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Recordings › Yasir Qadhi on Masturbation | Mufti Abu Layth · 4 Jan 2021 › Segment 3 of 3

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Why are Salafi scholars now saying masturbation is not a sin after years of calling it haram?

imam imaam prayer leader hambali hanbalite hanbali school muftis haraam forbidden mubah mubaah jahannam jahanam jahannum wahy wahee salafism wahhabi wahabi wahhabism ulama ulema ulamaa

Decades of guilt-tripping and no apology: the reversal of Salafi scholars on masturbation

LessonRecorded 4 Jan 2021Segment 3 of 3 in the recording2021-01-04-S03

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This segment6:38 to 12:40 · 6 min 02 sGeneral teaching

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Mufti Abu Layth says these scholars owe an apology to the Muslims they guilt-tripped for decades, since Ibn Hazm's and the Hanbali view were known to them all along and nothing new has come to light. He attributes the reversal to imams saying what the public expects until they feel they can say otherwise.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth says his issue is that these preachers have for decades guilt-tripped many Muslims over this act, telling them they were burdened with sin, would be punished in the hellfire and would ruin their relationships, while, he suspects, many of them secretly believed it was permissible. He asks how the sudden announcement that it is not a sin is justified to those who suffered, whether revelation came down overnight or the temperature of hell went down, and notes that the same circles accuse him of spreading corrupting rulings while now saying the same themselves. He says they should at least come out and apologise to the Muslims they may have misinformed over the years, since Qadhi is quoting Ibn Hazm, whom Mufti says he himself quoted years ago, and the Hanbali view of permissibility, both of which they knew long ago; no new information has reached them, only the realisation that they can now say it publicly. He calls this the two-faced hypocrisy of these circles: behind closed doors most of these imams do not believe half of what they preach, but say what they think the public expects, which reinforces the public's expectation in a vicious circle. He jokes that since Zakir Naik and others have had this 'revelation' he wondered why wahi was coming to all these ex-Salafis, before realising he was already ahead of the curve and they are catching up, and says he is not fixated on Qadhi but objects to people being made to feel guilty for so long only to be told it is merely not noble. He wraps up saying that more and more Salafi scholars are coming out with these glad tidings, which gives him something to rejoice about.

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Transcript

machine6:38 to 12:40 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
6:12

[Music] that's actually a song so this that's ear dirty that's actually a song that's actually song so the reason is that look these people for decades have been guilt-tripping so many muslims making them feel burdened by sin telling

6:52

them they're gonna be punished by the hell fire telling them they're gonna go to hell telling them god will you know it's gonna ruin their relationships they're gonna do this whilst i bet you many of them secretly themselves believed it was okay and cello whether they practice or not or this one this one sorry it's not from the nobility [Music] not from the self stimulate stimulate stimulate come on come on come on stimulate people oh yeah right it's not stimulating uh don't

7:31

self-stick but you see to other people they would say oh you're going to go to hell you're going to go to hell you are this is haram allah is going to punish you um so the question is but all these people who've been suffering you know what how is this justified for them you know now all of a sudden you just come out and you say well actually it's not a sin i mean

8:10

um was there did revelation come down overnight or did uh did everything just change did hell fire temperature go down you know in hell fire what are these heart and these people you see they would proper obviously say about me that i'm spreading all these kind of rulings i'm making people corrupt uh this is what they would say and but yet it's them like when you look at them they they themselves have now come and said well actually just one moment i was just looking if

8:52

i had this no there was a i want to share this no no no no right so no it's not here right so but so this is my issue this is why i when i see these things i think um at least you should come out and apologize you should at least say look i want to say i apologize to all those muslims who i've you know who you know i may have misinformed over the years i now realize because

9:32

look him quoting ibn hasem which by the way i quoted years ago they knew what ibn hazmat to say him quoting the humbly method of saying that oh this is permissible he they knew that years ago no new information has come to them it's just that now they've realized they can get away with it by saying it publicly so you see my point now about the two-faced thing about the hypocrisy in these circles that behind closed doors i've told you before behind closed doors most of these imams don't believe in half of what they preach

10:10

they just do this because they expect because this is what the public you see it's like this vicious circle they think the public need them to say this because if they say something different they're going to get rejected so they say the public hear them say and it reinforces that vicious circle so the public think of course and now the public expect them and it's this kind of this loop that they're trapped in but yeah so i was just like wow okay because first of all zakir naik has had this revelation and i'm thinking

10:52

why is wahi coming to all these ex-selfies but then i realized oh i've already been enlightened i'm ahead of the curve it's these guys trying to catch up so yeah so this is uh this is why i had to speak on that um it's not because i'm

11:23

after fixated on our beloved it's just that i thought you know what hmm that why why why why for so long make people feel guilty and then only to say don't do it yeah don't do it man not the noble class [Laughter] the noble

11:50

the nobility one does not peruse self-stimulation that's to just say that i mean come on that's uh that deserves a you know that's what that's what it is people people we gotta wrap this up you know it's been epic as always now that we're all super excited that it's not just

12:28

many more and more selfie scholars are coming out giving these uh glad tidings so i've got something to rejoice about people but

Paragraphs overlapping 6:38 to 12:40. 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 2021-01-04-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yzrvpdckjxq/s/3/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, January 4). Why are Salafi scholars now saying masturbation is not a sin after years of calling it haram? [Video, segment 2021-01-04-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yzrvpdckjxq/s/3/
Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Why are Salafi scholars now saying masturbation is not a sin after years of calling it haram?" Video, segment 2021-01-04-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded January 4, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yzrvpdckjxq/s/3/
BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-01-04-S03,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{Why are Salafi scholars now saying masturbation is not a sin after years of calling it haram?}},
  year = {2021},
  month = {1},
  date = {2021-01-04},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yzrvpdckjxq/s/3/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yzrvpdckjxq/s/3/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2021-01-04-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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