Re: Touching the Qur’aan without Wudoo (ablution)
Peace BigdaNawab
I think there is confusion about scriptural source, Hadith and scholarly opinion.
First of all … It is true that primary source of Islamic scripture is the Qur’an. However, it is also true that Hadith accounts are in most parts designed to understand the Qur’an in the correct context. By reading the Qur’an in isolation to Hadith we are subject to our own reading of the scripture and we are not giving importance to the reading of those who knew It the best. Furthermore, there is a scholarly opinion … Again their ruling on a matter means we needn’t have to study many years in order to obtain a ruling ourselves … There are people in place who are trusted because of their sincerity and devotion to the sciences of Islam. They are better equipped to visualise the fullest array of meanings both the Qur’an and Ahadith present.
The attempt of the scholars is to extrapolate from the Qur’an out to Ahadith and out again to their own consensus as a process to weed out extraneous interpretations. That is their job …
Now our job happens in reverse … Our first point of contact is not the scripture for a ruling … Our first point of contact is a good scholarly fatwa, a scholar directly or a scholarly book that has grouped the matter at hand already. These books will often quote the Ahadith and in turn the Quranic ayah … To show the reference of the ruling that has been given. So it may appear odd to you that things happen in reverse but in reality they are not happening in reverse. We are merely going over past effort without falling in to the error of trying to redo the whole process in isolation to the cross-referencing and scholastic legacy that is available.
A simple challenge … A translation of the Qur’an is a scholarly piece of work. While you think you are going to the Qur’an you are in fact going to a piece of interpretation work … Can you actually go to Qur’an directly? Without learning Arabic? Can you learn Arabic without a teacher? Inevitably … Your route to the source has to be via secondary and third sources … No one can interpret the Qur’an directly … Except the one whose heart it was revealed on (SAW) … And evidence of this is seen through the tradition of companions who despite knowing still insisted to hear meanings explained to them from RasoolAllah (SAW).