A Beautifull Talk By Martin Lings

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Bi ismillahir rahmanir raheem

Your opinion. If the koran
contradicts a hadith then the hadith is not true. This has shown itself
possible, as in that ahadith are made false and true by the "super
scholars"

Hardly
that was your understanding of the Quran, the only interpretation i
applied was that of the literal meaning of the hadith. Unqaulified
opinion should be taken as just that unqualified, you do not say a
hadith is false simply becouse you personaly think it contradicts the
Quran. see my Quote below.

What
super scholars are you talking about, do you judge other peoples
morality and capacity based on your own. The word Genious is still
aplicable in todays society despite the delibrate duming down of the
masses.( was thinking of editing this due to posible misunderstanding, i will just say it is not a personel comment).

Yeah i am sure, except that the
evidence in this case is not the koran but secondairy sources, man made
sources and you rather trust on those then trust on the words of Allah,
it is all the same to you it seems. What a disrespect.
What evidence your own tafsir of a verse, go ask any local shaykh
what this hadith means you will find it is a well known hadith and its
meaning is common knowledge.

How often we see new muslims coming to islam and dictating what this
religion means with out a shred of respect for its scholarly traditions.
If you do not agree that is your right just dont say this is what Islam
says unless you are prepared to back it up with something that isnt an
unqualified opinion, in islam this practice of quoting scholars is
called taqlid which means to follow an expert opinion.

reffering to your prior point,

Sunni Islam, occupying the middle ground between the two extremes of
egalitarian Kharijism and hierarchical Shi'ism, had long been
preoccupied with disputes over its own concept of authority. For the
Sunnis, authority was, by definition, vested in the Quran and Sunnah.
But confronted with the enormous body of hadiths, which had
been scattered in various forms and narrations throughout the length
and breadth of the Islamic world following the migrations of the
Companions and Followers, the Sunnah sometimes proved difficult to
interpret. Even when the sound hadiths had been sifted out from this great body of material, which totalled several hundred thousand hadith reports, there were some hadiths
which appeared to conflict with each other, or even with verses of the
Quran. It was obvious that simplistic approaches such as that of the
Kharijites, namely, establishing a small corpus of hadiths and
deriving doctrines and law from them directly, was not going to work.
The internal contradictions were too numerous, and the interpretations
placed on them too complex, for the qadis (judges) to be able to dish out judgements simply by opening the Quran and hadith collections to an appropriate page.  

The reasons underlying cases of apparent conflict between various revealed 
  texts were scrutinised closely by the early ulama, often amid sustained debate 
  between brilliant minds backed up with the most perfect photographic memories. 
  Much of the science of Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) was developed 
  in order to provide consistent mechanisms for resolving such conflicts in a 
  way which ensured fidelity to the basic ethos of Islam. The term taarud al-adilla 
  (mutual contradiction of proof-texts) is familiar to all students of Islamic 
  jurisprudence as one of the most sensitive and complex of all Muslim legal concepts.[13] 
  Early scholars such as Ibn Qutayba felt obliged to devote whole books to the 
  subject.[14] 

The ulama of usul
recognised as their starting assumption that conflicts between the
revealed texts were no more than conflicts of interpretation, and could
not reflect inconsistencies in the Lawgiver's message as conveyed by
the Prophet (pbuh). The message of Islam had been perfectly conveyed
before his demise; and the function of subsequent scholars was
exclusively one of interpretation, not of amendment. 

Armed with this awareness, the Islamic scholar, when examining problematic 
  texts, begins by attempting a series of preliminary academic tests and methods 
  of resolution. The system developed by the early ulama was that if two Quranic 
  or hadith texts appeared to contradict each other, then the scholar must 
  first analyse the texts linguistically, to see if the contradiction arises from 
  an error in interpreting the Arabic. If the contradiction cannot be resolved 
  by this method, then he must attempt to determine, on the basis of a range of 
  textual, legal and historiographic techniques, whether one of them is subject 
  to takhsis, that is, concerns special circumstances only, and hence forms 
  a specific exception to the more general principle enunciated in the other text.[15] 
  The jurist must also assess the textual status of the reports, recalling the 
  principle that a Quranic verse will overrule a hadith related by only 
  one isnad (the type of hadith known as ahad), as will a 
  hadith supplied by many isnads (mutawatir or mashhur).[16] 
  If, after applying all these mechanisms, the jurist finds that the conflict 
  remains, he must then investigate the possibility that one of the texts was 
  subject to formal abrogation (naskh) by the other. 

This principle of naskh is an example of how, when dealing with the 
  delicate matter of taarud al-adilla, the Sunni ulama founded their approach 
  on textual policies which had already been recognised many times during the 
  lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh). The Companions knew by ijma that over 
  the years of the Prophets ministry, as he taught and nurtured them, and brought 
  them from the wildness of paganism to the sober and compassionate path of monotheism, 
  his teaching had been divinely shaped to keep pace with their development. The 
  best-known instance of this was the progressive prohibition of wine, which had 
  been discouraged by an early Quranic verse, then condemned, and finally prohibited.[17] 
  Another example, touching an even more basic principle, was the canonical prayer, 
  which the early ummah had been obliged to say only twice daily, but which, following 
  the Miraj, was increased to five times a day.[18] Mutah 
  (temporary marriage) had been permitted in the early days of Islam, but was 
  subsequently prohibited as social conditions developed, respect for women grew, 
  and morals became firmer.[19] There are several other instances 
  of this, most being datable to the years immediately following the Hijra, when 
  the circumstances of the young ummah changed in radical ways. 

There are two types of naskh: explicit (sarih) or implicit (dimni).[20] 
  The former is easily identified, for it involves texts which themselves specify 
  that an earlier ruling is being changed. For instance, there is the verse in 
  the Quran (2:142) which commands the Muslims to turn in prayer to the Kaba rather 
  than to Jerusalem.[21] In the hadith literature this 
  is even more frequently encountered; for example, in a hadith narrated 
  by Imam Muslim we read: "I used to forbid you to visit graves; but you 
  should now visit them."[22] Commenting on this, the ulama 
  of hadith explain that in early Islam, when idolatrous practices were 
  still fresh in peoples memories, visiting graves had been forbidden because 
  of the fear that some new Muslims might commit shirk. As the Muslims grew stronger 
  in their monotheism, however, this prohibition was discarded as no longer necessary, 
  so that today it is a recommended practice for Muslims to go out to visit graves 
  in order to pray for the dead and to be reminded of the akhira.[23] 

The other type of naskh is more subtle, and often taxed the brilliance 
  of the early ulama to the limit. It involves texts which cancel earlier ones, 
  or modify them substantially, but without actually stating that this has taken 
  place. The ulama have given many examples of this, including the two verses 
  in Surat al-Baqarah which give differing instructions as to the period 
  for which widows should be maintained out of an estate (2:240 and 234).[24] 
  And in the hadith literature, there is the example of the incident in 
  which the Prophet (pbuh) once told the Companions that when he prayed sitting 
  because he was burdened by some illness, they should sit behind him. This hadith 
  is given by Imam Muslim. And yet we find another hadith, also narrated 
  by Muslim, which records an incident in which the Companions prayed standing 
  while the Prophet (pbuh) was sitting. The apparent contradiction has been resolved 
  by careful chronological analysis, which shows that the latter incident took 
  place after the former, and therefore takes precedence over it.[25] 
  This has duly been recorded in the fiqh of the great scholars. 

The techniques of naskh identification have enabled the ulama to resolve 
  most of the recognised cases of taarud al-adilla. They demand a rigorous 
  and detailed knowledge not just of the hadith disciplines, but of history, 
  sirah, and of the views held by the Companions and other scholars on 
  the circumstances surrounding the genesis and exegesis of the hadith 
  in question. In some cases, hadith scholars would travel throughout the 
  Islamic world to locate the required information pertinent to a single hadith.[26] 

In cases where in spite of all efforts, abrogation cannot be proven, then the 
  ulama of the salaf recognised the need to apply further tests. Important among 
  these is the analysis of the matn (the transmitted text rather than the isnad 
  of the hadith).[27] Clear (sarih) statements 
  are deemed to take precedence over allusive ones (kinayah), and definite 
  (muhkam) words take precedence over words falling into more ambiguous 
  categories, such as the interpreted (mufassar), the obscure (khafi) 
  and the problematic (mushkil).[28] It may also be necessary 
  to look at the position of the narrators of the conflicting hadiths, 
  giving precedence to the report issuing from the individual who was more directly 
  involved. A famous example of this is the hadith narrated by Maymunah 
  which states that the Prophet (pbuh) married her when not in a state of consecration 
  (ihram) for the pilgrimage. Because her report was that of an eyewitness, 
  her hadith is given precedence over the conflicting report from Ibn Abbas, 
  related by a similarly sound isnad, which states that the Prophet was 
  in fact in a state of ihram at the time.[29] 

There are many other rules, such as that which states that �prohibition 
  takes precedence over permissibility.�[30] Similarly, 
  conflicting hadiths may be resolved by utilising the fatwa of 
  a Companion, after taking care that all the relevant fatwa are compared 
  and assessed.[31] Finally, recourse may be had to qiyas 
  (analogy).[32] An example of this is the various reports 
  about the solar eclipse prayer (salat al-kusuf), which specify different 
  numbers of bowings and prostrations. The ulama, having investigated the reports 
  meticulously, and having been unable to resolve the contradiction by any of 
  the mechanisms outlined above, have applied analogical reasoning by concluding 
  that since the prayer in question is still called salaat, then the usual 
  form of salaat should be followed, namely, one bowing and two prostrations. 
  The other hadiths are to be abandoned.[33] 

This
careful articulation of the methods of resolving conflicting
source-texts, so vital to the accurate derivation of the Shariah from
the revealed sources, was primarily the work of Imam al-Shafi'i.
Confronted by the confusion and disagreement among the jurists of his
day, and determined to lay down a consistent methodology which would
enable a fiqh to be established in which the possibility of error was excluded as far as was humanly possible, Shafi'i wrote his brilliant Risala
(Treatise on Islamic jurisprudence). His ideas were soon taken up, in
varying ways, by jurists of the other major traditions of law; and
today they are fundamental to the formal application of the Shariah.[34] 

Shafi'i's system of minimising mistakes in the derivation of Islamic rulings from the mass of evidence came to be known as usul al-fiqh (the roots of fiqh).
Like most of the other formal academic disciplines of Islam, this was
not an innovation in the negative sense, but a working-out of
principles already discernible in the time of the earliest Muslims. In
time, each of the great interpretative traditions of Sunni Islam
codified its own variation on these roots, thereby yielding in some
cases divergent branches (i.e. specific rulings on practice). Although
the debates generated by these divergences could sometimes be
energetic, nonetheless, they were insignificant when compared to the
great sectarian and legal disagreements which had arisen during the
first two centuries of Islam before the science of usul al-fiqh had put a stop to such chaotic discord. 

Edited by rami