Omid Safi on Modern Muslims & the Qur'an

Muslims, particularly in modern times, make a sharp delineation between the authority of the Qur'an and that of other sources, even the words of Muhammad (hadith). Yet it is worth noting that while Muslims have always privileged and prioritized the Qur'an as the supreme source of authority, the Qur'an has never been for Muslims the sole source of authority. To put it differently, prior to the last few decades, Muslims had not historically adopted the Sola scriptura ("by scripture alone") notions that came to characterize the Protestant Reformation approach to reading scripture. It is only very recently that some Muslims have become so suspicious of all non-Qur'anic Islamic texts that they have sought to abandon everything but the Qur'an as a reliable source for Islamic thought. Before the present day, Muslims have been more similar to Jews and Catholics, who have always looked at scripture through the multiple lenses of the later tradition - a tradition that for Muslims was shaped by the words of Muhammad, extra-scriptural stories ("Tales of the Prophets"), oral narratives, mystical tales, and other texts. In addition, with the exception of select groups like the Kharijis, who were deemed extreme, Muslims always approached the Qur'an through the authority of interpreters. In other words, they understood that scripture never speaks by itself but it is always interpreted and mediated through human voices. Another way of saying the same thing is to point out that until the twentieth century, no Muslim would have looked at the index of the Qur'an (or done a Google search) to find out what was expected of them. Divine guidance began with the text, but was always mediated through authoritative - human - teachers.

 -Omid Safi, Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters, pg. 165-166