Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #27

Bismillah R Rahman Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Ashraf, an MBA almost I mean maybe you know for Latina Mohamed Salah Salah was going to sleep, Allah Houma Allenby may in fact on our on family amount and enter now has even happened yet but it means that I want to come up with a character, everybody welcome to our live in this class on the other side of heat and what's now become the fifth of divorce and everything that's related to divorce.

Let's pick up right where we left off we kind of were halfway through the first Hadith in the chapter of patience. So we had the province of Allah Holliday, who has sent him said that purity is half of belief or half of faith Alhamdulillah fills up the balance Subhana Allah fills up everything between the heavens and the earth, the Salah is no, it is light. Sadaqa is a proof, steadfastness or patience is illumination, or a different type of light.

Well, yeah, bleah as the word used in the actual Arabic of the Hadith,

of Koran has proof for you or against you. And then finally, everybody goes out and trades with his own self, either setting it free, or destroying it. And we talked about much of the first half of the Hadith, we talked about the relationship between the inner and the outer. This is something that is important and essential. We do not believe that

the inner and the outer are completely independent. Right? You won't find beauty in filth. And we talked some a little bit about this, that relationship between cultivating ourselves and especially cultivating our children so that they have a love of beautiful, a lot as beautiful and loves that which is beautiful. And how cultivating that love for what is beautiful. That inclination towards what is beautiful, is sometimes more powerful than sort of rational explanations or other sorts of things in keeping one away from sin. That's maybe we call it that little voice, right? Maybe more often than a little voice in the back of our head is this visceral reaction. Something has because

of your upbringing,

become associated with filth, or the opposite has become associated with just goodness and purity and righteousness. And this, this is a very, very hard thing to shake. And so that's one of our biggest problems in a place like the United States where we don't necessarily have the same cultural influence and education that we do back home, trying to do some work to influence as much as possible, what seems normal to our children and what seems beautiful and what seems filthy.

And so that's kind of the first part of the Hadith about the, you know, the internal and the external, the the external is meant to be a scaffolding for the internal, right, the cynic they'll say, Well, I can pray wherever whenever I want, why do I have to wait until the sun is up or down or left or right in order to pray?

Why can't I pray whenever I want and we would retort that if you left it to pray whenever you wanted, you would not pray very often. Because the dunya is too sweet. The things that you want are too appealing are too attractive or too hard to set down. We can barely set down our smartphones.

How are we going to set down everything else that we need to set down if prayer was simply voluntary? And so the external is a scaffolding for the internal does that mean that if you just wave your arms up and down and bow up and down and as the prophets of Allah Allah said um, said, Pray Peck like a chicken? If that's your if your prayer is as mindless and as mechanical as pecking like a chicken? No, it's not going to do anything for you. But that doesn't mean the opposite extreme is true either. Just doing things whenever you want whenever you feel inspired or motivated. We don't see the internal and external as necessarily in conflict we see the external as

facilitating the internal.

You have the external obligation, the external force

Are and pondering and meditation and mindfulness within that form will lead to the internal experience of faith and love and devotion. These sorts of things. So the internal and the external are inseparable, they are inseparably related and we can't imagine that one of them is sufficient without the other. Though we talked about gratitude and how gratitude fills a scale, that's one of the most important things that we can do as a human being, is to adopt an attitude of gratitude.

Just came to mind

Subhan, Allah fills the heavens and the earth, this is talking about tau hate to say, Subhan Allah, you are stating you're making an assertion that Allah is perfect. And specifically, that Allah is perfect from any sort of imperfection or deficiency, or deep or defect, shortcoming, fault, blame mistake, that's the meaning of SubhanAllah.

And so Subhanallah literally fills the heavens and the earth descriptively. Because the law said, and sort of, throughout the 17th chapter, that everything in the creation praises a lot, and worships a lot and says, Subhana Allah, whether we understand it or not. So this is a description or statement of everything that's going on around us, whether we're aware of it or not. And it's also an aspirational statement. That if we choose to,

to have our own free will join in the Subhanallah of the universe, of the trees and of the rocks of the mountains and of the rivers, then this is something that is that fills up the heavens and the earth with allows glory and the proclamation of Tao heat.

Then the prophesy said, I'm says that a solar north, he says that the prayer is light. And we talked a little bit last time about the different words of the prophesy centum used for lights here, in describing the prayer, which is known. And the patients are sober, which is Leah,

and how an Arabic of Leah is a light that is the source of light, whereas New oat is something like the moon, it does not produce its own light, but it is a reflection of a different source of light.

And this is evidenced in other places in the Quran, where Allah uses different words for the light of the sun and the light of the moon.

What what's the takeaway for us because the prayer is a reflection, talking again, about internal external, the extent to which the prayer is going to guide you

is a reflection of your presence of mind, your awareness, your mindfulness and your piety inside that prayer.

If it has none of that, if it has no mindfulness, it's simply mechanical motions, let me quick pray.

So I can get back to what I was doing.

Then, this is the packing of the chicken.

But Allah subhanaw taala, also in in sort of restaurant, 17 Chapter promised us that if our prayer was more than the pecking of a chicken,

if it had not just the external form, but the internal spirits, of reflection of gratitude of who should

have all

reverence, veneration, then it would do work. It would be guidance for us it would prevent Allah says in Surah Surah, it would prevent us from wrongdoing. And in this hadith, no, it is a guiding light for us.

Whereas patience is the source of light it is Leah. It is something that either you have it or you don't. There is no faking patients at all. There is a story where the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam, he was passing through a graveyard. And there was a woman that was at the graveyard and she was wailing. And this was something that was traditionally culture to the Arabs, before Islam that Islam prohibited this sort of excessive, dramatic

morning, right? It's not a normal, natural kind of grief. It's something that is indulgent and indulgence level of performative level of grief and mourning and sorrow.

And so the prophets of Allah Ohio said, I'm sorry that's going on.

And he told her to be patient. And the woman didn't recognize that it was the prophets of Allah who is sunnah. So she basically said, what a you know,

You don't know how I feel you don't know my situation she puts she actually cold. What's a very modern sort of response like don't judge me.

And the prophets of the Lord Ansem instructively did not say anything else. He walked away.

Well, later, the woman found out that that was actually the Prophet Mohammed.

And she felt horrified and embarrassed. And so she went and tracked and went to the prophesy Saddam's house

and apologized to him

and said something to the effect of after you left you know, I became more patient and the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he said to her patience is in the beginning of a trial.

So gently but firmly pointing out the fact that listen, patience, you have it or you don't. Patience is like a reservoir. It's something that you cultivate, you build it, you build it, you build it, you save it. It's like a we say, a piggy bank. I don't know if we have a halal version of a piggy bank, maybe a I don't know, what can we get a substitute for piggy bank, when I was growing up, there was a big, you put put away coin final a coin, save up for tomorrow. So that when the test comes, you can cash in, that's how patients works.

So if you haven't been cultivating, you haven't been gathering up your resources. When the trial comes, you're not going to have anything. So you can't fake it. Which is why the prophets Allah is Southern called it Leah. He called it a light.

Either you got batteries in the flashlight or you don't. It's either going to work, or it's not going to work.

He says Hola. Hola, salaam sadaqa? is a proof Mohan.

Oh, that's the question. Samira. That is the question how can someone who may be stuck in packing like a chicken

move themselves to sincere salah. Good, excellent.

Just like the beginning of the Hadith, there's a relationship between the external and the internal.

The prayer,

just like Ramadan

is a marathon. But it's a short marathon. Not quite as long as as Ramadan.

So if you are dressed in your pajamas, or your business attire,

and you stop and maybe your high heels and you step out and you said I'm going to run a marathon right now,

you will probably injure yourself. You certainly won't do it very well. Why? You're not prepared. You don't have the the appropriate outfit. You don't have the appropriate mentality. Your muscles aren't ready.

What's the analogy when it comes to prayer? It has to do with all those pockets of time that we waste. The prayer starts at the event.

It does for those of us who are able to pray in that sort of window, the prayer starts at the event.

If you have the ability

to pray.

When I want to say like if you're home, you're not at work, or if you're at work, but you have the ability to pray.

Kind of when you want.

Then the prayer starts at the event or I should say preparation for the prayer starts at the event.

If you're able to pray soon after the event goes off, then your smartphone should shut off.

You shouldn't keep talking to other people. You should start to think about the prayer.

And then you go and you perform

your purification. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us how to perform

purification, not just the what area to cover, did I do this? Or did I do that? But thinking

while we're doing it reflecting on Allah subhanaw taala saying Bismillah and really intending to do it, not just automatically doing.

Water is a symbol for fear, purity and purification. It's pretty much a universal symbol for that. Beyond Islam, beyond any sort of religion and culture.

So when you see the water

passing over your hands, you can imagine everything that you've done with your hands since the last prayer maybe you catch maybe you whacked your kid over the head or

or maybe you took something that was in a moment of greed. Or maybe you

did something with your hands, I don't know, it could have even been text texting or a text message that wasn't very nice or thoughtful.

You imagine everything that you've done with your hands on your waters passing over your hands, and you imagine all of the

we can say, since he's a strong word, or we can say, our shortcomings to use a little bit of a softer term, washing off with the water.

And then when you rinse your mouth, do you think about all the things that you've said?

Since the last prayer?

And you imagine, similarly, the water, cleansing your mouth, and all of those things that you said?

And your face the things that you've seen the things that you've looked at?

Maybe you were wasting time just scrolling through Facebook or looking at some I don't know. I don't know what you guys do.

Some sort of steamy soap opera or something like that. Inshallah, you're not doing that. But you know, as possible. Patriots Day Oh, there you go. Okay. Now not not, if we're doing it with a purpose, right? But like, if we're doing it just mindlessly, right, and you're gonna see things that you shouldn't be seeing. Right? Your eyes. Now you're imagining everything that you saw from the last prayer, washing away.

Your ears, everything you hear your head, your thoughts.

Our thoughts are probably our biggest culprit, or at least they're the source of a lot of our issues.

All of our need for vindication. All of our suspicion towards other people.

Oh, well, what did she mean when she said that? Oh, well, she should really think about herself. Oh, well, that was so insensitive of him.

He's just trying to do this that isn't an all this sort of internal talk, wiping it, clean cleansing it when you wipe the water over your head,

your arms,

your feet,

representative of the things that you've taken, the things that you walk towards, literally and figuratively. Where are you going in your life?

Are you walking on the path

that Allah wants you to walk on? Or are you kind of stuck in the road? You kind of meandering off this way in that?

All of these sorts of things if you actually take time to think about this stuff when you're making mobile. And then you approach the prayer. And before you're in the prayer before you raise your hands to say Allahu Akbar, you just think okay, this is the her prayer. It's for rakaats I'm going to pray in sha Allah and I hope that a lot accepts it from me, Miss Mala Allahu Akbar.

You're going to have a better prayer.

If when you're done your prayer, you sit you don't take out your phone.

And you actually try to do the F cough the prophets of Allah Allah yourself Sallam did and reflect upon what they mean.

You're going to have a better prayer. If you do the Sunnah prayers the prophesy Salam did before and after the prayers, you're going to have a better prayer. And if you've noticed if there's one thing or one general principle for all of what we've just said here in the last five minutes, it's a Hadith of the Prophet sly Saddam and Arjuna Muna shaytaan.

Haste is from the devil.

Paste, ruins, everything haste, ruins, intention, haste, ruins, mindfulness, haste, ruins, crucial piety, reverence, all these sorts of things. It takes a slow prayer movement, just like there's a slow food movement, right? Like, instead of the fast food movement, the slow food movement came to replace it. We need a slow prayer movement, a slow whoodle movement.

And that's extremely hard, given the way that our society our modern society is structured. But it is possible. It is possible so that's your battleground.

And Insha Allah, may Allah give us all success.

The other thing is to understand what you're saying. That's why the study of Arabic is worship is are you bad?

Understanding classical Arabic understanding the meaning of the sorrows that you recite, understanding the meaning of the call that are part of the that are part of the prayer. This is another thing that's very, very key towards having

Better prayer.

No, that was really nice, masha Allah, but it took us far off topic. No, but that was thank you for that.

The promise is that I'm said that charity is proof, Salah is proof.

It's proof of sincerity simply because it goes against our material interests. It's very, very easy to do things in religion or spirituality, when they are convenient for us and they align with our interests, we want to be seen in a certain way. We want a certain reputation, we want a certain status.

Charity, especially if it's done secretly runs against all of that runs against all of that. And so therefore, it is a clear proof of true faith.

Patience is a lights we talked about. And finally, the Koran is a proof for you and against you this is about and this is very important given today's climate, or at least religious Climate

Accord as proof for you or against you. That means that we need every individual needs an external authority

to keep themselves in check. Because people can become susceptible to delusion, and wishful thinking. And we know that the devil wants to assist us in that delusion, and wishful thinking. And so if our religion and if our spiritual practice is simply this cocktail of social media, self help platitudes.

Do what you love. Follow your heart.

You know what I'm talking about all these sorts of things, live your best life, be unapologetic things that are so general enough to that they can mean anything to anybody,

almost to the point where they're meaningless.

If that is our religion, and our religion is only that, then it really is just we're worshipping ourselves.

We're using some sort of

external something not as a check against ourselves and wishful thinking and delusion. But we're actually grabbing onto something and using it as justification for whatever we want it to do anyway.

So the Koran being approved for us or against us means that the Koran is a rock, it is what it is. And that doesn't erase multiple interpretations that are scholarly to Jewish tradition. It's not erasing that, but the fact that there's an external morality, to which we compare ourselves to which we conform ourselves that dirty word and American culture conformity

is extremely important to keeping us accountable and to keeping us honest.

That's what makes the court Anna proof for or against us. It's our regulation, our self regulation mechanism. Finally, the prophesy centum compared our lives to a business deal yourself. And that includes your body, your time, your money, your talents, your friendships, your relationships,

is your capital

is the forward payments, the loan that Allah has given you, to see what you're going to do with it.

So each individual, they either set themselves free, and what he means by this as in the afterlife. With this loan, they use this loan, they invest in what's going to pay dividends, and what's going to pay off in the afterlife, or they squander it. And then the Day of Resurrection is the day when the debt must be repaid. And if there's nothing to pay back, then it will land you in the other place. And we ask a lot of protects us from that.

Any questions about this hadith that took us to the end of the first half of class

and then we'll roll with some

divorce law Insha Allah

we had left off the very end we kind of rushed to the end of hola recall that hola is a different type of divorce that's initiated by the woman in exchange for a part or all of her dowry. Okay.

And it is whatever literally whatever they agree upon. So it can be just a token, or it can be all of it. And according to the majority, it cannot exceed it, because that would defeat the entire purpose. So just a brief recap of the final rulings regarding this type of divorce.

Recall that with bollock with a divorce that is initiated by the man in which he relinquishes and re forgoes. Any sort of compensation is in terms of the dowry.

I recall that in that type of divorce, there was a

waiting period, okay. But the waiting period was also a reconciliation period, right? The the clock started ticking, and you have three menstrual cycles to kind of make up. And if you made up then you're still together, you don't have to worry about any sort of divorce if you didn't make up either by action or by word, then by mere expiration of the clock, then you your divorce is finalized, in the sense that you require a new marriage contract to get back together. So the question now is okay, we know that women have this waiting period, if you are a menstruating woman, it's three menstrual cycles. If you're a non menstruating woman, it's three months if you're

pregnant, it's the term of your delivery.

The term of your gestation technically, it would be better to say.

So we know that this other type of divorce initiated by the woman for an exchange in some or all the dowry also has a waiting period. Does that also imply this reconciliation period?

Or is it finalized immediately upon agreement?

If they sleep together?

After agreeing to this particular separation, if they sleep together during her waiting period? Does that mean they come back together? Or does that mean that they've committed a sin?

The majority of scholars say that that means they've committed a sin. There is no getting there is no reference automatic reconciliation with this type of divorce.

So everybody understand this. So the woman has a waiting period anyway, because for other reasons, but the waiting period is difference in hola in this type of divorce initiated by the woman in that this is not an automatic reconciliation period as soon as terms are agreed to the divorce is final. And they require a new marriage contract to get back together.

Okay.

Okay, yes, yes, yes, we covered that. Okay. And then

what if they want to remarry? Oh, good. What is the wisdom behind this? The wisdom behind this and Allah knows best is to not

what do I say? How do I put it

to not enable these sorts of things?

To be punishment for the woman? Okay, so Allah specifically says in the Quran, don't play games with this process of reconciliation and things like that. Okay. Like don't use it to punish the, to punish the wife by being held in limbo.

And so And Allah knows best, it seems that in the *ty out, there's a recognition that if the woman is desperate enough, or unhappy enough, we should say, because there's a difference situation if she's actually desperate.

If she's unhappy enough to initiate the divorce herself to be willing to part with some or all of her dowry,

then the need for allowing the time for reconciliation is not the same.

And Alana is best.

If they want to remarry, with a new contract, are they allowed to remarry during the waiting period? Yes, yes, they are.

And that concludes

the chapter on that type of divorce. So we've covered two types of divorces. There's others, we'll get there. But the next chapter or the next part of the book of divorce has to do with going back it's almost like a halfway in between the two. Okay, so the first divorce we talked about a bullock is possessed by the man meaning it's initiated by the men. And it's done, where the woman keeps the entire dowry, and we set okay, this is defined by being possessed or the right of a man. Is the husband allowed to give that right over to his wife?

Is he allowed to say listen,

this is I give that right to you, you can decide whether you get divorced or not.

And this actually happened and this is one of my favorite stories from the Companions because it's hilarious, where I forget the names of the companions at the moment.

I love these stories because you can imagine

anybody's saying this, okay, so a woman said to her husband, she said basically like, you better be thankful that you have divorce because if I have the right to divorce,

basically like you'd be gone like that.

And then he, in his moment of anger said, oh, yeah, well here I give it to you take it, take the right to divorce.

And she said, Fine, I'm divorced or your divorce like three times less like that. And so they had to come to the Prophet. So I said, I'm gonna straighten it out. So this actually happened. And the Prophet saw a salon herself. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself gave his wives the option.

Right? The famous eye of the Quran,

when they're given the choice, if you want the things of this world, I will release you.

But if you want something better the afterlife, then you can stay with me the problem is that I'm gave over relinquish that right of Bullock, this isn't a hook, there's no compensation, there's no exchange, he he turned over his rights to divorce to,

to his wife, or his wives in that case. So this is something that is

legitimate, according to the vast majority of scholars not even worth talking about the scholars who disagreed with this thing in principle, in principle, this thing is real. A man can and that means that a man can initiate say to his wife, listen, it's up to you. You want to divorce, you got a divorce, or the woman can ask for it.

A woman can say, Listen, would you give me a divorce if I asked for it? If you said yes, okay.

Then this is this type of divorce. It's the first type of divorce, except he has transferred his rights to her.

Now, it gets messy.

What if he transfers his right of divorce to her? She takes up takes him up on it and divorces

can he back out?

Can he say no? That's not what I meant.

Can he say sorry? I changed my mind.

There are different opinions, the opinion of Ollie and even will say it I said no, never. He can't back out. He can't do anything. Once he has relinquished his right. It's not his right anymore. It's hers.

ematic Rahim Allah.

He said that

the husband is not allowed to dispute

the act of divorce in and of itself. But he's allowed to dispute the number. What do I mean by number I say let's imagine that.

We said before a very you know earlier on that if a husband were to divorce his wife, three times, even one go, you're divorced, you're divorced, you're divorced. That means that bone, the case is closed, she waits for her waiting period. And they cannot remarry until she remarries and consummate that marriage with somebody else. As punishment for the dude.

This is innovation, this is sinful. But the majority of scholars said that if it happens, yes, it is valid in the sense that it's recognized. So what if a husband turns over the right to divorce to his wife? He says, Listen, if you want to divorce, take it. And then she says, I divorced you three times done. Bye bye.

What if and then he's like, Wait a second. Wait a second. I didn't mean three times. I meant just once.

This is what we're talking about. This is the difference that Maddox says Maddox says that he can not dispute the fact that he gave her the right to divorce, but he can dispute the number.

And so, if he says he only intended one then it becomes one divorce.

Whereas the Shafi and admin they are of the opinion that he is allowed to dispute both this occurrence and entirely and the number should he wish.

If the wife chooses divorce, okay, she says you've given me the choice I choose divorce.

Is this divorce finalized immediately? Or does her waiting period also double as a reconciliation period? Like in all that,

like in the scenario if he had just an

shoot himself.

The majority here EMA EMA medic and Yama Sheffy and Ema Akman said that her waiting period doubles as a reconciliation period. What that means is that if they make up through words or through intimacy, then they are back together. There's no divorce. It's all peachy

Imam Abu Hanifa. dissents he says no.

If he gives over his right of divorce to her and she takes him up on it, then that divorce is final. It's just like Hoda, in the sense that they require a new marriage contract to get back together. And her her waiting period is simply her waiting period, it is not waiting for the contract to finalize as well.

Okay, that issue is not so important. Let's go the next one.

Is he allowed to take back? What if she hasn't decided yet? Okay. So the husband now he says, Listen, you can I know, you know, I made up, I messed up, I made a lot of mistakes, you can have the choice to divorce me or not? And she's thinking about it. She hasn't given an answer yet. Can he take it back?

Before before she takes him up on that?

I will have Eva and Malik say nope. Once the cat's out of the bag gets out of the bag. He can't take it back. Whereas a Chevy and atman they say yes. Yes, he is allowed to take it back if she

if she has not decided.

When that takes us to the end of that chapter, that's called a technique well to hear, right that has to do with this transfer of the right of divorce to the woman.

I don't know. And maybe you guys have never heard of this before. But this is actually a useful thing. If there is a woman and she wants a divorce,

but she does not want to part with part of her dowry. And especially if she's in economic hardship, then her first decision should be to ask her husband for a divorce. If he gives her the right to divorce, then she can take him up on that and not have to part with any of her dowry. After that, if that doesn't happen, if he doesn't agree, then they can move on to a whole. And if there's specific circumstances, then it can even

it can even go to other types of divorce, such as complete nullification or separation through a third party. We'll get to that later. Um,

okay.

We're at the end of class period. So I'll just give you an idea of what's coming up next. So the next part in divorce law has to do with looking at the pillars of divorce itself. There are three basic pillars of divorce and by pillars, we mean an essential component of divorce. The first is the formula, or the proclamation of divorce or the announcement or declaration of divorce, what counts as a declaration of divorce and what doesn't? Does one have to use the word divorce? Can they work use other words? Can they use slang? And how much can

I say? How strict or lacks Are we willing to be with those sorts of linguistic kind of ambiguities, especially if there's a disagreement? He says he meant divorce and she's been realized that he meant divorce or vice versa.

The second we're going to look at who is permissible to divorce and who's not.

Okay, and then the third essential elements

is getting more into some specific rulings of what happens. What happens to women, what's the procedure, what's the son of going through the process of divorce and what's not. And that should take us I believe, to the end, though, after we go through those three pillars

that should pretty much be the end of the chapter on divorce.

Yes, any questions?

Amelia

Okay everybody have a good night in Sharla and I look forward to the next class together so don't worry come off tomorrow