Suhaib Webb – AlGhazzali’s The Way Of Worshipers Part One
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AI: Transcript ©
Today, Insha'Allah, I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll
I'm going to be,
starting the text with you, Insha'Allah.
And we're going to be going through a
very important point,
in the text itself.
Just let me see if I can
find it.
Yeah. So this is what I'm looking for
here.
And I'll be reading it today. I won't
have the translation in front of me, so
I'll be reading the out of it. And
we're gonna actually read it letter for letter,
right, word for word,
as this is the way, that we do
things,
in in in our
our tradition.
So Bismillah Alhamdulillah.
So it begins and it says that the
teacher,
the scholar of law, and the righteous person,
the one who is known to be an
aesthetic. And usually when you read these in
front of any text in Arabic,
you have to understand that that is the
addition of the scribe.
Nobody is gonna talk about themselves like this.
Right? Allah
says in the Quran after
Right? That
those people who love to be praised for
things which they haven't done, meaning they exaggerate
themselves,
right, seeking the praise of others.
So there's no way that,
anyone would write this about themselves, but this
is the addition of a scribe.
And this is very clear when you're looking
at handwritten documents
because when you're looking at a handwritten document,
the machtout, you'll notice that the handwriting of
the author is always different than this person,
like, 99% of the time. I've never seen
anybody write, like, these introductions
about themselves.
And what's understood is that it is permissible
to talk about people like this after they
died.
But people are alive,
you know.
Yisiedina Abdulsalam,
he's one of the great scholars.
He he referred to everybody as yah insan,
o person,
except 2 people, al Baji al Shefiri, not
al Baji al Mehriki.
Al Berji al Sheifi'i, one of the great
scholars of the Sheifi'i madhhab used to say,
Yeah Faqi.
Yeah Faqi. And Ibn Raffa, who was also
a great scholar, used to call him Sultan
al Ulema.
But everyone else, Yeah Insan.
And we know the hadith of the prophet
which is authentic that
if you want to praise,
somebody.
Right?
If you want to praise somebody,
the best thing that you can say is
counter to religion.
And it can create a sense of arrogance
in the person.
And we should just treat people nicely.
Right? We don't have to debase them, but
also we don't have to be, like,
engaged in, like, hyperbole hyperbole while they're alive.
That's That's why the
prophet said, if you see somebody praising someone
too much, you should throw dirt in their
face. We know during the time of Sayyidina
Uthman ibn Affan
there was a person in front of him
as read by Imam Muslim who was
praising Sayyidna Uthman and suddenly one of the
sahabas stood up and threw dirt in his
face.
He said, the prophet
told
me that if you see somebody praising someone
like this, you should do this.
So the point is balance. Right?
We're not also stoic. Thank you, Ehson. We're
not stoic.
But at the same time, we need to
be very careful
of
putting people on a pedestal
and in a you know, maybe inadvertently translating
the adulation
that popular culture has for celebrities
and stars
to people in the religious community.
But after someone's dead, because you're no longer
it's not going to be a a a
great question. It's not gonna be a fitna
for them. And we we believe that when
people die, if they were good people, we
should assume the best.
And while we're alive, we assume
the best, but we do not put them
in a situation where our words can become
a challenge for them.
That's how we know he died because the
person said, may Allah forgive him.
His name is Abdul Malik ibn 'Abdila. He
was one of the last students of
Sayna imam
al Qazari.
He said, like, I
I I took this text from
the great scholar,
Al imam. An imam in the traditional
text does not mean, like, the imam in
the mosque.
The imam in the traditional text has two
meanings
or 3. The first is the leader of
the country.
Because in the early days of Islam, the
leader of the country led salah and gave
the khutbah
and led the Eid prayer, Fahuwakan al Ima.
The second is the 1,
is the person that you can emulate,
someone that you emulate
in religious in religion without asking them for
evidences.
You can ask them for evidences. It's okay.
But it is understood through peer review and
through scholarship and through knowledge that these are
people that you can emulate. Like, these are
people who have knowledge of the religion and
practice of the religion in a way that
it is safe
to take their opinions, Bilalahujah,
without necessarily having the proof.
Like, Imam Malik,
like, Imam al Shafi.
So Imam al Shaifi
sometimes, like, he didn't know the strength of
a hadith, so he would ask Imam Ahmed,
and Imam Ahmed
would tell him, this hadith is strong, this
hadith is weak. Imam Sheffi didn't ask him
for the ingredients, he just took the food.
Someone's asking a great question, what about praising
your spouse? No. That's different. You're encouraged to
spray praise your spouse. Right? Of course.
We're not we're not talking about going to
either extreme.
Right?
But I I don't think when I come
home,
Miriam is gonna say to me,
I don't think my wife's gonna say that.
I hope she just says,
you
know, Okay. That's good.
Doctor Sherman Jackson used to say to me,
when I go home, I'm honey and baba.
That's
sufficient for me. So, of course, to say
nice things to our families, this is worship,
Alhamdulillah. To say nice things to fellow Muslims.
Right? To go and say to someone, Masha'Allah,
you did a good job is okay.
But to, you
know, take it
beyond what's needed?
No.
So sheikh,
Abdul Malik ibnoo
Abdilahi,
he says that my teacher,
Al Imam al Zahid,
the great scholar and the Zahid is the
one who,
was not consumed by dunya in an unhealthy
way.
The one who was Allah had pleased this
person and guided this person.
The proof of Islam. And this is, of
course, is the laqab
of the imam Sayna Al Ghazali rahi muhawaha,
which most of the ulama, alhamdulillah,
they they
they attributed to him.
Even though, you know,
he himself,
you know, was so ingrained and engrossed in
life, in worship,
and in teaching and writing that
perhaps he wasn't aware of this because he
never called himself
Hujatul Islami zaynuddeen,
the beauty of the Deen.
Sharaf al Ummah, the honor of the Ummah.
Abu Mohammed
Muhammad
Muhammad al Ghazari
al Tusi.
And, actually, the better way to say his
name, there should be a Shadda on the
Zay.
This is like a common mistake.
The
Vazal is the Weber.
We have a famous name in English for
the family of Webbers. It's Webb. SubhanAllah. So
I'm imam.
I'm also imam al Vazali.
I was im when I was imam. No.
I'm just
assistant adjunct professor Ghazali.
Masha'Allah.
Al Tusi.
Of course, Tusi is in Iran.
We know that the cradle of the Sheth
Emeth Heb
and the cradle of Oso Lofiq
for years was in Iran.
And some of the greatest ulama
came from Iran, like Imam al Razi,
Abu Ishaq Qashiarazi,
Saidni Imam al Ghazari,
Imam Abu Baidawi,
some of the great, great, great scholars in
language, and Firq and Husul,
were from Iran, what's now Iran Persia.
This is like a small
not ra if you're
paying attention.
This is a summary. This book is a
summary.
And this is the last book that the
sheikh wrote. So this is like a small
treatise, and this is the last book that
he wrote. And, of course, this is Abdul
Mahdic talking, not Imam al Ghazari.
Waram Yastamli minhu
illa hawwalsoasharabbihi.
And the only people who were able to
to learn this book and and and dictate
this book from him were his close students.
And then he begins the book.
Now we're going to,
start with the text of the imam,
Al Ghazal, Rahim Muhammad. We learned something also
here.
That is permissible
for a teacher
to have special students,
not to create a cult, but maybe because
of certain reasons, their intellect or their their
level of understanding,
not everybody is made for everything.
That's what the hadith of Abu Zar,
the prophet
said, whoever says, let
will go to Jannah.
Then Abu Abu Dhabi said, even if they
kill somebody, even if they kill somebody, even
if they committed
zina,
a fornication, even if they fornicate.
Even if they steal, even if they steal.
Whoever says
sincerely,
from their heart will interpret us. And then
Abu Zar, he said, I'm gonna go tell
the people.
And the prophet said, don't tell them,
alisa. Because if you tell them, they're gonna
get lazy.
Also, the hadith of Mu'adh
the prophet
said to Mu'ath is related also by imam
Muslim.
He said, oh, Mu'ath, do you know the
right Allah has on the people?
He said the right that Allah has on
his people is that they worship him and
they don't associate partners with him.
And then a short times later a short
time later, he said to
do you know the right that people have
on Allah if they do that?
Mu'adhi said, no. He said, that
Allah will not punish them.
But the prophet
told him, don't tell people this.
Yet
If you tell them this, they're going to
become laxed.
So here we see the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
Right? Not everybody has to learn everything. Right?
What we need to learn, as Imam Shafi'i
mentioned, is what's going to increase our iman,
increase our devotion,
increase our ability to serve people.
So the text, he says,
Praise be to Allah. Al Malik. Al Malik
is the one
who has control of all things.
Al Malik without the alif
is the one who is in charge of
everything.
Al Malik with the alif is something specific.
That's why you have the 2
imam Shoutabir says
that,
is read by Sayna Imam al Aasim,
Sayna Imam ibn Kathir,
and Imam al Qadu.
3,
right,
2 of the imams and 1 student.
The rest,
So in
we say,
like that day,
Allah
is the one completely in control to create
a sense of awe on that day.
Means everything
small or great
on that day.
Allah
is the sole
power.
Someone's asking a direct message. How do we
know we are saying there's no Gabbah Allah's
sincerity?
Number 1 is if you're worried about your
sincerity,
masha'Allah, usually you're a sincere person.
Number 2 is.
Everything has its
its tail or its its its its footprints.
Right? And the the footprint
of saying
correctly
is doing good.
Not just like an empty word,
but it's followed up by actions.
Those who
believe,
and belief here
means also cognition and affirmation.
Muhammad
and then Amir.
They engage.
This is the last book, say, an imam
al Azari wrote. Imam al Ghazari, he only
lived 55 years.
55 years.
Was born in 410,
and he died 505.
What a life, man.
Then he says he begins,
Hakim, of course, is the all wise,
the one who knows all. But the word
Hakim, it's its root is from a word
which means to stop.
There's a I don't wanna make it too
hard for you,
but there's a Jahili poet,
Says, oh,
should I not
should I not stop your foolish people? So
the word
Hakim
is the one who stops foolishness. Allahu Akkim.
And say the Musa said, I seek refuge
in being from the ignorant.
My lord, increase me in knowledge. So anything
that Allah has revealed,
anything that is coming in the Quran and
the authentic sunnah is meant to stop
ignorance.
The generous, the bountiful.
And here, you know, I heard something nice
from one of our teachers because this form,
Hakim, Kareem,
all of these sifat of
Allah are a form which means
continuous.
Right? There's no beginning and no end.
So when you feel down, man,
my life is hard. Things are difficult. It's
natural. It happens to all of us. Remember,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is al koreem.
Does Allah love me? Am I still close
to Allah?
You know? Am I able to turn back
to Allah? Allah is Kareem,
That's why we say it in Ramadan.
To remind us Allah is karama,
Allah's blessings and bounties
are always there.
Al Aziz,
the one who conquers all things, Ar Rahim,
the one who his mercy
and his benevolence is constant.
Who created people the best way.
And who in means
to make something out of nothing.
So who created
the heavens and the earth
by his power and his authority?
And who manages
all things in this life and the next
by his wisdom.
And he did not create jinn and human
beings except for his worship.
And the way to Allah is clear for
those who seek him.
And its evidences
are, like, standing out,
obvious
for those who take the time to think
and ponder.
When Allah chooses to guide who he wants
and chooses to misguide who he wants,
and Allah
is the one who best knows
the people who seek guidance.
And this word, al Muhtadeen, is very important
because it brings together
it brings together
the agency
of a person
with the power of Allah.
Means I seek guidance.
I don't wait for it. Waladina
tadao zadaa hoom hoda waataa hoom ta'awam. Allah
says in short to Muhammad who seeks guidance.
I don't just wait for it.
Right? And shul to Zomar, those people who
say, oh, if Allah guided me, I will
be good.
You have to make effort. I have to
make effort.
And prayers upon Muhammad, the master of all
the prophets,
the best of all prophets, Yani.
And upon his family.
You know, we we have a great love
for Alabaita.
Had to,
Imam
You, family of the prophet, indeed,
love for you.
Is the obligation from God
and revealed in the Quran.
He said, it's sufficient for you, oh, family
of the prophet,
to know that
that whoever doesn't send salawat upon you in
salah, he has no salah,
Imam Sheffi, he's like very intelligent.
He
said,
So this class,
I'm teaching.
So if it's hard for people or difficult,
I
may
encourage you to
don't get upset and complain, but I'm not
gonna change
because
we wanna teach people. We wanna build students.
So forgive me,
but,
we want to
build students.
Right? It's like a Lupe song, Bamidam.
So this line of poetry, Inshallah, I'll put
it in the document. Thank you, Asan, for
sharing, Masha'allah.
And my translation may be a little different
than that translation, so
So forgive me because for my translation,
I'm relying on 5,
what are considered the the sound,
sources for the book
in in the handwritten,
domain.
3 of them in Damascus, one of them
in Syria,
and then another in 3 of them in
Damascus, one of them in Egypt, and I
believe the other's in Turkey.
Khamsin Lusuk.
So again,
Sayedna Imam Al Ghazali says
to a dua Allah Muhammad
to Muhammad Sayed. Sayed here doesn't mean master.
People translate it, it means the best.
That's why the police said,
Then Allah A'rihi A'ri
Sa'dina Muhammad,
according to the majority of Ahlus Sunnah, is
Bani Hashim and Bani Abdul Muttalah
And Azwajih
ba'awladi
are Bani Hashim,
Bani Abdul Muttalib,
and the wives and wives and children of
the prophet.
According to the Madakih,
Imam Malik's school is just Banu Hashan, not
Bani Abdul Muttalib,
and
they include the wives and the kids.
This is like the
mainstream
Sunni opinion.
And and and we should understand
the history of what
happened to them,
how they were massacred
in the MOE period,
and the Abbasi period.
This is something that happened before you have
the Sunni and Shia
formulations.
And this is something that you can research,
You know, try to do fair research.
You can find
that the bodies of some of the prophets'
family
were uncovered in like, Imam Zain al Abideen.
His grave was dug up
by the politicians of his age. It was
dismembered,
destroyed,
and spread out so that people could envisage
his grave.
The the imam the the the the grave
of Sayna Adi
the strong opinion is that, Amawis
ordered it to be removed and hidden from
the people
in the Sunni canon. And we saw recently
with ISIS an attempt, subhanallah,
to dig up the graves of the family
of the prophet
and dismember their bodies.
What happened to Muslims?
We're we're so consumed by the dead that
we forgot the living.
So in order to be a just committed
Muslim,
we should study and understand this history
as Sunnis
and not run from it. Doesn't make you
Shia
because there's gonna be things now also that
Shia they don't agree with.
We we're not gonna go to the certain
extremes on issues.
This is
why. Say that Imam Al Khazali sends peace
and blessings upon the prophet, the family of
the prophet, the Sahaba, and the righteous,
was.
That takes us now to,
the explanation of this brief introduction.
So he the scribe opens with
because it is the way of the Quran.
Because of the hadith of the prophet
any important issue that does not start with
the is deprived of blessings.
Of course, there's also the hadith of the
prophet
any important issue
that does not begin with Alhamdulillah.
There's another narration that does not begin with
dhikr of Allah.
So
all of these fall under dhikr. So
Sheikh begins to describe
because this is the way of the righteous
people.
We find
The subject matter of this book is a
or something has, like, this many names.
But let's talk a little bit today as
we finish
about.
Imam Assiiti
for Allah, of course, in a balanced way.
Everything that we're talking about here, we're not
talking about extremes. Islam is in the balance.
So tasooftajreebu
albili lahi ta'ala waqtaqarumasiwa.
And
actually, this is not the definition of the
Imam al As'ud. Imam As'udi is quoting Imam
Al Ghazali.
This is Imam Al Ghazali's definition of tasul,
to peel the heart to peel everything from
the heart except Allah.
Of course, in a balanced way.
Doesn't mean, like, you don't have love for
your wife, your kids, your work. It's not
it's
not
what
they
mean.
And when it comes to disobeying Allah
debasing everything except him.
As I explained here, the definition is the
definition of Imam al Ghazari. However, there are
other definitions that are more precise
and more balanced.
Some scholars define tasoff as.
It is the knowledge of the states of
the hearts.
And how to
purify
the character of a person.
So the inner and the outer.
In this phrase right here,
this clause
is like a
of everything that came before.
And to
bring the inner and the outer,
right, into
concert with another.
Like, to to control them, to discipline, to
to discipline.
To achieve Jannah.
Imam al O'Shayri,
he defined
Tasuf as
The tasawaf is to embrace every noble character,
inner or outer,
while avoiding some of the unruly characters.
This is, I think, a question that needs
to be asked is Tasolwuf Bida.
It's common to hear people claim that such
and such thing is a innovation
or what is called.
And that's because they have been exposed to
a minority opinion
within the Sunni canon.
That minority opinion is there,
but it has been amplified
and furnished
in the life of many Sunnis
that is the only thing they're exposed to.
And you couple this with
the uncertainty of this age,
the need for security and safety in a
a world that's moving very fast and is
unstable.
It's very easy for people
to slide into
something without, like, doing the necessary research and
making sure there's not something else out there.
So it is common to hear people say
that such and such thing is a beta
in innovation.
And while certainly important and often indicative
indicative
of a person's love for Islam,
if misused
in the name of love
or religious passion,
that person may cause tremendous pain because passion
is different than scholarship.
Charisma is different than scholarship. Charisma
caused people to leave Musa and follow Sammedi.
The job will be very charismatic,
and that the job will come with heaven
and *.
So there is, in religion,
a place for charisma.
Prophet is
Prophet
is the most eloquent Arab.
So there's a good charisma,
but then also there's the charisma of shaitan.
And sometimes when we don't have knowledge and
we just have charisma,
we end up doing more harm than good.
Is a great poet and philosopher.
He had his issues.
Warrants against placing abrupt emotions before knowledge and
expertise.
The death of expertise
is often rooted
in unbridled
passion.
When he wrote
said to think before bravery is to be
brave twice.
To think before you react in a religious
way is 2 deans. One of our teachers
is doctor Mahmoud,
great scholar of,
Islamic legal philosophy.
Used
to
say, like, to use your mind is the
foundation of engaging any text. Meaning,
not necessarily for the interpretation of the text,
but the temperature of the text. So, like,
today, when I'm saying, you know, imam Al
Hazali said,
but,
you know, to to peel the heart from
God, you may find in your mind, ah,
that means I have to get rid of
everything. No. No. No. That's not thinking. That's
reacting emotionally. But I should remember that Islam
is about centering and nuance. That's why Imam
al Muqdissi,
in
That's why Imam al Maptesi,
in his explanation of Al Ghazali's Ikhya said,
every good character that Al Ghazali is talking
about and every bad character that he's talking
about, except faith in in Kufr, should be
understand to be in the balance.
So everything that I'm talking about
now should be understood in the light of
the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. And what does that mean?
That means that number 1, it builds my
faith. It doesn't destroy my faith. So I'm
not interpreting it in a way that makes
me feel so guilty.
Oh, I'm horrible. My heart is corrupt. Life
is horrible. Actually, this is narcissism. Right? When
I, again, I make it the narrative all
about me and how bad I am.
No. No. It's more important than me. My
relationship with Allah is more important than me.
So I need to get out of the
pity party for myself
and how bad I am and realize that
that's kind of a form of self idolatry,
and stand up and worship Allah regardless of
what state I'm in. That's what I'm commanded
to do.
I'm not commanded to fall into such a
state of decrepiteness
that all's I do is talk about how
bad I am, and that becomes the goal
of spirituality.
That is a salient form of idolatry.
It's not shirk,
but it's counterproductive.
Whereas, the the sinners around the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
were inspired,
right, to live spirituality
while being
hanker down by sin.
So while they may have been making mistakes,
they were dragging their mistakes
to Allah.
Not allowing the mistakes to become what
pulls them in and makes the entire narrative
of their life. I'm horrible. I'm a sinner.
I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm really you
you you you?
So my sins are special?
So, alright,
think before I'm brave.
Then he says,
And if both of these thinking
before acting
come together
in a free thinking person,
they will reach
high levels of success. Masha'Allah.
Masha'Allah.
Thus, passion with expertise can cause serious problems.
Passion without expertise.
Hence, Allah says,
You must learn
that there is no god but Allah, and
then
seek forgiveness for your sins and for the
believing men and women.
That's why Imam al Bukhari has a chapter
At know before we act.
But, of course, knowing without acting is another
problem.
So knowing
and acting responsibly is.
Knowing and not acting is.
Not knowing
and acting is.
So
we are,
in fact,
begging Allah to make us from the people
who marry knowledge and action, As we're going
to talk about, which is the subject of
this book,
There's a long quote here of Sufian,
people can read it maybe later,
when we publish this book,
in the future inshallah.
Now let's talk about the word bidah.
Imam Raul ibn Asfahali wrote
He
said innovation,
religious innovation,
is to create something without precedent
or without an example.
And if
it's talked about in the context of Allah,
because one of the names of Allah is
Al Badia.
The same word, Al Badia, the originator.
So Imam says,
if the context is talking about Allah
then here it means creating something
from nothing.
Meaning, without a cause or assistance
or time
or place.
Because Allah is beyond time and place.
And Allah is al Samad.
Doesn't need anything.
Doesn't require anything in the material world.
So who will Badir?
Allah says
in
the
Quran
the
originator of the heavens and the earth.
Then he continues, and he says
in the
nomenclature
of theology.
And his was
And he says that according to orthodoxy,
it is to intend an action or statement
that is rooted in the sacred texts,
that is not rooted in the sacred texts,
or does not align with the actions of
the prophet
or has a sound precedent
or foundation.
He mentions the famous narration,
every
act without precedent is a bira.
And every innovation I like to use the
word heterodoxy.
It is misguidance,
waqunlu dulalatatinfinar,
and every misguidance is in the hellfire.
Imam Ibn 'Athir, one of the great historians
of Islam and one of the great scholars,
Jani al Osool, one of the great books
great
volumes
encyclopedic
texts,
in Hadith.
In his book,
he wrote a a book. It's 4 volumes
called,
which is a dictionary of the prophet's words
in hadith.
Entire dictionary.
Just on
many of the words that the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam spoke.
He also wrote.
He
wrote around 14 volumes on the lives of
the Sahaba.
Then he wrote a book in history. It's
massive. And then his most famous book, Jami
al Usul al Hadith,
which I explain every other week on Friday
nights on Facebook and Instagram live.
The summary of the book that I teach
by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Durr Ras
is a summary of the summary of the
book of Imam Ibn Athir.
What is Imam ibn Athir
is certainly from the great
academic
Eurodice scholars of Islam.
He says in Al Nihaya,
that from the names of Allah is the
originator.
The one who creates
and brings something into existence that has no
precedent.
Then he adds something very important.
He says
after mentioning what I just mentioned, he says,
It says it's used in the language,
right, to mean something
innovative
in the statement
of We know they say,
in his lifetime,
people began to gather again
to pray tarawih on their own,
And then he commanded people to pray together
in jama'ah. So they started to form a
jama'ah and pray.
And when he saw that, he said, this
is the best bidah.
We know that the minority of Sunni scholars,
they say here the word bida is
meaning according to the language.
It does not have a religious connotation.
But the majority of Sunnis
in fact, you can say
all of the Sunnis,
almost, more than 90%,
they say no. The word here means
a religious.
But if you ask the popularly educated Muslim,
the highly exposed Muslim to the Internet,
into memes, into TikToks,
and other things,
they will invoke the opinion of the minority
as though it's immutable.
This is incorrect.
The imam, Ibu'athiyah,
commenting Athiyah commenting on this. He says,
He says there are 2 types of bida,
religious
innovation,
1 which is related to guidance,
1 which is related to
So that bida,
which
runs in opposition to what Allah has
commanded in the messenger
that this is debased
and should be refuted.
And that which falls under the general guidance,
The general meaning of something which Allah has
encourages us
to do and the prophet
has encouraged us to do, then this is
something which is praiseworthy.
He says examples of this are like charitable
vehicles.
Right now, how people even how people pay
zakat
didn't exist in the time of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
You can pay zakat online.
It's not a be that because it falls
under the general according to this school, because
it falls under the
falls under the generality of things which Allah
has ordered and encouraged in which the prophet
has encouraged.
How we slaughter and Hajj. This is bitter.
We have asked
any of the our Salafi brothers and sisters.
Is this Bida?
How we slaughter Unhajj?
That we pay someone to slaughter for us.
We don't see them. We don't know if
they did it or not.
Why? Because
the majority of the ulema
fall,
say what falls under the generality of a
text,
and alliance with that text is not bitter.
For example, the compilation of the Mus'haf.
Right? The Quran as a book
that happened in the time of Abu Bakr
People say, no. No. There was a if
there was a Mus'a before, why would he
have written another Mus'haf?
The only person that had a complete Mus'haf,
a a few of them, but the main
one was Sayyidina Adi
and in the order of his most half
was in chronological order.
And it's lost.
Then look what Imam Ibn Aafi, and the
translation is below this. Sorry.
And he said that kind of good.
Right? Charitable vehicles, how we slaughter and hatch,
having speakers in the masjid.
There's no way that these kind of things
could have opposed
the generality of the Sharia.
Because the process made these kind of acts
virtuous when he said
Whoever
starts a good sunnah
will have the reward of it and the
reward of those who follow him. Some people
said this means who brings back a prophetic
sunnah.
Doesn't mean that they they they as as
the majority say, this falls under a general
good.
For example, whoever like, Launchgood, it's like a
good example. How
people at Launchgood are using crowdfunding
to support
Muslims.
The answer to them is that, well, in
the hadith
is a proof that this is not talking
about the sunnah of the prophet.
Why? Because the prophet
whoever starts an evil sunnah
Then for that person, it's the sin and
the sin who followed them. Is it possible
to initiate
an evil sunnah of the prophet?
So hadith says whoever starts a good sunnah
so people are saying, oh, this means only
who who revives a sunnah of the prophet.
But then how do we explain the second
part of the hadith whoever starts an evil
sunnah? The
prophet
he would never do evil because he has
Isma.
So this hadith actually is not
for the the argument, but actually is against
the argument when the whole hadith is taken
into consideration. Everybody understand what I'm saying?
Then he said,
and this is, of course, in the context
of opposing
something that Allah and his messenger commanded.
And here's the translation. Inshallah, we'll try to
share
it with you guys in the future.
And now he explains
in the hadith, under the word under the
under the the verb,
you'll find in an Nihayah, what I'm sharing
with you now, of Imam ibn Athir.
The type of innovation that Umar was referring
to when he said a blessed innovation
is the praiseworthy kind I'm just gonna read
the English. Since it was an act of
good that fell under the generality
of sharia
based praise worthy acts.
And the prophet
had not done it. He only observed it
for a short time, and then he stopped.
And he bringing people together
in Jamah for Tarawi.
He did not gather the people to do
it, and people did not observe it during
the time of Abu Bakr, not even once.
So when Umar called it a blessed bidah
and praised its practice, the context is understood
to be in the religious context,
not the linguistic context.
Then he says, however, in reality it is
a sunnah
because the prophet
said for us, adhere to my sunnah and
to the sunnah
of the rightly
guided,
Kholefah
and the statement, right,
emulated to after me, Abu Bakr and Omar.
Then the sheikh continues,
based on the, on the above, the hadith,
every innovation
is heterodoxy.
It means that this has to be contextualized
to mean every the majority says every innovation
that opposes
the generality
or a foundation
of Sharia
and specifically
disagrees with the sunnah.
So a lot to think about, man.
We can stop or we can continue. We
have one more point to make, and then
we'll finish for tonight. But usually, I like
to stop within an hour.
But how do we respond to people that
say, but the word Tasuluf, the prophet, he
never said it.
The prophet didn't do it. The didn't do
it.
How do we how do we balance the
statement that we are able to
adhere to and hold as sacred, the early
generations of Muslims,
but at the same time not allow ourselves
to be restricted in a way that undermines
the maqas of sharia,
the goals of sharia.
And everything that I'm sharing with you tonight
is the majority positions taken by Sunnis.
The majority position taken by Sunnis. That doesn't
mean that you have to follow it, but
you should respect it. And we should not
accuse people who do these things as being
people of Bida' not from the Sunnah, and
so on and so forth. This is highly
irresponsible.
Just as we should not sanction those who
follow the minority
opinions, but we should note, this is the
majority, this is the minority.
Yeah. Yeah. This is a spelling error. This
this again, this hasn't been edited. So thank
you, Adi, for letting me know.
The document that you're looking at hasn't been
edited.
So
oftentimes, we hear people saying, but the prophet
and the salaf did not do that. And
this becomes actually a meta narrative argument
in order to shut people down.
And oftentimes, it's said, I'm sure very sincerely,
but it's often invoked without any real foundation.
Before you respond, you should ask that person
what they are actually
state saying.
Quote, the prophet and the
not doing something means it's forbidden.
Meaning that the prophet didn't do it,
So therefore,
it's forbidden.
It's a bidah.
The salaf didn't do it.
So therefore,
it's forbidden.
It's a biddah.
There are 2 areas to this. The first,
of course, we all agree on
is related to science,
the progression of humanity,
things like vaccines,
things that we should not be injecting necessarily
religious language to specifically. Maybe generally,
we can look at things, but in general,
we should leave it to what we call.
And then there are
and then there are
the areas of religion.
Before I answer that, let me
respond to this. What's the benefit, if any,
to always being on the lookout for bidah?
Especially, we see on social media nowadays, Muslims
focus a lot on ensuring everything, everyone else
is doing everything right,
and call out culture.
Here's a question for that person and for
everyone.
Do you see
imams
and teachers
in life
or online
going around and doing that, or is it
largely the uneducated?
And I'm saying that with respect.
You don't see,
you know,
Yasmin Mogahed
or or Sheikha Maryam
Amir going online
and chastising people. You'll see,
you know,
scholars.
So
that should be really clear.
Like, who's doing this?
And and and we should use that sort
of as,
like, this is not really right.
And when you read the seerah of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, was he going
around, like,
checking everyone,
investigating?
In fact, the sharia is the opposite. Sharia
law
tries to find ways out for people to
find redemption
before they're exposed and destroyed.
The opposite, idfa, shubuhat,
you know,
hadith, like, repel.
Like, don't implement the Hudud punishments if there's
doubts.
The opposite of the Rahmah of Sharia.
And and,
unfortunately,
these people are not bad people. I don't
think these are bad people.
I just think they're passionate. And sometimes when
we're passionate
without grounding,
we destroy a lot of things. And I
can say
every time, almost,
I've seen someone declare something as beta.
That thing is actually not a BIDA
according to the majority of Sunnis.
What's a bida
is to declare something as a bida that's
not a bida.
But nobody's gonna say that. Right?
So how do we address the issue and
we'll finish?
Absolutely, Tayo, a sense of insecurity and a
sense of projecting a plausibility structure.
Because, listen,
in in one of our readings
for this class is, right,
the danger of
living theology.
Right? To to live
a life of theology, to live a faithful
life in a world now where
heathenry is unbridled.
And and there's a lot of autocracy and
political turmoil, and
so many things are happening.
It it can be very taxing on the
soul.
So how do I then
kinda gaslight all that?
How do I suddenly make logic of the
illogical
postmodern
as I invoke a metanarrative?
That allows me to label people the way
I wanna label them. That allows me to
look at people. That allows me to invoke
illogical things. Like, for example,
that
the vaccine
has
a microbe or something in it that's gonna
track us.
The irony is everybody's worried about a vaccine
tracking them, but everyone has this in their
pocket.
And we shouldn't make fun of these people.
We should not chastise these people.
We should minister to these people.
And and that, again,
that keeps me from I have a belief.
I have a meta narrative that I hold
on to.
But why would
Allah
say? We sent you as a rahmah. A
rahmah is not
going
to constantly be chastising people. There's moments for
that. Of course. There's moments to hold people
accountable. We're not, you know, making s'mores and
singing Kumbaya with a bunch of Nazis.
Of course not.
Right? Or Islamophobes.
But
the people that have been hurt
and we recognize their pain,
prophecy compels us to try to help them
with love
and and concern.
As the prophet made dua for Amalu Khattab
and Amalu Bishan.
SubhanAllah, man. He made dua for them.
Like, his biggest enemy is made dua for
them.
So often here we we hear people say,
but the prophet and the son of did
not do that. Before you respond, you should
ask them what it is they're actually saying.
Ask people to think about your think of
yourself as an academic adviser, and you're asking
them to, like, narrow down what they're trying
to say
as we finish quickly.
Let's look at the following texts and think
about the prophet didn't do it, so that
means it's forbidden.
In Sahih Muslim, Abdullah ibn Abbas reports that
Khaled bin Warid
Sayfullah
informed him that he visited Maimouna bint Al
Hadith, the prophet's wife.
And the this translation is not mine.
In the company of Allah's messenger.
And she was the sister
of the mother of Khaled. She's he's her
she's his his aunt.
And he found there a roasted lizard,
But her sister, Hosefa, the daughter of Al
Harith, had brought from Nejid.
So
some people ordered chipotle.
Back in them days,
people ordered lizard
all the way from Nejid
to Medina,
and she presented it to the messenger of
Allah.
And this was a a a food that
was unknown to the people of Hejaz.
In fact, lizard was eaten by the shepherds
because it gave them a lot of carbs
and protein, kept them strong.
So the prophet, the
the gist of this narration is that he
was about to eat it,
and then someone told him it's it's the
bulb.
It's the lizard. So the prophet
took his hand away,
and he didn't eat it.
But the other people ate it.
So here's the question.
If not doing something
meant it was forbidden,
would they have
ate
it? Prophet said, hey. What's that?
That's love y'all all sort of no. I'm
good.
But the other people
ate it.
This is one narration that shows that just
because the prophet
didn't do something,
does not mean it's forbidden
because they ate it.
This is related to his personal habits.
Another example as we finish
is also found in Sahih Muslim and Muwata
that the
prophet said
Prophet when Mecca was conquered. You know, the
Kaaba, its foundations till now are are built
wrong. They're not on the foundation of Ibrahim
and Ishmael.
Only in the time of Abdullah ibn Zubayr
was it corrected and then Hajjaj when he,
under the orders of of the Amoebes,
destroyed Mecca
and and massacred
the the son of Asma'at Abi Bakr and
had his body hung
in front of Mecca,
and Abdullah bin Umar was murdered.
It was broken down again and rebuilt wrongly.
Abdullah ibn Zubair built the cabin back on
the foundations of Ibrahim.
But when they came back in the Mois
into
Mecca,
they massacred
many people.
They destroyed it again and built it back
wrongly. I don't know why.
The
prophet said, oh, Aisha, if it wasn't that
your people
again, this is I cut and pasted this
so
on. Were it not for the fact that
your people have recently left disbelief the day
he conquered Mecca,
I would have knocked down the Kaaba and
rebuilt it on the foundation of Ibrahim,
and I would have given it a backdoor
from when the Quraysh built the house, they
made it too small.
None of the Salaf except Abdul Abdul ibn
Zubayr.
None of the scholars.
None of the
great imams, and shoo, and empires
acted on this in a way that would
show that a takk
means that it's forbidden.
So what we learn now is a very
important
ruling. In fact, you find this in the
books of also the Philcon. I didn't write
it here.
That just because the prophet didn't do something
or the salaf didn't do something, there's not
a
proof.
For or
fard. And this goes into detail. Right? So,
of course, in also wafik, if we had
continued,
this was something that we were going to
study in the future under the chapter on
Amr, waneh.
We'll stop now, InshaAllah.
If you have any questions next week, we're
going to pick up back with the introduction
of Imam Al Azzari. I cannot share this
text yet until it's, like, edited properly and
prepared,
in a way that's, like, reasonable.
But if you have any questions,
we can take the no.
Someone's asking,
what is the best supplication for purifying the
heart?
What is the best dua we can say
and what actions can we take to start
to strip the hearts?
We're gonna talk about this in the class.
But the best dua is
the dua,
Ola, the turner of the hearts, turn my
heart on your deen. Inshallah, you'll get the
readings when I post the link to the
syllabus. I'll share it with the ICNYU.
And we will put it out as an
email.
You don't have any homework. We
all have enough homework as it is.
But the readings, right, when those readings begin
to come to you,
those readings are gonna be engaging. Right? I
suggest even you guys think about creating, like,
a study group for the,
where you reflect through the readings
on your own. Is there a reason you
went from a general definition for bidah
to the more nuanced and precise absolutely to
expose
the sloppiness and irresponsibility
of those who say there's no bida and
those who make everything bida. Right? We we
rest between extremes
and we ask Allah to give us Tibet
and to to put us somewhere in the
middle of the Venn diagram, you know.
But we find out one side, like, nothing
there's no such thing as.
The other side is
everything is.
Have.
Right? Sick. Has to be in the middle.
So the precision,
as we went through it was to slowly
kind of show that
that nuance.
You're welcome, Hari Minh. Any other questions?
We went a lot a lot longer. We
usually finish in an hour.
So, my apologies.
But always when you're teaching a new text,
you know, it takes time to to kinda
get used to teaching it. I'm gonna try
to have the link
posted by tomorrow, and then I'll share it
with the IC folks,
so they can share it with you you
all.
May Allah
bless you and increase you
and give you the highest
levels of Jannah.
Thank you. Keep us in your duas.