The Struggle for a United Community – Dogma Disrupted

We are to unite as Allah commanded in the way Allah commanded. There's variation the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught and they're not a matter of conflict or like diametrically opposite they're reconcilable differences. These are not right and wrong. They're right and right so let's let's get down into these different Yeah, sure.

Salam aleikum ruff. Hello, welcome back to dogma disrupted today we're going to talk about unity and differences in the OMA a very, very important topic that has a lot of confusion surrounding it. Some people think that in order to be united, we can disagree about anything. And then some people have the opposite opinion that basically it's a free for all and we can have any disagreement whatsoever, which begs the question of what does truly unite us as Muslims. So today to help us navigate this topic, we brought back our beloved Sheikh Mohammed shonali, welcome back to the program.

So let's get right into it or what is the status of disunity in Islam? Is this unity something that is a significant threat or not?

Certainly, I mean, as the scholars put it, because the verses and Hadith are so clear.

Let me rewind and say Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah all animus IBH Marian.

There is nothing more emphatically

enjoined in the Quran and Sunnah after to hate for the Muslims then uniting upon that so hate. You know, Allah azza wa jal often speaks about brotherhood with

the widest net if you will, when he says enamelled me Nona. All of the believers are in a single or are upon a single brotherhood, fraternity, brotherhood and sisterhood, of course,

we have the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam warning before his departure that there has curled up on you the disease of the nation's before you, which is envy. And of course, that's what eats away at the Brotherhood fabric, the social fabric has said, well, bah, bah, and then eventually you're envying the blessings of it transfers to the blessing himself, right? Then hatred, he said, envy, then it becomes hatred. He said, and that is the shaver. And he said, I don't mean that would shave his hair, but that would shaves off the entirety of the religion. So it's almost like the religion at its most fundamental level is about to hate. But without the Brotherhood, you will not

maintain it. And you may actually reverse your commitment to to hate.

As our teachers used to say, if your brother for the sake of Allah, you can't get past his differences, or your differences with them, then your issue isn't even with your brother anymore. It's with Allah subhanaw taala himself, how could you not accept as your brother, someone whom Allah has accepted, as worthy of being a servant? Give us an illustration of how that happens. It's really fascinating to think of the jealousy Okay, jealousy, and then it grows. And it festers. Until someone becomes Yeah, displeased, that somebody else obtained some sort of blessings are status or something, make it very, very plain for us, like an example of how that then undermines the religion

itself. Because some people will think, oh, that's just their individual problem, they're going to be sinful. But we're saying this is an existential threat, right? To the establishment of a snap, or the longevity of Islam. So how do those two things relate? Right? Of course, I mean,

believe it or not, this is these are all the the muddy battlegrounds of the ego, like we we talked about ego all the time, but

all of the the damage you may see on the world stage with Muslims or with non Muslims. Look at how much damage the ego when left Unchained, you know, can cause what is racism. But it is my race, like no one's actually defending someone else's race, maybe in the spirit of justice or something, but they don't actually anyone who believes in a superiority, dynamic doesn't believe in anything but their own superiority. If you think of even like blood is blind patriotism, or blind like nationalism, tribalism, and then you just have sort of the group isms, even within the religious languaging. So this we call being identity centric, and identity centric religiosity is actually an

egotistic religiosity. It's not God centered. And so Allah called the pseudo hate because every good is found there in this world before the next.

If you reverse it, then you can expect anything from anyone, even in the name of the religion, they just tokenize that it's a veneer, but it's really about, you know, identity centrism. It's about me and who's close to me and who agrees with me, and who looks like me, and that's it. Yeah. Pamela? No, that's exactly what I wanted to tease out. A couple of things occurred to me as you were describing that one of them how, how many disagreements and controversies at the base level. Even sometimes, unfortunately, between the or the mat go back to has it, go back to envy of one another?

And I'm sure you've seen it. And I've definitely seen it in my studies, that one of the why, why is this so dangerous? Because people will start to conscript the deen in their effort to basically score points against somebody else, right? Or somebody else, whatever differences that they have. Now when they have them in their crosshairs, they're targeting that person. And any little piece of evidence whether it comes from the Dean or somewhere else, or something that's like the other person is slipping up. Now the entire person's orientation is just grabbing whatever they can, right it's like a it's like a, you know, a bar fight like grabbing whatever they can, in order to punish the

other person and to prove them wrong or to one up them or to knock them off of a pedestal. And then that process Yeah, so sorry, she,

it is so interesting, how it knocks you off your otherwise very methodical, very sort of scholarly astute methodology. Yes. Like when I hate you.

I will consider a suspicion about you fact, right. And then think of group ism as well. When I love you, I will consider facts about you. unfounded rumors. Yeah. And so in that case, we are no longer abdulhak. We are not the servants of the truth. We are not Allah's name is the ultimate truth. And so we are obligated to pivot with truth wherever it goes. We're no longer that person anymore. Yeah. SubhanAllah. Yeah. SubhanAllah. I mean, one of the things this was a nice little litmus test, that shakeup coalition Katie introduced to us, you know, he said that one of the ways that you can tell if you're on the right path, is if you're equally happy that someone is being guided by other than

you, right, so you put out a video, somebody else put out puts out a video, and someone comes to you, and they say, Yeah, I'm not really very, you know, I'm not a big fan of your lectures that you kind of boring. But But shakin, shonali the history of his fire, you know, if you can say like, take that with a smile, and say, I'll handle that. I'm so glad that you found something that is speaking to you that's held that's holding you on to this Deen, then that sincerity, right? Whereas, whereas if you're being eaten away by by hassad, by jealousy and envy, then the temptation is realized is to be like, Oh, well, we hear this all the time, right? It's like, well, I don't agree with everything.

He says. Yeah, no, duh. Right. It's like, nobody agrees with everything that anybody says. But what I'm doing is I'm throwing shade. And now it's like, well, he's got this mistake over here. Oh, yeah. You know, make sure we are sometimes here's another one we hear, make sure we should be taking from the major scholars, right, keep an eye on them that we shouldn't be taking from you. And all of these sorts of, you know, little tactics, we're so sneaky. We're so suave and sneaky when it comes to the ego and sort of this game that we play of throwing shade at other people out of envy. Subhanallah, like the vast majority of the time, it at least occurs to me that it's out of nd love

protect this, but you're absolutely right. I mean, the second thing that it was getting me thinking about, you know, you know, sorts of Bukhara and Al Imran but especially sort of Bukhara, like one of these, one of the main I think points and you just mentioned it is about relating to truth versus identity. Right. And this is something that, you know, we both teach for legacy, you know, I hammer into the kids like all the time, like, look at how many straw iOS specifically, and then Assata, right, but they, they basically, it was like they were one of the kids who the teacher gave them something, okay. And they imagined that their worth was because the teacher only gave it to them.

Right? And then if the teacher turns around and gives it to something to somebody else, now they're upset. Now, it's not special anymore. Right? That's basically what Benny saw. And then Assata and the Christians did for Allah's guidance, his prophethood, His books, His revelations, right? They got it sent down to them. And they're misinterpreting that act, as well. This is because we're special. This is because we're God's chosen people. This is because we're the saved sector where this or that? And so they construct this group identity, it's no longer about following the truth. They construct a group identity around it. And then now Allah's guidance and prophethood and book go

to somebody else. They're like, what, wait a second. It's like, we'll never believe we can't believe and there's where that jealousy comes in. And Allah calls it jealousy. We're never going to believe we're going to fall fine. We're going to you know, make unrealistic demands on him to prove right his his iPhone. Yeah, exactly. So Subhan Allah so all of this has taken us a little bit on a tangent but it it gets back to how important unity is in Islam. Okay, that unity is something is bound to oughta commands and expects and it's not just

it doesn't just have political ends, right. So a lot of people I think they hear the word unity and they're thinking, okay, yeah, well, we need to be united for politics. That's true. But we

You also need to be united for Islam to actually thrive and survive, even in your own heart as an individual. Because if you don't, then you're going to get wrapped up in this other thing, and we jealousy, etc.

So maybe maybe we can go through I know that you've done some work on this already. What are the different causes of unity? Assuming this unity, why does this unity happen? And then we'll transition I think, to talking about

our sensors, right? When it comes to picking out this unity, because some people have sensors that are too sensitive. They think that everything is this unity. And then some people have sensors that are dead, and they're not working anymore. They think that everything's fine. But first, why does this unity happened in the first place. I mean, it's a mere human alone, and he was speaking about at four o'clock, speaking about this unity, he does this very clean job of consolidating it all into root causes. And those are LJ low oil belly, which is ignorance, just lack of education and belly, which is trans aggressiveness. We spoke a little bit about transgressive, and it's when like you

should know better or you do know better, but you're sort of

justifying for yourself double standards to the end of it. But lack of education is a big part of it, because we are to unite as Allah commanded in the way Allah commanded. So there are artificial conflicts that could happen sometimes. Or there could be an overlap city. Balance is good everywhere, right? So when artificial conflict being overly stringent, being too tight, there are some differences that aren't even disagreements meaning they're a matter of variation and not a matter of conflict or like, diametrically opposite there reconcilable differences. So there's variation, the Prophet sallahu alayhi wa sallam taught in the wordings of the event, or approved of

there is variation in the Quran out of the Quran. But these are all variations of differences. These are not right and wrong, they're right and right. And in that stuff, it becomes absolutely wrong, to disregard to sort of object to any of this because you in fact, are objecting to something taught by the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. It's not even like an interpretation of what the prophet may have done this stuff he taught and there's others that have and so unless you identify that first, you just need to hold off like which one is this and the even in Islamic work.

Everyone's got a niche like even the Sahaba some of them were educating others more than anything else that was their strength, demotic Allah, others were very, very invested in you know, injustice, social justice, the justice between people, like I was already a little taller, and the some of them were, you know, we're known for their Subhanallah they're very delicate natures and spirits and o'clock and, and a bad it was phenomenal. And very few of them, actually, none of them acceptable book was Abu Bakr, about the Allah Han. And it's an important point because with variation differences, you got to give room for people, you know your opinion, we have that spiritual

personality assessment which is useful to let you know you can be 100% Muslim, when you're covering your bases, but really excelling after that in whatever Allah has blessed you enough strengths. But with a worker, the hola Juan when the Prophet SAW Selim said whomever like doubles their contribution spends a pair in the path of Allah, he will be called from the gates of paradise and it will be said, this was a great decision you made and then whomever is called whomever is of the people of Salah, meaning they excelled in salah they will be called from the gate of Salah, and whomever was from the people of meaning distinguished in Zakah. They're going to be called from the

gate of charity and whoever was distinguished in Jihad will be called from the gate of jihad. And whoever was distinguished in fasting will be called from the gate of Orion. And then Abu Bakr Radi Allahu Allah and he said, Yeah, Rasul Allah, will anyone get to, you know, choose from all eight?

The variety, right, he's saying, can someone sort of subsume or could have all of this.

He said, Yes, and I hope that you will be that person or of those people. Abubaker

it's beautiful about our bucket, but it's also sort of a reminder for everyone else that don't expect of anyone to be able to bucket let them you know, can have an exceptional well roundedness like most people aren't going to be the, you know, four season athlete and on the Dean's list and also, you know, like all the other sort of, you know, doing everything but that was Abu Bakr right even more so. You know, I remember Abdullah and Miss early just a quick anecdote that came to mind, even mosteiro the Aloha used to not fast, almost that all the voluntary fasts because it would weaken his body. He was a very frail build from being able to recite and teach the Quran and he was,

you know, the utmost authority in the beauty of it

recitation and I took 70 Surah, straight from the mouth of the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to the end of his accolades. So, it even in Mr. Booth, right?

Yeah, no, Mashallah. Now that's important, right? People need to be given room to breathe, right and room to be fully Muslim. And it's an important, you know, a really, really important way of thinking about it. As you mentioned, this is the whole sunnah. Right? So I think we fall into that problem a lot where we pick one thing and say, This is the Sunnah. And then we assume that anything else displaces it. And is not the sun the No, it's like we're talking about embracing the whole sun, right? Whether it's the theatre arts, or the different sort of ways of worshipping and being and things like that. Now, so that's, that's tremendously significant. So let's, let's get down into

these different. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay, of course, conflicts, we don't mean hostility, we mean that these are views that can't simultaneously all be correct. But there's something that has to be kept in mind. Some of these, we have to excuse some of them, we won't excuse. So when there's conflictual conflicts, like, you know, how that how lawful or unlawful. Some of this is excusable, because we can't know in the life of this world, which one is actually the stronger view. So it's an epistemic problem. It's a problem that we Yeah, it's not that objectively, or what we would say ontologically Yes, there's one truth but epistemic ly, we're limited in knowledge, and we can't know for certain

which one is completely right. And that's the view of the majority, at least the majority of soulful scholars believe in the concept of their call that will help their meaning they sort of consider wrong one of the two opposing views and for rational reasons, you know, they can't both be right at the same time in the same way, logically speaking. So with those conflictual views, there's right and wrong, but we don't know it, it's speculative. That's why they're called ven knee issues of unknown means speculative, unclear, and Allah was not forgetful and Allah azza wa jal was not limited if he wanted to make every last ruling in Islam. As you know, Allah Rocklahoma, Allah says

and others, so definitive that no two people would ever disagree on his intended, you know, the intended meaning there, it would not be hard for him to do that. Yes, rather, since life is a test, not just a test of conduct. But that's not reality, a test of intelligence, he wanted to test who's going to be more objective than others, who's going to be more committed to learning than others? Who is going to be more self restrained to concede, once they get convinced that not their view turns out to be kind of stronger, at least for me. And so the stronger view in the excusable issues, that is never an absolute, we have to keep this in mind. And many students of knowledge when they

finally get to that level, that was sort of filth, of legal theory, and there's like, wait a minute, so the stronger view thing was alive, so not a lie. It's subjective. You know, exactly why that's important, subjective, and individualistic it often right. It's not necessarily circumstantial, like contexts, different eras.

So that, that is the the excusable, you're obligated to excuse those nowhere of the backup just for one second, so we get the big picture. So we're talking about a typology of differences. Okay. So the first category, we said, they're not really even differences. They're variety. And they're actually the entire sun. Right? Things are probably said, I'm taught things a lot as well revealed that if you're actually shaving them off, you're actually shaving off is that you're actually like, like abandoned invading this unity. Yes, you're creating this unity through your quixotic English major quixotic sort of quest for false unity. Okay, and the second, the second category are things

that are actually disagreements, but we're talking about there are valid disagreements. Within that, we said that there are a lot there, right? There are certain things that Allah subhanaw taala made so obviously clear that there's no room for interpretation. There's no room for differences of opinion. That's not we're talking about, right. But there's a whole lot of things. And actually more than I think the average person would like to admit, the average practicing Muslim would like to admit that our view on the issues meaning that they're not CO out there, they're not absolutely completely settled and set issues that now we are in the realm of yes, there are multiple

interpretations, and those multiple interpretations are valid. That's where we're at. Right, fantastic. Yeah. So you know, there's a few things here that I've come across in dealing with people that number one, people can be a little bit uncomfortable with this and that's why I said it's part of its you should expect life to be confusing. A little bit. The test of life. This is the examination room, you shouldn't expect to have the answers. You set up beautifully. And I'm just gonna interrupt for one second because it actually demonstrates your sincerity right? If there's that little bit of wiggle room

room where something is not like painfully obvious, it will say a lot about an individual, what they're going to do with that wiggle room, whether they're going to take a conservative opinion or a stronger opinion or how they're going to relate to that sort of ambiguity, I think says a lot about our moral character. So that's a very important point. Guards not trying to win an argument with you, he can win if you want me to win. Right. You know, some doctor Hatter? Actually, he pointed out for a long time ago, it's always stuck with me. If God wanted, he could have sent Moses without a speech impediment. Yeah. If God wanted, he could have sent Jesus without the social impediment of

not having a father in a patriarchal society. Right. But he's not trying to win an argument. He is He gave you enough reasons to believe in Jesus enough reasons to believe in Moses peace be upon him. So if you want to now look for an excuse to be dismissive of their ministry. It is right now, if Allah wanted, there could have been a bigger difference between the the genetic makeup of the chimpanzee and the human being, right. Yeah, but that's not trying to win an argument. Yep. The person who's looking for the excuse to reject will find that excuse. And that person who's looking for an excuse to believe we'll find that excuse. Yeah. So how, so that that's the first thing I

wanted to say about you know, why wasn't it's clear. It's God's wisdom. And here's some examples of that even in sort of the the the endorsement of Prophets, it could have been more quote unquote, waterproof. Right. But no, that's not the point. The next thing I want to tell you is that the matters of agreement, as you put it are far less than the matters of disagreement in terms of the practice, the applied law, the day to day. But that does not mean that the matters of agreement in Islam are like nil or insignificant. The books of each mass scholarly consensus, unanimous agreement, those who have no husband go to Monday, those are significantly bigger, significantly

bigger than the constitution of any modern day country, right.

And even the Constitutions being shorter, are still being interpreted and reinterpreted. These matters of each man are decisive, and conclusive and clear. And it's actually of the reasons why the Muslims are united relatively compared to every other civilization. 1400 years later, Allah created and protected the set. Allah is One no disagreement on what that means. The Quran is his book, no disagreement, that's his book. Mohammed Salim is the final prophet, no disagreement there. And being good to your parents is mandatory murder is haram. Fornication and interest are intolerable. We have a lot that 100 Backbiting is haram. You know, pork is not. So all of this is actually a very

substantial framework. So huddled around as Muslims historically even so it's great. So don't be like, oh, man, we what can we actually agree on? No, we have more to agree on than anyone else. And that's of the reasons, by the way that we just had an open house here and the most of yesterday, the day before. And he told me like, how do you deal with other mosques? I was like, I know what you're saying. You probably Google the denomination when you're going somewhere. When you're on vacation, somewhere to worship, I Googled Mosque near me. Right. And

people don't appreciate that, like comrades appreciate that. And people who understand a little bit more, but that is extremely significant that if you're a Presbyterian, okay, when you're traveling, yeah, you're only looking for a Presbyterian Church. And it's not like this is not, it's not even analogous to like Sunni, Shia, like, like the the degree of denominational. I don't want to say bigotry is too strong of a word. But exclusivity, maybe, let's say, within Christian practice is very significant. Like especially, you know, Catholics, you're not even going to be able to get the Eucharist, if you show up from mass and you're not, and you're not an actual Catholic, or maybe

you're reformed or maybe you're even within Yeah, even within the denomination, there's the membership issue and the times, right, yeah, so it's like, very, very exclusive. Whereas Yeah, subhanAllah, you just pop in Google Maps near me, and you go and once in a while, we have a laugh because you stumble into something that's beyond the beyond the pale.

But normally, normally nine times out of 10, you're gonna be safe, and you're gonna have a, you know, a normal sort of sunny experience. So shift. The last thing that needed to be said on this issue is how do we know how do we know what is excusable? What is inexcusable? Yes. So I remember it was earlier himolla, you know, he's great chef, a scholar, and he's beyond needing an intro, but he was especially known for his acumen or soul felt in legal theory, and all the discussions today are discussions of legal theory, for the most part, even though it does sort of touch creed. And we should also put a disclaimer out there in a minute about this, but he said, Look, when the scholars

of Islam, they're respected and they know each other mainstream Sunni scholars disagree on an issue. And they don't the scholars forget us messy laymen. And they don't excommunicate one another right like they don't have

A blacklist one another, then this is he offers two very nice sort of markers for that defines, or the boundaries of disagreement. He said number one, that is their agreement actually, yes, that this agreeing here is permissible. Yes. Right. So what's called in the books of sorts called Hadith called Sanath, right? Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah, it must be in those views. Yes. And therefore we're going to agree to accept those views. Conversely, it also means the truth cannot be outside those views, because they will no would not be left in the dark for a minute. There would never be an error upon which there wasn't a correct opinion. So if they're disagreeing that me, and they're

not excommunicating each other, they're not sort of like cancelling each other. That means they're agreeing on the fact that you can disagree within these views. Yes, he said, the second thing, this proves when they disagree and accept that disagreement from one another, is that the matter is one knee, it is excusable. And that's powerful. Because many times we come forth with the evidence of our mother herb or non meth hub, whatever it may be, say, but the evidence is clear. But like respectfully, respectfully, if it were clear, with these people, who are far more intellectually enlightened, and gave it far more thoughts, and were far more spiritually refined, which means like,

entitled to the correct understandings, were they all in the dark? Why did they disagree? If it was that clear, right, you got to sort of like, turn the gun on yourself for a second say, wait a minute, maybe it's me? Yeah, maybe I just I'm not able to see it outside of this very limited scope. And that's my problem. You know, the scholars used to say that Sue London is from a lack of intelligence, not just a lack of edit, you know, to suspect the other party a lot of times, it's not just because you have poor manners. It's also because you have a very limited intellectual vantage point. It's almost like your imagination.

Imagination, right. Subhanallah, I have to interject with with, I've been thinking a lot about books that we don't have an English, right. And it seems to me that edge math, both theoretically, and a rundown of what is like truly agreed upon, that would be a tremendously useful thing to have in the English language. Because there's a lot of sloppiness, when it comes to you know, you and I know, if you go into an A school Factbook, you know, there are different, even differences of opinion about edge map in theory, right? You know, but these are things that edge maps kind of thrown around, right within the English speaking space, whether there is agreement or not agreement, I just feel

like it's very poorly understood. Because when you were talking, I was thinking about, well, that subtle point, which I believe is the majority opinion about the agreement upon the disagreement and the scope of disagreement, you have another sort of party that would say, well, there was a disagreement, but then everybody's sort of United on, on one, opinion. And that's edge map. And that needs flushing out. And there are layers of edge mount that scholars traditionally have spoken about that as you mount security, right and right was sort of tacit approval. But then there's also a discussion of Wait a minute, you guys just didn't have the communication channel to know that at the

same time, someone across the globe was opining elsewhere and understanding otherwise. And so these things do need some fleshing out and in Arabic and in English, actually, believe it or not, yeah, it feels like we could benefit that there's a lot of there's a lot of gray area, even just the gap between what exists in Arabic and English, which is always massive, but it feels like this could be a quick hit, and a low hanging fruit to just up to up the level of discourse when it comes to edge mount and to provide. But until then, let us say that on the individual level, no one should feel like they are authorized to state the view without there being precedent. Yes, you got to check

first, you can just assume, and on the flip side, that no one is allowed

to disregard a view without first confirming that there's no precedent. Yes. That's important. Yeah, no and precedent, then you're going to have to establish a bonafide HMR after that precedent that that was walked away from or something. Okay, but that filter, otherwise, you have no data in 1000 years? Yes. No, that let's talk about that a little bit. Because you and I can geek out about school and stuff like that. But we have, you know, a very, very low level, though it is something of knowledge compared that gives us access to certain conversations that other people don't have. Okay, so there is a difference between a layman or somebody who's not

studied, like going about these things and relating to other people's differences, right? versus somebody who has at least the tools even if they're, you know, compromised severely, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe we can talk a little bit about those differences to what because when I was watching, you know, and you have mashallah, on your messy channel, you know, you have a

A wonderful series that goes through these issues. And one of the terms that you use and I know that you're, you're translating, obviously from Arabic and you said like an independent researcher, and I was just thinking about how many people are self styled independent researchers. Right? That imagine that because they can look up something on Islam q&a In English, that they're mashallah that they're an independent researcher. And that's not what you mean. Right? So let's talk about it's right saw that, right. So let's talk about how one's level of knowledge affects how they should be coming at these differences of opinions and judgment and the first place. You know, you guys know sort of how

close I am. The love of my life doctor had someone had on there for one time I was sitting in his living room, and we were talking about some issue.

And then he turned to me and he was like, reminiscing on his like, you know, childhood and it's normal. Everyone sort of we humble in sha Allah, we get the word humble up or humble down, should I say as as age grows? And, you know, your ego turns down a few notches. And he said to me, can you believe it? Muhammad? Can you actually believe how deluded we were? There was a time when we were saying stronger view and weaker view. Before we knew, let alone mastered knew that certain sciences existed that the scholars were using to arrive at their conclusions off. He's like, Can you believe how crazy we were?

And we're like, this is exactly it. Yeah, you know, unless you bet on lava and all these instruments, sciences and how to correctly analogize and what are the categories of like, Ts and which one of them do you accept and don't you accept as a matter of principle before you even get to the evidences

and then you look at everyone else and it's just like it's pure taste. Alright guys, it's taste you know, I thought I was learning this first or I'm reacting something I really hate in society of deviation or and so Islam must be the opposite of this and pure taste subjectivity at its finest. But when we say independent researcher, we're using the word which that we are, which is much the head comes from the word jihad jihad, like exerting an effort you know, putting putting in the nitty gritty. And so those who can exhaust themselves weeding through the evidences, that is a qualification, like the problem nowadays is premature to the head Arabic. Evidences in Arabic,

right? Yeah. Um, so you know, like, some people say, Oh, I've discovered the Hadith. Well, even in Samia him alone, he has this famous book offering Madame removing blame from the great scholars of Islam. He says that there's 10 reasons why scholars disagree. And he says the least common reason is that the Hadith never reached though. Wala Hill, that's one of the most impactful sort of revelations I had when I was studying in the jamea. Because, you know, in the Kurdish area, we studied with that, Mr. Head right by and rushed. And so I coming in, I heard this line, right. It's like, maybe maybe the Hadith didn't reach and maybe he didn't hear the Hadith. You know, this is why

scholars disagreed. So I said, Okay, let's count. Right. And, and in every semester, in the Faculty of city, you have 125 Messiah, right? That you have to know for the for the exam, out of 125. For semester one. Even Ross mentions one single Messara where he says perhaps, so and so didn't didn't hear the Hadith. Almost every single issue, the difference was about, they're all using the same evidence. They're all using this Koran, the Sunnah logo, right? It's just about how to interpret. So after that, I stopped counting. I was like, This is ridiculous. You can't possibly anybody who studied even an iota. And you and I, you know, we know our level, you know, like, we're very, very

much nothing but studied, like a shred of study, right? knows that. That is not why they're into this. So yeah, let's explain to people what exactly happens, right? Like, if you talk about even Muhammad, someone's gonna tell me Mm hmm. I didn't know that, hey, that hadith is like, one of 200 of Hadith that are the cream of the crop of the summary of his method. Right? And so that, that can't be it. And so what happens is that they have a hadith for example, right? And then you get to stage two of what does actually mean, right? That's if it's authentic. Right. And so you have different methodologies on how to confirm whether it's authentic or not. Okay, so Hadith. Does it

mean anything? No, it's not even authentic. Okay? So authentic, but it was abrogated, oh is authentic, but it was specific or qualified, or unqualified, or absolute. But how do you reconcile it with this one? And I mean, if we had time we'd give actually like demonstrations, but there's a hadith, okay? It's authentic. Okay, what does it mean? Okay, that's another station of sort of splitting the hair. That way you have other Hadith that seem to say the opposite or something related. And so how do we reconcile those

That's how it all happens. What is it saying?

Doesn't it also say this? How do we put all that together? Okay, so we've talked, we've talked extensively, and I'm sure you and I can go on all day talking about the different acceptable differences between them at that habit cetera, within the scholars and why we have a passion for that, because sometimes people are overly strict, right, or they have an overly narrow conception of what is of what is acceptable. And so they're trying to actually cut out part of legitimate aesthetic, they're trying to sideline or marginalize legitimate interpretations of Assam classical interpretations of Islam. And that actually reduces the Islam that we have that's available to us

the legitimate stuff, which is why it's a problem. But let's now get into the inexcusable differences. Where do we draw that red line?

Okay, Bismillah, I would like maybe at the end of the program to give like a roadmap for the average person what to do, and navigating all these different citizens through that, but we do want to speak from a high level about, see the free for all anything goes approach as well, right, the opposite of being stringent, which is being too lacks.

Because at the end of the day, Islam does meet submission, right, submitting to the will of Allah subhanaw taala. And if there can't be certain non negotiables, about what we're submitting to, if we're just submitting any of us or submitting to whatever we may so desire, then we actually have not submitted our desire for the desire of the Divine, we're actually just pandering. We're not even thinking we're just rearranging our thoughts to defend our biases, our whims, our desires, our vanities. And then in that sense, also our God is not God, our God is our mind, our sensibility, our egos, our, our fancies. And so,

if the scholars have not

understood the text to mean as such, and this is not like a plea to authority, this is a plea for humility, like if all of the scholars of Islam and if you were to familiarize yourself with the scholarly, Scholastic tradition, it is amazing how, how impartial how neutral, how fair, principled, sincere, they were, you know, across, you know, time and space for sure they're human. But it did Islam produce or not, right, produce amazing human beings that were sincerely devout to God and not tokenizing, the sacred Revelation it did it. I mean, even some of the things that we disagree with scholars having said in the past, that it was their non negotiable objectivity that caused them to

say what they said, you know, for instance, I'll give you one example is just very profound, that the form of our hip in pre modern times the four schools of Islamic law, they believe that a woman could be pregnant for two years,

or three years or four years. And you may think, Oh, my God, this is sort of, like so archaic, and who this is, it's a shame to even mention these things. No, it's something we take great pride in. Do you know why they said this? They said this because they had to be data driven. And Islamically speaking, if a person is an upright witness, we have to accept their testimony. And they had birthing assistants, you know, tell them this woman has not had her menstrual cycle in two years, and I just delivered her baby. So again, this is like female testimony number one. Number two, they made it admissible and made a lot about it because they're trying to figure out like, How long after

divorce, can we still attribute the baby to the debt and that's why they're sort of doing this. It's not just, you know, fun facts.

And so it was amazing the scarlet tradition and continues to be the safeguard the inheritors who inherited the baton from the prophet to safeguard the deen. If we downplay that mechanism, then the deen is lost. It's totally gone. It's left to everyone's desires. Alright, America, illa Allah. And you know, to be honest, it is not just Yes, a part of it is the stringent, you know, approach of people that are, you know, causing unnecessary conflict by being so too close minded about other views that we just spoke about, that causes the equal and opposite reaction the pendulum to swing so you know, what, when, you know, it's Islam is wider than that. Islam is more merciful than that

Islam is more open than that. But more often than not the biggest factor in everyone's life is society. It is social engineering, it is conditioning and so in the age of

you know, liberality, you know, the liberal healer worldview, is that I own my free which is, of course, counter, fundamentally counter to Allah owns my life. subhanho wa taala. And I am indebted to him. And so I'm gonna say no, there could be one.

Yes, I was just gonna say There couldn't be literally anything more opposite of Islam than autonomy. Autonomy is literally the opposite of submission.

Right and Islam values freedom and we value freedom very much

But he gets to determine how much freedom he gave us. So kinda like that. Right? It is not that sort of our anti freedom is that, you know, my freedom is a gift given to me by Allah within these bounds for my own good I need those guardrails. And so those legitimate views can be seen as one of those guardrails. Like if a person were to say, you don't know what you're doing to me, by telling me that hijab has to fall into one of these two views, right?

Okay, that may seem like at face value for a moment and encroachment upon your freedom. But you may also have no idea what happens to generations later when sort of immodesty bleats right. And so, and also, if we're gonna say, it could mean anything to anyone, if hijab could just mean, you know, like, in the heart, just behavior or a longer skirt, or whatever, it's gonna be right. I mean, I gotta pick up mail example, quickly, you're gonna have to help me and I'm Tom, save my neck. But if you open the door to this as a matter of principle, then you also forego the right to say that the people who claim Islam equals terrorism are categorically wrong. Right? We got to be fair now. And

it can mean anything to anyone.

Yeah, no, that's that's a good point. And that's why it has to mean something. Right? It has to be distinguishable from that, which it isn't. Right? Well, so. And that's just any single concept. And so, you know, these things are unfortunately platitudes. Today, we say, well, this is what this means to me, or this is what this is my truth. That's why Okay, well, this is about something that's outside of you like it. It's a fundamentally I think the two different sort of orientations towards life. Like you said, Are we assuming that the self is always right, and then everything else we're manipulating? And we're bending it to the will of the self and the tastes of the self? Or are we

engaging in a process of a practice where we're trying to comport and shape ourselves, right to a higher standard, right to an aspiration? And that might be like a literal definition of gopher versus Eman.

And so yeah, this is extremely important, right? So. So it also balances those two things. Like everybody needs affirmation, but everyone also needs to be challenged. And I give the example to youth all the time. You know, imagine you had a personal trainer, right? You went to the gym, and they told you, you know, everything you do, everything you do is fine. You can do one pushup, that's great. You know, you can't do a champ. All right, you're good. You know, you're good, just the way you are. Okay, that would be humorous, but it would be a waste of money, a waste of time. And no one would accept that. But somehow we're willing to accept that when it comes to spiritual matters. When

it comes to our afterlife. When it comes to Deen. It really shows how poorly we value these things. That's what it is. Yeah, so Pamela Imams a check. It has a beautiful line, I'm not sure if it's his or he read it somewhere.

Come to Islam, come to Islam as it is, come as you are to Islam as it is very well put, that's extremely everyone's got their journey. Everyone's got their sort of pace. And we pray for ourselves and everyone else to accelerate in time.

But at the end of the day, we have to set the ideal we got to let people know where the top of the mountain is. And so those fundamental matters at least, like Mohammed, the final prophet or not, so Allah is definitely right. Is Salam mandatory or not? Yes. The way he taught it, so it was set on these sorts of things. And that's also a very important distinction between what Islam is versus what you're doing about it. Right. I think that's such a key distinction that's like, if you're not wearing hijab, okay, again, to go back to the female example, we still need to struggle to find a male if you're not praying, right? Okay, if you're not taking care of your family, like nataka,

right? If you're not, if you're not, you know, being financially responsible for your family, you're sinful, okay? Full stop. Okay. However, it's another level to say, I don't have to do that in the first place. That's not what Allah said, that's not what Allah wants from me. That's not what he meant. Right? That is a level of arrogance. That is motif is like very, very scary level of arrogance. You can be, you know, a person who is, ah, see every single person sins, every single person has things if you go across all the doors of FIP, from the beginning to the end, there's things where it's like, I do this, and I don't do that. And I do this, and I don't do that. I need

to get better at this. I'm really kind of fallen off with that. That's fine. That's life. But to say that I'm going to do this and I reject that. That is something that is

the quintessential difference between Adam Alayhis Salam And shaitan and we can never forget that. Adam always said I messed up and said, Yeah, Allah, I messed up, I had no right to do that. And that's it. He became better than he was before. By virtue of that repentance, he got to know new names of Allah like the forgiving the merciful, had he not needed forgiveness, He would never have learned it. So it is you know, frequent attendance and learning as

They call it right the fail is the frequent temps and learning Shayla and said, I don't have to listen, that's actually not a very smart rule. That doesn't even make sense because I'm superior for in the substance from which I was created. So why did shaitan leave Islam? And why did Adam not leave Islam grow in Islam? Actually, it was because this was weakness and recognize it admitted. And this was rebellion. Yeah, there's a very important difference. Yeah. So if you're somebody who, you know, let's say you're a guy and you don't pray, okay, it's like, yeah, okay. Oh, you don't pray. But ask Allah to give you the success that one day that you're going to pray, you know, if you're a

woman, you don't wear hijab, okay? That your you are where you are. Okay, no problem. But ask Allah subhanaw taala to give you the success that one day wants to, you know, to do that thing. I think that's kind of the difference that we're talking about here.

So, okay, we have about Yanni. 10 minutes, there's there's two things that we need that what you already mentioned, you said about a strategy for people going forward. But also, I think we need to run down what to what degree can we work together with people who, okay, we're not even talking about excusable differences, we're talking about inexcusable differences, somebody who thinks that the Quran was not complete, or somebody who thinks that there's a prophet after the Prophet Mohammed Salah setup, or somebody who thinks that hijab is not an obligation or thinks that the prayer is not an obligation or whatever, what degree of collaboration can we have with people who openly

contradict our deen like that?

So collaboration comes in many forms. Let me share with you one principle that

that the assembly of Muslim jurists of America crafted when they were presented with a lot of these questions in the activism from the activism circles, and they said, You are not responsible in principle. Of course, application is where sort of things could vary in perspective in analysis, but you are not responsible for who endorses you, or who supports you. You are responsible for who you support who you endorse. That's one sort of side of collaboration.

But an even earlier point is where does this come from? Like who said I can, you know, let bygones be bygones and still work with people outside of this notion? Is this just sort of like a political maneuvering or just fundamentally Islamic? No, it's fundamentally Islamic. The Quran says what I want to elevate your taqwa and aid one another in righteousness and in piety. So you can work sort of, in principle, shoulder to shoulder with someone, so long as what we're working on the banner under which we are sort of advocating if you will, is a mutually shared banner, you know, it is the common good, it is the collective good. So if someone believes that, you know, Jesus Christ peace be

upon him is God incarnate and I categorically consider that an inexcusable difference? That doesn't mean I can't you know, give out food to those with food insecurity in my local community with them? Absolutely not. So what about people within the fold as well? You know, I leave Nebuta that probably Allah Juan may Allah be pleased with him.

They use the protest in his message it against him. I get after every Salah and say in in hell, como la la, la, la, la, la, la la la, basically is you know, you sold out, you sold out,

you know, governance is only for God. And He said to them, Listen, I will promise you that three things, I will promise you number one, I will not stop you from praying with us in the masjid. The Salah is a great thing, right? And number two, I will not stop you from joining the battle campaigns with us against sort of the oppressive regimes we're fighting outside, will side shoulder shoulder we're brothers fighting for the same cause. They're calling him a disbeliever and he's saying this and number three, learn that that can be fatal. We will never initiate fighting with you. Okay.

That was sort of his approach application is another issue. But the idea that he felt that he had enough room from the Quran and Sunnah from the revealed texts to actually offer that olive branch was absolutely correct there is no there should be no difference there and even before him you know it's crazy to think that our lady may Allah be pleased with him did that crazy in a beautiful way not crazy and are the Willa derogatory way that the Khalifa just before him earthbath Or the Allah Juan was called Catherine as well and assassinated by these guys, right? That's what I said, I will not initiate so long as you guys don't take arms then you may do that blunder again. So our man Radi

Allahu, and people are saying like he's dishonest and he's materialistic and the ills of prosperity and sort of his favoritism and nepotism and they were accusing him of all this. So they surrounded his house let's see shows house as their legacy shows house, giving him a final chance to give up the reins of the

one of the local

Muslims, walks past the siege, enters his house and says to him Oh Imam you're the big EMA. You're the Mayor, Mr. President, and I pray behind an imam of fitna, one of the guy who leads my image of my salah in the local Masjid that my neighborhood Masjid is one of the people who considers you a disbeliever. When I heard Sahara Raj, and were hesitating, we don't know what to do, like, Should we just like, should we throw them out the window? Should we go open our own mosque, like what do we do? He said to them in a salata. hieromartyr Goodness, I said, Unless I see no matter whom, when I settle for what they know. And for second, my lack of limb, Salah is one of the greatest deeds about

what you're getting together for, right? If, if

people are doing good, do good with them. And if they're doing evil, then prepare yourself to perform conscientious abstention. No, I'm not going to Vietnam, right? Like we are part of this country, we're not sort of here is just like, you know, playing it. We're not a Trojan horse in the United States of America. There's so much faith that we want to offer, and that we do benefit from from being here. And there's so much that we will collaborate on. But if someone asked me to do something that's unethical for me, then hopefully I can pull a Muhammad Ali and say, I'm not down. I'm not gonna do that. Yeah, that's the idea. Yeah, so excusable, inexcusable, it's about pros and

cons. Yes. Yeah. That's really what it's about. Yes. And, and weighing that, and having, you know, and it's another discussion of, you know, it's going to take, I think,

a separate discussion to talk about that calculus of pros and cons, because it occurs to me that the only thing that would need to be sort of added to temper that calculus is also how sometimes Muslims are conscripted, right, in these collaborative efforts in a way that tokenizes us or tries to use us for certain causes. And we're not even aware of it happening. Right. So, you know, that's happened a couple of times, you know, in recent memory. But that's a separate issue, I think we should have an independent video on on sort of the complexity of today's world is the very reason why the scholars of Islam understood the need for what they call collective, which they had elected, which they had

is when you bring sort of the experts on context, and the experts on revealed text, the text and the context, and they interface, and then they are actually able to have the best shot at identifying what's really happening here. And what's most likely going to come out of this Yes, because there's a lot of of bleed, bleed over that goes on now. And this has been observed by a lot of people involved in activism across the past 1015 years, you know, you used to get together for a particular maybe you show up to, you know, a rally or something, and it's for environmental justice, and now you've got people flying rainbow flags, and and trying to make the gathering about that. Right. So

now there's a lot of sort of new things that are introduced in there. And so, you know, the the general principle that we were saying, is that yes, okay, there's the basic sort of thing, what's our objective? What are we trying to accomplish here? If it's good, then yeah, it doesn't matter necessarily, who we collaborate with, like, it's about the issue. But then there's an added layer, which needs to be unpacked at a at a future date, which is how we're now even our presence and participation being rerouted or taken advantage of in some sort of bad faith ways.

It's, it's sticky, it's not a it's not a straightforward, straightforward thing, but it's it. I think it just the complexities of it demonstrate the need for some sober and sober consideration from a lot of different VA, what and when, and who all of those have, there's no sort of interplay. I mean, even the Prophet SAW said, Look, we're not trying to have a discussion, but I think of it without, without a May Allah be pleased with him, was was deeply moved by the cause of the people and human suffering. And, you know, that's why that's why the socialists actually when they tried to, like revisionist socialists, they would invoke

because he would be telling that hadith about these issues more than anyone. So it became iconic that these are the abogado Hadith. Of course, he didn't make them up. It's just these are the ones he was speaking about most. So they sort of traced back to him more than anybody else. But the point is, the Prophet SAW Selim actually said to me, whether it's like Muslim, or a Buddha, I love you.

And I see that you have a weakness. And so do not accept to be a leader over any two people don't accept to assume the responsibility over the wealth of any orphan.

Some scholars that have you said what that was referring to was that he was so emotionally invested, that it would sometimes compromise his his discretion, long term planning and so on and so forth. Like he believed for instance, that

saving money was not allowed those things savings, whatever is extra each day, you got to like over type thing. So these sorts of things were, proceed beforehand by the private sauce

And so we too have to see things beforehand try our best, of course, they say what could this lead to?

Fantastic. Okay, that brings us I think, to some some parting advice. And now we wanted to talk about sort of the strategy for the average Muslim. How do they navigate these things? When they come across difference? What should their attitude be? So super brief, the prophet Allah azza wa jal said, like you can live a lot of selasa Allah who will never burden you beyond your capacity. And so everyone has a different capacity. There's like the novice scholar, and there's the, you know, tier one caliber scholar, there is the layman that has no access to anything, right, even if they were to, you know, reach the evidences, they mean nothing to them in sort of derived rulings perspective,

so everyone can exert their capacity to find the strongest opinion when there's a difference. That strongest opinion for the layman means the strongest scholar, because your evidence is the scholar, not the text, right. That's why the majority is the ability to evaluate the texts, and that has to be stressed. And there's a little bit of a circular sort of debate here on like, if I don't know the text, and how do I referee between the scholars, and that's a fair point. And that's why the majority, according to the claim, said that even if your capacity was fame, you're and Allah knows that from your heart, your excuse it from Allah, that I accepted, because this guy had the biggest

notoriety, believe it or not, because that was fairness. It makes sense. What else could they judge? What else do they have to go off of like most of us have more by the way, you can sort of ask the Imam of the masjid who specializes in Islamic finance. Or you can sort of network your way into a better hunch. But that's it. It's all he had, you're actually had to exert your joy and your effort to find the strongest opinion. And once you're there, you got to commit yourself to it and not not impose it on anybody. You don't have an opinion, you're a follower of someone else's opinion, because they're less likely to be wrong. So you don't take you don't take somebody else's opinion,

and then go and force it on other people and turn it into an actual people's heads. Yeah, happens a lot. And then now we go to the people that are learning that are in training. And then these people that are able to access the evidences and you know, there's an overplay in sne, I was discussing this yesterday with someone that like authorization, yes, there's a little bit of like, because of groupism. Also, there's a little bit of gatekeeper that happens with like, hey, who authorized you, but someone's got to authorize you, at the very least, like someone's got to authorize you. When we say in which to hit all of these scholars we hear about in the past, the greatest of our scholars

said I was running from giving rulings and opinions, until 70 of my teachers forced me to, as Imam Malik said, or someone else would say something similar. So when you are recognized, like peer recognition in medicine, or anywhere else, right, when you're recognized by your peers as having undergone sufficient training, and you don't have the conflict of interest of like certifying yourself, as an independent researcher somewhere, that in that case, you're going to follow the evidence and you're obligated to commit to yourself, commit yourself to wherever the evidence takes you, even if it departs or diverges from the greatest scholars, so long as it doesn't diverge from

all of them, because then that would be inexcusable. But within the excusable realm, that's what you want to do. Yeah, that's a great little point, you slipped in there, too, about the like, most things, there's two extremes right with with gatekeeping. So you have some people that have unreasonable expectations, okay. But then you have other people who take license where they shouldn't really have license, you know, they eat Jazz's that are just pieces of paper that, you know, are Ejaz, as they were in the room, right on their phones. During the stories, I have a lot of flooding right now. I'm sure you do, or, you know, showed up at a mosque in Istanbul and now, you

know, considers that some sort of ijazah to do something. Yeah, no, exactly. So So there's, there's a fine line between those and everyone has to be very sober as to their their level of knowledge and not overstate one's credentials. But I think probably the, maybe the biggest take home point is to that this is for your personal worship, and that's not necessarily for you to weaponize right against somebody else and then to go and say, well, you're doing it all wrong. so and so said this or this one Hadith that I memorized say that right, as Sheikh Abdullah used to say that fit the shape, facade fat that shape right is that if you memorize something, then we're authentic as yet

right? And then there's, there's multiple things that you haven't memorized and that have escaped you to battle a fantastic discussion you have any final thoughts to on unity and diversity you'd like to leave the listeners with today?

May Allah bless you? How about I really missed out on I sat through like very few gatherings of his and I really missed out I wasn't in Medina for that long, but you are truly blessed and privileged. And may Allah grant you do gratitude for that experience?

I mean, well, thank you. This is a wonderful discussion. Obviously, there's a lot more to talk about. We hope to have you back again soon. And may Allah restore your house to facula time and sha Allah Subhana Allah Mohammed

concetto Allah Allah Allah and Estelle Kyoko to like I said on one acre when I have to Allah