Reforming the Self #37

Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala shuffle Ambia ILMOR saline Avena Lakota Latina Muhammad Allah He after the Salah schizo Salim Allahu Allah and even though we may in fact on our on fatten IV mat ILM tena was in many Arab datamine I said Mr. Aiken are off to La he would occur to everybody and welcome to Sunday evenings class reforming the self

with a lawyer will last for Hanny's book that era law macadam is Sharia.

And we're off to a new chapter and a new topic today in sha Allah Tada

which we briefly mentioned, or gave a brief preview to last class, which was accounting for the types of differences that can occur.

And reflecting on those different types of differences, which of them are praiseworthy, which of them are blameworthy which of them should we steer clear of which of them should we engage in.

And this is preceded by the author's condemnation of

argumentation and debates

among lay Muslims.

And even among most scholars as well.

Right, so everything that we hear now,

we have to put it into proper context, that

everything that we do, if it's not to be a waste of time, should be geared towards

putting something in the as a deposit for our afterlife.

And the author strongly believes that arguing

debate for the vast majority of Muslims is not doing anything that was that would deposit anything into your afterlife, it will not benefit you at all. In fact, it is likely to be

a cause for sin, or at least a cause for the entrenchment of things that lead to sin, such as the

kind of aggrandizement of the ego

and the sowing of enmity between you and other people.

But today, he's getting into the causes, okay? But doubts, disagreements, debates, they do happen.

And so why is it that they happen, especially in light of the conversation that we had

last week about how some people misunderstand the complete preservation or preserved nature of the Koran and its theological message, yet, the existence of disagreement and debate as to some of the finer points of either law or even theology? Right, this can be a source of doubt for some people. So how do we make sense of the phenomenon of these types of doubts and disagreements? The author treats it in a very categorical way. He says all doubts and disagreements, they can be broken up into two,

having two causes or having two sources. The first of those is disagreement or doubt regarding the meaning of a text. And the second is a disagreement or doubt regarding the actual text itself. Now, going back to the first category, the meaning he says that now there's three levels or three avenues or three channels through which a doubt or disagreement can take place, the first through the interpreter himself, or, or herself, the person who is doing the reading of the text, the reading of the scripture, and he goes through various possibilities. And he gives a parable as he often does, he compares it to somebody who is in the marketplace. Right, and they sell things according to wait.

Now, what are the various types of ailments or illnesses or defects or deficiencies that that person could have? That would result in an unjust outcome?

As far as what he's buying and selling what He's measuring and weighing. Right? There are certain people who are blind, right and so what good is a person

I'm going to be when it comes to measuring these sorts of things, if they're completely blind, they can't see

at all. And so how are they going to put the things in the proper scale? And how are they going to be able to read the scales, measurements? And how are they going to be able to

understand whether the person has paid the proper amount? Right, this is the similar scenario to somebody who just absolutely has no training, they tried to throw themselves into the texts and interpret them

in ways that are above their pay grade. And they're like the blind man in the marketplace.

Errors are a certain to come. And it would be actually surprising if anything was gotten correct.

The second example, He gives us somebody, okay, maybe somebody has eyesight, they can see some things but they're illiterate. Right, they don't know the difference between the two and a three, or they don't know what a decimal point is. Right. And this person is kind of worse than the first. Because for the first type of person who doesn't have any training, any ability, any insight or vision at all, then they can readily admit that listen, I see just darkness and I don't know.

And other people are easy to pick that person out. Right? It's so obvious person's groping around, they're bumbling into things and they can't quite get a hold of anything, right? That's kind of obvious.

But the person who is able to see,

but is illiterate is even more dangerous. First of all, because the people can't recognize all the time. Sometimes that person might have a lot of confidence.

They put it down a scale, I say up seven pounds, that'll be 20, whatever. And it's not seven pounds at all, nor is it 20.

Whatever. Right, the person is just knows a little bit. He knows the outer aspects, he knows the actions to

mimic,

to be taken seriously as a vendor. Yeah, in reality, he's ripping people off.

And we have lots of this, you know, like, anybody can Wear the turban and can have the pen in the pocket and you know, have a nice, have surely a better setup on Zoom than I have, you know, better technology and these sorts of things. Right, and can have, you know, professional sort of Grade Editing and graphics. And

they might even be able to speak Arabic or, you know, pepper their quotes with Arabic, but, but if the person hasn't gone through a systematic program of training, and they don't know what they're doing, then they're this person who's like, the person in the marketplace who can't read the numbers, they're just ripping people off.

The second sort of Avenue within meaning that a person can make a mistake, or there can lead from doubt, or,

if not doubt, than difference of opinion or disagreement is through the tool of interpretation. So the first one, we're looking at the interpreter, what does he or she bring to the table? How Qualified competent is that person? How trustworthy is that person? Can you trust because it takes both. It takes competency, and it takes character, somebody can be very, very smart. But if they don't have the character, then they're going to manipulate things and dance around things and find all the loopholes, and just to kind of serve their own ends. And the opposite is equally or at least as bad. Somebody who means well, they want to help people, they want to find the truth and whatever,

but they don't have any competency. And so they're just making mistakes left, right and center. What about now the second avenue is the tool for interpretation. Right? The person doesn't understand

what exactly is the relevant thing that they need to apply to the situation? Right? If we're going to go with the person in the marketplace, you can imagine, you know, they have a volume measure, and they have a weight measure. And they try to measure the tomatoes by volume and they tried to, you know, weigh something else that's normally sold by volume, right? They get everything kind of mixed up. Right. There's things in

Cydia all the time, where people are just categorically in in a completely different land far off from any sort of relevant discussion for the thing that they're trying to talk about. Right? We hear a lot of talks about politics, and this came up the last election and,

you know,

people demanding a precedent from the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, or people demanding a precedent from the service.

And the argument being that without this precedent, then this is better. This is an innovation This is not for Miss

Simple.

And then we would kindly remind those certainly well intentioned souls, we don't need a precedence. In every situation, we need a precedence from the Prophets always set up and a precedent from the Companions when it comes to a bad neighbor or the mother or something. That's pure worship. Right. But if we're talking about CES, we're talking about politics, we're talking about something that is, the ends are, they might have latent

spiritual benefits, but there are primarily

dunya, we they are primarily to do with this world, then this is something that does not require a precedent, right? So you have somebody who's using the wrong tool, completely, they came to dig a grave, and they came with a spoon, right? Or they want to, you know, build a tower, and all they have is a saw, right? You have to understand what's the proper tool to use? In which scenario?

When is the default assumption that of permissibility? And when is the default assumption that of prohibition?

Right, so this is that sort of situation and it happens, you know, a surprising amount. And then finally, there are disputes as to the thing that's being interpreted. And there's different types of scripture or things that have

authoritative weight in our tradition. So for example, we have the Koran and we have the Sunnah. And that's all, you know, while on good, we have each map, we have

the consensus of the scholars, but if you go within to the Messiah, that particular issues that exist within kind of Islamic epistemology, and then there are very, very specific situations where

the thing that's being interpreted

is not necessarily extremely clear.

Right. So,

for example,

issues of the GMAT are very, very common, right? What is consensus?

Is there such a thing? As

is maths, Saudi? Right, like?

Where

everybody has kind of

agreed, all of the scholars have agreed, does that such a thing even exist? Where they have enunciated their agreement? Is that even possible, after say, the reign of aroma, or the companion started spreading out into the different places of Islamic civilization? Or Okay, so let's say, Okay, there's a different type of consensus where this is implied consensus, where there's a statement that is well known among the scholars, or the Companions, or their followers, et cetera, et cetera, whatever that generation is.

And

no, no known dispute or disagreement is known to take place. Right? Can we rely on such a thing these days where the Muslim world is so spread out? And they speak different languages? They don't all speak the same language. Is there such a thing as consensus today? Probably not. Well, then, okay, at what point does consensus this type of consensus that's implied acquiescence or tacit consensus? Maybe we can call it at what point would that stop applying to the Muslim ummah? Right. So there's, there's issues if you go into it

deeply, and these are in the books of it was sort of stuck, where you start to realize that you know, the thing that's being interpreted, depending on what tools we're using, depending on what decisions we're making, for interpretation, you can come to different conclusions, right? It's possible.

So that's the first batch that the author wants to say like, this is why this is why disagreements happen. And that's the first thing is the meaning of things. What do things mean? Right? If there were only one way to interpret things, if there were only one way to interpret things, then there would be no disagreement. But the very fact that things can mean multiple things, both simultaneously. And sometimes there's mutual exclusivity that exactly results in doubts and disagreement. So the second type of source for doubts and disagreement, the author discusses are the text itself, and what he means here, he goes into say, for example, words and phrases. Those are the

two things by words he's talking about. Okay? There's some words that have double meanings, right? I mean, there's a famous one everybody uses the example in Arabic, it can mean your eye, it can mean a spring of water, it can mean a spy, right? It can mean several, several several things. And so this one term is

is used for multiple things, is somebody interpreting correctly? You know, what are the context clues? Right? And this becomes, this becomes important. This becomes important. It might seem like a silly example with, you know, talking about water and eyes and things like that fairly straightforward. But then when we talk about say,

what's a little Korea? I asked the village

and sorbitol Cath. And now there's this whole discussion as to can the village actually be asked, does that prove that the village is actually some sort of sentient entity that is able to be asked and respond? Is this just is this my jazz? Is this figurative language? What's the role of majaz and the paren? And that's all I have to say. And now you've got yourself a pretty juicy, centuries long debate on your hands, right? Just about what is this kind of word mean.

And sometimes there's stakes. And sometimes there's no stakes, for example. So it's rough man.

Although you have a rough man, or an insane alimony ban, and Nigel, was shedule, yesterday, right? Some of the festoon. They say that, and najem. Here does not mean stars. It means plants.

Because Najma, the three letter root word from which we get the word najem, which is star, it means something that slowly,

progressively grows or moves grows is probably more appropriate. And stars are named najem. Because they slowly kind of come into their house, so to speak, or they come into view over the course of the year. And so it's also correct to say

we said that the Quran was revealed Mona Jamin, right, like it was revealed piece by piece in an accumulating sort of fashion. It's also correct to use this term for plants that grow slowly, slowly. And so some of the scholars of Tafseer they say if you look at the what's most suitable to the context, when nejsou was sheduled, okay, plants from the earth and trees, right plants and trees or grasses and trees is much more sensical of a pairing than stars and trees. Right. And then others say no, this is the stars, but you know, the,

the stakes of that sort of doubt or

disagreement are very low, because each of them are the same type of thing that the last one was all I was trying to say. So all that to say, and there's other examples like in in sort of the left

for the ultimate we had, what is it?

Gonna be no out in June BMO at the end of June, that's another one with Nigel.

Is the last fall to our talking about the stars? Or is he talking about the Koran, and the places where the Quran was revealed? different opinions of the scholars have Tafseer. Right, again, stakes very low, because they're both true. So there's misunderstandings. And then some of those misunderstandings are technicalities. And some of those misunderstandings do have stakes.

So words can have double meanings. There's also times where we have issues of general versus specific. Sometimes a loss found to Allah uses a word in the Quran, it's extremely general. But he means by it something more specific.

And there's other times where Subhan Wisata, he uses a specific word, and he means by it something more general. Right? And so, sometimes if we take the absolute literal

meaning of the word, we reach false conclusions, pull them and they have fun going back to Surah Surah.

koloman are they have fun.

Everything will be destroyed.

Everything, Jana is going to be destroyed.

Jahannam is going to be destroyed. The Arash is going to be destroyed. fates and amount of more all these other creations that we know of no, or other eyes that say someone could contest that particular verse But there's other eyes in the Quran that say that everything is going to be destroyed.

But then we have other information that proves that a Lost Found to Allah said everything. But he didn't mean every single thing because we know from other places that there are some exceptions to that Jenna is not going to be destroyed. Jahannam is not going to be destroyed. The artist is not going to be destroyed. Right. So this is called in sort of taxis. I'm Bill Arkell. Right or business, whatever you want, you can this is something that specifies something general. Sometimes the thing that specifies something that's general is not right before you sometimes it's in a different part.

of the Koran. Sometimes it's not in the Quranic or sometimes it's in the Sunnah.

And the opposite is true, right? There might be something, a word that's very, very specific.

But Allah Spano, Tala means something more general by it.

And so this is the sort of interpretive work that exists that the author of Ragosa honey is trying to alert us to, to show us, first of all, why people without training should not get involved in this business, for why they should at least refer back to people who have training to clarify these issues for them, why they'd certainly shouldn't argue about these things, they have no idea what they're talking about, nothing good is going to come from it.

And then,

finally, to give an account as to why these sorts of disagreements and disputes take place, it's not because Islam hasn't been preserved. Right? It's not because the Quran is somehow

in doubt, as a text, or that the foundations of our religion are shaky, or, you know,

or this one group is trying to, you know,

to see deceive everybody else, right? There is valid differences of interpretation. And the author is illuminating and showing us how these differences of interpretation come about.

There's also disputes and disagreements, see, the next Avenue, he says, as to parables and examples, right? So that's a note. Right? One of the most

talked about parables in the Koran, the Muscat and the, you know, like the nature of the light inside of the light, and the oil and all these things. What are they meant to represent? So many different theories? We're not exactly sure. Right? Little Quatermain even the, you know, the little color name and sort of Kath, was he a prophet? Was he not a prophet? Some people said he was Alexander the Great, just because of the kind of military conquests he enjoyed. And then other people point out, Alexander the Great was a an idolatry, right? So, you know, sometimes there's room for

more or less for disagreement, or at least this is giving an account for why disagreement and why doubts arise in the first place. And the final thing, and this is all under words, the author mentions is, sometimes words are used to make or to symbolize an abstraction that we have no imagination of. And so we can actually conceptualize things incorrectly in our heads. And this applies the angels, right, whereas we have, for example, in popular media we have on television, and books like this, kind of they've been profaned, to be frank, so that we think we have an idea of what angels look like. Or even if we don't think that our sensibility of what an angel might look

like has definitely been influenced and mediated by the sort of, you know, the sources that seep into our consciousness. Right, even though they're described in the Koran, and so that mental image is going to come to us and it might not be accurate. And it might be the source of misunderstanding, and even more so when it comes to things

pertaining to a Las Palmas Allah, His attributes, His, you know, characteristics and a loss found data will, the creation will be rolled up in his right hand on the Day of Judgment. So that all right, like we believe in this, this is the core end, it's true. What exactly does it mean, what comes to mind, we have to be careful, we have to stay away to second, anything that comes to our mind, we can pretty much be sure that it's not, it's going to be a miss conceptualization. And that's simply the limits of our brain, which is limited, it's physical, it's stored up here in your head. And just like any other muscle that you have, right, guys, young shakes, men that are

listening, it's going to be limited, there is not there is a certain limit that you're not going to be able to lift, and there's a certain limit that no one's going to be able to lift.

That is most of the relevant parts when it talks about you know, the author's discussion of differences. And there's some other things that he explores, he's very categorical. Not all those categories are honestly like super pertinent or relevant to what we're trying to hone in on for our own purposes. But I think the author did a good job of trying to illustrate, you know, for people who are gung ho and zealous and they like, really want to believe that there can't be any. There's only one truth. There's only one. There's only one sunnah.

Sorry, it's actually a little more complicated than that. Right? And this is why all these sorts of different things. Right? There's a difference between

In a piece of evidence being authentic and the kind of level of explicitness that that piece of evidence proves the point that you're trying to make is called Delilah. Right? So you might cite a hadith that is, say, Saudi, or excuse me, so hate when it comes to its authenticity. It might be a statement of the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam 100%. And nobody disagrees. Sahih Bukhari and Muslim.

But what does it prove? What does it mean? Right? Maybe at the level of explicitness or what it proves it's only one me you know, it probabilistically proves us one thing, but not with certainty. Right and so that there's room for a dispute.

The next chapter, and this is the one that we will conclude with tonight. Insha Allah Tada.

The author, Rahim Allah He wants to clarify and contextualize all dispute that exists in between religions, and different Meza have different schools of thought. So he's going to he's developed kind of a four tier hierarchy.

And he's going to explain kind of, again, he uses parables to kind of describe or get us closer to the meaning and then he's also going to go into the ramifications or the consequences of,

of these sorts of things.

Of the different levels. Right, so the first level of the first type of dispute or disagreement that he says is that of the people of Scripture, are the people of revelation

against people who have man made religion.

So on one hand, you have people whose

faith is taken from

at some point back in history, even if it got distorted along the way,

the source is in authentic revelation from the Creator. And on the other hand,

religion that is completely based in the thought, conjecture, wishful thinking, whims of human beings.

Okay, so we have on one hand, you have religions, like Islam, and Judaism and Christianity and any other of the religions who have books that possibly could have been, could have been prophets. Right? But perhaps we don't know the history, perhaps the history was lost.

And then you have people who are an atheist fit into this category materialists.

And then people who subscribe to beliefs that are completely rooted within human attempts, such as, I would say,

many forms of idolatry,

right?

Astrology

is kind of crude paganism, Wiccan ism, the stones that this the that, you know,

this sort of thing.

What's the subject of the disagreement? Right? Greek Roman mythology? Yeah, exactly. What's the subject of disagreements between these two camps? Three things the author says, first of all, the creation of the universe at all, whether it was created or not,

how it was created or not.

That whole creation story, okay, that's of dispute.

Second,

the creator itself, the existence of that creator, the nature of that creator, right?

And then third, tell heed, it just gets to the

addressing specifically the idolaters polytheist. Right, the idea of hate.

Because even if idolatry has crept into the corrupted religions, such as Christianity and Judaism, if you ask them,

Do you believe in multiple gods, they will vehemently deny

that they do? Say no, no, no, no, no, we are not polytheist who they are, they will say to you know, they are blue in the face, we are monotheists even if they contradict themselves, even if their definitions are incoherent, and etc, etc, cetera. Their self understanding is that they are people of revelation they are people of monotheism. So these are the three things that these two camps disagree on.

Creation of the Universe, the nature of the Creator, or existence of the Creator and Tao heat.

And the type of disagreement between these two camps, it's mutually exclusive. This is completely one side cancels out the other, which lies you know, lies bear the

The force that is kind of like world religions, or this kind of pantheistic belief that all religions are the same at the end of the day, and it's all just about being a good person. No, no, no, no. If you go across the board with all the religious traditions that are out there, there are some fundamental theological beliefs that are completely self, they are completely mutually exclusive. Right? We cannot believe in, for example, reincarnation,

versus resurrection, and accountability that way, those are two completely mutually exclusive ideas of how people are held accountable.

The same with creation, we cannot believe that we to believe that we existed always that matter is infinite, and has always existed, and that we are just the product of chance interactions. And, you know, mechanisms is a mutually exclusive belief, to the idea that there is a Creator and the creator at one that there was nothing except the Creator. And at one point, the creator decided to create the creation. And those are mutually exclusive positions. And similarly Tawheed, to shoot, right, the idea that there's this strict dichotomy between creator and creative, and everything that is not creator is created, and thus is dependent upon the creator and thus must not be worshipped and all

worship must belong to the Creator alone is a fundamentally mutually exclusive

universe, not just concept, the universe compared to the universe of okay, well, now I want my harvest to be good. So I have to pray to this guy. And then oh, well, I want the rain. And so I actually have to go to a separate God, and then I, you know, are about to go to war. And so I need to go to this other guy, right. So these are mutually exclusive

conceptualizations universes. And so

the author gives the example of this is like Eastern West, if you're going to he gives the example of a map. You're going east, we're going west, this is completely opposite couldn't be more, more different. And we shouldn't sugarcoat things with this kind of polite PC culture. And just imagine that we're all the same. No, we're not, we're not all the same. We're different.

The second type of disagreement, he says, is between people of revelation and people of Revelation. Okay, so you have now

we're talking about people whose religion is based in authentic revelation from the Creator.

Right. And we know what happened every single tradition except for the tradition of Islam, it developed accretions along the way it developed innovations and interpretations and some things were lost, and some things were intact, and some things were manipulated, and etc, etc, etc. So naturally, there's going to be a lot of disagreement and debate between these two camps, or these several camps.

And the subject of this, these types of disagreements is something a little bit more granular. So whereas we agree about Revelation,

we have a very different conception of what prophethood is, right? If you talk to Christians, especially evangelical Christians, they believe that prophets walked the earth today, they think that some of their pastors are prophets. That's why they have the whole speaking in tongues. And some people even come, I've seen people come into masajid, and try to make prophecy that something is going to happen, et cetera, et cetera, right? versus our definition of what a prophet is the Orthodox Islamic definition, what a prophet is, and there are no more prophets. Right? So this is something that it's a debate in between people who both believe and subscribe to authentic

revelation.

What is the nature of the prophets? Right? Are they humans? Are they divine? Are they something in between? This is a subject of debate, obviously, between Islam, which is preserved from last fall into order that says that these are men, the prophets are men. And so they're therefore they are, they have needs, they are not divine in any way whatsoever, and versus the tendency in corrupted religious traditions to

deify men and deify prophets and deify holy people and saints and cetera, et cetera. Right.

And so the author likens this to north and north and east. And he says, you know, we can still say astray, is like, we're talking about these two different camps. One is correct, and one is astray. You know, but there's somewhat adjacent paths, right? They're tangential. They're intersecting. They're perpendicular. Right. They're not like two lines that will never meet Eastern West.

Like before,

the third type, he says, these are some of the differences of opinion and disagreements that occur within one religious community. But the differences and disagreements are about the foundations of that religious community and its practice or its faith.

Right? And so these are the types of things the author says that charges of heresy

might be levied accurately. Right. So as Orthodox Muslims, we believe in the Koran, we believe in the Sunnah, right? We believe in consensus, right? We believe in the righteousness of the companions. These are all your bread and butter, kind of Sunni orthodox beliefs.

And so anybody who steps out of this sort of thing, who wants to insinuate that the companions were not just that they kind of reneged on their faith after the death of the Prophet Muhammad's life,

or

other things, such as,

when it comes to the Koran

are

some of the things in the Quran just simply outward symbols, which we can kind of load in with all these kinds of other meanings that aren't really there from our perspective? Right. So there's all these debates that exists, and there's less extreme ones than that, right? So for example, the differences this would also this level of disagreement would also describe the level of disagreement between say the major Aki, the traditions, let's say, within Muslim history. So yeah, so you have like, on if you have like, something far out, you have Shia comedy, etc, etc. And then a little bit closer to the center would be something like the difference between the Saudis and the SATs and the

methodologies. Right. There's some differences. And so how do we, how do we understand the last final thought as names and attributes? Right, how do we understand some parts of the Koran, where the first thing that might jump to our mind might be unpalatable or

seem to be anthropomorphic? For morphic? Right, so all of these sorts of disagreements and

sorts of different perspectives fall under this third type.

And the author says, you know, these are things that legitimately you you can say that someone is a heretic for taking a non standard position on something. And now it doesn't mean necessarily that you can say that they are a

disbeliever. Depends on a case, you know.

But, so he compares them to people who took the same path, right? So it's no longer east and west. It's no longer eastern North. No, they both went east. They both took the same path. But there was a correct path. And then there was an area that kind of didn't have a path or there was an area that you know, the person's bushwhacking, or they took this other path, and it was not the right path to take.

It's possible off roading? Exactly, you're off roading is possible that person might end up at the end.

You know, Allah subhanaw taala might forgive that person. Right. That's why then this addresses the issue of tech fear. We don't necessarily make tech fear of these people. So you're not Muslim. Right? If it comes to some, some other things, you know, like, it's a case by case scenario, what are we talking about? Like if you're talking about the things with the media, right? That's like, we believe that there is no prophet after the Prophet Mohammed. That's a red line. Like that's like most of them not Muslim issue. Right? The Companions remained Muslims after the prophesy said, I'm passed away. That's a Muslim, not Muslim issue. Right. But there's other types of sects. Like

there's not just one, like she asked to, there's many, many, many types, right? And there's the issues of say, between the theta

communities or traditions, right? These are things where there are not issues of Muslim non Muslim. Okay, we can say that this is the Orthodox and this is the heterodox, but we have to be fair, and we have to give them their rights as people of the Qibla people who pray people who believe in the Koran and listen and the consensus of the scholars and they believe in the authority, the authority of these same sort of things that we believe in, right? It's at the level of, of interpretation, even if it's some things that are a little bit fundamental.

And then the final, the final level of disputes or disagreements, is the people of one religious community. And the subject is upon the finer things, right, the more minute points or the minute day of that religious tradition, we're talking about this

is the type of difference between the legal schools right between the Shafia and the Hannah Buddha and the aftermath? And the Maliki, right? Where do we put our hands in prayer? Are they up on our diaphragm or below or navel or the down on our sides? What do we do with our finger and Tisha hood, you know,

all these sorts of things, exactly what needs to be cut for the Bihar, there's differences of opinion between the schools with that, all these sorts of things that, you know, these are very, very famous, famous differences of opinions that come up. And

these are the

type of in house disagreements that it's not the level of Orthodox heterodox, and this is something that people are becoming more aware of now than they were, say 1020 30 years ago. But people really need to keep in mind, these types of differences are not worth splitting over. These types of differences are not worth

even rallying around a certain identity, forming an identity around a certain constellation of opinions, it's not worth it. Honestly,

these are the things that you have to

be careful because this is the level where the devil wants to sow enmity between us and make us convinced that this level of disagreement is akin to the other levels of disagreement. And that's not true. Right. This is in the author's words. He says that this is the type of disagreement that is praiseworthy, praiseworthy, because it is attempting to get to the truth, it is valid interpretation based off of the same kind of

principles of interpretation that we have inherited from the companions and, and their students. And so it is not only acceptable, that it's fine, you can enjoy it, you can actually enjoy going to the Bosnian masjid, and you know, seeing how they, they they do things, they they tend to make the janazah.

Yes, they all lead to the exactly the same path, Allah subhanaw taala is not going to put a SHA theory higher than a Hanafi engine, because one was a Shafi and the other was no, like, that's something that we have to keep in mind. Right? And so you're allowed to enjoy it, you don't have to go and you know, just just can shake your head, right? Hana fees, don't require that their women cover their feet, right, based on an analogy from the hands, because that to them falls under the definition of what's apparent from the eye of the quarter.

Right? That's something that is acceptable, right? And, you know, all the other sorts of things. These are very, very familiar things, especially especially, especially if it can be traced back to the Companions. If the companions did it,

then what do we have to do to say about we what do we have to say about we don't have anything to say about if the Companions disagreed on it, then it is a disagreement that is

valuable, and worth keeping around. And we should not,

we should not fear or worry for a second, that that is the type of disagreement.

That means were disunited, or that needs to be corrected, or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that brings us to the conclusion of time and also to that chapter. Anyone have any questions? And while you're typing or thinking of questions, I'll mention that there is one little last tidbit that's nice that the author mentions he discusses the hadith of 72 sects, very famous Hadith. It's disputed as to whether this is an authentic hadith or not, but there's two rewires. There's two different wordings to this hadith, you know, in one of the wordings

and prophecies that I'm says that my Alma was split up into 72, or, or in a different rewire 73 sects, all of them in hell, except for one of them.

Not ones well known. There's another narration of the same Hadith, except he says all of them are in Genda, except for one of them. Right. And so, this gets into also the Hadith as to whether this was a mistake or whether this is actually a sort of affirmation, that there is a there are limits to acceptable difference and limits to acceptable disagreement. And we need to be very cognizant of what those limits are, so that we do not become disunited. Because unity with the people in the fourth category of the author is essential, is paramount. It is part of our religion, to be united with these people. And it is an affront to Allah is found to Allah to split off from these people

and become disunited from them. Right and

So it's very important, the stakes are quite high to know the difference between what are the sorts of disagreements that are palatable and acceptable. masu are set in Arabic and what are the ones that are not? Well Allahu Tada

any questions?

Okay, then with that I bid you good night everybody stay safe, stay safe in the storm. And until we meet again in sha Allah AsSalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh