Reality of Abdullah Chakralawi and the Ahl al-Quran

 بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

اَلۡحَمۡدُ لِلّٰہِ رَبِّ الۡعٰلَمِیۡنَ

والصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the Worlds

Blessing and Peace upon You, my Master, the Apostle of Allah

One of the worst heresies that is currently gaining traction in the Muslim world is that of outright Hadith rejection, but also Hadith skepticism, which may be termed istikhfaf al-Hadith. The latter phenomenon largely characterizes modern reformist movements and individual thinkers who, while professing Islam, seek to undermine the orthodox and traditional conception and practice of Islam.

But total rejection of the Sunnah and the Hadith is such a radical heresy that one will be hard pressed to find even an isolated instance of it in the entire pre-modern history of Islam. Rather, this heresy, as far as my research has taken me, may be traced back to an individual from British India, Abdullah Chakralawi (d. 1916). He was born in a village, Chakrala, in District Mianwali, Punjab, and originally was given the name Ghulam Nabi. He later changed his name to Abdullah, as he considered the name Ghulam Nabi shirk or polytheistic.

But the word ghulam literally means boy in Arabic, and is used as a term to refer to one’s male slave. Hence, the Holy Prophet Muhammad, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, said:

وَلاَ يَقُلْ أَحَدُكُمْ عَبْدِي أَمَتِي وَلْيَقُلْ فَتَاىَ وَفَتَاتِي وَغُلاَمِي

“None of you should say ‘abdi’ (my male slave), ‘amati’ (my female slave), but say, ‘fataya’ and ‘fatati’ (my lass) and ‘ghulami’ (my boy)” (Sahih al-Bukhari)

The misguided Shah Isma’il of Delhi, who helped introduce the fitnah of Wahhabism to India in the early 19th century, famously condemned names like Abd un-Nabi and Ghulam Muhi ud-Din at the very beginning of his scandalous book Taqwiyat ul-Iman, which means strengthening of the Faith. But the Sunni Ulama have appropriately dubbed that book “Tafwiyat ul-Iman” meaning the deadening of the Faith. 

Under the influence of Shah Isma’il of Delhi and his diabolical book, the Wahhabis often condemn names like Ghulam Nabi, Ghulam Rasul, Ghulam Muhammad, Ghulam Ahmad, Ghulam Mustafa, etc., even though these are beautiful names common among Subcontinental Muslims, as they express attachment to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, and are unquestionably permissible as established in the Hadith from Sahih al-Bukhari I quoted above.

Nasir ud-Din al-Albani, himself a Wahhabi, and highly regarded by the Salafis and so-called Ahl al-Hadith sect, a man who would otherwise declare many practices and customs of the Sunni Muslims to be bid’ah or innovative, did not have a problem with names like Ghulam Nabi, Ghulam Rasul, Ghulam Muhammad, Ghulam Ahmad, etc. Speaking about the antichrist Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, whose father, Mirza Ghulam Murtaza, named him Ghulam Ahmad, said that Ghulam Ahmad and similar names are given to children in the Subcontinent for blessing, and ghulam here means khadim (servant).

Abdullah Chakralawi, whose original name was Qazi Ghulam Nabi, was born into a traditional Sunni Muslim family, which had a particular attachment to the Khanqah of Musa Zai Sharif in Dera Ismail Khan, which is affiliated with a branch of the Naqshbandi tariqah. This particular branch is associated with such prominent Sufi figures as Shah Ahmad Sa’id Mujaddidi (1802-1860) and Dost Muhammad Qandahari (1801-1868), who established the Khanqah in Musa Zai Sharif.

Tragically, Abdullah Chakralawi came under the influence of Wahhabism and joined the so-called Ahl al-Hadith sect, who are ghayr muqallidin that reject following one of the traditional four Sunni schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali). It was for this reason he changed his name from Ghulam Nabi to Abdullah, as the Wahhabis generally disdain names that express attachment to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam.

But Abdullah Chakralawi went from bad to worse and eventually founded his own sect, the so-called Ahl al-Quran, when he rejected Hadith altogether. This demonstrates the fact that Hadith-rejection, or so-called “Quranism” is an offshoot of Wahhabism, and it may even be said that it is a very extreme manifestation of Wahhabism.

Abdullah Chakralawi bitterly denounced the traditional Sunni practices and faith, especially those steeped in Sufism, such as giving bay’ah to a shaykh or piri-muridi.

He even condemned the mihrab (niche) in the mosque, whose function is to indicate the direction of the qiblah and is traditionally the musalla or place of prayer of the imam, declaring it “Judaic”—derived from synagogues and having nothing to do with Islam.

Modern-day Chakralawis and so-called “Quranists” are hence even more extreme than ordinary Wahhabis in declaring the practices and beliefs of Sunni Muslims to be polytheistic. They go to the extent of saying that mentioning the Holy Prophet Muhammad, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, in prayers is idolatry and they accuse virtually the entire Ummah of having deified the Prophet and having made him Allah’s partner!

One should note that it is typical for so-called Quranists, Chakralawis, Parwezis and many other radical reformists and modernists to accuse us traditional Sunni Muslims of perpetuating “Judaic” beliefs, laws and practices in the name of Islam. They will dub anything from veiling and segregation of women, the practice of circumcision, keeping a beard, wearing a skullcap, praying for the deceased and offering good deeds on their behalf, avoiding dogs and considering them unclean, and a multitude of other things to be “Judaic” customs that have somehow been added to Islam, corrupting its purity and simplicity.

In reality, these are all matters from the holy Shari’ah and the Sunnah of the Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam. Just as bid’ah, meaning an innovation that is added to Islam without justification, is condemned, perhaps more dangerous than that is the phenomenon of ilhad, to subtract something that is established from Islam. The cursed Rawafid are an example of a sect that is guilty of bid’ah, having added many evil rituals and practices such as self-flagellation to the pure Religion, while the various modern reformist groups especially those that either reject or are skeptical of Hadith are guilty of ilhad, as they deny countless matters that are established in this perfect Religion.

It is evident that the heretic and apostate Chakralawi founded a new religion whose core doctrine, the wholesale rejection of the Hadith, has no precedent in the entire history of this Ummah. And the novelty of a doctrine that has no precedence in the generational conception and practice of Islam is sufficient to reject it as utter falsehood. Observe how, especially in the Subcontinent, the founders of the various new religious movements and parties using the name of Islam were themselves originating from families who were mainstream Sunni Muslims, adhering to the Hanafi school and often attached to a traditional Sufi order.

The founder of Wahhabism, Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab, was refuted by his own elder brother, Sulayman bin Abd al-Wahhab, who denounced his younger brother’s excesses, and maintained the faith and understanding of their respectable father, Abd al-Wahhab bin Sulayman, a Sunni scholar of the Hanbali school.

Likewise, most of the prominent but misguided individuals who spread false and dangerous ideas in the name of Islam in the Subcontinent came from a mainstream Sunni background despite their dissent; Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who was the fountain of heresy in modern times, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, Abu ul-Ala Maududi, Ghulam Ahmad Parwez, Jawaid Ahmad Ghamidi, all of them, despite their varying degrees of deviation, were originally Sunni Muslims in good standing.

Followers of these misguided individuals and their heretical ideas, well aware of their radical departure from the mainstream and traditional conception of Islam, often quote the following Ayah in their defense:

وَاِذَا قِیۡلَ لَہُمُ اتَّبِعُوۡا مَاۤ اَنۡزَلَ اللّٰہُ قَالُوۡا بَلۡ نَتَّبِعُ مَاۤ اَلۡفَیۡنَا عَلَیۡہِ اٰبَآءَنَا ؕ اَوَلَوۡ کَانَ اٰبَآؤُہُمۡ لَا یَعۡقِلُوۡنَ شَیۡئًا وَّلَا یَہۡتَدُوۡنَ

And when it is said to them, ‘Follow that which Allah sent down’ they say, ‘Rather, we will follow that which our fathers were upon.’ Even though their fathers did not understand anything and were not guided?

(Surah 2, Ayah 170)

The implication is that the Sunni Muslims, when we call upon the modern deviated groups and movements to return to the way of their elders and ancestors, are exactly like the idolaters who preferred the way of their forefathers instead of the Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, who was calling them to the divine Revelation.

To the uncritical mind this is a powerful polemic, but the truth is that it is vain to compare the guided ancestors and elders who were Muslims and whose hearts were filled with faith to the forefathers of the idolaters that stumbled in the dark.

Indeed, this is why the eminent Sahabi, Ibn Umar, radi Allahu anhuma, said about the Kharijites:

إِنَّهُمُ انْطَلَقُوا إِلَى آيَاتٍ نَزَلَتْ فِي الكُفَّارِ فَجَعَلُوهَا عَلَى المُؤْمِنِينَ

“They apply the Verses revealed about the unbelievers to the Believers.”

It is true that the ancestors of most of us Subcontinental Muslims were idolatrous Hindus. But a blessed generation of them were guided to embrace Islam, and subsequently, as long as they maintained the Islam they received without updating or amending it, they were upon guidance. When some bigoted Hindus tell us that we ought to abandon Islam and return to the religion of our Hindu ancestors (ghar wapsi), then certainly this Ayah of the Quran is a devastating response. But for a Wahhabi, or Qadiani, or Hadith-rejecter to quote this Ayah in response to a Sunni Muslim and insinuate that Muslim ancestors were misguided is nothing but falsehood and stupidity.

Coming back to the heretic Abdullah Chakralawi, the most apparent example of his and his followers’ radical departure from normative Islam was the inventing of a new Salah that totally differs from the modality of the Salah received by us:

“They consider the call to prayer (adhan) unnecessary; the takbir (repetition of the phrase ‘God is great’) is not said aloud; in prayer only the obligatory (fard) portions are binding, while the sunnah (traditional) and nafl (optional) rak’ats (sections of ritual prayer) are rejected altogether. While other Muhammadans bend both knees in prayer, the Ahl-i-Qur’an kneel on one knee only. Funeral and ‘Id prayers are considered unnecessary, and they assert that offering of prayers and alms for the dead are of no avail.” (Islam in India and Pakistan, Titus, Murray, p. 197)

Naturally, if one were to completely disregard all the details of the modality of the Salah as has been received through the Sunnah and the Hadith and attempt to formulate a Salah strictly from the text of the Quran then such a Salah will be totally alien and unrecognizable to the one offered by the Muslims from generation to generation.

Abdullah Chakralawi wrote a book Burhan ul-Quran ala Salat il-Quran in a futile attempt to demonstrate a complete and fully detailed practical guide to offering Salah from the text of the Quran alone, without any reference to the Sunnah or Hadith. But his own follower, a certain Mistri Muhammad Ramadan (1875-1940), dissented from Chakralawi’s view that five separate Salah can be established from the Quran in favor of a more radical view that there are only three Salah in a day according to the Quran.

The spiraling discord among the so-called Quranists on such fundamental matters of the Religion reminds me of how during the Protestant Reformation in 16th century Europe there would consistently appear a “reformer” more radical than his predecessor in challenging some normative doctrine or practice of the Church. The Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther’s dissent from the Roman Catholic Church, but soon appeared other reformers more radical in their approach than him, one after the other, each subsequent reformer more radical than his predecessor; John Calvin, then Huldrych Zwingli, then Thomas Muntzer, then Andreas Karlstadt, then the so-called Zwickau “prophets”, then the Anabaptists, then John of Leiden, and so on and so forth. Each new church or movement that is a continuation of the Protestant Reformation is more radical than the other. This trend continued into the American colonies, where many English Dissenters often settled to escape persecution by the established Church of England. Such radically dissenting churches as the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals and Restorationists are all native to the United States post-independence.

Merely consider the sheer volume of discord among the Quranists (Hadith-rejecters) on the most essential act of worship in Islam—Salah. Some argue that the traditional method of Salah as practiced by mainstream Sunni Muslims is the correct method inherited generation from generation going back to the Patriarch Abraham himself, while others like Abdullah Chakralawi reject all tradition in favor of a strictly textualist approach referring only to the Quran. Some accept the traditional conception of Salah being mandated five times daily (Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha) while others say there are only three Salah a day. Some Quranists accept the traditional structure of the Salah, consisting of standing, then bowing, then prostrating, then sitting, while others say Salah has no fixed structure and may be offered however one feels spontaneously. The most radical Quranists have reinterpreted Salah altogether and do not consider it a ritual act of worship but rather the name of a divinely mandated socio-political system!