Suhaib Webb – SWISS Summer Nights w Imam
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To everybody.
Nice to,
be with everyone again and to see, a
number of familiar faces here.
So welcome to our first,
summer series here at Swiss,
the school that I operate and run.
Our night madrasa night madrasa. We're gonna run
through the next few weeks as we go
through the summer,
as a service to the community. In the
next few weeks,
we'll roll out a,
registration page that you can use if you
wanna have access to the texts that I'm
teaching as far as the PDFs.
And, also, if you're interested in supporting the
work we do in becoming a student at
our school.
So over the next, few weeks,
every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
we'll be gathering for night school, and we'll
be covering,
three topics.
So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays at 11 PM
New York City time.
So
on Tuesdays, we'll be going through a basic
text. Actually, I wrote this text. I translated
it and explained it. It's on Amazon. But
if you register at Swiss, we can send
it to you, the PDF free,
on essentials of Islamic faith.
On Tuesday nights, we're going to go through
some of the contemporary issues
that are facing the Muslim community. So, like,
tomorrow, we'll begin the discussion.
A question that a lot of people ask,
especially now with the marriage challenges people face,
like marrying a Muslim woman,
marrying non Muslim men. We'll talk about issues
related to music and art. We're going to
talk about the filk of direct actions, especially
as we push into the fall. We know
that many people are going to be going
back to campuses, and there's going to be
this renewed figure, especially with an election cycle
in front of us to engage in direct
actions
for
different causes,
right, across the globe, whether it's in
in the United States or outside of the
United States. What are some of the Islamic
guidelines
that will help us, Alhamdulillah?
And then on Thursday nights this Thursday, we
won't meet,
but we'll start next week. We'll go through
a book, very beautiful book written by Imam
Al Muhasibi,
on, like, the rights of God. Like, what
are the rights that God has on me
as his creation? So,
we're looking forward to it.
So we're going to be going through 3
subjects. This is free of charge to the
for the whole community.
And we look forward to serving each and
every one of you. Those of you who
are interested in supporting the work that I
do, you can enroll for $9.99
at Swiss, UCW Lake here. It will be
on my Instagram page, on my YouTube page,
the Swiss YouTube page, as well as our
Facebook.
And this is a great opportunity for you
to learn. We just saw even, I think,
a few days ago. I'm not sure if
it was today or yesterday or whatever.
But, you know, the the actor who plays
the Hulk who,
you know,
positions himself as an ally to, Palestine,
one of, you know, I think a tweet
or a message he sent out,
obviously, inadvertently,
but
symptomatic of of of a of a white
man in particular who carries a number of
assumptions about Islam and Muslims.
And he began to compare,
you know,
project 2025
and the far right in America to the
Sharia and the Taliban. I always find it
interesting that
when America, in particular white America,
needs to
compare its worst,
it it
it has to compare its worst. It doesn't
own its worst. So, you know, he he
shouldn't say that these people are like the
Taliban or these people are like Sharia. He
should say,
these
crazy
far right people
are like themselves.
You know what I mean? Like, you don't
have to compare it to Islam and Muslims,
or the Taliban or whoever.
I'm not here to defend any of those
groups that I'm mentioning. I'm just saying it's
interesting that the worst of America always has
to compare itself to what it perceived to
be the worst of others.
Whereas, what he should have done is just
own it. Just own own your evil,
and just say, no. No.
This is who they are. This is how
they are. There's no need to try to
compare them to anyone else. But the point
is that, you know, he he claims to
be an ally,
of of Muslims and Palestine and the marginalized,
and we see even him
that he is carrying,
certain assumptions
and sort of
preconceived ideas about Islam and Muslims in Sharia
that are extremely problematic. So one of the
best things we can do in this time
with our anger and our frustration is to
learn. Because when we learn, we are then
able to confidently
and
intelligently articulate
what our religion is, and
that is extremely important. So tonight, we're going
to start on a on a text that
I wrote. You can find it on Amazon.
But again, once the registration page
is available,
you can, receive the PDF for free from
us.
And that's on faith. The word faith in
Arabic, there are a number of terms for
it. Aqida,
iman,
Imaniyat,
Tawhid. We have a very important axiom,
in Islamic law,
that says there is no argument
over terms.
This is a classical,
a classical,
axiom
that ancient scholars
invoked in order
to to limit
disputes over,
superficial issues.
You should write it down. It's very important.
Right? That there's you can call it what
you wanna call it. You call it faith.
You can call it Aqidah. You can call
it Iman. You can call it Ilahiad. You
can call it Usuluddin.
Who cares?
Because in general,
as Imam Ibn Muqai mentions when he talks
about the seven conditions of this kind of
topic,
these things don't lead, like, to any practical
application.
So when we begin our study of faith,
one of the things that I think is
crucial for you to realize, is that there
are going to be different names for this
science.
We should not argue
over those names
per what our great historical,
academic tradition has taught us.
You can call it what you wanna call
it. Because if you think about it, it's
actually a brilliant axiom.
That means that our level of thinking now
has to become much more nuanced and much
more deeper.
And it's not just about window shopping. It's
about actually investigating and understanding what is being
said. You could call something, you know,
light in that person or that thing is,
like, very evil. You could call something evil
and it may be good. Doesn't matter what
you call it. What matters is the substance.
So this is a beautiful axiom of Islamic
law, and Islamic,
the adab al baqal manavra, the etiquettes of
debate and discussion. That
in general, we don't argue over what you
call something. So we see this with people
who become Muslim.
You know, people arguing, are they reverts? Are
they converts? Are they converts? Are they reverts?
And we see people getting into like, arguments
over this. Why?
And also let the people who embrace Islam,
let them call themselves what they wanna call
themselves. I personally like the word new Muslim.
I don't like revert. I don't like convert.
I like new Muslim. And the reason I
like new Muslim is after 6 months, you
can no longer call them a new Muslim.
You just call them Muslim. But if you
call them a convert or revert, they will
stay a convert or revert. It becomes sort
of a pejorative
20, 30 years later.
But after 20 or 30 years, the person's
no longer a revert or a convert. So
the word new Muslim,
I think is extremely important because that gives
a person a limited amount of time to
engage and grow in the community. And then
also the community has to accept them as
full on Muslim.
What I wanna talk about today, I think,
will be very meaningful and transformative for you,
and that is the meaning of faith.
And how do we understand faith before we
start to talk about a text.
This book written by a sheikh Ahmed Adar
dear, which I translated almost 10 years ago,
hamdulillah, with a brief explanation.
Before we get into his text, what I
wanna talk to you briefly about tonight, and
we'll finish, is the meeting of iman. And
then tomorrow, we'll continue on contemporary issues. We'll
start a discussion
on,
Muslim women who've asked so much about marrying
non Muslim men. And of course, we know
that's a symptom of a broader problem that's
beyond my beyond my warehouse, and that's just
a problem of marriage.
So the word iman in Arabic is from
a word which means a man. A man
means security.
Allah says,
Allah protected them from fear.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says,
Right? Allah uses the word iman here to
mean
conviction.
But its its essence,
its meaning
is something that you can trust
and something for which you don't have to
have fear of.
That's why the prophet
everyone knows, like, his name
prior to him even be being chosen by
Allah
to be a prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
is Amin.
Amin is the one you can trust.
Amin is the one that you can you
can rely on.
So the word, iman, is from the same
word as the name of the prophet Amin,
implying
security,
safety.
I think that's very powerful.
Because oftentimes, maybe how belief is framed within
the Muslim community and how maybe certain,
the culture of religion
sometimes doesn't frame
iman in that way. But iman is something
that we turn to. Iman iman is something
that we can rely
on. Iman is something that we feel safety
and security in.
Allah says whoever has a relationship with Allah
has clinged to a rope that will never
break. SubhanAllah.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallamah
defined the iman in the Islamic sense,
in the famous hadith of Gabriel.
When he, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
was asked what is iman?
He said, and to believe
with Allah, with his angels, with his books,
with his messengers, with the day of judgment,
and to believe in what has been decreed,
the good and the bad.
Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. In theology,
this is where I hope people will take
notes. So we talked about what's the linguistic
meaning,
talked now about the definition given by the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Now we wanna give the definition
of the theologians. We know that ahasunna
in general,
they have 2 definitions
of iman
or 3.
But I'm gonna stick to 1 to keep
it simple for all of you, and that
is that iman means
the affirmation of the mind and the heart.
The brothers of of prophet Yusuf, in Surah
Yusuf, they said,
The brothers of Yusuf, after they lied to
their father, they they said to their father,
Like there's no way that you will believe,
you will affirm
what we're telling you.
You won't have.
You won't have that affirmation of this information
that we shared with you. So the word,
amen,
aligns theologically with its meaning linguistically.
The affirmation
of the mind and the heart.
That's very important.
There are some ulama
who said that,
Iman is not only the affirmation of the
heart, but also to say Shahad.
Like,
It's a question that people ask, especially some
people who embrace Islam. You know, I've met
people who've embraced Islam, excuse me,
who, like,
they're not sure they said shahada correctly. For
whatever reason,
they're not sure that they've
said the shahada correctly. What is the obligation
for someone who wants to embrace Islam
is not to say the specific shahada.
That's better.
But even if they were to say something
in general, for example, they said, I believe
Allah is 1 and the prophet and Muhammad
is his message. It's enough.
So what what is obligatory
for someone who wants to embrace Islam
is
is a statement
which even if it's in their own language,
which carries the general meaning of the shahada,
not the actual Sirah,
The form of the shahara.
Also, we don't have to
ask people unless they want to to say
it in Arabic.
Because you could tell someone who doesn't speak
Arabic. Right? You could say
You could I just said in Arabic, I
wanna buy watermelon,
and I wanna sell something in front of
a grocery store. You could tell them to
say that. They would say it. They would
think they're saying shaha.
So for someone who doesn't speak Arabic, it's
not an obligation for them to embrace Islam,
to say
Muhammad and Abdul Musa. But the point here
is that the scholars of theology,
there's a difference of opinion, a small difference
of is it enough just to affirm in
your heart or is it enough to say
in your heart and say,
The strong opinion is that
you should it's good. It's recommended to say
shahada, but if someone has the iman in
the heart
The the the last thing that I wanna
talk to you about, and I think this
is very transformative
after talking about what faith means, something we
find security in.
What faith means theologically, affirmation of the heart.
So faith is not related to the limbs.
The good deeds are seen as the
the completion of faith. But there's a difference
between faith and action.
That's why we have to be very careful
of what we see online now. People making
takfir of people. Saying that they're not Muslim
by judging their actions.
They may be sinners.
They may be,
people who who are engaged in in
behavior which is not in line with Sharia,
but calling them kuffar,
you have to be very very careful about
that.
Because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the Quran
knows that there is a difference between faith
and actions.
Those who believe
and those
who do good.
This conjunction
in Arabic,
we say
That a conjunction means that things are different.
I came with Suhayb and Umar. Umar is
not Suhayb.
So
except those who believe
and do good. That wow,
that end means that these are two different
things.
Also, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran
over and over and over again, he locates
that iman is in the heart.
That we prescribed the iman in their hearts.
We decree that iman would occur in their
hearts.
So usually, not always,
when there is a need for someone to
be declared as not Muslim,
this is related to to belief
and actions, you have to be very careful.
You have to be very unless it's very
clear, like a very clear act.
That's why, Sheikh,
Ahmed Dardir and Al Kharida, he says about
those people who believe that
the world happened on its own. Those people
who believe that God doesn't have control. That's
a belief he says, for that
That's disbelief.
As for those people who believe
that God
created
certain things that
allows those things to happen. He didn't say
about them. He said,
The the difference is one is a belief
which
completely negates God's power, the other is not.
1 he calls kafir, 1 he says
Also the Hadith of the prophet, peace be
upon him, and the sunbulb Hari. It's very
important because some of you may have been
mistreated by people on social media.
Maybe some of you have been attacked for
things you've done. Maybe for the way that
you've dressed. Maybe for
someone stalking you online or whatever. And they're
saying, you know, this person is not a
Muslim. This person is out of Islam.
We'll talk about this later on.
And and and and so
the the the the the Quran
as well as the majority of Ahlus Sunnah,
alhamdulillah,
they say that iman is in the heart.
Allah
says, That iman is in their hearts. It's
in the Quran. Someone wants to have a
dispute with that, they can they can dispute
with the Quran.
There is, also another opinion of theologians who
said that iman is
You know?
To believe, to say, and to act. This
is the this is the minority
of Sunnis.
The majority of Sunnis,
because I see someone,
asking really great questions in the comments box.
Majority of Sunnis,
they say either it's affirmation of the heart
or affirmation of the heart
with shahada. That's why Sheikh
and in saying the shahada, there's a difference
of the amongst the majority. The minority said,
But that takes us to an important,
issue because our our class here is not
in comparative
Sunni Theology. We know there are 3 schools
of Sunni
Theology. We respect and love all of them.
But
this is an introductory class for people.
And that is something that I want you
all to think about as we push in,
especially with our discussions over this book every
week. The goal
of this text that I'm going to teach
you is not disputes.
The goal of this text that I'm going
to teach you is not to divide
and create divisions that are already there.
The goal of this text is to allow
you to focus on Allah
and to focus on doing good.
To worship Allah
as though you see him even though he
can't see. You can see him, you may
know he sees you.
And this text, alhamdulillah, was taught at least
for the last 200, 300 years within most
of the major Sunni
madrasas in the Muslim world except in Saudi
Arabia.
But in Al Asa, that part of Saudi
Arabia is taught. Certain parts of Mecca, it's
taught. But for the most part, in the
Najid and Qasini area, it's not taught. But
in Egypt, Libya,
Tunis, Morocco,
Senegal,
Mauritania,
Mali, Nigeria,
Sudan,
Chad,
Yemen,
parts of Kuwait, Qatar,
that you get into, like, even Iraq, all
the way up into Asia. This book is
taught.
Again, someone's asking I think people are asking
instead of listening. There is a difference of
opinion, of course, about leaving prayer. The majority
of the
and the majority of theologians don't say that
someone who left prayer is Kafir.
In the sense, they've they've
denied Allah. This is Kafir, kufra amari.
This is disbelief related to actions, not to
the heart. Unless they openly say
that they deny. It's a great question the
person ask but try to listen to the
whole lesson and then ask questions.
Try to act like you're actually in a
classroom. So you're not gonna just blur out
in a classroom. Right? You're gonna ask questions.
You're gonna engage, which is important.
But write your question down. Listen to the
whole lecture. As one of our teachers used
to say, if you listen to the whole
class, you usually find your questions are answered.
But I'll reward you for asking this question.
So the the purpose of this book by
Sheikh Ahmed at Tirdir al Aqidah at Tawhidia,
which represents the majority of Sunnis in their
aqidah,
but with respect to the others, alhamdulillah,
is to allow us to frame the purpose
of Tawhid is to focus on Allah.
To lead to Ihsan.
As as one of my teachers used to
say something nice. That the early Muslims, they
studied Aqidah,
and they were enemies and they became 1
Ummah.
Now Muslims are 1 Ummah and they study
Aqeedah and they become enemies. I'm aware of
these differences and I want to say to
each,
sect or
madhab
within Sunni aqeedah, you're welcome. Ahanawasahran.
We can have pragmatic differences, but I'm not
going to differ with you to the point
that it destabilizes
relationships
or weakens us.
That's something that I feel is a complete
waste of time.
So Sheikh Ahmed al Dardu, the reason that
we chose this book is because it allows
us to focus on Allah and not dividing
the Muslims. And we can see now the
fruit of this division.
But we are incapable
of even helping the most vulnerable in the
Muslim world. For those of you who are
new to this study, you will appreciate it
because it will allow you to have a
very fresh experience,
and something meaningful. It will impact you. You
know, faith should impact us.
Faith should transform us. Faith should increase our
iman,
increase our ta'alaq with Allah, and our love
for worship, alhamdulillah,
and our hate for sin. You know, the
night before I became Muslim, I was, like,
smoking marijuana. I was hanging out with my
friends.
And then the next day,
you know, I became Muslim
and like the taste for those things were
gone. SubhanAllah.
Like it was something very powerful.
You know, I was very young.
And from that point on, you know, one
thing that I've learned is that, you know,
faith
should lead us to Allah.
Faith should take us to Allah. Now we're
studying faith is causing us to hate each
other. Like we have to ask ourselves,
why are we teaching comparative
Sunni theology to beginners?
Why would we teach comparative Sunni theology
to the masses?
We we shouldn't teach that theology to the
masses.
We should teach the theology
that cause people to live their life as
though they see Allah.
Even though they can't see Allah, at least
they know he sees them.
And that's why I chose this book.
This book is not going to lead to
wahdatuwujud,
which is of course a deviant belief.
This book is going to lead to wahdatushuhud.
That in your life,
you begin to contextualize
names,
the attributes,
the beauty,
the power,
the punishment
of Allah.
So you begin to think deeply
and daily.
And your dhikr becomes more pixelated.
And
your your
ability to
to push in
in that relationship becomes stronger? Well, Lai, this
is such a beautiful question.
Some people may find it offensive. I wonder
then why is Allah helping the poor Palestinians?
We're gonna talk about that in this class
together. We're gonna get to the challenges of
theodicy,
the challenges of suffering. I want you to
know that this is a place you can
ask these kind of questions.
Right? I I I can appreciate
the frustration
and and pain
that we all feel.
And so I I don't want to contribute
to anyone's sense of pain.
Right? So
that is an important question to be asked.
And we will get to that. We get
to what's called
So thank you for feeling comfortable enough to
ask. That means, hopefully, I'm doing a good
job of creating a comfortable environment.
So tonight, we talked about iman, meaning a
place of trust.
Says he he preserved and protected them from
fear.
And the is the.
Again, the the person earlier was asking, no.
No. No. Iman means
Go to the dictionary.
Go to any ancient dictionary, and even look
how the Quran is used. You'll see why
the majority
respectfully
differ with that opinion. Although that is a
very valid opinion
and a respected opinion.
What I want you here today, I think,
will be very transformative and important for you.
And I want you to ask yourself
something.
Do you feel
like Allah is close to you?
And do you feel
like you are close to Allah?
Allah says,
When my servant asks you about me, tell
them I'm a Kareeb. Kareeb is Sifa mushaba.
I'm always near to them.
And there's something so beautiful in the Quran,
you know? When we make dua to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
you never find in front of the dua
the letter, Yeah. Like, if I wanted to
call someone, like, across this room I'm in
now, I will say, like, yeah, such and
such.
Yeah, such and such. Because they're far enough
away that I have to say, yeah. Yeah
is like
getting their attention.
But think about it, in the Quran,
do you ever find the dua where you
say yet?
Or you just say Allahumma
or you say Rabbanah.
You don't say You Rabbanah. You don't say,
You Allah Ummah. You just say, our lord,
our creator,
our sustainer,
our our our objective of worship. You never
say, oh.
To remind you that Allah
is so close to you
that you don't even have to say yet.
One of,
a poem I wrote years ago, you know,
You know, there's not even between you and
your lord. Yeah. Like, this is how close
he is to you.
And we're at a time
where the way the world is the thermostat
of the world politically, economically,
socially,
it's hard to maintain iman, man.
It can be hard to maintain commitment, and
that's okay. Coming to groups so that's very
important, so then you can push in.
So what I wanna share with you today,
I think is extremely important. And there's going
to be some people who don't agree with
this. That's fine. Alhamdulillah. It's important.
When we when we don't agree, it means
we're listening to one another and we're we're
thinking
about what we're saying.
But that is oftentimes if you went to
Sunday school, you saw that iman
was translated is faith in God.
Faith in the prophets.
Faith in the angels.
Faith in the books.
Faith in the hereafter.
Faith in the divine decree whether good or
bad. I I want you to reformat that
understanding as we begin to start our book
next week.
And that is that the word, ba,
mantubila,
doesn't mean in.
The word ba doesn't mean in.
You say, for example, in
short, wipe
your wipe
with your head.
You say,
Doesn't mean in the name of Allah, it
means with
the names of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The word bat has a number of meanings
mentioned by Ibn Hashem,
but one of the meanings of bat, and
here I need you to listen,
is with.
If I say, for example,
I
came with Amr.
You're not gonna say, jitubi Amr, I came
in Amr.
It's not,
it's Ma'iya.
So when you say
I affirm
my faith
with Allah,
That's very different than in.
In simply means the acquisition of rules.
Right?
In implies
the simple acquisition
of al Qawait,
principles.
But when you say with
when you say with,
what does it mean? It means that I
am
in a relationship now.
And that relationship implies
that I am making the right choices.
We don't say Allah is with us in
the physical sense, of course. Allah is transcendent.
But the Quran says, wahuwamaa'akum
Allah is with you wherever you are.
If they ask you about me,
I'm close to them.
So when you say I believe with Allah,
it's not only the acquisition
of rules and principles related to correct belief,
which we're going to learn
in this class together over the next few
weeks.
But it also means that
coupled with the acquisition
of rules
and principles
is I'm going to live right.
I'm going to live this witness, this relationship.
So that's very powerful.
So now when you say,
I believe with Allah, that means if you're
at a demonstration on a college campus,
you know, you're representing your faith and you're
reminded that Allah is with you and that
you have a responsibility.
At home with our families, maybe we're losing
our temper, maybe the kids are going crazy,
maybe there's drama happening. I'm with Allah. I'm
not alone.
Allah
sees everything I do. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is aware of everything that I am up
to.
Nothing is hidden from Allah. So as you
start this class with me, the first thing
that you have to reformat
is that it is not simply a relationship
of learning rules, but this is a relationship
of rules that leads to a relationship
that comes with a responsibility
with Allah. How do you know what's the
responsibility? That's the job of Fiqh. It's haram.
It's haram. What I can do. What I
can't do. That's Fiqh. How do you develop
the capacity for affirming Allah's witness
with you? That's the job of theology.
And so it's a very different type of
study that you and I are going to
engage in. It's not one that's going to
attack people. It's going to ridicule other imams.
We may have academic differences.
But the focus is on Allah, not making
enemies amongst the Muslims.
And that's our problem now. Like when you
see, for example, in Surat Al Maeda,
those 2 men out of the whole nation
of Musa who are brave,
Why are they brave? Why do they say
go into this town?
Those 2 men
who feared Allah
had reverence for Allah.
They know they're gonna meet their Lord.
Their focus is Allah. Now,
we've lost our focus on Allah to the
point that we started
turning towards each other
and and
and destroying ourselves
because we forgot.
To worship Allah as though you see him,
even though you can't see him, you know
he sees you.
And so what I hope that this will
do will be somewhat refreshing for you. And
the first step that we take in the
short class together as I finish is faithba'
means with not in.
I believe with Allah means I have the
Sharia compliant aqeedah.
Yes. And I couple that with the Sharia
compliant actions, fiqh, and I couple that with
the Sharia and compliant,
which is.
The hadith of sin in Jibril
So the the the the the the key
and the the foundation of all of this
is to have
this focus on Allah.
So this class is not for people who
want to come and argue and divide the
and split. You can you can find a
million places to go do that. But this
is for people who want to develop the
capacity
to be, Alhamdulillah,
Alhamdulillah, Reliant and focused on
Allah.
The ending
is Allah.
Our meeting is with Allah.
And the barakah and khair that we bring
in our lives will be when we focus
on. So we say, aaman to be lahi
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
This implies to be with.
I come in my affirmation
of Allah and this witness with Allah
So if I know that I'm not alone,
and my faith is to the point where
it leads to this relationship,
then I'm going to live a life which
is obedient.
I'm going to be cautious of sin, and
I'm going to be excited about doing good.
Belief with the angels implies that I know
that everything I say, everything I do is
being
recorded.
So now, alhamdulillah, I know that I I
have to be careful.
What I say and what I do, I'm
being watched.
Faith with the books. What kind of choices
do I make in my relationship with the
Quran? Is the Quran simply a book of
barakah and blessing? Or is the Quran something
that is my GPS to paradise?
The Quran is something that I am holding
on to.
Cling to the book of Allah.
As Shaitabhi says, wabaadu fahabbullahi
fee nakitaboo
fajahilmiiblaalajamotahabila.
I cling to the Quran.
Not not simply as a as a
as a,
you know, repository of blessing.
The Quran is a a book of direction,
a book of directions telling me how to
live my life. What choices do I make
with the Quran?
Same thing with the hereafter.
When I have the opportunity to engage in
sinful behavior,
do I make a choice of someone who
sees themselves with the hereafter
or the hereafter is here and my life
is here?
And then finally with and
back to the question that someone asked, you
know, what's going on in Palestine? How do
we understand trauma? How do we understand hardships?
How do we understand problems? How do we
understand difficulties? How do we understand,
you know,
the things that are happening in the world.
How do we how do we shoulder through
these moments?
So what do we want to talk about
tonight? Number 1, the definition of iman, linguistically.
Then we gave the the majority opinion of
a'ri sunnah, the iman istastiqaqal
and a statement of the heart. We also
gave the minority opinion of some of the
Hanabila
that, you know, the definition later on
is affirmation of the heart,
statement of the tongue, and actions on the
limbs. Someone asked a good question. Does that
mean that there's no action that can be
assessed as negating belief? That's not correct. But
that's a great question, and I appreciate that
person asking that. If we go to the
books of Faqisi, for example, the chapter on
apostasy,
where Imam Khaleel, he says, kufroon sari, and
a clear kufr.
Right? Clear kufr. Imam Ibn Taymiyyah mentions that,
you know, the conditions of saying someone is
not Muslim based on action is that it
has to be explicit. It's not an issue
of ishtihad amongst legitimate scholars. It's not something
for maybe which there's a doubt. These are
actions that are very clear, as Khalil, he
mentions.
So there are certain
actions, of course, that can fall under, disbelief.
For example, the example is like if a
Muslim held up their crucifix and said, I
believe in this, and I don't believe in
Islam. This is.
So we're not Jahmia. We're not saying that
no actions lead to. It's a strange opinion.
But that in general, we have to be
very careful. And the rule
of actions is investigation.
The rule of clear expressions of Kufr related
to belief is
one that should be asked about, but eventually,
you know, that that's much more easier. As
Imam Abu Hanifa said, nobody leaves Islam except
how they became Muslim.
So alhamdulillah, we'll take a few questions if
we have them now. There's some questions about
theodicy. Alhamdulillah,
Allah created lust
and give babies only because Allah love you.
Why must we kill innocent babies? It's a
great question. That topic is coming. I wanna
stay disciplined, and I want us to focus
on what was talked about, the issues of
theodicy, the issues of evil.
The problem of evil is one that's very
important.
I I appreciate your question,
but we have our entire section,
in the text as well as in this
course. And next week, we'll start the class.
Right? So this week's sort of an introduction.
Tomorrow, we'll start,
some issues on contemporary issues.
The question that I've been getting a lot
is about marrying non Muslim men. For Muslim
women, why can't they? What's the ruling?
So we'll begin a series on that, and
then we'll get into other things,
that that people ask questions about. A question
that I was asked though today,
why people are typing questions or thinking about
the questions that they wanna ask,
is
I want us to
please listen to this because,
unfortunately, there has been some suicides,
within my own
existing kind of area where I'm living
amongst the Muslims. And and people
were told
that they cannot prey on someone who commits
suicide,
because suicide is an unforgivable
sin.
This actual opinion
is not the opinion of the majority of
the
the Madikis,
the Shafis,
and the Hadafis.
And and later some of the later Hanabula
that I know of.
All say that it is fault to pray
on someone who's Muslim
and that suicide is not
a act of kufr.
And there's
a long discussion about this, But in general,
the hadith about the person that will be
continually punished
does not imply that that person is going
to be in * forever.
That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
as a prophet in one of the six
levels of intercession as well as later on,
that person,
will be eligible for some type of forgiveness,
and taken from * and put into heaven.
This is not a person who committed shirk.
So I want us to be very careful
because we're hurting families,
of people who and maybe the person harmed
themselves because of a mental health issue. That's
a whole another level. The prophets have said
that the pin is lifted for 3 types
of people. 1 of those is someone who's
mentally
compromised. So that's that that's not even what
we're talking about. Now talking about someone who
isn't and may have committed suicide, may Allah
protect us. It's a major sin. It's one
of the major sins, but it's not a
sin of Kufr.
And that's why the Madakis without
the imam,
as well as the Shaifis and the Hanafis.
And maybe some people will note the hadith
of the person who killed himself and they'll
say, well, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he did not pray on this person. That's
true. But the Sahaba
prayed on that person.
The Sahaba prayed on that person. We know
now that means that person was not,
a disbeliever. So be very careful,
about how you handle this.
It it's it's a it's then it becomes
like a double sort of burden for the
family of the person who have may have
killed themselves. We ask.
There's any questions, I'm gonna see my man,
Mohammed Roby from San Diego. What's going on,
man?
Peace to the La Jolla Shores, which I
have a lot of love for. Austin, Texas.
I was just in Austin, Texas. Oh, that's,
that's that's Rafael. I know Rafael very well.
I will be back in Austin in a
few weeks teaching.
If there's any questions about the topic, we
first we introduced Iman,
as a, sort of linguistic idea, which means
affirmation.
We talked about a theological definition given by
the majority,
of Sunnis.
There's a difference of opinion on this issue
that people get off into.
Alhamdulillah. You know, that's that's not that's not,
what we're here to, attack. And then, alhamdulillah,
we talked about,
the idea of witness
and this relationship with Allah.
I'll post a better recording on my YouTube
page. If there's not any questions, just.
We'll see everyone tomorrow night around 11 PM
to
start our contemporary filter issues and go through
certain things. And if you have certain topics
that you want us to address,
when it comes to issues of Islamic law,
have them ready and we'll check that. We'll
write them down and try our best to,
serve each and every one of you. To
Zach,
Welcome to our 1st night here in Madrasah
Madrasah school. Right? Not night school.