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https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4y3rOHz81ECZklMUDUxSHBtMWs/edit?usp=sharingUnderstanding Islam through Hadis is a book by Ram Swarup, first published in 1982 in the
USA. It was eventually banned in India.The book is a study, based on the English translation
by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi,of the Sahih Muslim, the second most important collection of
Hadiths. Ram Swarup claims in the foreword that "we have quoted extensively and faithfully
from it."In 1983, a reprint of the book by Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swarup's long-time friend and
collaborator, sold out quickly. In 1987 Goel printed another edition of the book, and tried to
publish a Hindi translation which he had commissioned. The details are not known with
certainty but, apparently on the basis of a complaint lodged with the police, all copies of the
Hindi translation were seized from the printer's shop and Goel was arrested. He recounted
the situation:Soon after we reached the Police Station, he shouted at me, "tû kaun hai? yeh
kyâ kiyâ? bahut baDi riot hote hote ruki hai (who are you? what have you done? A big riot
almost broke out)." I told him that I was nobody, and did not understand the accusation. He
barked, "musalmân ubal rahen haiN. unke gharoN kî chhatoN par behisâb îNt patthar rakkhâ
hai, gharoN ke bhîtar golâ bârûd: wê jab châheN shahar meN âg lagâ sakte haiN (Muslims are
excited. They have heaps of bricks and stones piled up on the roofs of their houses, and
firearms within. They can set the city on fire whenever they want)." I asked him why the
police had allowed them to collect and keep the arsenal. He snarled, "yeh bât to apne netâoN
se pûcho, meN to ek garîb policeman huN, bacchon kâ pet pal rahâ huN (put this question to
your leaders, I am only a poor policeman trying to feed my family)." I kept quiet.Goel was
bailed out after 18 hours in police custody, but the impounded copies of the Hindi translation
were never returned to him. Later, public furore ensued after a claim in the Jamaat-e-Islami
weekly Radiance that the book was offensive to Muslims. Finally, in 1990 the Hindi
translation of the book was officially banned. In March 1991 the English original was also
banned. The criminal case against Goel for printing the book was dismissed after some years
on 5 May 1997, but the book still remained banned.
Understanding Islam
through Hadis
Religious Faith or Fanaticism?
Ram Swarup
Exposition Press, Smithtown, New York

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Understanding Islam through Hadis 1982
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Contents
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 3
Chapter 01 - Faith (ImAn) .........................................................................................................11
Chapter 02 - Purification (TahArah)...........................................................................................20
CH-3 Prayer (SalAt)..................................................................................................................28
CH4 - The Poor Tax (ZakAt) .....................................................................................................37
CH5 - Fasting and Pilgrimage (Sawm and Hajj) ........................................................................46
CH6 - Marriage and Divorce (Al-NikAh and Al-TalAq) ...............................................................55
CH7 - Business Transactions, Inheritances, Gifts, Bequests, Vows and Oaths.........................72
CH8-Crime and Punishment (QasAmah, QisAs, HadUd)..........................................................78
CH9 - Religious Wars (JihAd) ...................................................................................................87
CH10 - Government (Al-ImAra)...............................................................................................103
CH11 - Hunting, Food and Drink .............................................................................................111
CH12 - Clothing, Decorations, General Behavior, Greetings, Magic, Poetry, Visions, Dreams119
CH13 - Muhammad on Muhammad ........................................................................................131
CH14 - The Prophet’s Companions.........................................................................................138
CH15 - Virtue, Destiny, Knowledge, Remembrance of God ....................................................154
Ch16 - Paradise, Hell, Their Inmates, the Last Day.................................................................164
CH17 - Repentance (Tauba), I ................................................................................................178
CH18 - Repentance, II (The Self-Criticism of Ka�b b. MAlik).................................................184
CH19 - Hypocrites (MunAfiqIn) ...............................................................................................192
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................202
HADIS .................................................................................................................................202
QURAN ...............................................................................................................................202
BIOGRAPHIES OF MUHAMMAD........................................................................................202

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INTRODUCTION
Islam is not merely a theology, or a statement about Allah and his relationship with His
creatures. Besides containing doctrinal and creedal material, it deals with social, penal,
commercial, ritualistic, and ceremonial matters. It enters into everything, even into such
private areas as one�s dress, marrying, and mating. In the language of the Muslim
theologians, Islam is a �complete� and �completed� religion.
It is equally political and military. It has much to do with statecraft, and it has a very
specific view of the world peopled by infidels. Since most of the world is still infidel, it is
very important for those who are not Muslims to understand Islam.
The sources of Islam are two: the QurAn and the HadIs (�Sayings� or �Traditions�),
usually called the Sunnah(�customs�), both having their center in Muhammad. The
QurAn contains the Prophet�s �revelations� (wahy); the HadIs, all that he did or said,
or enjoined, forbade or did not forbid, approved or disapproved. The word HadIs,
singular in form (pl.ahAdIs), is also used collectively for all the traditions taken together,
for the whole sacred tradition.
Muslim theologians make no distinction between the QurAn and the HadIs. To them
both are works of revelation or inspiration. The quality and degree of the revelation in
both works is the same; only the mode of expression is different. To them, the HadIs is
the QurAn in action, revelation made concrete in the life of the Prophet. In the QurAn,
Allah speaks through Muhammad; in theSunnah, He acts through him. Thus
Muhammad�s life is a visible expression of Allah�s utterances in the QurAn. God
provides the divine principle, Muhammad the living pattern. No wonder, then, that
Muslim theologians regard the QurAn and the HadIs as being supplementary or even
interchangeable. To them, the HadIs is wahy ghair matlU (�unread revelation,� that is,
not read from the Heavenly Book like the QurAn but inspired all the same); and the
QurAn is hadIs mutwAtir, that is, the Tradition considered authentic and genuine by all
Muslims from the beginning.
Thus the QurAn and the HadIs provide equal guidance. Allah with the help of His
Prophet has provided for every situation. Whether a believer is going to a mosque or to
his bedroom or to the toilet, whether he is making love or war, there is a command and
a pattern to follow. And according to the QurAn, when Allah and His Apostle have
decided a matter, the believer does not have his or her own choice in the matter (33:36).
And yet situations do arise when the guidance is lacking. It is said of ImAm ibn Hanbal
(b. A.H. 164, d. A.H. 241 = A.D. 780-855) that he never ate watermelons, even though
he knew that the Prophet had done so, because he did not know his manner of eating
them. The same story is related even of BAyazid BistAn, a great Sufi, whose mystical
teachings went against orthodox QurAnic theology.

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Though the non-Muslim world is not as familiar with the Sunnah, or HadIs, as with the
QurAn, the former even more than the latter is the most important single source of
Islamic laws, precepts, and practices. Ever since the lifetime of the Prophet, millions of
Muslims have tried to imitate him in their dress, diet, hair-style, sartorial fashions, toilet
mores, and sexual and marital habits. Whether one visits Arabia or Central Asia, India
or Malaysia, one meets certain conformities, such as the veil, polygamy, ablution,
and istinjA (abstersion of the private parts). These derive from the Sunnah, reinforced
by the QurAn. All are accepted not as changing social usages but as divinely ordained
forms, as categorical moral imperatives.
The subjects that the HadIs treats are multiple and diverse. It gives the Prophet�s
views of Allah, of the here and the hereafter, of hell and heaven, of the Last Day of
Judgment, of ImAn (faith), salAt (prayer), zakAt (poor tax), sawm (fast),
and hajj (pilgrimage), popularly known as religious subjects; but it also includes his
pronouncements on jihAd (holy war), al-anfAl (war booty), andkhums (the holy fifth); as
well as on crime and punishment, on food, drink, clothing, and personal decoration, on
hunting and sacrifices, on poets and soothsayers, on women and slaves, on gifts,
inheritances, and dowries, on toilet, ablution, and bathing; on dreams, christianing, and
medicine, on vows and oaths and testaments, on images and pictures, on dogs, lizards,
and ants.
The HadIs constitutes a voluminous literature. It gives even insignificant details of the
Prophet�s life. Every word from his lips, every nod or shake of his head, every one of
his gestures and mannerisms was important to his followers. These are remembered
by them as best as they could and passed on from generation to generation. Naturally
those who came into greater contact with the Prophet had the most to tell about
him. �Aisha, his wife, AbU Bakr and �Umar, his aristocratic followers, Anas b. MAlik,
his servant for ten years, who died at the ripe age of 103 in A.H. 93, and �Abdullah b.
�AbbAs, his cousin, were fertile sources of many ahAdIs. But another most prolific
source was AbU Huraira, who is the authority for 3,500 traditions. He was no relation of
the Prophet, but he had no particular work to do except that he specialized in collecting
traditions from other Companions. Similarly, 1,540 traditions derive from the authority of
JAbir, who was not even a Quraish but belonged to the Khazraj tribe of Medina, which
was allied to Muhammad.
Every hadIs has a text (matn) and a chain of transmission (isnAd). The same text may
have several chains, but every text must be traced back to a Companion (as-hAb), a
man who came into personal contact with the Prophet. The Companions related their
stories to their successors (tAbiUn), who passed them on to the next generation.
At first the traditions were orally transmitted, though some of the earliest narrators must
have also kept written notes of some kind. But as the Companions and the Successors
and their descendants died, a need was felt to commit them to writing. There were two
other reasons. The QurAnic injunctions were probably sufficient for the uncomplicated
life of the early Arabs, but as the power of the Muslims grew and they became the
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masters of an extended empire, they had to seek a supplementary source of authority to
take into account new situations and new customs. This was found in the Sunnah, in
the practice of the Prophet, already very high in the estimation of the early Muslims.
There was an even more pressing reason. Spurious traditions were coming into being,
drowning the genuine ones. There were many motives at play behind this
development. Some of these new traditions were merely pious frauds, worked up in
order to promote what the fabricators thought were elements of a pious life, or what they
thought were the right theological views.
There were also more personal motives at work. The traditions were no longer mere
edifying stories. They were sources of prestige and profit. To have one�s ancestors
counted among the Emigrants or Helpers, to have them present at the Pledge of al- Aqabah or included among the combatants at the Battles of Badr and Uhud-in short, to
have them mentioned in any context of loyalty and usefulness to the Prophet-was a
great thing. So Traditionists who could get up right traditions were very much in
demand. Traditionists like ShurahbIl b. Sa�d utilized their power effectively; they
favored and blackmailed as it suited them.
Spurious traditions also arose in order to promote factional interests. Soon after
Muhammad�s death, there were cutthroat struggles for power between several
factions, particularly the Alids, the Ummayads, and later on the Abbasides. In this
struggle, great passions were generated, and under their influence new traditions were
concocted and old ones usefully edited.
The pious and the hero-worshipping mind also added many miracles around the life of
Muhammad, so that the man tended to be lost in the myth.
Under these circumstances, a serious effort was made to collect and sift all the current
traditions, rejecting the spurious ones and committing the correct ones to writing. A
hundred years after Muhammad, under KhalIfa �Umar II, orders were issued for the
collection of all extant traditions under the supervision of Bakr ibn Muhammad. But the
Muslim world had to wait another hundred years before the work of sifting was
undertaken by a galaxy of traditionists like Muhammad IsmAIl al-BukhArI (A.H. 194-
256=A.D. 810-870), Muslim ibnu�l-HajjAj (A.H. 204-261=A.D. 819-875), AbU IsA
Muhammad at-TirmizI (A.H. 209-279=A.D. 824-892), AbU DA�Ud as-Sajistani (A.H.
202-275 = A.D. 817-888) and others.
BukhArI laid down elaborate canons of authenticity and applied them with a ruthless
hand. It is said that he collected 600,000 traditions but accepted only 7,000 of them as
authentic. AbU DA�Ud entertained only 4,800 traditions out of a total of 500,000. It is
also said that 40,000 names were mentioned in different chains of transmission but that
BukhArI accepted only 2,000 as genuine.
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