Legacy of Sh. Yusuf al-Qaradawi (RA)

You

know hamdulillah moody who understand you know on the stock Pharaoh wanted me to be hit the workaholic one or two below him in Cerulean phocoena woman CEO Dr. Marina Mejia healer who for them would be another one they you they look for the Hadith. In the article IDCT tabula Wilfredo had you had the Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was Cheryl morning was to have a color monitor started with our work a little bit at the Nadella printer about

all the months ago, the great scholar,

Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi Rahim Allah passed away.

And at that time, we did not get a chance to discuss and reflect on his legacy.

So inshallah today I want to do that. And sure, today, I want us to

take some time to learn about who Dr. Qaradawi was, and why his legacy is important for us. In South Africa, today.

Many of our younger Muslims don't know who he was, right? He is the man who inspired the older generation.

And many of us don't even realize that a lot of the fatawa that we follow originated from him.

In fact, I would say everybody sitting here followed at least some of his opinions,

because they have become so mainstream to us. But these opinions a few decades ago, were very controversial, and unheard of. And he was, in many ways a revival of the religion, who brought about much needed change to the way we approach Islamic scholarship. So just to give a big bit of a biography of who was Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi? And why does his legacy matter to us as South African Muslims or to youtube alcara. Davi was born in Egypt. And he was as he was, he studied as hurt. He graduated from Al Azhar, he was a scholar of that tradition. And he spent most of his life in Qatar in Doha

because of the problems he had with the government in Egypt. Now, his legacy, what's amazing about it is it's not restricted to Egypt, or to Doha. It's International. His legacy is international. This is a man who spent his entire life studying and teaching Islam. And when we see his entire life, we actually mean in his three years, 99 years,

Allah subhanaw taala, blessed Dr. YouTube, oh God, Robbie, with a very long life.

96 years 96 years based on the

solar calendar, which would be 99 years based on the lunar calendar. So very long life. And many of us don't realize what the world was like when he was young. And what a big difference scholars like he made to the world. To put things into context. 100 years ago, in that decade, in which Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi was born, what happened 100 years ago, World War One, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire,

the beginning of Arab nationalism, all of these problems and fitness, which to us seem like ancient history. In his lifetime. He was born into a post world war one world, a world had just lost the last Khilafah to the Ottoman Empire, a time of great turmoil for the ummah.

There are some things we take for granted today. It weren't here 100 years ago. So for example, if we go back even 60 years, 70 years ago, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, there was a serious problem amongst the Ummah, serious problem amongst the Ummah, in that people were split into two opposing camps. We had very hardcore Muslims, who just focused on deen and no dunya. And then we had very secular Muslims who focused on the dunya. But without any attachment to the deen.

To give you an idea of what we mean, you know, today we have in our community and hamdulillah doctors who are practicing Muslims and accountants who are practicing Muslims, and lawyers who are practicing Muslims. We have all of this in our community today. But we had to go back 60 or 70 years ago, it was really difficult to find this, because there was this idea. That would be a religious booster, we don't chase dunya right. This was the idea that we are religious Muslim, you don't chase dunya you just study the deen and you do something simple. And those who did these fields, they were cut off from the religion in many ways, because they had embraced the secular mindset. So people

excelled in worldly science or they excelled in the deen, which was very different from how our history was with the bulk of Muslim history for the bulk of Muslim history. We know that many

Many Muslims lead the world when it came to science when it came to technology when it came to medicine, and they were practicing Muslims as well. But what happened in the 18th and 19th and 20th century is that they became, they became a split between those involved in worldly fields and those involved in the religious field. And the scholars of that generation, including Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi, they helped to find a bridge between these worlds, they helped you find some sort of balance between the two extremes that the Ummah had fallen into. So there were three concepts that Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi preached, that are very relevant to our community today. And that if we had to

take those concepts, and if our Allama had to apply it to the situation we are in today, just like he solved the problems of his communities over the past 80 years, we can solve the problems of our community today by using the same principles. And these two principles that Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi, taught and promoted were like the foundations of his faith, were Maqasid the goals of the Sharia, our wasa Thea, the middle part, the balanced middle part. And the third one was, I'll pick up on the prioritization in understanding what is a priority. In fact, let's break down what these three concepts are, how he applied it, and why these concepts are important to us today.

So the concept of Maqasid asturia. The goals of the Sharia was something that during the Golden Age of Islam, many Maliki and Shafi scholars developed this framework. This framework was to study the whys of Islamic law. Why? What are the goals of Islamic law? So great scholars of their time, like Al Ghazali, and Asha TV, they went into the why, why do we pray? Why do we fast? Why is this haram? Why is that compulsory, and they came up with a list of reasons as to why we do what we do. And these reasons or goals of the Sharia, they became known as the mocassin. And this mechanistic approach, it died out for a while towards the end of the Ottoman Empire. So during the period of

decline of this ummah, this field Ultra died away. But with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, now a revival effort took place. And during that period, two scholars in particular, were responsible for reviving this important field. Two scholars were particularly important in reviving this field. Number one, the man we're discussing today, Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi. And number two, and we don't talk about him enough. The grid Tunisian scholar, even assured Rahim Allah, right, Abraham, should we talk about him? Like he's a classical scholar who lived hundreds of years ago, or he's actually from one generation ago? Right? He he's actually just the generation before us, a Greek Maliki scholar

who wrote might be what might be the best book in the field of Maqasid, of Sharia. So what these scholars did is they revived the science. And they said, We have to approach fic, not just in terms of what we do, but to understand the why, and to use them accosted to contemporize our faith, because that is specially or needs to be contemporary needs to deal with contemporary problems. And what we find is that for many segments of our community, people take a very,

very literalist approach to figure and you become so literalist in their approach to fit to the end up violating the goals of the Sharia, and pursuing their understanding of the Sharia. So we have people who don't know why we pray, right, and people who don't know why we fast and they don't know why we do what we do, or stay away from what we stay away from one. And they end up making the religion more difficult on themselves, because they don't understand the whys, it's just about law, law law. And they end up coming up with laws that just don't make any sense. So this will give you one example of how Maqasid works and how people have misunderstood it. One of the primary goals of

the Sharia is to protect us from harm, right to protect us from harm or to protect society from harm. And anything that is haram is normally haram because it is harmful to society. Right now people who don't understand the goals of the Sharia, you will very often find them just saying is haram that is haram everything is haram and you ask them why you don't have a reason. Right? Because you know working with the goals of the Sharia this working on emotion, they find something they don't like you to say It's haram or the money disgusting. So they say is haram right? But they don't have evidence for what they are saying. So what the mocassin says is Okay, does it harm you? If it

is harmful, we can say it is haram. Right? Sure. So we can now use a we can use a rational approach derived from the Quran and Sunnah to actually figure out what is halal and what is haram instead of just having this Viagra was which don't have a solid basis. So now when we say for example, that smoking is haram

We can see because it is harmful because this is these are the harms of smoking to see what it does to a person. And we know if something is that harmful, that level of harmful it becomes haram. So this gives us a rational behind what we are saying. And this helps to guide our opinions. And this approach, Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi, was really instrumental in reviving this approach to that we look at the goals of the Sharia, the understanding when and where to apply the rules of the Sharia. And this approach goes back to even the Sahaba Omar Abdullah Hatami used the same approach with the Sharia there when he was a believer, there were times when he applied the law in certain ways. And

there were times where he did not apply those laws, because you always look at when it's achieving the goals of the Sharia or not. So this is one approach that Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi, revived. Another one was the importance of priorities. In fact, we need to focus on what is important for our communities, instead of focusing on things which are not relevant to our communities. And again, this is a problem we have, that we have children studying the flip of Zika on animals, right. And the tool that you must memorize if you have 10 camels at one time only charity and you have 20, camels, buggy Dismas, camel to charity. And the problem is that child will never own camels in his

entire life. He's never going to use that knowledge. The trick is important for the Obama to know, it's important to have in our works, it's important for the farmers to know. But it's not important for the average city child to know. But we teach it because we don't have this idea of what should be a priority. We just think we have to teach everybody every day. Likewise, you know, you have a city going school child who's never going to go hunting in his life. But we spend six months teaching them to think of hunting. Right? And they're never going to use this knowledge. But we're not teaching them. What does Islam say about you know, insurance? What does Islam say about paying

your taxes? What does Islam say about living in the West? We are teaching them this. So we don't have our priorities straight. So what Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi did is he taught us the importance of knowing our priorities, focus on what matters to your community, the hola Ma, when they are giving lectures, when they are forming curriculums when they are teaching children when they are teaching adults, they should always focus on what is most relevant to that specific audience. Don't talk about things that are not relevant to them. And this is something that we need to revive in our community as well. Very often, we get into huge debates and arguments on issues that have no

relevance to us at all. So for example, you will have some Muslims arguing about whether the Morteza were right or the ashrams were right? The mortality rates died out over 1000 years ago. Why are we arguing about whether they're right or wrong? When they literally died down 2000 years ago? I people arguing about the the college? Right? There are no coverage amongst us here. So why are we arguing about that, instead of focusing on the problems of our community, we are arguing over things which are completely irrelevant to our community, and its progress. So he taught us the importance of prioritizing and second,

the third, and to me, perhaps the most important thing, and you have to use of all Qaradawi taught that I believe it's really important for us today is our wasa to the balanced middle part. When it comes to Obama should be in a muddle. They should be people who are balanced, they should be people who look at the evidence. He has people who should look at the needs of the community. They should not be on one side where there's meeting everything halal. You should not be on the other side. They just make everything haram but they should understand the needs of the community, they should work with the goals of the Sharia, the maximum Sharia. And you should always try to find a balanced

approach to any topic of faith. And it was really the works of Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi. That was the first time in my student life where I was introduced to a balanced approach to fame. I still remember when I was 15 years old, and I was in Morocco.

And I went to the bookshop

and I asked the bookstore owner, can you give me a book to prove that music is haram? And he looked at me all weird. And he gave me Dr. youtubeug. Qaradawi is halal and haram in Islam. And to me read this incident.

I read this incident. So I went back to my hotel and read the book. And I was blown away to find a fake, completely different from what I was being taught. But that was my introduction to the teachings of Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi. And those teachings, I'm not going to say whether I agree with him or not, because I get in trouble for that. What those teachings changed my life to such an extent that even

over 10 years ago, when I wrote an article in 2010, on the top 10 people who influence my understanding of Islam, I had Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi in the top four. In fact today I probably put him at number one, read many more of his books after that as well. But the point is that he came with this understanding of FIFA was so balanced, there was so practical, you know, we have again two extremes in our community. So for example, we look at things like like gender

Relations dealing with the opposite gender, we have two extremes in our community. We have people who like complete intermingling, there's no hijab, you know, there's all kinds of things going on. And they don't care about the Sharia. And other side we've got, you know, where you can't even make salam to someone because they're from a different gender, right. So we have these two extremes. And he taught a middle way, observe a job, lower your gaze, be respectful for interact professional, a middle part, which was actually the way of the sahaba. Really, if you studied the biographies of the sahaba. That is how they dealt with the opposite gender. So he brought us back to the middle part on

these issues and many other issues. For me, personally, the one area of my life where I found it really influenced me was the fear of entertainment, the fate of entertainment. anyone remembers my first book I wrote when I was 21 years old, of course, having fun to have outweighed the fate of entertainment. And that book really was influenced by his teachings. Because back then we talking about 15 years ago, that then, you know, we had in our community, these ideas that It's haram to have fun, and be a good Muslim. Forget about having fun. You just got to be praying and doing zipcode and

enforcing this with children and teenagers, you know, we're telling children and teenagers, you can't do anything fun. You need to be worshipping Allah, you need to be doing Ibaadat all the time. Allah didn't create you to have fun. And then you go back and you study the Hadith. And you see Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi salam playing with children. You see him having fun with his wives, you see him joking with the sahaba. You You see all of this and you like this is not to be being taught. And he again brought it's balanced approach that yes, we prioritize our Salah, we fast we avoid what is haram, but you have fun with your family, you have fun with your friends, there's 1000s of other

ways to have fun. He taught us a balanced approach to this topic. And so this is the legacy you of this great scholar who just passed away a month ago. He is the man who influenced millions upon millions of people. Really everywhere in the world that I have traveled. I've met people were influenced by Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi. I personally did not get a chance to meet him. That actually was a dream of mine for the past 10 years to meet him but it never happened. But I know personally, almost everyone I need in some way or another, some opinion or some fatwa on other they influenced by him. And we haven't hired fatwa committees all over the world, which was started by him. This is

a man of a great legacy. In that life that ALLAH blessed him with he wrote over 100 books, over 100 books, and established organizations all over the world. And he traveled to almost every known country to teach the religion. And he stood up for what he believed in even when he got in trouble. And he got in trouble over and over and over again for standing up for what he believed him. And so we take from his life, a lot of lessons. When it comes to the deen. We learn from him the importance of having a a middle part Maqasid approach to fic instead of being littoralis Blind followers or liberal left, let us be in the middle. And let us use our shul to come to a parent's understanding

of and we learn from him the importance of understanding what is our priorities, and for teaching people what they need to learn when they need to learn it. We ask Allah to bless him with Jana, to those whom we ask Allah to allow us to follow in his footsteps to allow us all to be revivals of this religion. I love my job to hide the idea behind Robin Robin is at your mercy foon was salam ala mousseline with hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen.

hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Mala

is another aspect of love to use of his life that we don't talk about enough. We talk about him as a great scholar of this giant of his man who really revolutionized fit in our times. But we don't talk about the political side. And that's another fascinating side of his life. Because most Olimar stay away from politics, right? Politics is very difficult. It's very dangerous. You can get assassinated, you can get imprisoned, you can get exiled. You know, it's a very difficult thing, especially in the Muslim actually. But Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi. He never shied away from speaking his mind when it came to politics. He was imprisoned. He was exiled. He was banned from any non Muslim

countries. He was banned from any Muslim countries, he was put on a terrorist watchlist never stopped him from speaking his mind. He said what he believed was true. He stood behind what he what he said, and he faced the consequences of it like a man. And in this we all have an essence to learn the importance of courage, the importance of standing by what you believe in, in the face of tyrant rulers. And this was the way of the Sahaba this was the way of the Sahaba you know, we often talk about the great example of Hussein radula on who and how he stood up to the tyrants but he's not the only one who will be looking for example, an instrument Malik and how he should have to hydrogen use

of even asthma being the Abu Bakr how she stood up to hydrogen Yousef

We see that they will always speak their mind, regardless of the consequences. And throughout our history, the greatest scholars that we look up to, they all have this in common, don't they? Every great scholar in our history, who we look up to, they all have this in common. They stood up when they felt something was wrong, and they face the consequences for it. Imam Abu Hanifa he died in prison, because he didn't want to compromise with the ruler. Right Mr. Shah for you went to prison for not for, you know, for some political issues, you were Malik was the same, even to me, I spent a lot of his life in prison for the same reason. So this is the way of the real world. Even today, you

know, after Dr. YouTuber Qaradawi, a scholar who I find most influential in my life is shaped someone out there, and he's in prison. He's still in prison at this moment, we all are free him, Allah will release those lands from the hands of the tyrants and put it back in the hands of the Justin the righteous. But this is the real Alama these are our role models. Men have courage, people who don't just believe in the truth, but they will say what needs to be said. And they will face the consequences of saying that because they understand if they don't do it, who's going to do it. And one of the best examples of this historically, when even with even humble,

comedy, but humble lived at the time, we all were being killed and imprisoned for not supporting a wrong belief. And he was the main person who stood against that belief. And he spent many years in prison being tortured. And people asking me, why don't you just tell them what they want to use, you can get out of prison. And he used to say like, if I say that, who's going to speak up for the truth, who's going to preserve the truth, everybody's compromising? And so he stood by his beliefs, he faced a punishment, he went to prison, he that he did what he needed to do. And that's why right to today, we remember you know, I've been humbled as one of the main scholars of our culture and our

Jamar, a man who has a must have been both Vic and Aqeedah. The other Imams we know them as Muslims are fake. This is a man who had the madhhab outfit animals have been nakida because he stood there and preserved our Akita for us. And so this is what what a scholar is supposed to do. Yes, we are supposed to be people of carnage are we supposed to stand by what we believe in. And when we don't do that, when we are too cowardly to say what needs to be said, when we compromised because we're scared of losing our jobs and losing our status in society or losing our fame, and the entire community suffers. So we ask Allah to raise or amongst us people of knowledge, who are current who

are brave and courageous, and were able to speak what needs to be said, and who are able to convey the message of truth without worrying about what others have to say about them. And I want to mention one Hadith on this topic, you know, when you face a tyrant and face the consequences for it, one beautiful Hadith the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that the greatest jihad of DeLeeuw Jihad kalima to have been in the SUTA and enjoyed the greatest jihad is to speak a word of truth in the face of a tyrant, to speak a word of truth in the face of a tyrant. You know, when you're in the battlefield, and you have a sword, and he has a sword, you fighting on equal footing. But when you

are a scholar in the court of a king, and you speaking to him, and he has a whole army and you've got nothing, you're not on equal footing. So to be brave at that moment, where you could be imprisoned or you can be exiled or you can be killed. That is the highest form of jihad, that is the highest form of courage for the sake of Allah. And we see this from us great Obama, we see the direct people of courage who stood by what they believed in and we should all find courage in that we should all be encouraging the example. So once again, we ask Allah subhana wa Taala to bless the use of Al Qaradawi. With genital indulgence, we ask Allah to not replace your terminal odor with

freedom with all the all of our imprisoned in any country across the world. All the people who are unjustly present in prison in any country across the world, we ask Allah to release them and to grant them freedom and to bring justice back to this ummah and to bring to bring it back back to Halawa. You bring back the glory of this ummah, we ask Allah subhana wa Taala to raise our children in the next generation, or the ummah will lead us to a brighter future with Omar who will be real Allah MA in the knowledge and in their courage and in the way that he does community. Robina Artina dunya Hasina will offer the hasna work in Azerbaijan Subhana rahbek Robin is at Yama Yossi Boone was

salam ala moana Selena with hamdulillahi rabbil Alameen Hakim Salah