It's a common misconception that Submission has anything to do with the Quranist movement. Learn about the differences.
You claim to follow Quran alone, doesn't that make you a Quranist?
What is a Submitter?
And what is the difference?
Submitter: Someone who takes existing beliefs, laws, practices, and rites and filters them using the Quran
Quranist: Someone who treats the Quran as if it fell down directly to them from outer space and they must build an entire religion using the Quran alone without any context, outside information, or historical basis.
In the most basic terms, a Submitter is someone who follows the Quran by taking existing practices and using the Quran as a filter to reach the pure religion of Submission.
A Quranist treats the Quran as if it has fallen from outer space and has no context, history, or functions beyond what is explicitly described and stated in the text. They take any Arabic word and arbitrarily select meanings from the list of meanings derived from the triliteral root. The end result of such an approach is obviously chaos.
This flawed approach causes Quranists to differ widely on every topic. This is why Quranists have no congregation and can never have a congregation. No two Quranists would agree on even the most basic practices and forms of worship.
Obviously, there can be differences of opinion among Submitters. However, in comparison to Quranists, the differences are usually quite minute. One additional aspect when it comes to Submitters is that they almost always accept code 19 as God’s mathematical miracle stated in the Quran in 74:31. The follow up result of this acceptance is to accept the fact that God does not reveal His ultimate miracle to a liar after 1406 years. Therefore, Dr. Rashad Khalifa, cannot be a liar and a cheat. This understanding and process helps facilitate the understanding of many Quranic topics for Submitters. Dr. Khalifa is thus shown to be among “those well founded in knowledge” in 3:7. Such a person does not misguide and deceive.
Quranists on the other hand, are stuck with endless dilemmas of having to select meanings to apply to verses of the Quran, without any form of basis or foundation. This ultimately results in problems understanding even the most basic concepts such as “When is Ramadan?” and “Where is the Kabah located? Mecca or Petra?”.
One could argue Quranism contains more “madhabs” than every traditional sect combined. Just like saying “Sunni” can mean Shaafi, Maliki, and so on, the term “Quranist” seems to have far more and drastic variations if someone actually took the effort to quantify them.
Submitters accept all religious practices passed down from Abraham (Shahada, Salat, Seyaam, Zakat, Hajj).
Following the rise of Quranism, many people have come with their own interpretations of the Quran. As we know, salat is a crucial part of our salvation. Let us look at the current list of interpretations of the word salat in the “Quranist” community:
Frequency
5 - Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Mohamed Chahrour
4 - QuranAloneIslam
3 - Quran-Islam website
0 - (many quranists who believe salat merely means “follow closely”)
Unknown - (many quranists believe that Salat can be modified every day, alternating the number of daily prayers regularly.)
What it consists of
– Voluntary prayer
– Recitation of the Quran
– Duty
– Solidarity
What is to be said during Salat:
– Some say you can recite Sura 1, but in any language you like
– Some say you can recite any number of verses without restrictions
– Some say you can only recite verses relating to commands in the Quran
– Some say you can only recite verses that do not mention other than God.
"The predominant mistake that I see Quranists making in their understanding of the Quran is that they try to understand the Quran as if it was revealed in a vacuum. Almost as if the Quran had fallen from the sky and has no context, history, or functions beyond what is explicitly described and stated in the text. Then based on this underlying premise they attempt to utilize Classical Arabic dictionaries, like Lanes Lexicon, and arbitrarily select interpretations from any of the list of derivative meanings that can be found for the triliteral root of a word. The end result of such an approach is obviously chaos as any root can have a multitude of derivate meanings, but the bigger question is how is the word used in the Quran itself. Some even go so far as to say that any of the Arabic letters that contain dots can be substituted for the equivalent other letters if this will help them extricate a certain meaning they were hoping to obtain, since the oldest manuscripts of the Quran don’t possess any dots or vowels."
"The 'Quraniyoon' ask "when is Ramadan”. They think it violates God's claim that the Quran is complete and fully detailed to already know when Ramadan is. This is Satan's desperate trick to try to force God's servants from fasting in the month. These are the "clear Arabic" words that they have to reinvent in order to try this:
– Ramadan (name of Arabic month)
– Ayyam (Arabic word for days)
– Siyam (Arabic word for fast
They will dig into extra-Quranic lexicons to dig through variants of the root word to reinvent the meanings of common Arabic words. They think that "fully detailed" means that Arabic language needs to be reinvented."
It is a major mistake to conflate Submission with Quranism. The Quranism movement has largely plagiarized Dr. Rashad Khalifa's research categorically refuting the popular concept of "Hadith & Sunna" after centuries of ignorance.
More crucially, most Quranists additionally reject the Abrahamic practices. Some additionally go as far as reinventing them. This speculative and conspiracist approach explains the extreme disunity and division among Quranists. Oddly, this makes Submission closer to traditional Islam. Submitters highly value the unity among believers & being able to congregate.
Additionally, physical evidence of the Quran's divine origin was unveiled in 1974 through Dr. Rashad Khalifa. Submitters are among a unique subset of believers of the Quran who actually accept its existence, its clear prophecy, along with the heavy implications it comes with.
"There was no modern-day Quranist movement until after Rashad Khalifa wrote Quran Hadith and Islam and the translation of the Quran in 1981. Through his work individuals took the ideas he extracted from the Quran and created the modern Quranist movement we see today."
"It’s no laughing matter. Quranists quote 45:6, 39:23, 31:6, 6:19, 6:114, 12:111, 77:50, 7:185 as primary arguments for following the Quran alone. These are all arguments taken straight from citations of verses in “Quran, Hadith and Islam” or emphasized in footnotes and appendices of his translation. Anyone who claims to follow the Quran alone is putting Rashad Khalifa over the Quran like Sunnis do, because all the arguments for following the Quran alone that Quranists make is plagiarized from the works of Rashad."