Abstract:

The Holy Quran described the Prophet as a possessor of superior morality and presented him to the believers as an admirable model to be followed. As a matter of divine command, Muslims, along with the Qur’an, also took the hadiths of the Prophet as a basis and tried to shape their religious and cultural lives according to these foundations. However, there have been cases where the hadiths, which are one of the two main sources of religion, were misunderstood or decontextualized over time. If it is accepted that the correct understanding of a text or discourse is almost as important as its existence, then it will be better understood how important it is to fully understand the hadiths. In this context, it is important to build the text correctly in the minds as it might open the door to misunderstanding, loss and distortion. One of the hadiths that may cause misunderstandings is the hadith about "killing the lizard (gecko) at the first hit". Since the research has been done on the authenticity of the narration, details about its authenticity have not been given. The main theme of our research is how the related narration is understood by the religious teachers who undertake the task of religious preaching and how it is transferred to the society. In this study, case study method, which is one of the qualitative research methods and interview technique as data collection tool were used. In this context, 21 religious teachers were interviewed about the narration in question, other than the interviews made for the preliminary research. However, in the interviews, it was noticed that the concept meant in the related narration was not understood by the general participants. As based on the results of the research, some suggestions are presented so that religious teachers can be equipped in order to understand the meaning of hadiths in a better way.

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