Research › Dialogue and responses
27 answers in 14 recordings, 2018 to 2021. 21 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
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.
· Was the Prophet Muhammad poisoned, and did he die from it?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Prophet did not die of poisoning and that the report in which the Prophet says in his final illness that he feels the poison cutting his aorta is a fabricated story.
“Now first of all this is nonsense. Okay the prophet did not die of poisoning.”
2:31TranscriptCite 2018-09-17-S01corrected
· Does the Sana'a manuscript show that the Quran was changed?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Sana'a find does not show an evolving Quran: the manuscript dates to the first century like others, the Quran was the one text documented and taught everywhere from the start, and it was too widespread and too distinctive in style to corrupt, so fabrication targeted hadith instead.
“this finding does not show that this was an evolution in Pro in progress or the Quran was for example a working model that people were working on it and changing it”
12:02TranscriptCite 2019-03-01-S04corrected
· Does the Sana'a manuscript prove the Quran evolved over time?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Sana'a discrepancies cannot be a deliberate evolution of the Quran, because they change nothing of substance and no one would have risked his life for such petty alterations.
“to change it with these like petty little differences is meaningless so to me that doesn't hold up at all”
31:16TranscriptCite 2019-03-01-S10corrected
· Does the Sana'a manuscript support or undermine the Muslim account of the Quran's history?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Sana'a find confirms the traditional account of the Quran's history, a first-century text, companions who sometimes misread, and Uthman's standardisation of one reading, and so vindicates the transparency of the Muslim tradition.
“this actually reaffirms for us that the message that we've been passing generally down the generations has been accurate”
32:35TranscriptCite 2019-03-01-S11corrected
· Was the first qibla really Petra, as Dan Gibson claims?
Mufti Abu Layth says he is not convinced by Dan Gibson's thesis that the early qibla was Petra, since its statistical argument is a fallacy and Sunnis, Shia and Khawarij would never all have agreed on the Ka'bah, though he finds revisionist research compelling on some other matters and says Muslims should engage with it.
“I'm not convinced by his research although I give it to him I feel that he has done some amazing research”
0:00TranscriptCite 2019-07-19-S01corrected
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Quran is ambivalent towards those who leave Islam and prescribes no killing of apostates, and that the report 'whoever changes his religion, kill him' rests solely on Ikrima, a Khariji whom Imam Malik and companions distrusted.
“really the attitude of the Quran is one of ambivalence it doesn't really care although people act like oh my god kill the apostate kill the apostate that's all nonsense”
1:18TranscriptCite 2019-07-25-S01corrected
· How should Muslims respond to an ex-Muslim who criticises the Quran?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that people who are genuine in their search should be left to search wherever it takes them, and that Muslims should not attack an ex-Muslim critic as a person.
“if people are genuine in this search then let them let them search wherever that search takes them”
5:07TranscriptCite 2019-07-25-S02corrected
· Does 'those who have not menstruated' in Quran 65:4 refer to little girls?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that 'those who have not menstruated' in 65:4 refers to women whose cycles are absent through illness or irregularity, not to prepubescent girls, as Abu Hayyan, Ibn Ashur and other commentators read it.
“or does it mean those who don't have not had their cycle due to some kind of abnormality now this that's what this verse very clearly meant”
18:31TranscriptCite 2019-07-25-S06corrected
· Did classical scholars really say Quran 65:4 includes little girls?
Mufti Abu Layth concedes that commentators such as Ibn Kathir and al-Qurtubi wrote that 65:4 can include little girls, condemns this as a mistake, and holds that a commentator's reading does not make the Quran say it.
“scholars have said it does not mean that the Quran said it the Quran simply said those who do not have this who have not had this cycle”
22:53TranscriptCite 2019-07-25-S07corrected
· Does the word 'women' in Surah al-Talaq rule out children?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the word nisa with which the passage opens is never used of a little girl, any more than rijal is used of a boy, and that the passage's provision for pregnancy shows it concerns adult women.
“nobody refers you do not refer to a six-year-old girl as a woman or a seven-year-old girl or an eight-year-old girl”
24:47TranscriptCite 2019-07-25-S08corrected
· Can people be moral without religion?
Mufti Abu Layth says human beings knew killing was wrong without scripture, and the commandment came only to reinforce it.
“of course they knew that to kill was wrong the commandment simply came as a reinforcement”
21:37TranscriptCite 2019-08-04-S04corrected
· Should Muslims build bridges with ex-Muslims?
Mufti Abu Layth says he hopes Muslims can build bridges with ex-Muslims and anyone who has issues with Islam, since we are human beings first and foremost.
“I hope we can build bridges with X Muslims or anybody who has issues with Islam”
0:37TranscriptCite 2019-09-19b-S01corrected
· How should Muslims respond to ex-Muslims who hate God?
Mufti Abu Layth says that if someone hates God, Muslims need not attack or abuse them but can extend a hand of humanity and remain friends.
“I can extend a hand of humanity a bridge of compassion”
20:38TranscriptCite 2019-09-19b-S06corrected
· Was pre-Islamic Makkah really a significant city?
Mufti Abu Layth says the revisionist historians have a point that pre-Islamic Makkah was not a significant city or even a popular town, and that its later image was an innocent reconstruction by later Muslims rather than propaganda.
“to be fair I think they've got a point that I don't think Mecca was a significant City at all or even a popular town I think this is something that is recreated”
0:38TranscriptCite 2019-12-17-S01corrected
· Who was Qusayy ibn Kilab and where was he raised?
Mufti Abu Layth proposes that Petra shaped early Islamic phenomena through Qusayy ibn Kilab, the Prophet's great-grandfather, whom he believes was raised in Wadi al-Qura, a place he identifies with Petra.
“Petra has I feel being an actor if you like an active agent in the formation of certain Islamic phenomena”
5:39TranscriptCite 2019-12-17-S03corrected
· Why do early Islamic books call the Ka'bah 'the Shami Ka'bah'?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qusayy's reorganisation of Makkah and the Ka'bah's surroundings may reflect his upbringing in Petra, which is why early books call the Ka'bah 'the Shami Ka'bah', rather than because the Ka'bah was in Sham.
“maybe the way he fashioned the houses around the Kaaba the settlements the encirclement this may have been influenced by his upbringing in petra”
13:19TranscriptCite 2019-12-17-S04corrected
· Why did the earliest mosques face Petra instead of Makkah?
Mufti Abu Layth says the early mosque foundations that point to Petra were most likely Nabataean devotion sites aligned to Petra's constellation that Muslims inherited, so that Dan Gibson may be right about the foundations but for the wrong reasons, not because Petra was Makkah.
“I feel that they inherited the sites from the Nabataeans and so what's happened is the early foundations were maybe pointing towards Petra”
19:44TranscriptCite 2019-12-17-S06corrected
· Are there enemies of Islam today?
Mufti Abu Layth says that a person criticising Islam does not, to him, mean that the person hates Islam.
“if a person is an islam critic or they criticize islam that does not translate to me as they hate islam”
59:49TranscriptCite 2020-09-22-S11corrected
· Did Patricia Crone accept that the Prophet Muhammad existed?
Agreeing with Patricia Crone, Mufti Abu Layth holds that it is very clear the Prophet existed, because he is documented in sources from his final year or a couple of years after.
“because he is documented by people that are either the documentations are in the final year of the prophet's life or maybe a couple of years after but it's very clear that he existed”
1:17:53TranscriptCite 2020-09-22-S14corrected
· Is rejecting embarrassing hadith about the Prophet just whitewashing history?
Mufti Abu Layth says that, to be fair, one must ask whether one can think of any motive for people to have fabricated a hadith, which critics do not do or do not do fairly.
“But can I as a person think of any motive for people to have fabricated that hadith? And you see this is what they don't do or they don't do fairly.”
33:56TranscriptCite 2021-02-02b-S06corrected
· Who are the Ibadis and what does the Mufti think of them?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Ibadis help form a kind of triangulation method in Islam because they are very early.
“you see ibadis do help form a kind of triangulation method if we want in islam because they are very early”
2:31:10TranscriptCite 2021-02-16-S46corrected
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.
Cite a statement by its id: Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment id, with the date and the address of its page. Citation formats
