Title of the Paper: The Prophetic Sunnah Between Its Status as Divine Revelation and the Notion of Prophetic Ijtihad

Abstract

Discussions surrounding the authority of the Prophetic Sunnah are far from settled. They persist and renew over time, driven by overt or covert motives. Such discussions have expanded from Orientalist criticisms to doubts infiltrating the Islamic intellectual sphere itself. These often emerge in the form of questions such as: Is the Sunnah truly a form of divine revelation? A frequent reference point for such questioning is the hadith concerning the pollination of date palms, which has been misinterpreted as indicating prophetic error in contrast with the infallibility of revelation. Likewise, the hadith of Al-Hubab ibn Al-Mundhir—regarding the change of camp location during the Battle of Badr—is often cited out of context, ignoring its narrative flow and the circumstances surrounding it. These claims reflect a pattern of isolating and misrepresenting textual fragments to support preconceived or hidden agendas, while deliberately neglecting the extensive body of hadiths that clearly regulate every detail of human life through explicit commands and prohibitions. Moreover, these claims blur the lines between legitimate scholarly debate over interpretative nuances—such as whether certain hadiths like “A people who entrust their affairs to a woman will never prosper” or “The leaders shall be from Quraysh” are statements of fact or binding directives—and the fundamental issue of the Sunnah’s authority, let alone its nature as divine revelation. Denying the latter leads logically to undermining the authority of the Qur'an itself, which also contains both definitive and allegorical verses.