Q&A Live from The Ark: Sunday 9th June 2019

All right. So, All right, let's inshallah begin this live. All the questions you've got boiled and bottled up. Shaban, any of the questions coming on the If you just keep a tab on them. I'm just So, I won't be able to see them from here. Guys, you can send in your questions, but they're being monitored. Cool. So, all right, let's What's bothering the the Birmingham folk?

The pleasant folk of Birmingham. So, we'll start or should we begin with Who wants to begin with a question? Um luckily, um what uh Sorry, uh Muhammad Hijab had a debate with Alex. He's always named probably Jab right is it? Muhammad Hijab had a debate with you? With Alex. Okay. Um are you familiar with What's That debate I haven't watched. No, no, no.

Oh, okay. He did a book as well. With Muhammad Hijab? Yes. Okay. one of the best seller on Amazon in the atheist section. Okay. So, I thought you were familiar with That's the question I wanted to ask you. Okay. Okay. And he he's won the Alex won the uh top YouTube atheist academics. All right. Okay. destroyed him. I wanted you to comment upon that. Achcha. Achcha. Achcha. What's the topic? He debated He debated Who's written the Who's authored the book? Uh Muhammad Hijab. He's number one What's it called?

Kalam Cosmological Argument. Cosmological Argument. Achcha. Okay. one in the atheist section. It's beaten Richard Dawkins' book. Okay. As in it's doing good. Yeah. Okay. What What's the I thought you would give a comment on the On the Cosmological Argument? No, no, about the his debate with him. I haven't watched his debate. So, I'll watch it and then So many TV series to catch up on.

So many These They have so many seasons nowadays. I mean, who wants to sit there watching this? Right, so So, anyway, chalo, we'll move on from uh that one. Once I've watched it. Are you trying to say it's Sorry? He destroyed it? Who's he? Muhammad Hijab destroyed it. Destroyed the other guy. Okay, good.

And he proved using his own arguments. But the English was like philosophy the at a top-level English. So, love the laypeople can understand. Okay. I mean, my You see, these arguments are old arguments. The cosmolo- I I haven't read his book, but just generally the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, the teleological argument. These arguments for saying, "Can we prove God exists?" So, whether you're going to go to These are all Aristotelian, all kind of by the Greek philosophers, more or less.

And then, Muslims have refined some of them. So, whether you we're going to say that things like things have a purpose. So, we see purpose in the world, and therefore we see design. And if we see design, uh surely there must have been an intelligent designer. So, that's the teleological argument. The cosmological with the prime mover and the first like if everything is in motion, there must have been something that was not in motion that put it in motion.

Otherwise, you have infinite regress. Now, the ontological argument about the you know, the essence, the fact that you can feel and understand, fathom a a something which is God, which we can't generally fathom. So, the fact that we can do this means there must be some kind of God out there. These arguments are all good, um but we personally, my understanding is that these are good to give a bit of support, a bit of um like to help people who are looking for something.

I don't know about saying that these things prove 100% like they're not like I don't think it's not like saying the way we accept mathematics or we accept something that just because you say um that there's design in something there must be an intelligent sign. But I feel that the overwhelming likelihood demonstrates that. So it there's a difference between saying that, you know, we have a lot of support for saying there is a God as opposed to there isn't a God.

That's what I would go with personally as opposed to saying to people that we can prove 100% there is a God. Because in all honesty you can't prove 100% from these arguments. These are just rational kind of gymnastics. Like we say to people look there's a design and then they can question that as well. I mean like they have in many cases they've said well, you know, they've shown things for example which demonstrate design but don't have a or they they've said that it doesn't prove that there's one God.

There could have been a There could have been multiple gods. There could have been many gods. There could have been a gang of gods. They could have been anything. Like so it's not like these arguments you know, back and forth they're they're fun. They're good. I think they are helpful. They help and I would definitely encourage them but not in the way some people push them as in certain ilmul yaqin. Now that you know this there's no denying that there's a God. It doesn't work like that. In my understanding Allahu Alam.

But do you get That's I mean once again that's not a comment on uh Muhammad Hijab's thing because I haven't read his thing so there you go. I think we I think it's okay to say that we are not we have so you know, as human beings we have some doubt. It's It's to say that. I don't think you see one of the things is when I said this once before, somebody said, "Oh, you're supporting agnosticism." I'm not supporting agnosticism in that sense, but I'm just saying that it is true that arguably every human being to some extent is just agnostic.

Uh to some extent, I mean, on a spectrum, but then we have our income We're not like, you know, hyperbolic kind of like OCD, you know, agnosticism on steroids. Everybody's saying, "Oh my god, I don't know. Are you sure? I don't know if I'm sure. I don't know if I'm I don't mean like that kind of agno- But ultimately, true, I mean, people like scientists will say that, you know, can you alter Can you say with certainty that something is? And I suppose you can't.

There's some things that we just have faith. You know, we believe. That's our understanding. The belief of God is not counter-rational. It's not It's not irrational. It's not counter reason. You know, it's not an irrational belief. True, we don't have empirical evidence for it, but you know, it's it's not counter reason to say that there's a God that created everything.

So, yeah, that's what I would go with. And I think a lot of the people, even when I speak to some atheists, one thing that they kind of agree with is that they feel that Cuz I've just said because some people have said to me, some atheists, that, "Look, you know, you you always give primacy to reason. You always do this. You always do this. How can you really believe? Like, if you're going to be honest, like, what Why do you believe?

Like, why are you still a Muslim or what? Because it doesn't sound like from, you know, from You would think that you could see through all of this." And I've said that, "Look, in my understanding, that the the fact that I can understand things as a human like you can like I don't mean like some genius understand. I just mean normal. Fact that we can fathom things, we can we have consciousness. Consciousness in that I don't just mean being awake, but consciousness like with a capital C.

So, in that sense, I feel that there must be some meaning to this. There must be something greater out there. This can't just amount to nothing. That's in my understanding. And to be fair, a lot of them kind of agree with that sentiment. Although they don't like to buy into it that they but they agree with that sentiment that it's true that, you know, is this just all nonsense?

Is it all just, you know, just randomized cohesion of stuff and then it just withers away and it's nothing. But then what about the experiences, the feelings, the emotions, the the understanding, the comprehension? Like that that must mean something. So, I don't know. That's my thoughts on these things. Allahu Alam. We'll take one question online as well.

Go on then. What? Let's go for a live question. Abno is asking about the moon sighting. Should it be local or international? Who's asking? Uh this chap called Abno. Abno? The sighting if international then ask just Saudi then if you're going to go international anyway. Abno's a bit late. I tell you what, preparing for the next Ramadan.

So, he's a year ahead. So. You know, there was the question being that about should we go with regional or uh global moon sighting? What should we go with? You know, there was a time many years back or several years back from from myself where I was a bit passionate about these things. And I've still got some of the things on Facebook where I've said, "Look, looking at the evidence, we should go with just regional." And that's what the evidence dictates.

And to be fair, the evidence does seem to dictate that. The the classical understanding of the fuqaha did dictate that you go with your understanding. So, Ibn Rushd will write that, "Look, he says that nobody believes in his time that if you lived in Andalus you would be going by which is Spain that you would be going by Hijaz which is Saudi Arabia or Horasan which is Afghanistan. He said like in his time like that that's he said like by agreement that nobody thinks even those who say that we go by global they don't mean global on that scale.

But then one could argue that because in his time how could the news possibly reach from Horasan to Hijaz or from Hijaz to Andalusia. One could argue but what I'm and I accept that with time things have become a global village. Like we've become that kind of a world but still I I feel if you're if we're looking at the evidence it does seem regional like with our prayer times everything is regional. So in the UK it either be calculated or it would be with any country you could go in like so for example the UK is aligned with Morocco with its national with its general timeline.

So the time we have here so now let's say it's 10 to 9 it's 10 to 9 in Morocco as well. So we share a similar horizon they're on GMT as well. So that's a good like you could go with Morocco like certain Muslims do. So that was I was I mean this is the ruling I was quite um very passionate about it before.

Now I kind of feel that that's still is the ruling but I feel that like what difference does it really make? Like if people are you know somebody wants to go with Wa Alaykumu Salaam. So if somebody wants to go with something being announced because every you know social media's made everything so we're getting text messages on WhatsApp so we should yeah exactly. So so now I just feel like what's the big deal?

Like you know if somebody wants to go with Saudi if somebody wants to go it really there was no such opinion as following Saudi. There was just an opinion that you could go global. It wasn't restricted to Saudi Arabia. Indonesia could be clearly and you could go with Indonesia like according to that ruling. But just the way the culture has developed that Saudi, when it comes to moon sighting, has become the kind of cultural capital.

And everybody looks to them. Good or bad, I'm not passing judgement. But the point is that they do it. They have been, I feel, personally clumsy on certain things. But Mufti, can I just start something to interject here? But isn't there isn't there a kind of irony around following Saudi Arabia? Yeah, in general. Because Saudi themselves will only promote local. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I Yeah, for them it's always a local sighting. They do not advocate global sightings at all.

they say that very clearly. now for you're you're following a nation which itself promotes only local, but yet you follow them on a global premise. Sure. Now, that's people you can't see, but that's I can't flip the camera. That's Ustadh Atif, big muscles. Those of you that have seen him. I have to agree looking at those biceps. going to flip the camera I agree. I agree. If you're going to flip the If you're going to flip the camera, let me do some press-ups first.

Right. So, the I agree that look Saudi, I think personally I think they're a bit clumsy with their thing. Um I don't mean that in a way that, you know, we as people ain't clumsy. But I'm just saying that having a system where anybody can just say I've seen the moon. They don't have to be a verified body. They could just be like you could just phone and say I've seen the moon. And say, "Are you sure you're Muslim?" "I'm Muslim." Is Isn't it a cleaner system to just to stick with the sunnah?

I mean, what is the harm? Yeah, but the With everybody looking at their local moon. True. So so like The moon does go everywhere, right? Exactly. So, I would agree with that. Like if you go back to I'm not saying like in most Muslim countries they have an a kind of authenticated body like in each major city that is looking out for the moon. So normal like let's say Pakistan as an example, local people can look out for the moon.

They if they've seen it they must inform their local kind of that that body which is sitting in their city. So Birmingham would have one as an example. We would contact them if I've seen the moon. They would also be looking out for the moon and they would be trained and they would verify as well, yes. Or they would deny. Now I think that's a bit more systematic but the other issue is the other issue is and this isn't new. This goes back to the time in fact it was the ruling of Imam Abu Hanifa that he had said that if if the moon like unless you're going to say there was very like let's say it was a very cloudy night.

So it's possible that you just saw the moon. But if it's a clear night like as in reasonably good enough there must be what he used to call Istifada. That means many people like if let's say 10,000 people are looking for the moon then several people must see it. I'm not saying all but several for just two people to say out of let's say 2 million that we saw the moon is an issue because that's that that's dubious circumstances because if everybody's actively looking for the moon and then only two people Bedouins in a

desert somewhere say yeah I saw it. And then you're like So I think that system is flawed given the So that's and this thing of saying that just because you're a Muslim everything must be always fine. I mean you could be a Muslim and your eyesight's messed up. You could be a Muslim and you could be motivated with other reasons. You could be just you could be pranking. You could be doing anything. You could be you could just have mental health issues.

You could be hallucinating. You could be there could be many things. Just because you're a Muslim doesn't mean it's a clean check that I you do say the shahada. You say the shahada. Masha Allah." You know, you're not one of the companions that's lived on. You're just a regular person. So, I I disagree with this system. That said, and I accept that there was no historical thing as following Saudi. That said, if people want to follow it today, which they are following, so, whether I like it or I don't like it, personally, I don't like the fact that Saudi Arabia are cultural capital for Islam.

I personally I'm uneasy with that, but they are. There's not like Yeah, so they are, you know, whether I like it or don't like it, I'm, you know, I can't do anything about it. So, they are the cultural capital for for many things on Islam, unfortunately, and especially moon sighting. So, they're going to make an announcement, and the much of the world is just going to follow. So, if they follow, I mean, I don't really think now Now, coming away from that, looking at the Sharia, does the Sharia get all concerned?

Imagine we got it wrong. Let's say the Bedouin just visualized a mirage. He thought, you know, like they think they saw water. He thought he saw the moon. And he got it wrong. Two Bedouins got it wrong, let's say, or five or 10, whatever. Saudi Arabia gets it wrong. I don't think it's personally a big deal in the sense of And people have to explain that now. Like, I don't think that You see, the purpose of Islam was these things are there, they honored.

And people are honoring them. They're not Like, even if you're getting them wrong, I don't think the purpose was like It's like Allah saying in the Quran, "Look, when you offer sacrifice, you know, the meat of these animals and these things don't reach God. It's only the sentiment that counts. Like, when you're offering a sacrifice, this ain't going to float up to God or anything. So, when you're praying, if you've prayed and you've, like, you've gone in, you've seen a mihrab, you've thought this is the qibla, prayed, it was wrong.

Doesn't matter like you still prayed, it was your sentiment, it was not um So, I don't This is why I feel with years that have gone by as well and age, I suppose, or I don't know. I feel that it's not so much of a big deal. But, I still feel the regional thing is the more accurate one, but it's out of our control now. So, I mean if people do it, they do it. But, why is it that you have to see the moon walk when you use calculations?

I I feel you can use calculations because Is it better? Yeah, I would say definitely and I would say there's no harm in doing both. Like so, if you have a calculation basis so, you say like uh moon sighting, let's say websites or the astronomical data tells us that the moon uh cannot be seen today. I think if it's a negative uh um you know, decoration of negative sighting by uh calculations, then any sighting should be ignored.

Yeah. Like personally, I think that's a given. That would be because you cannot clash with mathematics and science. It just doesn't work because two people have said they've seen it and it's impossible. But, if there's let's say it states that there will be they can be sighting. Like sometimes it states there's a potential. And then somebody sights it, so it can go it can complement each other. That's what I I I feel that that's good. But, even if if nobody saw it, but it said that it's clear, like it's going to be there today and you know, there could be clouds and things.

So, I think there's no harm in going with calculations. The hadith in the prophet's time, you know, sumu li ru'yatihi uh wa aftiru li ru'yatihi, that fast by seeing it and obviously, ru'yatihi as the Shafi'iyyah said then as well did mean ilm, like by see its sight, like fast up by its sight, by having seen it meant by having known as well of it, like having its knowledge.

So, I think there's no harm in that personally. We should be I think you know we've it's 2019. We've got to move on a bit as well. You know, we can't just all be There's no harm in visual sighting, but there's We should also embrace technology. I know we argue it's 2019, but it seems to be getting particularly worse, particularly this issue. The moon sighting, yeah. The moon sighting. And if the observatory reports are as accurate as they can be, Mhm.

then surely we should we should look to agree, definitely. The observatory reports we should definitely go with. Um but I meant there's no harm in complementing it with an actual sighting. There's no harm in that. So, that's what I meant. There's something quite um disturbing on that. There's quite a few scholars actually trashing science.

Okay. Because of this Some of them have even written an article that this science that they're using is not cut to eat. It's Islamic. But they've even used Islamic terms. I'm thinking, mate, it's the same science that's telling you about Maghrib. You know, and this is no. We follow the Quran and Sunnah.

And science is there as a secondary. It's quite disturbing. It's a It's a shame that you see I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make in our generation, and I think Muslims in the West especially, also I think in this sense we're at the focal point of this. Like I was saying, so I think we're at the focal The biggest mistake we can make is to put ourselves at heads with science.

Like to to to go up against science. Islam has never been in You see, science simply means an observation of the world around you. In its very broad definition, that's all it is. It's just an observation of the world around you, whether it's beginning with the human anatomy or whether it's your environment or the laws of that environment and the atmosphere. That's all science actually is in its very broad definition.

It's been built upon very testable data, empirical. There's no need to say religion is against that. That is a fight that we are going to not only lose, but miserably lose with great humiliation. And we have a precedent before us of the Catholic Church and of Christianity and especially Catholicism or the Vatican.

We've seen how they lost miserably to this fight against science. I mean, you know, so if we can't you know, Allah says in you know, there's a prophet of you know, that can't you even take heed from things like this. So, why you go against science? I think it's if if anything in science if there's things like this astronomical data it's so stupid to go against are like mathematical.

But if you're even if science comes up with something if it's a new theory, I'm not saying you have to wholeheartedly just blindly follow, but you can understand what is it saying? And you can see the research on it. Has it been confirmed? Has it been, you know, what's the the data saying on this? If it's a new theory on something, sure. I mean, people may refute it. People may go, but if it's something that's been established that time and time again the data has affirmed the theories, then it's stupid to be saying, "Oh, it's just a theory.

Oh, it's just this. Oh, it's just that." These things make religion look outdated. They make people run away from religion. They make people think, you know, this astro astronomy thing you had I saw something recent this Ramadan on in Saudi it was on the news that the you know, the um were kind of at it with the with the ulama and they were having debates like who has primacy on the saying who dictates the month of Ramadan.

Is it the ulama, the clergy, or is it the you know the observatory kind of people? And it's ridiculous because if you watch some of the interviews of the ulama, they'll say things like uh like the let's say the observatory will say it's impossible to have seen the moon. So the Now there's a previous interview I saw once which was this one, but there was a previous one I think about 2 years ago where the observatory report in Saudi said, "No, no, it's impossible for that sighting to have happened." Um and then they interview the sheikh and the sheikh says, "Look, listen, you know, is Muslim, alhamdulillah.

The prophet said if a Muslim comes, we accept it." And they said, "You know, but uh al-falakiyat, they're saying that it was impossible." He goes, "Look, in Allah kulli shai'in qadir. Now Allah is qadir upon everything. Are you questioning the qudra of Allah?" And you think, "Well, you know, obviously he's clearly eligible for disability benefits, right?" So the thing is this is a stupid because that's not how the qudra of Allah works.

The qudra of Allah isn't going to change the laws of In the Quran you have, you know, that Allah says sunnat Allah that he has walan tajida li sunnat Allah ta'dila. You'll never find the way the sunnah that Allah has set in nature and things to ever change. So to to say that, "Oh, no, God changed it." But he changed it because oh, maybe he changed it. It doesn't work like that.

So I mean did you want Yeah, I mean all I wanted to comment on was cuz it's not it's not it's not a contemporary struggle of our times, is it? Yeah, it's not. It's a struggle between modernity Yeah. Yeah, and bracing modernity Absolutely. and and and the I'll I'll refer to them as a cultural capital of Islam cuz most of this comes outside there's no doubt within that. Because you look on you can look over the last few centuries, even look at the latter part of the 18th century, you know, the the the opposition to using the printing press.

Not true. That was embarrassing. That was embarrassing. The opposition to using the printing press. You had the Europeans who were just churning out, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands pages and reams and and books of literature. And where the Muslim world was debating whether or not we could actually use the printing press in order to press, you know, And so we we have suffered before as well. And it's it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing because in time to come, like nobody would even think now.

Like look, when imagine now the question of a printing press. Nobody would even think of that as an issue. Like you wouldn't even think that. Why would they problem It's like second nature to us that duh, that's obvious. It's halal. But they were going, you know, kufar, haram, you know, you you got that screaming face. Have we suffered because of we suffered because of the So yeah, massively. And I I agree with you. And I think this is why it's one of the biggest mistakes we can make in our time is to put ourselves against science.

Like we don't need to. There's no need That's That's like there isn't even a fight and we're just picking a fight. And we're picking a fight that we're going to definitely lose. Just makes no sense. Nah, but these issues, huh? So what else is apart from the the moon? What's what's going to be the topic of jizya?

Oh, jizya. All right, what else is there? How come I can't hear any questions? Can I just ask for some clarity on of course on on Bukhari gate? Clarity on Bukhari gate. gate. Okay. Because look, forgive me for my ignorance and maybe I I I I misunderstood something.

Okay. I think you mentioned something in one of your talks, yeah, that from Bukhari all the way back to the Dabi'in and the Sahabah got a sound chain. We've got a chain. We've got a chain, but yeah. However, the transmission of Bukhari and how it came about coming to us, that's where there is There are issues. Question marks, yeah. and things like this, yeah. Things like this, yeah.

So, when you mean you've got the sound chain, yeah, you're not actually saying that what the the contents of of Bukhari what we have today, and which which I accept, yeah, supports a certain minhaj and a certain path and a certain way of thinking, i.e. the Saudi culture, yeah? Supports that. So, what we're saying we've got the chain, which we've No, sorry.

We've got a chain which goes back from Bukhari, but not it doesn't support the content. So, what Bukhari is those of you who haven't seen my Bukhari gate clips, they're our videos, they're on YouTube. But it was an issue I raised, a scandal, so to say, last year. Um caused quite a bit of heat. Um right now, it was basically what I was what I was saying is that Bukhari by no standard is um like 100% error-proof or fool- fool-proof.

It's not by any standard. And I know people say that anyway, they say, "Well, that's a given." No, it isn't because they treat it that way. And I don't just mean as in this a potential, I actually demonstrated what some of the key issues were with Sahih Bukhari. And I chose Bukhari as an example, not because you could choose any book of Hadith, but because of the status that Bukhari has received, unfortunately, it's been placed above everything in Islam, above the Quran, above the Sunnah.

It's been a Ironically, it is Islam, one could argue, is Bukhari-centric. So, Bukhari is in the center, and everything kind of goes around it. So, to to disrupt this pattern, uh what I had said was that there is a different debate, which I wasn't getting into, uh which was about how authentic are Hadith anyway. Okay.

That's a different debate. As in because it is true that nobody began to really document Hadith till at least like probably 150 years after the prophet. Oh, sorry. About 100 and let's say 20, 100 and if we want thorough documentation. So, they began around 90 years after the prophet, the project, with Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz. But, that was without chains. That was just putting them together under Shihab um ibn Shihab al-Zuhri.

But, then within maybe the years that followed him, they started to compile chains as well, like we have Hadith. So, within the next maybe two decades, they had it together. So, this is over 100 years after the prophet. Those books don't generally Those compilations don't generally survive. Uh what we have is the oldest book we probably have is the Muwatta of Imam Malik. Uh the popular books that we have after him, they are almost they are probably about 250 years after the prophet.

So, Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, books like these. So, that's a different question that how is it that we know those things are authentic? Because people never wrote them down till you know, if I was going to talk about somebody 250 years ago, 200 years ago, how I How do I know that that's so accurate? That's a different debate. Bukhari Gate wasn't actually focusing on that. That is a question and a challenge. That's a different challenge.

Bukhari Gate was saying, "Okay, let's take that as a given for now. Let's assume that the Hadith are correct. So, from Imam Bukhari, his teachers, his teachers, going back to the prophet in that chain, let's accept that as good enough right now." So, so we we're giving that's kind of like we're starting off on on some given ground there. The issue is how do we know that the book we have today, the Bukhari book we have today, is Imam Bukhari's book?

Mhm. How do you know that? Now, there isn't a single manuscript that survives from Imam Bukhari's book. There's nothing, nothing on earth. Right, we don't have it his book anywhere. His actual book. Now, we don't have his students' book. In fact, the books we have, the oldest partial manuscripts, are probably maybe fourth generation Okay.

after him. So, you've got like a huge and then it's not just that, you see. I wasn't trying to say that I think the whole book is made up. I wasn't saying that. I was saying that there is a there is a considerable amount of doubt in some things in that book. How do we know this? We know this because contrary to popular belief, Imam Bukhari's book in his day and age wasn't rated.

Like, I know today we think Imam Bukhari's book was really rated in his day and age. It wasn't. Uh there were other great Hafiz of Hadith that didn't think anything of his book. They didn't even They didn't ever big it up. They didn't like people like Abu Zur'ah, the two legendary uh Razis, like Abu Hatim al-Razi, Abu Zur'ah al-Razi, who were contemporaries and senior to Imam Bukhari. Like, they were seen as more greater in in Ilm al-Hadith. They never rated his There was uh Abu Zur'ah al-Dimashqi, there was Abu Zur'ah I mean, there were other great Muhaddith who were seen as major Muhadditheen in his time.

Um I'm not saying his his book isn't worth all that. I'm just saying that they like if you're judging by his contemporaries, his actual contemporary, not those who came after him, his actual contemporaries, they might praise him. I'm not saying they belittled him. They did think he was good. They did think that. He was definitely a genius of his own uh standing. There's There's no debate about that.

What they really seemed to praise was his rijal book. So, Abu Zur'ah al-Razi and Abu Hatim and those people really praised his Tarikh al-Kabir. So, he Imam Bukhari has a book on narrators. They were really impressed with that. So, a lot of them, if you look at his contemporaries, they only seem to be speaking about his Tarikh al-Kabir. They don't talk about his Sahih.

Nobody seems to think it's anything too impressive to talk about. Now, they do talk about his his Tarikh al-Kabir. In fact, one of these contemporary scholars presents it to the saying that wow, this is such an amazing, you know, nobody's authored something like this. Um Then Imam Bukhari gets scandalized, unfortunately. I I I think unfairly scandalized. Some people watch my Bukhari gate. I don't know what the hell they were listening to.

They thought I was dissing Imam Bukhari. I wasn't. I was saying Imam Bukhari in his time was dissed by people. I actually sympathize with him and say that they were wrong for uh you know, persecuting him. So, they persecute him. They kind of So, he spent several years towards the end of his life, the latter maybe 10 years of his life or more, around that time he spent just in misery. He's not this huge celebrity in his day and age that people think he you that he ought to be.

I feel he ought to be. He was a genius, but he wasn't recognized for that. His own Most people, because of this scandal, whatever the scandal, they There's mixed views on what the scandal was. Um but for whatever it was, some people say, "Oh, they It was to do with religious stuff. Scandals are never to do with religious stuff. Religious stuff is usually always the pretext, it's an excuse. So, whatever it was, they decided to get back at him.

They expelled him from all these cities, ostracized him. He wasn't allowed entry into Bukhara, where he was from. Um he wasn't allowed like he was chucked out of many of like the key cities, Baghdad and other places. Although he was So, he would just travel. Um he had in his lifetime so many students. So, he did have students, there's no question. But many scholars did and he was a great scholar. You see, the issue is because in his last few years of his life, people stopped transmitting hadith from him.

Because of the cons because of the whole scandal. So, nobody wanted to be blacklisted. So, it's like I suppose me, I could take my own example. I'm bloody radioactive. So, I'm so toxic that if, you know, people are like, "Oh, yeah, that's an interesting thing, but I can't say Mustaf Aley said it because then people just say he's a deviant." So, you're taking it from a deviant. So, this is how it becomes. So, people obviously don't want to touch something that is presumably toxic.

So, understandable, understand Right? But people will come and touch on that. There's uh but the point is that so, they were still they still thought that the guy's talented, but they used to kind of be wary. Most people abandoned him and he had one, two people that still stood by him. Um Imam Muslim is an example.

Imam Muslim stood by him. But then even Imam Muslim left him. What's that? Uh He says Bad Janne Jaan, dil mera ajab sama. Yaad teri yahan rahi, phir teri yaad bhi gayi. That's the So this This This is Imam Bukhari. He like even Imam Muslim then kind of ditched him and thought, "You know what?

I love you, but my reputation is obviously on the line here. So, hence Imam Muslim, despite being Imam Bukhari's teacher, sorry, his student, never transmits any Hadith from him. There's no Hadith in Sahih Muslim ever going through Imam Bukhari. He doesn't ever transmit from him because he's toxic. He doesn't want to include his name. In fact, one could argue that the Muqaddimah, the introduction of Imam Muslim, where he's refuting an individual, not could argue, it is Imam Bukhari who is refuting in his Muqaddimah, but the tone he uses, one could argue, is quite disrespectful, one could argue.

Like he says that, you know, this matter, this objector, who says this is out of his mind and so and so on. He's been quite harsh in his tone if you read his introduction, cuz he's refuting He doesn't name him, but it's Imam Bukhari because he's talking about the conditions of the Sahih. But Imam Bukhari's conditions were good. He did have a He's kind of He raised the bar. One could argue because he raised the bar, he got a lot of envy.

He basically said like for a Sahih Hadith, the standards were that if you, for example, if you transmit from uh let's say let's say AB is transmitting from Ustad Atif here now. So, the thing is, if you just said You You see, in Arabic, they use this term an, right, which can have many translations. Sometimes it means from, sometimes it means on. It can mean many things.

It comes as a with many verbs. But so, if you just say an Atif. Now, that just means like from like you've presumably heard it from, but it could be that you never heard it from him, but you've just heard that he used to say this. Mhm. So, you're just saying, "Oh, you know, from this guy, like or on the authority of this guy, this is what's said." Now, in certain Hadith, they declare it.

They say, "Had that the like he told me." Mhm. Now, most Hadith never have that like most if I mean they do, but I mean if you take the majority of Hadith don't. The majority of the Hadith are just going to be like for long and for long and for long most of them. There's going to be many that do have Hadith and all of this as well. I'm not saying there ain't, but they most are just like this. Now, most Hadith just had a rule that so long as your contemporaries and you're reliable and you're reliable, that's considered a connected chain.

Imam Bukhari kind of raised it and he kind of took it a notch higher and he said, "No, you must if not in this narration, but in some narration, you must have declared that I've heard from him." So, even if it's in a different so so long as you in a different event or saying, "Oh, I heard I have say this." It's something totally different, but I know oh you've actually met this person then.

So, now I can it's still I'm not 100% sure whether you heard this thing, but I've got some, you know, firmer ground to stand on. So, this was the whole thing why Imam Bukhari kind of raised the thing and and there could have been envy except all of that. Anyway, to kind of move on, the point was that because of his struggles in his last years, people weren't transmitting the book from him. He dies.

The only person who transmits the book from him, who we have all these narrations go back to, is one person called Firabri. Now, Firabri is a bit problematic because nobody he was not Imam Bukhari's kind of rated student at all. At all. And this is everything else is just engineered. You know, people are saying Imam for Firabri. You think well, okay, I suppose if you just want to call anybody an Imam who has an attachment to Hadith, fine.

But if you're making out as though he's some kind of legendary epic Imam, he wasn't. He's unknown of. I mean, he's unknown. Like nobody who Who is Firabri? Because this is the question that who is Firabri? Because in his lifetime, no major scholar of Hadith ever vouched for him. And it was a tradition to be vouched for.

Even though they knew of him. And there's this famous statement, and you know, some people try to refute me by saying, "Oh, there's a famous statement." And that statement was actually a reputation of them. The famous statement says Imam Bukhari, Firabri is saying, Al-Dhahabi even quotes this. But it's so absurd and so stupid that even Al-Dhahabi tries to kind of say, uh you know, apologize for it because it's so stupid. That he says, "Oh, there used to be 90,000 students of Imam Bukhari.

They used to all come and I used to go and alhamdulillah," Firabri is saying, "alhamdulillah, none of them have uh are alive today to transmit Bukhari. Uh or none of them today continue to transmit it except me. Like I'm the only one left." And you think, well, huh? Well, there were many students that died after him, after Firabri, that Imam Bukhari had.

That And Firabri isn't even acknowledged. Nobody even acknowledges him. Like none of the great Muhaddithin say, "Oh, he's a thiqah. He's trustworthy." The people that do say that come, if you're going to be honest, they come hundreds of years later. But the one that they try to use is Sam'ani, who comes over 100 years later. But even Sam'ani I've said there was a problem.

Sam'ani allegedly said, "Oh, Firabri is a thiqah. He's reliable." Uh first of all, he'd never met Firabri. He'd probably never met anybody who'd met Firabri. Like if I told you, can you talk about somebody in 1919 in the world in World War I, this is his name, talk about him. I mean come on, like in when World War I was going on, how many people do you know that directly know somebody that was alive then?

Mhm. So chances are you don't. So I mean to So him, first of all Sam'ani saying, "Yeah, I give him the go ahead." Question is we need somebody that actually knew him. So you know, you can say anything. I mean with all due respect, but there was question marks on Sam'ani as well because Sam'ani allegedly says this in his book, but then Sam'ani's son, Abu Sa'd al-Sam'ani, who has a book on Ansab, who then uh is quoting when he quotes when he mentions Firabri in his book, this is the this is the son

of uh the father who is allegedly said Firabri's reliable. His son, when he mentions Firabri, doesn't mention his father having vouched for him. Whereas for other people he does. So there's a question and some people said in that Sam'ani's book, the father's book, that it was missing in some manuscripts. So was this an interpolation that some people had put in later on or was it I mean we don't know, but it's definitely questionable.

And even if we give it, even if it's a given, it's still doubtful because it's over 100 years later. Then the question was that Firabri himself, his own students, he has like many students, but he has like six popular ones and three who are the prime students. Now, his main student, who's Abu Ishaq al-Mustamli, he openly says that our teacher's book, his copy of of Bukhari was incomplete.

And then he himself says, "Oh, by the way, his chapter the and things were all over the place, so we used to move them around. We used to put Hadith in this in this chapter and we used to change chapter headings and we used to do So, and people have accepted his statement as a valid statement. Albani accepted it, Ibn Hajar accepted it. So, there's a lot of hands at play here moving things around. I'm not saying they're evil, but it's human error. The manuscripts differ.

You know, if you look at the Hadith, the students transmitting it, they've got different versions, they've got different chains. There's hundreds missing in different narrations. Um even like the narration that Imam Bukhari Sorry, Ibn Hajar relies on isn't the one we've got today. There's at least a few hundred missing in the one that, you know, or variation between the one we've got and And so, my point was that this whole thing and there was more things I kind of gave to the Bukhari gate like I spoke about this great Yunini's great project.

This scholar who emerges um in about like the 7th century kind of thing. He is commissioned to kind of collect Sahih Bukhari and correct all the mistakes in it. And he he has this great project and he is he takes help from grammarians like Ibn Malik is a good friend of his, famous grammarian. And the point was that he does this and he corrects it. My first question was what on earth was he correcting if everything was already so correct?

But okay, let's just go with let's roll with that he corrected it. So, his corrected version becomes, you know, the version. But then, we don't even have his manuscript. His manuscript is lost. We have a copy of his manuscript. How do you know the person copying didn't make mistakes? Make mistakes, yeah. So, my point is these are thousands of Hadith. So, with this in mind, I just left some question my I did I did not say the conclusion was not pick up Sahih Bukhari, throw it in the bin.

Mhm. It was never that and I've never said that. And the And the conclusion was not disrespect Sahih Bukhari. The question was not My point was my conclusion was simply that if we find something in there that contradicts with reason or it contradicts with the Quran, it clashes with the Quran or with the established Sunnah, the character of the prophet that we know then we must discard it.

That thing that's being How do you contrast that with Muwatta for example? Wouldn't the same problems or similar problems Yeah, they could be but the the issue with Okay, the thing was first of all people don't raise the Muwatta up there which personally I think they should raise it above Bukhari but they don't unfortunately. Uh secondly, Muwatta doesn't have that many Hadith in it so it doesn't have that many problems.

So you have Imam Bukha- I mean Imam Malik even in his most like copious kind of edition version probably has about 1900 Hadith. Whereas if you look at Imam Bukhari's around 7700 7,700 approximately give or take. So you're looking at there's a huge difference. Secondly, Imam Malik himself and this or thirdly, this is the greatest point. In the Muwatta of Imam Malik and this is why I give this preference.

Imam Malik himself teaches you to reject Hadith. Mhm. So he'll bring a Hadith that's absolutely sahih and he'll say by the way, I don't know what this Hadith is on about. We don't go by He's teaching you to reject and to accept. So whether like he's giving you two and Imam Bukhari isn't doing Imam Bukhari is kind of giving you as though this is this is it. Take it, you know, I've done But then we can't we don't even know if this is his book entirely.

But that's the thing and you can't attribute that back to Imam Bukhari, can't you? No we don't know nowhere near 100% yeah. That that is 100% the content that Imam Bukhari compiled. And they can't all be. So for example, we've got variations. So they can't all be the versions of Imam Bukhari. Some must definitely have discrepancies. Yeah. So, that's in a nutshell, you know, the whole thing summarized. question, you might want to conclude on this is that if from the argument that you've given Yeah.

um you know, when was its popularity fueled and how was it fueled? Because then you if you had the contemporaries, which were I guess you know, at that point uh far more renowned than Bukhari was, what what happened to their these works? That's a very good question that what is it that kind of um and these are by the way, I wish people would do research on these kind of questions. Um but unfortunately, we don't have a culture in the Muslim world to really give this so much importance.

I feel that Imam Bukhari's thing definitely in his age in his time wasn't. In the years that followed, like the generations that came, it definitely was amongst the competing uh kind of books. So, there were other books like Muslim's book, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, and other people. Like so, they would have had books who've kind of like disappeared. So, we don't they didn't get kind of further like they lost uh popularity. Now, it seems that despite you see, the early Muhadditheen still seem quite critical.

Like they're not shy in criticizing Bukhari. So, for example, you'll have Darqutni who comes probably, you know, you could say almost 100 years after um or around that, you know, he's in the following century where he openly criticizes several Hadith in Bukhari. Around 200 Hadith and he's not shy about that. You have other scholars that come, they criticize Bukhari's Sahih. They're not shy about it. But there seems to along the way um develop a culture where it becomes enshrined with this sanctity that nobody can touch it.

I feel, I could be wrong, but I feel that that begins with like Ibn al-Salah. Uh but this would need a lot of a lot more research to see does is that because Ibn Salah is this uh personality or this character is a Shafi who's around the kind of 600s. He what he does is he tries to crystallize the science of Hadith. So, his book in Usul al-Hadith uh is kind of Muqaddimah and he has this uh like a book on explaining the different types of Hadith.

Everybody who comes after him just relies on his book. They've either summarized his book or versified it or given commentaries to everything. It's just He is like the Copernican moment in Usul al-Hadith. So, and Ibn Salah seems to really give this maqam to um Sahih al-Bukhari and the Sahihayn.

And he feels that Sahihayn um almost are like qat'i. That if that these are what the ummah have accepted now. So, in ma talaqqa talaqqatul ummah bil qubul. The ummah has accepted this. So, we should submit. And and then the person who kind of cements it further and just puts the the icing on it is Ibn Hajar.

Ibn Hajar really seals the deal. After Ibn Hajar, nobody is questioning Sahih al-Bukhari at all. Ibn Hajar really kind of gives this culture a huge shift, a huge boost, a nitro boost, this culture of mutawatir, this culture of uh Sahihayn, this culture of um And he obviously he made you know, he was very passionate about Hadith. I get that. Ibn Hajar is is I do like him.

It's not that I don't like him, but I just feel that these individuals had such an impact on um on the rest of the Muslim world like subconsciously. Like like let's say the other like let's say the Hanafis used to always diss the Shafi'is. And and vice versa. Like they would say, "Oh, we're superior." They'll say, "We're superior." And blah blah blah. They have this thing. But the Shafi'is always had this kind of like textualist approach. Like you know, it's always the Hadith, like it's the letter of the law, it's not the spirit of the law.

It's like you know, it's always like that. And the Malikis, the same thing. They kind of had a supremacist ideology if you like that we're superior and you know, it's not about the letter of the law, you know, it's all about maslaha, welfare. And Imam Malik saying, "Oh yeah, you can leave this Hadith, you can leave that Hadith." You know, all this kind of mentality. But you see, around the time of Ibn Salah and Ibn Hajar and all those other muhaddithin that come around along Al-Iraqi and all these people that solidify this concept in similar times.

Uh these Shafi'is, they're all Shafi'is. What happens is what um what some modern scholars um I do like what Dr. Sherman Jackson as well, he terms the Shafi'ization of the other schools takes place. So on a subconscious level, they become like they're arguing against something like if you keep saying So it's like the way the Salafis started bashing everybody with Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Bukhari like a few generation I mean, not generation, few decades ago.

Like about Let's say in the '90s it became a big thing, oh this is in Sahih Bukhari, this is in Sahih Bukhari. So then what what the other madhhabs started to do is try to also prove, "Oh no, our evidence is also in Bukhari." Look, look, we've Oh, we're also using Bukhari. Because what happens is when you set the benchmark, I kind of have to justify myself through that benchmark. So I start using it too. Like so all of a sudden this the madhhabs in the last two decades have done all these works to show Hadith, look, Maliki madhhab, look we're using Bukhari.

Hanafi madhhab has tried to say, "Look, this is also in Sahih Muslim, this is in Sahih Bukhari, this is So a similar thing happened back then that these madhhabs started because they were so kind of rivaling the Shafi'is on Sahih Hadith, Sahih Hadith. They kind of embodied that thing. And they started turning their method into another version of But that's a different longer discussion, I guess, for another day, but cool.

I hope that helps. So and then I'll just take Yeah, of course you can flip flip the camera and You got a pen and pad. We're going to get some hit men now.

I did not say that. No, they have a chain.

I have a chain that goes back to my from the No, no, so the the thing is there's a different thing in isnad. Like I have a chain like so my teacher who learned from him, who learned from him, who learned from him. But what did they learn? Like this is the question. Like we don't know exactly what they learned. We just know that it's called Sahih al-Bukhari. But the So for example, the books everybody the Sahih al-Bukhari today is based on the the manuscript called the Sultaniyah from Sultan Abdul Hamid II's time.

He had a a bunch of scholars from al-Azhar do some work and create a manuscript. So they So today's Sahih al-Bukhari is pretty much based on that. We don't have one that goes directly back to Frobbery as in with manuscripts. Like we might have Like so for example, imagine you said like I don't know let's take let's say you I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books, but let's say you've said you've read a particular Harry Potter book.

Now, he says he read a Harry Potter book and he read a Harry Potter book. And now Harry Potter books, the original, the author, the manuscripts are missing. And the other versions that we have, they slightly differ. Like in this one, there's another extra chapter and this one has this along the way and by the time it gets to you, there's a universal copy that everybody has. Now, when he's saying that, oh, I've read Harry Potter, too, was that the exact same one that you read or was yours different slightly?

That nobody can tell. They can just say, yeah, you read it as well. What was it? We know it was more or less similar, but was it exact? Did he have an extra chapter? Did he have this missing? Did he have That's the issue. And to, you know, not trying to dismiss any of the the scholars or anything, but most people are not clued up on these. You know, this whole manuscript thing. Um when I spoke to people, most of them, scholars I mean, I don't mean regular people, they don't have a clue.

This is why none of them, I mean, first of all, answering my my thing rested on the manuscript discrepancy and it rested on obviously blasphemies in Sahih al-Bukhari and it rested on Firabri, you can't authenticate him. They didn't even know about this authentication thing because I think it just blew their mind, but Because it's it's not a Nobody can because it's not done.

Like as in, nobody vouched for him, so Even if you wanted to vouch for him, No, so on this point, so when I So, for example, the blasphemies that I said are in Bukhari, they can answer. Like as in, they can provide an explanation. So, I said, look, this disrespects the prophet. Like the prophet saying to a woman, give yourself to me and then trying to touch her and things like this. It's in Sahih al-Bukhari. This this is obviously nonsense.

It goes against the character of the prophet. So, they they'll try and interpret, no, you know, maybe he was doing this, no, he didn't maybe mean to grab her like that, maybe he was trying to touch her like this. Oh, he was already married to her. But then it doesn't make sense because they say when he said, "Give yourself to me." they say, "Oh, by yourself he meant marry me." So, if you if he's asking to marry then that means he's not married to him. And then why is he trying to touch her?

So, these kind of things are I said blasphemous and mistakes. They should be accepted as that. So, these things they can try to explain. They can try to explain those. I'm not saying they can't try to explain, they can. I'm not happy with the explanation but they can explain them. The discrepancies they can a very poor job of explaining. They've just said they tried to lie like say, "Oh, the discrepancies ain't huge.

They're just Oh, here's the name is Omar and there the name is Omar." No, it isn't. Stop lying. Right? The entire chain's bloody different. The Hadith are missing. Hundreds of Hadith are missing. They've got like complete variation. It's not like don't don't Like at least be honest about the argument and then explain it. So, on this they've given a very poor half-hearted answer.

As to authenticating Firbari, nobody can do it. Because how can you do it? Because he wasn't It's like saying, you know, if I don't know, if Einstein didn't publish a particular book, how can you now make him have published it? Obviously, Firbari's dead. The people around him are dead in his time. So, nobody we can't make somebody vouch for him now. So, nobody vouched for him.

So, they're all dead. I mean, that ship has long sailed. So, what can you do? So, they're utterly stuck on that one. So, I mean, that was And they don't then most people probably didn't even know that Firbari wasn't vouched for until it started to become a bit of a big deal. And then they when they looked into it they probably got a bit surprised. So, yeah. And just to move on, it's not that Yeah, sure, sure, let's move on. That's enough of Bukhari gate people.

You know. Uh I was going to ask. I was going to ask if you Just to slide up on that. Did you mention that Bukhari wrote Tariq al-Kabir with the chains and stuff? Did it have the chains? Yeah. Is that what he said that Bukhari wrote Tariq al-Kabir and had chains and narrators, yeah? Am I correct? Yeah, he does have like he speaks about the narrators and everything. No, no, no. Tariq al-Kabir was like a like when he wrote it it was unique.

People hadn't really written biographies like a dictionary of narrators the way he did. So, his book really took off. So, one of the interesting thing is when Imam Bukhari kind of in his final days when he's about to pass, he spends his he travels and he ends up staying with somebody. You know, seeks lodging with this person and the guy's name is um I think it's Ibnafa Ibnaf Ibnafaris al-Dallal or something.

Right, so this person then transmits from Bukhari. But he transmits the Tariq al-Kabir. He doesn't transmit his Sahih. But doesn't Tariq al-Kabir have its own issues with Ibn Sa'd and al-Waqidi and um Have what, sorry? Isnad issues. Yeah, Ibn Sa'd and al-Waqidi and Hisham al-Kalbi saying about the spies. If I knew you were going to come prepared, I WOULDN'T HAVE LIED.

CAN WE DELETE THIS? QUICK. BURN THE PLACE DOWN. Let's go. No, what what do you mean it has issues with like as in they're problematic narrators as in he's got them in there? Yeah, it doesn't Yeah, no, I don't mean You see, everybody who Bukhari has vouched for are they credible? That's a different discussion. I totally agree that they're not credible and there's many people because there's people that Imam Bukhari has accepted who other people have said are da'if.

Abu Zur'ah al-Razi has said da'if. Abu Hatim al-Razi has said he's da'if. Many people in the society has problematized several people that transmits from transmits from certain people who were hardline Kharijites. They were Kharijites like hardline like like basically like today's version of ISIS but on steroids like that. So yet Bukhari has no problem transmitting from them but other scholars are like what the hell?

How how are you transmitting from these people? These people are like butchers and so but yet so I'm not saying I agree with his list of even those people didn't all agree necessarily with the content but they liked the book like they thought wow that's a unique composition that you've done here with the you know the dictionary of names the way you did it. So they were impressed with it. I don't think they were kind of saying oh this is supreme but they just rated it.

They did like it. That's what I meant by. So my key point there was even in his last days the guy that who he stays with decides to take his Tariq al-Kabir and put his name to it but doesn't take his Sahih. So that guy doesn't transmit his Sahih but think about this is in the last days of Imam Bukhari and he still doesn't you know take that. He takes his Tariq al-Kabir though and he's one of the main transmitters of that.

But yeah moving on I mean that's enough of Bukhari. Nahum I feel I kind of feel impure saying his name. I feel

What are your thoughts on if you've read it your thoughts on that text and like let's say I don't mean any in any promiscuous sense. I don't mean like he broke my rule by bearing his name. I meant like for for the sanctification. Just in case people This is clearly a delayed response here. Yeah, sorry. Just like thoughts on the text and you know like in particular like religious institutions like in Medina and things like that.

Let's say you go to study, you're going to go to study, but people are going to ask you about your aqeedah and things like that. So when you study these kind of texts, how do you critically analyze like what actually came from the sunnah because of course these are these guys are going to quote Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Baz and these kind of things, but how can you check if um what's being said like by Ismail Sufyan or whatever is actually can be proven like

Everybody wants yakin today. So how do you how do you critically analyze a creed and what are your thoughts on that particular text? Okay. So the question, in case people don't hear it, is by Mutia. In case you want to get back to him, people who are criticizing Al Sheikh and the Sheikh. Right, so is Sheikh um Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab uh At-Tamimi At-Tamimi.

Allah Allah. Or is it what is Nasitama in at-Tamimi? It's Bani Tamim. A great tribe amongst the Arabs. Right, but anyway and they're also going to be the supporters of the Dajjal according to the Hadith, isn't it? But but relax cuz all the Hadith about the Dajjal are made up. There's also some good NEWS AND BAD NEWS.

RIGHT, so the thing is right now, so uh so he he has a book amongst many books called Usul al-Thalatha to do with creed. And what do I think of it? I mean, I I'm not really impressed by Sheikh uh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's books at all. Uh, I mean, who would be? They're very basic and they're very kind of uh a bit in their way a bit very dogmatic, very kind of is they're very simple books. I mean, they're not I'm not saying he hasn't written anything.

I haven't read all of his things. Uh, you know, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I've read all his things. I'm not like a fan of his like that or anything. But I've you know, you can see his Kitab al-Tawhid and you can see this Usul al-Thalatha and all these. I don't see what these things are really about. The the three major It's like a bit like the Trinity, isn't it? This the three Usul al-Thalatha, you know, the the three things that they want to teach you and Asma wa Sifat and you know, they they want to go through the whole, you know, the way they taqsim of this is how we understand God through his rububiyyah and his uluhiyyah.

I remember when I first came across this stuff many years ago. I was like, what the hell are they They used to ask Do you know about Allah's rububiyyah and his uluhiyyah? And then I'm thinking, do you Do you know You know his tawhid? So I was like, tawhid, okay, I understood tawhid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but tawhid al-rububiyyah. You're like, what the hell is that? Tawhid al-ulu I mean, look, this stuff I think Ibn Taymiyyah Can it be proven from the salaf like Of course, none of this is from the salaf.

None of this is from the salaf. They prove I'll debate any salafi. Any salafi, Allahdi. So long as he's a scholar, he's learned it. Not just people to waste my time. Wherever, wherever. But he's learned it. Like I don't just want, you know, just waste my time. I mean, I'd rather be watching TV than wasting my time just talking to But if so long as he's he's studied, I'll debate him on this.

Prove it to me from the Quran or Sunnah. I've had this discussion with so many only Quran or Sunnah. Never can do it. Never. Can't prove any of this this sifat thing. How can you prove it from the Quran? There's it's not in the Quran. Do you think the prophet taught people to believe like that? Of course he didn't. Who of the self ever taught Imam Malik ever speak like this? Guys, by the way, we got to believe like this about God. We got to never.

We don't have anything about creed from the self. Generally, I mean we have the fact that they believed in one God. I don't mean like bare essentials. Like absolutely. So So this is why I've said to people when it comes to believe, you just say I believe in Allah You know, I believe in Allah, his angels, his messengers. You know, I believe that there's been revelation. I believe that there will be an afterlife.

Like this is an everything and that Allah is all in control of everything and that's it. There's nothing really more. That's all the prophet taught. Everything else people put in and they put it in We're talking like almost 300 years after the prophet. Almost give and take. You know, give and take. So it's a bit like the Nicene Church kind of thing. So you've got Where does all this Kalam and all this creed and all this come from? Where? It doesn't come from the Sahabah.

It doesn't come from They never spoke about And this, you know, Oh, Allah can only through see through his his act through his kind of attribute. And what the hell are these You know, Ibn Rushd, the Maliki, he he tore this to pieces. He said, "What on earth at that time as well. Like making that same argument. Like during the time of Ibn Rushd. The what? Atharis. Like, you know, Oh, yes. So the Atharis today, who they call Atharis or the Salafis, were historically called Hanbalis in Aqidah.

Right? So in the past, you had them they were just called Hanbalis. Uh so Ibn Taymiyyah would never have called himself an he He called himself a Hanbali in Aqidah. Really? Yeah, of course, of course. So, he's In fact, Ibn Taymiyyah had the argument against him that when he was charged with these crimes or whatever. I don't believe in By the way, I disagree with that. I disagree with uh you know, them imprisoning uh uh uh uh Imam Ibn Taymiyyah. They don't Imam.

You know, so uh I I disagree with them imprisoning him for having a voice. Even even though I disagree with what he had to say. But, to to shut people up like that by throwing them in prison because it's just envy, it's just jealousy, it's just you know, if you can't If you can't shut somebody up with arguments, then you should just shut up. You know, like if I can't talk to you, that isn't the way to say lock him up.

So, I disagree with that, but that's it. Um one of the things they'd said to him was, "Look, just we have no problem with you believing this. Just say it's Hanbali." He was saying that no, this ain't this is Ahlus Sunnah, and you guys are out of Ahlus Sunnah. This is what caused the kind of the rift. I mean, I'm sure there were other issues, but this was the apparent issue that they used as a pretext.

So, I mean, this Aqidah's been around as the Hanbali Aqidah. They date it back to Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Other Sunnis say that no, we don't believe it was him, we believe it's falsely attributed to him. See, this is it This is I'll tell you something that is quite ironic, actually. Um and that is that Islam is a in essence, a faith.

So, it's come to do with believing. This is what Islam is in essence about about believing. Yet, nobody told us at all what to believe in for almost 200 years. It's ironic, isn't it? Like it's like nobody actually mentioned like they mentioned thousands and thousands of masail in fiqh. So, Imam Malik's Muwatta has at least about 30,000 masail.

Imam Abu Hanifah's Zahir al-Riwayah has about 100,000 masail of fiqh, you know, should I rent or I've got this at the end of this month and that month or we use this container, I bought this transaction, I want a refund, I want this, I bought two camels but one was like this and I got these grains and I've got this and I've got and they go into so much detail. But nobody actually taught what to believe. Nobody. Uh which is strange.

Uh I do find that strange to be fair, but it's interesting as well because it goes to show what they started to do was they started to say along the way, "Okay, we don't believe that though." So, that's what So, for example, when the the Khawarij emerged, the Khawarij were the first major kind of uh you know, split, yeah. So, they started to say, "Okay, we don't believe that, you know, by committing sins you're a kafir." But they never said what we do believe.

They just said, "But we don't believe that." When the Shia became prominent and especially those Shia that started to let's say curse, for example, uh or even if the Shia didn't curse, let's say the the Shia giving preference to Ali, they started to say, "But really in all honesty, you know, this caliphate issue, is it even a belief issue? I mean, today people will say it is, but is it? Is I mean, this is a historical issue. I understand it's to do with legitimacy and and honoring and I do I am obviously Sunni, I do agree in the order that it went.

I I mean, I honor the order, I accept that there was a difference of opinion even amongst the Sahabah between Uthman and Ali as in who should have gone first or whatever, but generally Abu Bakr being first, Umar being second, these kind of things I definitely agree with, hence even Imam Abu Hanifah, what they attribute to he didn't say the whole order, he said, "Ufaddilu Shaykhayn." I give the two Shaykhs absolute precedence, you know, Abu Bakr and Umar.

And then because they acknowledged that there was a bit of difference amongst the others. But my point is is it really a belief issue as in did God before creating the worlds think, "Okay, I think everybody should believe that this was the order of the caliphate structure?" No, I mean that's not really but you know, whatever politics I accept. So they started to say, "Okay, we don't believe in cursing the Sahabah." Fine, okay. So they started to identify with what we're not.

Yet what are we? They couldn't say. So if someone asked me like, let's say if I go to Medina and someone asked me like, "Oh, what's your akidah?" Like, should I just tell them like I'm to be letting you Oh, yeah, they're definitely letting you in. See, today nobody really understands like so for example, the term Sunni as in Ahl al-Sunnah in all honesty didn't exist till probably about 2-300 years probably after the prophet existed.

Probably around that time, yeah. Maybe about 2 to 300 in between. So any Imam Malik's time, he would never have used the word we are Sunni or Ahl al-Sunnah. Ahl al-Sunnah. Because the Ahl al-Sunnah didn't unless they were using it in a different context to mean like Sunnah meaning Hadith or the teaching. But today Ahl al-Sunnah means like the orthodoxy of Islam. And like in that one even within Ahl al-Sunnah there's a split. Who's Ahl al-Sunnah really? Yeah, I mean there is that split but I mean when did this word even start to get it like be emerged that we are Ahl al-Sunnah.

So people say it began with Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari which it may have or it began after him but then within maybe by the 300s definitely there. But was it there in the time of like Imam Abu Hanifah? No. Salafi. Definitely wasn't. They would have just said we are Muslims. That's it but we are the main they would have probably said we're the main body of Muslims and it's an interesting discussion that how did this orthodoxy form?

And I like what Dr. Umar Abdullah has a a whole series on this the four schools and things like this and or is it in his Aqidah one which is about like it's about 14 lectures or something. But in there he speaks about this study of Hadith became a trait by which the the proto-Sunnis, if we can call them that, like the Salaf, began to identify as a movement.

Like we are the orthodoxy, and how do you know you're the orthodoxy? You study Hadith. So hence Abu Hanifah had a hard time being transparent as an as the orthodoxy because he wasn't really committed to studying Hadith. So the orthodoxy you find them that they started and it just became like a trend and and I think that's George Makdisi in his uh his book of I think George Makdisi in his Rise of Islamic Colleges what he speaks about this or in one of his books about how how did the Sunni mainstream become identified as the Sunni mainstream.

So I I think it began with this like we ident- we kind of we this is our trait. We study Hadith. And then they rivaled each other obviously for supremacy. I have some very deep questions going on today, Hadi. Ah, cha cha cha. Yes, yes, yes. Sheikhul Qawm. Terminology at the time of Imam Bukhari etc. When you say books of Hadith Yeah, yeah.

The printing press came about in the 1400s. Yeah. So would you be looking to have the odd one or two manuscripts at the time? Yeah, so what they had was no, they they had uh you had uh they had papyrus and things like that what they like parchment which they would write on. So a kind of paper, paper had formed that papyrus kind of paper uh definitely by their time because it's in the Abbasids time that paper becomes I mean that version I'm not saying it's the A4 kind of paper today, but that version of paper is made available which allows you know that the Baitul Hikma in Baghdad and these places to do mass translation of the Greek works.

Because the Muslims are using paper and other people ain't. And they start to import a lot of they call it they call it actually which from the Farsi we still in order to call it same kind of thing. So this this thing did exist like the you know the the papyri kind of documents. It was there and they used so if you read these like I've read some of the classical in their works. I mean in their works which are really old saying that one volume would like one cipher would have usually 20 pages.

So they they had like a system and this is going very old. So I'm talking about I'm reading from people like 900 years ago saying that this is how books are organized like one cipher one kind of set small bounded thing has 20 pages and then we have so many like that. That's how they do it. So they did have books and things. So but I mean they're not as neat as our books today but they did have yeah. I was going to ask a question online.

Sorry can we go ahead? I was just going to say you touched upon the the political order of the Usman and Ali. Would you agree that that that political I guess agenda you can say down the line has fragmented the original orthodox belief? Because now we do have those split the Shia and the Sunni and they also have fundamental differences. But if you go by the whole political I guess argument you could say that that it wasn't at that time but now obviously it has it's it's inevitable.

But I'm to have It's you see the thing is to really understand it we got to we got to zoom out. Okay. To really understand it. If you want to just at that level we have to zoom in it's too close, and we're just emotional. Like oh, I mean, I personally do believe that looks in Ali was one of the greatest Sahaba, and I do personally believe that if I was just going by merits, he would I touch on that No, no.

It's usually Nav doing that for us. He interrupts there. No, no. Right, so if I was just going by meritocracy, I would personally believe that Sayyidna Ali was above Sayyidna Uthman. And that's just a personal choice by meritocracy. But I disagree with personally the whole Shia way of looking at things, like treating like every companion is can be criticized except Sayyidna Ali. So I don't I don't I don't I don't understand that logic either.

But that said, this is just an emotional thing at that's at that scale. You know, like we're too zoomed in. We got to zoom out. See, when you zoom out, you realize that you're zooming out with not just space, but time. Space-time, people. Einstein speak. Right, so we're zooming out. This goes way pre-dates the prophet. Okay.

You see, Mecca, by the way, I I think that's This is a discussion for another day. Mecca wasn't most likely the thriving kind of city and everything that we assume, but it was definitely a town trying to get its its kind of place as in they're trying to be recognized. They had the Kaaba. The people Quraish, obviously, who feel honored this Kaaba, um really are embodied by you've got two main strands that come through them.

The main strand that seems to be like the kind of I don't know, like the Choudhrys, if you want to say, of that age, like they think, is is the Bani Umayya. Right, this person, Umayya, he's his kind of offspring seem to hold that role. They seem to be like the the kind of like the daddies and the dons of that Mecca, whatever it is. Although it's quite a small town, but they still seem to hold that role.

You you seem to find that they it's through their offspring. So, um Harb, who's the father of Abu Sufyan, um so through this lineage you get like from them you're going to get Harb, you'll get Abu Sufyan, you'll get Muawiyah. Uthman is also from Bani Umayya. All these people are from Bani Umayya. Uh but let's say now Harb, who's the father of Abu Sufyan, he one of his close associates is one of the first people to introduce writing, the way we know writing today, into Mecca.

They call it the Jizm script. The Arabs actually had an ancient script, which is not the current current day script. Um they used to call that Musnad al-Khat al-Himyarite. Now, it's today called South Arabian script and it looks a bit like hieroglyphics. The Quran and the Arabic we have today is was a kind of modern Arabic that they seem to be importing around the time of the prophet, when the prophet's young and growing up.

Maybe he's not that young, he's probably uh a young man, but he's not a prophet yet. So, um he's around that age. So, you get people like Harb uh has this associate who comes who brings he he learns it from further north. This was in essence the Nabataean script um that the Arabs then adopt. He marries that guy to his own daughter, who's the sister of Abu Sufyan, and so obviously makes this guy family.

So, you can see that they are bringing in writing to uh Mecca, into the Hijaz, that part of Hijaz. And they obviously consider themselves to be like the you know, we are it. Hashim, it seems, it may seem that Banu Hashim may have been involved in Hashim may have been involved in setting up the kind of trade contracts.

He may have had some deal in that. And so there's there's always been this competition who controls the Haram, you know, who's the who's the big guy here? Between these so initially when the prophet look when the prophet comes out with a message Um if you read some of the ancient poetry of what the Meccans say, they seem to be saying that this is just the Hashim Bani Hashim trying to do something to gain popularity.

Now initially the Meccans never accepted because they don't see Hashim above them. But when the prophet migrates to Medina and then Islam kind of spreads to other tribes now Hashim are not seen as just Hashim, they're seen as Quraysh. And Umayya also Quraysh. So it's like like imagine now like like let's say I don't know, let's say most people here are Pakistan I don't know, they're not all but let's just give an example like let's say we're Pakistani.

But we've got different like some people could be Pathan, some people could be what is it we're from let's say Azad Kashmir, some people from different and we could have let's just say people have rivalries like issues like I don't mean like they have to be bloody rivalries but they could always maybe they look, you know, they see that person contemptuously or but imagine for some reason like some like let's say Abu Muawiyah there rises with a thing and because we say oh he's a Pathan, you know, we're not Pathan so you know, we're not going to give this.

Ah, this is just a thing some Pathans have come up with. Oh, it's crazy. But all of a sudden let's say this thing takes off in the UK. But the rest of the UK see it as a Pakistani thing. So we now also start to take pride in it because we are also Pakistani. So in that way this is what seems to have happened. So because Quraysh got given precedence because of the prophet. So, Bani Umayya also are Quraysh.

So, hence they kind of give in to the whole message as well. They embrace Islam. They become part of it because Quraysh now is, you know, the prophet said to me Quraysh, the Imams will be from Quraysh. So, later on, the thing with is that you see, this when you look at who starts to set up structural powers throughout the Muslim world.

Like Muawiyah in the time of Umar radi allahu anhu is placed as a governor in Sham. I think he replaces his brother first, but he becomes the governor. He he actually stabilizes Sham and has a very strong loyal following and does a lot of work there. Now, in Uthman's time, many other people because the kingdom grew so vast, how who do you place in charge of money?

People you trust. Who do you trust? You trust family. So, he starts to place, you know, family who are who? Bani Umayya in all these places. Now that that that kind of thing starts to kindle again, that these people have returned to power. Now the thing was in Ali's time when he vied for it or like kind of like rose for the, let's say, for leadership, it triggered that Hashim versus Umayya again.

But Umayya, as they were before, but now they were an incredibly powerful force. Like they were actually very powerful and Islam had become recognized as a Qurayshi thing. But and especially an Umayyad thing. Because they were Bani Umayya, they were the the people in charge, like as in in powerful positions. So, and Bani Hashim were never seen as in my understanding, they were they were kind of seen as the Sharif people in my understanding, like you know, like the Allah wali and like that kind of they weren't seen as the kind of like vicious people or like that kind of

So, they were seen as a bit more like holy and and nice. But, that image doesn't go too well when you're trying to fight against about kingdoms. Because, you know, the nice it is, everybody likes them, but nobody goes with them. And they want They want They think oh, no, no, no, I ain't going to You know, so money So, this whole thing with Sayyidna Ali and Muawiyah And to be honest, it wasn't even Sayyidna Ali and Muawiyah.

The thing was that it was actually first between Sayyidna Ali and the other companions. I think that This is my personal opinion that the reason they seem to put it all on Muawiyah is because he's a softer target than people like Zubayr and other great companions who first fought against Sayyidna Ali. But, the point was that after, let's say, all of them have passed, then the Umayyad dynasty starts to kind of because Muawiyah keeps it in the family.

Cuz he's not going to let it go. Let's just be honest because He even says, "See, look, even what they transmit from Muawiyah, even people who don't like Muawiyah, he says that this this matter will stay amongst Quraysh." And he says, "Who are the top potential candidates from Quraysh today?" And he says there's only like four. Like to say possibly five. There was Abdullah ibn Zubayr.

There was Abdullah ibn Abbas. This is when he's handing it over to Yazid, his son. There's um You've got Wait, there you go. Abdullah ibn Zubayr, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Umar, and you've got uh Who are we talking about? You've got Hasan, obviously the prophet's grandson. Um And You've got Hasan Husayn, but I don't know whether he was considered I don't think he considered maybe Hussein as a threat.

But he's I think he felt he felt Hassan may have been because he was older. And I think he mentioned what's his name Abdur Rahman ibn Abi Bakr, Abu Bakr's son, who actually just dies that year. So he's not a threat. Like he just dies of natural causes. But he they say was actually one of the most hot-headed. So he was actually a huge threat. He's very outspoken, Abu Bakr's son. The other one, not Muhammad, the one who uh was part of killing Uthman.

But this one, Abu Bakr, Abdur Rahman, sorry. He but he just dies that year, natural causes. So you see Muawiyah says, "These are the main potentials of of Quraysh. Make sure you get them to give you bay'ah." Because this matter will really just stay in Quraysh now. And really Quraysh to them is just Bani Umayya.

And and then later on you've got This is all politics. I mean it's very fascinating, don't get me wrong. I I I do enjoy I I just think sometimes you shouldn't get too emotional over these things. They've happened. You know, it's okay to learn. It's You can get sentimental whilst reading it, but you know, it's not a need for sectarianism or for kind of like going, "Oh, this person is like I have to now go and curse and insult this person who's been long dead." You know, like just to make myself feel better.

I think that kind of stuff is nonsense. Yeah, yeah, let's take some online questions. Hm? Namaz ki People ask about that. Okay, the fire not burning Ibrahim alayhis salam.

Look, see, there's two things I want to say before answering that. I was asked recently about a question as well. And I answered same thing. I've got on YouTube a clip where I speak about its title to do with the Queen of Sheba. Uh but its greater title is how to approach stories in the Quran. Like how do we approach them? You know, stories in the Quran, you've got two options.

Option one. We just see them as a story, as an example, as a story, that's it. Like it doesn't matter if they were real or not. It's a story, it's got a moral, and so long as that they've gotten what we call narratorial truths, like metaphorical truths. This is option one. In this case, nothing matters what the story is saying, because it's just a story. People could be flying, they could be time traveling, they could be doing anything, they could be rising from the dead, doing this, they could be, you know, whatever.

It's just a story. Option two is no, they were factual, real events. The problem with this lens is if we're going to say they're real real events, we've got to now make sure they are real. Like we they've got to add up. So, I personally do go with that they are real, generally speaking. I feel that maybe one or two things maybe stories in the Quran, but generally, I feel that these things are real.

Now, therefore, we've got to then analyze the whole structure, what's being mentioned. The Quran does not generally, I know Surah Yusuf has a lot of detail about about Yusuf Ali Islam. But most Surahs just mention snippets. They're not like a sys- chronological narrative. Like the prophet is saying, oh sorry, like Allah is saying, oh and one day, you know, Ibrahim Ali Islam was born, this is the year.

It's a bit like the Bible. You know, if you look at the Bible, the Old Testament, it gives like places, this person's born here, he was the son of this, he was the son of this, he was the son of this, and he did this, and he did this. They go it goes into so much detail. And one day he was at this and went across this person did this and the Quran's not like that. It just mentions snippets. Like there'll just be a Oh, and do you not recall when this happened or have they not heard of when the and he'll just mention in two, three verses and that's it.

Moved on. New story now. So, the issue with this not an issue, but the challenge is a lot of information is missing. Because Allah is not trying to give you a biographical uh you know, like a book on a thing. He's just trying to tell you a lesson from an event. So, we have to look at these things carefully. Some people look at these things and they take it like they kind of try to combine the two.

So, they want to treat it like just a fantasy story, but they want to say it's real. The problem with that is then it doesn't add up to the real world. If you start saying things like people flying and people doing this and people doing that, but you wouldn't believe that somebody else said it. Like so, it doesn't add up like if I if I said to you, "Oh, look here's a book and said that this person got out of his house and he flew from Birmingham. He just ran and then he started flying and then he landed in Manchester and then he just time traveled back to 1924 and then he just moved forward to 2056 and then like you'd accept it as a story, but you wouldn't accept it.

If I said, "No, no, trust me. This time it just happened. It doesn't normally happen, but it happened this time." So, you wouldn't accept these things. So, if we look at the Quran, it doesn't actually mention, generally speaking, anything that's so contradictory. The problem is we're filling in the gaps. So, if you take the example of Ibrahim alayhis salaam's fire story, no way does it actually mention he was thrown in the fire.

But you see, we fill the dots in. It's a bit like that It's the blind spot. The brain just fills it in. So, you've got now like Allah says in the Quran, they prepared a fire. That was, you know, they said, "Let's prepare this really big fire for him or something to burn him." Now, then Allah does mention, we said to the fire, "Be cool." But it doesn't mention that they anywhere that they threw him in.

It does mention that Allah says, "We saved him from the fire." Now, true, he was saved from the fire. Now, there's different ways of understanding that. One way is he was thrown in the fire and he got saved. Another way is he got saved from it, like Allah mentions, "We saved Noah from the flood." Didn't mean he threw him in the flood first, had him almost drown, and then pulled him out and saved him. Like it doesn't mean like the whole point is when you save somebody from something, it means you saved him.

It doesn't mean I got to Now, saved you from getting shot means I don't You have to first get shot and then I save you from All right. That's one way of saving him. I mean, since it's God, it can't be done before. So, the point is, now, in this sense, what I've said is that if you look at the verses, if the fire was huge and he was most likely tied up whilst they're making this fire, probably tormenting him, right?

It's very likely that the heat and the smoke would damage you still even if you're not in it yet, but you're close to it. So, Allah said, he says, "We said to the fire, 'Be cool'" and and not cause harm. Now, how did he say this? Did he like So, some people could say we just said, like Allah just said. Or were there means involved, like in the other verse, Allah says, "We said to the skies, 'Let down rain.'" But we know that we know that obviously rain is like obviously in the clouds, it's not like in the sky.

It doesn't work like that. It works But we understand this is how language works. You know, Allah's not trying to give you a scientific breakdown of how it happened. He's just trying to tell you a quick and a snapshot. And it's in that language that we sent down rain from the heavens above. Obviously, rain doesn't actually come from the heavens, it comes from clouds, but the point is that's the language. So, here when Allah addresses like and we said to the sky like with Surah not Surah, sorry, to do with Noah Alaihis Salam.

We said to the sky like stop the rain with the flood and we said to the earth swallow you know, the water. But it wasn't like there's obviously mechanisms doing it. It wasn't like like obviously the soil would absorb you know, it would it would absorb the thing. It would It's not just like it's doing it without any mechanism. So, when Allah is saying be don't harm him, is it just he's saying it or was there for example a mechanism like wind that kept him safe?

There's no harm in Allah doesn't have to mention every detail. The other thing is that if he was thrown in the fire and then pulled out why didn't the people around him believe? Because Ibrahim Alaihis Salam's only a young man at this stage. He's still a He lives a long life here after that. So, why didn't they just like think about it if a guy got thrown in the fire and it's a really big fire and it burned everybody like woah, but he's just like and then he walks out the fire everybody would like that's definitely a man of God.

We're not worthy. We're not worthy. Yet they don't and wouldn't they then at least think okay, if the fire didn't kill him, at least let's try stabbing him? See if that don't work. So, there's no news of them trying to kill him and neither do they believe in him. So, it's more likely that he got saved somehow from the actual fire from going ahead.

That's what seems more likely. However, if Quran didn't want us to get fixed on the details, just trying to show a message that Allah is there as a source of help. That's I think the important thing. Sure. Yeah, sorry. I just wanted to ask going back to one of the previous questions. Um, you were saying that you don't like the method of criticizing all the companions. Yeah? Or looking at people in in like with a with a lens.

Yeah? So, um, obviously going back to the definition of what companion is, I think it was like Ibn Hajar that said the one that saw the prophet and he died upon the belief. Or met the prophet, met the Met the prophet, yeah. Met the prophet and died upon the belief. So, um, do you think that in terms of the concept of Adalat al-Sahabah, is it the default position that all of the all of the companions, unless you've seen anything bad from them, they are like just and trustworthy?

No, look, uh, forget about it. Look, the Shia slate us Sunnis over this point. And to be fair, we know that they've got a point. Like, if we're going to be honest, they have got a point. Like, they they say, "Come on, you know as well, the Sahabah were just normal human beings." And we do know that. And their point is that why do you treat them as though they're infallible? And in all honesty, they weren't infallible.

Um, and we know that because even in our Hadith it mentions there were companions who would drink alcohol, there were companions who were doing things that would get into trouble, who would commit crimes. There were people, I mean, and then this whole understanding of what do we call a companion is a more interesting thing as well, because it's really a lot of it seems to be made up later on. In all honesty, I don't think the prophet, uh, alayhis salaam, right?

So, I don't think the prophet himself would have considered all those people his companions. Off you go, sir. Take care. Right, so, I don't like in the prophet's lifetime, who would have he considered to be his companion? He would have just He would have considered most likely, those people who were often around him. And they would hence you have the Hadith where a companion is asked um that you know, are there any companions alive today?

And he says that as to people who met the prophet, he says maybe there's some. But he says as to his companions, no, they they've all died. So, I accept that this under using this term like Sahaba, who are the Sahaba, everybody who met the prophet, is really an institutionalized version. I accept that. If we're going to be honest, you know, just being honest.

And I don't really believe personally they are all Sahaba. I just believe that the Sahaba were his true companion, people who were actually with him. Not just like people who knew him like that. And you know, I gave the example like saying once like, "Oh, imagine it's like uh like in this day and age." And I gave Facebook as an example. I said like, "Oh, like let's say I do things on Facebook and I've got Facebook friends." So, what, like 5,000 whatever friends maxed out.

Now, in all honesty, I don't don't think I hardly with maybe exception of few know any of them probably like on a genuine level. Maybe those who ask me questions a lot and I kind of interact with them. But otherwise, let's say if somebody said about me in years to come, "Oh, who was friends?" And somebody said, "Yeah, he was his friend because he was his Facebook friend." That doesn't really make that your friend in that sense. Friend would have been people that you would generally hung around with.

You were So, yeah, so I accept that. And the criticism part I accept as well that if in all honesty, you could criticize. I've answered this before in much detail um saying that how should we approach criticism of the companions? And I've said this two hallways. Two kind of parts. One is where you we don't criticize anybody. We just venerate them.

And we just treat them with respect and we just leave it. And I encourage that. That's what I preach. That's what I advise. Um I accept it's not objectively accurate. I accept that it's not it is institutionalized. But I think it works for the better. Because that we do kind of then treat them as like superhero like the halo effect.

Everybody's kind of semi-perfect. But that works. The other thing is we the other part is one of criticism. Where we can be critical. We don't have to be evil, but we can be critical. The issue with this is it's a very like I mentioned it's a very dark scary lonely path with you know with that Halloween music going on in the background.

You know Michael Myers. He's standing behind a tree. You got that Halloween music going on. It's one of those paths. If you go down this the problem is that the Sahaba were human or too human. And then you're going to get into stories. You're going to get into narrations. Narrations are dictated by always people who are partisan to something. So you might read something from somebody who favored this person over that person.

Therefore he's writing all these horrible things about that person. Now you're going to read about this person over that person. And and you start reading all of these things. And like what does what does it achieve in the end? So and then that what that So I do agree that these people could be criticized like as in I don't mean criticize as in taking just like pointing faults with them, but I mean being critical, critiquing as opposed to criticizing I suppose.

But, critiquing them, but then I disagree with the Shia in the sense that they say you can critique the Sahaba. Didn't they critique each other? Which they're right, they did. But, then they say you can critique the Sahaba except Ali. And you think, well, uh well, why can't you critique say Ali then? Because if we're going to critique them, then we should critique them all. Like, what what's the Like, if you're going to go down that road, then it should if the whole point of it is being uber objective.

What's the point of getting there and saying, "Oh, we're going to rip everybody to shreds." But, saying Ali's masoom. You think, well, I doubt that. And so, and then this is why last time I I said, well, you know, a few years back, some of these things that people got really offended online. Said, "Oh my god, he's critiquing say Ali." I wasn't critiquing say Ali, but I was just trying to make a point. So, that's that's why I advise not going down that path.

This one. First part of this. Ha! Charm. They call it look around. Hariyali hariyali. Spring, nice music. Bollywood tune in the background. Everybody's happy. Everybody's on mushrooms. Oh, this is the beautiful This is a beautiful part, this one. So, yeah, so that's why I That's why I say just go with this veneration.

At no point critiquing them because it's just gets messy, gets horrible. Um and there's very little to come out of it except just arguments and sectarianism and Mustafa Sajid is asking, "Why are your views different to most scholars? Why do you stand out so much in terms of your views?" Huh! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

I'll tell him, "Sajid, it takes a genius to know a genius." Ha! better what they have I say foreign Gand the ball of as me say this and okay unique people with when we how are they born where are they born? I've sourced to become me say so but me Say how do you meet the likes of me you would have known.

But yeah different why am I different? Why your views seem to be different from most others you seem to stand out a bit so That's a broad question. Huh? It's not just the It's not my views. Views? I think I I don't belong to a sect which allows me to I suppose in the broad sense I'm Sunni but if if that's what you want to say is I don't consider that a sect I just consider that Orthodox Islam.

Mainstream Islam whatever you want to call Orthodox it is the mainstream the bulk of Muslims are Sunni in the world I you know unanimously whether you you want to say 75% 70% 80% whatever are Sunni with their disagreements and I cast everybody in that Salafi Sufi Ash'ari Maturidi Hanbali Athari whatever Zahiri you know whatever they are within the Sunni thing I consider them all to be part of the Sunni.

Although I disagree with you know things but So but because I don't belong to a sect I think it allows me to speak freely. To think about things freely. You see for me the argument has to just make sense to me. I don't have to worry about pleasing my group or my cult or my peer sub or my share or my you know my whole sect.

I don't have to worry about pleasing them. Well they don't exist so my point is whereas if I was part of a particular sect it would be like if I was let's say a Deobandi or or a Salafi or in that sense. Sal- Salafis are a bit slightly freer than maybe like Deobandis. Um because they have some freedom to their approach, but they can't still go against their mashaikh in general.

Uh Deobandis are unfortunately held to to to kind of ransom really to their whole held captive to the whole akabir akabireen, you know, of the Deoband. Thing is this isn't a criticism of Deobandis, but this is just me being honest. You know, I love honesty. Honesty good. That's what I told the judge. I LOVE HONESTY.

SO THE THING IS THAT Barelvis as well, the but although Barelvis in some way are less struct- structured than the Deobandis. So there's a bit more kind of scattered approach to them. So they've got a bit of differences amongst them. But even then they've got broader kind of structures that they can't go against. Like they can't So if you follow the particular pir sab, they couldn't be going against their kind of pir sab or let's say somebody follows, I don't know, particular big shaikh like And some amongst them, don't get me wrong, were a bit open-minded.

Be it Karam Shah Sab and people like that were quite open-minded. Uh but others are sometimes not that open-minded. So the point is if you follow a particular sect, you're stuck. You know, you can't do anything. Like people they they hero worship. They don't just hero worship, they super Like can you imagine trying to go against that? You'd get boycotted. And if that's your world, like imagine I'm uh I don't know, like a Deobandi.

I only belong to a particular Deobandi masjid and that's the only masjids I go to. They're the only people I interact with. Or let's say I'm a I don't know, I'm a uh a Sufi with You could What's a popular tariqa? Qadiri. Qadiri. Qadiri. mean an actual with the scholar. Like let's say but the journey is I think are a bit they're not really too fussed about things. But it could be to Johnny or let's say like Sheikh will be is popular like he's got a lot of money or you've got like these whoever it is you've got people now they are your circles.

They are your must change. They are your friends. If you oppose that voice you just become you'd be organized. Like you would you would have no way which are you team you'd have no way to go. Your livelihood would be cut off if you are a teacher. This is why I say be free people. Allah be like the birds huh?

Why are they preaching that fear Allah you will die and they don't implement that advice on themselves? They cry as if they fear Allah but they contradict what you just said. Oh could you a tea or something?

You know what every reminded me of a poem. That it's not a sauce of not it's not a sauce of not to me much cool. Not even I don't know about my own situation that much. But other people tell me that I'm distressed.

So shall we go? Inshallah I mean Okay yeah well should we take some brothers any questions Yeah who should I call out to help me?

I mean what is the purpose of all of this stuff? These are just old These are like the gods of old ain't they that have resurfaced because it's hard is the heat is hard I'll be honest with you It is hard now let's be honest let's be honest you know I like honesty

So that's the See the thing is that you know a transcendent removed god is almost an impersonal god It's difficult to relate to god because god is something transcendent we can't picture him we can't envisage we can't imagine we can't he's just there you know he's not it's it's the heat isn't in some it's very reason based but

it's not actually easy contrary to what people think because it's an very impersonal god almost I mean but god isn't a an impersonal I believe god is a personal god but how do you then bridge that? It becomes difficult so This is why people solace in finding something imminent and immediate as an intermediary.

They, you know, like I like even like I'm not saying I'm not saying these people are mushrik. I'm not saying that, okay? Just in case people misunderstand me because I'm about to give an example, so I don't want It's like Hinduism. In Hinduism, the Western isn't I'm not saying the Western is but in Hinduism, many people don't know that Hindus actually just worship one God. Many people don't know that.

Whether it's they call him Ishwar or Brahma, the great Atman, Paramatman, you know, it's it's just one. Paramatman isn't like so many different gods. It's the great Atman that it resides in all of us. Isn't this what Hinduism actually is? Ram, you know, Krishna, these people, you know, Ganesh, all these Hanuman, these people are just manifestations that they use as, you know, that they use them to get closer to God like because here they've got a visual I can focus on it.

I can use this one to this is a personal God. This God is the one of fortune. You know, whether it's going to be one of the Devis or Lakshmi for fortune or whether it's going to be Hanuman for strength or or whatever problems and so they've got different gods for that they can personalize and relate to.

The situation isn't different in the monotheistic faiths either. Like if you take Christianity, you will have patron saints. Saint George, Saint you know, you'll have different like all countries will have their own saint. Um but they they will have particular saints, Saint Andrew, these saints that save them. There's a particular saint for journeys. You'll see certain Christians carrying his cross.

Uh it protects them. There's certain um you you if It's not that they don't believe in Jesus. They've already got Jesus, but still they need something closer still. And Muslims are just human beings as well. You know, these things are difficult to escape. I think human beings will always struggle to truly escape to a pure to heed because it's they find it too distant like God is too removed to to answer me.

Hence in Hinduism, nobody really prays to Brahma. Why do they not pray to Brahma? Think about it. He's the ultimate God, but why do they not cuz they say he's too transcendent. They're not worthy. No, not that he's not worthy, but he why would he be interested in me? They're not worthy like that. Oh, yeah, they themselves are not worthy. Exactly. Why would the ultimate God care about me? I need this thing here cuz he can see me and he can So, this is I'm not saying it's a rational thing, but it's a it's this is their reasoning and at a lower level, that's what Muslims are just humans as well like what I know Allah, but I need to ask Sheikh Abdul

Qadir Jilani in Baghdad to kind of give it to me or this peer sub in you know, Lahore or this peer sub wherever, you know, to to kind of give me this because he's closer to me. So, it's that same thing. You know. It tells me. I forgot.

It'll come to me. Mir Taqi Mir. Do you believe in the Hadith on the day of judgment that the count of the years that what do you go directly to Allah to start the day of judgment? Why are the ummah going to go to Adam then to Noah then to Ibrahim Cuz they're scared of God. That's why you mean. Yeah. they're asking that isn't that evidence that those who You see, the problem I have is that I feel that many people in Islam, the image we've presented of God is a very scary image.

I don't personally like that image, but each to their own. Some people like it. I feel that God is a merciful God and it's a, you know, he's he's a compassionate God and that's the side that I see of God. But we have this thing that it's a very it's a scary is a is a vengeful, he's an angry God. You know, he wants to punish you if you get, you know, if you get something wrong. We have this impression that, you know, if if it was a human, you know, this guy would understand why I made the mistake, but it's God.

How the hell is he going to understand? He's just going to whoop me for it. Like this is the kind of understanding we have of God. So, I find that problematic. I feel that it clashes You know, that's exactly the point he was making making about the Hadiths on intercession on the day of the day of judgment you get this person to see. But don't they clash with the ayat that on the day of judgment no one can deceive people.

Yeah, I think these things are just if sahih, if sahih. I think these were just like allegorical truths. Like, you know, the prophet is just trying to show, if they be true, the Hadith is just trying to demonstrate that it's a scary day. That's all. That it's not like, you know, it's not that these things like meaning that it's this is the what the Hadith is just trying to demonstrate in essence.

The the kind of essence of it is that it's a very difficult day where you have to worry about yourself. So, what's the lesson from that? So, take care of yourself now. Like do the good that you need. Like don't rely on others. That's the whole point. And but at At same time that Hadith is demonstrating the prophet is a source of hope for people. Guys, we'll continue with the Q&A informal Q&A afterwards.

Wrap this up people. Those of you online, I hope you understood much of that. If you didn't, don't worry about it, man. Let me say half of it I wasn't really fully sober anyways. Guys, take very good care. Inshallah. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi ta'ala wa barakatuh. I'm going to do a blooper now thinking it's Cool.

Shaban, could you just click that off or just yeah. Or just leave it on recording and it ends up recording some of our conversations. Yeah.