The True Path To Islam by Dr. Bilal Philips
Lecture was given at Bin Zaid Auditorium (FANAR)
Bilal Philips – The True Path To Islam
AI: Summary ©
The history of Islam is discussed, including the importance of submission to the will and graduation from sin, false gods, and the use of images of God. The confusion surrounding Islam is discussed, including the belief that only one God is present, multiple schools of law, and confusion among Muslims. The importance of acceptance and understanding the sharia is emphasized, as it is the basis for understanding Islam. The use of "monarch" and "monarch" to describe Muslims is emphasized, and the importance of following the Quran and Sun statement is emphasized. The sharia framework is still valid, but the legal framework for smoking in Europe has been changed. The importance of following the Quran and Sun statement is emphasized, and the need to hold back on seeking knowledge and obligation is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Did All praise is due to a law,
an emnity should be to the enemies of Allah.
And the last pleasure is only on those who follow his way.
And I bear witness that there's no God worthy of worship, but Allah, and that Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam was the last messenger of Allah.
If we go back in time,
to the first human being, on the face of this earth,
and his mate, his wife,
Adam,
and Eve,
when Allah created them,
and place them in the garden,
he did not leave them there.
Without guidance.
He gave them
a way of life,
a way of life, which
addressed their nature
and the world in which they were placed.
That way of life
was, without any shadow of a doubt, Islam.
It was true Islam.
And the path to Islam, through Islam
was through guidance through divine revealed guidance.
The path was very short.
A last month Allah
revealed to Adam
exactly what was required of him.
The essence of it was submission.
He was given a garden of trees he and his wife
in which they could eat from any tree they wished, except one,
that one was the test of submission.
They fail the test.
they disobey the law.
However, a law in his grace and mercy.
Having taught them the true religion,
taught them, that salvation lies in repentance.
Because it is the nature of human beings
to sin.
Therefore, knowing that, that is the nature in which Allah has created human beings,
a way out of that sin had also to be taught. So, a lot of taught Adam, words of repentance,
how to turn back to a law sincerely and remove the sin of disobedience from themselves.
And that is why from the Islamic perspective,
there is no original sin
that would then be handed down generation after generation, piling up, gathering momentum, till it reached a time at the beginning of
the years, which are then considered to be
see or the Christian era from that point onwards, when
a divine sacrifice was necessary according to the teachings of Christianity,
a divine sacrifice was necessary to remove sin from human beings.
That is
fable, is a story which was made up,
which has no foundation in truth.
Jesus never taught it.
People made it up afterwards to justify their deification of Jesus.
Jesus followed the same religion.
Islam as the prophets who came before him,
salvation was by turning to God and asking his forgiveness. That's how people gain salvation from sin. And that had been the tradition all the way till the time of Jesus.
So that path,
that path represents a part of the true religion of God, or the true path to Islam.
Knowing human nature, and addressing it.
So in the time going back again, to the time of Adam, the religion which was given to him,
we, as Muslims believe, was Islam.
Because it could not possibly have been Christianity, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Zoroastrianism, or any of the other religions that were based on founders who
were born.
Many, many, many, many generations later.
The religion which was required of him was one of submission. And that is the definition of Islam. Islam means submission to the will, of God.
So that's why we can confidently say,
the religion of Adam and Eve was the religion of Islam.
The true path to understanding that religion was through revelation.
And that path hasn't changed.
Time passed, people drifted away from that religion,
for one reason or another, and prophets were sent to call them back,
instructing the people to do the same thing, to worship Allah alone, and not to worship other gods besides Him.
This is stated in the Quran. When Allah said, well, I've heard bafna fuku, mutton Rasulullah and your Buddha law which I never thought would. I said there I've sent to every nation,
every nation in this world, a messenger, calling people to worship
me alone.
And to avoid the worship of false gods.
That was the essential message.
And that is an essential part of the true religion of God. That in Arabic we refer to as tauheed.
Toe heed,
worshiping a law alone.
Now there are other religions in the world, which say we follow the same thing. In fact, Islam is one of the three monotheistic religions
Christianity preceded by Judaism
and Islam, they're the three monotheistic
according to Islamic teachings,
the other two, while claiming monotheism, violate monotheism in a variety of different ways.
Christianity moreso, than Judaism.
Christianity violates monotheism
by claiming that God is three in one
by giving the attributes of God to his creatures by elevating Jesus, a human being to the status of God.
That is a violation
of the monotheistic belief and worshipping Jesus instead of the God of Jesus, who Jesus Himself worshiped.
That is an another an obvious violation.
In Judaism,
the monotheistic belief
is violated by giving God some of the human attributes also, maybe not as gross as what developed in Christianity. But nonetheless, violations where it is mentioned in the Bible that God repented for what he thought to do to his people,
the children of Israel,
God repented, repented to whom
words is written,
that God
walked in the garden.
And Adam could hear his footsteps.
And Adam hid behind a tree.
And God, trying to find out where he is, is calling out Adam, where are you? Where are you, Adam?
These kinds of depictions of God, are unacceptable,
as depicting God in human form, and that's why
there is this tradition in Christianity, especially amongst the Catholics, who were the earlier version of Christianity.
Painting God looking like a human being
in the Sistine Chapel,
a magnificent work
done by one of the great Italian painters spent years working on it.
People go there and pilgrimage to look at this wonderful work.
A work depicting God creating Adam,
there is God sitting on a throne, with a big white beard,
reaching out his hand, and there is Adam reaching out his hand.
They use this picture in a lot of advertisements later on.
But
this is a violation. It's based on a mistaken idea that
God created man in His image,
meaning man looks like God.
Some groups among the Christians, well, they may not be considered Christians, by some Christians, the Mormons
based on this idea,
the concept they have of God is a huge man.
A huge man look at just like a man, but it's huge. That's God.
And
when we consider the other texts of the Old Testament, in the tour our references to melchisedec
melchisedec call the king of Salem solemn
peace,
who is described there as having no beginning of days, nor ending of days having no genealogy.
No father, no mother,
but existing eternity,
we say that is
a violation of monotheism whereby the attributes of God are given to his creatures No.
All besides God.
All besides the law
are created, they have a beginning in time, and they have an ending of days.
That is the correct belief concerning God.
So, the way to true Islam
was one way
what God taught Adam and Eve, he taught Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. May God's peace and blessings be on all the prophets.
was one way.
He didn't teach a variety of different religions because,
as he stated in the Bible, God is not the author of confusion. And the many different religions would be a basis for confusion.
God
taught Adam, the one true religion, Islam.
And that's what he revealed to all of the prophets.
And it makes sense, there being one God
who created one world
containing one human race.
It makes sense that
the religion he gave to them was one.
That is the unity that our heat
is the consequence of tower heat, there is only one religion.
Now if we move forward in time,
to our times,
us who are from the nation to whom Mohammed may God's peace and blessings be upon him or sent.
We look amongst Muslims.
We say
Islam is one.
However,
we find different practices found in different parts of the Muslim world.
Some of these practices are attributed to schools of Islamic law, the Shafi the Maliki, the Hambali and the Hanafi. These are the well known for schools. But there were many more in the past, the others
are no longer known. And these four became the basic, common four schools of law followed by the Muslim world.
The question rises.
That if Islam is one,
are there more than one?
way? Is there more than one way to follow Islam?
Or is there only one way?
Why do we have four schools of Islamic law?
For most Muslims today, it is a mystery.
They don't really understand
these four different schools and what it actually means.
If we go back again in time, from the present to the time of Prophet Muhammad, may God's peace and blessings be upon him.
He sat on one occasion with his companions. And he drew a line in the sand.
And then he drew lines on either side, like the veins in a leaf, except these lines don't really join the main line.
And he asked him, Do you know what this is? It said, a lot in his messenger knows best.
He said, this line in the middle, this is the straight path.
This is the path which I brought,
which Allah has commanded you to follow.
And these other paths
have at the end of them, devils,
devils, calling people away from that straight path.
And then a quoted, verse from the Quran, Allah de sabini
say, this is my path.
I follow it, and those who follow me
with clarity, with understanding.
Now, at that point, when the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, gave this demonstration. He clarified here that the path of Islam is one path.
Some people
We'll say well, you know, all roads lead to Rome. Or we as Muslims say all roads lead to Makkah.
And that becomes the excuse
for everybody to do his or her own thing.
find your own way there.
But that is not what the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him left behind.
He left behind a clear way as he said talk to Kamala Mahajan VEDA, I left you on a clear white plane. lei aloha can hahaha. Lion z one illogic whose day is like it's night.
And anyone who deviates from it is destroyed.
So he left a clear way.
He left one way.
His companions
sought to follow that one way. And he described it he said
Dr. freecom, ambrane, intimate sexual Bahama listen to do avatar, I've left with you two things, if you hold on firmly to them, you will never go astray Kitab de la personality, the Book of Allah and my Sunnah, my way, my interpretation of the book of Allah.
Hold on firmly to those, and you will never go straight.
This is what his companions sought to do,
to hold on firmly to that foundation.
And that's what they taught the generations which followed them.
And I'm sure
just as it's ludicrous to ask whether Adam was a Christian, it is as ludicrous to ask whether Abu huraira was a Shafi.
Would we agree on that one?
It is ludicrous to ask whether Abu huraira who is the companion of the Prophet, who narrated the largest number of his sayings.
It is ludicrous to ask whether he was a Shafi.
Why? Because Imam Shafi wasn't born until hundreds of years after the time of Abu huraira. So to ask what Abu huraira was xiaofei is ludicrous. He wasn't the Shafi he wasn't the Hanafi. He wasn't the Maliki or
he did not follow any of the four well known schools of Islamic law.
So what does that tell us?
What school of Islamic law did he follow?
That's the one which we are supposed to be following. Because Prophet Mohammed says Allah had said, Hi, I'm Nancy Courtney. The best of people
are my generation from Aladdin, a Luna home then those who follow them from Bella Dena Luna home, then those who follow them.
The first three generations the best of generations to come.
If Abu huraira wasn't the Shafi
and his students
the tabea in
where they shall face no. And there are students
of the third generation where they shall phrase No. So then what?
What does that tell us?
that being a sharpie is not essential to being a Muslim following the right way.
That's what that tells us. Because if the first three generations were not Chavez, Hannah ffis. Humble is or Malik is that obviously it is not a requirement.
They were the best of generations.
So then,
if we accept that those first three generations did not follow the well known schools of Islamic law, and we asked them, What was the way that they followed,
to be able to understand and to practice true Islam? What was the way
They followed, we have to say that that way was the way of Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
So their madhhab was the madhhab of Rasulullah,
the madhhab of the Messenger of Allah, the way Madhava means means way, it means the same as sadhana. sadhana, and madhhab are synonyms.
Although we use them differently. In Arabic, they're synonyms. madhhab comes from the Hubba. Hubba means to go to walk
madhhab is the way you walk, literally.
So, the way
to understand true Islam,
which was followed by those first three generations was that of Muhammad Sallallahu it was at
madhhab the main hub of Rasulullah.
So then we go to the generation after them, and we ask, Well, what was the madhhab of Abu hanifa
or his contemporary Mr. Malik, what were their methods
was Abu hanifa hanafy
zema Malika Maliki
Anima Malik student who studied under him for 20 years.
Imam Shafi
was here Maliki.
Did he refer to himself as a Maliki or Shafi?
No, he didn't.
or his student
made me humble. His leading student
was he
a Shafi or Maliki or humbly
these terminologies were not used by them.
They all understood that their efforts
to understand Islam and to apply it in the day to day life,
dealing with family law, dealing with societal laws, applying the shediac in all walks of life, they understood that their efforts were to try to apply it as closely as possible, in accordance with the way of Rus law. So
that's what they understood.
If you were to ask him, Shafi, what was your mother he would say? It is the mahtab of Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam.
And that's why he is known for this statement in the Sahel Hadith for wa Madhavi.
Either Sahil Hadith for warmoth happy
if the Hadith, the statement of the Prophet is authentic, then that is my madhhab.
That is a statement of the same thing, isn't it? He's saying my madhhab is whatever is authentically attributed to Rasulullah sallallahu.
That's what he's saying. In other words, his map hub was the mud hub of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
And the same kinds of statements were attributed to Imam Abu hanifa, Mr. Malik, as well as Imam Ahmed, the famous four founders, they're called of the four major schools of Islamic law. They didn't look at themselves as founders of schools, people generations later looked at them in that way.
But that's not how they looked at themselves. They looked at themselves as scholars of their time, who sought to apply
the Quran and the Sunnah, which allows us to hold on firmly to the Quran and the Sunnah, as it was understood and conveyed by the best of generations. Their attempt was to try to apply that in their time because of course, with each generation, there were changes which took place in human society, human nature remained the same. So the basic laws which govern human nature, they didn't require it in you
reputations are reinterpretations. But the
texture of human society did go through certain changes. So new things occurred, contact with other nations around the world took place, new ideas and practices entered in the nation, the Islamic nation. So, scholars had to address these issues, they had to apply the knowledge of the Sharia to these issues to work out solutions, and to give the oma the people, the masses clarity with regards to the new things which came before them.
But the whole time, there must have was the madhhab of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
What does that mean?
In practical terms, it means that our success in these times,
hundreds of years later, 1000 years later, our success in these times will only come about when we go back to that understanding, as Mr. Malik had said,
what it takes
to
fix
the problems of the world
in any particular time
will be what it took
at the beginning of the message,
whatever was offered by Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam as a solution
for the problems of his time, this will remain the solution for all times and we will not be able to solve our problems with any other way than that same way.
That is the bottom line.
So, when Muslims strayed
from the understanding of that way, from the understanding of what the scholars that generation of major scholars,
what was their goals, what were their what was their understanding, etc. When people strayed from that understanding.
After the 13th century,
we found a change,
a change, which brought about a rigidity,
where people now started to look at madhhab as being like different religions. That's what it became.
Prior to that, as we said, the mama shofar he studied under a mallet for 20 years never considered himself Maliki.
Then he went to Yemen
absorb knowledge of the scholars there.
He was accused of being converted to Shia Islam.
So he was obliged to go to Baghdad and defend himself. When he went to Baghdad, he studied under the students of Imam Abu hanifa because the Imam had already died. So instead studied under his students, Mohammed Al Shivani.
After he cleared his name and studied there and spent time he
decided to go to study under Imam allays inside is not known amongst the fourth, the major four but actually I laid him inside was a contemporary of Mr. Malik. They used to write letters to each other discussing legal issues. He was on the same level as Mr. Malik, those today nobody even knows his name. I live inside anyway. A mama Shafi set out from Baghdad to go there on his way.
Because they didn't have planes in those days, it's not like a four hour journey.
It was years. On his way there he wrote a book
gathering his thoughts, his legal thoughts, his rulings which he learned
He named it sorry, he named it alhaja.
He named it alhaja.
And after he arrived in Egypt, you found that the Imam Elif had already died.
So he studied under the students of Imam Ali.
And after studying under them,
he changed his rulings so drastically that he had to write a new book, which he called
a new book he called
which included his change rulings, which were resulted from studying under the students of your mom, I live inside.
And he called it
scholars a fit when they're looking at the different rulings of the on different issues, they will mention Chavez old position and his new position, meaning what he had written in alhaja. And what he had written in the mentioned both of his positions.
Now,
Mr. Shafi
made a statement,
a statement that we
are not allowed to make ourselves because we're not in a position to make this kind of a judgment.
But Mr. Musharraf, I said, I lay through as a human Malik
I lay through of our home in Malik
imaam life
was a greater jurist than Mr. Malik.
He who studied under Mr. Malik for 20 years had the right to make that statement because he could judge
studying onto the students of a man life, he concluded that a mom leave was a great religious
then Mr. Malik, though today, who knows about him less?
What does that tell us?
What does that tell us? That the four schools of Islamic law
have no meaning.
They have no meaning.
He went on to say only his weak students cause his school to be lost.
He explained why is it Mr. Malik school now stands and, you know, people are following his rulings. And
whereas Mr. Malays
didn't have that kind of popularity because his students were weak.
The students who would convey his teachings, his interpretations, his rulings to the next generation to the other students. They were weak, weak students, and that's life, isn't it? Some students are strong, some students are weak. Whereas Mr. Malik had strong students.
So they
had an impact and people gathered around them and studied. Whereas the marmalade students were weak, not that many people gathered around them. Not that necessarily that they had no knowledge, but they were not strong personalities or
very, you could say, innovative in the sense of being able to use utilize what they have to deal with new circumstances.
So their students were few.
What Mr. Michel Fay did was he absorbed that. So in marmalades, rulings were not lost. They're alive in the Shafi school.
So people who consider themselves shafa is a really Lacy's
and half Maliki's
the third, how the fees
because we have to ask Where did you get all this from? So can we understand here from this that we should not cling on to madhhab and look at it as being like, religion.
This is a mistake.
If we go back to the time after the fall of Baghdad in the 13th century, where people
many Muslim scholars were killed, books were burned and the scholars of that time
for fear of
ignorant people taking the Islamic law into their own hands and making wild and crazy rulings, they said,
whatever we have to this point, that's what we stick with.
Whatever rulings we have, we stick with that. We don't take on any new rulings.
The early scholars have worked out everything for us. We don't need to have any more rulings. So we must follow either one of the four methods. And they made a ruling that if a person switched from one method to another, they could be punished. According to the discretion of the judge.
He could be lashed. It could be jailed,
for switching from one method to another.
And in that period of time, the Hanafi school rule that it was not permissible for a hanafy to marry a sharpie.
And in that period of time,
around the Kaaba,
they began to conduct four different prayers for each prayer.
When the time for the war came,
they had around the Kaaba, for among the structures which were put up around the Kaaba afterwards for what looks like canopies. If you see pictures all the way back from the early 20s, late 1800s pictures and drawings of that period, you see a variety of structures around the cabin. Now you go there, you don't see any of that.
What happened to them? Anyway, you'll see it there. And
each of the canopies that they had their they had a label one was called the shafee kanopy macom shafee
and the humbling macom hombre de macom Hanafi mccarl Maliki. So when the time for prayer came, there's one of them.
After the A than then the mom would stand under the shaft a canopy, they would make a camo and all of the people who are making O'Meara,
who were shot phase, they would go ahead and line up behind the Shafi mom and make Salah
when they made us leaves America, Morocco lost.
The mom from the Maliki would now stand under the Maliki canopy, and another income was given. And all the Maliki's would stand on behind him, and they would make salah and so on, and so forth. So there were four prayers going on, around the Kaaba, from that period of time, all the way up until 1925. What happened in 1925,
the so called wahabis, in Saudi Arabia, took over Mecca.
And they smashed all of these canopies. This has nothing to do with Islam. Moses didn't bring these things. These are all innovations. They're very much against innovations. So they destroy them, of course, people in the Muslim world who had been used to this that was shocked
wahabis doing
changing the religion. But in fact, they were just trying to go back to the way it was in the time of Rasulullah Salah. So they broke down all of these canopies. And they said we will have one Imam regardless of what his math, hobbies and everybody prays behind him finish.
And that's what they did. It ended in 1925.
So we have to look at that period of time.
And ask ourselves
what happened?
People strayed from the mud hub of Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam. The way to understanding true Islam,
and because of that they ended up making these kinds of rulings, as I said, where a hanafy couldn't marry a Shafi. Is that something, you know,
reasonable, logical?
Is that something acceptable?
The idea that we would have four prayers going around on around the Kaaba at the same time, the religion is split up to that point.
We have to say that was something unacceptable. That was not true Islam.
That was not true Islam.
True, Islam would only come back into being when those obstacles were removed,
and people were invited to follow again, the way
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
a pure way,
free from the divisions, which people had created, not the amounts, the amounts are blemish free. They're not to be blamed for this. This is people.
many generations later who created these things, the amounts didn't believe in this. They were opposed to any kind of rigidity, and they were flexible.
So the way to true Islam is to follow that original way.
I have given you an example
of that way, from the perspective of Sharia, and its application, which we call fit.
application of Sharia, Islamic Sharia. We are to understand the difference between the two most people mix up the two. Sharia is what is found in the Quran and the Sunnah.
So the basis of Sheree eyes revelation,
the Quran and the Sunnah, as Solomon said, Hold on firmly to them will never go astray. That is the Sharia unchangeable,
fixed for all time. When Prophet Jesus comes back
at the end of time,
he will apply the Sharia, he will not bring a new Sharia
he will apply the same Sharia
the fact of his time, of course may vary. So he will make other rulings with regards to the Sharia.
What is the fic fic is the application of Sharia.
In areas where direct rulings were not made, circumstances occurred which did not occur in the time of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. So, we did use laws from the Shetty to apply in our times, for example, just a quick example for you to understand the difference between the two. And then inshallah we can go on to some questions and answers I hope the picture is coming together.
When
tobacco first reached the Muslim world
is in 15 16th century
and it was smoked in clay pipes.
So Walter rally
brought it from America
to Europe,
and people began to take it it was considered something of status, you know, higher people, people used to sniff it and smoke it and
so when it came to the Ottoman Empire, that time,
the Ottoman scholars were on the fees, they
looked at it and
established a ruling regarded because of course for us as Muslims, everything that we do,
we say we think
comes under one of five rulings.
Either what we have done said or thought is obligatory.
We call watch him or farmed.
Or it is something recommended. We call Mr. hub. Some people also call it sooner,
or it is MOBA. It is neutral, do or not do no problem. Or it is mcru disliked
meaning disliked by God, because we might dislike something and God loves it.
Or it is haram. forbidden by God, it's one of these five.
So when tobacco came the scholars
in the Ottoman Empire, looked at it and worked out a ruling for it. What is it? How shall we look at it?
Well, of course tobacco wasn't around in the time of the Prophet was it.
And you will not find any Hadith in which the Prophet Mohammed Salam spoke about tobacco.
So then, what were they going to do?
They looked into
Sherry I to see.
First they looked at what is the impact of tobacco? What is the Is there any harm which comes from it?
The only harm that they could discover was it produced bad breath.
The smokers breath.
Not very pleasant.
That's why you have so many products in the market, you know, they have it
in your mouth for the smokers to disguise that bad breath. So
it's well known. So the scarless Okay, this is the bad impact. Otherwise, they didn't seem to be any other harm.
So, they went back into the shediac. To see what did the Prophet say sallallahu wasallam. about things which cause bad breath.
So they found a particular Hadith,
in which the Prophet sallallahu wasallam said,
Whoever eats raw garlic or raw onion should not come to our mosques. Stay home and pray.
Why?
Why? Because in our prayers, at the end of the prayer, we turned to each other saying what salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah.
And of course, personally was eating raw garlic or raw onions.
It's not very pleasant. So the profits are seldom said, even though prayer in the mosques is worth 25 times more than prayer in the home. He said, stay home.
We will deny you those 25 blessings and save your brothers and sisters the heart.
So
concluding that anything which would deny us blessings, the additional 25 blessings of praying in the mosque in JAMA in creation, regarding something is going to cause us to lose those additional blessings. We say this is something disliked, isn't it? Because it is preventing us from getting additional reward. So they said, the ruling we will place on smoking is macro,
disliked.
Macro. That's 500 years ago.
In 1978, or 79,
the Surgeon General of the United States of America announced that it was conclusively proven that smoking causes cancer. Now in America, people had been struggling with this thing for well over a decade. The signs were already there earlier, but the tobacco companies, they called Big Tobacco, they had fought this decision vehemently paid multi billions to hide the results, to squash it so that it wouldn't be known to the public. because that meant a loss in sales.
And after that announcement, of course, sales in America and the West.
But what did they do? They brought it over to our countries
cheap, cheaper than it was in America.
So sales in our countries
like that. So they made up for it. But the point is, that was the new ruling in the late 70s. At that time, the enlightened scholars
said we have to relook at smoking.
The old ruling 500 years ago was based on the only known harm from it, which was bad breath, macro.
Of course, you had those scholars who smoking cigarettes, were saying it's still true.
Still mcru
No need to change.
But the enlightened scholars
using fic correctly went back to the Sharia to look at the ruling concerning any product
or incident which would harm the unit human being which could cause his death.
And they had to conclude, the Quran says,
Do not kill yourselves, the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him said whoever kills himself
in this life will find himself eternally in * killing himself over and over again.
Furthermore, the Prophet Muhammad said La da da, da da da da, we should neither harm ourselves nor harm others.
So there were no end of texts in the Quran and the Sunnah, which indicated that substances, which would clearly cause harm in their normal use, were Haram. So the enlightened scholars change the ruling from mcru, for smoking, to Haram.
That is the correct ruling.
So those of you that have cigarette packages in your pockets,
know that when you leave this hall, you have been informed, and you are responsible for a lot to destroy those cigarettes and stop smoking. From today onwards, not gradually.
Because gradually, you will never end it, you will get a patch here and you take this and that and you'd carry on for years. No.
It's Haram, give it up.
And wives, if you know your husbands are doing it, then you stay on them allow will reward you for destroying every pack of cigarettes they bring into the house, flush it down the toilet, every time you catch it, make it difficult for him.
Know that you there's reward. And if you might say you're destroying my money, this is my wealth. Nope. A law will reward you for every pack, you flushed down the toilet.
So that is
and the fic, as we said, can change that is where the flexibility of Islam lies in the sense that it is applicable to all places all people at all times. Because this is one of the accusation that's raised against us that your Shetty is so rigid. Your Islamic law is so rigid societies have changed and so on, so on. So how can it be applicable today? Because truly are you going to look at the early
you know, constitutions of states, the American Constitution, the Magna Carta, and various, you know, rules and legislation, which is done 1000 years ago, and other countries or 500 years ago, like in America, you will say today, it's not applicable.
And the American Constitution, for example, were the most enlightened minds of the
18th century sat down, and they wrote up this constitution, Article One, section two says,
non white people,
like you and I
are equivalent to three fifths of a white man.
three fifths,
not two fifths, not four fifths, but three fifths. And this is in the American Constitution, you can go and see it in Washington, they haven't changed that mean, they've adjusted it later on, they made, you know, amendments, etc. But preserving that original document because it's looked at as the founding document of the nation. It's their
article one, Section two, a black man
is equivalent to three fifths of a white man.
So obviously, as today, we have to say stuff about this evil, it's bad.
Not that really those founding fathers were really bad people, but they had slaves.
And they didn't consider the slaves to be equal to themselves.
So they had to work out some kind of formula of how we're going to relate to these people. And that's what they came up with three fifths.
And you will find many others like it in the Magna Carta and the others.
So they say naturally, if you say you want to do Sharia today, this is backwards. This is, you know, all the other constitutions are not applicable today how you expect to apply your Sharia today, as you know,
backward thinking medieval, all kinds of titles for it. Well, we understand that there's an element of the law which is unchangeable. And that provides solidity foundation to the nation.
moral standards which are unchangeable because
They were revealed by God.
So what was evil and haram 1000 years 400 years ago in the time of the Prophet, may God's peace and blessings be upon him remains haram today.
But when you remove that foundation,
you replace it with as they call it, secular democracy.
Then you remove the moorings of the society, what holds that society together becomes destroyed.
You replace it with
democracy, human beings sitting around a table and deciding what's right and wrong for us. So what was wrong yesterday becomes right today.
What was right yesterday becomes wrong today.
And so on and so forth.
So,
Islam provides
guidance, not just for Muslims, but for the world. This is what Islam has to offer the world.
The path to true Islam is the path which takes us to that understanding
that we have, in spite of our lack of technology and development, etc, we have something much more vital
to offer the world.
But that way, and that offering can only be known can only be achieved by following as the profits are seldom said 1400 years ago.
I left with you two things. If you hold on firmly to them, you will never go astray. The Book of Allah and my Sunnah.
So in concluding
the way
to true Islam
is
by following the Quran, and the Sunnah,
as they were revealed,
as they were understood by the generation in which they were revealed,
that is the way
and there is no other way.
It is one way
the math hubs were at efforts by scholars to understand and apply that way.
Human beings
have differences of intellect, differences of opinion. So certain differences did arise, naturally, but the common the essential element was shared by all.
And that is what, and that is the approach that we need to come back to, in order to be able to find
the way to true Islam.
And as I said,
I've spoken from a legal perspective.
But there are other perspectives too, we can take the same approach and apply it in other areas which have to do with, for example, our mode of worship,
our mode of worship, how do we worship God?
How did Prophet Mohammed may God's peace and blessings be upon him worship God? How did the companions of the Prophet worship God?
Did they worship God through intermediaries?
called saints Alia
did they have amongst them themselves witch doctors
called bomo.
When other names
these are foreign things.
So this principle this way,
because time is limited, I don't have the opportunity to go into each and every aspect of it. But we you should use the same approach that we have used towards the legal matters to deal in the theological matters the aqeedah the same way.
As people strayed in Christianity from the original teachings of Jesus, from the original teachings of Moses, people among the Muslim world have strayed also from the original teachings of Prophet Muhammad. The gods
Peace and blessings be upon all of the prophets.
The difference is that for Christians, there is no way back.
They can't go back to the original.
Whereas for us, the original remains preserved in its pristine purity. And we can go back.
So in the same way we should approach our legal matters, we should also approach our theological, our social matters, Family Law,
how we handle inheritance, I mean, unfortunately, in so many parts of the Muslim world, all of these areas have become corrupted, where people's customs and traditions now have superseded
the Sharia
in this regard, because actually, Sharia addresses also the theological, also the social and political, etc.
So, in concluding
the only way forward, the only way to true Islam
is to hold firmly to the Quran, and to the sun now, as it was understood by the first generations
to apply it.
With that understanding
in all aspects of our lives. That is the way to draw Islam.
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