Suhaib Webb – Imam alSuyuti’s Introduction to Orthodox Sufism Part Four A True Believer
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AI: Transcript ©
Alhamdulillah It's great to be back with everybody
here. Alhamdulillah. And just a recap of what
we went over,
the last few weeks inshallah. So we started
this book of,
Imam al Diarayah of Sayyidna Imam Asiyuti Rahimullah.
And we noted, in the beginning he talks
about those 9 ideas that you should have,
right, that are really gonna set help you
set
the course for what's coming in the text.
And then in the second part of the
book, and that's what we talked about last
week, he talks about 3 foundations.
What are the
3? What are the 3 foundations of of
the person whose life
is lived for for the hereafter.
Allah
says and whoever wants
the and works hard for it, like, and
works incredibly hard for it, then and this
is really nice in Arabic,
sayuhu mashkura.
You lose something here in English, and this
is something that our brother Fadu Soleiman in
his new translation of the tenukaraat, he's he's
he's kept. It's the true
usage of the Arabic even if it's somewhat
confusing in English. So it says
means his struggle was already
was already blessed, was already rewarded.
Not rewarded in the hereafter, but already rewarded
in the sense of like, don't doubt
that the hard work you're putting in now
isn't going to be rewarded, so Allah
phrases the reward that you'll get in the
past tense is kinda like in English when
you say, hey man, can you do this
for me and I'm like consider it
done. It's that feeling, so the form methroul
mashkura,
like it's done,
it's already done.
Don't worry about all the struggle that you're
going through right now for the hereafter.
It's already done. Your award is already there.
SubhanAllah,
Masha'Allah.
And 78% of the Quran, the time the
Quran refers to the hereafter and the past
tense as if to say, it's already done.
So the sheikh gave us 3 foundations,
right,
for for living,
a life
of a person who is is is moving
beyond
just the hereafter.
Right? Just the hereafter.
The first one that he mentioned,
is that to know that all harm and
benefit is from Allah.
Number 2 is to know that anti Abdul
Marzuk,
that you and I are servants and our
provisions have already, again, that form our provisions
are taken care of.
You don't have to worry about it, it's
been handled for you.
And the 3rd, and this
is
very
beautiful,
that this temporary life is on its way
out the door and eventually it's going to
cease and the hereafter is approaching and it's
going to last forever.
And that's where we stopped inshallah and today
we're going to pick up on the 11th
part of the text and he says,
wal mumminha'a.
And he's going to now start to talk
about what are the qualities of someone who's
working to be a good believer.
What are the qualities of someone who who
who tries, right?
And and the language he uses is very
delicate. We'll talk about that a little bit
in a minute.
But what we're talking about now is who
is truly the believer?
He says,
He said that the true believer is the
one who has completed the branches of faith.
The branches of faith.
Imam al Sayyuti ties a true believer to
the branches of faith
And the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he
mentioned those branches.
In a sound hadith, he said, an iman
that iman is 70 or more branches. Another
narration says 60 or more branches. There's no
contradiction here. We go with the highest. Right?
So 70 or more.
The prophet said that faith is around 70
or more branches
and the the greatest form of faith,
the most virtuous form of faith
used to say, la ilaha
That's why I say.
The best thing that was ever I ever
said and the prophets before me ever said
is, La ilaha illallah.
And the lowest branch is to remove an
obstruction from the road.
And then he said, and hayah is a
branch of faith also,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
This hadith is is extremely important, and we're
gonna talk about it in a second, because
it brings the 3 components
of faith together.
Knowledge,
faith in the heart,
and practice. Conviction,
intellectual conviction,
affirmation in the heart, and then practice through
speech
and deeds.
But before we do that, let's unpack a
few things about faith, because we now live,
as I mentioned before,
in an era where the individual has basically
been turned into the altar of this area.
People no longer go to church, they net
fix binge. People go no longer to church,
they leisure has become
now a form of Ibad for people,
Allah. There was an article many, many years
ago in Life Magazine called the problem of
leisure.
Like leisure is becoming now like a religion.
And with that, there's this kind of amplification
of the I.
You know, everybody thinks they're special.
Everybody's opinion is special.
And everybody's like easily offended
by things which may even be that they
hold that are illogical.
And with that
is this trickle down into religion where people
no longer respect,
a specialist.
Scholars,
people
who know. And faith now, especially within
contemporary capitalism,
faith is about like how you feel.
I feel like this.
So it must be right.
Where it's Islam not hislam.
Right? It's very different.
So there's a few important points that I
wanna make about faith from
the tradition of ahlul sunnah,
this
orthodox tradition, the tradition of ahlul sunnah that
are crucial.
The first is that faith is learned.
Faith is learned.
Jundub ibn Abdillah, he said,
said that we, the Sahaba, we learned faith
before the Quran. And then talking to his
students, he said, and he said, because of
that, our our faith increased.
But now you, in talking to his students,
you learned Quran before iman. What would you
say to this generation?
What you think is how you feel, what's
in your heart
before you learn the Quran,
before you learn the iman.
Abdullah ibn Umr noted also that the prophetic
way was to learn first the importance of
learning, the centrality of learning. He said, laqadishna
burhatan min
means, like, a small amount of time from
our era.
Quran
and a person would have faith before they
had a relationship with Quran in our Islamic
studies programs and private schools.
Do we just focus on,
you know,
memorization
before iman? Do we have a class on
iman?
In high school, do we have a class
on iman?
Not just akida,
iman.
So he says we lived for a considerable
amount of time and before,
one of us would learn faith before one
of us would learn faith before the Quran,
meaning the rulings in the Quran, not the
faith in the Quran.
Later on, Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, will reveal
a chapter to the prophet and we would
learn what is permissible and is impermissible,
its orders and its admonishments
where it demanded a person stop and reflect.
He said, like, how you learned the Quran
from us today?
However, these days, I've noticed, Abdullah ibn Umar
says, I've noticed some people who begin with
the Quran before faith.
He will read everything between fatiha
and the entire Quran without knowing what it
commands.
Its admonishments and where he should stop and
how he should have or she should have
a relationship with the Quran. So they may
recite the Quran without a relationship. So
iman leads to a relationship.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with the Quran, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala says in Surat Ahazab that,
you know, they they get goosebumps when the
Quran is recited physically.
And
so when the Quran is recited,
their heart is moved. So the Sahaba didn't
just learn the Quran.
They learned the Iman and then they learned
the Quran.
SubhanAllah.
The second component of iman that we talked
about are actions.
And unlike learning which is a constant and
which always has to be there in the
backdrop of Muslim's life, the idea that learning
is for children, learning religion is for children,
is really an immense post colonial hangover.
Aisha, radiAllahu anha, noted this when she said
the only thing Allah revealed at the beginning
of Islam was a few chapters from the
Mufasal,
which is Surat al Hujurat, the 49th chapter
to the end of the Quran,
that contained the details of iman.
When Abdullah bin Umar said, ta'alamna ilmanaqabalaquran,
Quran. What it mean is we learned the
iman in in the Quran and then later
on rulings came.
So here Sayid Aisha is saying the only
thing that Allah revealed in the very beginning
was al Mufasal.
Mufasal means the detailed chapters. They have a
lot of details about iman.
So it's a hujarat, so it's a ness.
That contained the details of heaven and *.
And once people were strong in their Islam,
verses containing the permissible
and the forbidden were sent.
If she says,
You know, if the first thing that was
sent was don't drink and don't fornicate,
she says, wallahi, we would have never been
able to stop. Like without iman and the
commands,
we would have never been able to fulfill
the commands. What she's saying is we learned
theoretical,
intellectual
concepts about Allah,
and then we learned practice over time,
Over time. Often times we find that Islamic
schools and teachers it's the opposite.
They teach people practice and parents, in particularly
parents, they teach
practice
before faith.
Here also is another very beautiful statement of
Sayyidina ibn Abbas, radiAllahu anhu,
on the idea of the emergent religiosity,
emergent religious practice coupled with consistent
iman
Look at this narration.
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala sent a prophet with
the testimony, there is no God except Allah
and when people believe that, he increased them
by commanding them to pray And when people
believed it, he ordered them to pay zakat.
When people believed that, he commanded them to
fast. And when people believed that, he commanded
them to observe Hajj. And when they believed
in that, he commanded them to fight for
justice, and then he, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, completed
and perfected Islam. Notice if you speak Arabic,
he doesn't say
he
says
meaning that internally and externally they affirmed. Sadapo
means to affirm internally and externally.
So they completely affirm these things and then
the next thing would come and the next
thing would come and the next thing would
come.
The other point about faith and this is
what I mentioned earlier is that faith isn't
a feeling or a whim. Allah says,
Don't follow their desires. It will take you
away from the truth.
And when
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallamah,
he said,
The prophet doesn't speak from his whims. What
he speaks has been revealed to him by
Allah
Allah says,
Allah
says, Have you seen all
Have you seen the person who takes their
whims and their feelings as their god? This
is this era, subhanAllah.
Look at what the great scholar, even
Abu Bakr, even Al Arabi, the great Maliki
jurist from the Maghrib. He
said
it's a very important statement. He's saying that
the obligatory knowledge of faith is not something
achieved by necessity, meaning like you just know
and sometimes people mistake the idea of fitra.
Oh fitra means people are automatically born to
know faith perfectly. No. Fitra is about potential
that has to be utilized,
not an outcome that is someone's nature.
This is a mistake Muslims make a lot.
So he says
So it's not something that you can learn
naturally
nor is this something that you know is
going to come to you by ilham, by
your inspiration.
That's a different discussion. It's not allowed to
blindly follow someone. Oh, they believe in Allah,
so I believe in Allah. No. You have
to learn for yourself.
And he says, and it is not possible,
right, that
the only that you can just achieve this,
right, without making any effort.
But the way that this knowledge is learned
is by studying and
learning. Radiallahu an. And that's powerful because in
today's age folks tend to trust themselves way
too much. This virus has exposed the myth
of self reliance.
Completely shattered the myth of self reliance.
And an outcome of this age is this
idea
that everybody's right. I have my own opinion,
you know, I'm correct. Even if it goes
against
specialist or the advice of specialist
or the direction of scholars. In fact, this
is an era now where not only religious
scholars, but scholars in all fields are seen
as great as like suspect.
An outcome of an age that has set
a man set man as the ultimate being,
the sole agent on earth.
The outcome is an inflated
sense of opinion and experiences.
And the prophet, he warned of this of
this when he said,
prophet said, you must call to good and
forbid the evil until you people see people
obeying their stinginess.
And people following their desires.
In the dunya preferred over everything else.
And you notice that everybody thinks their opinion
is special.
That's this time.
He said at that time focus on yourself
and avoid the masses because without a doubt
days are coming which resilience during them will
be like holding on to hot iron.
At that time, a devotee to Allah,
his or her good deeds will equal that
of 50 men who act similar
to him. The sources of learning faith also,
he mentions
wujubal ma'rifah one another, aalwajiladiyaatabnaha,
ulima shara'anla aclam.
He said that learning faith, 1st and foremost,
is founded in in the sharia,
not strictly from the intellect. The intellect
can complement the Sharia if it aligns with
the Sharia, but the intellect as a sole
source
of right and wrong when it comes to
faith is something that Islam does not agree
with.
And he said, and that's how every obligation
is.
And that the only way that you can
arrive to this, of course, is with the
sharia,
rahim muhammadu ta'ala.
What that means is that the sources for
faith that we're gonna talk about now and
practice
of the Quran and Sunnah as understood by
the ulema.
Because without the ulema we have chaos and
confusion.
You know, one time there was this person,
he was writing against ISIS, was upset about
ISIS, which is understandable.
And then at the same time, he was
saying, in the name of like progressive values,
we don't need ulama.
We don't need scholars. And Mark Manley, Imam
Mark Manley responded to him and said, well,
then, you're the same as ISIS. This is
the same argument as ISIS. We don't need
the ulama. We don't need scholars.
We don't really want to guide us. On
the opposite end, you find between
irrational conservatism and irresponsible liberalism.
That doesn't mean all the are right. Doesn't
mean what all the scholars say you have
to accept. No. You should think with one
eye open. Of course, you should be critical
and constructively critical.
But the ulama act as a centering agent
in our religion. Allah says,
ask the people of remembrance if you don't
know the Ulema as ibn Abbasi said
people of the of Dhikr are the people
of the Quran.
There are some other important things we take
from what imam Asiuti said Rahimullah
and that is that faith increases and decreases
and that's why he says
You
know,
he didn't say that a perfect a person
a person who is walmu'inu
haqqan,
that the true believer is one who has
iman
perfectly. And that's a mistake sometimes that's lost
in
translation. He said but the attempt to complete.
And this this touches on
a profound idea that has impacted islam,
in this era or muslims in particular and
muslim thought is that, you know,
faith has to be done perfectly.
That's impossible.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said,
people are made weak.
Allah wants to make things easy for you
because you can't handle it.
People are made weak
the prophet
said
everybody makes mistakes
and Allah says in the Quran
Allah will not burden people more than they
can handle
And Allah says,
All believers repent. If the believers were perfect,
Allah will not ask them, command them to
repent.
But repentance is obviously the outcome of mistakes.
But still he called them believers. In fact,
look in Surat al Buruj
in.
Indeed, those who kill believing men and women
and don't repent.
Meaning, if they do repent, what's called, they'll
be forgiven inshallah if their repentance is is
truthful.
Allah says insortatoba
That if Abu Sufyan and his wife
and those with them in Mecca repent to
Allah and establish prayer and pay Zakah, They
are your brothers and sisters in religion. So,
subhanallah,
the point is, in the context of the
believer, Allah mentions
repentance. In the concept of major sins, Allah
mentions repentance as a way to reform
and become a better person.
If we were perfect believers, there would be
no Babbitoba.
There would be no need for Tawba.
And this idea of perfection leads us to
kawarijism,
where people begin to justify abusing muslims who
who may struggle with sin.
Mistreating people because they, they may have real
issues in their life that they struggle with
or just because they're weak.
That's why Imam al Tahaawi
in his aqeedah he said, wal mumin unaqullahu
aulia ur rahman.
All of the believers,
of
them,
subhanAllah.
He said, of course, the best of those
are those who act
and obey the limits found in the Quran.
So it's very important that we don't frame
iman as this
ideological
attempt at perfection.
Iman is
about making an effort.
A sincere effort.
Those who work hard to draw near to
us. We guide them to different ways, to
multiple ways of guidance. Alhamdulillah.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in the
hadith readied by imam Muslim and sayna imam
medic in the Muwata
when he said in the deenah Yusuf the
religion is ease and
nobody will make this religion hard except it
will defeat him.
So he said, sadidwakarib.
Sadid actually means if you shot an arrow
at a target. How many of us would
actually hit the target or the center of
the target? Most of us wouldn't. So he's
not saying be perfect. He's saying do your
best.
Maqaribu
and seek to be close to Allah.
So Islam doesn't look for perfection.
Islam looks for sincere effort.
SubhanAllah.
So that touches on this important point because
sometimes when we tell young people and our
children,
we tell even grown adults like, you know,
you're not a perfect believer.
This is a concept that's rooted in like
a neo hellenistic age.
Islam doesn't look for perfection.
Islam looks for hard work.
That is done, insha Allah, with an attempt
to
hit the target.
Right?
So that means that faith is going to
increase and decrease. It has to.
Saidi Imam Masayuti, by using the word completes
instead of perfects, touches on an important point.
It is impossible to be perfect.
Effort is what Islam demands, not perfection. For
that reason, scholars coined the phrase
Say, the Imam al Bukhari in al Sahih.
It say that the fiqh al Bukhari is
in his chapter headings.
And in the beginning, it has aliman Yazid
Wayankus,
faith increases and decreases.
Imam Alakani,
in his great book Jawaharlah Tawhid, which we
studied in Lazar,
he said,
In this poem, Mashallah, which I teach at
my school in Swiss,
to the 4th year students.
This is called Bahar or Rajas for those
of you who like Arabic. The form of
the poem. The style of the poem. We
have 13 ways to read poetry.
This one is called rajas a Himar al
Sha'ara.
He says in his poem, the approved opinion,
meaning the dominant or the the the the
the most
widely held opinion,
which is given
the correct,
if you will, designation,
is that
iman increases with a person's obedience. People ask,
how do I increase my iman? Do you
pray fajr?
It's a very simple question. How do I
increase my iman? How do you teach your
spouse?
Why is my iman low?
When was the last time you prayed
nafo made dua made sadaqa?
Well, there's the answer.
Sheikh, he says that iman increases
obedience to Allah.
And then the deficiency in iman is because
my obedience to Allah is deficient.
This poem is very important.
One more time.
Masha'Allah.
So now,
the rest of the book.
And we're gonna stop now. And this, we
only covered about like, I think,
5% of the book actually, subhanAllah,
with my explanation, alhamdulillah.
The rest of the book is dedicated to
the branches of iman, mashAllah.
Every chapter
is dedicated to the branches of iman, and
that's how we live practical
faith.
Just learn the branches of amen.
You know,
subhanAllah, why do people like weird things? You
know why people like weird things? Because they're
selfish and they're narcissistic. So I wanna have
a ah moment. I wanna have a ah
moment. I wanna have a ah moment. I
wanna have a very selfish. But real faith
is just to learn. You know, that's very
selfish. But real faith is just to learn.
Of
filters, whether it agrees with me or not.
It doesn't matter. Remember Burger King have it
your way. Of filters, whether it agrees with
me or not, it doesn't matter. Remember Burger
King have it your way. Now people, they
want iman their way. And
that selfishness gets them in trouble. I remember
when I lived in 1 Muslim country, Masha'Allah,
there was a brother
who subhanAllah he decided to go live in
what's called
the the
and he decided to go live in a
cave in the
and he wanted to live with 1 sheikh
and that sheikh was telling him to go
live in the Torba in the graveyard and
to spend the night in the graveyard and
there he will find the Allah.
And he did it, subhanallah. This brother is
from America. And then
you know, all's he could talk about was
his personal experience. Like, it was so amazing.
You know, people from Egypt, you know, the
Torah is where you go to get robbed,
you know. So,
he did all that to himself and then
later on in life, he realized like, he
actually
had psychologically, kind of, like, damaged himself. Like,
why did you have to do that?
I remember once I was in a masjid
and a brother came to me, he was
very strange person, subhanAllah,
may Allah protect us all, and he was
telling me, you know, have you ever lived
in a cave? I said, no.
He said, yeah man. You should go live
in a cave. I lived in a cave
now for the last 20 days, so I
can
find Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You can find
Allah in the Quran.
Right? If you wanna live in a cave,
read Sotakaf.
Fa'awu ilal kaf. But
you have to be careful. If you find
yourself moving towards the spooky,
occult,
but it's like it's different. It's cool.
Maybe that's narcissism.
Prophet sali wasalam said simplicity
Simplicity is from Ima.
So the rest of the text, Sayna Asyuti
dedicates to
the branches of iman.
He says just work on establish
these branches in your life. Don't make it
strange.
Don't make it complicated.
So he says,
that the branches of the iman are 70.
There's no need now to go into the
different says about the numbers of those things.
Hadarimla yufidul amal.
To talk about that, it's not gonna lead
to any type of action.
You know, it's always good to focus on
knowledge that leads to action.
So we say,
like, knowing about this whole debate and and
and the jamma and the different hadith and
ta'aru than to not put in the adillah.
It's not gonna lead anyone to any type
of practice, so then why talk about
it? Look subhanAllah,
when sayin' did you breathe,
he asked the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
what is the hour? The prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam he didn't give a long answer
because it's not gonna lead to action.
Then he asked him,
what are the amara2 What are the signs?
Then the prophet
abnaba.
Then the prophet goes into a long description
because that leads to practice,
that leads to action.
And sometimes even people ask the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam theoretical questions and he answers
them in a way, you feed al ama,
that directs them to practicality, not weird stuff.
When the man asked the prophet, when is
the hour? He said,
What did you prepare for? He didn't get
some like, oh, cool.
Turmeric, latte,
Barnes and Noble,
you know, esoteric spirituality,
oh man.
Subhanallah, I know a brother, he used to
sit around and argue with people about these
things and would misfajr.
What's the purpose, subhanAllah?
But the prophet he avoids this, he says,
what did you prepare for?
It? They ask you about the moons
use it to keep time, and you use
it for Hajj. Look how Allah
changes the answer
changes the answer.
It doesn't get off into some kind of
theoretical thing.
As one of my teachers said, Islam is
too cool for Muslims, so they have to,
like, always, you know,
make it cooler. SubhanAllah.
The branches of faith are around 70 as
is related by Sayna al Bukhari
and imam Muslim Al
Iman.
Prophet said faith consists of 70 branches, the
most virtuous is to say there is no
god but Allah, and the lowest is to
remove an obstruction, something that can harm people
from the road. And hayat
is a branch of faith also.
This hadith,
does a lot for us
in this presentation of iman,
as we now begin to go into the
branches of faith.
And that is that
the branches of faith
are
consisting of 3 things.
Number 1 is faith in the heart.
Number 2 is actions of the limbs.
And number 3 is speech. If you look
at the hadith,
la ilaha illallah,
that's speech. To remove something from the road,
that's an action. Haya
in our theology
is its locus,
is the heart. So in this one hadith,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
shows the components of iman. Faith is different
than faith in Islam is different than other
traditions.
Faith is not just in your heart,
right, as say in Christianity.
Faith is
heart,
mind,
actions.
Heart, what you say which is correlated to
your mind, and how you act. So you
find them all 3 here. Mind
and and tongue.
To move something out of the way that's
harming people, hadalamal,
an action.
And then hayat
is an issue of the heart. So all
3 are there, Masha'Allah Masha'Allah.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
expounds on this in Surat Ibrahim,
the 14th chapter of the Quran
where he says Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala after
We should be teaching this verse to our
kids and to new Muslims and and those
of us who are older. If we don't
know this verse, we need to punish ourselves
because it's a very important verse. Because this
verse
defines
the believer
and opens up this relationship with the branches
of iman.
Imam al Tabari, he narrates from sayyidna ibn
Abbas karima tayiba shahara to Allah ilaha illallah
That the statement in the verse,
have you not noticed how Allah sets forth
a parable?
A good word. Ibn Abbas says a good
word is
which is like a healthy tree.
The healthy tree is the believer.
Its root is firm. He said here
is the heart of the believer who says,
la ilaha illallah,
and its branches reached the heavens. He said,
its branches,
a alamal,
amalul mumin,
are the actions. So mashAllah in one verse
through this parable, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala helps
now frame
us as this tree.
The awesome of this tree is the intellect
and the heart,
both together
and the branches of the tree are our
actions.
So here we see something unique to Al
Islam,
the marriage
of
ideas,
feelings of the heart,
statements,
and actions,
all of these work in concert to make
iman.
All of these are part of what we
call iman.
And, of course, the rats of it all
is is is is the intellect.
There's also something beautiful about the statement of
the prophet, the branches of faith. The branches
of faith are incredibly important especially if a
person desires to live for the hereafter. It's
like a checklist.
A faithful person can adopt and practice from
1 from time to time, like, go and
study what are and that's what we're gonna
learn here. InshaAllah. And I will continue to
teach this class at my school, SWISS,
so if you wanna enroll there, mashaAllah, you
can sign up at suahibweb.com,
inshaAllah,
and we're gonna continue every week to teach,
this class
live over there,
So,
you know, masha'Allah,
I can start what's the first, what's the
second, what's the third, what's the 4th, what's
the 5th, what's the 6th
and I can spend my life
going through the 70 or 70 2 branches
of faith
and masha'Allah,
I'm the person who's now attempted to complete,
not perfect, complete those branches.
That should be part of our high school
curriculum. The 72 branches of faith should start
in junior high and be finished
by the time a person graduates. And then
we should give them certificate, mashaAllah.
He did the 70 branches of faith, alhamdulillah,
mashaAllah, mashaAllah.
That's how we can now start to think
pedagogically,
about about how we teach al Islam.
So like a checklist, a faithful person can
adopt and practice 1 from time to time,
hence he'll work to complete his faith or
her faith. For that reason, scholars like Imam
al Bayhaqih,
Imam ibn Hibban and Imam ibn Hajjar, they
dedicated actual works to this,
but more important is the branches of faith
touch on physical acts, feelings in the heart,
worship,
character, and and even things like social responsibilities
and they touch
every type of act
like performing the obligations
or avoiding the forbidden. Here, instead of act,
it should be every type of ruling.
Right? That's one of the greatest proofs that
permissible acts
are rewarded by Allah because some of the
branches of faith are permissible.
Masha'Allah.
But with the niya, they became rewarded as
we talked about before,
in in the 9 foundations of the seeker,
in the first or second lesson that we
had together. So now you can see how
this course, I like to tell people,
is a slow roast.
This course I teach is a process, it's
not an event. I don't like one off
talks.
I don't like entertainment. I like education.
Information for transformation.
Information for transformation. Not information just to feel
good. That's that's Joel Osteen. Like, you could
watch Joel Osteen
get that, but what we want is that
old school grandma on the front porch religion
that compels us to live a
certain way
and demands it from us. So
again, more important is that the branches of
faith touch on physical acts,
feelings
in the heart,
worship
like salah,
character,
and social responsibilities
like standing up for justice.
And they touch every type of ruling
from the obligations
to the forbidden things to the disliked
to the recommended
to the permissible.
Let's talk today and then we'll stop insha'Allah.
What's the first branch?
The first branch, he says
Sayyuti said,
that is accomplished, this undertaking and now we're
on the journey. This is where the book
everything up until now has been an introduction.
Now the journey starts.
The first branch, allahu akbar,
gonna start
the first
branch of our iman
who can make sure that the tree is
healthy, the fruit is there.
He said, this is accomplished or that meaning
completing iman
is accomplished first
by faith with Allah,
his attributes
and the temporality
of all things besides him. Huduth.
Remember this word. This word is very important
in
Islamic
theology.
And faith with his angels,
with his books,
with the last
day, and with his decree,
the good and the bad.
Let's talk about what faith is quickly.
The word faith in Arabic comes from a
word which means safety, security and the removal
of fear. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says
in Surat Quraish,
He Allah
to be secure.
Amen. Sayedid Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam, he's
ameen, the one you can feel secure with.
He has al amena,
security.
The prophet
wasallam, there are more than 13 ahadith that
authentically prove that Saydna Isa is going to
return.
That's why Ahlus Sunnah, alhamdulillah,
as a majority,
they believe in his return. We need to
stay away from this kind of side discussions.
And the prophet in that authentic Adi said
when
that security and safety will occur on the
earth.
Ask Allah,
to bless us to see those days. Right?
We should be careful now people saying coronavirus
is the end of times. Listen,
there is at least according to authentic hadith,
75 years time wise of things that haven't
even started yet, that have to happen before
the end of time.
People need to stay away from this stuff,
man. I have an important podcast, you can
listen to it, called Not So Fast,
and I talk about
the interpretive tools needed to get into eschatology,
right, to science of the
hereafter. And he, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, he defined faith as
with His messenger,
with the hereafter,
with * and heaven, and to believe with
qada and qadr.
Scholars of religion debated the different components of
faith but settled on three things,
Masha'Allah. And his Mufradat Khareeb Quran, he said,
that faith is it happens when 3 things
work in concert.
He said that faith comes together when the
heart affirms it,
when the speech
when the when the heart believes in it,
when the speech affirms it and then someone's
limbs
act
based on what's in their heart
and what they say.
The proof that faith is conviction, feeling, and
action is the narration of Abu Umana
There's many evidences for this. The example I
gave of Shote Ibrahim before I 24,
who loves for Allah and hates for Allah,
who gives for Allah and hold back for
Allah. So loving and hating our emotions,
it's part of iman. Who gives and holds
back, that's a physical action, fakaristaqmalil
iman, then that person has to commit their
iman. Sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
This takes us into an important discussion. Maybe
you heard me. I said faith with Allah
instead of faith in Allah. This is an
absolute disaster of translation
because it's not imanfilah.
And anyone that has basically a rudimentary understanding
of Arabic basically starting in 7th grade, they're
gonna know that the word
I passed by something.
So the word
Right?
Means movement.
I came with Amr. Imam ibn Hisham is
one of the great Imams, masha'Allah,
from our for our ancestors.
He wrote a poem
just dedicated to the meanings of harufajar,
of articles of preposition
called muhneer.
Nabi'ib in that book, mashallah, mashallah, lawu akbar.
And he mentions 9 different meanings that Ba
has, like Bismi lahir Rahmanirrahim,
ikhora, Bismi Arabic,
So sometimes bad can be like, because of
because
of the Jews'
sin,
and we made certain things forbidden for them.
With the help of Allah's names.
What's called
Oh, Muhammad recite with the help of Allah.
Osama said here,
for Allah, Ikhlas to Allah.
But here,
Here the means as Al Qari Abu Bakr,
the same person we mentioned before. He says
in his tafsir ayaatul Hakam
that the word bat means a musahaba
with.
So when he says
That changes the whole ballgame
because if you say faith in Allah, it's
very boring. So just you have to learn
some rules. It's like Sunday school. Faith in
Allah is like other religions.
But faith with Allah
doesn't only mean that I learned. It means
I am now living a life
as though I am with Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Even though, of course, I'm not physically
with Allah,
but I live a life as though I'm
with the Quran.
I'm with Sayl Aqaan with the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. I'm with the malaika. I'm
with the books because
faith is a choice.
So through good times, bad times, I'm with
Allah. Through success
and failure, I'm with Allah. Through happiness,
and sadness,
health, and sickness,
corona,
no corona, and ama Allah, that's the meaning
of that.
So it doesn't just mean I learn. It
means I learn and I make the right
choice.
Now that expands
the idea of Islamic theology to a number
of things. It touches on liberation theology, it
touches on issues of social
I'm with you wherever you are.
When Sayna Harun and Sayna
Musa say, we're
scared.
Don't be scared. I'm with you. I see
and hear everything.
Don't be scared, Abu Bakr. Allah is with
us as is mentioned in the Quran.
Allah says,
This is how we should be teaching our
young people, iman.
We teach them iman now like like I
hate to say this in some ways like
like like other religions.
Where Islam, iman is not only about an
intellectual conviction and a spiritual passion, it is
about
living responsibly.
So
bimanamaa'a
mentumaa
Allah.
Wherever I am, I am with Allah and
Allah is with me with his knowledge.
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
That's why SubhanAllah we said that
and now you can understand the hadith
to worship Allah as though you what? As
though you see him. How do you see
something that you don't know is with you
or you don't feel that you have a
relationship with it? So from the same word
as This bat is called and meaning
with.
I came with
So it's a very different type of thing
now. We talk about faith with
not only means the acquisition of principles, knowledge,
and learning and understanding,
it also means to live
righteously and that touches on
the crux
of learning in Islam. We don't just learn
to learn,
we learn information for transformation.
Knowledge is translated in action, in righteous works.
The other word that he uses inshallah as
we finish is Huduth
and he says
The word hadith
means temporary. Hadith because when you say it
has a beginning and an ending, hadith also
means news
because it has a beginning and an ending.
So hadith means something, that's why you call
accident haditha. It doesn't last long, it comes
and goes. It's temporary, it's a temporary, it's
an aberration.
So huduth is temporality,
and this forms the crux of Islamic theology.
Imam Suyuti uses important word huduth, huduth means
temporary,
something has a beginning and ending.
In other words, everything but Allah.
That distinction is important because it laid out
the foundation for Allah's existence, response to the
absolute
stupidity
and irrationality
and ignorance of atheism,
and compels a Muslim to live a life
of responsibility
and righteousness.
Sheikh Ahmed Dabdir,
and I didn't put here also, we teach
his book at Swiss
for
4th year and Johanna the 5th year.
Imam Ahmed
adardir
wrote in Al Harida. Sheikh Ahmed Dardir is
from Darul Amr, he
used to live behind Al Azhar, Rahimullah,
and his house is still there and his
masjid is still there, Masha'Allah.
200 years ago, one of the great great
imams.
He says,
This is the book that we teach in
the 5th year at Swiss. You can enroll.
Enroll. You can go to swanweb.com.
Al Khareed.
He said, then you must know that the
entire world,
right? The word alam is from a flag,
because al alamin
is a sign of Allah's existence.
Just like the flag is a sign,
the sign of the existence of an army.
Everything except Allah.
Without a doubt, it's hadith. Hadith means something
a beginning,
something happened.
We say,
We believe Allah has no beginning and no
ending. Why?
He's the first and the last, no beginning,
no ending, beyond time, beyond space, beyond the
material world.
When students, they start to ask me, I
don't understand this here, I I tell them,
listen,
close your eyes and imagine a creation of
a color, a shape, and a language which
we've never seen before. They can't even imagine
it. Tell them, you know why you can't
imagine it? Because you're a matter. Before the
laws laws of thermodynamics
were put into place, scholars in the Muslim
world were purporting without knowing it,
the laws of thermodynamics.
One of them is that matter can either
create itself nor destroy itself, but matter is
here.
So our belief as Muslims is that matter,
a,
alhudooth,
alhudooth, temporarily, whoever made this temporary world isn't
temporary.
There you go.
So the word for being temporary is hadith,
Huduth
that Imam Suyuti mentions.
So sheikh Dardee says, mengaidi shaktin
hadithonmoftaqirun,
temporary and in need
because Allah
established it that it
is exist on change.
We exist through flux.
Then he defines Huduth, he says, Huduthuhujuduhu
badal
adam. Temporarily
temporal
or something being
temporary means that it's existence, it existed, this
translation is wrong, it existed after nonexistence. Like
us, we didn't exist a 100 years ago
and nobody even knew who we were.
Allah says,
We know that it happened.
So we are hadith,
Hadithin.
The other component of Hadith is that it
has an ending, and we know we're gonna
die.
This is very important in our iman that
everything is temporary except to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Waldidduhuwalmusamma
bilqidam.
Meaning, something is infinite is called kidam has
no beginning, no ending. InshaAllah, we're gonna stop
here.
But and we'll stop kind of at the
first part of this branch of iman.
Imanun billah, but there's a lot to cover.
Insha'Allah,
In the future, we'll try to come back
and continue reading from this text so we
can take each branch,
1 by 1 by 1, Insha'Allah.