Suhaib Webb – The Branches of Iman, w Mahmoud Hijazi
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
In the name of god, the impassionate, the
merciful, we send our,
praise and salutations upon prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. The sheikh welcomes you to this
gathering,
the 2nd class inshallah, on the branches
of faith,
the book by Imam al Khozwini. We introduced
the author last week,
and we introduced the book and its context
and the structure
of the book.
The first branch we spoke about last week
is the first branch of faith being faith
in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And we stopped
at an important question.
The sheikh the sheikh had narrated a hadith,
that it was reported a prophet Muhammad said,
I have been commanded to fight against people
until they testify there is no god but
Allah. And the shift last week explained
that we need to be very cool with
the interpretation of this hadith.
And, inshallah,
today, we will discuss the interpretation.
1st, inshallah, we need to be cognizant of
a linguistic,
detail here. In Arabic, umirtu is a specific
commanded commandment.
In in translation, it is I was commanded.
So we know who the commandment is for.
It's for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
and we know who the commandment was from.
It came from Allah as Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is the only entity that can command
the prophets sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So it's a specific commandment
from our creator, from Allah
to the prophet Muhammad and it's not a
general commandment.
It is not translated into English as we
have been commanded, but into in English, it
would be I have been
commanded.
So this commandment
is,
why is it commanded specifically to the prophet?
Because prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, like all the prophets God
has sent, are commanded to spread the message
and to use the tools available to them
at the time. And in the Quran,
God says to the prophet that we have
commanded you to spread the message
And,
and,
I will just confirm
the verse,
So the verse in English that the sheikh
is, citing here, oh, messenger, convey everything revealed
to you from your lord. If you do
not, then you have not delivered his message.
Allah will certainly protect you from the people.
Indeed, Allah does not guide the people who
disbelieve.
So the first takeaway is that this is
a specific a specific commandment to Prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And we spoke about the use of I
was commanded, not we were commanded.
The second
is that
when we continue the hadith,
I have been commanded to fight against the
people. And the sheikh is explaining
that the people, again, needs to be interpreted
carefully
because
people includes believers as well as disbelievers
and all people,
so just as
as a if we take it literally. But
the specificity
of the commandment entails a specificity
of who the
who Allah
was,
referring to when he was
addressing the prophet
or
or, or or commanding him to fight. And
so we understand that there's a specificity as
well in the word people, in the use
of the word people in that hadith.
So the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, has
been commanded to show the signs,
of
Allah
to
to to reveal the message, to show and
spread the message, and
the the signs that Allah,
has provided to for us to understand that
there's no deity but Allah, there's no God
but Allah. So the commandment is to make
that message absolutely clear and to fight to
make that message absolutely
a 100% clear that there is no god
but Allah, and that was the prophet's command
commandment as a messenger of Allah is to,
is to make that message clear,
and to and to,
to,
make sure that there are no,
obstacles in the path to making that message
clear.
Once the message has been delivered, then there
are 2 types of protection
that we owe to people. Number 1, is,
the
protection the guaranteed protection when people
proclaim the shahada or testify that there is
no god but Allah and that prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is his messer. This
is the protection
guaranteed to someone who becomes Muslim
and who follows the responsibilities
and the,
the obligations,
of the religion. But we do not go
into people's intentions. We do not question whether
they
have testified out of sincerity or not. We
do not go into people's intentions and we
are,
that is not for that is not, we're
not in a position to to do that.
The second type of protection will be explained
insha'Allah.
The second type of protection
is for non Muslims,
for non believers of any kind, for atheists,
for people who
have
a different religion,
any non Muslim, any disbeliever,
as long as they're not fighting against
Islam or fighting against Muslims
or not taking arms,
to fight against Muslims, then they are also,
under protection from Islam.
The hadith that we started with is,
continues then to speak about,
establishing prayer and giving zakat or giving elms
or charity.
These are
two forms of obedience to Allah,
but there's a slight nuance in that prayer
is a,
more of a sign of obedience that is,
that doesn't have anything to do with giving
So Sheikh Hussain and sister Marwa seems to
have had some technical issues. Sheikh Hussain that,
because of that Islam calls us to call
all people
to stick and cling to the commands of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And in doing so,
we all secure
our rights and securities in this life and
the next.
So now the sheikh, he moves on to
the next hadith, which is actually a beautiful
hadith. And it's as he mentioned, it's extremely
short in meaning, but
short in words, but extensive in meaning. What
we call.
And that is the prophet
Whoever dies knowing
that there is no god except Allah, that
there's nothing worship worthy of worship truly except
Allah will enter paradise.
And the sheikh, he says the this the
the the hidden jinn
and this hadith is the statement.
So this is a form
and then he said this hadith is narrated
by Sayyidna, Usman ibn Affan,
And he mentioned some of the unique,
wonderful
characteristics
of Sayyidna Uthman. The first is that Sayyidna
Uthman, he became Muslim on the hands of
Abu Bakr, Sadiya Radiallahu Ta'ala Anhu.
The second, he said is that Sayyidina Uthman,
he actually migrated twice. He made Hijra
to Habasha and he made Hijra to Medina,
subhanAllah.
So he made,
Hijra attain.
The third and he said, this is unique
to say, is
that he actually married
2 of the daughters of the messenger of
Allah.
The
first one
is and then when she passed away,
the daughter of the prophet
so he is unique in this that he
the prophet married him to his daughters, 2
daughters.
And, I guess, inshallah. So the,
the sheikh has explained that not everyone who
testifies
that there is no god, but Allah enters
paradise. There is,
a specificity
there. The truth of knowledge,
the truth of knowing Allah and
his Messenger
is to
is to removes
all doubts. It removes all doubts about the
prophets,
being the the final messenger, and it removes
all doubts about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So
knowledge is supposed to remove all doubts
and,
and,
that truth is established
once all doubt has been removed.
So the can the condition, inshaAllah, to enter
paradise is to affirm
faith in your heart and to obey Allah
in your actions.
And this is the level that the prophets
attained, all of the prophets and all of,
all of the followers of the prophet attained
and
that is a high level and the sheikh
explains that this is a hard level to
reach, but there is no doubt that reaching
that level
is,
is, inshallah,
is
possible with affirming in your heart and taking
the right actions to obey Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
So
firm belief that La ilaha ilaha illallah, firm
belief in the
proclamation that there is no
god but Allah
should then lead us to,
to,
to lead to action, lead to a behavior
where we are following Allah and
his Messenger and we are obeying Allah
and his Messenger.
So summarizing the first branch, inshallah,
the branch of faith. Faith should settle in
our hearts and manifest in our actions.
We should take responsibility
for our faith.
And insha'Allah, we enter paradise
by Allah's decree not as a result of
our actions. Our actions are
to obey and to thank Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, and paradise is Allah's reward for the
peep for for the believers,
and it's a
it's it's not,
a direct result of our actions. It's Allah
offering paradise because he has been con he's
content with us, and we are obeying him
because we are commanded to obey him.
So
the believer enters paradise when they have,
when upon their death they have believed or
they have absolute certainty that there is no
God but Allah
and that they have acted upon that belief.
Faith
is both,
it manifests both in knowledge and knowing that
there is no God but Allah and in
taking action and responsibility
for that knowledge.
So it's a combination of having the belief
in your heart
and how and making sure that your your
actions manifest that belief.
The the second branch of faith that we
will begin talking about
next
week is a branch of faith in the
messengers of Allah, all of the messengers of
Allah.
Do we as Muslims believe only in prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam or is it
imperative upon a Muslim to believe in the
prophets that came
before him? And what does that look like?
Is it okay to believe in prophet Muhammad
and not believe in the previous prophets or
vice versa
for a Muslim.
We will talk about that next week, and
the sheikh makes dua for all of you.
The chef is offering to respond to any
question on the content of today's,
to take today's lesson insha Allah.
Please,
feel free to ask your questions.
We do need a free thing whenever.
Very delicate?
Yeah. So the sheikh was asked about an
issue, a theological issue between the who are
known for
declaring people out of Islam because of their
actions,
and then the difference between that and Ahlus
Sunnah. And so the sheikh was saying that
Ahlus Sunnah sits in the middle between what
we call the and
the were those who said, like,
we don't care about actions at all. Like,
whatever you do, it doesn't impact your iman.
It does harm or,
benefit your iman. And the Hawaj, of course,
are the opposite of that. They would declare
people out of Islam because of their actions.
So between these two extremes
and he said the sheikh, he said the
remedy to really deal with this question is
to think about taking all of the necessary
text in context
about faith and about the relationship between faith
and actions, and you will arrive at this
middle understanding of Ahlus Sunnah. And I'm sure
he's going to explain this further, as we
get into the book insha'a
Actually, it's really lovely what the Sheikh is
saying, and he mentioned that he talked about
this earlier. And that is that knowledge here
is implying that the person has a deep
conviction
from the,
deeper recesses of their heart through their mind
and to their actions. So the idea here
is,
is encompassing
everything that a person has. Faith, ideas, understandings,
learning, and practice.