Ali Ataie – Description of Prophet Muhammad in Quran & Hadith Prophetology Series (Part 1)
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Inshallah, tonight we're starting a new series.
Sorry about my voice. I'll do the best
I can.
Recovering from a cold.
The the title of the class is selected
readings from
and reflections upon
a world famous
text,
on prophetology
called Kitabu Shifa
by Qadi Ayad ibn Musa
and we'll start promptly at 7
every week and then we have to end
right at 8.
So I'll go through the text and you
can ask questions as they come up, just
raise your hand, Insha'Allah Ta'ala.
So the the
the text is 4 parts.
The 4th part of the text is on
the akham,
the legal rulings.
We're actually going to skip this part. It
requires a lot of,
contextualization,
a lot of commentary.
It's beyond the scope of this class.
The first three parts we will touch upon.
The first part
is concerning the descriptions of the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi
wasallam in the Quran and Hadith.
It's 4 chapters.
The second part is concerning the rights which
people owe to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. That's 4 chapters.
The third part is concerning belief in the
prophet. So
prophetology,
the wajibat, the and
the mumkinat, the ob obligatory,
the inconceivable, and the conceivable attributes of any
prophet, really.
And that's 2 chapters.
The first part has 4 chapters. The second
part has 4 chapters. The third part has
2 chapters. So that's 10 chapters. We have
10 weeks.
So we'll take a chapter a week.
We're not gonna read through the entire chapter.
It's just not enough time. So I will
highlight some
basic
or main points,
textual highlights of each chapter.
The main thing is just to read the
text. Millions of people have this text sitting
on their bookshelf at home.
But people don't read books.
That's just the human condition. The vast majority
of books around the world are never read.
So a gathering like this is simply an
opportunity for you to relax and listen
to someone else reading the text, InshaAllah Ta'ala
or at least a portion of it.
So we'll begin inshaAllah ta'ala,
the name of Allah
And when we talk about the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam,
we have to be
sort of weary of our
intentions,
that we should be,
we should sit
in a respectful way. We should pay attention.
When Imam Malik ibn Anas was approached by
students, they would ask him, let's study fiqh,
and he would immediately begin giving them lessons.
And they would ask him to study hadith.
He would actually go and take a shower.
He would put on clean clothes. He would
apply
perfume,
and he would he would, he would teach
the hadith, the the the sayings of the
prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam
with the utmost respect and reverence.
And he expected his
students to also have
that type of reverence.
InshaAllah Ta'ala.
So chapter 1,
Allah's praise of him and his great esteem
for him.
So he says here Allah
says,
a messenger has come unto you from
among yourselves. This is the famous ayah in
Surah 2 Tawbah, ayah number 128.
The commentator here actually has
a footnote
saying that there's a variant reading of this
ayah.
Min anfusikum
means from among yourselves, but there's another reading,
which is not as strong. It's a Sha'id
reading,
so it's anomalous. It's it has the strength
of a hadith.
Laqadjaa'akum
rasunun min anfasikum
anfasikum
rather than.
Both are correct in meaning, but is tawatur.
It's multiply attested, so only this can be
recited in prayer. But anfasikum
is the superlative of nafis,
which means precious.
So the ayah can be understood. A messenger
has come unto you,
from the most precious among you.
That the prophet
is the most precious of human beings.
Now Qadhi Iyad says,
Allah informs the believers or the Arabs or
the people of Mecca or all people,
according to different commentaries on the meaning of
these words,
that he has sent to them from among
themselves a messenger whom they know, whose position
they are sure of, and whose trustworthiness
and truthfulness they cannot but recognize.
So reputation
and integrity are extremely important.
It was Aristotle who said that
there are 3 modes of effective persuasion.
If you want to persuade someone of a
point that you're making, you should have logos
and that's
basically
strong reasoning.
It should make sense.
You should have pathos, which is an appeal
to emotion,
so you're not sort of monotone.
I'm very monotone, I guess.
That's why it's important for
there to be
some sort of emotional connection with the speaker.
And then ethos.
Ethos is,
the
integrity of the speaker himself or herself.
This is extremely important.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he was
nicknamed by the Quraysh before the Wahi, before
the
the descent of the Quran.
He was nicknamed as Sadiq al Amin. So
this is someone who is recognized
amongst all the Arabs
as someone who is truthful and trustworthy.
In fact, Allah
commands him in the Quran to remind his
people
that indeed I have lived an entire lifetime
before this.
Other words, look back at my life. There
was nothing that they could point to in
the past and say, now you're claiming to
be profit. What about when you did x,
y, and z in the past? What about
that?
And this is a problem people have today.
Even people who make Tawba and they move
on, There are other there's always going to
be people who are gonna look in their
past.
What about when you said this or did
that?
Right?
The prophet's reputation is without question.
No one can point to anything in his
past.
So this is something that they recognize.
He says, therefore, since he is one of
them, they should not suspect him of lying
or of not giving them good counsel. There
is no Arab tribe without descent form or
kinship with the messenger of Allah.
This according to Ibad Abbas and others is
the meaning of his words,
except love for kin. So he's he's mentioning,
he's he's, he's partially quoting an ayah
from Surat Surah
chapter 42 verse 23.
It's a very famous ayah, which Allah
says.
Say so the Kol is an imperative to
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Say I do not ask for any type
of reward for this except
for love of kin.
And ibn Aba says the meaning is something
like,
oh, Quresh, you should keep good relations
between you and me
because you are all kin.
In other words, if the prophet
is honored, then Quresh will be honored
because he is from the Quraysh.
Other exejits like ibn Ajeeba and Imam al
Kortubi,
they say that this ayah
is a reference to the Prophet's Ahlul Bayt,
a family of the Prophet
That this is an imperative in the in
the Quran
to love the prophet's family.
Oh, people of the prophetic house,
love of you is obligatory upon us according
to the book of Allah
So he is the noblest, highest, and most
exalted of them. And then he asked a
rhetorical question, how much further in the aya
can praise go?
Then Allah continues the ayah. This is again
ayah 128
of at Tova.
Then Allah goes further by attributing to him
all kinds of praiseworthy qualities
and greatly praises his eagerness to guide them
to Islam,
his deep concern for the intensity of what
afflicts and harms them in this world and
the next. So,
and then There is come unto you a
messenger from among yourselves.
It grieves him that that you should perish.
He's deeply concerned
over you. He's very covetous over you.
And the ulama say here many of the
ulama say here that this part of the
ayah is general. It's am. That this concern
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam is for
humanity at large.
And then it becomes more intimate, more.
He is to the believers
compassionate
and merciful.
So there's a special type of
mercy the prophet
manifests for the mumineen, for the believers. Of
course, there's a famous hadith in Bukhary. It's
one of my favorite hadith,
which,
exemplifies this.
That a man broke his fast in Ramadan.
He came to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
and he said my wife and I couldn't
control ourselves.
He broke our
fast during the daytime in Ramadan.
The prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said free
a slave and he said I can't afford
to do that.
And then he said, you have to fast
for 60 consecutive days. And the man said,
I can't even fast 3 days of Ramadan.
And he said, then you have to feed
60 people.
He said, I don't have anything.
With what?
And so the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he
went out and got him a big basket
of dates.
He said, here, take this and feed people.
He said, you know, there's nobody more poor
than my own family.
And then the hadith says,
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
he smiled until his molar teeth were showing
and he said then feed your family with
it.
Right?
One of the men of knowledge, Al Husayn
Iblufadl, he said,
Allah
honored him with 2 of his own names.
So
are 2 of the names of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala that are given to the prophet
salallahu alayhi wasalam.
So this is
this is the sort of,
goal of this life, the telos of this
life,
what what philosophers call the final cause
of our lives in the in the earth
is to become a saint.
The goal is wilayah. The Quran says.
Become lordly.
In other words, to mirror the names and
attributes
of Allah
at a human level.
Allah is Ar Rahman. No one can be
Ar Rahman.
Right? That is the the most compassionate,
absolute and infinite sense.
But we can become people of rahma.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who
forgives.
We can have
that type of
personality to forgive people. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is
does not mean the peace.
Means the perfect when it relates to Allah
We can strive for perfection in our akhlaq.
Every one of the names of Allah
we can appropriate,
right, into our lives.
This is called this is called tahaluk.
Even a name like Al Jabbar,
the compeller,
How do we appropriate
that name? How do we The Compeller, are
we supposed to compel people? Well, if somebody
commits a crime, the Arlema say, then we
compel that person to stand trial.
Al Mutakat Bir, the one who deems himself
big.
Right? Are we supposed to manifest this name?
How do we manifest? I asked one of
my teachers and he said,
imagine someone's insulting you,
but you don't return the insult.
You walk away. You deem yourself better than
his actions,
not better than the person. So Allah
knows the heart. In that sense, we can
manifest the name of Allah al Mutakabbir.
And there are many ulama write books on
this topic. Al Ghazali has when Imam Sayyuti
and many many others, ibn Ajeeba.
So prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam radi'ulfur Rahim.
It is related
by Sayida Ali
that he said the words of Allah from
among yourselves means by lineage, relationship by marriage,
and descent.
There was no fornicator among his forefathers.
In the time of Adam,
all of them were properly married.
There's no zina in the direct ancestry of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam.
Many of the ulama also maintain there's a
difference of opinion about this.
Many of them also maintain there's no idolatry
in the direct ancestry of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi sallam.
There's a hadith that's quoted by Imam al
Haddad.
The
prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam is quoted to have
said that I was passed from pure
loins to radiant wounds.
Pure loins
to radiant wounds
until I manifested.
Of course, the Quran says,
The bushrikeen
are filthy in the sense spiritual sense.
There's a question of the father of Ibrahim
alaihis salam,
Azzar.
Clearly is a Mushrik according to the Quran.
Well, Well, there's an opinion that this is
not his biological father.
Biological father of Ibrahim alaihi salam was not
Azza.
Was a man named Tarikh.
And this is what ibn Hisham says in
his seerah of the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam.
That his name was Tariq, and this is
actually also although this is not a definitive
source by any means, but Israelite tradition, the
Torah, the book of Genesis,
also mentions his name as Terah,
not Azar.
So Ibrahim alayhi s salam says
to Azar. Ab, your uncle can be your
ab. So many of the ulama maintain that
this is actually his paternal uncle. It's not
his biological father.
In the Quran, they use the aya
as a proof text
when Yaqub alaihis salam asked his sons on
his deathbed,
what are you going to worship after me?
And they said,
We will worship
the God of your God,
the God of our fathers,
Abraham,
Ismail, who is their uncle,
and Isaac.
So they use that also as but there's
a difference of opinion about that.
Ibn Abbas said at the words of Allah,
when you turn about among those who prostrate
so this is Surah number 26,
verse 218
and 219.
The one who sees you when you stand,
And you're turning about in those who make
Sajda.
Allah sees you when you stand to pray
and he also sees you when you turn
about
amongst those who make sajda. Even
said, that the meaning of this
is from prophet to prophet,
until Allah
brought you out as a prophet. In other
words, a reference to the prophetic light
that was,
among the mumineen from his ancestors. From Adam
alayhis salam, the light moved to Seth, which
amid,
which, found its way to
Nuh, alayhis salam, eventually to Ibrahim, to Ismail,
eventually to Adnan,
eventually to the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Jafar ibn Muhammad Asadiq, he said that Allah
knew that his creatures would not be capable
of pure obedience to him.
So he told them this in order that
they would realize that they would never be
able to achieve absolute purity in serving him.
Between himself and them, he placed one of
their own species, clothing him in his own
attributes
of compassion and mercy.
So
the the language here is a bit mystical.
It doesn't mean that the prophet is
some sort of divine incarnation.
The prophet
is an exalted manifestation of Allah's attributes of
beauty.
That's how we can think of it.
He brought him out as a truthful ambassador
to creation
and made it such that when someone obeys
him, they are obeying Allah.
And when someone agrees with him, they are
agreeing with Allah. Allah says,
Surah al Nisa, ayah number 80. Whoever obeys
the messenger
is obeying Allah.
There is a non distinction in obedience.
It is impossible
to be in obedience to Allah
and disobedience to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Their obedience is equal yet there is an
ontological distinction,
meaning an essential distinction,
meaning that the prophet
is ontologically,
essentially inferior
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala because the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is not a deity.
He's not divine in that sense.
He's not a god.
He is the best of creation.
Yet when one obeys the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam, it is as if they are obeying
Allah
because the prophet
only speaks the words of Allah
All of his speech is
All of his speech.
In Surat al Najjar. Ma means never. He
never speaks from his.
Whatever he says is nothing but wahi, revelation.
Even one of his companions of the law,
ibn Amr ibn Al As asked him, shall
I record? Initially,
he he commanded them not to write down
the hadith,
but then later when,
it was,
was there was a clear distinction to be
made between the Quran and hadith, he had
scribes that would write down some hadith. So
one of the scribes asked him, what about
when you're angry? Shall I write down the
hadith when you're angry?
And he said,
by the one who who,
raised me
in truth. The one
by the one who made me a prophet.
Nothing comes out of this, meaning his mouth,
except the truth.
Does anyone know where this is in the
Quran?
Everyone has to know where this is.
You know, if you meet a Christian on
the BART,
he's gonna quote John 316.
Every Christian knows John 316.
What Surah is this?
No.
Good guess.
Surah 21
verse 107.
21107.
This is a quintessential verse, a quintessential
prophetological
verse.
We did not send you except as a
mercy to all creation, to all the worlds.
And he says here that many of the
ulama,
they point out that his very being was
mercy because Allah
uses a noun in the ayah and not
a verb.
He doesn't say
or something.
He doesn't use a verb.
He uses a noun. And a noun or
a mustar or an infinitive
describes the essence of a person,
the essence.
So if you use the verb, a verb
could mean at some point in time.
Right? It's descriptive, but it doesn't describe necessarily
the essence of someone. Someone could be merciful
sometimes
and a tyrant other times if the verb
is used.
Is
the is
a noun.
And then also the statement
is very strong in Arabic rhetorically.
It's a it's an affirmation after a negation
in Arabic. It's
called
the Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could have said
that, you know, that
I sent you
as a mercy.
But he said, we did not send you
except as a mercy.
So this is a very strong
statement in Arabic, rhetorically.
It's like the shahada.
We don't our shahada isn't Allahu mujud
or something. Allah exists.
Allahu Ahid.
It's
There is no God
Except God.
Affirmation after negation. Very very strong statement.
It's difficult to translate.
The Iyad mentions the Hadith here
from Al Bazar. My life is a blessing
for you. My death is a blessing for
you.
From the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. How
is his death a blessing for us? Well,
in his grave
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he continues to supplicate
for the Ummah.
And salawat are conveyed to him on Fridays
by Malaika.
Sorry.
All the days except for Friday, they're conveyed
to him. And on Friday, he actually he
actually hear the salawat.
He says in the hadith, sound hadith,
he hears the salawat with his own ears
and responds with his own tongue.
That's in this world and then what follows
after death is the the great shafa'ah
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam in the
Yomul Qiyama.
This is how we understand my death is
good for you.
He's I mean, this is just the first
two pages.
There's so much in this text. It's amazing.
Let's see how we're
doing. Any any questions? Anyone need clarification? Don't
be afraid to raise your hand.
Alright.
Then he quotes this famous Ayatunur.
This is an amazing Ayat. You know, when
I was 17 years old,
a bit late, but it's the first time
I read the Quran.
It's in English. I didn't know any Arabic.
I didn't know Aleph from Ba.
Read the Quran and,
you know, I I think I understood every
verse in the Quran.
Probably half of it was wrong, maybe 90%,
but I think I understood something from it
except for this verse. I had no idea
what this verse was talking about.
This is also called the parable of the
shining lamp.
Allah
says,
Allah says, Allah is the light of the
heavens and the earth. Allah is the light.
In logic, this is called an analytic statement.
So the the predicate,
is a definition basically of the subject. Allah
is the light of the heavens and the
earth.
It's also it's also called a
cataphatic statement in theology. Cataphatic means a positive
statement about God as opposed to an apophatic
statement,
which is a negative statement about God. For
example,
is a negation.
And that's the safer way to talk about
God. It's to say God is not this
or that rather than God is.
So cataphatic statements are rare, but we have
them in the Quran. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
can say whatever he wants about himself.
So he says Allah is the light of
the heavens and the earth. And the meaning
of this according to Suyuti
is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the
source of all light,
the source of everything.
Then he says
The similitude
of his light,
a light that he owns.
This is not an analytic statement. This is
a construct statement.
Nu rihi means a light that he owns.
So the Udhamah here they point out, ibn
Abbas, Imam al Razi,
Imam al Suyuti,
they say light here is a symbol for
the prophet That
the parable of the shining lamp has something
to do with the prophet
The likeness of his light is like a
niche, therein is a lamp, the lamp is
in a glass.
Does anyone understand what a niche is?
In these pre modern homes, you would have
sort of a dugout in the wall. You
would place a lamp and it would light
up the whole room. A lamp inside of
a glass.
That's called a niche or a niche. Both
both pronunciations are acceptable in English.
So this is what Razi and Sayyuti say,
that the niche represents the sadr, the chest
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam.
And the lamp within the niche
is iman, is faith.
And the lamp is in a glass, zujajah.
That is the pure heart of the prophet,
sallam, alayhi sallam.
The glass
as,
the glass as if it were a glittering
star
kindled from a blessed olive tree.
The glass is so,
is so pure, is so shiny,
right,
that
it looks like a like a brilliant star,
meaning the heart of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam is so pure.
It's been so purified by Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala of the diseases of the heart.
Kindled from a blessed olive tree. The olive
tree here according to this symbolism is a
reference to Ibrahim, alaihis salam, who's a forefather
of the prophet, salallahu alayhi salam.
La shalakhiya walah garbiya. He's not from the
orient or the occident.
Ibrahim, alayhi salam, is the father of all
nations. That's what his name literally means.
Whose oil would nearly shine
even if no fire touched it. Now oil
is that which is internal
or natural to the lamp.
That which is internal or natural to the
human being is reason,
is conscience.
Conscience in Latin, con means with
and science means knowledge
or fitra. There's an innate disposition
that the conscience or the prophet's sense of
reason, his fitra,
would almost come in into the state of
marifa
even before the fire touched it. Fire here
in this symbol means revelation,
wahi.
At Ibn Kathir, he says the prophet shone,
He shined
even before the revelation
touched him.
Right? This is what Bahira, the monk, noticed.
When the prophet was 10 or 12 years
old, he traveled to Bostra with Abu Tadeb.
And Bahira the monk, he noticed there was
something happening with him.
Pre prophetic miracles, Irhas, they're called.
That through his intellect, he would almost come
to Marifa,
to intimate knowledge of Allah
even though the revelation never touched him.
The sages from Ahl al Khitab, they knew
before the Quran there was something special about
it. That's the meaning of it, even before.
And then when the revelation does touch it
Reason upon revelation.
So the lamp is illuminated
with oil and fire.
A lamp is illuminated with oil and fire
with that which is internal or natural to
it and that which is external or given
to it.
The heart is illuminated with reason and revelation,
that which
is internal to the human being, conscience,
reason,
and that which is
given to the human being,
revelation.
This is true illumination of the heart,
reason and revelation.
There are people who reject the revelation
and they worship the Akhil, the intellect.
They think they can know everything.
This leads to a type of rigid rationalism.
This leads to a type of
denial of higher moral authority
That there's no moral authority over us as
a nation or an entity so we can
make up our own rules.
If it's good for us, then it's right.
Relying on reason, you can justify anything. These
people in our country, they're vermin. Let's exterminate
them.
It's good for us. Why not? It'll be
good for us.
And then you have people that lean on
revelation and forget about reason.
And they become these dogmatic literalists.
Knuckleheads,
as one of my teachers said.
No.
It's all knuckle,
knuckleheads.
And they become extremely violent
because they're looking at nos, they're looking at
the text
and the text says this,
that's what we have to do. Wait a
minute.
What about the Maqasid?
What about
the aims of the Sharia? What about the
wakir? What about the reality of the world?
How to implement? No no no, don't think
about that brother. Just do it. Don't think.
Just do it.
It's a big problem.
It's a beautiful ayah.
Noorun alanoor Allah guides his light
to the Prophet
Whomever he will, Allah makes examples for people
and Allah has knowledge of everything.
Ka'al Akbar
and Ibn Jubaer said by the second light,
he means Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasallam.
The light of the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam.
And he goes on to say, sahala to
study,
the lamp means his heart, the glasses, the
breast, so on and so forth, what we
just mentioned.
Its oil would merely shine, I e, his
prophecy is almost evident to the people before
he speaks,
just like this oil.
It's
like, Abdullah Ibn Abdallah Ibn Salam
who was a rabbi or a junior rabbi,
Bani Queda, Bani Queda in Medina.
And he just looked at the face of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
He said,
ah.
I can I recognize in his face? It's
not the face of a liar.
Means to recognize something.
There's something special about this man.
Hassan ibn Nusabit, who was paid some money
by
the mushrikeen. So the mushrikeen in Medina
that wanted to
disbelieve in the prophet salalahu alaihi wasallam, they
outwardly said they were Muslim. They became the
Munafiqeen,
but they were mushrikeen.
So they paid Hassan Abu Thabit write a
poem and and insult the prophet sallallahu alaihi
sallam.
And Hassan Abu Thabit, he said he just
he looked at the face of the prophet,
and once instantly walked back and he said,
that's it for me.
So one glance is enough.
Right. It's mentioned in the New Testament also,
like,
6 or 7 are the disciples of Isa
alayhis salam, but
it says in the text in the gospel
of John that they became disciples of Isa
alaihis salam because they because he looked at
them and that was it. Just another, the
glance. Oh, that's it.
This is the real deal.
1 of the saints of
Yemen,
Abu Bakr bin Salam,
he said that
the people from the city, they come and
they sit in my presence
and they're full of themselves. They think they
know things.
Now, our teachers say that one of the
requisites of attaining knowledge
is what's known as kenosis
or taqlia, one must empty oneself of things,
be like an empty vessel.
Again, which you think you know and be
ready to receive. So he said they come
in and sit in my presence
and I'll say something and they argue and
it's back and forth. They don't learn anything.
Then he said, a simple Bedouin will come
who will,
you know, urinate in public.
He'll come and sit in my presence and
I'll give him one glance
and it'll change his life.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's glance is
powerful. The Bedouin who came into his presence
and he started trembling
uncontrollably. The sahaba said, what's wrong with you,
man? He started trembling.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he said, relax.
I'm not a king.
I'm just the son of a woman who
used to eat dried meat.
This is how he described it. This is
from his Taladur,
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Then here he talks about the ayah,
it may not exalt your remembrance.
There's a long section here.
Abu Saeed al Khudri
who related to the prophet
said,
Jibreel alayhi salam came to me and said
my lord and your lord says
you know how I exalted your fame.
Do you know how I raised your remembrance?
And he said
and Jibril 'alayhi wa sallam said that your
Lord said,
whenever I am mentioned, you are mentioned with
me
in the Adhan,
in the iqamah,
in the shahada.
Because a lot of people,
they will confirm La ilaha illallah.
Christians and Jews,
La ilaha illallah.
Even deists,
like people who don't believe in a personal
god,
they're called deists, that there's a god, he's
a creator but he's sort of a watchmaker.
He doesn't really care
about what's happening on earth. He just kind
of lets us do our thing. Absentee landlord.
They say, Yeah, there's no God but this
creator God. Fine. But Muhammad This
is what makes God imminent or close,
loving.
The fact of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, the fact
the fact that men
Now, he mentioned the fact that mention of
the prophet is directly connected to mention of
Allah also shows that obedience to the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is connected to obedience to Allah
and his and his name to Allah's name.
Allah says obey Allah and his messenger.
Obey Allah means follow the Quran.
What does obey the messenger mean?
There are people who say reject the sunnah.
We are a Quran only people.
Obey Allah and His Messenger. What does that
mean?
Obey the sunnah. Believe in Allah and His
Messenger.
And he says here, qadih iyad says Allah
joins them together with the conjunction
wa, meaning and,
which is a conjunction of partnership.
Partnership
here is a loaded term.
Don't get the wrong idea.
Partnership
not with respect to essence, attributes, or actions.
No one shares in Allah's essence.
No one is deity except Allah.
No one has these qualitative attributes,
that Allah has.
Nobody
nothing other than Allah is omniscient, omnipotent,
so on and so forth. Has al mutla
perfect knowledge?
Think of the hadith of Jibril alayhi sallam.
Jibril alayhis salam said, no Umar, he said
that,
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said to him
do you know who the questioner was? It
was Jibreel alayhi salam. But he asked Omar,
do you know who the questioner was? And
Omar said
Allahu. Allah and his messenger know best.
This does not mean that Allah and his
messenger have equal knowledge.
Right? Because I'm thinking of a number now
between 1 and a 1000000.
You don't know what it is. I do
and so does Allah.
Does that mean I have the same knowledge
as Allah?
Of course not.
Also, the wow of conjunction implies an essential
hierarchy.
Allah is the foremost. He is the greatest
than the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
He says here, it is not permitted to
use this conjunction
in connection with Allah in the case of
anyone except the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam.
Why?
Because, again,
it is it is impossible for obedience to
Allah to conflict with obedience to the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam
With anyone else, it can conflict.
If I say, for example,
obey Allah and obey your Sheikh.
What if your sheikh disobeys Allah?
It's conceivable.
So it's it's impermissible to make such a
statement.
Now, there's another verse in the Quran, obey
Allah and the messenger
and those in authority over you.
So this is understood as hierarchical and conditional.
Obey
those in authority over you as long as
they obey Allah and His Messenger.
Right? Remember Abu Bakr as Siddiq, his first
day of his caliphate?
He stood he sat on the minbar of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He said, I've
been elected but I'm not the best among
you. Obey me as long as I obey
Al Nahla's messenger. Disobey me if I disobey.
This was the first sermon.
There's something in this hadith. There's a hadith
theory mentions someone was speaking in the presence
of the prophet, and
he said,
Whoever obeys Allah and his messenger
has been rightly guided.
So
he said, whoever obeys Allah and his messenger,
has been rightly guided.
And whoever,
rebels against them and he used the dual
form at the end of the verb. He
said
Right? Whoever rebels against them
has erred.
And the prophet, sallallahu alaihi salam, looked at
him according to Hadith.
This Hadith is in Abu Dawood and Nisa'i
in Muslim. And he
said,
What a bad speaker you are.
So
the commentary says the prophet he disliked the
two names being joined together
in a way that implies
equality
because he used the dual form.
So in the Quran,
Allah
says
Allah and his messenger.
It is more befitting that you should please
them,
but a it's only who, a third person
masculine singular
pronoun is used, but the meaning is understood
as both of them.
Allah
doesn't say hooma. He doesn't use a dual
pronoun.
Because the dual form in Arabic implies a
real equality.
So Allah
never refers to himself in the Quran,
with a dual verbal form or a dual
pronoun.
There's a subtlety in the Arabic.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he didn't
he didn't mind
Whoever obeys Allah
and the prophet
and the prophet
is guided.
Using the dual, he didn't like that part.
Don't join me with Allah using a dual
form in Arabic. It doesn't happen in the
Quran.
Now, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses a royal
plural sometimes.
He says, right,
Right?
We.
This is this is a it's called the
pluralis magistatus, the royal plural, and it's understood
that this is
a royal plural. It's used because Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is speaking from a position of
majesty.
It does not in any way denote a
plural of numbers, a plurality of numbers or
something like that.
It is related from Umar
that the prophet, that
that he said to the prophet, part of
your excellence with Allah is that he made
obedience to you, obedience to Allah. Allah says
whoever obeys the messenger has obeyed Allah. And
if you love Allah, then then follow me
and Allah will love you.
It is related that when this ayah was
sent down so this he's he's quoting
Ayatul Ibtihan. This is called Ayatul Ibtihan.
Surah number 3, Ayat number 31.
331.
Say, if you love Allah, then follow me.
Then Allah will love you and forgive you
your sins.
When this ayah was sent down, the people
said, Muhammad wants us
to take him as a mercy in the
way the Christians did with Risa, alayhis salam.
So then the very next verse Allah revealed
Say obey Allah and the messenger.
So obey, not worship. It's not the same
way that Christians
revere Isa, alayhi salam.
It's not to worship the prophet sallallahu alayhi
salam.
Worship is only for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And in the previous ummam, people would make
sajda to prophets,
but that practice is abrogated.
Like we read in the Quran that the
brothers of Yusuf alaihi sallam, they made sajdah
to him. This was not a sajdah of,
for for purposes of ebadah.
It was for tawdeen. It was it was
for reverence.
This was permissible in the previous ummah.
It's been abrogated in our sharia.
And if somebody does it and their intention
is reverence, then it's haram.
If their intention is worship, it's kufr.
Command companion kind of went into a state
and he prostrated
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam out of
reverence and the prophet picked him up and
he said, we don't do that.
So revere the prophet
because he's worthy of reverence,
because he has virtue. Nowadays,
we revere
skill and fame and things like that.
Some famous
sports star dies
and people can't sleep for a week. There's,
you know, memorials
in several different countries around the world
for this person whose ethics are very questionable
based on experience.
As we said, reputation is very important
but we don't
revere virtue anymore.
People die all the time that are pious,
that are wise,
that are charitable,
that are humble, that are selfless.
We don't even know their names.
But Allah knows their names.
This is the most important thing. Not that
people remember you on the Earth.
This is what the pre Islamic Arabs wanted.
They didn't believe in an afterlife. They would
make dhikr of their Abba. They would make
dhikr, they would actually come together and start
making dhikr of their ancestors.
And they believed that by doing that, they
would somehow live forever. That's how they were
immortalized.
But what we want is
the dhikr of Allah or the dhikrulahi
akbar But the but the remembrance of Allah
of us is the greatest thing.
Yes.
Yeah. I mean, there are aspects of cultures
that
are problematic from our perspective.
I ran into this issue. I used to
be a basic practice karate and
and you have to bow, literally make ruku,
right, to your
sensei.
Of course, my intention was never to worship
anyone
but even to revere someone
with such an act of genuflection
is impermissible. There might be some difference of
opinion about that.
So I just told my sensei, I said.
This is when I first started practicing the
religion.
So I was,
I didn't use a lot of tact but
I did I was smart enough to say,
you know, I'm not going to bow to
anyone.
And he said, Oh, that's fine. You don't
need to do that.
I mean, we had it's it's yeah. I
mean, in in this culture, if a man
doesn't shake a woman's hand, people are offended.
Right?
I told that story a while. I mean,
I won't go into it now, but this
happened to me one time and somebody this
this woman said, I'm so offended, he didn't
shake my hand. And
And I turned the tables on her and
I said, My religion offends you? I'm so
offended that you're offended.
Yeah.
So there are aspects of culture that we
can certainly
like one of my teachers explained to me,
like, cultures are like different colored glass. Glasses
in Islam is like pure water. You can
pour it into the glass
and,
you know, the water,
you know,
the water goes into the glass so you
have different color what appears to be different
colored water.
But it's really the culture sort of interacting
with the religion,
and that's fine. But there are certainly aspects
of culture that are problematic.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he would speak
out against them. There are aspects of Arab
culture that he had no problems with that
are actually very good. The Arabs were very,
chivalrous people.
This is something that's dying now, chivalry.
You know, you open a door for a
woman now and she wants to bite your
head off.
Offer a seat. This happened to me. I
offered a seat to a woman on the
bard. I don't need your seat. Who do
you think you are? Oh, sorry.
Alright.
And they were they were very hospitable. They
were generous people, but they were also prone
to warfare.
There are aspects of the culture that were
extremely misogynist.
They would practice wa'adulbanat,
female infanticide.
The prophet
spoke out against those aspects.
The Arab men didn't necessarily like to admit
that they loved their wives.
It's just sort of a macho thing, but
they asked him, are you not so habuilig?
It's Aisha.
So he mentioned his wife.
Is that an answer?
Hello?
Okay.
We do have like 3 minutes if there's
another question or
comment one would like to make.
My wife texted me, do you want a
cough drop?
It's too late now.
Next week, we'll, inshallah,
we'll give you the highlights for part 1,
chapter 2.
So we'll finish all 10 chapters
of the first three parts of the text,
inshallah.
Yes, sir?
Kitabu Shifa
by Qadhi Iyad.
It's a very famous book.
One of the most famous books ever written
on the prophet of Allah Almighty Wasallam. One
of the most commented
upon books probably just after Bukhari and Muslim.
Skeit Abu Shifa. He was an Andalusian scholar.
He died 1149
of the Common Era.
It was a great
Malachy exegete
jurist as well.
Very comprehensive, beautiful text. You should have it
in your house just for barakah, even
if you don't read. I mentioned earlier people
don't read books, Try to do your best
to read them. But even just having it
in your house
is good.
Did he proceed or
came after the way after. Okay. Yeah. Way
after. Thank you. Yeah. He was he wrote
this during the Crusades.
This is why there's section
part 4 of the book is
difficult to navigate.
Part of the reason is because some of
the Christians, the Crusaders, would go on these
martyr missions.
They'd actually go into a public square and
defame the prophet,
insult the prophet on public because they wanted
to be killed by the authorities.
So,
there's some contextual
that's why part 4 is difficult. There's a
lot of context that needs to go with
it.
Amazon, is it?
Yeah.
It's a beautiful translation. Aisha Abdul Rahnan Bewley.
Much beautiful.
Like I said, we're just touching the surface
of this text.
I mean, I promised to do chapter 1.
We probably read
5% of chapter 1
tonight.
And it
requires a little bit of light commentary.
But it's an extraordinary ocean of knowledge.
Alright.
So we'll see you next week.