Suhaib Webb – The Foundations of Shari’ah (Part Two) Background & Definitions
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I hope everybody is doing amazing.
Yesterday, I posted
a series of lectures that I'm gonna be
starting on the foundations of Sharia.
You can see part 1 there, and there's
also another series that I've been posting on.
I've been somewhat negligent of of working here
on YouTube. Just time sometimes is difficult, but,
Alhamdulillah,
that Allah
has facilitated things for us, and I hope
everybody's well. So today, inshallah, I'm gonna continue
to read on the foundations of Fiqh,
that I posted yesterday, part 1. And what
we're going to be doing is
introducing,
the foundations of Fiqh,
Sharia,
the principles of Sharia.
And then talking about today, of course, their
background and their development and their importance.
And then insha'Allah over next few months, we'll
be going through a series that covers the
5,
the Qawait,
the 5 foundational principles of of sharia
that can also be extended into other parts
of our life. At the same time, from
time to time, and I'm not able to
give a schedule, so my apologies.
I'll be trying to jump
on live from time to time and answer
questions and also continue,
our reading of,
going through the text of.
These are very important because
these are universal principles
that help give especially
the non specialist a quick literacy of Islam
that allows us to to have, like, a
very quick literacy of Islam.
And that's something that people in today's world
struggle with. Right? The world is moving rather
quickly.
The knowledge is readily available, but what we
don't find sometimes is the depth,
the depth that is needed,
in Sharia studies. So
going through these foundational
universal principles of Islamic law is going to
equip us with a a great insight and
depth
that, as we'll talk about in a minute,
provides us with a really profound literacy.
What we find in this age is a
very shallow religious education to the point that
sometimes the people who know are seen as
ignorant,
because ignorance is the source of education now.
As
said that when I saw ignorance had become
popular,
I learned until the masses called me ignorant
because I knew that when the masses called
me ignorant, this was a sign that I
have now been sanctioned as someone of knowledge.
And this is really one of the concerns
of this age. So let's pick up where
we stopped,
yesterday in part 2, and the sheikh, he
says something very very beautiful, and this is
actually a principle of Islam.
He
says,
He says that Islam is a comprehensive system
that addresses every aspect of our life.
That's why
who he said that Allah
has not,
there is no action. Right? There's no action
that exist except that
Allah has sent a ruling,
to address that action.
And here is a very important principle, a
principle that you you may wanna write down
because it's extremely important. He says,
This is actually really a very important principle
in Islam.
That Allah
and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, Sharia
in general,
does not lay out objectives for people
except except
it clarifies the ways to achieve those objectives.
And this is one of the great mercies,
subhanAllah, of Islam,
that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, does not lay
out in the Quran or through the sunnah
of Sayyid Al Aqwan Akwain
objectives
except he clarifies the means to achieve
those objectives.
That's why Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, says about
the Quran
Right? That the Quran
clarifies
things for people.
And it say
and the Quran says about saying that your
job is to make
clear, to clarify
for people what has been revealed to them.
And Allah says
about the prophet
in commanding the prophet
There's actually 2 here. This is the of
saying
And, of course, saying nahafs and alsim
the plural. Right? So you have, oh, messenger,
you must convey
everything that we have commanded
of you. You must convey this to the
people
because if you fail to do this, you
will not have
passed on and taught the risalla of Allah
And we know that kitmen,
right, hiding knowledge is impossible for us to
believe about the prophets. We have 8 beliefs
about the prophets
found in mainstream Sunni theology,
and one of them is Adamul Kitman. Tabrik,
meaning that they have
delivered the message of Allah to everybody and
that it is impossible for us to believe
that the prophets
would hide something.
Alayhim, Surah 2 Surah. So the sharia, this
is actually very beautiful and very important
for all of us, does not lay out
expectations
except it clarifies and details the means to
achieve them.
Al a'daf
billwasayl,
meaning that those goals come with means. And
and so in dawah
or in preaching
or in calling to people,
We should not just call them to ideas
and theoretical
kind of concepts, but we have to make
sure
that we can also provide them the means
to reach those goals.
I remember once I was at a conference,
and there was a sheikh, and he was
telling people they should be worried about things
like, you know, nuclear waste and pollution,
at a geopolitical
level,
things that were beyond their ability.
And and then he did not provide them
the way to achieve that. So I said
to him nicely, I said, Sheikh,
if you're going to present objectives, you have
to permit present the means.
So this actually is a very beautiful axiom,
in Islamic law, and it's one that we'll
talk about in the
future.
It's impossible for us to believe that the
sharia would ask us to do something that's
impossible.
So here in the opening when the sheikh
is talking about the foundations of Islam and
the foundations of sharia,
he says,
That the sharia does not present objectives
and goals like Jannah,
except it presents the means. And what is
the means to Jannah as identified by
sharia is Ibadah,
is worship.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commands us to pray,
and then he teaches us the means to
pray. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has ordered us
on numerous occasions to do things in the
Quran,
and therefore he sent Saydul Aqwan.
He sent the prophet because
the prophet, alayhi salatu salam,
is the major means
to fulfilling the objectives
that the sharia
has identified for us at Jannah
and the pleasure of Allah
So the shi'ikh, he says
That Islam is something that addresses every aspect
of our life and that Allah,
the Sharia in general,
has not laid down objectives
except it has laid down the means to
achieve them. And that takes us to the
importance of the principles of Islam, these foundational
principles of Sharia
that we're talking about, because as Imam al
Sha'afih, he says something very remarkable.
Imam al Shaifi says that the religious texts
are mawaddada
munhasa.
Right? They're limited.
Right? The the verses of the Quran are
limited.
The hadith that deal with Islamic law, are
around 7 to 9000, so they're limited.
But
but the actions of people are not limited.
Right? They're gonna continue to develop and and
regress or or or or progress
until the end of time.
So, Sayidin Shef, he says, so there has
to be a way that we address these
unlimited actions. And what he's talking about here
is,
of course,
but in particular, the usage of the general
principles of Islam,
al kawait, that we're gonna talk about
in these lessons together. When we talk about
foundations of sharia,
first, let's talk about what does the word
foundation mean or qaida. I mean, qaida is
the foundation like of a building.
Allah
says, and I have the verse here,
in Surat Al Baqarah,
verse number
127,
Allah
says is the
and his son, Sayna Ismail, laid the Kawaid,
the foundations of a building.
So Qaida
is not this group. Qaida is the plural,
the singular of qawait, which means, like, literally
the foundations.
In Islamic thought,
That al Qaeda is a general rule
that can be
applied to
numerous
circumstances.
For example, the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, said,
actions are by the intention. How many actions
just in this day
has that principle applied to in our lives?
And feel free to type in the chat
box and engage.
How many times today has the intention,
crossed my mind that, you know, I I'm
thinking
about doing something. Am I doing this for
Allah
or someone else?
The statement of the prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallamah
laadanara
wala dirar.
There is no harm in Islam.
How many different
rulings and aspects of Islam
does that one hadith of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam apply to? Another example is
the statement of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, laayukalifullahu
natsanilla
wussaha.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will not burden someone
with something that they cannot handle. So these
are examples of general foundational principles
for which
infinite numbers
of rulings and guidance are extracted from. So
these are the foundations
of the of of Islamic law. Now you
see why we call them foundations.
Islamic law is built on them.
And also for you and I,
who may not necessarily be specialized or focused
on Islamic law, for you,
these are gonna be the foundations of your
thinking.
And it's important to understand that this is
not just for the ulema
because the foundational knowledge found in the Quran
and sunnah is largely going to be the
macro diet of the prophets community
who are not that academically
astute. They're ummi yum. They're very simple people.
So for example, we find in the narration
of Sayna'am Arna'as, is not from the fuqaha
of the Sahaba, he's not known as a
mufti,
but when he experiences a * at
night, and then he realized it's extremely cold
and that if he makes a ghusl, he
will die, so he makes Tayamlum.
Here we see someone who's not a legal
scholar, but has the literacy of Islam
to to to navigate through circumstances.
So these general principles of Islam are going
to give us a wide capacity,
a wide literacy
that allows us to engage
an ever changing world and also, most importantly,
to to build our relationship,
with Allah
There are 2 types
of hawai' that we wanna focus on now.
There are many,
but for for our discussion as we go
through this series together,
the first is those
that deal with actions.
Those principles found in religious text that specifically
or the words of the fuqaha
or or scholars of Islamic law that deal
with actions
that specifically,
address,
actions. So for example,
Right? Actions are
based on the intention. Right? Actions are based
on the intention.
So
the intention governs salah, which is an action.
The intention governs fasting, which is an action,
and so on and so forth. The second
and this is called alqa'id al fakih.
So these kind of principles govern
the rulings of people's
the things they do.
The second type of aida, which is very
important and is what is going to make
up really the bulk of what we talk
about over the next few months is.
Those principles
that govern govern how
rulings
are constructed
and how we look
at the text of Islam
and how we understand Islam in a very
general way.
So the first
is that deal with actions.
The second
are general principles
that deal with
how rulings
are,
applied and understood
and how we look at the sacred text.
And
And this is very important, especially
for
the the the nonspecialist,
because most of the
are going to be applicable
into our daily life. For example, an example
of al Qaeda al usuliyah
idhaboqalamoritassa,
That when things become impossible,
the sharia provides dispensation.
That when things become extremely difficult,
the sharia
facilitates.
So for example, a sister may be at
the mall or she may be out somewhere
and she needs to pray and she has
her kids and she's scared, like if I
pray, you know, standing somewhere, someone may take
my child. Is she allowed to pray in
her car? Based on this axiom,
This, of course, is a statement from saying
the Sheikh i'i and Darisa,
where if
something becomes really difficult,
then ease facilitation happens.
Let's say someone is a convert,
and they know that if they pray at
home,
they may be harmed. Is it allowed for
them, for example, to pray, you know, maybe
in a place where normally someone wouldn't pray?
Absolutely. Because you find this opinion in Maliki
So now we can see something, and this
is one of the concerns I have with
with with with where things are is that
these things are presented
as solely the enterprise of scholarship.
Well, that's not the case.
I just gave you one principle, and we
just started going down the line. It's applicable
here. It's applicable here. It's applicable here. It's
applicable here.
And to be honest with you, most of
the FIT councils,
many of the fatawi that were issued
during this very difficult pandemic, and I pray
that all of you are safe.
And I ask Allah
to forgive any of your friends or family
that may have been lost,
in this difficult time.
And may Allah protect all of us.
But many of the that came out that
were addressing
issues related to closing messages and praying with
the distance amongst each other are largely based
on Alqawahid Al Fakih.
So the idea that Alqawahid Al Fakih is
just the majel of the ulema,
is just something which is restricted to scholarship
is a problem. The other reason why these
principles are very important is that we have
to be honest,
at least here in North America. And when
we see the online Muslim community, I would
say the online Muslim community, not so much
Muslims in North America, I can't speak on
behalf of all of them, is
a community which is imbalanced.
It's not centered.
It's all over the place.
There's constant bickering.
There's this need to destroy each other.
There's this need to even, you know, create
religious slander about one another.
Where where is the teaching of the deen?
Like, where is now the engagement of what's
centering us
on an understanding of Quran and sunnah and
what our ancestors left for us?
I was talking with a sheikh recently, like,
in North America.
North America is one of the few Muslim
countries I know in the world that doesn't
have a culture around the Quran.
In in in Britain, there is a culture
in the Quran. In Malaysia, you have a
culture around the Quran. In Egypt, every morning,
the whole country is reciting the Quran. There
are cultural norms
for the Quran. Whereas in North America, we've
seen that Muslims have grown in their cultural
production,
in their political production,
in their economic production. Where is the equivalent
in their religious production
and their religious contribution
to society in America? This is a concern.
So we find a community that may be
a little bit imbalanced.
So one of the things that that I
believe is very important is that we spend
some time learning
and focusing on literacy, man, and centering ourself
on on religion. And one of the best
ways to do that is to root ourselves
in the,
the principles of Islam. So we talked about
a few important things today.
We noted how Islam does not lay out
objectives,
except
it it lays out the means to achieve
those objectives. This is a rama of Allah.
So
Jannah is the objective. Allah gave us the
best of Quran
and the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam to
utilize to reach aljannah.
And embedded in this is also the
these general principles
that are going to allow the sharia to
be applicable.
One of the texts that
read together is a small essay written by
a great Tunisian scholar, Sheykhil Ashar,
years ago, you know, decades ago
on a
Sharia,
Islam That a Sharia is sufficient for all
places in all times
in all situations.
How is
that? Through these
general principles,
that we just mentioned. And within that, I
noted that there is a microliteracy
that each and every one of us has
to have, and then, of course, there is
a specialized literacy,
that impacts the scholars. And then I talked
about the 2 types of
the
which deals with actions and
the that deals with the constructions of rulings
and the application of text, and that's largely
what we're going to talk about
today,
well, throughout these these next few months. What
is kind of the history of the qawait?
Number 1 is is revelation.
Right? We look
at the Quran and sunnah of the prophet,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, we see these very
large
general ideas. Imam al Shattibi,
in Al Muafaaqat, he says that the Quran
is largely a book of general principles.
That makes sense. Right? We hear all the
time the Quran is going to be an
everlasting text. The Quran is is
but we should ask how, and one of
the ways how is that it is largely
based
on general law,
not specific law and general ideas. And that's
why Al Jassas al Hanafi, in his tafsir,
he says that these kind of verses that
are left somewhat ambiguous
are largely going to be toned and shaped
by custom. We're gonna talk about one of
the 5 major principles of
is. Right? That a custom helps,
if you will, shade
and offer cadence and nuance to a ruling.
So say the Shaa'at Abi says, for example,
Allah says,
like live with your spouse nicely.
Allah doesn't specifically tell us how to live
nicely with our spouses.
He leaves it to what is self evidently
good.
Is
what is self evidently right
based on the current
societal climate of where you are
as long as it does not contradict the
Sharia. So therefore, imagine if Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala had said in the Quran,
hypothetically,
you know, in order to live nicely with
your wife, you have to bring camels and
provide camel's milk and bring the bug, the
lizard from the desert the lizard from the
desert and cook it for your wife. We'd
all be sinners.
But because the Quran is
but because the Quran is a everlasting miracle,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not define these
issues but leaves them to our imagination.
And that's why Sayidna Imam Abuhamad
al Qazari
in al Mustasfa,
he says, how beautiful is the science of
all
Right? That it brings together the Quran and
these general principles,
religious sacred texts
with the application of the intellect. Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar. What a deen. What a religion,
subhanallah.
That's why doctor Mahmoud al Azhar used to
say to me,
right, that that these kind of texts these
kind of texts that are left in an
ambiguous way in the Quran and in the
hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
the application is left to
the Muslim community.
So that means until the end of time,
we're going to be negotiating the application of
some of these texts in ways which, masha'Allah,
the people before us didn't think of. Can
give you two examples now. When I was
working in Darla Ifta in Egypt about 13
years ago, doctor Muhammad Rafa's men, Rahim Muhullah,
who we were reading Al Majmah with.
He was an ocean. He was in his
eighties,
at that time, doctor Muhammad Rafatwismen.
And he had a case
where there was someone accused of paternity of
a child.
And and
the woman that was accusing this man of
paternity wanted to submit his DNA to prove
that this was her child. And, of course,
there was quite a discussion because
if that were to happen, then that would
mean like.
And we know that the process if, you
know, you should, like, push away the.
Like, you should not fall into these kind
of things because it leads to, like, serious
punishment.
So
there was a debate as whether the admission
of DNA as secondary evidence was allowed. So
doctor Mohammad Raffatuth's men, he said in the
Quran,
we find in the Quran and saw to
Yusuf that the shirt of Yusuf is used
as second air secondary evidence to exonerate him
or to prove his guilt. So he said,
if the shirt can be used as
as a secondary evidence, then we can use
DNA.
That is
now the,
current and contemporary application
of a
that you see in front of you. Another
one, I was sitting on the FIT Council
here in North America,
that I'm a member of on the executive
body. Alhamdulillah.
And, you know, there was this discussion about
quarantine.
And one of the one of the masheikh,
he said, actually, there is an evidence for
quarantining in the Quran.
They said, where? He said,
those ants,
when Satan and his
army was walking,
you know, you should go
and flee to your homes to escape
so that Suleiman and his army won't hurt
you. You. So the sheikh, he said if
the ants were gonna go into their hives
to seek protection from Suleiman and his army,
we should tell people they can
metaphorically go into their hives, right, their homes,
to protect themselves from COVID 19. Allahu
Akbar. SubhanAllah.
Now the Quran became alive. Now we're not
just arguing about ancient 5th issues and theological
issues that have never been
solved, and I believe this is a trick
actually of of getting us caught up in
this. But we are now providing
policy
for humanity
and exposing them to the light of Islam.
And and one of the greatest
dimmers
of the light of Islam is our failure
as an ummah to intellectually
engage
the explorative
nature of revelation.
Instead, we're just arguing about revelation, what revelation
means.
SubhanAllah. May Allah,
help us. So the initial history of the
it is found in the sacred text, the
Quran
You
know, like, whoever accuses has to bring proof.
These are all like famous axioms
which make up the bulk work of.
There are different narrations about, of course, Abi
Saeed Al Horawi,
a sheff who found, you know, Sheikh Ahmed
Abbasi al Hanafi,
who was in Herat, Afghanistan.
We know that Herat at that time in
the early ages of Islam was one of
the foundational kind of
a citadel of knowledge,
and sheikh Abbas, he used to repeat these
in his masjid.
You can find this story mentioned in many
of the major books. Inshallah,
it's important to note that it is largely
taken from the Quran and from the sunnah.
And the second source really of the qawwahid,
foundations, is the tawwid of the books of
hadith.
Are there chapter headings found in the books
of hadith? For example, Sayna al Bukhari,
who has a chapter, when things get hard,
the sharia facilitates. This is an axiom. Who
has a chapter that actions are by intention
tension. This is an axiom.
So
in the early books of hadith, we find
2 things. 1 is the tawwid, the chapter
headings,
and in the case of the Muwatta of
Imam Malik, was
lucky to study the Muwatta with Sheikh Ahmed
Taharian, who just died
yesterday of COVID 19.
Ask Allah to forgive him and bless him.
He was a great teacher, and
such a kind,
scholarly person.
I was lucky to be with him, you
know, studying and attending his harakah as a
as a fly on the wall, not as
a major student,
for 5 years.
And he was telling us that in the
Muwata, the way that Imam Malik has
placed the hadith in the Muwata
is indicative indicative
of the Kawayit.
We'll talk about that in the future, Insha'Allah.
As we finish,
next time, we'll start to talk about the
5 major of
Islam. I'm gonna mention them now, and then
I'll mention the one that we're going to
move on to in the future. The first
is
the actions are by intention.
Number 2,
that certainty is not removed with doubt. Number
3,
that harm is removed.
Number 4,
that that custom can play a role in
the application
of understandings
and rulings.
And the 5th, al mushakah
that difficulty
brings about dispensation. I'm gonna mention these 5
again, and we're gonna pick up next time
whether live or whether I record it, inshallah.
The 5 major of Islam as extracted from
the Quran and sunnah, the
dealing with the application
of texts
in the lives of people.
The first,
that actions are based on their objectives.
The second,
that certainty cannot be removed with doubt.
So for example, do I have wudu or
not? You know you have wudu, then don't
worry about it because that's where the certainty
is. The 4th
harm should be removed.
Harm is sharia.
Sharia looks after harm and seeks to remove
harm,
And then the 4th, al-'adah to mohakama,
that
the custom of a people the first PhD
ever done in Eshar is the relationship between
custom and Islamic law done by Ibn Abi
Suni Al Hanafi. It's, it's such an incredible
text.
The role of culture and custom and and
the
the negotiation between the heavens and the earth,
sociology and theology.
And then
last, that hardship brings ease. The first of
these 5 that we're going to explain insha'Allah
is.
The difficulty
rings about these. If
you have any questions, I can take them
for a second. If not, to Zach and
my apologies. I'm not able to put really
a schedule up because of
of so many things going on.
But, inshallah, I'm more than happy to try
to answer,
any questions.
And also we're looking somewhat for someone who's
interested in dictating
this as well as the Usul al Firk.
Inshallah, this is a paid position. So you
can let us know if you're interested. Inshallah.
We're doing good, man. Good to see you.
It's been a long time.
So as I said from time to time,
I'll try to come I'll try to put
it on announcement
and teach the
live as well as continue
with, live as well as recorded so that
there can be engagement
and asking questions.
Jazakamullah
Khayr.