Yasir Qadhi – Authenticity Of The Hadith Of Righteous Leadership
AI: Summary ©
The importance of understanding pastmed experiences and the need for a clear understanding of the Islam rules is emphasized. The shift towards unity and a deification of reality are also discussed, along with the importance of logistically difficult situations for installing doors on Muslims. The need for a clear understanding of the Islam deeds and the need for a deification of reality is emphasized. The sharia and importance of unity and cooperation are also discussed, along with the need for an end goal to motivate and energize people.AI: Transcript ©
So this hadith you mentioned then, Sheikh,
are you saying that it is
a, not authentic
or b, misunderstood
or c, both?
No. I am saying that it if even
if it if it were if if it
is authentic and it you know, many scholars
authenticated it, and that's fine. It could be
authentic, but it's still a singular report
A had it. Which is that it does
not confer certainty. Mhmm. If it is authentic,
and
I am someone who says that you know
you should not be going around critiquing the
mutna of the hadith if you're not qualified.
Of course this would be chaos.
And in the you know,
individual Muslims should not be going around critiquing
this hadith, critiquing that hadith because
they're unable to comprehend
it. Because now you will make your Haqli,
your Hawa, your your passions, your desires, your
biases
the ultimate judge and that is not what
Islam is about.
But qualified scholars
have critiqued the matin as they critiqued
the isnaad or the chain of narration of
the hadith
and singular reports do not confer
certainty so
it would not cause me a faith crisis
if it did not materialize
but once again I would go back and
say
what what is the meaning of this hadith?
The idea of eschatology end times hadith you
have to have a flexible understanding
You're basically you should get the moral lesson
from the hadith but how they materialize
unfold in the future
you should not have a rigid understanding of
this we paid a very hefty price during
the like mongol conquest for instance people thought
that these are Yajud and Majud
and people were defeated
before they even
confronted them. Yeah.
So so this hadith Habib ibn Salam for
Habib ibn Salam one of the narrators then
the person who narrated from an omen ibn
bashir
said
that
Habib
he's a narrator and you know that we
privilege the understanding of narrators.
Okay.
Habib
thought that this Khalafah alim in Hajjun Nabuwa
happened already during the time of Umar ibn
Abdul Aziz. Yeah.
And he he actually communicated
this,
to,
through Yazid ibn Oman to Umar ibn Abdul
Aziz, and Umar ibn Abdul Aziz
sort
of were happy to hear it. Yeah.
Like did not contest to this interpretation,
was happy to hear it. It gave him
bushra
to hear the the the this. So Arunar
Raiz also agreed with this understanding
of Habib
that it actually did materialize, already happened.
So now you're waiting for it, and the
narrator of the hadith thinks that it already
happened. Exactly.
So that
once again, that basically
underscores the importance
of,
like, a a flexible understanding
of these,
traditions.
And by the way, this is a as
you know, Shail, this is a common theme
in eschatological reports
that every generation
pretty much thinks that what is happening in
their time is exactly what is predicted in
the traditions. This is a routine cycle every
single time we see it. And the same
thing is happening now as well where our,
you know, Shabaab, they read these a hadith.
And once again, they're like, okay. Well, it's
as if they're trying to write the script
or trying to understand it directly in our
times. And this is something that our ulama
have warned against.
Don't write scripts or imagine those traditions to
be applying to your time until there is
certainty in this regard. But, Sheikh Hannah, pushing
back a little bit. And again, this is
for the viewers because obviously at many levels,
I'm sympathetic.
But, I wanted to quote you,
quotations that are well known in our tradition.
And I will quote very quickly, but it
needs to be quoted because these are quotations
always found,
in these discourses online.
So for example, the Nawawi says,
That there
is a jamaah that the Muslims have
to elect, or, put up a leader. And
of course, says in his
that there is no difference of opinion given
in the entire Ummah except for the Muartizi
al Assam. And then he made a pun
because that Assam means the one that is,
deaf. And so he said he was deaf
or mute from the,
Sharia. So there is no Khalaf,
that,
there must be an imam and a Khalafah
that is, established.
And even Tamiyya says in the Siya Shariya,
his famous book that
and then he goes on and on this
translates as, it must be known that the
wiliya, that the leadership for the, affairs of
the Muslims is of the greatest of wajibat
of this religion.
Rather, the religion cannot be established except through
it. And that is because
the, masala or the
necessary requirements of good of the children of
Adam will never take place unless they come
together
and help one another. And when they do
so, there must be a leader,
amongst them like the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
said. If 3 people go on, traveling, then
one of them should be in charge. And
let me quote 1 or 2 more because
again these are the quotations that are given.
And
the and the and the and the and
the shia, all of them have agreed that
it is to have an imam and that,
it is obligatory upon the ummah to then
submit to a just imam. And then of
course you have al Ma'wadi and I'll finish
here. And I have other quotes as I
have a whole bunch of quotations.
Because again, this is the whole point. Anytime
you start about this, you're immediately bombarded with
these quotations. So let us discuss them. Al
Mawardi of course is one of the few
people who has written treaties on Islamic political
science. We wish more had been written but
as you're aware, this is a topic that
is, not elaborated on it. We can maybe
discuss this later on in this in this
podcast.
Al Mawardi says in
that, the imam is,
a basic continuation in translating by, by meaning
of the, khilafa that the prophet established and
it is a protection of the deen and
it is, the politics of this world. It
is how,
we run this world.
And to establish it,
for those who are gonna be sufficient for
it, it is wajib
for this ummah by ijma' of the scholars.
Now I can go on and on as
you're aware there's so many quotations. So
one could
say your sentiment at the beginning 5 minutes
ago seems to clash with all of these
quotations.
What would you respond to this?
It doesn't. It may appear so, but it
does not.
I,
said in the beginning that we have to
separate between,
imamet
or
imamah
as in order versus anarchy,
versus having 1 imam for the entire ummah.
These are 2 different discussions.
So
al Imam al Jawayni, rahimahullah, in his book,
Al Arshad,
points out that difference
that one is from Min al Kawata and
one is not Min al Kawata.
One is a certainty, which is the importance
of install installing an imam or appointing an
imam
basically to defend the weak, to protect the
borders, to establish,
law and order.
There is no
question about this whatsoever.
This is min al qawata.
Now plurality of imams
multiplicity
of imams versus singularity
that is a different discussion
realistically speaking
we have
1 imam for a very short period of
time
and thereafter we have not been,
all under 1 imam for the vast majority
of our history.
But theologically
speaking,
you know, speaking from the the Fiqh viewpoint,
the first one is a matter of consensus.
The second one, you know, can we have
several imams, several khalifas?
If you
use the word khalifa in its linguistic sense
which appears to be how the Sahaba viewed
it. Omar Ibn Khattab himself
said, if you say Khalifa Khalifa At Rasool
Allah, you atul.
And then in Mughira said to him,
he
said okay that works so Amr Al Khattab
said if you say the successor of the
successor
of the Messenger of Allah Abu Bakr was
the successor of the Messenger if you say
the successor of the successor
of the Messenger of Allah this would be
long.
Then Muhirullah said to him and other reports
to others
that we are the believers you are our
leader
or prince amir
So you are the leader of the believers.
You are Amir al Mu'min. And Omar said
that works.
Okay. So they understood the word of Khalifa,
and Khalifa did actually appear in in different
traditions,
prophetic traditions
that we can talk about,
later.
But
but they they they seem to have had,
like, a more flexible
understanding of the word, the Khalifa, someone who
succeeds another.
You know, replace me. Be in my take
my place
among my people.
You know?
So take my place in my people. Someone
who is left behind
to take care of
someone's
affairs,
someone who succeeds another to take care of
the affairs of that person or their their
family or their
etcetera.
So plurality of imams
is is is a little bit controversial.
And as I said, Imam al Juwayni said
it's not.
You know, al Imam Abu Al Abbas critiqued,
the the that Al Imam Al Hazmari reported
about the,
you know,
the
the singularity of, or the the the the
wajub,
of having a singular,
or the obligation of having 1 imam for
the entire,
umma did not contest that it is wajib
because he himself
recognizing
that sometimes it is unfeasible
but he he says
that,
the sunnah
he says the sunnah
is to have a single imam
but if it happens
that because of masaya or a sin
from part of the Ummah and incapacity,
of the other part that we have more
than 1 imam and this already happened from
the time of Abdulrahman at Dakhil,
you know, when he
basically,
broke off with, Andalusia.
We have not been under a single imam,
from that time. So it it already happened.
It's not like we are the ones who
are making this Masayyah. It had already happened.
There were, like,
more than
before this,
during the time
of
Aliyah said they were both imams at the
same time.
Abdullah ibn Zubair,
you know, he had his he had Abdul
Labniz Ubayr
had the majority of the Muslim lands under
him during the Umayyad dynasty. He had Al
Arab, he had Al Hajaz,
Al Haramain, he had Egypt also for some
time. And so so the Umayyads had you
know the greater Syria or Sam or the
Levant
and then the parts north the to the
north of this but they have very little
compared to Abdullah ibn Zubair.
So it's not like a new thing. This
Masaiyah,
if you if as as imam Temia says
it's a masaya,
had already happened.
He then says
he then says if that is the case
then each one of those imams
recognizing the legitimacy of this arrangement
each one of those imams
should fulfill the rights of people
establish the Hudud establish the law
and fulfill people's rights and protect people and
so on and so forth.
So he's basically,
this is a shift of focus,
and this is an important shift of focus
and this is the only way we can
survive.
From
the khilafa to the sharia
where the Sharia becomes the center center pillar
around which we organize
the formative thesis for Islamic life, the central
pillar around which Muslims
organize
not the Khalafa. The Sharia is bigger than
the Khalafa.
The Khalifa
is one manifestation,
of of the unity. One goal that we
must be working
for as an end goal
that will motivate,
energize,
us that will
that will cause progress.
You see how Erdogan said, you know, we
want to join the EU. We want to
join the EU just to to bring about
progress within Turkey towards like this idea
even though or towards this objective
even though he may have never believed in
it. You know? But but but this is
not this is not the same thing. Not
the same thing. Khalifa is not like joining
the EU. I'm not saying this it's the
same thing but you have an end goal
that will motivate and energize people and that
will bring about progress towards unity.
It is important
economic integration
between Muslims,
you know,
mutual
sort of cooperation
on on various,
issues,
and,
you know, the defense also, defense treaties, mutual
defense, all of that.
The Khalifa will will basically be the catalyst
of all of those manifestations
of unity,
cooperation,
and coordination
between Muslims.
Now
having,
having more than one imam
has been the position
of some scholars.
You know,
We have 3 different positions here. We have
those scholars who said, without any reason, you
can have more than one imam.
Al Karameya said this.
And and, certainly, you may blame me, but
these are still Muslim. I Of course. They
are. I I yeah. Because they are Sunnis.
They're not just Muslims. They're with a So
Otherwise, they're within Sunnis and by and large.
Yeah. Generic Sunnis. Yes. So Al Karameya said
this. They have their or their own excesses
and,
but yes, they are within the Sunni fold.
But, they added their own excesses.
So Zaidiya said this. So some of the
Zaidiya said this. Some of the said this
without any reason. You can have more than
one imam.
Some people said
that
you can have more than 1 imam if
it is logistically difficult to have 1. Those
are the people who said that you can
have more than 1 imam means
the lands of Islam
became too vast for 1 imam to control,
Too far away from each other, too vast
for 1 imam to control. If the Tasahatul
Khutta you can have more than 1 imam.
And those are not a few people or
basically negligible.
The the
Imam Al Jawani reports this from
if the Imam Abdul Hasan Al Ashari and
the Disfarayini.
This was also the position of Al Kortobi
and Al Baghdadi.
This was also the position of many of
the. This was also the position of
I would argue that
this is what,
is indicating
when he he says that if at some
point
for a or a sin committed by people,
we,
split up or,
you know, or we became divided,
and because of the incapacity of others, then
having more than one imam is a legitimate
arrangement of legitimate alternative.
So you have those 3 different positions. Now
am I denying
that the vast majority
of Muslim scholars
said
that
having more than 1 imam is not acceptable,
that the obligation is to have a singular
political
entity
for all muslims. I am not denying this.
This this
this is the majority.
This is the decisive majority.
Decisive majority
of our muslim scholars
said
regardless
of the vastness of the Muslim lands regardless
of logistical difficulties
it is
obligatory
to install 1 imam for all Muslims.
Now is this a matter of certainty?
No. It's not a matter of certainty.
That is what I want to go back
to.
This is the the the majority position.
But
more and more people starting to become more
sort of accepting of the reality of,
the the
Diversity of Diversity
of communities
and the the the difficulty
of installing 1 imam that would rule over
all Muslims
throughout the Let let me just push back
a little bit here.
How do I say this gently so that
The the imam is.
Yeah. Say let not say that that people
who argue about this,
the multiplicity of imams, the legitimacy of this
alternative,
of multiple imams
should not
be argued with or should not be presented
with evidence because they don't comprehend it. Yeah.
Imam Ashukhan al Nasay al Jarrah has a
very pragmatic and and actually very open minded
reality that this is you the you know,
you're gonna have different Imams in different places
and everybody should be following the imam of
their place here.
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