Preserving Authentic Islam: The Role of Scholars

The Continuity of Islamic Knowledge: Debunking the Myth of Lost Truths

The Myth of Rediscovering Sahih Islam:

To believe that the truths of Islam existed among the salaf, the early Muslims, but then “ sahih”, “ authentic” Islam was lost or neglected for the next thousand years or so, only to be rediscovered in recent decades, is nothing but a dangerous myth. And it's a myth that flies in the face of decisive proofs from the Qur'an and the Sunnah; these include:

[1] Allah has promised to guard this religion, both its knowledge and practice, throughout all time: إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِظُونَ - ‘Indeed, it was We who sent down the Reminder, and We will indeed preserve it.’ [15:9]

[2] The Prophet ﷺ guaranteed the infallibility of this ummah as a collective whole: إِنَّ اللَّهَ لاَ يَجْمَعُ أُمَّتِي عَلَى ضَلاَلَةٍ - ‘My ummah will never unite upon misguidance.’ 

[Al-Tirmidhi, no.2167] 

That is, at no time can every learned person in the ummah miss the mark or be in error; as the next hadith demonstrates:

[3] While scholars can and do err; can and do individually miss the truth on given issues, the Prophet ﷺ said: لَا تَزَالُ طَائِفَةٌ مِنْ أُمَّتِي ظَاهِرِينَ عَلَى الْحَقِّ - ‘There will not cease to be a group of my ummah evidently upon the truth.’

 [Muslim, no.1921] 

[4] There is also this telling hadith: يَحْمِلُ هَذَا الْعِلْمَ مِنْ كُلِّ خَلَفٍ عُدُولُهُ ، يَنْفُونَ عَنْهُ تَحْرِيفَ الْغَالِينَ ، وَانْتِحَالَ الْمُبْطِلِينَ ، وَتَأْوِيلَ الْجَاهِلِينَ - ‘This knowledge shall be carried by the trustworthy ones of every generation. They will rid from it the distortions of the extremists; the false claims of the liars; and the mistaken interpretations of the ignorant.’ 

[Al-Bayhaqi, Sunan al-Kubra, 10:209]

What these proof-texts collectively tell us is that God has promised that knowledge of Islam will always be kept intact and be carried from one generation of scholars to the next, in an unbroken chain, or sanad, of learning and transmission. To think otherwise is to oppose the above proof-texts, be outside the sanad tradition, and wittingly or unwittingly abet the enemies of Islamic orthodoxy. 

While it is true that individual scholars can and do err; and while it is also true that individual scholars can and do espouse aberrant/odd (shadhdh) opinions that are excluded from the umbrella of legitimate scholarly differences; it is utterly preposterous to believe that many truths and sunnahs were unknown, lost or neglected by the entire scholarly community for many centuries (even a millenium), only to be revived or rediscovered by a certain clique of scholars in our time! Such a belief could only be held by one whose heart is plagued either with ignorance (jahalah), innovation (bid‘ah), hypocrisy (nifaq), deviation (zandaqah) or disbelief (kufr). And we seek refuge in God from such things.

© Shaykh Abu Aaliyah

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