Shadee Elmasry – Do Jews & Christians Have to Believe in the Prophet
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The "other side" of Islam is a group of individuals who are either Christian or Muslim. The "other side" of Islam is a group of individuals who are either Christian or Muslim. The "other side" of Islam is a group of individuals who are either Christian or Muslim. The "other side" of Islam is a group of individuals who are either Christian or Muslim. The "other side" of Islam is a group of individuals who are either Christian or Muslim. The "other side" of Islam is a group of individuals who are either Christian or Muslim.
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There is no subject matter since I've been
a teenager that just bothers the life out
of me, more than anybody saying that Ahlul
Kitab do not have to believe in the
Messenger ﷺ.
The first place I heard this was at
an academic conference, I'm telling you all everything
starts in these academic conferences, was at an
academic conference by a guy who is not
a Muslim who had read some books, who
knows what, given this lecture, trying to tell
everybody that actually there's another opinion and you
don't actually have to believe in the Prophet
ﷺ if you're Jewish and Christian.
Then it came across my radar again only
a few years later at the George Washington
University, which was the Islamic department there was
run by perennialists.
Sayyid Hussein Nasser is a perennialist, he's openly
a perennialist, he's not a sneaky perennialist, he
is openly a perennialist.
Now the perennialist idea is a little bit
different than other religious ideas because they don't
necessarily care about salvation of heaven and *,
they're all about attaining enlightenment.
The idea of bodily resurrection and fearing the
fire and desiring the beautiful wonderful things of
paradise, to them is lowly.
All they care about is some kind of
spiritual enlightenment and they don't believe in the
requirement of believing in the Messenger ﷺ to
attain any of that.
They're big on Ramaswami, who is a Hindu.
If you're a mystic in whatever field you
are and you have a spiritual anti-modern
inclination, they're good with you essentially.
And from the Islamic scholars, they're only very
interested in the Sufis and the heretics amongst
them too.
They're those types who have a good taste
for these heretical ideas and there's no concept
for them of Aqeedah, Sunni and Shiite, it's
all the same to them.
Then there's a second group and really only
one individual, Javad Hashmi, and he takes it
from the purely orientalist perspective, different from the
perennialists.
Perennialists are totally from a spiritual perspective, their
source of authority is some guy, Frithjof Ashwan.
How are you going to argue?
You can only argue against his character.
And then they try to find a line
from Ibn Arabi here, a line from Rumi
here, which is easy, you can find anything.
You can find anything you want in Islamic
poetry, mystical poetry especially.
But the next group, which is only really
one guy, Javad Hashmi, he appeals to the
same idea that Jews and Christians are believers
and he appeals to it textually but relying
solely on orientalist sources.
The guy literally relies on non-Muslims.
And we went in the debate and he
was utterly creamed.
Actually I would just say creamed, I'm not
gonna say utterly creamed, because I'm actually upset
at myself.
Because the original pitch was come give a
seminar to UCLA grad students.
So I prepared an academic paper, right, an
academic presentation.
By the end of the month of negotiations
about this thing it ended up being a
YouTube debate.
I would have completely changed my approach but
I didn't adapt well enough because it was
the first time I ever did such a
debate.
I wish I had adapted and simplified my
presentation and brought the verses up.
Then I could say I utterly creamed him.
But I will just say creamed him and
that's it.
The proof that he was creamed, after the
debate, you know the post debate Twitter fights,
he actually admits that no, I believe, and
I've always said he said that they have
to believe in the Prophet in a certain
way, in some sort of capacity.
Of course this is non-legal language, it's
fuzzy language, and it's not what he was,
you know, saying that he did in the
first place, right?
It wasn't his position in the first place.
I recently discovered a third strand of this
heretical idea that Jews and Christians do not
have to follow the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam.
And this strand is coming out of the
state of New Jersey, fortunately, maybe in some
quiet little corners that no one knows about,
but for me it's the principle of it.
I can't stand that this is in public
at all.
And I'm trying to talk to the people,
I've offered myself to talk to their people
who are promoting this idea, or at least
it's in their vicinity, maybe they don't even
know that it's happening in their community.
But nonetheless, this is the Egyptian modernist Muhammad
Abdu strand, allegedly that this idea comes from
Muhammad Abdu, and it is purely Quranic, purely
textual, and that's what we're gonna go at
today, and we're gonna assess it rationally.
I'm gonna look at the proofs that have
been presented.
Why is that?
That's because I was talking to Dr. Hatem
El-Hajj the other day about this, and
he said, that which used to be well
known, maybe today is not well known, and
we have to preach it, we have to
promote it, we have to correct everything, and
we have to speak clearly about what is
actually something known in religion by necessity, which
so much time has passed that perhaps possibly
it's no longer known for everybody, and it
has to be spelled out, and we're gonna
do that.
First, I want to talk about what makes
a person a Muslim in the first place.
Remember, this live stream is for people who
are Muslim, who care fervently about doing this
religion right, practicing it right, believing in it
properly.
The bare bone in order to be a
Muslim, to be just deemed a Muslim, is
you utter your Shahada, and the fact that
you're entering Islam, just logically speaking, the default
of it is the default understanding of what
Islam is.
We call that al-ma'loom min ad
-deen bid-daroora, what is known in religion
by necessity, and if you want to talk
about it textually, it's that those ideas, those
doctrines that are explicit, qata'i, the language
is qata'i, explicit, means there's no other
possibility for an interpretation, no room, and the
dissemination is mutawatir.
You can pretty much say it's also known
as known in religion by necessity, and that
makes you a Muslim.
When it makes you a Muslim, what does
it allow you?
Some basic rights, but we have to do
this right.
So you can see there are two rungs
of the green circles, right?
We got to do this right, and there's
a lot more than what's qata'i and
mutawatir.
Alright, the next one is ahl al-sunnah,
correct belief established by affirming all qata'i
texts, everything that is qata'i, that is
explicit, that comes to us, whether it sums
mutawatir, mass transmitted, or not mutawatir, we have
to submit to it.
That doesn't mean every madhhab will use it
in their fiqh, but they accept it.
And specifically we're talking about theology here, theological
texts, we're not talking about the law.
So now let's go to the opposite now,
someone now negates, we're gonna go to the
bottom of these two, someone negates something qata
'i in a had, that is a mubtada',
someone who is part of a sect, and
at that point your good deeds don't count.
Unfortunately and very sadly, your good deeds no
longer count, because you're not believing properly.
You're refusing to believe in something that the
Prophet made crystal clear and the Qur'an
makes crystal clear, even if a lot of
people don't know.
You're excused until you know.
An example of this are the Shi'i
sects.
Example of this, mujassima, mu'tazila, or we can
say someone who negates that mi'raj was
in the body.
These are things that maybe a person wouldn't
know off the bat, but it could be
very easily be learned.
Now here's what's extremely dangerous, if a person
negates what is known in religion by necessity,
then that is what produces the zindiq.
Someone who negates something qata'i and mutawatir,
if someone negates that hajj is in Mecca,
that's a zindiq, right?
Because that's known in religion by necessity.
When you say the word Islam, that's literally
the madmoon of the kalima.
Let's look at it logically.
Who has the right to define anything?
The author.
Who has the right to define Islam?
None other than Allah and his Messenger.
They define it.
What they tell you explicitly over and over
and over, that is the core definition of
Islam.
What they tell you explicitly one time, but
clear language, is part of doing Islam correctly,
which we call that second run called ahlus
sunnah.
Now if somebody was to come and negate
what is maloom in ad-din daruratan, and
is qata'i, he can be accused of
zindiqa.
Now why is zindiqa worse than kufr even?
It's all kufr, but why is it worse?
Because the kafir, he's not trying to be
a Muslim.
He's not telling you he's a Muslim.
He can't confuse you.
Regular person out there who's not a Muslim,
he won't confuse our religion, right?
But someone who is a Muslim, like the
Qadianis for example, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam said, there will be in my ummah
those who claim prophethood.
So the ulama said, in my ummah, that
means they're saying they're Muslims.
They're not of my ummah.
He didn't say min ummati.
No, he said fee ummati.
So the zindiqa is saying at the core,
un-Islamic things to people, saying he's a
Muslim and saying it's Islam.
Now the kafir, kufr, which we would say
are people of the book and pagans, they're
far less than the zindiqa.
They're not confusing to us.
And that's why teaching aqeedah is something that
has to happen every single generation now more
than ever.
Now the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
I want to say this is so important.
He said two different hadiths.
There will come a time at the end
of days where a person will wake up
a mu'min and sleep a kafir.
However, the Prophet also says, inni la'akhsha
alaykum wa shirk.
I don't fear shirk for you.
So therefore, the kufr of such an individual
at the end of time, which will so
casually take on a kufri belief, will not
be about another god.
It will be about something else in the
religion.
So you don't become a kafir only on
taking on another god.
Bani Israel did.
The sons of Israel, in their times of
prophets, when they were receiving prophets, one of
them may wake up one day, at the
end of the day he worships a golden
calf.
So asbaha mu'minin wa amsa kafira.
He woke up a believer.
We're supposed to fear this if we take
our religion seriously.
We're supposed to be, this is to us
the most important thing.
When the Prophet says, this will happen in
our ummah, but it won't be through paganism.
It will be through other, like what is
Iblis a kafir for?
Did he worship another god?
No.
He rejected a prophet.
His kufr is in prophethood.
Right?
He rejected Adam.
So prophethood is so important.
Most of the kufr of the Bani Israel
was in prophethood.
Of course they did have paganism too, and
worshiped idols as well.
So this is why we care about this
subject.
Next slide.