Dating, Nikkah, & Spirituality in Islam with Benjamin Wu | Mufti Abu Layth

I kind of discovered Islam just from personal exploration has always been a very curious person never the smartest person but always the most curious I enjoyed reading American Literature Like Moby Dick and then after reading that book in high school it really kind of uh pushed me even further to finding out the truth so I remember reading the Bible I had a lot of friends who were Christian um I ran into a Zen Buddhist studies and taoism but I really liked Islam because of some of the philosophers I enjoyed were Islamic like the mom has Ellie I know you and urban Arabia I know you have some opinions on them but I really

like no I I appreciate honestly I do appreciate I think I feel more and more um with age I'm appreciating more and more these the the mystics I'm really appreciating that yeah yeah I think yeah definitely so as as time progresses and I think my affection towards the mystics within Islam has just like profoundly grown yeah yeah I think it's because I grew up not atheist but agnostic so I finally you know understood ahazali when he met you know their levels of knowledge of Truth so you have your senses then you

have science then you have deductive logic and Mathematics like Golden's theorem kind of not disprove mathematics but show that deductive logic is flawed and of course the highest level is intuition intuitive right your natural religion I don't care if you think you're in a Dream On The Matrix or an illusion God is always going to be true objectively so I really embraced that I found this out the last Ramadan so that's when I almost embraced Islam but I do have two issues with it that's how I really came on so as far as the mystical part the Taoist and Sufi part I

100 I agree right it's very similar to Japanese Taoism but I can't get over this fact and I lost all your videos I watched other mufti's like you know even with the Mac or Muhammad a job I know a lot went down YouTube but it seems like long story short that homosexuality is Haram uh dating is Haram even if it's monogamous relation I'm in a long-term relationship with my girlfriend do I think it's for I just don't naturally feel it you know like I I really I read the Quran after I took

some LSD I listened to the uh really enjoyed it intuitively I I agree I was like this is what this is what um the Western philosophers like uh you know um yeah Descartes and some others found upon himself I don't think homosexuality is intuitively Haram can you explain you know my my issue you know sure so I mean yeah so what what a festival man epic journey I I want to say that you I think your journey is amazing you know may Allah bless you

bless this journey of yours and it's you know it's just I want to say firstly it's just wonderful honestly it's amazing to just just see you here like it's just you bring an um uh you know you bring a reflection of diversity of this of of this path so yeah man just shukran for joining us and with these questions what so so okay and uh a kind of gradual approach to them is that first of all Islam in its essence is not thick

okay Islam in its Essence is not the the rules and the laws in its Essence Islam in its Essence is faith Iman okay now Iman is about that connection with God it is this path this journey to God that's what it is so the the most part of the prophet's lifetime the prophet salallahu was as a prophet was in Makkah you know where there were no rules where there were no laws the prophet did pray he did do these things

but Faith was in its very organic form that it was about connecting with God people did pray people did speak the truth they did these very fundamental things this is what faith was and in its Essence that's always what Islam has been that's always the Crux then what's happened is as Islam moved migrated to a place to to to set up societies okay it set them up that Society needed

rules it needed and especially what's important to understand is their society as in the prophet's time that not the societies sorry the landscape was a very Lawless landscape a very uh a kind of you know a backdrop with very little rules more kind of Chaos so bringing rules meant bringing some structure to the people which always improves life because it shows it kind of puts life on a on a progression it puts it on because you

start having some because you go from no rules no you know people are winging things to you're hoping people will agree to now having rules that if somebody does this this is the law this is this this is the so as I've mentioned as well look Islam did not introduce the concept of marriages in fact the Hadith States I believe um it's a Hadith she says that the Arabs had four types of knickers she says and and it says and she says that and what Islam did was it

uh prohibited the other three so and and she says and and the one we have today is is the one left now this wasn't the the Hadith clearly shows that Islam did not invent the nikah it did not introduce to people that you need to get married people were already getting married they were already doing these things but many people weren't as well so but the concept wasn't introduced by Islam it was just it was condoned as in it was promoted by Islam so Islam said look okay marriages the problem here was

that you see when you set up a society from scratch it's very important to understand that there's certain things that are at the Bedrock of especially when Society is so small they weren't huge it wasn't like a Cosmopolitan City a town a humble town now one of the most important things you need in a society is the family unit I agree you need to emphasize this especially if you're setting up settlements like you're starting the settlement of Medina the prophet was setting it up

he had he had laid down what was the first constitution when he went there saying that okay which is called the mithakal Medina with the Jews and the Christians saying that look uh okay Medina is still you know it's in print as in people it's in the books of Hadith so in it the prophet said well with these laws with the Jews and the Christians you know if somebody is injured on your thing we will take the responsibility as well we join in with giving the compensation likewise if we're at fault you have to join in help us like

strengthening these bonds with the with the Interfaith bonds so okay then one of the things the prophet immediately moved to in Medina was the family unit in trying to stabilize that and outline its important importance now the problem with this is look the family unit entails responsibility okay now in San human beings by our very nature we hate we're very averse to responsibility we don't you know like if if I had a choice to just not be responsible for someone or be responsible for someone I'd definitely

not be responsible you know it's if it's just a pure Simple Choice like you had to tick the box and then it happened so you see we don't want to be responsible sure in the moment we might think we do you see like responsibilities can't be left to emotions because sure if I'm feeling happy and loving then I'll be responsible but the moment I'm not loving then what so the problem here was that you see Islam never like if you look in the Sharia the concept of marriage is not an obligation that nowhere in Islam does it say Anika

is fun getting married is an obligation because Islam didn't invent marriages marriages were already being done some will be in a corrupt way so Islam just prohibited those and it just left marriages as long as the people consent to it it's a marriage and people know it the problem is so the if you look in any of the books of nikah they'll give you the hukum what is the ruling of nikah so they say the ruling is just it's recommending some people say it's Sunnah to get married because the prophet got married but otherwise they say it's recommended some say it's permissible so the question is what if a person never marries throughout his life has he

done anything scholar say no it's not Haram because it's not an obligation to get married the problem now is okay if it's not an obligation to get married people just wanna chill they're rather just like you know just hang about have a fling and they'll do something and then when it's over it's over and then they don't want to really because they don't want commitment because they don't want responsibilities naturally the men are more reverse to this than women as even today you know that's still the case you know locking the men down is the issue often so so what Islam did it

was it didn't force marriage upon people because it had to be a choice but what it did was it started prohibiting other things so the family unit responsibility was the option that you chose then if you want to do it because people were just like saying well no I'd rather just have sex with her and then you know don't worry I'll of course I'm going to care for you I'm going to care for you but we haven't really committed to anything but yeah sure but now that the emotions are off you know well you could care for yourself I'm out of here so what Islam did and and the person had nothing

to say because they weren't in any relationship technically speaking so what Islam did is it said well instead of saying this is obligatory and then you have to force a relationship on people which is built on makarma which is an emotion of caring and you can't force that on people I can't say to you you know what you have to care for someone no it has to come from within so what it did is they said okay just being like just going out there and doing this is Haram and homosexuality too I've argued I've said previously that it seems in in my video I've got a video discussing homosexuality and Islam and diverse

history so in that I say as well that homosexuality was something that was uh prohibited as a byproduct as well so just as going out there doing this and that just having you know just exploiting because often the prop you see the problem was it was often sexual exploitation that was almost maybe it wasn't every single time but if you were to bet it'd probably be eight or nine out ten times there was exploitations going on like by exploitation I mean not just at a high level of exploitation but even like when you look at relationships

you see often as we still see now like a guy may just give he may just sell a bunch of hopes and dreams just to kind of quickly just to get in bed now the moment he's done that he's out of the you know he he'll it's just too it's just for the kill and then he's gone now what this does is it shatters the woman in these cases because she loses faith in the next month and in men as a whole like you know all men are just dogs then because all men just want to do this coming let's go back to that initial put

laying the foundations for a society now you need a healthy family unit you need children you need stable homes so anything else that is going to destabilize this construct that was prohibited as a byproduct to boost the family life right because they can't have these rulings yeah so they forbid other kinds of relationships to pass because kind of make you yeah because exactly because exactly because if you look because it could have forced you to get marriage but then

that's just a wrong in itself because if you force someone to get married you see you're saying to them that look every single person has to be has to be forced to get married so no what it did is it left it to look if you get into that state of mind that you want to be with someone maybe some people are Hermits some people don't want to be you know you get people who remain Bachelors or bachelorettes all their lives and they just they're asexual they just don't have a need most people are not like that but you get people like that now if Islam was to say every single person needs to get married then it's an injustice to them

so what it did is as a byproduct it precluded the other things to say well people who are actively seeking these things well this is the channel then you take this channel because this channel will at least it aims for okay it aims for a stable family unit maybe some people won't have families but then at least by the very least it hits the mark with having UH responsibilities and rights people know you're in a relationship that people know so okay this is how it was so this now that said there was another issue which I spoke of as well

previously where I said that look you break now you fast forward to our day and age and I've said that look let's um let's be honest a lot of the thick which is the rulings and it is it is not up to date with our day and age like a lot of the fact is not kind of in sync with the challenges that we're facing so if you pick up a fit like I've got so many fit books here yeah now if I pick up a fit book let's say it's eight volumes seven

volumes ten volumes the first volume will always just be worship okay from wudu to Hajj okay fine the rest of it is all in transactions marriages divorces you know justices Justice code it's all of this and maybe a few pages at the end might be about etiquettes and manners and that's just a few pages but all the volumes in between are about transactions about and they're all going to be saying things like well if I had a bag of Wheat and I did this and I did

that nobody I mean I'm not saying nobody most people don't do that today not one of them not one of the books will be discussing things like contemporary issues none of them have a chapter on stuff like like even currency we don't even have cryptocurrencies and even forget cryptocurrency even digital currency currency has not yet enter entered the mainstream Facebooks so they're so out of sync now okay and then the problem is a lot of Scholars are sometimes intimidated to

kind of issue fatwas or rulings that are contemporary or up to date on these things because then they don't want to face any backlash and so they just leave it and maybe you might get some odd scholarly gives a fat World whatever but I have said in the past I've questioned I've raised this this this challenge not challenge but this question to people to Scholars and I've done it on my Monday nights in the past few years back I said that look when you look at the concept of a Nika islamically I've said the concept of a Nika islamically was if you look at the fit books it just says

okay that acceptance from both sides that a commitment sorry from both sides to be in an exclusive relationship with each other so this commitment that they're in a relationship then there is the concept that people know about it so it's not in secrecy it is known about and then there's some Turkish secondary conditions that not everybody agrees on so so so for example you give a gift now people say well the Nika can happen without having given the Mahar but the Mahar can be given later on and some people say you even if you don't ever give it then when you divorce at least

give it then okay so fine yeah I wonder what my because I've been almost three years inshallah so this this is the thing that I've raised I've said that look you've got people now there is another element as well which is a ritual okay so let's hold on the ritual so I'm gonna put that there so I'm putting the ritual aside okay I've said that there are people who today will do a secret knicker okay so they will do for example they will go with let's say a kind of cool

in a front room in a car somewhere they've got two witnesses who are a friend let's say their friend friends and say okay uh I do this in the car with you have you accepted it you've accepted it okay or maybe they get an Imam Saab to read it for them or they do it themselves say have you accepted this Nika okay um and then they the person says yeah I accepted this knicker as well and then it has done now they don't tell anybody they keep this and in fact they tell each other not at the time of Nika but privately they tell each other oh you can't tell anybody about this okay it's just our secret later on later on and many of these secret knickers turn

out mostly to become incredibly abusive maybe not always but awfully because nobody because they become exploitative because what happens is uh they sell the girl some dreams don't worry we're going to get married we're going to do this we're just a slow low-key Nika only my two friends know now then what happens is you know they probably yeah they're happy to be and let's say the woman is only prepared to be in a sexual relationship if it's a serious relationship she says I'm only going to be in a I only you know I don't want to play games with people I just want you know I want something meaningful so the guy says yeah you push

and so now he does this and then he gets bored and then he's gone like that now she feels used okay so she says well this ain't fair and okay now this is a different discussion but the point is nobody knows they were in any car so she says yeah you know this guy was married to me and people say married to you he was he was your wait nobody knows about it she says yeah well the only two witnesses were his two friends friends go I don't know what she's talking about I've never seen this lady before in my life many ulama will say this marriage this

nikah is valid most ulama will say this I believe that Nika is Haram because it's not right you see you can't this way you tell the other person to just we use we're your hushing people this is just wrong it's against the spirit of nikkah but most Allama will say that's permissible and valid Nikka so I've said look in light of that here's the question we in these societies where you have non-muslims where they they don't go and register a

marriage in the UK many most couples I'd argue are not registered as Murray okay now but they are in relationships that are everybody knows it's on all their social media pages that I'm in a relationship with this person and all their photos are together all their family know that yes that's his girlfriend that's her boyfriend they don't call them husband and wife but they call them girlfriend boyfriend which translates in their society as they are in a committed relationship and they they have commitments to each other so they they accept that you know

we're exclusive they accept that oh we're going to share the costs for certain things they accept and even to break it off they have to break it off they have to say well you know I'm breaking this off why do they have to say that because you know they could just because they know that there's a thing that okay that they have to kind of say okay well I'm calling this to an end I've said well how is that different to a Nika because the thing is in in that society that you see it is a structure by which the society their culture knows now they don't do often most couples will not do a registered marriage they just don't

maybe they do it at some point down but they feel that you know some many of them feel we don't we don't believe in marriages or we don't believe that we have to register it or whatever their reasons but they're in committed but they're in transparent relationships you see they're not cheating one another they're not tricking they're not I mean maybe some people are but generally people are not now the only difference yeah so the only one thing is ritual Okay I accept that there is this thing about a ritual that gives something an extra shield like when you read some words and let's

say a person reads a ceremony and they go into it's like a rite of passage and therefore they take it a bit more serious when it comes to quitting it like they feel they they think oh damn like I'm married to this person do I really want to throw it away well exactly whereas in this Society what they might do is exchange a ring or they might um maybe even as a as a kind of partner they might kind of even though they haven't done the full marriage but they okay they lack a bit of the ritual element but other than that like so and the ritual I'm not denying it doesn't have it has a lot of power to it obviously because it adds that extra

sacredness to the relationship but that said this is the question I've asked people that if you're going to say a secret Nika is valid and a secret knicker really doesn't couldn't care less about the ritual you know it's not it's just the ritual just like quickly do you say that okay Kabul Kabul do you accept it except okay okay done you know this is the and if people most of the scholars legitimize it and results often in abuse maybe not always but I would say definitely 60 70 of the time it results in like just a tragedy

then how can this be looked down upon despicably because this in in this culture is not something they take lightly they it's a commitment that they take so that's what I've argued but I accept that the firk hasn't really caught up you know people they still the thick books are still talking about bartering wheat and barley and stuff I think you explain it really well that I I mean I don't think it's hard on Frost doesn't mean I think if they just haven't caught up to what modern I think look if if you are in a relationship look you are here saying in front of the world

I am in a relationship with my girlfriend now you see religiously islamically that would that would be called that would be called a wife now I I get in legal terms a wife can carry a legal statutory position which is different to a religious ceremonial life like a religious wife because you could be in Islam somebody could be your wife but then for a legal status you have to go to a registrar you have to book you have a legal process that's yeah so that's a separate thing I'm not you know that's a whole process people do it some people don't do it

that's their choice religiously the understanding is that there if you look in the fit books it's just a commitment isn't it it's that you have a commitment with this transparency and both people they accept and then as the malikia say other people okay the the other methods say they need to be witnesses that malakia say that nothing about Witnesses they say there needs to be that this needs to be known that there needs to be an announcement so they say yeah I learned and if you've announced it on social media you people say I'm in a relationship with so-and-so they tag her into it this the world knows nowadays our lives are on social media you know you want to know someone

you go to the social media page what is this person what is the Instagram page what is their Facebook page what is the this page if people are announcing that this is my partner they call them Partners yeah this is my partner I'm with this person it's my partners my life partner how is that not I would say that it recognizes it it does recognize it now the only thing a person could say well the ritual but if they you know if they recognize this and they recognize that God is is a witness to this how is that does that not fulfill this condition so the only thing I see is that look the

day and age hasn't the fact hasn't caught up with the day and age and this there is a long time before all the fit catches up because you know people are struggling the scholars are kind of caught up in all their quarrels and all the kind of sectarian stuff and people are afraid to give new rulings because they feel that they will become targeted and people but what they don't realize is look Islam was all about creating ease like let me let me tell you something look speaking about marriages and relationships you know in the time of

um you had in the time of and this by the way my boyfriend's girlfriend I'm not speaking about the secret boyfriend girlfriends so somebody here just said so his boyfriend girlfriend uh marriage actually I'm not speaking about that the secret like the one some uh people have like that's just like a secret thing then like nobody knows but you're just my girlfriend shh well you're just my boyfriend I don't mean that I mean relationship so if forget the term boyfriend girlfriend forget that term if you are to say I am in a relationship I am in a relationship with this person

that we are partners that this is we are in a relationship forget the term girlfriend boyfriend because kids use that term as well right so you know people in school might say oh it might go around my boyfriend I'm not talking about I'm talking about if you are saying you are in a relationship with someone and this is public knowledge then that would stand if this was announced publicly and it was recognized by both parties that they are in a relationship that would that would take that's exactly the definition of so now now check this out in the time of the law on there was the

water known as the apostasy battles and the apostasy Wars and these are really popular and so many people spoken about them the riddha was they called them in Arabic now what's really popular are several tribes apostrated from Islam several tribes like bunny hanifa is the famous tribe all these tribes they apostated from Islam now they fought with the Muslims and you know and whatever happened and people you know there was battled but following let's say a year later or whatever it was set several people came back to the fold of Islam so you as this tribe let's take this tribe as an

example they came back into the fold of Islam after having left Islam and after having lived as kuffar nobody asked them to renew their knicker I think we mentioned this before yes yeah nobody asked them in the time of the the prophet sallallahu when the prophet's daughter was separated from her husband the husband hadn't embraced Islam at that point and you get the and I've got a video on this as well now he comes to see the prophets daughter and then later on he does

embrace Islam but he comes to see and she offers him sanctuary in Medina and the prophet says look you have to respect it she's offered him sanctuary he at that point wasn't a Muslim he becomes a Muslim later on the prophet doesn't ask him to renew his nikah it's been years when he came to see her and talk to her in Medina at that time it was the same Nika from years ago before she you know when she left Makkah this he was from Makkah he was so it's been years he's even fought against the Muslims he was in the battles against the Muslims

now a few years later he misses his wife and he comes to Madina and the prophet says you know we and she says I offer himself nobody harm him uh you know he's my guest he's my like my sanctity is his sanctity and the prophet says she is extended like offered him uh sanctity we have to honor it everybody now he goes to see her you know where is the prophet never said hey wait a minute you're a cafe and so you know there's you're a non-mahram and even when he Embraces Islam later on the prophet

doesn't tell them to repeat the indica so you see these things you see what's happened is we've missed you know it's like we can't see that you know in the same you can't see the wood for the trees you can't see the forest for the trees people have missed the spirit of what the relationship was actually about it wasn't it was about the actual what it wasn't about saying ability I do I do that this was just a little structure that was put there it was about the spirit the meaning people committing the meaning behind it that they the emotion that they have for each other it was

about sanctifying that and what's happened is in in in the way we've kind of got lost with all the the you know some people with the letter of the law to the extent that they'll legitimize something that even if the result is doesn't have the spirit anymore you know in fact it's antithetical to the spirit so yeah I I I mean I I hope I don't know if that's been making sense yeah I would go into it more but it looks like some other individuals I really appreciate you move the I mean I still have a lot of questions maybe this is what happens when you just read a couple books you know you're religious but there's always so

much to know and uh I'm gonna keep thinking about it it's great to hear that you're also you know somebody who walks that path as well Allah Allah I think I find so much value in this a lot and just watching your videos on that's honestly I'm so glad you've you've said that and I'm going to uh we'll get a video as well made about the actual Salah being done I think it's right you know you said it we know I never ever thought about it but now that you say it's it's kind of I mean there's other videos on YouTube but um I feel like out of all the the shakes the argument that I've seen I feel like I like you the most um I get a new haircut by the way it was

good so yeah I don't want to wait any more you guys time so send me a message by the way on Instagram and we'll connect there okay sure sure thank you I mean much love and much love people that was Benjamin woo some very compelling contemporary questions of uh great value