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.
36 answers in 30 recordings, 2014 to 2021. 31 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
2014answers checked positions2021
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 that, according to the majority of scholars though with some difference of opinion, it is permitted to hold the Quran and read from it during salah, so the surahs of the memorisation prayer may be read from the book.
“it is permissible for you according to the majority of the now there is some difference to hold the Quran during Salah it is permitted to kind of read from it”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the sound hadith on the beard reduce to three, each pairing the moustache with the beard and giving the reason of being different from non-Muslims, and that the command need not be read as obligatory, as other hadith show.
“now many people have interpreted this to mean that it is an obligatory command a mandatory command but we see quite differently from other Hadith”
A haircut with hair of unequal lengths, such as a short back and sides, is permissible and is not the qaza' the hadith forbids; shaving patches and leaving others is at most makruh rather than haram unless it is done to disfigure or to imitate a religious practice.
“having a haircut like 'short back and sides' or something like this which is very common this is in no way forbidden it is”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the dolls report does not show Aisha was a child, since 'play' applies to adults and the objects described read as figurines.
“the Hadith does not mean she was a child yes it does use the word play but play could be interpreted for adults as well”
Mufti Abu Layth says not a single hadith cited for possession is free of criticism, that the sound version of Uthman ibn Abi al-As's report in Sahih Muslim mentions no jinn, as al-Nawawi notes, and that a Prophet sent as a mercy would not have left a phenomenon affecting everyone untaught.
“he never transmits this he doesn't teach people about this and think think about it this is going to impact us all every day and he forgets to tell us”
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 holds that the principle that leaders deserve greater scrutiny is a modern Western ethic applied selectively by those who reject modern ethics elsewhere, and that the Prophet instructed overlooking the slips of people of standing.
“people of leadership must be held to greater accountability says who says who where did you I know yes this is a principle of modern 21st century Western ethics”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that harming the honour of a Muslim is graver than destroying the Kaaba, as the hadith he cites says, and that bullying, cyberbullying and maligning people's character are haram.
“recognize that bullying is haram cyberbullying is haram maligning people's character is haram destroying the honor of other muslims is haram stay away from all of this”
Mufti Abu Layth says the six-commodities hadith, taken as it stands, would make any purchase on credit impossible, and that the scholars by a kind of consensus exempted gold and silver from it while keeping the other four goods.
“Now the Hadith actually includes gold and silver too. Which would mean it's impossible impossible to buy anything on credit anything.”
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet's instruction to give glad tidings and make things easy is the pillar of his understanding of Islam, and that intimidating people into beliefs contradicts the Prophet's way and Imam Malik's.
“this hadith that I learned I must have been seventeen i memorize that hadith that became the backdrop and the kind of pillar upon which my understanding of Islam has been”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the hadith that Satan flows through the son of Adam like blood, read in its context with Safiyya, concerns human suspicion and insinuation, since the men addressed were not possessed, and that it does not support possession.
“they were just the facts suspicion that's what the Prophet was speaking about that look I'm not saying you were being suspicious but it is human to sometimes have insinuations”
His own understanding is that one follows the convention of one's society: where people do not shake hands one does not, following the general ulama, but where it is the convention one may act on the fatwa of the scholars who permit it, since, as many ulama say, no clear verse or hadith makes it haram, and Muslims should choose their battles wisely.
“my own understanding is look you go with your conventions okay so if you're in a convention where people don't do this you you don't do this”
Mufti Abu Layth says the report 'whoever changes his religion, kill him' clashes with the absolute verse of the Quran on freedom of belief and must be read in its full context of Ali burning people alive and Ibn Abbas objecting.
“first of all this narration apart from it clashing with the absolute verse of the Quran let's read the full narration”
Mufti Abu Layth says, repeating what he said in an earlier session, that marital rape is categorically haram and that this includes religious blackmail.
“I've said that marital rape is categorically Haram and that includes religious blackmail”
Mufti Abu Layth says the moon was not split and that the verse of the Quran on the moon splitting has nothing to do with that alleged event.
“I have explained that there is no the moon was not split okay this and then the verse of the Quran earth and has nothing to do with that alleged phenomenon”
Mufti Abu Layth says he personally prays out of gratitude and connection rather than fear of hell and that this is the best way to pray, that each person's journey is their own and others should not condemn them, and that someone struggling with prayer should not develop hatred for it.
“I don't personally pray out of this kind of fear of burning in hell and things like this I just pray out of a kind of sense of gratitude”
Mufti Abu Layth says there is no sin in sitting at a table where there is alcohol.
“there is no sin in sitting at a table with is alcohol. But this hadith uh if true is part of a series a systematized approach to distance people from alcohol”
Mufti Abu Layth says that the Tirmidhi report of Ibn Mas'ud's night of the jinn, if true, most likely describes a psychoactive experience connected with the nabidh he carried, and that the report praising the harmala seed, though not authentic, shows that such a narrative existed in early Muslim society.
“This if anything would have been a kind of most likely would have been a psychoactive experience uh that would have had and he explains that I had with me this particular drink.”
Mufti Abu Layth says the hadith refers to drinks that intoxicate in the amounts normally drunk, so even a small amount of such a drink is haram, while foods with trace alcohol that cannot intoxicate in normal consumption are not covered.
“that drink which much of intoxicates a small amount of it is equally haram but here when it says much of what does that mean that means what it much of in terms of what is casually drunk”
Mufti Abu Layth says that, depending on how the report is read, its statement that the figure was Jibril is the companion's interpretation rather than something the Prophet taught them.
“so this hadith is really the interpretation that he says that that was jibril and the he here was the companion now they assumed that it's not that the prophet taught them”
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet's use of Jesus's words 'when you took me' for himself, in a report in Bukhari, shows that he understood the verse to mean Jesus had died.
“according to bukhari as saying that this that jesus had died because he is saying that oh what about my companions”
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the verse 'I will give you death' and the dialogue of 5:116-118, in which Jesus says he does not know what his people did after he was taken, show that Jesus died and will not return, and that the Prophet's own use of the verse in a Bukhari report about his companions turning bad after him confirms this reading.
“this verse where allah says that i will give you death now note that this counts against the second coming because jesus has died”
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.
