Suhaib Webb – Usul al Fiqh Supplemental Resource #2 An Important Key To Understanding Classical Books of Usul
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The importance of learning the Arabic language for personal development is discussed, including issues related toRepresentatives and writing about it. The speaker emphasizes the need for understanding and learning the language for personal development, citing examples such as Sayna Sari Al Khazali in Al Masul and Moabid and Al Musawur. The structure of the internet and learning the language is also discussed, with advice on how to use the Quran as evidence of understanding. The importance of learning the Arabic language for educational purposes is emphasized.
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A question
that a brother sent me that I think
was really a great question actually is he
said he's noticed
when reading the small text of Warakat and
he's following along with us and he's kind
of gone ahead
that
before Imam Al Haramain talks about the Adillah,
right, the Usul,
the Usul of Filk, Adillatul Filk,
He he goes on kind of this
you know, it takes, like, a strange turn.
Starts to talk about Arabic language, Then it
starts to about talk about things related to
logic, right, and the acquisition of of knowledge.
So he asked me why. That's a really,
really good question,
The reason is that
scholars considered certain sciences as
essential
to understanding
Osolette Fich correctly.
And based on the
conclusions of those scholars as to what was
essential,
the introductions to their books are going to
be different.
So for example,
if you look at Imam al Badri's book,
You see
he starts with definitions.
After mentioning the
tareef of
he goes into definitions about what's daleel, what's
what's uh-uh the mufti, who's the moststafdi,
what's this, what's this. So he spends like
this massive amount of time on
because he felt that was what was essential
before you jumped into the subject. And before
that, he gets into the.
Right? He gets into some of the issues
of a logic, and then
he gets into some of the important prepositional
phrases and their meanings, and then he gets
to the adila.
So as if he's saying, hey. These are
things that I I I have concluded are
essential for you to know before you get
in this the the the topic. Now you
read someone like saying that your mama shell
canny, like a ham on your shadow full.
2 volumes. Right?
Which is kind of a
summary, if you will,
through his
educational prism of Bahramait.
And in there,
you don't see any discussion
on logic,
any discussions on Montuk,
but you see discussions on Arabic,
as though he didn't consider it essential.
You can find some things similar with Sayyidina
imam Asayuti and Asbatul Novayr.
You find this amongst others who were not
in favor or in fact disapproved
of studying logic. So you don't find logic
in their mukaddimah.
Whereas if you look at someone like Sayna
Imam Al
Al Khazali in Al Masul, you find language,
you find issues related to Aqida and Muqalam,
and then you find issues related to mantak
because we know what imam,
Sayna Imam Abuhamad, he felt that mantak was
like absolutely essential.
So Molayk ibn Tami and his family in,
and I think it's called Al Musawwada.
I I have it here somewhere in my
library.
In that in that text, no mention of
mantok. In Roldotl Tunnadr. Right? You find that
there is small issues,
related to to mantok,
and language. The point is
that based on the educational philosophy and methodology
of the scholar,
the discussion before the adila
oftentimes is reflective of what they felt were
prerequisites
needed
before someone could truly engage.
SubhanAllah.
This is very important. So as you're reading
any text, right, you're able to kind of
ascertain
what is the methodology of the writer, right,
so you can appreciate them and see them
in a broader way.
And then secondly, you and I can can
think about ourselves introspectively, like, do I do
I need to work on this? Do I
need to tighten this up?
Do I I should evaluate myself?
But one thing that's interesting is they all
agreed upon the centrality of
and having a strong relationship and understanding of
the Arabic language. 1 of my teachers, he's
in prison now in Egypt for nothing.
His human rights and religious rights have been
violated,
yet COVID and prison free him.
Brilliant teacher, PhD in
used to tell me that
right, knowing Arabic language,
is an essential component of.
I I say that because I wanna model
this for you now. So if we think
about, for example, a classical book, and I'll
do this later as we're going inshallah through
other texts, but here especially inshallah in the
future through the warakat. But of course to,
and the the meta kind of explanation he
had to Surah Sayidna Imam al Isnowi.
But here, if you listen
to what Sheikh Mohammed Abunur Zohir says,
you're able to appreciate now
what, for example, Al Badawi
considered as central
its acquisition
central to understanding usulofilk.
So before I I I get into this,
let's pull back again. The question was asked,
why does imam al Haramain right after defining
kind of go on this tangent about Arabic
language and
the Akkam and the Arabic language and then,
like, issues of Mantak because he felt that
these three things you needed to know, they
were essential before you could jump into the
idyllah.
And other writers, if you look at the
introductions of their book, they're going to tell
you,
implicitly
where they're coming from by what they put
before they started to talk about the adila.
And now, for example, you see some contemporary
Ulsul al Filq's texts, they have no discussions
on language, very very little, even in Arabic
and they don't talk about Al Montak at
all, they just jump right into the adilla.
So it's interesting,
And you're able to, like, gain a greater
appreciation for these different masarib.
As, as a sheikh Zakaria Al Ansari,
used to say Islam is like a sweet
ocean and all of the water alhamdul or
sweet sweet source of water and all of
that water is good for you, has a
good taste.
But let's quickly read what Sheikh Mohammed Abunur
Zohair says. And then this will allow us
to kind of reflect more on what I
said earlier about when scholars put things in
front of the adila to
signify that those things are very important.
He says
in his commentary on the minhaj of Sayna
Imam He
says,
He says, since
the Quran
was revealed. Right? It was sent in the
language of the Arabs.
And then, you know, the entire language is
basically
found
in the Quran. Right? It's different iterations, the
different usages of the language are going to
be found in the Quran. The Quran contains
them.
For example, like commands
and prohibitions
and those terms that kind of carry a
general meaning and those terms that restrict those
general meanings.
He says,
those
ambiguous
texts and those texts which clarify them, right?
And then those texts that act as aggregators
and those that are,
abrogated.
That then
using the Quran
as now an evidence
is conditioned on understanding the Arabic language because
since the Arabic language is is found in
the Quran, it's present in the Quran, and
its different iterations are contained in the Quran
from commands, prohibitions,
right, general terms,
specific terms and usages,
the ambiguous, the explicit,
the abrogator, the abrogators.
Therefore, understanding the Quran is predicated by understanding
the language thus
is conditioned on knowing the Arabic language.
And then understanding these different
kind of components of the Arabic language. One
of the great scholars of Usulafik,
Sayyidina Imam ibn Hajib.
He says that, you know,
some of the scholars of Usulafik
are more gifted in their knowledge of the
subtleties of the Arabic language
than the scholars of the Arabic language. SubhanAllah.
Sheikh Talmessani
in his,
Hayatul Muram, his explanation of Al Warakat, he
says, in fact, some of the scholars of
language, like, have neglected,
some of the things that the scholars of
Usulufik
have discovered,
in in the Arabic language. SubhanAllah is really
beautiful. But here's the point, then watch what
he says about the educational
imam
he says after talking about you know how
the Quran contains these different Arabic expressions
It's consisting of them so therefore in order
to utilize the Quran as a source of
akem
then you also have to understand the Arabic
language. Now listen to what he says about
the philosophy of Imam al Baidawi,
Sheikh,
So because of this,
Imam
opens his text first and foremost
talking about the Arabic language
and its different components.
So
what a what a cool question, that this
brother asked me and what I hope,
I was able to help you with. And
this is something that I heard from my
teachers over the years was that
what you see in the beginning of the
books of Ousolefilch
prior to getting into a discussion about the
idyllah
indicates the educational background training
and philosophy
of the writer. Masha'Allah. May Allah
help us. And then as I said, one
of the components that they all agreed upon
was having a strong relationship,
with the Arabic language. May Allah bless you
and increase you and grant you goodness in
this life in the next.