Suhaib Webb – The Masses Creed 5 The First Islamic Obligation
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of learning from the Bible and the first obligation upon a person, which is to think before pray and use their intellect. The first step in learning is to use their minds and not just their faith. The speaker also talks about the importance of the first step in Islam, which is to think before pray and use their minds.
AI: Summary ©
We continue now reading from the book, Akhil
al Awam, the creed of the masses by
imam,
Ahmed al Marzuki al Husseini al Azhari al
Mariki.
And we've now completed the introduction. Now we've
moved on to the actual core subject matter
of the text
around 64 lines left. And
the first chapter deals with the acquisition of
faith,
the role of the intellect and faith, and
then belief in God. What are the qualities
that Muslims,
hold,
as sacred in relationship to to Allah
And the sheikh begins, you can see right
here, always to the left, there's our poem.
This is a really, really important line, guys,
and I want you to pay attention to
that statement.
Because in this line, he's saying, no, that
learning is an obligation.
Right? Learning
is an obligation
and that you must know 20 qualities of
God. We're gonna talk about those in the
future, but you'll remember how I said that
the way of mainstream scholars was to to
equip the masses with universals,
right, teach them qualities instead of the specific
differences
of the scholars, right, to prepare them
for having a meaningful relationship with Allah
and for public life. But the thing that
we wanna talk about right now is that
statement.
Because what he's doing is he's taking a
position.
He's taking a position of the mainstream,
scholars, and that is what is the first
obligation
upon a person?
Right? From the point of Muslim theology and
Islam and the Quran,
what
is the first
obligation
upon a human being?
And this is gonna blow your mind. You
know, when I ask Muslims this, they get
they get shocked, and and we we we
see the the the the racist, bigoted,
uninformed,
uneducated,
speculation
about our religion from people like Bill Maher,
who said that Islam is a mother load
of bad ideas,
and others
who who have really invested themselves in commodifying
hatred.
But if you were to, for example, be
at an MSA gathering
or a interfaith gathering or you name it,
that line right there is gonna give you
a very, very powerful set of arguments
because it addresses
what is the first responsibility
from the point of Islamic theology
upon any human being.
People say to believe, to pray, to supplicate,
whatever,
but our scholars said, and that's what he's
saying here,
Right? You must know
that the first
obligation upon any human being
before faith, before worship,
is to think.
Islam believes that the first step in a
relationship with God
is using one's intellect.
That's why Allahu
says
in the Quran,
in the 47th chapter,
You must
that there is no god except Allah.
Many times in the Quran,
No. No. No. The only thing that the
prophet was ordered to ask for, an increase
in was what?
So what what does that mean for us
as parents,
as educators,
as content providers?
That instead of shutting the door of the
intellect and closing that door on people who
have really serious questions about their faith,
and those questions, it
will cause them to be passionately invested in
their faith. We should understand their first obligation
is to know.
We should open up those
those opportunities for people to learn. That's why
the prophet
said
that the remedy for any
challenge is to ask a question.
So this runs counter
to the notions of the Islamophobes and anti
Muslim bigots
as well as counter to the perceptions towards
religion in general, that religion stifles questioning,
stifles learning,
encourages people just to blindly follow. No. No.
No. No. In Islam,
The first obligation is to think. Now this
is not just his opinion.
This opinion is held by scholars throughout history.
Imam ibn Asher says very beautifully,
the first obligation upon anyone who is responsible,
and
is that they have to use their minds,
and they have to think. This was the
dominant opinion
held by mainstream
scholars
across Islam's history. We're going to continue to
talk about these other important principles that we
take from this 5th line of the poem.