There's a difference between the sunnah and the hadith. The hadith is a so called saying of the prophet which cannot be proven to be authentic or true. The word Hadith is often understood to be a synonym for the word Sunnah. This is not correct. There is a great difference between the two not only regarding the extent of their authenticity, but also their content. So the first thing to understand is, a hadith can be unathentic or false, whilst the sunnah cannot.
This is mainly to do with the difference in transmission. The hadith has been translated by a few individuals, so it usually depends on their character, memory, or intellect, all of which can be affected even if said individual is pious. Whilst the Sunnah has been transfered by a entire generation to the next, the amount of people who practice the sayings of sunnah remove the possibility of the error. The memory of a few people can alter a message, but the memory of a thousand people can weed out the faulty messages.
One more thing to note is that the sunnah is only related to the practical parts of Islam, such as the hajj, prayer, etc. Whilst a hadith is not confined to a certain part of Islam, the contents vary from history, practices, and even explanations to the Quran and sunnah. And lastly, the Sunnah is not based on a hadith. Muslims do not pray, or do hajj in the way they do, because of the narrations of a few indivuals. To end this, the Sunnah is an independant soruce for Islam. A hadith will never be equal to the Sunnah and the Quran. End of story.
I'm gonna ignore this "Rich" kid. I don't have time for extremist salafism, have a wonderful day and don't start oppressing women.
@xalimathe6
To begin with, the definition of
Sunnah differs regarding what topic within Islam we're talking about. When the subject is creed, 'aqeedah', then
Sunnah is defined as the opposite of
Bid'ah. Within the subject of
Usool al-fiqh it is defined as "an action for which a person is rewarded for acting upon it but not punished for leaving it". When discussing the subject at hand, which is
Qur'aan and 'Hadiith, then the definition for
Sunnah is "that which is attributed to the Prophet: words, actions, or confirmation". This is the definitions according to the scholars that have discussed these matters for 1000+ years! Your definition of
Sunnah as being something "transferred by a entire generation to the next, thus removing the possibility of error" is unheard of within Islamic scholarly tradition as a def. for
Sunnah. In fact, your definition of
Sunnah is what is known as
Mutawaatir.
Once we have cleared up that misconception, let's move on to '
Hadith.
A 'Hadith can be both authentic and unauthentic. Correct. An authentic 'Hadith, however, is not limited to the
Mutawaatir. It also includes the 'Hadiths which are 'Aziiz, Mash-hoor and Aaxaad, given that the prerequisites are fulfilled. Not seing them as reliable and therefore unauthentic is tantamount to rejecting testimony as a valid source of knowledge and, by extension,
rendering the whole scientific paradigm void, because one of its foundation block is the reliability of the results of previous scientists! Keep in mind that the authentication process of a 'Hadiith is extremely rigourous and the things you've mentioned that undermine it are actually taken into consideration
in addition to other things you've not mentioned, such as a narrator narrating something in opposition to a more reliable narrator for instance. It would be very lengthy if I'd expand on it here. Instead, I recommend that you take out time to study the science of 'Hadiith, its methodology and the works written on it.
The last paragraph is based on your misunderstanding of
Sunnah and
'Hadiith, which I clarified in the beginning of this post. Your conclusion, however, is correct:
the Sunnah is an independant source for Islam. A hadith will never be equal to the Sunnah and the Quran. End of story.
Just that I've showed that Sunnah is dependent upon 'Hadith ("that which is attributed to the Prophet: words, actions, or confirmation"), and thus forms the second source of knowledge within Islam alongside the Qur'aan.
I appreciate your write up. Have a nice day (or night), too.