Suhaib Webb – Ibn Bādīs Intro To Usul al-Fiqh – part one

AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and meaning of "atibul Fiapas "naught" in various context, including "naught" and "naught" in various political and cultural settings. They emphasize the importance of using evidence and finding the right one to address issues, and stress the need for individuals to be responsible for their actions and avoid double-standing. The speakers also discuss various topics related to Islam, including "IT" and " AD" in various context, and provide examples of how to use the meaning of "we" to describe actions and accountability.
AI: Summary ©
I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the
accursed.
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most
Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Who has
established our religion with His mercy, peace and
blessings be upon him, and made it a
proof for all people, as He made His
Companions, His pleasure upon them all, as a
guidance and a light for the transgressors, and
for the rest of the righteous.
O Allah, send peace and blessings upon him
and upon them in the beginning and in
the end, and in the highest realm, O
Lord of the worlds.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Hope everybody is doing amazing, mashallah.
Super excited to be with you guys, alhamdulillah.
And we are going to be going through
a series on Usulul Fiqh, using a book
which actually is the second in our school's
introductory level class to Usulul Fiqh.
The first is Al-Waraqat, and you can
find my recordings of Al-Waraqat of Imam
Mu'amma Ali Al-Juwayni, Imam Al-Harami,
on YouTube.
Although they're a little bit more advanced maybe
than what we're going to go through here.
This book actually is called Al-Muqaddimah to
Usulul Fiqh, but written by Shaykh Abdul Hamid
Ibn Badis.
Badis, he was from Algeria, and he was
born around 1889, he died in 1940.
So he's not that far away from us
as far as chronologically.
Ibn Badis, he had a very interesting life
of course because of the French occupation, and
he formed an organization of ulama, Jami'at
al-ulama al-Muslimin al-Jazaereen, which actually
was at the forefront, if you will, of
taking on the intellectual challenges of colonality, the
brutality of the French, and sort of their
intellectual and spiritual, as well as their military
dismantling of what we know to be Algeria.
So Alhamdulillah, he wrote this text, it covers
50 issues, so every week the syllabus is
a little bit off.
We'll cover like 4, 3.5 if possible
to 4 issues, and he phrases it in
a way like they're questions.
And so if you finish Alhamdulillah this text,
you'll have a strong familiarity with the subject
of Usulul Fiqh, and you'll be able to
do some things we're going to talk about
momentarily, bi-idhnillah.
So he begins and he starts with the
definition.
And always classical scholars, they were really, really
interested, and one thing you'll learn from this
class is how to read a classical text,
like at a basic level.
You're not going to come out like the
Sheikh of Devon Street or anything, but like
mashallah, you'll have some tools that will assist
you.
Good teachers teach you not only what a
book says, but they also should teach you
how to read a book, especially in the
classical context.
And Ibn al-Badis is writing in a
style that it's hard to find people who
write like this now.
He's writing in the classical Islamic legal sort
of style, as we'll unpack that as we
go through it.
It's not something that we want to get
too lost into.
So he says, Here
he does something that you should be aware
of amongst the Hanafis as well as the
others.
We'll talk about that in a second.
He defines Usulul Fiqh as a science.
علم الأصول, the science of Usul.
This is مضاف مضافون إلي.
علم الأصول.
The reason that he does that is that
there was a difference amongst classical scholars as
to how to introduce the science of Usulul
Fiqh.
For example, al-Amiri.
And Imam al-Amiri is one of the
giants.
He wrote a book called Ihkam.
And the person who summarizes the Ihkam is
al-Baydawi.
This is al-Baydawi.
Imam ibn Subki, he did a seven-volume
explanation of that book.
من هاجر وصول إلى علم أصول And this
book actually is the book in Azhar, the
College of Law that we study.
al-Baydawi is the one who summarizes al
-Amiri.
And in actually al-Razi.
And in his al-Minhaj, he says معرفة
دلائل He doesn't say علم, he says معرفة.
Then you find other scholars like al-Razi.
وحمد الله عليه فخر الدين al-Razi in
al-Mahsul, which is like one of the
most important books for Sunnis in Usulul Fiqh.
When he defined Usulul Fiqh, he said طرق
Like if you know, like to solve طرق,
طريقة He said طرق What does طرق mean?
Usulul Fiqh is the evidences.
There are three reasons for this difference that
you can appreciate the depth and genius of
the scholars.
Number one, علم implies that Usulul Fiqh is
mostly based on certainty with some issues like
that are scholarly in their orientation and in
their sort of finalization.
So the word علم here means mostly is
qata'i from Allah, from the Prophet ﷺ
But some of it is from the engagement
of scholars who thought about what does this
mean?
How do we apply this?
How does this work?
Also the word علم, there's a minority of
scholars like al-Shatibi in Muwaffaqat who said
علم بمعنى اليقين Usually when scholars use the
word علم, it means like certainty So the
implication here is that Usulul Fiqh is directly
from Allah and His Messenger ﷺ and there
was no like scholarly debate or scholarly engagement
Of course that's a weak opinion Al-Baydawi,
he says معرفة and he doesn't say Usul,
he says معرفة الدلائل We'll talk about it
in a second To know the evidences and
معرفة implies two things that there are aspects
which are certain and then there are aspects
which, and this is what I was looking
for which were negotiated by ulama So the
word علم, علم means certainty معرفة means like
القطعيات وظنونيات Like there are aspects of Usulul
Fiqh that are negotiable There's aspects of Usulul
Fiqh that aren't negotiable Then maybe you're asking,
and you should ask this question If you're
a mathematics major, you're gonna love Usulul Fiqh
Usulul Fiqh is gonna make you think in
ways that like you never really thought about
before You should ask why would al-Razi
say طرق Because Imam al-Razi and those
who followed him believe something very beautiful It
is very subtle And that is that the
Usul exists whether we know them or not
The existence of the Usul is not predicated
on us knowing them Because the Usul either
are explicitly or implicitly in the sources of
Sharia And that means from the time of
the Prophet ﷺ Till the end of time
we will find scholars who continue to extract
points in the secondary sense of Usul It's
very beautiful So it's not based on, and
if you think about post-modernity It's like
this is the opposite of post-modernity It
doesn't reside on the knowledge of people It
exists whether we know it or not It's
our job as a Ummah to excavate and
understand these Usul You see that there's a
Tarbiyah sort of line in how al-Razi
in his Mahsul says Usul of Fiqh So
let me repeat myself and forgive me today
Man my kids had lice We've been like
clinics, washing I don't know we washed the
whole house bro I think we washed the
books Subhanallah so forgive me but When we
look at this definition ilmu Most scholars when
they use the word ilm it means yaqeen
Like Ash-Shatibi Badis doesn't use it in
that sense He's using it in the sense
to say that it's fundamentally founded on non
-negotiables But there will be some negotiables So
he's very much in line with like al
-Razi Like al-Baydawi and al-Amiri Al
-Baydawi represents Amiri school So Ma'rifah And
the last we gave is the definition of
al-Razi And many who followed him they
said Usul of Fiqh is not a knowledge
Usul of Fiqh is something that exists And
it's upon the Ummah of the Prophet ﷺ
To make inkishaf of those usul To discover
those usul by spending time with revelation And
spending time learning the necessary sciences That will
allow them to uncover Not the foundational usul
but the secondary usul It's nice masha'Allah
So he says ilmu usul The word usul
is the plural of asl Like far, furu,
faal, fa'ul Al-aslu, usul Maybe you're
asking why is it usul of Fiqh Not
aslu of Fiqh Because usul means that there's
a plural And we find it now in
his definition And here we see he uses
the word Ma'rifah He says ilmu al
-usul ma'rifah al-qawaid Allati ya'rafu
biha kaifa tustafadu ahkam al-afari min adilat
al-ahkam He said that usul of Fiqh
is knowledge of fundamental principles So here we
see he changes He says you know what
I'm going to define it as a science
Al-Razi defines it as something that exists
Al-Baydawi defines it as a science Here
he says ma'rifah So he wants to
sort of level it Yeah there's certainty but
then there's components of it that are uncertain
That's why you don't say allahu arif I
know Arif Hussain, no offense to Arif Hussain
You don't say allahu arif Why?
Because arif means something before there was ignorance
Masabaqahu aljahil But you say allahu what?
Allahu a'lam Because Allah was never jahil
About anything, audhubillah So he says ilmu usul
ma'rifatu al-qawaid This ma'rifah is
a unique type of learning Because the word
Arif means something that has a nice smell
We say Arifun nashir A smell that's like
spreading Arif You call the tops of like
planes A'raf So to A'raf You
call norms, societal norms Because what?
A'raf Because ma'rifah is something that
you have not only acquired the rules But
you also have enough experience with it So
when you see it, it sticks out You
have what's called dhawq What I heard from
Dr. Mahmood You have al-malaka You have
a taste for the knowledge So it's not
only the acquisition of rules that we're going
to work on But also it is the
diraya and the riwaya Not only the root
learning that happens in the classroom But also
it's the experiential learning that brings about a
sense of like You become like you have
dhawq, you have a taste for it So
ma'rifatu al-qawaid Qawaid means principles, here
it means foundational principles Like for example, a
command means a prohibition A command means a
fard That's an axiom Allati ya'rafu biha
Which, by employing them, is known Kayfa tustafad
How do you ascertain the rulings of acts
from the sources of Islamic law But that's
not the actual translation How do you attain
benefit for rulings that are going to impact
people's actions Because the job of the scholar
is to bring benefit and prevent harm So
usoolu fiqh is the knowledge of the rules
That empower somebody to generate beneficial rulings for
people What's the rules that govern that process
of bringing those rules out That's usoolu fiqh
What is that process?
I like to tell people, the usooli is
the referee The faqih is the player So
the usooli is the one whose job is
to look at compliance issues The faqih is
the one whose job is to bring the
product So usoolu fiqh is what are the
rules needed to generate rulings And to understand
the application of rulings In relationship to the
actions of people That's usoolu fiqh What are
the evidences that you can use for that
How to use those evidences Who qualifies to
use those evidences Those three are usoolu fiqh
معرفة الدلائل إجمالا وكيفية استفارة منها وحال المستفيد
As al-Badawi says in al-minhaj To
know what is and isn't an evidence For
example, and this is good for you in
neighbor nets man You're sitting in a neighbor
net with someone and like Well someone said,
I don't care what someone said Someone doesn't
matter Like I told someone one time on
a TikTok live Like if I knew who
someone was, I would like kill them Everywhere
you go, someone said, I heard from someone
Someone said this, someone said that Someone is
not a dalil So what constitutes an admissible
evidence for rulings That's what he says, معرفة
القواعد That's what he means That that person
knows what can be an evidence What can't
be an evidence Number two, how do you
use the evidence And this is where most
Muslims have a problem It's not that they
don't have access to the evidences Everywhere you
look there's canon of hadith online There's tafsir
online, there's verses of Quran online There's memes,
rule number 319 Don't take your deen from
a meme Everywhere you look there's memes It's
not, the problem isn't evidences The problem is
people don't know how to use the evidences
This is usoolu fiqh For example, the Prophet
ﷺ said The best one of you is
the one who bears witness before he's asked
The best one of you is the one
who bears witness before he's asked The Prophet
ﷺ said, the worst one of you is
the one The worst one is the one
who bears witness before he's asked What do
you do with this now You have two
texts One says the best, one says the
worst How do you make that function That's
usoolu fiqh Number three, wahala mustafid What are
the conditions of the one who can employ
the evidences What are the scholarly qualifications Of
the one who can deduce the evidences And
employ the evidences Recognize the right evidences Recognize
the wrong evidences Recognize the order that evidences
should be used Recognize the rules that apply
to using those evidences That's the scholar of
usoolu fiqh So then, usoolu fiqh is three
things And maybe you're saying, this is different
than the book If I was just going
to read the book to you, why would
you come That's not my job My job
is not to read the book for you
My job is to make the book alive
for you And to make you think in
a deeper way So we say, in our
notes, in the exam I have for you
I'm going to ask this question What is
usoolu fiqh And you're going to say Knowing
what are the correct evidences Knowing how to
use those evidences properly And the conditions of
the one who can use those evidences معرفة
الدلائل إجمارا وكيفية استفادة منها وحال المستفيد That's
usoolu fiqh That's why I heard from Dr.
Ali Juma, may Allah guide him I heard
from him It's not aslu fiqh, it's usoolu
fiqh And this is what Shaykh Zakariyya al
-Ansari, he said in Lub al-Usul Usoolu
fiqh would be one, but it's usoolu fiqh
three That's why it's plural Maybe someone ask
you, why is it usoolu fiqh Because, what's
an evidence, how to benefit from an evidence
Who can employ those evidences So consequently, what
we're going to study In these 50 issues
in this book Are all things that are
going to orbit around those three things I
just explained to you What's the evidence, how
to use the evidence, who's qualified And I'll
give you some examples What's an evidence, I
gave it to you earlier Like, I heard
from someone I was at a mela on
Devon street Having some laddu and smashing some
gulab jamuns And someone was like, yo, rooh
afsa is haram And then you're like, how
could rooh afsa be haram Then they say
to you, what Well, I was watching some
movie on Bollywood And there was some dude
dancing And he said, rooh afsa is haram
This is not a dalil, cancelled, bye, see
you later I was at MSA Halaqah and
there was some brother He, oh, who's some
brother Like, that's how you take your deen
No one will go to a cardiologist No
one will take advice on how they should
look after their cardiovascular health From somebody, from
some brother, from some movie When we do
not value our deen Listen to what I'm
about to say to you It's a very
important sign of tarbiyah When I value the
deen of Allah I will make sure I
take it from the right sources I won't
be sloppy I won't be sloppy So my
appreciation for the sacred Will not only push
me for the answer But the process will
be correct So how do I recognize the
evidences That's usul of fiqh What constitutes the
evidence, what doesn't What's agreed upon, what's differed
over Like the actions of the people of
Medina The Madakis, other people don't agree with
that Istihsan, other people don't agree with it
Istishaab, other people don't agree with it And
so on and so forth Number two, how
to use the evidences correctly And that involves
so many things Arabic language Al-Baydawi says
فَكُلُّهَا يَتَوَقَّفُ عَلَىٰ مَعْرِفَةِ اللُّغَةِ Usul of fiqh
rests at a scholarly level On the language
So for example, aqeem salat Aqeem is an
order An order means fard فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ
Maybe somebody comes to you Man, why is
alcohol haram?
It doesn't say anything in the Quran Like,
oh you who believe, alcohol is haram If
you know the language, you have usul of
fiqh You know, ijtinaab means haram فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمْ
تُفْلِحُونَ So now usul of fiqh allows you
to serve the people Say no brother, ijtinaab
فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ وَإِنْسُوا تَمَائِدَ Means tahreem Also, kayfiyat istifadati
minha Allows you to regulate the unfortunate differences
We find in the community That divide our
communities in areas That they should not be
divided over Like 8 rakah for taraweeh 20
rakah for taraweeh Eating jatka outside Not eating
jatka outside You name it, whatever All those
issues fall under kayfiyat istifadati minha And knowing
usul of fiqh at a grassroots level Will
empower you Not at a scholarly level At
a functional level To bring the community together
Where it's possible And then also to recognize
Issues that are serious That need to be
You know, people need to be warned about
The last wahaalan mustafid Who qualifies to do
this?
But what's inferred also Is who doesn't qualify
to do this And this will get us
into a discussion About taqleed Something that we
hear a lot online There's no taqleed You
can't make taqleed Taqleed is haram And so
on and so forth So through this we'll
go through these 50 issues Back to Ibn
Badis He says ilm al-usuli ma'rifat
al-qawaid allathi ya'rafu biha kaifa tustafaru
ahkam al-afari min adillat al-ahkam He
said that ilm usul of fiqh Is knowledge
of the foundational principles of usul of fiqh
Which are used to know how to benefit
The actions of people with rulings And those
rulings are generated From the recognized evidences Of
sharia And we see this now In America
where political nomenclature Has taken over everything Whether
it's the right or the left We find
people writing and talking about Islam Even in
the Muslim community Using language and evidences And
arguments that have nothing To do with our
tradition And often times they rip us apart
What you'll find with the faqih The scholar
of usul of fiqh Even when they differ
with people They build Even when they're differing
with people There's fa'idah, subhanallah It's not
a destructive science It's a constructive science Then
he says Fal nahsiril kalama fi khamsati abwab
So we're going to restrict This text To
five chapters Each chapter has ten sections More
or less The word abwab Many of you
know abwab Is the word for door Bab,
it's the plural Jami'ul takseer One of
my teachers in Dar iftah Years ago when
I was studying in Dar iftah He said
to me, why?
Why did the ulema call chapters Abwab, fusul
You know, we say chapters and sections Because
when you hear the word abwab You're reminded
of abwabul jannah Subhanallah So when the student
hears abwab They will remind themselves to be
sincere Like tonight, ask yourself, bro Why are
you here, man?
And you know the greatest sign of your
sincerity That I'll see you in May I
will see you in the 14th class And
you will have the same excitement That you
had the first day And I'll be honest
with you Probably 30% of you will
make it or less If we're lucky Because
shaytan hates people who study Like it's one
of the things Especially usulul fiqh So abwab
It reminds me of the eight abwab of
jannah So the word abwab When
I hear the word abwab, doors That should
bring about a sense of sincerity A sense
of awareness A sense of intentionality That Allah
is with me, alhamdulillah He begins, he starts
to talk about If there's any questions, we
can take them now Because we covered quite
a bit of information I'll review it while
you think about the questions you may ask
So his introduction, we said There's different ways
of introducing usulul fiqh Like the Hanafis Imam
al-Shaykh, he says معرفة القواعد You know,
he says, knowing the qawaid أو علم بالقواعد
We said, number one, are those scholars who
said That usulul fiqh is certain Its sources
are certain That's Ash-Shatibi and a few
others That came before him This is a
minority school The Zahiriya Number two That usulul
fiqh has Aspects of it that are certain
And aspects of it that are debatable This
is the majority of Ahlul Sunnah Hanafis and
the others That's the second The third Ar
-Razi And Ar-Razi actually is not in
this debate Because what Ar-Razi says is
true Usulul fiqh exists whether we know it
or not It's not predicated on human beings
knowing it Allah SWT laid out these usul
And it's for us to uncover them Alhamdulillah
In the secondary sense Not in the primary
sense of usul Those are done And to
continue to extrapolate rulings and guidance For people
to the end of time You have to
ask yourself Is fiqh a fossil?
Or fiqh a raw material That should be
used to serve people today?
This is one of the biggest challenges we
have This anachronistic attitude It's very easy to
live in the past Right Andalusia was great
But that ship has sailed What are you
doing for Inglewood, Illinois?
What are you doing for the south side
of Chicago?
What are you doing for Orland Park?
How is the fiqh functioning now?
Not then And a romanticized community That fetishes
over its past accomplishments Why it's incapable of
bringing One bottle of water into Gaza Or
getting Imran Khan out of jail Is a
defeated, cowardly community That does not have enough
bravery To engage its tradition And bring solutions
for people today And this is one of
the greatest Catastrophes of our ummah now Especially
in America Where we are incapable Of self
-identifying and verifying our scholarship We always have
to ask people from outside To tell us
if we're doing right So I'm gonna challenge
you In fact you're gonna have some case
studies later on That are gonna make you
think How do you apply this?
So Razi said, it exists You just have
to find it We'll take any questions if
you have them now Then we'll continue insha
'Allah Are there any questions from either this
class call or DJAM?
Or if there's any questions online We can
take those as well And we can use
the What's That?
group And discussion boards in the student portal
Also to ask questions If you don't have
any already now مُسْتَفِيدْ يَا أَعْرِفُدْ يَا مُسْتَفِيدْ
خلاص So our definition that we're gonna take
Is a little different than the definition of
Ibn Baris Because of course he's trying to
make it simple But we're taking the definition
of Al-Qadi Nasruddin Al-Baydawi In his
book Al-Minaj When he said, أصول الفقه
Is knowledge of the evidences Knowledge of how
to benefit from those evidences And knowledge of
the conditions of the one Who can use
those evidences That's why it's أصول الفقه Not
أصل الفقه Then the sheikh, he moves on
to talk about Actions and accountability He says,
من مقتضى عبودية العبد لربه أن يكون مطيعا
له في جميع أفعاله In the context of
a servant's devotion to his or her lord
It's essential for that servant to be obedient
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali says, المنهج والوصول How
can you obey the one you don't know
And how can you claim to obey the
one you know When you don't obey him
in the way he commanded you And I
see Shariq has his hand Yes, Shariq, right
I can't unmute him but maybe someone can
unmute Shariq Or maybe we can wait till
the end Okay So he says, In the
context of a servant's devotion to his or
her lord It is essential for that servant
to be obedient to Allah In all of
their actions So now what he's getting at
is What is the fruit?
What's the purpose at an individual level of
learning these things?
Because I need to make sure that I'm
obedient وَمَا خَلَقُتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَاءِ لَذِي عَبُّدُونَ Whether
these actions are manifested through their outward physical
faculties Or their inner faculties And so here
he's getting at the broad nature of the
Sharia That it encompasses the outer and the
inner Our intention and our actions How we
feel This obedience is characterized by adhering to
the commands of Allah And His permission So
he's talking here about Fiqh That's why he
says something nice Very nice, he says وَذَٰرِكَ
بِأَن يَجْرِيَ عَلَىٰ مُقْتَضَىٰ طَلَبِ اللَّهِ وَإِذْنِهِ That
all of that obedience to Allah Is based
on Allah's command or His permissions فَلْيَفْعَلُ مَا
تُرِبَ مِنْهُ فِعْلُهُ So whatever Allah has commanded
that person If they want to be obedient
they do it وَيَتْرُّكُوا أَنْ يَلِيكُوا مَا تُرِبَ
مِنْهُ تَرْكُهُ And here's a mistake in the
print That they leave what Allah has commanded
them to leave I want you to remember
this The Sharia, in the context of our
discussion Is based on three things It's a
good question I'm gonna ask you later on
Commands to do Commands not to do and
permissions.
That's the whole of the Shari'ah, Fi
'il, Tark, wa'l-ithn.
And of course those commands to do are
of two types, right?
Non-negotiable, which means Fard.
Negotiable, which is like recommended, like Sunnah.
Commands not to do are either definitive, like
Haram, or dislike, like Makrooh.
And then finally the fifth permission, Ibaaha.
So what the Shaykh is doing here is
he's tying the idea of Ihsan.
How do I live a life as though
I see Allah even though I can't see
Him?
I live a life as though I see
Allah even though I can't see Him by
adhering to His commands.
What Shaykh Abdul Sattar said, وَلَا تَوَلَّوْ عَنْهُ
وَأَنْتُمْ تَسْمَعُونَ Obey Allah and His Messenger.
أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَلَا تَوَلَّوْ عَنْهُ وَأَنْتُمْ تَسْمَعُونَ
Obey Allah, obey His Messenger.
That's why we can sort of, if we're
at a neighbor net level, we get sometimes
the people who get a little bit too
far out in Tasawwuf.
You know what Imam WD Muhammad said, that
sometimes religion is like alcohol.
People drink too much they can't drive no
more.
Sometimes Sufism is like alcohol.
People that drink too much of it, man,
they can't function no more.
They start getting way out there, man, in
outer space somewhere.
But balanced Sunni Tasawwuf is as Imam Junaid
said, طَرِيقَتُنَا مَبْمِعَ عَلَىٰ كِتَبُ السُّنَّةِ Our way
is based on Quran and Sunnah.
Obedience to Quran and Sunnah.
So what we talk about Ihsan.
Oh Ihsan is like, you know, I saw
some white lady one time, man, at some
freaking university book fair.
She's like, you know, like Ihsan is like
when I smoke weed and like I'm not
a gentrifier.
And I was like, what is this backwards
person, man?
You know, I had to sit her down
and say, Wallahi, you're appropriating our deen.
Actually, she kind of didn't know that this
is from Islam.
That's how weird she was.
She was out on like cloud 479.
But sometimes you find Muslims like this too.
How do we re-center at a neighbor
net level?
We re-center this on Ihsan is indicated
by your connection to command.
That's why Sidi Ahmed Zaroukh said, الفقيه يستغني
عن المتصوف والمتصوف لا يستغني عن الفقيه Shaykh
Ahmed Zaroukh said, a faqih, a scholar of
Islamic law doesn't need a scholar of tasawwuf.
But a scholar of tarbiyah or tasawwuf will
always need a faqih.
Will always need someone who tells them, this
is right, this is wrong.
This is haram, this is halal.
This is wajib, this is mustahab.
So this is what he's getting at here.
He says, in the context where مُقتَضَى عُبُودِيَّةِ
الْعَبْدِ لِرَبِّي In the servitude that we have
to our Lord is that it is conditioned
on what?
It's contingent on وُطِيعَ اللَّهُ obedience to Allah.
When I say, وَأَشْهَدُ أَشْهَدُ أَلَّا إِلَٰهِ لَا
اللَّهِ That is indicated by my servitude to
Allah.
My clinging to that servitude.
Which means ibadah.
And how can I cling to ibadah if
I don't know the rules?
And how can I cling to the rules
if I don't know how those rules came
about?
So you can see he's going backwards.
So what he's trying to do is show
you, usul of fiqh, its importance, its centrality
is that it is the recipe for the
rules that equate to worship.
It's the chef in the kitchen.
It's the auntie who can go to the
market and say, don't buy this, don't buy
this, this is spoiled, this is not fresh,
that doesn't work, this won't work.
That's the usul.
So I want you to think about what
he's doing here.
He's saying, listen, a life of ihsan is
indicated by a dedication to what Allah has
commanded.
And what Allah has commanded is fiqh.
But what is the recipe that generates those
commands?
Usul of fiqh.
I'm summarizing what he's saying here.
So therefore a person who is living a
life that they understand, either I'm doing, I'm
not doing, or I'm permitted.
He says, فَلْيَفْعَلُ مَا تُلِبَ مِنْهُ فِعْلُهُ وَيَتْرُكُ
مَا تُلِبَ مِنْهُ تَرْكُهُ وَيَخْتَارُ فِي مَا أُذِنَ
لَهُ فِي فِعْلِهِ وَتَرْكِي يَسَلَامٌ This is the
whole deen.
What he said in one sentence is the
whole deen.
That a person does what they're commanded, they
avoid what they've been commanded to avoid, and
what they're permitted to do, they choose.
إِذْ كُلُّ فِعْلًا مِنْ أَفْعَالِهِ لَبُدَّ أَن يَكُونُ
مَطْلُوبَ الْفِعْلِ أَوْ مَطْلُوبَ الْتَرْكِ Because every action
we do, either we're commanded to do it
or commanded not to do it.
أَوْ مَأْذُونًا فِي فِعْلِهِ وَتَرْكِي Or a person
is permitted to do it or not do
it.
And this actually is a beautiful explanation of
the verse, I have not created jinn and
human beings except to worship me.
And this is a beautiful description of what
a life of ibadah looks like.
What does a life as a abid to
Allah look like?
Then he says, كُلُّ فِعْلٍ مِنْ أَفْعَالِ مُكَلَّ
فِي ظَاهِرَةِ وَالْبَاطِنَةِ لَبُدَّ أَن يَكُونَ قَدْ تَعَلَّقَ
بِهِ حُكْمُ مِنْ أَحْكَامِ Every action, whether internal
or external, there is a ruling from it.
There is a ruling for it.
Either a rule to do, a rule not
to do, or permissible.
And this actually is a statement of Imam
Al-Shafi'i, رحمه الله, in his Risalah.
He said, every action has a ruling.
The majority of the actions are going to
fall under permissibility.
Alhamdulillah, Allah is not Jabbar in that way,
in an oppressive way.
He is Jabbar in a transcendent, incredible way.
But he is not a dictator.
So the majority of what we engage in
is permissible.
So he says, كُلُّ فِعْلٍ Every action, من
أفعال مُكَلَّ From a responsible person.
Who is a responsible person?
Especially if you are a neighbor, next you
have some young men, now they are in
the emergent adulthood, yeah?
So maybe they are asking you, what is
the sort of responsibility for you?
Or how do I know I'm responsible?
Make sure brothers can see it.
Is number one, they are experiencing physical signs
of puberty.
Number two, they have the mental ability to
moralize.
Number three, they have the physical ability to
do the act.
And number four, there is no psychological or
emotional problems.
To the extent that those psychological or emotional
problems are going to inhibit their ability to
worship.
That's a مُكَلَّف.
We don't have teenagers, we don't have emergent
adults, we don't have...
We have مُكَلَّف غير مُكَلَّف.
Either you are going to answer to Allah,
you are not going to answer to Allah.
So he says, كُلُّ فِعْلٍ من أفعال مُكَلَّف
Every action from the responsible person, whether outwardly
or inwardly, لَابُودْ must be related or associated
with one of the rulings of Allah.
لِيَأَنَّ الْإِنسَانِ And this is beautiful.
Maybe somebody ask you, why are all this
halal and haram in Islam?
You know how you can use this?
I used to do this when I was
in MSA and I used to be in
Usra.
I would tell them, because Allah gave you
a شَرَف.
You are not an animal.
You are not created for no reason.
You have an honorable purpose.
Something that has an honorable purpose, there are
going to be a lot of compliancy issues
to make sure it takes care of its
honor.
وَلَقَدَ كَرَّنَّا بَنِ آدمِ We honored human beings.
So he says, لِيَأَنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَامْ يُخْلَقْ عَبَثًا
People were not created for no reason.
وَلَمْ يُطْرَكْ سُدًى And left with nothing.
وَحُكْمُ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى The rulings of Allah.
هُوَ أَوْ طَلَبُهُ أَوْ إِذْنُهُ أَوْ وَضْعُهُ There
should be no شَدَّ here.
And so what he's doing here, he actually
addressed two very important issues when it comes
to like existential issues related to philosophy.
Number one is, what does it mean to
be religious?
Right, religiosity.
How do I exemplify religiosity?
Through obedience to Allah.
Not through TikTok likes.
Not through attention.
Not because I'm speaking on stage.
The inverse also, I heard some people say
some disgusting things.
Oh, this is happening to Palestinians because they
were not good Muslims.
Are you crazy?
The opposite, maybe Allah SWT made this ibtila
as a means to raise their maqam and
forgive them of all their sins and to
teach us how negligent we are, subhanAllah, that
we don't obey Allah and we live in
mansions, they're obeying Allah, subhanAllah, in rubble.
Allahu Akbar.
So we are allowed now to redefine how
we look at religion beyond the capitalist lens
that links success and value to what you
have intrinsically when it comes to your wealth.
Ibadah is not about this.
Ibadah says, it doesn't matter what you have,
it matters where you're at.
Meaning what maqam are you in with Allah?
That's what Imam Ibn Al-Ta'ala said.
If you want to know where you are
with Allah, look where Allah put you.
What are you busy with?
So, number one, Islamically we are able to
move beyond the shallow notions of how I
dress, how I talk, how I wear a
turban, how I wear a certain kind of
perfume, I have a dhikr beads, I have
knowledge, la la la la.
At the end of the day, where am
I with the commands and prohibitions of Allah?
That's all that matters.
Whether it's in a Model Y or whether
I'm hitchhiking.
If I'm praying and I'm hitchhiking, believe me
I'm in a Rolls Royce.
And if I'm in a Rolls Royce and
I don't pray, I might as well be
in a junkyard.
The second issue that he addresses, which is
very important, is that the reason for ghouls
in Islam and the reason that we have
halal and haram, is because human beings were
not created without purpose.
We have a noble purpose and that purpose
is ibadah.
And it's out of Allah's mercy that He
legislated this deen for us in a way
that will allow us to hold on to
this honorable position that He gave us.
That's why it says, إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ تَنْهَى عَنِ
الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ Prayer keeps away from evil.
Fasting brings about taqwa.
Hajj improves our character.
As we finish the last section, he says,
وَطَلَبُوا إِمَّا لِلْفِعْرِ وَإِمَّا لِلْتَرْكِ As I said
earlier, he says the request can be made
either for actions or for abstaining from actions.
What he means by actions is fard or
sunnah.
What he means by refraining is haram or
makrooh.
He's going to explain it.
He says, and in both cases, they can
be either on the basis of precaution.
Like sometimes, you know, rulings are going to
take on a greater importance just to be
safe.
وَلَا تَقْرَبَ هَذِهِ شَجَرًا Don't come close to
the tree.
Coming close to the tree isn't forbidden, but
it's better to be safe.
Or preference, الترجيح, we'll talk about it in
the future.
When a request is made for an action
based, and here he's going to define for
you the five rulings of Islam in a
very simple way.
Usually, in classical books of usul of fiqh,
this section becomes really complicated, very philosophical, a
lot of arguments about terminology.
Ibn al-Bayt, as he understands now, people
can't digest all this.
So what does he do?
He gives wusum.
He gives a description of it in a
way that is easy to digest.
So he says, requests can be made either
for actions or for abstaining from actions.
And in both cases, they can be either
on the basis of precaution, like I need
to be careful, or I need to do
this to be safe.
Or preference, you know, I prefer this, maybe
I shouldn't do this.
When a request is made for an action
based on precaution, it is considered, I need
you to remember this, the scholars of usul
of fiqh don't say wajib, they say ijab.
Because the word wajib is describing an action.
Ijab is describing a text.
Just remember this.
I don't want to make it too complicated
for you, but usually you hear like wajib,
makruh, mandub, mustahab.
That's not the terminology of the scholars of
usul of fiqh.
That's the terminology of the people of fiqh.
But the referee is concerned about texts.
Right?
The faqih is concerned about actions.
Remember I told you early on, the scholar
of usul is the referee.
The faqih is the player on the court.
And the coach.
So he says, when something is an absolute
command to do, it's called ijab.
You understand it?
If you're Hanafi, farb.
We'll talk about that difference in the future.
If the request for an action is based
on preference, meaning you can do it or
not, but it's recommended, it's called a nadab,
not mandub.
Mandub is in fiqh.
Nadab, usul of fiqh.
Sometimes classical scholars, when you go to them,
if you're a beginning student, they'll test you.
They ask you, فأما هذا عند الأصوليين؟
فما هو؟
If you say wajib, ياري امشي.
If you say wajib, they would say go
away.
If you say ijab, come.
They know that you know enough to be
there.
Or desirability, الاستحباب.
So nadab is recommended, istihbab is a form
of recommended, but it's more intense.
That's why it's from the word love, it
brings about the love of Allah.
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Similarly, when there is a request for abstaining
from an action based on prohibition, it's not
called haram.
In usul, it's called tahreem.
And you guys should have this text with
you, by the way.
Tahreem.
Or al-hathro, prohibition, same meaning.
If the request for abstaining from an action
is based on preference, it is considered disliked.
Al-kiraaha, don't say makroo.
Al-kiraaha.
And finally, permission from Allah for both performing
and abstaining from actions is known as al
-ibaha, not mubah.
Ibaha.
Then he says something very important as we
finish.
It is worth noting that requests and permissions
are collectively referred to.
All of them are called hukum.
And why does he say that?
Because earlier on he said there's no action
you do except there's a ruling.
So if you think about our life, either
I'm doing something forbidden, may Allah protect me,
I'm doing something which is obligatory, I am
doing something which is disliked, I'm doing something
which is permissible.
On the flip side, may Allah protect me,
I'm not doing an obligation, I'm not doing
haram good, I'm not doing makroo good, I'm
not doing something permissible.
It's okay.
So my whole life will fall under these
five.
Why is he talking about this?
Because the outcome of usul of fiqh is
the ruling.
The faqih.
The next four sections that we'll talk about,
he's going to get into some of the
different types of rulings.
What are called prescriptive rulings, positive rulings, some
scholars call them.
Then he's going to talk about the difference
between taklif and wada'i.
And then he's going to talk about sharia
rulings and revelation.
Then after that he's going to give some
examples of taklifi and wada'i rulings, which
is important, which we're going to go through,
will help you understand things well.
And then he's going to talk about the
division of rulings into negotiables or defaults and
concessions, dispensations, which is important.
And then he's going to talk about the
type of rulings in relationship to contracts, like
marriage contracts, business contracts, and so on and
so forth.
And then he's going to go back to
who's the judge in all of this?
It's Allah.
Then he's going to talk about, and this
is a very important section, what's the purpose
of these rulings?
Like why do we have them?
Who are they for?
Who's accountable?
Who's the address of the sharia to?
And then slowly he gets back into the
guts of usulu fiqh.
So alhamdulillah today we talked about a lot
of information.
Alhamdulillah.
Number one, we talked about who he was.
Ibn Badis Al-Jazaeri We talked about ilmu
usulu fiqh.
I didn't want to get off too far
into it, but sometimes I have this habit
of doing it, which is not good.
We said that usulu fiqh, there are like
three different approaches to defining it.
One is through the lens of it being
certain.
The second is that there are components of
usulu fiqh that are certain.
Then there are components which are negotiated.
That's the majority of scholars.
And then finally we talked about Ar-Razi
saying usulu exists whether we know it or
not.
It's our job to know it.
Then we took his definition here, but I
gave you as for our class that we're
using the definition of al-Baydawi.
Knowing the evidences, how to benefit from the
evidences, who qualifies to use those evidences.
We talked about actions and accountability.
And we linked this into living a life
as a muhsin.
How do I justify my feeling that I'm
living right?
It's my sincere commitment to obedience to Allah,
inwardly and outwardly.
That's it.
It doesn't need to be overly complicated.
We say in Urdu, zindagi bihibandagi sharmandagi.
How am I living my life?
That is the sign, my ibadah, my connection
to Allah.
I'm leaving neighborhood, I'm this, I'm that, I'm
running the school, I have the students, I
have the ijazat, I have...
Somebody has ijazat and doesn't pray.
What's the ijazah for?
To go to *?
The ijazah should be to motivate us, alhamdulillah,
to be more humble and more thankful to
Allah.
...
We didn't know anything when we were born.
...
Then we talked about every act has a
ruling.
Because the ruling is the cherry on the
top of usul and faqih.
Usul and faqih wants to get you to
the ruling for the faqih.
Then we talked about commands, requests, and permissions.
We said the whole of sharia falls under
these three designations.
That's it, three things.
And then we talked about, and he did,
I love actually what he did here.
Instead of making it very complicated, he just
said, this is how you need to understand
these five rulings.
If there's any questions, we can take them.