A Review of the Debate between Batalavi and Chakrhalavi

In November of 1902, a debate took place between Muhammad Hussain Batalavi and Abdullah Chakrhalavi on the importance and position of the Holy Quran and the hadith. Maulavi Muhammad Hussain who belonged to the Ahl-e-Hadith sect of Islam argued that the hadith of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) were an absolute and final authority in Islamic jurisprudence and that even the Holy Quran was to be judged and studied in light of these narrations. On the other hand, Maulavi Abdullah, a proponent of the Ahle-Quran sect of Islam suggested that the hadith were nothing more than a heap of unreliable, inauthentic and dubious narrations of no consequence. Furthermore, Maulavi Abdullah propounded that the only true source of guidance in Islam was the Holy Quran, which was the unaltered word of God and that all the hadith were worthy of being discarded. Both clerics argued vehemently in support of their starkly differing and extreme views.

Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the Promised Messiah and Mahdi and founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community wrote a succinct yet comprehensive analysis and review on these two extreme and flawed views. He eloquently presented a well-reasoned and rational perspective on the issue at hand in his capacity as a divinely appointed Prophet of God. In this comparative analysis, the Promised Messiah elaborates that the Holy Quran and Sunnah ought to be placed above the hadith. A verbal narration attributed to the Holy Prophet Muhammad(pbuh), which contradicts these two sources of guidance, cannot possibly be his words. A narration, however, which does not contradict the two aforementioned sources, ought to be readily accepted