An Introduction to Shariah

Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Nabil Karim. So welcome to the first video in this new series on an introduction to Sharia to Islamic law. And I'm glad to see you all again and to be back here with you, for those of you who are studying this as part of the Islam intensive program, thank you for sticking with us all these years and studying all these topics with us. This is going to build upon a lot of what we covered in the previous courses, both the history course, and the Azula, Vic Embakasi, the Sharia courts, and there'll be a bit of overlap, and a little bit of repetition. But really, I'm building upon those

courses. For those of you who have signed up for this course exclusively, and not part of the Islam intensive program. I have included the lectures on Zulu and fake and Mecosta the Sharia as a bonus, so that you can go back to refer to those lectures that are recorded in 2019 and 2020.

And that will inshallah help you to understand a lot of what we're going to cover here because I don't want to repeat those same topics again, right? When talking about the Sharia, I will have to talk a bit about my constitutional area, but about a pseudo Vic. But I don't want to go into as much details as I did in those courses. Instead, well, the focus on this year 2024 C, or 1445? Ah, I want to focus on the practical application, historically, of the Sharia. I want to take you on a journey of what did the world look like? What was life like for the average citizen living under Sharia? Because there's a lot of misconceptions about this, not just amongst non Muslims, but amongst

Muslims as well. If you look at non Muslims, obviously, when they hear the word Sharia they think of this barbaric law, where people are just getting their heads chopped off and beaten up and lashed with every little thing, and it sounds traumatizing. But what really worries me is that when we talk to Muslims about Sharia, many Muslims have internalized all of these ideas that the West have put out. And even if they may be pro Sharia the Cheviot idea Pro is the same thing that the West is saying it's not what Islam actually teaches, or what was actually practiced historically. So there's a huge problem we have people don't know what this word means people don't know how the system

operates. And one of the reasons for that is that the way Sharia operates is so different from the modern state system, that for many people, they're unable to even think on that level. They're unable to think outside of the modern state system. So hopefully, as we go through a history, and a reading of various texts related to the Sharia, it will become clear why this is from God, why this is the best way to learn why this was the best system that humans ever lived under, and why we need to find ways to revive it in our times.

To make this course more accessible and beneficial, I have prescribed multiple textbooks, multiple books that helped shape my understanding of the show via and most of them, there is a PDF version available for free download for those who have signed up for this course. But I highly encourage buying the book to support the author or the publisher. Nonetheless, these books are available for free most of them on the author's websites. So

just to give you an idea, one of them is Sharia intelligence by Sheikh nurudeen lembu of Nigeria. So brilliant book on Zulu fit and Mikaze the Sharia, which will I will be using for those sections of the of this course. Right? Another one of my favorites really shaped my understanding of Muslim history is civilization of fate by Dr. Mustafa CV,

which we're going to use this book to look at how the schools and universities and libraries and the archive How did all of these systems look under Sharia, and how the Ummah benefited from that?

One of my favorite books of all time that completely radically changed my understanding of Frick and Sharia is even assured writing bahala has rissalah or treatise on Bokassa, the Sharia, which has been translated into English. This book was revolutionary for me the order just two generations ago. He was the grand mufti of Tunisia, Maliki jurist. He's also the author of The Tafseer behind me, the holier than when the greatest steps in producing a 20th century, but really his book kamikaze to Sharia. It will completely change your understanding of what the Sharia is and how it functions. It's absolutely my

going, if you're able to really take the time to read it and think about it, and understand the key points that he's making, and we will go through various chapters of that book in this course. Now, the main book that I'm going to be using as a textbook for this course, is not available locally in a physical form, so I have to use a PDF version. So you'll find me reading from a PDF a lot in this course, because I don't have the physical versions available. But the key text is an introduction to Islamic law by Dr. Weil Hallak. And with that, I also would highly encourage reading his follow up books, which include the impossible state and restating Orientalism. But an introduction to Islamic

law is the key textbook for this course. And for those of you who don't know, I highly recommend checking out all of Dr. Weil Halex books and videos on this topic. He is one of the world's leading experts on this topic today. He's a Palestinian author based in New York, he has many videos in both English and Arabic, where he discusses these topics. In fact, at the moment, he also has a series going on on YouTube on this topic, I highly recommend his works. It's just the absolute best I've seen in this field. And so his book, An Introduction to Islamic law, will be the core textbook for the history part of this course, for understanding what the Sharia is, how it was applied

historically, and why it's incompatible with the modern state system. Right? For those aspects. He's, he's the best resource on this topic. And we will be using his book a lot in this course. For the introduction, we're not going to use any specific book, I'm just going to go through the course objectives, or some key terms that you should be familiar with, and give you some ideas of how we have misunderstood Sharia in the modern world, and how different it is from what many of us imagine, right? But as we go through the different modules, and we study, who's who, under Sharia? Where did the Sharia taken from, how it was applied in the Muslim world, all of these things, it's become

clear to you and to me that we have misunderstood a lot about this amazing, miraculous system that Allah has revealed. A system unlike anything that humans could ever make up really, this is something unlike anything humans could have made up it is divine, in every sense of the world, that when you look at what the Sharia is, and what it achieved, and, and the quality of life that it produced. And the thing that he came from Arabia at a time when there was not even a civilization in Arabia, where people just live this tribes, and it was revealed to a prophet in in that part of the world. So Allahu alayhi wa salam, you can only come to one conclusion that this is from Allah, that

this is from the Creator, that this is a gift from the Creator to humanity, something that we all should be grateful for, and something that we all need to understand. So, to begin, let's go through some of the course objectives.

There are essentially five course objectives, five things I hope to achieve over the series, which will be between 20 to 30. Lectures, Allah knows best, I haven't finalized the number of lectures, I'm going to try and do one video a week maybe to over the course of this year. The idea is not to rush it. But for us to do the best job possible in explaining this amazing topic. But I want to cover five things across the series. Number one, I want us all to become familiar with the key terms related to the Sharia. What is Sharia? What is fake? What is the Adi? What do they move the what is the hood? Right? What is the Azir? We need to know these words, I shouldn't have to keep explaining

these words, I will in this video, for example, I'll explain a lot of these words. And as we come to them, I may explain them multiple times. But I'm hoping by the end of the course, you should be familiar with these words and be able to explain them to others and to read them without needing someone to translate them or define them for you. So you need to put in the time to memorize these terms. And their definitions are very important terms for understanding our religion. The second thing I want us to have a deep understanding of how the Sharia works under the field effort.

See today, there's a lot of misconceptions about this. A lot of movements today that are striving to revive the beloved, have a very wrong understanding of what the prophet is and how it functioned. And what is striving to revive actually never existed in the history of Islam. It's a fiction. It's a fiction in their minds, because they are unable to think outside the modern state system and they haven't really read history properly. And as a result, if they had to establish a Khilafah today

It would not be anything that what existed under the qualifier or shading or the omegas, or the above six or the other empires in our history, it's important for us to know how the Sharia functioned. So that what we strive to revive

is the correct application of the Sharia. And not these strange Miss readings that popped up in the 20th century. I'm not saying this, to put down any movements that are striving for the revival of Islamic law. Now, may Allah accept all the efforts? And may Allah help us to revive Islam in our times.

But it's important to know where we are going off, so we can course correct. And for many people, the mistake comes in understanding certain key concepts, like what is the Sharia? And what is the philosophy. There's a lot of misunderstandings about these topics in our times. And I hope courses across this course you will begin to understand more clearly what the filler offered was and what the Shafia was and how it worked.

Number three,

I want us to critically analyze key historical events that led to the collapse of the Sharia governance, that the law puts in the sultanates.

So I believe this is a part of our history that hasn't been given enough time and attention. And it's really one of my core areas of research at the moment, which is the history of the past 200 years. Because in the past 200 years, a lot of things happened that caused the Sharia to collapse, their cause Islamic law to collapse the cause of Allah to come to an end, they cause people's whole understandings of Islam to become messed up.

There's enough, not enough research done on this topic. Now one of the reasons why I chose Dr. Weil HELOCs book for this topic, it because he's one of the few people who actually research this and connected the dots, he connected the dots between things like the fall of the O cough system, the British colonization of India, interference in the Ottoman Empire, he put it all together and figured out hold on this plus this plus this led to the downfall of the Sharia. So we're going to do the same gonna go through some of these events and see how the Sharia was dismantled piece by piece over the past 200 years. Because if you understand how it was dismantled, perhaps you could put it

back together piece by peace, Allah knows best and success is only from Allah. Number four, I want us to understand the methodologies of interpreting Islamic law on a deeper level. Now, you don't need to understand the only scholarly level. If you want to understand in the scholarly, scholarly level, I highly encourage you to go and do a Alinea program or bachelors in Islamic studies in a reputable Islamic Institute and become an expert in this field. But I'm saying even the average Muslim who wants a deeper understanding of their religion should at least have some understanding of how it works. Like, what is this trick? Where's my scholars getting it from? How are they deriving

it? How was it practice? You don't need to understand all the details you need to understand for example, what is the sound and how does it work? Now you may not understand it straight away, but at least understand how the process came about why it exists, the purpose of the process and to understand enough to help you trust your Alma to understand enough to help you trust the scholars who are applying this. Finally, we want to debunk myths and stereotypes about Sharia. There are myths and stereotypes exist about Sharia amongst Muslims and non Muslims alike. We want to debunk this and the best way to do it. Study the texts, study the history, see for yourself what Sharia was

like. And as you do that you realize Hold on, I was wrong about this, I was wrong about that. There's a lot of things I was wrong about. So I'm not going to jump in and say Oh, this is wrong, this is wrong. But take a step back and just see what it is. When you see something for what it is, you realize where you were wrong in your understanding of it. So to repeat, five things we hope to achieve in this course, to become familiar with the key terminology to understand how the Sharia actually function under the hillfort to understand what is historical events led to the dismantling of the Sharia, to understand how scholars derive the rules of Islamic law, and finally to debunk

those myths that exist about Sharia. Okay, let's jump into part two of today's lecture.

Part two of this introduction will focus on key terminologies that you should be familiar with when studying this course. And I will I will include some notes so you can go through the terminologies I have given and also most of the books that I have provided access to do have sections which explain these terms. So let's start with the most important one right

This course is called Introduction to Sharia. What is Sharia? When in our times academics like to debate and come up with all different meanings or all different ideas and yes, if you want to get deep into it, there are many different definitions of Sharia. There's many different understandings of Sharia law, just go with a simple understanding that most Muslims have the most people when they talk about Sharia, they are referring to the primary laws of the Quran and Sunnah. Right? What are the laws of Islam? That is Sharia. Right? So if you want to get a bit more detailed about the definition, the Sharia are those fixed laws found in the Quran and Sunnah, which the scholars have

agreed upon. These laws are caught a god II means definitive, meaning there's no room for interpretation, there's no room for differences of opinion.

Now, this is one definition of the Sharia. Right, the Sharia are the fixed laws of Islam.

Another definition of the Sharia is the way of life a way a Muslim lives their life. And I would argue that this is actually the

the meaning of Sharia used more often in both history and in the Quran and the Sunnah, right? That this definition of Sharia, that Islam didn't just come to be a set of laws, it's a way of life.

And if you look at the root word, Sharia it means a way, a way to the water part, that's the literal meaning. It's a way of life. So

when people think of Sharia, they think of government laws, or they think only of criminal law. This is a problem, because criminal law in Islam is valued at the ASEAN who do not mean meaning the fixed criminal penalties and ASEAN meeting, the penalties left up to the discretion of the judge. And these two things make up a very small part of the Sharia. In fact, I would say the average person who lived under Sharia, throughout history, almost never had to worry about who are the ASEAN, right, because these were restricted only to criminals.

So then, what was Sharia? Well, Sharia Islamic way of life, when you pray five times a day, you are following the Sharia, when you have good moral, ethical character, and you run your business in a halal manner with integrity, and you pay your workers on time, and you treat them fairly and justly. This is Sharia. When you run your household in an Islamic way, where the father is the leader, and the mother prioritizes, the raising of the children, and the man provides that he protects this is Sharia, right? Sharia is a way of life, the Islamic way of life.

In what's fake. That's the second question what's fake because people mix these words up, right? When you translate the word Sharia, it normally translates as Islamic law. And when you translate the word fake, it also normally translates as Islamic law. Sharia, we said means a way of life, or the primary laws of Islam. But let's stick with the way of life for now.

Fake, the word fake actually means understanding. Right? The word fake actually means understanding, like in the Hadith narrated by Maria Raji Lavon, who, in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, may you may urine Allah who be hyaluron you forget Hovi Deen. Whoever Allah intends good for he gives them the correct understanding of the religion. Right the word you forget who gives him the correct understanding comes from the same root word fake. So fake means understanding. So what does fake mean? As a actual terminology, fake means the understanding, or the derived laws, the understood laws of Islam.

This means that

a lot of the day to day laws of Islam

are not

taken explicitly from the Quran and Sunnah from verses that are not open to interpretation. Most of our laws are derived from a scholars understanding of the Quran and Sunnah. And these laws are vonlee they are speculative, meaning that they are open to differences of opinion.

So when we talk about fake we are talking about a scholars understanding of the Sharia or interpretation of the Sharia or application of the Shangri La. Right? So

look at the industry, the Sharia are the primary laws that Allah revealed most of which are very

very simple laws right pray five times a day don't commit Zina don't steal so very straightforward lots right. You don't need any interpretation. For what does he mean by don't steal? What does he mean by don't commit Zina? What does he mean by pray five times a day. They're quite strict.

forward, right. Fick is the interpretation of the law and its application on a daily basis. So for example, someone drags his neighbor to the judge and says, my neighbor, stolen Apple for my tree.

And the neighbor says, Hold on the branches over the wall on my side. So technically, it's on my property. While the judge has to figure out who's right, who's wrong, what do we do about this? Does this count the stealing? Does it count enough as stealing to apply this punishment? Now, with all these variables in place, he now has to use his understanding, he now has to figure things out, he now has to do what we call each T heart. Right, he has to figure out what is possibly the correct ruling. And this is how fear comes about, that there's always new situations, there's always new variables to deal with. And the more situations and variables we deal with, the more human opinions

we will come up with, for interpreting them. And what happens, in fact, then is we have a lot of differences of opinion in both methodology and specific rulings. And also in fake, nobody.

At least nobody should consider their opinion to be authoritative, that their opinion is 100% Correct, that this is the right opinion. Now I know in our time some people do. And when we study the history of what the British did in India, they will understand why they have that mindset. But if you actually go with how fake function for over 1000 years, when the * a scholar of fake would make his ruling, he understood this to be this is my opinion, and there is a potential that I am wrong, and Allah knows best. Right? This is how fake function for the bulk of our history. So only very recently that people started treating fake like it is the Sharia.

So if you had to summarize what we just said, Sharia is our way of life or the primary laws of Islam.

And Fick is how do we understand and apply these laws on a daily basis, and it is from fit that we get the different methodologies of fakulti in different mud, herbs in different opinions. And this is the way Allah always wanted it to be, right. If Allah wanted this, this religion to just be one set of opinions, he would have just revealed a long manual effect, or a matte long manual of Sharia. Instead, he gave us principles, and he gave us a diversity of thought leading to a diversity of application of these principles. And as you will see that it is part of Allah's Mercy, the more we studied the history, the more you realize, it is part of Allah's mercy, that fake is something that

is so flexible and so open to differences of opinion and so accommodating to different cultures and different situations and different

ways of thinking.

So, some other terms you should be familiar with. Related to fake we have the term pseudo fake

should avec means the methodology for deriving the fake rulings. So every scholar has a methodology for deriving a fake ruling. Right?

And link to the word or pseudo fake is the word must have to be always wondering, what's a mother? Why do we have so many mothers a must have is a methodology of deriving a fake ruling that is attributed to a specific scholar in history. So historically, a certain scholar, for example, Imam, Abu Hanifa, or Hema hula, he clarified a methodology for working on fake rulings. And many scholars after him use that same methodology for deriving fake rulings. They may not always have arrived as the same ruling as him, but they use the same methodology. So they become known as Hanafis, because this is their methodology for working out fake.

Likewise, Imam Malik had a different methodology, a different issue. And anyone who followed his methodology became Maliki and yes, not all Malik is agreed to Imam Malik on every issue, but they followed his methodology for deriving the rulings. So a mud hub is a collection of the opinions of scholars over 1000 years, who all share one thing in common and that's the sort of the methodology of deriving rulings, right. Let's see what they must have. Yes, it is the methodology. That is, that goes back to one key figure

who clarified it very early in our history.

So examples of Zulu,

in the Maliki math hub,

the practices of the people of Medina at the time of Imam Malik was considered a type of sunnah. Meaning Mr. Malik lived in a time when the descendants of the Sahaba were living in Medina. So if they were

practicing Islam in a specific way. He understood that this is how they learn from their parents who are Sahaba, who learned from the prophets of Allah Islam. So this must be the Sunnah. So he considered the practice of the people of Medina to be sunnah. And a lot of rulings in the Maliki mazahub are based on the practice of the people of Medina. The other month hubs did not accept this methodology for deriving fake rulings, right, they had other methodologies. Another way that you have a uniqueness in methodology would be in approach to Hadith. So, for example, Imam Abu Hanifa would not accept a hadith as an authoritative text in fic, unless it reached a certain level of

authenticity. So there are many Hadees that are technically authentic, but they don't reach that level. And so the Hanafi madhhab doesn't follow it, but other mud hubs do. Right because they because all the Muslims agree we must follow Quran and Hadees but they disagree or other I would say. Let me take that back. All the Muslims agree that we should follow Quran and Sunnah. They all agree we should follow Quran and Sunnah. They differ on the definition of the Sangha and the sources of the Sangha.

Right. So something could be considered the practice of Rasulullah sallallahu, alayhi wasallam, in some mud hubs and not in others. So they had different methodologies for interpreting the law, which you will see as we go along, is very important, and

really helped shape a lot of our history.

Another important term related to fic and Sharia is mocassins Sharia. So earlier I said this book on Maqasid, the Sharia really changed my understanding of Islam. What is Maqasid? Because it means goals or objectives, because it is Sharia means the goals and objectives of Islamic law. So this is the science of why

it will soon avec is the how how do we figure out the ruling? The Mikasa the Sharia is the why why did this ruling exist in the first place? Right? I want because it is Sharia teaches us is that Allah subhanho wa Taala is Al Hakim, he is infinitely wise. Therefore every law that he has revealed has the wisdom behind it. Sometimes we may not understand that wisdom, but most of the time we can understand it. So it is a study of the wisdom behind the Lord's why do we pray five times a day? Why is Xena Hara? Why is marriage such a big deal in Islam? Why are they different gender roles in marriage in Islam? To understand all of these wise, we go to McCarthy to Sharia law constitution

yeah helps us to understand the why. So when you understand the wise, it helps you to apply it better, it helps the scholar to be more flexible in how he applies the ruling as well, as you will see in some of the examples we will look at. So my course initially has a really interesting topic. And I may do one video on it as part of this course. But again, I did cover this back in 2019. So if you go to the past recordings in this program, you will find that all of my past recordings are my constitutionally they all do I think the audio format because I didn't have video recordings available that year.

So you can go back and go through those. But just to do a summary I will do a separate video on this topic inshallah.

In other important science related to fake is provided via maxims of fake this is a science that

came about much later in our history, but it's actually very important.

Kaleido fake they are fake Maxim's means. Basically formulas are short statements of fake, right, that summarize rulings. So instead of memorizing hundreds of fake rulings, you find you memorize a few formulas. And those formulas help you to figure out the rulings or to remember the rulings. So examples of Maxim's of Fick will be something like every action is based on its intention. Right? There are many laws of logic, that go back to one simple Maxim. Every action is based on its intention. For example, you just prayed for Raka was that for Raka of Zohar for regard sunnah before, for regardless of

your intention, whatever your intention was, that's what it was. Right? The action goes back to the intention. Another example of a maximum of fit that plays an important role in Sharia and that was eventually absorbed by the non Muslim system as well is that people are innocent until proven guilty. Right? in Croydon, Victoria. This was called Baraka astellia original de

default innocence, I think that's a better translation default innocence, that human beings are innocent by default. If you accuse someone of something, you have to provide evidence and until the evidence is strong enough, we will consider them innocent. So this concept of innocent until proven guilty is important maximum fit that the judges would use when dealing with any court case. And it became so popular that eventually, when the Europeans were introduced to it through Islamic Spain, it became part of the European court system. And it remains true until recently. I see until recently because in the past 10 years, it seems at least on the ground, people have become more of a

guilty until proven innocent kind of mindset, right? We now live in a time where people get canceled over the slightest accusation. Well, any kind of court case, which is completely anti Islamic. So there hasn't been any technical changes to the law in the West, but on the ground, the way people are treated. It seems that people are guilty until proven innocent. But nonetheless, the Islamic system is people are innocent until proven guilty. And there are many other examples we can go into again, the course that we did back in 2020 was on Kaleido AR. I remember because halfway through the course we had to close down because of the lockdown starting

remedies available. In the bonus section where I went through all of the major collide. It's well worth checking out if you haven't seen it already. Another example of colloidal fapiao Is the

ash Lupita Zhi Alibaba, that the orig the default ruling of anything is permissibility right so when it comes to things of this world, and there are some exceptions, but when it comes to things of this world in general, things are halal until proven haram This is a wider optic.

So we went through a lot of terminology today and I know some people find it difficult to memorize terminology but as we keep using them over and over again over the next 20 to 30 lessons, inshallah you will become familiar with them and these terms will become easier for you to remember and to use. Right we learnt that Sharia is the Islamic way of life on the primary laws of Islam. Fake is the understood laws of Islam derived by the scholars. Also nuffic is the methodology for deriving those laws. A month hub is a methodology that is linked to a specific scholar in history Maqasid Sharia means the goals of Islamic law and collide with Victoria means the Maxim's are the short

formulas are perfect for deriving fake rulings, to more terms that you need to be familiar with the philosophy of Caliphate in English and HD heart. So each Jihad means that a scholar when a scholar does the research and analysis and the thinking needed to arrive at the fake ruling, this is called HD hard. HD hard includes using a pseudo fake using coordinate Wikia using Picasa, the Sharia includes all of this, it simply means a scholarly effort to arrive at the correct conclusion. So every scholar has to do HDR. Right? Every scholar has to at some point or the other do HDR I know nowadays, there's some movements who say that the doors of HDR are closed. But in reality, they

themselves do HD hard, right? Because there is no classical book of fake that told them where the internet is halal or not, or about many other modern issues like insurance, and investing. And now Bitcoin, the reality is you have to do each jihad to figure out the rulings on these issues. Right, whether they call it something else.

I mean, that's up to them, they call it something else. But the reality is, it is what it is he had, he had something means the process of trying to figure out the correct ruling. And when scholars engage in the process of each jihad, they do so with this understanding that whatever conclusion I arrive at, there is a strong possibility that it is wrong. And Allah knows best. And they take reassurance from the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in which he said that when the witch the head, does each the heart, if he is right, if he's wrong, Allah still rewards him. And if he's right, Allah gives him double that reward. So to take reassurance from that, that I'm not

always going to be right. But as long as I'm trying my best sincerely for the sake of Allah, Allah will reward me. And so each jihad is a necessary part of faith. And finally, we have the beloved or the caliphate, the love, which refers to the Islamic system of governance, where there was a succession of rulers, going back to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Now, there's a lot of misunderstandings about what the feel of it was and how it worked as we go through this course. So even if you've done my history course, you know now, a lot of those misunderstandings and why they are not correct. But

just to give you an idea, some people imagine that we had one Khalifa from the time of the Sahaba right

After World War One.

And that's not true. Because even in a time of the debate going on rather than hammer the Sahaba there was a point with three different people there claiming to be Khalifa at the same time. Fast forward 100 years later, you have the obedient empire in Spain and the Abasi empire in the Middle East, and data to separate philosophers coexisting at the same time. And he just kept splintering more and more over history, right. By the time we get to the Ottoman era, you have the mom, Luke's the Safar wins, the McCall's the Ottomans, all coexisting at the same time, many of them claiming to be the Khalifa of their time. So the reality is this idea this month that the entire Ummah was under

a single leader, this is a much, but what we did have was in each of these different labs, right, so for example, if you look at the time or the Ultimates,

whichever of these lands you lived in, you live under a ruler, who was trying to keep the system going there was there from the time of the sahaba. And where the Sharia was still, number one, Sharia was still a priority over everything else. And in many ways, these lands had open borders, and they were no passports and visas. So if you are living under the Mamluks, and you want to live under the Ottomans, you could do so. Right, it wasn't like there was a closed border between these nations. Right? It's just that, you know, when you cross over a certain town, you're now in ultimate territory. But the way you live your life will be the same because rarely did the laws were the

same. The only differences would be the differences between the mothers, right, which were very secondary.

But there was no radical changes that we needed. Like today, if you move from China to the USA, or from USA to North Korea, huge changes, right? Like the everything's different. But because all of these lands, we were trying to be the legitimate Khalifa. And they were all trying to uphold the Sharia, whatever the differences may have been, wherever you lived your life with a more or less been the same. Right? So the law firm is an Islamic government that is trying to uphold Sharia. And

that is part of a succession of leadership going back to the time of the prophets Allah leaves us with the word Khalifa comes from although it's not always accurate. The second part isn't always accurate, but that's where the word comes from.

Excuse me.

So they are the words used to describe the leader of the Muslim world, besides Khalifa.

And

one of the reasons why other words we use is because the word Khalifa wasn't always accurate. Like there wasn't a a unbroken chain of leaders going back to the prophets lesson for everybody who claimed to be the Khalifa. So other words use would have been a mirror meaning the leader of the believers, Sudan, which is similar to King, Imam, which means leader.

So many of these lands were sultanates. Many of these leaders call themselves Imams, right. But

the system of rule of leadership was the same as the philosophy it wasn't like a different style of governance. So in those days, if you lived in a land, where the leader called himself the Khalifa, or if you lived in a land with the leader called himself, the Sultan or the Imam, your life was gonna be the same, it was gonna be more or less the same. There wasn't any notable difference to how life was. And the each of these different leaders

instead is more or less different names for the same system. But because people recognize the inconsistency we're claiming to be the Khalifa.

It wasn't always clear who the actual legitimate Khalifa was. There were other titles adapted instead. So for example, at one point in time, both the mom Luke's and the Ottomans claimed to be the Khalifa right and right off today, there are many Muslims who do not accept the Ottomans as believers, because they will not Arab, but they do accept them as illegitimate satanic, that they were Muslims who tried to rule by Sharia, because in some of the mud hubs, one of the conditions to be the Khalifa is you have to be a Qureshi Arab, right? But we'll come to that inshallah later on.

So these are the terminologies

and we're running out of time. So there's a lot of other things I wanted to discuss. But let's just jump into the meat of it.

I want to go to one quotation from even a Module Zero Rahim Allah but what the Sharia is and this quotation alone, it clears up many of the misconceptions that people have about the Sharia. Even came Rahim Allah says, the Sharia is founded upon wisdom and welfare for the servants of Allah in this life and the afterlife. In its entirety. It is justice.

Mercy, benefit and wisdom,

any matter that abandons justice for tyranny, mercy for cruelty, benefit for corruption, and wisdom for foolishness is not a part of the Sharia, even if it was imposed into interpretation.

So this is an example of my posse to Sharia the goals of the Sharia, even anyone who was saying that the reason why Allah sent the Sharia is for our benefit in this world and the next. And that benefit comes about to justice, mercy and wisdom. So when somebody's understanding of Islam, an application of Islamic law is harsh and cruel, and tyrannical and corrupt, the Hold on, they have not understood the Sharia. And what they are applying is not the Sharia. It's their own misunderstanding of the Sharia. And this has been the problem in our times, a lot of what people do today, thinking that they are applying the Sharia, that they are being pious that they are being no reviving the deen.

And they do it in a very heavy handed way. That actually chases people away from Islam, or unjustly punishes those who do not deserve punishment.

What they are doing is anti Islamic, and what they are doing is not the Sharia.

And it may be difficult to understand this point right now. But as we go through all the different lessons, the different terminologies, the history, it will become clearer and clearer

what the Sharia is and what the Sharia is not. And then you will begin to connect the dots and say, Oh, those people who have been following the Sharia, so their understanding of the Sharia is wrong. Right. So you understand that these are misconceptions that people have people think the Sharia is very strict and rigid. Reality may be the most flexible law system to ever exist. Like, if you compare to modern law systems, it's fairly flexible. Like nowadays, the modern law system they

they have like a

a strictness on very petty things, very silly things. But they're like, that's the law. We have to follow it. But the law doesn't make sense. Yeah, but it's the law, we have to follow it. It's not the Sharia watch for the most part. Right. There's a lot of systems built into the Sharia, that actually made it quite flexible in his application on a day to day basis.

It's also a lot of people think Sharia is just about, you know, chopping up heads and chopping of hands. And really, that makes up less than 5% of the Sharia. And when they give you an example, it really puts that in its place. Right? And

by the way, I know nowadays, some people have this revisionist approach where they tried to say that No, there's nothing like that in the Sharia. That's all lies really. It's in the Sharia, right? It's in the Quran, the male and female teeth, chop off their hands, right? Or the female or male comments in our last name 100 times this in the Quran. So those who deny it are rejecting clear verses of the Quran. But rather what I would say is people's understanding of how this is applied, and when this is applied, is very incorrect.

Other people think that the Sharia is outdated and would not work today. I disagree. I think now more than ever, we really need a revival of Sharia, whatever humans have tried over the past 100 years, has not worked. Really whatever we tried over the past 100 years has not worked. The world is an absolute mess right now. Crime is out of control. Immorality is out of control, corruption is out of control. Economies are suffering, entire countries are suffering poverty is at its worst. This is all because people abandon the Sharia. And really, the Sharia can fix all these things. You can fix all these things if it's applied, applied properly.

Another misunderstanding that Muslims have is that they think that the opinions they see in fifth books are the Sharia. And that these opinions are absolute, and that there's no way around them.

And as you will see, especially through the examples we'll go through, I'll go through a couple of examples today to end up this introduction.

That fake and is meant to be a very flexible system. And the way it was applied historically, it didn't look at these opinions as absolute, but more as default positions. Right.

Finally, some people say look at Sharia countries today they're not working and my response will be there is no show of your country today. There is no Sharia country today those countries that claim to be following Sharia. They are following a amalgamation of the nation state model, British colonial law a little bit of Sharia sprinkled here and there and some level of secularization right, so yeah, what the following is an abomination. It's monstrosity. It's, it's mix and match, obviously is not gonna work. There's no consistency in framework. There's no consistency methodology. There's no consistency in

forces of law, how would it work? How would that work? This just makes no sense. Right? If you think, okay, for family law, we're going to take a little bit from the British a little bit from sectarianism a little bit from Islam, that's not going to work. The goals are different, their systems are different, their values are different. The methodologies are different. Everything's different.

So there is no Sharia land on Earth today. Since the Ottoman Empire fell 100 years ago, until today, there is no Sharia law. All these countries today that you think are following Sharia, they are following a mix and match version of modern law. And they just put a few Sharia laws here and there to claim the following Sharia. While the other aspects don't even think about Sharia, right, because most of these countries have a rebar based economy, revise haram, you have a rebar based economy, that's not Sharia. That's anti Sharia. So there are many other things that we can go into. But my point is that

there is no Sharia law today. So you can't point to any land and say, Oh, see, this is an example of Sharia not working, because no one's really doing it properly today.

Okay, to conclude.

To conclude, I want to just give two examples of Sharia in action. So that you can see just from these two examples, how,

how many of us have misunderstood what this concept is, right? I'll give one example from criminal law, and one example example from family law. Because in both areas, there's a lot of misunderstandings today. So let's start with criminal law. So criminal law, we know that there is this penalty in Islam mentioned in the Quran that the male and female thief chop off their hands. Right. But how did that actually apply? How did how did the scholars apply this in the Muslim world?

Many of us have a misunderstanding, right? And some of the misunderstandings are pushed out by the West, in the stereotypes about the Muslim world. So like, in an old animated movie, Aladdin, right, the girl steals the apple, and the shop owner grabs a hand and grabs his knife and he's going to chop off her hand. Hold on, that's not Chevier has absolutely nothing like that in Sharia. Firstly, in Sharia, the decision to chop off a hand has to be done by the Adi by the official judge appointed to that area. And that Judge will be a pious scholar who has studied the law.

And the way that the rd would apply the law is that there'll be various hurdles between chopping off the hand and the individual. So what are these hurdles? Number one, is that people are innocent until proven guilty. So you have to prove that he stole, right. Number two, there's a syst certain level of theft for which this law applies, meaning it's not every thief whose hand is chopped off. It's the professional thief who stole something of value from a safe place that required effort.

Right, he had to steal something of value from a safe place. And it required effort on his part to steal it. So he had to plan it. And he had no excuse for stealing.

So really, under Sharia, nobody's hand would be chopped off for stealing an apple. Firstly, it's out in the open. Number two, most of the people who steal apples are poor and hungry. Number three, it's not that valuable, not as valuable as a hand. Right? So that's not surely that's just lying to make people think that Muslims are barbaric.

And others another point of this is besides all of these, there's also a maximum of 50 that applies, which is if you have the slightest doubt that the person is innocent, you do not apply the penalty. Right, this is part of our law, that if there is a slightest doubt that the person is innocent, you do not apply the penalty. So penalties like stoning the adultery, or executing the apostate or murderer, or cutting off the hands of thieves. These kinds of penalties are there. They are part of the Sharia. But they were very rarely applied. They only applied in worst case scenarios where someone really did something in such a way where Okay, we have no choice but but you know, to apply

this blockchain

most of the time historically. Just say for example, somebody stole the apple right. Let's go back to that example. Somebody stole the apple and the shop owner caught them. So take them to a judge say this guy stole my apple. Like why did you steal apple? Oh,

Hungry.

So they'll tell the guy, you know what, he's hungry? Why don't you make it sadaqa and give it to you. Right? Or you'll say, you know, the hungry is not a good excuse, you have to pay him for the Apple eventually, right? When you get some money, and that's it, it's over. That's it. That's as far as it goes, there is no turning a guy in life in prison. There's no putting a person six months in prison, there's no chopping of hands, you know, chopping off the edge. Now, it's just like, the guy was hungry, he was poor. He couldn't afford the apple. Let's try and help him out. Islam Muslim brother, right. So when you think of it like that, it's very different system for what many of us

imagine, because Sharia is built on justice. It's built on compassion. It's built on fairness. Like, if you look at the concept of executing the murderer, in the Quran, it says that the family of the murdered, have the right to forgive the murderer, and thereby he does not get executed. And it actually encourages that Allah says, for you to forgive your brother is better, you actually call the mother, your brother, that is actually better for you to forgive him.

So if somebody murdered someone, if it was a mistake, they would not be executed, they would play the

blood money instead, if it was on purpose. Well, it's now up to the family to decide we want the blood money we want execution or be forgiven.

And this is something again, really unique to the Sharia that he actually puts the justice in the hands of the family of the murdered, not in the court, not in the government, the family of the murdered, who get the last a very high level of justice and compassion.

So just from this example, you know, we understand that many of us have completely misunderstood what Sharia is, right?

This is a very just law system. It's a very compassionate law system. It's a very flexible law system. There's a lot of it built around, trying to keep society together, trying to bring people back into society, trying to help people tend to overlook the mistakes of others. A lot of this is built into the Sharia, it's about social cohesion, is about maintaining family ties, it's about ensuring that people have a way back to Allah. All of this comes first.

So then, whose hands gets chopped off? You may say, what's the point of having this law in the Quran? Well, if there is in a Muslim community, a professional thief, with breaking into people's homes, right, breaking into their safes, stealing their gold, stealing their wealth, and he gets caught. Yeah, if he gets caught, and he's proven that he did all these crimes, and the court is convinced the body is convinced that this man did commit these crimes, and we have enough evidence that he has that individual will lose a hand, he will lose their hand. But the reality is, this really happens. And when it does happen, it is extremely effective in stopping other people from

stealing. So you will find that lands that have this law have much lower crime rates than other lands today, right? Like the land I live in has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Because if you still in Orlando, I love you get put in a jail cell, where you get free television, free food, free, housing, free beds, free internet, it's actually not really a punishment, get to hang out with other teams get to join a gang,

who's exactly being punished here. And this is something I'll talk about later, but I'm very critical of the prison system. Believe the prison system doesn't work. It's something new that humans invented in the past 200 years, that's a complete failure, just like the school system, just like the economic system, all complete failures.

But

the Islamic system works, the Islamic system works, because people will think twice about stealing, because they are afraid of getting their hands chopped off. And even if they did steal out of desperation or hunger, or they stole something that's not that valuable, they're not gonna get their hands chopped off. It's only the professional thieves that this is going to apply to Sony worst case scenarios. And that's that's something that's built into the into the criminal law system in Islam, that the penalties are only rarely applied in worst case scenarios, right? Where you have no other choice, like, it's very clear that this person committed a major sin in public, and they have no

excuse Wait, that's the only time you actually want to apply the law. Otherwise, would any slight excuse even the excuses, I think this person's mad, the law will not be applied.

Finally,

let's look at one other example. And they will close a four hour introduction session and hope you found this beneficial. But let's look at another example where people get things from

on Islamic family law.

So look at the issue of child custody.

When you open the books off, the books are fixed seem to be very rigid about child custody, right? There's a certain age, the child goes to the mother at a different age, the child goes to the Father. And you're like, Okay, so I just lose my child.

Why?

Well, this is fake. This is not judgments. Right, Vic is just default rulings. That's not how it would actually work in the real world. This will just be considered the default position.

The judge at his discretion, discretionary, he could

move away from the default position. If he felt that in a specific situation, this is not the best option, that this would be an unjust. So for example, in the real world, if you are living under Sharia, and there was a divorce, and the man is claiming custody of his child, and the woman is claiming custody of her child, they would go to the local Adi, the local judge, and the judge will listen to his side of the story. He will listen to her side of the story, he would do a character inquiry into both of them speak to their families speak to their friends, try to figure out who are these people?

And, you know, what do they what are they like? How do they treat the children.

And then he will make the final decision based on all of the information. So he may come to the decision that the Father has more rights over the child, or the mother has more rights over the child, or that they should split custody, or in many cases, he let the child choose for themselves.

Meaning that yes, in fact, they are default positions on child custody in each model. There are certain age they stay with the Father as an agent stay with the mother. But in reality, in the real world under Sharia, it's not always the default position that's given. Because it could be the moms or drug addict, or the dads abusive, or the other way around. It could be that one of them cannot support the children or neglect them. It could be in some cases that they give custody to the grandmother to the grandparents because neither parent is suitable to raise those children. Meaning when it comes to application on a day to day basis, the Adi is not binded by the textbook, right?

He's not binded to follow these books are fake, he has to look in what is most just most compassionate, or what is in the best interest of each individual child, not the parents the child. And so his decision on child custody would differ from case to case.

And this is again something about our Sharia there are many Muslims must understand many Muslims, they look at the books of faith and say oh, the book of Exodus. So we got to do. That's the only way there's no other option. It's in the book. But the books weren't meant to be applied like that. The books meant to be suggestions for the audit, the code is meant to analysis, analyze the situation, weigh the pros and cons look at what is just what is compassionate, what is in the best interest of the individuals and make judgments on each case individually.

And understand this better when we go to our second video we will talk about what is the Audi what is a move d? What is a fapy? What is a mujtahid? And what roles these different people play in the Sharia, then you will begin to understand this process a bit more. So these two examples helps you to understand just how badly most of us have misunderstood Sharia. Right? It's the most just and compassionate system out there. That stealing does not automatically mean your hands are gonna get chopped off. And just because a book of fixed said something doesn't mean that God is God ruling is going to be the same.

That is a lot of variables to consider. There's a lot of things which are simply there as suggestions, but other opinions are also acceptable.

And the more we study this, the deeper we go, the more we understand the people involved and the methods involved in the goals of the Sharia, and how it was applied on a day to day basis in the Muslim empires.

You'll begin to realize that not only have we must understood what Sharia is and how it works, but

we also underestimate how powerful how just how divine how important the system really is. I really hope by the end of this course, you will gain a new respect and love for the Chevier and then all of your misconceptions about this beautiful system will be removed. Hope you found this introduction beneficial is aka hearin Walker that Juana and hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen.

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