Re: The concept of being Stoned to Death
Oh brother, here we go again.
Yes rulings are derived from Quran and ahadith. But the two sources are not upto par in a sense. The difference is whatever is in the Quran is the verbatim words of God revealed in Arabic to the Prophet SAW through revelation. Hadith are not like that though some might be close such as Qudsi hadith.
The point about the Bible is that it is not the verbatim word of God as we believe however it is presented so to others. The Bible in many places does not even conform to itself whereas you can say the for Islam that the hadith does not always conform to the Quran but I would like to see where you can show me that the Quran contradicts itself. However this would be out of topic. Feel free to open a thread and I'll be there.
We do not doubt the authenticity of the Quran however the authenticity of the hadith has been criticized many times. You cannot extract the authentic information from the Bible because you no longer have the original and it is mixed up with other man-made traditions. This mixture renders it doubtful. If muslims ever ended up scrapping all the ahadith we would still have authentic information in the form of Quran, which would cover the very fundamentals needed to be a muslim in the eyes of Allah SWT.
Since in the Bible you can no longer distinguish what is authentic and what is not, you have a real dilemma scrapping anything from it.
Ok, you make the distinction that Islam supposedly has the only 'authentic' source. But my point is, if you mix up hadith (and many hadith are accepted universally as PART OF ISLAM), then the way it is practiced is also left up to possible man-made traditions.
I get the part where you believe the Quran is infallible. But if you follow hadith as an integral part of your religion, you are possilbly following things that are not part of God's messge, just as you accuse Christians. If you followed only the Quran (the very fundamentals needed to be a Muslim) you could distinguish yourselves from other religions since your belief is it is the only true word of God. But as you say, this mixture renders it doubtful.