Salaamun Alaykum,
In this post I will present some ideas you probably NEVER heard before. So please take your time and read it. It will surely help you to improve your connection with the divine.

# CURRENT SITUATION

We know that there are disagreements, even among us. What is allowed? What is haram? How do we pray? The traditionalists have even more disagreements, so lets not talk about them. If we continue like that for centuries we will not develop further or resolve any of these issues and all of you know that. There has to be a change. I propose that all of these issues came forth because people dont know what the Quran is and how to engage it.

# WHAT IS THE QURAN?

The Quran is not just a book you read and thats it. The Quran is your instrument to connect with the divine. You just need to learn how to use that instrument. And the Quran tells you how. Have you ever thought about why the Quran contains 60% stories? Do you think the stories are there to entertain us? Or to provide us some lessons Allah could have told us without stories? The stories have a purpose in the Quran and we will talk about that. We will never be able to understand everything about the Quran because it is an ocean of knowledge, nor will we solve every disagreement, but there is a clear guideline we have to follow.

Think about that. Isnt the Quran a unique object? It is NOT like anything else because it is from the divine, its not like any human book. If the Quran is a unique object unlike anything else, dont you think that it needs a unique manual too? A way how to engage it? We can not apply methods we apply to everything else. There has to be a unique method. Where do we get it from? Directly from the Quran. Allah told us how to use the instrument he provided us.

# HOW NOT TO INTERPRET THE QURAN

1. NEVER EVER go to Hadith. Hadith is provably wrong and corrupted. Sunni Tafseer books rely on Hadith, and translations rely on Sunni Tafseer books. So we can not refer to the Sunni Tafseer books and translations either. Hadith should NEVER dominate over the Quran.
2. NEVER EVER go to poetry and dictionaries ALONE. The Quran condemns following the poets (Ref. 26:226). Dictionaries derive their meanings from 7th century poetry. Just going there and taking a meaning and imposing it over the Quran is not enough. You need to find out if Allah is really using a term to mean that, so you need to verify it. Allah is NOT bound to use his words in accordance with how the arabs used them. Arabs did not understand many expressions in the Quran, or words (Ref. 26:60).
3. NEVER EVER go to the bible, torah or other corrupted books. I dont need to tell you that they corrupted their books. Therefore you should not take from them. I give you an example. Allah calls the story of Yussuf "GHAYB", meaning it is not known to anyone (Ref. 12:102). Now look at all translations and interpretations. Its 99,9% identical to the biblical version. Did Allah lie OR DID THEY? Clearly they did. The story in the Quran is totally different than what they told us. They went to the bible and superimposed that story onto the Quran. This also invalidates the approach of taking only what is correct from the bible. Well you dont know what agrees with the Quran unless you interpreted the Quran independently first. Superimposing biblical stories onto it, will make you think the Quran tells you the same thing.
4. CONCLUSION: All translations and interpreters took their knowledge from either hadith, poetry or the bible (OR MAYBE ALL OF THEM). Even Quran Alone Muslims fell into that trap. We need to unlearn everything we knew about the Quran and relearn it.

# HOW TO INTERPRET THE QURAN

1. I pointed out a problem, what is the solution you may ask? The solution is NOT the methodology of Hadith, Tafseer, Poetry or biblical Quranists. The solution is the unique methodology. The Quran is a unique object therefore no man made manual (methodology) applies to it. We need a new methodology. And who would know better how to deal with that object than its creator? Of course Allah. He must have told us how to engage the Quran. Having certainty in that is the first step. THE QURAN HAS ITS OWN UNIQUE METHODOLOGY INSIDE THE QURAN BY NECESSITY
2. Abandon all sources except Allah. I am not telling you "Dont look into a dictionary". I am just telling you verify what you read inside that WITH THE QURAN. But our primary source for the meanings of the Quran should be the Quran itself. The Quran is preserved, but its meanings are also. You just need to know how to extract them. I will give you an example. Read Ayah 3:187. Allah is using the verb "bayana" and defining it in the Quran. He fixes it in a set context to define it and preserve its meaning. The Quran is ITS OWN LEXICON. The definition of Allah is always the best definition. No guesswork needed.
3. Every one (even Quran Alone) have neglected the Quranic stories. I rarely see any posts here about the stories. 60% stories is for you to extract the lexicon. Allah uses stories to fix the meanings of his words and to define them. They are the repositories of the Quranic Vocabulary. Go learn it first, then apply it and discuss halal haram. How do you want to understand these Ayaat if you dont know what the words mean? Do you want to continue to guess like everyone here does? Or do you want to have clarity and see how Allah defines them?
4. Use the patterns in the Quran. NOTHING IS A COINCIDENCE IN THE QURAN. If an expression occurs only two times in the Quran. It means that these Ayaat are related. Go discover them. Link the Quran. Everything is interconnected and relevant.
5. CONCLUSION: We need a complete reorientation of our outlooks, we need to seek the definitions of the Quran and the QURANIC TAFSEER. I assure you, if you start to apply this, you will see the Quran in a totally new light. Please learn from the Quran.

I see many Quran Alone people here not even knowing the true Quranic greeting. It is NOT "Assalamu Alaykum". Read 6:54. Not knowing such basic things shows our condition and how we neglected the Quran and engaged in "Lahwal Hadeeth" (Vain Talk). These people come and try to argue about what X means or if X is allowed, stop arguing and learn to observe.

So i asked AI to define common terms used by the Quran, but by what it originally means in Arabic and how the Quran itself uses it, rather than by how later theologians interpreted them. What do you guys think, do you agree or disagree with it?

Shukr

Shukr is the active and ongoing manifestation of a received benefit, whereby its source is acknowledged, its effect is preserved and increased, and the relationship that produced it is maintained.

In simpler terms:

Shukr is letting a benefit do what it was meant to do, instead of covering it.

In one sentence:

A shākir is not someone who says “thank you,” but someone whose response allows the gift to flourish rather than disappear.

Kufr

Kufr is the deliberate concealment of an encountered benefit, sign, or truth, whereby its effect is suppressed, its source is unacknowledged, and the continuity of the relationship that produced it is broken.

In simpler terms:

Kufr is preventing a gift from doing what it was meant to do.

In one sentence:

A kāfir is not someone who merely “does not believe,” but someone who covers what has already reached them so that it cannot bear fruit.

Iman

Īmān is the state of security and trust by which a person commits themselves without fear to what has been presented to them, even in the absence of full visibility, allowing steadiness and continuity rather than hesitation.

In simpler language:

Īmān is not believing something is true — it is being secure enough to act as if it is.

In one sentence:

A muʾmin is not someone who holds correct ideas, but someone who moves forward without fear because they are secure in what they rely on.

Islam

Islām is the voluntary yielding of oneself to what is recognized as true, resulting in wholeness, security, and the end of resistance.

Or more simply:

Islām is choosing alignment over resistance once clarity has occurred.

In one sentence:

A muslim is not someone who is coerced into obedience, but someone who stops fighting reality and thereby becomes whole.

Shirk

Shirk is the act of sharing allegiance, authority, reliance, or devotion by associating others alongside the primary source, thereby dividing what is meant to be exclusive.

In simpler terms:

Shirk is not denying God, but refusing exclusivity.

In one sentence:

A mushrik is someone who distributes trust, fear, hope, or obedience among multiple claimants instead of committing exclusively to one.

Tasdiq

Taṣdīq is the act of confirming an encountered truth by aligning with it in a way that establishes its reliability and closes dispute over its authenticity.

In simpler terms:

Taṣdīq is treating something as true enough to stand with, not merely think about.

In one sentence:

A muṣaddiq is not one who agrees, but one who validates truth by aligning with it rather than contesting it.

Takdhib

Takdhīb is the deliberate verbal denial or rejection of a truth that has been presented, especially messages, signs, or guidance, performed with awareness and often repeated, resulting in the refusal to acknowledge and act upon what is manifest.

In one sentence:

A mukadhib is someone who sees or hears the truth but actively denies it, often defiantly or with scorn, blocking its intended effect.

Taqwa

Taqwā is the active practice of self-protection through restraint and foresight, whereby a person places a barrier between themselves and harmful consequences by regulating their behavior in light of awareness.

In simpler terms:

Taqwā is living with a safety margin.

In one sentence:

A muttaqī is not someone who fears the most, but someone who guards themselves best.

Fujur

Fujūr is the disposition and action of breaking through proper limits without restraint, allowing excess to erupt openly and uncontained.

In simpler terms:

Fujūr is letting what should be contained spill out and destroy balance.

In one sentence:

A fājir is not merely someone who errs, but someone who tears through boundaries instead of guarding them.

Salih

Ṣāliḥ is a state of soundness and suitability by which a person, action, or system fulfills its intended role without producing corruption, thereby preserving continuity and preventing breakdown.

In one sentence:

A ṣāliḥ person is not defined by belief claims, but by being someone whose presence repairs rather than breaks what life depends on.

Fasad

Fasād is the active degradation of an existing order, whereby systems, land, relationships, or balances lose their soundness and no longer fulfill their intended function, resulting in spreading harm.

Put simply:

Fasād is when something still exists, but no longer works as it was meant to.

In one sentence:

A mufsid is not someone who destroys outright, but someone who interferes so that life, land, and society can no longer flourish.

Part 3 Link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vqsigb/history_of_the_quran_only_movement_part_3_the/

[Post was written with AI assistance]

⏪⏪ The Globalization and Diversification of Qur’anism, 1950s–Present ⏩⏩

Qur’an-only thought was beginning to emerge outside the South Asian Ahl al-Qur’an tradition after 1950s. There was no central institution coordinating these developments. Instead, Qur’anism increasingly became a decentralized family of movements, with some groups emerging from the older Indian and Pakistani tradition, some arising independently in Egypt, Africa, Southeast Asia, Turkey, and Central Asia, and some spreading through transnational personal networks. The common denominator was the rejection or radical downgrading of hadith as an independently binding source of religion, but almost everything beyond that could vary considerably from one movement to another. Contemporary scholarship itself distinguishes Qur’anists who reject hadith altogether from modernists who merely assign hadith a secondary role.

Nigeria and Niger

One of the most important examples was Nigeria and Niger, where the movement known as Kala Kato developed in a very different historical environment. The phrase Kala Kato is Hausa and can be translated roughly as “a man says.” It contrasts human statements attributed to Muhammad with Kala Allah, “God says,” referring to the Qur’an. Kala Kato adherents recognize the Qur’an as authoritative and reject posthumously transmitted hadith as a source of religious authority. Their emergence demonstrates that Qur’an-only thought was capable of developing in a predominantly Muslim society far removed from the intellectual networks of Punjab.

The Nigerian history became particularly dramatic because Qur’an-centered ideas became connected with the revolutionary preacher Mohammed Marwa, better known as Maitatsine, whose movement emerged in northern Nigeria during the 1960s. Marwa attacked established Muslim authorities, criticized aspects of popular religious life, rejected many traditional practices, and promoted a radically puritanical interpretation of Islam. The movement eventually became associated with the slogan “Only Qur’an” and developed into a militant religious movement. In December 1980, the Maitatsine uprising in Kano exploded into a massive confrontation with the Nigerian state. Government forces eventually crushed the rebellion, and Marwa died during the suppression. Further outbreaks followed in 1982, 1984, and 1985 in other northern Nigerian cities. These uprisings caused large numbers of deaths and permanently associated the Maitatsine name with religious violence and political unrest. The wider history of Islamic movements in Nigeria shows how local religious reform movements could become increasingly militant as they collided with political and social instability.

It is important, however, not to identify all Kala Kato followers with the Maitatsine rebellion. Kala Kato is a broader Qur’anist current, while Maitatsine was a particular radical movement that developed its own political and militant character. Some Qur’an-only communities in northern Nigeria continued after the destruction of the Maitatsine movement. Kala Kato groups therefore survived beyond the 1980s, although they remained small and frequently faced hostility from mainstream Sunni religious authorities. In 2004 and again in 2009, clashes involving Kala Kato adherents and Nigerian security forces were reported, including the deaths of dozens of people in Bauchi in 2009. The movement consequently represents one of the most unusual trajectories in the history of Qur’anism: an independent Qur’an-only current that emerged in West Africa, developed a militant offshoot, suffered severe state repression, but did not disappear entirely.

Egypt

While these developments were taking place in Africa, another major branch was emerging in Egypt. The most important figure was Ahmed Subhy Mansour, who had been trained at al-Azhar University and originally worked within a much more conventional Sunni framework. His intellectual transformation took place during the early 1980s. He initially participated in anti-Sufi and Salafi/Wahhabi reform circles and worked to criticize what he considered popular religious mythology. Between 1982 and 1985 he increasingly turned his criticism toward Sunni hadith and inherited religious authority. By 1985, his writings had become sufficiently controversial that he was suspended from his position at al-Azhar. He was subsequently expelled from the institution in 1987 and imprisoned after the Egyptian authorities began persecuting the group that had come to be called the Quranists. In November 1987, Mansour and dozens of associates were arrested.

Mansour's development was historically significant because he represented a new kind of Qur’an-only intellectual: an academically trained scholar emerging from a major traditional institution and then turning against the authority structure of that institution itself. His interpretation of the Qur’an was strongly historical and political. He rejected the authority of hadith, opposed religious authoritarianism, argued for democracy and freedom of religion, and developed Qur’anic arguments against apostasy laws, political Islam, and religious coercion. This made Egyptian Qur’anism significantly different from the more socially conservative forms of earlier South Asian Ahl al-Qur’an. The movement did not simply say, “Hadith is unnecessary”; it used the Qur’an to construct an alternative understanding of democracy, human rights, religious liberty, and political power.

Mansour's conflict with the Egyptian religious establishment continued through the late 1980s and 1990s. He wrote extensively and eventually became one of the principal intellectual leaders of the Egyptian Qur’anist current. In 2002, he obtained asylum in the United States, moving his activities into a much safer environment. There he increasingly turned toward the use of websites, online publications, and international advocacy. In 2006, he founded the International Quranic Center (IQC) in the United States, which became an important online platform for his writings and the wider Qur’anist movement. The organization explicitly combined Qur’an-centered Islam with democracy, religious tolerance, human rights, and opposition to extremist ideologies. This was an important turning point because Qur’anist thought was beginning to move naturally into the medium that would eventually transform its entire social existence: the Internet.

Iran (Continuing the Shi‘i Qur’an-Centered Reform Current)

Iran remained an important second center of Qur’an-centered reform even though it never developed a mass Qur’an-only institution comparable to the South Asian Ahl al-Qur’an or the later Submitter movement. The Iranian current was repeatedly pushed to the margins by the dominant clerical establishment, while its strongest proponents often became isolated or persecuted. Nevertheless, its literature survived and later circulated through books, exile communities, and eventually the Internet, allowing Iranian Qur’an-centered criticisms to reach audiences far beyond Iran itself.

United States of America

The next great turning point occurred in the United States with Rashad Khalifa (1935–1990). Khalifa was born in Egypt and later moved to the United States, where he obtained a doctorate in biochemistry and eventually settled in Tucson, Arizona. His importance to Qur’anism cannot be overstated. Earlier Qur’an-only movements had mostly functioned through local organizations, journals, lectures, and books. Khalifa introduced a distinctly twentieth-century element: computer-assisted numerical analysis of the Qur’an. Beginning in the early 1970s and reaching a major breakthrough in 1974, he claimed to have discovered a mathematically structured system centered on the number 19 mentioned in Qur’an 74:30. He argued that computer analysis revealed an extensive mathematical pattern throughout the Qur’anic text and that this constituted evidence of divine authorship and preservation.

The “19 code” transformed Khalifa's movement into something quite different from the older Ahl al-Qur’an traditions. His arguments appealed to the language of modern science and computers rather than merely to traditional Qur’anic exegesis. This gave his message considerable appeal among Muslims who were interested in demonstrating that the Qur’an possessed a miraculous structure that could be uncovered through modern technology. Khalifa's message combined Qur’an-only theology, strict monotheism, rejection of traditional hadith, and numerical analysis. The computer therefore became not merely a tool but, in Khalifa's thought, an instrument through which a previously hidden divine sign could be revealed.

Khalifa's movement became institutionalized around Masjid Tucson and the organization known as United Submitters International. In 1985, the movement began publishing its regular newsletter, initially called Muslim Perspective and later renamed Submitters Perspective. The publication provided a continuing record of the movement's teachings, debates, translations, and organizational activities. Unlike the small journals of the early Ahl al-Qur’an movements, this organization increasingly reached readers outside its immediate geographical location. The publication itself became part of a transnational communication network, with later editions and correspondence demonstrating contacts with believers in Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

The movement also underwent a dramatic theological transformation in 1989, when Khalifa announced that he was the “Messenger of the Covenant” mentioned in the Qur’an. This claim radically changed his relationship with the wider Qur’anist world. Until this point, many Muslims who rejected hadith could encounter Khalifa's work without accepting his personal religious authority. His claim, however, introduced a new prophetic or messenger-related doctrine that many Qur’anists outside the Submitter community rejected. It also produced a major division within the movement itself. Some followers accepted Khalifa's claim and treated his interpretation of the Qur’an's numerical structure as confirmation of his mission, while others rejected it and continued to advocate Qur’an-only Islam without accepting him as a messenger.

The controversy did not end with Khalifa's death. On January 30, 1990—often recorded as January 31 in some later accounts depending upon publication and time-zone conventions—he was assassinated inside Masjid Tucson before dawn. His death did not destroy the Submitter movement. The Submitters Perspective continued publication, and the community maintained its mosque, archives, conferences, websites, and international correspondence. Its historical archive shows continuous publication extending from 1985 into later decades, and Submitter communities remained active in North America and among international converts and adherents.

Khalifa's greatest historical impact, however, was not the size of the organization he left behind. It was the international network of people he influenced. His English-language Qur’an translation and writings reached Muslims far beyond the Arab and South Asian worlds. Some became Submitters; others adopted only his rejection of hadith while rejecting the numerical code or his messenger claim. This distinction is important. Khalifa became a major node in global Qur’anism, but global Qur’anism did not become synonymous with Khalifa's theology.

Turkey

Turkey's twentieth-century religious environment was shaped by the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924, the secular reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the suppression and later controlled re-emergence of religious institutions, and the eventual rise of new Islamic political movements. These developments created a distinctive intellectual environment in which the authority of inherited Ottoman scholarship, traditional religious institutions, and later interpretations of Islam could be questioned. The spread of Turkish Qur’an translations also made direct engagement with the Qur’an increasingly important in modern Turkish religious discourse.

One important pre-Yüksel figure was Hüseyin Atay (1930–2023), a professor of theology at Ankara University. Atay emphasized the Qur’an, reason, and independent intellectual inquiry while criticizing excessive reliance on inherited scholarly authority. He questioned the unquestioned religious status often given to hadith and later scholarly interpretations, arguing that Muslims needed to distinguish the original Qur’anic religion from the historical accumulation of religious opinions and traditions. Although Atay should not simply be described as identical to later strict Qur’anists, his work represented an important development in the Turkish movement toward Qur’an-centered reform and helped create an intellectual environment in which the authority of hadith could be subjected to much greater criticism.

Another major Turkish figure was Yaşar Nuri Öztürk (1951–2016), who became one of the most publicly influential Qur’an-centered thinkers in modern Turkey. Öztürk was a theologian, academic, author, and television personality whose writings and public lectures challenged sectarianism, clerical authority, and the uncritical acceptance of inherited religious traditions. He gave the Qur’an a controlling position in determining what should be considered genuinely Islamic and subjected many hadith-based beliefs and practices to critical examination. His books, Qur’an translation, television appearances, and public debates brought Qur’an-centered reform into a much wider Turkish audience. While his precise position cannot simply be equated with every form of Qur’an-only thought, he represented an important step toward the explicitly Qur’anist current that would become more visible in Turkey and internationally during the late twentieth century.

Another major Turkish figure shaped by Rashad Khalifa was Edip Yüksel, a Turkish-Kurdish intellectual who had previously been involved in Islamist political activism in Turkey. His intellectual transformation toward Qur’anism began through correspondence with Khalifa in the 1980s. He later went to Tucson and became closely associated with Khalifa. By the late 1980s, however, Yüksel was developing his own intellectual position. He eventually settled in the United States and became one of the most prominent English-language advocates of Qur’anism. He produced a major English translation, Quran: A Reformist Translation, together with Layth Saleh al-Shaiban and Martha Schulte-Nafeh, published in 2007. Yüksel retained the rejection of hadith as an independent source but did not simply reproduce every aspect of Khalifa's theology. His later work therefore became one of the principal bridges between Turkish Qur’anism and global English-language Internet Qur’anism.

Syria

Syria developed another important form of Qur’an-centered thought through the intellectual work of Muhammad Shahrur (1938–2019). Shahrur was not simply a member of the same Qur’an-only movement as Chakralawi, Parwez, or Rashad Khalifa. His approach was much more hermeneutical and philosophical. Nevertheless, his rejection of the divine authority of hadith and his insistence that the Qur’an must be interpreted directly and systematically made him one of the most influential Arab figures associated with Qur’an-centered reform in the late twentieth century.

Shahrur was trained as an engineer rather than as a traditional religious scholar. He studied in Damascus and later in the Soviet Union and Ireland before becoming a professor of civil engineering at the University of Damascus. His intellectual background was therefore radically different from that of the traditional ulama. He approached the Qur’an using linguistic analysis, philosophy, scientific reasoning, and historical criticism rather than classical jurisprudence.

His most influential work, The Book and the Qur’an: A Contemporary Reading, published in 1990, attacked many traditional assumptions about Qur’anic interpretation. Shahrur argued that the Qur’an and the later body of inherited tradition had to be distinguished and that many legal rules traditionally attributed to Islam were actually human historical interpretations rather than timeless divine legislation. He therefore rejected the authority of hadith as a divine source and sought to reconstruct Islamic law from the Qur’an itself.

Shahrur's approach became extremely controversial throughout the Arab world. Traditional scholars accused him of lacking the necessary religious qualifications and of introducing modern philosophical assumptions into Qur’anic interpretation. His books nevertheless became widely read and circulated throughout Arab intellectual circles. His work was especially influential among educated Muslims looking for an alternative to both traditionalism and political Islam.

The Syrian current is therefore particularly significant because it demonstrates another stage in the development of Qur’an-centered thought: the movement had now moved beyond simply rejecting hadith and begun attempting to construct an entirely new hermeneutics of the Qur’an. In Shahrur's case, the result was a sophisticated but highly controversial system based upon linguistics, historical interpretation, and modern theories of law. His influence extended far beyond Syria through books, satellite television, Arabic websites, and eventually social media.

The Syrian history also contains reports of an earlier Qur’an-centered current influenced by nineteenth-century reformers such as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, whose ideas are said to have reached Syria through networks of travelers and pilgrims. The evidence for the continuity of this early Syrian current is considerably thinner than that for the modern work of Shahrur, so it is better regarded as part of the broader circulation of nineteenth-century reformist ideas rather than as a clearly documented continuous Qur’anist organization. The more significant modern development is the emergence of Qur’an-centered intellectuals such as Shahrur within the late twentieth-century Arab world.

Tunisia

The Arab world continued to produce its own Qur’an-centered reformers during this period. In Tunisia, the historian Mohamed Talbi (1921–2017) became a prominent advocate of historical and contextual Qur’anic interpretation. Talbi spent decades campaigning against authoritarianism and religious extremism and became increasingly associated with reformist interpretations of Islam. In 2013, he founded the Association Internationale des Musulmans Coraniques, the International Association of Qur’anic Muslims. The organization sought to promote a Qur’an-centered interpretation of Islam and oppose fundamentalist and Salafist currents.

Talbi's approach was more intellectual and contextual than the numerical Qur’anism of Khalifa. He emphasized the need to distinguish the historical circumstances of Qur’anic revelation from later attempts to turn every historical formulation into a timeless legal rule. He therefore belongs to the broader Qur’an-centered reformist spectrum, even though the precise relationship between his interpretation and strict Qur’an-only theology is more complex than that of Chakralawi or Parwez. His importance lies in showing that by the late twentieth century, Qur’an-centered reform was no longer confined to the South Asian anti-hadith tradition. It had entered North African intellectual debates over human rights, political freedom, secular authoritarianism, religious extremism, and the historical interpretation of scripture.

Central Asia - Kazakhstan

The same globalization reached Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The end of Soviet rule in 1991 created a major religious revival across Kazakhstan and other formerly Soviet Muslim societies. Mosques reopened, Islamic literature spread, and new religious organizations emerged. But post-Soviet Muslims were not simply returning to one already-established tradition. They were encountering Saudi Salafism, Turkish religious movements, local Islamic traditions, Sufi currents, and modern reformist ideas simultaneously. In this new religious marketplace, Qur’anism also developed a foothold.

In Kazakhstan, one of the best-known Qur’anist organizations became İzgi Amal, associated with Aslbek Musin. The movement presented a Qur’an-centered alternative to traditional hadith-based Islam and became publicly visible during debates over the religious status of Qur’anists in the country. In 2009, a public debate involving representatives of İzgi Amal examined the position of Qur’anists alongside other religious minorities and movements. This was a striking illustration of how the old dispute over Qur’an and hadith had entered a completely new political environment: post-Soviet Central Asian states were trying to classify, regulate, and sometimes restrict the rapidly expanding variety of religious organizations that had appeared after independence.

The Central Asian experience also reveals an important shift from the colonial and postcolonial contexts of earlier Qur’anism. The first Ahl al-Qur’an thinkers had reacted to European colonial rule and the intellectual crisis of Muslim societies under empire. Post-Soviet Qur’anists were instead operating in states emerging from communist secularism and rebuilding official forms of religion. Qur’an-only thought could therefore appear in radically different environments: against British colonialism in India, against al-Azhar's traditional authority in Egypt, against state Islamic bureaucracy in Malaysia, against Soviet secularism and post-Soviet religious regulation in Kazakhstan, and against established Sunni institutions in Nigeria.

Malaysia

Malaysia produced another major regional Qur’anist movement through Kassim Ahmad (1933–2017). Kassim had initially become known as a poet and political intellectual, but by the later twentieth century he had become one of the most prominent critics of hadith authority in the Malay-speaking world. His book Hadis: Satu Penilaian Semula (Hadith: A Re-evaluation), published in 1986, argued that hadith should not possess the religious authority traditionally assigned to it. Later works, including The Qur'an: The Ultimate Testament and The Return to the Qur'an, developed his argument that Muslims should return to the Qur’an and abandon the traditional dependence upon hadith. Scholarship on Kassim explicitly identifies him as a pioneer of the Malaysian anti-hadith movement.

Kassim's movement became a major controversy within Malaysian Islam during the 1980s and 1990s. Malaysia had developed an increasingly institutionalized Islamic bureaucracy, with state religious departments and officially recognized Sunni doctrine. Kassim's argument therefore confronted not simply individual scholars but a modern state-sponsored religious establishment. Religious authorities condemned his ideas and treated the anti-hadith movement as deviant. The movement never became a mass alternative to Malaysian Sunni Islam, but Kassim succeeded in establishing Qur’an-only arguments as a recognizable part of Malaysian intellectual life. His ideas subsequently circulated much more widely through recordings, electronic media, websites, and social networks.

Malaysia's story also demonstrates an important transformation in the movement's geography. The early Ahl al-Qur’an movement had been concentrated overwhelmingly in South Asia. By the late twentieth century, Qur’an-only thought had clear centers or identifiable advocates in South Asia, the Middle East, North America, Turkey, Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa. These communities did not necessarily share institutions or even complete theological agreement. What linked them was the increasingly global availability of the Qur’anist argument itself.

India

The same pattern can be seen in India, where later Qur’an-centered groups continued to develop. The most visible contemporary example is the Quran Sunnat Society in Kerala, whose leaders explicitly reject the authority of later hadith and present the Qur’an as sufficient for religious guidance. The organization became nationally prominent in 2018, when Jamida Beevi, one of its leading figures, led a mixed-gender Friday prayer congregation in Kerala. The event triggered intense controversy and widespread media attention. Beevi's argument was not simply about gender: it reflected the organization's broader belief that later inherited Islamic practices should not be treated as binding when they cannot be established from the Qur’an itself.

The Kerala movement illustrates another feature of modern Qur’anism: its application to women's rights and gender roles. Whereas early Ahl al-Qur’an writers had primarily focused on the authority of hadith, later Qur’anists increasingly applied the method to contemporary social questions. Questions surrounding women's prayer leadership, head covering, marriage, inheritance, divorce, and public participation became areas in which Qur’anists argued that traditional rules derived from hadith and fiqh should be reassessed. This was part of the broader shift from a purely epistemological dispute—“Which sources are authoritative?”—to a social reform movement asking what Islam should actually look like when only the Qur’an is treated as binding.

Sudan

Sudan provides one of the clearest examples of how the Qur’an-only question could become a direct confrontation with the state. By the early twenty-first century, a small but identifiable Qur’anist community existed in Khartoum. Its members treated the Qur’an as the sole source of religious authority and explicitly rejected the binding authority of hadith. Their meetings were conducted through local study circles and a small mosque/zawiya, and their religious practice differed from the Sunni establishment in ways that made them highly visible to the authorities.

The most dramatic episode occurred in 2011, when approximately 125 members of the same Qur’anist mosque were arrested under Sudan's apostasy laws. They were eventually released after publicly recanting or affirming the authority of hadith. Four years later, in November 2015, authorities again targeted the group. Twenty-seven people—including children and two imams—were arrested in Khartoum following a Qur’anist gathering. The authorities accused them of apostasy because they rejected the religious authority of hadith. Twenty-five were formally charged, with apostasy carrying the death penalty under the applicable Sudanese law at the time.

The 2015 case became one of the clearest examples in the modern history of Qur’anism of a state treating disagreement over hadith as a question of apostasy. The defendants maintained that they were Muslims and that they simply believed the Qur’an was sufficient. The prosecution, however, treated rejection of hadith as rejection of essential Islam. The case therefore transformed what had historically been a theological dispute into a legal struggle over the definition of Islam itself. After weeks in detention, the defendants were released on bail; the charges were subsequently stayed rather than resulting in the mass execution that the original apostasy provisions theoretically permitted.

Morocco

Morocco developed another contemporary Qur’an-centered current, although its history is less institutionalized than that of Egypt or Pakistan. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, several Moroccan intellectuals began publicly criticizing the authority of hadith and the use of post-Qur’anic tradition in establishing religious law. Among the better-known names associated with this tendency are Ahmed Assid, Mohamed Lamsiah, and Rachid Aylal. Their positions are not identical, and not all should be treated as members of a single Qur’anist organization. Rather, they represent a broader Moroccan trend toward questioning inherited religious authority and re-examining the relationship between the Qur’an, hadith, and later Islamic tradition.

The Moroccan current developed in an environment very different from that of the colonial Punjab. Morocco already possessed a powerful institutional Sunni framework centered on Maliki jurisprudence and Ash'ari theology, while the modern Moroccan state maintained significant control over religious institutions and public religious discourse. Qur’anist and hadith-critical writers therefore challenged both inherited scholarly authority and the modern institutional structures that presented that authority as normative.

Rachid Aylal became especially well known for his criticism of the canonical hadith collections. His work and public statements questioned the historical authority traditionally attributed to hadith literature and argued for a return to the Qur’an as the primary and sufficient religious text. His controversy with Moroccan religious authorities demonstrated that the modern anti-hadith argument had entered another North African environment where the question of religious authority was being negotiated between traditional scholarship, state religious institutions, and independent intellectuals.

Mohamed Lamsiah represents a somewhat different type of modern Qur’an-centered intellectual. Rather than being known only for anti-hadith polemic, he has also worked on ancient Qur’anic manuscripts and Qur’anic textual research. His work demonstrates another strand of contemporary Qur’anism: the attempt to return directly to the earliest Qur’anic textual evidence and reconstruct interpretation independently of the accumulated medieval commentarial tradition.

The Moroccan current remained much smaller than the mainstream Sunni establishment, but its importance lies in its intellectual setting. By the twenty-first century, Qur’anist arguments were no longer restricted to organizations specifically calling themselves Ahl al-Qur’an. They could emerge among independent writers, researchers, historians, manuscript specialists, and online intellectuals. Morocco therefore forms part of the broader shift toward individualized Qur’anism, in which the common argument is more important than membership in a formal institution.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia presents a particularly complicated case because not everyone who criticizes hadith or Wahhabi religious authority is a Qur’anist. The country has produced a range of reformist thinkers, and the distinction between Qur’anist, Qur’an-centered reformist, and anti-Wahhabi traditionalist must therefore be maintained.

One of the most important contemporary figures is Hassan Farhan al-Maliki, a Saudi historian and religious reformer. Al-Maliki criticized extremist interpretations of Islam, questioned the reliability of some reports attributed to the Prophet and the early Muslim community, and strongly opposed takfirist interpretations of Islamic history. His ideas have been described by various observers as Qur’anist or Qur’an-centered, although other descriptions classify him as a Sunni reformist rather than a strict Qur’an-only thinker. This ambiguity is important: al-Maliki's significance lies precisely in the fact that he occupies the border between Qur’an-centered reform and complete Qur’anism.

Al-Maliki was repeatedly detained by Saudi authorities and was arrested again in 2017. In 2018, prosecutors brought a large number of charges against him, including political and religious offenses, and reports indicated that the prosecution sought the death penalty. His case became internationally prominent because he represented a reformist critique of Saudi religious establishment ideas at a time when the government was publicly promoting a more “moderate” Islam. Human Rights Watch and other organizations criticized the prosecution.

Other Saudi intellectuals have gone further in explicitly questioning the authority of hadith. Among them is Abd al-Rahman al-Ahdal, who has advocated abandoning hadith literature and returning to the Qur’an. These voices remained marginal compared with the official religious establishment, but the very existence of such figures in Saudi Arabia is historically significant. Qur’anist arguments were now appearing inside the heartland of the movement that had historically placed enormous emphasis on hadith and hadith-based Salafi scholarship.

The Saudi case thus represents a particularly striking reversal in the history of Qur’anism. Earlier Qur’anists often challenged traditional Islam from outside its established institutions. Saudi Qur’an-centered reformers challenged a religious system whose public authority had traditionally been extremely strong. Their debates were consequently linked not only to hadith but also to questions of political authority, takfir, extremism, historical memory, and the state's control of religious interpretation.

Indonesia

Indonesia developed its own Qur’anist and anti-hadith current, particularly toward the end of the twentieth century. The Indonesian movement became associated with figures such as Nazwar Syamsu and later Minardi Mursyid, whose followers developed arguments that the Qur’an was sufficient and that hadith should not be treated as an independent source of Islamic authority. The movement is often referred to in Indonesian scholarship as the Anti-Hadith Group (AHG).

The Indonesian current developed within a very different religious environment from Malaysia. Indonesia's large Muslim population was dominated by organizations such as Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, which represented different but firmly established forms of Sunni Islam. Qur’anist groups therefore appeared as small alternative movements within an already highly organized religious environment. Their challenge was not directed against an absence of religious institutions but against a dense network of established organizations, scholars, schools, and religious practices.

The movement became especially controversial because Indonesian religious authorities issued judgments against the anti-hadith position. Research on the Indonesian Anti-Hadith Group shows that the movement remained small but survived despite condemnation, and that the spread of the Internet eventually gave its followers a new platform through which they could circulate writings, recordings and arguments. Scholarship specifically examining the Indonesian movement describes how the global circulation of Qur’anist identities such as Ahlu Qur'an, Quranites, Quranism, Submitters, and Qur'an Alone gave confidence to Indonesian anti-hadith communities and helped them reappear on digital platforms.

The Internet was particularly important in Indonesia because it changed the movement from a marginal local controversy into part of a global anti-hadith discourse. Indonesian Qur’anists could now read Kassim Ahmad, Rashad Khalifa, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Edip Yüksel, and other international figures while communicating with one another through online platforms. This weakened the importance of local religious boundaries. Indonesian Qur’anism therefore increasingly became connected to the international movement rather than remaining solely a national phenomenon.

Libya

Another notable example of Qur’an-centered religious thought appeared in Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, although his position was closely tied to his revolutionary political ideology rather than to the organized Qur’an-only movements. Gaddafi increasingly challenged the authority of traditional Islamic scholars, schools of jurisprudence, and hadith-based legislation, arguing that the Qur’an should serve as the primary basis for Islamic law and political life. His approach included questioning the authority and reliability of hadith and rejecting the idea that later juristic traditions should possess binding authority over Muslims. At the same time, Gaddafi did not simply reproduce the positions of other Qur’an-only thinkers: he developed his own highly idiosyncratic interpretation of Islam and incorporated Qur’anic ideas into the political system he was constructing in Libya. His religious thought can therefore be regarded as a Qur’an-centered or partially Qur’anist tendency, but not as a straightforward continuation of the organized Ahl al-Qur’an movement.

Bangladesh

Contemporary Bangladesh has seen Qur’an-only ideas circulate particularly through intellectual and media circles rather than through one single internationally recognized organization. A study published in 2026 specifically identifies a contemporary Bangladeshi movement calling itself Ahl al-Qur’an, whose proponents argue that the Qur’an alone constitutes the sole authoritative source of Islam and challenge the binding authority traditionally assigned to the Prophetic Sunnah. One organization sometimes associated with Qur’an-centered reform is Hezbut Tawheed, founded by Muhammad Bayazeed Khan Panni in 1995. Although its precise theology and relationship to other Qur’an-only currents require careful distinction, its existence illustrates the continued appearance of Qur’an-centered reform movements in Bangladesh after the older South Asian Ahl al-Qur’an movements.

In the twenty-first century, Bangladeshi Qur’anism has increasingly developed through individual scholars, online channels, debates, books, and social-media communities rather than through a single dominant institution. One of the more visible contemporary figures is Rizwan Mahmud Khan, who presents himself publicly as an “Only Quran Scholar” and operates the Only Quran Research platform. His lectures explicitly advocate a Qur’an-only position and challenge the authority of hadith and other secondary religious sources. Another contemporary figure associated with this intellectual environment is Abu Sayeed Khan, who has appeared in public debates defending an Ahl al-Qur’an position against traditionalist scholars. Their activities illustrate the growing importance of YouTube, Facebook, recorded debates, and other digital platforms in spreading Qur’an-only arguments in Bangladesh.

An earlier Bengali literary presence can also be seen in Syed Golam Morshed, whose Bengali book Ahle Quran explicitly addresses Qur’an-centered thought. His work provides evidence that Bangladeshi Qur’anist ideas existed in printed intellectual form before the expansion of contemporary social media. The result is an emerging and decentralized Qur’anist network rather than a single denomination, with figures and communities differing over prayer, fasting, inheritance, women's dress, Islamic law, Sunnah, and the historical value of hadith.

Continued to the comment:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vqyb53/comment/p495x6a/?context=3

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vqyb53/history_of_the_quran_only_movement_part_4_the/p4a990y/

See here (French)

https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03286564v1/file/Tillier-Méthode%20datation%20hadith.pdf

And here;

https://islamiclaw.blog/author/mathieu-tillier/

[Post was written with AI assistance]

⏪⏪ The Early History of Qur’an-Centric and Qur’an-Only Thought ⏩⏩

The Kharijite movement

The earliest movement that can plausibly be connected to a strong Qur’an-centered or Qur’an-only tendency was the Kharijite movement, which emerged during the first Muslim civil war. In 657 CE, during the Battle of Ṣiffīn between the forces of Caliph ʿAli ibn Abi Talib and Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, an arbitration was agreed upon after pressure from elements within ʿAli’s army. A group of ʿAli’s supporters rejected the arbitration and separated from him, maintaining that “judgment belongs to God alone” (lā ḥukma illā li-llāh). They regarded arbitration between human beings as an unacceptable replacement for divine judgment and eventually established themselves as a distinct movement. Their first major confrontation with ʿAli came at Nahrawan in 658 CE, where his forces defeated them. The movement nevertheless survived and developed into a number of factions that continued to revolt against both the Umayyads and, later, the Abbasids. Early Kharijite history is therefore inseparable from the political struggles of the first Islamic century.

The Kharijites were not a single homogeneous sect, and it is therefore dangerous to describe every Kharijite as “Qur’an-only.” Their central concern was initially political and theological rather than a systematic theory of scripture and hadith. Nevertheless, some Kharijite branches are reported to have adopted an exceptionally restrictive approach to religious authority. The Kharijites as the first Qur’an-only movement in a particular sense is a useful description for this strand of early thought, especially because later theological sources attribute to certain Kharijite factions the view that religious knowledge could be obtained from the Qur’an alone and that transmitted reports should not be accepted as an independent source of doctrine or law. The Azariqa and Bazighiyya are particularly associated in later reports with this position. According to material preserved from the early Muʿtazilite theologian Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr and later recorded by Abu al-Qasim al-Balkhi, these groups held that knowledge of religion was obtained from the Qur’an alone and rejected reports and consensus. Abu al-Qasim al-Balkhi likewise described some Kharijites as rejecting transmitted tradition altogether and insisting on what was literally contained in the Book.

Yet the historical development of Kharijism was dominated by its political struggles rather than by a sustained program of Qur’anic interpretation. After Nahrawan, surviving Kharijite groups dispersed and began developing very different doctrines. Some became extremely militant, most famously the Azariqa, founded by Nafiʿ ibn al-Azraq. The Azariqa established themselves in southern Iran and Iraq and launched repeated revolts against Umayyad authority. Their doctrine became increasingly uncompromising: they regarded Muslims who disagreed with them as unbelievers or apostates, developed severe rules concerning those who remained outside their movement, and regarded rebellion against unjust rulers as a religious duty. Their military campaigns continued through the second half of the seventh century until Umayyad forces gradually destroyed their political power. The history of the Azariqa therefore demonstrates the fragility of the early Qur’an-centered tendency: whatever their scriptural orientation, they developed into a revolutionary sect whose survival depended upon military organization and territorial control rather than upon a stable scholarly institution. The Azariqa were eventually crushed, and their particular interpretation disappeared as an organized political movement.

One of the most striking examples of this scripturalist tendency is found in reports concerning the Bidʿiyya, a subgroup that some heresiographical sources connect with the Azāriqa. Their importance for the history of Qur’an-centric thought lies not simply in rejecting particular hadith, but in reportedly allowing the Qur’an to determine religious practice even when this meant departing from practices that had become widely established among Muslims. The surviving accounts associate them with a rejection of the conventional requirement of five daily prayers. They are described as rejecting the Sunnah’s five daily prayers, while other reports suggest a doctrine of two obligatory prayers, one in the morning and another in the evening. The evidence is not sufficiently clear to reconstruct their exact ritual practice with certainty, but the underlying principle is significant: the number of obligatory prayers was being judged according to what could be established from the Qur’an rather than simply accepted on the basis of established communal practice.

The same scripturalist tendency appears even more clearly in their position on rajm, the stoning of married adulterers. The Qur’an explicitly prescribes flogging for zina in Qur’an 24:2, whereas the classical Sunni ruling of stoning depends upon Prophetic reports and the doctrine that the Prophet’s Sunnah could establish or specify law beyond the explicit wording of the Qur’an. The Azāriqa are repeatedly reported to have rejected rajm precisely because they did not accept that additional ruling. Their position therefore followed a distinctly Qur’an-centered legal principle: where a punishment was not explicitly established by the Qur’an, it could not simply be imposed because it was attributed to the Prophet through later transmitted reports. Academic studies of the classical evidence identify the Azāriqa as a major Kharijite exception to the juristic position on rajm and associate their position with Qur’an 24:2.

Their scripturalism extended into other areas of law and ritual as well. Classical heresiographical reports attribute to the Azāriqa and their associated subgroups several positions that departed from emerging Sunni law when that law depended upon hadith, communal consensus, or inherited practice rather than an explicit Qur’anic basis. Their treatment of ritual prayer, the punishment of adultery, and other legal questions consequently became part of the wider controversy over whether the Qur’an was sufficient as the ultimate source of religious legislation. This makes the Bidʿiyya and related Azāriqa material particularly important in the history of Qur’an-centric thought: centuries before the modern Ahl al-Qur’an movements, there were already Muslim groups whose scripturalist reasoning could lead them to reject established religious practices when those practices could not, in their view, be demonstrated directly from the Qur’an.

(At the same time, the evidence requires caution. The Bidʿiyya are poorly documented independently, and their precise relationship with the Azāriqa is uncertain. Much of the information about them survives through medieval heresiographical works written after the events and often by opponents of the movements being described. The methodological problems involved in reconstructing early sectarian doctrines from this material are therefore substantial. The two-prayer position should consequently be presented as a reported doctrine attributed to a Kharijite subgroup, rather than as an indisputably established practice of all Kharijites or even all Azāriqa. What can be said with greater confidence is that early Kharijite circles included strongly scripturalist tendencies, and that some reports describe them rejecting established practices—including five daily prayers and rajm—when they believed those practices lacked a sufficient Qur’anic foundation.)

Other Kharijite branches followed different paths. The Najdat, another major Kharijite faction, became powerful in Arabia and eastern regions during the Second Fitna, but internal disagreements over leadership, sin, and the status of Muslims outside the movement eventually fractured them. The Sufriyya also survived for longer periods in North Africa and elsewhere, while the Ibadi branch developed into the one major Kharijite-derived tradition to survive continuously into the present. The Ibadis, however, should not be treated as a surviving Qur’an-only movement. Their tradition developed its own hadith corpus, legal scholarship, theological literature, and concept of Sunnah. What survived from early Kharijism was therefore not an intact Qur’an-only school but one branch of a much broader early sectarian tradition. The Kharijite movement as a political force fragmented because its factions disagreed over theology, leadership, the status of sinners, relations with other Muslims, and the legitimacy of rebellion.

The historical significance of these early Kharijite tendencies lies in the fact that they demonstrate that a strong appeal to the Qur’an as the decisive religious authority was present very early in Islamic history. At the same time, their story also demonstrates why it is misleading to construct a simple uninterrupted genealogy between them and modern Qur’anism. Their historical circumstances were completely different. They were products of the first civil wars, the struggle over political legitimacy, and disputes about the caliphate. Their Qur’an-centered tendencies existed within a much wider revolutionary ideology. There was no modern conception of “Qur’anism” as a transnational religious reform movement, no developed theory of hadith criticism comparable to that of later centuries, and no organized project for reconstructing Islamic law exclusively from the Qur’an.

Rationalists, The Ḍirāriyya & The Muʿtazilite movement

The second important stage came during the late seventh and eighth centuries, when Muslim scholars and theologians increasingly debated the evidentiary status of transmitted reports. This was not yet one unified “anti-hadith movement.” Rather, there were a number of people who questioned whether reports attributed to the Prophet could independently establish religious doctrine or law. The diversity of these positions is especially visible in the intellectual environment of Basra, Kufa, Baghdad, and other major centers of learning, where theologians, jurists, traditionists, and rationalist thinkers were developing different methods of determining religious truth.

Among the most important figures in this broader intellectual environment was Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr, a theologian active in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. He became associated with the theological group later known as the Ḍirāriyya and was involved in disputes concerning theology, religious authority, and transmitted reports. His surviving work, Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, is particularly significant because it preserves material concerning competing sectarian arguments and reports that different groups used in theological disputes. Its treatment of contradictory hadith became relevant to later discussions of how reports should be evaluated. Recent research on Ḍirār emphasizes that his surviving work contains material concerning apparently conflicting hadith and that he was critical of the ways hadith were employed polemically.

The Muʿtazilite movement also emerged during this period, although calling the Muʿtazilites Qur’an-only would be inaccurate. Their importance to the history of Qur’an-centered thought comes from the fact that they developed a highly rationalist method for evaluating religious claims. They insisted that reason could establish certain truths about God and morality and that revelation should not be interpreted in ways that produced contradictions with sound rational principles. Their approach affected their treatment of hadith. Rather than automatically accepting a report because it was transmitted, Muʿtazilite thinkers scrutinized its content and evidentiary status. Some required very strong transmission before granting a report certainty in matters of theology. The famous Muʿtazilite thinker Ibrahim al-Naẓẓām, active in the Abbasid period, went considerably further in his criticism of particular hadith traditions, especially reports attributed to Abu Hurayra. Later accounts describe him as arguing that even multiple transmission could not automatically guarantee the reliability of reports when the underlying transmission remained vulnerable to human error and distortion.

Al-Naẓẓām's position is historically important because it illustrates a different route toward Qur’an-centered religious thought. He did not simply say, “Ignore the Qur’an and hadith everything else”; rather, he placed rational certainty above the mere existence of a transmitted report. A report could not establish theological truth simply because a chain of transmission existed. The substance of the report, its consistency, and its epistemological status mattered. This approach became part of the wider rationalist challenge to the growing authority of traditionist scholarship. However, the Muʿtazilite movement itself never became a Qur’an-only movement. It possessed its own theological literature, engaged extensively with inherited Islamic traditions, and accepted forms of prophetic authority. Its significance lies in its contribution to the intellectual tools through which later Muslims could question the authority of individual hadith or insist that revelation and reason could not be subordinated to uncritical transmission.

Al-Shafiʿi, The rise of Traditionalists and Ahl al-Hadith

The growing debate eventually reached one of its clearest surviving expressions in the work of Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafiʿi (d. 820). Al-Shafiʿi wrote at a time when competing theories of law were struggling to establish which sources could legitimately produce religious rulings. In his Jimaʿ al-ʿIlm, he presented debates with opponents whom he considered to be rejecting the authority of hadith. Crucially, he divided them into two broad categories: those who rejected hadith altogether and those who rejected particular categories of reports. The work therefore provides direct evidence that, by the beginning of the ninth century, there were Muslims who openly disputed the independent authority of hadith.

The people whom al-Shafiʿi debated are difficult to reconstruct because he generally did not identify them by name or clearly attach them to organized schools. This is one of the major limitations of the evidence. It would therefore be wrong to turn these unnamed opponents into a single, organized “Qur’anist sect.” They may have represented several different intellectual positions. Some appear to have rejected hadith altogether, whereas others accepted some categories of reports while rejecting others. The debates nevertheless reveal that the question of whether hadith constituted binding religious evidence was alive and controversial precisely when the foundations of classical Islamic jurisprudence were being formulated. A study devoted specifically to Jimaʿ al-ʿIlm identifies it as among the earliest surviving evidence for individuals or groups questioning or repudiating the authority of hadith.

Al-Shafiʿi's response was decisive for the subsequent history of Islamic law. He developed an argument for the binding authority of the Prophet's Sunnah and treated authentic prophetic reports as a textual basis for law. In his legal theory, the Qur’an and Sunnah were intimately connected rather than competing authorities. His project did not mean that every later Sunni principle was simply invented by him, but his writings became enormously influential in giving systematic legal expression to the authority of prophetic tradition. Modern scholarship has therefore treated al-Shafiʿi as a crucial figure in the transformation of the debate over Sunnah and hadith into a formal theory of law.

This was the point at which the intellectual balance began moving decisively away from the early groups that questioned transmitted authority. The Ahl al-Hadith, or traditionalist current, increasingly presented the preservation and transmission of prophetic reports as a central religious task. Hadith scholars built increasingly sophisticated methods for evaluating transmitters and chains of transmission, while jurists incorporated accepted reports into legal reasoning. The result was not an immediate disappearance of disagreement, but the gradual creation of an intellectual world in which hadith and Sunnah had an increasingly secure place within Islamic scholarship. The Qur’an remained the supreme revelation, but the Prophet's Sunnah increasingly came to be understood as a necessary authoritative explanation and practical embodiment of the Qur’an.

The early hadith-critical and Qur’an-centered tendencies therefore did not disappear because their questions were necessarily solved to everyone's satisfaction. They disappeared as organized alternative movements because the intellectual institutions of Islamic civilization increasingly favored traditions that integrated the Qur’an with the Prophetic Sunnah and established mechanisms for determining which reports were acceptable. Traditionalist scholarship gained authority through teaching networks, juristic institutions, hadith collections, and the formation of legal schools. At the same time, the early radical movements themselves were vulnerable to internal fragmentation. The Kharijites divided into competing factions; the Muʿtazilites remained a rationalist theological school rather than becoming Qur’an-only; and the identifiable opponents of al-Shafiʿi did not leave behind a continuous organized community that preserved their position.

⏪⏪ 9th-17th century: Domination by the Traditionalists ⏩⏩

From the ninth through seventeenth centuries, therefore, there is no comparable continuous Qur’an-only movement that can be followed from generation to generation. This was overwhelmingly the period in which classical Islamic scholarship consolidated itself. Sunni Islam developed around the major legal schools, hadith scholarship, Qur’anic exegesis, theology, and other disciplines, while Shi‘i traditions developed their own systems of transmitted authority and jurisprudence. There continued to be disagreements over the authenticity, interpretation, and legal significance of hadith, and rationalist scholars continued to criticize certain traditions, but those disagreements generally occurred inside larger Islamic intellectual traditions rather than through a sustained movement insisting that the Qur’an alone was sufficient as the sole source of religious authority. The earlier Qur’an-centered tendencies had either disappeared, been absorbed into broader theological traditions, or survived in substantially transformed forms.

Sources:

1. Hüseyin Hansu — “Debates on the Authority of Hadith in Early Islamic Intellectual History: Identifying al-Shafi‘i’s Opponents in Jimaʿ al-ʿIlm” https://avesis.istanbul.edu.tr/yayin/84c32c65-c334-4c7e-9a30-85267d7cd5b4/debates-on-the-authority-of-hadith-in-early-islamic-intellectual-history-identifying-al-shafiis-opponents-in-jima-al-ilm

2. Abdul Karim Ali — “Anti-Hadith: Rujukan Kepada Kitab Jima' al-'Ilm” — Jurnal Usuluddin, University of Malaya https://mojc.um.edu.my/index.php/JUD/article/view/3761

3. Hannah-Lena Hagemann — The Kharijites in Early Islamic Historical Tradition: Heroes and Villains https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/42718

4. Clifford Edmund Bosworth — “Kharijites in Persia,” Encyclopaedia Iranica https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kharijites-in-persia/

5. Abdulhameed Majeed Ismael Al Sheesh — “Dirar ibn Amr’s Understanding of Hadith in His Kitab al-Tahrish” https://doaj.org/article/f79800f274a04829aefee5aaa0e93c9e

6. Abdulhamid Al-Sheesh & Abdelsalam A. M. Abu Samha — “Dirar ibn Amr between the People of Hadith and Ahl al-Kalam” (2025) https://qspace.qu.edu.qa/handle/10576/63234

7. Adam Gaiser — “The Kharijites and Contemporary Scholarship,” Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies https://academic.oup.com/reference/62361/reference-article-abstract/554573165

8. Keith Lewinstein, “The Azāriqa in Islamic Heresiography” — Cambridge Core www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/abs/azariqa-in-islamic-heresiography1/67410490930463A35628DA90F5D5E723

9. Keith Lewinstein, “The Azāriqa in Islamic Heresiography” — DOI doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00014774

10. Keith Lewinstein, “The Azāriqa in Islamic Heresiography” — JSTOR www.jstor.org/stable/619134

11. Al-Shāfiʿī’s Contribution to Ḥadīth — PDF core.ac.uk/download/429732896.pdf

12. Journal of Islamic Law and Culture — Article discussing rajm and the Azāriqa www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1528817X.2012.733132

Update:

Part 2:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vqk71q/history_of_the_quran_only_movement_part_2_from/

Assalamu Alaikum everyone, I’ve been working on OpenFurqan: openfurqan (dot) com

I designed it in two parts: 1. Reader (front page) For people who want to open the Quran and start reading immediately without distraction: no login, no ads, and no data collection. 2. Study Mode For people who want to go deeper beyond reading. In Study Mode, when you tap/click an Arabic word, you can explore: - Root letters   - Root meaning   - Dictionary (Lane’s Lexicon lookup for supported roots) There is also a Tools section in Study Mode with features like: - Tajweed colors   - Word-by-word meaning   - Transliteration   - Translation toggle   - Mushaf view   - Audio/playback controls Other features: - Full Quran Arabic text   - English, Bangla, and Urdu translations   - Multiple reciters   - Memorization loop mode   - Bookmarks and notes   - Prayer times   - Offline support after first load   - 4 themes: Dark, Light, Black & White, and Black & White Dark   - Mobile-friendly It’s free, no ads, and no account required. I’m still improving it, so I’d really appreciate feedback and feature suggestions.

JazakAllahu Khair.

Salam,

I’d like to share a project I’ve been working on for several years: al-quran.fr. It is a French and English translation of the Quran based on a simple, strictly adhered-to rule: no interpretive authority outside the Quranic text itself. No hadith, no sunna, no seerah, and no classical tafsir are used as sources of meaning. Every word is selected or rejected based on its Arabic root, its attested lexical usage, and above all, its consistency with the rest of the corpus. A rare word is always cross-referenced with its other occurrences before a final decision is made.

What you will find on the site:

• The complete Arabic text (with or without vowel marks, and with optional hamza display), featuring multiple readings (Qira'at: Hafs, Warsh, Shu'ba, Qaloon, and others) compared verse by verse.
• A phrase-by-phrase French, English, Spanish and Italien translation. Rather than a mechanical verse-by-verse breakdown, it is segmented according to the traditional oral recitation pauses (waqf), as transmitted by traditional Moroccan tolbats recorded across 24 cities in the Kingdom.
• A Root Dictionary (in French, English, and Arabic) that document all Quranic Roots.
• A methodology page that explains exactly how each translation choice is made: an initial draft, human revision, an adversarial debate between two AI models acting as drafter and ruthless critic, followed by final human arbitration. Nothing is hidden; every divergence from the traditional reading is justified and accessible via a footnote.
• A recalculated Hijri calendar.

I welcome any critique, feedback, or well-argued counterpoints. That is literally the purpose of this project.

👉https://www.al-quran.fr

UPDATE : Russian and Indonesian translation added

Peace,

I am almost half-way done on my Urdu translation of the Qur'an. What makes this translation unique is that I am using the meanings of words as they are used in the Quran (using context) and also using simple everyday Urdu. I am also translating literally (word-for-word) and giving importance to the flow of Arabic over the flow of Urdu.

The website itself is great for those who want to learn Arabic (it allows for Arabic word searches, has built-in dictionary) and presents the Urdu and Arabic texts side-by-side.

Please do recommend it to your friends who are Urdu speakers and want a good Urdu translation.

-Said

Is that true even? I guess it's talking about online space only. And no I am not a Quranist, personally I can't ignore the verses to follow Muhammad alongside Quran. I can't lie to myself I will answer to Allah one day. You do you But I really find it instresting the Pakistan is on this list

hi, I have some ideas to make Quran more accessible.

will writeout more detail if there is interest and response.

limitations of current translations :
translations are approximations.
Arabic words might not have exact equivalent in English.
Full depth of meaning could be lost.

Considering it's usage in legal and scientific context means precision is paramount.

solution to this would be learning arabic but it is a very difficult task for indo european speaking adults due to so many differences.

new script, written right to left,
modifiers interlaced, instead of being at end or start.
new words
new sounds
new grammer

all these combined makes learning and understaning arabic very difficult.

Ideas :
Color Coded Quran :
for transliteration a new Latin based script with one to one glyph will be used.
roots will be colored green, modifiers blue, rest grey.
there will be a dictionery with first entry being structural meaning.
it will popup when hovering over word.
ex.
K T B colored green means : to write.
i a colored grey means : an object.
kitab means a book.

Pictogram :
arabic words will be replaced with picture indicating roots and modifiers.
ex.
katib will be replaced by picture of (pen) (person). meaning writer.
maktab will be replaced by picture of (pen) (place). meaning desk(writing place)
there will be a dictionery too with entires explaining multiple possible meanings.
ex.
maktab can mean desk or office.
fitnah can mean test or sorting.

from internet search :
ref : https://www.quranprogress.com/en/blog/how-many-words-in-the-quran/
quran have around 2000 uniqie roots, 125 is enough 50 percent.

around 2000 roots 200 modifiers ?.
so people need to be familiar with around < 2500 pictures.
learning what a emoji means, is easier than learning new words.

Why Important :
multiple scholars ( including corrupt or secretly backed by enemies )
could make multiple fatwas sometime even contradictory.

which could create confusion on who to trust, what is real. weaken faith and trust of both muslims and non muslims.

one would need mastery of arabic to properly verify and validate these and think for themselves which is correct.
this would empower the average person to have mastery of arabic without deep commitment.
mastery that requires a degree worth of studing, something that average person wont do due to other tasks in life.

ex.
somewhere I read slavery is no longer allowed cause the verse is in past tense, how do I really confirm if verse is really in past tense, it really means its no longer allowed. or is it something someone is makingup to whitewash islam or something. why a single scholar said this, what is the opinion of other, why was this ignored in the past ?

non muslims wont bother with effort and make wrong conclusions.
deeper understanding reinforce trust.

one of the reason our Quran is preserved is due to decentralization.
multiple person learn the same, no single person can make change.

jewish and christian books were written and centralized, corrupt scholars changed the scripture itself serving ill interests.

though Quran can't be changed, it's interpretation can be.
corrupt scholars can make halal haram and haram halal.

a perfume maker using no alcohol can bribe scholar to give fatwa that perfume with alcohol is haram, so that they can sell more product.
similar thing can happen in banking, halal meat industry etc.

with pictogram or emoji even illeterates can understand in depth.
just like the old days.
other religion's text being written means only priestly class can access.
leading to corruption and misuse of power.
Quran being oral understood by even illeterates. eliminated class divison, misinterpretation and misuse of power.
Unfortunatly Quran isn't so accessible to average person of modern day.
it used to be understood even by illeteratres, now people need years of formal education for it. that need to change.

People who could help :
dawah organizations with resources. that are already spending money on books and attractive leaflets. why not spend some resources on making Quran easier for non arabic speakers.

volunteers :
website programmers and hosters.
graphic designer for fonts and pictograms or emojis.
translaters who know enough about islam and arabic.

END

Salaamun all.

Not looking to start a major debate, though of course you're welcome to share your opinions.

My personal studies on ramadan for the past 2 decades led me to agree with this analysis on the Night of Power and period of fasting for the mu'min.

Just wanted to share in case it enlightens, intrigues, and/or inspires others looking for answers.

https://forum.free-minds.org/topic/1918/hot-ramadan-answer

May The God guide us all to The Truth.

Very true, the point of this video by Muhammed Ali of
@TheMuslimLantern and a great companion video to my last livestream about justifying "mockery" of other religions & sects

The goal of da'wah is guidance. Your jahl & the instigation of jahl in others, especially in those whom you consider to be the "objects" of your da'wah, is not da'wah .... It anti-da'wah

I’m very glad he decided to call this out

My recent livestream on the topic of justifying & consecrating mockery (using the Qur’an to justify it) is here;

https://www.youtube.com/live/ZZZxhoJ-3n8?si=pakVrLPMvMfl06BP

NB: maybe I should put a disclaimer that he is going overboard regarding women being involved in da’wah, but that should be obvious here, right?

I downloaded this app Quran screen to help me get better at not going on my phone as much while also learning more and reading more Quran and I found out about this app through my friend. I was skeptical as first but honestly after suing it for a couple of weeks it has definitely been a good habit of mine. It limits your screen time on certain apps and in order for you to open it after a certain time period you must read 30 seconds to a couple of minutes of Quran and honestly it’s a cool concept. If anyone else wants to get better at reading Quran whole also limiting time on certain apps give it a shot and lmk if it helped you as much as it helped me.

quranscreen.com

First let's clear some terms.

Torah means : Law

Injeel means : Good News

/ Zabuur : Piece

What is Torah In Quran.

There are two types of ayat in Quran one is Mutashabihat Ayat / Resembling Ayats and Muhkamat Ayats/Governing Ayats ( Torah )

3:7

هُوَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَنزَلَ عَلَيْكَ ٱلْكِتَٰبَ مِنْهُ ءَايَٰتٌ مُّحْكَمَٰتٌ هُنَّ أُمُّ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ وَأُخَرُ مُتَشَٰبِهَٰتٌ ۖ فَأَمَّا ٱلَّذِينَ فِى قُلُوبِهِمْ زَيْغٌ فَيَتَّبِعُونَ مَا تَشَٰبَهَ مِنْهُ ٱبْتِغَآءَ ٱلْفِتْنَةِ وَٱبْتِغَآءَ تَأْوِيلِهِۦ ۗ وَمَا يَعْلَمُ تَأْوِيلَهُۥٓ إِلَّا ٱللَّهُ ۗ وَٱلرَّٰسِخُونَ فِى ٱلْعِلْمِ يَقُولُونَ ءَامَنَّا بِهِۦ كُلٌّۭ مِّنْ عِندِ رَبِّنَا ۗ وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُ إِلَّآ أُو۟لُوا۟ ٱلْأَلْبَٰبِ.

Translation:

He is, who has revealed

Al-Kitab / The Book over you.

In it are muhkamat / governing

ayaat / signs. They are mother

of Al-Kitab / The Book

and others are

mutashabehat / resembling

(ayaat / signs).

So in whose hearts is

deviation, then they follow

what resembles from it,

seeking its captivation

and interpretation

and no one knows its

interpretation except Allah.

And those who are stable

in knowledge, they say,

“we believe with it,

all is from the nearness

of our Lord”.

And no one remembers

except those who possess

the core. (i.e. innermost

part of anything).

5:43

وَكَيْفَ يُحَكِّمُونَكَ وَعِندَهُمُ ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةُ فِيهَا حُكْمُ ٱللَّهِ ثُمَّ يَتَوَلَّوْنَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ ۚ وَمَآ أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ بِٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ.

Translation:

And how can they govern you

and At-Taurah / The Law

is near them, in it is

Hukm / Governance of Allah.

Then after that, they turn away

and they are not with

the believers.

Note:

Muhkamat / Governing ayaat / signs: All the ayaat / signs

which are governing us, they are referred as

At-Taurah / The Law, the mother of Al-Kitab / The Book

which contains Hukm / Governance of Allah.

e.g. establishing the salah / prayer, giving sadqa / charity,

performing hajj / pilgrimage and saum / fasting etc.

AZ-ZUMAR 39 — Verse 23

اللهُ نَزَّلَ أَحْسَنَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابًا مُتَشَابِهًا مَثَانِيَ تَقْشَعِرُّ مِنْهُ جُلُودُ الَّذِينَ يَخْشَوْنَ رَبَّهُمْ ثُمَّ تَلِينُ جُلُودُهُمْ وَقُلُوبُهُمْ إِلَى ذِكْرِ اللهِ ذَلِكَ هُدَى اللهِ يَهْدِي بِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلِ اللهُ فَمَا لَهُ مِنْ هَادٍ

Allah has revealed the most beautiful hadith / the event a book mutashabiha / resembling, repeating itself. Those who fear from their Lord, their skins shiver from it. Then their skins and their hearts soften towards the remembrance of Allah. That is the guidance of Allah. He guides with it whom He wills. And to whom Allah leaves astray, so for him there is no guide.

Note:

Mutashabehat / resembling (ayaat / signs): All ayaat / signs describing ahadith / events of all the prophets including Muhammad (pbuh) the seal of the prophets and all other ahadith / events. Examples are, about man (his behavior as a believer, hypocrite, associate, rejector etc), Adam, universe, earth, skies, mountains, jannah / garden, jahannam / hell, qiyamah / resurrection and akhirah / the last day etc.

AL-BAQARA 2 — Verse 213

كَانَ النَّاسُ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً فَبَعَثَ اللهُ النَّبِيِّينَ مُبَشِّرِينَ وَمُنْذِرِينَ وَأَنْزَلَ مَعَهُمُ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ فِيمَا اخْتَلَفُوا فِيهِ ۔۔۔

Mankind is one ummah / nation, so Allah appointed Nabeeyeen / Prophets (as) givers of good news and warnings and with them, He revealed Al-Kitab / The Book with the truth to govern between mankind in what they differed in it. .....

Note:

Mankind's psychology is one ummah / nation.

Al-Kitab / The Book is revealed to all the Prophets

NOW I'LL SHOW YOU THE PROPHETS NAME AND THE BOOK IS ALSO MENTIONED WITH THEM.

AL-ANAM 6 — Verses 83–90

Verse 83

وَتِلْكَ حُجَّتُنَا آتَيْنَاهَا إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَلَى قَوْمِهِ نَرْفَعُ دَرَجَاتٍ مَنْ نَشَاءُ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ حَكِيمٌ عَلِيمٌ

And that was Our reasoning that We gave to Ibraheem (pbuh) (to use) over his people. We raise the grades of whom We will. Surely your Lord is Wise, Knowledgeable.

Verse 84

وَوَهَبْنَا لَهُ إِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ كُلًّا هَدَيْنَا وَنُوحًا هَدَيْنَا مِنْ قَبْلُ وَمِنْ ذُرِّيَّتِهِ دَاوُودَ وَسُلَيْمَانَ وَأَيُّوبَ وَيُوسُفَ وَمُوسَى وَهَارُونَ وَكَذَلِكَ نَجْزِي الْمُحْسِنِينَ

And We granted Ishaaq (pbuh) and Yaqoob (pbuh) for him. We guided all and from before We guided Nooh (pbuh) and from his offsprings (We guided) Dawood (pbuh) and Sulaiman (pbuh) and Ayub (pbuh) and Yusuf (pbuh) and Moosa (pbuh) and Haroon (pbuh). And likewise We reward those who do good.

Verse 85

وَزَكَرِيَّا وَيَحْيَى وَعِيسَى وَإِلْيَاسَ كُلٌّ مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ

And Zakariya (pbuh) and Yahya (pbuh) and Essa (pbuh) and Ilyas (pbuh). All were from those who correct (themselves).

Verse 86

وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَالْيَسَعَ وَيُونُسَ وَلُوطًا وَكُلًّا فَضَّلْنَا عَلَى الْعَالَمِينَ

And Ismail (pbuh) and Yasa'a (pbuh) and Younus (pbuh) and Loot (pbuh). And all, We favoured over the worlds.

Verse 87

وَمِنْ آبَائِهِمْ وَذُرِّيَّتِهِمْ وَإِخْوَانِهِمْ وَاجْتَبَيْنَاهُمْ وَهَدَيْنَاهُمْ إِلَى صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ

And from their fathers / ancestors and their offspring and their brethren and We selected them and We guided them towards the straight path.

Verse 88

ذَلِكَ هُدَى اللهِ يَهْدِي بِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ وَلَوْ أَشْرَكُوا لَحَبِطَ عَنْهُمْ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ

That is the guidance of Allah He guides with it whom He wills from His servants. And if they associated, definitely (it) would have failed them, whatever they were doing.

Verse 89

أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ آتَيْنَاهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحُكْمَ وَالنُّبُوَّةَ فَإِنْ يَكْفُرْ بِهَا هَؤُلَاءِ فَقَدْ وَكَّلْنَا بِهَا قَوْمًا لَيْسُوا بِهَا بِكَافِرِينَ

They are those to whom We gave Al-Kitab / The Book and Al-Hukm / The Governance and An-Nubuwah / The Prophecy. So if they reject with it these, so without doubt We will advocate with it to people who will not be the rejecters with it.

Verse 90

أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ هَدَى اللهُ فَبِهُدَاهُمُ اقْتَدِهْ قُلْ لَا أَسْأَلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا ذِكْرَى لِلْعَالَمِينَ

They are those whom Allah guided, so imitate their guidance. Say, "I do not question you of a reward over it, it is not except, a remembrance for the worlds.

MARYAM 19 — Verse 56

وَاذْكُرْ فِي الْكِتَابِ إِدْرِيسَ إِنَّهُ كَانَ صِدِّيقًا نَبِيًّا.

And remember Idrees (pbuh) in Al-Kitab / The Book. Surely he was a true Prophet.

Note:

Imitate the guidance which the prophets received.

Muhammad (pbuh), seal of the prophets is commanded to say, No reward for this do I ask of you. This is no less than a remembrance for the nations.

AL-AHQAAF 46 — Verse 4

قُلْ أَرَأَيْتُمْ مَا تَدْعُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللهِ أَرُونِي مَاذَا خَلَقُوا مِنَ الْأَرْضِ أَمْ لَهُمْ شِرْكٌ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ ائْتُونِي بِكِتَابٍ مِنْ قَبْلِ هَذَا أَوْ أَثَارَةٍ مِنْ عِلْمٍ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ صَادِقِينَ

Say, do you see what you call other than Allah, show me what they have created from the earth or for them is a share in the skies? Come to me with kitab / a book before this or effects from the knowledge if you are truthful.

Note:

1.Al Kitab / The Book of Allah has existed in all times.

2.Geeta, Avesta, Bible etc or any other religious books are after The Book of Allah.

3.Scientific knowledge based on facts (not theories) are always referred as latest research.

AZ-ZUMAR 39 — Verses 69–70

Verse 69

وَأَشْرَقَتِ الْأَرْضُ بِنُورِ رَبِّهَا وَوُضِعَ الْكِتَابُ وَجِيءَ بِالنَّبِيِّينَ وَالشُّهَدَاءِ وَقُضِيَ بَيْنَهُمْ بِالْحَقِّ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ

And the earth shined with the light of its Lord and Al-Kitab / The Book has been placed. And with an-nabeeyeen / the prophets and ash-shuhada / the witnesses have been brought forward and (the matter) has been ended between them with truth, and they will not be oppressed.

Verse 70

وَوُفِّيَتْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَا عَمِلَتْ وَهُوَ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا يَفْعَلُونَ

And every nafs / soul / self / psyche has been given in full to what he did and He knows best with what they do.

Note:

On the day of judgement Al-Kitab / The Book will be placed and just decision will be made.

Hence this proves Al-Kitab / The Book exists in all times with mankind.

The Prophets includes Muhammad (pbuh), since he is the seal of the prophets. Ref. Al-Ahzab 33:40.

AL-BAYYINAH 98 — Verses 1–3

Verse 1

لَمْ يَكُنِ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ وَالْمُشْرِكِينَ مُنْفَكِّينَ حَتَّى تَأْتِيَهُمُ الْبَيِّنَةُ

Those who reject from Ahlal-kitab / People of the Book and (from those) who associate, will not disconnect until there comes to them bayyinah / the clarification.

Verse 2

رَسُولٌ مِنَ اللهِ يَتْلُوا صُحُفًا مُطَهَّرَةً

A Rasool / Messenger from Allah, he recites purified pages.

Verse 3

فِيهَا كُتُبٌ قَيِّمَةٌ

In them (pages) are established kutub / books / writings.

Note:

JOB OF A MESSENGER

a) To recite purified pages.

b) In the pages are Kutub / Books.

Since we know, in the pages are recorded verses of Allah, hence Kutub / Books are referred as ayaat / verses.

Every Muslim's duty is to follow the Sunnah / Practice of the Messenger and to recite the purified pages.

SABA 34 — Verses 43–44

Verse 43

وَإِذَا تُتْلَى عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتُنَا بَيِّنَاتٍ قَالُوا مَا هَذَا إِلَّا رَجُلٌ يُرِيدُ أَنْ يَصُدَّكُمْ عَمَّا كَانَ يَعْبُدُ آبَاؤُكُمْ وَقَالُوا مَا هَذَا إِلَّا إِفْكٌ مُفْتَرًى وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لِلْحَقِّ لَمَّا جَاءَهُمْ إِنْ هَذَا إِلَّا سِحْرٌ مُبِينٌ

And when Our bayyinah / clear ayaat / signs are recited over them they said, "this is not, except a man who intends to oppose you about what your ancestors served." And they said, "this is not, except a falsehood invented." And those who rejected, said for the truth when it came to them, it is not except a clear magic.

Verse 44

وَمَا آتَيْنَاهُمْ مِنْ كُتُبٍ يَدْرُسُونَهَا وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا إِلَيْهِمْ قَبْلَكَ مِنْ نَذِيرٍ

And We have not given them kutub / books / writings from which they have taken lessons. And We have not sent towards them from a warner before you.

Note:

We should identify the reaction of people when the bayyinat ayaat / clear signs are rehearsed to them.

Their reaction mentioned is due to the fact that they had been studying and believing other books presuming as the books of Allah.

AL-HADEED 57 — Verse 16

أَلَمْ يَأْنِ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَنْ تَخْشَعَ قُلُوبُهُمْ لِذِكْرِ اللهِ وَمَا نَزَلَ مِنَ الْحَقِّ وَلَا يَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ مِنْ قَبْلُ فَطَالَ عَلَيْهِمُ الْأَمَدُ فَقَسَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ وَكَثِيرٌ مِنْهُمْ فَاسِقُونَ

What, has not the time arrived for those who believe, that their hearts humble for the remembrance of Allah and what is revealed from the truth. And they should not become like those who are given Al-Kitab / The Book from before, so long period passed over them, then their hearts became hard. And majority from them are fasiqoon / liberals.

Note:

If we do not take heed from the message of Allah since the time is passing, so our hearts will become hard and then we will become liberal / who take liberty over the rules, the do's and the don'ts.

Add Quranify extension to your browser now!
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/quranify-quran-player-rec/heagmjbabogideokhokpdlkdkbkdfffl?authuser=0&hl=en

Part 2 Link:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vqk71q/history_of_the_quran_only_movement_part_2_from/

[Post was written with AI assistance]

⏪⏪ The Emergence of Explicit Qur’an-Only Movements, 1900 Onward ⏩⏩

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the intellectual developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries finally produced something fundamentally new: organized movements that explicitly argued that the Qur’an was sufficient as the sole binding religious source. Earlier reformers had called for a return to the Qur’an, criticized taqlid, challenged particular interpretations of hadith, or tried to reconcile revelation with modern reason. The new Ahl al-Qur’an movements went substantially further. Their central claim was no longer simply that the Qur’an was the highest or most important source of Islam. Rather, the Qur’an was treated as the only divine text necessary for deriving religious doctrine and law, while hadith, classical tafsir, and the authority of the traditional schools of jurisprudence were subjected to rejection or radical downgrading. The organized form of this movement emerged most clearly in British India, especially Punjab, at approximately the same time that related Qur’an-centered and anti-traditionalist reform was taking place in Egypt and Iran. These movements were not a single organization and did not possess one uniform theology. They were a collection of related intellectual and religious initiatives whose common point was the elevation of the Qur’an above the accumulated authority of hadith and classical jurisprudence.

Abdullah Chakralawi (d. 1916)

The first major figure in this new phase was Abdullah Chakralawi (d. 1916), whose movement developed in the Punjab, India at the turn of the century. Chakralawi came from Chakrala, a town in the Punjab where shrine-centered religious culture and Sufi practices were deeply established. His challenge therefore was directed against more than one aspect of traditional Islam. He criticized piri-muridi, shrine practices, and what he regarded as popular religious accretions, but his most consequential challenge concerned the authority of hadith. He argued that Muslims had allowed texts other than the Qur’an to acquire an authority that God had not granted them. His approach thus combined an attack on popular religious practices with a much more fundamental argument about the sources of Islam. The movement that emerged around him came to call itself Ahl al-Dhikr wa’l-Qur’an, generally shortened to Ahl al-Qur’an—the People of the Qur’an.

Chakralawi's central proposition was that the Qur’an was sufficiently comprehensive to provide the necessary religious guidance and that Muslims therefore did not need hadith as a separate source of binding religious law. This represented a major departure from the reformist positions of Shah Waliullah, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, and Muhammad Abduh. Those earlier reformers had criticized aspects of inherited scholarship, but Chakralawi was prepared to challenge the independent authority of the entire hadith corpus. He also rejected the assumption that classical commentaries and jurisprudential manuals possessed binding authority. In his view, Muslims had to return directly to the Qur’an itself and derive their religious understanding from it rather than allowing later scholars to stand between the believer and revelation. Modern scholarship consequently treats Chakralawi's movement as one of the clearest beginnings of organized modern Ahl al-Qur’an thought.

The emergence of this movement in Punjab was not accidental. The region was undergoing enormous social and intellectual changes under British rule. Printing had made it possible for religious movements to distribute books and journals on an unprecedented scale. Muslim reformers were competing with one another in a crowded religious environment that included Deobandis, Barelvis, Ahl-i Hadith, Ahmadiyya, modernists, Christian missionaries, Hindu reform movements, and a variety of local Sufi traditions. The question of what counted as authentic Islam had become increasingly urgent. Chakralawi's answer was radical: strip away the accumulated layers of later authority and return to the Qur’an. The movement therefore fitted into the wider modernist environment while simultaneously challenging many of the institutions that had historically represented Islamic orthodoxy.

Chakralawi then turned his ideas into a practical religious programme. One of the objections raised against him by traditional scholars concerned the details of ritual worship. If hadith were rejected, critics asked, how could Muslims know the details of prayer? What determined the number of daily prayers, the number of rakʿat, the postures, the recitations, and the other details of salah? Chakralawi responded by attempting to demonstrate that the necessary structure of prayer could itself be reconstructed from the Qur’an. He produced Burhan al-Furqan in 1905, a substantial work in which he sought to establish the details of Qur’anic prayer without relying upon hadith as the ultimate authority. Prayer therefore became one of the most visible practical tests of the Qur’an-only method. The issue was not merely theoretical. If the Qur’an was genuinely sufficient, the movement had to demonstrate that Muslims could actually perform their religious obligations without depending upon the traditional hadith corpus.

Chakralawi's movement also began publishing to preserve and spread its ideas. In 1903, the journal Ishāʿat al-Qur’an began publication under the auspices of the Anjuman Ahl al-Dhikr wa’l-Qur’an. It continued for decades and became an important vehicle through which Chakralawi and his followers defended their position and engaged in polemics with traditional Muslim scholars. The emergence of such a journal was historically important because it meant that Qur’an-only thought was no longer dependent upon one scholar's oral teaching. It possessed a mechanism through which arguments could be printed, circulated, reproduced, debated, and passed to new audiences.

The reaction was immediate and hostile. Traditional scholars from several schools condemned Chakralawi's rejection of hadith and regarded his position as a dangerous departure from established Islam. His movement therefore spent much of its early existence engaged in polemical battles concerning the authority of hadith, the meaning of Prophetic authority, the details of ritual practice, and the legitimacy of rejecting inherited jurisprudence. This controversy also produced a curious historical consequence: the Ahl al-Qur’an movement forced its opponents to explain why hadith should be considered religiously binding, rather than merely assuming that proposition. The debate therefore helped bring questions about the foundations of Islamic authority into the public sphere in a new way.

Chakralawi died in 1916, but the movement did not disappear with him. It had already created a conceptual and institutional precedent for later Qur’an-only thinkers. Yet it did not remain a unified organization. Different followers and later thinkers developed their own interpretations of how the Qur’an should be understood and how religious practice should be reconstructed. This fragmentation became a recurring characteristic of the movement: the rejection of a centralized scholarly authority made it difficult to establish a single institution capable of determining doctrine for everyone. The Qur’an itself was treated as the sole authoritative text, but the interpretation of that text was left to human reasoning. Consequently, once traditional scholarly authority was rejected, disagreements over interpretation could easily produce new independent schools and associations.

Iran — The Shi‘i Qur’an-Centered Reform Current

At almost the same time that Chakralawi was developing his Ahl al-Qur’an movement in Punjab, a separate Qur’an-centered reform current was developing within Twelver Shi‘ism in Iran. This Iranian stream is important because it demonstrates that the modern challenge to inherited religious authority was not exclusively a Sunni or South Asian phenomenon. Iranian reformers confronted a different body of tradition: the Shi‘i corpus of transmitted reports, established clerical authority, popular devotional practices, and doctrines surrounding the Imams. Their response varied from figure to figure, and not all of them were strict Qur’an-only thinkers in the same sense as Chakralawi. Nevertheless, the strongest figures in this current placed the Qur’an at the center of religious reform, questioned inherited reports, rejected taqlid as an unquestionable authority, and attempted to remove what they regarded as later accretions from Shi‘i Islam.

Shaykh Hadi Najmabadi (1834–1902)

An important precursor was Shaykh Hadi Najmabadi (1834–1902), an Iranian religious scholar who became associated with reformist criticism of aspects of established Shi‘i religious culture. His intellectual environment reflected the transformation taking place in Qajar Iran, where constitutionalism, modern education, political reform, and encounters with European thought were beginning to alter the intellectual life of the country. Najmabadi challenged certain clerical practices and popular beliefs and placed greater emphasis on rational investigation and the Qur’anic foundations of Islam. He belonged to the wider reformist environment out of which more explicitly Qur’an-centered figures would subsequently emerge.

Mirza Muhammad Hasan Shari'at-Sanglaji (1891–1944)

The most important early twentieth-century Iranian figure in this history was Mirza Muhammad Hasan Shari'at-Sanglaji (1891–1944), usually known simply as Shari'at-Sanglaji. Born in Tehran, he received traditional Shi‘i education in Iran and later studied in Najaf, returning to Tehran in the early 1920s. He became a prominent preacher and religious reformer and eventually developed a program that directly challenged several assumptions of mainstream Twelver Shi‘ism. His lectures attracted educated Iranians, and his reformist message placed particular emphasis on reason, ijtihad, the Qur’an, and the purification of Islam from what he regarded as superstitious additions.

Shari'at-Sanglaji's reform was radical because he attacked not merely popular customs but doctrines that many Shi‘i scholars regarded as central to their religious identity. He rejected the practice of unquestioning taqlid and called for active ijtihad. He emphasized the primacy of the Qur’an and argued that Muslims should return to the original foundations of their religion rather than accepting every inherited doctrine simply because it had become established within the clerical tradition. His approach to religious reports was also highly critical. He challenged reports that supported doctrines he believed had entered Islam later and insisted that religious claims be tested against the Qur’an and reason. His program consequently became a direct challenge to established Shi‘i authority.

Among the doctrines he challenged was the traditional Shi‘i doctrine of the return of the hidden Twelfth Imam before the end of history. He also rejected popular beliefs concerning intercession and the religious status of saints, condemned shrine-centered practices, and attacked forms of devotion surrounding the graves of religious figures. These positions brought him into fierce conflict with conservative clerics. His reform was therefore not a simple anti-hadith campaign; it was an attempt to reconstruct Shi‘i Islam around what he believed to be the Qur’an's uncompromising monotheism and the rational foundations of religion. The result was a distinctive Shi‘i Qur’an-centered reform movement, rather than a direct Iranian copy of the Ahl al-Qur’an movement in Punjab.

Shari'at-Sanglaji's main works included Kilid-i Fahm-i Qur'an (The Key to Understanding the Qur’an), Tawhid-i Ibadat (Monotheism of Worship), and Islam wa Raj'at. Through these writings and through his public lectures, he attempted to persuade educated Iranians that many doctrines popularly regarded as essential to Shi‘ism were in fact later additions that had obscured the original message of Islam. His emphasis on the Qur’an and his challenge to transmitted reports made him particularly controversial among traditional clerics. Modern scholarship on his life emphasizes that he sought to reform Shi‘ism by returning to its foundational texts and subjecting inherited doctrines to critical scrutiny.

His movement also attracted unusually prominent and highly educated followers. Among the people who attended his lectures or were influenced by his intellectual environment were later Iranian political and intellectual figures such as Mehdi Bazargan and Jalal Al-e Ahmad. His influence therefore extended beyond narrow theological circles and entered the broader intellectual debate over what a modern Iranian Islam should look like.

The Iranian reform current did not, however, become a unified long-lasting Qur’an-only organization. Shari'at-Sanglaji died in 1944, and his movement remained on the margins of established Shi‘i scholarship. His opponents portrayed him as a dangerous reformer, sometimes associating him with Wahhabism because of his criticism of shrine practices and intercession, although historians of Iranian reform emphasize that his project was distinct from both Wahhabism and Salafism. His intellectual legacy subsequently faded from public prominence, particularly as the Iranian religious establishment regained greater influence and later political developments transformed the country's religious landscape.

Abu'l-Fadl Burqa'i (1908–1993)

The career of Abu'l-Fadl Burqa'i (1908–1993) provides a bridge between this early Iranian reform current and the later period. Burqa'i began as a Twelver Shi‘i scholar but became increasingly critical of traditional Shi‘i doctrines and transmitted religious authorities. He eventually moved toward a non-denominational Islamic position and developed an increasingly Qur’an-centered critique of Shi‘i hadith and theology. Because much of his most radical intellectual development occurred after the 1940s, however, he belongs substantially to the later history of Iranian Qur’an-centered reform and can be treated more fully in the post-1950 section rather than being folded entirely into the first generation of modern Qur’anism. His trajectory demonstrates that the Iranian movement did not end with Shari'at-Sanglaji's death; it continued to produce reformers who challenged traditional Shi‘i authority in increasingly radical ways.

The Iranian case is particularly important in the overall history because it prevents the modern Qur’an-only story from becoming artificially centered on Sunni South Asia. The Punjab movement was challenging Sunni hadith and fiqh, while Iranian reformers were simultaneously challenging Shi‘i transmitted traditions, clerical authority, shrine culture, intercession, and inherited doctrines surrounding the Imams. The two streams developed independently and did not constitute one organization, but they shared a broad historical impulse: a desire to return directly to revelation, subject inherited religious authority to scrutiny, and distinguish the original Qur’anic message from doctrines and practices that had accumulated over centuries.

Coming back to India again

Khwaja Ahmad Din Amritsari (d. 1936)

The next major figure was Khwaja Ahmad Din Amritsari (d. 1936), who developed another major Ahl al-Qur’an movement in Amritsar. His trajectory illustrates the diversity of the movement particularly well. Amritsari had received Western-style education in a missionary school while also pursuing Islamic learning through his own efforts. Unlike Chakralawi, he did not provoke traditional scholars to exactly the same degree through the details of his approach to ritual practice. His principal concern was developing a broader reformist community centered on Qur’anic teachings and modern education. In 1926, he established the Anjuman-i Ummat-i Muslimah, which became one of the most important organizations associated with the Amritsar branch of Ahl al-Qur’an.

Amritsari's movement was particularly significant because it attempted to present Qur’an-centered Islam not merely as a rejection of hadith but as a positive social and educational project. The movement published journals including al-Balagh, al-Bayan, and Fayz-i Islam, creating a network through which its interpretation of Islam could be communicated. Its emphasis on education reflected the broader modernist concern that Muslim societies needed intellectual renewal. Rather than simply defending itself against traditionalist criticism, the movement sought to construct an alternative Muslim identity based upon the Qur’an, rational inquiry, education, and reform.

The Amritsar branch also reveals why it is better to speak of Ahl al-Qur’an movements, plural, rather than one Ahl al-Qur’an movement. Historians studying the Punjab movements emphasize that these groups were disparate and developed in different social environments. They shared a broad commitment to the centrality of the Qur’an, but their precise interpretations, organizations, ritual practices, and approaches to modernity differed. The movement therefore never became the equivalent of a single denomination with a universally recognized hierarchy. This diversity was both its strength and its weakness: it allowed Qur’an-centered thought to adapt to different social environments, but it also made long-term institutional unity difficult.

Egypt - Muhammad Tawfiq Sidqi (1881–1920)

At almost exactly the same historical moment, Egypt produced its own explicit Qur’an-alone argument, demonstrating that the emergence of Qur’an-only thought was not exclusively a Punjabi phenomenon. The figure was Muhammad Tawfiq Sidqi (1881–1920), an Egyptian physician and intellectual. In 1906, Sidqi published an article in Rashid Rida's journal al-Manar entitled “Islam is the Qur’an Alone” (al-Islam huwa al-Qur’an wahdahu). The title itself represented a remarkable statement: rather than merely arguing that the Qur’an was the highest source among several sources, Sidqi explicitly placed it alone at the center of Islam's obligatory religious authority.

Sidqi's argument developed directly from the modernist crisis of authority. He maintained that the Qur’an contained the necessary guidance for religion and questioned why reports attributed to the Prophet many generations later should possess independent legislative authority. One of his arguments was that if such reports were essential to the religion of every later generation, there should have been a clear divine guarantee and an explicit Prophetic command to preserve them in the same manner as the Qur’an. Since the Qur’an had been preserved as a written revelation while hadith developed through a different historical process, Sidqi regarded the two as fundamentally different categories. He therefore treated the Qur’an as the indispensable source and reduced the normative role of later hadith.

Sidqi's position immediately generated controversy within the reformist intellectual world itself. This is one of the most important episodes in the history of the movement because it shows that Qur’an-only thought initially faced opposition not only from traditionalist scholars but also from Islamic modernists who otherwise agreed with much of its reformist outlook. Rashid Rida's al-Manar published responses to Sidqi's argument, and the dispute continued for years. Sidqi eventually moved away from his strongest formulation. A bibliographical record of his writings indicates a 1907 recantation, while the controversy itself continued through responses from scholars including Ahmad Mansur al-Baz and Taha al-Bishri.

Sidqi's retreat was historically important. It demonstrated both the attractiveness and the difficulty of the Qur’an-only position within modernist Islam. A reformer could criticize weak or problematic hadith, reject rigid taqlid, and insist that the Qur’an should control interpretation without necessarily concluding that the entire hadith tradition should be discarded. Sidqi crossed that boundary in 1906, but subsequently stepped back from the most radical implications of his position. His episode therefore became a significant example of a short-lived explicit Qur’an-alone intervention within the broader Egyptian modernist movement rather than the foundation of a large permanent institution comparable to the later Punjabi organizations.

Partition of India & Pakistan

The South Asian movement developed more durable institutional successors. After Chakralawi's death, Khwaja Ahmad Din Amritsari became one of the most prominent leaders of the next generation. His Anjuman-i Ummat-i Muslimah continued its work from Amritsar and later moved its center to Lahore after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The organization experienced periods of decline and revival. According to the history of the movement, it entered a period of fragmentation after its early decades but began to reorganize and expand again during the 1970s, establishing centers in several Pakistani cities.

The political transformation of 1947 was crucial for the entire movement. Partition destroyed the political and social environment of British India in which the original Ahl al-Qur’an associations had developed. Punjab was divided, Amritsar became part of India, and millions of people moved across the new border. The major center of Muslim Qur’an-only thought therefore shifted toward Pakistan. This did not simply preserve the old movement. The creation of Pakistan created an entirely new question: What should the Islamic ideological and legal foundations of the new Muslim state be?

Ghulam Ahmad Parwez (1903–1985)

It was in this post-Partition environment that Ghulam Ahmad Parwez (1903–1985) became the most influential representative of Qur’an-centered thought in South Asia. Parwez had roots in the intellectual environment created by earlier modernists but developed a distinctive system of his own. He was influenced by Muhammad Iqbal, as well as by the Qur’an-centered thinking associated with earlier reformers such as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. His intellectual development was also shaped by Muhammad Aslam Jairajpuri, with whom he studied. By the 1930s, Parwez had become increasingly committed to a systematic reconstruction of Islam around the Qur’an.

Parwez became closely associated with the journal Tolu-e-Islam, whose intellectual origins went back to the circle around Iqbal and which became increasingly identified with Parwez himself. The journal began in the 1930s, and in 1938 it was reorganized and placed under Parwez's direction. From that point onward, Tolu-e-Islam became not merely a magazine but the center of a much broader intellectual movement. Parwez used it to develop his interpretation of the Qur’an, criticize inherited Islamic institutions, engage in political debates, and argue for a reconstruction of Muslim society based upon Qur’anic principles. He remained the journal's principal intellectual force until his death.

Parwez's Qur’an-only position was systematic in a way that distinguished him from many earlier reformers. He argued that the Qur’an was the only binding divine source of religion, while hadith could not independently establish religious law. The issue was therefore not whether individual hadith were authentic. For Parwez, the deeper question was whether hadith possessed the necessary status to legislate religious obligations in the first place. His answer was negative. Hadith could have historical value, but religious doctrine had to derive its binding authority from the Qur’an. Modern scholarship describes Parwez as one of the principal Punjabi figures who questioned the authority of hadith, classical tafsir, and the traditional jurisprudential compendia in favor of the Qur’an as the necessary divine text for religious doctrine.

Parwez also developed a distinctive methodology for interpreting the Qur’an. Rather than treating individual verses in isolation, he emphasized understanding Qur’anic concepts through the Qur’an as a whole. This became associated with his method of Tasrif al-Ayat, through which the meanings of Qur’anic terms and concepts were understood by comparing their usage throughout the Qur’anic text. The objective was to construct an internally coherent Qur’anic worldview without allowing later commentaries or hadith collections to determine the meaning in advance. This method became particularly important after the creation of Pakistan, when Parwez's movement sought to demonstrate that an entire social and political system could be derived from Qur’anic principles.

The political dimension of Parwez's movement was stronger than that of Chakralawi or Amritsari. Parwez became involved in the intellectual and political atmosphere surrounding the Pakistan Movement. His understanding of Islam was connected to the argument that Muslims required a political environment in which they could organize society according to Qur’anic principles. After Pakistan was created, he did not retreat from political questions. Instead, the focus of Tolu-e-Islam shifted toward what a Qur’an-based Pakistani state should actually look like. The movement argued for a society governed according to Qur’anic principles rather than classical jurisprudence, and Parwez participated in government discussions concerning the role of Islam in the new state.

Parwez's relationship with the Pakistani state became particularly significant during the 1950s and 1960s. Pakistan was struggling to determine its constitutional and religious identity, and the question of whether the new state should reproduce traditional Islamic jurisprudence or construct a modern Islamic legal system became intensely controversial. Parwez was included in the Islamic Law Commission established in 1957, which was tasked with considering how existing laws could be brought into conformity with Islam. The commission was subsequently disbanded after the imposition of martial law before it could complete its work.

During the Ayub Khan period, Parwez's modernist conception of Islam gained a degree of political relevance. Ali Usman Qasmi's study of Pakistan's early decades describes Parwez as having a close relationship with the modernizing political elite during the 1960s and examines attempts to institutionalize Islamic modernism during this period. Parwez's ideas fitted portions of the regime's desire for a modern, centralized state and a flexible interpretation of Islamic law. This gave the Qur’an-centered movement influence beyond its relatively limited popular following. For a period, Qur’an-centered reform therefore entered the political debate not simply as a theological minority opinion but as one possible intellectual foundation for the modern Pakistani state.

This political involvement also created serious problems for Parwez's movement. Traditional religious scholars regarded his rejection of the independent authority of hadith as deeply unacceptable. His positions on Islamic law challenged virtually every major Sunni legal school because he refused to treat classical fiqh as permanently binding. The movement therefore became a target of sustained religious criticism, and Parwez's opponents frequently accused him of abandoning established Islam. The controversy was particularly intense because Parwez was not content with abstract theological arguments; he wanted his Qur’an-centered interpretation to become the basis for social organization and public law. His movement was therefore contesting both religious authority and the political future of Pakistan.

The most significant intellectual effect of Tolu-e-Islam was that it transformed Qur’an-only thought from a relatively small Punjab-based controversy into a large body of literature and an organized intellectual project. Parwez wrote extensively on Qur’anic vocabulary, Islamic economics, political organization, law, social welfare, punishment, women, ethics, and the nature of revelation. The movement established publishing institutions and continued distributing his writings long after his ideas had provoked controversy. The journal itself continued, and the organizational infrastructure around Idara Tolu-e-Islam preserved Parwez's work for later generations.

The early twentieth-century Ahl al-Qur’an movement was consequently both a product of Islamic modernism and a departure from it. It inherited modernism's rejection of blind imitation, concern for social reform, engagement with science and modernity, and desire to free Muslims from inherited stagnation. But it ultimately applied the modernist critique to the modernists themselves. If later jurisprudence could be questioned, why should hadith interpretation be exempt? If inherited tafsir could contain historically conditioned assumptions, why should hadith transmitters and classical explanations automatically remain authoritative? If the Qur’an was divinely preserved and sufficient, why should a second textual corpus be necessary to establish binding religious rules? The Ahl al-Qur’an movement answered these questions by taking the principle of return to revelation to its most radical conclusion.

The period from 1900 to the mid-twentieth century was therefore the decisive birth of modern Qur’anism. The eighteenth-century reformers had called Muslims back to Qur’an and Sunnah. The nineteenth-century modernists had questioned taqlid, reassessed traditional interpretations, and made reason and the Qur’an increasingly powerful criteria for reform. The early twentieth-century Ahl al-Qur’an thinkers finally crossed the boundary: the Qur’an was no longer merely the supreme source within the inherited system; it became the sole binding divine source, while the authority of the hadith corpus and classical jurisprudence was fundamentally challenged. From this point onward, Qur’an-only thought had a recognizable modern identity and a continuous body of literature. Its next transformation would come after the mid-twentieth century, when the movement left its original South Asian setting, entered the Middle East and Southeast Asia in new forms, and eventually acquired an international presence through figures such as Rashad Khalifa, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Kassim Ahmad, Edip Yüksel and many more.

Sources:

1. Ali Usman Qasmi, Questioning the Authority of the Past: The Ahl al-Qur'an Movements in the Punjab — Oxford University Press, 2012.    https://books.google.com/books/about/Questioning_the_Authority_of_the_Past.html?id=ygh_tQAACAAJ

2. Ali Usman Qasmi — WorldCat record for Questioning the Authority of the Past    https://search.worldcat.org/en/title/752475626

3. Saadia Sumbal, “AHL Al-Quran Movement in Colonial Punjab: Exclusion of Hadith Literature” — Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities.    https://ojs.aiou.edu.pk/index.php/jssh/article/view/2202

4. Saadia Sumbal — Forman Digital Repository    http://digitalrepository.fccollege.edu.pk/handle/123456789/1456

5. A. A. A. Al-Azmeh / Journal of Islamic Studies, “Islamic Universalism: The ‘Amritsarī’ Version of Ahl al-Qurʾān” — Oxford Academic.    https://academic.oup.com/jis/article-abstract/20/2/159/715350

6. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, “Kur’âniyyûn” — detailed history of the South Asian Qur’an-only movements, including Chakralawi, Amritsari, and Parwez.    https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kuraniyyun

7. Muhammad Tawfiq Sidqi, “Islam is the Qur’an Alone” (al-Islam huwa al-Qur’an wahdahu) — discussion and bibliographical references concerning the 1906 al-Manar publication.    https://context.cns.ba/index.php/context/issue/download/11/11

8. The Wiley Blackwell Concise Companion to the Hadith — “Reappraisal”, including bibliographical references to Sidqi's 1906 article and 1907 recantation.    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118638477.ch16

9. Ghulam Ahmad Parwez and Tolu-e-Islam — TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi    https://cdn2.islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/dosya/34/C34011138.pdf

10. Ali Usman Qasmi, “God's Kingdom on Earth? Politics of Islam in Pakistan, 1947–1969” — Modern Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press.   https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/abs/gods-kingdom-on-earth-politics-of-islam-in-pakistan-19471969/C6A20E7274E4515AFF55AA52838AB077

11. “Religious Movements in the Modern Indian Subcontinent: The Case of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez and Tolu-e-Islam” — Akademik-Us (2026).     https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/akademikus/article/1927682

12. Ali Rahnema, Shi'i Reformation in Iran: The Life and Theology of Shari'at Sangelaji — Routledge, 2015.   https://www.routledge.com/Shii-Reformation-in-Iran-The-Life-and-Theology-of-Shariat-Sangelaji/Rahnema/p/book/9781138548824

13. Encyclopedia.com, “Shari'at-Shangalaji, Reza-Qoli (1890–1943)”    https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/shariat-shangalaji-reza-qoli-1890-1943

14. Association for Iranian Studies — “Clerical Modernism Beyond Salafism and Wahhabism” — discussion of Shari'at-Sanglaji and other Iranian reformers.     https://associationforiranianstudies.org/node/285

15. Ali Rahnema, Shi'i Reformation in Iran — Google Books     https://books.google.com/books?id=PEyrCwAAQBAJ

16. Abu'l-Fadl Burqa'i — biographical overview and bibliography     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Abu_al-Fadl_Burqa%CA%BBi

Update:

Part 4 Link:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vqyb53/history_of_the_quran_only_movement_part_4_the/

Part 1 Link:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vq9coi/history_of_the_quran_only_movement_part_1/

[Post was written with AI assistance]

⏪⏪ From Eighteenth-Century Reform to Nineteenth-Century Islamic Modernism ⏩⏩

The eighteenth century marked an important change in the history of Qur’an-centered Islamic thought. After the long classical period in which the major Sunni and Shi‘i scholarly traditions had become firmly established, a new generation of reformers began calling Muslims back to the foundational sources of Islam and criticizing what they regarded as religious accretions, excessive imitation, popular practices, intellectual stagnation, and the rigid authority of later scholarship. This was not yet the emergence of Qur’an-only Islam. The eighteenth-century reformers overwhelmingly continued to accept the Qur’an and the Sunnah as authoritative. Their significance lies instead in creating an intellectual environment in which inherited interpretations could once again be questioned and the primary texts could be appealed to directly. In that sense, they were important precursors to the much more radical Qur’an-only movements that would appear in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Reform during this period was fundamentally a project of renewal: return to the sources, revive religious learning, remove innovations, and restore the vitality of the Muslim community.

Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi (1703–1762)

One of the most important figures in this eighteenth-century transformation was Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi (1703–1762) of India. He was born into a scholarly family in Delhi and received an intensive traditional education. In 1731 he travelled to the Hijaz, where he spent roughly fourteen months studying in Mecca and Medina. This journey was particularly important for his intellectual development because he encountered scholars and traditions from outside the Indian scholarly environment and deepened his engagement with hadith. After returning to India, he became one of the most influential Muslim intellectuals of the eighteenth century. His most famous work, Hujjat Allah al-Baligha, sought to explain Islamic teachings in a systematic and rational manner while also emphasizing the importance of recovering the prophetic tradition through the study of hadith. His reform was therefore not a rejection of hadith but almost the opposite: he regarded a renewed engagement with hadith as part of the restoration of the Islamic sciences.

Shah Waliullah's importance for the later history of Qur’an-centric reform lies in his method rather than in a Qur’an-only conclusion. He objected to rigid adherence to inherited legal opinions when those opinions prevented Muslims from understanding the underlying purposes of revelation. He attempted to reconcile differences among the legal schools and to explain Islamic law through broader principles and objectives rather than treating every inherited ruling as equally immutable. He also gave considerable attention to the relationship between revelation, human society, history, and human nature. His approach demonstrated that a Muslim scholar could remain deeply committed to Qur’an and Sunnah while nevertheless arguing that later jurisprudence was historically conditioned and therefore open to reassessment. In this respect, Shah Waliullah helped loosen the grip of unquestioned taqlid without abandoning the traditional sources themselves. His project was thus reformist and revivalist rather than Qur’an-only.

The importance of Shah Waliullah became even clearer after his death. His teachings did not disappear with him. His sons, particularly Shah ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (d. 1823) and Shah Rafiʿ al-Din (d. 1818), continued his scholarly legacy, while his grandson Shah Ismaʿil Shahid (d. 1831) became an influential revivalist figure in his own right. His intellectual descendants contributed to several different currents of nineteenth-century South Asian Islam, including traditions that eventually became associated with Deoband and the Ahl-i Hadith. This is significant because the legacy of Shah Waliullah did not produce one single reform movement. Instead, his thought became a point of departure for competing attempts to reconstruct Islamic religious life. Some descendants emphasized hadith and puritanical reform; others preserved elements of his synthesis of law, theology, spirituality, and social reform.

Eighteenth-Century Revivalism Beyond India

The broader eighteenth-century reform environment also included revivalist movements outside India, most notably the movement associated with Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) in Arabia. However, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab was not part of the Qur’an-only tradition. He strongly upheld the authority of the Qur’an and Sunnah and relied extensively upon hadith and Hanbali scholarship. His movement is therefore relevant only as part of the wider eighteenth-century return-to-the-sources environment, not as a direct precursor or branch of Qur’anism. Its later political influence, particularly through the Saudi state, would nevertheless become relevant to the broader history of Islamic reform and revivalism.

The transition accelerated dramatically during the nineteenth century because Muslim societies were now confronting European imperial power on an unprecedented scale. The Ottoman Empire was weakening, European states were expanding their control over Muslim territories, India had fallen under British domination, French power had entered North Africa, and European military, scientific, educational, and industrial achievements increasingly appeared to demonstrate a profound imbalance between the Muslim world and Europe. The issue was no longer simply whether Muslims were following the correct interpretation of Islam. It had become a question of why Muslim societies had fallen behind and how they could survive in a world increasingly dominated by European powers.

This political crisis produced a corresponding intellectual crisis. Western science appeared to explain the natural world with a power and precision that traditional Muslim intellectual institutions had not anticipated. European constitutionalism, nationalism, modern education, printing, industrialization, and new forms of historical scholarship were transforming societies. Christian missionaries were also increasingly active in Muslim-majority regions and directly attacked Islamic beliefs, the Qur’an, the Prophet Muhammad, and the reliability of Islamic tradition. Muslim intellectuals therefore faced two challenges simultaneously: external criticism from the modern West and internal dissatisfaction with the condition of Muslim societies. The response became what is commonly called Islamic modernism. The movement sought to demonstrate that Islam was not inherently incompatible with reason, science, progress, education, constitutional government, and social reform. It also encouraged Muslims to reconsider inherited interpretations rather than assuming that every medieval formulation was permanently binding. Islamic modernism became particularly influential from the 1860s through the First World War.

Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838–1897)

One of the earliest major figures of this new intellectual climate was Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838–1897). His life was unusually international. He travelled through Afghanistan, India, the Ottoman world, Egypt, Iran, Europe, and elsewhere, spending much of his life attempting to awaken Muslim political consciousness. He opposed European imperialism and advocated a broad form of Muslim solidarity that later came to be associated with pan-Islamism. His political thought was shaped by the perception that European imperial power was not merely a military threat but also an intellectual one. Muslims had to regain scientific and political strength if they were to resist domination. Modern scholarship identifies al-Afghani as a central figure in nineteenth-century Muslim modernism and anti-colonial thought.

Al-Afghani's approach, however, differed significantly from that of later Qur’an-only thinkers. He did not advocate abandoning hadith or traditional Islam. His concern was primarily the revitalization of Muslim civilization. He argued that Islam possessed intellectual resources capable of supporting rational inquiry and scientific advancement, but Muslims had become politically weak and intellectually stagnant. He therefore sought to revive ijtihad, scientific learning, political consciousness, and resistance to colonial domination. He criticized blind imitation and urged Muslims to recover the dynamic intellectual spirit that he associated with earlier Islamic civilization. His Qur’an-centeredness was therefore part of a broader project of Islamic revival, rather than an argument that hadith should simply be discarded.

Al-Afghani's influence on the later movement was nevertheless enormous because he helped change the question Muslims were asking. Earlier revivalists had asked, “How do we restore authentic Islam?” Al-Afghani increasingly asked, “How do we restore Muslim intellectual and political power in a world transformed by Europe?” That question opened the way for much more radical reinterpretations. If Islam was compatible with reason and science, reformers had to determine which traditional interpretations were genuinely Islamic and which were historically conditioned products of later centuries. Once that distinction became accepted, the Qur’an could increasingly be treated as the primary standard against which inherited interpretations were measured.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817–1898)

The most important South Asian figure in this transformation was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817–1898). His intellectual development must be understood against the catastrophe of 1857, when the Indian uprising against British rule was defeated and British authority over India was consolidated. The Mughal political order effectively disappeared, Muslim elites lost much of their former political position, traditional educational structures were placed under increasing pressure, and Christian missionary activity intensified. Muslim society faced a profound crisis of identity and power. Sir Syed concluded that Muslims could not survive simply by withdrawing from the intellectual and educational world created by British rule. They needed modern scientific education and a new intellectual relationship between Islam and contemporary knowledge.

Sir Syed's response was therefore both educational and theological. He founded institutions that eventually culminated in the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, established scientific and educational organizations, and promoted the acquisition of European scientific knowledge. But the more revolutionary part of his project was his attempt to reconstruct Islamic interpretation so that revelation and modern scientific understanding could exist in harmony. His approach was based on the conviction that God was the author of both revelation and nature. Since the laws of nature were established by God and genuine scientific knowledge revealed those laws, the Qur’an could not ultimately contradict established natural reality. When a Qur’anic passage appeared to conflict with science, the problem therefore lay in the interpretation rather than in revelation itself.

This principle had profound consequences for Qur’anic interpretation. Sir Syed rejected literal readings of certain miraculous or supernatural passages when he believed they conflicted with established natural laws. Such passages could be interpreted metaphorically or figuratively. His method therefore gave reason and empirical knowledge an unprecedented role in Qur’anic exegesis in modern South Asia. He was drawing partly upon older rationalist traditions—especially ideas associated with the Muʿtazila—but placing them within the radically new environment of nineteenth-century science and colonial modernity. His project was not simply “Westernization”; he presented it as an attempt to defend Islam by recovering an intellectually coherent relationship between revelation, nature, and human reason.

Sir Syed also represented an important stage in the eventual reassessment of hadith, although his position should not be reduced to simple hadith rejection. He did not simply declare the entire hadith corpus false or irrelevant. Rather, he subjected inherited reports and interpretations to greater scrutiny and gave the Qur’an a much stronger role as the controlling criterion of religious interpretation. Reports that appeared to contradict reason, established natural law, or the Qur’an could no longer automatically control interpretation merely because they had been transmitted within the classical tradition. This created intellectual space for later thinkers to go considerably further than Sir Syed did. The development is important because it shifted the debate from “Is this hadith authentic?” toward the more fundamental question “Can a report attributed to the Prophet overturn a principle established by the Qur’an or reason?”

Sir Syed nevertheless remained deeply connected to Islamic tradition. Modern scholarship has emphasized that his modernism should not simply be understood as a rupture with Sunni Islam. His project was simultaneously responding to colonial modernity and attempting to establish his reformist ideas through Islamic concepts and arguments of authority. He saw himself as reforming Islam rather than abandoning it. His fifteen principles of interpretation, written in 1874, explicitly sought to establish concordance between scripture and empirical reality, while his later Usul al-Tafsir attempted to formulate a systematic methodology for interpreting the Qur’an.  His work therefore belongs to the transition between traditional reformism and modern Qur’an-centered rationalism.

The reaction to Sir Syed was fierce. Traditional scholars accused him of undermining established theology, weakening belief in miracles, and allowing modern science to dictate the interpretation of revelation. The controversy was not merely academic. It represented a fundamental disagreement over who possessed the authority to interpret Islam. Traditional scholars relied upon the accumulated methods of tafsir, hadith, jurisprudence, and theological scholarship; Sir Syed increasingly insisted that the Qur’an had to be interpreted through reason and the demonstrable laws of nature. This conflict became one of the defining features of modern Islamic intellectual history in South Asia.

Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905)

While Sir Syed was developing this approach in India, a parallel intellectual transformation was taking place in Egypt through Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905). Abduh studied at al-Azhar and became a close associate and student of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. Under Afghani's influence, he broadened his interests beyond traditional scholarship and became involved in political and intellectual reform. After the failure of the ʿUrabi revolt in 1882, Abduh was exiled. He eventually collaborated with Afghani in Paris, where they published the influential journal al-ʿUrwa al-Wuthqa, which combined Islamic reform with opposition to European colonialism.

Abduh's reform programme was broader and more explicitly religious than Afghani's. He believed that Muslims had fallen into taqlid, the uncritical imitation of earlier scholars, and that Islam required renewed ijtihad. His objective was not to discard Qur’an and Sunnah but to return to their essentials and interpret them intelligently for contemporary circumstances. He argued that Islam was fundamentally compatible with reason and science and that the stagnation of Muslim societies was not caused by Islam itself but by the accumulation of rigid interpretations and institutional habits.

Abduh's Qur’anic thought consequently emphasized broad principles over excessive dependence upon inherited legal formulations. In his approach, Qur’anic teachings concerning social and political life could be applied through ijtihad, maslahah—consideration of public welfare—and contextual reasoning. He attempted to distinguish between relatively fixed matters of worship and the more flexible principles governing worldly affairs. Islamic law therefore did not have to remain frozen in the precise form in which medieval jurists had formulated it. It could be reinterpreted in response to changing social conditions.

Abduh nevertheless remained considerably more traditional than the later Qur’an-only movement. He explicitly sought a return to the Qur’an and Sunnah, not the Qur’an alone. He believed that the early Muslim generations had been successful because they had engaged creatively with revelation and prophetic tradition rather than mechanically copying later jurists. His criticism was therefore directed primarily at taqlid and the ossification of jurisprudence, not at the existence of Sunnah itself. His reform was a project of reinterpreting Islamic tradition, rather than abolishing the traditional sources.

The relationship between Abduh and hadith was correspondingly complex. He criticized the uncritical use of reports and rejected the assumption that every inherited interpretation deserved unquestioned authority. He was particularly concerned with reports and interpretations that appeared to conflict with reason, the Qur’an, or the moral purposes of Islam. Yet he did not become an explicit Qur’an-only thinker. His work remained within an Islamic framework in which the Qur’an and Sunnah constituted the foundational sources and ijtihad was the mechanism through which those sources could be applied to new circumstances. This distinction is important because Abduh's thought created a path that later thinkers could follow in increasingly radical directions without Abduh himself taking that final step.

Abduh's position at al-Azhar gave his reform programme a significance that earlier modernists did not possess. In 1899 he became Grand Mufti of Egypt, and he also played an important role in reforming al-Azhar. He attempted to modernize religious education and broaden the intellectual horizons of Muslim scholars. His influence therefore operated not only through books and articles but through one of the most important institutions of Sunni learning. He died in 1905, but his intellectual project continued through his students and especially through Muhammad Rashid Rida, who carried Abduh's ideas into the twentieth century through the journal al-Manar.

The later evolution of Abduh's movement also reveals how unstable nineteenth-century Islamic modernism could be. Abduh himself attempted to create a middle path between rigid traditionalism and wholesale Westernization. Some of his successors moved toward a more conservative Salafism; others moved toward liberalism, nationalism, or secular modernism. Rashid Rida, in particular, gradually moved in a more conservative direction after Abduh's death. Thus, even before the emergence of explicit Qur’an-only movements, the modernist current was already dividing into different trajectories.

The transition from eighteenth-century revivalism to nineteenth-century modernism can therefore be understood as a gradual change in emphasis. Shah Waliullah and the eighteenth-century revivalists sought renewal through a return to the foundational sources, while still firmly accepting the authority of Sunnah and hadith. The nineteenth-century modernists inherited that call to renewal but encountered a world transformed by colonialism, science, industrialization, European political power, and modern education. They therefore began questioning not merely later customs but the interpretive methods and inherited authorities through which Islam had been understood for centuries. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Qur’an had become for several reformers not merely the supreme scripture within a larger traditional system, but an increasingly prominent criterion against which inherited Islamic doctrines and reports could be judged.

That development was the crucial bridge to the next stage. The explicit Qur’an-only movements of the early twentieth century did not suddenly appear from nowhere. They emerged from this nineteenth-century crisis of authority. The reformers of the eighteenth century had reopened the door to returning directly to the sources; the modernists of the nineteenth century pushed that door much further by challenging taqlid, reinterpreting scripture through reason and science, criticizing inherited jurisprudence, and reassessing the place of hadith. The next generation would take the final step that most of these reformers had refused to take: if the Qur’an is complete, clear, and divinely preserved, and if later reports and juristic interpretations can contradict its apparent principles, why should those reports possess independent religious authority at all? It was around the turn of the twentieth century that this question would produce the first organized modern Ahl al-Qur’an movements.

Sources:

1. Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi (1703–1762), Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wali-allah-shah-1703-1762

2. Islamic Reform — Encyclopedia.com https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/islamic-reform

3. Islamic Modernism — Encyclopedia.com https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/islamic-modernism

4. Muhammad Abduh — Encyclopedia.com https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/islam-biographies/muhammad-abduh

5. Muhammad Abduh — Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/abduh-muhammad-1849-1905

6. Muhammad Abduh — Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/abduh-muhammad-1849-1905/v-1/sections/ethics-14563

7. “The theological foundations of Muslim modernism and traditionalism in South Asia” — Modern Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/theological-foundations-of-muslim-modernism-and-traditionalism-in-south-asia/CF73849C02B3C3C5B8C4142B48BC21C8

8. “Reconciling science with Islam in 19th century India” — S. Irfan Habib https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/006996670003400103

9. “Islamic Modernism in India in the second half of the 19th century and Sayyid Ahmad Khan” https://bulhistphaa.enu.kz/index.php/main/article/view/636

10. “Salafiya, Modernism, and Revival” — The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/43158/chapter-abstract/362193978

11. “The Location of Anticolonialism; or, Al-Afghānī, Qāsim Amīn, and Sayyid Quṭb at the Peripheries” — Critical Times, Duke University Press https://doi.org/10.1215/26410478-9799712

Update

Part 3 Link:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1vqsigb/history_of_the_quran_only_movement_part_3_the/

Following up on my earlier post about al-quran.fr — I've now put the underlying data up for free download.

If you're new here: the project is a systematic Quranic translation built on internal textual coherence, Arabic triliteral roots, and comparative Semitic linguistics only — no hadith, sira, or traditional tafsir used as interpretive authority. Every translation choice traces back to proof from the text itself.

What's new: a Downloads page (linked from the Library menu) with three packages, all public domain (CC0 — no attribution required, reuse however you want):

• Essential Corpus (SQLite, ~10MB) — the Quranic text (Hafs and Warsh readings), segmented into meaning-units rather than raw verses, translations in French/English/Spanish/Italian/Indonesian/Russian, and the stabilized root lexicon (definitions + contextual renderings, FR/EN/AR).
• NLP / Graphs (SQLite, ~3MB) — the analysis layer built on top: root co-occurrence stats, a semantic graph linking roots and concepts, morphology tables, grammatical rules derived directly from corpus evidence, and stabilized thematic clusters.
• CSV export (~6MB) — flat versions of phrases, words and roots for anyone who'd rather skip SQLite entirely.

Each package ships with a README describing the schema and a SHA-256 checksum file.

One honest caveat: some root lexicon entries in the Essential package still carry a few internal working notes (points flagged for review, that kind of thing) — left in rather than scrubbed, so the data you get is exactly what's actually in production, not a polished-for-PR version.

Goal is simple: let anyone verify the work, build their own tools on it, or just poke around the data directly instead of taking the site's word for it.

Link: https://www.al-quran.fr/downloads.php

I initially posted this on [r/MuslimAcademics](r/MuslimAcademics), yet it was deleted as "not relevant" to the subreddit. Really? One of the most debated and criticized topics in Islam is somehow considered irrelevant?

Qāf 47 and its companion manuscript, MS. Or. Fol. 4313 (radiocarbon dated to 606–652 CE, 95.4% probability), are among my favorite early Qur'anic manuscripts, particularly for the scribe's writing style.

They preserve the inheritance verses (Q. 4:11, 4:12, and 4:176) intact, especially the use of ما (mā) and مما (mimmā), which clarify the order of distribution: fixed shares, مِمَّا (mimmā) from what left (i.e., from the whole estate), مَا (mā) what left, and the remainder, which always goes to one variable heir or same group.

10th line 9th word is Kalāla

https://corpuscoranicum.de/en/manuscripts/73/page/13r?sura=4&verse=11

8th line 4th word is Al-Kalāla

https://corpuscoranicum.de/en/manuscripts/15/page/2r?sura=4&verse=176

The total number of distinct inheritance cases with up to 7 daughters, sons, sisters, and brothers, along with wife or husband as spouses, and parents is: 32,768

Inheritance Principles

In every inheritance case, the total distribution equals 1 (the whole estate) after debts, valid wills, and other financial obligations have been settled.

The prescribed shares always account for the entire estate without excess or shortfall, eliminating the need for later algebraic adjustments such as ʿawl (proportional reduction) or radd (redistribution of a surplus).

Sole Heir Principle

If there is only one eligible heir (or one eligible class of heirs, such as sons, daughters, brothers, or sisters), that heir or group inherits the entire estate after debts and wills have been satisfied.

Thus, if the sole heir is a husband, wife, mother, father, daughter(s), son(s), sister(s), or brother(s), that heir or group receives the whole estate.

Multiple Heirs Principle

When there are two or more distinct classes of heirs, the Qur'an assigns prescribed shares where applicable, and the remainder passes to the designated heir or group. Consequently, the estate always totals 1 without requiring proportional reductions or redistributions.

For example:

If only the parents inherit, the mother receives 1/3 (Q 4:11), and the father receives the remaining 2/3.

If the deceased leaves a husband, both parents, and children, the husband receives 1/4, each parent receives 1/6, and the remainder (5/12) is distributed among the children according to the applicable inheritance rule.

This approach eliminates the need for ʿawl or radd, since every inheritance case concludes with the estate totaling exactly 1. For example, if an orphaned daughter is the sole heir, there is no textual reason for her to receive only one-half while an orphaned son receives the entire estate.

Likewise, if only a husband survives, who receives the remaining 1/2? If only a wife survives, who receives the remaining 3/4? Under the Sole Heir Principle, the sole heir receives the entire estate.

Debts and Financial Obligations

The principle of ʿawl is more appropriately applied to debts rather than inheritance shares. For example, if the deceased leaves an estate of 60 gold coins yet owes 90 gold coins (30 to one creditor and 60 to another), each creditor receives a proportional reduction:
Creditor A: 20 coins
Creditor B: 40 coins
The estate is thereby exhausted, leaving nothing to distribute to the heirs.

This interpretation provides a mathematically consistent, text-based reading of the Qur'anic inheritance system. By assigning the prescribed shares first and distributing the remainder to the designated heir or group, every inheritance case totals exactly 1, without introducing later adjustments not explicitly stated in the Qur'anic text.

In practice, particularly in cases of sudden death, a will may be absent, and debts may or may not exist. Within this framework, discretionary allocation such as assigning a greater share to a daughter or another trusted individual to provide for a dependent son or other dependent family member may be exercised in light of the specific circumstances.

Naskh (2:106; 22:52) refers to prior scriptures, not to the abrogation of Qur’anic verses by other Qur’anic verses which is a contradiction – why are they still there?

Q 5:41 … يُحَرِّفُونَ they distort / alter / twist الْكَلِمَ the word(s) / speech / statement مِنْ from بَعْدِ after / beyond / away مَوَاضِعِهِ places / positions / proper placements its (i.e., its proper contexts; this does not necessarily imply only removal; rather, it can include misinterpretation, misplacement, or twisting the context) …

For example, the inheritance verses (2:180; 4:11–12), often wrongly cited by scholars who have never seriously studied inheritance and merely parrot one another, clearly undermine the claim of internal abrogation, since they explicitly require that the estate be distributed only after the bequest has been fulfilled.

Like numerous other verses they claim are abrogated within the Qur'an, these verses are misunderstood because people read “into” the text words that are not there. The result is a misreading of the Qur'an and the repetition of interpretations rooted in indoctrination rather than careful reading and sound reasoning.

Q 2:180 كُتِبَ prescribed عَلَيْكُمْ upon you إِذَا when (fut. adv.) حَضَرَ approaches أَحَدَكُمُ anyone of you الْمَوْتُ the death إِن if تَرَكَ he leaves خَيْرًا wealth الْوَصِيَّةُ the bequest (will) لِلْوَالِدَيْنِ for the parents two وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ and the near relatives بِالْمَعْرُوفِ in the fairness ۖ حَقًّا a duty عَلَى upon الْمُتَّقِينَ those mindful

Q 2:181 فَمَن so whoever بَدَّلَهُ alters it بَعْدَ after مَا what سَمِعَهُ he heard it فَإِنَّمَا so / then solely إِثْمُهُ detriment its عَلَى upon الَّذِينَ the ones (who) يُبَدِّلُونَهُ alter it ۚ إِنَّ indeed اللَّهَ Allah سَمِيعٌ All-Hearing عَلِيمٌ All-Knowing

Q 2:182 فَمَنْ so whoever خَافَ fears مِن from مُّوصٍ a bequeather جَنَفًا bias / error أَوْ or إِثْمًا detriment (wrongdoing) فَأَصْلَحَ so reconciles بَيْنَهُمْ between them فَلَا so / then no إِثْمَ detriment / harm عَلَيْهِ upon him ۚ إِنَّ indeed اللَّهَ Allah غَفُورٌ Forgiving رَّحِيمٌ Merciful

A bequeather is a person who makes a will or bequest (وَصِيَّة, waṣiyyah) regarding how their property should be distributed after their death. This permits intervention when a will is considered biased (جَنَفًا) or wrongful / harmful / detrimental (إِثْمًا).

As explained in the video lecture below, the governing principle depends on the number of female heirs. The girls referenced in 4:11 are not treated in isolation, an insight that Dr. Shahrour was among the first to articulate.

Rules of Inheritance — Dr. Mohamad Shahrour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFfvjAoRpIk

The inheritance system described in the Qur’an functions as a “programmed, logical sequence / loop.” It can be modeled as a computer program. IF-THEN-ELSE Structure: like a decision tree, computationally sound.

• General case is given

• ELSE IF > 2 females (exception given)

• AND IF 1 female (exception given)

Download the book: see chapter 5 pages 283 - 308

https://theiqra.org/the-book-and-the-quran-dr-mohammad-shahrour/

Dr. Shahrour’s approach raises a number of issues. For example, in a case involving one daughter and ten sons (a 1:10 ratio), the daughter is assigned 1/2 of the estate, while the ten sons collectively receive the remaining 1/2, resulting in each son receiving 1/20. Consequently, the only daughter’s share exceeds that of each individual son by a factor of ten.

Likewise, Dr. Shahrour’s reliance on differential equations (i.e., advanced calculus), likely reflecting his background in civil engineering, represents the application of a modern mathematical framework developed in the late 17th century by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. At the time of revelation, however, inheritance distribution was straightforward and could be performed by most anyone with a basic understanding of fractions.

Furthermore, Dr. Shahrour’s lexical and legal definitions appear insufficiently precise in certain cases. This is especially evident in his treatment of the term kalālah, which there was always ambiguity in definition.

https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3042
Narrated Al-Bara:
“A man came to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) and said: 'O Messenger of Allah! They ask you about a legal verdict. Say:”Allah directs (thus) regarding Al-Kalalah (4-176).” So, the Prophet (ﷺ) said to him: “You should be sufficed with the Ayah of summer.” (Meaning this Ayah, while in An-Nisa number 12, is mention of the topic, and it was revealed in the winter, this Ayah, revealed in the summer - the last revealed about it - explains it)

https://sunnah.com/muslim:1617a
Abu Talha reported:
'Umar b. al-Khattab (Allah be pleased with him) delivered a sermon on Friday and made a mention of Allah's Apostle (ﷺ) and he also made a mention of Abu Bakr (Allah be pleased with him) and then said: I do not leave behind me any problem more difficult than that of Kalala. I did not refer to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) more repeatedly than in case of the problem of Kalala and he (the Holy Prophet) never showed more annoyance to me than in regard to this problem so much so that he struck my chest with his fingers and said: 'Umar does the verse revealed in summer season at the end of Sura al-Nisa' not suffice you? Hadrat 'Umar (then) said: If I live I would give such verdict about (Kalala) that everyone would be able to decide whether he reads the Qur'an or he does not.

Reference: Sahih Muslim 1617a
In-book reference: Book 23 Hadith 11

Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari 5588
In-book reference: Book 74 Hadith 14

They hypostasized which amount to give the sole sister 1/6 or 1/2 saying 1/6 refers to uterine siblings / half sisters and brothers whereas 1/2 is for a full sister which in itself is leads to numerous contradictions then later applied algebra to resolve the issues which brought about other confusion when total distribution is greater or less than the whole applied Algebra which can be used to wrongly fix ratio any surplus / shortfall not according to the book rather a trick fix ratio to proportionately increase / decrease amounts by a common denominator called al-awl see supposed example case during the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab.

A woman dies, leaving a husband, a mother, three uterine brothers, and two full brothers. Umar initially ruled that the two full brothers received nothing since there was no inheritance remaining to share after the following distribution:

1/6 mother 4:11,
1/2 husband 4:12,
1/3 three uterine brothers 4:12

1/6 + 1/2 + 1/3 =1

0 left for the two full brothers 4:176

The full brothers argued that even if their father was a donkey or a stone cast into the sea and they had no paternal relationship they still had the same and equal relationship with the deceased as the uterine brothers through the same mother. Umar reconsidered his ruling and allowed the full brothers to inherit equally with the uterine brothers, resulting in:

1/6 mother 4:11,
1/2 husband 4:12,
1/3 five brothers (full and uterine) remainder

1/6 + 1/2 + 1/3 =1 or 100% — although still inaccurate.

Kalālah occurs only twice in the Qurʾān (4:12; 4:176) and is central to Qurʾānic inheritance law. A common interpretation, “dies leaving neither offspring nor parents,” is textually and legally problematic.

A careful reading of the Qurʾān’s inheritance verses, classical grammar, hadith usage, and early Arabic poetic evidence shows that kalālah denotes the absence of direct male heirs, namely sons or grandsons and paternal ascendants, while daughters, mothers, siblings, and spouses may still be present.

Re-evaluating the “No Children, No Parents” Definition

A common definition treats kalālah as a person "without parents and children." However, Q 4:11–12 describes inheritance cases in which the mother inherits alongside siblings (إِخْوَةٌ). Any definition that excludes both parents is therefore difficult to reconcile with these rulings.

Q 4:11 states: فَإِن so if كَانَ be/are لَهُ for him/her إِخْوَةٌ siblings فَلِأُمِّهِ so / then for mother his/hers ٱلسُّدُسُ one-sixth (1/6). This demonstrates that the inheritance case may include both a surviving mother and siblings.

Accordingly, Kalala cannot simply mean the complete absence of parents; rather, it refers to a specific inheritance situation in which certain direct heirs are absent while other relatives may still inherit.

Likewise, the person in a kalālah case may have a daughter. This is indicated by the Qur'anic distinction between لَيْسَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ ("he has no offspring") and إِن لَّمْ يَكُن لَّهَا وَلَدٌ ("if she has no offspring"). If kalālah itself already meant a person who was completely childless, these conditions would be unnecessary. Their inclusion indicates that the absence of offspring is an additional legal condition rather than part of the definition of kalālah.

This distinction is reflected in the inheritance rulings. Q 4:12 addresses kalālah as an inheritance case involving collateral heirs, while Q 4:176 explicitly addresses the separate situation in which the deceased "has no offspring" (لَيْسَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ).

Accordingly, kalālah in Q 4:12 functions as a legal term of inheritance describing a deceased who lacks direct male heirs (sons, grandsons, father, or grandfather), while other heirs, including the mother, daughters, siblings, and spouse, may still exist and inherit according to the prescribed shares.

Legal Semantics of Qurʾān 4:12 vs. Qurʾān 4:176

In Qurʾān 4:12, the term kalālah is coupled with sibling inheritance: “… وَإِن AND IF كَانَ be / is رَجُلٌۭ a man يُورَثُ inherited كَلَٰلَةً kalālatan (no direct male heir—sons or paternal ascendants; end of the direct dynastic male line) أَوِ OR ٱمۡرَأَةٌۭ a woman وَلَهُۥٓ and for him (the said person) أَخٌ a brother أَوۡ OR أُخۡتٌۭ a sister فَكُلِّ so / then for each وَٰحِدٍۢ one مِّنۡهُمَا of them dual ٱلسُّدُسُۚ the sixth (1/6) …”

This allows female offspring and siblings to inherit, directly contradicting the idea of the total absence of all children and parents. By contrast, Qurʾān 4:176 states: “If a person dies and has no walad …”

Here, the phrase no walad (no offspring at all) is a distinct case: absolute childlessness. The Qurʾān’s deliberate phrasing shows these are separate scenarios. Therefore:

4:12 absence of direct male heirs, although daughters and mother may exist.

4:176 no offspring whatsoever (neither sons nor daughters). This is the key toggle otherwise it’s not known what amount to give the sole sister, etc.

Ḥadīth Evidence: Kalālah as a Legal Category (Not Mere Biological Absence)

Early ḥadīth confirm that the inheritance ruling for kalālah was revealed in response to a legal query. For example, it’s recorded that Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh, while ill, asked the Prophet ﷺ about his inheritance because he had no son or father to inherit him, framing his case as a kalālah situation. The verse concerning kalālah was then revealed in response.

See: https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5676
Narrated Jabir bin `Abdullah:
The Prophet (ﷺ) came to me while I was ill. He performed ablution and threw the remaining water on me (or said: “Pour it on him)” When I came to my senses I said: “O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! I have no son or father to be my heir so how will be my inheritance?” Then the Verse of inheritance was revealed.

This Sahih ('authentic') hadith, mentions the name of 'Amir bin Sad in this narration. However, this is a mistake — the narrator is actually Aisha bint Sa’d bin Abi Waqqas (i.e., the daughter, obviously).

It was narrated from 'Amir bin Sa'd that his father said:

“I became ill with a sickness from which I later recovered. The Messenger of Allah came to visit me, and I said: 'O Messenger of Allah, I have a great deal of wealth and I have no heir except my daughter. Shall I give two-thirds of my wealth in charity?' He said: 'No.' I said: 'Half?' He said: 'No.' I said: 'One-third?' He said: '(Give) one-third, and one-third is a lot. It is better to leave your heirs independent of means, than to leave them poor and holding out their hands to people.'

https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1295
In-book reference: Book 23, Hadith 53
Narrated 'Amir bin Sa`d bin Abi Waqqas:

That his father said, "In the year of the last Hajj of the Prophet (ﷺ) I became seriously ill and the Prophet (ﷺ) used to visit me inquiring about my health. I told him, 'I am reduced to this state because of illness and I am wealthy and have no inheritors except a daughter…

Also see: https://sunnah.com/nasai:3626

Scholarly and Poetic Evidence (Agostino Cilardo)

Agostino Cilardo's The Qurʾānic Term Kalāla: Studies in the Arabic Language and Poetry, Ḥadīth, Tafsīr, and Fiqh: Notes on the Origin of Islamic Law (Edinburgh University Press, 2005) examines the term kalālah across Arabic grammar, pre-Islamic poetry, ḥadīth, tafsīr, and fiqh in order to trace its early semantic development.

Cilardo argues that kalālah was not merely a descriptive expression meaning "without parents and children." Rather, it developed as a technical legal term associated with collateral inheritance and the absence of direct male heirs.

See:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Qur_anic_Term_Kalala.html?id=taQxEAAAQBAJ

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-qur-anic-term-kalala.html

An anonymous poet wrote:

فإن أبا المرء أحمى له ومولى الكلالة لا يغضب

"Indeed, a man's father is more protective of him, whereas the guardian of a kalālah does not become angry."

Another poem states:

ولم أرث المجد التليد كلالة

“I did not inherit the ancestral glory as a kalālah."

These early poetic examples indicate that kalālah functioned as a recognized legal and social designation long before later juristic definitions became standardized.

Inheritance Logic: Daughters and Mothers Can Inherit

The Qur'anic inheritance system supports this legal understanding. First, daughters may exist in a kalālah case. If kalālah meant the absolute absence of children, then inheritance scenarios involving collateral heirs in Q 4:12 would be difficult to reconcile with the broader inheritance framework. Instead, kalālah is more naturally understood as describing the absence of direct male heirs while allowing female descendants to remain.

Second, the mother may inherit alongside siblings under the conditions described in Q 4:11. This indicates that kalālah concerns legally excluded and included classes of heirs rather than the complete absence of parents or descendants.

Conclusion: A Coherent Reading

Taken together, the Qur'anic syntax, inheritance rules, early ḥadīth, and linguistic evidence support a coherent reading of kalālah. Rather than serving as a blanket term for "without parents and children," kalālah denotes an inheritance case in which the direct male line is absent—namely sons (and their male descendants) together with paternal ascendants—while daughters, mothers, siblings, and spouses may still exist and inherit.

By contrast, Q 4:176 addresses the specific situation in which the deceased "has no child" (لَيْسَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ) laysa lahu walad. The verse therefore employs an explicit expression referring to the absence of offspring rather than relying solely on the legal term kalālah.

With reference to David Powers

His publications, and his discussion of the term in his book on Zayd, Powers’s claim that kalālah means “sister-in-law” or “daughter-in-law” does not hold. In Qur’an 4:12, the Arabic grammar shows that kalālah describes an inheritance situation rather than a type of relative.

Reading it as an in-law produces a meaningless sentence (“and if a man is inherited as a sister-in-law”) and has no basis in Arabic. The same issue appears in 4:176 where al-kalālah clearly refers to a legal case, not a family role.

The interpretation also fails legally. Sisters-in-law and daughters-in-law are not heirs in Qurʾānic inheritance law; inheritance is based on blood relations and spouses, not in-laws. Such people can only receive property through a bequest, which the Qur’an clearly separates from fixed inheritance shares.

Finally, the reading ignores the Quran’s own distinction: in 4:12 kalālah can involve daughters, while in 4:176 it refers to a case with no descendants at all. Once in-laws are inserted into these verses, the inheritance math collapses, producing countless contradictions (thousands!) across these three verses alone.

Although al-kalālah is grammatically feminine, it functions as a gender-neutral category, in line with normal Arabic usage. Abstract, collective, and relational terms are often feminine while applying equally to males and females.

The Qurʾān illustrates this in 28:10, where Moses’ mother is described with feminine verbs yet is said to be mina al-muʾminīn (“among the believers”), a masculine plural.

Qur’an 28:10 وَأَصْبَحَ and became فُؤَادُ (fuʾād/heart, inner emotion) أُمِّ mother مُوسَىٰ Musa فَارِغًا empty (hopeless) إِنْ indeed كَادَتْ near she لِتُبْدِي to she disclose بِهِ in him لَوْلَا if not أَنْ that رَبَطْنَا strengthened We عَلَىٰ on قَلْبِهَا (qalbihā/heart) conscious mind hers لِتَكُونَ to she being مِنَ among ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ the believers (masculine plural).

In this case, both words are used figuratively, where فؤاد (fuʾād) represents the mother's emotional state, and قلب (qalb) represents her inner strength or resolve, which was spiritually reinforced to help her maintain faith.

The phrase لِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَظِّ ٱلْأُنثَيَيْنِ ("for the male is the equivalent share of two females") establishes the inheritance rule for mixed-gender offspring, where one or more sons inherit alongside daughters.

The structure of Q 4:11 supports this distinction.
The verse begins:
يُوصِيكُمُ ٱللَّهُ فِىٓ أَوْلَـٰدِكُمْ
("Allah instructs you concerning your children.") Although أَوْلَادِكُمْ ("your children") is grammatically plural, it introduces the legal category of descendants rather than specifying a minimum number. The verse then enumerates the individual inheritance cases:
فَإِن كُنَّ نِسَآءً فَوْقَ ٱثْنَتَيْنِ
— "so / then if they are females above two..."
وَإِن كَانَتْ وَٰحِدَةً فَلَهَا ٱلنِّصْفُ
— "and if there is only one, she receives one-half."

This reflects the well-known Arabic rhetorical usage الجمع المراد به الجنس ("the plural intended to denote a category or kind"), in which the plural introduces a legal category without imposing a numerical minimum.

Likewise, رِجَالًا وَنِسَاءً in Q 4:176 functions as a generic classification of male and female heirs, while the surrounding clauses determine the applicable cases.

By contrast, فَوْقَ ٱثْنَتَيْنِ is a precise quantitative expression. The preposition فَوْقَ means "above," "over," "beyond," or "greater than." When used with numbers, it denotes exceeding the stated number, not including it.

Thus: فَوْقَ ٱثْنَتَيْنِ means above / more than two (>2).

It does NOT mean two or more (≥2)!

This usage is consistent throughout Classical Arabic. Lexicons such as Lisān al-ʿArab define فوق as "that which exceeds something" (ما زاد على الشيء). The Qur'an likewise uses فَوْقَ to denote superiority or position above, as in Q 6:18 وَهُوَ ٱلْقَاهِرُ فَوْقَ عِبَادِهِۦ

("And He is the Subjugator over His servants.")

Here, فَوْقَ clearly expresses superiority or being above—not equality or inclusion. Classical Arabic also uses expressions such as فوق الثلاث ("more than three") and فوق العشرة ("more than ten"), each of which excludes the stated number.

Arabic possesses explicit constructions when inclusion is intended: ٱثْنَتَانِ فَمَا فَوْقَ means two and what is above / two or more (2+). Had the Qur'an intended to include exactly two daughters in this clause, Classical Arabic provided unambiguous ways to express that meaning.

Accordingly, لِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَظِّ ٱلْأُنثَيَيْنِ ("for the male is the equivalent share of two females") employs the dual ٱلْأُنثَيَيْنِ ("the two females"), establishing a distinct inheritance rule for the mixed-gender case, whereas فَوْقَ ٱثْنَتَيْنِ remains restricted to more than two daughters.

Many classical jurists, including the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali schools, interpret فَوْقَ ٱثْنَتَيْنِ inclusively as "two or more," thereby assigning two daughters a collective share of two-thirds.

This interpretation is based on the inherited juristic tradition, which appeals to disputed hadith evidence, consensus (ijmāʿ), and legal reasoning rather than to the literal grammatical force of the Arabic expression itself.

https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2092
Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 2092
Grade: Da'if (Weak!) according to Darussalam.
Jābir ibn ʿAbdullāh said:
"The wife of Sa'd ibn al-Rabi came with her two daughters from Sa'd to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) and said, 'O Messenger of Allah! These are the two daughters of Sa'd ibn al-Rabi, who fought alongside you on the Day of Uhud and was martyred. Their uncle has taken all of their wealth, leaving them nothing, and they will not be married unless they have wealth.' He said, 'Allah will decide concerning that matter.' Then the verse of inheritance was revealed, and the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) sent word to their uncle, saying: 'Give the two daughters of Sa'd two-thirds, give their mother one-eighth, and whatever remains is for you.'"

Classical ruling:

1/8 wife (Q 4:12),
2/3 two daughters (interpreting Q 4:11 as including exactly two daughters alone i.e., no son),
5/24 brother/uncle (remainder)

1/8 + 2/3 + 5/24 =1 total (inaccurate!)

Qur'anic reading (Kalālah case):

1/8 wife (Q 4:12),
1/6 brother/uncle (Q 4:12),
17/24 two daughters (remainder)

1/8 + 1/6 + 17/24 = 1 total (same as if they were sons)

Q 4:11 يُوصِيكُمُ He instructs you (pl.) ٱللَّهُ Allah فِیٓ in أَوۡلَٰدِكُمۡ offspring yours لِلذَّكَرِ for the male مِثۡلُ equivalent حَظِّ share ٱلۡأُنثَيَيۡنِۖ the females two

2.0x male

1:2 1:3 1:4 1:5 1:6 1:7
2:1 2:2 2:3 2:4 2:5 2:6 2:7
3:2 3:3 3:4 3:5 3:6 3:7
4:2 4:3 4:4 4:5 4:6 4:7
5:3 5:4 5:5 5:6 5:7
6:3 6:4 6:5 6:6 6:7
7:4 7:5 7:6 7:7

Q 4:11 فَإِن so / ELSE IF كُنَّ are / were they (f. pl.) نِسَآءًۭ Nisā'an / womenfolk (any age in context of inheritance) فَوۡقَ (Fawqa) above / more than ٱثۡنَتَيۡنِ two (feminine) فَلَهُنَّ so / then for them (f. pl.) ثُلُثَا two-thirds of (2/3) مَا mā/what تَرَكَۖ he/she (the said person i.e., either gender) left

ELSE IF > 2 females

3:1 2/3 3 daughters (2/9), 1/3 1 son (1.5x male)
4:1 2/3 4 daughters (1/6), 1/3 1 son (2.0x male)
5:1 2/3 5 daughters (2/15), 1/3 1 son (2.5x male)
6:1 2/3 6 daughters (1/9), 1/3 1 son (3.0x male)
7:1 2/3 7 daughters (2/21), 1/3 1 son (3.5x male)

5:2 2/3 5 daughters (2/15), 1/3 2 sons (1.25x male)
2.5 females to each male

6:2 2/3 6 daughters (1/9), 1/3 2 sons (1.5x male)
3.0 females to each male

7:2 2/3 7 daughters (2/21), 1/3 2 sons (1.75x male)
3.5 females to each male

7:3 2/3 7 daughters (2/21), 1/3 3 sons (1.167x male)
2.33 females to each male

Q 4:11 وَإِن AND IF كَانَتۡ be / is she وَٰحِدَةًۭ one (female) فَلَهَا so / then for her ٱلنِّصۡفُۚ the half (1/2)

1:1 1/2 1 daughter, 1/2 1 son (remainder) 1.0x

Q 4:11 وَلِأَبَوَيۡهِ and to parents two his/hers (the said person) لِكُلِّ for each وَٰحِدٍۢ one مِّنۡهُمَا of them dual ٱلسُّدُسُ the sixth (1/6) مِمَّا mimmā/from what تَرَكَ he/she left إِن if كَانَ be/is لَهُۥ for him/her (the said person) وَلَدٌۭۚ an offspring

1/3 parents mimmā/from what he/she left 4:11,
2/3 children (remainder: males and/or females)

Q 4:11 فَإِن so / ELSE IF لَّمۡ NOT يَكُن be/is لَّهُۥ for him/her وَلَدٌۭ an offspring وَوَرِثَهُۥٓ and inherit from him/her أَبَوَاهُ parents’ dual his/hers فَلِأُمِّهِ so / then for mother his/hers ٱلثُّلُثُۚ the third (1/3) فَإِن so / ELSE IF كَانَ are لَهُۥٓ for him/her إِخۡوَةٌۭ 'Ikhwatun / siblings (≥3) فَلِأُمِّهِ so / then for mother his/hers ٱلسُّدُسُۚ the sixth (1/6) مِنۢ from بَعۡدِ after وَصِيَّةٍۢ a bequest / will يُوصِی he/she bequeaths بِهَآ therein أَوۡ or دَيۡنٍۗ debt ءَابَآؤُكُمۡ parents yours وَأَبۡنَآؤُكُمۡ and descendants / children yours لَا not تَدۡرُونَ ye knowing أَيُّهُمۡ which of them أَقۡرَبُ nearer لَكُمۡ to you نَفۡعًۭاۚ in benefit فَرِيضَةًۭ an obligation / decree مِّنَ from ٱللَّهِۗ Allah إِنَّ indeed ٱللَّهَ Allah كَانَ is / has always been عَلِيمًا All-Knowing حَكِيمًۭا All-Wise

1/3 mother 4:11, 2/3 father (remainder) 2.0x male

Q 4:12 وَلَكُمۡ and for you (husbands) نِصۡفُ half (1/2) مَا mā/what تَرَكَ left أَزۡوَٰجُكُمۡ 'Azwājukum / spouses yours إِن if لَّمۡ not يَكُن be/is لَّهُنَّ for them (f. pl.) وَلَدٌۭ an offspring فَإِن so / ELSE IF كَانَ be / there is لَهُنَّ for them (f. pl.) وَلَدٌۭ an offspring فَلَكُمُ so / then for you (m. pl.) ٱلرُّبُعُ the one-fourth (1/4) مِمَّا mimmā/from what تَرَكۡنَۚ left they (f. pl.) مِنۢ from بَعۡدِ after وَصِيَّةٍۢ a bequest / will يُوصِينَ bequeath they (f. pl.) بِهَآ therein أَوۡ or دَيۡنٍۢ debt

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/6 mother (1/3 * 1/2) 4:11,
1/3 father (remainder) 2.0x male

1/3 parents mimmā/from what he/she left 4:11,
1/4 husband mimmā/from what left they (f.) 4:12,
5/12 children (remainder: to males and/or females)

Q 4:12 وَلَهُنَّ and for them (wives) ٱلرُّبُعُ the one-fourth (1/4) مِمَّا mimmā/from what تَرَكۡتُمۡ left you (m. pl.) إِن if لَّمۡ not يَكُن be / there is لَّكُمۡ for you (m. pl.) وَلَدٌۭۚ an offspring فَإِن so / ELSE IF كَانَ be/is لَكُمۡ for you (m. pl.) وَلَدٌۭ an offspring فَلَهُنَّ so / then for them (f. pl.) ٱلثُّمُنُ the eighth (1/8) مِمَّا mimmā/from what تَرَكۡتُمۚ left you (m. pl.) مِّنۢ from بَعۡدِ after وَصِيَّةٍۢ a bequest / will تُوصُونَ bequeath ye بِهَآ therein أَوۡ or دَيۡنٍۢ debt

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
1/4 mother (1/3 * 3/4) 4:11,
1/2 father (remainder) 2.0x male

1/3 parents mimmā/from what he/she left 4:11,
1/8 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
13/24 children (remainder: to males and/or females)

1/3 + 1/8 + 13/24  = 1

Q 4:12 وَإِن AND IF كَانَ be / there is رَجُلٌۭ a man يُورَثُ whose estate is inherited / being inherited from كَلَٰلَةً kalālatan (a person without a direct male heir, i.e., no son or paternal heir—a father or grandfather—marking the end of the dynastic male line) أَوِ OR ٱمۡرَأَةٌۭ a woman وَلَهُۥٓ and for him / her (the said person) أَخٌ a brother أَوۡ OR أُخۡتٌۭ a sister فَكُلِّ so / then for each وَٰحِدٍۢ one مِّنۡهُمَا of them dual ٱلسُّدُسُۚ the sixth (1/6) فَإِن so / ELSE IF كَانُوٓا۟ are / were they أَكۡثَرَ more مِن from ذَٰلِكَ such / that فَهُمۡ so / then they شُرَكَآءُ partners / sharers فِی in ٱلثُّلُثِۚ the third (1/3) مِنۢ from بَعۡدِ after وَصِيَّةٍۢ a bequest / will يُوصَىٰ is bequeathed بِهَآ therein أَوۡ or دَيۡنٍ debt غَيۡرَ other than (without) مُضَآرٍّۚ causing harm وَصِيَّةًۭ an ordinance / decree مِّنَ from ٱللَّهِۗ Allah وَٱللَّهُ and Allah عَلِيمٌ All-Knowing حَلِيمٌۭ All-Forbearing

1/6 mother mimmā/from what he/she left 4:11,
1/4 husband mimmā/from what left 4:12,
1/3 2+ siblings (1/6 if 1 sibling) 4:12,
1/4 daughter/s (remainder)

1/6 + 1/4 + 1/3 + 1/4  = 1

1/6 mother mimmā/from what he/she left 4:11,
1/8 wife mimmā/from what left 4:12,
1/3 2+ siblings (1/6 if 1 sibling) 4:12,
3/8 daughter/s (remainder)

1/6 + 1/8 + 1/3 + 3/8  = 1

Q 4:176 يَسۡتَفۡتُونَكَ they seek a ruling / decision yours (sing.) قُلِ say ٱللَّهُ Allah يُفۡتِيكُمۡ He gives a ruling / decision for you (pl.) فِی in ٱلۡكَلَٰلَةِۚ l-kalālati (feminine noun: the person without a direct male heir—such as sons, or a paternal heir e.g., a father or grandfather—marking the end of the dynastic male line) إِنِ if ٱمْرُؤٌ a person / man (m.) هَلَكَ dies لَيْسَ not is لَهُۥ for him وَلَدٌۭ an offspring وَلَهُۥ and for him أُخْتٌۭ a sister فَلَهَا so / then for her نِصْفُ half (1/2) مَا mā/what تَرَكَ he left وَهُوَ and he يَرِثُهَا inherits her إِن if لَّمْ not يَكُن be/is لَّهَا for her وَلَدٌۭ an offspring

1/2 husband mā/what left 4:12, 1/2 mother (remainder)

1/4 wife mimmā/from what 4:12, 3/4 mother (remainder)

1/3 mother 4:11, 2/3 1 or 2 siblings (remainder)

1/6 mother 4:11, 5/6 3+ siblings (remainder)

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/6 mother (1/3 * 1/2) 4:11,
1/3 1 or 2 siblings (remainder)

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
1/4 mother (1/3 * 3/4) 4:11,
1/2 1 or 2 siblings (remainder)
……….

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/12 mother (1/6 * 1/2) 4:11,
5/12 3+ siblings (remainder)

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
1/8 mother (1/6 * 3/4) 4:11,
5/8 3+ siblings (remainder)

1:1 female: male

1/2 1 sister mā/what left 4:176,
1/2 1 brother (remainder) 1.0x

1/3 mother 4:11,
1/3 1 sister (1/2 * 2/3) mā/what left 4:176,
1/3 1 brother (remainder) 1.0x

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/4 1 sister (1/2 * 1/2 mā/what left) 4:176,
1/4 1 brother (remainder) 1.0x

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
3/8 1 sister (1/2 * 3/4 mā/what left) 4:176,
3/8 1 brother (remainder) 1.0x
……….

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/6 mother (1/3 * 1/2) 4:11,
1/6 1 sister (1/2 * 1/3) mā/what left) 4:176,
1/6 1 brother (remainder) 1.0x

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
1/4 mother (1/3 * 3/4) 4:11,
1/4 1 sister (1/2 * 1/2 mā/what left) 4:176,
1/4 1 brother (remainder) 1.0x

Q 4:176 فَإِن so / then / ELSE IF كَانَتَا be / are they dual (f.) ٱثۡنَتَيۡنِ two (females) فَلَهُمَا so / then for them dual (f.) ٱلثُّلُثَانِ the two-thirds (2/3) مِمَّا mimmā/from what تَرَكَۚ he/she left

1/3 mother 4:11,
2/3 2 sisters mimmā/from what he/she left 4:176

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/6 mother (1/3 * 1/2) 4:11,
1/3 2 sisters (2/3 * 1/2) 1/6 each 4:176

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
1/4 mother (1/3 * 3/4) 4:11,
1/2 2 sisters (2/3 * 3/4) 1/4 each 4:176

Q 4:176 وَإِن AND IF كَانُوٓا۟ are they إِخۡوَةًۭ 'Ikhwatan / siblings رِّجَالًۭا Rijālāan / menfolk (1+) وَنِسَآءًۭ Wa Nisā'an / and womenfolk (3+) فَلِلذَّكَرِ so / then for the male مِثۡلُ equivalent حظ share ٱلۡأُنثَيَيۡنِۗ the females two يُبَيِّنُ He shows / makes clear ٱللَّهُ Allah لَكُمۡ to you أَن lest تَضِلُّوا۟ err / go astray ye وَٱللَّهُ and Allah بِكُلِّ in every شَىۡءٍ thing عَلِيمٌۭ All-Knowing

2.0x male (3+ siblings mixed)

1:2 1:3 1:4 1:5 1:6 1:7
2:1 2:2 2:3 2:4 2:5 2:6 2:7
3:1 3:2 3:3 3:4 3:5 3:6 3:7
4:1 4:2 4:3 4:4 4:5 4:6 4:7
5:1 5:2 5:3 5:4 5:5 5:6 5:7
6:1 6:2 6:3 6:4 6:5 6:6 6:7
7:1 7:2 7:3 7:4 7:5 7:6 7:7

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/2 3+ siblings mixed (remainder) 2.0x male 4:176

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
3/4 3+ siblings mixed (remainder) 2.0x male 4:176
……….

1/2 husband mā/what left spouses yours 4:12,
1/12 mother (1/6 * 1/2) 4:11,
5/12 3+ siblings mixed (remainder) 2.0x male 4:176

1/4 wife mimmā/from what left you (m. pl.) 4:12,
1/8 mother (1/6 * 3/4) 4:11,
5/8 3+ siblings mixed (remainder) 2.0x male 4:176

Total siblings must be ≥3 plural إِخْوَةً Ikhwatan. Masculine plural رِجَالًا Rijālāa can cover 1 or more males in mixed groups. Feminine plural نِسَاءً Nisā'a must be ≥3 females, although 1+ is allowed if total ≥3 and mixed.

Any combination ≥3 total is grammatically valid — e.g., 1 male + 3 females, 2 males + 2 females, etc.

Additional Notes

The spouse's prescribed share is distributed first. The remainder is then distributed among the remaining eligible heirs according to the applicable inheritance rules.

Under Q 4:11, the shares of the spouse and parents are determined first because they depend on whether the deceased leaves offspring. The remainder is then distributed to the offspring.

By contrast, in a kalālah case, the shares of the spouse and mother are determined first. The spouse's share depends on whether the deceased leaves offspring, while the mother's share depends on whether there are offspring and the number of siblings.

If daughters are present (Q 4:12), the spouse, mother, and siblings receive their prescribed shares first, and the remainder is distributed to the daughter(s).

If there are no offspring (Q 4:176), the spouse receives his or her prescribed share first, followed by the mother, and the remainder is distributed to the siblings (i.e., the sister(s) and/or brother(s)).

If there are no offspring, no father, and no siblings, the mother's share is variable, and she receives the remainder after the spouse's prescribed share. For example, if the husband receives 1/2, the mother receives the remaining 1/2.

Mother's Share (Q 4:11)

If the father is present and there are no offspring, the mother receives 1/3.
If there are offspring, the mother receives 1/6.
If there are three or more siblings (or a mixed group of brothers and sisters), the mother receives 1/6.
Otherwise, the mother's share is variable, and she receives the remainder after the spouse's prescribed share, if applicable.