Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #18

before that moment of final indisputable proof,

repent repentance is worth something.

It shows maturity. It shows sincerity. Think about your children. Think about your children.

You catch one of your children

pummeling the other one.

May it never happen neither luck.

You walk in the room, you look like you're about to pummel them.

And then your child is Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Forgive me.

Right.

The question is, would they have said that they were sorry?

Had you not walked in the door?

Would they have felt regret for their actions? Had you not walked in the door?

Is their apology? Only because they don't want to get caught? Ooh, that's what we're talking about.

That's what we're talking about.

A person who apologized Now, what if same scenario, you didn't walk in on your children at all. And then over dinner, one of your children apologizes to the other one for something that you didn't even see.

That's sincere repentance.

Because it wasn't conditional upon certain knowledge that they were going to get caught.

Once you have that certainty,

then a sincere repentance is almost impossible, if not completely impossible.

Now you've been caught. There's no repentance after you've been caught.

It's just damage control. Public Relations, right? We see this in politics all the time.

After you've been caught, like, oh, try to spin it try to control the narrative.

How many? Can you imagine a politician apologizing for something before it gets out? Before it's hit the presses?

is the same thing here.

Before your soul reaches your throat,

that's repentance. Because you're not certain.

You're not certain whether you're going to live another moment or not.

You're not certain whether all of this Islam, Allah,

the afterlife.

Is certain or not in the sense, we don't set we're not saying that there's no such thing as certain faith. But we're talking that certain faith is different from the sort of empirical certainty that most people mean when they're talking about certainty or certain proof. Right? We see all the time these things scientific proof for God, scientific proof for the afterlife.

It's a very common sort of

road to walk down. It's a common narrative to employ

people of faith, because the currency

in our times is scientific knowledge, scientific knowledge is seen as the highest form of knowledge. Science is seen as a judge to determine whether knowledge is actually true or whether it's just superstition.

We allow ourselves to be weighed on that scale. When we enter into Yes, we have certain empirical proof, mathematical proof for God for the afterlife for the court and

instead of questioning,

instead of questioning,

whether

certain empirical proof is something we want to be looking for in the first place or not.

What is the point of faith? If there is certain empirical proof

by these Hadith, and by the Koran, the story in the Koran that we mentioned,

certain proof is the end of faith. Certain empirical proof is the line where repentance is no longer acceptable.

After that,

once you've crossed over to, you can't possibly deny.

It's like looking at the sky and saying that it's blue faith has lost its worth.

The whole point, before certain empirical knowledge was to test to test the purity of your heart, to test the purity of your intentions to see if after you saw all the signs that pointed to this, that it would be that pointed to the reality of a law and the afterlife and moral authority and external criteria for what's right and wrong. If you would submit yourself

even with the small possibility

that you were wrong, even with the small possibility that didn't match the standard of quote unquote, scientific truth,

then that faith was worth something.

You weren't just afraid of getting caught.

Once that absolutes, scientific certainty has come. The door to repentance is shot.

Whether it is on the scale of a lifetime,

or whether it's on the scale of

broader history.

We'll leave that there. I think

there could be other things to say. Briefly, a law says that he has or the prophesy Saddam says that Allah has a hand.

Right? Is it like our hand?

No, it's not.

Do we need to explain anything else do we need to go into and say, well, it's not really a hand it's a law is blessing, or it's a loss favor? It's Allah's mercy. We don't have to know we don't have to do that.

Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said it's a hand. And so we can just say it's a hand, just like the prophesy. centum said, and we can leave it at that.

Excellent. Any questions before we switch to marriage?

Okay, so we had begun last week by talking about, we've crossed over in the book of marriage to discussing who you can and can't marry. We said that there are three possible reasons that would prevent two people from being able to get married. Can anyone can we together reconstruct that? What were the three reasons?

blood relation Very good. That's number one. The big one.

One was already mentioned in the comments, which was nursing. Okay. Relation by nursing. Very good. What's the third one and in law relation? Very good. So we have those three.

Yes. Good. Now, excellent. I'm glad that you said that sister Smith, because that shows us that

that's a separate

lens to look through it right. If we're looking at causes that prevent marriage, then nessa blood relation

in law, relation and nursing. Very good, true religion. The context of the fifth discussion that we began was within Muslim circles. But you're right, you're right religion, and there will be some issues in here that talk about that.

But the principle three,

when it comes to

permanent, let's say that

if we look through the lens of permanently not able to marry somebody, there are three possible reasons because with religion, someone can change their religion. Someone can accept the slack.

When it comes to a temporary relation, such as them being two sisters, that's also something that can change not in the sense that

not in the sense that they're not ever going to be sisters, but you could divorce one and then marry the other, for example, or one of them could pass away. Right, which is what happened with Earth man and the two sisters that were daughters of the prophets of life. So those are temporary reasons, but we're talking about permanent reasons. Then there are three blood

Marriage meaning and loss and nursing.

We talked last class about the points of consensus

among the scholars now we're going to get to some nice little differences of opinion.

One of the categories of people who is permanently

not allowed to get married is

somebody's stepdaughter, okay?

stepdaughter.

So, when it comes to a man marries a woman, that woman has a daughter from another child

that man

is never allowed to marry that woman's daughter

okay

there are four types of relationships

that are like this that are in laws

that prevent one from marrying somebody else in a permanent fashion okay.

One of those are

the wives of or the spouses of

one's father.

Okay.

Or the spouses of one's children

or

the mothers

of a wife

or the daughters of a wife.

Okay, step children.

So those are four categories of inlaws that are permanently off limits.

And this is all from swords on the side verse 23.

Now, the question is

when does a step daughter

and when does the mother of one's wife become impermissible?

Because Allah says in the Quran

Well, Mahayana psycho Morava Ibaka molarity fee her Dorico Minister ecoman Lottie, the whole tone behind,

he specifically says, Allah subhanaw taala when he's talking about

both stepdaughters and the mothers

of your spouses, he mentions

that

there's a difference between the two as to when the impermissibility occurs.

So the second

thing that a man marries a woman and that woman has a stepdaughter.

That doesn't necessarily.

That doesn't necessarily automatically

make the stepdaughter, impermissible. Why? Because remember, we talked about before, there's stages in marriage, you write the contract the act, and then there's consummation of the marriage. Okay. So, basically, the question here is, at what point does that kick in? At what point? Is it just by virtue of the marriage contract alone? Or does it have to wait until we get to the point where it is consummated?

Or is it something in between?

So the scholars, they agree that

if somebody marries a woman,

and they divorce her before any consummation of marriage occurs,

right, so we're over here, that that does not render the stepdaughter, impermissible. Theoretically, that person could go back and then could, yes, get rid of the first contract.

act and get contracts imagine with a stepdaughter separately.

They also agreed that if the marriage was consummated so if a man marries a woman, and a woman has a stepdaughter, and they fully consummated the marriage, that atom moment of consummation, that means that that daughter is impermissible to him forever. Even if he gets divorced later down the road from that one.

The scholars disagreed. Two

things in between, what if there was

kissing? What if there was caressing What if there were other things that were less than consummation? But more than just the contract? Is that stepped on or off limits or not?

Shafi and athma? They said that, nope. It has to be complete consummation

all the way.

And what is less than that doesn't count. Whereas Abu Hanifa and Malik, they say no, any sort of intimacy between the man and his wife makes the the daughter impermissible, the stepdaughter, impermissible forever.

As opposed to the mother of someone's wife, if a man marries a next issue is if a man marries a woman, and that woman has a mother who's still living.

She becomes

completely impermissible by virtue of the contract alone.

By virtue of the contract alone, without any looking into whether it's been consummated less than consummated something in between, nope.

It is completely off limits.

The next issue we have is

what do we do with someone who is engaged in illicit relationships?

And what we mean by that is someone who is committing Zina, Allah says in the Quran, and sort of know

that the Zania doesn't marry anybody, but does any person who commits fornication or adultery doesn't marry anybody, except of like, kind. Okay, what does this mean?

Hold on, there's there's differences to what this means.

There's consensus, our author evolution says that if the person repents, and this is a principle in criminal law that everybody has to know, if a person repents, then and if they've, for example, undergone a punishment.

Or in our case, in the West, where that's not even an issue, even if they haven't, then the person who repents is treated like somebody who never did, yes.

Somebody used to lead a life of sin. They've repented from that sin, they're treated as if they never did that, in the sense that you don't hang that over them.

You don't recall that.

That was who they used to be.

They are, as far as community life goes, it's as if that person has never done that in the first place.

And so this idea doesn't apply to such a person. Maybe they had

a life of sin. And then they repented.

You can't punish that person now for the person's past.

But what if they're not repentant? What and we have this regretfully all the time? What if we have a boyfriend and girlfriend, and in my short time here, I've dealt with issues like this already, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend, they already have a kid. Right? Clearly, they are intimate with each other. They're not repentant. They don't think they don't believe that they're doing anything wrong, or they don't care.

And then they come and they want you to marry them. Meaning me, they come to me and want me to make the map.

All the scholars agree that such a marriage is correct. It's sorry.

It's not an invalid marriage contract. Okay. So we have to understand, why am I telling you this so that nobody can take this verse out of context

and come to you and say, no, no, Allah says in the Quran, this person is a fornicator. They can't marry anybody except like themselves. And so this thing

is not they can't do this No, no.

The scholars have each map according to even and rushed that such a marriage contract is valid.

The question is, if the person hasn't repented, are they sinful for doing that marriage contract or not?

Other scholars disagree.

Pretty much half and half. Either way, people in my position, what we realize is that

and this is supported by the, if you go back to their books,

sometimes

it benefits a couple and the broader Muslim community to make easy a pathway to the HELOC.

Right. Some people come to me and they approached me, they've been involved in sin.

They want to get better.

They want to have a marriage contract.

Even though they've already done everything that a marriage contract is supposed to entitle them to, then oftentimes people in my position, especially in the society, which is constantly calling people away to

live lives of sin, far away from faith and a faith community.

Oftentimes, people in my position, the best policy is to try to bring them in,

bring them in without looking at the past, especially if there's reason to believe that this might be the start of a new leaf or a new page. And along those best

getting on to issues of nursing.

How much?

How much does a infant have to drink

in order for this rule to kick in?

Okay, let's say you have a child, an infant.

And let's say, for example, you have a friend, you guys are besties you guys love to do everything together. And you don't want to have the weirdness of like, okay, my children need to cover up in front of your children or your children need to cover up in front of my children with hijab, let's just nurse each other's children, so that they're all part of the same family.

And happens, there's villages in Saudi Arabia, that actually everybody in the village has nursed every child. And so that how that's what that way they know that everybody is family. And if they want to marry, they have to go to another village. For a spouse. There's benefit you can you can see kind of the wisdom.

Okay, so how much milk or how many nursing events have to occur in order for this rule to be applicable?

The majority of scholars say that

it is indeed a

specific number.

Okay. And they differ as to how much it is Imam Malik. He said, even if it's a drop, so no big deal. Some of the other scholars

they said, Three nursing events, some of the other scholars, they said, Five

and it all comes down to there are different narrations from the prophesy setup. And some of the scholars dated some of those narrations after others. And so some of them thought that

particular narrations replaced previous narrations

the prophesy seven for example, said and this is the hadith of Aisha that a single nursing events or to nursing events does not render people on marriageable.

And the understanding of the implication of this is that it has to be at least three.

What about

the period in which the child weeds

the scholars have agreed with consensus that the type of nursing that we're talking about that renders people relations such that they cannot intermarry, occurs within the first two years of the child's life.

What happens if it's nursed after that? Does that count or not?

First of all, why is it permissible to nurse a child? past two years old?

What have you heard? I'm interested into what you've heard about this issue. So please in the comment section, or in the chat box, what have you heard? Is it permissible to nurse a child past two years or not?

Okay, interesting, because I've run into in my own experience, I've run into sisters from various places who have insisted that it's not permissible to nurse after two years. And so I looked into this particular issue fairly in depth. And I found that the only school legal school that follows this position is the Hanafi school.

And this is from Abu Hanifa is reasoning. So Abu Hanifa his reasoning is that

it comes from

what makes the milk of something permissible or not. Okay. So in the Hanafi madhhab, he says that the milk of an animal follows the ruling of eating that animal.

So the milk of a cow permissible, because eating a cow is permissible. The milk of a pig haram, because eating a pig is how long? Is it permissible to eat another human being or no?

It's not permissible. Okay. And so our honey for reasons that the default ruling is that it's not permissible to drink the milk of a human being except the exception that Allah gave to infants within the first two years.

So according to Abu Hanifa, this is something that you're only allowed to do within the first two years and after it's not permissible. However, the majority of Scots scholars and the other three legal schools beg to differ I beg to differ. They say that No. And there's implicit statements from the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam that indicate its permissibility because the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam said

about this exact issue. He said that

nursing within the first two years,

us if it counts, it has an effect, and that which occurs after is nothing.

So we have here across we have a a

tacit approval of the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam of nursing an infant after two years.

But however, saying that it doesn't count when it comes to when it comes to rendering other people

impermissible for marriage, and that is the majority opinion on that issue, with a notable exception of Aisha, while the Aloha, Aisha was of the opinion that it doesn't matter.

That it doesn't matter if

the nursing occurs within the first two years or outside of the first two years. That's whenever it occurs.

This renders marriage impermissible?

Is the relationship established with nursing or with the milk itself? For x? For example, donated milk? Ah, yes, yes, yes, very good. Very good.

It has to do with the milk

whose milk it belongs to. So if somebody pumps and they pump the milk into a bottle, but then they hand it to somebody else, and somebody else feeds the baby, that bottle, it's still the milk from the person. Right? It has to do with the what's literally making up your cells.

Right? That's the reason behind it and Allah knows best.

So the majority thing, as we said is that with nursing that counts here is only the nursing that occurs within two years. Nursing after two years is permissible according to the majority. However, it does not render people

off limits when it comes to marriage. Now, what if the child Wiens before two years, and then they nurse after having weaned within the two years, but after having been weaned, does this count or no, the majority? I will Hanifa Shafi and Achmed. They said yes.

This still counts. It's still within the two years. Allah subhanaw taala. In sort of buckler, he specified two years. He didn't say anything about whether the child was weaned or not, were asthmatic Maddox and know what we're talking about is only if the child hasn't been weaned.

Getting back to one of the sisters questions in the very beginning, is this type of weaning. Let's say there's three nursing events or five nursing events, or however many that is the required according to that legal school. But it's only a tiny bit each time and even if it just gets to the throat, and then the the infant kind of coughs it up or splits it up, or whatever. Does that count? The all four of the Imams, Abu Hanifa Malik a Shafi and I'd say that yes, that still counts as I still count, so that what they looked at is the number of nursing events, and not necessarily the volume of milk that was being ingested.

What if the milk is diluted? What if it's not pure milk? Does this affect things?

A chef and he said, it doesn't affect anything, no matter what.

Even if the milk is not the majority ingredients, and what you're giving the child, it doesn't matter.

The other three schools, they said that the milk has to be the predominant ingredient. But even if it's mixed with something else, it doesn't matter.

Now, if an infant nurses from a woman, okay, that woman becomes like a mother

to that child.

All of the other children

nursed by that woman

and blood related to that woman

are also off limits for marriage for that child. But what about the husband of that woman who nursed the child? And what about his potential blood relatives? Let's say he has children.

That would be stepchildren, to the nursing woman in our example.

According to the majority opinion.

Yes, all of them are off limits. So if a child nurses from a woman, then not just that woman's other breastfed children, but all of her blood relations, and her husband and her husband's children are all off limits for marriage, the husband of the nursing woman becomes like a father, to the nursing child, when it comes to what's allowed and not allowed in marriage.

How many women? That's a good one. How many women are required to bear witness

that

so and so nursed? So and so when they were a young person?

Understand, like if I, I grew up and I was getting ready to get married, and then some woman came and said, Wait a second. No, no, no, you know, when you were a baby, you nurse from that girl's mother.

How many witnesses are required to establish such a thing?

I will Hanifa.

And even if I had said just one.

And we see now a response to the doubt that a woman's testimony is less valuable than a man's testimony? No.

Not so that has to do with

expert witness. And Islamic law. There's the concept of expert witness.

In some cases, the default in in criminal law is that is two witnesses. Here we have an example of something that can be established with only one witness.

Because women are considered an expert in this sort of thing.

And if you're looking to the wisdom, why behind and so on Salvaterra when it comes to the writing out of business contracts, why Allah equates the witness of two women to that of one man. It's because of their familiarity. Talking probabilistic reasoning. Yes, we can find we can find outliers, we can find exceptions to the rule. But probabilistically

men are more familiar with those sorts of things.

they're women. So the

reasoning behind it has to do with expert witness and familiarity. And we see this reflected in this particular issue.

A shattering dissented. He was the one who said that it requires for female witnesses trying to maintain a consistency between the business contracts in which a woman's testimony was worth that of,

I should say, two women's testimonials worth that of one man, so, a chef and he was trying to keep consistency, you see, and saying, Well, if that's the going rate, or if that's the ratio, then we'll need for women to testify to this. Whereas Achmed and I will Hanifa and Malik, in a secondary opinion said, No, this is about expert witness. Women are the experts in this field and only requires one, the official opinion of the Maliki school is that women that needs to be to female witnesses.

And I think we've run over time.

So

let's stop there. We'll try to finish this chapter of next week. We're pretty close to the end.

Pretty close to the ends.

Anybody have any questions?

Okay, I hope everybody has a great weekend. Take care