Surah 4 · Verse 59

[4:59] Obeying a messenger while he is a leader or obeying elected or appointed officers does not mean taking their words or commands as "God's commandment" or absolute, infallible, unchangeable and universal law. One of the most frequently cited Quranic instructions by the followers of hadith and sunna is "obey God and His Messenger" (4:59). Let us briefly discuss this example to see better the nature of abuse, and how thousands of hadith rabbits are produced from empty hats. Obeying Bukhari, a narrator of hearsay, is not obeying the messenger. Obeying the messenger is obeying the complete, perfect and fully detailed Quran. Verse 25:73 describes the attitude of believers towards God's revelations. But the followers of hadith and sunna are very good in ignoring them. They do not see 6:19, 7:3, and 50:45, which say that the only teaching delivered by God's messenger was the Quran. They do not think that Muhammed practiced the Quran, and the Quran alone (5:48, 49). They do not hear Muhammed's only complaint about his people (25:30). They do not understand that Muhammed disowns those who do not understand that the Quran is enough and fully detailed (6:114). The first verse of Chapter 9 states that an ultimatum is issued from God and His messenger. Muslims acknowledge that verses about the ultimatum are entirely from God. God did not consult Muhammed about the ultimatum. Muhammed's only mission was to deliver God's message (16:35; 24:54). Thus, the reason that God included the messenger in 9:1 is not because he was another authority in issuing it, but because he participated as the deliverer of the ultimatum. Similarly, because people receive God's message through messengers, we are ordered to obey the messengers. We also know that the Quran is a permanent messenger (65:11), and the Quran is a reminder and deliverer of good news (41:4; 11:2).