Suhaib Webb – Usul al Fiqh Supplemental Resource #2 An Important Key To Understanding Classical Books of Usul

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.