Suhaib Webb – The Masses Creed 8 How to Navigate Learning about Islam

Let's pick up where we stopped talking about

the obligation of seeking knowledge when it comes

to the fundamental issues. Right? The sheikh, he

says very clearly,

And and what he's alluding to, right,

is the obligation for someone to learn the

fundamentals. Now what are you obligated to learn?

The basics,

right, in a universal way. So I believe

in Allah doesn't mean you have to know

all of the theological

arguments about Allah's attributes and so on and

so forth. No.

I

believe in Allah. I believe that the prophet

is the final prophet. That's sufficient for anybody.

Right? So the sheikh is saying that and

this is the opinion

of the majority

of mainstream scholars, especially within Sunni Islam,

that everyone is obligated to learn those things.

Now that brings around 4 important issues that

we're gonna talk over the next few, lessons.

Number 1 is an axiom that will really

help you engage scholarship and live Islam for

today. Lot of confusion about meth habs, scholars,

who do I ask, do I not ask,

and so on and so forth. The second

is the idea of perennial jihad. If we

say that the first obligation of Islam is

to think,

How do we reconcile that with the notion

of going around and killing people and forcing

them to become Muslim?

As the Islamophobes say, as some people,

like the jihadists say that, you know, Islam

is here to dominate the world and force

people to embrace Islam. How do you say

that when the first obligation is to think?

How How do we reconcile that? It's impossible.

The third is who's obligated to think?

Right?

What makes those what are the conditions that

make learning? Think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs

or Benjamin Bloom if you're an educator. What

what are the conditions that make learning an

obligation? And then the 4th is, what do

we say about those people that have never

had or been exposed to learning? Like, how

do we address the issue of people that

have not been properly exposed to Islam,

within the the realm of salvation

and their ultimate place in the hereafter. So

let's jump

right now into

this this first axiom.

And you can see that, I put it

in gold. When something is important, hey, golden

rules.

I want you guys to pay attention to

it and if you can memorize it.

This axiom is really gonna help balance

the disequilibrium

that has fallen into the Sunni Muslim community

over the last 2, 300 years. And that

is

I'll say it again.

This axiom is super important, and it says

that there is no blind following in fundamentals.

There's no tuck lead

in the fundamentals. Tuck lead means to follow

someone

and not know why.

So if I told you there's a fire

across the street

and you reacted to that and went and

got a bunch of water, started throwing it

on the building across the street and there

was no fire there, that's

Right?

But it is an obligation

to follow or to make

in secondary issues.

What what do we mean by issues of

usu?

And that's what the sheikh alluded to in

that in in that language. He says,

means the fundamentals, the 5 pillars of Islam,

the 6 pillars of belief,

the the the pillars of.

Right? Those things that every Muslim knows. 5

daily prayers, fasting the month of Ramadan,

Hajj and so on, all that falls under

usul. No one can do that for you

as as far as affirming those things. No

one can you you can't believe in God

because someone else does. You believe in God

because it comes from you. That's why Allah

says,

everybody's responsible for themselves. So on those areas,

each and every one of us is responsible

for learning,

accepting, and believing in a general way. What

do we mean by the are secondary issues

that demand

scholarly

explanation.

Right? So let let me give you an

example.

Allah exists.

Okay?

Allah exists in a way that preserves his

transcendence.

Right? Scholars differ over what that means. Does

it mean this or does it mean that?

That's a secondary issue. It it demands scholarship.

The 5 daily prayers.

Right? We all affirm them. That's the.

How far can I travel before I join

those prayers? That's an issue of the photo

of the secondary issues. Where do I put

my hands in prayer? Secondary issue.

Is it 20 or 8 secondary issue? Eating

meat outside or not? Secondary issue. Is music

halal or not? Secondary issue. Those, of course,

we're talking about, you know, Islamic music. The

those issues all fall under al Foroor, and

there's a number of issues. In the usul,

that's where we have the discussions of bidah,

innovation,

and God forbid someone leaving Islam.

Under the furor, we have the issues of

adab and etiquette.

Now what has happened in the Sunni Muslim

world in particular

is this axiom

has been flipped on its head. So the

point we say

And that's why every mosque has its own

Mujtahid.

Every mosque has its own scholar. And usually

in Muslim communities, the person who is under

siege the most

is the most learned.

So we're going around and telling people that

each and every one of you has the

right to extract rulings

from the Quran and Sunnah

because there's no

taqleed in the furor. This goes against

the structure and construction of Sunnism

over the last 1400 years or at least

since 1200 years.

And and then we're telling people, but in

the

you have to blindly follow.

And the effect on that in Sunni Islam

is comparable to the effect of Soldier Boy

and hip hop or Donald Trump,

to to to politics. It it is a

disaster.

Now when we

implement this understanding, that brings about 4 questions.

Number 1 is, what if the scholar is

wrong? Like, what if you go to someone

and you ask them and they give you

an answer and they're wrong? You're still rewarded

because the obligation

upon the non scholar in the secondary issues

is to ask

to ask the scholar.

Right? People say, what if the scholar is

wrong with? You're you're you're you're now burdening

yourself something with which sharia did not burden

you. Right? You're disrupting the system,

the balance.

And at the same time, Allah

will not hold you responsible because the responsibility

is upon the person you ask.

Secondly,

what if a scholar is a scholar's opinion

binding?

Right? Is someone's opinion of, for example, in

the issues of secondary issues because fatwa means

to clarify, so it's in secondary issues.

Is it binding upon you? No. You can

go ask other scholars, what if I'm fatwa

shopping? Well, you know your intention. Don't don't

make your intention,

you know, the reason for stopping other people

for doing what Islam allows them. If you're

fatwa shopping, that's between you and Allah

But

your job is to ask.

And if you're comfortable with an answer, you

follow it. If you're not, you ask another

scholar. That's why Imam al Qarafi

says in the etiquettes of the Mufti that

the fatwa ughayra yulsam that a fatwa is

not binding. Right? What if a scholar's opinion

differs with what, for example, I've been taught

or runs counter to my medheb?

That's not a problem because the obligation upon

you, there's a beautiful

axiom,

right, that the questioner is on the medheb

of their school. And I have a problem

with this too when it comes traditional schools.

Someone will be a maddiki, for example, and

they pray in a masjid where there's a

great scholar, a great imam, who doesn't give

answers based on the maddikimathab,

so they won't pray at the same time

that imam prays, for example, if he's a

Hanafi and he delays Asr.

They they won't follow that imam. They'll follow

what they think they've learned from their madhab,

and and that's a problem because, again, you

destabilize

the role

of scholarship.

The most important scholar that you can have

in your life is the scholar who lives

perhaps in your neighborhood

and knows the most about you. So regardless

of their med habit or where they're coming

from, your job is to ask them. Your

job is to have my job is to

have relationship with them, and I would encourage

you to follow local scholarship before anyone else

if you know those scholars to be, you

know, people of integrity.

Number 4 is following a med hab and

obligation.

Yes and no. Right? Yes and no. But

what is an obligation upon every single one

of us is to follow the learned,

to follow the people of knowledge. If you're

able to study a med hev from a

to z from someone,

that's

extremely important because that gives you an insight

into the humanity of Islam because the medhaabs

engaged

humanity, especially the Maliki

and the Hanafi Mahbabs. They were engaged

with the public more than the other 2

Mahbabs. So they have a richness to them,

a humanness,

and a mercy and a maturity to their

their their approach,

which really is powerful for people,

who live in the west. So this first

axiom

realigns

the setup

of scholarship in the Muslim world, especially in

the Sunni Muslim communities. But more importantly, for

those of us here in the west where

we constantly see imams being, you know, just

attacked by people who have no training. Right?

The Christian church, they have something called clergy

killers. They protect their clergy from being blasted

on by people. Whereas, honestly, you know, as

someone who served as an imam in the

community, you you begin to feel like you're

that bunny, you know, at at at at

at the local fair that people are shooting

with a gun to get a prize. Like,

every day someone has a shot at you.

So ask Allah

to bless us, to help us grow. We'll

tackle the other 3 issues inshallah as we

continue. Please spread the word,

about this information. I hope that you find

it beneficial.