Suhaib Webb – An Introduction to Usul alFiqh Part One The Ten Starting Points

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.