Suhaib Webb – Usul al Fiqh Lesson Four The Definition of Fiqh & Usul alFiqh
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We are people ask me, a few people
like, what text are you consulting or using?
This is of course the famous Shar
of the Warakat by Al Khattab al Mariki,
which,
it's really interesting. I mean, this is an
old print.
But I was reading this to,
doctor,
Mahmoud,
Abdulrahman.
And this is from
from almost 10 years ago. I don't know
if you can see his signature at the
end of the book. As well as, was
able to read this text with some of
the masheikh. You can see like some of
the notes here, Alhamdulillah,
that we took
over over some time. So, you know, I'm
just I'm like you. So I'm I'm here
with you,
or perhaps you're probably much better than me
just to share and engage inshallah. And hopefully,
we ask Allah,
to make it of benefit. But what what
makes this really cool,
the explanation of Haltaab is I heard from
Doctor. Abdulsalam,
Atiyeq, who is one of my teachers, you
know, in studying
the Minhajah of Al Baydawi.
He's like a really awesome professor. Really, really
nice person. Masha'Allah. And really great at explaining
also lafik.
Is that Al Hatab is Madiki and then
of course, you know, he's basing a lot
of what he's taking from,
Jalaluddin Almhali,
right? Who is Shefei. And then, of course,
Mahali's, you know, shar his explanation is like
the most famous perhaps,
is, of course, relying on Imam al Haramain
al Juwayni who is shea'fi. So the sheikh,
doctor Abdulsalam used to say
that Right? That bringing 2 things together to
work in the Maliki school is actually an
obligation if you can do it. So here
what's nice is, like, you're learning the
mariki osso and then over time you learn
even the shafi'i osu, which is kind of
cool. We're not necessarily going to do that
here because we're just going through it rather
briefly.
But in the future, I plan to go
back with you and read the actual Shar
of.
Letter be letter, insha'Allah.
Letter
for letter, not b letter. It's Arabic.
We talked about.
Right? Is this form which means, like, a
few in number.
Alhatab says, Right? This is like he uses
this to, like, encourage people, and that's the
sign of a great teacher. One of the
concerns we see today with social media and
the impact of public
educators who are not trained educators is, like,
bad outcomes.
And
And, you know, there's a great book by
Sheikh, Abu Fattah Abouhda,
Arusallumu'ala
Mu'alai mu'asali Abu Hu Vitaleem, like the prophet
as a teacher and how he taught. Like,
not everybody
just should jump out and be teaching because
it can create problems. Here we see Imam
Al Haramain as a great educator.
He builds people up slowly, slowly, slowly. And
you're going to see this throughout the text,
insha'Allah. Specifically, I think today we may touch
on it also.
But Allah
says,
the one who builds people as Ibn Abbas
mentions
stage by stage. So he says.
He says that these warqaat, these small,
these few pages,
contain
ma'rifah, knowledge.
I heard from doctor Mohammed Syed
that, you know, it's not
the book doesn't have marifa, but the meaning
is tashtamirua
ala sabab marifa.
But it means that this book could potentially
be a means for marifa, a means for
knowledge.
This is a form also of majaz masayakun.
Right? Majaz al morsal. And the idea here
in rhetoric is to encourage you, right, to
see the outcome.
So again, to, like, inspire the student. Like,
if you take the time and you study,
you're going to achieve
Right?
You're going to achieve knowledge of the situation.
So, like, you know, when you see people
go to the gym, like, I don't wanna
do a diet. I can't work out. I'll
never do it. And they have these apps
now that actually make people look like they're
in shape. Like, if you follow this program,
this is how you look. They get really
excited. So when he says, marifa,
this is like he's saying, you know, if
you work really hard and you put some
time into this text, the outcome is gonna
be marifa, Masha'Allah. So like show you what's
in the future. Again motivating
those of us like myself who are just,
you know, beginners in the field.
He says that, you know, the the the
that the one who is just starting and
others can benefit. So like it's just a
few pages, but it can benefit those who
are in the beginning of their studies
and those who like need
tathakkur
or tathakkur, like those who need to be
reminded. And I actually wrote down some notes
here about who is the beginner, who is
the intermediate, and then who is, like, the
advanced student. And this is
in general, in any subject, in any science,
you can kind of apply this understanding. So
the beginner is
So the beginner is the one who is
not able
They they don't have the ability to conceptualize
the the science
Nor they have the ability to, like, see
the evidences of it. So the science and
then, like, what the science rest on, It's
not there. So that's the beginner.
He has the ability, she has the ability
to to see the knowledge what it is
and then to understand
its
evidences.
But they don't know how to use those
evidences. So they could just kind of give
you a general
description without being able to, like, bring out
the evidences to support. They have to rely
on someone else.
So in in the one who is advanced,
is someone who has the ability to
visualize the knowledge from its micro to its
macro, as well as utilize its evidences
and establish and bring out its evidences and
synthesize them, as well
as and also defend that knowledge. So
is the novice. Right? The beginner.
Is the one that's intermediary.
Intermediate, you know, kind of like not quite
there. And then,
of course, is the advanced,
students.
And that
thus that we talked about this before.
The word
And we went through this before.
Right? We talked about the meaning of.
Right?
And we talked about the meaning of.
Right? Which means,
to understand something.
Right? To have a stronger understanding.
In the sense that it is it is
not just related to things which are subtle
or, you know, what the speaker is trying
to say as mentioned by Al Imam. Imam
means Razi, but that it means al fahm
al mutlaq as mentioned by Sayidna Imam al
Ghazari
in, in al Masl.
Then this is where we we were. Right?
Wal firku,
right, which is the second of the Mufradayn.
Right? And and Mufrad,
when we're talking about this idea of defining
something
using like Mudaf, Mudaf, and Ilayi.
Mufrad here does not mean the opposite of
a singular.
Right? Uh-uh. Of a duo.
Excuse me. Or jama.
In this kind of context means the opposite
of tarqip.
Right? Of tarqip. So you're breaking things apart.
Just remember that because this is the understanding,
of this science. Right?
Sometimes maybe people think like a Nahu. Mufrad
is the opposite of
but not here. It's the opposite of what's
called
turqib. Right? And here, Imam Al Haramain, he
doesn't get into
a lot of detail like he did about
the word 'usul'.
He doesn't go into a lot of discussions
about the word fiqh.
And we talked about how he defined al
farah. Right? We mentioned that before. What's the
branch? And then he goes into fiqh.
And someone may ask why doesn't he spend
like the amount of time talking about fiqh
like he did with Usul?
I wrote here what Doctor. Abdul Salam said.
So what he said is that, you know,
the goal of and I heard this also
from Doctor. Mahmoud
that the goal of the writer
was to keep things simple.
So he's not always going to go like
on on a long kind discussion about the
meanings of words. So he says
This
is
what we want to talk about today in
a little bit of detail.
Because Imam Al Haramain
is unique in his definition here, unlike his
book Al Burhan,
In Al Burhan he sticks to the definition
of
the majority of the scholars word is fiqh.
But he says
and as I said earlier,
the word
means to understand.
And actually sometimes forgive me if I'm a
little discombobulated because I'm looking at these notes
and sometimes I see things that I wrote
that I think may interest you.
So the word fiqh as we said means
Like a general understanding of things.
And if you go to a dictionary, and
I heard this from really one of the
great scholars in Dar Ifta years ago. For
example, Faqi
with Kasra. The root
means
So if you say
that
means that someone
understood something before others.
But
with
So the first one with means to understand.
The second
one, to
understand before others. But
means. That
is something natural because you know this in
tasrif that
babfa'ula
tends to that form
fa'ula
tends to do with something which is natural.
Right? We say. So faqoha
and this is what I heard from one
of one of the teachers I read Lubul
Uso with by Sheikh Zakari Ansari
that Faqooha
actually is where the word Faqee
comes from. So the Faqee is not only
someone who studied but also Allah Subhana Wa
Ta'la has blessed him Masha'Allah
to have like
a good understanding.
May Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la, as the prophet
said,
As related by Imam Muslim and Bukhari, whoever
Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la intends good for, he
gives them understanding
of the religion. So again, I just thought
like this may be something that interests some
of my students,
right? That Fakihah
is alfham.
Right? Is that the person understood before others.
Is where the word
comes from.
Right? The fiqh becomes like a natural thing.
SubhanAllah. And of course
The sheikh, he says
And I was saying earlier,
Imam al Haramain here shows us his depth,
his knowledge,
his his incredible Eurodition as a scholar because
he is unique here in his definition of
fiqh in that he restricts fiqh to only
issues of ishtihad.
Whereas according to the majority,
and even in other books like al Burhan,
which the Madakis gave a lot of attention
to,
Imam Al Haramain defines
right? He expands the definition of fiqh not
only to mean things which are related
to but what's called
things which are definitive like 5 daily prayers,
like the fast of Ramadan,
like Hajj,
like being a good person, that's not
That's why Sayyidina Al Qarafi, he said nobody
should say that the 5 daily prayers
end
according to the because this is not an
issue of fiqh, right? This is an issue
of sharia.
So Imam al Haramain says
The word
in this definition
will let me to explain this explain this
easy for you. It's meant to help you
conceptualize.
Is meant to help you think about something
without coming to a conclusion.
And when you are imagining something or thinking
about something and not coming to a conclusion,
that's called Tasovo.
This, of course, isn't logic, but it's going
to be important in the books of law
for obvious reasons.
How do I imagine something? So when I
imagine something without coming to a conclusion, it's
called tasoor.
So knowledge
After the word
everything else that is mentioned,
is meant
to help you
make what's called tasdiyuk,
an affirmation.
And tasdikh
is the ability to imagine something and come
to a conclusion about it.
For example, if I say,
Right?
If I say
If I say the word
you're going to imagine
any suhaib you know, but you're not gonna
be like, yes or no.
But when I say,
jaa, suhaib came, now I'm compelling you to
come to a conclusion.
To come to a conclusion.
That conclusion is the hokum.
And in the process that I'm talking about
now, that's called talsidiyuk.
So remember this, if you remember this later
on in all your studies, if you continue
to study
with with people and you you know, you're
going to find great great teachers.
Remember that
is the ability to think about something.
So he said
is the ability to think about something without
coming to a conclusion.
So when he says
Okay, I know what Akam? Now it's like,
am I knowing Akam?
Then in order to like restrict it to
make it clear,
he's gonna mention other words to slowly slowly
slowly slowly create almost like this tunnel in
your mind that the only thing you can
see is the definition.
This is called
alhad.
Also we have what's called
Right?
Different ways of defining and introducing things. Either
I define it for what it is or
I describe what it does.
So
the word akem of course is the plural
of hukum and akem. You want to remember
this means
I heard this from Sheikh Islam Alibi.
1
Masha'Allah, our teachers years ago I used to
read with him.
On,
ibn Asher.
Even Ashur's, famous poem.
So
according to the the Sharia definition,
the linguistic definition, excuse me, is
is
to affirm something with something else like is
here. So now I'm establishing that.
Suhaib is not here.
That's called.
So here it means the linguistic meaning.
But then he adds what's called
in the tareef,
which is going to now make it crystal
clear what kind of akem is he talking
about. Could be talking about math. Could be
talking about engineering. Could be talking about chemistry.
He says, mariifatul
akem a sharia.
Oh. Sharia.
Rulings.
Nisbah
ila
a Sharia. So
knowing
Sharia
rulings.
And then he does something else. He brings
the word aleti. And as we'll talk about
later on, aleti and aledia from those words
used to create exclusivity.
Those rulings
whose method
of,
of presentation
or or discovery is.
So now he's not saying all Sharia rulings.
He's saying those that are coming through
ijtihad.
And here, Sayidna Imam al Haramain is teaching
us something very important.
That within
the canon of Islamic law, we're going to
find a minority of rulings which are nonnegotiable.
They are not the product of ichdihad.
Hence, the famous axiom,
As we'll talk about in the future when
we talk about the Quran and Sunnah. What
is nus?
What is that text which does not allow
negotiation, doesn't need anyone can understand it?
The second type are those rulings
who came through al idge tihad. I wanna
talk about, of course,
idge tihad in the future.
Meaning that a scholar
had to speculatively
engage as imam al Isna'i says,
Right? That the process of
involves
speculation. That's why in the college of Sharia,
you find sometimes written,
in in certain classrooms as you walk in.
Like firk is a speculative science. Meaning, we
should have adab. We shouldn't fight over it.
We shouldn't divide one another. We shouldn't,
turn against one another. And there's examples from
this in the time of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, in the authentic hadith when
he said pray and
the went. And on the way to Baniya
Qureidah, they were delayed and Asr started to
go out. So some of them said, listen,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he didn't
know that we're gonna take this amount amount
of time. So we should pray before Maghrib
comes in. So we catch the salah
And there were others, of course, who said,
no. No. No. No. We should obey the
letter of the law. Whatever he said,
we're gonna stick to it. So one group
prayed and one group didn't, and he did
not censor them. This is example an example
of
People,
you know, qualified to come to conclusions.
And there's a general rule. Since al ichtihad
involves what Al Badji calls Al Maqolet,
involves the engagement of the mind Maqoolul
Asl.
He also calls it in
in in elhekam.
Then since there is a non divine
intervention into the process,
we should not treat
it the same way we treat something which
is clearly articulated in Quran and Sunnah.
So there should be edeb and etiquette as
long as it's being positioned and presented by
qualified scholarship.
That's why Saydna, Imam al Shafi'i,
he said, inshallah, in the future, we plan
to read the Risaleh also here with you.
He
said,
Right? These kind of issues related to Ijtihad
where scholars are trying to extract things and
come to conclusions,
no division. Now if we look at the
Muslim community, especially if you're gonna be a
and you're watching me, you're young or you're
old and you're gonna be a
and the ummah. I used to have one
of our one of my teachers used to
say
in in in in the in in the
in
in our classroom
Which one of you is going to unite
the Muslims? And
which one of you is gonna divide them?
Allah protects us from dividing.
But most of the time,
I'm gonna be honest.
I see people arguing, fighting and attacking each
other over issues of ishdihad. If they just
had read.
This definition of saying that Imam Haramain,
we wouldn't see the divisions.
So as we finish now, has
presented for us the idea of and
breaking it down in this way,
defined also, went through the different meanings, and
now defined
and then he defined it according to the
science.
And the is
what? Is the is the is the,
foundations
of
fiqh.
That's it.
And from that and that understanding, people are
able to extract the fruit,
which will bring
benefit to the life and bring about a
general musaleh alaam. Inshallah, we're going to continue
next time,
going through this important text
of Sayna Imam Al Haramain. I'm gonna try
sometimes to add things from
mantak
logic that I feel are important like al
mahmool, walmawdua
and things like this. But
in general, I'm gonna try to stray away
from that as much as possible just so
that you get a general tasawr,
right? A general understanding,
but are also able to see usool for
what it is as something that needs to
be applied in our lives. May Allah
bless us and increase us and give us