Shadee Elmasry – The Cream of Tafsir – NBF 416 – 1

AI: Summary ©
The Safina Society is hosting classes for the church and introducing a concept called "rowning" to reflect reality. They discuss various charitable causes, such as a shower and a shower for youth, and talk about a woman named Monica Heyral who passed away three years ago. The conversation also touches on various professional and personal topics, including a shower and a shower, and mentions a woman named Monica Heyral who passed away in Syria. The conversation also touches on the increasing number of Muslims who need learning teachers and the need for more teachers.
AI: Summary ©
Today, I'm going to give you a brief
introduction to the concept of quantum mechanics.
Welcome everybody to the Safina Society, nothing but
facts live stream on a cold Thursday in
the great state of New Jersey on a
day in which the flurries have started to
come down, very light flurries, and we're getting
snow a couple inches.
You know that Omar, two to three inches
of snow we're getting on Sunday.
You aware of that?
We start up our classes again at the
Masjid on Sunday.
This time it's at two o'clock, our
class starts.
If you want to sign up for that,
you go to arcviewessentials, arcview.org, go to
arcview.org and go to essentials, sign up
for essentials.
That's where we'll be at again.
That's arcview.org and then I have two
rooms there.
I have room for my two different classes.
In arcviewessentials, you'll see my two rooms.
You click on my room at two o
'clock on Sunday where it says my Sunday
Awaylem course and we're finishing up Ulum al
-Quran and then we go to Ulum al
-Hadith.
We're going from Ulum al-Quran to Ulum
al-Hadith this semester.
We study those two subjects first before studying
Aqidah because the Muslim that's living so far
from the original lands of Islam and outside
the environment of Islam may need some background
on the sources of theology first, the sources
of belief before anything else.
Like how can you talk about Haqqaid where
you haven't yet even, you have no confidence
in the verses and the Hadith.
So it's not fathomable or it's not unfathomable
that you can have a Muslim, he believes
in everything but he really questions and wonders
how do we know these Hadith are true?
How do we know these verses are what
they are?
How did the Quran get here?
Speaking of the Quran, today we're going to
talk about Safwat al-Tafasir and we're talking
to Shaykh Mahdi Lakh who is also teaching
a new course in Arkview.
Again you go to Arkview.org but this
time you go into the Arabic unit and
you sign up for that you will get
to listen to Shaykh Mahdi Lakh and he
will educate you, he will teach you, he
will read with you the cream of Tafsir,
Safwat al-Tafasir and he'll be joining us
very shortly.
He was joining us yesterday but as you
see the Wi-Fi was acting up with
us.
The Wi-Fi was acting up and we
kept getting cut and then our man out
of England would match up all the two
different parts and then put them up.
So we're gonna probably hopefully we don't get
cut but Shaykh Mahdi Lakh is coming on
today.
GRT is also something that we're gonna talk
about because we said the other day that
our guys are going to Shem, they did
go to Shem.
Two of our guys went to Shem and
went to Syria, went to Damascus, went to
Sidnaya prison and they delivered aid on behalf
of GRT.
When Ahmad is done he can fire up
our GRT scorecard let's see how we're doing
on GRT and we always gather a couple
cents here and there for GRT.
We do a lot of financial things here
and it all goes towards different charitable causes.
Another one I'm very excited about actually we're
gonna be putting up getting some hoodies.
It's winter and it's time for hoodies.
Oversized hoodies you know these big oversized hoodies
and where's that money gonna go to that's
gonna go to Umrah for youth so that
we can send some Shabab to Umrah who
can't afford it specifically high schoolers okay high
schoolers are who we like to send I
like to send out people go before going
to college go to Umrah once or twice
not just once once or twice the first
time is the most important one but you
need that second one and how much do
we talk about the repetition of things it's
so important the repetition of things almost got
us our Syria fund fired up here and
we are at 12,000 99 pence pounds
I mean and 91 P so we are
9 P away from 12,100 GBP's great
Britain whatever so let's get that night let's
get that 8 cents that's all that's what
I'm asking that's my ask today how crazy
is that my ask is to it's always
to round up like if we were at
1240 which we try to get 60 pounds
today we're lucky sure lucky day all we're
asking for is 8 P all right let's
just get to 12,100 and we'll see
what happens from there Sheikh Mehdi is with
us and he is here to talk about
the cream of Tafsir my first question will
be for him about the author why he
chose this book so let's bring him on
our very own Sheikh Mehdi lock assalamu alaikum
how are you I'm not everyone hear me
clear yes loud and clear very good why
don't you talk to us and tell us
suffocated Tafsir tell us about the author first
okay well Sheikh Mohammed Ali Sabuni rahim Allah
Syrian Hanafi passed away just I think three
years ago three or four years ago spent
I think the last I think half his
life or so in in Mecca he's met
most life in Mecca I believe he had
to leave Syria under because of the political
circumstances back in the 80s I mean has
to do with the situation in Hama have
1982 so he's been there all that time
his specialty is a Hanafi faqih but his
specialty has always been on the Quran so
he's very he's so his Tafsir is very
well known some of the Tafsir he's also
done a Muqtasir of Ibn Kathir he's also
Ibn Kathir's Tafsir he's also very well known
for doing another Tafsir Ayatul Ahkam that's very
very famous he also has a book on
Tibian in the Quran a very well-known
book and he's done lots of other smaller
books other works there's two Sabunis in history
Islamic history scholars yeah correct yeah they're not
a major one that's the other ones I
think a thousand years ago yeah very long
time ago yeah Sabun means soap so so
all so he wrote a lot now the
the contemporary Sabuni yeah yes yes very very
very active Mashallah so so that the Tafsir
has been some that's been kind of close
to me for a long time I mean
I actually have this is my own edition
so I bought this in Fez I think
in 2001 hmm when I first arrived as
an Arabic student and people were recommending to
me then saying like if you want to
get a nice Tafsir to get yourself going
and like we're gonna cover and we're gonna
do this when we start on Saturday because
there's there's about eight I think endorsements at
the beginning of the book from different Udema
of that time because it was published late
1970s I think the first time it came
out it was mid to late 1970s because
there's actually an endorsement from Imam Abdul Haleem
Mahmood who was a big Shia and Sheikh
Al Azhar passed away in 1979 a massive
authority on Marjah who has lots of wonderful
books as well so he he has an
endorsement he hasn't he's his endorsement the first
one then there's lots of other Shia and
the Qatira and professors from from from Mecca
from the from the University because at that
time because what people think now of like
Umm al-Qurra University was Umm al-Qurra
University now in Mecca it started off as
a branch of Jamt al-Mecca ibn Aziz
based in Jeddah right that's how that's how
it was back then the time the book
was published and there's also so there's a
lot of endorsements from different professors and doctors
from the University and then there's also Sheikh
Mohammed al-Ghazali the big Egyptian Hanafi Sheikh
so he has an endorsement and what they
both said they all praised the book and
what they say is that Alhamdulillah we have
it's a seer that strikes that balance between
being between brevity and prolixity you know like
like being so there's lots of fears can
be very brief and concise and then you
feel like you want more and then you
go to bigger Tafsir and then you find
yourself like swimming in an ocean and it's
it's going off and on and on and
on it's very very likely so so I
there's something I've been wanting to do I've
been wanting to do for a while I
would want to do like a Tafsir class
with my Arabic students because Alhamdulillah you know
we've come a long way now Mashallah we've
done about 18 months and you know my
students are demonstrating that you know they're they're
thirsty for more they want to go into
more detail on things they love it in
class when we bring up ayat we talk
about ayat so it's okay let's let's give
you something that's that satiates all right satiates
your hunger quenches your thirst but doesn't overdo
it yeah doesn't overdo it because I thought
like I crossed my mind I thought hey
you know there is Imam Abu Zuhaili's Tafsir
al-Munir but that's like 17 volumes and
that goes into like yeah it goes into
Balagha, it goes into Kiraat, it goes into
Fiqh right it's super super detailed I'm saying
like but we might be here for a
while and as I got as a first
Tafsir yeah the first Tafsir that might be
a bit intimidating yeah so some of the
Tafsir it just fits that that that mold
and also the fact that Shaykh al-Saboun
he's drawing on the big as it's called
that that title cream Tafsirs why because he
just trying to summarize for you what the
major professor said who does he cover for
example so like for example like like the
court to be Imam al-Qudsi, Imam al
-Mukathir, At-Tabari, Faqhni al-Razi, these major
figures right Nasafi, Nasafi, Baghawi, and he just
quotes them he cites them I think he
does that in the some of the footnotes
but but what he explains in the introduction
is that that's what you rely that's what
he's relying on right so so like for
example he doesn't want to give you quote
footnote like like footnote and the Hamish and
you know detail but he's telling you this
is what I'm drawing from right so you
don't always do that directly quotes but you
know obviously like just just like just just
yesterday I was I was going over some
I just out of curiosity I was looking
at some of the ayat that for some
of you and I were discussing a couple
years back on the same show like about
ayat at Kamanika I just looked I just
looked at this here again he's saying the
same thing that I've I would have read
when I was doing my MA thesis you
know just summarizing saying this is the ajma'
position on this yeah I remember that so
he's just he's just matching what what again
what Imam al-Mukathir would have said what
he would have said what Qadi al-Bukhari
al-Muharrabi would have said and that's and
that's what I think students we were able
to do is once once you're going through
this or you've gone through this tafsir then
you you have an idea of what the
bigger Mufassirun said what the other Mufassirun said
and if you want to go and open
up their tafsirs it's gonna be familiar to
you yeah oh yeah I read this you
can say like oh yeah I read this
with Sheikh Saboudi yeah this is what I
expect to find amazing work so it's actually
one and a half times the size of
tafsir al-Baghawi which we usually read from
this is tafsir al-Baghawi that the Egyptian
and Maliki teachers in Egypt they said this
is the this is the one that you
go this is your number one go-to
and then I believe that Imam al-Haddad
said the same thing okay yeah so they
love Baghawi yeah I'm guessing Baghawi would be
longer than this because of this is obviously
three three volumes but it could be published
as one but again I guess it depend
on the print yeah this is in total
it's near to 14 1450 pages so yours
look like 500 pages a pop yeah it's
like 600 pages 600 so it's a little
bit longer yeah all right which surahs will
you be reciting from are you gonna do
a cut yeah we tend to do a
cotton we tend to do a backwards or
forwards we're gonna start what I've discussed so
far my students because this discussion sort of
came out during our open Q&A sessions
and I think when we actually made this
decision there were majority of Hanafis in the
room so maybe they push me but we
decided the point I mean we were open
were amenable to change but we decide we'd
start with the introduction start start with the
Austin the the endorsements the introduction sort of
Fatiha and then probably jump into Juzama yeah
go from NASA up yeah or or never
I mean we'll see we can discuss it
we can discuss that with the students you
see what they feel but get that down
because that those are the source everyone's familiar
with it those the source of people tend
to resign their prayers so that will help
people with their with a salah like concentration
so for and then we didn't go back
and do sort of Bakara sort of Bakara
I have taught parts of stuff here before
I've talked about parts of sister before I
think it's another reason I chose it because
I did I did run this is a
long time ago now this is like maybe
15 years ago I did run like a
new Muslim project in the city of not
team in the UK and with my wife's
on my wife's advice I just did like
a little to see your class I combined
to see with some fit there was like
a group of new Muslim sisters so to
help them out we do like some thick
and I did some to seer with them
and other sisters joined in and they just
really really praised the tough see or this
like wow I've never thought of you know
the Quran this clearly I've never no no
one's ever gone over this with us and
before we never seen this these kind of
explanations and it's it is quite it is
kind of shocking how I don't know again
what your experience is I don't know what
it was like the US I I find
it quite shocking how I find I find
a lot of people kind of like Muslims
go through life and they never even just
go over the Fatiha like what is a
lot of the Fatiha like what you know
you're doing this every day you know what
happened is that my it's not just a
theory it's fact the there are more scholars
today than in the past like every generation
there's probably more scholars but what there isn't
is the ratio of scholars to people who
need learning teachers to students the ratio is
she frozen either he's frozen or he's spellbound
oh there you go okay did you hear
what the last thing I said was the
audio cut up to you you you froze
okay so I was saying the what what's
happened is that there there are more their
scholars being produced every generation but the problem
with our times is the ratio in the
last few hundred years has kept going down
the ratio of teachers to people who need
a couple ratios teachers to people who need
to start to be taught the number of
Muslims who need to be taught is skyrocketing
the number of teachers being produced is not
skyrocketing the other thing is the the imams
and the teachers the ratio of their message
to all total number of messages that people
are getting that ratio is dropping too so
that you could probably imagine back in the
day there would have been maybe a couple
imams and scholars in a town and they
really almost had no competition maybe the only
competition was the local storyteller or the local
poet or whatever that was his only competition
but now you have millions of hundreds upon
thousands if not millions of outlets seeking your
attention and the sheikh and the imam is
going against all that that's another reason right
like back way back in the day in
the 80s let's say it was not even
way back in the day but in the
80s in the 90s if you pulled the
plug on your TV there was no outside
influence coming into your house hmm right there's
no outside influence if you pulled the plug
on your TV if you put the plug
back in there's 30 channels and they're not
channels that you could surf they're just channels
whatever he's showing at that time is all
you're getting you can never rewind right at
least you have 30 there's like for the
UK yeah and you had to pay for
it right hmm but yeah the license yeah
yeah it's a TV license but so that
was it even with TV there was not
much comp there it wasn't as attractive today
the the local teacher and imam there's so
much competition vying for his attention so it's
those are the two major factors of why
sort of the the state of the Ummah
is the way it is today where you
have people who may go their entire life
without studying Fatiha and you may have people
in the heart of Cairo Azhar is literally
right there they may pass it every single
day and they may not know one of
the things that we assume that everyone else
knows I knew an Egyptian woman she said
she grew up until her 40s didn't know
hijab was a fart upon everyone she thought
it was a custom an Arabic custom for
old women to do and the Hajj to
the Hajj was just like a visit that's
what they thought Hajj was like a visit
you just visit Mecca before you die that's
it you just do a visit that's what
they thought right and literally this is in
the heart of Egypt people don't have this
knowledge so you wonder like how did this
happen there was a Syrian woman who amazing
story she said that she was so far
from Islam so much so she would wear
we're frozen again frozen you're good okay yeah
what's the last thing you guys change my
connect yeah I got you I got you
yeah I got what you said people don't
have this knowledge so now there's let me
tell you this one other story which is
an amazing story she said that that this
woman is her future is very bright but
in the beginning she was like 22 years
old doing a master's in mathematics and wearing
like a short skirt and sleeveless and she
had no connection to Islam at all in
her family this is in Damascus like the
one of the heartlands of knowledge the first
places of now one of the first places
of knowledge in Islam so you know Medina
to Kufa Damascus miss so she saw a
woman sitting around at the lunch table talking
telling stories and all her friends listening so
she goes there it turns out she's telling
a story from the seerah and she's she
likes she like was shocked she was she
loved it and she said she thought that
all this time Muhammad is just a historical
figure that ruled at some point it's like
you like a Greek person may know yeah
Alexander he ruled at some point right who
knows when but he ruled yeah right we
don't know much about him but he ruled
I'm a sir some scholar knows about him
some historian so she's like that's what she
thought Muhammad was just someone who ruled at
some point in time right and she became
hooked within a year she had joined a
Quran circle and then she entered have and
give it ten years and she is a
half of with a jazz