Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
And if you are amazed, they will be amazed when we are dust. Indeed, we are in a new creation. Those are the ones who disbelieved in their Lord, and those are the ones whose necks are in their necks, and those are the companions of the Fire, they will abide therein.
Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi sallallahu alayhi wasallam amal ba'd. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, Ustad Abdur Rahman Hassan. Wa alaikumussalam warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, Shaheed.
Jazakallah khair once again for joining me on the Hot Seat Podcast. We've recently been talking about a lot of issues that are external to Islam but are affecting the Muslims. For example, issues like the non-Muslim countries and how they deal with the Muslims.
We now want to talk about something a little bit closer to home, an issue within Islam that is affecting the Muslims, and that is the issue of the Madahib. A lot of people, when they first come into practice in Islam, they hear about these Madhhabs. They might not fully understand it, but it's something that they come across.
And this approach, our approach towards these Madhhabs, and I'm intentionally not defining it in English because I do want you to go into a little bit of what they mean in the introduction, inshallah. When they come across these things, it confuses a lot of people. They don't know what approach they should take to these kind of Madhahib.
And that is something that inshallah, with the Tawfiq of Allah, I want to try and unbox in today's episode of the Hot Seat. So again, I'm going to give you the introduction. You have a chance to set out your foundation, your principles.
And if I could request just to briefly, and I know it's difficult, but briefly try and define what a Madhhab is. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Lahu alhamdul hasan wa thana'ul jameel.
Wa shahadu an la ilaha illa Allah wa hadahu la sharika lah. Yaqulul haqqa wa huwa yahdi al sabeel. Wa shahadu anna muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluh.
Sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa ashabihi wa tabi'ina lahum bi ihsan ila yawmi al deen amma ba'd. Before I go into the definition of a Tamadhub, following a Madhhab, there's a couple of points I want to talk about inshallah. And I think it's very important to understand the whole entire discussion properly.
Anything in the religion, there's always two extremes. There's either extreme exaggeration, and there's also sometimes extreme negligence. And Shaytan's goal is to throw the people into one of those extremes.
That's the aim and the objective of Shaytan. He just doesn't want the person to be in that middle path. The path that Allah subhana wa ta'ala mentioned in Surah Al-Fatiha, ihdina al-sirata al-mustaqeem, or Allah guide us to the straight path.
So in anything in the religion, Shaytan will always try his best to either make you exaggerate it, or he will make you come with negligence. Shaytan doesn't care whichever of those two he throws you into. Allah says in the ayah, Now this is my path.
So there's a middle path, a straight path. So in everything in your life as a Muslim, don't ever allow yourself to go extreme in exaggeration and don't go extreme in negligence. Try to be balanced and be in the middle.
And the balance isn't something you feel it with your aql and your dhawq. It feels good. I feel it.
It's not. What is the middle path? Allah sanctions it subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Allah tells us this is the middle path.
So when we speak about the concept of tamadhub, we find a group of people who call to fanaticism. They call to ta'asub towards a imam or one of the four imams. They say you have to do ta'asub of this imam and etc.
which I'm going to speak about later inshallah. Another group of people, they've opened this door of ijtihad. So kullu amrin wa bakrin wa zaydin, you know, go to the Quran and sunnah yourself.
Do ijtihad. You're free to speak about anything related to the religion. You're a free man.
Go. And the person hasn't reached that level. So that is a reality that we see.
There's that concept of opening the door of ijtihad to those people not fit for it. And there's that side of the coin, which is those people who call towards fanaticism, to be fanatic towards particular imams. Ta'asub, blind follow him in everything he says, even if he goes against clear cut evidences, no problem.
So inshallah ta'ala in this introduction or this couple of points I want to mention, it will lay down the foundation for our discussion. The first thing I want us to understand is what is the role of the messengers? What is the role of the scholars? And what is the role? And what is the thing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does? What is Allah ta'ala's part? What is the messenger's part? And what is the Muslims? What is their role? And Imam al-Bukhari when he's sahih, he chapter a bab where he called it babu qawli Allahi ta'ala ya ayyuha al-rasoolu baligh ma unzila ilayka min rabbik wa illam taf'al fama balaghta risalatah wa allahu ya'asimuka minan nas. O Prophet of Messenger of Allah, convey that which has been sent down to you from your Lord and if you don't do it, you have not conveyed the message.
That's the chapter. He used an ayah from the Quran as a chapter in Bukhari. And then he brought the statement of the tabi'i Muhammad ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, his statement, the teacher of Imam al-Malik.
This now literally breaks down for us a very important message which is the role of everybody. Imam al-Zuhri said, minallahi risalah. The message comes from Allah.
The legislating comes from Allah. Wa ala rasoolillahi albalagh wa ala rasoolillahi albalagh. And upon the messenger is to convey.
That's second. So Allah is the one who sanctions. Allah is the one who legislates.
Upon the messenger is what to convey that message. Anybody other than the messenger submits. This literally is the role of everybody.
We have to understand who is the legislator? Allah. What is the Prophet's job to convey? To convey. The Prophet does not legislate from himself.
He's conveying legislated. And upon us is to submit to that. Allah says, laqad manna allahu alal mu'mineena idh ba'ata fihim rasoolan min anfusihim yatlu alihim ayatihi wa yuzakkihim wa yu'allimuhumul kitabu wal hikmah wa in kanu min qablu lafee dhalalin mubeen.
Allah says, Allah has bestowed his blessing upon the believers. When he sent out from them a messenger. This messenger, what does he do? Yatlu alihim ayatihi.
Conveys the verse of Allah upon them. And reads the Quran to them. Wa yuzakkihim, he purifies them.
Wa yu'allimuhumul kitabu wal hikmah, and he teaches them two things. The Quran and the sunnah. Hikmah here means the sunnah.
So the messenger is conveying, he's teaching and he's educating the people the legislation Allah gave him. In what means did Allah give the Prophet the legislation? In what way? Through the Quran and the sunnah. Fa sunnatun nabiyyi wahyun thanin alihima qad utliqal wahyani.
The sunnah is a revelation from Allah. Wa in kanu min qablu lafee dhalalin mubeen. And the ayah says that everybody was upon misguidance before Muhammad came with what? The Quran and the sunnah.
Also Allah Ta'ala he says, wa anzal Allahu alayka al kitab wa al hikmah wa allamaka ma lam takun ta'alam wakana faddullahi alayka azeema. Allah has taught you the kitab and he taught you the sunnah. He taught you that which you did not know.
And the virtue of your Lord upon you is great Muhammad. Allah is talking to the Prophet. Allah taught you Muhammad that which you did not know.
By teaching the Quran and the sunnah and the virtue of your Lord upon you is great. Also Allah Ta'ala he says, wa kunna mayutla fee buyutu kunna min ayati Allahi wal hikmah inna Allaha kana latifan khabira. Read and remember that which has been mentioned, that which was recited in your houses, the Prophet's houses, what was recited in it? Min ayati Allahi, the verses of Allah, wa al hikmah and wisdom.
The wisdom here is what? The sunnah. Those verses give us the understanding that the virtue and the job of the Prophet mainly, that we take from it, was that he was conveying on behalf of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the ways that he was conveying is through the Quran and the sunnah.
Wa lidhalika Allah Ta'ala he says in the Quran, fa hal alal rusul illal balawul mubeen. This is the job of the messengers, to convey and to give the message that was given to them. Allah also said, qul ati'u Allaha wa ati'u alrasula fa in tawallu fa innama alihi ma hummila wa alikum ma hummiltum wa intu tia'uhu tahtadu wa ma alal rasuli illal balawul mubeen.
Allah says qul ati'u Allaha wa ati'u alrasula, obey Allah and his messenger. If he turned around, fa innama alihi ma hummila, upon you is that which you've taken upon yourself, wa alikum ma hummiltum, and upon them is what they've taken, wa intu tia'uhu, if you obey him, tahtadu, you're guided, wa ma alal rasuli illal balawul mubeen. Izan Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is upon him to convey, except to convey.
Did the messenger convey this message to us? Yeah, he did. The evidence for that is the hadith narrated by Bukhari and Muslim. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam on the day of Hajj, when he was given the final sermon, hajjatul wada', the Prophet stood up amongst the people and he said to the people, Allahumma hal ballaqt, O people, have I conveyed the issue to you guys? O Allah, have I conveyed the message? The sahabas, they said, yes, you have conveyed it to us.
The Prophet repeated this question, Allahumma hal ballaqt, have I conveyed the message to you? Allahumma hal ballaqt, have I conveyed the message to you, O people? Qaloo na'am, the people, they said, yes, you did. And then he said, Allahumma shahad, O Allah, be my witness. Three times, Allahumma, Allahumma shahad, Allahumma shahad.
And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam then said to the companions, fal yuballigh al shahid al ghayb, the one who's present, convey to the one who is absent. In this, it teaches us that we're just, even us, we're conveying on what the Prophet taught us, Alayhi Salatu Wasallam, the Prophet praised the one who conveys this message. Ibn Mas'ud narrated it, nadhalallahu mra'an sami'a minna shay'an faballaghahu kama sami'au farubba muballaghin aw aalahu min sami'in.
That a person who conveys, the Prophet said, may the face shine of a person who hears my message and he conveys it as he heard it. Then the Prophet said, farubba muballaghin, it's possible that a conveyor who's conveying, farubba muballaghin, that it's possible a conveyor who's conveying, aw a' is more understanding, lahum min sami'in. So now you're conveying to someone who understands it better than you.
Tell me the narrator, Ibn Majah. What's this shari'ah? What are the characteristics that this shari'ah has? And these are very important points you have to understand. There are three qualities that this shari'ah has.
Then you won't have people conflating the view of the scholar against the shari'ah and etc. This puts down a powerful foundation for us. What are the characteristics of the shari'ah? The characteristics of the shari'ah are three things.
Al-baqa'u wal-umum wal-kamal. These are qualities of the shari'ah. The first is that the shari'ah is baqa'.
It will remain forever. So some people might kind of give you the impression that the imams when they came that this is the shari'ah. No, the shari'ah was made until the Day of Judgment.
Allah says, Muhammad is not the father of any one of you. He's a messenger from Allah and he's the final and last messenger. Meaning him being the last and final messenger, it means that his message is made for until the Day of Judgment.
Also the Prophet ﷺ said in a hadith of Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, he's found in Bukhari. The Prophet ﷺ said, anyone who Allah wants good for them, Allah gives them the understanding of the religion. Allah makes them understand the deen.
The Prophet ﷺ said, I am only, I am nothing except the Prophet ﷺ saying this. I divide that knowledge to the people. I scatter it to the people.
I spread it out to the people. But Allah gives each person a portion of that knowledge. Then the Prophet ﷺ, this is a part that went from the baqa, the remaining of this religion, which is, there will always be a people who are standing upon the commandments of Allah ﷻ. No one can harm them who tries to oppose them.
Another wording in Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ said, until the hour comes. And then this religion is going to carry on until the hour comes. The second quality that this shari'ah has, and it's going to have, is al-umum.
It's general. It's not for a specific group of people. And the umum of the shari'ah is in two ways.
The first one is, it's umum for everything they need. And the second one is, this religion is umum for every and every single person. It's not for just the Arabs.
And it's not only for the Indians. And it's not only for the Africans. And it's umum for everybody.
And the ayah Allah ﷻ showed us that this message is umum. Allah ﷻ says, وَاللَّهُ يَدْعُوا إِلَىٰ دَارِ السَّلَامِ وَيَهْدِي مَن يَشَاءُ إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ Allah ﷻ says, وَاللَّهُ يَدْعُوا إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ Allah ﷻ says, وَاللَّهُ يَدْعُوا إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ Allah ﷻ calls. Here we have the fa'il, the one who's calling, which is Allah.
And we have which is the fa'il mudari'ah. But we don't have the mafu'ul. Who is Allah calling? And the scholars they say the hatful mafu'ul, the removing of the mafu'ul, the reason why sometimes it's done is li'ifadatil umum, so it can benefit generalization.
Meaning, Allah wants it to keep it open so everybody can enter there. This is one of the ayahs that the scholars take from it, وَاللَّهُ يَدْعُوا that there's two types of groups of people. There's ummatul da'wah and ummatul ijabah.
There are people who are called and they rejected the message — they're called ummatul da'wah. And there are people who are called and they accepted the message — they're called ummatul ijabah.
Allah ﷻ also says in the Qur'an:
قُلْ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنِّي رَسُولُ اللَّهِ إِلَيْكُمْ جَمِيعًا، الَّذِي لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ، لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا هُوَ، يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ، فَآمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ النَّبِيِّ الْأُمِّيِّ الَّذِي يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَكَلِمَاتِهِ، وَاتَّبِعُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ
The Prophet ﷺ was commanded to say to the people: إِنِّي رَسُولُ اللَّهِ إِلَيْكُمْ جَمِيعًا I am a messenger and a prophet to all of you.
Muslim narrated in his Sahih, from the Hadith of Abu Huraira, that the Messenger ﷺ said:
وَالَّذِي نَفْسُ مُحَمَّدٍ بِيَدِهِ، لَا يَسْمَعُ بِي أَحَدٌ مِنْ هَذِهِ الْأُمَّةِ، يَهُودِيٌّ وَلَا نَصْرَانِيٌّ، ثُمَّ يَمُوتُ وَلَمْ يُؤْمِنْ بِالَّذِي أُرْسِلْتُ بِهِ، إِلَّا كَانَ مِنْ أَصْحَابِ النَّارِ
The Prophet ﷺ said: I swear by the One in whose hand Muhammad’s soul is — No one hears about me, whether he's a Christian or a Jew, and then dies without believing in what I was sent with, except that he will be from the dwellers of the Hellfire.
This shows that the Prophet ﷺ was sent to the Christians and the Jews — He was sent to everybody.
So now I come to the last and final point, Which is: This religion is complete. It doesn’t need anyone to add anything to it.
Allah said:
الْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ، وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِي، وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمُ الْإِسْلَامَ دِينًا
Today I have completed your religion for you, And I have fully established upon you My blessing, And I am pleased with Islam as your religion.
Ibn Kathir رحمه الله said: هَذِهِ أَكْبَرُ نِعَمِ اللَّهِ This is the greatest blessing of Allah upon the people — Upon this Ummah — That Allah completed for them their religion.
فَلَا يَحْتَاجُونَ إِلَى دِينٍ غَيْرِهِ، وَلَا إِلَى نَبِيٍّ غَيْرَ نَبِيِّهِمْ، صَلَوَاتُ اللَّهِ وَسَلَامُهُ عَلَيْهِ They don't need any other religion besides this, And they don't need any prophet other than their Prophet ﷺ.
وَلِهَذَا جَعَلَهُ اللَّهُ خَاتَمَ الْأَنْبِيَاءِ، وَبَعَثَهُ إِلَى الْإِنْسِ وَالْجِنِّ That’s why Allah made him the Seal of the Prophets and sent him to both mankind and jinn.
فَلَا حَلَالَ إِلَّا مَا أَحَلَّهُ، وَلَا حَرَامَ إِلَّا مَا حَرَّمَهُ، وَلَا دِينَ إِلَّا مَا شَرَعَهُ، وَكُلُّ شَيْءٍ أَخْبَرَ بِهِ فَهُوَ حَقٌّ وَصِدْقٌ، لَا كَذِبَ فِيهِ، وَلَا خُلْفَ There is no halal except what he made halal, And no haram except what he made haram, And no religion except what he legislated. Everything he informed us of is the truth — no lies, no falsehood in it.
Anyone who adds anything to this religion, It will not be accepted from him.
مَنْ عَمِلَ عَمَلًا لَيْسَ عَلَيْهِ أَمْرُنَا، فَهُوَ رَدٌّ The Prophet ﷺ said: Whoever does an action that is not from this affair of ours, it will be rejected.
Any Imam — If he adds anything to the religion, it will not be accepted from him. Because the religion is for everybody, it’s complete, And it will stay until the Day of Judgment.
The Prophet ﷺ made sure, when he came to the people, He told them everything.
Salman رضي الله عنه said: قَدْ عَلَّمَكُمْ نَبِيُّكُمْ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ، حَتَّى الْخِرَاءَةَ Your Prophet has taught you everything, even how to relieve yourselves.
You have to understand — A Prophet, people are waging war on him from all directions, Yet he takes time to teach his companions about using the toilet.
Salman al-Farisi said: Yes, our Prophet ﷺ prohibited us from facing the Qiblah while relieving ourselves, And from using our right hands — He prohibited us from it.
That’s why this Qur’an came down and clarified everything through the Prophet ﷺ:
وَنَزَّلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ تِبْيَانًا لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ، وَهُدًى وَرَحْمَةً وَبُشْرَى لِلْمُسْلِمِينَ
He said the Prophet ﷺ passed away, And Abu Dharr said:
تَرَكَنَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ، وَمَا طَائِرٌ يُقَلِّبُ جَنَاحَيْهِ فِي السَّمَاءِ، إِلَّا وَقَدْ ذَكَرَ لَنَا مِنْهُ عِلْمًا There is not a bird flapping its wings in the sky except that he told us something about it ﷺ.
So this all gives us an understanding — That this religion is complete. This religion is going to remain:
إِلَىٰ أَنْ يَرِثَ اللَّهُ الْأَرْضَ وَمَنْ عَلَيْهَا
The Legislator, the one who sanctions, is Allah عز وجل. Everybody else’s speech — We look at it. If it's right, we accept it. If it’s wrong, we reject it.
The difference between the Prophet and the scholars is three things:
The prophets are ma'soom — they are infallible. They don’t make mistakes. Scholars, no matter how high they are — they can make mistakes. Anyone after the Prophet is open to error. We question their verdicts. But we don’t question the Prophet ﷺ.
The Prophet ﷺ had revelation supporting him from Allah ﷻ. Whatever he says is wahy — revelation from Allah. The scholars do not have revelation. They use ijtihad — reasoning — and can be right or wrong.
When the Prophet ﷺ speaks: وَمَا يَنْطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَى، إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا وَحْيٌ يُوحَى He does not speak from desire; it is only revelation sent to him.
The third difference between the Prophet and the scholars Is that the scholars — their statements can perish, they can fade, and they wear out. Whereas the Prophet ﷺ — نَبِيُّ اللَّهِ مُحَمَّد — His rulings and everything he brought were made to last forever.
A scholar might give a verdict right now, And ten years later, that verdict might no longer be appropriate — because things have changed due to it.
If you understand those three points I mentioned, You'll understand that:
You won't fall into fanaticism towards the Imams of Islam who came — We benefit from them — But we don’t become fanatical followers.
And you will also not fall into the concept of unrestricted ijtihad for everyone.
Now, the last point you asked me — and I'm going to respond to you now — Is: what is tamadhhub? What’s the meaning of tamadhhub?
Tamadhhub comes from the verbal noun — the masdar — of tamadhhaba. Which is in the form or structure of tafa‘‘ala (تَمَفْعَلَ). And the pattern tafa‘‘ala in Arabic implies izhar (to show) and akhadh (to take).
It means to show and express, and also to take — it has both meanings in the Arabic language.
But in the istilah (technical usage) of the scholars, when they use the term tamadhhub, They basically mean:
اتباع أصول الإمام وقواعده والتخريج عليها To follow the foundations, the principles of a particular Imam, and to extract rulings based on them.
In other words, tamadhhub goes back to two things:
- أصول الاستدلال الفقهي – The principles of legal deduction in fiqh.
- الفروع الفقهية – The fiqh rulings extracted from those principles.
So it goes back to the usool (principles) of a particular Imam — Whether it be Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi'i, or Ahmad — The principles he used in deriving rulings. And the furu‘ al-fiqhiyyah, which are the rulings derived from those usool.
Sometimes the Imam mentions furu‘, and sometimes he mentions usool, And scholars — in various situations — go back to those two to extract rulings and legal issues.
So a madhhab is: The framework of a particular Imam — His principles and methodology in determining legislative rulings in the religion. Saying, "This is halal," "This is haram," etc.
Yes — and that’s a really important introduction.
And I don’t think any Muslim, within mainstream Sunni Islam, Would disagree with anything you’ve said so far — That the Qur’an and the Sunnah should ultimately be followed, And that the Qur’an and the Sunnah are from Allah, And a statement of a scholar can be rejected or accepted.
However, having said that — I think the issue comes when you try to practically apply this.
Because as we know, the overwhelming majority of Muslims today Are not able to go to the Qur’an and the Sunnah directly and extract rulings. Therefore, they need someone in the middle. They need an interpreter. They need someone who will convey to them what they should be doing. They need someone who has the ability to go to the text, Break it down, And then tell the Muslims what they should be doing.
And this is where the Imams come in.
So this issue of tamadhhub, and people following a madhhab — A lot of people believe it is a necessity to follow a madhhab, because they have no other choice. They can’t go to the Qur’an and Sunnah directly.
What do you have to say about that?
So what I want to do, insha’Allah, to answer your question — Is that we need to take a step back.
We need to divide the people.
The people are of three types:
- There’s the ‘aammi — The general folk, the average person — Who doesn’t know anything of the religion. Maybe a new Muslim who just accepted Islam, Or someone born into Islam but never studied anything — he’s an ‘aammi. If an ayah or hadith was read in front of him, He wouldn’t know which is which. He doesn’t understand — he’s an ‘aammi. That’s one camp.
- The second group of people is what we call the muttabi‘. A muttabi‘ is a person who is a student of knowledge. He’s studied, he’s learned — He has some knowledge.
- And then we have the scholar.
By dividing the people into these three categories, It gives us an understanding of where this second middle group came from.
Because as I understand it — You’re either a scholar, who can go directly to the text like a mujtahid, Or you have to do taqlid — blind-follow someone who has the ability to extract rulings from the texts.
You’re saying there’s a second category in the middle?
Where did you get this from?
The reality of people shows us this — no problem. And the reality that we’re in does show us that.
You’re right, by the way — it’s not agreed upon. These three categorizations are not agreed upon by all scholars. Some scholars only believe there’s a mujtahid and a muqallid — There’s nothing in between.
But as I mentioned, Ibn al-Qayyim and Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr mention it — And I believe that this categorization is more accurate to the reality that we see.
Let’s tackle it.
Let’s go into it.
What does that mean?
The general mass — he shouldn't follow any madhhab. He just has to go to his local imam and ask his local imam, and do exactly what his local imam tells him. Blind follow his local imam. He doesn't know anything. If the imam explains things to him and tries to expand onto issues for him, he wouldn't know. So he is a person who just — because the ayah instructed him — "Go and ask the people of knowledge," he was commanded to do that, and he goes and he does that. That's the ammi. For him to follow a madhhab and all of that — he wouldn't understand it. And this whole discussion that we're having right now won't make sense for him. He just goes to his local imam and he says to his local imam, "I'm married, my wife and I have this issue, what do you think?" The imam will explain it for me. He's one — as the poet said — he just goes to a person who combined between knowledge and piety, and he asks him.
The second type is a muttabi'. A muttabi' is a person who can look at the dalil of each party. So he's able to look at — for example — Ahmad ibn Hanbal said this, and the madhhab of the Hanabilah mentioned this, and he's able to look at the evidences that they provide. To get to that level — that's not a low level for someone.
Do they need the Arabic language for that? Yeah, they need conditions that the scholars mentioned. He has to know usool al-fiqh, he has to study usool al-fiqh, he has to study the Arabic language, he has to have... and he has to have...
So most people in their lifetime won't even get to this stage, for you to say that they need these kinds of sciences. No, this person is not going to the evidence directly himself. Agreed, but even just to get to this stage where they understand what the opinions of the imams are and are able to make some kind of judgment on this astronomy — that’s a high level.
It changes from one person to another. It also changes from the availability for each person. Some person — one particular person — might live in a land where there are mujtahideen, and so he's able to see the discussion happening between them, so it makes it easier for him. Another person may not have that, so he has to go through the books and read it and etc.
It also goes back to the person's mind — is he sharp? Is he smart? Is he clever? Is he dedicated? Does he have it in him?
And I can't give — 10 years it will take, or 5 years — someone could do it in a very short period of time. But you're right — there are conditions for a person to be able to do that, which is that the person can look at a discussion happening between the ulema. So he'll see, for example, madhhab al-Hanbali, let's say, in an issue — and he sees that madhhab al-Shafi'i, they believe this in this issue.
So then what he does is that he writes down each party's evidences and their principles that they're both using — okay? — and he's able to strengthen one over the other.
Based on what? Based on who's closer to the evidence.
How does he know who's closer to the evidence?
For example, one party is using evidence that the other party hasn't come across. What if the other party also has an evidence that the other party hasn't heard of?
So now it goes to the issue of ijtihad. It's not just the khilaf anymore. The scholars call this ijtihad.
Now what happens is that this muttabi' — if he's got a madhhab that he follows, he's content with his madhhab — for example, if I have an issue where I feel the madhhab of the Hanabilah have a very strong view on this issue, and the Shafi'i madhhab have a very strong... there are situations like that for me where I can't reach a conclusion in this issue.
In that case you would? I would stick to the Shafi'i madhhab.
That's your madhhab? You're just doing that because this is the one you choose? My knowledge and my ability in this issue can't reach that point of looking at the evidence. It hasn't become clear to me.
You don't see that as problematic? I'm just going to blind follow Imam Shafi'i in this just because I like him more than the other three, and I don't know what to do in this issue, so let me just stick to him? Ta'assub is different. Ta'assub — by the way, there are terms that we need to separate one from the other. Ta'assub means fanaticism. I'm not fanatic to Shafi'i. I believe he can get it right or wrong. I believe Shafi'i can be right or can be wrong. I'm not saying Shafi'i is infallible from his mistakes.
By the way, he himself — Shafi'i — claimed, said in his Kitab Jumma'ul-Ilm, he said:
He said that no one can claim that they've memorized the entire hadith of the Prophet.
And in the Qur'an, you can claim to memorize it all. In its qira'at and all that — you can. In the Qur'an, we have many people who have the entire Qur'an in their chest. They also have the different qira'at in their chest — alhamdulillah. But we don't have anyone on the face of this Earth — historically — no one has memorized the entire hadith of the Prophet. So there's always going to be a portion of hadith missing from you. You might even have memorized that hadith, but forgot it.
So the Imam is... and the hadith is a source of legislation, is it not? And that's where you get your evidences from. So if an evidence is missing from you, it will affect your verdict, right?
So Shafi'i — I'm not saying he's infallible. I'm saying he is... everyone — his speech is either taken or rejected. And Shafi'i falls under that. He's no exception to that.
But when I came to an issue and it became clear to me that I am not yet able to see who is rajih and who is marjuh...
Are you there? Who is rajih and who is marjuh?
Which means in English? I don't know which one is stronger and which one is weaker. It hasn't become clear to me.
I now become an ammi in this issue. Okay. Or I become a muqallid in this issue. Okay. I understand.
Shafi'i brought evidences. I trust him in his righteousness and his nobility. And I trust him in his taqwa and deen, just like you would trust Ahmad. But on top of that, I strengthen the usool of Shafi'i more than the usool of Ahmad. Ahmad has a usool that he builds things on — yeah?
Remember again, I said tamadhhub is usool al-istidlal al-fiqhi and furu' al-fiqhiyyah. The usool al-istidlal al-fiqhi, I am more leaning towards Shafi'i over Ahmad's usool al-istidlal al-fiqhi. So when the issue doesn't become clear to me, I lean towards him.
On what basis are you leaning towards him more than this? Because you're from Somalia or is there another reason? No — personal qana'ah. And again the issue of choosing madhhab — I will speak about that in shaa Allah. What makes a person... how can a person choose a madhhab — which is, I think, something to choose.
But the reason I came to that conclusion of following the Shafi'i madhhab is nothing to do with necessarily because of the region I'm from. It played a role — I'm not going to deny it. But it's qana'ah nafsi. I'm personally content with the usool al-istidlal that Imam Shafi'i has.
Isn't this one of the big problems with this issue?
That you're obviously—like you said—it played a role, right? And we can see that. The reality just shows us that a lot of people from Somalia pick Imam Shafi'i. A lot of people from Pakistan, India, pick Abu Hanifa. This is an issue of Deen. Where we're from should not come into it. It shouldn't play a role. Aslan, it should not play a role at all.
Isn't this part of an issue that you yourself are just saying right now that you've fallen into? That's problematic for me. Okay, this Qur'an and Sunnah—they need understanding. What do they need? They need understanding.
And when you look at the 'Ulema who came in Islam—in our last podcast we spoke about some issues related to great scholars of Islam—I told you, when the Prophet ﷺ died, in the city of Madinah... and when the Prophet died in Madinah, a madhhab came out from that city. It's called specifically... and the forefront for that was Imam Malik. The madhhab of Imam Malik is madhhab based on transmission.
There came another madhhab which is... if you're more specific, the madhhab of the people of Kufa, run by Imam Abu Hanifa. Shafi’i and Ahmad have taken from both. Specifically Imam Shafi’i—his madhhab was that he studied from Imam Malik directly, was a student of his. He read it on him. So he directly took from him the concept of transmission and narrations.
Then Shafi’i went and he took knowledge from who? Abu Hanifa. He didn’t meet Abu Hanifa. The year Abu Hanifa died was the year Imam Shafi’i was born. And in 150 Hijri was the year Shafi’i was born, and that was the same year the great Imam Abu Hanifa died. It was the year Abu Hanifa died, and that was the year Imam Shafi’i was born. So he never met Imam Abu Hanifa, but he met the students of Imam Abu Hanifa like Qadi Abu Yusuf, the great jurist and the great faqih. He also met Muhammad ibn Hassan Al-Shaybani. Muhammad ibn Hassan Al-Shaybani and Shafi’i had discussions and dialogues back and forth, which is documented, is written.
Here you learn from Imam Shafi’i. Imam Shafi’i—he has both madrasah. Hence why he became the first person to write the greatest science to aid a person, to aid a person to extract rulings from the Qur'an and the Sunnah, which is known as Usul al-Fiqh.
Shafi’i was the first person to come out, and he wrote a science called Usul al-Fiqh. This science of Usul al-Fiqh... Usul al-Fiqh is Ahl al-Riwayah—they had alfadh. And the people of Abu Hanifa, Ahl al-‘Iraq—they had the concept of extracting. They were good at that. Shafi’i brought for them a way to do it—to do this in a very respectful, disciplined manner.
Because without a shadow of a doubt, the madhhabs that were there, they suffered from two things, which is al-jumud fi al-alfadh. Sometimes they were stubborn on wordings. And another madhhab was al-tawassu‘ fi al-alfadh. They were going overboard with the wording.
For example, al-tawassu‘ fi al-alfadh would be—for example the fatwa that was—the one who said: "Allah made the night a clothing." And he said: you can pray in a dark room naked. You don’t have to wear clothing if you're praying in a room which is pitch dark. You don’t have to necessarily wear clothing because Allah said in the Qur'an...
This is tawassu‘ fi al-alfadh. It’s going extreme in the wording.
And you have jumud also—stubbornness on the wording. Jumud means being too harsh on the wording of the hadith or the ayah. And an example for that was Ibn Hazm—what he said about the virgin girl. Her father will come to her and say to her, "Listen, there’s a brother who asked for your hand in marriage, what do you think?" And the virgin girl in the hadith, he mentions that her permission is her what? It’s her silence.
And the virgin girl, because she’s never been married, she’s shy. When her father tells her, she blushes, she turns away, she covers her face. But that’s her affirmation.
Ibn Hazm said: if she says, "Dad, I do want...," if she says, "Yes, I do want that brother," he says, "That’s null and void." The hadith clearly said her silence is her affirmation.
That’s jumud—that’s stubbornness on the wording.
Shafi’i is also one of the reasons—there’s many reasons I can speak about it—but Shafi’i is that his usool is mustaqeem. His usool is very qawiy.
When I say to you I’m a Shafi’i and I follow the Shafi’i madhhab, I mean the usool is Shafi’i—the usool I’m upon. I can sometimes disagree with Shafi’i.
How do you stay consistent? How can you say, "I'm going to take his usool, but I'm not going to follow that all the way through the process, and I'm going to take..."?
The nass governs me.
Isn’t that contradictory?
No, it's not. For example, Imam Abu Hanifa has his own usool, which is different to Imam Shafi'i's usool.
You believe Imam Shafi'i's usool is better and stronger?
Yeah, but I believe Shafi'i is best. And then on one issue—for example—
By the way, when I say Shafi'i is the best—and again this is another issue that I want to go into, which is the issue of al-Mufadhala bayn al-madhahib.
And we saw this. There's a kitab written by Ibn Ali al-Juwayni, where he called it مغيث الخلق في ترجيح القول الحق, where he says that Shafi'i is the best.
Ibn Ali al-Juwayni—the صاحب الورقات—and he virtues Shafi'i.
When I say the usool of Shafi'i is the best, it doesn't mean unrestricted. There are many usools of Shafi'i I don't agree with, and I think this usool of the Hanabilah is better.
The Shafi'i is not the... I mean, there's usool.
Also, after Ibn Ali al-Juwayni gave unrestricted virtue to the Shafi'i madhhab, Sibt al-Jawzi wrote a kitab called الانتصار والترجيح للمذهب الصحيح, where he strengthens the Hanafi madhhab and says...
Also, Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari al-Halik—he also wrote a kitab in giving virtue, but he's fanatic in giving the Hanafi madhhab.
And then after him came Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ra'i al-Andalusi. He wrote a kitab called الانتصار الفقير السالك لترجيح مذهب الإمام مالك, where he came and he said مذهب الإمام مالك is the best and there’s nothing like it.
Ibn Muflih, the author of صاحب الفروع in the madhhab of Imam Ahmad—in Kitab al-Ridda, the chapter of apostasy, at the ending of it, he mentions:
إن الحق في أحد المذاهب الأربعة
He said that anyone who says إن الحق في أحد المذاهب الأربعة—that the truth is in one of the four madhhabs—دون ما عداه, this madhhab is the best over any other madhhab, who claims that, he should be asked to repent, or he’s disciplined. The leader might imprison him, lash him. It’s not a joke.
So I'm not here saying that the Shafi'i madhhab is unrestrictedly the best madhhab. I won't claim that, because there are quite a few issues which I disagree with the Shafi'i madhhab on.
But the usool of Imam Shafi'i... the usool of Imam Shafi'i seems to be...
I want to go back to my question.
You have usool and furu‘ from each madhhab. You say you want to go with the usool of Shafi'i, but in some of the furu‘, you might take Abu Hanifa's opinion, for example, that has been built upon different usool.
Now you're contradicting. Because you like this usool, but you want this furu‘. That, for me, is contradictory.
Because you've actually left the usool that you agree with and gone to someone else's usool which you disagree with—and taken their verdict.
Let me explain something to you now. There’s a slight contradiction that’s happening to you right now. You’re conflating tamadhhub with taqlid.
What do you mean by that?
You’re saying tamadhhub and taqlid are one and the other. This is one of the mistakes that many people fall into. They believe tamadhhub means automatically taqlid.
When they speak about tamadhhub, they always bring the ayat and the nusoos that have come down that rebuke blind following. So they say tamadhhub is always blind following.
No—we don’t believe tamadhhub is blind following. Tamadhhub is not the same as blind following. It doesn’t mean that tamadhhub and taqlid are one and the other. No.
And there are differences between the two.
For example, tamadhhub is following a madrasah, whereas taqlid—you’re following a person. Pay attention to that.
Tamadhhub means I'm following a madrasah—a madrasah. This madrasah has been going on for 1300-something years. Okay?
Taqlid means one individual. I’m holding on to him.
Also taqlid, blind following—it doesn’t allow a person to think and do ijtihad and work, whereas tamadhhub—you do ijtihad and you work hard.
And that's why we find people who follow the madhhabs actually became mujtahideen later.
I see.
We don't find anyone who sticks as a blind follower to ever be a mujtahid.
I’ll give you an example.
He mentioned:
Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad...
He said:
هم أصحابنا
They are ashabuna—our companions. Okay?
They reached the level of ijtihad al-mutlaq. These men have reached unrestricted ijtihad.
And when we say the ijtihad is two—the mujtahid is two types:
- There’s a mujtahid which is muqayyad—he’s a mujtahid within the madhhab, nowhere else.
- And there is the mujtahid mutlaq—he looks at the Qur’an and the Sunnah.
But he said at the beginning what? Minnā—from us. They reached the level of ijtihad al-mutlaq.
Even though they’ve reached the level of ijtihad al-mutlaq, he didn’t stop them from being what? From the Shafi'i madhhab.
Pay attention to that.
So what I mean from that is that tamadhhub can—if it's used correctly, if it's understood correctly—it can be a stepping stone to ijtihad al-mutlaq, to become a mujtahid mutlaq.
When you use tamadhhub as taqlid, blind following—it becomes a problem.
So when I say to you, Imam al-Shafi'i—I follow his usool.
First of all, I don’t believe his usool is muttarid—in every single usool that he mentions it applies on everything. There are exceptions that are in general principles. You've probably studied in Qawa‘id al-Fiqh and also in Usul al-Fiqh.
Second thing is that within the Shafi'i madhhab itself—within the Shafi'i madhhab itself—there’s always going to be a person who’s going to disagree with the Imam, who are upon his madhhab.
For example, if you go to Imam al-Nawawi—what is he in the madhhab al-Shafi'i? Allahu Akbar.
You can actually say the muta’akhkhireen, the late Shafi'is today, they are Nawawi or Rafi‘i.
A man even said:
نواويات لا نبوية
The people are what? Nawawiyatun—they are Nawawi's, not nabawiyah—they are not on the Prophet’s way.
And that’s not a praiseworthy thing. It should be upon the way of the Prophet ﷺ.
But Imam al-Nawawi—when he came to al-Jazur—do you do wudu’ from it or not?
Shafi'i connected that to the authentication of the hadith. Shafi’i said: if the hadith is sahih—
Shafi’i said: if this is sahih, that’s my madhhab.
Nawawi authenticated it and then he said: this is what Shafi’i would have said if he was alive. And I am upon the madhhab of Imam Shafi’i and I say this.
Bayhaqi even said—this is a hadith—Sunan al-Kubra of al-Bayhaqi. He said this hadith is sahih, and if Shafi’i was alive, he would have taken it.
Even Nawawi—he says:
إذا صح الحديث فهو مذهبي
He has a book called إذا صح الحديث فهو مذهبي. In there, he brings the example of Nawawi that I mentioned.
So what I mean by all of that is that tamad-dhub has been used in the wrong way. It has been used in the wrong way. And it can also be used in the right way.
These great four Imams that I mentioned — all four of them became Mujtahid Mutlaq — unrestricted mujtahideen who were able to use the Qur’an and the Sunnah and speak about it.
Okay, I really want to go back — because I know we digressed, and I have a feeling that’s going to happen a lot in this podcast — but I want to go back to those three groups of people:
- The muqallid — the one who is a basic ‘āmmi, who just blind follows. He asks his local Imam, as he put it.
- The mutabi‘, who we’ve been talking about quite a lot — and I get the feeling from this podcast that that’s kind of a category you put yourself in sometimes. And like you said, sometimes you have to make taqlīd on certain issues as well.
- And then the mujtahid — I don’t really want to be talking about the mujtahid too much. I think we’ll go in — I’ve got questions at the end about the mujtahid, but I’d be surprised if any mujtahideen are watching our podcast. And if they are — I suggest they shouldn’t be, they should be doing something else.
But the mutabi‘, the follower — we’ve been speaking about that, and that is a level where you can go into either the books or to the Imams, and then basically try and take which one you believe is strongest, based on your principles or the evidences, etc.
The muqallid — I believe most people will fall into this category. This person — you said there’s no issue with him just asking his Imam, for example. There’s a brother who has an Imam who’s Pakistani, for example — he knows this Imam only takes from Abu Hanifah. He’s got ta‘aṣṣub upon the madhhab of Abu Hanifah. This person — can he use this Imam and just ask him everything? “What’s the ruling of this?”
No. Why not? Because — you said that he has to blind follow someone?
Yeah, but that’s what I say. You have to understand — he can’t ask a person who’s a blind follower himself. He has to ask a person who’s a scholar, a person of knowledge. A muqallid, as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr mentioned in his book Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm wa Faḍlih,
"The person who is a muqallid, laysa fī jumlat al-ʿulamā’" — he’s not considered from among the scholars, not considered a person of knowledge.
Even if he’s an Imam?
It doesn’t matter.
So he has to ask a person who is not a muqallid — who uses the speech of the scholars to understand the Qur’an and Sunnah. He has to go to that person.
That’s why the poet said:
So he’s going to a person of dīn and ʿilm. The person’s got religion — he’s a pious individual — and he’s got knowledge.
Combined between those two. So this person — he eats ḥalāl, he’s not alcoholic, he’s not smoking. And someone else might know all of the madhāhib, all the aqwāl, and all the views and everything — might be knowledgeable — but you don’t listen to that if he’s drinking alcohol and he’s smoking.
He has to go to someone of religion, someone who has piety, and someone who’s got knowledge. And part of that knowledge is not just to be a blind follower himself — he has to have enough knowledge to be able to... Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s true.
Now — there’s something you said in your statement that I kind of want to point out, which is this concept of the four madhāhib.
I don’t believe that the ḥaqq is only restricted to the four madhāhib. This is something some scholars have mentioned — that the truth is connected to the four madhāhib, and it’s not allowed for you to leave the four madhāhib.
And one poet said:
وَجَائِزُ التَّقْلِيدُ غَيْرَ الْأَرْبَعَ لِذِي ضَرُورَةٍ وَفِيهَا ذَسَعَ
Even Ṣāḥib al-Marāqī, in his Alfiyyah al-Uṣūlīyyah (Marāqī al-Suʿūd), said:
وَالْمُجْمَعُ الْيَوْمَ عَلَيْهِ أَرْبَعَ وَقَفُهَا غَيْرِهَا الْجَمِيعُ مَنَعَ
Which basically is: There are some scholars — like Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī — who said that following the four madhāhib, you have to stay within them. And Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī — he has a book called
رَدٌّ عَلَى مَنِ اتَّبَعَ غَيْرَ الْمَذَاهِبِ الْأَرْبَعَ — a refutation on the one who follows other than the four madhāhib.
Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Ṣalāḥ also held that opinion. And Ṣāḥib al-Marāqī brings ijmāʿ on this issue. And al-Nafrawī, in his Sharḥ al-Risālah, also brings ijmāʿ on this issue. And Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shinqīṭī says:
المتأخرون الأصوليين من جميع المذاهب مطبقون كلهم على وجوبه That the later uṣūlīs from all the madhāhib unanimously agreed on its obligation.
The point I’m trying to say is — I don’t believe that this ijmāʿ is true. Ṣāḥib al-Marāqī’s statement:
وَالْمُجْمَعُ الْيَوْمَ عَلَيْهِ أَرْبَعَ — I think that’s not correct.
But what gives you the right to say that? It’s ijmāʿ! That’s where we take our religion from. That’s like saying, “I don’t believe this Sunnah.”
I think naql al-ijmāʿ here is not ṣaḥīḥ — because the opposite group also transmitted ijmāʿ on the opposite. Ibn Ḥazm brought the opposite of that ijmāʿ.
Who came first?
Ibn Ḥazm is before Ṣāḥib al-Marāqī, and before al-Nafrawī and Ibn Rajab — before all of those people.
So you’re confusing me with your speech here — because how can you say that the truth is not restricted to these four? You have no other option. Allah got rid of the other madhāhib. Allah actually refined it — so we only have these four left. Isn’t that Allah showing you that the truth is within these four?
The truth is lost then?
No — it’s not that it’s lost. I’m saying to you — the truth doesn’t mean it’s restricted to these four. Some of the madhāhib are still being mentioned.
Like which madhhab?
Sufyān al-Thawrī’s views are mentioned. We have some of his views and issues. Abū Thawr’s madhhab — we’ve got some of his views.
And those views are not found in any of the four madhāhib. You’re saying — some issues — we have their statements mentioned. Sufyān al-Thawrī gave this verdict. Abū Zarr gave this verdict on this issue. And it may not necessarily be found in the four.
So, restricting—two things I want to mention. Restricting the truth to these four is baseless, and there's no evidence for that.
What about the argument that Allah has restricted it for you because He has made...?
Now, the second part of the question is that you're not allowed to use universal evidences to affirm a Sharīʿa evidence.
Explain yourself—what do you mean?
You're saying that universally what took place—historically, universally happened—is that these madhāhibs became only four, okay? You're using a universal occurrence and trying to bring from that a Sharīʿa ruling. That's not what we do. We don't do that.
Even if—like what if you say that you can see oppressors being punished?
Oppressors?
There's oppression taking place in the land, for example, and you see the punishment of Allah coming. But there's a legislation prior to that. So, that's a universal thing that Allah has brought down, right?
But no, there's legislation here as well.
No, but I'm saying that issue—prior to the universal event, there's legislation for it.
Okay, let's break this down. I just want people to understand this.
What I'm saying is that you have people who are oppressing a nation, and Allah is bringing this punishment amongst those people. I'm saying my argument is that this is a universal event—that Allah is bringing the punishment.
You're saying yes, that's fine—but that's because Allah says He's going to punish the oppressors, and that is a Sharʿan legislation. That's what you're saying.
So in that case, you can say this is happening because of that—because you have a text to prove it.
No. I'm saying to you—saying that the four Imams, the truth is restricted to them—bring me an evidence from the Qur'an. Which ijmāʿ?
Okay, the fact that we need... By the way, this ijmāʿ is not the early scholars who mentioned this. This ijmāʿ was only mentioned after that. This ijmāʿ came in the 6th century onwards.
And I said the opposite was also claimed.
And also, he mentioned Ibn Abī Dhi’b and Imām Mālik just to show you—there's no consensus that we have to follow these four.
It reached him that Ibn Abī Dhi’b said Mālik ibn Anas did not take the hadīth of... Okay, that the person who's buying a product has a choice of returning the item before he leaves. There's a school—a choice: do you want to buy the product while you're here? No, I don't want it—give me back my money. You've got that?
Mālik didn't take that hadīth. He had his reasons, right? He's not just going to reject the hadīth.
He said, Ibn Abī Dhi’b, when he heard that, he said Mālik is asked to repent from this. If he does not repent—
About Imām Mālik?
—or his head is going to be sliced.
Sorry, I cut you off with the English translation.
He said Mālik is told to repent. If he repents—fine. If he refuses and he still holds on to the opinion, Mālik’s head is going to be sliced. He's going to be killed for this. He rejected the hadīth.
Aḥmad then said—Aḥmad here—he said that Ibn Abī Dhi’b here is more on the safer side, and the truth is with him than Mālik.
Sometimes he takes things and he points against it. Dhi’b got angry, so he got angry, and he responded to this:
If Ibn Abī Dhi’b was really a God-fearing person—as he should have been—he would not have said something like this about Imām Mālik.
Mālik did not act upon this hadīth because he saw it to be abrogated.
And it's also even said that he acted upon it and he used what they have said, and he went into the hadīth and used it in a different way.
The point I'm trying to say to you—the Imams of Islām, they were tough on this issue of the truth being the thing that is followed.
If Mālik's goal is—he’s one of the four, right?
Why did Ibn Abī Dhi’b say that about him? Is it also the other opinion found in one of the other three? Which one?
So he's not agreeing with Imām Mālik's opinion on this issue. But the opinion that he is agreeing with—is it found in the other three?
So it's not left to four. Ibn Abī Dhi’b didn't say, "Mālik, Shāfiʿī said this," or "another Imām said this." He didn't use that. He said, "I've got the ḥadīth. The proof is with me."
I think this is the crux of the issue here, don't you think? That even when you're talking about an issue where the truth is not with the four madhāhib, and you're saying the truth is with Ṣūfī An-Nathūrī, for example—the truth according to you is with Ṣūfī An-Nathūrī.
Mālik believed he had the truth. Shāfiʿī believed he had the truth. So why can't we say that the truth is with them?
You're just wrong—Ṣūfī An-Nathūrī is wrong. Why do we have to follow you and say, "Yeah, you say Ṣūfī An-Nathūrī was right on this issue, and the other four were wrong"?
I'm saying—do you get what I'm saying? It's so subjective. Everyone believes they're on the truth.
You're partially right on some of what you're saying. You're right in the sense where I could say Ṣūfī An-Nathūrī got this right, and the truth may be that the other four Imāms are right, okay—which means it stays within the four.
But to say that the ḥaqq is restricted to these four is what our discussion is about. It's not whether Ṣūfī An-Nathūrī is right here or wrong—he could be wrong. But if he is wrong, then the ḥaqq is with the four.
No debate, I'm not discussing that with you.
I'm discussing—to say that every time these four Imāms agree on something, all four of them, then that means that's the ḥaqq. That’s what your statement is giving.
Yeah, yeah.
That’s wrong.
Why?
It's only four people. How come four great Imāms—greater than you, greater than the modern-day scholars—how come four Imāms agree on an error?
This is exactly the reason why Ibn Taymiyyah was actually imprisoned and the whole issue with Ibn Taymiyyah took place.
They say Ibn Taymiyyah—17 issues. 17 issues, Ibn Taymiyyah—you hear that, it's common, it's documented. Subkī and others mention that. Why? Because he went against the four madhāhib.
But does that show that Ibn Taymiyyah is wrong?
No. The truth is—actually now, the four madhāhib today believe—the issue of the ṭalāq, is it considered one or three? All madhāhib, the four of them, they all have one view on this issue: if a man divorces a woman and he gives ṭalāq to her, he says "three," three times at the same time—
If a man says to the woman, "I divorce you by three," the four madhāhib—they believe that that ṭalāq is considered to be the three that happened.
The four. The four madhāhib believe that if the man says, "I divorce you three times in a row," they believe that that is a proper divorce—they believe it's three divorces. All four madhāhib believe that.
Ibn Taymiyyah believes it's only one. Why? That's what it comes down to.
Regardless of who's right or who's wrong—
No, that is an important part. Because if they're right and he's wrong, then you haven't proven—
I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
I'm just trying to show you that Ibn Taymiyyah did not see that argument to be valid. And he can be wrong, and the four madhhabs can still be right.
But the four madhhabs—if I go into the discussion of where the fiqh issue is—it’s based on a hadith. An Imam of the Muslims.
During the time of the Messenger ﷺ, and the time of Abu Bakr, and two years of the time of Umar, the three divorces were considered one. If a man says to his wife—if he says it three times—it was considered one.
Umar then changed it. And he said to the people: “You have hastened in a matter that was easy for you.” And people were just saying it. So he ruled that three is three.
How did that knowledge come to you and miss these four noble great Imams?
What evidence did they have? Did they just make that up?
I'm not saying they don’t have evidence. This is not the issue I'm coming to.
They could be right, and Ibn Taymiyyah could be wrong.
I have an opinion on this issue, but it’s not what I want to go into.
The point is—I don’t want to do tarjīḥ of who’s right and who’s wrong. Let’s compare the two opinions—that’s not what I’m trying to do.
I’m just trying to say to you: we have the four Imams on one side, and Ibn Taymiyyah is going against those four Imams. And they accused Ibn Taymiyyah of being a person who went against ijmāʿ.
And the ijmāʿ they’re referring to is these four Imams.
Now—this opinion, by the way, of Ibn Taymiyyah—which he got imprisoned for, and it was an issue—don’t take it lightly.
It became a big issue on him. They saw it as heresy.
What he came with became now the most common opinion amongst the majority of the people.
You even go to different countries—even people who follow madhhabs—they started to give that fatwa.
Numbers are not a proof. I’m not saying it is a proof. But what I’m trying to say to you is—my argument is: the truth cannot be restricted to individuals. That’s my argument.
You’re saying that these individuals—it could happen every time. It could happen.
I'm just saying hypothetically, that when these four Imams agree with each other—we’ve not yet seen a mistake that came from them.
That could even be an argument. I’m not going to discuss that.
I'm just saying to you: that still doesn’t make it, that because these four agreed on something, it becomes a proof.
If that’s the case, then why can’t someone say it is a proof?
Because al-istiqrāʾ—there could be one time someone can prove you otherwise. And it breaks the premise of saying that the ḥaqq is restricted to these four—that’s wrong.
And you’re building that premise on the introduction that you said—which we both agreed on—that an individual can be right, and can be wrong—unless he’s a messenger.
And these individuals—there’s one, two, three, four of them—they could be right, they could be wrong. There could be a circumstance where he’s wrong, she’s wrong, he’s wrong.
Okay—that is, even regardless of whether we prove it with a masʾalah or not—that is a fact.
And that was something we said: ʿiṣmah—to be infallible—is for prophets.
The hadith of Amr ibn al-ʿĀṣ in Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim—the Prophet ﷺ said… the Prophet told the scholars: “They get one reward or two rewards. If they get it right, they get two rewards. If they get it wrong, they get one reward.”
Which proves that they can get it wrong—just from his statement.
And the only person who can come into that discussion and say: “No, the truth is within the four”—is if they bring in ijmāʿ.
And you’re saying that ijmāʿ was brought—but it wasn’t correct—because there’s an ijmā. I'm just trying to show you that Ibn Taymiyyah did not see that argument to be valid. And he can be wrong, and the four madhāhib can still be right. But the four madhāhib—if I go into the discussion of where the fiqh issue is—it’s based on a ḥadīth. An Imām of Muslims. Where, at the time of the Messenger, and the time of Abū Bakr, and two years of the time of ʿUmar, the three divorces were considered one. If a man says to his wife three times—it was considered one. ʿUmar then changed it and he said to the people: they have hastened in a matter that was easy for them, and people were just saying it. So he put three as three.
How did that knowledge come to you and miss these four noble, great imams? What evidence did they have? Did they just make that up? I'm not saying they don't have evidence. This is not the issue I'm coming to. They could be right and Ibn Taymiyyah could be wrong. I have an opinion on this issue, but it's not what I want to go into.
The point is, I don't want to do tarjīḥ of who's right and who's wrong. Let's compare the two opinions — that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to say to you: we have the four imams on one side. Ibn Taymiyyah is going against those four imams. And they accuse Ibn Taymiyyah of being a person who went against the ijmāʿ. And the ijmāʿ they're referring to is these four imams.
Now, this opinion — by the way — of Ibn Taymiyyah, which he got imprisoned for and it was an issue — don’t take it lightly. It became a big issue on him. They saw it to be heresy. What he came with became now the most common opinion amongst the majority of the people. You even go to different countries, even people who follow madhāhib — they started to give it as a fatwa.
Numbers are not a proof — I'm not saying it is a proof — but what I'm trying to say to you is: my argument is the truth cannot be restricted to individuals. That's my argument. You're saying that these individuals — it could happen every time. It could happen. I'm just saying, hypothetically, that when these four imams agree with each other, we've not yet seen a mistake that came from them. That could even be an argument — I'm not going to discuss that. I'm just saying to you: that still doesn't make it, because these four agreed on something, it becomes a proof.
If that's the case, then why can't someone say it is a proof? Because al-istiqrāʾ — there could be one time someone can prove you otherwise. And it breaks the premise of saying that the ḥaqq is restricted to these four. It's wrong. And you're building that premise on the introduction that you said, which we both agreed on: that an individual can be right and can be wrong — unless he's a messenger.
And these individuals — there's one, two, three, four of them — they could be right, they could be wrong. There could be a circumstance where he's wrong, she's wrong, he's wrong — okay, that is — even regardless of whether we prove it with a masʾalah or not — that is a fact. And that was something we said: ʿiṣmah, to be infallible, is for prophets.
Ḥadīth of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Muslim — the Prophet said — the Prophet told the scholars — between one reward or two rewards: they get it right, they get two rewards; they get it wrong, they get one reward — which proves that they can get it wrong just from his statement.
And the only person who can come into that discussion and say, “No, the truth is within the four,” is if they bring in ijmāʿ. And you're saying that ijmāʿ was brought — but it wasn’t correct because there’s an ijmāʿ on the other side as well.
Okay, let's put that discussion to the side. I want to talk about another issue now. Again, this is part of the crux of the issue. You're following a madhhab — or I say I'm following a madhhab, for example — and I have a ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth in Bukhārī, for example. And I agree this ḥadīth is authentic. Am I now going to leave the madhhab and follow the ḥadīth?
It depends on the person again. Okay — an ʿāmmi cannot go to the ḥadīth himself and extract rulings from it, because he doesn't know how to use it. So again, his job is to go to the ʿālim — a scholar — and say what the scholar says.
The muttabiʿ — the person who has ittibāʿ — who can look at the madhāhib, check the evidences, he's not allowed to — again — he's not able to go to the Qur’ān and the Sunnah himself. I mean, I cannot personally right now open the Qur’ān, extract a ruling, regardless of who said it. A mujtahid can do that — a mujtahid will look at the Qur’ān and the Sunnah, he'll bring out a ruling. He doesn't care who said it or who did it. He's looking at the Qur’ān and the Sunnah, based on the principles that were written — uṣūl and qawāʿid — and extract rulings out of it. He doesn't have to worry about who said it, who agreed with him or not. He's got his evidences. He's a mujtahid. He has that right. He’s got the ʿāliyyah to be present for him.
The individual who’s not reached that — he's a muttabiʿ — he has to get the āyah and the ḥadīth and support it with the understanding of a great imam. So when he brings the ḥadīth to us, we say, “Okay, jamīl, the ḥadīth is in Bukhārī, we agree with you — who understood it like that?” Even he can’t just take the ḥadīth and apply it himself without someone preceding him.
If he’s not a mujtahid — no. If he’s a mujtahid though, of course he can. But if he’s not a mujtahid — no. You only read Bukhārī in English — how can you just quote Bukhārī like that to me? You don’t understand it. You don’t know how Bukhārī works. This could be a general ruling. It could be a khāṣṣ on the other’s part. This could be mansūkh — it could be a nāsikh. You don’t know that. It could be a muṭlaq. The dalīl that you're using is a mafhūm — and some qawāʿid, mafhūm is not a ḥujjah. Manṭūq is the strongest ḥujjah. And we have a muʿāraḍah — a position between a mafhūm and a manṭūq — we're going to give precedence to the manṭūq over the mafhūm.
And just explain these terms in English: we have a direct instruction from the Prophet, and then we have an understanding — a reverse understanding — from the statement of the Prophet. Which one do you think takes precedence? We take the direct one — if there seems to be a contradiction between the two.
So what I mean is that a beginner student of knowledge can't come up with his own opinions. Every time he says something, he's asked: “Who understood it like that?” A lot of people have an issue with this because they say: “You admitted at the start that nobody has memorized all of the ḥadīths.”
So say you have someone who has preceded you even. Say you're a muttabiʿ — you're a follower — and you come across a ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth, and you even have precedence that this ḥadīth is applied in this situation — but how do you know there isn’t another authentic ḥadīth on the other side that is actually contradicting you? Because you admit yourself you don’t know.
So for example you have a masʾalah with two views — you're following this view because of a ḥadīth that is authentic, and you've seen it, and you have someone who has preceded you and said this applies here. How do you know that this guy who's following also doesn’t have a ḥadīth that may be abrogating this ḥadīth? Maybe it's stronger?
I don’t come to my conclusion unless I read what’s for me and against me.
But you just admitted you can’t view all the ḥadīths. You don’t know all the ḥadīths.
But there's an opposition — that's there, right?
Again, I'm not a mujtahid to find all the ḥadīths.
Are you going to read all of the evidences?
I'm going to read each party's argument that they brought to the table. And I'm not restricting the people I look at — I'm not restricting them to the four madhāhib, as I said — because the truth is not restricted only to the four.
But when I read — this is where my tamadhhub comes into place — because you might think you're not even following any madhhab, you're just looking at the dalīl and the aḥwāl.
With that said though, if I then look at the two argumentations that are going on — so it's al-Imām Mālik and we have al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī arguing, going at each other on this issue — and the madhāhib are very tough on this issue — by default I'm looking at the nūṣūṣ, the evidence that both parties are bringing, and how they extrapolate and derive rulings from it.
When I look, I follow the arguments. I look at the mujīzūn — those who are permitting it — and the māniʿūn — those who are rejecting it. I go back and forth. It's a dialogue and a discussion back and forth. What did you say? What’s your evidence? You’re looking at all of that. Once you finish with each, you cross-check all.
Then it might come to an argument of taṣḥīḥ and taḍʿīf al-ḥadīth. Then you say: I'm going to grade the ḥadīth. I'm going to look at the ḥadīth, the scholars who authenticated it.
You might come back after a month and say: “I believe now Mālik is stronger than al-Shāfiʿī, and I'm with Mālik on this issue.” Now pay attention to that.
It may happen that I look at Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī going at each other on this issue, and I can't seem to see who's right. One time when I look at this one — it’s right. One time when I look at it from this point of view — it’s right. It’s really confusing me, and I'm not able to take in who's right and who's wrong. I can't put my finger on it.
This is where tamadhhub comes in for me. I say: “Look, I'll just stick to al-Shāfiʿī’s view because that's the madhhab I follow.” And for the reasons you explained earlier as well.
Now I come to the concept. I'm in this issue of muqallid, and I won't impose it on anybody. I won't even argue with somebody — "You're right, I'm wrong" — I wouldn't. So a muqallid can't do that. A muqallid cannot argue. He takes a position based on blind following. He cannot say, "You're wrong, you're right."
And he also can't say — what was the second thing you said? "You're wrong, you're right." He can't strengthen a view over another view and say, "You're right or wrong." And he can't impose it. He can't impose it on other people — what he follows.
I've now chosen to blind follow Shafi'i in this issue. I'm just sakit. I take it, I'm quiet, and I go on.
If someone comes up to me who shows me how there's a mistake here, and he brings strong evidence, and he explains it to me, and he shows it to me — I'll follow the truth that he comes with. And I now know why my view is wrong.
Do you not have an issue with like — you set a premise at the start that we follow the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and the only one who's infallible is the Prophet. Do you not have an issue that you're always following men?
And I'll tell you what I mean by that. The way that you say: "This hadith is sahih, therefore it goes against this madhhab, and I'm going to take the authentic hadith." Who graded it authentic? Bukhari? Shaykh Al-Albani? These are men who are fallible and not infallible. You're always following men either way.
But we're not following the men — we're following a science that is placed. A framework that's written.
Go into that a bit more.
So, when I look at these ulama — I said to you before, we have furu' al-fiqh, the rulings — halal and haram is furu' al-fiqh. When they say this is permissible, this is not permissible — this is furu' al-fiqh. This is what we read in the matn books — "These are conditions of salah", "These are this..." — this is built upon an usool. They don't just randomly throw that into the book — that the shuroot of salah is this. It's built on a foundation for them. Are you with me?
The usool — Ibn Baz, when he was asked, he said, "Are you Hanbali?" He goes, "La, our usool is the usool of Aal Muhammad." He didn't say, "Our furu' al-fiqh, everything is…"
So Ibn Baz — may Allah have mercy on him — he would go against the madhhab in many issues. Hadith, riwayat, asanid — Shaykh Ibn Baz was a scholar in hadith. A scholar in hadith. Many people undermine Shaykh Ibn Baz when it comes to hadith. Shaykh Ibn Baz is not — he's not less than Shaykh Al-Albani in hadith. No, he's not little.
Shaykh Ibn Baz — may Allah have mercy on him — was a scholar in hadith.
Really?
Yeah. Abd al-Rahman Yahya, the teacher, quoted Shaykh Ibn Baz. The teacher quoted Shaykh Ibn Baz. And there was a debate that happened between the two of them.
Anyways, the point is — and that's not how the Mamlukah is now. The Mamlukah — Saudi Arabia now — is drifting towards this hardcore tamadhhub of Hanbali madhhab. It's changing. And it's trickling into a way that it never used to be before.
The time of Shaykh Ibn Baz, and the time of Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen and others — it's changing now. There's this wave of tamadhhub, jumood, and ta’assub. It's starting to happen. We're starting to see that.
Anyways, Shaykh Ibn Baz was asked. He said, "Our usool is the usool of the Hanabilah. But in the furu' al-fiqh, we might go against the madhhab in issues of furu' al-fiqh."
And that's exactly what I'm saying to you. I believe that I'm of the usool of Imam Shafi'i. But sometimes, in some furu' al-fiqh, the dalil is clear. It's crystal clear that Shafi'i might have gone against this issue.
And Shafi'i was the one who said to me, "If the hadith is correct, it's my madhhab."
So I follow the statement of Imam Shafi'i by doing what? If something is wrong — by leaving his madhhab. He told me to do that. And he told you, "That's my madhhab. If the hadith is correct, it's my madhhab."
I'm more of a follower of Imam Shafi'i when I follow the authentic hadiths.
So, coming back to what you mentioned — the student of knowledge, when he reads the discussion between scholars, he's not following their statements necessarily — he's following the principles that are there.
For example, there's qa'ida, which is: if there's a general text and there's a specific text, the specific is given precedence to the general. That's a principle now.
Now we have Shafi'i using a general text. We have Imam Malik using a specific text. Who am I going to give the upper hand to? As I'm watching the dialogue going between the two — this is what — who's following the framework?
I'm seeing Shafi'i using, for example, an abrogated text. Who's given precedence? The one that's abrogating, right? So that's how the discussion goes.
I'm not following them as individuals. I'm following who is in line with the qa'ida, who is in line with the Qur'an and the Sunnah in this issue.
A lot of people actually bring a contention here, and they say that this asl that you have — that if the hadith is sahih, I'm going to follow it — is a problem in the first place.
I'll give you an example. Let's bring a real-life example — like this mas'ala of the taslim at the end of the salah.
Imam Shafi'i has a sahih hadith on his side — that the Prophet ﷺ did it twice: one shoulder, one shoulder.
Imam Malik believes that hadith is sahih, but he said: all of the people of Madinah only did it once.
Now you have an issue where you have a sahih hadith and you're saying, "I'm going to follow this." But the problem you have is that this is not how it was implemented by the people who saw the companions who saw the Prophet ﷺ pray.
And the Prophet ﷺ said: "Pray as you see me pray." He did not say: "Pray as you read in my hadith."
Therefore, this issue of Ahlul Madinah and their actions — and if all the people of Madinah did this — that has to take precedence over a sahih hadith that you're reading 1400 years later. It has to.
Now you've come to one of the evidences that are disputed. The evidences are two types:
There's a daleel which is mujma'un 'alayh — all the scholars from Imam Abu Hanifah to Imam Ahmad, to every Muslim — we all agreed upon, which is:
- Al-Qur'an
- As-Sunnah
- Al-Ijma'
- Al-Qiyas As-Sahih
This is agreed upon — other than Zahiriyyah on the issue of Qiyas.
The Qur'an, Sunnah, the Ijma', and the Qiyas As-Sahih — if the Qiyas is done properly — it's agreed upon. These four are adillah mujma' 'alayha — evidences that are agreed upon.
There are now evidences which are not necessarily agreed upon.
For example: Madhabu Ahlul Madinah. It's from the adillah which Imam Malik believes in — but not... we don’t follow them.
The second one is the concept of default. The default is this — so it's an evidence. You have to go — it's an evidence which is agreed upon:
- Prohibiting something because of the means
- Prohibiting the means because of what it's going to lead to — It's an evidence which is agreed upon.
The legislation of the people who came before us — if it doesn't go against our Qur’an and Sunnah, and we don't have texts that are affirming it or rejecting it — what do we do with those things that we find from the scriptures of the previous nations?
By the way, in our Shari'ah, there's nothing rejecting this concept, and there's nothing in our Shari'ah that’s also affirming it. But it's present in the early nations. Can we take it as proof? Which is the concept of...
All of those I mentioned are adillah mukhtalaf fiha — meaning they’re differed upon, if we can even take them.
So my discussion with you is: Madhabu Ahlul Madinah — is it a hujjah or is it not? Is the discussion.
And that’s why I came to you at the beginning and I said to you: Istidlalul Usul, Istidlalul Fiqh — what’s it called?
Usulul Istidlalul Fiqh — the foundation on which they built to extract their Fiqh from — is differed amongst themselves. Don't you think that's a bit contradictory with the other statements like: "I follow the Salaf," "Khayrun nāsi qarnī thumma alladhīna yalūnahum," etc.?
And the Ahlul Madinah were the people who saw the Companions, who saw the Prophet — in Madinah, where the Prophet died. But everybody left Madinah. Sahabah scattered and they went to other parts of the world.
And you know, the point I’m trying to come to is: Restricting the truth to a people is like restricting the truth to a land.
Just the same way I said to you — the four Madhabs — we cannot restrict the truth to only them. We can’t restrict the truth to only a buq’ah, a land.
But this is the land where the Prophet died, just a few decades earlier, after the time of Abu Bakr and ‘Umar. We're talking about — and Imam Malik came decades, centuries after the Prophet. When did he die? 179? When was he born? 93?
And the Prophet died 10 years into the Hijri calendar. So you've not really got a long time between him and Imam Malik.
The people of Madinah at that time — you're saying that they went so far astray that they forgot how the Prophet even prayed?
You can't count Imam Malik's life from when he was born. Imam Malik was born in the 93rd year of the Hijriyah. It's nearly 100 years from the time of the Prophet.
You know how many Imams — and how Malik never met any Companion? He never met any of the Companions.
So the point I'm trying to say to you is that the Madhab, to build it on Ahlul Madinah — Even if Ahlul Madinah are all doing the same action — as far as Malik can say, “I saw all of the people,” We can't say all of the Ahlul Madinah were doing it — because that’s according to his knowledge of who he saw.
He must have seen a lot of people in his lifetime. He did. He met a lot of great scholars.
But that’s again what he built his argument on. And that’s why many scholars didn’t all agree with him on this issue — Madhab Ahlul Madinah.
And he — he didn’t reject hadiths based on it. He restricted the meaning of the hadith. I heard that he would take the Ahlul Madinah as the level of Mutawatir hadith.
So if he has an Ahad hadith, he would choose the Ahlul Madinah over that.
Again, sometimes issues of attributions to the Madhabs are a bit hard, far-fetched — it's views that Muta’akhkhirīn held.
The issue I want you to understand is that the whole issue of Tamadhhub is building your rulings on the Usul of the Imam. And the followers of that Madhab will differ upon the ruling because of how they saw the Usul of the Imam on this issue.
The followers of the Madhab will differ upon the ruling because of how they perceive the Usul of the same Madhab.
And you have Ikhtilaf within the Madhab. Of course we do. We all have it. Nawawi has a Qawl, Rafi’i has a Qawl. We have Ashābul Wujūh.
Within the Madhabs, there’s Ashābul Wujūh — people who can extract those rulings. Everybody can do it.
The point I’m trying to say to you is that you’re using now a Dalīl which is disputed. The foundation of that evidence is disputed. And on your side, you have a Dalīl which is not disputed — the Sunnah, essentially.
Ok fine. I want to take you back to the Muqallid, Because I do believe that a lot of people who will be watching this will fall into that.
First question I have is — you mentioned about yourself now, that you would consider yourself to be a Muttabi’ in certain issues, But then you might become a Muqallid in another issue.
Are you allowed to move between these levels? For example, I'm a Muqallid in an issue, but in this one other issue, I believe I’ve got a bit of research with me — I can become a Muttabi’?
Yeah, a Mujtahid — sometimes might be a Mujtahid in something, but a Muqallid in another thing.
From there to there? Yeah, it could be.
Interesting, ok. He’s a Muqallid in that Mas’alah, and in another Mas’alah, he’s a Mujtahid. It’s not always the case that he’s a Mujtahid over the board. There’s some issues he just blindfolds.
Ok, so this person — he’s going to blindfold. A lot of people also ask the question: you said you're not allowed to blindfold one person.
The argument I’m going to put forward for you is that this is what happened at the time of the Prophet ﷺ.
The Prophet ﷺ many times mentioned: “This Companion is the most knowledgeable in this science.” “This Companion is the most knowledgeable in this science.”
“I take this science from this Companion alone.”
Another example — That’s from your own pocket.
This is what people say.
Another example — that’s ziyādah, you added onto the narration.
The Prophet ﷺ — we’re not denying that Al-Imam Abu Hanifah is ‘Ālim, and he’s the most knowledgeable. He’s more knowledgeable than all of us.
Al-Imam Mālik ﷺ is al-‘Ālim, he’s more knowledgeable than we know. He’s more knowledgeable than Ibn Taymiyyah and all of them.
We know Al-Imam Shāfi’i — the same. More knowledgeable than any and everybody that we know. That all the ‘Ulamā’ that we’ve seen, or we’ve met, or we’ve read about.
These scholars are more knowledgeable. Ahmad, Ḥusayn ﷺ — we’re not denying that these are ‘Ulamā’, ‘Ulamā’, Jahābilah, these are Fuqahā’, these are Mujtahidīn.
This is what they are. That being said, I don’t have to follow every single thing that this one Imam says — everything of his statement I follow.
Ibn al-Qayyim says in his I‘lām al-Muwaqqi‘īn, he says — Ibn al-Qayyim, he says:
It is not upon a person to follow a Madhab when he takes the whole entire view of the Imam.
"I'm only going to take what Al-Imam Shāfi’i said, and I believe the ḥaqq is the Madhab of Al-Imam Shāfi’i." I don’t believe that.
But you're not following one Imam. I'm not saying that I'm blind following — whether it even be a Madrasa of Al-Imam Shāfi’i.
The madhhab has been refined, it's been reformed, it's been changed. You've got centuries of people—the greatest Islamic minds in history have come—and you're following this?
I just said to you: the truth is not restricted to the four madhhabs. You're now telling me the truth is restricted in one madhhab throughout its time. How am I going to accept that? I've rejected all four of them added together.
It doesn't matter if the truth is not restricted to them—why can't someone follow them? You might say: because they're going to follow something that's false. But so are you!
I'm saying to you: following the madhhab in every single statement of it, without seeing anything wrong with it—which means—it's an evil innovation.
So when the Prophet ﷺ sent Mu'adh ibn Jabal to Yemen, who were they following apart from Mu'adh?
—What do you mean?
The people of Yemen. They had Mu'adh with them. Who were they following in terms of Tawheed, Salah even? Who were they following other than him?
—That's prophetic Sunnah. The Prophet ﷺ did not only just send Mu'adh.
Really? Who else did he send at the same time?
The Prophet ﷺ said: يَسِّرَا وَلَا تُعَسِّرَا، بَشِّرَا وَلَا تُنَفِّرَا Also, the Messenger ﷺ told him exactly what to command them. Mu'adh was not bringing his own legislation, his understanding from anything. He was conveying a message that was passed on to him.
—Do the historians say how long he was there for? Any idea, roughly?
The Prophet ﷺ passed away and he was still there.
So how can you say he's not bringing anything of his own interpretation for many years? The Prophet ﷺ couldn't tell him to say this every single day, and then this next week—
I'm saying: the Prophet ﷺ told him to convey a message, and he told him exactly what to say.
He said to him: يَا مُعَاذ، إِنَّكَ سَتَأْتِي قَوْمًا مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ، فَلْيَكُنْ أَوَّلَ مَا تَدْعُوهُمْ إِلَيْهِ شَهَادَةُ أَنْ لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ If they obey you in that—
—It's on you.
He said: say this to them. He saw the Prophet ﷺ put his hand up here. He's going to take people—
—Imam Malik is conveying what he saw.
No, he didn't see it from the Prophet ﷺ. That’s my point.
From the people of Madinah now we’re talking about—is it authentically transmitted? Is his understanding of this hadith right? It’s different.
The other point I want you to understand here is that Malik is a ‘alim, Shafi’i is a ‘alim, Ahmad is a ‘alim. All of these great scholars are ‘ulama’. But taking every single statement that Shafi’i says, me taking this entire statement that Ahmad says—all of that—Ahmad didn’t even want me to do that.
I told you this is a بدعة قبيحة حادثة في الأمة.
Look what Ibn al-Qayyim says. He says: لَمْ يَقُلْ بِهَا أَحَدٌ مِنْ أَئِمَّةِ الْإِسْلَامِ No scholar has ever said: this imam—follow everything he says.
Ibn al-Qayyim is saying: وَهُمْ أَعْلَى رُتْبَةً وَأَجَلُّ قَدْرًا وَأَعْلَمُ بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ مِنْ أَنْ يُلْزِمَ النَّاسُ بِذَلِكَ These scholars are high in knowledge and understanding of Allah, His Prophet, and the religion of Islam—and they know Allah greatly—to then force people to follow one imam in everything he says?
وَأَبْعَدُ مِنْهُ And even more farfetched is: مَنْ قَالَ: يَلْزَمُهُ أَنْ يَتَمَذْهَبَ بِمَذْهَبِ عَالِمٍ مِنَ الْعُلَمَاءِ To say: you have to do tamadhhab of just one madhhab.
وَأَبْعَدُ مِنْهُ قَوْلُ مَنْ قَالَ: يَلْزَمُهُ أَنْ يَتَمَذْهَبَ بِأَحَدِ الْمَذَاهِبِ الْأَرْبَعَةِ Ibn al-Qayyim is amazed—to say that you have to follow one of the four!
This is said to be farfetched—fascination is too—
مَاتَتْ مَذَاهِبُ أَصْحَابِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ The madhhabs of the companions are gone. وَمَذَاهِبُ التَّابِعِينَ وَتَابِعِيهِمْ وَسَائِرِ أَئِمَّةِ الْإِسْلَامِ And the madhhabs of the Tabi’een and their students and the rest of the imams of Islam—بَطَلَتْ جُمْلَةً—they’re all gone.
Except the madhhabs of only four individuals? The madhhab of Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, he has a madhhab—and all of those are gone?
What's left? Just these four?
وَهَلْ قَالَ ذَلِكَ أَحَدٌ مِنَ الْأَئِمَّةِ؟ Has anyone from the early generations said this?
Bring me people from early on who said this, or called people to this, أَوْ دَلَّتْ عَلَيْهِ لَفْظَةٌ وَاحِدَةٌ مِنْ كَلَامِهِ Or even one word from his statement that shows the haqq is restricted to these four? That’s not correct.
Tamadhhab—the basic argument for tamadhhab is that it’s permissible.
There are three views when it comes to tamadhhab.
The first view is باطل أوهى من بيت العنكبوت—which says that it’s wajib to follow a madhhab and you’re a sinner if you don’t follow it. That’s the first view. And I told you, a group of scholars said you have to follow a madhhab.
وَجَائِزٌ تَقْلِيدُ غَيْرِ الْأَرْبَعَ لِذِي ضَرُورَةٍ وَفِي هَذَا السَّعَةِ You can follow— You follow the four madhhabs and you can only go outside it when there’s a necessity.
حَوْقِ بِاللَّهِ That’s wrong.
أَبُو عَمْرِو بْنُ الصَّلَاحِ held that opinion. أَبُو الْفَرَجِ بْنُ الرَّجَبِ الْحَنْبَلِيّ held that opinion.
That opinion is wrong.
النَّفَرَوِي in Sharh al-Risālah, and also the Sahib al-Murāqī, he says: وَالْمُجْمَعُ الْيَوْمَ عَلَيْهِ أَرْبَعَةٌ وَقَفُوا غَيْرِهَا الْجَمِيعُ مَنَعَهُ And this is the view of the… This ijmā‘, by the way, is the ijmā‘ of the muta’akhkhirīn, as said by the scholar.
The second opinion is that it’s مباح…
You want to follow the four madhab — it's مُبَاح, it's permissible. But within that, someone following one madhab only in all of its issues — it's not مُبَاح. I think it's important to clarify.
And the third view is المَنْع — you're not allowed at all. It's the مَذْهَبُ الظَّاهِرِيَة, and Ibn Hazm clearly says that — he's not allowed to follow a madhab.
I believe you can follow a madhab as it's just a means. لكن restricting yourself — by the way, I already told you the only person who's allowed to follow a madhab is a طالب العلم, a student of knowledge who studied أصول الفقه.
Like the one who doesn't know anything — go to your sheikh, ask him what he tells you. Don't even talk about this issue of تَمَذْهُب. You're مسكين, you can't speak Arabic. Majority of people follow madhab. We're speaking about مَذْهَب. They should have no madhab. They just ask the imam, whatever he says, they follow him.
He goes — he doesn't even talk about the madhab. He's way below the concept of madhab. He goes and he asks his sheikh, and whatever his sheikh tells him, he does it. He trusts, he follows that.
The طالب العلم, that studied أصول الفقه — when he comes to the كتب الفقه, he's meant to understand the dialogue that's going on. But even him as an individual — he's not safe from his desires. And the طالب العلم, the one who's in the middle path, he's not safe from his desires.
Now you're opening up a door for him to follow his desires. Because you're saying you can choose from the different opinions. And maybe this one's a bit easier for me — for example, let me lean towards this one. You've opened that door for him: تتبع الرخص, him following the رخص.
You see, the evidence is what I told you he needs to follow. I didn't tell you he follows the شواد الأقوال, strange opinions. The student of knowledge — when he's a مقلد. For example, there are stages and steps that he can take.
For example, I told you before that I take the قول of علماء مشافع when an issue doesn't become clear to me. لكن, if the جمهور العلماء, the overwhelming majority of scholars, are on one side and شافع is alone on that issue — I will walk away from it.
I believe the جمهور is a number now. I can't clarify the issue, so I'll go to the جمهور. It's safer for me than taking an opinion held by شافع.
Based on numbers? On this situation right now, the evidence is not clear to me. Each party is using solid arguments. But the جمهور, the overwhelming majority of scholars — I'm a مقلد now. I'm just going to follow the majority on this issue.
Follow it. I'm not going to impose anybody. I'm not going to have a dialogue about it. I'm not going to go out there and tell people this is right, this is wrong — because I'm just a مقلد. I just follow the قول الجمهور. I won't give a fatwa on it, because I'm not allowed to. I'm a مقلد, I'm a blind follower.
Now, coming back to the issue of following your desires — because you've left it open. Yeah, following your desires on an issue — I told you, you follow the دليل. The دليل that you follow.
So for example, when you take an opinion of a علم, first of all the دليل is the number one for متبع, a person who follows. He asks every علم: what's your دليل? Good. Put your دليل here for me. What's your دليل? Put it here for me. Ahmad, what's your دليل? What's your دليل? Put it here. Abu Hanif, what's your دليل? He puts it here.
All four of their evidences — he puts it here. Then he asks each one: what's your understanding from this text? He brought up a valid point — what about you, what do you think?
That's the discussion that's happening here. And the teacher comes out. The طالب here can't do that. He's strong enough. He's read good books of Usul al-Fiqh. He's studied up to كتب المراكز السعود, لب الأصول, جمع الجوانب. He's studied books of Usul, he's able to do that.
He won't fall into Follow Rukhsa — because the one who follows Rukhsa does not look at the evidences. He looks for a strange opinion. He says give it to me. I want it. He puts it in his pocket.
He then goes to another strange opinion over there. He says give it to me. He puts it in his pocket. He looks for the opinion. He doesn't look at who said it, what their evidences are, what they used it for — he doesn't.
He collects all of those views — and a madhhab comes out for him. There he creates his own madhhab. That madhhab doesn't exist. Because each one — you might have an imam for it. But when this whole entire thing came together — what madhhab is this?
Scholars, they say… Some scholars say, “He fell into heresy.” Some scholars, they say, “Anyone who follows this — all of evil will be combined in him.” Because he’s literally taking the strangest opinions. He’s looking for the strangest opinions. So he just takes it from what’s present in the books.
But even then — because it’s a big argument — the people who say it’s wājib to follow one madhhab only, even then, these people actually say that the fact that you’ve let this student of knowledge open the door to looking at the evidences…
And ideally, in an ideal world, he would just look for the evidences. But you’ve opened this door for him to now choose between the madhāhib. You’ve opened the door for him to follow his desires.
And the best way to close the door is: stick to one madhhab. But then you’re now using an evidence which is… You’re stopping this because it’s going to lead to this, right?
— Yeah, but you don’t believe that.
Why do we not free mix? Because we don’t want it to lead to…
So there are the ones where it’s not disputable.
— No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that it can be used when it’s technically stated.
— Okay.
It has been stated by the Sharīʿah. Anything beyond that is your istinbāṭ — you’re using it, it’s qiyās, right?
— So it’s a different evidence.
— No, I’m not saying it’s a different qiyās. I’m saying it’s a different evidence by itself that’s used, and that’s what you’re using now. And if we’re discussing it as — that’s a dalīl, it’s a disputed evidence. Put that aside for me.
Let’s go back to the discussion of: the person can follow the Qur’an clearly and categorically — for an ʿālim. And that’s what many people do. They follow the qawl of the ʿālim as an understanding, but the dalīl is what they’re following.
So in other words, Mālik gives the dalīl for this issue.
— Mālik gives the dalīl?
— Yes. For example, the story of Ibn Abī Dhi’b and Mālik — the ḥadīth. Mālik claimed the ḥadīth is mansūkh. When we looked at it, it’s not mansūkh.
So who’s right here?
Someone’s right.
— Why can’t they both be right?
Two opposites can’t come together.
— Why can’t?
We have the Sunnah for that.
— Two opposites?
Yes. Do you know what mansūkh is?
— It’s abrogated.
Abrogated shows acting upon it and can’t be acted upon it. So the Prophet ﷺ said — when he sent the companions in the Battle of Aḥzāb…
— No, just this one. How can we take both opinions? One is saying the ḥadīth is abrogated — the ḥadīth is gone, we can’t act upon it. Another one is saying no — the ḥadīth is not abrogated, we can act upon it. They’re two opposites.
How can you bring the two views together?
With the example of the Prophet ﷺ when he said:
"Do not pray Ṣalāt al-ʿAṣr until you reach your destination."
And the companions were on their journey, and Ṣalāt al-ʿAṣr time was coming in. Some of them thought, “I think we should pray now.”
— But there was one view that was right?
No. Because they went back to the Prophet ﷺ, and he said, “You’re both right.” The Prophet ﷺ — when they both came back to him — he did not scold any one of them. He didn’t tell any one of them, “You’re wrong.” Both of them left with rewards. One got two, and one got the right one.
— Which one was right?
The one that was right was the one who prayed the ṣalāh when it came in. Because ṣalāh is a legislation from Allāh.
— But did the Prophet say that at the time — “You were wrong, and you were right”? Did he say that?
Slowly. Let’s take this step.
— Go on.
Let’s take this point slowly. There’s something called ijtihād, okay? Meaning the scholars — when they look at it, all of the adillah are pull and push. It’s not clear. There are issues which are ijtihādī. No one can belittle the other person for holding it.
For example: when we go down in the ṣalāh — do we put our knees down or our hands first? For example — it’s an ijtihād here. Ijtihād means both parties have solid evidences.
The concept is — how do we understand this? And evidences are open for this and this. Niqāb is wājib? It’s open for this and that. There are many issues like that. We see people discussing back and forth. It’s open for all parties.
People make a big hoo-ha about it, but it’s really open for both parties.
The ḥadīth where the Prophet ﷺ said:
"لَا يُصَلِّيَنَّ أَحَدُكُمْ إِلَّا فِي بَنِي قُرَيْظَة"
That none of you should pray except in Banū Qurayẓah. And he ﷺ said that. That ḥadīth — the truth is only one. Don’t ever think to yourself that truth can be two or three or four. It can’t. The truth — both parties are now sitting down to understand from this ḥadīth what the Prophet meant.
A group of them stuck to the lafẓ, the word. And a group of them took a mafhum from it — which is that the Prophet, when he said "don’t pray except in Banū Qurayẓah," he meant hasten, get there fast, make sure ʿAṣr reaches you in Banū Qurayẓah. So it was istiʿjāl, it was hastening.
The Prophet ﷺ can’t delay ṣalāh. He’s not a musharriʿ, he’s not a legislator ﷺ — Allāh is the one who said:
"إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ كَانَتْ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ كِتَابًا مَوْقُوتًا"
So the ṣalāh time is set, it's fixed.
When the Prophet said that, he meant: get there fast. That party is correct.
The party who understood it as to mean, “The Prophet told us not to pray — even if the ṣalāh time comes in — until we get to Banū Qurayẓah,” their understanding was incorrect.
But that being said, they got to that conclusion based on their ijtihād. I already told you the Prophet ﷺ said:
"إِذَا حَكَمَ الْحَاكِمُ فَاجْتَهَدَ فَأَصَابَ فَلَهُ أَجْرَانِ، وَإِذَا أَخْطَأَ فَلَهُ أَجْرٌ وَاحِدٌ"
Okay. Let’s break it down.
The issue of praying ṣalāh on time — is that a mas’alah that is ijtihādīyyah?
— Which one?
Praying the ṣalāh on time.
— That’s clear-cut. There is no dispute on that. You have to pray ṣalāh on time.
Okay. So that’s not an ijtihādī issue.
— Okay.
It becomes an ijtihādī issue because they have a statement from the Prophet ﷺ, which they’re trying to implement at the same time — these companions at the time.
— That’s my point. It’s the same with all of these madhāhib — that you say, “This one’s wrong, and this one’s right, and this one’s right…” They’ve all got dalīl on their side.
— No.
— They do.
— Not all of it.
So that’s—
— There are issues…
A statement of the Prophet ﷺ is a dalīl, right?
Yeah but there are issues. There are issues which are إجتهادية amongst the Madahib. You're right, I'm not going to deny that. Okay, there are issues which are إجتهادية, مسائل which are إجتهادية. Yes, no I'm not denying it. Okay. And it's how you look at it, to be honest. Yeah. But this, I still hold an opinion, and I'm willing to have a discussion with the other person. Okay. But when I get up from that discussion with that brother who's a Hanafi for example, and he believes that, and he's doing إجتهاد يعني, the إجتهاد of his Madhab is on this, and my إجتهاد on this issue is this, we get up and there's no hatred or animosity between us, because it's a مسألة إجتهادية محضة.
لكن, there are issues which are حق والباطل, even if your Imam said it. But okay, some issues are حق, they're خلافية, but they're إجتهادية. Okay. I see, there's a difference. But it's not valid. There's a right or wrong. Okay. There's a what? There's a right or wrong. One is right and one is wrong. The issue of the ولي for example, the guardian of the woman — we say أبو حنيفة أخطأ. He's wrong يعني. He's going to live with the reward, he's going to live with the reward. And the Prophet said anyone who follows him after the evidence comes to him, he's a sinner. When the نصوص is read to you, yeah, and the views and the دلة is read on you, you can't still stick to عليما أبو حنيفة رحمه الله. It's not permissible for you now because you have نصوص from the Quran and the Sunnah in which it says to you — here you can't say “our مذهب believes this,” “our view is this.” This is what? This is the تعصب. And أبو حنيفة never had any Quran, Sunnah on his side. I'm not saying he didn’t. He did it right on this issue. I'm saying to you, is that what your statement is going to allude to is that عليما أبو حنيفة, every single — this is their argument, and this is what he implies — that he can't do a mistake. That’s what you're implying now.
No. By saying عليما you're telling me this حديث عليما أبو حنيفة didn't know. Yeah. What I'm implying is that the مذهب, the امام — I just said to you, عليما أبو حنيفة, he's not memorized all the حديث, neither has Imam Shafi or Ahmad. But they brought out a حديث or they brought out a دليل that عليما أبو حنيفة didn’t. What if he knew about that دليل but he didn’t accept it as a دليل? Maybe it’s a weak حديث to him. His own student, they said قاضي أبو يوسف, yeah, they said in some of the words he disagreed with him in all of the views that عليما أبو حنيفة held except a handful — I don’t know the number, okay. His own student, yeah. محمد حسن الشيبان, when he debated with عليما أبو شافع and he came to the conclusion of some issues and he repented from it or he took back some views, he said: والله if my صاحب عليما أبو شافع was alive, والله he would have taken the opinion the way I'm taking it now.
It just comes back to “my scholar said this,” “your scholar said that.” No it’s not. I'm saying to you, the default position that many people are getting wrong is that they're looking at the scholar as though he's infallible. He’s infallible from the beginning — it’s the implication. Are you open-minded to accept that عليما أبو حنيفة and مالك and شافع and أحمد can all do mistakes? First of all, do you accept that? Okay. Yes or no? I have to explain it. I have to explain the answer. It's a simple question. It's a simple question — is عليما أبو حنيفة, مالك, شافع, and أحمد — are they infallible? We agreed at the start that they're not infallible. So they're open to mistakes. We agreed that at the start. Okay. Let's look at the arguments now.
Okay. Who are you to say that this argument is wrong? I'm not going to— Who is Ibn Taymiyyah? Forget Ibn Taymiyyah, we're going to look at the four imams themselves. Okay. Are you happy with the four imams? Yeah yeah let’s do that. Take the issue of عليما أبو حنيفة where he came to the issue of the woman marrying herself off. Okay. عليما أبو حنيفة said, if a woman goes to a shop and she buys and she sells — would that transaction be accepted? I'm asking a question. Repeat the question. A woman goes and she goes to a shop, yeah, she’s buying and she's selling something. Yeah. She’s got a watch, she’s got something she wants to sell. Can she do it? What did أبو حنيفة say? I don’t know, I’m asking you. Yeah she can. أبو حنيفة said she can. Okay. She can, yeah. Which we — of course a woman can buy and sell when she wants. There’s nothing wrong with that. أبو حنيفة said: if she can sell and she can buy things, why can’t she give herself out? Okay. Okay.
She’s made Qiyas, which is valid — from قرآن, سنة, إجماع. إجماع? Yes. Okay, beautiful, right? Okay, it’s valid, it’s valid. He’s got a qiyas here. Beautiful. Okay, carry on. Okay. Put that aside for me. Okay. We have the scholars here, on the other hand, bringing the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ: أيما امرأة النكحت بغير إذن وليها فنكاحها باطن، فنكاحها باطن، فنكاحها باطن. What if he says that hadith is weak? Now let me — step by step — we're going to go back and forth to each discussion. We're going to go back and forth. Who from now, at this point, before we go into the authentication — we're going to come to that — who at this moment is right? As we're discussing the issue?
Okay my question is— No stop, I'm asking you. I'm not answering the question. Can they both be right? No, they can't. Okay I want to — I’m asking you a question. Yeah. Abu Hanifa used qiyas? Yes. These scholars have used a hadith. You haven't looked into the rating — you're going to know. At this moment, yeah, who's right? I can't say. Because if I look into the grade and I say this is a weak hadith — No, you're going to change. We're going to change again. We're going to say Abu Hanifa came back and he responded. You can't leave hadith unrestricted. No look — I’m saying to you, one person used a hadith and another person used a what? Yeah. Qiyas. Qiyas, yeah. The hadith could be fabricated. We're going to come to the second phase. I want us to come to — I want to step by step. Okay. The scholars they say — this is what I’m trying to say to you — the scholars they say: there’s no ijtihad when there’s a نص. Okay. Abu Hanifa, barakallahu fik, you gave a qiyas at a time when the نص is being provided.
If the ocean — Mirakal was a man who had a little well, had a little well. He used to charge the people. He used to put the bucket in there for them, get the water out, and he would give the water to the people. And he would charge them, say: give me money.
Maybe because he put a little motor, an engine there to get the water out. Okay, so he charges the people, he's allowed to do that, right? So one day, Allah sends down a rain. The rain, it gushes, and everybody's now got water.
Are they gonna come to the water of Miracle? There's no need. There's no need, Allah's river is there, right? Allah's hadith of the Prophet ﷺ is here now. The qol of al-Imam Abu Hanifa now is gone, finished.
Abu Hanifa came back. This is how we look at their discussion. Abu Hanifa came and said, hadith is life.
Okay. We're gonna be like to the party, sorry, Abu Hanifa's right. You guys are without nothing.
And he's without nothing. No, he hasn't got nothing, he's got qiyas. He's got nothing, the qiyas is not, because they brought hadith.
No, but he said the hadith, oh sorry, we're still at the stage where they've got hadith. Hey, I'm sorry, I thought you said, I thought you came back and said the hadith is weak. Yeah, yeah, so.
So the hadith falls away. So Abu Hanifa's got qiyas, right? Yeah, which is better than nothing. Yeah, so now they, so he weakened the hadith.
So Abu Hanifa now has got something. He's got qiyas, so he's now stronger. They come back and they said, okay, we've got an ayah from the Quran.
Abu Hanifa was a hafidh of Quran. Hafidh of Quran, but not necessarily the istimbat. Oh, come on.
Are you telling me that every single ayah in the Quran, and Imam al-Shafi'i was asked, where's the ijma' in the Quran? He went home, hafidh bikitabillahi. He scratched his head and went back and finished the Quran three times. Okay, what's the ayah? Let me finish.
And then he came to the ayah, Yeah. He got the ijma' from the ayah of Imam al-Shafi'i. Why couldn't he see it the first time when he read it? The second time he couldn't even see it.
The third time Shafi'i saw that this ayah is a delete for ijma'. Not only just that, not only just that. Is Abu Hanifa more ahfidh than Uthman ibn Affan? No, he's not.
Uthman ibn Affan, at his time, Ibn Abd al-Barman, he's in his Kitab al-Tamheed. A woman, a woman gave birth at six months. She gave birth to a child at six months.
Ali said, and the man who married her, after six months of being married to her, she gave birth. He said, how is our marriage only been for six months? You're giving birth. You got this child from somewhere else.
It's wedlock, this is not my child. And he heard to the court and they looked into her situation and it became a problem. Ali ibn Abi Talib sent a letter to Uthman.
He said, Uthman, sometimes it's been transmitted as Umar, but it's authentically Uthman. He sent a letter to Uthman, he said, Uthman, this woman is right, she can give birth in six months. Her, where? In the Quran, where? Uthman is hafidh, he's the one who compiled the Quran with his qiraat and everything, his ahruf and everything.
How? He said the ayah, wal qawluhu ta'ala wawasayna lisana biwalidaya hamalatu umuhu qurhan wa wada'atu qurhan wa hamluhu wa fisaluhu thalathuna shahra hatta idha balagha shudda wa balagha arba'ina sanatan ha ila akhir al-ayah. Allah says, wa hamluhu wa fisaluhu thalathuna shahra. The pregnancy and the breastfeeding, 30 months.
Subtract 24 months from it, which is two years of the breastfeeding, as Allah said, walwalidatu yurida'una uladahun nahu alayni ka'al alayni. You get six left. We're only left with six months, right? Yeah.
That six months is called dalalatul iqtada. It's a way of extracting evidences from the Qur'an and the Sunnah. It's called dalalatul iqtada.
Okay. Why did Uthman Qurnus say that? Okay. What I'm trying to say to you is that, no.
I remember before I said, mayuridillahu bihi khayran yufaqihu fid-din. innama ana qasimun wallahu yu'ti. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said anyone who Allah wants khayr for them, he gives them the fiqh of the religion.
Wallahu, Allahu azzawajallah, is what? The Prophet said, innama ana qasimun. I distribute the knowledge. Wallahu yu'ti.
Allah gives each one. The scholars, they said, the knowledge is for the people the way that rizq is written for them. Okay.
So it could happen that Imam Abu Hanifa can't see it. I still want to follow this through then. So now we have a situation.
So Imam Abu Hanifa, rahimahullah ta'ala, he got responded to with an evidence from the Quran. Okay, which is? Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, in surah al-Baqarah, he mentions the story of Ma'kal ibn Yasar al-Muzani. Allah says, wa idha talaqtumun nisaa fabalaghna ajalahunna fala ta'aduluhunna an yankahna azwajahunna idha taradahu baynahum bilma'roof.
This ayah came down on Ma'kal ibn Yasar al-Muzani. Ma'kal had a sister. He married his sister off to a man.
Pay attention to this. To a man, his sister. He married his sister off to a man.
And the man divorced her in a very despicable way, abhorrent way. He didn't like the way he treated his sister. So what happened was, the iddah finished.
Because ayah say, wa idha talaqtumun nisaa fabalaghna ajalahunna The woman's timing finished. Her iddah finished. He had three cycles, whether it be mahayud or tuhrin.
We're not gonna strengthen which opinion is which. He could have taken her back. He had a chance.
He had a window of taking her back. He didn't. He let that time fly by.
Then what happened was, the men found out Ma'kal ibn Asari's sister is available. She's looking to get married. And then he went into the line and said, I'm back.
Of course, she loves her ex-husband. She prefers him over any other man. Her heart was for him.
She wants him. So she said to her brother, Ma'kal, my ex-husband is back. I want him.
He said, wallahi, I'm not gonna marry you off to him. Abadan. The man who treated you the way he treated you.
And he acted the way he acted. Now that he's found out that other men are coming to you, ha, he wants to come into the, he had an opportunity. Allah Ta'ala, He said in the ayah, when if you divorce the women and their iddah finishing, fala ta'duluhunna an yankahna azwajuhunna.
Do not prevent them from, fala ta'duluhunna, don't prevent these women that are under your guardianship to marry. Why is Allah telling Ma'kal ibn Asari, don't prevent them? She could just go and get married herself. Okay, where's the Sabah of Nisul? How did it reach us? How did the reason for revelation reach us? There's, it's authenticity.
What if he knew about it and he just didn't believe in authenticity? But the ayah, forget the Sabah of Nisul. Hatta forget the Sabah of Nisul. Okay, what is it? The ayah says, Leave the reason for revelation.
Allah says, fala ta'duluhunna, guardians don't prevent the women from getting married. Jameel, which shows that they should be able to get married themselves without a wali. No, it's saying, Guardians don't prevent the women from getting married.
Don't, yaani, a man comes up for her. No, no, that's the Sabah of Nisul. We said, well, leave that.
The ayah didn't say for her to marry themselves off. It didn't say that. It says, don't, guardians, fala ta'duluhunna, Wali's don't prevent them.
ayaan kihna azwajahunna dhidaa taraadhu bainahu bil ma'ruf. If the women, the ayah is clear. The ayah says, if the women, but this is my point.
This ayah is clearly saying, if the woman wants to go and marry a man, don't stop her marrying this man. Why would, okay, look. That's on his side, not on theirs.
Okay, okay, don't stop them, okay. Okay, let's say that's even his advantage. Why would Allah talk to the men when the woman could just go and get married? Why'd she even need his consent, Aslam? Because maybe at that time, people believed that the woman can't get married because they have this hadith, which is da'if.
They have this hadith that Abu Hanifa says is weak. So the men were preventing, and Allah is saying, don't prevent them. Two things, two things, two things.
For example, I'm just giving you an example. Two things, two things. The ayah is talking to the men who are guardians over the girl.
Okay. And it's telling the girls. It's telling the men.
The men, the guardians. Yeah, it's telling the guardians, don't prevent. Marrying them off to the men that they want of their choice.
That's what the ayah is. Don't prevent the women from marrying them off to the men that they think is fit for them. Okay.
You have no control over this. Let her do her own marriage. No, don't marry them off.
Sorry, don't stop marrying them off. That's what it's talking to the guardian. Confuses me as well.
Go on. What's the ayah saying? The ayah is saying, yani, oh guardians, if this sister brings a brother she likes, she wants this man. No, okay, well you're adding stuff to the ayah because the ayah doesn't say brother she likes.
No, no, I'm explaining. Stick to the ayah, please. The ayah is saying, fala ta'adhuluhunna.
Do not, oh guardians, do not stop them. fala ta'adhuluhunna. Do not stop them.
an yankihna azwajahunna. To marry them off to the men. To marry them off to the men.
So marrying her off is by the guardian. That's what the ayah is saying. Don't stop, as in, you have no control over this.
Habib, do you understand why, do you understand why this can get a bit complex? No, you can't. The fact that we're talking about it for the last 15 minutes shows. Huh? What I'm saying, my point is.
There's people who would argue right now, even if this podcast is happening and they can make a two hours discussion over it. It doesn't give it a valid argument. But what I'm trying to say to you is that, you're right, there are always gonna be people who argue, there are people who are gonna be stubborn and hard-headed.
They're always gonna try to prove their point. My point is, Al-Imam Abu Hanifa here, with insaf, with justice, with fairness, he doesn't have argument to stand on. His issue is no evidences for it.
It's just what? A, what do you call it? A issue of, it's an issue of, qiyas. Qiyas that he used. And these ulama, who are more than him in number, more knowledgeable.
Yeah, more, it doesn't necessarily, by itself it doesn't, but when it adds on to other things. Second thing is, they are more knowledgeable than him in hadith, who authenticated it. And Al-Imam Abu Hanifa, to be honest, in the concept of hadith, he's weak, aslan.
Nobody weak in hadith. Out of the people who are strong in hadith, nobody weak in hadith. No, I'm saying to you, take the hadith sahih or ba'eef.
But what we have is that, we have, I mean there's few other evidences I can bring you. But the discussion that we're gonna have here is that Al-Imam Abu Hanifa is standing on qiyas. These scholars are standing on an ayah from the Quran.
Depending on how you interpret it. Not interpret it. Okay, give me another interpretation of that.
I gave you one. And give me where you got that interpretation. Good question.
Because I brought you the sabab al-nuzuli that came down, which is sahih. Which could, okay, this is my argument. This is my position.
This is my position. You present your position. This is my position now.
In all of these masaid, these imams, these great noble imams, who you respect, and you love, and you honor. No, Shahid, you're confusing two things. I don't want you to confuse two things.
There are issues. The way you're presenting the argument. I would say, yes, you're right.
Yeah. It's not fair to push Abu Hanifa. In this issue, he's got his point.
Allahumma barik. And I can see why he has his opinion. And I respect the other party.
And he's a Hanafi and I wouldn't make a big issue about it. Like putting your hand under your navel or whatever. I'm fine with all of that.
I have no issue with it. The issue of moving your finger in the salah. They don't believe it's permissible.
And others believe it's permissible. I wouldn't make a big hoo-ha about it. Because it's an issue that the difference here is valid.
Yeah. What I'm saying here, dalilun ghayru dalil. What I'm saying is every single masala, we're not talking about the masala that you just mentioned.
Every single issue. My argument is that these great noble imams, they didn't just make up their verdicts based on their own desires. Which I'm sure you would even say that they didn't do this.
Agreed? No, can I answer that point? Of course you can. Every scholar gave a verdict on a dalil he has. And some issues they didn't have evidences.
And they gave their verdict on a lower graded ruling. So they based it on a what? Qiyas for example. Because the evidence didn't reach them.
Or, let me finish. Okay, go on. So in this situation for Imam Abu Hanifa, he looked for an ayah, he couldn't see anything from the ayah.
It didn't seem like that to him. Hadith, he didn't come across a narration for it. What did he now do? He gave the third option.
He gave qiyas. At this moment, he's the upper hand. Fine, we're with him.
Then a dalil came from someone who has it. They brought it to the table. Where if Abu Hanifa was to get it, this is the point I'm trying to say.
If he was to get it, he wouldn't argue like the way you're trying. How do you know he didn't get it, but he just didn't believe it was authentic? Because all of them, it has been transmitted from them. They said, idha sahal hadithu fawwa madhabi.
If they, how many issues did they come back from? They themselves, if everything that they said was based on all of the evidences, why did they do tarajuh? Why did Ahmed turn away from some issues? Why did Shafi'i have a madhab al-qadeem and madhab al-jadeed? Why, why? Okay, my question goes back to if this imam, which you believe that would not make verdicts based on his desires, can we at least agree on that? He wouldn't make rulings based on his desires. But he will make it based on his ijtihad. Agreed.
Not on dalil. I agree with you. Not on a dalil.
Okay, no problem. Let's go back to the battle of Ahzab. The companions made their decision based on their ijtihad.
Okay. Some of them prayed later, after the time of Asr. Some of them prayed at the time of Asr.
They went back to the Prophet, they wanted to get a verdict. Which one of us is right? Which one of us is wrong? What did he say to them? He didn't say both of you are right. Did he say you are wrong? I'm saying the Prophet didn't say both of you are right.
If the truth is wahid, one, why didn't he say you are wrong and you are right? Like you're saying now. Because you know what, you know why? Let me answer your question. Let me answer your question.
The reason why he said that he was teaching us something, the people are going to come later, that there are evidences that are going to be like that, where we have to respect each other in the way that we deal with each other on this issue. So there are going to be texts, when we read it, this person is going to understand it like that, and this person is going to understand it like that. And that this is called an ijtihad, and that we need to respect one another.
But in no way, shape or form, in that hadith that you brought, did the Prophet, alaihi salatu wasalam, say both opinions, that are on two different spectrums, both of them are right. No, he didn't say that. But why, if there's a clear ayah from the Quran that tells you you have to pray on time, you're saying if you have a dalil, which is a ayah from the Quran, it takes precedence over everything.
It takes precedence over the ijtihad. Forget the issue of ayah, you're bringing something external. Put that aside for me.
They have a statement from the messenger, alaihi salatu wasalam. They all just looked at that hadith. One of the groups restricted himself to the wording, and another one, he done, he looked at the overall meaning, the wisdom behind why the Prophet said it.
This is exactly what the madahibs are like. And I said that to you at the beginning. And therefore they can all be right, because he never said you were wrong.
No, that's why I said both parties who went to the battle of Ahzab, the Prophet said to Banu Qurayza, I told you, both of them are not right. But if they were both not right, he would have said you were wrong. And he would have taught us a lesson, and the lesson would have been greater, the fact that the truth is one.
Again, that's my point. I don't, this is a long time ago since I looked at it, when I looked at this discussion of the hadith of Banu Qurayza, and what the scholars choose. I can't really put my finger on it now.
But there was qara'in, qara'in, meaning indications that alluded that the party that was seeing it as the Prophet saying, Hasten, were right. There were external narrations that indicated that that was right. It would have been nice if he, to prove your point, it would have been nice if he said, you guys were right, you guys wrong.
And I could have no response to you, but the fact that he didn't, shows that I've got an argument on my side. That there are every issue in Islam. Most parties can be right.
What's your evidence for that? The hadith of Al-Hazab. The hadith of Al-Hazab, the Prophet didn't say both parties are right. Okay, but he didn't say.
He just didn't blame both parties. Okay. And I'm saying to you, that's true.
We can't blame the issue of niqam. One party cannot blame the other party. They seek jihad.
You're right. That's all that the hadith shows. That there's, sinning is not on any party here.
There's no one living with a sin. Okay. But the truth is one.
Okay. The haq is. Okay, fine.
I want to try and summarize the discussion so far, and I know that we've spoken a lot. We've gone on a couple of tangents here and there. You started by talking about the importance of the Quran and the Sunnah.
I think, like I said at the start, there's nothing that any Muslim within mainstream Sunni Islam really disagrees with. However, the difficulty comes with, how do you get to the Quran and the Sunnah? And that's where you split the people into three groups. You said there's a mujtahid, which is basically the scholar who is able to go directly to the text and come up with his rulings.
And you said that even him, in some issues, he may drop down to the second or the first level. The second level being the mujtahid, the follower. And this person hasn't got the ability to go directly into the text himself, but he has the ability to see what the mujtahideen said about the different rulings, and he has the ability to look into it, and who is stronger, who is weaker, what evidence are they using, what evidence are they using, let's list them out and let's make a decision.
That is the second level. The first level where, like we said, the majority of the people fall in, this is the muqallid, the blind follower, who basically doesn't have the ability to go to the Quran and Sunnah himself, and he also doesn't have the ability to look at the different evidences and make a decision on which is better, which is more stronger. His job is to basically ask someone what is the ruling on this particular issue.
And you also outline some conditions for the person he's asking. There must be someone who has knowledge, there must be someone who has piety, and also they can't be a muqallid themself. They can't be someone who says, I'm an imam of a masjid, I am pious, or they wouldn't say that, but they're seen as someone who's pious, and then I only follow from this one person, this one method.
That makes him a muqallid, and therefore he can't be asked. Okay, my question for the muqallidoon out there, the people who are falling into this category of being blind followers, I've a question that splits into two. First of all, do they have to ask for the evidence in every single ruling when they ask the imam that they're trusting? Do they have to ask for the evidence? And secondly, do they have to understand that evidence if they do ask for it? As I mentioned to you before, the ammi for me is a person who doesn't have no knowledge.
And as I mentioned, this is what it's called. The ammi is a person who doesn't know anything. There's no knowledge.
That person doesn't have a madhab. His madhab is the person he asks. If that person's a shafi'i, he's a shafi'i.
If that person's a hanbali, he's a hanbali. He doesn't know anything. He blind follows what is given to him.
He trusts this person's knowledge, understanding, comprehension, whatever it is, he takes it from the person. Fal ammi la madhab lahu. The ammi has no madhab.
He can't ask for dalil. He won't understand the dalil and the evidences. The dalil is asked by only two parties.
Or the dalil is only observed and looked at by only two parties of people. And that is the mujtahid, who goes directly to the dalil himself and extracts rulings from it. And the muttabi, who looks at the understanding of the great scholars of Islam, and he basically observes how they commented on that evidence and their rulings and the understanding they extracted from the evidence.
So a ammi doesn't have any rights to ask any evidences. He wouldn't even understand if the evidence were told to him. An example of an ammi is a new Muslim.
Yeah, but there's also many Muslims who have been born Muslims, maybe practicing even for 10, 15 years, but they've fallen into this category. They just don't have knowledge of usool fiqh, Arabic, et cetera. Yeah, those people.
Those, from a reaver who just took Islam, up to the person who's a Muslim and he's just got, he has Islam by name and he prays, he knows how to pray, he prays as a Muslim. He has no other knowledge about Islam. That person is an ammi.
No, but even further than that, what I'm saying is someone might be studying the deen even, but they haven't got to level off Arabic language or sool al fiqh. But they might have memorized the Quran, for example. Yeah, he's still an ammi.
He's still an ammi, yeah. So he just goes to the local imam and he asks. And he doesn't have to ask for.
He's not a student of knowledge. A student of knowledge is the muttabi, who's able to look at the evidences and whatnot. Perfect.
Does that change depending on what aspect of Islam he's asking for? For example, if he's asking for a fiqh ruling, he just follows it without dalil. What if that is an issue of aqeedah now? Aqeedah, you don't do taqleed of. You're not allowed to.
Aqeedah, meaning, aqeedah's only one. So it's what Allah Ta'ala and his messenger said. And there's no opinions.
So, he can't, he doesn't, there's no views and madahibs in the concept of tawheed and whatnot. Tawheed, he just has to take on board qala Allah and qala Rasool. And so, in tawheed there is no taqleed.
Does he become like a mujtahid then in the aqeedah? Like, how does that work? How does he know what qala Allah is, qala Rasool? So he stays away, for example, a person of deviation, a grave worshiper or something like that. He doesn't ask him any questions because these issues are not taking a person's opinion. It's not about, like, for example, the differences between the Barelwiya and the Deobandiya and the Ahlul Hadith, Ahlul Sunnah, Salafiyun.
It's not the fiqh rulings that we're differing upon. It's not like Hanafiya, Shafi'iya, Malikiya, Hanabila. That's not the difference here.
The difference here is Sunnah bid'ah. The Barelwiya and the Deobandiya is Ahlul bid'ah. Okay, the Barelwiyas are kuffar, they're not Muslims.
And the Deobandi's, on the other hand, are mubtadia, addal, muddal, misguided people. Anyone who attributes that belief and that ideology is a mubtadia, is a misguided individual. Now the Salafiyun are on the other side.
So Ahlul Haqq, he has to follow the people of truth. Okay, okay, you said at the start of this that the issue of tamadhub, actually, there is a middle path and there's two extremes. For the, you know, so far during this podcast, I've kind of been presenting one side of the argument.
I almost now want to change hats. And I want to go to the other party that will attack you from the other side and say that your stance is still wrong for the following reasons. This party believe that there should be no madahib whatsoever, get rid of them all.
Let's just get rid of them. And there are some notable scholars who have this kind of opinion as well. And I think one of their strongest arguments, or one of the arguments they start with is that these madahib all came after al-quroon al-mufadhala.
There's three golden generations that you say, khayrun nasi qawni thumma ladheeni yaloonahum. These three golden generations that you say we should take our religion from, all four of these imams came after that. So just to add on to that, the ayah that you quoted earlier, al yawma akamaltu lakum deenakum, these imams came after that ayah.
So adding a madhab into the religion after it was completed, and after the salaf understood it, and after the three generations came and went, isn't that an issue and something problematic against your core beliefs of understanding the religion the way they understood it? So your question, there's three perspectives to look at it. From the first perspective is that attributing yourself to a madhab. Attributing yourself to a madhab, then there's no evidence to prevent a person from doing that.
Even though it came after the salaf? There's no, people attribute themselves to countries and they attribute themselves to tribes. It's just, it has no problems. There's no evidence that merely attributing yourself to these madhabs is a problem.
The second thing is tariqatul ulama, the ways of the early scholars, the sabiqeen, noble scholars, we respect, we admire them, like Shaykh al-Islam Taymiyyah ibn al-Qayyim ibn al-Rajab ibn Abdulaziz al-Harafi, and other than them who are considered ulama al-muhakqiqeen, and they've reached darajatul tahqeeq. These great scholars, a lot of them, like Shaykh al-Islam Taymiyyah ibn al-Qayyim ibn al-Rajab ibn Abdulaziz al-Harafi, and other great scholars, all of whom affirmed the permissibility of attributing yourself to a madhab. So there isn't a problem in that issue.
Now we come back to the issue of studying and learning these madhabs. You see, we have two issues. These people, they kind of allow the ammatunnas, like the beginner student of knowledge, and everyone, they give him the rights to go and do ijtihad, which is a problem in some way.
And then to do ijtihad, there has to be ala. And he has to have some instrumental knowledge as the person has to have. And I know there's a difference between ijtihad and itiba' ud-dalil.
Hence why I said itiba' ud-dalil, following the dalil is different from ijtihad. Because a person can follow the dalil and not necessarily be a mujtahid. Like the muttabi'a.
The muttabi'a who's not doing ijtihad, he's following the dalil. And the mujtahid who's doing ijtihad is also following the dalil, because that's where he's getting it from. So this is where they're equating one with the other.
They're saying, follow the evidence. But their follow of the evidence means do ijtihad. Which is another extreme.
If you mean by follow the dalil, I am following the dalil by using the statements of the ulama to understand the dalil. I'm a beginner student of knowledge. I'm not alim.
I use their statement to understand. And I think if that is understood, the issue can be resolved. Another thing I feel like is that, and this is something I've observed and I've seen, it's that some people equate to tamadhub taqlid.
They make one and the other the same, and I kind of pointed that out. Tamadhub doesn't necessarily mean it's taqlid. And I've given the difference between the two.
Tamadhub can be a stepping stone, and it has been a stepping stone for ijtihad, for great scholars of Islam, who at the beginning of Islam, learned madhab, through madhab became mujtahidin. Rather, I don't know. I don't know any alim, except that he went through a madhab.
So you can't- Apart from the ulama before the madhab came into existence, right? I'm saying, of course, after it came, that's where we can assess the issue, right? So I don't know any scholar, alim, that I can say he's alim. But there is, yeah, sorry, go on. That has not gone through madhab as a stepping stone.
With that, you can say following a madhab is a ijma' fi'li. But there are other ways, like Iqna' ibn Mundhir, his kitab. There is another way, Manhaj al-Saliheen, al-Sa'di, al-Shawqani has a book.
There are other ways to reach fiqh without going through a madhab, right? I'm not saying- You're not saying it's the only way. I'm not saying, of course I'm not saying that. I'm saying you can take other ways, but learning a madhab is ashal, is easier, simpler, and more beneficial.
You'll see the fruits that you reap. It can also be a lot of harm. For example, the people- It's not a harm in and within itself.
It's the way you use it. There's nothing necessarily wrong about, unless, of course, you're not seeing tamadhub as taqlid. If you're seeing tamadhub as not necessarily taqlid.
But that's where the lines get blurred. You basically said that, obviously we know in this day and age that people do blindly follow a single imam. It does happen.
We agree it does happen. We're not saying they're right. They just stick to one imam.
Abdul Latif Muhammad ibn Abdul Latif. He said that the Kitab al-Iqna' wal-Muntaha, they go a lot of the times against al-Imam Ahmad. Al-Iqna' by al-Hajjawi, it goes a lot of the times against the madhab of al-Imam Muhammad.
We all together. Yeah. Muhammad ibn Abdul Latif said the same.
My point to you is that, see there's a difference between, Ahmad said this and I'm blind following al-Imam Ahmad, or I'm blind following a madhab. Now a madhab, I'm not blind following, I'm upon a madhab. It's different from I'm blind following an individual.
Tamadhub means madarasa. Okay. It's not individual.
It's not individual? No, no, no. It's a whole entire sift, cleansed, worked on, decades. Centuries.
It's been sift. It went through the time test. It was being tested through criticism, back and forward.
It's been maneuvering all through that. But even then, you can't just stick to one madarasa. That's what I'm trying to say to you.
Okay, which you said before and you clarified why. My point is that we do have people who stick to one, and they're very proud of it, and they say, this is right, this is it. Okay.
You, by opening this door of madhab in the first place, have actually, without intending to, have actually given them, you basically said, jump in the water and don't get wet. No, I didn't. Of course they're gonna follow one, because you know the way that people are.
They're proud of this. They take pride in this. It's better to close the door of madhab altogether, get rid of them, and tell people, follow the Dalit.
It's like saying, I'm gonna throw the water, I'm gonna throw the fish in the water with it. You don't throw the, you know, the way, what you can do is, you can do something better, which is what? First of all, teach your students, before you go through the madhab books, that the madhab is a means. It's not the ultimate goal.
In the first session of your class, talk about ta'deem al-nusus, which we did today. We did. Venerating the evidences, and how important the evidences are, and the daleel and whatnot.
With that being said, I can say to you honestly, it's hard, it's really hard to study fiqh properly, i.e. to have good perception of the masail. Okay? To really take it in. And then to have a gradual, i.e. step by step, to get there.
I don't know any way easier than ta'deem al-nusus. Ta'deem al-nusus is not easy, and just because a path is easy, doesn't mean it's the right path that we should take it. But you have, for example, let me say to you, I drove on a road, and I drove, drove, drove, drove, drove, and I got to the road, and I saw it was blocked.
It was a blocked road. There was no sign for it. I came back.
It took me a half an hour to drive on that road. I came back. I saved you time.
I said, look, Habibi, I've driven on that road. It's blocked. Don't go on that road.
Is it not dim-witted on your behalf for you to say, no, I wanna see it for myself. I'm gonna go. It depends, because the road you direct me to might also have its harms.
No, I'm not gonna direct you to a road. I'm just saying to you, that road, don't take it. Okay, and the road you're referring to is? Leaving a madhhab.
I'm saying to you, the great scholars of Islam shortened the path for you. They saw the faults, and mistakes, and errors. You know, all these madhhabs, where are they taken from? These madhhabs are taken not from, do you think it's taken from me there? No, it's not.
It's taken from the hadith that were read, the nasus that were read, the qawa'id that was brought out, furu' was brought out of it. Furu', furu', brr, brr. Those furu' that came out for that madhhab, it's been sift, it's been critiqued.
Within them, they differed amongst themselves. They had views, and et cetera. What I'm saying to you is that, I'm not saying it's also a verbatim divine law from Allah.
It's not. But the benefit for you is, even if there's mistakes in it, the benefit you learn is that, it gives you the ability to perceive shurut al-salah, how much, mubtilat al-salah, the nullifies of the praise, how much. You understand it.
The arkanus, you learn all of that. Now, when you say to me, for example, I'm going to take, for example, Muhammad Ali Shaukani's Dawru' al-Bahiyya. It's a kitab which is in Islam Madhhabi.
Manaj al-Sariki, some scholars, they say, it's still Abdul Rahman Nasir al-Saudi, who is an imam, studied in Hanbali Madhhab and whatnot, and his student is Abdullah ibn al-Aqeel, who is a great Hanbali of this time. The point I'm trying to come to is, Manaj al-Sariki, Sheikh Salah ibn Abdullah ibn Hamd al-Husayn says that it's a Hanbali text. Lakin al-Dawru' al-Bahiyya fil-masa'il al-fiqhiyya by Shaukani is considered to be a kitab which is not on any Madhhab.
But then I'm gonna take one man's book, and I'm gonna leave a Madhhab, Madhhab. You know what I mean? That doesn't have just one person. It's been scrutinized.
By the way, each Madhhab, there are imams of Hadith in there. Let's take Shafi' Madhhab. We've got Ibn Hajar in this Madhhab.
We've got Bayhaqi in this Madhhab. We've got Nawawi in this Madhhab. We've got Ibn Mulaqin in this Madhhab.
We have Salah al-Jadid al-Bulqini in this Madhhab. We have big giants in Hadith. Al-Rafi, by the way, is an imam in Hadith, by the way.
We have all these people. A imam, Zayd al-Iraqi. All these great scholars are Shafi'iyya.
They're not without Hadiths. Bayhaqi's kitab, Sunan al-Qubra, is considered to be the biggest kitab in Hadith al-Hakam that he wrote for the Shafi'i Madhhab. Are we all together? Yeah.
So to say that I'm just gonna dismiss all of that, and then I'm gonna straightaway jump into a kitab, Bulugh al-Maram, for example, and the fiqh is just gonna come from there. Bulugh al-Maram is organized for you. By the way, the kitab Bulugh al-Maram, and this is my research, and Kalam of the Fatawa of the Ulama, and everything that they've said I've read.
Anyone who doesn't do these five things will never become a faqih, never become a alim, historically, when we check it. If the person doesn't do furu' al-fiqhia ala madhhabin. It is kind of a fiqh in a, ya'ani, furu' al-fiqhia in a madhhab.
You're saying, without doing that, you're saying that it's obligatory to become an alim. No, I'm not saying that. You're saying to become an alim, you have to go through a madhhab.
No, I'm saying to you, we've seen. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm not gonna just explain.
I'm just saying to you, this, we haven't seen anyone who has become a faqih, and a person can't be a faqih in the time that we're living in today. The umar and the life span of the person is very short in order to reach where you're reaching if you don't take these steps. And see, you'll see for yourself.
Al-furu' al-fiqhia. Al-furu' al-fiqhia, you study a matan in madhhab. Matabi shujaa, yaqootun nafees, al-zubat, umdat al-saliq, umdat al-nasiq, al-minnaqeeb al-misri, al-minnihaj by no way.
For example, those are shafi'i books. That's furu' al-fiqhia. Then once you do furu' al-fiqhia, you go to usool al-fiqh.
And then you go qawa'id al-fiqhia. And then you go to, sorry, you go to adillat al-ahkam, hadith al-abroog al-maram, umidat al-ahkam, and whatnot. And the fifth one is maqasid al-shariah.
With those five, a talib al-ilm does that? Alhamdulillah, he's on a path. After you've finished all of that, you took usool al-fiqh, you studied waraqat, you finished it, you went to risalat al-latifah, you finished it, usool al-minnaq al-nusul, you finished it, maqa'id al-fusul, you finished that. You took kitab Rawdat al-nathir wa junnat al-munathir, you finished that.
You took al-mustasfa by Hamid Ghazali, you finished that. You took the kitab, what's it called? What's it called? Maraq al-su'ud li-mubtaghi al-ruqiyah al-su'ud, you memorized it and you finished the shuruhat on it. You went to jama' al-jawam, you finished it, you studied that.
When you went to qawa'id al-fiqhia, you did the same. One of the good kitabs, ashbahu al-nadhar by Suyuti, for example, or the nathma al-faraid al-bahiyah, you do that. All of these books is a manhaj, one book after the other.
Organized for you, tarteeb, murattab. It's there, it's like jumping from primary school and going directly to secondary school. You're jumping years that you needed.
Have we seen people, I'm asking you a question, have we seen people today who have now become scientists, doctors, in the world, does it exist, people who are millionaires, businessmen, who've not gone through schools? Yes. We've seen people who actually have done medicine and what not, but they haven't gone through the rights. They haven't gone through school or anything.
That doesn't mean that that's the way that it happens. Majority of people need this. And there are people, qad, qad, waqad, waqad, istithna'at can happen.
But what I'm trying to say is that this tariqa is sahlun. It's not wajib. If you leave it, you don't get sin for it.
It's not even mustahab. I'm not even saying it's mustahab. All I'm saying is it's mubah, it's permissible.
And it's actually better for you, from a charlatan perspective, but from university what we've seen is beneficial for you. Use it as a stepping stone, use it as a wasila to get to the understanding of the Quran and the sunnah. The aim is the Quran and the sunnah.
But what happens is these people who are against madhab are fighting another group who are fanatic in madhab. Those two parties are both extreme. And I said to you beginning, in the middle path, madhab we don't want to toss it all.
We want to take the khair and the good in it. It's the great imams of Islam that your ummah praised. I remember brothers who used to be fully against tamadhub and did not like tamadhub and belittled tamadhub and put it down, finally came back after they got tired and they couldn't really get anywhere.
They came back. So do it. And when they came back, it was a problem again because they went to the other extreme, ta'asub.
Another extreme. So don't go to extremes, just be in the middle. Okay, I want to end with some closing questions before I'm gonna give you the opportunity to summarize what we've discussed so far.
The first question I have is, we spoke a lot about ijtihad and the mujtahid. Is it even possible nowadays for someone to become a mujtahid? Or are we just saying that this level of ijtihad, by saying that it even exists in the first place, we're kind of giving false hope to the people to reach a level that they'll never be able to. Is this chapter actually still open or is it closed? There's a great book written by Sheikh Jalaluddin As-Suyut, rahimahullah ta'ala.
He called it al-raddu ala man akhlada ila al-arad. And in this book, he talks about the chapter of ijtihad is not closed. Amir al-San'ani has also a risalah written on the fact that ijtihad is still open and it's not closed.
And it's a funny story because Suyuti, rahimahullah, he was at a time when people were saying that the chapter of ijtihad is closed, it's gone, it's finished, there's no ijtihad whatsoever. And so Suyuti claimed to be a mujtahid. He said, I'm a mujtahid, not muqallid.
And so he said, if anybody wants to debate with me on this issue, I'm open for it. And then he said, the person who debates with me can't be a muqallid. Because a muqallid, he's not a scholar.
So a muqallid's a blind follower. So if he's a blind follower, he can't debate me. And he said, if the person who's debating with me is a mujtahid, then why are we debating for? Yeah, very true.
So he wrote that kitab, Ar-radu ala man akhalada ila al-ard. And he went back and forth with Shamsuddin As-Sakhawi and him went back and forth on this issue and wa ma ila dhali. The person has to never belittle the blessings of Allah, tabarak wa ta'ala.
He should always work hard, exert the effort, come with what it takes to become a mujtahid. Like shurut ul-umasat, learn those shurut, master the Arabic language, study it very deeply. Also study qawaid al-fiqh, usul al-fiqh, mustalah al-hadith, study the hadith of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, study the Quran and the qiraat and what not.
Inshallah ta'ala, you can become a mujtahid. Okay, the next question I have is more of a practical one. We've spoken a lot about theory.
How do you practically follow a madhhab in the 21st century? What is the methodology? I think before that would be a good question. How does one even choose a madhhab? You see, choosing a madhhab, the scholars when they speak about it, they mention it from two perspectives. The first one is, ayyakoonal mar'u fee baladeen The person's in a land and the people of that land that you're in are all upon a particular madhhab.
Walidhalika, the story that happened with Abi Ya'la sahib al-tabaqat, a man came up to him and he said, I want to study with you. And he advised him and he said, go and study the madhhab of your land and the people of your land. So if a person's from India, he's from Pakistan and from those areas, it's better for him to study the Hanafi madhhab.
Because when you go back to your community and you want to, it's good to know the madhhab of that land. Yeah. The second one is, you're in a land, the madhhabs are many.
Muta'didatul madhhab, there's many madhhabs there. Or la madhhab fee, or there's no madhhab. They don't follow a madhhab in this land.
Then here you choose a madhhab. And the madhhab that you choose, choose it for two reasons. First reason is that, it's the best in terms of the usoolu istidlal al-fiqhi that the principles that it's built on, it's the best.
And the second one is, abharu lahu, it's more clearer for you to, it's more clearer for you to go and study it with a scholar. If I take this madhhab on, there's someone who can teach me. I mean, there's someone who knows it very well.
Easy to access, kind of like. Easy access. Don't just choose it merely because it sounds like the majority of people follow this one.
But when you choose it, you don't have anyone to teach you. So choose it on those two reasons. So how does now a person study a madhhab? In each madhhab, there's a beginner stage, and there's a middle stage, and there's an advanced stage.
So ala sabili tamteel, lal hasr, shafi'i madhhab, there are books that you have to go through. Or you should go through, in order to understand the next book, and the next book, and the next book. So a person starts with Madhhab Shujaa.
He finishes that. He studies it. And then he goes for the Yaqut al-Nafis.
Finishes that, studies it very deeply. Then he goes for Az-Zubad libn al-Raslan. He understands it.
Then he goes for Umdat al-Saliq or Umdat al-Nasik libn al-Naqeeb al-Masri. And then he finishes that. Then he goes for the Minhaj of al-Imam al-Nawiyah rahimahullah ta'ala.
Once he finishes that, he can go to the Kitab al-Irshad by Abu Bakr ibn al-Muqrih. This, after that, you release yourself. It's your Mutala'a.
Go to the Majmura of Nawawi. Go to Mughni. Go to Wuhalla ibn Hazm.
Go to the works of Ibn Taymiyyah. Go to the works of... Now you're free. No one should stop you.
You've studied it. You've gone to Madhhab. You're good to go.
And every Madhhab, they have that. You study those books in those Madhhabs. Bala khafiq.
The final, or the penultimate question, I'm gonna add one more after this, is we spoke a lot about the four Madhhab. Some people say there's actually a fifth Madhhab, the Zahiri Madhhab. Do you accept this as a Madhhab? So the scholars, they differ upon the Zahiri Madhhab.
Is the khilaf that the Zahiri bring to the table, is it taken into consideration? And is there ijma'a? Okay. Is it taken into consideration? Yani, if there's an ijma'a and the Zahiri go against it, can we say there's ijma'a and it's issue? Fine, okay. Or do they break the ijma'a? Yeah, in other words, do they have the... The reason why this khilaf actually comes, and many people don't understand why, is because the Zahiri, they don't accept qiyas.
And qiyas is a pillar for ijma'a, for ijtihad. They don't accept qiyas as a pillar, that means they're not mujtahid. And a mujtahid, the asal of what he's needed for is the qiyas.
That's his main field. And if they don't even accept qiyas, they're not mujtahideen. If they're not mujtahideen, their khilaf is ghayru mu'tabar.
Right, I see. Meaning it's not accepted. And I'm really speaking loosely, and I'm not being technical, but I'm trying to summarize it.
That's where it goes back to. Okay. So, the khilaf of the Zahiriyat, that which seems apparent with ilm-u indallah, is that if they bring something, and that there is no ijma'a before them, they can't break an ijma'a.
The Zahiriyat cannot break an ijma'a. So if there's an ijma'a that has been established, and they go against it, even if it's not an issue that involves qiyas? No, the khilaf is not mu'tabar. If there's an ijma'a, the khilaf is not mu'tabar.
Okay. Lakin if it's a masala khilafiyah, there's a khilafi issue, then insha'Allah ta'ala, there's an opinion that stands. Okay.
Final question I have for you, is that we've obviously spoken about the salaf, and I know from your previous lessons and lectures, you obviously are always calling people to take their knowledge from the salaf, and obviously the imams and the madhahib, they are from the early few generations. My question for you is that, in your lectures you also speak a lot about Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen al-Bani, who obviously was against madhahib, Shaykh Ibn Baz, Salih al-Fawzan. How do you reconcile this, where you're teaching, you're always calling to these people, or not necessarily to these people, but you're mentioning their names, and then you're still telling people to take your knowledge from the early generations.
Isn't that a contradiction? By the way, many people have a misconception of Shaykh al-Bani. Shaykh al-Bani rahim Allah ta'ala actually did say, rahim Allah ta'ala, study the madhahib books. He's not against it.
Really? No, he's not. Shaykh Nasir, unrestrictedly, no. He's against ta'asub, being fanatic towards madhahib.
Okay. Rahim Allah ta'ala. And the Shaykh himself studied Hanafi madhahib, and then he became an imam who looks at the dalil and the nussoos himself.
So why is this position, why is this position misunderstood? Because essentially his position is the same position as all of the imams who are against ta'asub, but they're not against ta'asub. Why is he taken as someone who's misunderstood as that he's totally against the madhahib? Because Shaykh Nasir rahim Allah ta'ala, when he took on the concept of following the Qur'an and the Sunnah, the Shaykh rahim Allah ta'ala, his position is that you tend to find any other mashayikh, you might feel sometimes they're being pushed back by the madhahib that they were upon before. And he has that, he drags them back.
I guess Shaykh Nasir rahim Allah ta'ala doesn't look at it like that. Well that I do say to brothers, and this is the advice of some of the mashayikhs, that Shaykh al-Albani's works is not good for a beginner student of knowledge to necessarily go directly to the works of Shaykh al-Albani and also Ibn Hazmin. Because the person should first of all start with ala tariqat al-kutub, start with the works of the books of the madhahib, learn it, master it.
And once you reach and you benefit from that, Shaykh Nasir would be a good benefit for you in order to know where to go right and wrong. The Shaykh did a lot of tamhis, rahim Allah. And this advice was given by Shaykh Suleyman al-Ruhayn and I think it's a very strong advice for a student of knowledge to actually understand.
But Shaykh al-Albani's books like that are beneficial, la shakka wa la rayba, a student can study and learn it. Lakin, reading the views and the fatawa of Shaykh al-Albani rahim Allah ta'ala before you go to kutub of the ulama, for example, like the madhahibs and what not, understand that. Because sometimes it puts on a lot of people who haven't studied systematically, they start saying la yajuz.
But before you reach that point and you say la yajuz, oh yajuz, please study systematically in other words. I think he's also very outspoken against ta'asub and people have interpreted that as being him against the madhahib because he's so outspoken. So there's always balance.
The Shaykh was, from his fatawa, there are times he instructs the students to study books of madhahibs. He's against the concept of ta'asub of the madhahibs. Shaykh Ibn Baz and Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Saleh al-Uthaymeen were also imam of hadith.
They weren't muta'asibin of the Hanbali madhab. They were not. Actually, to be honest, Saudi is changing now.
It's not like how it used to be before. Shaykh Ibn Baz is different. You can always tell.
When you listen to his fatawa, I listened to his fatawa Noorun al-Darb. His majmoo' al-fatawa, I've read it once, all of it. And Shaykh Ibn Baz, ikhtiarat and his opinions, a lot of the times is not based on the madhab.
But even, subhanallah, I heard by a reliable brother who said that Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen al-Izzad al-Mustaqila, over 300 masaeen, he went against the madhab. One of the mutaqatir, teaching in the jama'a, he said about 300 issues. Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Saleh al-Uthaymeen al-Izzad went against the madhab.
So he was encouraging students not to read it. Right. Also, if you look at the jama'a now in Saudi Arabia, they've taken out some of the books that were proof that they were about ta'asub.
Ta'asub wasn't really there. Like for example, now Raudh al-Murbi' is taught in, and they took out Bidayat al-Mujtahid that were taught before. They changed it into the Raudh al-Murbi' and they forced it, kind of, it's going towards a direction.
A new movement of the mashayikh, some of them, is that they're doing tahlilat within the ara'a and the opinions of the, and this person's spending so much time within the madhab, scuffling inside the madhab, where he doesn't even get a chance to bring the riwayat and the hadith and the turuq and how to reconcile the hadith. He's reconciling between iman and their words and too much, too much. So how do you respond to this claim that the madhab followers have? We follow Ahmed Malik Abu Hanifa al-Shafi'i and you follow Ibn Uthaymeen Ibn Baz al-Bani and our scholars are greater than yours.
They preceded yours. No, these ulama, like Shaykh Ibn Baz and Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen and Shaykh al-Albani we need their fatawa because of nawazil al-mustajaddat. Contemporary issues that happened, we need to know their fatwas on it.
So that's not something we can dismiss. But if they get it right, we take it. You see the haq, if it's with al-Bani and it's not with Imam al-Shafi'i, we take it.
If the haq is with al-Shafi'i, we take it. The haq, where it is and whosever hand it is in, we'll take it from them. It doesn't matter who has it.
It could be a scholar in India, we'll take it from him. It could be a scholar in Africa, we'll take it from him. It could be a scholar in Europe, we'll take it from him.
Okay, now. It's been a very long discussion. Just to summarize some of your thoughts, some of your final thoughts.
Summarize some of the stuff that we've discussed today. I'm gonna let you end the podcast with your thoughts, inshallah. Well, I said at the beginning, the importance of following the Quran and the sunnah and venerating the Quran and the sunnah, وَمَاتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوا وَمَا نَهَاكُمْ عَنهُ فَانْتَهُوا فَلِيَحْذَرِ الَّذِينَ يُخَالِفُونَ عَنَ أَمْرِهِ أَنْ تُصِيبُهُمْ فِتْنَةً أَوْ يُصِيبُهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ Trials and tribulations come from opposing the Prophet, alayhis salatu wasalaam.
Ubadah ibn Samit, radiallahu ta'ala anhu, he spoke about the issue of two dirhams being given for one dirham. Dirhameen ibi dirhameen, he said this is riba. And this was a time when Umar radiallahu anhu sent Ubadah ibn Samit with Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan and they went.
And then when Ubadah gave that fatwa, based on the hadith of the Prophet, Muawiyah said, لَا أَرَى بِهِ بَأْسًا I don't see a problem in this issue. Ubadah ibn Samit, he said, I am telling you that the Prophet said, and you're now saying to me, لَا أَرَى بِهِ بَأْسًا Muawiyah said, لَا أَرَى بِهِ بَأْسًا Yeah, then be it. As long as they give it to each other hand by hand, I don't see it as a riba.
And then what he said to him was, والله لا يُضِلُّني أَنتَ وَأَنَا والله سبحان الله You and I are never gonna share and we're never gonna be shaded under the same roof. In other words, in some of the riwayat he mentioned, والله I'm never gonna stay in a place where you govern. Muawiyah was a governor and he left him and he came back to Medina.
And Umar ibn Al-Khattab radiallahu anhu said to Ubadah, why are you here? And he said, I couldn't stay with Muawiyah. This is what I said to him. And Umar radiallahu anhu sent a letter to Muawiyah and said, listen, you don't govern Ubadah.
You don't control Ubadah. You don't have nothing, no authority over Ubadah. Number one.
Number two, the fatwa he gave you is what everybody has to implement. You understand? Yeah. So, Abdullah ibn Umar radiallahu anhu said, لا تمنعوا إماء الله مساجد الله He said, قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم لا تمنعوا إماء الله مساجد الله وَبُيُوتُنَّ خَيْرُ لَّهُمْ That the Prophet, he said, I heard from the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and say, do not prevent the women from going to the masjids.
Abdullah ibn Umar's son came Bilal and he said, لا أمنعنا I will stop them from it. And then he said to him لَعَنَتُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكِ لَعَنَتُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكِ لَعَنَتُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكِ Three times. It's not a light issue.
Meaning? May Allah's curse be upon you. May Allah's curse be upon you. May Allah's curse, three times.
يعني أَطَّرْضُ مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ
May Allah's mercy be distanced from you. Three times to his own son. And he got up and he was so angry and he cried and walked away.
So I'm saying to you, the Prophet said, and then the narration mentions Ibn Umar died and he never spoke to his son. Allahu Akbar. And they took the issue of leaving hadith and dismissing the Prophet's madhab, the Prophet's statements, they took it very serious.
Somebody told you قَالَ رَسُولُ اللهِ And you said, well, wait. They saw this to be very, very evil because it came under the ayah فَلْيَحْذَرِ الَّذِينَ يُخَالِفُونَ عَنْ أَمْرِهِ أَنْ تُصِيبَهُمْ فِتْرَةً وَيُصِيبَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ Calamity. وَلِذَٰلِكَ وَاللَّهِ A land that the people of hadith, who quote the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ are missing from, that land لا خَيْرَ فِيهِ There's no khayr in it.
A land where آراء الرجال the opinions of men and the views of people is just merely been spoken about and قَالَ رَسُولُ اللهِ is not mentioned and it's not talking and it's not brought to the table. There's not much khayr that's going to come from it. So let's all go back to what the Prophet was and the way he was ﷺ. And all of these things that we're studying, let's all see it as a means.
Let's not make it the goal. Don't make the madhhab the goal and the ultimate goal. And you see a person all day madhhab, he's studying it and not one hadith does he know.
And he'll tell you فُلَانَ سَدِّسْ عَلَّانَ سَدِّسْ He's this opinion. رِوَايَةً عَنْهُ This is the mu'tamid in the madhhab and he does not know one hadith. Understand? So we have another extreme of people who say شَافِعِ هُمْ رِجَالٌ وَنَحْنُ رِجَالٌ They're men, I mean we're men.
The first part you got right, they're men. But the second part, الله أعلم. No, they're men.
That's right. We're men, الله أعلم. Does that make sense? So those same people, if you gave them a kitab and said read it, and read it from yourself without no grammatical mistakes, he can't read it.
And they say شَافِعِ من ومن أحمد زمان ومن يعني أبو حنيف زمان ومن يعني كيف؟ Intending by that that we're the same, we have the right to do this. What they do, we can do. And another extreme.
خَيْرَ الْأُمُورِ وَأَوْسَطُهَا
The best of affairs is in the middle part. So I conclude there, anything which I've said that was wrong or incorrect is for me a shayṭān and Allah and His Messenger are both free from it.
