Ali Ataie – Love Our Unlettered Prophet Having Noesis (Knowledge) Of Him
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AI: Transcript ©
Your faith is not yet complete. It's not
canal. It's not perfect unless I am more
beloved
to you than yourself, your parents, everything. And
then say, Nur Umar, he he went and
he did he had to dug both. He
he thought about this very hard and he
came back to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
akharinqinlisha
khata nafsi alati banejanbaiya. I love you more
than anything, even more than my own self.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
alan You Ummah alan. Now
your faith is complete. Now your faith is
complete.
So the path to love is ma'rifah. The
path to loving the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam or the path of loving
Allah
is having noses or knowledge of them.
And we see examples of this amongst the
Sahaba.
We have Musa'ad Ibn Umer who
was a celebrity
amongst the Quraysh when he was non Muslim.
He was a Najm. He was a celebrity.
He had a new faux bond every day.
He was a very young man, very beautiful
man. Right. He was a trendsetter. You know,
like celebrities, they make trends for people. If
a celebrity is doing something with their hair,
we want to do that as well. Well,
not us, inshallah.
But generally, people want to copy so that
they make takreed of famous people. That's Mus'adudun
Umair. And then he became Muslim and his
parents cut him off financially.
Completely cut him off. So now, he was
in his teens at the time, 18, 19
years old. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
sent him to Al Habashah, to Abyssinia.
He comes back a few years later. He
walks into the Haram. He's wearing a tattered
fold with with patches
and his skin was rough. He was barely
recognizable.
And the prophet
looked at him and he started crying.
He started crying profusely, and he said
He said, verily I saw this person in
Mecca and no one was more blessed by
his parents than he was. And then he
left all of that
with the intention of good and out of
love for Allah and his messenger salallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
There's many examples of this. The the the
early messay, Salman al Farsi, who his father
was a Zoroastrian, he was a fire worshipper.
Salman traveled to Iraq, became a Christian, Allahu
Adam. He spoke to priests
and and and Christian who told him to
go to Hejaz.
He walks into the masjid called Quba,
and he, walks behind the messenger of Allah
sallallahu alaihi sallam. And the prophet had firasah.
He has,
basura.
He has discernment. So the prophet knew what
he wanted. So the prophet lowered his fold
a little bit. And
in between his shoulders is an alama,
is a birthmark.
And when Salman saw that, the ulama said,
that the love of the messenger entered into
his body. That the that the love of
the messenger
entered into his body from the top of
his head to the bottom of his feet.
Right? So this is this is what we're
after here. There are other there's many other
demonstrations of love,
of of the importance of love with Allah
and the messenger of Allah.
Of course, we know the story of, or
the hadith Qudsi
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala saying upon the
tongue of his messenger, Muhammad. He says, my
my servant does not draw close unto me
with anything more beloved by me
than his sala'id, than his obligatory acts of
worship.
This is the most beloved thing to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And then he continues to draw close unto
me with extra credit, extra prayers, extra fasting,
and umrah and things like that. Super arbitrary
acts of worship. Hatahuhibba
until I love him.
This is one way of becoming beloved by
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, giving extra credit. Now
many of us, we might say, well I
can't do the extra credit. I don't have
time and I have to work and I
can just do the fa'id.
So we take solace in another tradition of
the messenger, Salman alaihi sallam, which better than
came to him.
When is the hour? Right? And the prophet
salam alayhi sallam, he didn't give a date
because no one knows the date except Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. So he asked him a
question, he answered a question with a question,
a better question.
What did you prepare for?
Nothing.
And the the muhaddifin
or the the scholars of hadith,
they say this man just did the falaal,
when he says
and he just did the the bare minimum.
But
urhibbullaha
razula.
But I love Allah and His messenger. And
the prophet
said, almaroo manamanahaba.
A person will be with those whom he
loves.
Right? So if we don't have time for
nawafil,
then we have to increase in love for
Allah and His Messenger.
You see?
And this is something that we want to
attain.
We learn about the messenger because we want
to have closeness to him. This is called
ma'ia. This is called quruba. We want nearness
to the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. We wanna be his next door neighbor
in Jannah. This is totally possible.
We can attain this. It's not impossible. It's
conceivable for us to do this.
There was a man named Rabia Abu Kab
who brought the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
a a bowl of water
for the prophet to make wudu. Just a
bowl of water. The prophet said, Salud, ask
me for something. He said,
I ask you for your companionship in paradise.
So this is something that the sahaba, they
realized the importance of. This was extremely important
being close to the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi sallam.
Another way that we can increase our love
for the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi sallam,
besides learning about his life and learning about
his sirrah, his way of living,
is by increasing our
is increasing our benedictions upon him.
Saying benedictions upon the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam,
which is a an amr in the Quran.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses a
and then a at
the end. For double emphasis,
this is something good for you. Allah's giving
you a command. Send blessings upon him. A
man named Ubay ibnuka, he came to the
messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi sallam and he
said, you Allah sallallahu alaihi sallam, how much
of my daily
adkar, my daily dhikr
should I give
to benedictions upon you.
He said, a rubhan, he said a quarter
of it. And the prophet said, that's good
but more is better. He said, this for
who? Half of it? He said, that's good
but more is better. He said, salat arbaq,
3 quarters of it? Said that's good but
more is better. He said, kullahu.
All of it. It has a jayid. That's
good.
All the way of qar can be a
sala'an and nabi. And this is a form
of worship. And this is how we attain
the love of
Allah We love his beloved. This is why
Allah loves us. We love Allah's beloved. Therefore,
Allah loves us. And we follow his beloved.
A group of people came to the prophet
Say if you really love Allah you have
to follow me.
And this is what Allah is telling the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam to say, if
you really love Allah, you have to follow
the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
You cannot expect to be beloved by Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala by rejecting his beloved. It
doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like
that. You see. Rejection of the beloved of
Allah, rejection of the messenger of Allah is
a rejection of the one who sent him.
This is extremely important.
And there's
there's different things that the adamah mentioned about
this this longing to see the messenger of
salallahu alaihi wa sallam, which again is conceivable
for us to see him in a dream
or an awakened state. It's conceivable. The prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam mentions this. If you
see me in a dream, it's really me.
In another hadith, if you see me if
you whoever sees me in a dream will
see me, while he's conscious.
Right? These are sound hadith. So there's a
story of a man who came to an
agam and he said, Yes, Shaykh. When I
want to I want to see the messenger,
Ralas salallahu alaihi wasallam, in a dream. So
the sheikh sat him down and he gave
him all of the salty food to eat.
Maybe perhaps you've heard the story before. All
of the salty food.
This man's eating. Right? And he's eating, he's
eating, but the sheikhs is not giving him
anything to drink.
Right? There's no water. It's just salty food,
and he's too embarrassed, you know. He's too
modest to ask the sheikhs, can I have
some water? This is very salty. So he
didn't say anything. And then Sheikh said, come
back tomorrow. Behold, and come back tomorrow.
So he comes he comes back the next
day, and he says and he says,
I can't believe I had this amazing dream
of waterfalls and rivers and lakes and it
was raining and I was sweating.
There's water water water everywhere.
Right? He said, why is that? He said,
because you longed for water, you thirsted for
water. When you thirst for the messenger of
Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam, then you will see
him in your dream. But very few of
us attained this station.
Right? Now there are certain duas, and we
can go over them in this class if
you like. There are certain duas that
many of the ulama have stated,
has been a means,
a sabab by which they have seen the
messenger of Allah, salallahu alaihi wa sallam, in
a dream. And we can probably I can
probably pass those out later or write it
write it on the board or something. There's
confirmed du'a, but, ultimately, it's a gift from
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Ultimately, we take from
the asbaab, we take from the means because
the messenger,
took from the means. Right. But ultimately it's
a gift. Okay.
So
now in this class,
we've taught this class before. It was 16
weeks.
We made a lot of comparisons between,
like Judo Christianity and Islamic beliefs.
We got into some, like, apologetics
with regards to civil literature. I don't know
if we have time to do that in
this class though.
We might just skip that. It's gonna be
very much an edited or abridged, a Muhtasar
version.
But we'll try to hit every chapter in
the book. We'll get to the textbook in
a minute here.
So our what right now? Our primary text
is this book here.
I suggest everyone get a copy.
It's called Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam, his life
based on the earliest sources.
It's by Martin Lings,
okay, who died in 2005, Miladi. He was
born in Manchester
to a Protestant family. He was a convert.
He was a student of CS Lewis,
who was a Christian apologist and philosopher. He
wrote these books,
you know, the Narnia books. Have you heard
of these things? The lion, witch, and the
wardrobe.
You know, such random objects. Right? The elephant,
the Easter bunny, and the ironing board.
So in that movie, for example, I don't
know if you've seen the movie, there are
a lot of Christian undertones.
Right. And our children watch these things and
they, kind of, take it in. And it
could be dangerous. We just have to kind
of like the lion, he dies, he's killed
and he's resurrected. Jesus is the lion of
the tribe of Judah, things like that. It's
very Christian in its message.
CS Lewis was a friend of Tolkien,
who wrote the Lord of the Rings
series, which also has a lot of Christian
archetypes, a lot of Christian iconography imagery, you
know, like the final scene, you know, as
it were, Armageddon,
Gandalf the wife, you know, on his horse
coming down and defeating
the the armies of evil, so on and
so forth, is right out of the book
of Revelation in the bible.
So these types of things, I'll be careful
about when our children watch them.
1939, he moved to Egypt. He was forced
to leave in 1952
because of British activity in the region. He
came back to England at Oxford and did
a PhD in Arabic.
He's very influential
in Islam's answer to modernity and westernization
of the global environment,
an advocate of meaningful interfaith dialogue. And right
now, actually, a lot of Muslims don't know
this, but Muslims and Christians
are having interfaith dialogue
at the highest levels of scholarship. We have
we have Muslims,
like the Alawi Sadat in Yemen who have
transmission from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, who
are meeting with the archbishop of Canterbury, who
are going to the the Vatican.
Right? They don't televise these things though, because
it does not go for ratings. They'd rather
show some
stupid show. There's, you know, there's a sleeper
cell in New York, and then there's something
up or something stupid like that. Right. But
but if if they show these things very
powerful, You've seen Muslims and Christians at the
highest level of scholarship and they're having a
meaningful discourse.
Right. So this book actually, in 1983, won
an award. There was a, the national,
what's it called, the National Seerah Conference in
Islamabad.
And this book was selected as the best
English Seerah ever written.
Right. And there's other there's other ones that
have been written, Sealed Nectar. Karen Armstrong was
a former nun. She wrote a pretty good
one. Montgomery Watt, who's a Christian
orientalist,
he wrote one
in the fifties. It's pretty good though. It's
very, objective. William Montgomery Watt,
I think, taught up, Ramadhan also wrote one.
So the book isn't perfect.
Okay.
There's errors in this book. No book is
perfect, except for the Koran.
Every book has errors.
But we're going to use it because it's
probably the most correct. And the language is
the most, eloquent.
Right? He's he's a Shakespearean scholar. You know
Shakespeare like the back of his hand.
And I say that about Martin Luther King.
It's not about Shakespeare.
Although he might have Allahu Adam might have
been Muslim.
Sheikh Zubair. Right? As Sheikh Hamza says.
So that's the thing. If you're going to
write about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, you
have to use the best language.
Right? You have to have very beautiful language.
When you translate his hadith, you have to
have very beautiful language. And that's why
his wordology
and his phraseology is very beautiful.
Right.
And we have to be careful that when
we talk about the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wasallam not to ascribe to him something
that he didn't say or
do. This is, this is a kabirah. This
is a major sin. The prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said in sawn hadith,
he
says,
So whoever ascribes to me something falsely or
lies about me intentionally
has reserved his seat in the fire.
Right. There's a couple of hurayas of this
Hadith
in the sound traditions.
Nasalullah al Aqilasalama.
So our
supplementary literature, we'll get to the primary sources
of this book in a minute.
So this is kind of an introduction class.
The supplementary literature
are called
Dala'il and Shamayil
literature.
So the Dalail
are proofs of prophecy, right, like Imam Beihaki.
We're gonna use him and he uses him
in this book as well. Shamayil literature
deals with inward and outward aspects of the
holy prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And probably the most famous book of Shamayil
literature is the Shamayil and Nabawiya
by Imam Abu Risa at Tiramidi.
And there's other books by Qabi Iyad, Ashifa,
obviously. There's a book, I don't know if
it's in English. It's a contemporary book on
Shamayel by Yusuf and Nabahani,
Yusuf and Nabahani. It's called.
And basically he takes because because Shamael is
a very large genre of literature, he takes
all of the Shamael and he puts it
into one volume, and he doesn't repeat anything.
Right. So it's very useful. It's called
the the the ways the means of arriving
to the Shamael of the messenger, Yusuf An
Nabhani.
I studied this book when I was in
Yemen.
So some of the ulama say, you know,
these these outward
descriptions of the prophet, you know, what he
looked like physically is not important. Don't worry
about that. This is what some of them
say.
However, we disagree with that because the Sahaba
mentioned it. Why would the Sahaba mention it?
Why would they take time mentioning
in very distinct detail
what the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam looked
like if it wasn't important. The sahabi did
not waste their time. It's the best generation.
Why did they mention that then? Very minute
detail. They say that the
that
the toe next to the big toe of
the prophet was slightly longer than his big
toe. Why do they mean, who looked at
that and why would they write it down?
Somebody saw that and wrote it down because
they thought it was important. The most minute
detail, they counted according to the Shamayel
of Imam Ternate. They they counted 17 white
hairs. Somebody actually went up to him and
counted 17 white hairs on his head. He
said there's 17. Somebody else would notice 14.
So he said, I counted 11.
Right? So why is this important? It's important
because the mohid wants to hear about the
Mahabhu.
It's important because the lover wants to hear
about his beloved.
Right? If you love someone, you don't you
don't just wanna hear about what they're saying,
you wanna look at them. You want you
want you want to you want to know
everything about
them. Everything about them. Right? This is how
the Sahaba felt about the messenger of Baba
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
The ulama said Fatima Zahra died from Mahaba
of the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Imam Busiri
died from Mahaba of the messenger of Allah.
This literally killed them. They're longing for the
messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. This
is the stations that we have to attain.
So Sira literature,
the word Sira,
comes from
a verb.
Sarah.
Yes, you.
Means
to stroll or to walk. Right? This is
so this is
This is past tense. This is present tense.
The word selada, right, which means car,
also comes from the selada in automobile. The
word selada is actually in the Quran.
So it's automobile is obviously a,
a new application of the term. When they
came and took uses out of the well.
It says a saying, by the conveyance of
some sort. Right. So the word
comes from this root,
meaning the way of the prophet. How he
walked.
Right? How he walked, how he lived his
life.
So why would somebody write a biography?
Can anyone
imagine why?
Why would someone write a biography?
Anyone?
Well, we can say to educate.
Right?
To educate called catechesis.
To educate,
to
preserve identity,
right, to increase love.
Right? So all of these reasons,
to preserve a teaching or a legacy, to
preserve the actual teaching.
Right? There's many, many You know, in communist
countries,
the government will pay scholars
to write biographies of some of the communist
forefathers. And they have to make it very
positive.
So obviously, this
is not an objective biography.
Right? And you'll see that,
when it comes to seeru literature with the
prophet, the
scholars were very objective.
Right? No one's paying them to do anything.
Right? Even if you look in the 4
gospels in the bible,
you have 4 very different views about Isa
alaihis salam. They're polemical tractates. They're trying to
persuade people into believing something.
Right? They're not meant to be historical at
all. They're meant to be polemical or trying
to convert you. Right, so this again is
not objective. There's a polemical aim.
So serial literature
is not an
exact science.
Okay. It's a distinct science,
but it's not an exact science.
The reason why we study seerah,
other than what I mentioned before, to increase
in love and value for the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, the reason the ulama study Sira
in-depth is because it contains many of the,
Surun al Nuzul or Aspabun Nuzul,
many of the,
the context of Quranic ayat,
why a verse was revealed.
Right? So if you wanna know the context
of the verse, the scholars will first go
to the Sira. For example, Allah says in
the Quran, don't
say Don't say I will do that tomorrow
except don't say I will do that tomorrow
without saying insha'allah.
Right? So that's a that's a precept in
the Quran. But people wanna know why was
it revealed.
What was the occasion of revelation? The sha'an
al musl. Right? So then we go to
see our literature and we find and we'll
study this inshallah ta'ala. At the Quraysh, they
sent a correspondence
to the Jews in Medina
and they said this person is claiming to
be a prophet of the
God of Abraham.
Can you give us some test questions? We
can examine him. And they said yes. They
sent a correspondence back. Ask him about the
root, the spirit. Ask him about the word
of harlemaim.
Right? Ask him about what? As Hadhul Qaf.
Right? Ask him about these three things.
So they asked him about these,
and the prophet said,
I'll do that tomorrow.
Come on. And 15 days go by and
there's no Jibril alaihi salam does not come,
there's no wahis.
Right? So many of the Quraysh started mocking
the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam. He said tomorrow
it's not happening.
But many of them started thinking,
he's not making this up. He's waiting for
something to come.
Right? Why would he why would he embarrass
himself like that? Right? And then the verse
was revealed, don't say,
Allah. Except if Allah wills. He forgot to
say insha'allah.
And this is, al-'arad al bashariyah. The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has isma. He's infallible
but he has human characteristics.
And it's conceivable for a prophet to forget
something. It's conceivable. To make errors in judgement,
it's conceivable. He cannot willfully sin.
Right?
That's the difference. So this is this is
one of the reasons why we study this
as well.
Also, the purpose of serial literature,
according to the early scholars like Ibn Ishaq
was to in a Tabari, even Mujadeel Tabari,
was to collect as many traditions about the
prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam,
as many traditions
as they can get their hands on without
expressing any type of value judgement on those
traditions.
It was just to collect everything they could.
Okay. Whether it was strong, weak, whether it
was fabricated, whatever they could get their hands
on. And then they would let them have
the thing. The scholars of hadith
actually go through the literature and extract things
that had strong sanad.
Right? There has to be a chain of
transmission.
This is extremely important. There has to be
a strong So they didn't pick and choose.
They didn't discriminate.
Seer literature is not Hadith.
We have to be very clear about this.
Seeril literature is not hadith. Now they quote
hadith in seeril literature. Sometimes they quote a
hadith.
Right? But you have to look at the
sanit of some of the stories. Some of
the stories have no sanit.
Right? They're apocryphal stories.
Right? You're not obliged to believe in them.
Right? So when we look at hadith,
there are there are 3 grades of hadith,
basic grades of hadith.
Okay? There's hadith that are known as
hadith. Okay. Tawato. They've reached Tawato,
multiple attestation.
In other words,
groups and groups of people have reported the
same thing about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Okay? Which makes it impossible for them to
have collaborated
and conspired to fabricate something.
Impossible.
There's less than a 1000 hadith that have
reached Tawatr.
Less than a 1000.
Denial of a hadith that is Mutawatr is
kufr.
Okay? It has
Right? It
has a firmly established proof.
It's equal to Quran.
Right? Without a doubt this is what the
prophet
said. Hadith Mutawasa.
Okay?
For example, an example of the hadith Mutawasa
is the traditions about Hashem, Mubashareen, Ibn Jannah.
That there's 10 men that are promised paradise.
And the prophet
he promised many people paradise.
Many women. Fatima Zahra is a.
Right? She's a master of the women of
paradise.
He heard the footsteps of the law of
Abu Dhabi in paradise.
Hassan Hussein, the leaders of the youth of
paradise. Right? But these 10 men is established
through Dalil Fati'i.
It's it's a it's a tradition. That means
groups and groups of people from all over
the Muslim world are reporting the same thing.
Right? So anyone who says
that one of the,
the the caliphs that preceded Imam Ali was,
died upon Bifaqa kufur. This is kufur to
say that because this is established through the
Bayou Qatari.
Okay?
The second grade of hadith is hadith sahir,
also called hasan,
Okay? Which is a strong
sound hadith.
Denial of such a hadith is not kufr,
but it's very
ill advised to do that Because probably the
prophet
said this hadith.
Okay? So mutawatul hadith are used,
to formulate creedal statements. Akhida.
Okay. Mutawata hadith. They're also used for sharia,
for legislation.
They're also used,
for
for advice, general counsel to Muslims.
Salih Hadith are not used for creed.
Okay? They're not used for creed unless the
Urlamaz by Ijima,
by complete consensus,
agree on that statement.
Okay? They're usually used for sharia,
to make sacred law, for legislation, and obviously
for advice. And then you have hadith that
are daif,
that are weak hadith. And weak hadith are
not fabricated hadith.
That's a different category. Some people say, don't
quote weak hadith because it's probably wrong. No.
Weak hadith, as one of our teachers said,
was like a c minus or a c.
Right? If you get a c minus on
a test, you pass the test. It's a
bad grade. Right? You're probably not happy with
it, but you passed.
Right? That's a that's a hadith, a da'if.
It's not a fabricated hadith. There's some weakness
in the Sanat, in the chain of transmission.
And these are only used for general counsel,
not for legislation, and not for deriving creedal
statements.
Okay.
So we have 4 sources.
Quran,
sunnah,
Right? Which is not only the the, words
of the prophet but his
his actions
and his tacit approvals and disapprovals. So Quran,
Hina, consensus of scholarship,
and Qiyas.
Right? Which is analogical reasoning based on established
precedent.
Okay. These are our sources. Not seer literature.
This is extremely important,
because a lot of these, a lot of
the stories that are mentioned in seer that
Muslims don't even believe in are being used
by Christians, like evangelical Christians,
to,
invalidate the namua of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. In other words, they're they're judging
our religion by things we don't even believe
in.
Right? That's not that's that's not a proof.
That's not a belief against us. If we
don't believe in it, how can he use
it against
us? Again,
the purpose of the early historians
was not to express a value judgement on
any tradition,
which suggests amass as many traditions as possible
because they were trying to be objective.
Right. And let the Muhadefin go in and
separate.
Right.
So
so you might come across a story in
serial literature that has no senate.
It just comes from nowhere.
It comes from
Israeli tradition.
It comes from Jewish tradition.
Right? It might be true. Right? But you
don't have to believe it. There's no senate.
It's just a story.
Okay?
So that has to be made clear. You
can quote it, it's permissible to quote from
like, you can quote from the bible and
things like that, as long as it doesn't
contradict your Akita. You can quote it and
use it as an example. But if it
contradicts, then you stay away from it. You
have to be very cautious about that. And
some of the other Muslims said, don't even
quote the Bible. Don't quote it at all.
Just be safe. And some said, the dominant
opinion, Abu Hamad al Ghazali, he says, you
can quote it, but be very careful when
you quote it because many of it doesn't
have a Sanad. Okay? So the sources of
this book, the first source,
that he uses here is called Sirat Rasulullah.
Okay?
This is why Abu Bakr Mohammed ibn Ishaq.
Ibn Ishaq.
Okay?
And this is the oldest complete,
seerah of the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi
sallam.
Although,
there is evidence
that Sahaba did write down Sira and Tabi'in
wrote down Sira.
Okay.
Who is the son of Az Zubayr ibnu
Awam, who's from the 10 Promise of Paradise.
His mother was Asma Bintu Abu Bakr as
Siddiq. So the son of Asma, the daughter
of Abu Bakr
and,
Az Zubair, he wrote down Seerah literature.
But his works are in fragmentary form. They
haven't been preserved
completely.
Right. There's many examples like
was from the Kabyleen. He lived at the
time of the Kabyleen in Yemen. He wrote
down serial literature.
His work is lost.
Right. But there's evidence that he wrote it.
Abdul Ardu Abbas
who is Mufasid e Qur'an,
he's a companion of the messenger of Allah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. He's the founder of,
the science of Quranic exegesis.
He's the founder of usur al tafsir,
Quranic hermeneutics.
He wrote down seerah on alwa, on tablets.
He wrote down the seerah of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. But this is lost.
Right? So the earliest surviving
a complete surah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam is by Muhammad Iblu Ishaq, who wrote
it about a 120 years after the passing
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So it's considered foundational,
but also very problematic.
It's considered very problematic
because he includes again, many of the apocryphal
stories
he just took from any source.
So it's problematic in a sense that if
you don't know how to approach it,
it could be
problematic. Right? And this is a sera that
Christians
and, you know, atheists, they love this sera,
because they don't know how
to approach sera literature.
You don't just take it any tradition. If
you go to some of these websites,
like whenever I hate islam.com or something. And
I've seen these websites. You go there, there's
articles about the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And
then you scroll down to the footnotes,
and, you know, what are they quoting? It
says,
And then,
same as above, same as above, same as
above. Very rarely will they quote directly from
Quran or Hadith.
Right? So this is the main thing they
attack is sera literature.
Okay. Especially Ibn Ishaq's Seerah. There's a lot
of the topical stories in the Seerah,
in that Seerah.
But there was a very strong oral tradition
amongst the Muslims. It's an oral society.
I visited Mauritania
a couple years ago, and unique
people that are, only Yoon. They don't know
how to read or write. But they're Hafaq
a Koran.
How can you be a Hafiz a Koran,
you can't write your own name?
Because it's very auditory. Right? It's a very
oral culture.
They share people sit in front of them,
and they recite to him, and he just
repeats. And he's got it. That's it. Right?
So there's still and it's a pre modern
society. Very I mean, maritime is kind of
out in the middle of nowhere. Right?
But there's still societies like this. There's very
strong oral tradition.
Okay. They said that the knowledge of the
salaf was in their *. Imam Shafi'i even
pointed to his chest. This is where my
knowledge is.
Right? So, you know, he didn't carry on
his books. We know the famous story of
Imam al Ghazali when he studied in
Nizam al Mook. He studied under Juwayni,
Imam al Haramain.
Right? He was a most learned professor, Abu
Haman al Ghazali.
Right? He's coming back from Samarkand and he's
he's
a group of brilliant, right, robbers.
They they rob him, right? And they want
to take his books.
And he says to one of them, don't
take my books, that's my knowledge.
And he says, this is your knowledge? What
kind of knowledge do you have that the
likes of me can take it from you?
You're not a scholar.
Right? So Imam Ghazal suddenly realized that I
have to memorize this. So he committed the
next 2 years, he committed all of his
notes to memory. Your knowledge is not in
books. Your knowledge is in your, it's in
your chest.
It's in your brain. It's in your mind.
Right? This is extremely important. And some of
these scholars say that during their exchange,
Imam Abu Zarago found out that this man
was fasting,
and he was robbing him.
So as a rebuttal, remember the rabbi said,
you're fasting and you're robbing me? What kind
of Muslim is that? And the man said,
I didn't wanna close all the doors to
my Lord.
I didn't want to close off all the
doors to my Lord. So remember, Zali even
learned a lesson from that. And it's said
that many years later, remember, Zali was making
talafah on the Kaaba, and he found a
man that was clinging to the Kiswah.
He was clinging to the curtain of the
Kaaba and was crying, and it was the
same brigand.
Right? So Allah
So you leave a door open
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You don't close
the doors off.
So,
of course, you know, in Christian history as
well, there's also a strong oral tradition like
the gospel of John was written at 110,
about 80 years after Isa Alaihi Sanam. The
difference however is, that Christians believe the gospel
of John is the word of God. Whereas
no Muslim believes that Sira is the word
of God.
And the gospel of John written in Greek,
which is not the language of Isa alaihi
salaam by an anonymous person,
or as we know
this is written in Arabic,
and we know wrote it, ibn Nisat, ibn
Hisham, so on and so forth. There's a
major difference. Now the three errors in this
book that I'll say now,
so
just to keep in mind,
and this is probably, something that he did,
kind of just
to
make it easier for Christians to understand, I
think.
He he equates,
Alisa, alaihis salaam, in the Christian tradition as
being the logos,
right, which is a divine incarnation,
an an avatar.
He equates that with the Quran. He says
Jesus is the word made flesh. The Quran
is the book made
word or the the word made book. Right?
So this is true up to a point.
We believe the Quran is uncreated,
and the Christians believe that Isa alaihi salam
is uncreated.
But Christians also believe that Isa alaihi salam
is God.
And that he's separate and distinct
from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala or the father
in heaven, whatever you wanna call him. Whatever
the Christians call him. Right? Whereas, we don't
believe that the kalam of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
is deity in and of itself. It's an
attribute of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So that's
something to be careful about. The other thing
he mentions is at the, Fath Hamakkah.
He says that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, and I wouldn't know where he's getting
this from.
He obviously, he has a source of some.
He didn't make it up.
We have a good opinion of him. Raheem
Allahu Ta'ala. He's a very blessed man.
Shamar Mullins was also known as Sheikh Abu
Bakr Siraj.
That was his Muslim name. Sheikh Abu Bakr
Siraj. He died about 5 years ago.
He says, the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he destroyed all the idols except an icon
of Maryam and Isa. He left that in
the Kaaba.
So this is not true. He didn't leave
anything he didn't leave any iconography in the
Kaaba. Okay?
So it's
not considered an insult to destroy an icon
of Islam.
It's considered actually a praising of Islam
to do that. Because nothing can capture the
essence of Islam.
No artist can render anything that comes even
close to the essence of Isa alaihi salam
or any of the prophets.
Right?
The other thing he mentions is, and he
implicates this, is that when the marriage of
the prophet
to Zaynab
Bintu Jah is when the prophet
sees her and then suddenly he's enamored with
her. Right?
So this is something that we reject completely.
He implies that's what happened.
All of the marriages of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam are by command of Allah
Okay?
That the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam does
not speak from his hawa, from his own
caprice. He doesn't he doesn't make decisions based
on his own halwa.
Right? His own emotions, his emotional state. Right?
This is extremely important.
So, when we got when we get to
that So these are 3 problematic aspects. Again,
no book is perfect, except the book of
Allah. Right?
So
mistakes
are inevitable. Now,
in addition to Ibn Ishaq,
there is a Muftasar of Ibn Ishaq which
is much more,
reliable.
It's called the Muqdasar
of Abdul Malik ibn Hisham. It's 3 volumes.
Ibn
Hisham.
Basically, he went through Ibn Ishaq and removed
a lot of these stories that were causing
a lot of
controversy amongst the early Muslims that ibn Nissaq
took from
sources that were not sound.
So this is the most popular seerah,
probably in the world, is the seerah of
ibn Hisham.
Okay.
For example, he removes the story recorded by
Ibn Ishaq,
the the satanic verses story.
Right. There's a story, and we'll talk about
that inshallah.
But this is rejected by, you know, Abu
Bakr albin Arabi Fakhruddin Razi,
even Taymiyyah,
even new Kathir,
Abi Iyad, go right down the line.
Complete
fabrication.
He also quotes, and this is, if you
get the books,
this is,
at the end,
the new copies have this at the beginning.
So there's a page called, key to references.
Okay. So these are his sources.
Okay. So he's not like making things up.
He has sources here.
Okay. So he says here, he also quotes
from Ibn Saab. It's called the Tabqaat.
And then also from
Mohammed ibn Urmoud al Waqqdi. Kitab al Maghazi,
which is a chronicle of the military expeditions
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Also quotes
Akbar Makkah by Azraqi
and then
Ibnujarir
Tabari,
Tarikhul
Ruhul Ban Muluk by the annals of Tabari,
which is extremely important work as well. It's
a famous exeget mufassar of the Quran.
And then obviously he quotes from 8 traditional
books of canonized hadith.
He quotes from the sound 6. Right? Asiha,
as sitta.
Who can name the sound 6?
Who can name the Sound6?
You heard of Sound6?
Well, give me the first of Bukhari,
Muslim,
2 more.
Abu Dawood
and
Am
Masai.
He also quotes from the Sunan of Ahmad
ibn Hanbal,
okay, which is
a great scholar, he's a
Mujtahhid, right. And
Darimi, Imam Darimi. So these are the 8
books of hadith
that he quotes. He tries to stay within
the Sahih tradition
and the strong Hadith
and the mutawatir Hadith.
Finally, there is an occasional reference to Beihapi,
Kitabosun al Kubra
and the Mishkaat.
He says it was written by Bavawi but
that seems to be an error. The Mishkaat
was written by Khatib Tabrizi.
It's about 6,000 hadith.
It's a very beautiful book, the Mishkat.
So
we'll take a few minutes now. What time
is Isha?
10 o'clock. 10 o'clock? Okay.
We'll take,
we'll do this on the board then.
Next time, inshallah, we'll do a historical
overview of what the world was like at
the time of the birth of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi sallam, and why it was so
necessary. The world was literally in chaos.
What was happening in Europe was unbelievable.
There was there was barbarian hordes everywhere,
pillaging and plundering. It was just an unbelievable
the dark ages. Right?
So we'll talk about that. We'll quote from
a Christian scholar, who is a,
he has a this is a text that
we've studied in seminary at a graduate school
level about what the world was like during
this period, right around the 6th century. But
before we do that, it's important for us
to know the lineage of the prophets of
Allah Subhanahu alaihi Salam. So many of you
have already I'm already given this to you
if you've taken if you took the previous
seer class or the lives of the Poffers
class we're doing in San Ramon.
So it's important to know his lineage,
his confirmed lineage.
Okay.
We can go all the way back to
Adam alaihis salaam.
Right. But only names that we know for
sure are the ones that he named sallallahu
alaihi sallam.
So there's a poet who said, wafat Usulal
Mustafa Haqqat Sarafi Sin Silati Usulihi
Adinana.
So remember the lineage of the prophet
until you get to a man named Adnan,
sahunan khatus.
When you get there, stop.
But know that it goes back to Ishmael,
alayhi sallam, who was a helper to his
father.
The first
khalifa, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And then the prophecy moved
to the second prophet
named either Sheith or Shaif.
Sheith or Shaif. There's a difference. It's Seth.
See, these are Hebrew names. Right? They're not
Arabic names.
Most of the prophets a lot of Muslims
don't know this. Most of the prophets name
in the Quran.
So Hebrew
and are Israelite prophets, not Israeli prophets. There's
a difference between an Israelite and an Israeli.
Okay.
Israelite is the the * Israel with the
Muslim before the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
When I talk about Israelis, we don't want
Israelite.
Okay. So the second there was,
I was at a
dinner party or something, and there was a
brother there. He was from Iran, and his
name was Yashar.
And I said,
did you know your name Yashar? It was
a Hebrew name that means the just one.
And his friend next to him started laughing.
He's like, you have a Hebrew name, you
have a Jewish name, you know, this is
nice. So I said, what's her name? He
said, Idris. I said, oh, you mean Enoch?
It's a Hebrew name,
which is the next product.
This
this word
comes from Darasa. This is someone who's
disciplined, who's learned.
Ijaris alayhis salaam. So in in the Kathir,
where he
says that the prophet says, the lady goes
through Ijaris alayhis salaam.
Okay?
So then,
this is actually
if I have a if I have an
arrow, that means it's a direct sum. This
is a dotted line, which means there's a
few generations. We don't know for sure. These
are these are what this is what we
know for sure.
Okay. According to our sources. We don't want
to speculate.
And then we come down
to Nuh, alayhis salaam.
Okay?
And then his direct son, according to our
petition,
was a son named Sam
or Shem.
Right?
So the word Semite,
right Semite, like you say anti Semitic.
Semite is from his name, Sam. He is
the forefather of the Semites
or Arabs
or Israelites.
Lomat or Samyat, right, the Semedical languages.
Sam.
And then we see it with 3 generations.
And we have Ibrahim, alayhis salaam.
And then the son of Ibrahim, alayhis salam,
is Isma'i, alayhis salam.
Ibrahim
means of of Russian and Hebrew.
Right?
Aburahma.
Right?
The the father of mercy.
And then Ismail,
right?
Sami'a
Allah, Sami'a Allah.
God heard.
Now after this point, the the prophet the
prophet
did not mention anyone until Adnan.
So we don't know
we don't know between Adnan and Ismail, Alaihi
Salam.
Although some of the scholars,
they speculated
that there was a man named Khador,
who was the son of Ishmael.
And the reason of Kedar
the reason why they say Kedar is because
there's a figure named Kedar in the Bible,
who's a son of Ishmael,
who was very prominent.
And the word Kaida in Hebrew is used
synonymously with Arab.
So he was a very important figure in
the Bible. Allahu Adam. So we'll just put
that in parentheses. So this is speculative. We
don't know.
Okay.
After Adnan,
Usually children know this. Mhmm. Any any children?
Sunday schoolers?
Nizal.
So Adnan,
Nad
Nizal.
Mudor,
This is not the prophet that Yas, alayhis
salam. Okay?
This is a different area.
After 80
hours.
Mudarika.
Mudarika.
Like we said, we we love the messenger
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So we wanna
know everything about him.
Right?
But let me say that you can tell
what a person loves by what their tongue
is always saying. So someone's always talking about
their car. My Mercedes Benz is beautiful, but
that's what they love. The tongue reveals the
heart. Right? So there are there are youth
who know,
or you know, the score of every single
world series since 1901.
Right. You say, well that's so that's so
useless. Why would you even Well I love
it. Right.
This is our remembering the lineage of the
prophet, Subhanahu alaihi wa sallam.
This is good practice.
What's
another name for Philip?
Who's Philip? Who's Philip? He's known by a
more famous name.
So you wanna
good guess. Not who say Quresh.
Syed is Quresh.
The word is
diminutive.
It's on a scale called tasrir.
Like Hassan and Hussein, it's diminutive.
Qarasha means to bite. Aqirsh is a shark.
So Qarish is a nickname, and he's a
little lighter.
So maybe if they say like when he
was a kid or something, he did something
and they kind of they called him, yeah,
Quresh.
So it kind of stuck with him. But
his real name is Sirun ibn Malik.
Quresh. This is the Kabirah of the messenger
of Allah subhalehi sallam. His Kabirah is called
Quresh.
Kila,
sometimes,
I think
it changes to hacking.
So you find either kilab or hacking.
Because kilab in Arabic has a has a
bad meaning. It means dogs.
So
that was his name. But sometimes they say
they use it in an alias.
Khilab.
Now
al Said. So al Said was the first
one, around 400, a common era
who told the Arabs to stop moving around,
to stay in Mecca and build houses.
Osama bin Hussein.
I'll do my
math.
Passion.
So the Abila, the messenger of Allah, is
Fa'ish. That's the tribe.
And then there's a faqid.
There's a clan.
The clan is Danny Hashan.
Okay.
Hatcher.
You have
doctor Hatchin.
Abdul Mabhavath.
Yes.
Abdul Mabhavath. Sorry. My wife is
that on the board.
Uncle Bob.
K.
This is his known lineage.
Names we know for certain from tradition.
Now firstly, we can go further.
Abdullah had a brother named Abu Talib.
He has a son named Ali.
The
prophet is a daughter of Fatima. They married
Hassan Hussein,
and then they have their own
lineage.
Okay.
We'll stop at that point, inshallah.
If
any if there are any issues,
or any questions that we can take them
or comments.
If not, next time, Insha'Allah, we'll we'll start
with,
the historical context, and then also read the
first Get this book. You have to get
the book.
Maybe it's not mandatory, but
read the first two chapters.
The House of God and A Great Loss,
and maybe Partition of the Hollow. The chapter
is like a page and a half each.
It's very very short chapters, and there's a
lot of chapters.
They're very short.
Okay. Any any questions? Yes. So how do
you really find this book?
So this book you find anywhere. Amazon,
most bookstores even, like Barnes and Noble, whatnot.
L I n g s. Martin. Lings.
Yes.
Martin Lings? Just put in Lings, and then
go to Amazon dotcom. It'll come right up.
This is his most famous book.
There's different editions of it. They have different
covers, but, and they move things around, but
it's
the
same
text.
Any other questions?
Like I said, there's a lot of information,
so we're gonna move quickly. Not, after the
deep writing.
Some of the prophets we mentioned are stories,
some we have not. Most of them Allah
has not mentioned.
It's it's conceivable for there there have been
many prophets, because they fall within the prophetic
samsara.
But definitely, there's no prophets between Isa and
the prophet samsara,
This is confirmed in Hadith. There's no profit
between Isa and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Who's in the who's in the lineage of
visa, Vishal? No. Contemporary. Oh, contemporary. Oh, I
see. I see what you're saying.
I don't know. I
mean, this is about
this is about
230
years.
Another 200,
probably.
Maybe even at around Agnan.
Maybe about 600. I don't know. Just based
on, you know, this 400 1, 2, 3,
4. I think it was
6 names away.
I'm sure we can calculate it.
That's a good budget.
Hopefully, it wasn't boring.
Like I said, it's a it's a it's
a class. It's you know, religion isn't you
know, play and amusement. It's it's it's serious
business. We can have fun doing it.
And it depends, you know, it's it's just
the way where it socializes. People need to
be entertained and whatnot. But, you know, people
find different things entertaining. I can sit with
the Sheikh for 5 hours, and he can
explain in a very monotone voice about the
Sifaq of Allah, and I will be enthralled
for 4 hours.
But for
other people,
you know, it takes a little song and
dance, and
so I'm sorry if I'm kind of boring,
but
this is information we have to learn. I
can't learn it for you. It's like with
the Arabic class. People say, you know,
you know, you have to do this and
that, and then you have to do the
work you have to memorize.
It takes work.
So I encourage the children
to,
because the brain of a child is like
a sponge.
It's ready to absorb,
so easy to learn things when you're a
child. Learn languages, it's very easy.
Learn information like this.
So I encourage the children to come and
take notes as well.
It'll make it much better.
And if you have obviously non Muslim friends
that wanna
learn about the Prophet Muhammad, they're
welcome to come. As long as it's okay
with the Masjid board, I don't mind
anyone coming in.
I go to places. I do lectures, and
I see non Muslims
or people that
look very strange, and they're probably, you know,
working for some agency or something, but we
have nothing to hide. We're we're teaching love
and peace.