Noted Indian writer and polymath Ram Swarup explores the meaning of
Islam through the words of the Sahih Muslim, considered by Muslims
to be one of the most authoritative of the collections of
"traditions" (Arabic Hadith) about the life of the Prophet
Muhammad. Like the Koran, these traditions are believed to be
divinely revealed by Allah and they complement the verses of the
Koran, in many cases expanding upon them and explaining the context
of their revelation. As Swarup notes in his introduction, to
Muslims the Hadith literature represents the Koran in action,
stories of "revelation made concrete in the life of the Prophet."
Among the orthodox they are considered as sacred as the Koran
itself.
Swarup is plainly skeptical of the claim that the Hadith literature
is divinely inspired. In the introduction he says, "The Prophet is
caught as it were in the ordinary acts of his life - sleeping,
eating, mating, praying, hating, dispensing justice, planning
expeditions and revenge against his enemies. The picture that
emerges is hardly flattering. . . . One is . . . left to wonder how
the believers, generation after generation, could have found this
story so inspiring. The answer is that the believers are
conditioned to look at the whole thing through the eyes of faith.
To them morality derives from the Prophet's actions. . . .his
actions determine and define morality."
The Sahih Muslim, a massive work consisting of 7,190 traditions
divided into 1,243 chapters, is hardly accessible to the average
reader; so Swarup quotes representative selections that touch upon
the main tenets of Islam: faith, purification, prayer, fasting,
pilgrimage, marriage and divorce, crime and punishment, religious
wars (jihad), paradise, hell, repentance, and many other features
of the religion.
To non-Muslims this work provides many insights into the mindset of
the average Muslim who is raised on these traditions about
Muhammad. It also underscores the gulf that exists between the
sanctum of orthodox Islam and an increasingly secularized
Westernized world.
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