# Are there answers to the hardest ethical questions about stories in the Quran?

*The list of hard questions: much of the work has been done, and the boy killed in Moses' story*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/11/
- Date: 2021-04-13 · Kind: lesson · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Monday Nights with Mufti #210 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth (40:01–47:50)
- Status: latest answer on its topic; general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XuHMCz2N3U&t=2401s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/

**Topics:** Moses; Atheists and polemicists; How to read the Quran

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Mufti Abu Layth says he has answered every hard question on his 2016 list, such as the killing of the boy in Moses' story, by research true to the text, and others can build on it.

## Longer summary

Mufti Abu Layth says, as he once told trainee imams, that much of the hard work has already been done for them. Around 2016, while preparing his video on the age of Aisha and reading atheist material such as Hitchens and Islamophobic criticism, he drew up a list of about twenty questions he felt were problematic for Islam, deliberately adding the most challenging, some of which he then had no answer to. He says an answer must come from scripture and research true to the text, not be made up; that he consulted reason-based scholars, some of whom support him privately but avoid public heat; and that he would not tell friends the questions before he had answers. He says that in recent years he answered every one, through moments of sudden insight rather than intelligence; most concerned the Quran and one Bukhari, which became BukhariGate. His example is how God could instruct the killing of a child in the story of Moses, which weighed on him until, checking the context, he found an answer he explains in a video, and he says others can now build on such work.

## Sources and names cited

- Musa (Moses)
- al-Khidr (referred to, not named: the one who kills the boy)
- Christopher Hitchens
- Aisha

## Transcript (machine tier, 40:01–47:50)

[39:27] stuff but that's not really costs it doesn't cost anything it doesn't require some kind of like i don't know some petrol dollars and it doesn't require institutions it doesn't and yet it's enough to dissolve these kind of chains and bonds that these people have on the muslim public and i'm so grateful for that right a message for all those who champion reason all right i've read that shukran shukran so much love much love i do feel i've said this before i even said this as a message to

[40:06] people who are training to become imams i said and i say this to regular you know this is to everyone that look wallahi whether you you know whether people like what i say or they don't like what i say or sorry whether they like me or don't like me but so much of the hard work has already been done for them like i you know i mentioned to someone just this weekend i said um i said that they were i don't know whether it was 2016 or something like that

[40:44] and i'd done the i think i it was when i was preparing for the age of aisha video and i'd done that so at that time i remember thinking i was engaging a lot in this kind of like what atheists are saying and i was listening and reading and i was watching a lot of you know this whole atheist material what are they challenging religion with hitchins and other people and and so i and also is islamophobic stuff and islam um kind of um material that's criticizing islam i was

[41:23] kind of at that time looking at it and then i remember drawing up a list on my notes my phone of topics or questions that i feel are problematic towards islam and i need to you know let's draw out the list and then let's answer them and i i can't remember how many things were on the list at the time i think there may have been about like 20 odd things i put put down there and as i'm putting them many of them were just things that i could answer then i mean i could answer but as i started to zone in i started to you know

[42:01] like let the shackles go and just write things that i think are really challenging and then you know i would leave it and i'll kind of do my normal stuff and days later or add a question to it and you know i ended up putting certain things down there that i was kind of like i had no answers to at that time no answers and i don't just mean you know i could just say oh well it doesn't be like you know it doesn't mean this he doesn't but i you see to answer something you need to answer it from scripture

[42:38] with research and in it being true to the actual script not in the sense that you just are just making something up so i remember at the time there were certain things i mean most of them i felt like a lot of them i felt okay there was a huge number or a significant amount i thought yeah i can answer that i can answer that and there were some that i thought and there were a few that i thought oh damn [Laughter] i thought to myself god damn how does anybody answer these and i

[43:17] almost felt for a moment that you know for a moment for for a while that you know will i ever be able to answer these and i connected with olama that i i what's up you know like over the course of that coming year the following year the i would try and connect with certain reason-based scholars who in private would talk to me and i know in public then you know they don't want to be seen because obviously they get too much heat for it but in public in private they have obviously they they do like what i do and stuff but so they i messaged them saying look have you got any thoughts on this

[43:56] i message people internationally i and i just would ponder over these things and there were some that i just kind of momentarily i just had no answer for in that moment and and there was a time that some of my friends even said oh mufti you know what what are some of these like tell us and i said that look i don't feel comfortable saying them because i haven't yet come up like an answer hasn't dawned on me and i don't want to just say things and then you guys are like oh damn you know like because some of these weren't really being challenged by atheists and ex-muslims and stuff at the time and i was kind of glad that they

[44:35] weren't being challenged because i was thinking damn if they were i don't have an answer to them yet but you know i can say lila hammed every one of those things in the recent years i answered every single one and not in a sense i'm not saying this in a sense that this is me being uh you know they just opened to me you and sometimes that open you know like i just have an open cognitive opening in the weirdest of i'd like to say it's just you know my intelligence but it isn't because that intelligence if i want to say it's my

[45:14] intelligence then i'm sure i had that prior to that you know how has my intelligence changed so much but it's just like sometimes i i would have just been just in a steam room and suddenly it would just click and i thought wait a minute but i'm really being honest like there were issues that i was surprised how muslims haven't before dealt with these issues like i'll give you a really strong one at the time was this whole thing of how aligned the quran how is it ethically and these all these questions

[45:53] were only quran related they weren't like hadith related they were just quran related and although there was the topic one of them was about bukhari and this thing uh which later on i then went into as bihari gate and did all of that but um most of them were quran related questions so as an example how does in the story of moses allah not only allow but instruct the murder of a child how is that ethical under any given scenario

[46:30] and how you know like how is that something that people haven't questioned and at that time i really this weighed down on me so heavily because i you know i just on one hand i can't believe that that would be true that allah would ethically i mean because allah would instruct a prophet and that to go and murder a child that does that's not allah as as i know allah understand allah and that's not islam but on the other hand i'm thinking well here's this this story in the quran and i'm thinking

[47:09] well why haven't people even discussed this i'm reading all these tough season nobody's bloody discussing it and then i do answer it and it just and when it dawned on me it just dawned on me and and i checked up the context and it all fit it and uh and i've got a whole video explaining that and it's so amazing i was like how did i miss this and it was the the point that they go to sleep but what i'm trying to mention here as an example is like this there were several questions which now i have answered over these following you know these past years

[47:46] but so much of the work has been done for people who are now you know coming to this arena of islam and you know they want to understand it and they can build on it you know i mean i'm not saying um you know they they may be able to take those examples and build on them you know improve them so right let's um abu safura you're doing it you're too oh right you know

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 8XuHMCz2N3U/s/11. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/11/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.