Understanding The Prophet's Life
From Issue: 495 [Read full issue]
Affairs of Worldly Life
The best understanding of the Prophet's Sunnah comes by investigation of the particular causes on which hadiths are based, or the specific occasion to which they are attached, specified in the hadith text or discoverable from the hadith, or understood from the actual circumstance to which the hadith is addressed.
An example of that is the hadith: "You know better the affairs of your worldly life." [Muslim] It is one on which some people base their evasion of the Legal injunctions in the spheres of economics, civic and political duties, and the like, because these matters - so they claim - are among worldly concerns, and we know them better, and the Messenger, entrusted them to us! But is this really what the noble hadith intends?
By no means. Among the purposes with which God sent His messengers is that they should stipulate for the people the principles of justice, the balanced norms of equity, and the regulations of the rights and duties in their worldly life, so that their standards should not clash, nor their ways differ. So texts of the Book and Sunnah have come which order and regulate everyday concerns - selling and buying, partnership and mortgaging, leasing and lending, and other matters - to the extent that the longest verse in the Book of God was sent down on the arrangement of a matter that is slight among the worldly matters, namely the writing down of debts.
The hadith is interpreted by the occasion that prompted it, namely the incident of the pollination of date-palms. The Prophet's indication to the people about this was his conjecture, for he was not an agriculturist, he had grown up in a valley not endowed with crops. But the Ansar supposed his opinion to be the way of a revealed or religious command, and so they abandoned the pollination. Its effect was bad for the yield. Then he said: "I was only conjecturing a conjecture, so do not take [from] me [what is] by way of conjecture..." to [where] he said "... You know better your own worldly affairs." And this is the story behind the hadith.
This requires profound understanding and subtle perception, as well as comprehensive, integrated study of the texts and mature insight into the goals of the Law and the reality of the religion. It also requires moral courage and inner strength to come out with the truth even if it opposes what the people are used to and what they have inherited. It is not an easy thing. This is the cost exacted from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah by the enmity of the scholars of his time. They conspired against him until he was put in prison many times, and he died therein, may God be pleased with him.
Source:
"Approaching the Sunnah: Comprehension & Controversy" - Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, pp. 124-127