My Important Books – Young Smirks

Bismillah R Rahman Rahim Salam Alaikum Welcome to the youngsters podcast, we're here today with a very special guest that will offer it so I can share. Hi there, Counselor.

Chef, it's a pleasure to see you again. Hamdulillah. It's been a while I pleasure to be back in touch with you.

Chef, I wanted to basically speak about some of your,

your books, your publications.

Number one, it is something I've benefited from a lot, and I'm sure a lot of English speakers have benefited greatly from your work. And number two, the books are still very relevant. This is, you know, we still short on books in the English language, believe it or not, we have many books speaking about different topics. But we don't actually have many books speaking about the fundamental topics, really, in English, you know, because not many people are qualified to write on certain topics. And,

you know, I wanted to basically speak about some of your work, I've only got a few of your books here with me today. The first one being towhead.

This is basically speaking about the fundamental beliefs in Islam.

Evolution of FIP, which is basically explaining, you know, how the different schools of thought came around,

or sort of tafseer or similar Hadith, you know, these are some of the books that basically give, you know, a new Muslim, or any Muslim basically a good basic grounding in the religion.

And I just wanted to speak a little bit about each one. And, you know, so that people who are watching can be encouraged to get a copy and read and learn more about the basics. And especially for new Muslims, I get a lot of messages from new Muslims asking, What books do you recommend, and always recommend, you know, your books handler, so I thought, well, I have the opportunity. Maybe we will speak a little about a bit about each one of these. And he just gives people an introduction into your work and where they can, you know, benefit inshallah. So first of all, chef will speak about how he'd So

could you tell us a little bit about this book, and why it's important, especially as a new Muslim, somebody who's new to the religion? What is the topic of Tawheed? What is towhead? And why is it so important in Islam?

Well, the

topic of Tawheed, as you mentioned,

represents the foundation of Islam.

The foundation of all revelations, which were revealed by Allah subhanaw, taala, to humankind,

the core belief is that Allah is one,

and that he alone deserves to be worshipped. That in law,

there is no God worthy of worship. besides Allah. That's the essence of the message. The book,

I call it the fundamentals of Tawheed.

And wrote on it back in the 80s, actually, the beginning 1980.

I wrote, I wrote it as a manuscript, try to publish it at the time, but was not able.

Because the few people I knew who were in publishing, publishing English works.

They felt it was,

I guess,

difficult to swallow it going into, you know, areas, which they just weren't that familiar with, you know, because I don't think much has changed person to show, you know, what, you know, this is a topic that it really is the most important topic as Muslim. But sadly, it's one that offends many people. Because, as you point out in the book, many traditions from other religions, other cultures have crept into the practices of many Muslims around the world. And one thing of what I like about your book number, the first thing is that is authored in English.

And I think that's really important because a lot of the literature in the English language is translated, often very poorly,

from Arabic. And but you know, it doesn't read the same, you know, at the time when I wrote it, you know, there was no book, no books at all.

at all, on the sub specifically on the subject, except for the translation, a brief translation of, you know, Kitab Potterhead, you know, by Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah hub. Yeah, that was all that had been published at that time. And when people wrote things about Islam,

they, they would cover tau hid in one page, and then go on to write, you know, 2030 pages on Salah and,

and hydrogen, huge amounts were written, but though he could just take one page, you know, so that was that was an obvious discrepancy that needed to be corrected. Yes. And that's why when I wrote and went in two areas that people normally didn't talk about in those days, you know, yeah, the gin. Yeah, you know,

I wanted to do a whole episode, you know, you've got all these important topics, you know, big books, about we want to do a whole episode and agenda alone, you know,

Chef, you know, the good thing about about your books is because they're authored in English, they, it reads differently. You know, the Arabic language is a totally different language to the English language. So to try to translate something is never going to be the same. So something that's actually authored in the English language, it reads really well. And also, it's very easy to understand it's in simple English, but you also use modern example, of shirk. And this specifically was the area that

I wanted to provide for people because even the books because I didn't just write it from kitasato head. I wrote it. I prepared it from man. We could say

explanations written by earlier scholars. Yeah. on guitar, guitar heat. Yeah. What I studied in Medina, you know, a commentary on kitab. Guitar, he dies, he realizes that Hamid and others that had been written on Kitab, retired. So having studied this subject, and during the summers, when I used to go back to Canada, US West Indies,

I would be passing that information on. And as I was giving this information to Westerners, you could say, you know, I had to give explanations, which they could relate to, yeah. Now, if I talked about the Tigers, for example, you know, the movement of birds, and how this,

you know, nobody in the West, you know, thinks of bird movements, as you know, anything for, you know, belief and issues that are aqidah issues, you know, yeah, it's true, how you believe in terms of birds moving this way, or that we're all humans. And so I had to find, to get these ideas across to them. Clearly, I had to find examples that we were living. I mean, I lived in the West, I knew what this examples of this in Western society. Yeah. So this is what I tried to include there to make all of the concepts understandable and digestible. You know, Sheikh last time we spoke a bit about atheism, because he was an atheist before. And it's funny that even in the atheist culture,

you know, in the western culture now, in the atheists, amongst the atheists, they still have lots of superstitions. You know, you mentioned some of these in the book, you know, like touching wood. In America believe they don't even have a number 13 In the left,

you know, as much as they tried to detach from religion and detach from belief in God, they still have these superstitions, you know, even in ghosts, you know, Jen, and, you know, a lot of people do hold belief in the unseen, you know, so I think, you know, I just wanted to give a basic introduction to, you know, your book, the fundamentals of Tawheed. And just encourage, you know, especially new Muslims and also people who are born into Islam. You know, you see even people who are born in Arabs who are born into Muslim families, you find a lot of them have not studied, you know, basic books like this and, and, you know, to get a grasp of the basic fundamentals of the

religion, you know, I think because they're not that readily available.

You know, not many people wrote on this, this these topics, you know, or elaborated on these topics. I mean, it's just, you know, Lila and Allah, that's it, you know, there is no God worthy of worship, but a lot no God, but a lot of this hearts usually translated, but now it's worthy of worship besides the law, and they felt that that was sufficient, you know, that sums it all up and end of story, you know, without looking at the implications of what that statement meant. So the book, fundamentals of tower head shows how

tower head is relevant to all aspects of our lives, that tower head should be implemented in our

lifestyle in our work workplaces, in our

you know, means of entertainment and enjoyment, you know, the Tao Tauheed has placed there, it's really putting a law first, you know, really, yeah. And it's really easy to slip into Schilke. You know, Ashok, for those who don't know, is associating partners with Allah. And,

you know, it's very easy if somebody is, especially a new Muslim, to slip into shirk, without even knowing, you know, not really intending to slip into a shirt, but just through culture and language. You know, I had a new Muslim, the other day, and he just become a Muslim. And he said, I'm doing really good fingers crossed, I would I'll learn a fatwa by the end of the week, you know, things like this, and it's just like a language kind of slip up, you know, but then you have to explain how this that, you know, the background of this is like, you know, putting your trust in something else. So, it's really important that people can identify, you know, shirk,

which which goes against Tauheed. So I shared the second book, I wanted to speak about, I found this book very beneficial, because becoming Muslim in the West, we have Muslims from all over the world. You know, in Manchester, we have hundreds of different cultures and languages.

You know, people from all over the world, Muslims from the Far East and Middle East Turks, Pakistanis, Arabs. And so

wherever Muslims have been around the world, they have different kinds of understandings of Fick. And so, you know, as a new Muslim, I will go to one mosque, which might be predominantly Arab. And they might pray or do things a certain way. Or I might go to another mosque where there's many Pakistanis, and they might do things slightly differently, or a Turkish mosque, etc. And sometimes as a new Muslim, I'm thinking, well, am I doing something wrong? Is that mosque right, is that mosque groonga. And also, sometimes

this is kind of overly prioritized, as well, or unduly prioritized in terms of FIP. You know, sometimes, it's not a big deal. And sometimes it is a big deal, you know, so, as a new Muslim, I was a bit confused in the beginning and thinking well, which way do I follow? And why is this so many understandings? And is it? Is it so serious? Is it such a big issue? You know, where in reality, the biggest issue is the the first book, we're talking about Tawheed. But in, in practicality, most of what you see is fix issues. So in the evolution of fit you, you maybe could just tell us a bit about what this book is about, and how it kind of explains all these differences. Well, the

evolution of fake and I've, initially when I was writing it, I call it different names, you know,

but evolution of fake actually.

The issues that you spoke about, with the differences amongst the different cultures, you know, people from Africa, commonly being from the Maliki madhhab, or the Maliki school of thought, Egyptians are shot phase, they're from the shot phase school. Pakistanis are from the Hanafi school. You know, Saudis are from the humblest school, you know, and I had been told also that, you know, these schools were all correct.

When I first came into Islam in Toronto, the schools are all correct, all four are all correct and

whichever one you follow,

you're on the right path. But you must follow on.

You know, if you don't follow one, then your school becomes the school of shaytaan. Well, you're a mom is now Satan.

Yeah, I read this book, which was written in Turkey, you know,

Hussein Schick, he wrote this book, and he lays it out very clear there, you know, if you don't follow one of the mothers, you know, your, your Imam is Satan.

So I understood from from my early acceptance of Islam, trying to gather knowledge of Islam, that there was a problem here. Because if you were Hanafy, and you accidentally touched a woman, your will do was still valid. But if you are a Shafi and you accidentally touch the woman, You are will do what's finished. So now, if I'm to believe that both are correct, it means it is possible for you to have wudu and not have wudu. At the same time, you know,

this, nobody could explain to me how that is possible. So you just have to accept it. You shouldn't, but that was in the 80s. These days, you can be two things at the same time these days? Well, yeah, sure.

Yeah. But

in those days, especially the, you know, that

was a gap, a clear gap in front of me, which, that's within the first year, I've accepted Islam, I came across this, I realized that though, people are who around me, they're in Toronto, you know, people from different parts of the Muslim world, and good brothers, sisters that are, but this was a mystery. And for me to accept it, it would be like accepting how God could be three in one

is one, but it's three, you know, at the same time, so that I felt there's something wrong because we're not, you know, Christianity was something that evolved and had its own issues and created, you know, Greek philosophy and all kinds of stuff. Whereas Islam was supposed to be the truth, you know, the one truth

and nothing but the truth. So,

this needed an answer. This is when I decided, you know, within a year after I became Muslim, that I didn't need to leave North America.

Because there were no but there's nobody in the community who had any knowledge because in those days, there are no Allah MA or anything, nobody had any knowledge. They were just talking from their culture, their traditions, you know, so that's when I decided to have to go to Saudi Arabia to Medina to study Russian, I went with the brother, Abdul Hakim quick was Dr. Abdul Hakim quick, we both went together. We both concluded this was the only way forward and we went to study I, you know, when we decided that, at first, we were thinking how we're going to get this may be very quite costly and things. But then two scholarships were given to Toronto, Mashallah. And nobody wanted

them. Nobody wanted to give it to the community and nobody was interested. Now, today, if you give two scholarship, people would be killing each other.

But in those days, nobody wants it. And even the brothers there who are sincere brothers, you know, that one, and from Jamaat e Islami, there's been two groups, you know, they were advising us no, no, don't go. Don't call Saudi Arabia, you, you study these books, which are all books with the yellow pages, dust all over it.

You know, you What are you going to do with whatever you get from there. And when you come back, how are you going to look after your families? How are you going to, you know, so this said, we leave that with a law.

We're heading for Saudi Arabia. So, so that

so the understanding of this came in the course of my study, and when I went to Riyadh, and I studied masters in, in Kings out university. I studied a master's, it's not in our feeder, specialized in our feeder.

In the Cohen course, I took which was on the history of FIP.

I came to understand what happened. You know, I studied the different schools and the arguments when I was in Medina, but

The understanding of the, of how the fifth evolved to what it became. I didn't have, right. Those who specialized in Sharia I would have gotten that. But I specialized in, in general Islamic Studies and Dawa. Okay. So there when I took that, as I said, this class, this information needs to be known by every new Muslim. Yeah, it should be accessible to them. In this one, I decided to write this book, which tackled the history, how the schools evolved, you know, to understand that these schools were not specifically Islam, which was brought by Prophet Muhammad Asad Salam. This was the interpretation and the understandings of great scholars of the past in explaining different Hadees

and different practices of the prophets of Salaam. But in the end, it is about the Sunnah, you know, so, so this, the need for writing the book was was clear to me. So in the 80s, early 80s, I wrote the book. And when I tried to publish it, nobody was interested. You know, they said they wanted to?

Well, no, not so much that but what what they wanted to do at the time, the only people who considered publishing were in the UK, and they were Jamaat e Islami people. But you know, they were Hanafis. Yeah. So they wanted the book reviewed by, you know, their fic.

Team, before publishing. And basically, I was obliged to follow the recommendations of the 15. When I looked at their recommendations, basically, they were having me recommend the Hanafi madhhab. Yeah, you know,

because this was most practical. Most Muslims were Hana fees, you know, et cetera. So they were not prepared to publish it. As I wrote, as I hadn't prepared it, written it. So then it didn't get published until 10 years later, early 90s. This is when it was published, I did it publish it myself, I had to Self Publish.

So what would your answer be to your position be on somebody who says

you should follow the madhhab of the country you're in? Or the majority of the people that live in that country? That that you should follow that way? Well, in some matters,

you could say, yes. You know, if that's the common practice of the people there, then it's better for you to go along with the common practice, which is not against the teachings of Islam. You know, where, for example, the Prophet SAW Salem, when he prayed, sometimes he prayed and raised his hands to the level of his ears. Sometimes he prayed and raised his hands to the level of his shoulders. Now, if everybody in your area is raising their hands to the ears and your to your shoulders, you know,

you have the choice between the two. But in that area, if it's going to create issues, then it's better you go along with the majority in that, you know, when you're at home in your house, you want to do the other one also. So you keep alive the Sunnah of the Prophet SAW Salem, fine. But so so it so it depends on the issue, you know, should we follow the Ramadan according to the sighting of the moon in our area? In our region? Or should we go for a universal sighting so excited in Mecca, that's enough? You know, these are two positions, both of which have validity to them. Now, if the majority of the people in the area are going according to a local sighting, then it's better free to

go along with the local sighting. Yes, you know, and if the majority are going by the global, you go with the global, so in those matters, where both are valid, you know, then it's better to go along with the local practice. But if it's now an issue between majority of the people go to the graveyard and call on the saints, who are buried in the graveyard, so called saints, yeah, you know, and only a minority are opposed to this.

So you have two positions amongst the Muslims. Now, this is different. Yeah, because one is right, and one is wrong. Yes. Go into the graveyards to call on the people who are in the grave. That's wrong. So you can't go along with that one, knowing that it's wrong. You can't go along with that. You

I think as a new Muslim, one thing that I didn't realize in the beginning that there's there's some opinions which are right, some that are wrong. And some that there is a valid differences of opinion, you know, where there's differences of opinion, where some scholars might hold one opinion, some scholars might hold another, because they both have their evidences, and it's not quite certain which one is

the strongest for, you know, if you are if you know, something is established sunnah in both, you know, like you said, the example of the raising of the hands. So you would kind of go with the community for that. But if you know something is not allowed in Islam, you wouldn't follow that you can't follow them in that. Exactly. Yeah. So yes, that's the important thing, because a lot of a lot of people as well, they don't know what is allowed and what isn't. That's why they have to study more. And that's why it's important, especially the type of people that will tell you not to go to the graves.

Exactly. So yeah, I mean, that it's a very, it's a very good book. For me, it really helped me understand where you're not, you know, when I, when I, when I did the book, you know, before publishing it, or before, creating a manuscript that I wanted to publish, I'd given it to a Pakistani brother to go over to check it, you know, for language issues and things like that, because he, he worked with a local newspaper, English medium newspaper in Saudi Arabia, he was in tight. And

he gladly took it and, and read it went over it and, you know, give me some pointers and things like that for it. And

when he gave it back to me, he gave it back. He had tears in his eyes. So I said, it wasn't that bad.

It was that bad. It's caused you to cry.

But he's laughed, of course, it's a joke. But

he said, he said that, he said, you know, this is something, this issue of the differences of the schools of thought something I had questioned in my mind, throughout my life, he was ready at that time, he was in the 70s. You know, I said, I could never find an answer. No, I just carried that with me, throughout my life. He said, For the first time in my life, somehow I finally understood what the differences where did they come from? So you know, how to deal with them how to, you know, so it caused him to, to cry a lot. I mean, that was enough for me to say, this, you know, this validation of the importance of that work, you know, I think you also get a

you also get

a lot of respect for the four Imams as well, of each month hub as well, because you realize that the sincerity they had in trying to find the correct opinion, and the sincerity that all of them said that if you find

that something that contradicts my opinion, which is in the Sunnah, that's my madhhab. You know, all of them,

you know, basically admitted that they can be wrong in something that none of the Imams thought they were infallible in their opinions. The old the way they looked at their work was they're just trying their best to get to the right. Opinion. Yeah, actually, they were not trying to make mothers. That wasn't people did that. Yeah. You know, so that's why we say Abu Hanifa wasn't the Hanafi

Imam Malik wasn't the Maliki Imam Shafi wasn't the Jaffe you know, when it was sometimes I say that he's what what do you mean?

He No, he wasn't. He was trying to follow the Sunnah. All of the great Imams were all just trying to follow the Sunnah, to understand the Sunnah and to teach the Sunnah. That's all they were doing. They weren't saying okay, now I'm gonna make a month out that's gonna last for, you know, generations to come. And they're proud of that, you know, there's people who came after them, who eventually in the period of ignorance after the fall of Baghdad, you know, the Mongols came and destroyed the libraries and slaughtered the scholars and, you know, after that period, you know, there was a lot of great scholars were killed, you know, so, lesser scholars came up and, and they

were more leaning towards just clinging on to whatever they had and protecting that and this is where this you know, because if you consider that I

After that period within, you know, 100 years after that period and and stretched on for more than 500 years, people, Hanna fees were not allowed to marry Shah phase

is reached that state. Hannah fees were not allowed to marry Chavez, but they could marry Christians.

You know, that was incredible, you know, incredible thing. They weren't praying behind each other. You had four places for the moms around the Kaaba. Imagine that. I was shocked when I heard that. I mean, that wasn't that was what wasn't too long ago. Right was, you know, just ended in 20 in 1925, you know, when the when the salad families came and took Mac maca? You know, yeah, you know, so So for me, that's why I always say, no matter what people say about the

the Saudi Wahhabi, all this other stuff, the very fact that they ended that will put them before Allah, as saviors of Islam. They ended that they came, they tore down all of these people were screaming

Wahabis they're destroying our Islam.

But they raised those structures which were built, you know, on the, in the graveyard in Makkah, they had, you know, there was like a city, and they used to pray for Salah in different times. Yeah, now one after the other. Now hamdulillah all the residents are praying together. Beautiful.

Chef, this

another book

you wrote is a solo tafsir. Now this is like exegesis or, yeah. exegesis of Quran. You know how the principles of understanding the Quran, you know, because one thing is we have the Quran as Muslims, we know the cornice preserved, we have the Quran. But,

you know, we can't just basically pick it up and expect to fully understand it. Of course, there's some verses that everyone can understand directly. But there's other verses that need more knowledge and expertise to derive the true understanding. So could you tell us a little bit about this book and why you wrote this as well, and some of the important points on sort of tafsir?

Well,

let me say that writing of a Sula tafsir was

intending to produce something in English, that people could

find a way of understanding issues in the Quran, which wasn't available.

You know, that, you know, some of the other books that I've written, the others authors have written on that. But in English, on Azula, tafsir, there was nothing.

So I tried, actually, in all of my writings, to write in areas that people

didn't have access to knowledge in English. I mean, I didn't write on Syrah because somebody will ask why he never wrote on zero. He wrote, and everything else was nothing. Because there were so many books on zero. I didn't need to come and just add another one to the list. I so each of the books that I wrote when I wrote them, there were no other books. On this, it was to con convey the knowledge which I learned in Medina, in Arabic, to the English speaking

community of the world. There's one book I did ask you for,

which is not really written about sort of Fick.

You've not released a book on a solo.

Yeah, that's true. And you but you said you started it. No, I wrote something. I did. I did. I commissioned the translation of a book

which was used in in the high school in Medina.

Medina High School connected to the university. There was a book which was prepared by Sheikh Abdullah Marcin Allahabad right on also

a fic. So that book, I had it, I commissioned its translation, and I revised it, and added footnote

Let's do it, etc. So that book was

I did use that book in courses which I taught, you know, for solar fic in universities in the UAE. So it was done, but it was done.

Not to the level of my liking, I wanted something more in depth. But also fit is a very, in some aspects very complicated. And the, the material needed to be simplified, you know. So I was in the process of work, I never quite completed that commentary, which would simplify and bring more examples and things like this was, this was a basic book for people who had an Arabic background in film. So that's the reason why it wasn't, I didn't put the time in to finish off that work, because other things were coming up there are other needs, then the university and, you know, so yeah, so, so it's, it's there in my mind.

I hope to come to it Inshallah, you know, Inshallah, in the not too distant future.

Other people are asking me, why don't you prophets? Why not? You? You know, and but Alhamdulillah, there have been some publications on sold in Malaysia, by some scholars in Malaysia, they've done that. So it's not an area, which is wanting in books now. You know, as the other areas that I wrote on Yeah, at that time. Yeah, you know, so that's why, so with solid tafsir, this, this basically gives somebody the outline of how we basically understand the Quran the correct way. Yeah, giving them the methodology, you know,

to understand the Quran basically, working on the principle that, at first, the Quran should be understood in the context of the Quran, one needs to have

read the whole Quran,

and understood all the verses that are related to the verse that we want to understand more in depth and more in depth understanding,

before making any statements about it. Right. So we have to understand the Quran. In its context, the verse of the Quran that you were looking at, you need to understand the verses you came before verse which came after? That's the context in which it is that verse, If you take it out by itself, it may have other implications which were not intended, based on what came before and what came after. Yeah, so not only what came before what came after, but what came before it in the whole Quran, what came after it in the whole ground because there may be very similar verses mentioned elsewhere, where there's more clarification, etc. So the first step in will stool, a tafsir. Or the

fundamental principles for understanding the Quran

is to understand the Quran and its context. Then the second step is to understand the Quran. According to what the Sunnah had to say about it in the context of the Sunnah. What did the Prophet SAW Selim say? How did he apply this verse? What did the Sahaba say? You know, those people who are in the best position to understand the application of this verse, yeah, so Quran according to sunnah, then then after that, basically, that that's those are the main two steps. Yes, you know, after that, of course, there are other issues which have to do with Arabic language, you know, because if you understand it in your language, it may be different from what was implied in the

Arabic, right, that's why oftentimes, you can't find a single word to translate something in Arabic, you need a sentence and how you write that sentence has different meanings. So it has to be understood within the context of the Arabic language. And then the what the great scholars have said about it, you should also read their other tough series that have been done. So you don't just okay. You got as far as I understood it in Arabic language. I wrote by my whatever I studied Arabic and, you know, that's enough. None of me not enough. Here what great scholars of the Tafseer of the past had to see it

and why they said is yes, yeah. So So that's it's those steps. Yeah, you know for that, to understand that it's not just you open up, and you know, you you interpret as it hits you, you know, and this is why it is such an important topic because this is how misguidance comes, you know, if you're misunderstanding the Quran and interpret it in in the wrong way, you know, you could be doing shirk, you could be becoming extreme, you know, in one way or another. You know, this is where misguidance comes from. That's why it's so important to understand it the correct way. Yeah, and shed, you know, shaytan will pop an idea in your head. That's it sounds good. Yeah, I think it's

that, you know, for all kinds of reasons. But, you know, from Shaytaan Yeah, it's fun. And the last book I wanted to speak about today should realistically, I would have liked to have done one episode on each book. But I know you're really short on time. And you're literally about to fly out soon. So, you know, I've just, that's why I'm rushing, but I really would have loved to have done a whole series on you know, one book and maybe inshallah we get, we get time to do it. Actually.

I've been for You Tube. I have done a series at least I've done about 25 of my books already, you know, just taking each book and given two minutes, but this is just a very short, much different from what we're going into much more elaborate discussion. But doing that for each of the books, why I wrote each year looking at

Yeah, sorry, I saw a few clips, mashallah I was happy.

And, but I really would have loved to just, you know, do an interview on each one. So that the last book I wanted to mention today is a solo Hadith.

So,

you know, the principles and methodology of Hadith. So, can you tell us a little bit about this book can What is the aim of this book? Okay. The fundamentals are the sole

Hadith meaning the science of Hadith

as a discipline, you know, what are the fundamental principles that form the foundation of this science? Because were obliged to follow the Quran and the Sunnah.

We know that fragments are sallam said I left with you two things, you will not refer to them you never go straight, the book of Allah, my sunnah. So we know those are the foundations for understanding Islam, the Quran and the Sunnah. So, just as the sole or the fundamental principles guiding principles for interpretation of the of the Quran, were also a tafsir. Similarly for the Sunnah, they also need to be guides and and principles, which form the foundation of the Sunnah because of the fact now, because of the fact that some of the sunnah or what has been called the Sunnah

is not authentic.

And so you have incorrect information which could then Miss guide the one who grabs on to that

and much of it is authentic. One needs to know how to distinguish between the two for the average West Westerner or non Arabic person, etc. This is a mystery. You know, some scholars say this is sahih it is authentic, others say it's dive, it's not authentic. So they can just have to choose, you know, which scholar that they plan to go with, you know,

if he was 100 feet and you're 100 feet and you say okay,

but there's something beyond that, there is a certain level that we can even as what they call layman in this area, even though that is the case, there is a certain level of understanding that we can get from the Hadith ourselves.

Understanding at the same time that you know, the Sunnah, some of it is obligatory, some of it is recommended. Some of it is neutral just from the

practice of the Prophet Moses Allah as as a cultural practice of his time. Yeah, you know, some of it is disliked. And some of it is forbidden, you know, and that the Sunnah of the Prophet SAW Salem through his sunnah, he has identified the forbidden areas, clearly. So it is important for us to, to be able to, to understand why.

What makes something haram and make something else halal. You know,

because for most Muslims is just a mystery scholar, so and so Imam so and so said, and that's it, they're just going with it. So they haven't understood the blindly following. Yeah. And of course, if that's all you can do, then that's all you can do, do what you can, right, yeah, but no, but if it were possible, to provide

a means for understanding

the Sunnah, then as much as we can provide that, then it is better because it empowers the Muslim, you know, whether young people older people, it empowers them, to be able to make decisions for themselves,

to make decisions for themselves. So this is an important aspect of, of, obviously, check. One thing that I like about this book when I first came to Islam, because I was from a Christian background, and because it fell out with the Bible, you know, because of written by people, you know, after Acehnese,

I kind of when I first came to Islam, I kind of applied that same logic to the Hadith, you know, because I'm thinking, Well, yeah, the Quran is from Allah. But the hadith is something that's kind of recorded by the companions of the Prophet peace be upon him, that was kind of my logic. And this book really kind of outlines how also the Hadith have been preserved. You know, and I think that's really important, because a lot of people can fall into this kind of doubting Hadith. You know, when they first come to Islam, it's like, well, the Christians enough, or no, the Quran tells you, you know, to follow the messenger, you know, so and when you understand that there's different levels of

authenticity, and that you can actually distinguish which are the correct practices and which are not, it's very empowering, mashallah, in it and these books, although

some people might think they're a bit advanced for new Muslims, I think, generally, that they're at a very good level of, you know, most most new Muslims can, can can handle, you know, the these books, and I think the, it really boosts your Eman, it boosts your confidence your level of you're keen, and, and the man, you know, in a very, very beneficial. So what are the kinds of

issues?

Would you say kind of arise that this is a solution for, you know, is there any other kind of modern issues you've seen where, you know, like I mentioned one of them people kind of doubting Hadith.

What other kinds of issues have you seen, which this book might help someone to understand?

Well, as you mentioned, you know, fundamentally,

it would give confidence to one who had doubts about Hadith. Actually, also lil Hadith

doesn't

really

focus in Arabic, it doesn't really focus on

the process by which the Hadith were preserved, you know, it teaches methodologies that were used by the scholars of the past and so on. So, but this is a result this analysis of the methodology is more a result of modern scholarship, you know, people like

Dr. Azami, he did this this area that others have written on this in more recent times, you know, record really in response to Orientalist attempts to discredit Hadith.

So for us now in our times,

this type of information about it's compiled

ation and all the things related to it, you know, is important for Muslims of our times where

Orientalist have made statements, you know discrediting Hadees you know, which will seem to discredit that hadith. And, and the average Muslim

doesn't know anything about this Yeah, you know, they're able to say, well, such and such a scholar said this, you know, obviously she said he said you can't trust Hadith.

But that's not the context in which he said that right? You know, but they're using it out of context and things like this, you know, are incorrect statements made. And they built a whole body of, of anti Hadith literature, which, which one is confronted with, when you go into this field, you will see what they've written, what Muslims have written on that is relatively small, but the in, even in its smallness, all the information is there to tackle it, but it is not in English or other languages, and very difficult for the average person to get it. So this was also making this information known. Yeah, you know, that when the scholars said had definite, you know, it didn't

necessarily just mean so and so said to me, you know, it said it meant so and so said to me, from what he had written with him, that's not included in the statement, you know, so understanding how these terminologies were used and what they actually meant. And, you know, this is important for our times, you know, the latest kind of doubts that the modern Orientalist are bringing, or I wouldn't call them Orientalist. Most of them are Christians actually,

is they're challenging the killer out. So they're trying to bring doubts regarding the different arts, you know, the different re citations of the Quran, this is the new one, you know, because, you know, the kid the kid out is something that's kind of become de various different we citations of the Quran is kind of new to the, to the English speaking Muslims. You know, it's only the past few years now, with YouTube, you're getting famous researchers, like, you know, Sheikh Okasha, and

Reza Jamal from London and other famous ones, adore Shiva Sufi, and you know, all these famous recites is now where people are listening to different re citations of Quran, we will not necessarily familiar with them as much, you know, it's more of a new thing for that for the Western Muslims. So, now the Christians are picking on this now, this is this is the latest one. So now the scholars and some of the dots are trying to scramble to, you know, answer this and, you know, deal with these doubts. So, maybe maybe you can think about that one. Yeah. No, definitely, definitely. It is always something needs to be written on the Quran

as a reference work for clarifying these doubts, which are being with somebody who needs to write it, you know, the people who specializes specialized in the area of Quran, the different recitation of the Quran need to write something definitive? Yes, there needs to be something if I you say, I mean, even with the Quran, there'll be, I'm guessing there'll be some areas where you can't deny certain rotations, there'll be some where scholars have this opinion. And this psalm, which, again, might not be authentic, you know, depending on what scholars say about that. And it's a very technical subject, and hopefully, some of the scholars can write on that in the English language as

well. It'd be of benefit Yeah, definitely. In Arabic. I mean, there are writings on in Arabic, but writings which were dealing with

methodologies

as opposed to writings responding to attack.

So the writing responding to attack, we're gonna go into areas, which those which are talking about methodology are not going to go into you know, it's just taken for granted. That's what it is. And you know, but so this is among the need, you could say the areas of need of our time. Yeah. I think with the with the Arabic language as well, it's less of a surprise because the Arabs are used

The different citations, whereas the Western Muslims, they're not as familiar with the different citations. In all, like, I met many people just recently become familiar with Shaco kasho. And all the different citations and so many Muslims were hearing this for the first time, what is different karate, different words, different things in the Quran, that is something they couldn't believe, you know, so it was more of a surprise. You know, like when the orientalist brings a hadith, it's not as not as well known. And it sounds strange, and you're all in it can give someone a bit, a bit of doubt when they hear it for the first time. So it's kind of like this type of tricks that they're

using. So, so yeah, maybe someone, some of your students maybe can,

can take that on board. Yeah, definitely needs to be

exactly like a chef. As I said, I really would have loved to spend a lot more time on going into a lot more detail and on these books, but I think, you know, this is a good introduction, and it gives people a bit of reading material, a bit of direction, and especially numerous times and what direction to go, what to focus on, because sometimes when you're, when you're new to something, you don't know what to read, you don't know how to study, you don't know what to study, you know, you're just picking up any book, you know, so I think it's good if they kind of get more structure. And maybe I can put like a bit of a reading list in the comments section below. Yeah, and this is why

when a person finds interest, it's better to, to study in a structured environment, you know, say for example, you know, in the International Open University,

which I founded, we do have courses in tafsir courses in Hadith, and, and all the various areas, I mean, including the areas of the jinn and understanding the jinn and their relationship to ourselves. And, you know, the correct methodologies dealing with the jinn and all this. So

these courses

can be taken separately.

A lot of people are not aware of this. But if you wanted to just take a single course, in the International Open University IOU you can register just for that course alone, right? Most people think that you have, you have to take the whole, the whole degree, okay, the whole degree course, as opposed to the individual subjects that are there. But we do have that facility online, it's possible to pick out pick and choose, they say, cherry pick

what pleases you what you would like to study by itself? And that's you're not studying for a degree because the degree is going to require you to take particular subjects that you'd have to complete, you also have a new Muslim course as well. Yeah, that is that also on your that's a free course. Is that is that on the online university? Or is that was that a separate word is a separate website? Because if I'm not mistaken, no, no.

You know, we have what we call the degree section. Yeah, and we have the free

stuff, Islamic Studies section, or GED is where the general diploma in Islamic Studies and whether you take it and complete all the courses that are available, and we give you a diploma, or you just pick again, from there and choose whatever course you'd like to take, it's open. So inshallah I'll put all the details below in the description. So you know, new Muslims and bond Muslims, wherever you from non Muslims, you're welcome to go and take the course and you know, you have a structured way of learning and, you know,

put some effort in check, would you have some final advice for the Muslims, just before we finish?

Well, I would just pass on what the Prophet SAW Salem had said, you know, tolerable Elmy for either adequately Muslim seeking knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim. That's the point that we have to be engaged in increasing our knowledge,

practicing that knowledge and conveying that knowledge to others, that

in other systems, knowledge of the religion because of course, that's primary. We should get knowledge about all of our lives.

They know about functioning, whatever we're engaged in, it should have a knowledge base to it. But particularly in the religion, one should be as knowledgeable as possible. In other systems, they say, leave that to the priest, to the guru, you know, to the

chair or whatever, just, you know, I don't have to think about it. That's where they went wrong. Yeah, this is a it's a mistake to think in that way. Because that, that causes people then to blindly follow

others for the wrong reasons, you know,

because some individuals who end up as leading figures in given different countries or different regions, etc.

Maybe people exploiting those around them. So

you may be attracted to it for the wrong reasons, also, because they're making things easy for you, in areas that they're not supposed to that, you know, yeah, you're supposed to do it, you know.

So by not having knowledge, you can't distinguish between what is being

practiced culturally, the difference between cultural Islam and Islamic culture, cultural Islam is what people are doing. Because non Muslims asked me this question, you know, you know, if Muslims do this, why are you saying that, simply because Muslims are doing it, we can't consider it necessary to be a part of Islam.

Why? Because they may be doing it according to culture, and not according to the teachings of Islam. Islamic culture, is the culture which comes out of practicing the teachings, the correct teachings of Islam, and cultural Islam could be a mixture, it could have some of that and some other things. So this is one of the things we should always keep in mind. There is a distinction between Islamic culture, which is what we should be seeking, and cultural Islam.

Joseph, my pleasure and a pleasure to catch up with you again, I'm the lamb. Thank you to sit with you. And thank you for all your help, you know, and,

you know, thank you, you know, for all the Muslims I'm sure many people have benefited from you. And, you know, very grateful for your work and your dedication to the religion

as I know Jaco