Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – The Great Imam Abu Hanifa at Imperial College London
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Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa
salatu salam ala so you didn't know Celine were either early he
or saw we are Baraka was seldom at the Sleeman Kathira Yomi. Dean
Emeritus
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valley human Mala Iike Allah The Hafele wala Zoo. Whatever Shiro
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dunya or Phil. Akira. Welcome comfy her Malatesta he and Phu
Kham welcome fee her method their own Lulu Minho, foodie Rahim.
Dear friends, nice to be with you here today, this evening. And this
is a wonderful series that
has been initiated here. And
it's my honor to be here to deliver the first of the series on
the great Imam, Abu Hanifa and Notman immunother. But Al kofi.
The reason is that the majority of the Muslim world today, they, for
whatever reason it is they have
some kind of affinity with one of these four Imams at some level of
the order other we're talking about. After 14 After about you
can say 12 to 1300 years since these Imams and they were not all
contemporaries, and I'll explain that just to set the scene for you
afterwards. But for over 10 centuries 1112 up to 13 centuries,
there have been people who have been influenced by these four
and there was no agreement that okay, I'm going to choose that the
Prophet sallallahu sallam said I'm going to choose these four people.
I mean, these people never met the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wasallam.
The earliest of the four is clearly Imam Abu Hanifa Rahim
Allah. He was born in at Hijiri. So at Hijiri is you can say the
beginning towards the beginning of the Abbas it's, it's obviously 80
years after the migration of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
and you've got some Sahaba left, you've got some companions left.
And this is pretty much agreed upon that Imam Abu Hanifa met at
least one companion, if not several, and the one he is known
to have for certain met is an Hasib. No Malik, Radi Allahu anhu,
who was actually the personal assistant of the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam from about the age of 10. Until the
Prophet sallallahu Sallam for about 10 years until the Prophet
SAW son passed away most of his Medina in life. So he was very
privy to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam comes home and,
and his lifestyle and everything. And the province also had once
made a very special dua for him, for which reason he actually
stayed alive for a very long time. And he said he personally buried
so many of his own children and grandchildren who died before him.
He Imam Abu Hanifa met him and it's possible he met a number of
others as being related as well. And there's also a possibility
that he's also transmitted directly from the sahaba. Though
that's that's not proven beyond beyond question. Why, why are we
speaking about having metta Sahabi because, as we may know, there's a
bit of a hierarchy in the early generations. So, the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in a hadith, how Eurocom
currently, the best of you is my generation, which basically speaks
about everybody that saw the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, so all the companions are Sahaba then he says, so hydrocone,
Sama, Lavinia Luna home, Thumbelina, Luna home, then those
who will come after them, and then those who will follow them. So
we're talking about three generations. And of course, this
is a bit of a diminishing hierarchy. So, the Sahaba the
companions that saw the Prophet salallahu ideas and they have some
very specific qualities and excellence is about them. And then
they followed by those who studied by them or saw them while in a
state of iman, and then followed by the third level. So the Sahaba
called companions, companions are called Sahaba. Then those who
followed them, the next generation is called the tabby Oenothera,
your own which means followers successes, and then the third
generation is called a Tabata Berrien or TabPro Therby in a
singular, which basically means the followers of the followers or
successes of
The successes
essentially for these three people, because the Prophet
sallallahu, Allah sort of mentioned that they are the high
Eurocom high, it means the most excellent among you the best among
you the most virtuous among you. That means they have been born
witness with what they call it or goodness or excellence, unlike us.
Right as as a whole generation. Of course, there's people in every
generation that will be that will have some kind of virtue and
excellence depending on what they do, what they achieve and what the
state of their heart is. But these three generations were born
witness about as a whole, which is quite amazing. So the higher the
generation the superior So, him Abu Hanifa was certainly a tabby
among the four Imams, Imam Malik, who was born about
maybe within a decade or so after him. He was not considered a
tabby. But Mr. Wu Hanifa was even though Mr. Hanifa was actually in
Kufa and Imam Malik Rahim, Allah was actually in Madina Munawwara
because by that time, many of the Sahaba probably Medina mana or
maybe passed away, and the others who are probably alive were
probably in different parts of the world,
in Abu Hanifa, then lifts for a good age. He died eventually in
150 Hijiri. So that means he was 70 years old when he passed away.
Very interesting is that the 150 Hijiri is the same year in which
Imam Shafi is born.
So the only person who was actually a contemporary of you,
Abu Hanifa was Imam Malik, who was born a decade or so after him and
obviously died a bit after him. That's why Imam Shafi, who was
born in 150
gets to study at a very young age about 910 years old. He gets to
study
with Imam Malik in his old days in his old age, and then comes Imam
Ahmed Mohammed who comes later. Imam Muhammad Imam Shafi was Imam
Shafi was born in 150. He died in 203 or four, right Hijiri. He was
only about 50. Something has already passed away. Imam Shafi Oh
Imam Imam Ahmed even no humble overlaps with him. Imam Ahmed
studied with Imam Shafi and Imam Muhammad days in 240, or 50, some
John 40 Something I think, so you can see there's a bit of a
succession here. Now, why are these four Imams? Why do we Why do
we follow them? Why do most people have some kind of relationship to
them the fifth that basically is considered to be the fifth of the
Orthodox Muslim Ummah, right relates to these four why? There
were actually a number of other so called Imams who did what these
four did as well. What did these four do what they're primarily
known today for, we're not going to focus I just want to lay the
foundation because the first lecture, what these four did,
essentially was that they codified the Sharia, the fic, the
jurisprudence, essentially, you had the Quran and you have sunnah,
meaning you had the Quranic verses, you had the Sunnah, the
hadith of Rasulullah, sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam, but they had to
be distilled. They had to be extrapolated from they had to be
processed to derive the rulings from the so people could use them.
Because not everything is so clear cut in the Quran and Sunnah. There
are many things that are not mentioned in the Quran, sunnah,
that, you know, we would need answers for. So what these imams
are trying to do is they were trying to analyze these traditions
and trying to formulate rulings for us. Clearly, sometimes they
differed. Clearly, sometimes they differ because sometimes one is
going to say you do it this way and another Imams saying do it
another way. Clearly they differ about that. And while they will
all correct in their endeavor, because the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam has said very clearly, that when the judge or
the jurist, the one who has the qualifications to undertake this
kind of analysis, and in scholarly endeavor, when they undertake that
scholarly endeavor to find the truth, and they come up with a
ruling, they formulate a ruling, if it is correct, according to
what is
the reality according to Allah, than they actually end up getting
to rewards. If they get it wrong, they won't know they think they
will think they're correct that they formulate a ruling based on
their analysis and their
their their studies and their research. If that doesn't match up
with what's the hook and the truth according to Allah, they still get
one reward. And the reason they get one reward is because their
responsibility was to find a ruling. There's no website you can
go and look at you know that there's no website there's no
trivia question or something where say, Okay, that was actually
right. You know, next week we're going to publish what's right and
what's wrong according to Allah. Right. You only going to find that
out in the hereafter in terms of how much reward they get. Right?
So that's, that's just to give you a bit of
A scholarly kind of understanding of how these the dynamics behind
it, but they were not just these four. Remember I said these four
were not always contemporaries. At the same time they were others in
different parts of the world doing the same thing. So you had no
Hazama vahidi, right? We had a more literalist approach. You had
Imam Ozeri who who was the great they had no probably greater
person in Sharm in Syria. He was the Imam of Syria, just like Abu
Hanifa was in Kufa. Imam Muhammad was in Basra. Imam Shafi probably
started off in originally from Huzar went to Makkah, and he ended
up in Egypt. He's buried there right now in Cairo. Right. Imam
Malik was in Madina. Munawwara What about the other great cities?
So you had in Egypt you actually had Latham Northside, right,
another great Imam there. And in Sham you had a person called Imam
and Ozeri. Then you had Imam Abuja for a Tubbercurry. Right, the
great professor and historian, he also had a mother happiness time.
But you know, what happened over the centuries is that these mud
hubs, some of them did not survive. How does the mother have
survive? What's the mother hub, a school of law. That particular
the, the scholars that I've mentioned, the four Imams and all
these others, they obviously came up and extrapolated a body of
muscle, a body of rulings right now, for anything that I say, I
have to either write a book, or I have to teach several people.
Otherwise, I'm going to all whatever I've said, Whatever
knowledge I had is going to die with me. Right? That's quite a
natural thing, isn't it? So you're gonna have to produce some papers,
you're gonna have to write a book, you're gonna have to give
seminars, and you're gonna have to be influential enough that people
actually pick up from you, and then proliferate your thoughts. So
essentially, for these other Imams that didn't happen, meaning for
these other great scholars, it didn't happen. Their mothers have
their school of law, their codification their body of laws
that they'd formulated did not carry on, whereas Waimangu Hanifa
mimetic Imam Shafi ma Muhammad at varying different degrees their
their mothers endured until today. That's why if we look at the
Muslim ummah, proportionately speaking today, you could say that
the overwhelming majority,
if there are followers of madhhab, as the majority generally are,
right, there are followers of the Hanafi school, followed by the
Maliki school is actually probably has more followers than the Shafi
school, because a lot of North Africa is Maliki, right. And
that's a huge population, then followed by the Shafi school is
probably the third, though the shabby school in the West seems to
be probably a bit more popular than the Maliki school. Well,
actually probably about the same.
So you have the 100 views will probably have the greatest amount
of following, followed by Maliki's followed by Chef A's followed by
Hamleys, right? Who have probably the smallest amount of followers
in that sense, and there's
even those who are generally tend to be followers, there's very,
very few who are, you can say odd and followers of the humbly
school, a lot of them tend to shift away in quite a few mosyle.
Where, you know, they think that they've got a stronger opinion
elsewhere. So it's not a very strong school in that sense,
though, it was obviously, in the past. Now, let's talk about the
mobile Hanif, I just want to set the scene say Mom, whenever you
start this off, what makes him so popular? We've got one statement
by Imam Shafi himself, he says a NASA aI don't either be Hanifa.
Right? Basically it Phil filk in jurisprudence, everybody is
dependent on Mr. Abu Hanifa.
Now, that's quite an amazing statement that he makes, despite
the fact that he doesn't take Mr. Hanif as views in everything,
right. He clearly has respect for him, clearly praises him for this,
but he has his own school. Right. He studies with Imam Malik, his
school is very different to my Malik's as well. So he's clearly
got his own mind. It's a very independent thinker. There's no
doubt about it. But what then makes him say that people are
dependent on Imam Abu Hanifa in their fic. So one of the ways to
understand that is that
Imam Abu Hanifa is probably responsible for the first
codification work, you could probably say that he was probably
the first person to fill this gap. As Islam spread. I mean, 70
Hijiri, at hegi. When he started doing his work is probably about
90 Hijiri. It's very interesting, where he came from and what's his
life story. That's when he started doing his work formulating the fic
and jurisprudence. He was the first to try to codify it, to try
to bring it together. Now, when something has been unprecedented,
then there's only the very bold and confident and highly resolute
people will probably try to go and fill that gap. Most of us are
followers. Most of us just do what others do, because we copy because
that's the safest way to
Do things. There's very few people who actually willing to go out on
a limb and do something different. Now, among those people, you've
got those who go out and do something radical, indifferent,
who mess it all up. And then you've got those people who get it
right. That's the Tofik of Allah subhanaw taala. Right. That's the
Tofik. That's a divine enablement from ALLAH SubhanA wa. Tada. So
Imam, Abu Hanifa blazes this path. So he's a pioneer, I would say in
extrapolating all of these extra issues, right, including a lot of
hypothetical issues. He literally had, you could say a factory of
fic, where he had the this is what's different from his mouth
hub to other hubs that he had approximately 30 People have
various different proficiencies whether that be in Arabic
language, in Hadith, in analogy,
in analysis, and in Quran to have seen, and so on, and he had all of
them together, and a lot of the Messiah, a lot of the rulings that
they have been formulated through him. They come through the
committee, it's sometimes they've debated on issues for three
months. And eventually it's like, Okay, fine. If we can't come to an
agreement, we're going to record that this is his opinion. And this
is So Imam Abu use of opinion one of his students, this Imam
Mohammed's opinion, this is Zophar. His opinion, this is has
any museum dad's opinion. So you've got that in, in those
bodies of work that had been produced, you've got that in
there. So let's go back to your Abu Hanifa. About what make gives
him this ability now that we've understood where, what, what he's
been able to achieve, and his pioneering work.
I personally believe that he is one of those people, and you get a
few of those in the world at any given time. He's just one of those
people who has a natural genius, extremely intellectual.
Right. In fact, people, there's one person who observed him
sitting up and standing, sorry, sitting down and then standing up.
And he said, and he says that this person is so intellectual, you can
even see it in the way he sits in the way he stands. Now, some of us
may just consider that to be an exaggeration, but I completely
understand what he's speaking about. You may see somebody the
way they get in a car, right? Overcoming an obstacle, you know,
there's a certain way they do things, you can tell that they've
got a lot of experience in the way they do it to maybe avoid a
particular accident, avoid a particular very efficiently.
That's just a statement about him. Now, in Abu Hanifa, what I love
about him right away, he is a great role model, personally, for
me. And I sometimes probably get very animated even speaking about
him, though I haven't spoken to him about him for a very long
time, is that he starts off as a businessman,
a very wealthy businessman. Once he and he liked his fine clothes,
he would pass by and you could tell it pass by because
you could tell his perfume.
Right? He used very expensive things. And he liked it that
people and he spent a lot behind other people. So for example,
there was one occasion when he borrowed somebody's garment, I
can't remember exactly which garment it was. And then it for
that person. It was a very expensive garment.
And then he gave it back to him. And he said, No, this isn't good
enough. And then a week later, he was seen with a garment about 10
times that same kind of article of clothing, there was about 10 times
that amount. On one occasion, there was somebody who came to one
of his gatherings, and he had shabby clothing on. So as people
were leaving at the end of the gathering, he told him to sit stay
behind. Right so he could speak to him privately. And then after
everybody left he says okay, can you can you on the side there was
his prayer mat said pick that prayer mat up underneath it was
money. He says please take this and spend it on yourself. So the
person No, it didn't even say that he says you can take that money.
The person immediately understood that he was trying to give him the
money he said
I've got I'm willing to do I've got money. So he said why are you
dressed in a way that makes people feel sorry for you want to spend
on you? Right? He was a major businessman. And it looks like he
had quite a widespread business in clothing, garments, cloth cloth
sale. So he would deal with in a lot of cloth right? So when your
whatever cloth he was dealing in those days, everybody had to deal
with you didn't get ready made clothes from next in those days.
So cloth was a big business, I guess. So.
However, you could tell that from before. On one occasion, it says
that he was a
There's a great another Turnberry, whose name was Imam Abu Amira
shabby abou I made a sharp you once saw him. And
he said to him, Where do you go? Like where are you going? He must
have seen him passing by says where you're going. He says, I'm
going to search in such a business such and such a wholesaler trader,
whatever it is. No, that's not what I mean. I said, Who would you
study by? He said, I don't study with anybody. I remember he's,
he's older. He's 20 something years old, probably. Right. He is
he's not as other people started age of 10 or Imam Shafi. He had
memorized the whole Quran and he had memorized the Mata, which is
the Hadith collection, Imam Malik, right by the age of 10, or 12. So
when he went to Imam Malik as a young boy, and Imam Malik had
already retired, right? And he said, can I study with you? So he
looked at him and he thought, okay, this person seems very
promising. So against his normal schedule, he said, Okay, I'll
teach you but gonna call one of my students who know the Mata, he
says, I've memorized it.
Right? So he started very young. He died very young, immobile, and
he was started later, obviously, it was a lot more mature when he
started.
So once when he said that to him, were you going anywhere? Well,
honey, if I said, you know, I'm going to such and such a
businessman. This was when he was passing this Imam Shut up his
house. So he must mistook him for one of his students is where
you're going on money. But when he says, you know, I'm going to see
that most of the businessman know, he said, whose classes do you
attend? He says, I don't nobody, Sir, I don't I don't attend
anybody's classes. So
shabby said, I see signs of intelligence in you, you should go
and sit with the learned men.
Right? You should sit with learned men.
And I'm going to say that here anybody who thinks he's really
good at science or whatever else you're studying, and I think you
should go and study the dean. Right? I'm gonna say that to you.
I don't know you guys do well, I know a few of you and I know one
of you're supposed to be in class right now. All right.
But I really think that if you're if you're what's Imperial College
makes you out to be right and you think you can you want to change
the world? Then go ahead and study well in what you're doing here.
But supplement that with that knowledge with your studying the
deen Inshallah, you know with what intellect Allah has given you.
Maybe you could be the next Imam Abu Hanifa. Right. Why should you
think any less than that? Right at least? If you if you think that
you may get somewhere with it and mashallah, you do have a few
students here who are already doing that and from other
universities who are already doing that. So you should definitely
think about it. Right. I'm trying to be the Imam shall be looking
for the next Imam Abu Hanifa. All right. And I'm not joking about
this. Seriously, I'm not joking about this. We need a lot more of
this. We need a lot more than the OMA is calling. Right? Let's not
just revel in what these people did. They've gone they've they've
secured a place for themselves. Right? We need to inshallah help a
lot of people today we're sitting talking about him in Imperial
College. He wouldn't he would never have even fathom that idea
that somebody's going to speak to me about this in a city, which
probably at that time when they was called Londinium, or what it
was called at that time, right? And there's going to be a college
there and there's going to be you know, somebody speaking about it,
he would never have guessed that. You would never have guessed that.
But this is the this is this is the the wonder of Allah subhanaw
taala is Dean. So anyway, he says you out to sit in the company of
learned men. This sparked a new light in the heart of the Abu
Hanifa. for studying. He it seems like he first started studying
theology, beliefs. And he as I said he was a natural genius. He
became a master. I mean, he first does a very excellent business.
His business carries on, he doesn't drop his business, by the
way. He just gets others to manage it. You can tell he's a good
manager as well, in that sense. He then dedicates initially I think
he probably just dabbled in it, studying theology. Now he was in
Kufa. Right Kufa is in Iraq today. Right? It's not as well known, but
it's it's there. The other city close by was Basara. Like, you can
say the other city that both cities had been established during
time on what are the hola Juan Basra had problems. Basra was
where a lot of heretics new ideas, radical ideas, crazy ideas were.
So there were a lot of heterodox ideas there and people who held
them. Mr. Boniva says that he went over 20 times about 27 times, to
busser. To
argue, debate with these people and in most cases, he managed to
silence them, convince them convert them. And you know, that
he was very successful in that. That makes a lot of sense. On one
occasion. He had a style he had a knack for speaking. When he spoke,
he spoke very clearly, very convincingly. He was able to be
very convincing, that's just a natural trait that he had. In
fact, when he went to Madina, Munawwara for, you know, during
his pilgrimage, he went to Madina, Munawwara he actually met him
Americ they had a meeting, when he left
Imam Malik was asked, What do you think of him? Because his fame had
spread every everybody knew Abu Hanifa like, you know, even before
he became a great jurist, so clearly, he's just come to meet
him. ematic so it's like, what do you think of him? Right? What kind
of, he says right or Julian lo Kalama.
You don't have any here. But local law Mojave study at the hub and la
cama be her Jetty he is, as I've just seen a man who, if he was to
claim that this pillar was made of gold, he could probably establish
proof for it. Like he could convince you about it. Very
convincing, very intellectual.
So
I said over 20 times that he goes to debate. However, on one
occasion, it mentions that I mean, they became so proficient in it
that they became the authorities people would literally
point fingers at them that the he is the man to go to in terms of
jurisprudence, though he's not formally a student, it seems on
one occasion.
There's a group of people, these people were known to be leaning
towards atheism. Right. They came to ask him some questions about
God. So they asked, they came say we've got some questions he
probably knew about them from before. So this is the way he
played it. Right? Because the end of the day, you have to remember
that to convince somebody, there's a there's a knack in the way you
do so. Right. You can use strategies to convince people. So
what he said was, hold on, hold on. I can't speak to you right
now.
I've got a really important issue that I'm pondering over and it's
occupying my mind. Right. And it's really strange. So I need to deal
with that question first. So they got curious, and they said, What
is the question? You said, Yeah, I've just been told that
I've just been told that there's a ship, right, a freight liner
that's carrying a lot of freight. And it leaves port by itself. It
traverses the waters, navigate itself, and it reaches its
destination on its own. Essentially, what he's talking
about is a smart chip. Right programs, which today for us is
very easy to understand. It's not even a matter of disbelief, you
could probably control planes right now with, you know, with
remote controls, they just probably need the guy for because
autopilot, isn't it, they just need the guy there to make sure
just like in a Tesla, you need to go to sit there, even though it
drives on its own. I mean, I've actually sat in a Tesla with that
happening. It's quite interesting. But you just need a guy because
they just can't trust the 100%. But in those days for something
like that, that was unfathomable, that was impossible for people to
even think of in those days. So as he's explaining the story, those
guys incredulous he looked towards him and say, Are you crazy? Or
what's going on? I mean, how can you even believe in something like
that? How can you believe that a ship travels on its own? Right
without a navigator without somebody controlling it.
And that's what exactly the response are. That's exactly the
kind of response I want, if I was waiting for. He said, This is
exactly the point. He said, You guys have a problem with this
world running without a creator without a maker. Without a
designer, without an administrator, you guys find it
not credible to believe that a ship can run by itself how you
expect this entire universe to run by that.
They were just dumbstruck, taken aback. And that that helped them
to understand the issue. And basically, they repented from the
they repented from this. These, you could say,
these beliefs that they had these doubts that they had come about.
Now, that was a much more effective way than to sit them
down and trying to give them proofs because they probably heard
them all. You can tell that he was just very good at arguing the
case. As I mentioned, he's very wealthy.
He has a student. So on one occasion, somebody came to ask him
a question a woman came to ask him a question. Remember, what happens
in the world is, you become good at one thing and you become very
proficient, for example. There are several speakers out there who are
very good at, for example, very good at
in intra interfaith dialogue, right. They know a lot about the
Vedas, and you know about the Christian Bible, and they know how
to debate that they've managed to convince a lot of people. They've
got no backing in jurisprudence, though, for example, right?
They've got no backing. They've got no background in fic in
jurisprudence or anything. I mean, their main focus, like I'm a
deedat Rahima. Hula was wonderful in terms of his Bible studies,
very good at convincing Christians, but he didn't have any
kind of traditional hadith of seal education at all.
All right. Now, what happens with a lot of these people because
they're very prominent, you know, you've got the likes of Zakir
Naik, you've got a few other people like that, right? People
come to ask them question because they see him as a man of the deen
man of religion, that he's very good at one subject.
And then the challenge there for such people is that, do they say
no, that's not my area? As much as some do that. Right? Or do they
just start giving answers? Most of the time, unfortunately, not very
equipped answers. You can tell his intelligence, a woman came to ask
him a question about the sooner way to divorce. Maybe that was a
discussion with a husband that what's the scenario of divorce?
And he's like, I don't know, says Go and ask her mother cannot be
sued a man. That was one question. I think another get they may have
been another question. She came back and she gave him the answer
after she'd received it from her mother. It'd be so a man who was
the great jurist holding the main classes in those days. When he
came to find out about it, he says, You know what, I'm done with
theology. Right? I need to know these hands on jurisprudence
Everyday everyday problems right. So he took his shoes and he went
and joined Hamas lesson now as I said, is the intellectual
memorizes everything he says I used to memorize everything that
Hamid used to say right to such a degree that the next day when he
we would be tested, I would I would be able to repeat everything
correctly, while others would make mistakes. Eventually Hammad says
that the prominent position in the class in front only you're gonna
have and then when Hamid Abu Abu Salim and Rahim Allah when he
passed away, everybody elected him Abu Hanifa to take his position,
and then he becomes a great scholar. Sorry, he then becomes
the great Imam as such. That's why out of the four imams in fact, out
of all the Imams and all the scholars out there, the only one
who has been given this title, Imam of Al Imam, a lot of them is
available. Hanifa was the Imam and out of Amin, Al Imam is obviously
the leader. A lot of them means the greatest the mightiest right,
the most proficient leader to such a degree that if you go to Baghdad
today, right, if you go to Baghdad, Iraq today, there's an
entire area where majority of the Sunnis are, it's actually called
out of Hermia from Assam Asami. That's where his complexes that's
where he's buried. And that whole area is called Alpha media.
So I said he's left a massive, he's left a massive legacy, and
highly intellectual using his interests. A lot of intellectual
people in the world in history have had lot of intellectual
people. Unfortunately, they just didn't leave, leave a mark the way
he did, right? Because they just did what everybody else was doing.
He did something different. Right? And he got it right. He didn't get
it wrong in doing different, right, you either get it wrong and
become notorious, or you actually do something right. And you become
famous well known, and you become prayed for, as he is. So
a few a few more things, when his students would come to class. If
he once had a student who was quite young at the time abou use
of his name was right, Abu Yusuf. And after a few days of coming to
class and showing a lot of promise, suddenly he disappears.
Mom will Hanifa goes to look for him and finds out that his father
is not very wealthy.
Right and he's pulled him out so that he can work for him. He can
go and work and earn a living for the rest for the family. Mr. Abu
Hanifa I mean, you see there's very few people who will have even
a material ability to do this. Right. He says to his father, I'll
pay you whatever he whatever money he can make you let him come to
the class.
This is what you call investment right behind people who you can
see and that's why later the same Imam Abu Yusuf becomes the first
person in the Abbas in great Abbas Empire under Haroon Rashid the
great Abbas it Calif which most people will probably heard about.
He becomes what the given the title, the Chief Justice Colville
adopts the Judge of all judges, and he's very influential in the
abassi court. He writes a book for Harun Rashid, and this hat would
not have happened. He would have just basically receded into
oblivion. Had he continued his work, his normal work, but he Abu
Hanifa then you have another one who comes to study as an older age
when Mr. Rouhani was put into prison in Baghdad at his old age,
he became a threat because Abuja for Al monsoon who's before Harun
Rashid, probably the greatest of the Abbas in Hades before Harun
Rashid, the second Khalif, he felt a threat from Imam Abu Hanifa
which is probably misplaced. So he imprisoned him, he could still
teach and everything, but he imprisoned him. And eventually
they say that he was actually poisoned. And that's why that's
why he died. Allah knows best about that. But there's a young
man who's just become mature 1314 years of age, maybe even less, who
starts to study with him and will Hanifa
And he becomes,
in some sense, probably even greater than email we use of the
email we use of is his shake as well. This is Mr. Mohammed
Abdullah Hassan a che Bernie, who then goes on to write at least six
books in which he compiles all of the rulings only Abu Hanifa. As I
said, mud herbs proliferate through followers who will take
your work and spread it among Mohammed is considered to be
majorly responsible. He found the value in it. And what's very
interesting is this same image of Mohammed after he studied with
him, Abu Hanifa Imam Abu Hanifa, passed away he went to Madina,
Munawwara and studied with Imam Malik. Imam Malik is his teacher
as well. He comes back he doesn't adopt the opinion of our medic
even though Imam Malik was more prominently known as a hadith
scholar.
He continues in the Hanafi tradition. He says he is actually
also a teacher of Imam Shafi. Right, Allahu Alem because Imam
Shafi also met him. Now,
the other thing that Imam Abu Hanifa would do, that was very
different from a lot of other scholars in those days. See,
today, scholars are
employed, the way they make their money is they employed either by
machines, as Imams, or by schools from other assess and they get a
salary. In those days, there was no salary, there was not much of a
salary system, the way it worked was generally that they would be a
mashallah they were very, they were a lot of charitable people,
they would establish endowments, right, they would establish
endowments like this is an endowment for the scholars of this
school who are teaching here, or this is an endowment for the
teachers of that school, or for the scholars of the city, or for
the scholars of this area. These were endowment Sunkoshi, we just
don't have enough of these today. That's why we've actually had to
the Imams and the scholars have actually had to start being
employed as such. So they would receive money through these
endowments, or they would receive money directly as gifts from
wealthy people, which would then enable them to give lectures in
the masjid for free and gone teach in their homes or in other places
for free. There was no stipend as such, I don't think students paid
in those days, I don't think there was a fee system. Wala who Adam, I
haven't looked at this in detail. But that would have been a
wonderful time. You could just go and study for free. You don't have
to pay 9000 6000 4000 3000 or whatever it was right.
Imam, the only problem with that is sometimes
you could be muzzled
because of where your money is coming from. It's possible you
have to be careful how you respond to certain questions related to
that person or whatever the case was. Imam Abu Hanifa The thing
about him is a lot of self dignity. And Allah had given him
this business due to which he did not have to go to anybody. On one
occasion, Abuja for a woman who had an argument with his wife.
They called innumerable Hanif as an arbitrator.
Right? The argument was something about taking more than one wife or
something. All right. Typical argument immobile honey sorry,
Abuja almonds, who puts out his claim? He says, Yeah, Imam tells
me, isn't it right that a man can have up to four wives? Right. So
you might want him it says, yes. Allah subhanaw taala say so it's
right. Yes. And then his wife must have said something so immobile
honey for them said.
But Allah subhanho wa Taala only allows you up to four wives, if
you can do justice. And if you cannot do justice, then you're
only allowed one.
Right? Now, that obviously silence the whole issue because that maybe
the information is given originally was going to be abused,
but immediately he understood the situation. He could have only done
that because of independence. You're speaking in front of the
Khalifa of the Muslim world, I mean, not just of Kufa or busser
or Baghdad, right, you're talking about the Khalifa of the world,
who could just literally snap a finger and have you killed but he
was able to do that. Later he goes home and somebody comes with a
huge amount of coins, gold or silver coins, that the Queen has
just sent you this.
He says please take it back. I did not do it to please the queen. I
did it because I wanted the truth to prevail. So take all of this
money back. He had the independence to do that. That's
why one of the son I consider this to be a sunnah of Imam Abu Hanifa.
That another thing that he used to do was that he used to dedicate a
percentage of his wealth of his income as a percentage of income
for the scholars of the city.
And that would be given to his students and the scholars of the
city. I find that so amazing. The reason is that
Our DNA our religion can only survive we as human beings can
survive with good jobs. Right with you know with a degree from
Imperial survive Inshallah, right you're more than survive in sha
Allah, Allah give you a Baraka. But will our deen survive? will it
survive in the next generation? will it survive for the other
people that can only survive through scholars? Right, that can
only survive through scholars, if I'm going to help
other scholars, especially those who are doing very good work, I'm
going to help them with a bit of money here and there, then I'm
encouraging them. I'm helping them I'm assisting them. That means
they can spend more time behind teaching and researching rather
than going finding a
taxi job or something not that Alhamdulillah I don't think most
do that anymore. Hamdulillah, Allah subhanaw taala has enriched
and has dignified the other man, especially of this country, but
I've seen this in other countries. All right, some may still have to
do a few side jobs, right? That they're not really I know, some
people who I know one person, for example, he's in another country
and western country. And he gave up a big job in Cisco. He was
making a lot of money to go and study he studied for five or six,
seven years, he became an atom. And now he's mashallah running.
He is basically running a teaching school, online as well. And he's
getting by on a minimum, because there's only so much money he can
make. Right? And his family is pressuring him to go back his his
his family are in high positions in these major tech companies.
They can get him a job for over $100,000 tomorrow. But he's just
resisting that. What have I spent five, six years due to do I want
to do that? I want to do that. You see what I'm saying? So there are
still people like that anymore. This is what I call the Sunnah of
innumerable Hanifa, he would look after others, you can tell that
you see, when it comes to scholars, sometimes there's a
concept there's an idea of jealousy, that they may have more
followers, others may get more followers, why should I help
somebody else? To be honest, if I help another scholar, he's doing
the same work that I'm doing. He is trying to benefit the
community. He's if he if I can facilitate for that person to
benefit the community, it's gonna make my job easier. We're both
have we both have the same goal. Right, we both have the same goal.
So that's the way he looked at it. In fact, he would give crazy gifts
to people. Once another Muhaddith Sophia Lipno, Ariana came to one
of his students and said, What's wrong with the Imam he gives so
much gifts to uh, he sends so much gifts to us. You know, what I
mean? Is you know, when you go to somebody's house, you take a box
of chocolates, or you take some flowers. Or if you're really
tradition, you take some Muay Thai. Alright, you know what I
mean? But if you go there with five bags of different shopping,
you as a recipient of that, wouldn't you feel a bit awkward?
Right? It's a bit it's gracious to accept a box of chocolate, maybe
three boxes of chocolates, maybe a bit more, maybe, you know, a nice
scarf, maybe you want. But imagine they do like loads of shopping for
years, though. It's your shopping. And you receive that when you feel
a bit uncomfortable and embarrassed. So Sofia, Lipner,
Aina felt like that. And he came to one of the event one of the
students or some of the students and he said, What's wrong with
your Imam? This is the kind of gifts he gives. He says he hasn't
given you anything. I mean, you should see what he gives us.
Right? That and the amazing thing is that his business was
politically proliferating. And the other benefit of is that he was
very scrupulous. He was extremely scrupulous.
He ran his business with absolutely no deception, he tried
to make sure that it was completely legit. On one occasion,
he they had received these rolls of, of fabric. problem was that
some of them had a slight defect. Right, some of them had aside, you
know, in fabric, you can't unless you roll it all out, you can't see
it, but he knew, and he was told that there was some defect, he
sent it to one of his, one of his, one of his agents, and he told him
that make sure when you sell this, that you inform the potential
customer about this, the person must have forgotten because he was
getting a good rate, whatever. And he sold them off. It was a lot of
fabric and in Abu Hanifa found out about it, and he said he was
upset. He says why don't you tell him I told you, he says I forgot.
He donated that entire the entire proceeds of that he donated,
right? That's you can tell that when you do things like that, you
basically save your wealth from a haram element, which pollutes the
rest is like a cancer essentially, people think that I can make more
money by doing a few easy deals here. Easy generally means
problematic, right? But the baraka is not there. The broker is not
there. The broker is not there. Right? That's just the way things
are when you make easy money easy come easy go.
Why is why is there a criticism of
about him. Right one of the major charges against him is that
he opposes Hadith
and gives preference to opinion over Hadith. All right. Now,
that's a very important thing. Now, I've got my own theory about
this, there's been a lot of responses to this. And people have
proven how many Hadith generated and so on. But there's a few
things that just like to mention very quickly, number one, the
Hanafi is and jurists in general, their focus and interest is not in
the preservation of Hadith. What that means is, their focus is not
just to find the narration and preserve it, and not do anything
with it, and just transmit it to the next generation. Right. Their
focus is to take that narration, extrapolate and distill rulings
from it for the sake of the people. So there was a big Hadith
scholar. During his time in Mambo anybody actually studied with him,
meaning had heard Hadith from him, his name was Abdul Rahman, Ramesh
once aqmesh had a question, a Juris a juridical question, right.
So he asked him Abu Hanifa. What is the answer to this? So he said,
This is the answer. He says, Where do you get the answer from? So he
says to him, you report it. He's addressing Atma, she says, you
report it to us from Abu salah, who reported from Abu Huraira. You
also reported to us from Abu Bashar Al who reported from
Abdullah and you're also talking about three generations that
you've reported to us, right from abou Elia. So reporting from Abu
Masuda on Saudi Arabia alone, so he's mentioning three people in
between, who relate from three Sahaba All right, that the
messenger of allah sallallahu sallam said such and such. You
also reported the same to us from Abu Michelisz reporting from
Khalifa who from Abu Zubaydah, who from Java and UFC, the rakaposhi
and they from unasyn dramatic.
Now, Hamish explains Enough Enough, what took me 100 days to
narrate to you, you have repeated to me and just an instance, I was
not aware that your practice was based on these Hadith like he
didn't know that you could extrapolate these same rulings
from the very narrations that he had given to him Abu Hanifa
himself, right. And then he exclaimed, oh, group of jurists,
oh, jurists, you are the physicians. We are married to
pharmacists. Right? How many of you being doctor here? How many of
you doing generally all everybody, right? So you are the physicians?
Were just the pharmacists, basically, the people who are
going to tell you how to use the medicine, right how to use the
narration are different from the pharmacist, which is probably you
know, rejects from medicine going to pharmacy, right? Isn't that
what it is? Generally? That's what I'm hearing anyway.
Sorry. Some people may have an affinity with an a love for
pharmacy, so they're going directly so let me not say that.
Right. God bless you in whatever you do conflicts you in whatever
you do.
So pharmacies, I mean, we need pharmacists, right? So
pharmacists, basically, they, they they store the medicine, their job
is to store the medicine, make sure it's in supply and then
dispense it according to the prescription of the doctor. So
that's a that's a decent allergy. Decent analogy. Another thing
is that I believe that Imam Abu Hanifa, his depth of
understanding, the depth of extrapolation was probably missed
by people. And they felt that he was actually opposing the
narration, because they couldn't understand his extrapolation.
Alright, and I've got a few things to back this up. Number one, when
anybody actually questioned him about it, he was able to convince
them, right, generally speaking, of course, there's always going to
be people who never come to you and they criticize you. Right?
He's been praised by the greatest people anyway. The other thing is
that Imam Muhammad, as I mentioned, he went to one of the
greatest Hadith masters of his time, which was Imam Malik, right,
but he did not take his opinions. He remained the Hanafi even though
he studied with him, which shows that the depth of understanding
was was fully comprehended by him. Then you've got this other story
that's very interesting that
one of the other prominent students, you know, honey for
Azusa ignore Jose, who they he was from Basra originally. Before
that, there was another student of mine, but he I think he left he
finished his classes when he was going back to Basra. So in Abu
Hanifa gave him an advice he said, You need go to Basra, nobody knows
us there. Right? So make sure that you don't start your own classes.
You need to establish yourself first don't start your own
classes. People are gonna knock you out. Right? Because they're
very protective. But he went there, he was all geared up, he
was all fired up and he started his own class. And just a few
days, they started saying Abu Hanifa this Abu Hanifa that and he
was thrown out. Now, there was another story
You're on top Mr. Boniva. Also from Basra because remember you
might want he was in Kufa at that time when he finished and he was
going to come back to Basara. When he went, he actually joined in
other classes first silently. And when the discussion would start,
he would provide the rulings that he had learned from Abu Hanifa
without mentioning his name.
Right without mentioning his name, they didn't have anything against
them. They just didn't know him. And they were very protective over
their own. So why should you go anyway, should you take from
anywhere else? So slowly, slowly what he started doing, you know,
there's another opinion in here which says X, Y and Zed. Slowly,
slowly, people started taking paying attention to his opinions
because they were very intuitive. They made a lot of sense, even
just the way you're getting all this stuff from, because, you
know, one day it might be his own opinion, second day, but he seems
to have a whole stream of really good opinions. Where you get into
some Oh, I studied with him, Abu Hanifa and Kufa. That's how the
motherboard eventually started in coup in Basra. Right and that
tells you how to work in a new community as well. Right. So that
tells you the profoundness of it once people get to access to it.
Now the story is that
you already have had another Imam Muhammad had a famous student
called Mohammed immuno Samira. Mohammed even a summer I had a
friend called isa urban isa if not abundance or Muhaddith. He used to
criticize Imam Mohamed a che Bernie and the Hanafi is right. If
you could call them Hanif. He's at the time because he was not fully
developed. Right? He only became like known as one of his
afterwards because remember this whole development developmental
period at the time, he said
he used to pray with us in the same mosque but then he would
leave he wouldn't sit in the dark and he would complain that Oh, you
guys oppose Hadith. One day, I insisted on him to sit down and
sit in the gathering of Rama hombre che Bernie. So he said, He
that day he managed to sit. And after the meeting is finished, I
took him close to Mr. Mohammed and I said, this is your nephew, Isa
Abner Abon. And, you know, you can tell he's, uh, you know, he is he
is very intelligent. And he has a good knowledge of Hadith. And I
keep inviting him to you to your to your lesson. But he keeps
saying that we oppose Hadith so he doesn't come. Right. You can see
that happening today. I mean, although it's kind of calmed down,
but the last 1015 years, this is exactly what used to be happening.
Right?
So Imam, Imam, Imam Muhammad says to him, My son
tells me which issues right in which issue, do we oppose Hadith.
So
he mentioned number of issues, and Mr. Mohammed started answering him
and telling him that Okay, the reason we don't take this hadith,
because that's abrogated this one, there's another one that opposes
it, et cetera, et cetera, mentioned number of DeLisle and
after we left, he turned around to me, and he said that, you know,
what, there was a veil between me and the lights, all this time,
there was darkness for me, there was a veil between me and the
light, and Allah subhanaw taala has now lifted it. And I never
knew that there could be somebody who has this kind of knowledge,
right? That's teaching people after that he went and he became a
student of Muhammad Abdul Hassan a che Bernie. And then mashallah, he
became a great jurist. And then he actually wrote one of the first
sorrel Hadith works for the Hanafi school later on. So basically,
this just tells you that sometimes we may question people, criticize
people without really knowing what they're all about, because it's a
very superficial knowledge that we have about them. So it behooves us
to check people out. Right? Before before we before we make certain
judgments. And
I just want to tell you his typical day, right, before we
finish,
you know, what's very interesting, his mother had more respect for
these other preachers as her son, she didn't respect him as much. So
whenever she had a question, she would insist that he go and ask
this particular preacher, and in just to be, this just shows his
martial obedience to his mother, just to be respectful of his
mother, he would literally go there. And he would ask the
scholar, that preacher, and I'm just like, why are you asking me
for? Right? instead? Look, this is my mom. So if the preacher didn't
know the answer, he would say, Okay, tell me the answer. So you
might want you would give him the answers, then he would repeat it.
She's like, Yeah, and then he would tell, on some occasions, she
wouldn't trust him to take me to him. So she would be on the
animal, the mule, he would ride with her to him, and the person
would be embarrassed. And if he didn't know the answer, it said
you already what's the answer? What's the answer and say, Oh, is
this not and then he would just say, Yeah, you're right. Right. So
they would make this play just to convince her.
Sometimes in his gathering, there would be people that would maybe
you know, you get that I mean, just to Jones ago. I started July
in
in one place, right? And somebody stood up about five minutes into
it, and he said, You've come so late. And can you just quickly
wrap it up?
What happened here? Right? The others kind of started I said,
Look, just leave it. Eventually we found out that because it was, you
know, the winter times, right? He he thought it was half 12. And
this was not one o'clock, right? He thought it was already changed
or something. So you get that. Now, I tried to keep my cool,
right. Because otherwise, it's very easy. You're in a position
where people are gonna listen to you anyway. And everybody's
willing to grab them and beat them up. And, you know, so he, on one
occasion, he told everybody who stopped he says, Look, I need to
be, I'm in this place, I need to be able to listen to my criticism,
then see whether it's right or wrong. One guy, he started
criticizing him, he walked. Even after the gathering, he kept
saying things to him if I want if I said nothing, too. Eventually he
got to outside his house. He said, Look, now I'm gonna go into my
house is my private property. If you've got anything else, as they
just finish off here, I'm willing to listen to you. Then I'm gonna
go in.
Right? He had a lot of forbearance. He was very calm,
very quiet, generally. And
he, his daily routine was as follows. after the fajr prayer, he
would go and he would go and deliver a class in the masjid. And
then after that, he would spend time responding to fatwas. The
questions people have asked him, they came from foreign near, then
that was followed by another thick that was followed by session in
which they would compile the flick with his students. That was a very
special lesson. And whatever dishes decisions were reached
unanimously, they would then be recorded, right, which is found in
mumble, Muhammad's books, after saying his after doing his
daughter prayer, He would then go home, right? And then, if it was
summer, he'd have a little nap. Then the answer prayer was
followed by another session of teaching, after which he would
then go around the city, meeting friends, visiting sick,
controlling the bereaved helping the poor, you'd go and do His
external acts. After the mercury prayer, there was a third teaching
session. How long is this day? It's like is never ending, right?
We don't even have that time. That's because Baraka when you do
things for Allah, you actually get more Barak in simultaneous from
experience, right? And that would continue until Isha prayer. Now
after Isha prayer, the Imam would start his private devotions his
private worship, sometimes they would continue throughout the
nights. During winter he often slept in the masjid until the Isha
prayer from after maghrib after which he would spend much of the
night in performing the Tahajjud prayer, reciting chosen passages
of the Quran repeating devotional formulas and sometimes he
performed them in his shop. Now clearly he had a family because he
had his son was hammered him an OB Hanifa he clearly had a family but
this is probably not talking about the way he did it throughout his
life this is probably at probably later on, when he's probably
retired from a lot of things maybe that's when he did this just want
to put into perspective you're probably gonna wait what about his
family? Right is probably retired eventually at the end, right? He's
old maybe that's when he was doing this wala who annum but there's a
lot more to be said there's major compilation biographies written
about him. I've just tried to give you a kind of an overview of the
most important things that I thought about him. Hopefully,
we can be inspired about this. And hopefully,
we can produce a few half Abu Hanifa as a quarter of a quarter
Abu Hanifa if not a full one, you know, from this gathering here in
sha Allah today, otherwise, maybe it's in vain. Right? But so we ask
Allah for Tofik that one and Al Hamdulillah Lillahi Rabbil
aalameen?
Yeah, there's a few good books now. I mean, one of them is like a
classic now is is actually this book here by Allama Shibley Nomani
I know it's got a pink cover here. Right. There's other versions
which with different color covers. It's originally written in order.
It's a very research oriented, it's a very well researched book.
And he's very clear because there are some quite fascinating stories
related about him. And he kind of sifts out the kind of fascinating
possibly mythical from the more realistic and it gives a good
understanding the translations half decent. So it's called a
marble honey for life and works by Allama Shibley Normani. There's
another one I
can't remember who it's by, but that there's a few of them. So if
you do a search, you'll you'll you'll find a few others. And
in Abu Hanifa, wrote several books.
There's five books that he wrote in Akita in theology, so I had the
the honor to actually write an English commentary on one of them,
which is related to our belief system, right? alphacool akbar
alphacool. Did you see thick jurisprudence is called ficoll
UScar. The lesser FIQ because the higher fic apparently is the
Aqeedah so this is a commentary that I wrote
Tang one of his books called fickle Akbar, right in Akita and
yeah, so that there's there's a few good books out there on that
he wasn't a student of his This is the sheer the sheer like to
mention this as a student, what we mean by a student, let me get it
right he was a student and he was not a student depends what you
mean by a student in Abu Hanifa had approximately 400 teachers.
All right, what we mean by teachers is not like here where
you've actually taken a proper class with them and let stayed
with them for a sustained amount of time. All right. So for
example, I can say that I've got several teachers which are like
that, like I would say, former teachers that I've taken the bulk
of
a bulk of things from and that have really had a major impact in
my life. But then there's a few others that I've met and I've
studied a few pages, maybe I've heard one Hadith from two Hadith
from so he has met I believe in my bucket and probably Imam, Jaffa
sodic Rahima. Home Allahu Taala on different occasions, and with one
of them, he actually had a nice dialogue. One of them said to him,
I kind of I think is bulkier a job for Sadiq? I'm not sure which one
right that I've heard that you oppose the narrations of my
grandfather. So he says how so? And then he explained. And then he
explained to him that look, I'll give you all of these examples in
which, for example, if I was going according to logic, then I would
have said that a woman should inherit inherit the same as the
man. But I don't write the Messiah on the socks.
from a logical perspective, where should you be wiping your sock
like that four fingers on three fingers on top, or should you be
wiping the bottom which probably gets more dirty? Right logically.
So he says we do the top because that's what the Hadith says. So
you convinced him, so he probably transmit, he probably learned a
few things from him transmitted. And he's been mentioned that there
was no as far as I know, there was no sustained, you know, formal
classes with him. as such.
The fatwas we're talking about here are not like the official
kind of political. That's not what we're speaking about here. He
avoided that entirely. He's not he was not the Mufti of the country,
or the city. Are you from Malaysia? Yeah. Okay, I guess that
one, but
the other day I just, just actually two days ago, I met a
Turkish scholar. Somebody said this. His name is Mufti Abdul
Rahman. So he says, Oh, the other official Mufti. Right. The whole
concept of Mufti for the Indo Pak is very different from what's in
Malaysia, Jordan, Palestine, etc, Arab countries, and what was the
tradition then? So when we say he gave fatwas these were not like
official pronouncements from the government. He avoided that in
fact, he was
impressed upon to go and become the the judge
because
he hated to swear that oath or make anybody swear an oath for
something small. For example, once he was traveling with somebody,
probably a friend or companion. Somebody came and
approached him, caught him up and said You owe me 40. Durham's? 40.
Durham's is about 48 pounds today, approximately, right? This decent
amount of money, not not hundreds, but decent amount, right? And a
person said, No, I don't owe it to you. Right is paid or whatever it
is. So the person said swearing off. Yeah, but I never saw that
happening. And he said, What's wrong with you guys was such a
small amount, you're making him swear an oath, right that an oath
has to be said he pulled out the money and gave it to him. He
totally stayed away from anything official. As I mentioned, what
we're talking about is for the masses, he is developing a whole
codified book of law, like literally like a book of law, or a
body of law. That's what he's doing. The fatwa we're speaking
about here is not official pronouncements, though, obviously,
whatever he said, would be used by people, right.
I'm going to attempt to answer that question that question for
the rest of you is obviously that what is now?
What would be considered thinking outside the box today? What would
be a contribution? And what are the requisite studies? You would
need to undertake such a thing? I guess we could probably brainstorm
that right now. Right? Because I've got certain ideas, which you
know, that's why we actually started white thread Institute
because I felt that there were so many graduates of religious
studies, but after they've graduated in western universities,
you have postgraduate studies, but we didn't have any postgraduate
studies, at least in this country we have in other countries. So
that's why we started the whole postgraduate Institute's. So
that's just to give you a basic idea.
Yeah, but for everybody else, I think what's required is that you
carry on doing what you're doing, but also study the deen with
seriousness, not just haphazardly. But, you know, go and take
a sustained study within your own fields because I believe that
communities
that can have a very profound impact by people who are
professionals, for example, I can speak to you mashallah, you guys
give me the respect. And you know, you guys think me even worthy of
speaking here, though? I have no science degree. Right. I've got a
PhD. I don't know if that helps. But at the end of the day, I
didn't study in Imperial College. Right? I probably could have.
I didn't even try. Right, I went straight for service, because I
was full time is like, didn't want to mess around. Anyway, another
story.
The point is, that if you've got people from a science background
who study the deme, then there's a lot of people in science that can
probably be influenced by this person. Right? Who knows his
science, too. I remember once I gave a talk in South Hall, massive
mosque, right. You know, on the on the Broadway it's, they have
several, there have a few 1000 people for Joomla. I just quoted
the CERN reactor and the bosons. And I just read about it recently.
And I just quoted that. And there were several people that Karis is
the first time they said that we've actually seen somebody
quoting both
the natural world and the spiritual world at once. Right? So
you've got a lot of people out there who have disenfranchised,
disenfranchised from their faith, you probably know people like
that, they get so into everything else, and they start looking down,
because maybe the imam in the masjid doesn't know this stuff.
Right? And they think he doesn't know anything. Right? Whereas he
knows what's relevant to him. He may not know any science. So I
think we need people in all fields, whether that be pharmacy
even, right, or
because pharmacy the ingredients that we need people to understand,
because who's going to figure out I mean, most tablets today, pills
today have stearic acid to bind it together, generally, which is from
an animal source. Nobody's speaking about this. I don't think
the vegans have even picked this one up, right, we need to actually
get them into it. Because those sorts it out. We need people in
every field that are doing their field and doing that as well.
Because that will give them the balance. And I guess maybe I'm not
telling you what's needed exactly what I'm telling you how to get
it. Right, we could, but we do need to brainstorm this, because
yeah, I think this is a very important discussion. Right? You
guys brainstorm it. Right? See what's out there, that you're not
finding something thing, too. And inshallah we'll do it. I'll get
our students to do it. And I think for the next time that I'm asked
this question, I should have a, hopefully a list of things. Right?
I can't make up things, but nothing's coming to my mind and
nothing else is coming to my mind.
But I've given you a way.
In the way they derive their rulings, how do the Hanafis differ
from the other schools of thought?
That's
okay. When I was studying in Syria,
in 1998, there was a person I knew very well who worked in a bookshop
and he was also an advanced student. He was from a Shafee
background, but he was studying Hanafi fiqh. And I remember once
having a discussion with him, which only later resonated and I
understood, he said to become a master of Shafi effect takes about
two years if you did it full time. And you you know, you had the the
right set of
would you call it the right set of abilities and you had the right
teacher you could muster in two years, the Hanafi fiqh is a lot
more complex, it's a lot more nuanced. It'll take 20 years.
Because the Hanafi is a very pragmatic. They look at everything
as on a case by case they've got general rules. They've got general
or soul as we call them, right? The shaft is
they, they're also their principles by which they
legislate, are all codified in a book from the founder. So you've
got Imam Shafi is a reseller, which he wrote himself, and he
wrote, the foundational principles by which they legislate. You don't
have any of these books from the founders of our schools, the
Hanafi school, the soul of the Hanafi scholars have actually been
distilled from their sub subsidiary law, all of their all
of their mosyle That's where they've taken them out of. So they
were more focused on actually dealing with the situation at
hand. Of course, they had their principles, but they never wrote a
book on it, right. So,
another thing like if you look at the Shafi is they have wide you
will follow this one category, soon as one carry though they have
some robotic dimension, and then they have the other the Hanafi is
a very good
Got a very
the typology is actually very detailed. So you've got Fords,
then you got wajib. Then you've got Sonoma Okada. Then you've got
Sunil Verma aka Musa hub, MOBA. Well, Mister hub, Sana, their
market is very similar, then you got more bar. So they, they their
categorization is a lot more sophisticated, I would say. I
mean, I would say that because I'm a Hanafi anyway. But their
categorization I believe in things is very sophisticated. But I'm
happy with all my other hubs, right?
This is not a, this is not a competition. They've all done what
they're supposed to do. And God bless them all. But I'm just
saying just to answer that question, that there's a level of
sophistication, I would say, in the Hanafi school, the Americans
have also got that level of sophistication, or a level of
sophistication. The other thing is that American Hanafi schools have
dealt with a lot of non Muslims, with Muslims as minorities. So
we're talking about Andalusia, a lot was developed in Andalusia,
which means in Spain, of the Maliki School
for the Hanafi is, for example, the subcontinent, you know, even
before it broke up the Muslims, though the Muslims ruled the
subcontinent for many, many centuries. They were always a
minority. I don't think they went beyond 15 to 17%. There was always
a majority Hindu. So that's why India is actually a very good
example, for Western people. Pakistan is not because Pakistan
is a Muslim country. You can't you can't analogize for the UK or
America on Pakistan, that's a Muslim country. This is a non
Muslim country, you'd rather look at India and what the, the
scholars did there, and how they formulated their fifth, right for
centuries. So hopefully that gives some understanding of it.
So there's actually a few things like this right?
The Prophet sallallahu sallam said he was sitting with Salman al
Farsi, or the hola Juan right I'm glad you reminded me of this
submodel Farsi to the hola Juan was a Persian
and it was awesome said that. Locanda the dean and the thoria
Lana Allahu Madhavi. Right. If the Dean was even on the Pleiades
Star, right, three years, one of the stars constellations up there,
even if the Dean was up there, then one of his descendants,
meaning one of his people would would would go and take bring it
down in Abu Hanifa, by in terms of ethnicity was a Persian.
Right. His ethnicity was a Persian, but obviously, that tells
us something else. How many Arabs are here?
How many Arabs do we have you?
You too, I'm an Arab. You're an Arab as well. So
I'm an Arab, because I speak Arabic. That's one definition of
Arab is those who speak Arabic? I think it's a fair definition.
Right? Because there's many Moroccans who have absolutely no
Arabic background because they're Berbers. So I'm not gonna call
them Arab either, right? So if you learn Arabic and you will become
an Arab, so the thing that he tells us is that the deen Allah
will give it to whoever makes an effort. So you got to Persian
basically a non Arab and mashallah look where he gets to? Buhari was
non Arabic, right non Arab. To me, he was non Arab. Muslim was non
Arab, even, Umoja, all of these the whole six they were all from
the horizont area. Right, so it gives us a lot of hope.
Yes, so
the likes of Rizzoli, SUTI, et cetera. I believe they've all said
that this hadith, if there's anybody that be fits that
description is remarkable. Hanifa there's a similar not similar, but
there's another Hadith about the island of Medina. That a promise a
lot of them spoke about. They say that Seema Malik
right. And I mean, they definitely deserve it anyway. God bless them
all.