Zaidis judge ahadith by the Qur'an, not the other way around

According to a Zaidi brother/scholar from Arabia, the Zaidi scholars only accept ahadith (i.e. reported sayings of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.) which are compatible with the Holy Qur'an. He writes:

"Regarding the ahadith (reported sayings) of the prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) their authenticity is to be judged by comparing them with the principals laid down in the Holy Qur’an, and any reported sayings of the Prophet which contradict with the Qur’an in any way are invalid." (Brother Owais).

In this regard, there is agreement between the Zaidis and the 12 Imamers, according to the following quote from their book "Tathkira bi Usool al Fiqh":
“And the intellects permit that the Book may be abrogated by the Book, and the Sunna by the Sunna, and the Sunna by the Book, however the tradition has brought that Allah ta`ala does not abrogate His speech by (anything) other than His speech with His saying "What we abrogate of a verse or cause to be forgotten We bring a better than it or its like". (2:106) So we know that the Book is not abrogated by the Sunna, and we permit what is other than that of what we have mentioned.”

This may sound obvious to anyone with reason, however Sunni math-habs try to reconcile the Qur'an with their ahadith (refusing to accept that any of their ahadith could be erroneous), instead of reconciling the ahadith with the message of the Qur'an.

To read more, click on comments....

what is the zaidi position on the burqa?

The following article would suggest that the widespread use of the burqa in Yemen these days is a salafi inspired phenonomen (perhaps encouraged by the ikhwanis as well?). ....

The niqab, with its unrelenting blackness broken only by a narrow slit for the eyes, has become a symbol for the lack of women’s rights in the Islamic world, and in Yemen, it has become a point of contention between conservative sheiks and Yemeni politicians on the one hand, and westernized Yemenis and Yemeni women’s rights activists on the other.

“I am a Muslim. I pray, I fast, I follow what is in the Koran,” said Ramzia Aleryani, head of the Yemeni Women’s Union in Sana. “[The niqab] is not in the Koran. There is nothing Islamic about it — there is nothing in the Koran that says a woman must cover her face.”

Aleryani arms herself and her visitors with photocopied packets of Koranic passages and the prophet Muhammad’s sayings defending women’s rights. She says the niqab was imported to Yemen by Salafists, followers of an ultraconservative sect of Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia.

Thirty years ago, many Yemeni women wore traditional dresses or Western attire, and shared meals with men. The current vice governor of the southern port city of Aden said his mother used to walk around “in a miniskirt.”

To accept the niqab, Aleryani said, would be to accept many more often intolerant and regressive edicts.

“We are at war with the Salafists,” she said, unblinkingly. “It us versus them.”

Salafists and conservative political groups in Sana have in the last two decades gained an extraordinary amount of power in government and society. In the last few years, Salafists have threatened the Yemeni Women’s Union, left menacing phone messages for its leaders and published pamphlets decrying it as an anti-Muslim organization.

“Our women are cared for, respected and protected according to the Koran,” said Sheik Ali Werafi, a Salafist and a conservative member of parliament. “We cover them up to protect them. They have everything they need. The world comes to them. We do not need Western ideas imposed on our culture.”

(excerpt from “The Bridal Shower”, by Haley Sweetland Edwards, in the L.A. Times)

To read more on the burqa and hijab in Zaidism, see the July post "Zaidism and Women's Liberation"

zaidism

I'm starting this blog so that muslims of the Zaidi school of thought can share articles, and so that others can learn about Zaidism.

The Zaidi school of thought represents a middle ground between traditional sunnism and 12 imamer shi-itism.

Zaidis believe that any descendant of the Prophet can be the imam, as long as they meet certain criteria. They reject the notion of the "hidden imam".

Theologically, Zaidism is a rationalist school of thought, it adheres to the rationalist doctrine known as mu'tazili. This doctrine is opposed to the wahabbi/salafi tendencies of (a) anthropomorphism in Qur'an interpretation, and (b) fatalism in the free will debate. The Qur'an interpreter Zamakhshari is an example of a mu'tazili scholar.

The Zaidi school flourished in Yemen for 1,000 years. It was begun there by Imam al Haadi, a descendant of Hassan bin Ali. Before that, it originated in Arabia with Zaid bin Ali bin Hussain bin Ali, one of the teachers of Abu Hanifa.

To read "A Quick Introduction to Zaidiya" (Zaidiya is the Arabic word for Zaidism) written by a Zaidi, click on the following link:
www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Zaidi-Madhab-The-Ahl-Bayt-School-of-Thought/146119802069996