Suhaib Webb – Usul alFiqh Supplemental Resource #1 Usul alFiqh, Religious Scholarship & Religious Literacy
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From time to time, I will be adding
some supplemental
resources for people that are following this subject,
especially
those of you who are studying it with
me in person.
And
a question that was recently brought to my
attention was on the idea of the faida
of Usolafik.
What are the virtues of Usolafik related
to
our current situation?
And that caused me to remember
a book that
really
sat with me for 4 years. In El
Azhar, so
important that you take it in 2 courses
for 4 years.
You, at that time, we took it,
4 times a week.
So 2 were related to like a classical
text
of Sayna Imam Alisnawi,
Adha Minhaj of Sayna Imam al Baidawi,
and then of course a book that was
written by our professors. So you did this
for 4 years in the university
for the non Hanafis. Hanafis, they have also
their own program.
And so I remember, you know, my 1st
year I sat down after finishing high school
and we started to study this book, Nihaytusul.
I didn't even know what Sul meant. I
just knew what Nihayyah meant from imam al
isnaawi, from ISNA. The only ISNA I knew
was ISNA, you know, the organization in America.
And I remember all of us sitting together
as students and just being completely like
Like we were lost. Right?
And so I began to ask some of
the teachers that I was sitting with and
studying with, like, is there something I can
do?
Because this is like a whole different world,
right? And they directed me to this book,
Masha'Allah.
O Sollafik
by Ustaz
Doctour
Al Alema,
Mohammed Abunur Zohir, Rahimullah.
Mohammed Abunur Zohir died in 1987.
So, Ya'atab Rasheikh
Shukhina.
Right? Like, he's the teacher of many of
our teachers.
And he actually wrote this book
as a Maliki,
right,
to encapsulate a lot of things that sometimes
are lost and not mentioned
from the Maliki also,
but as
like right? It's, it, it, it really touches
on on everything and you can see actually
it's a 4 volume book. This is the
best print by Darb al Sayr
in in Egypt which is behind the Azhar
and Darb al Atraq because
Doctor. Muhammad Asayid
and others were his students, like they read
to him.
But anyways, what I thought we would do
is just read
from
his section at the very beginning and actually
teach this book in the 5th year
at SWISS
to people who are interested
in
in really going into, like, a deeper study
of.
So the sheikh, he says,
I'm going to read it in Arabic and
English for students, right?
The virtues of
and even though he used the word it
means plural because we say
right? That sometimes you may use a singular
possessive but it means plural like
actually means
So Allah says
it doesn't say Niamalah like if you wanted
to count Niamalah is like the blessing of
God but because it's
The sheikh, he says, that there are 2,
you know, virtues of studying osulefilk. Doesn't mean
that these are the only only 2, but
he's gonna mention 2 which he felt are
important.
The first is one that deals with the
actual
And then of course he defines who is
a mushtahid. Mushtahid
is the one who can extract
rulings from
the evidences of, right, the detailed evidences of.
So, for example,
when I was in Ifta
and at that time, we are reading Al
Minhaj
by reading, Al Minhaj
to doctor Mohammad
And he passed away, you know,
a few years ago.
I have never seen somebody
like him in my life when it came
to
humility
and simplicity but then just
this massive amount of knowledge.
I used to be scared, like, in front
of him because he was, Masha'Allah,
such so so much like hayba and so
simplistic, masha'Allah.
But anyways, at that time in Masar, there
was a big issue when I was there,
the paternity case related to a famous person.
And there was this big discussion about
him being the father
of somebody
and him denying it. And then of course
the mother claiming he was the father. And
then there was this issue about using DNA.
This is a long time ago, so bear
with me. And it came to Dala Ifta
and it came to Doctor. Mahammar Rafat in
our class. He brought it up and asked
us, like, Let's practice.
Like, Let's engage this issue.
Of course, we we we didn't know anything,
you know, pardon the double negative. Like, who
the heck are we? You're doctor
So sheikh,
he
engaged us. Like, he let us do this
discussion,
and he said, well, you know, my answer
is found in the soul to Yousef.
How?
How how how how is that possible, Shulto
Yusuf? DNA?
He said DNA
is
Right? DNA is like a secondary issue used
to prove a point.
So he said, I
have thought about this greatly
and have extracted that if the shirt of
Yusuf could be used as secondary evidence to
either
sustain his guilt or prove his innocence,
then we can use DNA.
This is an example of someone now who
made Ijihad.
I'm sure many of you are thinking, well,
be patient, man. It'll come later.
Right? And then
the second benefit of Usulofirk
is related to the person who does not
have enough knowledge to extract ruling, so they
have to follow specialists.
What Taqid
is to take the opinion of someone
without knowing the evidences.
And the Sheikh says
So the Muqaddid is the one who takes
the rulings not from the adila but from
the ulema.
And here we learn something very important.
This is a very important axiom that I
learned from one of my teachers.
Right? So what's an obligation on a person
who doesn't know is to ask, not to
know the reasons why. We're going to talk
about this later on because that's beyond their
study.
It's like asking someone about, you know, the
architecture to build your home or asking them
about something related to to now, like the
vaccine
or something related to, you know, any type
of higher science that you and I haven't
spent years studying,
and then suddenly expecting ourselves to know how
they came to those conclusions without respecting
their effort and their investment.
And this is something that has thrown off
the rails of the Sunni Muslim community
that in aqeeda,
It's not allowed to make
because we are all responsible for believing in
Allah.
But in the secondary issues,
what is an obligation
is to ask and follow those people who
know issues of firk. But now, subhanAllah, we
see people making
taqleed and aqeedah
and then everyone has ishtihad
in filk. This has kind of reversed the
trend of
what was the mainstream Sunni positions on many
issues.
But remember this axiom, Insha'Allah, that's not our
purpose now, but we're going to discuss it
in the future, Insha'Allah.
And some of the things that I'm telling
you I heard from people. Sometimes people ask,
what what book did you get that from?
What book?
Some of the stuff, Alhamdulillah,
I I heard from my teachers. So I'm
trying, like, at times to source that information,
but if it's not, I'm gonna tell you.
This is what I heard from from different
people.
And this axiom I just mentioned
from Doctor
Mahal Wissam.
So he says basically that the fa'id have
also lafakar 2.
1 goes back to the Mujtahid, the other
goes back to the Muqale.
So as to the first, the benefit to
the mujtahid is that it's going to provide
him or her the ability to extract
rulings from the evidences.
Because when someone has knowledge and scholarship related
to the general evidences,
For example, he or she would know that
a command
means an obligation
unless there is,
you know, something to negate that it's an
obligation.
We'll talk about
this in
And that, you know, something which is telling
us not to do something
implies
that it's forbidden unless there's an evidence that
weakens it to be like,
disliked.
So when a scholar knows this,
he or she will be able to understand
that when Allah says
is an order. So it means that salah
is an obligation.
And that he'll understand or she'll understand that
adultery and fornication
are forbidden because Allah says you're not allowed,
you're forbidden to come close to zina.
That moment the scholar is going to say,
you know,
is a order.
This is a famous axiom. I'm going to
teach it to you soon. Al kimosala al
lujab and a command means obligation.
So therefore establishing prayer is
And don't come close to adultery or fornication
is a prohibition.
This is another axiom.
And if you pay attention here, you're going
to see the
right? The relationship between language and
Right?
So at that moment, he is understanding
what this means in the language.
And then he marries that, what's called
So 3 steps, understand the Arabic, understanding also
Rufek and then the ruling.
So Mashallah,
right? You have to establish the salah
is a command.
So both are commands to do and not
to do.
And then
the
principles of
Right, so the sheikh, he says, the first
was called
In the future we can learn these things.
From both daleels.
The the scholar, the understands this knows this
from the language.
As I said earlier. And then the the
second part of this was called
which
is
the principle,
the axiom of Usul.
Also informs the scholar
so he knows this from Usul. So
So you see that process
Language
language
Natija that's why one of my teachers used
to say he's in prison may Allah free
him.
And so if that scholar didn't know these
things, didn't know,
he or she would not be able to
extract
the
ruling.
So the first
virtue is that it allows someone who has
mastery of this science
to have the ability to extract rulings.
And so on and so forth from different
rulings.
Represents something which is
How do we know that
is not mentioned but is there? It's because
Athhenia has
So the second is for the Muqalid
that he or she is going to have
greater conviction
in the opinions
of the Imams and teachers
who have extracted rulings and guidance for them.
More or less what I just said that
when
the Muqalid
is able to look at the different evidences
and ideas of the imams
and the opinions that
they've taken
and the relationship between those things and
the foundations of Ulsul.
They're going to find conviction and ease in
their heart
towards the opinions
that their teachers have
taken.
And this is going to strengthen now the
resolve of the person
and increase their obedience,
right, and submission
and passion for devotion.
And also and this is not talking about
with the Muslims.
This is talking about in the face of,
say, the orientalists.
You see really aggressive work happening in France.
You see even some Muslim,
thinkers
succumbing to the supremacy of the West and
its criticism
of of Islam,
this is going to
equip the person with tools to be able
to defend
themselves and defend the positions that their teachers
have taken. And that's why if you take,
at Swiss,
I teach it with the evidences in the.
That's why.
And
here years ago, I wrote a note. I
don't know if you can
see
there.
I wrote, and maybe perhaps
we can add another benefit to this.
And and that benefit is
That when we understand a little bit of
Usul al Firk, not necessarily the scholarly level
like this book is like SubhanAllah
man, it's no joke,
but we'll be able to equalize and bring
much needed unity and harmony
to our community.
So alhamdulillah,
you know, like if we see people arguing
over issues that we know are secondary issues
related to usul that have been extracted by
scholars,
then
like we're going to tell people you don't
need to fight over this issue.
Unfortunately, we see most people fighting over issues
which they shouldn't even fight over.
Or
we find this need to
always declare who's right and wrong.
So hyper takfirism,
like us Surat Thiq will deal with that.
We have the famous axiom
Right? You can't make takfir of someone
if there's a chance that they're not
kafir, that they're still Muslim.
So in spite of all the, you know,
the statements people are going to bring from
this scholar Thawri, this Sheikh, Imams, Rahim
All
the
have to be understood on the umbrella of
the
This is a famous axiom found in Uso.
That there's no takfir if there's a probability
that someone is still Muslim.
Imagine how much
trouble this would have solved on online and
on Facebook and on this and that and
that and amongst some of our passionate brothers
and sisters. So,
we mentioned 3 of the virtues of studying
the first
the second
and the third
Right? So the 3rd goes back to the
and also the ummah
of the prophet
try to from time to time post some
supplemental,
information that I hope will help you
ask Allah to bless you and to increase
you.