Sunni Muslims, who are traditionalists of some sort, usually cite both the Koran and sunna as their sources of authority. The Koran is their scriptural text and sunna a term meaning "tradition." The latter refers to the tradition established by Mohammed and the early generations of Muslims. Tradition is anything that's recorded about what Mohammed said and did that didn't make it into the Koran, but has been passed down orally and checked through what Muslims call "a chain of transmission"—namely, that it comes from a legitimate source, such as the wife of Mohammed or a companion of Mohammed, and is considered, in a sense, revelatory.
If you have a current subscription or current on-line account please log-in here to read the rest of this article.
No bio information available for this author.
Issue: "The Cross and the Crescent" July/August 2012 Vol. 21 No. 4 Page number(s): 12
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. We do not allow reposting an article in its entirety on the Internet. We request that you link to this article from your website. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by Modern Reformation (webmaster@modernreformation.org).
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: This article originally appeared in the [insert current issue date] edition of Modern Reformation and is reprinted with permission. For more information about Modern Reformation, visit www.modernreformation.org or call (800) 890-7556. All rights reserved.