The Quran Alone

Quranism (Arabic Qur'aniyya; also Ahl al-Quran, "People of the Quran") is a current within Islam whose defining conviction is that the Quran alone is the authoritative source of religious guidance, and that the vast body of hadith, the reports of the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad compiled in the centuries after his death, is not a binding source of law and doctrine.

Mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam rest on two foundations, the Quran and the Sunna of the Prophet as transmitted through hadith; Quranists accept the first and reject, or radically demote, the second, arguing that hadith are of uncertain authenticity, were recorded generations late, and were never sanctioned by the Quran itself as a parallel revelation. On this basis Quranists hold that the Quran is complete and sufficient, and that where it is silent or general, matters are left to reason and circumstance rather than to the detailed prescriptions of the hadith-based schools of law. The position has sharp practical consequences, since much of the received form of Islamic ritual, law and daily practice is derived not from the Quran directly but from the Sunna.