A critical analysis of the Modernists and the Hadeeth ... - Islam House

Hadeeth-rejecters come in different orientations…
1. Some reject Hadeeth bluntly like Rashad Khaleefah. (*1)
2. Some do not reject Ahadeeth outright but reduce its status to
mere tradition and fables, and only approve Ahadeeth that they
see as consistent to their understanding of the Qur'aan like
Ghulam Parvez.(*2)
(*1) Rashad Khaleefah was an Egyptian immigrant to the U. S. who claimed to have
discovered a mathematical pattern involving 'the number 19’ and its multiples
throughout the Qur’aan. He claimed this discovery was a miracle that comes from
Messengers, and he declared Messengership on this basis.
His infatuation with the number 19 led him to reject two verses from the
Qur’aan that did not fit his calculation (i.e. verses 9:128-129).
He claimed that the Prophet � had no function except to deliver the Qur’aan
and so, he did not explain or interpret it.
Rashad Khaleefah rejected hadeeth outright, and declared anyone who
testifies to ‘ Muhammad-ar-RasoolAllah’
in the Kalimah as a mushrik.
As for the integrity of Rashad Khalifa’s number 19 research, Dr Bilal Philips
mentions, “Many Muslims at first received Khalifa’s theories with uncritical
enthusiasm. However, when more rigorous critics began checking his numbers, they
found numerous discrepancies and some outright fabrica-tions in his data.
His claims were based on the number of times a given letter or word occurs
in a given soorah or group of soorahs. It was discovered that he would sometimes treat
hamzahs like alifs and sometimes he wouldn’t, depending on the totals he needed in a
given soorah to confirm his theory. Sometimes he counted letters that weren’t there,
sometimes he failed to count existing letters, sometimes he counted two words as one,
sometimes he added to the Qur’aanic text and sometimes he deleted from it, all for the
purpose of making the letter and word counts conform to his theory.” [For more
details see the book, “The Quran’s Numerical Miracle: Hoax and Heresy” by Dr. Bilal
Philips]
(*2) Gulam Parvez was a government civil servant in pre-partition India, and later
worked in the Pakistan Central Government. He was the founder of the Tolu-e-Islam
Trust and authored many books to forward his ideas of hadeeth rejection.
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