Sunnah and Hadiths

I am still trying to understand Islam and it's like trying to mush all the Christian denominations into a short, accurate, approved summary of what is required to be a "True Christian". 

I went to buy a copy of the Sunnah.  Forget About It.  I have to decide "Which version would you like?"  Are you sure you don't want to go right to the Hadiths?"  "Which hadiths does your sect ascribe to?"

Sunni vs Shi'ite.  Fight Guys Fight!

"The Arabic word Sunnah has come to denote the way Prophet Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, lived his life. The Sunnah is the second source of Islamic jurisprudence, the first being the Qur’an. Both sources are indispensable; one cannot practice Islam without consulting both of them.

The Arabic word hadith (pl. ahadith) is very similar to Sunnah, but not identical. A hadith is a narration about the life of the Prophet or what he approved - as opposed to his life itself, which is the Sunnah as already mentioned.

 In M. M. Azami's Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature, the following precise definition of a hadith is given:  According to the Muhaddithiin [scholars of hadith -ed.] it stands for 'what was transmitted on the authority of the Prophet, his deeds, sayings, tacit approval, or description of his sifaat (features) meaning his physical appearance. However, physical appearance of the Prophet is not included in the definition used by the jurists."     (Makes sense, huh?)

"Thus hadith literature means the literature, which consists of the narrations of the life of the Prophet and the things approved by him. However, the term was used sometimes in much broader sense to cover the narrations about the Companions [of the Prophet -ed.] and Successors [to the Companions -ed.] as well.

The explosion of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries confronted Islamic scholars with a daunting task: to preserve the knowledge of the Sunnah of the Prophet. Hence the science of hadith evaluation was born."

 The promise of Allah

 "The promise made by Allah in Qur'an 15:9 is obviously fulfilled in the undisputed purity of the Qur'anic text throughout the fourteen centuries since its revelation. However, what is often forgotten by many Muslims is that the divine promise also includes, by necessity, the Sunnah of the Prophet, because the Sunnah is the practical example of the implementation of the Qur'anic guidance, the wisdom taught to the Prophet along with the scripture, and neither the Qur'an nor the Sunnah can be understood correctly without the other.

Allah preserved the Sunnah by enabling the companions and those after them to memorize, write down and pass on the statements of the Prophet, and the descriptions of his way, as well as to continue the blessings of practicing the Sunnah.

Later, as the purity of the knowledge of the Sunnah became threatened, Allah caused the Muslim Ummah to produce individuals with exceptional memory skills and analytical expertise, who travelled tirelessly to collect thousands of narrations and distinguish the true words of prophetic wisdom from those corrupted by weak memories, from forgeries by unscrupulous liars, and from the statements of the large number of Ulama (scholars), the companions and those who followed their way. All of this was achieved through precise attention to the words narrated, and detailed familiarity with the biographies of the thousands of reporters of hadith."

There, I hope that clears everything up. 

Obviously there is one true church...the one I go to.