's abilities to a way of life focused on love, empathy, mercy and forgiveness, a guaranteed path leading to the freedom of the soul.
We have often seen the message of God diluted and distorted through the various secondary sources courted by these illegal and for-profit sect leaders. Most impartial observers saw through the sophistry of the "scholars" and figured that they were always in on it when it came to distortion of God's words. The reasons for doing so were also very straightforward, in one word "subjugation". From the perspective of these fake scholars, it was always about peer pressure, fear of losing status, fear of losing position; and of course, these, combined with the fear of the emperor were all routine motivations. God specifically warns us about this in clear terms;
CAN YOU, then, hope that they will believe in what you are preaching - seeing that a good many of them were wont to listen to the word of God and then, after having understood it, to pervert it knowingly? Quran 2:75
That brings us to the perverted verses
The practice of quoting truncated verses with the explicit objective to deceive is quite rampant in the sectarian circles. The most widely misquoted verse has to be Quran 59:7 (......" And whatsoever the Messenger (Muhammad SAW) gives you, take it, and whatsoever he forbids you, abstain (from it)......". While there is really no need to go into a lengthy analysis of this obvious deception, the verse is often quoted to justify the unwarranted status given to the Hadith literature. Needless to say, the verse has to do with something completely different, the distribution of war booty.
The verse that needs analysis is one of the other favorites of the Kafirs, Quran 16:44. Here too the verse is not only quoted in part but when pointed out, lame attempts are made to try and dilute an important aspect of the message.
The part that is quoted is:
" ...... that you may explain clearly to men what is sent down to them, ...... ) Quran 16:44
The above translation is from Muhsin Khan. The rendering " explain clearly" is a misdirection. First of all, the word form used is (لِتُبَيِّنَ ), the or bayyinah from the root Ba-Ya-Nun. The sense of the word is to make clear in a way one would do when distinguishing something from another. Where God mentions explaining the Quran, God invariably does so by referring to the verses of the Quran: "We explain the verses" ( نُصَرِّفُ الْآيَاتِ ). Furthermore, as we can see the word often used for "explaining" is from the root Sad-Ra-Fa, in the mood ( مرفوع ). And finally, the fact that God ends the verse with ( لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ ) " that they may reflect/give thought is significant. Giving thought or to reflect is often downgraded to "consider" aka George Sale.
The verse is not referring to explaining that which was revealed but the reference to making cleaor showing (لتبين), the process and significance of revelations themselves. Hence, the Prophet of God was to point out the significance of this revelation as a whole and the people were then supposed to reflect on the message. This makes even more sense given the mention of earlier scriptures at the beginning of the verses.
And then there is the verse about the prophet of God being an excellent example. Once again, the verse is quoted in part:
"Certainly, you have in the Apostle of God an excellent example ......) Quran 33:21
But they never mention Quran 60:4, where an Identical term is used for Prophet Abraham. The conduct in all three related verses mentioned in Quran 33:21, 60:6 and 60:4 revolves around the belief in God and the Last Day. That is the core value of the example to be followed and not how high your trousers need to be. Or the left foot right foot nonsense.
Besides the above, verses where God reminds us to Obey Him and his messenger, are so far removed from obeying what Bukkhari and co. claim, that it is not worth pursuing the argument in any meaningful way. It is mind-boggling that Quran 4:59 is also used to support Hadith literature. If anything, the mention of people in authority along with God and the messenger points to the fact that all three mean exactly the same thing, God's message is to be obeyed and followed irrespective of who implements it. That brings us to the perverted verses.
Evidence from the Hadith on "worship" of the Prophet
But it is ironic to note that the rank and file always had enough material in their respective sect's literature to give them a wake-up call. And yet we see that almost all the members remain hypnotized by the so-called Sheiks and Imams of these sects. Here is something interesting to share;
Allah says:
- ٱتَّخَذُوٓاْ أَحۡبَارَهُمۡ وَرُهۡبَـٰنَهُمۡ أَرۡبَابً۬ا مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ
"They (Jews and Christians) took their rabbis and their monks as lords besides God ……." [At-Taubah, verse 31]
When Adee Ibn Hatim (radi Allahu 'anhu), who used to be a Christian, heard this verse, he said, 'O Messenger of God. We didn't worship them.' The Messenger of God (sallalalhu alaihi wa-sallam) said, 'Did they not make Haraam what God made Halaal and you listened to them; and they made Halaal what God made Haraam and you followed them? He replied, 'Certainly.
The Prophet of God (sallalalhu alaihi wa-sallam) said, 'THAT was your worship to them.' [At-Tirmidhee (3/247)]
I am not going to endorse the above report as authentic simply because it also fails the criteria of truth as detailed in the Quran, as is the case with over 99% of all Ahadith, but it should not pose any problems for those who eat up anything labeled as "Hadith" or "Sunnah". So, the question is, why can't they connect the dots screaming at them that they should be connected?
The issue of Ahadith
This commentary is in no way questioning the legitimate sayings of the Messenger of God but merely pointing out gaps in the claims of those who are ascribing words to the messenger of God. Let us first clarify how God mentions Sunnah in the Quran.
(1) Sunnatu-lawalina (of the former people) (2) Sunnata-llahi (of God)
That is it, there is no third Sunnah type mentioned in the Quran.
Now, let us have a quick insight into the Ahadith reports, on which the popular Sunnah is based or partly based. The details in the Hadith literature should further clarify matters.
Since the Hadith promoters inexplicably ignored to first classify the Ahadith as Mutawatir (reported a mass) and Ahad (single narrator) before giving them labels as Sahih and Hasan and Daef, a lot of people are unaware of the fact that a full 99.9% of Ahadith, actual number as already mentioned, are basically third-party single narrations. When you add to this the fact that out of the top seven narrators with almost 17,000 reports, (Sunni version) five were teenagers, three out of those five barely making the teen cut and the other two were in their mid-twenties in 632 AD. Just this piece of info should raise alarm bells in any reasonable person's mind.
When we also take into account the strange omission of the Friday Sermons, we are left with gaps that no God-fearing, thinking person can ignore. While the Friday sermon is ubiquitous in the Muslim world today, it may come as a shock to many that out of an estimated thousand or so sermons reportedly delivered by the messenger of God, not a single sermon was committed to memory by any of the thousands of attendees and passed on. Given the scale and reach of these supposedly regular sermons, it is more than strange that the famed memory champions of the time could not manage a single complete sermon so that it could make it into any of the popular collections.
These Friday sermons were the perfect opportunities for the recording of mutawatir reports, as the Quran demands. So, if we were to go with the famed memory champions narrative then it is not at all unreasonable to imagine that they were systematically pruned from all collections. The question is why?
To further understand the sophistry under the slogan of "the Prophet said”, let us quickly point out what is generally agreed regarding the most revered collection.
Bukhari's Ahadith collection was never in a single book form during his lifetime; the present Askalani's collection is based on the commentary of Khushaymani, which in turn is based on the commentary or collection of Firabri who based his collection on some part of Bukhari's collection.
It seems that we should abandon our exclusivity of belief in one God and surrender to a final edit done in the fifteenth century, yes fifteenth not eighth, and start believing in Askalani's collection. Then we must believe that he did his job by choosing, out of 70 odd collections on offer at the time, Khushaymani to be the one, subsequently we must believe that Firabri, a student of Bukhari, did his job and of course, we must continue to believe blindly, that Bukhari did his bit and we must in turn ignore another "great" Muslim, who had trashed a big chunk of Bukhari's collection. All this before we get into the Isnad chain, with hundreds of years passing between collections, commentaries, and Isnads. Is this a joke at our expense?
Since we can make perfect sense of the 28 Surahs that Bukhari "explains" with these words "No Hadith were mentioned here" I am sure we will manage with the rest as well.
Here is the complete list of Surah Bukhari washed his hands of, some explanation; 23, 27, 29, 35, 51, 57, 58, 64, 67, 69, 70, 73, 76, 81, 82, 86, 88, 89, 90, 94, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, and 109
Even in the cases where a particular chapter is dealt with, a very limited set of verses are included in the “explanations”. For example, in the case of Al Baqarah, out of the total 286 verses, only about 50 are mentioned in Bukhari’s collection and the same goes for the rest of the compilers.
Besides, out of the 6348 verses in the Quran, a mere 20 or so can be found referenced as explained in the Hadith literature. So where did this idea originate? And why don't those propagating this obvious misdirection fact check it for themselves?
Ironically, there are Ahadith that rue the fact that the Prophet of God left without explaining some verses. That includes Usury, inheritance, doubtful things etc
Please feel free to explore this issue on your own.
Those who promote the seriously flawed Hadith literature insist that they (or their sect leaders) have verified that "all" of Bukhari and Muslim compilation is beyond reproach (similar claims by other sects). Here we have to raise a relevant question: If the messenger of God himself could not tell the hypocrites from the genuine Sahaba then how did Bukhari and co. manage this impossible feat?
“And from among those who are round about you of the dwellers of the desert there are hypocrites, and from among the people of Medina (also); they are stubborn in hypocrisy; you do not know them; We know them; We will chastise them twice then shall they be turned back to a grievous chastisement” Quran [9:101]
So unless Bukhari and co. had access to voice recordings of the reporters and they were all experts at detecting lies through the tone of their speech - Quran 47:30 says (لحن القول) which is not just speech but the tone of the speech- then there is zero percent chance that they knew. If they were, and they knew, then all the compilations would have been identical.
Ironically, Bukhari's own report clearly points to this fact, especially after the demise of the Messenger of God:
Narrated Anas: The Prophet said, "Some of my companions will come to me at my Lake Fount, and after I recognize them, they will then be taken away from me, whereupon I will say, 'My companions!' Then it will be said, 'You do not know what they innovated (new things) in the religion after you."
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 76, Hadith 584
Lastly, let’s talk numbers.
Even if we lack expertise in a particular domain, one can rationally test the premises upon which a particular discipline is based.
One of the most basic tools available to us is a simple time and motion study. If someone were to claim that he or she just ran around the world unaided in 24 hours one can very easily calculate and prove that it is an impossibility, given the length of distance traveled and the speed a human being can generate while running unaided. Similarly, if the "science of Hadith" is so thorough as claimed, then why is it that the claims don't match the ground reality. Hence when science is applied to the claim of 600,000 Ahadith vetting in a mere 16 years period by Bukhari, the results are at best comical. Not to mention the fact that earlier, another important compiler, Muslim, disputes the authenticity of hundreds of Ahadith declared authentic by Bukhari and refuses to declare them authentic and the other way around. Where is the science in it?
But we are going to focus on the claim of the 600,000 Ghusls and the two rakat that Bukhari performed before embarking on every new Hadith evaluation. The question we are going to ask is; how do you fit 600,000 Ghusls and an equal number of Istikhara prayers into a 16 years time frame? We are not even counting the countless interviews he supposedly did with the narrators and their family and friends, not to mention the traveling. Do the math as they say, please.
I don't know about you, but if I were to do a thorough job I will need at least 20 minutes to do the Bukhari Wudu and when you add taking clothes off and putting them back on then perhaps 25 minutes. I guess it will vary from individual to individual, but I think this would be a reasonable average. When you add to it the Istikhara prayer itself, say another five minutes, the total bumps up to 30 minutes. So, we now have a grand total of 30x600000=18000000 minutes, which translates into a shade over 34 years. Twice as much as the claim of 16 years famously associated with Bukhari. Of course if you were paying attention, let's say our estimates are off by a full 15 minutes because Bukhari happened to be a Speedy Gonzales and he managed to do the above Ghusl with embedded Wudu, undressing, dressing and the Istikhara prayer all in a mere 15 minutes, even then he would have used up every minute of the available 16 years. Hence no time left for the Istikhara dream, let alone eating, sleeping, traveling, or conducting interviews.
Realistically, if we were to take him up on his word, it would have taken him hundreds of years.
Mind you, I kept the argument to easily verifiable numbers; I did not question the integrity of the narrators, did not analyze the matn of the reports, did not question the methodology employed, because all of them can be buried by subjective calls, however illogical, as is done by the traditionalist. Anybody who can count can verify these numbers for themselves and they don't add up.
Note: Some of his followers also did the math and amateurishly tried to push a new claim that he only performed the Ghusl and Istikhara for the ones that he had already vetted, but then he would have lost the claimed Divine hand in rejecting the remaining 593,000 reports, hence losing the premise of the claim on which this obvious falsehood is based.
Sira of the Prophet of God
The actual sira of the messenger of God is even more problematic. Well over ninety percent of the popular sira in circulation is based on the work of a single individual who is supposed to have compiled the information some 80 years after the death of the Prophet of God. Needless to say, he never met any of the companions to verify the claims directly. The disturbing thing is that the original work of Ibn Ishaq, the gentleman, is nowhere to be found. In fact, what we have is the work of Ibn Hisham and Tabari. Who in turn have based their work on two students of Ibn Ishaq, al-Bakka, and ibn Fadl al-Ansari. To add insult to injury the original work of these two gentlemen also perished. Most of the work of Tabari is also lost and bits that survived point to the fact that he just passed on whatever was in circulation.
So, we are left with an account of the Prophet of God that was compiled almost a century after his death, the original is lost and the next two originals were also lost, so we are left with Ibn Hisham who was repeatedly labeled as a liar by his contemporaries and Tabari who has confessed that his work is nothing but unverified stories.
We are Muslims. The very word of God is between our hands. How can we be expected to fall for this?
So, what does God have to say?
Quran 45:6 These are God's verses; we recite them for you truthfully. Which "Hadith", after God and His verses, do they believe in? Quran 45:7 Woe to every sinful fabricator Quran 45:8 He hears God's verses, then insists arrogantly on his way, as if he never heard them; promise him painful retribution.
And yet "they" insist. Why?
God's clear warnings are systematically ignored.
So woe to those who write the book with their (own) hands then, they say, "This (is) from Allah," to barter with it (for) a price little. So woe to them for what have written their hands and woe to them for what they earn. Quran 2:79
A reasonable question will be, who took it upon themselves to accept the claim of single narrators as something of value? When God in the Quran, our Furqan, and our Mizan, label those who cannot back their claims with four witnesses as liars. Yes, that is right, God calling them liars and this too in a mere social setting. Are we to believe that claims in the name of God and His messengers are to be accepted several notches below the standard laid out for mere social claims?
It is clear that over 90% of Mullahs exist and behave as a group, they take their orders from religious cabals. The individual Mullah is dependent for their salaries on the personality-centric core of various sects. He is working for a boss and not you. His loyalties force him to work against the Ummah. In fact, the neighborhood Mosque Mullah is a plant and an instrument of manipulation. Why should we allow it to continue?
Before running to the mosques to collect the clearly made up contradictory extra points (Ibn Umar says it is 27, Abu Huraira says it is 25), please keep the below two verses in mind and note the use of the word "ever";
And those who take a masjid (for causing) harm and (for) disbelief, and (for) division among the believers, and (as) a station for whoever warred (against) Allah and His Messenger before. And surely, they will swear, "Not we wish except the good." But Allah bears witness indeed, they (are) surely liars. (Do) not stand in it ever. A masjid founded on the righteousness from (the) first day (is) more worthy that you stand in it. Within it (are) men who love to purify themselves, and Allah loves the ones who purify themselves. Quran 9:107-108
It is an incredibly sad reality that almost every single mosque standing today is built on sectarian lines (divisions) and God has forbidden us to ever set foot in them since they are a source of divisions. No matter how you look at it, going to mosques is not an option anymore till everything changes.
The issue of "Quran was given by the same people who gave us the Ahadith"
As far as the argument that the same people who gave us the Hadith also gave us the Quran goes, let us do a quick reality check; not to mention Quran 9:101 and true to God's warning, three out of the next four Muslim leaders were murdered. Which gives one a good sense of the kind of environment that ensued. Now let us see what really happened with respect to the Quran reaching us.
Instead of taking a measured approach in the face of Quran 9:101, "their" solution is to declare all the companions infallible under the "who gave us the Quran" slogan. When you challenge them, that even if we were to assume God used them to pass down the Quran to us, it is interesting to note that, although they were able to transmit every single verse of the Quran in a Mutawatir, Bil lafz (verbatim) manner, when they sat down to transmit the "sayings" of the Prophet of God, suddenly they all had terrible bouts of memory leaks and 99.9% of the time conveniently there was nobody else around to hear what the Profit of God had to say.
In my humble opinion, this whole issue can be reduced to how the Quran deals with claims. On one level, easily over 99% of all Ahadith are claims made by third-party single narrators, not even worth bringing up for debate, hence, they must be systematically put aside. On another level, all claims related to "Obey the Messenger" cannot be corroborated through the Quran. The Quran does not say that "obey the messenger" means follow the Hadith. Similarly, the Quran does not say that Hadith can explain the Quran. All the noise about this or that missing from the Quran in order to justify Hadith is a ploy to distract the objectors from the fact that the claims by themselves on both levels have zero value in Islam.
In practice, the issue is further complicated. The report usually says one thing but the "scholars" step in to say something quite different and this is precisely the problem with these so-called "explanations". The first issue is the claim that they "explain" the verses of the Quran except that the Quranic verses are revealed in an already explained state. God testifies to that. The second issue is that these "explanations" of the already explained verses need to be explained and you guessed it, by "scholars" and not just any old scholar but a sect specific "scholar" tied to a specific sect or school of thought.
Hence, the main objective of this crude sophistry is to corner the market of "interpretations" and it is a big marketplace where millions change hands. Welcome to the ritual heavy, the illegal and for-profit world of organized religion.
On the other hand, the number of Hadith that qualifies as mutawatir (Quranic standard) range from less than a dozen to three hundred, in fact, the presence of a range by itself is troubling. No surprise then that the agreed upon number hovers around 10 in all and when you add the all-important bif lafz (verbatim) to it the number dips to half a dozen.
All these points strengthen the argument that the so-called "scholars" were in on it as mentioned already. The reason it is clear that the "scholars" are in on it, is that the arguments for and against the Hadith literature are black and white to the point that even a child can easily figure it out. Speaking of children, a good number of Hadith narrators were just that, kids as mentioned above.
... Continued in part II

Etiquette with the Qur'an Article Collection

10 factors that will motivate you to learn Arabic

Best Qur'an app for Windows 10

Ring Structure of Surah al-Mulk (The Dominion)

Muslim Occultists/ adapting Islam in magick practice

Sunna of the Prophet

As Qur'an only Muslims we refute the traditional understanding of the sunna which has caused serious damage to Arab civilization. Because ‘becoming’ has been forced to stay locked in the period of the first three centuries of Islamic history, the traditional fixation on the sunna of the Prophet has made Arab-Muslim societies—philosophically speaking—flat, two dimensional. In contrast to other more three dimensional civilizations, Arab-Muslim societies have remained backward and still display symptoms of cultural decay and intellectual stagnation. A traditional understanding of the sunna forces today’s jurists to make their legal decisions strictly analogous to those issued between the seventh and the ninth centuries.
The traditional view has it that the sunna relates to us the words, acts, good deeds, statements, and decisions of Muhammad, God’s Messenger. It requires us to emulate the example of the Prophet as rigidly as possible in our daily conduct. The following verse 21 of Al-Ahzab and two hadiths have often been cited to convince and discipline us:
You have indeed in the Apostle of God a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in God and the Final Day, and who engages much in the praise of God. (Al-Ahzab 33:21)
The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “I have left two things to you. As long as you hold to them you will not go astray: these [two things] are the book of Allah and the Sunna of His Prophet.” Imam Malik vol. 5, 1323 (Hadith no. 3338).
“Behold, I have been given this book together with something simila equal.” Jami' al-usul vol. 1, 68
Based on the dubious notion of Muhammad’s sanctity as prophet and messenger, the sunna, that is, the collective body of all ahadith that capture the words and deeds of a supposedly uber-human being, has gained an authority that intrudes into the daily life of every Muslim-Believer. General issues of religious belief and specific questions of social conduct are indiscriminately treated as equally authoritative and binding on us all. Every little detail of the Prophet’s life has been defined as equally sacrosanct, whether it concerned questions of universal, objective laws (nubuwwa) or legislation (risala), whether it referred to prophetic knowledge ('ilm) or to legislation (ahkam shar'iyya). The ahadith of the sunna have thus acquired the status of sacred texts whose authority cannot any longer be questioned. As a result, the ahadith, regardless of their often dubious origins and weak chains of transmitters, were given priority to the divine text even when they contradicted the verses of the Book
Neither Muhammad himself nor his companions would ever have approved of such notions of sanctity. On the contrary, we hear that Muhammad explicitly forbade his followers from compiling anything but the words of God. The oft-heard argument that the collection of ahadith enabled the Prophet’s companions to better distinguish between Muhammads words as a prophet (and human being) and the words of God (the divine author), and thus protect the latter from being mixed with the former, can be refuted by quoting verse 9 of Surat al-Hijr that rebukes such efforts. In this verse we are assured of the fact that Allah Himself will take care of His words as the sole and best protector of the Book, and that He would not need hadith compilers to do so:
We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption). (Al-Hijr 15:9)
The truth is that after the prophet’s death in 632 his companions were preoccupied only with the task of producing an authoritative collection of divine revelations. They did not bother at all about prophetic narrations. They started collecting the divine ayat under the caliph Abu Bakr and completed the task under the caliph Uthman Ibn Affan, who eventually compiled the written mus'haf, the copy we hold in our hands today. This is what has become known as the codex of Uthman. It is said to have abrogated all other codices that existed at that time and which were subsequently all destroyed. The Prophet’s companions had realized that whatever Muhammad said or did as a human being could not have originated from a divine source and thus was strictly related to the political-historical context in which he lived. Even though they could have started to collect ahadith they continued to rely exclusively on the divine text. Knowing the Book very well they realized that to collect ahadith in order to complete divine revelation would have contradicted Allah’s words in verse 3 of Surat al-Maida:
This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you al-islam as your religion… (Al-Maida 5:3)
It was clear to them that the religion of Islam was perfected even without the existence of a single hadith. It was indeed inconceivable to think that Allah has given them an incomplete religion of which half, the ahadith, was still missing. And it would also be inconceivable to think that they, after having successfully collected all existing divine revelations, could have been so neglectful of not having exhaustively collected all existing ahadith (a process that lasted several centuries), therefore embarrassing generations of future Muslims by having secured only half of Islam.
The collection of ahadith and the process of turning them into sacrosanct texts is undoubtedly a later development. The following aspects have triggered this fateful turn towards the sanctification of the Prophet’s sunna. We have identified six major errors which all occurred because of a wrong interpretation of a verse in the Book. In dealing with these errors, we quote the verse first, highlight the mistakes made, and then introduce our own reading of the text.
1. The first one concerns the belief that Muhammad's words were inspired by God:
And he [Muhammad] does not talk [yantiq] capriciously. It is only a revelation [wahyun] being revealed [yuha]… (Al-Najm 53:3–4)
It was thought that the two verses equate what Muhammad said (yantiq) with divine revelation (wahy). This led to the erroneous view that the Quran and the sunna are two categories of revealed or inspired word. It has been overlooked that Al-Najm 53:3-4 were revealed in Mecca at a time when Muhammad was confronted by strong opposition from the Ahl al-Quraish. They had questioned the validity of Muhammad's claim to have received revelations from God. They did not question Muhammad's own words but only what he presented as divine revelation. Verses 3 and 4 were revealed as an assurance of the divine origins of his revelations from God, not an assurance of the sacrality of Muhammad's sayings as prophet and human being.
2. The second error concerns the belief that Muhammad’s acts and deeds are sacrosanct, that is, unblemished by mistake and hence infallible. This view can easily be rejected by reading the following verses of Surat al-Abasa in which Allah unambiguously reprimands Muhammad and concedes his fallibility:
He frowned and turned away when the blind man came to him— for all you know, he might have grown in spirit, or taken note of something useful to him. (Abasa 80:1-4)
This is a clear rebuke by God because Muhammad was so impertinent to have turned away from Ibn Maktum, an old, blind beggar, in order to address instead the notables of the Ahl al-Quraish in the hope that they would accept his call and convert to Islam. Criticizing such snobbishness, Allah asks Muhammad to change his attitude and turn back to the beggar, for the old man might spiritually benefit enormously from the Prophet’s attention. In the following verse we hear another rebuke of Muhammad’s action:
Prophet, why do you prohibit what God has made lawful to you in your desire to please your wives? Yet God is forgiving and merciful. (Al-Tahrim 66:1)
And another time:
It is not fitting for an apostle that he should have prisoners of war until he has thoroughly subdued the land. You look for the temporal goods of this world, but God looks to the Hereafter: And God is exalted in might, wise. (Al-Anfal 8:67)
3. The third error has occurred by inventing the notion of the Prophet’s impeccability (al-'isma). This view can easily be rejected by reading the following verse of Surat al-Ma'ida:
Messenger, proclaim everything that has been sent down to you from your Lord—if you do not, then you will not have communicated this message—and God will protect you from people. God does not guide those who defy Him. (Al-Ma'ida 5:67)
The verse makes it clear that Muhammad was not infallible as a prophet per se. His impeccability as a prophet is qualified by, a) his infallible delivery of the revealed text of al-dhikr al-hakim (because he transmitted the message without adding or taking away a single letter and without letting any human being interfere in the process of transmission); and by, b) his moral perfection, in the sense that he did not violate an absolute taboo of God or transgress a limit set by God.
His moral perfection lied in the fact that he never ventured to perform ijtihad in anything that God had explicitly forbidden. Instead, in everyday life he performed practical ijtihads within the parameters of what God had allowed (al-halal). His ijtihads were never fixed once and for all and were never declared absolute as they changed and developed according to historical circumstances. In other words, by his sunna he impeccably specified what Allah had allowed in His Book. But such impeccability does not imply that the Prophet’s specifications are absolute and to be enforced in other regions of this world or in other sociohistorical contexts of human history.
4. The fourth misunderstanding pertains to the common exaggeration of Muhammad’s prophetic role:
(We sent them) with clear proofs and scriptures; and We revealed to you the reminder, so that you may make clear [li-tubayyin] to mankind what has been revealed to them, and that, perchance, they may reflect. (Al-Nahl 16:44)
This verse of Surat Al-Nahl has led to much confusion among Muslim commentators. This confusion produced the outrageous view that the Sunna is superior to the Quran, in the sense that the Sunna overrides the authority of the Quran if the latter contradicts the former, which basically amounted to an abrogation of the divine text.
The problem lies in a too literal understanding of verse 44 of Al-Nahl and the phrase ‘that you may make clear to mankind what has been revealed to them’. It was thought that this refers to textual ambiguities in the divine text which Muhammad was meant to clarify, or to too generally formulated injunctions that he was sent to specify. In other words, the sunna of the Prophet was seen as a pragmatic specification and perfect exemplification of Allah’s rather ambivalent legal injunctions. Legal experts had forthwith to use the instrument of analogy in applying Muhammad’s decisions in order to find and establish their own. In the end, the ahadith were believed to be the perfect filter through which one could explain an obscure divine text, while the sunna became the absolute yardstick of the ‘real’ legal intentions by the divine text. To read the Book without the filter of the ahadith became increasingly difficult, resulting in the fatal thinking that the sunna overrides the Quran’s authority and that ‘the Quran needs the sunna more than the sunna needs the Qur"an’. And yet, ‘Allah, the Highly exalted, is above what they ascribe to Him’!
Confusion occurred over the correct interpretation of the Arabic phrase li-tubayyin and its root words bayan or tibyan. The verb bayana was often thought to mean ‘to explain clearly’ or ‘to make clear’ and was identified as the main task of the sunna. The following verses of the Book, however, show that bayana rather denotes ‘to make evident’, or to bring out what is hidden (i.e., not yet discernible):
Those who conceal the clear (signs) We have sent down, and the guidance, after We have made it (known) [bayyanahu] for the people in the Book—on them shall be God’s curse, and the curse of those entitled to curse. (Al-Baqara 2:159)
And remember God took a covenant from the People of the Book, to make it known and clear [la-tubayyanunnahu] to mankind, and not to hide it… (Al'Imran 3:187)
O people of the Book! There has come to you our Apostle, revealing to you [yubayyinu lakum] much that you used to hide in the Book… (Al-Ma'ida 5:15)
‘And eat and drink, until the white thread of dawn appear [yatabayyina] to you distinct from its black thread…’ (Al-Baqara 2:187)
It is clear that in this context the root meaning of b-y-n is ‘to make apparent’, that is, visible to the eyes, something that is hidden, obscured, that is, invisible to the eyes. We hear further proof in the following two verses:
And Abraham prayed for his father’s forgiveness only because of a promise he had made to him. But when it became clear to him [tabayyana] that he was an enemy to God, he dissociated himself from him: for Abraham was most tender-hearted, forbearing. (Al-Tawba 9:114)
He has created man; He has taught him speech (and intelligence) [al-bayan]. (Al-Rahman 55:3–4)
In 9:114 we learn that tabayyana refers to the moment when the enmity of Abraham’s father to God became evident to Abraham— perceived by his senses and understood by his rational mind:
When we have recited it, repeat the recitation and We shall make it clear [bayanahu]. (Al-Qiyama 75:18-19)
We have sent down to you the Book [revealing] all things [tibyanan], a guide, a mercy, and glad tidings to Muslims. (Al-Nahl 16:89)
There is, in their stories, instruction for men endued with understanding. It is not a tale invented, but a confirmation of what went before it—a detailed exposition [tafsil] of all things, and a guide and a mercy to any such as believe. (Yusuf 12:111)
This is the way of your Lord, leading straight: We have detailed [fassalna] the signs for those who receive admonition. (Al-An'am 6:126)
The Book says it over and over again: the divine text is clearly visible to the eyes and audible to the ears; in all its details it is unobscured, uncovered, and unambiguous. Such a crystal-clear text does not need clarifications by the sunna: it has already been explained and made clear, and all the necessary details have been given. Why should there be a need to lessen the confusion if there is no confusion in the first place?
An example taken from contemporary politics can illustrate what is really meant by bayan. Just imagine that two heads of state come together to negotiate a new bilateral treaty. At the end of their meeting a joint communiqué is prepared with a summary of the talks, and this is distributed among the accompanying press journalists. What happens is that the spokesperson announces all the details of the negotiations even though he did not take part in them. Furthermore, he does not know what else has been discussed and what the communiqué does not mention. The spokesperson’s only task is to read the communiqué to the press, and make its points audible and visible, that is, known to his audience; a clarifying commentary by him is neither requested nor expected.
This example illustrates the role that Muhammad played. His role as a messenger of God was to make Allah’s revelation known to people. It was neither requested nor expected that he change the form or shape of the revelations (the dhikr al-hakim), nor that he reformulate them in his own words. Some Muslim scholars have claimed that Muhammad merely received inspirations from God and that he put them into his own words which he then announced as divine revelations. If this is true, it would mean that Muhammad possessed all the superhuman capacities necessary to formulate such sublime speech, and that he had completely understood all the divine instructions. It would mean that the Prophet’s ‘being’ is the ‘being’ of the most praiseworthy, but surely Allah, the highly exalted, is above what they ascribe to Him!
Let us repeat the fundamental truth that in front of us is the Book, the unaltered, unfiltered, and untampered word of God that came down to Muhammad in its final format and complete in content. It was delivered to the people without the need for clarification or specification, and without the need for protection or guardianship (see Surat al-Hijr 15:9). Such protection has since been achieved by written copies of the original manuscript, first as scrolls, then, after the invention of the printing machine as books and, nowadays, as computer files or audio/video CDs and DVDs. Before all of that was possible, the Prophet Muhammad was in this respect the most reliable, most trustworthy, and most perfect transmitter of the divine text.
A final thought: if it is true that the Book is ambiguous and the sunna unambiguous, and that one always has to go back to see how the sunna has specified the general rules of the Book, it would leave no room for human reason, experiment, reflection, or independent thinking. It would disqualify verse 2 of Surat yusuf as being entirely meaningless:
We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran, in order that you may learn wisdom. (Yusuf 12:2)
5. The fifth problem occurred because of a wrong understanding of Surat Al-Hashr:
Whatever the Messenger gives you [ma atakum], take; but whatever he forbids [ma nahakum], refrain from. Fear Allah, for Allah is terrible in retribution. (Al-Hashr 59:7)
In verse 59:7 we notice the usage of the verb a-t-a, ‘to come’ or ‘to arrive’, which implies that the Book deliberately avoids the verb j-a-', which also means ‘to come’ or ‘to arrive’. The reason for this is that the two verbs connote two different origins for what ‘comes’ or ‘arrives’. Whereas a-t-a is (semantically) reflexive and connotes an origin that lies in the source (item or person) itself, the verb j-a-' is transitive as it connotes an origin that lies outside a source (item or person). This difference is best illustrated by verse 43 of Surat Maryam:
“O my father! To me has come [ja'anÊ] knowledge which has not reached you [ya'atik]; so follow me: I will guide you to a way that is even and straight.” (Maryam 19:43)
We notice here that the text uses first ja'anÊ in order to indicate that Abraham, the speaker in this verse, has received divine knowledge from Allah, that is, from somewhere outside himself, whereas in the case of his father, who has not received such knowledge, the verb ya'atik is used, hence Abraham’s command to his father to follow him. As for the verb a-t-a in general, the Book employs it only if it refers to actions, never to speech acts or communication by words.
If we apply these insights to 59:7, we can now explain why the verb a-t-a (ma atakum), is used and not j-a-', or ja'akum. Ma atakum refers to knowledge that Muhammad gained from human experiences, that is, from human origins, sources that lie within himself. The Book deliberately avoids the term ja'akum in the phrase ‘so take what the apostle assigns to you (ma atakum)’ because if it had used ja'akum, it would mean that Muhammad's (human) knowledge is derived from an (outside) divine source—surely Allah, the Highly exalted, is above what they ascribe to Him—or, at least, it would give the impression that Muhammad might even be the author of the Book.
In sum, ‘what the Apostle assigns to you’ is taken from within Muhammad as a human being, while the Book came down ( ja'a) from outside Muhammad, both in shape and content. If we apply this more specifically to the phrase ‘so take what the apostle assigns to you’ and link it to the question of human legislation in the form of the sunna of the Prophet, we must then regard Muhammad’s efforts to govern seventh-century Arabian society and to establish a new, centralized state on the Arabian Peninsula as his efforts and as contingent to his historical context. Every human society is asked to do exactly that (‘take what the apostle assigns to you’), to govern society and build a state according to the conditions of the present time.
On a different note, we see how verse 59:7 employs the term n-h-y in the phrase ‘refrain from what he forbids you (nahakum)’. This usage is deliberate because it avoids the term h-r-m. Muhammad was only required to permit or prohibit ( ya'amur wa-yanha) but never to absolutely allow or forbid (yuhallil wa-yahrum) since the latter is the prerogative of Allah alone. The difference is far-reaching: whereas the area of permission/prohibition is part of human legislation and is contingent, relative, flexible, and changing, the area of absolute permission and taboo (halal and haram) is divine, fixed, absolute, and everlasting. Whereas Allah allows or forbids and permits or prohibits, human beings can only permit or prohibit but not absolutely allow or forbid.
6. The sixth and final error was to equate obedience to Allah with obedience to Allah’s Apostle:
First, it needs to be pointed out that the Book demands obedience to Muhammad only as a messenger (rasul) but never as a prophet (naby):
And obey God and the Apostle [al-rasul]; that you may obtain mercy. (Al'Imran 3:132)
For the purpose of further exploring the difference between prophethood and messengerhood we must now define how we understand prophethood and the role of a prophet. In order to do this we need to introduce the categories of naba' and khabar which designate two different types of ‘news’:

Naba': refers to an event in the unseen or unknown world which has either already taken place in the near or distant past or will take place in the near or distant future. Muhammad's role as a prophet (naby) was to disclose to his fellow men these events which were hidden to them but which, through his announcements, became discernible. These announcements form the book of prophethood which does not contain any legal injunctions. In terms of style and rhetorical expression prophetic announcements are short, crisp, and concise. A reference to them can be found in the following verse:

Those cities, We relate to you [i.e., Muhammad] some of their [anba'iha]; their messengers came to them with clear signs, but they would not believe in what they had denied earlier. This Allah seals the hearts of the unbelievers. (Al-A'raf 7:101)

Khabar: refers to an event in the past or immediate present (not the Khabar future) in the tangible or known world which can be empirically seen or reconstructed (if it happened in the distant past) by the people. However, such khabar events may turn into naba' events with the passing of time. For example, what happened to Noah and his people were khabar events for those who personally witnessed them. But over the centuries they turned into naba' events as they became unknown or indiscernible to subsequent generations. In terms of style and rhetorical expression they are elaborate, lengthy, and detailed. Both categories of ‘news’, naba' and khabar, pertain to the content of the Quran and form the Qur'anic stories; they belong to the book of prophethood and do not contain legal injunctions.

With this in mind we say that the miraculous nature (al-i'jaz) of the book of prophethood is defined by the quality of knowledge it contains; it is i'jaz 'ilmi, or an ‘epistemological miracle’. Not only does it contain precise knowledge of the universal laws that govern the entire universe and nature, but it also hosts historical stories which had either already happened before Muhammad’s time (naba' events to him) or which he himself witnessed (khabar events). For us today, such khabar events have now become naba' events.
The miraculous nature of the book of messengerhood, in contrast, is defined by the soundness and righteousness of its legal instructions: they are valid until the Day of Judgement. It enjoys everlasting validity because it is based on the principle of hanifiyya and because its injunctions are applied within the legal framework of Allah’s limits.
The Book, directly revealed into Muhammad’s brain, holds prophethood and messengerhood. It came down as the last of the many messages of Islam which history had accumulated over time and with which Allah has sent his prophets and messengers to all peoples in this world. Since Muhammad's death our knowledge of the universe has increased and our legal systems have improved. Humankind as a whole has greatly advanced, so much so that we no longer need another prophet or another revelation as we can now rely on reason and our matured experiences of this world. The scientific institutions of the modern era have inherited prophecies and prophethoods, and the new legislative assemblies and parliaments have inherited ancient messengers and their messengerhoods. In other words, with the ‘seal of the prophets’ ended too the period of external, moral intervention and consequently also the role of religious experts.
If the Book is Allah’s revelation as text and content from its first to its last letter, we would need to specify what makes it so different from the other messages and prophecies that have previously been revealed. We believe that the special nature of the Book lies in its sacredness as the last and final revelation.
No one, we repeat, is able, nor should be allowed, to claim total knowledge of the Book in its entirety or its single parts, even if he is a prophet or messenger. If someone claimed to have such total knowledge he would commit the crime of shirk, as he would become a partner of God in His knowledge and His ‘being’ in-and-for-itself. If Muhammad had total knowledge of the Book, in its entirety or its single parts, and his interpretations and ijtihads had all the flavor of absolute truth, it would make him a partner of Allah in divine knowledge and, even more ridiculously, the author of the Book. By God, we cannot accuse Muhammad of shirk regarding Allah since he never claimed to possess absolute knowledge of Allah’s Book. But because our honorable scholars overrated the sunna to such an extent that they began treating Allah’s Book as if Muhammad had been able to write it himself, Muslim believers were given the impression that Muhammad possessed superhuman knowledge.
How does the Book constitute its ‘being’ in-and-for-itself? We believe it is because of the stability or firmness of the text, or better: the stable nature of al-dhikr, which is the linguistic, that is, phonetic/ lexical, format of the Book. The text’s dhikr, which we have in front of us today, is exactly the same dhikr that existed in the seventh century. And it is the same text that Allah revealed into Muhammad’s brain from where it was then transmitted ad verbum ipsissimus to his fellow men. The text of al-dhikr does not possess ‘becoming’ or ‘progressing’, hence its textual format is fixed forever. On that we hear:
It is truly We who have revealed [al-dhikr], and we are truly its guardians. (Al-Hijr 15:9)
If the Book possesses the quality of ‘being’ in-and-for-itself, how are human beings supposed to deal with it? How should we, being subject to ‘becoming’ and ‘progressing’, read the divine text? And how should future readers, whose ‘becoming’ and ‘progressing’ will have inevitably moved on to a more advanced level of knowledge, understand the Book? We believe that readers of different historical periods will have understood different things from the text. Readers of the eighth, ninth, twelfth, eighteenth and twentieth centuries have differed from one another in terms of their intellectual capacities and methodologies. Some have discovered things that others have overlooked, and a third group of readers may have elicited things from the text that the other two groups have completely ignored. This is because despite its fixed ‘being’, the Book is a text of life into whose ‘becoming’ and ‘progressing’ the reader has been absorbed according to his own degree of ‘becoming’ and ‘progressing’. This fundamental hermeneutical principle underlines our dictum that ‘the text is fixed but its content moves’, expressing a subtle dialectical relationship between textual structure and meaning.
The messages that readers receive from the text and the messages that they might overlook depend on the epistemological context in which they read the text. In this regard, every reading is bound to be contemporary. A reader of the twelfth century approached the text with the scientific and social awareness of his time, his reading being the most contemporary reading possible at that time; we in the twenty-first century apply the scientific and intellectual level of our own age, turning our reading into the best possible contemporary reading. A reader in premodern times will have used the most upto-date knowledge available to him to understand the text’s explanation of life on earth. He would have used the model of the four elements of water, earth, air, and fire which scholars at that time employed to explain nature and life. In the modern age, however, we apply the findings of laboratory experiments that explain life as the basic transformation of hydrogen into uranium, that is, we are using an altogether different explanatory model. In both cases the most contemporary forms of knowledge have been applied and yet two different interpretations have resulted. This is because the scientific and intellectual horizon of the prescientific reader simply was not as advanced as ours, by which we recognize the unstoppable, relentless progress of ‘becoming’ and ‘progressing’ in our scientific knowledge.
We now understand much better why the Book is the only and ultimate source of prophethood and messengerhood (not the sunna!). It is the only text that possesses the quality of ‘being’ in-and-for-itself, and therefore the only text that is sacred. No other text by a human being, whether prophet or messenger, can ever claim to possess the same level of sacredness as the Book.
Regarding obedience to Muhammad only as a messenger (rasul) but never as a prophet (naby):
And obey God and the Apostle [al-rasul]; that you may obtain mercy. (Al'Imran 3:132)
This verse stands for many others of similar wording. The Book never uses the phrase ‘And obey God and the prophet’. Second, prophethood is faced with either acceptance or disapproval, and a typical response would be ‘Yes, it could be’ or ‘No, it can’t be’, whereas messengerhood is faced with either obedience or disobedience, typically expressed in ‘Yes, I assent’ or ‘No, I dissent’. When, for example, Muhammad announced, as Prophet, the verse: ‘for the convulsion of the Hour (of Judgement) will be a thing terrible!’ (Al'Hajj 22:1), the reaction of his listeners was either: ‘Yes, I think this is true’, or ‘No, this is a lie’, whereas when he, as Messenger, said: ‘anyone who is ill or on a journey should make up for the lost days by fasting on other days later.’ (Al-Baqara 2:185), the likely response was surely not ‘Yes, I think this is true’ but either ‘Yes, I will follow that instruction’ or ‘No, I reject it’. Third, when Allah addresses Muhammad in the Book as prophet, in the manner of ‘O you prophet’, the instructions that follow are of general guidance, advice, or admonition issued because of very concrete instances in the life of Muhammad. They are not meant to fall into the category of legal permissions or prohibitions. In sum, the call for obedience to Muhammad is restricted to his role as Messenger, not as a prophet. And his messengerhood, as we have explained earlier, consists of legal injunctions, moral rules, and ritual obligations.
In order to avoid the confusion that is so common in dealing with Muhammad’s sunna we need to introduce different types of obedience:
‘Combined obedience’ (al-ta'a al-mutaffasila): obedience to Allah and His Messenger:
And obey God and the Apostle; that you may obtain mercy. (Al'Imran 3:132)
All who obey God and the Apostle are in the company of those on whom is the grace of God—of the prophets (who teach), the sincere (lovers of truth), the witnesses (who testify), and the righteous (who do good): Ah! What a beautiful fellowship! (Al-Nisa' 4:69)
In those two verses, Allah, the Living and Everlasting, connects obedience to God to obedience to His Messenger. If obedience is demanded in this manner, it becomes obligatory for everyone who lived at the time of Muhammad or after his death. Ritual and moral obedience is expressed by performing the rituals that Muhammad practiced and by respecting the absolute taboos that Allah has set. The taboos are clearly laid out in the Book and are part of the innate disposition of human beings and an essential element within our consciousness. No shackles or bonds are necessary in order to accept them.
Muhammad's infallibility consisted in his perfection of never having violated any of these taboos, and our obligation is to at least try to imitate him in that. Our obedience to Muhammad’s legal injunctions is expressed in practicing ijtihad within the limits set by Allah, which allows us to ‘turn and bend sideways’, that is, to follow the principle of hanifiyya. It is not expressed in following his ijtihads to the letter because the legal limits (al-hudud) are Allah’s limits, not Muhammad’s limits. When verse 14 of Surat al-Nisa' says, ‘But those who disobey God and His apostle and transgress His limits…’ (Al-Nisa' 4:14), the possessive pronoun ‘His’ refers to Allah, not to Muhammad. If the Book had wanted to refer to both Allah’s and Muhammad’s limits it would have used the Arabic dual-ending huma, ‘transgress their (both) limits’.
Muhammad himself practiced ijtihad within Allah’s limits and it is our obligation to follow him in this. Several times he cautioned his companions not to apply the highest possible legitimate penalty (the upper limit), the death penalty, in cases where there was doubt and uncertainty about the guilt of the accused. He said: ‘Repeal the hudud due to uncertainty, and overlook the offence of the righteous person unless it occurs in one of Allah’s hudud.’ He also said: ‘Repeal the hudud from Muslims as much as you can. If you can find a way out for a Muslim then apply it. For it is better for a ruler to make a mistake in forgiving someone than to make a mistake in punishing someone." He did not urge his companions to implement the hudud penalties if doubts persisted. He urges us to describe and define the crime before exacting penalties, and he calls upon us to be particularly vigilant the nearer we approach the upper limit of Allah’s punishments, allowing us to move away from it due to the circumstances of a specific case and the contingencies of objective reality.
As for the obedience concerning ritual practices we distinguish between two types:
a. Absolute obedience: believers follow the instructions as given in the Book, for example, ‘So establish regular prayer and give regular charity; and obey the apostle; that you may receive mercy…’ (al-Nur 24:56), or as a hadith puts it: ‘Pray as you saw me praying."Obedience here is absolute so, for example, a prayer will be rejected if it is done in a way that differs from Muhammad’s behavior. It will also be rejected if it is outwardly performed according to this model while it is not directed to Allah. The same applies to the pilgrimage—a hadith requests: ‘From me take your rituals’. It also applies to the fast. However, even if one has to fast as Muhammad did, there is no injunction that demands also to break the fast as he did.
b. Relative obedience: this requires ijtihad within the limits set by Allah with regards to these rituals. For example, the lower limit of alms tax is 2.5 percent of our income but it might not always stay as low as this. If economic and financial circumstances dictate, one may raise the alms tax and increase the financial burden for the benefit of those who receive our charity. This increase can be decided by a proper ijtihad. But note that one must never go below the lower limit of 2.5 percent— obedience to Muhammad in this is also obedience to God.
‘Separate Obedience’ (al-ta'a al-munfasila): eternal obedience to Allah and time-restricted obedience to Muhammad:
O you who believe! Obey God, and obey the apostle, and those charged with authority among you. If you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to God and His apostle, if you do believe in God and the Last Day: That is best, and most suitable for final determination. (al-Nisa' 4:59)
Obey God, and obey the apostle, and beware (of evil): if you do turn back, know you that it is our apostle’s duty to proclaim (the message) in the clearest manner. (al-Ma'ida 5:92)
These verses refer to a second type of obedience to Muhammad which, to us today, is separate from obedience to God. It was a combined form of obedience only during Muhammad's lifetime. It designates the obedience of his followers to what he had decided, based on the principle of ‘tying and loosening’. While creating the foundations of a new state amidst the political and cultural turmoil of his time, Muhammad continuously exercised ijtihad, sometimes loosening up to a maximum of permissibility, sometimes tying it up to an absolute minimum. He was by no means infallible in his ijtihads, while his decisions reflected the conditions of his time. His ijtihads were historical, relative, and contingent. The decisions he took fell into the categories of situational permissions and prohibitions and had, since they were not explicit rules (ahkam) of the Book, only regional and temporary significance. As historically contingent rules which reflected the breadth and width of the limits that Muhammad himself had set, they do not fall within the sphere of Allah’s limits. Unlike the limits of Allah, Muhammad’s limits and the rules he ‘placed in between’, for example, the prohibition of music, dance, singing, the visual arts, and such, enjoy neither absolute validity nor eternal authority. If Muhammad’s decisions were necessary at the time he took them, they had all the flavor of the ancient society in which he lived.
His prohibitions of music, dancing, singing, painting, sculpturing, for example, can be explained—only, of course, if one wants to explain and justify them—by the prevailing idolatry of Arabian society. They were however never inserted into the text of the Book and hence cannot be regarded as permanent injunctions. The concrete measures that Muhammad took against the idolatry of his time, originating in human (not divine) legislation, cannot be equated with the universal and eternal limits that Allah has set and which are binding for us today. What we hear, instead, is the admonition to keep away from the ‘filth of the idols’ (al-rajas min al-authan), not from the idols as such. The ahadith, reflecting the cultural milieu of ancient societies, certainly will not help to identify measures and rules that are appropriate for our contemporary period. We will have to do without them.
How Shall We Understand What Is Known as ‘The Sunna of the Prophet"?
Part. 2
https://www.reddit.com/Quraniyoon/comments/eia60l/sunna_of_the_prophet_ii/

65:4 explained - does the Quran allow child marriage?

You may have noticed that both critics of Islam and a handful of Muslims eager to paint themselves as the antitheses of the West have often attempted to demonstrate that child marriage is sanctioned in the Quran, directly or indirectly, by referring to verse 65:4 to support their claim.
In this post, I will present my understanding of the verse (the understanding taken by most Muslims, and those defending Islam), as well as analysing some common apologetics used against this understanding - in this case, through the lens of my discussions with a user of this subreddit, u/justrollinyaknow (hereafter referred to as "JR"), and his posts and comments on the topic. There will be a focus on his post "What is the meaning of نساء in verse 65:5 of the Quran?", which is based around many of the common arguments used here by critics of Islam.
Please note that when referencing the Holy Quran, I have used non-Ahmadi verse numbering throughout, since that is what most people are familiar with and search for. JR has used the Ahmadi numbering system (which includes bismillah, adding one to the verse number), so if you don't find a verse where it's meant to be, check the ones immediately before and after.
I have also added transliterations in addition to Arabic text where possible to accommodate those who may not be able to read Arabic. These transliterations can be easily verified by referring to a word-by-word Quran, or by listening to a recitation of the relevant verse online.
When quoting other people, I have left the quote untouched - any errors are from the original material.

1. Background to this post
2. 65:4 explained
2.1. Evidence - the use of nisaa
2.2. Evidence - the grammar of the Arabic verbs
2.3. Evidence - age of marriage in the Quran
3. Criticism of this understanding - an analysis of u/justrollinyaknow's post
4. Conclusion
5. Sources and further reading

1. Background to this post

Quite a while back, u/justrollinyaknow and I had a discussion on verse 65:4 here on the islam_ahmadiyya subreddit. This initial conversation was relatively short; he chose to break off the discussion, and we parted ways amicably.
A short time later, JR decided to write up a more detailed post on the topic, and I in turn left a brief response in the comments section (if you follow the link, you can see the full conversation - parts of which are quoted below - underneath that comment).
However, he was unhappy with my reply:

You are grasping at straws, just so as to win by the skin of your teeth.

Somewhat surprised at his statement, I requested that he write a reply to my critique instead of insulting me. In response, he said:

I have nothing to critique. You have not critiqued anything...aside for being partial and believing your Jama'at's position is the correct one and speaking with confidence.

(Of course, I would receive a rather large amount of criticism if I used these tropes in response to criticisms of Islam :) but I digress.)
Eventually, JR stated that he would not engage with responses of the type I had provided, and requested that I write up a more detailed post explaining my viewpoint on the verse if I wanted him to engage. I agreed to write a more expanded response. JR replied:

Take your time; take as much time as you need. Give me your best work.
I'll be waiting at the finish line with a red marker. Oh shiz, better buy me pack of 12. This is gonna be bloody.

After requesting one last time that he reply to my original comment on his post - a request that he refused - we parted ways again, agreeing to pick up the discussion again when my more detailed post was complete. This, of course, is that post. It is obviously intended as a follow-up to the specific points raised by JR, but its main purpose is as a general informational article about this issue.

2. 65:4 explained

The verse itself is as follows:

وَ الّٰٓیِٴۡ یَئِسۡنَ مِنَ الۡمَحِیۡضِ مِنۡ نِّسَآئِکُمۡ اِنِ ارۡتَبۡتُمۡ فَعِدَّتُہُنَّ ثَلٰثَۃُ اَشۡہُرٍ ۙ وَّ الّٰٓیِٴۡ لَمۡ یَحِضۡنَ ؕ وَ اُولَاتُ الۡاَحۡمَالِ اَجَلُہُنَّ اَنۡ یَّضَعۡنَ حَمۡلَہُنَّ ؕ و مَنۡ یَّتَّقِ اللّٰہَ یَجۡعَلۡ لَّہٗ مِنۡ اَمۡرِہٖ یُسۡرًا -
Wa-allāi ya-is'na mina l-maḥīḍi min nisāikum ini ir'tabtum fa'iddatuhunna thalāthatu ashhurin wa-allāī lam yaḥiḍ'na. Wa-ulātu l-aḥmāli ajaluhunna an yaḍaʿna ḥamlahunna. Waman yattaqi l-laha yajʿal lahu min amrihi yus'ran.
"And if you are in doubt as to such of your women as despair of monthly courses, then know that the prescribed period for them is three months, and the same is for such as have not had their monthly courses yet. And as for those who are with child, their period shall be until they are delivered of their burden. And whoso fears Allah, He will provide facilities for him in his affair." (65:5)

[N.B - I have used exactly the same translation JR does in his post.]
The meaning of this verse is relatively straightforward. It is describing how to deal with divorced women - specifically, it sets out their waiting periods after divorce (a procedure with two main purposes: to give the two a chance to consider their decision and re-initiate the marriage if desired, and to ensure that if a child is born after the divorce, the parents can be identified). The verse describes three special cases:

Those women who "despair of monthly courses"

This part of the verse refers to those women who, for whatever reason, have ceased to menstruate after having done so normally previously. It refers to women who have reached menopause, but also refers to women who have stopped menstruating for other reasons, like secondary amenorrhea - that is, women who have ceased to menstruate but should still be doing so. This may be due to various reasons, including illness, medical/hormonal disorders, stress, irregular eating, low body weight, low body fat percentage, or heavy exercise and athletic activity (something that can happen even through recreational practice).

Those women who are pregnant.

No detailed exegesis required here. Pregnant women are instructed that their waiting period will be as long as they remain pregnant; it will last until they have given birth.

Those who "have not menstruated".

I save this for last because this, of course, is the main area of contention.
This section of the verse refers to those females who have not menstruated yet, but are otherwise mature. The most common explanation for this is a condition called primary amenorrhea. This is when menstruation is delayed, or does not occur, despite being otherwise physically mature (but it may still occur). Primary amenorrhea can occur for similar reasons to secondary amenorrhea - it is often due to genetic conditions and medical problems, but obviously can occur as a result of disordered eating, exercise, or a low body fat percentage (physical activity and low body fat percentages are a common cause of amenorrhea) at the time when menstruation is expected to begin.
It appears to me that given the environment and lifestyle of seventh century Arabia, this "athletic amenorrhea" may well have not been unusual. It can also be pointed out that historically, menstruation used to occur later, often after a female was otherwise mature (perhaps due to this very reason), but, in any case, I will stick to the amenorrhea explanation for now. Expanding on these points is currently beyond the scope of this post.
It is also possible to make the case for this being a scientific miracle of the Quran, as it can be argued that prophet Muhammad (saw) could not have known about a condition only identified by medical practitioners centuries later - a valid argument. However, that is an entirely different discussion, and I will leave this open for the reader to ponder over. I personally think that there are better verses to use for this purpose, but those wanting to investigate further are welcome to do so.
Returning to the understanding I have presented, there are three main points to consider here which support this point of view.
2.1. Evidence - the meaning of nisaa
Marriage in Islam is fundamentally an institution to both physically and emotionally fulfill the natural desires and needs of an individual which develop as he/she matures, as well as an institution to produce children. Because of this, marriage is intended to be a contract between two mature people.
The Quran, when referring to marriage and conjugal relationships, always uses the word nisaa, meaning "women". This can be verified in any dictionary, but you can refer here) to the Quranic Arabic Corpus for now. (Note that they have translated nisaa in 4:127 as "girls". JR has used this as an argument as well. Be sure to remember this - we will be returning to this point in section 3 to demonstrate why this understanding is erroneous).
Some verses demonstrating this use of nisaa:

"It is not allowed to thee to marry women (nisaa) after that..." (33:52)
"And marry not those women (nisaa) whom your fathers had married..." (4:22)
"And the divorced women (nisaa) shall wait concerning themselves for three courses; and it is not lawful for them that they conceal what Allah has created in their wombs, if they believe in Allah and the Last Day..." (2:228)

The word unthaa (females in general) is not used here. If the Quran sanctioned marriage with prepubescent girls, one would expect unthaa (females in general) to have been used, so as not to limit marriage to nisaa as the Quran does.
Expanding further, nisaa means females who are physically mature - i.e, women who have developed secondary sexual characteristics - and, furthermore, females who are mentally mature, in that they are capable of managing their own affairs and the responsibilities of a marriage (see section 2.3). What is key to note, though, is that the word certainly does not refer to prepubescent girls. Interestingly, if you look at words for "girl" in Arabic, nisaa is conspicuously absent. Food for thought? Perhaps.
Some objections to this definition will be covered in my analysis of JR's post in Section 3.
2.2. Evidence - the grammar of the Arabic verbs
Now we need to go back to the Arabic and take a closer look at the words of the verse. The exact words are وَّ الّٰٓیِٴۡ لَمۡ یَحِضۡنَ, or wa-allāī lam yaḥiḍ'na ("and those [women] who have not menstruated").
The bit we are interested in is lam yaḥiḍ'na ("have not menstruated") - this is basically the central argument of this allegation, after all. There are three components to this phrase:

Lam - the negative participle ("not").
Ya and na - these conjugate the verb to the feminine plural third person imperfect.
Yaḥiḍ'na - the actual imperfect verb ("menstruate").

The actual imperfect verb itself, though, does not refer to a specific tense. The tense is determined by the negative participle lam (used for the past tense). This verb is also in the jussive mood, denoting hope or expectation.
What does all this mean, though? If you don't have experience with languages, you might be wondering what the point of all this analysis is. Some, though, will have already realised what I'm getting at.
Simply put, lam denotes negation explicitly in the past tense - something that did not happen. The jussive mood implies expectation. A more accurate translation, then, would be "those who did not menstruate as expected, but still hope to do so". (Of course, this translation is somewhat cumbersome, but I personally think that conveying the full meaning is important enough to warrant some sacrifice of flow).
What does that sound like to you? Negation in the past tense, but still with an aspect of expectation or hope... it seems to fit quite well into point 3 of section 2, doesn't it - primary amenorrhea and all that?
Now, if you want to edit your copy of the Quran to make this verse refer to prepubescent girls who haven't menstruated yet - easy. Just change the lam to lan to show negation in the future tense ("those who have not yet menstruated at all and are hoping to do so").
Note the difference. Now, there's no aspect of past negation - it's been replaced with a purely future-centred negation.
2.3. Evidence - age of marriage in the Quran
To supplement the case for this understanding of the verse, we can also go elsewhere in the Quran to see if there is any reference to the age of marriage. One verse often used for this purpose is 4:6 -

"And test the orphans [in their abilities] until they reach marriageable age. Then if you perceive in them sound judgement, release their property to them..." (4:6)

Marriageable age here is associated with sound judgement, and fully developed abilities (both mental and physical). This would seem to imply at least some standard of maturity - a standard of maturity high enough to warrant entrusting property to them.
Since this is only a supplementary point, and JR previously objected at my referencing verses other than 65:4 to make my point (despite his post relying heavily on other verses of the Quran) -

Stick to verse 65:5. Period.

- I will not go into too much detail on this particular line of argument. Such discussions are beyond the scope of this particular article anyway, which will focus on exploring 65:4. This article provides a good explanation of 4:6 and other verses referring to marriageable age in the Quran. I highly recommend you have a read and then return to this post, as I will be referring to 4:6 in the next section, where we will be analysing other pertinent verses of the Quran. It will, of course, be of benefit to you if you familiarise yourself with this particular verse beforehand.

3. Criticism of this understanding - an analysis of u/justrollinyaknow's post

Now we'll take a look at the objections raised by JR in his post. Before you read my thoughts, be sure to follow this link to read his original post in full (as well as our exchange in the comments below).
https://www.reddit.com/islam_ahmadiyya/comments/cphrgb/what_is_the_meaning_of_%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A1_in_verse_655_of_the/
(This section was originally based loosely off my original comment in response to his post, but I have had to make quite a few additions and expansions.)
The main area of contention, as JR points out, is the meaning of nisaa. If we want to establish who the part of the verse in question (females who have not menstruated) refers to, we need to establish what it means. (This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the very tense of the verbs in the verse does not allow for JR's interpretation, whether nisaa refers to newborn babies, pensioners, Daleks, or anything else. For the sake of argument, I will overlook this inconvenient point for now). Words, after all, can take different meanings based on context, but if you want to translate a word in a different way to its standard meaning, you need to provide evidence for the alternative understanding. Thus, he suggests two possible alternative translations for the word nisaa, which he says are taken from the Quran itself: "wife" and "girl".
We begin with the first meaning, "wife". JR correctly points to 2:187 of the Quran, where "women" is used as a stand-in for "wife" - and at first, it appears to be a valid point. A similar feature of using the word for “women” as a word for “wife” exists in other languages too (e.g. Spanish). However, that fact made me realise that the word still carries the connotations of maturity evident when it means “woman”. That is, as far as I know, it would be odd to call a married eight-year-old a nisaa. The specific word “wife” could be used, yes, but “nisaa” would carry the wrong connotations. The word nisaa refers to physical maturity. Of course, one could also point out that the word still means "woman" - it is just understood to mean "wife", as that's the easiest way to translate it into English.
While we’re on the topic, though, I’ll point out why I think JR's wider point here is illogical anyway. A large part of his argument is centred around the idea that

even if a child, a prepubescent girl, who is married, she would be considered a woman. A girl who is not a virgin is considered a woman, she is not referred to as a girl anymore.

But consider whether you would call an eight-year old girl who has had sex a “woman”. Does an eight-year old girl become a woman if she loses her virginity? If marriage/virginity is a deciding factor in this definition, would the argument hold true for a girl even younger than that? What about if a baby has a marriage arrangement signed?
Obviously not. We are not concerned here with who is married and who is a virgin. We are concerned with maturity.
A second, supplementary point can be raised here in light of the actual topic of the chapter - divorce. We've gotten so caught up in the possible meanings of nisaa that we've overlooked the obvious: there are no "wives" anywhere in this verse. After all, it deals with women who have actually been divorced, rather than dealing with married couples. 2:231 of the Quran appears to support this (And when you divorce women and they have [nearly] fulfilled their term), putting "divorce" before the completion of the waiting period, but it is obviously a rather obvious connection to make anyway. The meaning of "wife", then, cannot really apply. These are, in essence, "ex-wives".

We now turn our attention to the second meaning, which is the crux of JR's argument. Here, JR uses 4:127 to try and show that nisaa means "girl". Unfortunately, this is simply incorrect. This is, in fact, a classic case of making the Arabic fit the English. Since this is a more significant point than the previous one - and it also led me down an interesting rabbit hole of translations - we will spend a little more time trying to understand why it is misleading. Here is the passage we are concerned with:

وَ یَسۡتَفۡتُوۡنَکَ فِی النِّسَآءِ ؕ قُلِ اللّٰہُ یُفۡتِیۡکُمۡ فِیۡہِنَّ ۙ وَ مَا یُتۡلٰی عَلَیۡکُمۡ فِی الۡکِتٰبِ فِیۡ یَتٰمَی النِّسَآءِ الّٰتِیۡ لَاتُؤۡ تُوۡنَہُنَّ مَا کُتِبَ لَہُنَّ وَ تَرۡغَبُوۡنَ اَنۡ تَنۡکِحُوۡہُنَّ وَ الۡمُسۡتَضۡعَفِیۡنَ مِنَ الۡوِلۡدَانِ ۙ وَ اَنۡ تَقُوۡمُوۡا لِلۡیَتٰمٰی بِالۡقِسۡطِ ؕ وَ مَا تَفۡعَلُوۡا مِنۡ خَیۡرٍ فَاِنَّ اللّٰہَ کَانَ بِہٖ عَلِیۡمًا (۴:۱۲۸)
"And they seek of thee the decision of the Law with regard to women. Say, Allah gives you His decision regarding them. And so does that which is recited to you in the Book concerning the orphan girls whom you give not what is prescribed for them and whom you desire to marry, and concerning the weak among children. And He enjoins you to observe equity towards the orphans. And whatever good you do, surely Allah knows it well." (4:127)

This verse, interestingly enough, has been translated in quite a few different ways. I will address this point a little later, as it has a very significant implication - but first off, let's take a look at JR's point as he has presented it, on his terms, using this translation only.
Right off the bat, it’s obvious that nisaa is actually used both in the start of the verse as "women", and next to “orphans” as "girls" (see the bolded words in the Arabic, and their corresponding bolded word in the translation. Note how the first nisaa is made to correspond to "women", and the second nisaa to "girls".) What does this mean for us?
Well, JR's logic would probably work if the Arabic for “girl” was specifically used with “orphans”, because that would prove that immature girls also fall under the category of “nisaa” - but that’s not what the text says. What does the text do? It uses "women" (nisaa) twice. No girls anywhere in the verse.
In that case, why are we having this discussion in the first place? Where does this allegation come from? This is where my above comment about this verse having multiple translations comes in. I decided to cross-examine the verse's translation using a detailed word-by-word approach, because I had noticed a small inconsistency with the declension of nisaa and the subsequent translation of "orphan girls". Upon investigating a little further, it became apparent that the situation was rather more complicated than merely a small translation slip.
Before we go on, let's see the translations listed for this verse:

Sahih International: And they request from you, [O Muhammad], a [legal] ruling concerning women. Say, "Allah gives you a ruling about them and [about] what has been recited to you in the Book concerning the orphan girls to whom you do not give what is decreed for them - and [yet] you desire to marry them - and concerning the oppressed among children and that you maintain for orphans [their rights] in justice." And whatever you do of good - indeed, Allah is ever Knowing of it.
Pickthall: They consult thee concerning women. Say: Allah giveth you decree concerning them, and the Scripture which hath been recited unto you (giveth decree), concerning female orphans and those unto whom ye give not that which is ordained for them though ye desire to marry them, and (concerning) the weak among children, and that ye should deal justly with orphans. Whatever good ye do, lo! Allah is ever Aware of it.
Yusuf Ali: They ask thy instruction concerning the women. Say: Allah doth instruct you about them: And (remember) what hath been rehearsed unto you in the Book, concerning the orphans of women to whom ye give not the portions prescribed, and yet whom ye desire to marry, as also concerning the children who are weak and oppressed: that ye stand firm for justice to orphans. There is not a good deed which ye do, but Allah is well-acquainted therewith.
Shakir: And they ask you a decision about women say: Allah makes known to you His decision concerning them, and that which is recited to you in the Book concerning female orphans whom you do not give what is appointed for them while you desire to marry them, and concerning the weak among children, and that you should deal towards orphans with equity; and whatever good you do, Allah surely knows it.
Muhammad Sarwar: (Muhammad), they ask you concerning women. Tell them, "God will instruct you about them, besides that which can be read in the Book, about widows with children, whom you wanted to marry without giving them their due rights and He will instruct you about the rights of the weak and oppressed children. God commands you to maintain justice with the orphans. God knows all about whatever good you do.
Mohsin Khan: They ask your legal instruction concerning women, say: Allah instructs you about them, and about what is recited unto you in the Book concerning the orphan girls whom you give not the prescribed portions (as regards Mahr and inheritance) and yet whom you desire to marry, and (concerning) the children who are weak and oppressed, and that you stand firm for justice to orphans. And whatever good you do, Allah is Ever All Aware of it.
Arberry: They will ask thee for a pronouncement concerning women. Say: 'God pronounces to you concerning them, and what is recited to you in the Book concerning the orphan women to whom you give not what is prescribed for them, and yet desire to marry them, and the oppressed children, and that you secure justice for orphans. Whatever good you do, God knows of it.'

Now let's break down what the issues are here.
Firstly, it's worth returning briefly to our previous discussion of the use of nisaa in this verse to mean "girls". Only two of these seven translations have actually used this meaning, and in fact, Arberry has specifically used "women". These other translations have actually avoided using “girls”; indeed, it would appear that “nisaa” is used here specifically in the Arabic in order to emphasise that the females being discussed are physically mature. (N.B - someone may ask why "orphan" would be needed to describe a mature female. I would reply that it is to do with the lack of a guardian.)
To top it all off, not far from this verse, we actually see an instruction regarding the age of marriage - ironically, with reference to orphans. 4:6 reads:

And test the orphans [in their abilities] until they reach marriageable age. Then if you perceive in them sound judgement, release their property to them.

(See Section 2.3, and go here for a more detailed analysis.)
In light of this, it is very difficult to argue that marriage to prepubescent girls - and orphan girls, at that - is permissible.
What's happened here is that JR has seen a translation that uses “girls”, ignored the other translations, and tried to fit nisaa to that particular translation rather than actually translating the Arabic word itself. It’s worth pointing out that if you look for Arabic words that mean “girls”, nisaa is nowhere to be seen... food for thought.
My actual stance, though, is that the entire above discussion was a waste of time. Why?
Well, what's more interesting is how two other translations here have dispensed with the idea of marrying orphan girls/women/females completely, and have instead used "widows with children" (Muhammad Sarwar) and "orphans of women" (Yusuf Ali). Now, I mentioned earlier that the reason I started to dig a little deeper on this verse was because of an inconsistency I spotted in the declension of nisaa, and I will now elaborate on this point.
You see, in the Arabic, nisaa is in the genitive case, as l-nisāi, and the genitive case denotes posession (e.g, "the man's car", or "the car of the man"). When I looked at the translation in JR's post, though, no such idea was present. It had only been translated as "orphan girls".
Upon referring to the word-by-word translation, it became clear that such an idea was indeed present in the Arabic text.
The feminine plural \"nisaa\", seen here declined to give the genitive case.
Nisaa, then, is not an a noun being qualified by "orphan" here. It is in the genitive case, and thus we have to translate this part of the verse as "the orphans of the nisaa [to whom you do not give their dues, and yet desire to marry]".
However, we still need to determine who this "whom" is talking about. If it refers to the orphans, there is still room to salvage our critics' argument. However, it cannot refer to the orphans, because the relative pronoun allātī is feminine plural, agreeing with and thus referring to the feminine plural nisaa. "Orphans" (yataama) is masculine.
Now that we know this, we can very easily determine which of JR's proposed meanings of nisaa is applicable here: "girls" is rather implausible, since we're talking about females with children; "wives" is also unlikely, since we are talking about females that we can marry. "Women", then, is the only logical translation that works here.
Why this verse is mistranslated is beyond me. It is possible that it arises because of a desire to intentionally misrepresent the verse in order to support radical interpretations of Islam, or perhaps out of a desire to reconcile the verse and references to Aisha (ra)'s young age in the Hadith (which is another topic altogether). I prefer to be optimistic and say that it is just a consequence of mild carelessness, and simply "going with the flow" after seeing other (incorrect) translations - which seems to be a more plausible explanation than the aforementioned theories.
In any case, regardless of which of these two translations you want to use, the point still stands: nisaa in 4:127 does not refer to prepubescent females.

4. Conclusion

Now that we've analysed the verse in more detail, I hope that my position has become a little clearer. 65:4 does not allow marriage with prepubescent girls, because "women" - physically mature females - are the ones addressed in the verse. Attempts to prove otherwise fail because the alternative translations proposed are not suitable given the context, and/or are fundamentally incorrect. Furthermore, if we look closer at the grammar of the verse, it becomes clear that the females addressed are those who did not menstruate normally as they expected, but still may do so in the future (i.e those suffering from primary amenorrhea) - not those who have not menstruated at all and have never previously expected menstruation. Indeed, marriage in Islam is a serious contract designed to accommodate the needs of human beings that arise when they mature, and thus is a contract between two mature people; sound judgement, mental maturity, and physical maturity are required for two people to live together as husband and wife.

5. Sources and further reading

JR's post https://www.reddit.com/islam_ahmadiyya/comments/cphrgb/what_is_the_meaning_of_%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A1_in_verse_655_of_the/
What causes amenorrhea? https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/amenorrhea/conditioninfo/causes
"Athletic amenorrhea" https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/ConditionsAndTreatments/menstruation-athletic-amenorrhoea
The grammar of 65:4 http://quransmessage.com/articles/verse%2065-4%20FM3.htm
Marriageable age in the Quran http://quransmessage.com/articles/ayesha%20age%20FM3.htm
How should we translate 4:127? (scroll down to "Can One Marry Underage Orphans?") https://www.justislam.co.uk/errors-english-translations-the-quran-p-198.html
An analysis of various verses relating to the issue of child marriage https://www.islamahmadiyyamovement.com/post/age-of-marriage
The 65:4 child marriage claim refuted https://discover-the-truth.com/2016/03/12/quran-654-the-child-marriage-claim/

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Quran - Recite & Listen Quran Online - Quran Explorer

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Ring Structure of Surah al-Mulk (The Dominion)

Quick Overview

A Deeper Look

Section A/A’

Section B/B’

Section C/C’

Sources