Al-Sunna al-Nabawiyya

What Is the Sunnah?

Al-Sunna (السُّنَّةُ — lit. the customary way, the trodden path) in Islamic usage refers to the example of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW): his way of living, speaking, judging, worshipping, and relating to others.

The Sunnah is transmitted through hadiths (أَحَادِيث, singular hadith — reports, narrations). Each hadith has two parts:

Al-Isnad (the chain of transmission): the sequence of narrators who transmitted the report from person to person back to the Prophet or his Companions
Al-Matn (the text): the actual content of the report

The Sunnah consists of three forms:

Qawl (statement): something the Prophet said
Fi’l (action): something the Prophet did
Taqrir (tacit approval): something done in the Prophet’s presence that he did not disapprove

Why Is the Sunnah Necessary Alongside the Quran?

The Quran itself establishes the necessity of following the Prophet’s example — not merely his message in the Quran, but his lived practice:

“Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it; and what he forbids you, refrain from it.” (59:7)

“Indeed in the Messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for whoever hopes in Allah and the Last Day and remembers Allah often.” (33:21)

“Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you.” (4:59)

Why explicit Prophetic example is needed:

The Quran commands prayer (salat) approximately 67 times but does not specify how to pray — the number of rak’at, the postures, the words. It commands fasting but does not specify the details of beginning and breaking. It commands hajj but its rites require the Prophet’s demonstration to make them coherent.

The Sunnah fills this structural necessity: the Prophet’s practice demonstrates how to implement the Quran’s commands.

The Transmission of the Sunnah

The Companions as First Transmitters

The first generation (Companions — sahaba) observed the Prophet’s practice directly. They transmitted what they saw and heard to the following generation (tabi’un), who transmitted to the generation after (atba’ al-tabi’in), and so forth across multiple generations before the hadith collections were compiled in writing.

The Classical Hadith Collections

The major Sunni hadith collections (compiled 3rd century AH / 9th century CE):

Sahih al-Bukhari (d. 256 AH): ~7,000 hadiths (with repetitions), considered most rigorously authenticated
Sahih Muslim (d. 261 AH): ~7,500 hadiths
Sunan Abu Dawud (d. 275 AH), Sunan al-Tirmidhi (d. 279 AH), Sunan al-Nasa’i (d. 303 AH), Sunan Ibn Majah (d. 273 AH): the “four Sunan”

The major Shi’i hadith collections (compiled slightly later):

Al-Kafi by al-Kulayni (d. 329 AH): the foundational Twelver Shi’i hadith collection
Man la Yahduruh al-Faqih by al-Shaykh al-Saduq (d. 381 AH)
Tahdhib al-Ahkam and Al-Istibsar by al-Tusi (d. 460 AH)

The Ismaili equivalent: Da’im al-Islam by Qadi al-Nu’man — not a hadith collection in the same sense but a fiqh work that bases every ruling on hadiths from the Ahl al-Bayt.

The Science of Hadith Criticism (‘Ilm al-Hadith)

Because the hadiths were transmitted orally across multiple generations before being written, Islamic scholarship developed a sophisticated science of evaluating their reliability:

Grading the Isnad

Hadiths are classified by the reliability of their chains:

Grade	Arabic	Meaning
Sahih	صَحِيح	Sound/Authentic — every narrator reliable, chain unbroken
Hasan	حَسَن	Good — meets most criteria, minor weakness
Da’if	ضَعِيف	Weak — significant weakness in chain or narrator
Mawdu’	مَوضُوع	Fabricated — proven to be invented

Evaluating the Narrators (Rijal Criticism)

Scholars developed the science of ‘ilm al-rijal (science of the narrators) — biographical analysis of every hadith transmitter, evaluating:

Reliability (thiqa): honesty, memory, consistency
Connection to the chain: did they actually meet the person they claim to report from?
Theological views: some scholars criticized narrators for theological positions they considered problematic

The Ismaili Approach: Ahl al-Bayt Hadiths as Primary

The Ismaili approach to the Sunnah, systematized by Qadi al-Nu’man in Da’im al-Islam and articulated in his Ikhtilaf Usul al-Madhahib, is distinctive:

The Ahl al-Bayt as the Most Reliable Transmitters

The Ismaili principle: the hadiths most reliably transmitted from the Prophet are those transmitted through the Ahl al-Bayt — specifically through:

Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS)
The Imams who followed: Hasan, Husayn, Zayn al-‘Abidin, Baqir, Sadiq, and their successors

The reason: the Ahl al-Bayt lived closest to the Prophet; the Prophet explicitly taught them the full scope of his knowledge (zahir and batin); and the Hadith al-Thaqalayn pairs the Quran and the ‘Itrat (Ahl al-Bayt) as the two reliable sources.

“I am leaving among you two things of weight: the Book of Allah and my ‘Itrat.” — Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

The Living Imam as the Final Authority

Beyond all transmitted hadiths, the living Imam’s guidance takes precedence. This is the key structural difference between Ismaili jurisprudence and all Sunni schools:

In Sunni jurisprudence, ijtihad (independent reasoning) fills the gap where hadith and Quran are silent
In Ismaili jurisprudence, the living Imam’s ‘ilm fills this gap

The Imam’s knowledge is not derived from hadiths through scholarly reasoning — it is ‘ilm laduni (divinely-given knowledge, 18:65), direct and immediate. The Imam can therefore speak to situations that no hadith addresses and no classical scholar could have anticipated.

This is why the Dai al-Mutlaq’s rulings in the Bohra tradition can address contemporary situations — medical ethics, digital life, financial instruments — in ways that traditional hadith-based fiqh alone could not.

The Sunnah and the Zahir-Batin Framework

In the Ismaili understanding, the Sunnah has its own zahir-batin structure:

Zahir of the Sunnah: the specific practices the Prophet demonstrated — the forms of prayer, the manner of hajj, the way of eating and greeting, the conduct of governance.

Batin of the Sunnah: the spiritual realities that the Prophet’s practices express — why the Prophet prayed as he did, what the specific forms of ‘ibada communicate about the soul’s relationship to the divine.

The Qadi al-Nu’man’s Ta’wil al-Da’a’im (Companion volume to Da’im al-Islam) provides exactly this: for each practice described in the zahir work, the companion volume opens its batin meaning. The Sunnah, like the Quran, has both a surface that must be preserved and an interior that must be opened.

Key Prophetic Sunnahs in the Bohra Tradition

The Bohra community’s practice preserves specific sunnahs inherited through the Fatimid da’wa tradition:

In worship:

Specific forms of wudu, adhan, iqama
The Fatimid form of salat (with variations from dominant Sunni practice)
The qira’at (recitation) tradition

In social life:

Sunnah of the miswak (tooth-cleaning stick)
Specific greetings and their responses
Sunnah in dress (particularly for men) — the distinctive Bohra dress code as a form of Sunnah preservation

In food and hospitality:

Specific sunnahs of eating (beginning with bismillah, eating with right hand, eating from one’s side of the dish)
The tradition of thaal (shared tray eating) as a sunnah of communal eating

These preserved sunnahs are not merely cultural practices — they are understood as forms of the tashabbuh bil-anbiya (resemblance to the Prophets) that the Bohra tradition specifically teaches.

Al-Sunna al-Nabawiyya — The Prophetic Sunnah and Its Role in Ismaili Fiqh