Suhaib Webb – Imam alBaji & The Maturity (Emotional Intelligence) Needed For Engaging Fiqh
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Oftentimes,
we are aware that one of the tricks
of shaitan
is to get us to,
ignore things which are extremely important,
even even in the name of good.
So so as as
Sheikh Ahmed
Zorok, he says
Like, to actually have the right priorities to
know what's, like, really important instead of being
caught up in what's, like, secondary
importance is really the way of the seekers.
So sometimes, even though mentions that shaitan will
keep us busy with things that are good,
but are not essentially, right, intrinsic to our
our our goodness. And one of those, I
think, is in the area of Dawa,
in the area of teaching.
Some of the feedback that I've gotten from
people who've engaged with others online
is that there may be a lack of
emotional intelligence.
And emotional intelligence is actually one of the
great qualities of the prophets,
Allah
says about saying Ibrahim
Like, say, in Ibrahim and Sultan
is someone that you can follow. There's 2,
meaning internally and externally,
sayna Ibrahim
alayhi salatu salaam,
he is someone that you can emulate
because his internal state is good, his external
his external state is good. And talking about
Sayna Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
Allah
says,
Muhammad You know that the prophet is compared
to a star because a star
is of course, there's this massive,
you know,
amount of light that's coming externally, and then
internally, it's, like, constantly
you know, there's, like, a burning happening
in implying that the star internally and externally
can ring light.
So the
prophet is compared to a star
because the
of the prophet
They're like stars that we can use in
the night to guide ourselves,
and his actions
are like stars that we can use to
guide ourselves to this dunya. That's why Allah
says,
He's not astray in his actions,
and internally.
The prophet
is sound and strong.
There are other texts in the Quran that
teach us the importance of emotional intelligence
when being teachers and and being instructors and
and and even content providers,
whether on TikTok or Instagram or whatever. Maybe
people we live in an age now where
people don't have to have knowledge
to attempt to educate.
So for example, Allah
says about saying that the
That if you even in your heart had
been hard to them, they would have left
you. I mean, as I heard from Sheikh
Abdul Jila years ago, they being the Sahaba.
Like, if you had not been kind and
lenient to them,
right, in in in your in your heart,
internally, your emotional states,
they would have left you.
And we know that the prophet
he warned us
of becoming imbalanced emotionally when he said,
don't become angry.
When I was studying years ago in Daru
Iftar,
there's a famous axiom
for the mufti,
that if you're so angry
that it's like your
means to shut, like your mind shuts down
because you're so angry,
you should not give fatwa.
So this is something that I think has
to be talked about, that people that are
teaching and people that are
providing content for the Muslim community
have to make sure that they're engaged in
self care
and looking after their own well-being
because I I really appreciate a statement I
heard years ago,
broken people break people.
And we see Sayidina Musa
as sheikh doctor Abu Karim Zayedan alayr Hamon,
the great
Iraqi scholar.
He said that if you look at the
life of saying that
before
he was a prophet, he killed somebody.
Because that person oppressed one of his people.
But after he becomes a prophet and he
Allah says
Go to go to
both of you and speak to him a
word that will touch him.
Like, that will move him.
So he said here now we see the
emotional intelligence
of the prophets who when they're angry, as
the Sahaba said, they're angry for Allah.
And when they love, they love for Allah.
So this is something I think that is
extremely important, especially for people who are studying.
Because we say about
in many of the ancient madrasas
like in in Fez, Qarawan,
When you enter the masjid, it says
meaning that
are like a speculative science, meaning that people
are going to break be bringing in opinions.
And in order to, like, be in that
place, you have to have a certain level
of emotional maturity because, like, you're gonna be
angry and upset.
So emotional intelligence is important. And the Quran
teaches us to be astute to the emotional
needs of people.
We find in the Quran 2 piraha,
from the 7, which really helped locate for
us the importance of emotional intelligence.
Allah says,
So they were afflicted, meaning the Sahaba, with
an external
means something external.
There was an ex external
pain
that
inflicted that visited them. And Allah says
he removed this external pain. But the narration,
the kirah
of Sayyidina Shaba and Alsim
is,
which means they were after a battle of
buhid,
they felt incredible emotional pain. SubhanAllah. This is
the beauty of the different.
Right? One has the meaning of external pain.
One has the meaning of internal pain, emotional
stress,
emotional instability.
And Allah
says that in both cases, he removed and
healed
this pain
from the companions of the prophet. So as
teachers, as du'at,
as people that are educating others,
you not only have to look after the
intellectual growth of people,
but also you have to look after and
share their emotional needs.
This is actually very important,
very, very important. And today,
because we're reading,
there is a statement from one of the
great, great scholars. Like, this is a very
profound statement that I wanna share with you
from Imam
Abu Warid Al Bajhi. Imam Al Bajhi is
one of the great, great Maliki
Mujdads,
who lives in the 5th century
in Spain,
is
a remarkable intellect, who
explained the more
than once. Of course,
the one that I have in front of
me, is his
most famous explanation of the.
He also I I I always have noticed
on my desk,
there's always a book of Badgy somewhere. So,
for example,
which is right here,
a phenomenal book,
that that really lays out the foundations of
the Madakih Ushul.
And we're talking about someone who was given
the title al Qali.
Right? So he worked as a judge. He
reaches
the height of professional academic
success. But with all that in mind, and
he's really at the forefront of debating the
law school. So for those of you who
may be struggling sometimes to address the challenges
of, like, say, the
approach,
the quick kind of
literal approaches that we see now in the
Muslim world.
Imam Al Badri is a great great mentor
intellectually
on how to respond to that,
Rahim.
So Sayna Al Baji, what I thought I
would do today
is
Mohammed, I need your duas more than you
need need my duas.
The dua of the fakir has no value.
So make dua for me. But what I
thought we would do is talking about emotional
intelligence is model
something from one of our great ancestors
in
because this series that I'm teaching is going
to demand a high level of emotional intelligence.
Right? The ability to nuance, the ability to
to stay calm, the the ability to talk
through differences, the ability to engage. This is
something that we've lost, and in many ways,
we've adopted
whether on the right or the left. The
intolerance
of
neoliberalism and neoconservatism
has fallen into the Muslim community
and then been regurgitated
with a religious clothing.
Whereas in reality, the prophet said,
prophet says related by with a good isnet
that I was sent with a compassionate religion.
And he said, in
a sound hadith, the most beloved person to
Allah is the one who somehow.
Right? The one who has that kind of
deeper
emotional
well that allows them to navigate through difficult
situations. We can imagine how great the prophet
is when,
Al Waleed comes to him and says in
Mecca
some of the most disgusting things.
And the prophet listens. He doesn't interrupt him.
And when he's finished, what does he say?
Are you done, Yeah Abba Walid? Are you
finished?
And he says, yes, and then the prophet
speaks.
If you wanna think about the emotional intelligence
of the Sahaba, look at Sayidina
in the hadith of Jibreel.
When Gabriel is asking the prophet questions that
all of the Sahaba know, What's Islam? What's
iman? What's ihsan?
Omar, he doesn't he doesn't say anything. He
doesn't interject.
Why? He has great character. Masha'Allah, incredible character.
So let's read just for a moment, and
this is also going to help inform us
some more about as
we study.
And my apologies that I'm not able to
schedule
things on YouTube live, but I like to
share things from time to time, and I
encourage you to follow the series
on.
And really, an important criterion for engaging
is emotional intelligence.
And when we're giving and engaging people, making
sure that we are also in a state
of good emotional health. As I said earlier,
the axiom in
fatwa, Right? There is no
fatwa. You should not give a fatwa as
a mufti
when you're angry.
This is a an axiom
that we learned years ago. So al Badri
is writing here in the introduction to his
massive
explanation of the Muwatta.
I was able to study the with the
late Sheikh Motta Taherayan for 3 years. May
Allah have mercy upon him and forgive him.
And one of the things I learned from
that I wish
I need to work on in my own
life is this real profound sense of emotional
balance and center. I remember
when we would read with him, there were
people that would bring tea, you know, and
serve the students tea
in Egypt. And I would ask, like, who?
Where is the t coming from? They were
like, it's from the sheikh.
Like, the sheikh wants to take the reward
of serving the students
because of the value of being a student.
And I remember one time in Masjid Al
Azhar, I was sitting and reviewing for exams,
and I saw Sheikha Mataha Rayyan. He was
walking to me, and I ran to him.
I said, Sheikh,
It's like you see a, you know, like
a celebrity. Right? You see someone, like, you
really look up to.
And he said to me, how are you
doing? I said, I said I said,
and and I'm Shimaq.
Like, can I can I please walk with
you? And he said,
sure, but what are you doing?
I said, I'm reviewing my lessons.
He said,
honestly, it's better if you review your lessons.
What do I have to offer you? I'm
just walking to to class. So, like,
to be so,
like,
humble and kind of amputated from the ego
is is, like,
incredible.
You know? And he told me, no. No.
Go study. Go study. Go study. And then
tell me later what you learned.
So he put me on blast. So we're
going to read from someone who achieved
you know, if if Al Baji
was alive today, he would be the imam
of the Ummah.
Right? Who was the imam of Spain
is at the forefront of of addressing
some of the challenging ideas of the imam,
ibn Hazm,
and toning them down,
and is is like the head
of
his field.
So you would think in his introduction
that he's going to kind of
go at it with people,
or he's going to exhibit a sense
of earned accomplishment.
But instead, what we see in this introduction,
and I actually wrote it
here
years ago. I actually wrote in the notes
like I've never seen something more beautiful
outside, of course, hadith and Quran,
then this introduction of. And
is now going to model for us
the emotional intelligence
of a great scholar,
of a great person. And so for those
of you who just joined, I started at
the beginning talking about different texts in the
Quran and in hadith
that alluded to the importance of emotional intelligence
for content providers, for teachers, for scholars, for
students of knowledge, and specifically within the context
of this series that I'm putting on YouTube
on
is a subject that demands emotional intelligence
because it demands that we talk through things
that we don't necessarily agree with.
Unlike
postmodern
the postmodern era, which has
zero tolerance for people, it's extremely cynical.
And cynicism allows us to immediately just amputate
those people that we may not see eye
to eye. And this has kind
of slipped into the religious community. I can
remember the beautiful statement
of Imam Ahmed of Muhammad, who believes,
according to certain texts, that if you eat
grilled meat, you have to make wudu.
So somebody asked him,
if the imam
eats grilled meat and doesn't make wudu,
should should we still pray behind them? Because
in your madheb, it doesn't have wudu anymore.
He said, subhanallah,
I will pray behind Imam Malik.
He knows that that's the opinion of Imam
Malik. He knows that they don't agree,
but he exhibits
a high sense of knowledge,
erudition,
and emotional intelligence
that allows, and this is one of the
beauties of the Muslim community, and what allowed
Islam to spread
the way it's spread and continues to spread
is the ability to accommodate people,
even
when we don't agree with them in in
the proper context.
So let's hear the words of the most
accomplished
academic at his time. It's understood that he
wrote this introduction
after he finished the explanation of the Muwapa.
My print of the explanation of the Muwapa
is 13 volumes.
And this 13 volumes is actually the summary
of a massive
explanation of the muapa which is lost.
SubhanAllah.
So let's hear how he introduces, like, after
you finish. That's a great thing.
How will you then introduce it? So he
says,
after talking about, you know, the the major
purpose of his explanation of the is
to talk about fatwa,
right, to talk about what is the fatwa
of the medheb,
what is the opinion of the Maliki medheb,
and at times his own opinion
and to position sometimes and locate
the logic of his legal thinking. So this
is really what comes out of the Muwakpa
and to establish,
like, what is the statement of Malik on
the issue and his students, and then what
is the foundation that
allows them to come to this conclusion. So
listen to what he says. And
the
word fatwa is from a word which means.
Right? That's why we call a young person
fitya, because
when they pass puberty, they become fitya.
Because prior to that, we weren't really sure
how they were going to be.
So it's like this emergent adulthood
now births into what this person is actually
looking like and acting like as an adult,
so it becomes clear. So it's called fitya,
SubhanAllah. From the same word as fatwa. That's
why,
Imam Ibn Rosh says, bayan
hukum sharai. Right? That the fatwa, his job
is to clarify
what is the shari rule.
But because the fatwa is from what's called
maqoorul asl,
which involves the understanding of a person, so
it's not coming from Allah and his messenger,
it's being now filtered through the intellect.
Imam Al Qarafi says about the fatwa,
ghayru yuzam.
Ghayru yuzam,
that a fatwa is not binding.
So maybe you've asked somebody a question before,
or you've asked someone maybe you've asked me
a question before on Instagram or somewhere. My
answer, I'm I'm not that special, man. You
know what I'm saying? Like, my answer is
not binding on me.
What is then,
the obligation upon the person is to ask.
That's the beauty of our religion. When you
run into Islamophobes,
and even Muslims that have been infected by
the creeping secular,
you can remind them that if Islam is
so anti intellectual,
and if Islam is so backwards, then why
is it obligatory
for us to ask?
To ask questions.
Sayedid Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Inna
mashifelri,
a su'ah.
Right? That the remedy
for any illness
is to ask a question.
A fatwa is never binding.
The fatwa is never binding unless it reaches
a consensus, which is rare.
But to ask
is what is binding. And eventually, of course,
a person has to act on
religious guidance, but Al Qarafi says,
And why is that?
Because the fatwa is not
It's
It's an understanding,
a human understanding
of the intent of sharia
does not carry with it the same intensity
as the sharia itself.
And now we can talk about this in
the future and also the relationship between the
lady and scholars,
and how you have this really profound relationship.
SubhanAllah. No. That's a great question, alhamdulillah.
So let's listen to what al Badri, he
says. He says, inna fatwa al mufti,
that the clarifying
opinion of the mufti.
Fee al messayil.
Messayil, of course, is a plural of mas'ara.
Mathara, mathayil
and
sar.
And his opinion on these fiqh issues.
And his explanation of his opinion.
Listen to what he says.
This is so beautiful. This is our ummah,
and this is what we have to get
back to.
This is not the statement of an insecure
person. Right? Because when someone's secure, they understand
they're gonna make mistakes, and that other people
are gonna be right, and sometimes they're gonna
be wrong. He says, Innamahuwa
bi hasabi.
He said that these
opinions, these ideas
that this mufti is sharing on an issue
is simply the result
of the degree of which Allah has
success guided him to success or her
and assisted
him.
So he's saying, like,
this is the ability to engage these issues.
The ability to share ideas
is rooted in the intellectual
power
and insight
that Allah
has given that mufti.
That's beautiful.
And listen to this. This is the point
now about emotional intelligence.
He says,
He said, and the proof of this is
that sometimes a mufti
will see his opinion or her opinion as
correct at one moment,
and then later on, we'll see that his
or her opinion was wrong.
And and it doesn't mean that his first
opinion was wrong.
No. Contextually,
it was right at that time. But other
things happen, so he changes or she changes
her answer. But the point is, he's he's
saying that sometimes the Mufti is or herself
are gonna contradict his or herself.
So what is he setting us up for
then? If it's possible
that Imam Ahmed, on one issue, is known
to have more than 12 opinions.
If it's possible, and we know this, that
Sayidna Ima Mashefi
has 2 madhebs.
That means that did
not only differ
with others,
he differed with who?
He was so mature,
so introspective,
so nuanced,
and so humble
that he realized
he could even differ with himself
based on a set of parameters and optics.
So if it's possible
that a mufti,
If the mufti himself
finds finds that, you know,
I need to change this answer, or I
need to change this opinion,
then what about other people?
So if I differ with myself, then certainly
I should expect it should be a normal,
natural outcome
that people also differ with me. SubhanAllah. And
when I differ with myself,
am I brutal on myself? Absolutely not. How
do I teach treat myself so the sheikh
is getting at the idea of when you
recognize that sometimes you also contradict yourself, and
you differ with your own opinions,
and you're merciful to yourself,
you should be also merciful to those who
differ with you, just as you've been merciful
to yourself. Like Sayna Imam Abu Hanifa,
who early in his myth had his opinion
that you cannot wipe over cotton socks. Towards
the end of his life when he was
very ill, he changed his opinion, not the
medheb, his opinion. The medheb is different,
that you can wipe on cotton socks.
He changes his opinion. Well, do you love
one? Why does the Imam Malik critically
edit them
for, like, 40 years
because these people are able to understand that
situations change, the optics of fatwa that we'll
talk about in,
and they exhibit enough emotional intelligence
to even think critically
about themselves.
That's an endangered species nowadays.
So he says,
and I wanna finish. I don't wanna take
too much of your time.
Right. So sometimes the move t sees something
this way. Later on, he sees that opinion
that he made is wrong,
so he changes it.
So he says and that's because, like, as
I said earlier,
a person is gonna see something right one
day,
see something wrong the other. Now listen to
what he says. This is very profound.
He says,
And let not the one who looks
at my text, this this explanation of the
Not let him
he should not
assume
or conclude
that when he looks at what I've written
here,
In other words, the person that examines this
book and looks at the book that I
put together here, the mwabda,
should not conclude
that what I have explained here, my opinions
here, that my my my decisions
are definitive.
He should not. She should not.
They should not assume, like, I'm saying this
is the final
stop. Like, no, no.
No one should think that.
Hey,
that I myself, I bet you, is saying,
assume, like, these things are the final statement.
Means to cut something, so that's it. Like,
I cut it. It's done. He said, don't
assume that what I've written here should be
be be be concluded that this is what
I'm saying. Like, I'm the last statement on
these issues, and that what I'm saying is
a 100% the truth.
To the extent that
if they read what I've written here,
and they they should not conclude that what
I have presented
is the final statement
such that I will
attack
or I will shame
anyone who differs with me. The opposite.
I'm not gonna do that, because I know
that what I've written here is by
the grace and mercy that Allah has guided
me to conclude using my intellect.
That is
an encapsulation
of the etiquette,
humility,
and grace that has to exist in film.
The emotional
intelligence
needed
to the extent that the person realizes,
I ain't that special.
I'm just a human
being. They should not assume that what I
put here
is so definitive that if anyone differs with
me, I'm going to attack them,
or I'm going to go after those who
differ with what I put here. In other
words, I'm not gonna do that
because I understand
the optics,
that are here.
Because this is simply,
you know, a a a
what I'm presenting here
is kind of just the the outcome of
my own personal issue he had and reflections,
of course, based on his scholarship.
But he understands that being human means that
he could
and and what my my opinion has concluded.
Then he says very beautifully,
and this is where we'll finish.
So whoever is from
and has this level of scholarship of and
so on, and they look at this text.
So the person that has the qualifications
can look at my book and engage it,
and if they agree with it, it's okay.
But if their knowledge
causes them to disagree
with what I presented here, that's okay.
That's emotional intelligence.
It's easy to love people, but
an indication of true emotional intelligence is how
do we hate people?
You know what I mean? Like, how do
we not agree with people? That's where emotional
intelligence
shows itself.
Then he says, and as for the person
that hasn't reached that level of knowledge, then
let them use this text that I've written
as a stairway
to reach higher levels of knowledge and information.
And then he says, and of course, guidance
and successes from Allah. So the point here
that I wanted to share with you is
how Sayna Imam al Baji, in his introduction
to
the,
text
in his explanation of the is
showing us emotional intelligence.
And the importance of emotional intelligence,
looking after our well-being, if we're going to
be content providers,
teachers,
you name it. We we we have to
make sure that we are mature enough to
recognize our own shortcomings
and then also
be compassionate and merciful to those who also
may have shortcomings. If there's any questions, we
can take them. If not, inshallah, I encourage
you again to look at the series on.
Start to go through it. I think there's
information and things being taught there.
Which I've never seen the light of day
in English,
to be honest with you. And if people
take it slowly and let it, you know,
kind of like a pour over coffee,
over time
And may Allah
bless
all of you
Ask
Allah to increase you in. And so from
time to time, sporadically,
I'll try to jump online and share some
information.
And and I really believe that getting back
to teaching
is extremely important for a Muslim community who
has swerved in many ways with its nomenclature,
and it's thinking
so far away from the foundations
of our religion that we may inadvertently have
skewed,
those foundations. And we can center ourselves on
the efforts of our ancestors in this Spanish,
ancestor
May Allah bless him.
I don't see any questions now, so I'm
gonna let you go. Hope you have a
wonderful day, evening,
wherever
you are.