This is the fifth lecture in the Usul al-Fiqh series covering the concept of Urf as a principle of Fiqh.
Ismail Kamdar – Usul al-Fiqh 5: Urf (Local Culture)
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of learning Islam online and bringing up local culture, as well as the use of "will" and "will" in relation to actions. They stress the need for personal involvement and respecting culture, avoiding confusion and mistakes in past culture. The speakers also discuss the challenges of adapting to local culture and emphasize the importance of practicing actions to increase chances of profitability. The discussion touches on the impact of recent "immoral revolution" and the importance of watching and following culture in addressing one's behavior.
AI: Summary ©
hamdulillah salat wa salam ala rasulillah. We begin by praising Allah and asking Allah to send his peace and blessings upon the final prophet, Muhammad, even Abdullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and all those who follow his way with righteousness until the end of time.
Today's session is something I'm really excited to teach. In fact, it's, it's the whole reason why I set up the six week program, really, I just wanted to teach this lesson. But
to teach this lesson without everything that came before, it wouldn't make sense, right? Okay.
To teach this lesson, without everything that came before it, it will be out of context, it wouldn't make sense as it is people are taking clips from this out of context to make me look bad. So there was no context it would be even worse, right? So now we build up with a context to this week, and next week, lectures are the most important ones. And honestly, I'm just gonna give you some background information on the subject, like
very honest story about 10 years ago, I met one of the scholars from who graduated from Medina University. Now this scholar, he graduated from Medina University around the same time, and I finished my online course.
And we're having a discussion. And I was waiting back the next day, the Gupta full time, right. And he asked me, Why are you doing this in South Africa? I told him because this will be taught to him. He said, but other Mohawk.
Watch that. He didn't
have him. No, it's quite clear. He said, I said, What's that?
called up to? He saved me a whole lot of books. He said, read his books, and read those books. And my mind was blown because it was 100 p books, Maliki books. sharpy books isn't like, some people think this is a you know, to be frank, some people think it's more than this thing. Some people think it's a self defeating. Now, this is from the math, whatever I'm teaching is from the Masters, right? So I was blown by what you taught me. And I always, always appreciate that brother who shared me those links and told me about the subject changed my life and to such an extent that I actually teach the subject online at Islamic online university. It's literally one of my favorite subjects. I
read so many books on the topic. I start teaching it online to people all around the world. But I wasn't teaching it to my own community.
And one of the reasons why I began to feel the need to teach it in Durban is over the past five years, I've seen too many people starting to drift away from Islam, especially amongst the youth, because they find Islam too difficult to practice, right?
Let's be frank, the average youngster, if you're going to tell him to be a good Muslim, you need to have a good time talking. He's not gonna listen. Right? It's just too hard for you. I mean, the guy is a lawyer, and accountant, he's, he's a doctor, and expect him to dress in a foreign culture every day at work. This is making the religion unnecessarily difficult. So I began to see a need for it, which is no longer something I want to teach is now something that's necessary. Someone has to start the discussion what's happening over the past 10 years, every time I want to bring up this topic, people say No, it's too controversial. No, we don't talk about it. No, it's not time yet. But here's
the point. It'll never be someone's got to get get the ball rolling, someone's got to get started. So, this week, inshallah, we are going to look at one of the most important principles of Vic in the Hanafi madhhab. And actually, technically in all the mud hubs, and that is local culture. So, this is a very technical discussion, but you will see at the end of it, how practical It really is. And really, for me, when I studied this, it when I realized while in medical dictionary is that the Sharia is in vertical, this really makes it practical in every time and place. And this is when you realize that the Sharia has to be from Allah, no human being could have thought of the system. So
before we begin very quick revision, right? Two weeks ago, we covered the revealed sources of quickly what are the two revealed sources of a very easy Quran and
Sunnah, right? Why not Hadees? Because we said, not every edition, right in the Maliki must have a different definition of sin. So the word sadhana is more correct in terms of talking about what's the principle okay. Right. So Quran and Sunnah. Then last week, we discuss the secondary sources, what are those in Arabic?
drama and chaos, consensus of the scholars and logical deduction. This week and next week, we will discuss what are called the disputed sources, meaning they are found in the Hanafi madhhab but not in all matters, right.
In fact that the second one which we're going to discuss next week, Imam Shafi seem to have been against it, although later Sharpies say that he may have misunderstood it and he technically also accepted right so these two
sources are Earth and Sun. So this week, we'll discuss both next week we'll discuss SSR. And just very briefly, Earth means culture is the sun means to make things right. It basically means to seek a better alternative. That's another way of translating it. And what these two principles do, it also means that culture plays a role in tech. And its design means that sometimes a fickle ruling is making things difficult for society. So they need to go to a different opinion, even if it's not the opinion, that seems stronger studio is a very controversial thing, but it's something about Abu hanifa himself, then we will discuss that next week. This week, our focus is on all right, which is
it is a solution to many of our problems to put it as simple as that.
So what is earth or simply means the dominant culture of a society? This is the definition of the dominant culture official site. So Imam Abu hanifa and Mr. Malik stated that the oath of a society is a basis for judgment. Right. The oath of the society is a basis for taking big rulings to such an extent that one of Mr. Abu hanifa students Mr. Mohammed, even Hashanah, Shivani Rahim Allah stated that what can be proven true or of is like something that can be proven true Quran is not true, the text right on that level in the handle that if something is part of the earth, you have to follow it. Right. So what does this mean
in Khawaja Victoria, in fact, Maxim's, this is called the first maximum big item hakama. local culture is the deciding factor. Now here's the important point, you will find the word used in Hana, Patric, and Maliki. So some people assumed that this is not found in the Sharpie and humbly meetups, but the maximum Adamo hakama, is agreed upon by all formatter. So technically, even though the Sharpies and the humbleness don't use the word off, they have this concept as well. Like they just call it the US, they call it a part of the US. So what does this mean? What do we mean by local culture is the deciding factor? Again, for those who are not sure what I mean by Maxim, there are
five Maxim's of five main principles upon which we make the US, right. And these five are agreed upon by all the Muslims. Number one is that intentions are what actions are judged by, right, every Muslim agrees your actions are judged by the intentions. For example, if you give someone five grand is that sadaqa? Is that Sokka? Is that a gift is that a bribe? Or the intention? The only difference between any of those things is the intention. Right. So literally giving somebody money can be a bribe a sin zaca, a compulsory act sadaqa, a voluntary app, it all just the intention, that's the only thing that differs between these things, right? What your intention is when giving that money.
So that's the first one. The second one is that conviction cannot be removed by doubt. And this simply means that things stay in a specific ruling until proven otherwise, for example, things are allowed to proven wrong. The third one from the Maxim's of work, is that difficulty causes the law to relax, right, and we'll discuss this next week, because that's part of
the fourth one is that harm must be eliminated. And again, we'll discuss that next week because as part of this lesson,
the first one is either Mohawk comma, local culture is the deciding factor. So this means all of the mud hubs agree that this is one of the five main
Maxim's upon which fit the space, a large portion of our faith is based on culture, why and how and what does this mean? It means that the culture of the good people of a society is considered old, and can be used as a source for local laws. Now, I mentioned good people, because obviously, the local culture is to find the key to drink alcohol, we're not going to take it into consideration, right? We're talking about the culture of the good muscles, not the culture of the, the classics, and you and you know, the people who are involved in major sins, that's not what we're talking about. So again, some people must understand the senior photo culture that means, you know, it's
defining your limits put anybody on one of those limits being we look at the culture of the good people, not the culture of the centers.
Why, why did we have this principle? Right? And again, the language is example you understand this principle better? Why do we have the principle of culture I mean, you know, many people have this idea that the Sharia is black and white. It's all clear cut rulings in the Quran and Hadees and, you know, what's applicable in India should be applicable in South Africa, right?
But
Allah has revealed a flexible Sharia. Because this Sharia has meant to be practiced in every time and every place from the time of the Prophet alayhi wasallam, right until the end of the world, whether that's in 500 years, or 5000 years or 10,000 years, the Sharia has to remain practical. And for the Sharia to be practical, it has to take into consideration the fact that things change, things change, even in the time, the Sahaba, things change, and they change their rulings accordingly.
Now, many people don't realize that Islam is meant to be multicultural. It's meant to be multicultural meaning, when you look at the culture of Muslims of Malaysia, the culture of the Muslims of Turkey, the culture of the Muslims of Saudi Arabia, completely different. But all three are within the fold of authentic Islam, all the fall within the fold of what's acceptable, like why, because these are different cultures different. The Sharia didn't come to to force everyone to look the same to justice seem to be the same. It takes into consideration that the way people talk the way they eat, the way they interact with each other, it changes from place to place. And so we have
an entire principle of fifth to make sure that people aren't forced to do things in a way that makes life difficult. Islam was not sent to unite the world upon a single culture, it was sent to be practical in every culture.
This is something people don't understand. On one hand, we have some people who are trying to alphabetize the world, in the name of Islam, make everybody like the Arabs. On the other hand, we have our community, those who want to indianized people in the name of Islam, right. And so what this is, it's taking foreign cultures, whether it's from Saudi Arabia or India, and it's forcing it upon communities where it's not compatible. And this is creating friction. It's creating unnecessary friction, because Islam was never meant to be like this. When the Sahaba moved to different different lands, they did not force the people of those lands to dress like Arabs who look like
Arabs, they adapted to the culture of those legs.
And so the expectation in our Sharia is that we must adapt to the culture of the land removed to Meaning, if you tomorrow had to migrate to Malaysia, or to Turkey, or to Australia, or to Canada, you do not expect everybody in that community to start adapting your culture. You assimilate into the culture, that's part of our shell, obviously, within boundaries, the boundaries being Quran and Sunnah. And we'll come to that in a later slide. So this is the definition very technical definition, which is basically that the culture used in law how, why, and what's the proof for this? Number one, let's start with the proofs. And again, there's many evidences, we'll just give one core
and one had each one was a sort of author.
And yet,
the
answer is a statement of the Sahaba. Right? So we're going to go through the one one something that Allah says something that the Prophet sly Sampson has something that one of the Sahaba said, right, I'm just limiting it to three for now, because again, we don't have time to go into can give one hour just on the evidences. But the strongest evidence is in the Quran. In Surah Nisa, the verse about the rights of the wife, what are the rights of the wife in Islam?
It's all up to us. That's what the Quran says. Allah Subhana. Allah says in Surah Nisa, verse 19, where Archie ruhuna will
treat your wives with
what is my roof? My roof is a derivative from the word off the books of Tafseer, translated as whatever is considered good in your culture. Meaning,
does Islam say A man should get his wife a car or not? Whatever is the
does a man have to give his wife an allowance or whatever is the earth? If he has to give an allowance? How much? Or right? Does he have to get her domestic worker? All right, all of these things are not mentioned. You know, it's like sometimes I'll give a fight over does a woman have to cook for husband or not? And you asked me, what's the local culture? I both ways it works according to culture. So this is the beauty of the Sharia, Allah does not say, these are the rights of the husband, or the wife, he just said, Marcos, every society decide for yourself, whatever is good, according to the society, that is the old that is what becomes the rights in the Sharia. Meaning, if
you are living in a country, or in a society or in a part of a society, which is expected that a man buys his wife a car, and he gives a 5000 Rand a month allowance, and he gets a domestic worker in the 100 the mother becomes watching for him to do these things, even though it's not mentioned in the Quran for now. Right because of this verse. So this verse is the strongest evidence for the fact that Allah subhanaw taala left an entire criteria of
rights up to Earth. linked to this is a lease, which again explains the same thing. So one of the woman from the Quraysh, when the prophet SAW his unconquered, Makkah, one of the woman who converted, came to him and complained, she said, My husband is really stingy. He doesn't give me any money. So what did the prophets like some say? He said, take from his wealth to build a roof. Take from his wild whenever you need according to your own, meaning, you know, in your culture, in your level of society, how much money you need for your, for you and for your children. Take that from him without his permission, because it's your right. He didn't give a specific amount. He lifted for
her to decide based on her oath, right? Because obviously, a woman from a certain level of society is going to expect something from a different level of society can expect something else, right. And so meeting this woman for the first time, we left it up to number three, aside from the Sahaba, Abdullah, even Massoud Rajan, who said, whatever the Muslims deemed to be good is good in the sight of Allah, meaning you move to a Muslim country, everybody, including the good Muslims are doing something, and they consider it to be a good deed, initially to
write in Sharla, and again, the restrictions on this now some people mistake this as a Hadees. It's not a hadith. It's a statement from Abdullah Massoud. Nonetheless, Abu Dhabi, Massoud was one of the first 10 people to convert to Islam. And one of the hallmarks of Saba when he talks, he's not just talking, you know, his own thing. He's teaching us the religion. So his statements count as evidence in the field.
And by the way, the Hanafi madhhab goes back to the Sahabi. All the Muslims can be traced back to the friends that have Mr. Abu hanifa teachers with the students are Abdullah even Muslim. So technically, the 100 free approach to free goes back to Abdullah even Massoud right, but obviously, remember, hanifa was the was the one who formulated the Sudan. That's why it's named after him instead. So this is clear, the Quran is very clear. And the Hadees is very clear that certain things are left up to culture, they are not defined directly in the Quran and the Hadees.
Then comes the question. The question is, you know, can people abused us, anything can become halau based off, right, we know the conditions, they are conditions to accept something as the
condition number one, it must be properly and consistently followed by the majority of people, meaning someone comes up and he says that, you know, it's a part of our oath
that the wife provides for the husband 10,000 rent every month. I say, Where do you get it all from? It says no, my cousin does that your cousin's practice is not off. It must be popular and consistently done by the majority, then we can think about it. Right? Why is one person 10 people 20 people, that's not. Right, that's actually going against us. Number two, it must be current, current meaning at the time of making the rulings. So if someone says that
they use a word, and that word is considered vulgar in our culture. And you say, Oh, I didn't mean that I meant this and use the meaning that a word meant 500 years ago. Right? You say know, what you see is judged by what it means today, you know, what, even 500 years ago, because we know languages change, right? certain words, which are considered fine. today are considered we considered vulgar. 50 years ago, certain words are considered vulgar Today, we'll be fine 50 years from now. So as the culture changes, the ruling changes, so for example, the fear of what type of words are not appropriate for a Muslim to use vulgar language? Again, you're not gonna find a list of vulgar words
in the Quran and Hadees. It's just up to us, right? Whatever your culture considers to be vulgar language avoided, and that will change. So it's always spatial, what's the current? What's the current? What's the current attitude towards that word? Right. That's what you have to look at.
Number three, and also cannot contradict a stipulated condition. Right, an example of this. If a man bought furniture, and he signed in a condition in the in the contract, that he will organize your own transport for that furniture. And later on, the seller says but part of our own, you know, rather legal and he tells the seller part of our own, we said that the seller provides the transportation.
In that case, even if that's part of the order, it still won't call why they signed the contract. It's the same with a husband and wife. Right? If the husband wife, for example, sign a contract saying that
he signed a contract saying that he can take a second life. And he says, but he's part of my offer. We think the second one, you sign the contract you sign the contract too late. Right old cannot contradict a signed contract. He wants something is stipulated you
cannot go against it even if it's part of yours, right?
Number four most important and this is again, this is the main one. Or if cannot go against the Quran, Sunnah or Iijima. Right? So for example, some people will say, part of our ORF is that women don't cover their hair.
And we will say that doesn't matter. The Quran is clear, the Hadees is clear the rich man's issue, it doesn't matter what we're facing, right? Because you cannot go against the Quran and each month based on course.
And finally, we have the one area of controversy between the Muslims. When the earth contradicts the US, what do you do? So most of the Muslims will say you follow chaos, the Hanafi madhhab says no, the 100 free Muslim has another principle called a sandy Earth, which we will discuss next week, which basically means you're going to have to weigh the benefits and harms and see what is more beneficial to society, which oftentimes in the 100 females have means following the local culture.
So these are the conditions where you can see once you put these conditions in place, this this principle can't be abused. Right? It's not worth anything and everything becomes harder on it because they are conditions made by the Allah. Okay, moving on to that. So how do we use old effect? So you may be wondering, when we talk about culture, we talked about abstract let's get practical now. How does culture play a role in fact, because in fact, just what stated in the book just is quite was, isn't it? Just a list of of rulings with a heavy snow? Right? A lot of fake comes from culture.
Firstly, the main principle, we use Earth primarily in the mama lab, not in the a bar that
is divided into two broad categories. Eva, that muamalat ibadat easy work. What does that mean?
acts of worship, Salah, Zakah, fasting, jihad, Hajj, Umrah, Visa, ibadah, these things have really plays a role, he does play a role, but a very minor role. Right. The other side mmamoloko Allah means social dealings, marriage, divorce, the peak of clothing, the peak of food, difficult business, all of this is more amyloid. So we use or have mainly in Marbella, a lot of our fit in these areas comes from
it comes from whatever is the local culture. That's where the food comes from, you're not going to find it in the Quran of Hades, Allah lifted two people to decide and to lift it to change from place to place in time to time to see how Allah lifted, to make the Sharia practical. He gave us guidelines, he gave us the Quran he gave us. He gave us Obama, he gave us these conditions. All of this he gave us but he left it said, the Sharia doesn't become too hard. Right? It's something which can be practiced everywhere. So how have the Obama in the past used orphan pick,
for example, Business Law, business law is largely dependent on
for example, who provides transportation, the buyer or the seller, it's all right, what counts as a business deal, because technically, you're gonna follow the IDs, then when we sell him something, for example, if you are in a shop, and you're buying,
you're buying a harddrive, you have to walk up to the person and say, I am buying this harddrive from you. And the person has to say, I am selling this harddrive to you or I accept. Does anybody do this today? Now, people would think you mad, right? Why the earth has changed. So what's accepted as a business deal? This is based on off in some communities, it's verbal, in some communities is a written contract, in some ways a handshake. Now you just put something on the counter and the person knows you buy it from him. Right? You have to say anything. So this is all dependent on how do we define what's what's considered a business d? It's largely based on
very important the age of marriage, and what age do we expect our children to get married? Right, because we know that the Sahaba got married when they were nine years old, 11 years old, 12 years old. Anyone expect this of the children today? Know why its own cultures change. Our culture is different. This is not how we do things in our time. Now, like Recently, there was always controversy about the age of AI a regular one. Hmm. And you know, one of the points that the atheist raised about etc, that your prophet is supposed to be someone you follow in every time in place. So how can you get married in a way that you don't do today? We say he got married, according to the
orifice time is simply teaching us we get married according to the time. In his time, that was normal in our time, this is normal. So we are following his ideas. There's no contradiction here. That in that time, that was the norm. It was a complete norm in every society for an older man to marry a younger, that norm has changed. Right? So we don't do it. You don't think about running across our minds, right? So in every community, the age of marriage dependent also in some communities is 15. In some it's 18. And some it's 20. In some It's 25. It's all based on costs.
doesn't mean it's haram before that is just, you don't expect it before that and in many cases becomes Baku before even makuta. Me depending on people's, you know maturity levels.
The rights of spouses we already discussed this, the Quran is very clear, right? The Quran is very clear that the rights of spouses is fundamentally based on my rules, whatever the earth considers to be good, which means that the rights of spouses changes from culture to culture. In some cultures, the wife is expected to cook. In some cultures, the husband is expected to provide food, in some cultures they expected to hire, in some cultures that eat out every day. Right? cultures change. So there is no set ruling here, you just look at what your
manners, you know, just an example of current EU versus previous 20 years ago, it would be considered bad manners for a child to say Yes, mom to his mother, you have to say, Gee Mama, in the current generation, if a child says Yes, mom is considered good manners, right? Instead of calling her by name, right? Because cultures change. So how do you know what's good manners for you, or for your children, whatever is the current course, man has changed based off in some societies, for example, you know, people shake hands with the chef, in some cases, hand in some the kisses, forehead, all of this is just different words, whatever is good manners is whichever country you are
visiting, you treat people accordingly. Right? So manners, a large segment of it is based on culture,
and entertainment, what is socially acceptable is also determined by so in every society, there are some entertainments that are considered shady, or something that the bad people only do and the other forms of entertainment that everybody does. Right? And this changes would have. So for example, again, maybe 2030 years ago, if someone's playing with the cards, you know, people would say, you know, what you're doing this is resembling gambling. Today, nobody bats an eyelid, about your lungs, you know, gambling people, why to Earth has changed, right? So again, certain things are socially acceptable 20 years ago, and not today. Other things the opposite. So always change when it
comes to entertainment as well.
Historically, we can say that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he Sahaba the way they dress, the way they eat, the way they love the social lives, was largely according to the order of Arabia. And very important point, we are not obligated to follow the order of Arabia from 1400 years ago. So for example, they are those who say, it's haram to sit on a table and chair you must sit on the floor, because that's what the prophet sallallaahu
we say, No, that was his oath. And our own official, you say, you have to dress the way the prophet SAW some that. We say no, the prophet SAW something not we adapt our quota. He did not we're Indian tepee, PJs, in wherever the Arabs are 1400 years ago. Right. So he just according to it, we just according to our This is the actual figure ruling found in early Islam. There is no expectation in early Islam, for Muslims to have a uniform dress code is just every culture is different. That's what is left up to and we know this from the Sahaba. Why? Because when the Sahaba moved to other lands, they changed. Omar Angelo and when he went to visit the Sahaba in Syria, what did he say
about him? Everybody's changed. The way they dressed the way they love to everything. He said he couldn't recognize some of them, you know, Holly been bullied and he couldn't recognize them because the way they dressed was different. The way they lived was different. Everything was different, why they did not take Medina's culture and force it on Silvia. They adapted to the culture of Serbia as a very beautiful story about this. When we are we are arguing on who was the governor of Syria, Omar Rosano, you know, he asked him, he said, You are living like a king, you are dressing like a king, you've got this, you know, this fancy lifestyle under halifa. I'm living this simple lifestyle
what's going on here. And while we are simply explained Rajon we explained that the people of Syria This used to be part of the Roman Empire, they expect the leader to dress like this and live like this. When they leave the dresses like this and lives like this. They are loyal to him, and they love him. So over the Africans unity elected. And that's why for the next 40 years, the people of Syria were loyal to Mario, because he didn't come and force the Arab culture upon them. He came and he fitted right in with a culture. He said, Okay, these guys are used to the Roman lifestyle, we will adapt to the Roman lifestyle. Right Today, many of us will call that resembling the kuffaar I
but no, it's not. you adapt to the earth that you live in the Sahaba did this in Egypt, they do this in Syria. They did this in Iraq. Every land they moved to the adapted to the culture of that land. Syria is the clearest example.
Because we have many stories of it.
Now, the example of course, you'll notice that throughout our history, the way people celebrated marriages differed. Right? So for example,
if you look at the wedding culture of Malaysia, or Egypt, Turkey even today, it's all different, even our culture. So for example, if someone were to tell you whether they come into Quran and Sunnah that we have already,
or will be answered.
There's no such thing as nikka and walima. Easy reading beta is awaiting Haram. It's all it's whatever the main The party
is also off. Right? You go to another culture, there's something completely different. Right? The How do you know if it's halal or haram? Again, the principles you mentioned earlier, right? So bachelor parties and things like that again, you know, you're going to read in light of Quran and Sunnah and you know, all of that, you're not going to just say, Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna do it. Right, there is that level. And one of the clearest examples in our history and ryko today of orphan practice is how a job is Wonder Woman.
So the Sharia stipulates a woman must cover everything besides her hands, and a face, right in the Hanafi, macabre fetus was also allowed to expose. Notice the way this is done is different in Turkey. It's different in Malaysia, it's different. Saudi Arabia is different in North Africa, it's different in different parts of India. Why?
Why?
culture, every culture has its own ways the only fulfills the conditions it's fine. Right? So again, some people have a misconception. They say, no, it has to be a black buyer has to be a black scarf, because that's how they do it in Saudi Arabia.
That's not it, that's our face the fact you don't have to follow the authors of this country. India, when you go to visit there, you should follow the book. That's the important point, when you visiting another country, respect to all of that country. So for example, when I was visit certain countries, I weigh the quota or the show, or whatever it is, is their culture, right? Because you must adapt to the culture you are in. You don't be the odd one out, right. So again, it's also important that we don't, we don't look down upon other cultures and other cultures, this is very important, because I've seen this on both sides. See Muslims in the east, look down upon Western
culture, and Muslims in the West, look down upon Indian culture and Western culture and Arab culture, etc. Both of these attitudes are, we must respect all cultures, this is part of our religion. Respect, okay, one culture is not better than another. Right? We don't have to have this thing of cultural, being superior in our culture. Every culture has beauty. There, if you take time to meet people of any part of the world, you will find every culture has beauty in it. So learn to respect every culture Don't look down upon the culture, because it's different from your own. Okay, very briefly, I have to mention this point that nowadays people don't want us to talk about all
because there is a portion of the community that misused this principle, and that is the modernists, right? So basically, the modernists they use us to override corruption, and each month, that's basically it. They say, you know, it is our culture, we follow it,
even though it goes against the Quran, and each month, the clearest example of this
is his job. Right? So you will find in South Africa, in America, in some of these countries, certain people saying the woman don't need to cover the hair, because it's not part of our oath. This is not a this is not fall within the framework of acceptable differences of opinion. Right? Because he's contradicting the Quran from the English man. This is what we call modern modernist reinterpretation. This is what people are afraid of. People are afraid of that if we go with these principles that you won't be going to do.
And we say, No, we go with these principles within the boundaries set by the early Allah, we're not going to go overboard and just make everything a lot. They have boundaries set, we have the Quran, we have the printer, we have the each mug we respected, and we work within it. So the important point to remember here so that you don't fall into modernism in your work is that Earth is a secondary principle of faith and you cannot override the primary sources of
right, you cannot override current workforce, you cannot override soon not proven to not work. Again, I see proven, and I'm not talking about the people who have differential opinions, that should not right. So we must use this within its limits. But I just wanted to mention that very briefly.
They won't clear on that point. By the way, you don't want anyone coming up from your thinking that I'm telling you only to modernise.
Okay, now comes the main part of the presentation.
The reason why I wanted to teach this entire course and the reason why I wanted to teach this topic in specific is that we saw Africans have not applied the principle of also okay when we brought back to South Africa
We bought a book of fatwas from India that was written 300 years ago. And by the way, every single part of it makes sense. It makes sense in India 300 years ago. Why? Because it was written according to the old Soviet times. Example, for example, you will find fatwas in his book stating that it's haram to go to school.
Sounds strange, right? What was happening 200 300 years ago, the British were colonizing India, opening up schools to brainwash people. So the llama of that time said, it's haram to go to school. So if you were living in India, 200 years ago, that makes sense. You can take the part one and passed it on 200 years later, the world has changed. Right? You cannot just take a photo book 200 years ago, in a different country in a different social setting. And just pass it along today, seeing that this is the Sharia This is the Hanafi markup. It's not, it is the scholars of that time right away. And the scholars of that era, you know, when the British were colonizing India, the
scholars who were refuting them and dealing with them, were very intellectual. And and the fact was they made were based on the problems of their time and place. So the problem isn't them. The problem isn't their fatwas. Right? You will find the fact what makes sense when you understand the way the way living, and when developing. The problem is when you try to blindly follow that in the wrong time in place. That's the problem. Right? So we have to now as a community, reconsider many fix issues based on the fact that we are South Africans more than Indians. Right? I'm saying this primarily because most of the audience here are from that Indian background, right most majority of
the audience here. And obviously, we came from other backgrounds, you also South African more than anything else. Now, there's multiple problems here. Number one, South Africa doesn't have one culture.
Right. So for example, it's easy to figure out the pic of Malaysia or turkey because these are primarily one culture across the entire country. South Africa, we have a different culture in Cape Town, a different culture in Johannesburg, a different culture in Durban, in Durban, you have a different culture, amongst one reason, different cultural marks another race, even within one race, the Indian to have a different culture amongst Indians in Sri Lanka and Indians in chatswood. Right? So how do we figure that out? How do we figure it out? It really has to be case by case. It definitely comes down to it has to be case by case we have to keep flexible enough to say, okay, who
am I talking to? Where's he from? What's the culture of his community, we now have to deal with subcultures. You have to say, okay, you are from Sri Lanka, and you're getting married to a girl from Atlanta, you have to get a mate, you have to get a car, you have to give a certain amount of money every month, because that's her birth. That's, that's what she expects you from a different part of the country where you don't expect that the changes. So in the olden days, we would say the old change from country to country, but because now it's Africa, we are a multicultural society, you can see of changes literally from one neighborhood to another, right, because our culture is so
diverse. But we have to bring up this topic. Now what I'm going to do is, I'm not going to give fatwas, I'm not going to pass photos, I'm simply saying, wherever I mentioned, now, we need to discuss it, we need to discuss it in light of both. If after the discussion, we go back to the conclusion that it's haram or whatever, fine, as long as we had the discussion, and we approach it from the right angle. But if there are some of these issues, we can say, hold on, we got this wrong. It's actually makuta remita maruta penzeys, actually halaal then we can inshallah make it easier for people while still staying within the framework of hanafy kick. Right. So number one is our dress
code. Number one. The idea? You know, it's strange 20 years ago, people were saying it should not wear cotton topi. Now I see people posting some mustard seeds, why'd you do it? For people
into the watch and confirm. So this has to be reconsidered. This seriously has to be reconsidered. Where are we getting this from? It's not in the Quran. It's not in the IDs. There's no consensus on it. It really goes against PRC goes against all goes against a state son. Where does this fatwa come from? Right. So we have to reconsider. And again, this means I need to sit together and say really, is this logic? Is this enough? And what does that what does the actual teachings of our malherbe say? And we have to come to a more practical conclusion, because we are unnecessarily making life difficult for people.
Number two, the fic of entertainment. Right?
So is it haram for husband and wife to sit and watch Netflix together?
Some of you see they're watching you to rule so it's fine. Right? So have you seen
his movies?
How do we decide how do we decide what switch Halawa tarama in terms of entertainment, we will go
For a large portion of it is based on Quran and Sunnah a large portion of it is based on trs, but Similarly, a large portion of it is based on
AI. So for example, is it socially acceptable for a practicing Muslim man or woman to go to the cinema?
That really depends on your Saudi Arabia? No. in Malaysia? Yes. Why? They also different, the cultures are different one culture is socially acceptable and the other culture is not. Right. So we have to figure out what's socially acceptable in our culture when it comes to entertainment, nothing. All entertainment is haram. Right? Well, that that's literally chasing our youth away from Islam. You only know why the youth are coming for lectures like this, why they don't want anything to do with Islamic knowledge. Because that's what they taught in school. That's what they taught from the time the small TV, video games, music or maybe things are wrong. what's the alternative?
Well, then we do it anyway. We doing haram anyway, eventually, the guilt catches up with him, like, you know, what might as well just not be a Muslim anymore. I've had many people like this, who like these people say, you know what, I'm a Muslim. I'm not taking the religion seriously, these rules are too hard to follow. So I'd rather not be a Muslim anymore. Now, I'm not saying that whole apostasy issue can be solved by this, I'm seeing a small segment of it can a small segment of a camp that we need to at least give people practical,
even practical solutions. So for example, think video games, right? You know, if you're going to see haram to play video games, you know, what are you telling our entire three generations of Muslims now? Everything you do for fun is havoc.
I mean, what do you say boundary? Okay, this type of video games, find these types, not two hours is fine. Five hours is not, you know, you have to figure figure things out and get I'm not giving a fuck what I'm saying. We have to discuss, we have to figure things out. We have to set boundaries, we have to figure out what's socially acceptable based on our
celebrations and special occasions. Is it really haram to celebrate a birthday for a husband and wife to go to the anniversary and have a special dinner? To buy your mother something nice for Mother's Day? Is it i'm not saying it is I'm not saying it's not? I'm simply saying? Let's discuss it. Let's discuss it based on his principles, and then decide don't just jump to the idea of it being Haram. Because what do we say? Things are halaal until proven to be hard on so if we can discuss it and say, okay, you know, birth is acceptable if you do this and you don't do that. Okay, that's that's, that's fine. For if, after all discussion, we still see okay, Tara, that's also fine.
Again, the opinions both opinions are grounded in truth. It's not a matter one opinion being deviant and one opinion not these are all key issues, and there will be differences of opinion. I'm simply saying we need to reopen the doors of discussion on these issues,
marital norms and responsibilities. This is, you know, a big one, a lot of our fatawa are imported from India on this issue. A lot of it is not practical in South Africa. Right? Because our social norms have changed and the expectations of the husband and wife have changed. So when you have someone who's just following the fatwa so the fatwa says, I must get my wife clothes, house food, okay, check everything started, we'll go play video games yesterday. Right? You get guys with this mentality? Now, if you saw the photo books is the book simply says I was provided with a house I was provided with clothing, and was provided with food. Is that really all you have to provide a word? I
mean, what about our culture is a culture of spending quality time with your spouse?
Should we have a fatwa about that? Not every culture has that, by the way, in some cultures, you don't have that some cultures, to women are in their own world, the men and their own world and they just meet up for an hour in the evenings. But our culture is different. So we really have to re form our fabric to figure out you know, what is culturally acceptable? When it comes to what is the expectation? What is why do you want the husband and wife in terms of how much time they spend with each other? What they do together? You know, what's expected from them, in terms of money in terms of all of these things? Business Law, a lot of it I said is dependent on Earth. So again, we cannot
just import fatwa on business law. It has to come from the ground, it has to be people living in this community. Let me give you a good example of this. Right? What's coming up on Friday.
Black Friday, so every young black Friday, I put up an advert advertising and Black Friday sales, and I have 1000s of people telling me that Friday is haram, that Friday is beat up that Friday, the insult to do too much too much black and white. I see that's racist. But anyway, what's wrong with the word black? I mean, come on. So what's going on here? Why are some people jumping? You know this, the people who jump on this issue and I noticed online are people who live in a culture where guess what they don't have that Friday.
They don't have is not part of the culture. So when they hear this
Word, they immediately assume beta haram innovation, something new. I mean, I was living in South Africa, it's like, it's normally something we look forward to every year. Right. So is it haram to have special deals on a black friday haram to buy the DVD Black Friday? No. Right? No local allama will look at it from this perspective. Is this part of our culture? Is there a religious basis for it or not? Is it harmful to society, and they will look at all these things. And then they will say, no but.dot.me at some conditions, right? Don't be extravagant. Don't be materialistic. Don't waste money on things you're not going to use. They'll add some conditions. But the point is, this is a
clear example, where the business law is a clash of cultures. So when I say that my email is going to people in Egypt is going to people in India, it's going to people in America, people in America bite people in India, Egypt, calling me a big I am every up, I just have the Office of Should I send out the email or not. Right? Should I send out email because I know I'm going to get customers but I'll get 1000 people calling me a big percentage of this email. So clash of cultures is a big issue when it comes to business law. Right.
Finally, issue the shabu bilco far imitating the disbelievers honestly I think this is an issue where we the only community that went overboard in this I mean, we even have some fatawa like it's haram to use fork and knife because it's a Christian culture, right or haram to sit in a chair because in our culture, it's haram to We are tired to do the news to see that this will say that oh, okay to the dialogue 10 years ago.
It's so haram to be a tie because it's what they say resembles the cross or something like that again.
Now, the big issue now, so we have to read the consider these issues we have to read discuss these issues. Honestly, one of my life goals is to come up with a new topic for community based on these principles, and to write an entire book on this topic. That will be like how Dr. utakata Tao is bouquets for Egypt, Haram in Islam, something similar for South Africa.
So, I want to do that. But we have to have the discussion because the Hadees Manisha Baba cominco. For me, whoever resembles the people is one of them. I believe this is one of the most misunderstood pieces in our community. because technically, almost any other country I visited any Olamide spoke to from across the globe, even 100 people among other countries, they all understand that these two mean imitating the religious practices of another religion, not imitating the normal culture. Right.
I made a few who said but most of them said, it's talking about religious practices. So for example, wearing a cross wearing that hit the Hindu doctor in your head, this would be haram because you are identifying with another religion. This makes sense, right? It doesn't mean everything that non Muslims do it automatically.
And we see this in the life of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. The evidences for this are clear. Once someone gave the Prophet Allah some as a gift, a red Roman shawl, right, this part of the Roman culture they wore these red shorts. The profits are some accepted the gift and you weren't. You didn't see this is Catholic culture, Christian culture, Roman culture, he accepted and white. Another issue more sensitive issue on the issue of intimacy with one's wife while she's the two year breastfeeding period. So the professor said I wanted to make this point he said I wanted to make this haram by notice that the Christians or other the Romans and the Persians, they do this and
it doesn't harm the children. So I left it on.
So what did you look at you leave something hot? You look at what the non Muslims are doing. He looked at the Christians and Zoroastrians, he saw they were doing this, it wasn't harming their children. So he left it.
In here, he literally not only followed what the non Muslims are doing, he literally looked at them to choose to study their civilization and see what are the effects of it, like meaning either not outlined, see, whatever the non Muslims do is, because he dressed the same way I would challenge him dressed, he ate the same way they ate the second step the same way they did in terms of the culture. He didn't it wasn't a matter of distinguishing oneself from non Muslims the method distinguishing oneself from the religion, right so a lot of our fatwas are based on a misunderstanding of this Hadees when you will assure their fantasy you will resembling the gut feeling right? When you eat
with a fork and if you are resembling the carpet, once rainbow was an homage and also another one as you if he played it. He said don't use that word pray use in the mass.
Why?
He said please, a Christian would
It's not just the English translation.
Right? So this is the issue. This is a big issue. I mean, do you realize how many things we have declared haram which are not haram simply because it is one last point imitating the disbelievers they are literally so me and you're not applying it consistently, by the way, because you invade the invented Facebook, in our cars and our, our telephones everything is also I mean, this culture we have or of checking social media or the religious culture come from, it's not from the Muslims. So why, how do you decide what part of the culture is acceptable? What is not received is a part of the religion not right. And you take that back also to celebrations. So definitely a celebration that's
part of a non Muslim religion, like celebrating Christmas, right? We would say it's haram because it's part of their religion. But something which has no religious significance whatsoever, something like anniversary, men in the woman have been married for 25 or 30 years. Nowadays, just like on vertical
modern divorces, we have celebrated, you know, it's like, I understand why people want to celebrate that, you know, it's it's, it's like, wow, they actually made it they actually still together, right? So understand it if I didn't do anything wrong. I mean, how many things actually around between husband and wife? Very few, right?
Yeah, again, this inconsistency is a big inconsistency there. Is this resembling the carpet or not? I mean, I mean, I love the Easter eggs are delicious. But I have the dilemma myself, am I resembling disbelievers waiting for this to come out every January to April and Ito
we have to have discussions on any reaction really go deep and figure out is this does this for an imitation of this painting.
Okay, so let's summarize. And then we'll open the floor to q&a last half an hour, in summary, also plays an important role in Hana. Technically, it plays a role in every month. But in the Hanafi madhhab, it's given a higher status, it plays a bigger role in any other matter, right. And what it means is, the local culture takes precedence over foreign cultures, which meant when we migrated to South Africa, 100 years ago, we were supposed to assimilate into this culture, not bring our culture with us. Right? When we opened up madrasahs in this country, they should have been based on the local culture, not importing of our own culture. That was our first mistake. We brought the culture
with us thinking it to be the religion. And as a result, we chased entire generations away from Islam. Really, we have we have chased entire generations away from Islam. You know, a few years ago, I made the decision to start wearing shirt and pants full time, it wasn't easy, because in this community, if you are an Islamic teacher, and you don't wear a coat that I was told, nobody will take you seriously. That should be taught, if you don't feel good that people won't take you seriously. Looking at the sheer number of people in the room today, I don't need this issue anymore. I don't have the law. But it was a big decision at that time. And I wondered to myself, should I or
shouldn't I? And one thing made me do it. I went to give a lecture that week, the first time I was being shot the panel very nervous, I went to give a lecture to children. It was a group of like 50 children. And I spoke to them about Islam. And also one of the boys came up to me and he said that he wanted to study Islam. But he was afraid if you studied Islam and becomes a molana, you have to recruit Anto people. But because he sees I'm a student of Islamic events, he's now motivated to go and study Islam. So I said, Okay, that's enough reason for me to ensure that even even one or two kids in money saved the push to become scholars of Islam or something. Because there's one person in
the community doing things differently. I'm going to do it. Really show me the importance of of the you'll be able to see this, that there are alternatives. It's not black and white, that this is the only understanding. And by the way, I'm not even seeing this understanding is completely wrong. It's Ed Hardy, I'm simply saying is we need to reconsider it. I mean, someone who says celebrating the anniversary of Halloween and wiping heroin, understand it from a tax perspective, from an HDI perspective, understand how you come to the conclusion. Right? So I respect that opinion. simply saying, there is another opinion, let's discuss both opinions and see which one makes more sense.
And it's very important that on these issues with respect to different opinions, because I remember back when I used to believe that Bertie's we heard from other people mock me for that. And then when I start believing it's not Haram, a lot of people mocked me for that. I mean, what's up? Why can't we just respect the difference of opinion whichever side you want, why do you have to walk the other side and make it sound like they, you know,
outside the full of Islam on these issues, it's not it's HD Hardy. These are purely HDR the issue they didn't exist in the first few generations, so we have to figure it out ourselves.
So remember, we're moving to a new culture at
To the local culture, don't try and force your culture upon them. They're important if you move to another country, even if it's temporarily assimilate as far as is hella, obviously, right? Don't assimilate into the harana aspects. So, move anywhere in the world, you assimilate into the culture, the heart aspects of it
all mistaken start because we did not do that.
Very important laws are based on when he does not contradict the Quran today Hmm. So, things can become logic, because of an oath, right things can become logic because of example, in business law.
It is the earth that the seller provides transportation, for example, a furniture shop. It is watching upon the sellers, the furniture shops in their community to provide transportation. Why? Because that's what the customer expects. Right? So literally, something can become wajib based on
and this, this happens in marriage as well.
And my main point, my main point, the whole reason why we had the six week program I'll be having next week's final discussion as well is we have to have to as a committee re evaluate our fic unlikable, we have to do it. We are losing an entire generation because we are not doing it. We have losing so many people because we are just taking fatwas that we don't understand that are based on different time in a different place. Unfortunately, when our people and by the way, I want you to mention the example again for watching and we mentioned it at this point, right.
Let me give you an example how it works changes and how fatwas change.
About 50 years ago This photo was on very reliable senior Obama saying it's haram for a woman to wear pants.
Right? Now if you understand the old for that time, the fatwa makes sense. Can we now just take the fatwa and follow it today,
I will also change now we have specifically something called woman's pants, that if a man wears that, that's wrong, because he's resembling a woman. So changed, right? for 5060 years ago, all women wore long skirts. That was the culture pants was a mistake. So wearing a pants was considered resembling men, which is how long the wolf has changed, we now have men's pants and women's pants, right? And a man wearing a woman's pants would be resembling a woman. Right? So that it has to change. You can't just take that this is something just 50 years ago, and already be seeing the sparkle of past 50 years ago, we can't apply today. What was the photo past 200 or 300 years ago?
Right? So it's very important that we re evaluate things,
or is one of the necessary principles for reforming fit for every time and place. This is how the Sharia stays flexible and practical. This is how Islam stays relevant to every society. This is why Islam cannot become outdated. Unlike manmade laws. Islam cannot become outdated, simply because it is adaptable to every time, place and culture. And certain aspects of it change from time, place and culture. Right. So we see very practical examples in the time of the prophets laliga salaam, girls with a value in the nine years old. Nobody does that today because it's not ours. In the time of the Prophet stalling, some Muslims don't sleeps. Nobody does that today besides Mauritania, right?
Yeah.
And a few other countries, but in Africa, nobody does that no one thinks about doing that. Nobody hopes to revive the Sunnah of doing that, why? It's not our culture. It's not our it's not the world we live in. It's not something we even think about. It's not even something that crosses our mind. It was a different time, a different place. No one thinks about it, because the world has changed. And I will show you is flexible enough to change with the times in these areas. Right, that we don't have to follow those paths of origin when the world changes, because that's something that's flexible. That's not the area where it's a concrete law. Allah did not say it's widely toward
slaves. He simply left it open to whatever is the common practice. Right? So it's a clear example, we read the old change almost the whole image change roles.
So this is this is also this is in a nutshell, this is why it's so important. This is a primary principle in the heart of the matter. Meaning, if we had to do our Hanafi Fiqh properly, a lot of the fatawa we're following this country will change and evolve Abu hanifa and his students, they found it to be highly crucial and important and big, is applicable to each community based on their culture. And the end they had a very flexible approach to pick
somebody down the line that got lost, we have to revive it, we have to revive that part of the honeybee model. And why why am key mentioned the 100 p model is because by and large Durbin is 100 p community, right, it would be foolish for us to tell people not to be happy or to tell them to change
to a different bus hub or to give a magnet altogether gives us It makes life easy. And it has the tool to deform Africa anyway. So why Why leave it, I just the tools are available within the month of meaning you can swap to these other opinions and still be happy. So you know why trying and again, that will be changing the old, the old books of the urban is hanafy. So why bring something else here instead? Right? So we stick to the Hanafi madhhab on these issues. And within the Muslim, we can change it now there is one more principle for change. And that's very important. That's next week's discussion discussion. Next week, we're going to talk about sdsr is the sun simply means that
when the chaos of a scholar is causing harm or difficulty to society, you can go to a different opinion. You don't have to follow that opinion. As you would expect, Samia, this is the principal of Mr. Abu hanifa. And we look at examples of how he did this even how Omar Abdullah who did this right next week. So next week's discussion of even putting in a more broader framework of all the mass hubs. All of the Muslims agree that sometimes Diaz can be overridden on the basis of the goals of the Sharia democracy, the Sharia, that when you weigh the benefits and harms if the harms outweigh the benefits, then to go can change to making more beneficial for people now, we'll talk about that
in details next week.
One more point. And I mentioned the maximum Idaho hakama local culture the deciding factor, they actually about 10 subsidiary Maxim's 10 Maxim's that govern that Maxim. Right now, next year, when we discussed maximum logic, we'll do an entire lecture on that. Right. So again, it's not something it's a free for all anybody says what they want anybody comes away with what they want is a system for doing it. This is the introduction in shall next year, we'll go into more details. With that we come to a conclusion and open the floor to q&a. So any questions?
It's not
my
fault. It should, it should?
Yes.
Really, the Mahara we looked at earlier, was based on oath, there was the early hanafy position that you look at a woman's social status, and what the woman of her social class expect at that becomes Omaha.
So the point here is that, obviously a woman from people don't like to use these terms. But when you have to be frank, a woman from an upper middle class family is going to expect different bahara from a woman from a family that's not so economically doing well. And so we should have different goals and different levels of are based on these different levels of society. We shouldn't just be standard, that one guy is marrying a millionaire's daughter and giving 100 and Mahara because that's what's the minimum, or whatever it is, you know, it doesn't make sense. I it needs to be based on people's Yes.
I'm just going to take how binding easy to in effect, what comes up to us because I'm thinking of making our progressive policies. For example, when driving in Saudi last year, we have qualities for the fact that if you were one of those moments, Joe, would you then be going against your religion and notice your law. And and in order to change the culture, sometimes we have an offensive culture, the thinking of the culture of the country, because years ago, we went to the kitchen and the homes. And now it's different for the pens example that you brought up, if you will.
worry.
I'm just a first generation since PCP officially
becoming
binding in and within an hour. Okay.
So next week, next we'll be talking about SSR. And it's the sun basically means that when a fatwa is harmful to society, then we do move to a different pattern. So for example, if it is the old professional society that a man beats his wife up, we don't make a fatwa based on that, because that's harmful to society. Right? So all of us have to weigh in constitutionally of equality.
With the morality and the morality, the benefits and the harms, and all fit is weighed on the scale. So when something benefits outweigh its harms, it's Halloweens harms outweigh its benefits. It's wrong. So also not the only thing in play, you're not going to only look at or you're going to look at benefit and harm as well. And that's why I said next week we will discuss his son, we will talk about Easter Sunday both right? Because in the 100 females have there is this principle that when something causes difficulty or harm, or it's a matter of necessity, then we move to a new platform. Right. So that that will be more appropriate for next week discussion in Sharla.
Number 92
on a salary
basis
Good question. I'll give you a practical example.
Okay, so good point. So basically,
yeah, yeah. Okay.
So basically the question is like, if nine something like 911 had to happen again, and a woman's life's in danger for wearing a scarf or she might be abused or beaten against Unum. I have discussed this
from
let me give you a practical example a few years ago when the coup took place in Egypt, right. And men with big beards have been rounded up. So one of my students from Egypt emailed me and he told me Listen, I have a big beard. I have grown in my whole life, if I haven't left my house in 10 days, but in my hosting or lochmere, is it possible for me to shave my beard? I totally miss it. Yes, because this is now a matter of, of benefits and harms. So you have to understand I will show here we have the Firstly, things aren't different levels. When you say something's wrong, there's different levels of holiday. It's not all the same level. So let me give you an example of a woman
uncovering parts of her body. Most people are unaware of this. But for example, if you opened up Sudoku to be to the verse on each of
the B cells and is equals if an RBC says well, that a woman's hair, arms and her legs below her knees are her minor aura, and from her chest to her knees, or her major aura. So uncovering the hair or the arms is a lesson the uncovering from the chest to the knees. Now we treat all of it as I say, I like how sometimes the sisters have a sculpt dementia, you might as well be naked, usually when you're older.
It's not the same. The early books have clearly stated that these are two different things, ones minor ones major. So can a woman expose her minor Oleh for the sake of safety and protection? Most of the time? Yes, yes, safety and protection overrides even bigger issues than that, I mean, the matter of eating pork to save your life, you know, saying words of shirt to save your life. So again, we will take you on a case by case basis, right? And if a woman genuinely fears for her life, or for something that we will see how to uncover here is a minus one. And it is a minus one. It's not a major sin. People don't abuse that. But that's the truth. I think we've always thought we
don't say that. But that's the truth. It's a minus. Right? All that matters. But for someone's life to be in danger that overrides all of this. So in those cases, again, case by case basis, I would again, someone slides or even if there is a chance of them getting punched in the face or something I would say temporarily, it would be permissible. until things come right back as soon as things come right, then go back to the norm. And this applies to other situations as well. So for example, one of my students from Durbin has a nice beard, but then he became a firefighter. He joined the firemen, and firemen and allowed to grow beards, because it's a fire hazard.
So he asked me, he's like, I want to be a firefighter, but my beard,
it's fine. In your case, it's fine because we can fight the fight. You can catch on fire, we decided to save someone's life. So that's a different situation. Right? So again, what was changed from person to person situations. It's also important that Allah understand the levels of hierarchy. Not everything's on the same level, right?
People don't know that people don't understand this, hear the word haraam. They think of it all as being one block everything being the same. There's different levels and different levels can become allowed based on different levels of necessity and difficulty. That's part of it's their son. That's next week's topic. Next week's topic, we'll talk about difficulty, necessity, and harm and how those three are different, different, there's actually three different categories. And all three of those make certain things hollow. Right. So we'll talk about that next week. inshallah any more questions
distinguish
the difference between the sub
the sub,
the sub means
so by following the diffusion of inferiority, okay, and that's what allows follow
another culture, another custom
sub.
Okay, it's also another explanation either way, you won't come to the same conclusions, or the same conclusion I came through with this explanation that
we have looked
It makes sense as well Allah knows best. So basically he said, there's two different words. One word is where you resembling a person because you feel inferior to them. And that wouldn't be allowed. And that makes sense. And but if we resembling them just because you happen to live in the same culture and happen to do the same things, then it wouldn't be a sin. Again, that doesn't make sense, different way of interpreting it. The thing is, the interpretation I took is found in many of the books are fake. So either way, is fine.
Yes.
So this is what we need to do, right? He's asking about the indigenous population and their culture. So we need to do we need what am I from that culture, we need people from those communities to become Olimar to study the issue. And for them to form the fatwa not for me.
I know I know. So I'll give you a lot of my friends, we study to get into who he is from that culture is
part of the community. He's trying to change mythical. Obviously, on his own, he can't do it, he's slowly building up more people get together to try and build what he calls it. Indigenous African people, right. So they are the group of them who studied there and realize this is not making sense. And they are getting together having meetings, they are discussing it, they are trying to cheat. But again, we must also remember to be very blunt,
in this community, our people in terms of race, racially, or oppressing other people in terms of religion, in that way, not giving them the right positions, without putting in monogamy at board, because they're taking they're not taking the Islamic scholarship seriously. To be frank, our people don't take it seriously. And it's the Indian guy sitting up here, right? Or Arab or white person, again, we have a racism in our community that needs to be addressed. So I would say because Africa is a multicultural society, every segment of this culture needs its own Allah, who will understand their own world and will make the final for the people of that committee.
Right? It can't be done by one person or one committee, because I do understand the culture, there are so many cultures in Africa, it's, I don't understand all of them myself. Every day, I'm learning something, you meet someone, it's like, you know, this in my culture. I never even knew anyone did that. Right? Because this is a multicultural society. I mean, how many different languages do we have here? Although right now, each language to decide what halaal words in her own words, what's appropriate manners and inappropriate manners? Will Amma have to come from those cultures? So we have to do that we have to train Allah and inshallah, it will be a struggle, the biggest struggle is
not training the llama is getting our society to take to take them seriously and give them actual positions of scholarship in the community.
presentation,
the cultural imperative, okay, use the word competitive.
And he went through a whole series of slides show, for example, the massages
in different countries, and different architecture. Yes, for example, go to China,
the Chinese
go to Russia, it looks like those sauce kind of architecture. And similarly, Morocco is different. So he was here, what basically he was doing exactly what you're doing.
From a practical perspective, and say, Look, we need to adopt and assimilate within the local cultures provider country. My issue is the fact that
there's a thing
in human behavior, where we say this barriers to entry. Yeah, right. So what my view is that as Muslims
in particular, because when I see somebody dressed in a particular way, either he, I can connect with him, or I
draw a vein.
So people who are in touch with beards in a South African environment, are actually barriers to entry for that shows this this is this is mine.
You shouldn't be wearing black, you shouldn't be wearing the white coat as a trophy.
And I look at how Islam spread worldwide, Muslim in Indonesia as
people that have adopted this and so on.
The point is that if you look at the South African situation, funding the Hindus have had the Africans have become Muslim. whites have become worse.
Perhaps the way we are
importing of a culture overseas, yes.
is returned to do this for a long time to hit a South African mosque culture or architecture to adapt to the local environment.
So I think we've got serious challenges we do in terms of the way we profess
our food, the love of
why we have
some things accepted. Yeah.
So this is going to be a difficult putting, and this is a life coach is not something expect to change overnight. It literally takes an entire generation to change a culture. And in order to adapt to the local culture, we have to change the culture, meaning you have to change the mindset of our people, those who don't want to adapt. And that is very difficult, because you know,
how to put it. Whenever somebody wants to do this work. Everybody says, Don't be controversial. Right? But if nobody is controversial, nothing changes. Right? So we have to do something, we have to start our own our own maybe the only because
we have to train new generation that will ama
we have to write books on these topics, have public discussion of this topic, invite people from different opinions to sit and discuss, you know, if someone is saying you have to wake up in South Africa, let's have a public debate about it. Get people on both sides, and let's discuss it in a friendly way, again, with full respect to the other side. But again, in doing this, we cannot become disrespectful because they we put a barrier between us and them that they are not going to do what we say, right? He's right, it is a value to Tao in this country, we look at the fact that Muslims have been in South Africa for 300 years, and we are still a tiny percentage, compared to how many
people are converting in the USA or UK in other countries, the Muslims have been much less they've only been here for like, what one or two generations? Yeah, they've been here like, literally moved through most of your lifetime. The Muslims are moving right before my time, but most of you guys, but you know, the Why is it Why is it some spreading the Why are you seeing so many converts in those communities? I mean, why it's only it's only, you know, what's socially acceptable now, Latin Latinos normal except socially acceptable, right? obesity, so many people from Spanish speaking American committee converting to Islam. Why do we see that in America? Yeah, buddy. But here in
South Africa, we don't see that. And only that when people are disconnected from us, like, they see us in a walk in different direction. This is something seriously went wrong. And solving it is not easy. It's not going to come overnight. It's going to come from hard work, discussion, heated debates, people getting angry. people calling each other names, not us, we're going to do things the right way. But that's just how society changes. But at the end of the day, somebody has to make the effort. So we'll take lots of time, like two more questions, I think,
and practices that we're practicing in the process.
Yes.
Okay. So, again, that goes back to sue. Now, in the profit loss, I mentioned something and you mentioned a reward for it, or he mentioned the punishment for not doing it or he gave some kind of
religious significance to it, then it becomes now. So for example, in the profit loss times time,
is the property or some mentioned specific
that the Akiko, for example, that if you do it, it was of calamity, right for the child. So this is our religious significance. So now it shouldn't announce parts of the religion. On the other hand, with the Prophet slaughter, many Sahaba had weddings, they had the small girls playing with the jump that singing. That's not sooner, that was the cultural, our cultural difference. So what we're going to look at is the proficiency. This is a part of our religion, that we attach a reward to add, attach or punishment to either the attack some religious significance to it, when he did we say it's part of our religion, when he did not receive a particular religion. So for example, the profits or
some state My Lord has commanded me to let the commodity isolate the bH crow. So because he said, My Lord has commanded me to see okay, this departure that religion, but when it comes to how he dressed, he never said, My God has commanded me to just like Adam, I say, all we see is that prophets, like some key Mexico's Africans have been having a really hard time fully adjusting, right? But again, it was never meant to be the purpose of never said this. The Sahaba never said this, the Quran never said this. So we see that was his culture. So the point is, what did he say about it? Another point also, related to that eating, right, the prophets, like Sam said, don't eat
with your left hand because she taught you to do that. So therefore, eating with the right hand becomes a noun, right? So why don't we see sitting on the floor and eating is random? Because he never said anything about it. He just did it because that's what the atoms did. Right? So it all comes down to Did he say something about it or not? Once he said something about it, then he falls into the category of different
cultural norms are constantly changing.
And why why what do you think?
To become an oncologist that claim to make that law based on
your laws are
constantly changing. So it does change every few years. That's just the nature of it supposed to change?
No, it wasn't for that, again, qwaqwa is based on the current culture. So something will be watching. While that's the culture and the culture changes, the watch changes.
You don't even have to watch the dominant culture currently, again, we go back to our list of the
conditions.
Right? Look at the list, what at the moment when what is popular, consistent, and current? Those three things you have to look at. So that means really, in fact, we supposed to review and change every five or 10 years, you don't just make a fatwa, and people follow me for the next 100 years, you are supposed to be viewed every few years because
culture does change. Now, why do you make it wajib? Because the first example would be the right to the husband and the wife. Allah commands as for Archie Rwanda model, this is a command treat her well according to the oath. Right now, if you do it, that means it's a command, that means it's watching. Right? Now, if you don't make your watch even manual, see, the Hadees only says I must give a food, clothing and shelter. I would just spend time with her. I don't have to cheat her nicely. I won't have to go out with her for dinners. You should will see your culture as just again, not everything the culture becomes why'd you have somebody come loose to have somebody come? holla
I'm saying certain things become watch if like the rights or in business dealings, if you don't make certain things. Why do you when it comes to business dealings? Anybody abuses anybody? because anyone can see you I'm not doing that.
And the causes, friction caused a lot of friction. For example, if you live in a culture, where handshake a handshake means something and somebody shakes your hand and said no, it doesn't mean anything to me. You can now use culture to say no is why'd you want you to agree to what you said before shaking hands, otherwise people will abuse the law and becomes a freefall, right. So, it is important that we make certain things watch based on culture, not everything, generally culture use of making things booster hub or macro halaal. But in certain aspects, like the rights of the husband and wife and business law, it can be things watching, right. But it has to be popular, consistent
and current. And when that changes, the pitch changes accordingly. Exactly. When that changes the feature is according so fig has to be reviewed all the time.
It has it has to it has to because remember, the way society works is if you don't make certain things, you
know, but certain parts of cultures awkward to watch it. So for example,
how do I put this? If someone in our community gets married, and he's and the man just literally gives her? You know, almost nothing? But just what why'd you based on Huggies? Will she ever be happy? How do you foresee now to give her things that make her happy? You have to make it if you don't think why do we never want to take you seriously, I should that can be abused. If you don't make these things, watch it, you can be abusive with business law. So watch him again. Hanafi madhhab we have this the difference between watching and watching isn't on the same level of sport watch is like a lower level of compulsory. It's something that changes over time. But the point is
why we made things watch it is so that people don't abuse the law. And again, that's you said to me, that would be like enforcing the culture. Some aspects of culture need to be enforced, particularly when people's rights are involved. And that's the only technical thing watch up when it comes down to people's rights. Otherwise, people are never going to pull each other right because you can see shot in the corner.
And so when it comes to human rights, and harm and hurting people, we say no, we have to make certain things wajib in order to protect people's rights in order to protect people from harm. I think we'll be studying next week's topic inshallah, it'll become more clear. It's already nine o'clock. Any more questions? I can take one short question on
the concept. Yes.
So beta is another whole different topic for discussion. Basically, there's two schools of thought there, that always clashing on it.
One school of thought is the fourth under everything's valid until proven to be wrong. That's the Sharpie method fix that approach. The other project the humbling model is all acts of worship are better until proven to be
should actually always a clash. Ah, let me give you an example of that. reciting Quran for Sally sahab, right in 100 femurs of it's permissible. In the in the humble you must be considered a visa
because they have a difference of opinion on what's considered to be done. So it's actually come with consideration.
what's up what's up and to be done another matter? So even the issue of data, we have to learn tolerance for differences of opinion. We can't just enforce it on people and say that, you know, this is a beta. And that's a beta. And again, I really think we need to do a whole lesson on beta. Because it's a very, very deep topic, that many differences of opinion, they, some of them are divided into, into five different categories. And, you know, it's something we have to go into separately. I would say that, as long as the local culture is not the act of worship, it has nothing to do with it. As long as you know, the act of worship, so when people tell me celebrating birthday
is better. Why? I mean, against me saying it's harder um, again, the standard leads to saying is her understand that, but what's the chaos that leads to build up because it's not an act of worship? Either is what a new after worship or a new belief that would be that is you're adding an act of worship or adding a belief to Islam? Now what what exactly qualifies as that? That literally needs a whole hour of discussion separately, but yeah, we talking about acts of worship and we need so we said not about that, Mama. We're talking about social dealings. So most of the time, we that won't come into the picture when it comes to social dealings.
Okay.
This is the first session
of your last session.