Early version. Transcripts and tags are labelled by accuracy tier. A position is shown only after two independent reviews have found it in his own words.
83 answers in 32 recordings, 2016 to 2025. 63 with a checked position in his own words.
Indexed so far: 259 of 1,859 recordings (1,904 answers, 2014 to 2025). Anything below may change as the rest are indexed. Limits of the data
Thought Evolution
2016answers checked positions2025
Oldest first. A checked position shows what he holds, then the sentence he says, word for word from the transcript, with its moment. Years without one list the answers that have not been checked yet. Recordings not yet indexed may hold more.
Mufti Abu Layth says the belief in possession took root because the ulama, as the most learned people in pre-modern societies, were asked to explain every worldly phenomenon and answered as best they could with the knowledge of their time.
“people were coming with normal whatever problems asking these people to explain them and they had took they were trying to come up with some answer to help these people”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Quran itself calls people to reason rather than to belief on its own say-so, so a claim like possession must be tested against reason, and that the hadith of Shaytan flowing in the blood concerns human suspicion, as its Safiyya context shows, not possession.
“the Quran itself comes with this understanding that look you have to resort to reason”
Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims accept anecdotal experiences of possession while dismissing other faiths' miracle claims by reason, that possession seems to afflict only those who believe in it, and that people switch off their reasoning for their own faith.
“the question is why only our experiences why not everybody's experiences why not other faiths”
Mufti Abu Layth says that explaining anything unexplained by the jinn is a one-size-fits-all paradigm like a child's conspiracy theory or Basil Mitchell's partisan, a non-propositional faith that no evidence or reason can touch.
“if you've just got one version to answer everything then yes you can do that but it doesn't make it true”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the religion is built on reason, so a Muslim must apply one set of standards: a report that a tree reasoned and cried cannot be accepted while the claims of other religions are rejected as absurd.
“you must have one set of standards and you must put Islam to that test as well then you are true in your faith”
Mufti Abu Layth says he addresses only those for whom religion must make sense and be based on reason, since God would not contradict the laws he placed in the world.
“so to these people religion must make sense these are the people that I'm addressing so I need to clarify that with people I need to that is my audience”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that religion must make sense because the Quran calls to reason, and he calls people to the Quran and the Sunnah rather than to hadith as such, since hadith contain contradictions that must be sifted.
“to me religion must make sense because allowing the Quran calls us to reason I then call people in my understanding to the Quran and the Sunnah”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the belief in Jesus's return has had no impact on the faith of anyone who died until today, so it cannot be a core part of Islam.
“whether they believed Jesus was gonna come or not it hadn't zero impact on their lives because Jesus hasn't come up until today”
Mufti Abu Layth says reason is the ability of a healthy mind to think and make judgements based on practical facts, broader than formal logic, and that the Quran in Surah al-Hajj urges people to travel and perceive so as to gain hearts that reason.
“reason is the ability of a healthy mind to to think and make judgment especially based on practical facts that is what reason is”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Muslims use reason to reject Hinduism and the Trinity, that a shared human intersubjectivity lets a healthy mind judge such claims absurd, and that the same standard of reason must be applied to Islam.
“the question here comes do we do we not have the responsibility then to apply those same standards to Islam”
Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran's command to know that there is no god but Allah requires reasoning and comparison rather than mere assertion, and he presents the theologians' view that blind-following in creed is impermissible alongside later scholars' distinction between a tolerated and a richer level of faith.
“so to know it you have to compare you have to contrast you have to think well why can't that be true why can't Hinduism be true”
Mufti Abu Layth says God is not unreasonable and would not give people reason to discover Him and then command what clashes with reason, and that reason, which Muslim scholars once called hikmah, has been ceded to atheists and scientists.
“it doesn't make sense that Allah would give us reason tell us to use it to discover him and then tell us to obey Him with things which clash with reason”
Mufti Abu Layth says that arguments for the Quran's truth which rest on the book asserting its own truth, its uniqueness, its eloquence, its lack of mistakes or its verses about rain and fruit are no stronger than a spiderweb, and that revelation can only be known to be true through reason.
“if that's what you're building your faith on that is weaker than a spiderweb as Allah says in the Quran”
Mufti Abu Layth says he has certainty that Islam has stood the test of reason as well as of time, that Muslims owe it to Islam to measure it openly, and that the hadith of the grave in which the dead person says he merely repeated what people said is evidence that reason is required in faith.
“i tell you i have that much certainty this is me as a personal person might as a personal opinion and conviction in islam that it has stood not only the test of time but the test of reason”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Muslim aversion to reason grew out of the sectarian cold war with the Mu'tazila, when the mainstream reacted to the Mu'tazila's use of reason by disparaging reason itself and defending absurd narrations as a method of control.
“as a method of control for these people a whole genre of irrationality was recreated and re-engineered to kind of keep these people at bay”
Mufti Abu Layth says the backlash against the philosophy of the Golden Age and the institutionalisation of religion among the clergy produced a culture in which the idea that the deen need not make sense became a tool of control.
“this concept of well who said the Deen is supposed to make sense to you this culture is a powerful tool to control people”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that fearing reason will lead people out of Islam betrays a lack of real belief that Islam is true, and that doubt which leads to a more certain understanding is legitimate, as Ibrahim's question and the hadith about his doubt show.
“if I say to you oh by using reason you're gonna end up leaving Islam well that just translates as okay so by trying to uncover truths you think I'll find certain truths which show that Islam isn't true”
Mufti Abu Layth says the report attributed to Ali that the bottom of the khuff would deserve wiping if religion were by opinion is weak in its chain and absent from several versions, that Malik's Muwatta records wiping both top and bottom, and that rituals are practices rather than claims against reason.
“this hadith I don't personally even in that narration I don't accept it to be sorry there are huge problems in the chain”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Allah never breaks the laws He set in nature, so everything called a miracle in the Quran has an explanation within those laws even if not yet known, and that abandoning reason would make every religion's claims equally valid.
“Allah will never break the laws of the natural world so in my understanding everything you call a miracle in the Quran has an explanation”
Mufti Abu Layth holds, following Ibn al-Jawzi, that a hadith is accepted only if it does not contradict reason, the transmitted sources or an established principle of Islam, and that the companion who refused an order to jump into a fire shows reason rightly judging a religious command.
“at that time when he disobeyed him he didn't know that ruling he just reasoned that this what you're telling me to do clashes with reason doesn't make any sense”
Mufti Abu Layth says that the concept of ritual rather than its details must accord with reason, that the shared judgement of a healthy mind is the standard of reason, and that following the Maliki school does not make one a cult member, since Malik taught that everyone's words may be rejected except the Messenger's.
“the concept of ritual is what you make sense of as to the actual rituals it's fine”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the report of Aisha's age at marriage is untrue and presents the Prophet disrespectfully, since Arab culture of the time did not marry girls as young as six or seven, and that loyalty to the Prophet should outrank loyalty to al-Bukhari.
“you putting present in the Prophet sallallaahu I leave salam in such a disrespectful light and it is not true that people generally didn't in in the arab culture married girls that young they didn't”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that jinn or demonic possession, as popularly pictured, does not exist when examined against the Quran, the authentic Sunnah and reason, and that the first question to ask is what objective the jinn would have in possessing anyone.
“gene possession demonic possessions the way people pictured this understanding that we've defined does not actually exist”
Mufti Abu Layth says that the ulama were historically the only learned class and so were asked to explain worldly phenomena with the knowledge of their time, which is the backdrop against which the belief in possession took shape.
“the ulema are using the resources to come up with answers these are not necessarily religious questions these are just worldly human questions”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Quran calls people to reason rather than to belief because it says so, and that a claim such as possession, which no one would derive from the Quran without a cultural inheritance, must be tested against reason through the Quran.
“the Quran itself comes with this understanding that look you have to resort to reason”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Muslims apply reason to dismiss other religions' miracles and doctrines but switch it off for possession once a belief has been Islamised, relying instead on anecdotal experiences that only ever afflict believers.
“you'll never resort to reason but to discount and discredit other religions immediately the voice of reason is called up”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that using the jinn to explain anything unexplained is like a child's all-purpose conspiracy, an unfalsifiable non-propositional faith such as Basil Mitchell's partisan holds, which no evidence or reasoning can touch.
“if you've just got one version to answer everything then yes you can do that but it doesn't make it true”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that attributing whatever cannot yet be explained to the jinn is a 'jinn of the gaps' argument, as weak as the god of the gaps that atheists criticise, and that not knowing an answer does not mean it cannot be known.
“this is like the Djinn of the gaps like the moment we don't know anything it's the Djinn”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that when one side of a debate appeals to reason and the other defends what it calls irrational truths, the side of reason will generally prevail, so the topic favoured Hijab, whose biblical research he nonetheless credits as impressive.
“whenever you're debating something that way one side appeals to reason and the other doesn't the reason side will always make sense and prevail generally speaking as a rule of thumb”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Muslims must believe the Quran to be in line with the voice of reason, since accepting miracles that make no sense would leave no ground to object that three cannot equal one, and he says that some Muslims did hold anthropomorphic beliefs about God, which he does not share.
“I feel especially in this day and age that Muslims we do believe in the Quran to be in line with the voice of reason otherwise these arguments don't actually stand”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Prophet came to teach faith rather than creed, that the Muslim formal creed emerged two to three hundred years after him, and that the doctrine of divine attributes that are neither God nor other than God is irrational and not based in the Quran and Sunnah.
“I always make a distinction between our teeth and Iman the Creed and faith that the Prophet came to teach faith not to teach Creed because with Creed it's always institutionalized”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Muslims must be consistent in following the voice of reason, because if they say the laws of nature do not matter when it comes to miracles they lose any ground for saying that three cannot equal one, and that Muslims also need to raise their adab in debate.
“what we can't do is have irrational beliefs ourselves and then condemn other people for irrational beliefs like we must be consistent”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Prophet never taught a creed beyond a handful of beliefs, that the salaf up to Imam Malik never taught or wrote down dogma for over a hundred and fifty years, and that forcing faith and policing people's ideas is the antithesis of what Islam came with.
“this kind of policing people's ideas this is the antithesis of what Islam came with this this theme was born free people yet today they've locked it in Chains”
Mufti Abu Layth says that in his understanding music is not forbidden, since nothing in Islam is at once conclusive, sahih and explicit in prohibiting it, the Bukhari hadith speaks of entertainment rather than music, and the texts that name music are not authentic.
“the word doesn't actually say music it actually says entertainment but you seen that this the leave of interpretation going on and all the texts actually say music are not authentic”
Mufti Abu Layth says most people's judgement that music is haram comes from a preconceived ontology of religion, which treats entertainment and desire as opposed to religion, rather than from the texts, which serve only as confirmation bias.
“your backdrop is what actually guides you through religion believe it or not it's not actually the religion itself”
Mufti Abu Layth says celibacy was praised in the tradition despite a sahih hadith condemning it, because it fits people's picture of religion as suffering and self-denial, whereas music, which has no sahih hadith against it, is condemned.
“it ties in with that backdrop of suffering and indulgence anti desires and tedious and its anti Islamic but it doesn't matter because it ties in with this backdrop”
Mufti Abu Layth says that the belief of some Muslims that the intellect is bad is the dumbest thing anybody could say.
“it created a problem which we're still dealing with today that some Muslims believed think that maybe the intellect is bad which is the dumbest the dumbest thing anybody could say”
Mufti Abu Layth says the voice of reason is always paramount and that he gives it primacy, because through it one can understand that the deen of Islam holds true.
“and yes reason the voice of reason is always paramount and I do give primacy to it because through it we can understand that the deen of islam has validity that is to us it holds true”
Mufti Abu Layth says the Mu'tazila were an ancient sect that has not existed for something like six or seven hundred years.
“they don't really exist they haven't existed for something like six seven hundred years if not more they've been non-existent they were an extremist sect”
Mufti Abu Layth says God sticking to the rules He created is not a restriction on Him.
“first of all he's the one who created them it's not that he's being forced to stick by them he says this is my son now you're never going to see it change”
Mufti Abu Layth says reason has its limitations but is the best that human beings have for any intersubjective dialogue.
“everybody with any reason recognizes that reason two has its limitations but it is the best that we as human beings have for in any uh inter-subjective dialogue”
Mufti Abu Layth says the belief that God commanded Ibrahim to kill his son is absurd, sadistic and, upon true inspection, blasphemous, since the Quran never says God gave the command though it could have.
“this belief in and of itself upon true inspection is blasphemous but i understand the fact that most people just haven't questioned it”
Mufti Abu Layth says there can be no balanced version of a supernatural claim, since jinn possession is either real or not, and that if disobedience, missing prayer or riba invited possession then most of the globe would be possessed.
“because there is no balance to nonsensical it's either sensical or it's nonsensical”
Mufti Abu Layth says that if jinn could possess people or take any form, as Ibn Taymiyya held, nothing in Islam could be trusted and no one would be responsible for their crimes, and he notes that only Muslims who believe in possession seem to be afflicted by it.
“if you accept jin possession everything in islam becomes redundant this screen that you're watching now”
Mufti Abu Layth says it was true that al-Ghazali's sources on the philosophers had been ill-informed, because early translations mixed up Aristotle's and Plato's views.
“they've been ill informed and that was actually true because what happened in the early days when things were being translated”
Mufti Abu Layth says Ibn Rushd is more inclined towards reason than the other critical-minded scholars he was asked about, though all of them are critical-minded.
“I Rush is more inclined towards reason than the others the others are all of these are inclined to some reason”
Mufti Abu Layth says it is true that al-Ghazali's influence had a detrimental impact on the voice of reason, although he thinks it did so indirectly.
“hence i would say yes it is true that imam razali uh his influence had a detrimental impact on the voice of reason although i think it did so indirectly”
Mufti Abu Layth says what split the Mu'tazila off was nothing to do with reason, but doctrines such as a sinner no longer being a Muslim and God being duty-bound to reward good.
“therefore there has to be that god is duty bound to recompense and so these issues are what split them off it was nothing to do with reason nothing to do with oh they were rationalists”
Mufti Abu Layth says Sunnis started to say that the deen is not built on intellect only as a reaction, to get back at their opponents in debate, and that later generations inherited this narrative.
“sunnis tried to say oh but the deen isn't built on intellect and they started to pump this narrative just to get back at them it was all a reaction that's all it was and later subsequent generations just inherited”
Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims should apply to their own tradition the critical standards they apply to other faiths, noting that Sahih al-Bukhari rests on one transmitter whom no one vouched for for about 150 years.
“but then when it comes to islam we completely just put blinkers on our eyes”
Mufti Abu Layth says dogmatism will not disappear because it is built into institutionalised religion, and that his aim is not to end it but to keep the voice of reason alive so that people can choose.
“i don't feel dogmatism will go i don't feel it will unfortunately because religion with a capital r an institutionalized religion has dogmatism in its very bones”
Mufti Abu Layth says reason necessarily comes first because scripture can only be understood through human interpretation, and that hadith dogmatism took shape in the era of Ibn Taymiyya and revived under colonialism, when attacks on religion amid instability pushed people towards fundamentalism.
“all perception and sensation is based on the human interpreting it it's based on interpretation so whether you like it or not you are already interpreting something”
Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees fully with Ibn Rushd that the sharia is designed for ordinary people, who need structured and visible religion, while those gifted with deeper understanding can discover its deeper meanings.
“so what ibn arush had said is that and i totally agree with that he said that in this world not everybody is a philosopher”
Mufti Abu Layth says the ultimate certainty is God alone, and whatever we think is the answer is ultimately limited by our understanding.
“the ultimate certainty is just Allah we have to understand that whatever we think is an answer is ultimately our understanding of what we think is the answer”
How many of these answers cite each (guest speech left out). Cited means named as evidence or discussed, not necessarily accepted: open the answers to see which.
