Suhaib Webb – Imam alSuyutti’s Map For A Student of Knowledge (Lesson Two) Tafsir
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We praise Allah
with some peace and blessings upon the prophet
upon his blessed community, his companions, and his
family, and those who follow them till the
end of time. Every Sunday, I'm trying to
come around 1 o'clock PM.
For those of you asking on YouTube
about this live to
read a very important text for emergent religious
leaders and educators,
called An Nuqayyah
written by imam Asiyuti,
Jalaruddin
Asiyuti
Rahim. Imam Asiyuti dies 9 died 911 after
hijra.
But before we get started, we want to
make a special
du'a, and
prayer for brothers and sisters in Libya
as well as Morocco.
Ask Allah
to accept those who
were lost as martyrs.
To bless their families and their communities, and
I want to encourage you all. I I
I I want to encourage you to support
them
through the charities that you trust,
through charitable organizations that you feel comfortable with.
And we ask Allah
to make us to be at the service
of others.
The book of
the Imam
lays out 9
fields of study that a student should be
familiar with. Basically, he wrote this text to
introduce you to a curriculum.
What is the curriculum that someone should adhere
to who hopes to be a religious educator,
who hopes to serve,
in
a religious capacity.
I think it's a very important and timely
text because we live in an age where
there is a lot of information,
which is
not held accountable
and is not subjected to, say,
peer review. So the more information is also
leading to the more more disinformation.
And it's very difficult. There's so much content
out there to sort of know how to
navigate it as well as if you're trying
to learn and you're trying to educate yourself,
it can become confusing because it's just like
a lot out there. So I'm hoping that
this brief presentation of the book An Nuqayyah
of Imam Assisi Ibrahim Uhla
will help familiarize people with what are the
basic foundational sciences that a person should know.
It will assist
budding
students of knowledge and those who have a
passion for religious vocation
to, like, map
their development.
It will also provide the community
the skills to assess,
religious content, religious educators. So when you're hiring,
say, an imam or you're hiring an hiring
an Islamic studies teacher,
what are the skills that they should have?
What is the skill set that should be
in place before we just hire someone?
And then also that we are very careful
about the words that we use to describe
religious educators. We need to make sure that
those people have fulfilled
certain requirements,
curricular
requirements before they can ascend,
to the role of educator. And that's becoming
more concerning now because, number 1,
post colonialism within the Muslim world has caused
us to devalue
religious scholarship.
The outcome of that is that
religious
centers of education,
specifically in the Sunni world,
suffer with a lack of support.
They are often controlled by the state.
There's little very little independence to grow and
scale in a healthy way so that it
impacts the level of scholarship
that we find within our community. So there's
this reciprocal sort of problem.
And then finally,
we don't know who who really is who,
like, who
who is qualified really to engage in religious
education. It's not just about being charismatic.
We know Allah's Quran
warns the Sahaba of
charisma, which is untethered from knowledge.
Allah says that there are some people, their
speech amazes you, but they're very dangerous. They
are very dangerous. So I wanna make sure
that the people are not just charismatic
or passionate.
Because passion
can only passion is not education.
Passion is passion. That's why
the poet, he says
It says
that to think before you're brave is 2
braveries.
So
right? To think
before you're passionate is 2 passions.
And so we have to be very careful
that we're not
overly blinded by the lights of a passionate
person
because that passion, as some of our teachers
say,
that, like, a little bit of passion can
also
mask a lot of ignorance.
Like someone that's a little bit passionate and
confident,
that passion can mask a lot of ignorance.
SubhanAllah.
So I think it's a great text to
read. It's not for everybody. Some of you
may not enjoy this because it's a little
bit academic in that way, but I do
believe that it's important. Because the last concern
that we have is that when the popular
messaging
that Muslims are engaging in is not really
rooted
in knowledge,
then it changes
what it means to be Islamically literate.
It changes what it means to be proficiently
educated in Islam because now people are going
to be so exposed to ignorance
that ignorance became knowledge
and knowledge became ignorance.
And that's a fitna, man. And so that's
why oftentimes people say, like, you know, I
can't I can't understand the ulama. I can't
relate to the ulama.
I can't maybe it's that they don't relate
to you because of this divide that's been
created.
Popular knowledge is often scholarly ignorance and scholarly
knowledge is oftentimes
public ignorance.
That's why
he said,
He
said, when I saw that ignorance
had become popular,
I educated myself until the masses called me
stupid.
What he meant is that if the variable
of of
defining what is knowledge is ignorance, then that
means if the ignorant ones are calling me
ignorant, that means I know.
That means I know. So Imam Asiyuti, we
we did the first discipline which was
Usoro Deen, and we talked about it. It's
recorded. You can find it on my YouTube
page as well as on my Instagram page.
And now we move on to El Mu'tasir.
He says El Mu'tasir.
El here means the discipline.
At tafsir,
we know that the word tafsir is translated
as the explanation of the Quran.
However,
the word tafsir has a little different meaning
that's kind of lost in translation.
Tafsir means to explain a lata'if,
to explain subtleties.
So not just to explain what's, like, known
to everybody,
but the Mufassir of the Quran
is the one who's going to explain things
that most people don't notice.
Like Sheikh Shaa Allahu rahi mubhaba,
who is able to bring the Quran
to life in the late nineties because he
Allah blessed him to understand and extract things
from the Quran
that, subhanAllah, most people didn't catch.
So he says,
and he says,
now
he defines it.
He said that the the
knowledge of tafsir
is the knowledge which is used to research
things related to
the book of Allah, the Quran.
Oftentimes, people get confused, and perhaps you've noticed
in classical systems,
is taught before tasir,
and
is taught before the Quran
and taught before hadith.
And sometimes people get confused,
and that's because aqeedah,
its role in understanding the Quran correctly
and in understanding the hadith of the prophet
correctly
is similar to grammar,
to language,
and composition.
So somebody that's just going to engage the
Quran and engage the hadith without the rules
of theology
is like someone who's going to try to
read or speak
or write
without understanding the rules of grammar.
So there may be words there,
and there may be maybe words stated
that's gonna be discombobulated.
It's going to be messy.
And that's why the sahabah
would wanna like
Quran. We learned the iman before the
Quran.
And then Abdullah ibn Mas'ud actually said, and
now you learn the Quran before iman.
And the greatest indication of this is that
the most important thing to Muslims in this
time is the recitation of the Quran,
not extracting the guidance or rulings from the
Quran.
How many TikTok channels?
How many Instagram channels?
How many YouTube channels? How many Facebook walls
are dedicated to extracting
guidance of the Quran for today.
Not just beautiful recitation, which is great. It's
a great act of worship.
Not just Tajweed. It's important Tajweed. It's it's
an obligation to read Tajweed correctly.
But that has become the sole purpose
of the Quran
that is recited
and not and not
applied.
Just this week, subhanAllah, in America, we saw
the poverty index was released,
and you will not believe that in the
last 2 years in the United States,
poverty amongst children has doubled.
What does the Quran say about that?
And now not only are we focused on
reciting the Quran,
even ideas like
manliness,
femininity
are being extracted from the Kufar.
So even the way people when they talk
about things like manliness,
they even are dressed like
those
non Muslim
podcasters
or YouTube channel holders.
So not only are we emulating their language,
we're emulating how they look,
but why don't we just ask what does
the Quran say about being a man?
What does the Quran say about being a
woman? What does the Quran say about being
parents? What does the Quran say about racial
justice? What does the Quran say about economic
justice? What does the Quran say
about pollution and
environmental
environmental shift? What does the Quran say about
what's happening now, for example, in Bangladesh by
2,050?
They're saying that a third of its GDP
related to agriculture will be lost in climate
change.
Why are we not
excited to find the guidance of the Quran
on contemporary issues
and simply focused on cool recitations
that even now have auto tune.
That's the sign of a problem.
Because the Sahaba were worried
about They were worried about what is the
Quran's guidance on these issues.
What does the Quran say about waste? Why
do we have a global climate catastrophe?
Because western countries
are wasting.
People buy an iPhone every year.
What happened to the ideas
of
Eat and drink, but don't go into excess.
Don't waste.
So Sayidni Imam Asiyyuti
following the path of
classical scholarship within
Sunni houses,
Fatima,
within sun Sunni houses,
the
initial
subject a person should learn first is aqeedah,
meaning iman. Not aqeedah to fight,
not aqidah to divide the Muslims and aqidah
that will allow me to view the Quran
correctly.
And Allah
says that there are people who don't have
that proper skill set. The Quran, because of
their inability to see it, will go straight.
The Quran will only increase the evildoers in
rot and loss.
But for the Quran, for the believer,
Those who believe, so they have belief, now
the Quran becomes a source of motivation.
Now the Quran becomes a source of inspiration.
Imam al Sayyuti says means
a discipline. And the word
in the system of Islamic study means
tarifat
It's
very important what I'm telling you now.
That when you read this word in the
context of any Islamic
discipline,
the word
means something
which has definitions and ideas,
has questions that it engages and answers.
It involves research
and the development of research
and policy.
Sometimes that knowledge will have a policy
related to it that's either individual or public,
and also it has evaluations.
So says that
that's why it says a knowledge which researches.
On those things related to Al Kitab means
the Quran.
Al Quran.
Allah
says,
so one of the names of the Quran
is Al Kitab, but remember this if you're
a student of knowledge.
The word kitab actually
means the passive participle,
What's written?
That's why some ulama,
they said that when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
introduced us to the Quran in Surat Al
Baqarah,
that that is a
directive
for the Muslim community to learn how to
write.
There's no doubt in it.
The other word that we associate with the
Quran, of course, is the Quran, and here's
where many people tend to get confused by
popular information versus
informed scholarship.
The word Quran is from the word Qara'ah.
Many people assume the word Qara'ah means to
recite, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says to
say to Muhammad, peace be upon him,
Recite.
However,
the real meaning of para'a means to join
together.
That's why
in one of his ancient poems, he says,
a
it did not
connect to the womb,
to
join.
That's why you call a village karya,
from the same word karya,
because a village is where people join together,
where they
create community.
Why is the Quran called the Quran and
what is the relationship between being joined and
being a whole and the word Qara'ah?
As Allah says in the Quran about the
menstruation,
the menstrual cycle of the woman,
from.
Per menstrual cycle is called because the ancient
Arabs theorize that the blood joins together in
the uterus.
So why? Because the Quran brings together words
and Ayat
and sentences
and Suras
together
and make something whole.
Extended from that is that those who read
the Quran
and recite the Quran will be made whole.
If I feel by
the, you know,
assault of postmodernity,
I feel disjointed and broken,
Let me go to the book of Allah
to feel home.
Allah says
That we sent in the Quran what will
heal you. So the Quran is to bring
things together,
and it should also make the reader feel
experience of completeness and wholeness.
SubhanAllah.
It says
The Quran is Aziz because nothing can defeat
it.
Falsehood cannot approach the Quran.
SubhanAllah.
Falsehood cannot approach it. So
Al Aziz,
this form is called Sifa Moshabba,
which means it's innate to the Quran, that
it's Aziz. Like, I'm Taweel. I'm innately
tall. That's my nature. So the nature of
the Quran is Aziz,
strong.
Say that Ibrahim Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes
his heart as what Salim
constantly in a state of
goodness
The definition of the Quran
will come in a minute. Then he says
The knowledge of Tasir is restricted to the
following, he says.
An introduction.
And 55
types.
55,
what we call efrad al kul. If you're
into Islamic studies, you know this is.
We have 5 major ideas that help us
formulate the study of a science. They came
from Aristotle,
but Muslim scholars,
they refined them.
What are those 5? I'll mention to them,
and in the future, we'll talk about them.
Number 1 is
Aljins.
Number 2 is Anoa.
Number 3 is Al Fosu.
Number 4 is Am. Number 5 is Has.
What are called,
Al Kalimat
Al Khuliyat
Al Khamz.
Al Khuliyat
or
From those 5 is a.
A means kind. Translated English, and
4 kinds.
But means
the different parts of a universal.
We studied this in Islamic studies.
Montak,
logic.
So when Sayidna Molana
Asi'uchi says,
an introduction which we're gonna talk about today.
Means 55
separate parts that are related to the
universal idea
of tafsir.
55.
That's a lot, and that shows you how
serious they took the Quran.
As long as we don't take the Quran
serious, the world will not take it serious.
As long as we don't take the sunnah
seriously, the world will not take it seriously.
As Sayna Omar said, we are a people
as
Islam, who our dignity was brought with Islam.
And as long as we seek dignity from
something other than Islam,
we will not experience dignity and respect.
We ask
Allah So today we're going to read the
Muqaddimah.
And Imam al Sayyuti says
introduction.
Al Quran.
The word Al Quran.
What is the Quran? He says
sent
to the prophet
as a miracle.
Even one of its chapters is a miracle.
Siri Abdulwahi
says in, Maracas Surud, it's a famous Paul
Miller in Surufak, he says,
What does that mean that the Quran
is the word of Allah revealed to the
prophet
as a miracle and for us to use
for worship?
We cannot pray with hadith.
We cannot pray
with the words of our favorite artists or
actors or actresses or athletes.
If you wanna know the superiority of the
book of Allah, the Quran,
ask yourself,
can you pray with any other words besides
the Quran?
So that is indicating
that the way to step into a relationship
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is with his words,
and his words are the book of Allah.
That's why someone came to say
and they ask him,
what's the quickest way to
get near Allah?
He said
with his words.
Quran.
For those of you who are Malakis,
in the future, I hope we can teach.
So imagine, man,
every time you open the Quran, you're looking
at the words of Allah
sent to you.
And just as Allah had a macro
choosing of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
The prophet was anointed with the Quran.
Every time you, brother or sister, you open
the Quran,
this is a micro
choosing.
You're being chosen by Allah to look at
his words.
SubhanAllah.
And then you wonder, does Allah love me?
Is Allah close to me?
Is Allah forgiving me?
Allah chose you to read his words.
Every time you open the Quran,
it should not be
a
a a a
sense of intimidation.
But the sheer fact that Allah
has chosen you to look at his words
should be sufficient for you to find confidence
in yourself.
Because when Allah loves somebody,
he gives them his look.
And when Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala chooses someone to be near to
him,
he
eases their relationship with the book of Allah.
People ask what's the best translation of the
Quran,
but the best translation I've seen is the
clear Quran
by doctor Mustafa Al Khattab.
It's really good.
It's really good.
So saying that as soon as he says
The word Muhammad
is a very beautiful word. This is the
month of Rabi,
which most Sunni in Shia Ulamaseh is the
birth of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Don't fight over the
moded.
Don't fight over what you love,
but don't fight over what you love, subhanAllah.
And
this
name, Mohammed,
is a very unique name.
Hamada.
That form is unique. It's different than hamid,
homemade,
Mohammed.
And if you pay attention in Arabic, it's
actually the object of something. It's not Mohammed,
the one who's praising. It's Mohammed,
the one who's praised.
That's why it has fatha.
But not is he not he's not praised
except that he earned this praise.
That's the meaning of Muhammad
alaihis salam. Somebody who
they are such
great people
that people have to praise them.
People have to mention their good qualities.
And that name is actually
something that you and I I have to
hold ourselves accountable by.
The name of our prophet,
The name of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam,
is an immediate reminder to our prophetic responsibility.
We are a prophetic community with a prophetic
message.
But am I, with my family,
someone who earns their praise? Am I Mohammed
or not?
With my neighbors,
do I do I act in a way
that demands their praise or not?
In my neighborhood, the people who live around
me, is my character and behavior such that
I am
metaphorically
Mohammed
in front of them or not? In the
masjid, at school, at my work,
we all have to live up to the
name of our prophet
who
was such that because of his great character
and his fidelity and his
integrity, even his enemies praised him.
That's why Abu Abu Sufyan, after his daughter
married the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam at
Habiba,
people told him, did you hear
who your
daughter
married?
And he said, no. They said, she married
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. At that time,
Abu Sufyan hates the prophet more than anything
else.
But what does Abu Sufyan say?
He said, I can think of nobody better
to marry her than him. SubhanAllah. Even though
it's his enemy, man.
Even though it's his enemy.
So Sayna Muhammad
Yeah. Jazz
means as
a sign.
1 of our
people I read with in the morning, she
shared something with me really remarkable.
She said, you know, instead of saying or
we should say.
That's what the Quran says.
An is something that directs you to something
else.
So the
of the
sent to say directs us to Allah, the
wudjud of Allah.
Here, Imam Suyuti doesn't mention it, but say
that Imam,
meaning that the Quran is sent to be
worshiped with, meaning to pray with or when
we recite it, we're rewarded for it. If
you recite it even in English or Urdu
or Persian or whatever,
you're still rewarded for it in the.
And
so now he's going to define the different
ingredients of the Quran, the afrad of the
Quran, Assiri. So he says,
You have to pay attention here. Imam Suji
says that a chapter, a Surah,
is a Ta'ifah,
is a group,
Al Muhtarjama,
which are named Al Musanna,
Tawkeefan.
And he says here that they are named
by inspiration, meaning that the names of the
chapters of the Quran
came to the prophet
just like the ayat of the chapters of
the Quran,
but this is not the stronger opinion. Because
many of the chapters of the Quran, the
names came from the Sahaba,
and the Sahaba did not seem see receive
revelation. And sometimes they even differed
over the names of the Quran, and they
didn't fight about that. Like, for example, Surat
Al Dahr
is also called Surat Al Insan.
Surat Isla is called Surat Bani
Israel, and even some of the Tabi'in.
The students of the Sahaba, they had names,
like Sufyan Noireyna, who comes later. He he
had the name for Sultan Fatih al Waqiya
al Waqiya.
I think that's actually very beautiful
because you and I should think about
what would you name Al Fatiha?
Like, if you could give Shroeta Fatiha a
name in your language, what would you name
it? So I asked some of my students.
One lady, she said, I I call
my anchor.
Another lady told me, I call
my remedy.
One of the brothers, he said, I call
my my protein shake. And he's like protein
shake for my iman.
That's actually the kind of relationship you want
to have with the book of Allah, Subhanahu
wa ta'ala, that you know it so well.
You you give it nicknames because the names
are a sign of love,
So he says,
means
but that's not the correct position of the
majority.
And the shortest chapter, someone mentioned it earlier,
so to is
3 verses.
Now he says, what is ayah?
The word aya means
a mar
or a laama. The word aya is a
sign.
But in Islamic theological,
sort of epistemological
framework of Islam, we say
That ayah is something that directs you to
something else,
not itself.
So we say that smoke is the ayah
of fire.
So the prophet
and the Quran
and you and me as Muslims, all of
us are ayat to who?
Ideally, we should be
to who? The Quran is perfect. The prophet
is perfect. So they did their job. The
left, what's left is for me and you
to be aya to who?
To Allah.
That's the main purpose of the Muslim.
That's why Alem e Iqbal, in his beautiful
poem,
he said that if Muslims
embodied Islam,
the only thing that non Muslims could say
when they see those Muslims is
Subhanallah.
So our job is to be a conduit
to the creator.
We are the Jedi knights of Hidayah on
the face of the earth, which is overridden
by the soldiers of Shaitan.
We are from the dojo of light.
We are the last vestiges of prophetic guidance
on the face of the earth. You and
I carry this trust,
this
son of Nur
back to Sayna Muhammad
and our job is to shine that light
to people.
SubhanAllah.
So you also are
aya.
That's your job. That's my job. To be
a sign that the prophet is on the
haqq. To be a sign that the Quran
is on the haqq.
A sign that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. Aya.
So every Muslim is aya
What a beautiful responsibility, SubhanAllah.
Then he says,
It says that the ayah
are words of the Quran, which are divided
by words, like small spaces between them like
any words.
What?
Then Imam al Sayyidi says in relationship to
the Quran, there are certain aspects of the
Quran that are more virtuous than the others.
There are certain
aspects of the Quran that are more virtuous
than others.
The first, he says,
He said the most virtuous parts of the
Quran
are when Allah talks about himself.
The most virtuous parts of the Quran are
when Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, talks about himself.
That's why the greatest form of vicar is
Quran.
And then So for example,
The end of Surat Al Hashar. Any verses
of the Quran
where Allah who
describes himself and talks about himself
himself,
this is
The second type of speech found in the
Quran is
praiseworthy,
but not as excellent as Allah talking about
himself.
When Allah talks about anything other than himself.
But still they're all virtuous,
We could ask ourselves if that's the the
relationship with the Quran.
The best part of the Quran is when
Allah talks about himself. Let's ask ourselves if
we're
influencers
or podcasters
or YouTubers,
what do we talk about the most?
Do we talk about Allah
or people?
If Sayyidina Imam al Sayyuti says,
That in the Quran, the best part of
the Quran
is Allah talking about himself.
The next best part of the Quran is
when Allah talks about other things. Let me
ask myself, how much do I talk about
Allah
on my podcast?
How much do I talk about Allah on
my YouTube page? How much do I talk
about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? I'm talking here
about religious content providers. I'm not talking about
if you're doing other things like, of course,
cooking or yeah. That's different, man. You you
you have a role. You have something to
do there. I'm talking specifically
about people who wear the garments of religion.
Are they talking about people more than they're
talking about Allah? Are they talking ill of
people more than they're talking about Allah?
They said it's forbidden to recite the Quran
in a language other than Arabic. What he
means is insulah.
Insalah.
However, as a sheikh
mentions in hashiit,
and Khalil mentions and also say that their
dear and Aqrabi Masaric or Shah Hasarir,
that for someone who is incapable
of reading
Arabic, like say a new Muslim, they can
pray by saying subhanallah,
alhamdulillah.
They can pray, and if they can't say
that, they can pray in their language until
they learn
according to Imam Abu Hanifa. Rahimullah. Imam al-'Adawi
also, I believe, Sheikh Saeed al-'Adawi and Hashat
al-'Adawi
on
because
commands are based on ability.
People have so when someone's a new Muslim,
you don't tell them, like, you have to
learn Arabic now.
Leave them alone. Let them learn the movements
of prayer,
Maybe somebody who is Muslim but had been
far away from the community
and has trouble,
let them slowly grow into the acts of
worship. So when imam say Nasuz, he says,
he means insala,
not outside of salah.
That is not allowed to recite the Quran
in a foreign language,
he means in prayer, not outside of prayer.
Also, somebody can't, like, worship
and say, like, I'm gonna summarize.
They couldn't say that it's salah.
We have to read with the book of
Allah.
And to give tafsir based on an opinion,
and what he means here
is an opinion which is uninformed.
What he means here is an opinion
which is not
fulfilled the prerequisites
of discussing and talking about the Quran, what
we talked about earlier today in the very
beginning of our session together.
So he says, just I have my own
opinions about Quran. I don't care what anybody
else thinks. That's not allowed. But we love
the Quran when it meets the conditions of
the Quran
and the conditions of what we should learn,
like around 33 sciences,
that's not a problem. So we'll stop now.
Inshallah, we reached a little bit over our
mark. We wanted to only go for 30
minutes.
Next week, we will start those
55 different sections that we should know about
the Quran as we read the book Anubayah
of Imam al Suyuti that lays out we're
not gonna read all of the subjects in
this text, but those foundational texts that someone
interested in religious vocation or someone who's teaching
people, Islamic studies teachers,
homeschoolers,
you're trying to map your way as an
MSA
student
should be aware of what is it that
I need to study. And then how do
we evaluate imams and religious teachers that we
hire.
If you have any questions, we can take
them. If not, we'll see you guys next
week around the same time every Sunday around
1
o'clock.
Yes. This book, the eastern time is called
Anuqayah.
At the imam.
You can see it here.
And we're working to translate it.
Yes. My daughter is,
taken over my office space. I have no
choice but to,
what's it called? Postmodern art?
Yeah. Postmodern art.
Zach Muhammad. May Allah increase you. And please
let people know and share this with others
if you can.
You know, it's appreciated if you found benefit.
We'll see you guys next week around the
same time.