Recordings › Salman Rushdie & The Satanic Verses | Mufti Abu Layth · 19 Aug 2022 › Segment 20 of 21
Should loyalty to a scholar ever come before the honour of the Prophet?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith saheeh sahih hadith saheeh hadith sound hadith authentic malik ibn anas malik bin anas imam maalik imam malik ibn anas imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari imaam imams prayer leader masjid masjed masaajid masajid muftis muhaddithun muhadith muhaddithin muhaddithoon hadith scholar shaitan shaytaan iblis iblees shayateen shayatin devil ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat al-madinah madeenah yathrib 'alim aalim ulama ulema ulamaaThe Prophet's honour before any scholar: Imam Malik's maxim and a self-correction
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This segment1:47:24 to 1:52:45 · 5 min 21 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenNo: he says loyalty belongs first to the Prophet, so a report that disparages him must be rejected whoever accepted it, citing Imam Malik's maxim that everyone's words can be accepted or rejected except the Prophet's.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth says he personally regards al-Suyuti as a great scholar whose writing on love for the Prophet he enjoys, including a book defending the Prophet's parents, and that these scholars loved the Prophet, but that on this point they were wrong, even with good intentions: Satan does not impersonate the Prophet's voice or put words on his tongue. He connects this to his argument about Bukhari, while noting that this story is not in al-Bukhari or any of the sahih books: when a report slings mud at the Prophet's character, one's loyalty is to the Prophet, not to any muhaddith or scholar. He cites Imam Malik's statement, made pointing to the Prophet's grave in Madinah, that from everyone one may accept and reject except the one buried there. He says he has been mistaken in the way he has sometimes said this, which made people react and double down, but that the honour of the Prophet is not up for question, and recalls that Imam Malik, out of love for the Prophet, would not wear shoes or ride an animal in the inner part of Madinah.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says that when a report disparages the Prophet, loyalty belongs to the Prophet rather than to any scholar who accepted it, and that everyone's words may be accepted or rejected except the Prophet's.
“if you find an incident that is doing that your loyalty is first and foremost with the prophet salallahu not with this great mahadev great person”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
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[Music] most scholars in islam have contributed to the legacy of islam but some of them many of them okay let's back that up they're all humans so they've all made mistakes you're making mistake i'm making mistakes we're all making mistakes some more than others and some more grave than others and it may be that their mistakes were their grave mistakes were just one-offs tk we're not here to judge them i'm not here to say
uh ibrahim was a no i i personally as a person as a scholar for his efforts and his thing that was a great person i love reading his stuff at times i love childhood stuff is great i mean his stuff speaking at times about the love for the prophet salallahu is great and amazing his love for the appearance of the prophet he has a book that the parents of the prophet anybody who says anything bad about them is unacceptable showing his love for the prophet islam these people love the prophet don't i'm not saying that they but on this point we always defend the prophets the honor
of the prophet above any individual it doesn't matter if it's ibn hajjar it doesn't matter if it's suti it doesn't matter if it's hypnothemia they were wrong even if they had good intentions they were wrong shaytan does not impersonate the voice of the prophet shaitaan does not put the words on the tongue of the prophet salallahu
so the this is why this point is anchored into when i said my whole thing on boharike as well even though this hadith is not in bukhari but it's that same concept in saying look when you come across something that tries to sling mud on the character of the prophet sallallahu and it's in a book this incident is not in the the quranic thing satanic verse is not in sal bukhari in any of the sahih books
or any of the major books but if you find an incident that is doing that your loyalty is first and foremost with the prophet salallahu not with this great mahadev great person he may be maybe a great human being but he's not the prophet you don't owe him any loyalty don't think tomorrow this mahathir this faker this scholar is going to be upset with me i mean i mean a classical scholar oh but if i don't defend him no what what on earth is that about they
couldn't care less imam malik's famous statement somebody said something to imam malik and even his own opinions sometimes he would change his own opinions people sometimes say to him look what about you you said this once trying to catch him out he said because imam malik would for a certain while teaching the prophet's mosque he was in he lived in madina he said
every single person you take from them and you leave from them you accept and you reject at times and he points to the prophet's tomb he said illah accept the one who rests here the prophet salallahu nobody else everybody else we respect you know we we can love them we can we don't need to be disrespectful look i
and i said this before i accept even delivery i i accept that i've my way of saying things in the past i've tried to emphasize this message that the honor of the prophet always comes first i think that i've been mistaken in the way i've said it maybe it's put it's made people react to me saying it and they've doubled down and so we're all learning you know this is a journey we're all on it you know we're all on the same thing it's our own journey but we're all on the same path it is the honor of the prophet salallahu it is not it is it is not up
for question it is not it isn't it is not something that oh if we had to choose between a mahadith or a great imam or any imam anybody imam malik people like imam malik and abu hanifa were from the very early islam they were never in these kind of controversies they had like the utmost love for the prophet i mean imam malik wouldn't in the inner part of medina he would never wear shoes in that part of medina he said that this this is where the prophet salallahu his foot had said had
he had walked on these streets on this soil that dear eye he refused to ride a horse or any whether it was a mule or anything inside the inner part of medina said no i won't do it this is where the prophet walked out of love for the prophet salallahu so when we see these things it's it's just it's this is just a reminder okay i really wanted to recover it because of why it was relevant the whole satanic verses what is it an overview of salman rushdie sorry [Music] not not any
Paragraphs overlapping 1:47:24 to 1:52:45. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2022-08-19-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/20/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2022, August 19). Should loyalty to a scholar ever come before the honour of the Prophet? [Video, segment 2022-08-19-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/20/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2022. "Should loyalty to a scholar ever come before the honour of the Prophet?" Video, segment 2022-08-19-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded August 19, 2022. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/20/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2022-08-19-S20, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Should loyalty to a scholar ever come before the honour of the Prophet?}}, year = {2022}, month = {8}, date = {2022-08-19}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/20/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/20/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2022-08-19-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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