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