Javed Ghamdi Greatest Scholar Salute

Ghamidi was born on April 18, 1951 in a peasant family of Kakazai tribe from Jiwan Shah near
Sahiwal, Pakistan.His early education included a modern path (Matriculation from Islamia High School,
Pakpattan in 1967), as well as a traditional path (Arabic and Persian languages, and the Qur'an with
Mawlawi Nur Ahmad of Nang Pal). He later graduated from Government College, Lahore, with a BA
Honours in English in 1972.Initially, he was more interested in literature and philosophy. Later on,
he worked with renowned Islamic scholars like Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi and Amin Ahsan Islahi
on various Islamic disciplines particularly exegesis and Islamic law.

Ghamidi's father was a follower of Sufism. In the later years of his life, Ghamidi changed his opinion
about Sufism. He wrote a criticism on Sufism in his book Burhan and also didn't include it in his book
Mizan, which is a comprehensive treatise on the contents of Islam.

Ghamidi worked closely with Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi ( ‫سيد أبو العلى المودودي‬, alternative spelling Syed
Maudoodi; often referred to as Maulana Maududi) (1903–1979) for about nine years before voicing his
first differences of opinion, which led to his subsequent expulsion from Mawdudi's political party,
Jamaat-e-Islami in 1977. Later, he developed his own view of religion based on hermeneutics and
ijtihad under the influence of his mentor, Amin Ahsan Islahi (1904–1997), a well-known exegete of
the Indian sub-continent who is author of Tadabbur-i-Qur’an, a Tafsir (exegeses of Qur'an). Ghamidi's
critique of Mawdudi's thought is an extension of Wahid al-Din Khan’s criticism of Mawdudi. Khan
(1925- ) was amongst the first scholars from within the ranks of Jamaat-e-Islami to present a fully-
fledged critique of Mawdudi’s understanding of religion. Khan’s contention is that Mawdudi has
completely inverted the Qur’anic worldview. Ghamidi, for his part, agreed with Khan that the basic
obligation in Islam is not the establishment of an Islamic world order but servitude to God, and that it
is to help and guide humans in their effort to fulfill that obligation for which religion is revealed.
Therefore, Islam never imposed the obligation on its individual adherents or on the Islamic state to be
constantly in a state of war against the non-Islamic world. In fact, according to Ghamidi, even the
formation of an Islamic state is not a basic religious obligation for Muslims

http://ghamidi.org/

Well I personally like his style of discourse. Dr. Khalid Zaheer is one of his students, both of them
have come up with a unique methodology where they set a side Ahadith and debate issues on the
basis of Quran. (You will find that they mostly quote from Quran, even when it is asked what is
muslim view on this and that, they only quote Quran). I am not of a view that they don’t believe in the
validity of Hadith but the have devised this new method. where Hadith is treated secondary... .
Is Ghamidi Sahib Munkire Hadith?
Response:
Ghamidi Sahib has written a book “Al-Meezan” in which he has mentioned the outcome of thirty years
of his research of what the teachings of Islam are. The book is comprised of more than seven hundred
(700) pages. In his book, he has quoted one thousand and twenty-eight (1028) ahadith to explain
various aspects of Islam (more than one hadith per page!). In the beginning of the book he has
elaborated his understanding of the status of hadith in learning Islamic teachings and he has also
explained his point of view on how the contents of hadith should be reflected upon to properly benefit
from them. His book is available for people to read. Before commenting upon Ghamidi Sahib’s attitude
towards hadith, one should read his ideas on the subject carefully.

A few other pieces of information might also help:

i) Ghamidi Sahib taught for at least two years the meanings of ahadith of Sahih Muslim on AAJ
television every Sunday for fifteen minutes. He has a plan to concentrate on doing research on
ahadith after he has completed his translation and exegeses of Qur’an, if God permits him to live on.

ii) Apart from Ibn Hazm, and may be a few others, no other first-generation scholar believed that
information coming down to us through hadith was as authentic as the Qur’an and sunnah
mutawatirah.

iii) Hanafis, who were also referred to as people of Iraq, were called Ahlur Ray in the second century
of Islamic history as against the others who were called Ahle Hadith. The distinction between the two
was that while the former thought that it was preferable to base one’s religious opinion on ra’y
(opinion based on analogy) in the light of Qur’an and sunnah than on the weak source of khabare
wahid (information from one or a few individuals which is what hadith is), Ahle Hadith, Imam Shafi
being the most prominent amongst them, thought that hadith should get preference over ra’y.

iv) There are several mentions of Rafa Yadain in Bukhari and Muslim and yet Hanafis don’t make it a
practice of theirs. The earlier Hanafi position on it was that the mention in hadith is inconsistent with
the sunnah that was prevalent in the Muslim society (a similar stance is reported about Imam Malik in
Bidayatul Mujtahid). The later Hanafi explanation has altered and they now claim that there were
ahadith of prayers without Rafa Yadain too. The question is that if Hanafis can prefer some ahadith
which are weaker in authenticity compared to others, what wrong has Ghamidi Sb done if he
understands the meanings of ahadith in the light of Qur’an? There are many other examples of
Hanafis ignoring authentic ahadith and preferring the opinion of their own scholars on the basis of
some other argument. In Hajj, for example, authentic ahadith tell us that prophet, alaihissalaam, told
Muslims on many occasions that if the sequence of rituals was altered by people inadvertently, it
wasn’t a big problem; Hanafis insist that the person who has so done should sacrifice an animal (do
‘dum’) to compensate for it.

Although it is nicely put in scholarly manner, but it should be clear that it is not due to our enduring
that Quran is valid to date, it is Allah (SWT) who took the responsibility to preserve truth regarding
this last revelation in what so ever form, and as we can see Hadith is more like explanatory tool to
understand Quran firmly (and it has mention of things that are not even present in Quran or we may
not deduce it), because in a lot of matters if one decides with his own intellect he will go astray.As
Quran says it guides people (who understands it from the authenticated sourses) and lead them astry
(to those who make up their own meaning from the verses of Quran and go astray) Therefore, we
have to converge to the explanation provided by Ahadith. And as you can see in 2nd point he
deliberately said something and then successfully escaped from the matter.
My point is if something is in Hadith books (even something in History book and is nothing but the
manifestation of truth) and after using all our tools (ilm-e-rejal, ilm-e-hadith, etc) we conclude its
authenticity, we should also adhere to it. Our exploration of truth should be scientific rather
sentimental.

But regarding Tabliban issue (a scio-political matter) he pointed out very commendable things, those
should be pondered upon.

Regards