Suhaib Webb – An Introduction to Usul alFiqh Part One The Ten Starting Points
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The speaker discusses the impact of COVID-19 on people, particularly in different areas. They share their screen to show the 10 foundations of their understanding of a subject, including creating a curriculum, learning about its meaning, and finding the right prerequisites and values. They also discuss the structure of the Arabic language, including its definition, subject matter, and blessings, and provide a description of the structure of the Arabic language, including its definition, subject matter, and blessings. They emphasize the importance of learning from a person who wants to acquire a subject and finding the right place to start, rather than just a curriculum.
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Everybody. I hope you guys are doing great.
I know this is not the normal quality
that we expect to see you expect to
see a Swiss, but,
this coronavirus is affecting so many people in
different places, in different areas. So
this will be kind of how we'll operate
for a while till we can
get all of our staff of folks. We
have people that work in Gaza. We have
people that work in Egypt,
all over the world back on board. So
I'm gonna teach you also to
this way by sharing my screen with you.
So, let's let's get started. So
this is just a trial one. Just wanna
see kinda how it works. So,
is extremely important subject. I wanna talk about
the 10 foundations, what's called.
These are like 10 things you should know
before you go into a subject. I haven't
really talked about them yet because
I didn't wanna overwhelm people. But for every
subject, Tajweed,
Arabic, you name it.
Ideally, if you're an Islamic studies teacher and
you're teaching, like, high school kids, you wanna
think about.
And then, of course, if you are, you
know, in Islamic studies,
as an imam, it's good to know these
things. And then as a student, if you're
taking a class with someone, you can go
back and evaluate and see how many of
10
concepts did I cover before I actually started
to study the subject itself. And this is
something that's been done
in many classical
Sunni institutions for around 3 to 400 years.
So let's look at these 10 building blocks
before we talk about, oh, Suratul, what are
the 10 things you want to know? And
I like to tell my students,
it's like when you go into a neighborhood,
if I were to tell you, like, the
10 most important things you needed to know
about the neighborhood, like
the post office, the bank,
the mosque,
you know, the grocery store. You might not
know the ingredients. You might not know the
names of the employees. You might not even
remember the address, but you'd know the place.
Then after a while, you'd be able to,
like, format things better and better and better
to your pain to an understanding.
So these ten things are gonna, like, introduce
you to the neighborhood of a science
for the first time. And that's because religious
scholars noted 2 steps needed for a person
to acquire
an understanding of a topic.
The first is called
means how to conceptualize. Not comprehension. That's a
bad translation. It should be how do you
conceptualize
a subject.
You can think about,
is
a picture.
Right? So how do
you visualize
taswah,
the the subject in your mind, the neighborhood.
And then tasidikh is or takdib, you're going
to affirm it or you're going to reject
it. So you're gonna know what it is.
You're gonna know what it isn't.
This was the way subjects were introduced to
students in Elazar. I can say that as
Elazar
for a number of years until today,
forming the building blocks of literacy.
I I I've said this many times before,
the goal of SWISS is not scholarship.
The goal of SWISS is literacy. Remember,
forming the building blocks of literacy for beginners.
Here are the 10
building blocks of literacy that lead to, again,
cognition.
It's okay, but what we're looking is, like,
conceptualization.
Right? The ability to imagine the subject,
to picture.
The first is called,
translated as definition. But as you'll see later,
it's a little bit more,
specific than just definition.
The contents, like, what what subject matters does
it address?
The originator is the one
who
organizes
in a way so that it could be
used,
in a curriculum? Who thought about it as
a pedagogy? Like, how do you teach this?
Number 4 is a relation.
And what it means by relationship here is,
like, what faculty does it belong to will
be a better translation. It's Nisbah. So is
it from, like, language? Is it from law?
Is it from a Quranic studies? Is it
from theology?
What are the prerequisites
or the auxiliary sciences?
So what do I need to study before
I study this subject?
Number 6, or what are the fagdu means?
What are the professional
value props learning
this? Number 7 is the Islamic ruling, the
Hakam Sharai.
Is it wajib? Is it the individual obligation?
Is it a communal obligation? Is it forbidden?
For example.
Number 8 is its names name. And notice
how the name comes after the definition.
Because oftentimes, a name can have a different
definition like surfing, and Santa Cruz isn't surfing
on your computer.
So the reason that scholars didn't start with
a name first is because people may differ
over the meaning of a name for music.
Number 9 is what are the fa'await? What
are the benefits in the hereafter
of studying
the subject? And the number 10 or or
the nasa'il. And a better way to translate
that, I I made these slides years ago,
Is what questions does it answer?
What questions does it propose?
And what questions does it deal with? Does
it answer? Masha'Allah?
This is so important that you see Imam
Al Makari. We're gonna take a Makari's book.
It's gonna be the 3rd book we take
in theology.
The 4th book we take in theology.
It's a book called
It's
a really good book. But in the beginning
of that book, he talks about
how to study,
how to organize your study.
And excuse me. And he says, man rama
fan, nanfaliuqaddim
a wolan. Whoever, if you look right there,
you can see my
Whoever wants to master a subject.
Should then start by knowing about its definition,
then its
its subject matter. That's the second.
Who organized it as a as a field
of study, one is but in its faculty.
Means to rest on something. So it means
like, what what does it rest on? What
are its prerequisites?
What are
its blessings in the hereafter?
And then what is its ruling?
Individual obligation, communal obligation.
Wasmin,
its name.
Wama'afad,
its benefits in the hereafter.
Walmasa'iri,
and the question it answers,
fatilka'ashon
lilmaniwasa'ili.
And this is Asharah,
for the one who like, wants to acquire
and hopes to acquire the
the the means to master a subject.
And then some ulema, some teachers, they said
you don't have to do all 10. That's
a strong opinion. Like, you're not gonna introduce
all 10 to,
like, someone who's new in their studies,
or to a young person,
or to someone who already knows them.
But who knows all of them is like
someone who is seeking help or is gonna
be aided and assisted.
So if we look at this definition, this
is from a book I've written
that needs to be edited.
Actually, it's being edited now, I'll make Duaa.
But this
is an introduction of Sheikh Mohammed Mohdine Abdul
Hamid, introducing Arabic language. See if we can
find the
10, some of the 10 building blocks, Al
Mabari Al Ashala,
in this description of the Arabic language.
He says one scholar wrote about Arabic language,
it comes from words which mean a way
or a direction.
As a science, it is defined so there's
the had. There's the definition 1. It is
defined as knowledge of what determines the grammatical
reality of a word and whether it accepts
grammar or not.
Its subject matter, there's the mawdua. Number 2
is Arabic words,
and its virtue fadl is that one understands
the sacred texts.
There should be a a a colon there.
The Quran and the Sunnah as well as
learn to read, speak, and write correctly.
It is it is its own family. So
there's its nispah. Right? It's it's it's it's
the third.
It's it's it's faculty
and it's blessings. There's the faida, were stated
by Omar who said, learn Arabic and the
laws of inheritance for they are part of
your faith. Its originator mean the one who
established it as a pedagogy is Abu Aswar
al Du'ali, so there's the wall there. And
its name, there's the ism is nahu.
And it is an infinitive, which means the
passive participle, manhu.
It's auxiliaries, there's mastumid minhu. So there are
right here, the prerequisites
are the Quran, Sunnah, and the pure Arabic
language. Its ruling is that of a communal
obligation. So you can see now what I'm
trying to teach you as you study with
me at Swiss is not only how to
read a text, but to read the text
twice or three times. Because
with classical texts, because they're written in a
systematic way, there's layers.
There's layers.
So here you can see as you're reading
it, you're also reading it twice. You're saying,
what are the 10?
So now you can go back as an
educator. You can use that as a
a if you're homeschooling or a teacher, right,
you can use this in your rubric. If
you're evaluating a lesson you've taken with somebody,
you can go and ask yourself
about the 10 Mabari Al Hasharah.
Did that person cover them or not?
Here's another one. I'm gonna let you do
this one on your own. I'm gonna post
it Insha'Allah
in the lesson and you can
send me I'll put this as an assignment.
You have to send me where are the
tin? In
this definition, Sheikh Alihirapia al Azhari.
He wrote about tajweed. Tajweed means to make
something good, so we say that is jayid.
As a scientific term, it means to read
the Quran as it was sent to Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallamah,
giving each letter its right regarding its sound
and form. It is a communal obligation to
know,
but acting on it is an individual one.
It deals with Quranic words, and it is
the most virtuous of actions. It was codified
by the early scholars of Quran, and its
benefit is that one will read the Quran
as it was sent to Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. It is based on
what is found in the Quran and the
sunnah,
and its name is Tajweed. I want you
to go back to this.
Use those 10 mabari that I that I
gave you and identify them for me. That's
gonna be your assignment, insha'Allah, if you choose
to do it.
Next time, insha'Allah, we're gonna talk about what
are the mabari of
Usul al Fiqh.