Politics – Episode 10

As we learn malicious regimes we learn manner of Eman hamdu, lillahi Rabbil aalameen or salat wa salam Allah should have mousseline sagina Mohammed in wider early he was so happy he married my beloved brothers and sisters salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. All Praise to Allah subhanho wa Taala load case is the center of the universe La la la la. None has the right to be worshipped except Allah subhana wa tada to him. We turn to an old devotions and we ask Allah subhana wa tada to have mercy on us. Forgive us for the past week since May this week to come may be a means a new word for us. Allah subhanaw taala forgive my innocence between these two Jamal's and Allah subhanaw

taala. Bless us in these days and what I mean, we send out greetings and salutations are left on me Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to his perfect and pure family, to his companions, and all those who follow his suit not until the end of time we be from amongst them. I mean, well, hamdulillah

Al Hamdulillah, I need to begin by apologizing for these for the couple of weeks of absence. I was ill and I was not in Cape Town. So we had to pause the CDs. And inshallah I'm also apologizing that I will also not be here for a couple of weeks after this week as well, so I won't be in town. inshallah you I'm sure you'll be in very good hands with with the guest speakers, and we say hello to those speakers that have stepped in. But in sha Allah last time we were together, I think three weeks ago, we were talking about the politics of faith and long series that we've taken, sort of the scenic route to discuss along the way, some, you know, the people that shaped the oma, that we

didn't just happen to come here 1400 years out of chance. It was the interactions of people that shaped the course of history. And we speaking about some of these major players in the history of Islam, we spoke about avacado was the first califa and Omar bin Abdulaziz, the great califa of the mega dynasty. And we were speaking about the odema and the interactions with the halifa. We said today, it's a very difficult question, how do we interact with the government? If you are in even here in South Africa? Should our ama we have these questions? Should the NGC start a political party, the Islamic party, should the MDC, we don't involve ourselves in politics. We don't want

anyone to vote, we just stick to Islam. Should they be close with the ruling party or not? How do we balance these kind of issues? What is the best for the oma and before we were discussing the lives of the four Imams, and we see that the AMA and the politicians, very early on in Islam, there was a split the orlimar were in charge of the Islamic well being of the oma whereas the politicians look to control the power and the govern the affairs of the Muslims. So what is the balance between this two interplay? And we spoke about Abu hanifa Rahim Allah and I want to recap, I said, I just want you to have an image of him in your mind and what image that I want. He's that grandfatherly figure,

the genius way you felt he was always one step ahead of everybody else. And that smiling Old Man, that was the genius and everyone just aspired a lot. How'd you get to be like this man? You felt, you know, like, nurtured under him. And we said about Abu hanifa he was the hero he and support him to remember this differences. Why do we have format tabs? Why do they differ? They do not have one question and one levy. Yes. Why? Because of different ways of thinking that normally we see they were people of logic, people of interpretation, people of opinion. Why did they Why did they use so much logic? Because the Hadith we said was unreliable in the time of Abu hanifa. Allah, he didn't

know that either authentic or not. So how did he solve a problem? He used authentic and authentic hadith and from the he applied laws and principles. And he asked what if what if we understand the way of Abu hanifa thinking? We said Abu hanifa Rahim Allah, in terms of his relationship with the government, how was he with the government, he was very critical of the government. And he openly opposed the needs for the corruption. And after the umayyads with this, you know, overthrown. He was also very aloof, he kept himself away from the government. He didn't like spending much time with the governors. He didn't want any positions of power. They offered him the Chief Justice of the oma

the main judge about that. He said I don't want it. And he to such an extent that he was even arrested and he died in prison. So we can say Abu hanifa almost you could say his attitude was that the Obama and the politicians shouldn't mix, that the Obama will just be corrupted if they spent too much time around the politicians. This is sort of Abu hanifa approach. Mr. Malik, we spoke about a few weeks ago, very different, very different personality, very different methodology and a different approach to the government. Mr. Malika Hamilton, a little hairy with these guys are very by the book very strict. They don't like to use much interpretation and logic. They believe that

every answer question you have

The Quran and Sunnah directly can solve it. And if you This is no if you ask him questions that have no don't ask me what if questions you didn't come to my Malik and asked him what if questions and we said he carried this all when you felt you didn't feel sort of comfortable around him you felt uneasy yet the key was the strong character. The strong personality very strict, didn't smile much, very stern. This is the kind of man Mr. Malik was his presence of character, even the callups felt intimidated in his presence. And he spent his life in Medina we said, and a difference one issue we didn't mention, but what makes the Maliki method unique is that no Malik puts in his method. This is

an important point Mr. Malik puts in is a method that if you see something the people of Medina practice, there's no Hadith to say. So for example, if you come to Medina and you find all the people of Medina with a red face for example, we ask is there a hadith which says you should read faces no Hadith? So then he concludes, well, if all the people of Medina have a certain practice a certain culture, then this is part of the deen because it must come from the Sahaba This is something Mr. Malik and that's why his method has in it that you follow the Quran and then you follow the Hadith the student of NaVi salsa lamb and you follow the actions of the people of Medina.

Now the other three might have don't have this. And again, now you can see there's going to be a difference in rulings. One of the reasons why the Maliki might have is slightly different to the others because Imam Malik puts a big emphasis on Medina if Medina the people of Medina have a culture then this culture is part of Islam. We don't say the culture of Cape Town is part of the deen right that you must have a crust on Sunday tuna. Tuna in Cape Town, but that's not part of the deen. But in my mind, it says if the people of Medina they ecosystems on a Friday, then this is sort of part of the deal. Right. So this is my marriage opinion. And we disagree with the other mother

who disagree with him. We say that he had a very close relationship actually with a halifa it was the Holy Father that asked him the same Holly for that imprisoned and potentially killed Abu hanifa Allah but imprisoned Abu hanifa that same halifa asked Mr. Malik write a book and he wrote the MacBook which we said was the greatest book of Hadith. At the time, Victor, this is before Buhari, and after that califa passed away his son Haruna. Rashid said let me hang this book of us Mr. Malik on the Kaaba and make everybody Maliki every Muslim in the world must be Maliki and Mr. Malik said No, don't do that. Because I just have one opinion and there are other valid opinions. And if we in

his lifetime, we concluded in my medic in his lifetime, he was the number one scholar in the world. He was the biggest island of the world. Mr. Malik was the most famous scholar in his lifetime. Abu hanifa Imam Shafi Ahmed in their lifetime, they were not as famous as they are today, they became more famous after they died. Even Malik was the superstar of his time. As I see the halifa set in his claws, the halifa would write to him yesterday, we have a question very urgent, I need your advice. He says, knowledge you come to knowledge, you sit here and you ask me, you sit in my class at my feet and then I'll tell you the answer. This is not arrogance, but he held this character. And

he believed you could be close to the heart If I accept gifts from the halifa why cuz he had a relationship with the halifa. And because he's personality was so strong, that you couldn't bring him he didn't feel that he was at all under threat of being corrupted by the halifa because he had such a strong character, Imam Abu hanifa had a different experience and now we see the wisdom of that for one man and even the time of love so seldom one person will also question that be so say for you, it's permissible, but for that man is not permissible. Why What's the difference? Well, for you to kiss your wife in Ramadan, okay, you an old man, but for a young man who just got married.

rather avoid kissing your wife during Ramadan because it could lead to something else. And here we see that we need to look at each situation in the context. fick is not a universal haraam. It depends on the situation. Pork is worship, you must eat pork, if you're about to die, and the only thing on the island is a pig. When poop becomes worship, you must eat it. You understand we look at the situation and that's how you apply it. So here we have two imams very different. Let's talk about the Imam Imam Shafi. And I must obviously mentioned that since we are in Shafi country, Shafi tiritiri this Imam is very special to most of us, even though we might not know fully his life. So

let's talk about the email. Imam Shafi Rahim Allah and as I said, this, most of us here are sheffey, follow the sheffey method. And as we said, there's no superiority in any of these methods.

Ultimately, there's only one method method of Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, that's our method, but these are schools of interpretation understanding. So let's understand Imam Shafi Rahim Allah, what do I want you to picture? So you have the very, the genius grandfather, Abu hanifa, the strict professional

guy, Mr. Malik, even Shafi young, eloquent kind of a sense of you.

He's got a bit of a witty side towards him. He doesn't mind cracking a joke very, very bright, almost like Abu hanifa in terms of his ability to, to think and to quiet. He's like a computer when he learned something. He just masters every field him I'm sure if he studied, he became the master in that field. But he was always kept himself humble. And he, you know, he even dressed himself down. He dressed like a baby when people underestimated him until they got to speak to him. This is the kind of man mm chef he was and he had a very short life, but the most prolific of all writers in terms of the four Imams, so his name is not a chef. His name is Abdullah Abdullah, the father of

Abdullah had a son Abdullah, Mohammed, his name is Mohammed. Right? Chef, his name is Mohammed even Idris, the son of Idris, a chef. And he is of all the four arms he's the only one who's actually elevate family of the prophets of Salem. And we sit in this I must mention this in from because of what we've seen in the past couple of weeks. I knew by being of the family of the prophets of Salaam, yes, high status and Mashallah great, great thing to say our family and Elisa Lam, but it gives you know you have no inherited taqwa no one is born with taqwa. And no one is born with knowledge. Abu hanifa Rahim Allah, perhaps the greatest *ing in Islam, not even an Arab, so you

can be a heavyweight but you are not the man that should lead Salah because you're not the most learned someone else who learned the Quran memorize the Quran, he might come from the end of the world, he will be more superior because of his knowledge and taqwa. We don't believe in Divine bloodlines. We don't believe that any family has a monopoly of knowledge even if you have the family of Nabhi. So seldom, but you have Shafi of his attributes is that he is a debate on his mother and father side. His mother is a descendant of Hudson, the son of a nanny.

So his mother from his mother's side he goes through Fatima to the prophets of Salaam and on his father's side he was also a Hashimi a Qureshi and his father interesting factor, his father actually fought against the prophets of Salaam. That's the image of his father. His father's father, great great grandfather fought against the prophets of Salaam in the Battle of butter, and he was taken prisoner of war. And this he was a wealthy man, this grandfather of Imam Shafi was a wealthy man and he became he was taken prisoner by a Medina family who were very poor. Now we know in Islam, the prophets of Salaam and Allah Allah commands, we treat the prisoners of war with a base of treatment,

so used to give this man better food and they would prepare food and the best food, they would give him the meat and the bread and they would eat the dates. And this man became so embarrassed is the prisoner but he's so embarrassed that his captors are actually teaching in beta that he became Muslim secretly, and only once his family paid the blood money, the ransom money to free him. When they paid it. The money was in the bank or the Ansari family. Then he said, I'm a Muslim. I don't want to go back to Makkah. So this is the great great grandfather of Imam Shafi. So on both sides, he's a kurachi Hashimi Mohammed from the provinces, threat family, very tragic life, if I'm sure if

he when he was born, before he was even one years old, or even before he was born, it's mentioned his father passed away. And he lived he was born in hersa. The same guys that we see today on the news, Allah protect the people of Gaza, Shafi was born with a single mother, father just passes away. This is not the hometown live from Mecca, and she struggles and she decides, you know what, let's just go back to Makkah, things are so difficult for me. Let's go back to our family in Makkah. So she comes with a son, her young son back to Makkah. And when By the way, Mr. Scheffer, born 150 years after the hegira, 150 years, the exact same year, and some even say the exact same day, Abu

hanifa passed away, Abu hanifa passes away 150 of the time, the two of them never met each other, but the the one died, and the one was born on the exact same year, as if Allah extinguished one star and brought another star to life the exact same time. So Shafi comes to Makkah as a young boy, and his mother wants him to learn knowledge because he's elevate, but she couldn't afford, and it will be easier to put it to get into closely, you know, obviously charge something, and she couldn't afford the fees to get in the class. So she had to actually ask the Imams and when they found out that he's his family of the prophets of Salaam No one's going to say no to a grandson of the

prophets of Salaam, we're not going to teach him Quran. So we said, okay, just because you innovate. You don't have to pay fees and you could share very started learning the Quran. And he's amazing memory starts to show before he was seven years old, he memorized the Quran. And he says, I couldn't afford stationery. They couldn't buy any stationery paper and pen and those things couldn't afford it. So when I started learning how to eat, I either had to use, you know, leaves or the off cuts of the tailors or even both

Oh, I just decided, you know what, I'm just gonna start memorizing, I don't have I don't have the stationery to learn, I would borrow the notes of my friends and I will just start memorizing so if memory starts to get trained in his, in his youth, his mother also sent him to live like the process of did to live with the baby ones outside of Makkah. Why? Because the baby ones who lived outside of Makkah, they spoke a bitter dialect of Arabic. Maybe we could relate to this, that the Africans that we speak here is not the savior of records that you get on the form, for example, exactly like that. So the Arabs in the desert spoke a proper pure Arabic, Quranic Arabic, whereas the city people spoke

a slang Arabic, and He therefore lived with the beta ones. And in fact, even when he became big, he liked staying with the beta ones. And he lived most of his life as a beta one even dressed like them. So of all the Imams, mm Shafi is the best in terms of Arabic, he actually knew poetry. So in the field of Arabic language, we don't take Abu hanifa word is not an Arab. And he's not a master of the Arabic language. Neither was Mr. Malik, but him I'm sure he is a master in the Arabic language, the most eloquent of all the four scholars when it came to speaking, he spoke like poetry, and he wrote like poetry. And if you mom, Chef either asked, what does this word mean? If I'm Chef, he says

this word comes from that thing, and it means this, then we take that he is a soldier. He is an element Imam in the land in the Arabic language. So he's in the harem, and he's learned Quran, and he's sitting with all the big shifts, the Grand Mufti of Makkah, the Imam of the harem. We said his name is Mufti Muslims, and he This was his name. He liked him Shafi quite a lot. And he would say that we when we wanted to cry, we would tell chef you lead the Sunnah we want to hear you recite because of the way he could recite is only like 12 years old, they would put him in front you leave the solder and when he decided that he used to cry, and by the way, he was still a young us learning

Hadith and Fiqh. But remember, the great scholar the biggest scholar in the world is Mr. Malik in Medina. Young Shafi applies I want to come and study under you Mr. Malik. Malik says no, it doesn't worry, you, young boy, only the top scholars sit with him and he keeps rejecting Imam Shafi all the time, you're not gonna come to my classroom. I'm not interested. When you are bigger and you learn it, you can come and sit by me Not yet. So Imam Shafi now exhausts he learns from all the sitting in the harem and learning from the Grand Mufti is at 15. They actually said, when the when the majority of the harm was in the they would say if I'm not you're asked this boy Shafi is qualified enough to

give back to us today, you know, we ask what's the difference between a share and a molana and a mom and a Mufti is a person who is qualified to give an opinion where you can't find an answer in the Quran and Sunnah. So you're asked, If I go if it is permissible for me to have a transplant with with a pig, for example, you won't find a hadith about that. So now you ask a scholar who's learned enough about Islam to say in my opinion, yes, you can. I'm passing a factor. You can't qualify in the past. You couldn't get this as a qualification move to the other scholars would say this guy is qualified enough. He knows enough about the Sharia to pass his own judgment. He's like a judge. A

Mufti is like a judge, literally, like a judge. Higher than a judge even causes legislating. At 15 years old. mm Jeffrey was competent enough in the harem of MK to deflect what they said you have to Ischia. But he's the most to learn and the Imam Malik. So he goes to Medina, with a letter from the governor of Makkah, and a letter from the Mufti of the harem to say, let this guy Mr. Malik, learn and do he's competent enough to learn. And he said on the way to Medina, you know, Mr. Malik, we sit he wrote this book, the most, the most famous book in the world at that time, you know, I'm sure, he said, he didn't only read the mortar the mortar is like a book of Hades like Sahih Bukhari. He said,

I didn't just eat it and master it, I memorized it. So when he got to the door, and Mr. Malik Salima Malik said come to me when you're older you're not yet ready to sit in my classes advanced class my class him I'm sure FEC but here's a letter from the governor and years later from the Mufti reads the letter Emma Malik and we say this character is this our students of knowledge get positions now through connections with the government.

And okay, so he sees the the Mufti of the harem says, this is the guy that would want to cry military the Salah, we've never seen a student like him considering miasha so any mathematics is that have you read my book tomato, so I'm Chef he says I didn't eat it. And in fact, I memorized it is really okay. Come see me off the answer. So after I said Mr. Chef, he comes to the masjid comes to the classroom. Malik he says here, start reciting the motto from the beginning. In front of everyone, anyone shafie begins reciting from the beginning of Mata from memory two days he has to decide the motor from memory and then even avoid a memory leak in his character and in his way

He didn't say, Wow, excellent. This is your sheriff. This is our job. It's as if though I impressed him not too sure. He was like, okay, you can sit in my class. That's all he gave him. You can see my class. So this is the kind of man Mr. Malik was a human chef, he now sits. And he would spend his until Mr. Malik dies, he stays in mathematics class, learning, the Hadees. He's learning the Hadees. And

eventually, even Malik, you know, he now obviously learns his his love from chef he grows, and he sees these lines. And I said, If Mr. Malik sees this, it's like gold. When he sees no scholar, more brilliant than a chef he ever came to sit by me. Malik says that it counts for something. So for the next 10 years or so, mm, Chef, he sits by Malik and learns from him. And in fact, if you ask him a chef, you have all your teachers. Who is your chef? mindshare? You would say my chef is Malik. So if he says this was the opinion of my shift, he's talking about his family, even though he had many other shifts show you who he loved. But in my mind, it was his number one teacher, and he learned

from Mr. Malik, and he learned and in fact even Shafi is a Maliki at this point in terms of his is a Maliki scholar. He follows the opinions of Asia when your money passes away. And I'm sure if he now is in his, in his mid 20s or so. And he's a competent scholar, of course, well accomplished, well, well learned. Still not very famous. Not many people know him. But he's a master in Arabic language. He's obviously memorized the Quran, way back is eloquent. He's writing books. He's memorized the motto of Mr. Malik, he's memorized a hadith. And now he wants to actually branch off and he wants to take a job with the government. There is a position that opened up for a judge, like an

administrator of a little town between Saudi and Yemen, and Emma Malik Imam Shafi Rahim, Allah, He accepts this job as a judge in this area. And this is something for us young people that you know, when we come out of university, and especially those who study with Dean, you can have all the knowledge in the world, but your books are not going to teach you how to deal with people. And my family of one Mr. Chef, he was going to learn this the hard way, he spent his whole life learning from chefs and scholars living in the harem, learning from from from the great teachers, now he's dealing with the real world, and he becomes a administrator in this area. And he's teaching and he's

giving his opinions and he's judging according to the Quran, and the people, the governors around him don't like him. So that is quite naive. They asked him deliberate questions that puts him into hot water. And no, at no time in history, is it a good idea to speak out against the government? So your chef is saying, well, this is wrong and what the government is doing here is wrong. And as we see, there was always this tension with a debate. Those who say that debate should be the halifa, not the current Khalifa. And he would openly praise and debate not thinking anything about the fact that we love debate. Musharraf is famous for saying, if it is a heresy, to love the elevate, then I

am a heretic, and we know he himself is from the elevate his family are the prophets of Salaam. So the governor of Yemen conspired, and he among Shafi got involved in this conspiracy unknowingly. For example, today, you might reach out to Billa people who have plans to bomb a certain place, and then you find on the hard drive, all of you were listening and attended the classes of Sheikh Mohammed waste. Hamad was also going to be arrested. This is exactly what happened to him Shafi. So he also was arrested. And all those conspirators in Yemen executed they were sentenced to death including your chef he was sentenced to the underlying he's arrested and he's about to be executed, but the

halifa in in that Haroon Rashid heard of this, and he was he was advised by and we said this name Mohammed bin shibani. Now, I suppose here, there was a judge in Baghdad, Mohammed shibani. If you don't know I said this before he is Abu hanifa is one of Abu hanifa stopped students. He goes to Medina learns and Mr. Malik, he goes back to Baghdad, he becomes a judge, well recognized, well regarded, and he knew about a chef. So he tells the halifa I know this guy, Chef III don't execute him bring him to Baghdad. Let's question him. So the student of his family of Imam Abu hanifa saves the life of Imam Shafi. How can we save his mother who don't love one another? He brings a Shafi to

Baghdad, and Harun al Rashid now speaks in Mohali for speak so your mom cheffy personally, and it's quite impressed. And he says all these things that were said about you, I believe, are just fabricated, and he's exonerated of all his charges. But he was really under stress. And from that point on, Imam chef, he cuts his ties with the government. He says, I'm no longer going to involve myself in politics. It's a dirty game. I'll just be a teacher and the halifa stay some time here in Baghdad, spend time here and teach in Baghdad. So he's a junior not as a not a

Famous scholar, but he now spends time in Baghdad. And yet he comes acquainted with the students of Abu hanifa and Hanafi madhhab like Mohammed ha Bernie, and Shafi was not afraid to debate. He was really eloquent. He knew his stuff, you're not afraid to debate, and he never took it personally. And he says that I, there was no scholar that I could debate and sort of get the beta of except Muhammad shibani. We see the Hanafi scholars were masters at logic. And Mohammed ha Bernie says about emotion theory that the doors of fichte were close to the people, like I never thought I'd see another Abu hanifa. Basically, I thought once Abu hanifa died, that was it, you're not going to get

another one like him. But those are close to people. And then I'll open it once again to a chef at the mujaddid about the main I saw another Abu hanifa coming a chef Mala. So I'm sure if he now spends time in Baghdad, and he becomes a more rounded scholar, he learns different fatawa different ways of thinking. He expands his view from the Maliki way of thinking, he becomes acquainted to the unknown, ie the other way of thinking, he also becomes acquainted with people in new ways. So now at the age of 30, of going through a bit of life experience, he he is a more gifted scholar and experienced scholar. And he goes back to Makkah, and he gets a job as a teacher in Harlem, but he's

a very unknown teacher. So he comes to the Harlem and he starts teaching me. And not many people really know about him. They're much bigger ships, the names are a lot bigger, and people come to learn of them. And it's a beautiful story. And we'll end up with the story

that Imam Ahmed even Hamburg will talk about in a couple of weeks time, he also comes to Mecca is a student now. And he comes to Mecca, to learn from the big shifts of the harem. So he learns from that big shift that movie that I learned that he did, but he goes around, and he finds this beta one sitting with one or two, and actually mechanically, it's like a beta one. He sits there. And he's got only two three students. anyone see his class, and he listens. And he stops attending the classes of the other big shifts. So the other people of Iraq that came with him I met, they said, You came all the way from Iraq to learn from the top scholars of the harem. And year you sitting in

the class of this unknown video, and she was this guy, she just just sit down and listen to him. And these, this group of scholars, they sat and they listened. And they listened. And this is final law. We, you know, he says, we've never heard someone speak so much knowledge like this guy, that we couldn't keep up anymore. And they would say that if you didn't sit in the move this clause, you will catch that up by someone else's notes, you'll hear that story or that heading somewhere else. But if you miss something in sharefest clause, no one else would speak like him and his family even when I came to the harem, his claws for the smallest when I left after a few years. His class was

the biggest chef his class was now the biggest class in the Haram. The most famous scholar in the harem is now Imam Shafi Kamala inshallah in a couple of weeks time, we'll continue with Imam Shafi rahimullah, what he did, how his method evolved, how he actually broke from being a Maliki scholar to being an independent method on his own on his own and how he interacted with the government and how he's spirit inshallah.

inshallah, just one or two announcements of handler classes on Tuesday nights have started. It's happening off the shy this Tuesday evening of the magnitude of one of the modules. On Tuesday evening, we discussing the life of the Prophet assignment, please attend and the co author course all these things about the fic and why Muslims are different is of course happening tomorrow, the mark of Judas, and actually Eman Shafi. You know, I must break you for a moment. He wrote a book called a reseller. How does the scholars of fic come to a conclusion? An answer? Do you have to every time there's a question Do I have to begin from Surah Fatiha and decide to pull out the

verbenas and read all the headings before I come to an answer? No, there are principles there are laws. What are the laws? If I don't if I'm not a scholar, how can I derive answers, even Shafi wrote a book that till today we study reseller and this course that's happening tomorrow at UCT. is about this area of democracy Judas, how does the scholars How do they come up with answers where they don't have evidence? inshallah, if you like to know more about the course there are pamphlets, we hope that everybody attends inshallah, Allah Azza wa satana Mohammed Ali, salaam Celine Pamela Vladimir Solomonic library