Tom Facchine – Who is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #24
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of the hokum in Islam, its use in relation to existence, and its importance in achieving the concept of enlightenment. They stress the need for people to be at a level of understanding and practice the hokum, building power, and finding the right way to pursue their beliefs. The speakers also touch on the history and reality of alcohol, including changes in rules, laws, and behaviors, and the importance of learning to match principles of Islam and finding the right way to pursue their beliefs.
AI: Summary ©
Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Ashraf MBIA will move sudden Medina Rockwood Latina Muhammad Ali here for the Salah was kicked us mean
Allahumma Alim that'd be million fat on that one fat now the amount I learned to that was even in yellow but I don't mean So then one equal Rockdoor he would care to everybody. Welcome Saturday evening to who is a lot understanding a laws names
following the book are Sharif Bozak and butter coffee the hula.
We have reached the chapter on Al Hakim al Hakim.
Two of Allah's names, Al Hakim and Al Hakim
al Hakim occurs in the Quran over 100 times.
Whereas al Hakim is considerably more rare.
known mainly through a hadith which we'll cover in sha Allah later in the class.
linguistically, the three letter root have calf and mean traces back to one general meeting and that is a minute or
a minute.
Prevention stopping
obstruction prevention.
The connection between what we use al Hakim which we usually trace, or we usually translate as the most wise, and the most just,
especially at Hakim, the most just
has to do with
the prevention of harm the prevention of chaos.
We find in many Arabic words are cluttered, which has to do with the intellect, hikma, which has to do with wisdom, the root, if you go back to the linguistic root that has to do with discipline and control.
Which is significant.
We live in a society today that doesn't think very highly of discipline or control. It's looking to devise more and more ways to break free from control.
And more and more excuses, to not have to submit to discipline.
Right? Whereas we go back into, you know, all these sorts of liberty, freedom, love, if we're to put our success our finger on the things that our society values. Very, very different from the sort of linguistic roots of this word. How come to restrain? There we go. That's the right word. restraint.
Yes, and even Faddis in his dictionary of Arabic roots gets a lot of gives a lot of examples of pre Islamic poetry, where people use the verb come to who to mean that I restrained him either an animal or a person or one's own self.
And so, hikma wisdom and hokum rule, right, authority,
Hakeem,
wisdom and fairness, all these sorts of things revolve around this similar roots about restraint
in some sense, and we're going to talk about each of these one by one Insha Allah, in some cases, it's the restraint of ignorance. In some cases, it's the restraint of transgression. In some cases, it's the restraint of yourself, in some cases, the restraint of others.
But at hokhmah hakama, at its root, has to do with restraint.
Allah subhanaw taala a couple of examples of this name.
He says, Well, he will Hakeem will hobby, and soulful and iron
and he is the most wise and the most informed
and soulless on the buffalo Allahu Aziz on hacking. This is a pairing that is very common the forehead as ease
indomitable, unable to be overcome. Hakeem wise,
Allah Spano Tata, especially pears this
after he mentions one of his who dude one of his punishments
Allahu I leave on hacking and certainly sat and Allah is Knowing, Wise just
well can Allah Who was he and Hakima in Surah Nisa as well. expansive, vast and wise and just and they relate to each other
and sort of the to Allah says Allah, Allah who will be asked I mean hacky mean isn't Allah, the Most adjust of judges or the most wise of those who give ruling?
So let's learn imfl Right Allah He ever tell the hacker man
should I desire a judge other than a loss penalty
and so on and so forth. The examples are many, most of them have to do with wisdom
and justice
or they have to do with
hokum rule, Power Authority,
in the sense that no one can prevail over a laws rule.
Talking about existence, Destiny, these sorts of things.
borne out by the observation that nobody can punish Allah subhanaw taala.
Right. So, the hokum in that sense, the ability to
institute for carry out His will is solely with Allah, everything else is contingent dependent upon other forces, not least of which Allah's Will, however for Allah. The hokum belongs to him at the end of the day, Allah will make it happen.
And no one can ask him about it. They are rather the ones who are asked
this name, being just and being wise, and they are very, very related and dependent upon one another
is one of those names, that a loss of one of the many names that have lost power to Allah loves for us to embody,
and live up to
and bring into existence, very similar to our talk about such as on Sunday night with Robert ASA Hani, the idea of Khilafah the idea of certain aspects or qualities, that if a law has left us as stewards of this creation, then there are certain qualities that are required of us as stewards of this creation in order to do things the way that Allah would like them to be done.
And this name gestures to two essential qualities that are some of the most important ones that we need to perform those duties, both wisdom and justice.
Wisdom is an extremely important thing and an extremely short supply today.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
he instructed Ali, or the Allahu Anhu to talk to the people according to their levels of understanding. And then he asked rhetorically, do you want the people to disbelieve in Allah
which tells us by implication,
that if you talk to people at a level that is not suitable for them, that is not tailored to their lived reality.
You are not helping them you are rather the opposite, you're a Pfitzner upon that person.
And you might be creating conditions that can encourage them to
abandon faith, extremely scary proposition.
If you have a farmer and a doctor, you approach them in an entirely different way.
Not saying that any one of them is more intelligent necessarily, but the prophets of Allah he was someone who used imagery and analogies that people could understand, depending on
what their experience was.
The farmer knows the earth. He knows the seasons, he knows the cycles.
The doctor he knows anatomy, he knows the body. He knows biology.
A construction worker, he knows buildings, he knows materials, he knows these sorts of things.
And so you talk to people according to their level, some people, their intellectual, their academic, they require proofs. They require sound thinking. They require airtight reasoning.
They want to be convinced.
Other people are not
As academics, other people need to have their emotions stirred. They need to have their heart and they need to be evoked
by belief and action.
And neither is superior to the other. Both of them are in us in varying degrees. And each of them needs to be spoken to.
Yes, hey, well, not what you say how you say it and know your audience. Yes.
Some people you can get in an argument with,
and they love that.
And you can be like, oppositional or whatever. And that's actually what they're looking for, to be challenged, Straight Talk.
Right? Other people, you try the same tactic, and they're going to take it very personally, and they're going to get offended, and you're never gonna see that person again.
It's very, very important.
Much of that
has to do with relationships, relationships,
I believe, and along those best,
I believe that it's a function of the time that we live in
the enlightenment, and the intellectual consequences of enlightenment, that have led us to have this expectation
that if we simply deliver
the facts,
that this is going to be enough to convince people.
This isn't the way that human beings operate. Human beings are much more than reason and reason itself is not universal. It differs from one person to another, as many of the scholars have pointed out.
So the Prophet sallallahu sallam, he advocated talking to people as the whole person.
And many of his Dawa situations were predicated upon a relationship of authority, or a relationship of trust, or a relationship of some sort of mutual understanding, not every single one. There are some things that can be universally applied, especially if you're helping somebody or giving someone something.
But certain types and strategies, certain types of approaches require a prior,
a prior relationship.
There's a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who found someone sleeping
in the masjid on their stomach. And he actually nudged him awake with his foot.
And when the person woke up, and he told him that, you know, it's not
a good thing to sleep on your stomach.
What enable that companion to immediately say something's not well thought, and I heard and I obey, because the relationship there, he knew the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam from before, if you were to come into the WSG,
and someone you've never seen before, and they're sleeping on their stomach, you try that with them.
A fight mate breakout.
And you can't throw all the blame on that person. You can't say, oh, I gave him the hawk. That's the truth. He didn't take the truth. So that's his problem.
That's not completely accurate.
It takes both in an ideal world, we all would be very, very open and receptive to correction and guidance. But the reality of the time that we live in, is that most people aren't like that. We live in a society in a culture where everyone says, Don't judge me. Don't judge me. Don't tell me what to do individualism as the most important thing, perhaps, in our society. And so we need to Yes, let that
inflects influence not completely changed, but in form, there you go. inform our approach to people.
That's on an individual level, exercising wisdom. This name also requires us to build power as a Muslim community, and this is not something that we need to be afraid to say.
For do it in hushed tones or worry, we're gonna get a knock on the door in the middle of the night. We're not talking about anything bad here. This is something that activist groups and lobbyists talk about. They talk about Community Foundation's, they talk about building power.
That means that everybody in your community is on the same page. They've got each other's back and you're able now to influence things around you. The laws, the elected officials, so on and so forth. That's part of building power, having your voice have weighed in
If the Muslim community is scattered, not united doesn't know its issues.
Even if someone wanted to listen to us, they wouldn't know where to look. They wouldn't know who to ask. They wouldn't know where to go.
If we were organized and had our
ducks in a row,
then we could build a power we could have an audience, we could have people take us seriously and consider consider our point of view and our perspective on things.
There's nothing wrong everybody does it. Every community the the we have Latino American associations that do it, we have women's groups that do it. We have other ethnic groups that do it. We have
orientation groups that do it. If they do it, then there's nothing wrong. Speaking about civics with doing it as well to according to the principles of our religion, nothing that violates the sanctity of our faith or our laws.
The second thing that we draw from this
or this group of names
is
something about Allah's law. If Allah is Al Hakim, he is the most just judge he is Al Hakim, the most wise to judge I hope more illa Allah.
Right. That authority the ability to rule to make Shetty ah,
is only an exclusively for Allah subhanaw taala.
So if we take hikma or Hakeem back to its linguistic group, to restrain
and now we're leaving the realm of saying okay, we restrain ourselves, yes.
But we also admit that there are situations where you must restrain others.
Now we're talking about authority.
Who possesses this as the authority How does it work? What's the scope of it?
This is talking about Sharia. It's talking about Allah's law.
And it's important to
realize that a laws law
balances between immutability
fancy word for permanence, and flexibility,
permanence and flexibility.
There are some things in which the city is permanent and unchanging.
Some things that are foundational to our physical existence on earth, our spiritual existence on earth, five prayers a day will never be abrogated. There's no sort of situation other than medical but we're talking about spiritual situation
in which five prayers a day for a Muslim
is not a requirement.
Though her will always be four
will never be eight, federal will always be two will never be three and so on and so forth. These things are immutable. They are unchanging
inheritance law,
how we divide up shares of inheritance after the Asiya after debts are paid.
The prohibition of alcohol prohibition of riba all these sorts of things are immutable.
Because Allah has told us the fundamental nature about certain things Hubbard right.
He has told us that such and such a thing as either pure evil or mostly evil, something does not have to be pure evil to be haram. Allah says that karma has benefits. Yes.
I'm an afro leanness
it has benefits and yet and yeah, the rule for dealing is one of many is one of to heavin It is haram.
Because of the nature of that thing, which will not change is that the harm outweighs the benefit.
So these are the things that do not change. And so on one extreme today we have people of the don't judge me camp
who think that they know better and are looking
For any opportunity to change these in unchangeable things, whenever they can.
I was involved in a discussion online, I think last week.
And there was a Muslim sister who had fall in love in love with a Christian man.
And
she wants to do obviously marry this Christian man.
And her argument was that this man is more more of a Muslim than the Muslim than some of the Muslim men out there. So I cannot marry him.
And people were, you know, saying, you know, these rules are clear, so and so forth.
And her response was, this is oppression. This is not fair. This is inequality. This is Yeah, et cetera, et cetera.
Right, this is the type of
attitude that is not only prevalent today,
but is a rejection of this name. And Hakeem and Hakka Allah is the perfect judge the most just wise judge.
It's an attitude that does not look for wisdom, and allows rules First,
does not assume wisdom that assumes as sacred not what Allah has said, but what we assess and evaluate, I deem this to be oppressive. And Allah is saying to do that.
So which ones should be questioned should allows rule be questioned? Or Should my definition of oppression be questioned?
The folly here is to question Allah's decree before you question your own sense of oppression.
This is one extreme but but it's another extreme to imagine that nothing in Islamic law can change.
Yes, there are changes that are possible in Islamic law.
That is what makes it flexible that is what makes it good.
You good question. Masha Allah, that is what makes them flexible. That is what makes it able to be applied to all times in all places good. When I say hello.
Okay, there's, if you linguistically divide everything in the Koran, you can divide everything into two categories hover and in sharp.
Okay, hover has to do with information
about reality,
Allah is one
there are angels, this is what happens after death.
This person is a prophet, that person is a prophet, this is what happened to them. This is called
hover can not be anything except true.
Whereas in sharp is a rule for how to deal with reality.
Right?
So yes, the hover is Allah is One, the rule of how to deal with that reality is to worship only Allah.
The reality of Hummer is that it has both pros and cons, but the cons outweigh the pros.
And so the ruling, the action points on that reality is to is to not approach it or come close to it.
Some not all, but some of the second category, what is in shot is amendable to change. That is true. And we'll go over we're getting into it right now, what are those things that are an art, but nothing that is covered up can ever be amendable to change?
Right, and, and it also solves the issue of quote unquote, contradictions. Some people might look at our rulings on alcohol, for example,
at first alcohol was permissible
in the Meccan period, it was permissible,
then, the ruling was abrogated
to be
not when you're about to pray.
And finally, the ruling changed a third time to complete prohibition.
If this was a change in something that was Hubbard,
then this is a contradiction.
And this is what we call Christians out on for
Christians say that Moses preached that there was one god
And then Jesus preached that there was actually a trinity, and that He was God.
This is about the reality of things.
So this is a contradiction. He asked a question. So did Moses believe in the Trinity? And did he preached the truth? They can't possibly say yes.
They have to say no.
And if they say, No, it's an admission that a change was made. And that change is a contradiction, because it's about reality, whereas a change in our rule is something that can happen.
Because
Because rules are bound by masala and mutha acid, rules are bound by what's advantageous and beneficial to humanity.
And so they change from time to time and place to place.
Sure, that was because the prophesy someone knew that and the loss of I don't want to either knew that too.
Right? Gradual.
But it would have been a contradiction.
Yes,
it would have been a contradiction.
If Allah had said, Hummer is completely fine, totally good, pure.
And then comes back later and says, okay, okay, it's actually part good and part bad. You see, that's the difference.
Whereas nothing that Allah informed us about the nature and reality of alcohol is any different. The only thing that changed was the rule for how to deal with that reality.
And so there's some rules that changed from ALMA to on, from nation to nation. Right? The Christians did not have the same law as we have. This is a source of Matt ADA.
Allah says, will equal the Indiana
share or ought to and women hija.
Should have
a show. Yeah, he gave everyone I said he, and a message.
So there's some rules that can change from nation to nation. There's other rules that can change within the history of one nation such as nest, such as abrogation, alcohol and some other things. And then there are some things that can be changed even later than that.
There are,
but it's not a free for all.
But why are we bringing this up? Because this is the opposite extreme. You have on one extreme people saying that everything's open to change. Oh, now women are out of the house and they work and so we can change the inheritance laws, because that was just patriarchy, and et cetera, et cetera. That's an extreme.
The other extreme.
The other extreme is to look at and we have this, we have people that look at this is the their favorite line they look at. There's no Muslim nation in the world today that rules by Sharia. Don't we hear the set? Don't people say this?
You say, well, well, what do you mean?
Well, they do this and they do that and they do that?
Okay.
They say that they quote the iron Surah to the cast that helped them is only for Allah subhanaw taala. Okay.
What about red lights? What about stop signs? What about speed limits? What about parking tickets? What about
election law? What about campaign finance? What about
is every single instance of a rule that's not found in the city?
contradicting a laws sole right to govern? An issue should yeah.
The answer is no. It's not.
Why why is that?
Because there are rules in the city, that are governed by Masonic and the facet, and the companions.
Bell, even the for pull of that are are shady, changed some rules
from what they were at the time of the Prophet sallahu wa Salam
to the point where if you were to show these people, these actions, some people would be shocked today
to say how can you change this sort of thing?
One example
at the time of the prophets of Allah, He said him he was
approached with a question about runaway camels say when we're traveling, we find runaway camels, what should we do with them? The Prophet saw, I saw them, he said, Leave them alone.
They will either make their way back to their owner or they'll be basically they'll be fine.
When Earth man's rain came in,
and that's enough with Matt,
he changed the rule.
He changed the rule to gather up all of those candles because the situation had changed.
He told everybody and this was an official rule from the state. He said, gather up the camels and collect them and keep them in a place and we'll try to announce sort of like a lost and found situation. Why? Because in Earth man's time, there were thieves. There were bandits there were robbers they were everywhere. They didn't exist at the time of the prophets, Eliza.
Rama Robbie Allahu Anhu when he was the Khalifa, he changed how people could make Hajj
there's three types of hajj, he only let people do one of them.
If certain nations in the world today did such a thing,
we would have huge controversy. This is the job coming and this is the Illuminati behind it and all this other stuff.
What's the reason what's the difference between these sorts of situations, there are certain rules that are governed by law, more law, they are governed by clear rationale. And if the rationale behind that ruling changes, so most of the ruling
things that have to do with worship Yanni is not a
pure worship, or not this type of ruling.
And so they are not amendable to change. However, other things are governed by these sorts of reasons. And so they are amendable to change, which is why law can evolve. Law is able to evolve and the principles of Islamic law, the principles of what Allah says in the city, the principles of what the Prophet Muhammad SAW said, I'm setting the Sunnah can be applied to new situations,
and can reform
old situations to match newer circumstances.
So at the end of the day,
it has to do with a balance.
It has to do with straddling these two extremes.
And you see how it can get a little complicated. And that's why these sorts of things are best left left up to people who study this, because there are strict rules for what are discerning, what are the types of rulings that are amendable to change, and what aren't.
And to what extent are they amendable to change? And to what extent are they not?
A corollary or a tangential point
okay, we'll skip that we only have five minutes left.
What are some of the inferred things that we can tell about Allah subhanaw taala because of these names, Al Hakim al Hakim,
if he is wise and if he is just, then he must also have knowledge. He must be Ali. He must have hearing he must be severe. He must have sight he must be bossy. He must be a shahid, the witness over everything he must be an multicolumn be able to speak in order to communicate wisdom and exact justice.
And so we've already kind of covered the effects of not registering allows ultimate justice and wisdom. Right? We can get arrogant and we can point the finger and find fault with Allah's rule before we find fault with ourselves and our own understanding of it.
We can also despair, we can despair of the situation in this life. We can forget that Allah is
the Most Merciful
We forget that Allah has a plan that this wisdom everything is supposed to unfold in a very specific way. And so people who do not register Allah's wisdom and justice, ultimate justice, they get impatient. They try to cut corners. And so they cut corners and try to grasp onto justice in this life. And this can lead to extremism. This can lead to vigilantism. All things which Islam
condemns.
Yes, correct.
All of these types of extreme isms, these corner cutting, they all come back to in sufficient conviction, injustice, laws, justice, justice in the afterlife.
It doesn't mean that we don't try to institute justice in our lives, we try as best we can, according to the laws of Islam and the limits. But, but we don't get hung up on the results. If we don't get the results that we want. We can't wipe away or ignore or turn our backs on
some of the procedures, the right way to go about things and just try to cut to the chase and cut to the end and get what we want. That's not the way to do it.
So one of the takeaways quickly before time is
registering that Allah's power to Allah is Al Hakim al Hakim, the most wise and the justice that just the most just judge
should give us hope, and tranquility and confidence in everything that is going to play out.
It should give us humility, and submission to Allah subhanahu to Ana, because he knows better than we do. And it's all part of his subtle plan, we should also
have a degree of self worth.
Because if Allah is wise, and he created you and I, then he had a very good reason to do so.
I should also make us be in awe of Allah's creations. Because Allah subhanaw taala created everything with wisdom. And so everything is part of this perfect cycle. Look at how nutrients cert cycle through the soil, and water cycles through clouds and the streams and everything. There's no waste. It's a perfect system. And look at the folly of humans and what they create. We create something to serve one purpose and it causes five more new problems. The combustion engine Great job, lots of power gets us where we need to go. Okay, pollute the environment,
make our air barely breathable, perhaps you know, elevating the,
the temperature of the entire planet.
Right?
We try to solve one problem and we end up creating even more problems. That's because man is not hacking. We don't have it in our ability like Allah has it. To be able to create something with so much wisdom and foresight that it takes care of. There are no side effects. There are no unintended consequences
we should also find ourselves in awe of Allah's chutiya because when we get to the core of it there is reason and wisdom behind a lot of Shetty more reason and wisdom than we give it credit for
and the more time plays out and the closer we get to that the end times the more and more we can see the wisdom in a law Sharia
and that's all we have time for tonight.
There was a little bit more
but we should stop there
any questions
I do have a little bit more but unfortunately I can't continue I have another appointment that I have to get to.
But yes what someone messaged me trusting his timing allows Hakeem not whenever you want it, you don't get to have Destiny On Demand. Right? You have to you have to wait your turn. And everything happens in the last time and Allah does everything. Well.
Pardon me for not lingering. I have a I have another appointment to get to know
Long Last all of you and inshallah I'll see you next time so don't want to come rocks