Followers of hadith and sunna claim that God is represented by the Quran, and the messenger is represented by his opinions on the Quran. Thus, they claim that the Quran is not enough for salvation. Some people may not utter this claim straightforwardly. They may even claim that the Quran is complete and enough for our guidance. However, further questioning will reveal that their quran is not "the Quran." The Quran is the one that consists of 114 Chapters and 6346 verses. It is a mathematically coded book. However, their minds are confused, and their quran is contaminated with human speculations and limited by a snapshot interpretation. They try to scare the believers by saying "you do not like the messenger." The belief that God is represented by the Quran, and the messenger by his teaching is a satanic claim. There are several points to remember:

Quran represents God and His messenger.

Obeying the Quran is obeying God and the messenger.

Quran never says: "Obey God and Moses," or "Obey God and Muhammed." Rather, Quran consistently states: "Obey God and the messenger." This is because the word messenger (rasul) comes from the "message" (risala). The message is entirely from God; messengers cannot exist without the message.

Messengers, as humans, make mistakes. Thus, when believers made a covenant with prophet Muhammed they promised to obey him conditionally, i.e., his righteous orders (60:12). Moreover, God specifically orders Muhammed to consult the believers around him (3:159). If nobody can object to the opinion of the messenger, then consultation is meaningless. However, whenever the final decision after consultation is made, it should be followed.

During their lifetimes, messengers are community leaders. In this regard, messengers are not different than the believers who are in charge (4:59); both should be obeyed. But, this obedience is not absolute. It is open to consultation and discussion.

The position of messengers is different during their lives; they are interactive teachers and curious students as well. We have the chance to ask them further questions, discuss issues, learn their intentions, and even correct their mistakes. On the other hand, they have the opportunity to correct our misunderstandings. However, when they pass away, their teaching becomes frozen and looses its advancing three-dimensional character. The frozen, snap-shot fragments of knowledge are a dangerous weapon in the hands of ignorant people; they use it to stop God's perpetual teaching. They defend every plain error in the name of the messenger. They insult every sincere student of God's revelation.

We reject Hadith because we respect Muhammed. No sound person would like to have people born several centuries after him roam the earth and collect hearsay attributed to him. Besides, if Muhammed and his supporters really believed that the Quran was not sufficient for guidance, or an ambiguous book, or lacked details, then, surely they would have been the first ones to write the hadith down and collect them in books. After all, their numbers were in the hundreds of thousands and they had plenty of wealth. They could afford some ink, papyrus paper or leather, and some brain cells, for such an important task. They would not leave it to a guy from faraway Bukhara or his ilk to collect hearsay reports called hadiths more than two hundred years later in a land soaked with blood because of sectarian wars. Additionally, Muhammed had many unemployed and handicapped people around who would gladly volunteer for such a mission. To explain away this 200-year gap in history, the traditionalists created an excuse for prophet Muhammed and his supporters. Supposedly, Muhammed and his followers feared that people would mix the Quran with hadiths. This is nonsense. They were smart enough to distinguish both, and there were enough people to keep track of them.

Besides, it is the followers of hadith and sunna themselves who claim that the Quran was a "literary miracle." If their claim of "literary miracle" were true, then it would be much easier to separate the verses of the Quran from hadith. Let's assume that they could not really distinguish the text of the Quran from Muhammed's words, then couldn't they simply mark the pages of the scripture with the letter Q for the Quran and letter H for Hadith, or let some record only the Quran, or simply color code their covers? Or allocate leather for the Quran and paper for hadith, or vice versa? They could find many ways to keep different books separate from each other. They did not need to study rocket science or have computer technology to accomplish that primitive task. The collectors of hadiths wished that people would accept their assertion that Muhammed and his supporters did not have ink, paper or leather, minds, and willingness to collect hadith before them. It is no wonder they even fabricated a few hadiths claiming that Muhammed's companions were competing with dogs for bones to write the verses of the Quran on!

Most likely, Muhammed feared that people would mix his words with the Quran. Not in the primitive way that is claimed by the Sunnis and Shiites, since as we pointed out, there were many ways to eliminate that concern. But the real concern of Muhammed was different. Because of the warnings of the Quran, he feared that muslims would follow the footsteps of Jews and would create their own Mishna, Gomorra, and Talmud: hadith would be considered to be an authority, as another source besides the Quran, setting him up as a partner with God!

Ironically, the followers of hadith and sunna accomplished exactly that. They did not need to publish the text of hadith together with the Quran--though they have done that in many commentaries—since they have been doing worse. Though they usually have kept hadith separate from the Quran physically, when it comes to purposes of guidance and religious authority, they mix them with the verses of the Quran with passion. Even worse, they consider the understanding of the Quran to be dependent on the understanding of hadith, thereby elevating hadith to a position of authority over the Quran.

Thus, if indeed Muhammed was worried about people mixing his words with the Quran, the followers of hadith proved his worries right: centuries after him, not only did they mix his words with the Quran, but also mixed thousands of fabrications and nonsense attributed to him. See 25:30; 59:7.

Some readers commit the logical fallacy called Accent in understanding of this verse, "Those who acknowledge are but brethren…" They read the beginning of the Arabic statement, innama al-muminuna ikhwah, with an emphasis on the first two words rather than on the last word, leading to a mistranslation, "Only believers are brethren," thereby creating contradiction with the verses of the Quran depicting all humanity as brethren from Adam.

This verse unequivocally rejects sexism and racism and reminds us that neither male nor female, neither this race nor that race, is superior to the other. Recognition and appreciation of diversity is an important point in our test. The only measure of superiority is righteousness; being a humble, moral and socially conscientious person who strives to help others. See 4:34; 7:19; 24:61; 30:21; 33:5; 48:17; 60:12.