Shadee Elmasry – The DANGEROUS Misconceptions DIVIDING the Ummah
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Is It Haram To Object To Something Traced
To The Prophet?
Not every difference is a disagreement, right?
Some differences are differences of variety.
Meaning it's all traceable to the Prophet ﷺ.
And in that case, we should all agree
that it is haram to object, right?
Because you'd be objecting to something traced to
the Prophet ﷺ.
So for instance, مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ مَالِكِ يَوْمِ
الدِّينِ Right?
أَنفُسِكُمْ وَأَنفَسِكُمْ Right?
The qiraat of the Qur'an.
Or the wordings of the adhan and iqamah.
You know, whether you do it the qiraat
or not, the repetition or not, you know,
between the hanaf.
These are actually variety.
These were both, these both have a degree
of traceability to the Prophet ﷺ.
They're not right and wrong, they're right and
right.
The most we discuss in this category of
variety, اختلاف تنوع, is what's the better thing
to do in this context, but we're not
allowed to say it's a wrong thing to
do, right?
You know, you can even think of like
Islamic work.
Like, should we be in the knowledge domain,
the education domain, or an inspiration domain?
Should we be doing more activism or should
we be doing sort of more political advocacy,
mobilization, printing of masahif, whatever social work, whatever
it's going to be.
This is variety.
No one can say those are not from
Islam.
We're just sort of tweaking.
We can't undermine any of that because you'd
be undermining something that is axiomatically Islamic, categorically
Islamic.
Then there's disagreements.
Disagreements is when there's rights and wrongs.
حلالات الحرام, حق و بطل, right?
When these disagreements exist, they can't all be
right at the same time.
There's times when we're going to excuse them
and times when we're not.
So, when we're not going to excuse them,
it doesn't mean we're necessarily to be hostile
with someone that has them, but we're just
not willing to entertain the conversation that this
could be right.
It's categorically wrong.
And so think of just easy examples, things
that violate Ijma'ah, right?
Allah is One, the Qur'an is His
book, Muhammad is His final prophet, sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam, those are his four hajj, hijab
is mandatory.
We're not open to sort of like your
acrobatics to tell me why the whole ummah
was sort of like misfired on that one,
right?
It's not up for discussion.
It doesn't mean I have to sort of
like be read in the face about it
every time I meet someone or hear.
No, that's like a protocol issue for later.
But let me get to where the actual
issue is, the actual sort of practical benefit
for a lot of us listening to this
podcast or the likes or in Islamic work
or in Islam Muslim spaces deal with, which
is excusable differences.
How do we know?
Because sometimes we have misplaced concreteness.
We think it's concretely unexcusable, illegitimate or the
likes, right?
How do we know when something is unexcusable?
The easiest way for time purposes and is
just matters of agreement when the scholars have
unanimously agreed on something or a number of
things.
Because the Prophet ﷺ said, and the hadith
has some substantiation to its chain that my
ummah will not agree upon, falsehood.
And he also said, this is a more
authentic chain, this is mutawatir, like massly transmitted,
like there will always be a group of
my ummah visibly on the truth, apparent, al
-haqq al-bahireen.
That means if the ummah was wrong, someone
would have stepped up and said, excuse me
guys, right?
There will always be dissent, meaning disagreement to
make sure the truth is never absent from
the ummah for a moment.
And so, typically excusable, we're talking about scholarly
views.
There is scholarly precedent for them.
They don't come out of nowhere in unprecedented
way.
So scholars again disagree now.
They have conflicting views.
Let's say they have a set number of
views, and these scholars don't condemn each other,
right?
So what does that mean?
When they don't condemn each other, they still
agree to pray behind each other or whatever.
We're saying these views are valid.
Before we get to these three points right
now, the view is valid.
I'm not saying it's correct.
I'm saying it is irrational, and this is
the view of the majority, al-mukhatti, anar,
al-musawwiba, that the mujtahid, the scholars that
exert themselves to arrive at a view, those
views are valid.
If certain boxes are checked, let's leave that
out of the conversation for now.
But valid means we don't know until the
day of judgment which one was correct.
All we know is that we're all exerting
our capacity, and if we wind up being
correct, we get two rewards, and if we're
incorrect, we get one reward.
That's it.
That's what the hadith says, right?
حَكَمَ الْحَاكَمُ فَاجْتَهَدَ فَأَصَبْ When a person passes
their judgment, of course, he needs to be
qualified to pass judgments to begin with, he
passes your judgment, and you turn out to
be correct, you get two rewards, your effort,
your sort of your trophy.
But the trophy is Allah.
It's not something you sort of like, you
know, flex on people and smash over people's
heads, right?
It's with Allah.
And then if you're wrong, you get one
reward meaning for effort.
Yes.
So, now as a layman, what do I
do with this?
I'm gonna say, okay, the scholars had a
set number of views, and they didn't condemn
each other for these views.
This means, they agree on the validity, not
correctness, validity of these views, right?
So, let's use the hijab example.
They said, does she cover the face or
not cover the face?
It's a whole long discussion, right?
They're both valid, to sort of write one
off as liberal and one as extreme, and
there's always fingers pointing to the other side,
is dhulm.
It is unjustified.
They all actually agree that you're the one
out of line, in that case.
They're disagreeing while agreeing that you're uncalled for,
unwarranted.
The second thing is, when they don't condemn
each other, that means they agree it's speculative.
It's each study, right?
Like when someone pulls out something and says
like, zakah cannot be spent on da'wah.
For instance, I'm sorry, it's a little controversial.
I don't mean to be forceful.
I'm just rushing.
But when someone...
But hold on.
If it were crystal clear, would they have
disagreed on this?
When Abu Hanifa rahimahullah said, it could be
used on Quranic instruction, that's a form of
jihad.
Or when Imam Ahmed rahimahullah said, it could
be spent on hajj and umrah, because the
Prophet ﷺ told Aisha, yes, women have to
perform jihad, but jihad that is void of
combat, hajj and umrah.
If it were clear, did they get this
out of their pocket?
No, they didn't.
Would they have disrespected the sharia in that
way?
That is the implication of saying about something
they differed over as crystal crystal clear.
That's the problem.
The implication is you're saying that they're all
like ignorant, or they're all sellouts.
Right?
No, they let each other disagree, which meant
they understood that there is some interpretive bandwidth
there.
I remember I went to Atim al-Hajj
once.
We were praying taraweeh all Ramadan together in
a Hanafi masjid.
And in the Hanafi masjid, they pray their
witr in a particular format.
Their witr involves praying, for those that don't
know, it looks like maghrib, right?
It pray tashahud in the middle and then
tashahud in the end, in the second and
third rak'ah.
So I said, Sheikh, the hadith is clear.
That's why I said so.
Sheikh, the hadith is clear that your witr
should not resemble your maghrib.
So they smiled at me.
You know that grandpa, you're such a fool.
He smiled at me and says, we don't
recite, they're going to tell you we don't
recite out loud in the third rak'ah
of maghrib.
It's a pile up.
And so I smiled and said, why do
they always have an answer?
He said, because that's the nature of these
subjects.
There's always an answer.
Your ignorance of the answer doesn't mean that
there's no answer.
Anyway, so the third part is the truth
must be among those views.
Meaning there's no room when they differ on
a set number of views for there to
be a third one.
And we covered that in the previous slide,
the issue of unprecedented.
No one can come now and say, hijab
means modesty.
It doesn't actually refer to a garb or
boundaries for the garb.
No, I'm sorry.
Like the ummah was not in the dark
between these two views, and they're all wrong
until God's gift to the world, you showed
up.
This is just like astronomically, like colossal levels
of conceit to bring out an unprecedented view.
So what do we do?
What do we do in light of this?
Just remember the four rules.
The layman is not entitled to a personal
opinion.
Everyone needs to understand this.
You know, since I'm going to be pandering
to the Maliki Sirik, Ibn Abdul Barra, Rahim
Allah, the great Maliki scholar.
He reports Ijma'a, scholarly agreement.
أن المقلد ليس بعالم وأن العلم معرفة الحق
بدليله That the muqallid, the layman, you know,
muqallid, layman, it comes from qilada.
Qilada means like a chain around your neck.
It means a collar.
Meaning you need to understand that you're just
being dragged along.
And that's why qilid, and this is not
controversial, taqlid is haram except for darura.
The only reason you would imitate someone in
your deen is because dhuhr time is going
to end and I'm not going to be
a scholar or a mujtahid by the time
asr time comes.
So I have no choice.
But we should all sort of own our
own deen and religious opinions.
So he's saying, but recognize that, recognize, read
the rule.
Where are you?
Who am I?
You are not a alim.
And that ilm is knowing the truth and
the evidences for it, right?
What does he mean you're not a alim?
He's not trying to insult you and say
you're like an ignorant fool.
He's trying to tell you that it's haram
for you to have a view.
You don't have a view.
You're following someone else's view.
So if you don't have a view, you
can't be defending a view or promoting a
view.
You don't have one.
You don't have one.
That's number one.
The second bullet, the scholar is not, now
the scholar, check this out.
The scholar is not entitled to impose their
view on others.
Think about that.
Why did like Abu Yusuf Al-Qadi and
Muhammad Al-Hassan Al-Shaybani or Ibn Al
-Qasim or others, anyone, why did the greatest
students of the founders of the four schools
sometimes disagree with their teacher?
Because they were forced to.
Why were they forced to?
Because they understood that it is haram for
me, Allah will hold me accountable to my
jihad.
It's haram for me to follow someone more
knowledgeable than me, more pious than me, when
on a particular issue, my jihad delivered me
elsewhere.
And that's why they also don't impose it
on others.
That's why they didn't impose it on their
students or we shouldn't impose it on the
peers in scholarship.
I'm punishable for departing from my jihad.
I'm rewarded for my jihad.
And so how can you bully me into
doing something that is contrary to what Allah's
rewarding me for and Allah's punish me if
I ignore.
That's the idea you want to think about
here.
As a scholar, you can't even do it,
let alone a layman.
The third thing is leadership.
Leaders are entitled to compliance within a spectrum
of valid views, right?
And that's like a rule, like respecting an
imam's leadership in the masjid or a husband's
leadership in the home or the management's leadership
in any sort of organization or collective, the
state's leadership to pick a moon-sighting view,
right?
Whatever it's going to be.
Leaders are entitled to pick a view because
you can't get stuck in decision paralysis, right?
You don't have to believe in the view.
You just have to take their right to
choose one, right?
No gaslighting, no pressuring, nothing.
The last thing, and this is very important,
which is that cooperation.
Someone shared with me a clip recently speaking
about the importance of cordiality and cooperation, which
I really appreciate it.
Cooperation, which some will call unity, that's why
I worded it like that, follows a pros
-cons calculus.
It has nothing to do with everything I
just explained.
Yeah.
It has nothing to do with valid versus
invalid views.
Yeah.
So, like, cooperating in obedience, تعوان على البر
والتقوى, you know, like, if someone believes there's
a prophet after Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم,
for sure that's an invalid view.
Yeah.
If you believe that God is part of
a triune godhead, right?
Eternity.
Invalid view, fine.
Inexcusable, fine.
But I can still collaborate with you.
So, what about people that have so much
more in common, right?
Even, like, the scholars agree, generally, if you
look at how they operate, they agree that
shunning a Muslim is only allowed when there
is a clear pro there, like a clear
benefit, tough love or sort of like protecting
the ummah.
So, that's a very dynamic rule that they
agree on.
Like, when is it actually in the best
interest of community or ummah to not interact
with someone?
Mm-hmm.
And we should let those in the kitchen
make those decisions, by the way.
Yeah.