Should We Debate Quranists? | Mufti Abu Layth

that i was talking to a quranist okay there is a huge quranist group here in arizona um it's in tucson actually tucson is a city south of phoenix i'm actually in phoenix so um every time i go there it's like i'm not trying to have any problems with anybody but i feel like every time i go there it's like they notice like different things about me like i'm praying sunnah prayer okay i get it it's not in the quran okay and then it comes up and i always make this personal intention that i'm just a i'm a nobody and i don't want to argue with anybody that's why i have

no problem with christians jews atheists yeah look look they all have free will i have free will subhanallah you know uh it's okay but for some reason i feel like i'm always getting into these discussions with the quranis and i'm not actually completely against them i actually think that there's a lot of truth in it for example i think the prophet was the first queen honest i think i actually think he was the first quran that is because he wasn't following any others you know well i'm just saying is that and then and then so when i so i've actually come up with my own idea

and i know it needs to be cleaned up a little bit but my idea is that allah has sent the quran and if somebody follows the quran um there's a possibility that they misinterpret it it's possible it's very possible no it's not it's very it's very very possible because the quran is in language and we all understand language differently yeah so so if i was to look at the quran only yes there's no sunnah prayer there's no enough prayer but i feel like on the day of judgment if that's all i had i think allah i'm just saying i think allah would say well

the gate the doors of gay the doors of heaven are very wide if all you had is the quran but if you're going to use the narrow hallways of these different org groups you know the salafis and the sunnis and the shias then you've confined yourself and that's okay too because that's a reading meaning meaning it's one way of reading the quran in in that depth but i feel like one of the mercies of allah is that everybody does not have to be at that level that allah's graciousness is so great that las vegas like you know what yeah i know i sent the messenger and the

messenger went to such a degree and then there's all these other people that have actually created these other divisions but not so different but i'm only going to hold you to the quran and you see what i what i would say to this is that right because there's there's many uh layers to that question so the the first layer that you're

asking about from god's perspective you see now and the ahira the eschatological we're looking at who has salvation in the afterlife and you see these things really no i always find it this is me personally i always find it very arrogant to to assume on these matters about who will go where in the afterlife and who will you know i'm this measly human who can't you know figure out stuff in this human life and here here i am trying to talk on matters

about god's decree it's not really doesn't befit me as a human uh i i don't this is me personally i i find it almost as very you know stupendously arrogant to try attempt that so i wouldn't speak on things like that you see allah's mercy encompasses all his creation it encompasses all and only allah knows what he will do and what he how he treats we just we just deal with ourselves in this world that's what i would say so nobody can be going around telling you're going to hell that guy is definitely going to hell this woman's definitely going to hell

that bunch of people are going we worry about ourselves we concern ourselves with the path we we serve people that's what we do yeah we develop ourselves that's our journey the other issue is okay about uh okay about quranis now i'm not exactly sure because people use this term and they use it in different ways so i'm not exactly sure because they're not a monolith one people who are the quranists for example they are different representations it's like saying sunni so sunni is includes that it'll include the sufis they'll include the selfies as well will put themselves in sunnis

they'll include brailwys diobandis jamaat islami will include every all these groups will still call themselves sunni now in somewhat of a reflection you'll get people that will call themselves quranist or people call them quranis but some won't claim they will say no of course we accept the sunnah of the prophet but it's just we have doubt on for example certain things that go against reason or some might say we have doubt that the hadith has reached us with accuracy had it reached us with certainty we would have accepted it so this is now an epistemological issue okay it's that they're doubting the

veracity of what's reached us the information they're not denying the loyalty to the prophet so there's a big difference conceptually i personally you see i would say that the islam the practice of islam has not reached us through hadith it's reached us through the living tradition now this is where people misunderstand this they think that islam reached us through hadith it didn't they think the salah how to pray salah reached us because it's said in abu dhabi or in termity no that's not true abu dawood comes over 200 years about 200 years after the prophet as does imam bukhari

for 200 years were people not praying you see islam was taught from parent to child and in community and this is how it got transmitted by the living tradition and so this is how we learn things like salah this is how we learn things like song the main features of islam and people disagreed i get that wherever interpretation wherever there was interpretation people disagreed but this is how it was taught now i do uh advise and advocate to embrace the tradition of islam and i feel that this is the inherited tradition is not in that sense about these things corrupt it's not like the

five praise for example is not a corruption it's actually the living tradition but let's say if somebody didn't accept that if somebody said to me look mostly i don't accept any of this because i can't trust it and i feel you know the this kind of quran is as i'm assuming the archetypal kind of quran is now or the stereotypical sorry quranis i is he fine okay if they want my view i will give it but you see arguing doesn't get us anywhere because to be honest nobody has ever said in an argument oh wow you know what you beat me so bad in that argument i'm gonna believe you

that's never happened in human history all that happens is you can humiliate someone in an argument and what happens they just hate you even more okay you might win it like i might debate someone and i might be able to mesmerize them because of certain things and and run rings around them and humiliate them now i might win that so people might say wow you know mostly you know did a number on this guy blah blah blah and it serves my ego it really massages that but this person is just walked away hating my guts and hates everything that i stand for and that argument even more so this is why when imam malik was asked

shall we debate over the sunnah he said he said he said if you they ask you you just answer but don't argue over it don't cause it to become a a something that spreads this kind of animosity so that's for the arguing angle so i would say that you know it's not if somebody wants a genuine conversation that's fine and you could give your side they could give their side you could think about it they could think about it but if it's a debate i don't think these really uh yield results and and i get it look you know quranists uh in that stereotypical sense i get it

as well they too you know a lot of you see one of the problems is we don't look you know the prophet salallahu salem he looked at people through a lens of compassion it doesn't matter whether they were kuffar mushrikeen they were machusi nasarani yahoodi he understood that this is a human who's who's trying to come at it with some in his version of integrity you know that they brought the the dead body of the jewish woman who's going the prophet stood up out of and out of respect and they were like what's the prophet doing standing up jewish

the prophet looked and he said it's a soul you know where's your human compassion so the point is that you see you have to understand that even people who disagree with you salafi be they uh wahhabi will be they she are be they whatever group brill video when the jamaat islam whatever you want to see

they everybody in their own way is trying to come from a position of love for the deen and you have to understand the angle because once you see from compassion you realize okay i see where you come even if you feel they've missed the mark but you see they're not coming at it from this great propaganda to trick everyone whether they be salafi shia you know qurani anything they they are still coming at it from a place of love now the qurani quranist is coming at it from this angle that look

these because some hadith are definitely made up which some definitely are everybody knows that we've got books of fabricated hadith so therefore because there is doubt so the safe side is that let's not we can't attribute any of this to the prophet because there's too much doubt in all of this and this has been used as a power of manipulation and whatever etc etc etc and let's throw this all out and with it they've thrown out of most of them because they assume fit was also part of hadith or built on hadith as it is today because of the salafi movement

so you see but in the past it was never like this is why in the past where were the quranists in the past because pre this if you predate the salafia fek was never built from hadith it was built from the living tradition so you never had this argument so it's only with the selfies they start to build from hadith then people start to problematize the hadith and therefore say let's throw everything out the window so the argument isn't to me um it isn't as convincing as they think it is you see this is to me it isn't as convincing because to me there are many examples that i can show from philip

that it would be impossible for people sects that are so ad averse and adverse to each other like shia sunni to all agree on certain factors of fear that that would be impossible they hated each other unless this was the living tradition you know you triangulate it and you arrive at hmm i i get it now so but i do understand that look these people too are trying to come from a position of love so let's not you see it shouldn't be about trying to bash them you know let's get them in a corner and i want to bash them and humiliate them because that's that's going to make them just

hate this even more so yeah that's that's what i'd like to say i think it's important