Implementation of Abdullah Saeed's Contextualization in Hadith Analysis: A Case Study of Hadith Responding to Non-Muslim Greetings

Abstract

This paper aims to formulate Abdullah Saeed's idea of contextualisation in the context of Hadith analysis. Therefore, the first step is that the author tries to dissect the epistemic basis of Abdullah Saeed's contextualisation method with a linguistic approach, namely semantic and pragmatic aspects. After dissecting with these two sciences, the basic ideas about contextualisation will be found. From there, the procedural steps of contextualisation are formulated, which are then used to understand the case of the Hadith of answering the greeting to non-Muslims. Based on the above analysis, there are several things that can be concluded. Firstly, the implementation of Abdullah Saeed's ideas in hadith studies is possible. Second, based on the linguistic approach the steps of contextualisation in hadith studies can be detailed as follows: (1) examining the characteristics of the text; (2) looking for the semantic/linguistic meaning of the text; (3), looking for the pragmatic meaning (context) of the text (surface meaning); (4), looking for the deep meaning; and (5) dialoguing all these elements with the reality and situation of the reader. Third, the results of contextualisation of answering non-Muslim greetings based on this approach are: (1) the issue of answering the greeting belongs to the area of mu'amalah; (2) answering the wrong of non-Muslims in the Indonesian context should at least be equivalent to what was said, and exceeding the answer is an act of ihsan; (3) the hadith contains universal fundamental values, namely that verbal violence committed by non-Muslims against Muslims must be responded gently (unemotional), prioritising unity and peace. In addition, the attitude of justice and ihsan must be taken into account; and (4) the further consequence of this is that giving the greeting first as a broadcast of Islam becomes a permissibility.