Obey God and Obey the Messenger

The command to "obey God and the messenger," which appears across numerous Quranic verses including 3:32, is one of the most important instructions in the Quran - and one of the most consistently misused. Hadith scholars invoke it to justify the Hadith and Sunna as independent sources of religious jurisdiction alongside the Quran. Their argument runs as follows: obeying God is achieved through the Quran, while obeying the messenger is achieved through his personal sayings and methods. If obeying the messenger meant the same as obeying the Quran, they argue, God would simply have said "obey God." The addition of "obey the messenger" must therefore imply a second, independent body of teachings beyond the Quran that believers are required to follow.

This claim is examined here in the light of the Quran itself.

1 - Why does the Quran say "obey the messenger" and not simply "obey God"?

The question is worth taking seriously, because the Quran's precision of language is not accidental. God does not include words without purpose. There are clear and sufficient reasons why the command was phrased as "obey God and obey the messenger" - and none of them require a source of religious law beyond the Quran.

The first reason is the most substantial. There are no fewer than 332 verses in the Quran in which God commands Muhammad to "Say" specific words to the people. These are authenticated sayings of the Prophet - his actual words, verified by God and preserved in the Quran. A few examples:

[6:14] Say, "Shall I accept other than GOD as a Lord and Master, when He is the Initiator of the heavens and the earth, and He feeds but is not fed?" Say, "I am commanded to be the most devoted submitter, and, `You shall not be an idol worshiper.'"

[6:151] Say, "Come let me tell you what your Lord has really prohibited for you: You shall not set up idols besides Him. You shall honor your parents. You shall not kill your children from fear of poverty - we provide for you and for them. You shall not commit gross sins, obvious or hidden. You shall not kill - GOD has made life sacred - except in the course of justice. These are His commandments to you, that you may understand."

[7:33] Say, "My Lord prohibits only evil deeds, be they obvious or hidden, and sins, and unjustifiable aggression, and to set up beside GOD powerless idols, and to say about GOD what you do not know."

[9:105] Say, "Work righteousness; GOD will see your work, and so will His messenger and the believers. Ultimately, you will be returned to the Knower of all secrets and declarations, then He will inform you of everything you had done."

These 332 verses - instructions from God to the Prophet to say specific things, followed by the things he was commanded to say - constitute the legitimate reason the Quran contains the command to "obey the messenger." The believers were to obey Muhammad when he relayed to them these divinely authorized words. That obedience was obedience to the Quran.

The second reason is historical. None of the Prophet's companions received God's revelation directly from God. They could only obey God through what came out of Muhammad's mouth. Beyond delivering the text of the Quran, the Prophet spent his entire prophetic life from the first revelation until his death inviting his people to believe in it and follow it. The command to obey the messenger who was actively delivering and teaching the message was therefore necessary and entirely appropriate.

The third reason concerns the audience. The Quran was revealed in a community that included not only idol worshippers but also Jews and Christians who already believed they were obeying God through their own scriptures. A command to "obey God" alone would have left these groups with no reason to accept a new revelation - they could simply have said they already obeyed God through the Torah or the Gospel. The command to "obey the messenger" who brings the new and final message closes this opening, directing all people toward the Quran as the revelation that supersedes and confirms all that came before it:

[5:48] And we revealed to you this scripture, truthfully, confirming previous scriptures, and superseding them. You shall rule among them in accordance with GOD's revelations, and do not follow their wishes if they differ from the truth that came to you. For each of you, we have decreed laws and different rites. Had GOD willed, He could have made you one congregation. But He thus puts you to the test through the revelations He has given each of you. You shall compete in righteousness. To GOD is your final destiny - all of you - then He will inform you of everything you had disputed.

2 - "Obey the messenger" - not "obey Muhammad"

The Quran's precision on this point is striking and deliberate. Muhammad is mentioned by name in the Quran exactly four times: 3:144, 33:40, 47:2, and 48:29. The command to obey appears more than twenty-five times. Not once - in any of those twenty-five or more instances - does God say "obey Muhammad." The words used are always "obey the messenger."

This is not a coincidence. Nothing in the Quran is coincidental. God, who knows that Muhammad is a human being like all of us - subject to error, personal feeling, and the conditions of his time - did not attach the obligation of obedience to the person. He attached it to the role, and through the role, to the message. Consider what we know of Muhammad the human being: he frowned and turned away when a blind man came to him (80:1-11), he feared the people when he should have feared only God (33:37), and he prohibited what God had made lawful (66:1). If the command were to "obey Muhammad" - unconditionally, as a person - these lapses would have to be obeyed as well. God's wisdom in phrasing the command as "obey the messenger" rather than "obey Muhammad" protects against exactly this.

This distinction is made unmistakably clear in the address to the Prophet's wives:

[33:30-31] O wives of the prophet, if any of you commits a gross sin, the retribution will be doubled for her. This is easy for GOD to do. Any one of you who obeys GOD and His messenger, and leads a righteous life, we will grant her double the recompense, and we have prepared for her a generous provision.

God addresses the Prophet's own wives - women who lived in the same household as Muhammad, who spoke with him daily, who knew him more intimately than any other human beings - and still the command is not "obey your husband" or "obey Muhammad." It is "obey God and His messenger." The distinction is preserved even in the most intimate domestic context. Unconditional obedience to Muhammad as a person was never decreed - not for his wives, not for anyone.

The Arabic further reinforces this. The word Rasool, translated as "messenger," carries within it both meanings: the one who delivers the message and the message itself. The two are inseparable. When God says "obey the Rasool," He is simultaneously invoking both the bearer and what he bears. And the Quran itself is addressed as Rasool in multiple verses - 5:15, 14:1, 27:2, 32:3, 34:6, 42:52, and 65:11 among them. When the messenger dies, the message remains. The messenger among us now is the Quran.

3 - The duty of the messenger defines the scope of obedience

The Quran leaves no ambiguity about what the messenger's duty was:

[5:92] You shall obey GOD, and you shall obey the messenger, and beware. If you turn away, then you should know that the sole duty of our messenger is to deliver (the message) efficiently.

[64:12] You shall obey GOD and you shall obey the messenger. If you turn away, then the sole mission of our messenger is to deliver (the message).

[5:99] The sole duty of the messenger is to deliver the message, and GOD knows everything you declare and everything you conceal.

The structure of these verses is itself an argument. Obey God and obey the messenger - and if you turn away, know that the messenger's only duty was to deliver. The connection between the two halves is deliberate: the scope of obedience is defined by the scope of the duty. The messenger's duty was to deliver God's message. Obeying the messenger therefore means obeying the message he delivered. The word "messenger" is itself derived from "message" - a messenger without a message is a contradiction in terms.

4 - The only message revealed to Muhammad was the Quran

Some hadith scholars concede that the messenger's sole duty was to deliver the message, but claim that the Hadith and Sunna are themselves part of that message - that they were inspired to Muhammad by God just as the Quran was, constituting an additional revelation beyond the Quranic text. They sometimes call this the Hadith al-Qudsi - the sacred hadith.

The Quran refutes this claim directly. The greatest testimony Muhammad was instructed to give was this:

[6:19] Say, "Whose testimony is the greatest?" Say, "GOD's. He is the witness between me and you that this Quran has been inspired to me, to preach it to you and whomever it reaches. Indeed, you bear witness that there are other gods beside GOD." Say, "I do not testify as you do; there is only one god, and I disown your idolatry."

God describes this as akbar shahada - the greatest testimony. It is a testimony about one revelation received by Muhammad from God: the Quran. If Muhammad had received additional revelation from God beyond the Quran, it would have been included in the greatest testimony of what he received. It is not.

Moreover, the claim that every word uttered by Muhammad was divinely inspired is directly contradicted by the six documented cases in the Quran where the Prophet committed errors for which God reprimanded him. If all his words were inspired by God, was God inspiring errors and then reprimanding him for them? The question answers itself.

The Quran is equally direct about what Muhammad himself followed:

[46:9] Say, "I am not different from other messengers. I have no idea what will happen to me or to you. I only follow what is revealed to me. I am no more than a profound warner."

[10:15] When our revelations are recited to them, those who do not expect to meet us say, "Bring a Quran other than this, or change it!" Say, "I cannot possibly change it on my own. I simply follow what is revealed to me. I fear, if I disobey my Lord, the retribution of an awesome day."

If Muhammad followed only the Quran, then to follow Muhammad is to do the same. Whoever follows anything other than the Quran is not following what Muhammad followed.

5 - God promises to preserve the Quran and nothing else

[15:9] Absolutely, we have revealed the reminder, and, absolutely, we will preserve it.

This promise is made for the Quran. It is made nowhere in the Quran for the personal sayings of the messenger. Previous scriptures - the Torah and the Gospel - were not preserved despite being revelations from God. Only the Quran carries this guarantee. The Quran also provides a built-in criterion for identifying what is and is not from God:

[4:82] Why do they not study the Quran carefully? If it were from other than GOD, they would have found in it numerous contradictions.

The canonical Hadith collections, by the acknowledgment of their own compilers, are riddled with contradictions - internally, with each other, and with the Quran. Bukhari examined approximately 600,000 narrations and accepted fewer than 8,000. Muslim examined 300,000 and accepted roughly 4,000. The scholars themselves acknowledged that ninety-four to ninety-nine percent of what circulated in the Prophet's name was fabricated. This is not a tradition that meets the criterion of 4:82.

6 - What was the case of the first two centuries of believers?

Of the six Hadith collections labeled sahih today, the earliest author is Imam al-Bukhari, born in the year 194 after the Hijra. This means that no Hadith considered authentic was committed to writing until at least two centuries after the Prophet's death. If God's command to "obey God and the messenger" meant following the Hadith, what recourse did the believers of those first two centuries have? Were they unable to obey God's command for two hundred years because the required texts had not yet been written? The question exposes the absurdity of the claim. God's commands do not await the convenience of future scholars.

7 - God commands following the Quran and nothing else

The Quran is explicit in designating itself as the only source of religious law:

[6:114] Shall I seek other than GOD as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed? Those who received the scripture recognize that it has been revealed from your Lord, truthfully. You shall not harbor any doubt.

[7:3] You shall all follow what is revealed to you from your Lord; do not follow any idols besides Him. Rarely do you take heed.

The first verse establishes that the Quran is fully detailed. The second commands following it exclusively. Neither verse contains a qualification, an exception, or a reference to supplementary sources.

8 - Is there a command in the Quran to follow the Sunna of the Prophet?

There is not. What the Quran does establish is that the only Sunna is the Sunna of God:

[35:43] They are committing arrogance on earth, and evil scheming, and the evil schemes only backfire on those who scheme them. Should they then expect anything but the fate of those who did the same things in the past? You will find that GOD's system is never changeable; you will find that GOD's system is immutable.

[33:38] The prophet is not committing an error by doing anything that is made lawful by GOD. Such is GOD's system since the early generations. GOD's commands are sacred duties.

The prophet was himself commanded to follow the Sunna of God - not to devise his own. The Sunna of the Prophet, as a separate source of religious authority, has no Quranic basis. Those who claim it find their only support in 33:21:

[33:21] The messenger of GOD has set up a good example for those among you who seek GOD and the Last Day, and think about GOD frequently.

The verse is specific. The good example lies in his constant remembrance of God and his orientation toward the Last Day - not in which foot he used to enter a room, which side he slept on, or the minutiae of his personal habits. The scope of the "good example" has been inflated far beyond what the verse actually says.

9 - Is there a command in the Quran to follow the Hadith of the Prophet?

The Quran answers this directly, and in the opposite direction:

[45:6] These are GOD's revelations that we recite to you truthfully. In which Hadith other than GOD and His revelations do they believe?

[7:185] Have they not looked at the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all the things GOD has created? Does it ever occur to them that the end of their life may be near? Which Hadith, besides this, do they believe in?

[77:50] Which Hadith, other than this, do they uphold?

The question in each verse is rhetorical, and the answer is a rebuke. The Quran identifies itself as the only hadith the believers should follow. The question of whether other hadith are "authentic" is not raised because it is not relevant - the command in 45:6 prohibits any hadith other than God's revelations regardless of its claimed authenticity. God also tells us why He permitted fabricated hadith to proliferate:

[6:112-113] We have permitted the enemies of every prophet - human and jinn devils - to inspire in each other fancy words, in order to deceive. Had your Lord willed, they would not have done it. You shall disregard them and their fabrications. This is to let the minds of those who do not believe in the Hereafter listen to such fabrications, and accept them, and thus expose their real convictions.

The fabrications are a test. Those who hold to the Quran as the only source of law (6:114) pass it. Those who follow other sources expose their real convictions (45:6, 31:6).

10 - Was the messenger authorized to teach anything beyond the Quran?

God warned the Prophet explicitly:

[69:43-47] This is a revelation from the Lord of the universe. Had he (Muhammad) uttered any other teachings, we would have punished him. We would have stopped the revelations to him. None of you could have protected him against us.

Those who insist the Prophet left a second source of religious law are either accusing him of defying this warning or are unaware that it exists. The Prophet himself, in accordance with 6:114 and 69:43-47, commanded his people not to write his hadith. This is documented in the same collections his followers call authentic:

Ahmed, Vol. 1, page 171; Sahih Muslim, Book 42, Number 7147 - "Do not write down anything of me except the Quran. Whoever writes other than that should delete it."

The hadith scholars respond that this prohibition applied only to the early period of revelation, out of concern that hadith would be confused with Quranic text, and was later rescinded. Three observations dismantle this response entirely.

First: two centuries of prohibition is not "the early period of revelation." Second: if the prohibition was rescinded, there should exist a narration - in the same collections - recording its cancellation. None does. Third: the premise of the excuse is that the Prophet feared his hadith would be confused with the Quran. If that were true, it would imply the Prophet lacked confidence in God's explicit promise to collect and preserve the Quran:

[75:17] It is we who collect it and recite it.

[15:9] Absolutely, we have revealed the reminder, and, absolutely, we will preserve it.

To suggest the Prophet doubted these promises is to impugn both his faith and his understanding of God's word.

Conclusion

Obeying the messenger does not mean obeying books written two centuries after his death, against his own instructions, and against the command of God. It does not mean following collections that contradict the Quran, contradict each other, and were acknowledged by their own compilers to contain fabrications on a massive scale. When the Prophet died, he left behind one book. That is the book God calls complete, perfect, and fully detailed (12:111). That is the book God promised to preserve. That is the book the Prophet himself followed exclusively (46:9).

The command to "obey God and obey the messenger" is one command with one object: follow the Quran that came through Muhammad's mouth, all of it, and nothing besides it. The messenger and his message are inseparable - and when the messenger returned to his Lord, the message remained. It remains now. Obeying the messenger today means following the light he was sent to deliver:

[7:157] "(4) follow the messenger, the gentile prophet (Muhammad), whom they find written in their Torah and Gospel. He exhorts them to be righteous, enjoins them from evil, allows for them all good food, and prohibits that which is bad, and unloads the burdens and the shackles imposed upon them. Those who believe in him, respect him, support him, and follow the light that came with him are the successful ones."

And the messenger himself will testify on the Day he stands before God that his people abandoned it:

[25:30] The messenger said, "My Lord, my people have deserted this Quran."