Suhaib Webb – Usul alFiqh Lesson ThirtyTwo The Definitive Texts
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Welcome back to our explanation of the Warapat.
This next
few lessons is very important especially for Western
Muslims
because the ideas found specifically here are an
affront to the heathenry
of the neo Hellenistic
postmodern
worlds
largely because it's going to center the Muslim
mind on the idea that there are certain
things that are sacred
and because they are sacred, they are immutable
and they demand adherence.
And that's something that runs counter to like
the neoliberal neoconservative sort of ethos,
Right?
So, Imam Al Haramain Rahimullah says
He said the clarifier is nas. The word
nas is what we're gonna talk about. Nas
is a type of text
that does not accept interpretation because it's so
clear.
It's immutable. It's immutable.
It's definitive.
There's no room. La ishtihadabiwududinas.
There's no ishtihad now. Nas is Nas.
And years ago, I talked about this and
people misunderstood me.
I said that less than 7% of the
Quran is sunnah is noss as I heard
from Sheikh Makhal alaihi salallahu alaihi didhu
because it's rare talking about things that there
is no wiggle room
the the obligation in front of a word
that is considered nos
is action
is action
We think about the word,
excuse me, we'll think about it first from
a a linguistic perspective.
The word in Arabic means
means to be clear
clear means to be raised.
That's why the, if you're from, like, Desi
culture, it's a beautiful culture, masha'Allah, you see,
like, sometimes at weddings the the woman is
put on a throne. That's called munassa in
Arabic. The Arabs used to do this centuries
ago.
Munassa.
Why? Because it's high and it's clear who
the bride is.
Alas?
From the same word munasa.
Nasmunasa.
Okay?
So Dhuhur
walirtifa.
In
in the
definition of Sharia,
Imam Ibrahim Hajib, he says that
that text which does not accept interpretation.
Doesn't we're gonna talk about in the next
few lessons. That's why I say it's very
important
because some of the interpretive stuff we're seeing
in the West is crazy, man.
Whether it's extreme
right or extreme left.
What does not accept interpretation is Nas.
Is Nas.
In in the broader world of Islamic Studies,
the word nus has 3 applications that you
need to be aware of. There are more
but 3 I want you to know of.
Number 1 is any text in the Quran
and Sunnah, whether implicit whether explicit whether zahir
whether mu'awal
whether ban majaz whether haqqiqa
whether amr whether nahi whether nasikh whether Mansukh
whatever it's called Nas Nas Alaihi Al Quran.
So here there's a universal
application.
Another meaning of the word nous within legal
studies is a statement of 1 of the
Imams.
So
an opinion of
or
or whatever this is called.
The third is what we're talking about here.
What a text directs to in an absolute
non negotiable definitive way.
That's why Imam Al Haramaidi gives a very
similar definition to Imam Ibn Hajjib, but he
comes from the other direction. He says, Malayahtamiru
illa ma'nanan wahida
I believe is what he said, right? That
it is a text which only accepts
one interpretation,
one meaning, not even interpretation,
one meaning.
Halas, very serious
very serious.
What are some examples of this? For example,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
you know, for someone that has to fast
3 7 days,
The statement of the prophet
5 prayers in a day. 5 is 5.
This is nas.
The the the the the ayat about inheritance
full of
a third, a 6th,
that's nas, layatabru
tawir.
That takes us now to the next question
and that is what's the ruling if we
encounter a nous?
And it's agreed upon as we're gonna talk
about in a second because sometimes scholars differ
over is something nuts or not. Of course
they have to,
but let's say scholars agree.
Like the ones I just mentioned,
what's what's, what's the that was the, what's
the principle, the axiom that helps us guide
our minds and thoughts about how we encounter
something designated
as in
the Quran
or
in the sunnah of Sayyidl Aqwan
salallahu alaihi wa sallam.
They say,
It's very important
That the axiom that governs our relationship with
Anas
and explicit definitive text
is that it is an obligation to act
on it. It is forbidden to leave it
unless it's abrogated,
unless it's Mansulcha.
Now that takes us to an interesting application
of
Nas
and a debate between
the Madakis
and the Hanafis.
There's others involved but just to make it
easy for you.
On
reading al Fatiha
in al Salah.
Said Imam Abu Hanifa in particular, so let
me say Imam Abu Hanifa. The Hanafis they
have,
his two students,
they added a condition to it that the
Madakis agree with. So, let's take the position
of the Imam
versus the position of the Madakis.
And that is according to Imam Abu Hanifa,
a person does not have to read Fatiha
in salah,
not his madhab
talking about him. His madhab,
I'll let his madhab
discuss that. I don't want to talk about
something that I'm not I'm not familiar with,
but I'm just gonna quote him what I
know he said.
His evidences in in in Surah Muzammil Allah
says
Quran.
Quran.
Quran.
If you stop in
Hanaf and Hamza, excuse me, Quran.
But if you connect it Quran
just FYI, it's cool stuff, man.
So 3, 3 ways to read it. Quran,
as you know to read it, Hafs,
Asim, Nafeh
others.
Quran,
ibn Kathir.
Quran
if you stop.
But
if you continue Quran,
keep
going. When you teach, sometimes you do this
to help you remember. So forgive me if
if if I threw you off but sometimes
I do this for myself. But Imam Abu
Hanifa says
read whatever
Quran is easy for you from the Quran
and these verses are talking about Salah.
And this is Nas.
Abu Hari has not played around, man, he
said this is Nas.
Prophet said there's no prayer except with
They respond, they say, look,
this is
and that hadith is
We have from the Quran and the hadith
which is not
We go with the Quran.
See how they
how they serve the argument.
The Madikis say no no no no no.
That's not Nas first of all
because you're interpreting it. It's not explicit. That's
an interpretation.
And when there's an interpretation that means it's
Pujmal
and something that's wujmal
can be impacted by hadith ahad SubhanAllah.
I'm not gonna tell you which one you
go with. Just appreciate. Usul Al Fakkah is
not not the place for jiddel, not the
place for argument. Just appreciate the the the
interplay that you and I get to watch
in front of us, subhanAllah, how
they go back and forth with adab, of
course, with ihtiram and and and a lot
of respect that we don't see nowadays. But
let me mention to it one more time.
Quran say that Imam Abu Harifa said
I believe.
This verse is not says you can read
whatever you find it easy from the Quran.
Malakis, they say the hadith of the prophet
there's no prayer except for Fatihah.
Hanafi say but that hadith is not The
Quran is
So therefore,
you can't
you can't do that.
Malakir responded to say, no. No. No. No.
No. No.
What you did is interpret. And when there's
interpretation, it's and what is we can now
use a hadith for that moment.
So you can see how they go back
and forth, back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth. Just to
show you,
sort of,
the idea that not all nus is agreed
upon.
So now you have to be very careful
when you hear people speaking very definitively
or extremely relaxed.
If it's a, you can't be relaxed. If
it's not a nous, if it's more if
it's interpreted as we're gonna talk about soon,
relax buddy.
Take it easy.
I wanna talk about some of the reasons
or some some ways you'll find nous within
the Quran and within the hadith of the
prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam that I took from
our sheikh,
Doctor. Mahmoud Abdulrahman Abdulmuddin,
who was a professor in SR used to
be the dean of
the
The
first is.
This is mentioned by imam
that a Nas can be something which it
doesn't look like it's a Nas,
and that's the argument of the Hanafis by
the way. It doesn't look like it's a
nas in what we just talked about but
according to the custom of of the language
and who's speaking
the meaning of Nasr there. So for example,
Huriba Ta'alaikum
Mahatukum
your mothers are forbidden for you.
It doesn't
say your mothers are forbidden nikah for you
or forbidden to have Awdulillah physical relationship with
But that's that's what's understood in the of
the tukhabub. Since the understanding is so strong,
the majority say this is
It explicitly
directs us something
from the custom of the one that's speaking
so now you see the importance of Arabic
oh, man.
The next is.
What does this mean? It means something that
is it it's the same as.
It it moves along with in the same
way.
It functions in the same way as
What they're talking about here is
I haven't talked this to you
but in the future, we'll talk about it,
that there are 2 type of
understandings when we read a text.
The first is manpuk, what the text is
saying.
The second is mafum, what's understood from the
text. Now you can can really appreciate
the depth
of
of this deen and the beauty of this
deen man.
So for example Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Hurima Ta'alaikumul Maita.
Maita is forbidden for you.
What's understood from that is what's not Maita
and is not made Haram from the other
stuff is permissible.
When Allah
says for example,
don't say to your mom and dad like
That's the manuq.
What's mahum?
Is don't hit them,
don't financially abuse them, don't emotionally abuse them
that agrees
with the text but it's not stated so
within the text you have a mantook and
a mafhu
what's stated what's understood falataqullaumaof
don't say to your parents that what's understood
if that's haram
then fahuilkitab,
anything greater than that must be haram.
So anything greater than that because it aligns
with the illa of the text,
If the text is a Nas,
whatever aligns with its illa is also a
Nas.
With its cause, with its meaning, with its
underlying reason not to do e that to
your mom and dad.
So anything greater than that it's called fahu
fahu alchitab
mafum almuafaqa.
It's amazing. So now this also became Nas
even though it's not stated. Now you can
see the depth. And one of the things
I hope that we can do why I
take a long time to prepare this class
is because I want to layer it in
a way that opens you to things that
will allow you to appreciate.
SubhanAllah, man. This is an amazing sharia.
Incredible.
If you're gonna say anything else I can
do is fine.
Only
Anything greater than is haram because obviously the
harm is greater in that than an
So this is called Mahfou Muathapa.
Sayyidna Mona Sheik says
that's what he means here. This is the
majority of Ahad al Sunna say this:
What the Haan is called Dalad Aton Nas?
We call it Mafum Moa Thapa.
There's 2 types of Mafum
We agree on 1 and that's where the
meaning agrees with the meaning. So Uf,
hitting, a'udibillah,
financial abuse, emotional abuse, all that agrees with
that. There's also something
called,
the opposite. What I did earlier,
there's
some dispute amongst us. We're not gonna talk
about that. No.
So
number 1 we said
And
with the PS.
You can see why.
No.
I don't want to make it too much
but here you can appreciate sort of 2
important ways that,
we find Nos mentioned. Number 1 is,
as I said,
Number 2.
And then of course, the third the first
we say is like explicit, like you see
it.
So what do we talk about Alhamdulil today?
We talked about
Nos
that impenetrable
immutable
immutable
text.
Only takes one meaning.
As if the Hajjib says it doesn't accept
Khalasa doesn't accept that we're.
So the sheikh, he says
It's
is just to give it its meaning like
just let it go.
Affirm his transcendence.
33.
Exactly what I just told you. The same
thing
he's saying So apparent, so explicit. You don't
have to stop to think about it. That's
nos. We'll stop here.
Next few lessons, men,
again, extremely important because we're going to talk
about
interpretation, the role of interpretation, what happens within
interpretation, what the opinions of many of our
metahib
on interpretation? And what's, like, you know, the
safe way we can try to follow
between the extremes we find when it comes
to interpretation as found by our 4
largely 4 schools of