Is Mohammad (sm)'s everything sunnah

Question

From some person I came to know that Mohammad (sms)'s everything is not sunnah. For example he married Ayesha (R) when she was at the age of 6, This is not sunnah. He used to ride on camel this is not sunnah.

From my previous knowledge I knew that what ever mohammad (sm) did is sunnah. Now please help me clear this confusion.

Answer 1

Sunnah generally refers to something that was either a regular practice of the Prophet (that hasn't been otherwise qualified as something exclusive to the Prophet), or something that he encouraged his followers to do. For things that he did that weren't a regular practice — either things that he is only known to have done occasionally or even just once, or things he did one way some times and a different way other times — we can generally understand that such actions are not necessarily encouraged as sunnah, but they are permissible.

As for things that are a regular practice, whether or not it's considered "sunnah" would also depend on whether or not it was just a personal preference (e.g. his favorite color is reported to be green, but wearing green clothes is not considered sunnah) or simply a common cultural practice (e.g. riding camels was simply the common mode of transportation during the Prophet's time and not considered part of the sunnah); again, such practices would still be considered permissible, but not necessarily encouraged.

Exactly where this line is can be a bit harder to define and requires knowledge of the actual culture and behaviour of the time as well as the personal preferences of the Prophet himself; for this reason taking any single hadith as proof of "sunnah" — no matter how authentic it is — without understanding the proper context is often a bad idea.

Answer 2

Simply speaking you could say anything the prophet () has said or done is part of his () sunnah.

The above is the simple definition which I've provided in my answer on What is the Khabar? How is it different than Sira, Akbar, Sunnah, & Hadith in general?. Note that in fact there are even ahadith from which scholars concluded that marrying a young girl is halal (even without her agreement). So the marriage of 'Aisha is not the only evidence for such marriages.

But when it comes to details in fact scholars say we must nevertheless make a clear distinction between three kinds of acts:

• Acts that are a human necessity, like eating, drinking, walking, sitting, sleeping, none of us can pretend that he is sitting to get close to Allah so this is not a sunnah.
• Acts that are clearly related to Allah's shari'a like the prayer, hajj etc. when we do these acts following the prophet () (raising hands while praying, putting right hand on the left, delaying suhoor etc.) then it is clearly sunnah.
• Acts that lie in between, like going to hajj by riding a horse or camel. It is narrated that the prophet () had a ride on his way for hajj, it is possible that he did so for a human necessity (weakness, long distance etc.) and it is possible that he did so to practice a rule. The same applies for the sitting after the second sujud in the 1st and 3rd raka'a some scholars concluded that it is sunnah others say the prophet has been reported to do so when he was older so it isn't. So here it is unclear whether these things may fall under the category sunnah or not

May main source for the distinction Islamqa #258503 (so far only available in Arabic languagel

Answer 3

Yes it's right to some extent that everything that our beloved Prophet Mohammad S.A.W did is not Sunnah. But if He did anything and show that specifically to the Sahaba's and gave them an advise to follow that same thing and also spread that in other people's so that will be considered as a Sunnah.