If `Umar anticipated the occurrence of confusion between the...

If `Umar anticipated the occurrence of confusion between the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah, like that which occurred to some of the Sahabah who confused a few words of a verse with the Holy Prophet’s words, he could deal with the matter by ordering the narrators to be sure of a text, before reporting it, by asking the other experts who were many in that period.

When he compiled the scattered papers of the Holy Qur’an, Abu-Bakr did the same thing.[^6] However, such a simple question does not require general prohibition of the reporting and recordation of the Hadith. Having taken notice of this point, Abu-Bakr did not claim such confusion as the justification for the prohibition after he had solved this problem and dispensed with the method that was later on taken by `Umar in his dealing with the issue.

Umar’s justification might have found a ground if the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah had been written in the same papers. However, none of the Muslims had ever mixed the texts of the Holy Qur’an with those of the Holy Sunnah in the same paper. Despite the passage of long ages, the earliest books of Tafsir (Exegesis of the Holy Qur’an) reached at our hands without having any single confusion between the texts of the Holy Qur’an and those of the Holy Sunnah.

The latter justification adopted by `Umar ibn al-Khattab can be refuted by the following points: First: As far as style and eloquence are concerned, indisputable characteristics have distinguished between the Qur’anic and the narrative texts. The Qur’anic texts have been revealed in the form of inimitability, challenging all the Arab polytheists, who were masters of eloquence, to produce the like of it.

More than once and in different eloquent and reproachful styles, the Holy Qur’an challenged the unbelievers to bring its like.

Listen to the following Qur’anic texts, “Say: Then bring some (other) book from Allah which is a better guide than both of them, (that) I may follow it, if you are truthful.” (Holy Qur’an: 28:49) “Say: If men and jinn should combine together to bring the like of this Qur’an, they could not bring the like of it, though some of them were aiders of others.” (Holy Qur’an: 17:88) “Or, do they say: He has forged it.