Suhaib Webb – An Introduction to Fiqh and Madhabs ‘Ishmawi’s Primer on Fiqh Part One
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We praise Allah, we send peace and blessings
upon our beloved Messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
We learned from the famous hadith of jibreel
which I'm teaching you InshaAllah and the 40
hadith of imam and nawi radhiallahu anhu
that the angel Gabriel, he came to the
prophet
and he asked him what is Islam, what
is iman, what is ihsan. These are the
foundations of the of the Swiss curriculum, by
the way.
And the prophet's answer to what is islam
is interesting because
1 fourth deals with faith and the remaining
deal with actions.
He said
Islam is that you testify
it's to testify that there's no God except
Allah,
the establishment of prayer,
observing fast,
paying zakat,
and to make Hajj money still toa, ilayhi
sabila, for the one who has the ability.
And then satan at Jabril said salakt, he
spoke the truth.
Inshallah, this is a course that's going to
begin to unpack a important integral part of
iman and that is practice
and the word for the knowledge that deals
with practice is
so is to the practices of islam what
the word
is to the art of reciting the Quran
is to the physical, the corporal practices of
Islam, what the is
to the to the heart, and to our
character.
Is
to the practices of islam what grammar is
to language.
Is to the practices of Islam what Ilmukalam
or Ilmuktawhid
is to
faith. So now you understand kind of the
different,
if you will,
terminologies and the schools that deal with specific,
sciences.
And the reason that we learn filk is
because these tongues are an obligation. The man
came to the prophet
as related by Sayyidina
al Bukhari and imam Muslim,
and he began to ask the prophet about
Islam and the prophet said, 5
daily prayers.
No, unless you want to do more. So
those are the foundations, those 5,
the rest are up to you.
Then he said to him,
Ramadan,
the fast month of Ramadan.
Is there anything else I have to do?
No. No.
Unless you want to do
more. Then he said, zakah
do I have to do anything else?
No. And Hajj. So we learned that these
are obligations,
right, these are the foundational obligations of Islam
and alhamdulillah the science for dealing with those
foundations of practice is called
means to understand,
and the reason that the word is used
is that
is often employed
when something is not from Sharia.
That's very important to understand that there's a
difference between sharia
and
Sharia, as I heard from one of my
teachers,
is everything revealed to the Prophet
Filk is when scholars differ
and have different opinions
about what
is the sharia saying,
what is the intensity or the how of
a certain act.
That's why Imam Al Quraafi,
he said that we don't say that 5
daily prayers are fiqh, we don't say, for
example, according to the madhab of Imam Malik
Niyanas, you know, 5 daily prayers
are farut. No, we say according to Sharia.
So firq is synonymous
with differences
as I'll teach you inshallah and usooloo firq.
Firq
means that scouters are engaging,
discussing,
nuancing,
talking to one another,
communicating,
and coming to different conclusions.
A word which is synonymous with filk has
itched your head.
That's why Imam Al Haramain said what
is
He says in Al Warakat that is the
knowledge
of the Sharia rulings
that were
the word actually in ancient times was used
for the person who could find water in
the desert. So that person would go and
he or she would know where to dig
the water.
So he would bring the water from the
desert. So the faqih,
the scholar of firk or the person that's
trained in firk is
So the faqih is the one who brings
the water from Islam
who brings the water from the because
the word Sharia actually means an oasis, a
watering hole, so the is the one who
brings water
which is synonymous with life
but that means that there's going to be
differences
and that also means that people took
different ways. That takes us to the word
medhab.
Medhab is called ismohmakan,
like
like,
the place where something happens.
The is where somebody went,
right, where they left and they went there,
that's their medhab.
So when you talk about, and we're gonna
have Insha'Allah a course on the history and
development of Islamic law, insha'Allah,
when we talk about methayib, which is a
plural of methheb, we're talking about
a process
that led a scholar to a certain destination
intellectually,
to a conclusion.
That process is ichdihad. We're going to talk
about that insha'Allah in
Usul Lofilk. It's the last chapter and the
most important chapter in Usul Lofilk.
And med habs happen in a number of
places that I'm going to talk about more
in also lofirk,
but just to give you,
kind of an idea of how med habs
work.
Number 1 is when people differ over the
meaning of a text, whether from the Quran
and Sunnah. So, for example, when Allah
says
if you touch a woman
according to the majority, Sayyidna Imam Malik, Sayyidna
Ashaafiri,
Sayyidna Imam Ahmad Alhambal,
this means lamas, to actually physically touch a
person. So if you touched a woman and
a woman touches her spouse
or any aljnabi male,
then
the more or less
the will do is broken.
Imam Abu Hanifa said no
Here lamas means aljimaal
mubashara,
a physical relationship.
What is his evidence for this? Sayyidatum
Mariam,
she says
no man touched me, no man touched me.
So Imam
al Azzam Abu Hanif and his opinion is
the correct opinion
based on the actions of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam,
imam Abu Hanifa, he said here this doesn't
mean that you touch someone it means that
you had a physical relationship,
especially since the context of the verse is
but
he didn't say that other people are wrong.
He didn't throw them out of Islam.
He didn't make a blog post or Instagram
page about them, SubhanAllah.
But the point is, here we have a
text
and scholars
differing over the meaning of the text, so
they're making
so they differ over the implications and meaning
of the text from the Quran.
The same thing also applies to the sunnah
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Sometimes
you find scholars use the exact same hadith
and come to completely different opinions subhanAllah using
the same hadith.
For example, if you've been to Saudi Arabia,
you noticed that before
when the time for prayer came everything was
shut
down because this is the opinion of Imam,
Sayyiduna, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and his methan.
However, if you've been to, like, Malaysia, been
to West Africa, been to Egypt and other
places, you know that when the azan is
called,
everything stays open.
SubhanAllah,
the opinion of the majority is that you
don't have to go to the mosque. It's
better if you go to the mosque, but
the opinion of imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal is
that you have to go to the mosque.
What is the evidence of imam Ahmad ibn
Hanbal is that the prophet said, I wish
I could gather wood and burn down the
houses of the people who don't come to
Jema'ah.
What are the evidences of the majority? The
hadith of the prophet
who said, I wish I could gather
wood and burn down the people's homes who
don't come to jama'ah.
Wallahu Akbar,
Same evidence, same evidence. The majority say he
didn't do it. So
this is tahideed.
This is like, you know, hyperbole.
But here we see the same
evidence
and 2 different opinions. That's fiqh. The attempt
to understand
the
attempt the attempt to understand the communication of
So the first type of difference amongst metha
have been is
based on
what is the meaning of the text?
The second is, is the text abrogated or
not?
And of course you're going to find a
a lot of debate on this issue. Was
the text abrogated or not? Is it Nasik
or Mansuk?
Another example is the context of the verse.
Is the verse
restricted by its context
or left unrestricted
without context?
This is very very important and you're going
to find sometimes the ulama say hada khalz,
this is specific for this person. For example,
the woman who came to the prophet salallahu
alaihi wasallam
and she complained of epilepsy. She said, make
dua, that Allah will cure me. And he
said, it's better if you're patient. Most ulama
this is specific only for this woman because
of her Maqam
But here we see the the the ulema
different over the context and now you can
understand the issue of the meat. Which verse
came first, which verse came last? The verse
says
the food of the people of the book
is made pure for you or the last
verse was
do not eat from anything in which meat
in which the name of Allah wasn't mentioned.
Here they're different,
Here, we're different.
Another the 4th example is in the authenticity
of a text.
Is the text authentic or not? So the
hadith
you know, a family member cannot,
inherit someone who's,
able to receive a walsiya
cannot inherit. Either the ulama differ or the
hadith aba gawdu halali and allahi. Al Talaq,
the most hated halal to Allah is talaq,
read it by imam Abu Dawood, the ulama
they differ.
So they also differ over the authenticity
of a text.
And then, of course, there are times when
there is no text, and this is going
to be the 5th.
When there is no text, scholars are going
to use what's called tahrij al mamaat wa
tahkiq al mamaat.
Now are going to employ a very important
process that we're going to talk about in
Surufik.
So
Allahu Ta'ala Anhu, you know he said that
the
number of religious texts are
limited
but the actions of the people
but the actions of the ibad are not.
So there has to be a way to
address those unlimited actions with limited text, and
what he's talking here about is
and we're gonna talk about this in the
future. So this this is not our subject.
Right? But what I wanted to show you
is how
and
work and kind of what is the role
that they play in negotiating
these instances that I
talked about. Number 1 is they differ over
the meaning of a text. Number 2, they
differ over the context of a text. Number
3, they differ over the chronological
order of a text. Number 4, they differ
over the soundness or the authenticity of a
text or if something is contradictory in another
text which is more authentic and so on
and so forth. Or if there's actions even
though the text is is weak, the majority
of the the salaf did it so they
give strength to the actions.
And then, of course, the last one is
going to be when there is no text.
This is not all, by the way. I'm
just giving you a glimpse. Now that takes
us to the question, are you obligated to
follow a meth heaven? The answer is no.
You're obligated to follow someone who knows, you're
obligated to ask a question. Allah says in
the Quran
ask the people of knowledge
if you don't know. And there's a famous
axiom
of our scholars that says what?
That the one who's asking the question is
on the methhab of the one they're asking
the question to
and this makes hamdala islam easier for people
and it doesn't create disunity and hardship. If
the ulama of the Mathayib knew that people,
for example, weren't praying together because those scholars
differed over the times of prayer, or if
those people didn't talk to each other because
one ate meat outside and the other didn't,
or that these people no longer have a
relationship as friends because one listens to music,
they would lose their minds
and they would
say, This
is these are issues
of these are issues where scholars are trying
to come to conclusions. That's why we said,
you know, that the process of is a
process which is speculative. So therefore,
we are much more easygoing and relaxed on
these issues
as long as they're coming from respected scholars.
What I encourage you to think about now
is 1st and foremost utilizing your local imams
and scholars.
Number 2, utilizing the faith councils. I sit
on the North American faith council, for example,
as an adviser, you know, use a lot
utilizing these north these fed councils, AMJA and
others, European Fatwa Council,
wherever you are in the world that are
trustworthy and balanced and responsible.
So alhamdulillah, this is the role. So the
madhab is where somebody went into the process
of going. They have certain interpretive tools that
engage, for example, the 5 things that I
mentioned earlier.
Right?
The meaning of a text. Number 2, the
context of a text. Number 3, the chronological
order of a text. Number 4, the authenticity.
And the number 5 I gave as an
example is if there is no text, and
this is where the majority
you're going to find, especially in Muamalat,
in social issues, and in in in cultural
issues,
Medhhabs work.
In acts of worship, you're going to find
Medhhabs largely agree, and this is where the
the the the majority of the sharia
is going to be very clear and very
present.
InshaAllah, next time we're going to talk about
the medhab of Imam Malik and begin a
book even if you are not madiki, I
encourage you to take this class with us
because you're on the madhab of your teacher.
Don't don't worry about
this kind of like you're leaving Islam and
converting
but we talk about the of Imam Malik.
This is called
meaning the place he went
with his opinions
and his school's opinions. What was their destination?
This is called
in rhetoric. Inshallah, we're gonna teach a class
on rhetoric in the future.
I'm looking forward to getting started with this
book, the matin of Imam al Ishmael
Ishma'awi insha'Allah,
and teaching it in a way that perhaps
some of you are not used to. Look
forward to it. Assalamu alaykum wa wata Allahih.