Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Bismillahi wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi sallallahu alayhi wasallam amma ba'da. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Brothers and sisters, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you and to introduce you to a brand new show and a brand new podcast called The Hot Seat.
To understand a little bit more about The Hot Seat, we first have to understand the context of the modern day world we find ourselves living in, in the year 2019. It is a world in which perhaps, perhaps there are more doubts, misconceptions and misinterpretations that are thrown around about the religion of Islam than in any other period of time in the history of mankind. The internet is the number one source used by people globally to acquire information on any topic and it is riddled and full of false notions and erroneous ideologies about the Deen of Allah, Our kids, ourselves are being exposed to this kind of information on a daily and if not daily then at the very least weekly basis.
And whether we know it or not, whether we choose to accept it or not, it is having an effect on ourselves, our hearts, our minds and ultimately our understanding of this beautiful religion. To further complicate the problem, many of us find ourselves living in Western societies where the governments and the social norms and pressures are constantly trying to redefine what is good and what is bad, what is accepted and what is rejected, what Islam is and is allowed to be and what Islam is never allowed to be. All of this, my brothers and sisters, ultimately leads to confusion, it leads to ignorance and if Allah permits, it can lead to misguidance.
The Hot Seat has therefore been designed with the permission of Allah alone to counter these kind of modern day contemporary issues head on by using the knowledge and the guidance of the Muslims of the past, the early generations of Muslims, the best of generations. There is not a single Muslim on the face of the planet today that would doubt the fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala completed our religion for us over 1400 years ago and that that completed, holistic, perfect religion is just as applicable now in the year 2019 as it was back then. We truly do have classical solutions for contemporary problems.
However, this isn't your normal, average Islamic lecture series. First of all, it's not a lecture, it's a discussion between two parties, often opposing parties in an attempt to reach the truth, bi'idhnillah. And secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it's a unique, one-of-its-kind, interactive podcast where you, from the comfort of your own home, have the opportunity to vote for and to choose the topic we'll be discussing on the show.
You also have the chance to ask your own questions on these contemporary issues and to grill the speaker if you feel like you haven't been grilled enough on the show itself. I'll be releasing details of how you can do both of those things at the end of this episode. But for now, without any further ado, let's get into this episode of The Hot Seat.
وَإِن تَعْجَبْ فَعْجَبٌ قَوْلُهُمْ أَيْذَا كُنَّا تُرَابًا أَيْنَّا لَفِي خَلْقٍ جَدِيدٍ أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِرَبِّهِمْ وَأُولَئِكَ الْأَغْلَالُ فِي أَعْنَاقِهِمْ وَأُولَئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ هُمْ فِي يَا قَالِدُونَ As-salāmu alaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh. Once again, I'm joined on The Hot Seat podcast with Ustadh Abdur Rahman Hassan, Khafidhullah wa Ta'ālā. Ustadh, how are you doing today? Alhamdulillah.
JazakAllah khayran. JazakAllah khayran for joining me. We have a really interesting topic for discussion today.
And it's the old debate between reason and revelation. Reason broadly meaning logic and revelation obviously being the text, the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Are they actually in contradiction with one another? What happens if they appear to be in contradiction with one another? Which one do we prefer? All of these things we, inshAllah, will be discussing over the next hour or so.
I'd like to start as we normally do on The Hot Seat with a definition. What is the definition of aql in the Arabic language? الحمد لله رب العالمين له الحمد الحسن فالثناء الجميل واشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له يقول الحق وهو يهدي السبيل واشهد أن سيدنا ونبينا محمد صلى الله عليه وعلى آله وأصحابه والتابعين لهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين أما بعد The term aqala which is a root word of the word aql It goes back to the meaning of منع It's to prevent something or it's to stop something The scholars they say that's why it's called عقال البعير The riding beast, the rope that's tied on the camel Or the horse is called aqal It comes from the word, it's the same word as aql Which is to prevent the riding beast from running away And the scholars they say the reason why aql is called aql Is because يمنع صاحبه مما لا يليق It prevents the person from that which is not befitting And that's what the author of the كتاب معجب مقاييس اللغة said He said it means الحابس عن ذميم القول والفعل Aql is the thing that prevents a person from an unwise statement Or an inappropriate statement or action That's what aql is there for Like in the teacher of Sibawihi خليل من أحمد الفراهيدي In the كتاب العين Some scholars they question whether the book can be attributed to him But the point is that خليل من أحمد الفراهيدي He said that aql is نقيض الجهل It's the opposite of ignorance And while we're at this point it's important to mention That the aql when it comes to the Quran and the Sunnah It's actually divided into four The first one is الغريزة The first one is الغريزة التي جعلها الله في الإسان It's the innate ability that Allah has placed inside a human In other words it's what people will consider you to be sane And if you don't have it they'll consider you to be insane Or it's what distinguishes us from all other species And gives us that unique distinct characteristics and attribute The second thing that aql is meant in the shariah and the kitab of the sunnah Is العلوم الضرورية The essential knowledge The knowledge which everybody really shares Like everyone here knows that one is more than half Essential knowledge And number three which is العلوم النظرية Theoretical knowledge Also referred to as aql Theoretical knowledge But theoretical knowledge means The knowledge that's specific to a person who has the ability to observe The ability to research The ability to critically analyze something That's the third type And the fourth one is العمل بالعلم Implementing knowledge is also called aql When a person implements the knowledge that they know It's also referred to as aql as Allah said in the ayah وَقَالُوا لَوْ كُنَّا نَسْمَعُ وَنَعْقِلُ مَا كُنَّا فِي أَصْحَابِ السَّعِيرِ فَاعْتَرَفُوا بِذَنْ بِهِمْ فَسُحْقًا لِّأَصْحَابِ السَّعِيرِ That they said if we had aql Meaning if we implemented the knowledge that we had The information that Muhammad ﷺ brought to us If we took it on board and we implemented it We would not be from the inhabitants of the hellfire There's one point I want to say Which is whenever you hear the concept of Reason versus revelation From those four It's only referring to the theoretical knowledge Okay That's the only type of logic or aql, intellect That can kind of go against revelation Or if it can, whether it can or can't We'll speak about it more into the But it's that type It's the third type which is the theoretical knowledge Not the other three Okay, that's the main type that we're obviously going to focus on In today's podcast Do you want to unpackage that one a little bit more? Just tell us a little bit more about exactly what this type means So when it comes to, they say thinking Or they say reasoning They divide it into three types The different type of reasoning is three The first one is deduction And the second type is induction And the third type is abduction The deduction is a conclusion which is reached Based on evidences that were gathered So it's based on observational evidence Something you observed You reached a conclusion based on it Sometimes it can be flawed Sometimes it can be a fallacy It can be an illogical absurdity I'll give you an example A person says an apple All apples are fruits And then they say This is a fruit Which is two premise And the third, the inference or the conclusion that they reach is That therefore it is an apple You can see how flawed that is Even though it might sound plausible in the first premise Or it seems sound in its first two premise But the conclusion is wrong That's called deduction The induction is that a person observes many data They look at many things And from there they reach a final conclusion It's called induction And that's all based upon how much you've seen And how much you've observed And later when I talk about the issue of Is intellect and reasoning restricted or unrestricted We'll talk about it there The final one is abduction And abduction usually starts with Observing something And looking at something Which the data and the information that you have regarding is very limited You don't have much And then you reach a general statement regarding it Or you try to best explain it That's roughly what they all three mean I'd like to throw in a fourth one there Especially when we're talking about the role That this type of intellect has when it comes to the religion And this is something that I see that is quite common And it's the issue of confirmation bias Where essentially a person is brainwashed into a religion from birth They're told that this religion is true And later on in life they may start to use their reason, their intellect They may come across scientific knowledge And they interpret all of that information And they interpret their reason, their intellect In line with what they were previously taught from birth That this religion is true So either they'll reinterpret the text itself Or they'll reinterpret the scientific information That they come across later on in life To make sure it matches the text And this is what I see many religious people doing Would you agree with this? You see, there's a book I read recently It's written by John Lennox It's called Did Science Bury God? I think that was the name of the book Can Science Explain Everything? I think it was one of those names The point is that John Lennox mentioned something I think was very good And I really benefited from it He said that explanation are two types Explanation are two types If someone came into the kitchen And saw you boiling water And they asked you What is this? There's two explanations you can give There may be many more There's at least two explanations you can give You can give a scientific explanation By telling them that there's heat That is boiling the water from beneath Which is agitating the molecules You can give a scientific explanation You can also say Oh I just want tea One explanation doesn't eliminate the other And this is the problem that I Inshallah when I tackle more Which is that thinking and assuming that When science comes It shuts everything else And it's the only explanation And there's nothing else that can explain anything Itself is an unscientific statement So I think we'll talk about that more Inshallah Okay, you've unpackaged the issue of the logic And what the definition of the intellect is quite nicely And obviously we're well aware of what revelation is It's the Quran and the Sunnah In the Islamic religion Does the intellect have any role? What kind of level does it have in the religion? The intellect in our religion has a high position Allah Ta'ala For you to be burdened To come with Salah To pray to Allah Azawajal To pay your Zakat To go to pilgrimage Hajj All of that The condition for it is that you have intellect The intellect I'm referring to here is that you have sanity Allah Ta'ala He didn't force or didn't burden a person to pray When they have no intellect You know the famous Hadith Where the Messenger of Allah said The pen is lifted from three The one who is sleeping until he wakes up And the young child until he reaches the age of puberty The kid until the child reaches the age of puberty He doesn't have to pray And the insane one until he regains sanity again So number one The evidence to show how Islam honors the intellect You can see that if you don't have intellect It doesn't burden you with anything Number two is The Quran and the Sunnah If you look at it It pushed us It urged us It encouraged us To use our intellect Any ayah you come across in the Quran Where Allah Ta'ala He says Where Allah Ta'ala also said Those who They say They look at the sky They look at the earth They ponder over everything Allah is telling us to use our intellect here I was telling one brother one time What Charles Darwin did What Charles Darwin did when he travelled And gathered data and information It was something our religion urged us to do Way before Allah Ta'ala said Why did they not travel the earth? And what are they going to do when they travel the earth? Allah Ta'ala says They look at How the creation started So Using our logic and using our minds Is something the Quran and the Sunnah urged us to do The third is Allah Ta'ala praised the people of Allah praised the people who have a smart Who are clever Who use their intellect And who reason Allah Ta'ala praised them The ayah Allah says The only ones who take the reminder in Are those who have intellect Those who are Who are mature minded Also number four Allah Ta'ala rebuked a people Who chose to forsake using their intellect Allah Ta'ala says Allah Ta'ala says That when they are told Follow that which your Lord has sent down onto you They said We will follow that which Was brought to us from our forefathers Allah says Even if their fathers They didn't have intellect And they were not guided We used to do that So These people didn't want to use their logic They just wanted to follow their forefathers They just wanted to blind follow their Their previous ancestors So you can see from those points That the intellect has a high station In our religion now Last but not least The fifth evidence Or the fifth point is Allah Ta'ala He made the intellect From the five necessities The five things that need to be protected If a person Mentioned in his book Al-Muqni And he put a consensus An ittifak and an ijma' That if a person damages a person's brain It's like he killed him He has to pay a full diyah He has to pay a full diyah Full diyah means a full blood money Like you killed this person Because you took away from him what? An essential component of the human So to say that Islam does not honour That Islam does not honour The intellect And it doesn't honour thinking and reason It's a mistaken belief And a false argument So what I'm getting from that then Is that the intellect Is kind of like an overriding Dominant feature in the religion And it should be prioritised Above anything else Is that kind of what you're saying now? When it comes to the When it comes to reasoning When it comes to thinking When it comes to The mind Ahlus Sunnah Are in the middle path Ahlus Sunnah They lie in the middle Between those who are Extreme in exaggeration And those who are Extreme in negligence And you tend to find That Any issue There's always two extremes Which are diametrically Opposing to one another They're divergently on different tracts The first group are Extreme in exaggeration And there's another group Which is extreme in negligence Ahlus Sunnah are in the middle Who are the people who are Extreme in exaggeration And who are the people Who are extreme in negligence Ahlul Kalam And Ahlul Kalam are The Mu'tazila The Within Islam we're talking about The Mu'tazila Originated from Wasim Al-Ata and Amr Ibn Ubaid The Asha'ira And we'll talk more about that Fakhruddin Al-Razi And Fakhruddin Al-Razi Is considered To be the real The man who put The most arguments For Asha'iriyah But he wasn't The man who placed The first bricks The first bricks was placed by Abi Ma'ali Al-Juwayni You see them Asha'ira The Maturidiyah And the likes of these They're referred to as They're referred to as Ahlul Kalam They went overboard When it came to the Aqal They went They exceeded their limits They came with Extreme exaggeration In what way? So they would say what? That the Aqal is Above everything else? They placed And they gave the Aqal And they gave allowance To the Aqal And a lead way to the Aqal In places that it's not It's filled with expertise It's not a place That it should talk in This is not its place Even though we've agreed That it has such a high role In the religion Which I will expand on later Inshallah Ta'ala But the Aqal According to the Asha'ira And the Mu'tazila And the Maturidiyah They've done Ghuloo They went overboard with it We know the Aqal It can't The Aqal can bring you to The Aqal can bring you to The belief of Allah Azawajal And that Allah exists Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala And it can bring you Into the general Guidance The comprehensive guidance But detailed issues of guidance The Aqal can't do that It's not its field of expertise And I'll talk about that later Inshallah Ta'ala The second group Who are extremely negligent Are the Sufiyyah The Mutasawwifah The Sufiyyah They rebuked the Aqal And they rebuked Anything related to the Aqal The mindset And the thinking process And psychological observation All of that They threw under the bus For them it has no weight whatsoever That's why you find the Mutasawwifah Their Awliya Are sometimes considered To be people who are insane You go to some places in the world And you find that they are They're worshipping Or they see a Wali A man who's thrown off his clothes Who's naked And they'll say This is a Wali From the Awliya Allah Azawajal The Mutasawwifah If you look at A lot of them drank alcohol And they were intoxicated And they So they don't And that's something That damages the sanity right That's something that damages The Aqal And the way that the person thinks So the Sufiyyah They went to the other extreme Of not giving any consideration To the Aqal And so when Like scientists And modern day Western Academics See these type of Sufiyyah Then they think This is what Islam is like This is what the religion is like Which is not true now So where are Ahlus Sunnah In between them today? So Ahlus Sunnah believe That the Aqal It has a majal It has a position It has a field It's got a role In the religion And its role Is not unrestricted For that reason They say They believe That the Aqal Even though it has A great station in our religion Even though it's considered high But they say It's not free To do whatever it wants And They say that the Aqal They give many examples I just want to give you A basic Understandable Example That many can digest And that is Your mobile phone It works right? Does it not mean a lot to you? Does it not do a good job? But when you go to another country Your network doesn't necessarily work Or if you go to a place Where there is no network Your phone stops working So this has a boundary Of how it works The Aqal is like your eyesight Your eyesight It works It functions You can see things But it's limited What it can see You can't see everything There's a distance you can see up to The Aqal is exactly the same There's a distance In how far it can see You can't just make your Eyesight Unrestricted And say I can see Any and everything You see For that reason They say three things Three things Ahlus Sunnah say That the Aqal Is restricted here It can't talk about it This is not its field of expertise The first one is The Aqal can't talk about The unseen Because remember What I said to you before The induction Sorry The deduction The induction And the abduction Which are the three Kind of reasoning All three of them They all are based On observation Things that you can see And that's what The Aqal works on The Aqal works on What it can see It works on What it can observe That's where it Then brings a Conclusion from That's where it brings Inferences from But if you don't Have the ability To see something Then the Aqal has no room To talk about these issues Number two Is The Aqal cannot By itself Guide No it can't You see It's not Independent in guiding That's why Ibn Al Qayyim said That the Aqal Is not independent In guiding It can't The Aqal cannot Give you detailed Guidance No Sorry I really want to Unpackage this Because this is where Most of the discussion Takes place You're basically saying That the Aqal has limitations Without a doubt How do you come to know That Islam is the truth And worshipping an idol Is false You see when I said It's restricted And it's limited That doesn't mean It's not functioning It doesn't function Of course it functions And I said it to you before That Something that you created For you to worship What you created And that depends on you Is an illogical observance Exactly So it's actually your logic And your reasoning That you come to know The ultimate truth About the world itself And the reason why We're created to worship Allah alone If that's the case With the ultimate truth The most important thing Then how can you say that For things lower than that The Aqal won't work Okay In the book Darul Ta'arud Al-Aqal Wal Naqal Shaykh Hussain Taimis Said something very powerful In there He said I took you to a doctor You were ill You said I need a doctor Who can specialize in this And Can someone Can you take me to the doctor Or can someone take me To the doctor I put my finger up I said I can help you Let me take you to the doctor So I grabbed you by the hand And I took you to the doctor Now Now that I've taken you To the doctor And you've sat And you've spoken to the doctor And you've conversed with the doctor The doctor of course Is going to prescribe a medicine for you And he's going to tell you What your illness is How about if I say to you I was the one who brought you To the doctor You wouldn't have known the doctor So listen to me now Don't do what the doctor told you Do this Because I'm the one Who brought you to the doctor You're going to be like That's an illogical absurdity What are you talking about? Yeah I understand I understand what you're saying I want you to understand something This issue Sheikh Al-Islam Taimiyah He authored a book on it 10 volume book And I'll tell you something Very important You see Within Islam There were smart Thinkers Before I go into this There was a point I was going to mention I just don't want to forget it I said that the aqal Even though it has a weight In our religion There's three things It cannot talk about The first one was What I said is The aqal cannot talk about the unseen The second I said is that That the aqal cannot independently guide you By itself Without no revelation It can't And if anybody tries to do that It will be misguided You see The third thing I was going to say was that If two people are disputing one another You can't necessarily reconcile them With just rational arguments You cannot Because every individual's rational mind Is not superior to the other Yours is not higher than mine There has to be a higher authority That can govern all of us That's why Allah said in the ayah So you made three important points That I think is worth talking about In a little bit more detail The first point I don't think there can be much disagreement on this The aqal can't tell you about knowledge of the unseen Because we can't see that The second point The point that you mentioned The first point is very important Because it's Sorry to interrupt you But it's important because This is where a lot of the Modern day Militant atheists Argue about They say that How are you going to reconcile The law of nature And And miracles And it's very important that they understand that The aqal Has no majal to talk about These issues of miracles That is not its boundaries And its limits Even though we can see certain things around us And we can see the laws of the universe Operating around us We know it's completely unrealistic For example For a sea to be split open Because we've been living a life And that just doesn't happen in life And now you're saying that For example Musa A.S. Split open a sea This is what you would classify as a miracle With the permission of Allah of course That doesn't match up to the internet I'm sorry I know again That's my point That's again For the aqal To understand that It's not its majal It's not its field It shouldn't be talking about It's the unseen So anyone can claim anything I can say on the way here to Sharjah I just saw a four-legged man Who had the face of a horse It's unseen to you And your intellect says No this doesn't seem right But my point is Your intellect has a limit You have to believe But that's my point It brings you to the issue of Number one Do you think that the aqal That's what I want you to understand Do you really think that the aqal For example There's many things that we cannot fathom But we still believe in them We still We can't fathom What's an example For example We believe in gravitational force No one can actually define for you What gravity is We can see the effects of gravity Working right now I can see the effects of that But that's exactly God right I can't Scientists are saying that we don't For example Some atheists are saying today We don't believe in God Because we can't observe him We can't see him We need to see him Seeing is believing Yes So everything has become Empirical evidence So I'm seeing gravity now So my question to you is You're not seeing gravity You're seeing the effects of gravity Correct yes So exactly So my point is that Allah Azzawajalla You're not seeing him But you're seeing the effect Of what he's done And I think this is This is important that It's understood well I just think There's many ways I can tackle that point But I just want to make it Simple and easy for the people I want them to understand Is don't give the aqal An unrestricted See Your eyesight as I said before It can see But it needs light to see If you switch off the light In your room Your eyesight Even though it can see It can't see in the dark You see the issue I have with this The aqal The aqal Even though it can It works It functions It's good It brings about A lot of amazing things Into this world You know But if there's no revelation To shine the path for it The aqal It'll go all over the place When Einstein Developed the general relativity I mean the relativity theory Before him Was Isaac Newton Who had already Pushed his theories Was put under scrutiny It was undisputed Many scientists They trialed it They tested it And There was no need For anyone to come after And to try to Correct or Modify or But Einstein did And so this is the power of human mind I was reading subhanallah The enigma code You know the enigma code Where German The world war 2 The German were using The enigma code There was a man by the name Of Alan Turing What he did was that He looked into the enigma code He read it through Mathematical theories Mathematical Equations And was able to Break the enigma code And basically stop World war 2 Or bring it to a halt Save millions of people And again I may not agree with These people's Aqidah And their belief and what not But it does show you The power of human Human reasoning The power of You know The power of thinking And there is no Dispute and argument Regarding that You know But the point here is Is that when Somebody just puts the Aqidah Into a Place that it doesn't deserve It's You know the Aqidah is like a leader Okay It's like a leader It's Governs a particular land It can't govern The whole entire world It governs a particular land And as time goes on The Aqidah Sorry the leader He loses his position So there are times When the logic And the mind And the human thinking There's moments where The naqal will say to it Wait Naqal been The text And the revelation Will say to it Look this is not your It's not your field This is not You're not Entitled to speak about it Don't you think your approach Is actually leading to A community of Backwards people So we I think Islam and the Muslims Is one of the only communities That I've seen Where the aqil The intellects Actually look down upon Where someone comes up With an opinion And you say Don't worry about him He just uses his intellect In every other community In the world They actually push forward Critical thinking Logic Reasoning These are seen as good things And in our community We seem to suppress it And say no Don't use your intellect It's making The scientific people Are laughing at us So it's making us look backwards Okay This issue I really want people To understand is that The issue of Revelation And reason Having to be reconciled Between the two Is actually Not true What do you mean? You see Ahlus Sunnah believe There is no conflict To be honest Between a sound mind A sound reasoning And an authentic revelation An authentic text There's no conflict Between the two To be honest The conflict is Something on your side They're not contradicting One another You think they are But there isn't Okay let's use that Let's take an example Shaytan urinates In the ear Of the person Who misses Salatul Fajr Is that an authentic text? Oh no Without a doubt Okay I wake up in the morning I can't feel the urine I can't smell the urine My intellect Is clearly contradicting What the sound text Is saying You see again You're saying that What is considered To be proof And what is considered To be an evidence Is that which can be seen Smelled Is that all you're saying That's my intellect You're saying that Insects is limited No I'm not saying that I'm actually saying that Intellect Is actually You believe in things You can't see You believe in things That you can't hear You believe in things That you can't smell You believe in things That are not empirical Give me an example Of something I believe in You believe in the cosmos You believe in the beginning The starting of this universe And how it started You believe in Many things that Gravitational force I just said to you There are many things That you believe in Which you can't observe Okay but all of these things I can observe the effect of it I can't observe the effect of urine Yes now you can I'll tell you the effect Sleeping paralysis Is something that is Exactly what the messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Told us He told us Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam That sleeping paralysis Is shaitan for example Telling the person Go to sleep This is the important concept I want us to understand There's many other things I want to talk about I just don't want to go into it now Because due to it not being The correct podcast for it But there is a concept Which they called it The god of the gaps Whenever you can't Explain something You just squeeze a god in there And that's your answer For everything And then as time goes on Science will disprove it And the god would pop out Of that gap And the gap gets tighter And tighter as time goes on And that's what they say And I don't want to go into that now I really want to discuss that If we ever have a podcast On atheism And their common arguments But let me go back to What I was saying Is that there is no conflict really Between sound Sound reasoning And an authentic text There isn't But idadika the scholars they say Any individual Who is closer to the revelation You will tend to find That they have the most Soundest reasoning I was reading Lars Krauss He allows incest I mean he says that You know Because he is far from revelation So you see that he will Richard Dawkins He permitted And he can see He doesn't see any problem with Mild pedophilia So their distance from revelation Has actually caused them Their intellect to become more deficient That's what you're saying Yeah exactly Let me give you an example Of some Islamic thinkers For instance I was saying before Shaykh al-Islam al-Taymiyya The book he wrote He wrote a kitab called Dar'u ta'arud al-aql wal-naql And this kitab is a refutation on Fakhruddin al-Razi He's refuting Fakhruddin al-Razi Fakhruddin al-Razi Was one of the Greatest Islamic thinkers He was A person who used Aql to its maximum He used it to its maximum He stretched his brain He was a great thinker Without a shadow of a doubt There's something he came up with Which was known as Al-Qanun al-Kulli I want to explain it quickly Al-Qanun al-Kulli is that Two premises and an inference Two premises and a conclusion So he said Qadhiya Ta'arud al-aql wal-naql That the aql Goes against the naql The aql Which is the reasoning And thinking and rationality Versus text So he already He As you mentioned before Confirmation bias He already alluded He already Suppositions that there is a Conflict between naql and aql Okay And then he said Taqdeem al-aqli a'an al-naql Which is the second premise he put That you give precedence to the Rationality over the text And then last but not least Evidence for that is That the aql is the foundation And the naql is the sub-branch Or in other words In other wordings he said In text It benefits us Speculation Like it doesn't It's speculative It's actually not clear cut Shaykh Usama Taimur felt Okay this doesn't make sense So what Shaykh Usama Taimur did was He responded to him in 44 different Angles 44 different perspectives 44 different which In 10 volumes And beginning he responds First of all he divides his answers Into two Shaykh Usama Taimur First one he makes it into a Jawab mujmal A general answer And that is four lines Okay That could be enough But of course they won't take it So what he did was He went into 44 different Angles of responding to 10 volumes Okay And These arguments that Fakhruddin Al-Razi to be honest He brought He wasn't the first to actually bring it Al-Qadhi Abdul Jabbar Al-Hamadani Al-Mu'tazili said it before him Abu Ma'ali Al-Juwaini said it before him In Kitab Al-Irshad Also Even Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali said it In his Kitab Al-Qarun Al-Ta'weel If today that book could be Translated in its Totality If it could be translated in the English language It's an amazing book Ibn Al-Qayyim said وَقَرَأْ كِتَابَ الْعَقْلِ وَالنَّقْلِ الَّذِي مَا فِي الْوُجُودِ لَهُ نَذِيرٌ ثَانِ He said read the book Al-Aql Wa Al-Naql For verily there is no book like it You can actually say it's a Masterpiece of Shaykh Al-Islam Al-Taymiyyah's works And that man Fakhruddin Al-Razi Imagine this I was reading Tariq Al-Islam By Imam Al-Zahabi Rahimahu Allah That Fakhruddin Al-Razi Say Amr Ibn Al-Salah The author of the Kitab He mentioned that Fakhruddin Al-Razi In his later stages His last moments of life He said لَيْتَنِي لَمْ أَشْتَقِلْ بِالْكَلَامِ وَبَكَى I wish I didn't busy myself With these philosophical arguments I didn't busy myself with This rationality There's a line of poetry That he said لَقَدْ طُفْتُ فِي تِلْكَ الْمَعَاهِدِ كُلِّهَ He said I've travelled around All these academic researches I've looked at all of them وَسَيِّرْتُ طَرَفِي بَيْنَ تِلْكَ الْمَعَالِمِ فَلَمْ أَرَ إِلَّا I have not seen إِلَّا وَاضِعَنْ كَفَّ حَائِرٍ عَلَى ذَقْنٍ أَوْ قَارِعَنْ سِنَّ نَادِمِ I've only seen people who were confused And people who didn't know Where things were going I've looked at all of this And it's true Fakhruddin Al-Razi did And he said in another line of poetry He said لَقَدْ تَأَمَّلْتُ I observed I looked at الطُّرُقُ الْكَلَامِيَةِ وَالْبَنَاهِجِ الْفَلْسَفِيَةِ I looked at These philosophical methodologies and discourses فَمَا رَأَيْتُ وَتَشْفِي عَلِيْلًا وَلَا تُرْوِي غَلِيْلًا And I saw that it doesn't answer any questions There's another famous line of poetry That's attributed to him which is نِهَايَةُ إِقْدَامِ الْعُقُولِ عِقَالُ وَغَايَةُ السَّعِيِ الْعَالَمِينَ ضَلَالُ وَأَرْوَاحِنَا فِي وَحْشَةٍ مِنْ جُسُومِنَا وَحَاصِلُ دُنْيَانَ أَذَنُ وَوَبَالُ وَلَمْ نَسْتَفِدْ مِنْ بَحْتِنَا طُولَ عُمْرِنَا سِوَى أَنْ جَمَعْنَا فِيهِ قِيلَ وَقَالُ He said The final ending of all these philosophical arguments The final conclusion And the end result has become That misguidance Nothing substantial came from it These are the words of a man who was One of the greatest Islamic thinkers And actually prioritized in his early life The aqidah over the text When the Islamic scholars like Sheikh Al-Hassan Taimi Mentioned that When you say Al-imam According to the shia When they say the imam They mean Fakhruddin Al-Razi That's it, it's him, no one else I really want you to understand one thing Scientists They have to understand that Science Explains Science Argues and proves things But it's not In any way shape or form Able to respond and answer everything Science will never Science will never ever Tell us why we're in this universe What is our purpose in this dunya? Science will never and it can't That's not its field It won't be able Look at one scientist today He has so many different beliefs So many different theories That are contradicting one another His own views are changing I was reading the book Al-Araa Fakhruddin Al-Razi Written by a man called Mohammed Al-Zarqani He wrote a book on Fakhruddin Al-Razi I'm currently trying to summarize the book He's talking about The philosophy The Another sheikh, his name is Abdullah Ibn Ahmad Al-Ansari He wrote another book On the philosophical arguments Of Fakhruddin Al-Razi And how it affected his aqeedah These researches are written on him Fakhruddin Al-Razi in one issue Before he had like 3 or 4 Different views To the extent sheikh Hussam In his 5th volume In Minhaj Al-Sunnah Al-Nabuwiyah He said It's sometimes hard to even say This is what Fakhruddin Al-Razi believes The reason is because Fully depending on the aqal It confuses you You don't know what to say Okay There is another issue that Some people bring up actually The reason and the motive behind this Behind people like yourself Pushing the fact that The text is superior to the internet Is actually they want to control people People will ask them questions They don't want people to think on their own They want to be able to tell people Exactly what to do How to practice their religion And it's just a form of control What do you have to say about that? That would be a good argument If we were saying you have to follow humans And you have to follow myself That's a good argument But if you're saying that You and I both Are forced to follow that text Then as much as you have to So do I So I don't think it's me trying to control you Or you trying to control me We're both being You know It's both necessary on both of us And it's required from both of us To follow the text There is a hole in your argument however And that is when you say that the text Is superior to the internet Actually the scholars of hadith Who are the ones with the permission of Allah Who are actually preserving the text They tend to disagree with you For example you have Imam Ibn Jawza Who said things like For a text to be authentic A condition upon it is That it can't go against the reason So you're sitting here saying that the text The authentic text should be pushed above the internet Because the internet has limitations And he who is actually the one who is authenticating the text Is actually saying I only authenticate If it goes in line with my reason Again what you have to understand is Number one As I said to you before The text doesn't go against the Aqad I already said it doesn't happen And if it does it's subjective it's what you think And you just have to take it to what You just have to take it to someone who knows it And someone who can explain it to you Ibn Al Qayyim said He said Allah's texts They don't oppose one another So what do you do Take it to a person of knowledge I promise you I'll show you the list It's a deficiency on your side He said If there is a conflict between a text And your rationality You're unable to fathom it There's one of three situations I remember this all the time If you see a text supposedly going against The rationality or it's going against The thinking process Then it's one of three This text is not even authentic In the first place It's weak You are unable To comprehend The text Correctly And number three The rationality Is actually deficient You're an insane person It's one of those three situations So it's not possible That the rationality and the thinking Go against one another I'm talking about the rationality Which is Healthy It's sound The person is not a lunatic The person is not deranged The person is not insane And the text is authentic So Two things That are contradicting one another Have to both be present You can't have two things You think are contradicting one another When one doesn't even exist Second is that Try to understand it properly in the first place And the last but not least Then question Your rationality to be honest Give me some advice If I'm a layman Muslim And I come across a text That to me, on the apparent It contradicts my intellect Where do I go from there? Let's start with that question Where do I go from there? Just like if you read a medical book Who do you take it to? Expertise? You take it to a specialised person You ask him What do the scientists mean In this regard? What does this term mean? What is meant by this? The same thing when you read the revelation Take it to the expertise The people who are specialised in this field And if the answer I'm given Still doesn't comfort my intellect For example What should I prioritise? You see Allah told us From the beginning of Islam From the beginning of revelation Allah told us in the Quran That there's always been two camps The first camp is Those who follow the revelation And those who follow their desires Allah says in the ayah فَإِلَّمْ يَسْتَجِيبُوا لَكَ فَاعْلَمْ أَنَّمَا يَتَّبِعُونَ أَهْوَاهُمْ If they don't Follow you Muhammad Then know that they are following their desires The way that The people follow their desires In different ways It's in different ways A group of people follow their desires By giving the intellect an unrestricted strength An unrestricted platform Where the intellect can do What it wishes and how it wishes That's one form of people who oppose it with their desires Another group of people The Sufis who oppose it based on their Feelings and what they feel like There are those who Oppose the intellect based on customs and cultures Ahl al-Taghrib You see They'll say to you our values is not this And our this You know The third people is The statements of the Imams of their Madhab And they'll say to you Our Madhab doesn't believe this And our Imam never said this So desires and revelations Always been a conflict But not intellect You mentioned before On this podcast previously That we should follow the religion The way the Companions followed it Now there is a Hadith again Where the Companions were sent away on a battalion And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Set one of them as a leader And he He commanded the other group The rest of the group to jump into a fire Now if they were to follow The text like you're suggesting They would have jumped into the fire Because the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Put this guy in charge and he also said You should follow the Ameer But they didn't They said no this doesn't make sense to us They didn't ask someone Notice how they didn't ask the Messenger They actually just said this doesn't make sense to us So we're not going to jump into the fire Afterwards they then went and asked the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam And he said you did the right thing By not jumping into the fire Doesn't this show that actually there are occasions Where when you are approached with a text And it doesn't make sense to you That it is okay to follow what you believe That's what they did right? What you have to understand is Messengers and Prophets Were sent with That which is textual And that which is reasonable Prophets didn't come with things that are not reasonable Things that can't rationally be fathomed That can't be understood As I said to you before Ibn Al-Qayyim said in his Kitab Al-Sawa'iq Al-Mursala He said Al-Kitab Al-Munzal Al-Aql Al-Mudrik The proof of Allah against the creation Is two things The first one is Kitab Al-Munzal The revelation Al-Aql Al-Mudrik is rationality Reason and revelation Both of them are the proof of Allah against the creation So what these Sahabas did was they took the reason And the revelation and they reconciled it They brought it together There was no conflict to be honest They just saw That this is how it's done What they did was They obeyed the leader As the Prophet told them And that which is good The concept of obedience It's not unrestricted The Prophet didn't say unrestrictedly obey him The Prophet said obey him So the Aql will tell you That the obedience Where it is and where it's not And the Prophet Reinforced that He said That the obedience Is in that which is Ma'ruf But they didn't say Our Aql tells us not to obey the leader At all in any way shape or form Then you would say to me They did go against what the Messenger So even the fact that they didn't jump in the fire That actually revelation has told you Not to commit suicide, not to bring harm upon yourself So they were actually following the revelation anyway by not doing that Okay Are there any statements from the Companions That talk about the limitation of the Aql And how the text itself Should be followed over the Aql I told you the statement of When I didn't say it was a statement But Ibn Abbas He said that the Aql is like the eyesight Just like the eyesight is limited in seeing He said that the Aql is also limited in How far it can see And so both of them are governed by Both of them are governed by The text Ibn Taymiyyah said something very powerful He said That the Shari'a It gave governorship And leadership To the Aql And then it can take it down if it once wishes to You see Also Al-Imam Ash-Shatibi said In simple terms Shatibi said That the Aql Follows And the text is the leader Okay that was a really fascinating discussion JazakAllah Khair For the points that you made today Until next time I hope you enjoyed and benefited from that discussion Please do share it with your friends and family members If you feel like they might benefit too And don't forget to hit that subscribe button below So you're notified of any new episodes Check out www.thehotseatpodcast.com That's thehotseatpodcast.com On there you'll find a little bit more information about the podcast And you'll also have the chance to vote For which topic you'd like to see Discussed on the show You can also ask questions on the website To the speaker himself For example about these contemporary Modern day issues Until next time As-salamu alaykum Wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
