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Belief and theology
517 segments in 99 recordings · 2015 to 2025 · 0 verified · 311 checked positions · belief
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 18 Oct 2025
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs the Prophet Muhammad the most beloved of creation and a mercy to the worlds?
The guest holds that God's sending of the messenger, not the Prophet himself, is the mercy, and that calling him the most beloved of creation is unprovable celebrity worship; Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet is a mercy for the worlds and that if some are more beloved than others one must be at the top.
machine5 min27:42on YouTube
Earlier answers · 516 · newest first
2025 · 5
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes 'we sent you only as a mercy' (21:107) describe the Prophet or the act of sending him?
Mufti Abu Layth says the primary Arabic reading of 21:107 is that the Prophet himself was sent as a mercy for the worlds, with the exclusive negation amplifying that, while the guest's reading that the sending is the mercy is a secondary understanding he may hold but not impose.
machine10 min 54 s32:42on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can the Quran be used to call the Prophet the best of creation?
The guest says calling the Prophet the best of creation is an unprovable inference contradicted by verses and reports favouring Abraham; Mufti Abu Layth says the guest rejects inference for that title while relying on inference to say what breaks the fast.
machine3 min 36 s1:47:07on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIf reason helps us understand the Quran, does the reasoning of earlier scholars matter too?
Both agree reason is essential to understanding revelation; Mufti Abu Layth adds that by the same logic the reasoning of the Prophet, the Companions and the scholars before us is a valuable reservoir, not his reason alone, and the guest demands the Prophet's own explanation.
machine2 min 56 s1:56:30on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIf most people love praise and are punished, how is God the most merciful?
The guest says most people are mushrikun according to the Quran and that God is merciful in giving them messengers and exits, so those who refuse to reason deserve punishment; guidance follows the attributes God has set, not chance.
machine3 min 14 s2:10:46on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Mufti Abu Layth bring up 3:188 against the Quran-only position?
Mufti Abu Layth cited 3:188 because its apparent reading is harsher than the Prophet's explanation, showing that the reasoning of those who came before is valuable; the guest says he asked for the Prophet's book of explanations and was pointed back to the Quran.
machine4 min 51 s2:14:00on YouTube
2024 · 1
28 Feb 2024Shorts
LatestA fate worse than death: each of us is a mirror for divine potential
Each person mirrors a divine potential given by Allah; do not let it go to waste and live to mourn the person you could have become.
machine58 s0:02on YouTube
2023 · 8
10 Mar 2023video
Can we ever be completely certain about religious answers?
Only God is certain; every answer we hold is limited by our own understanding and that of those we learned from, a humility Imam Malik modelled.
machine4 min 50 s57:27on YouTube
22 Feb 2023video
LatestShould scholars publicly condemn a scholar said to have joined in a libation ritual?
Mufti Abu Layth does not think people have to condemn the scholar; to Mufti, pouring some water at a protest, as the scholar says he did without knowing the ritual's history, is not a big deal.
machine8 min 47 s5:12on YouTube
22 Feb 2023video
Will gay people around us make Muslims gay?
Mufti Abu Layth says people being gay does not make others gay and the fear of it is an unnecessary insecurity; like Imam Malik on others' customs, their way of life is theirs.
machine3 min 51 s24:50on YouTube
22 Feb 2023video
LatestShould Sunnis preach to Shia Muslims about what they get wrong?
Mufti Abu Layth says no: it only leads to sectarian fighting. Answer people who come asking, but Sunni-Shia debating does no good.
machine2 min 34 s36:24on YouTube
13 Feb 2023video
LatestThe birth of orthodoxy: a nameless main body and the hadith project
Orthodoxy means belief deemed correct by those with power. For two centuries the main body of Muslims had no name and was marked out by involvement in hadith.
machine5 min 46 s0:00on YouTube
13 Feb 2023video
Apophatic definition: the early main body defined by what it was not
Early Muslims had no creed checklist: you belonged to the main body as long as you did not hold the positions of the known sects.
machine5 min 03 s5:46on YouTube
13 Feb 2023video
The created Quran controversy and the birth of a creedal checklist
In his research, orthodoxy began with the created-Quran controversy, which gave rise to the language of divine attributes and to growing creedal checklists.
machine8 min 21 s10:49on YouTube
13 Feb 2023video
Why orthodoxy took hold, and who wrote the checklist
Orthodoxy offered clarity, but its checklist was written by men from their own school and position, not by Allah and his Messenger.
machine3 min 59 s30:09on YouTube
2022 · 2
19 Aug 2022video
LatestWhich scholars accepted the satanic verses story and which rejected it?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Albani and Ibn Khuzayma rejected the story as a fabrication, while Ibn Taymiyya, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Ibn Hajar leaned towards giving it some basis.
machine7 min 50 s1:34:20on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
What does the Mufti think of Ibn Taymiyya and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab?
Mufti Abu Layth says Ibn Taymiyya's contribution is mainly to the Salafis and that Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's misplaced zeal did great harm, while stressing that all scholars are human and make mistakes.
machine5 min 14 s1:42:10on YouTube
2021 · 168
25 Oct 2021video
Will Allah judge someone who follows only the Quran by the Quran alone?
Mufti Abu Layth will not speak on who is saved: he finds it arrogant for a human to presume where anyone ends up, since Allah's mercy encompasses everything. We should concern ourselves with our own path.
machine4 min 30 s2:36on YouTube
18 May 2021video
Response to accusations over Palestine remarks and claims he is not Muslim
Mufti Abu Layth says he has always supported Palestine and only argued for safe passage for its people, that 'exile' was a slip of the tongue, and that those calling him a non-Muslim and invading his home are not following Islam.
machine7 min 38 s1:29on YouTube
27 Apr 2021video
Does today's Hanafi madhhab reflect Imam Abu Hanifa?
Not in spirit: Mufti Abu Layth calls later Hanafi rulings fossilised and pedantic, behind the sectarian attacks on Shaykh Aslam, and praises Shaykh Atabek as a fresh voice.
machine4 min 23 s0:00on YouTube
27 Apr 2021video
Can I pray while carrying my child?
Yes: the Hanafi rule that three consecutive movements break the prayer is made up, and the Prophet prayed carrying Umama; Mufti Abu Layth puts the attacks on Shaykh Aslam down to jealousy.
machine7 min 58 s4:23on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs the soul the same thing as consciousness?
The guest describes storytelling as a syncing of minds; Mufti Abu Layth says he feels consciousness is synonymous with the ruh and links people weakly at a distance.
machine3 min 14 s35:08on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhat does Lupe Fiasco think the soul is?
The guest says exposure to many faiths has left him still searching, and that he thinks of the soul as a name for many functions of the body, holding his 'I don't know' comfortably.
machine5 min 50 s36:27on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it normal for faith to keep changing over a lifetime?
Mufti Abu Layth says faith is a lifelong journey and iman an organic process, not a fixed mould to be fitted onto everyone.
machine1 min 18 s42:17on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestAre psychedelics like mushrooms and DMT haram?
Mufti Abu Layth says he has a video saying psychedelics are not haram; the guest says he has never drunk or used drugs and judges such substances by a medicinal line.
machine4 min 31 s58:24on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhat inspired the story of Lupe Fiasco's album The Cool?
Mufti Abu Layth describes a classical tale of a poet's journey through paradise; the guest explains the resurrection story behind his album The Cool and the slave-ship myth of Drogas Wave.
machine7 min 47 s1:17:52on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDo obscene or blasphemous thoughts during prayer ruin my salah?
Intrusive or blasphemous thoughts in prayer are not a reason to worry: noticing them is a sign of faith, as a hadith says. Mufti Abu Layth adds that jinn in the Quran means the unseen and possession stories are folklore.
machine7 min 40 s1:31:29on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is life just a dream in the mind of God?
The guest says life is real and material, the unseen is part of nature, and ordinary people do not need the supernatural.
machine3 min 15 s2:02:07on YouTube
19 Apr 2021video
Why do Mufti Abu Layth's critics defend Bukhari reports that demean the Prophet?
Critics who defend Bukhari reports Mufti Abu Layth regards as insulting to the Prophet, such as marrying a child, forcing Safiyya, forgetting the Quran or being made impotent by magic, cannot claim to love the Prophet. Mariya al-Qibtiyya was a wife, not a concubine, and the critics' real concern is a fantasy caliphate and power.
machine8 min 01 s0:04on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Should my faith make me happy?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth says faith should make you happy, not hateful or bitter, because Islam is meant to complement daily life.
machine2 min 38 s29:29on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Should Muslims judge their own sources by the standards they apply to other religions?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims should hold their own sources to the standard they use for others, giving the example of Bukhari resting on one unvouched-for transmitter.
machine2 min 38 s33:26on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the stories in the Quran true but not historical, like the story of Adam?
Mufti Abu Layth says Adam was the father of humans with modern cognition, and that the tree, which the Quran never calls a fruit or apple, may have been a psychedelic plant that sparked the cognitive revolution.
machine2 min 36 s47:50on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do I need a religious authority to own my faith?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says Islam has no papacy, the deen belongs to everyone equally, and no one can throw you out of it.
machine1 min 19 s1:06:16on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs God someone I should mainly be afraid of?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says seeing God as an angry disciplinarian is a distortion, and that Allah is the Most Merciful who invites people to reflect.
machine2 min 38 s1:07:35on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Mufti Abu Layth against Salafis?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says he has no problem with anyone being Salafi; his objection is to cult-like dogmatism in any group.
machine4 min 14 s1:18:09on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why is Salafi content so dominant online?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Najdi dawah is a small puritan movement kept alive by oil money, which dominates Islamic content online only because it invested early in Q&A websites.
machine3 min 58 s1:28:55on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhere are the answers to the questions on the Jesus debate?
Mufti Abu Layth says most of the Jesus debate questions are answered in his long reply, and that the shaykh he answered has substance but is torn between his views and his following.
machine2 min 37 s1:39:28on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Will religious dogmatism ever disappear?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says dogmatism is built into institutional religion and will survive, so his aim is to keep the voice of reason alive as a choice.
machine1 min 19 s1:51:19on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
When should reason take priority over religious texts?
Reason always comes first, Mufti Abu Layth says, because every reading of scripture is already an interpretation; hadith dogmatism grew from Ibn Taymiyya's era and revived under colonialism.
machine9 min 07 s2:09:48on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can I pray for a non-Muslim who has died?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims may pray for a non-Muslim like DMX who touched many lives, since no one has a monopoly on salvation, and that music is not haram.
machine5 min 15 s2:18:55on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestCan the soul travel into the spiritual world through meditation or dhikr?
Mufti Abu Layth says such practices may work for the dedicated, and that the soul is not inside the body but a non-local consciousness the brain connects to, like a phone picking up a signal.
machine9 min 10 s2:24:10on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What did Ibn Rushd mean by the 'double truth' of religion and philosophy?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is not 'double truth', but he agrees fully with Ibn Rushd that the sharia is built for ordinary people while the gifted can find its deeper meanings.
machine6 min 31 s2:35:57on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow can I be sure my reason is not wrong?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Ghazali answered his doubt by relying on God; today, he says, the very existence of a consciousness that can doubt is itself the sign of God.
machine5 min 13 s2:52:58on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the devils really chained up during Ramadan?
No verse says so; Mufti Abu Layth reads the hadith on chained devils as meaning that good deeds become easier in Ramadan's shared spirit.
machine1 min 20 s2:58:11on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the pursuit of knowledge a deeper drive than sex?
Yes for the conscious mind, Mufti Abu Layth says, which is driven by curiosity; and the fact that being is intelligible, as DNA shows, points to a creator.
machine2 min 37 s2:59:31on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it haram to believe the universe will never end?
It is not haram: creation, including the afterlife, once brought into being remains forever in some form while still being other than God.
machine1 min 24 s1:34:16on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How can I nourish my soul this Ramadan?
To deepen the bond with God, read even a little Quran daily, make personal dua and give charity; learning, poetry, art and meaningful music can also strengthen a person inwardly, not only more voluntary prayer.
machine7 min 29 s2:03:56on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Allah love everybody?
Allah loves His creation and detests harmful actions, not creatures. Pork being forbidden, most likely for hygiene, does not mean God hates pigs.
machine2 min 40 s2:10:23on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does Yasir Qadhi argue about Malikis and the return of Jesus?
Yasir Qadhi argues in the clip that the return of Jesus is established by mutawatir hadith and affirmed by the great Maliki scholars, so a Maliki cannot deny it. Mufti Abu Layth sets out the points he will answer.
machine4 min 20 s2:13:03on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Imam Malik believe Jesus will return?
There is a statement from Imam Malik that Jesus died, and Malik never taught the second coming in his fatwas or the Muwatta, so it is no huge claim that he did not hold it. Transmitting a report is not endorsing it.
machine7 min 42 s2:17:23on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the Muwatta contain hadith that Imam Malik did not follow?
Malik included in the Muwatta reports he did not practise, and the only report about Jesus there shows him telling a pig to pass in peace. Mufti Abu Layth reads this as a sign Malik rejected the reports that Jesus will return to kill pigs.
machine5 min 49 s2:25:05on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDid the Prophet really spy on a boy he thought was the Dajjal?
The Ibn Sayyad and Dajjal reports are absurd and insult the Prophet's dignity, and their contradictory accounts of who and where the Dajjal is show they are not revelation.
machine12 min 36 s2:30:54on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhere does the belief in the Mahdi come from?
The Mahdi belief is disrespectful to the Prophet, who was the rightly guided saviour, and entered Sunni Islam from early Shia political movements; the Mahdi hadith describe figures of that time.
machine8 min2:43:30on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the signs of the Hour part of Islamic creed?
One can be a Maliki and doubt these reports: Ibn Ashur, Shaykh al-Islam of the Malikis, classed the signs of the Hour as information rather than creed, and Imam Ahmad said the malahim reports have no foundation.
machine7 min 06 s2:51:30on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does Mufti Abu Layth say it is not a huge claim that Imam Malik denied the second coming?
Malik's record and Ibn Ashur's standing show a Maliki can deny the second coming, and the Dajjal reports insult the Prophet. He invites Qadhi to a dialogue on MindTrap.
machine8 min 12 s2:58:36on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
A critic's reaction video: the Wahhabi jibe and the setup
Mufti Abu Layth introduces a critic's reaction video that he says distorts his views, and trades jokes about the label Wahhabi.
machine4 min 08 s3:06:48on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Abraham really cut up birds that came back to life?
In the verse of Abraham and the birds he reads a symbol: birds nurtured by Abraham come to him from afar, a sign of the soul's affinity to God, rather than birds cut up and revived.
machine7 min 25 s3:19:16on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the parting of the sea have a natural explanation?
God acts through the laws of nature, so the parting of the sea can have a natural explanation such as a strong wind, and Moses exposed the magicians' tricks rather than outdoing them with magic.
machine6 min 23 s3:26:41on YouTube
16 Mar 2021video
LatestWho are the Ibadis and what do you think of Ibadism?
The Ibadis are an early, less extreme offshoot of the Khawarij who survive today in Oman and, as a small minority, became known for coexistence. Their independence from Sunnis and Shia helps corroborate early history, such as the place of Makkah.
machine6 min 16 s0:02on YouTube
15 Mar 2021video
Is Mufti Abu Layth a Mu'tazili?
Mufti Abu Layth is not a Mu'tazili because he is Sunni. The Mu'tazila were an early faction defined by their view of sinners, and calling them 'super rationalists' is later Sunni propaganda.
machine2 min 23 s0:01on YouTube
15 Mar 2021video
Does using reason in Islam make someone a Mu'tazili?
The Mu'tazila were defined by doctrines about sin and God's obligations, not by reason; the Sunni distrust of reason was a later reaction to losing debates. Calling someone Mu'tazili for using reason is a tactic to avoid debate.
machine7 min 07 s6:58on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Opening: Qadhi's post on the drama of refutations and tonight's plan
Yasir Qadhi has complained about refutations; Mufti Abu Layth says ideas, not people, are being refuted and that tonight's session will reply to Qadhi's video on the second coming of Jesus.
machine2 min 43 s0:03on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Which Quranic verses does Yasir Qadhi say point to the return of Jesus?
Qadhi's clip cites three or four Quranic phrases, Jesus speaking in maturity, the People of the Book believing before his death, and Jesus as a sign of the Hour, and concedes they only strongly suggest a return. Mufti Abu Layth interjects that the sign of the Hour would then have come two thousand years ago.
machine7 min 48 s2:46on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
What does Yasir Qadhi claim about the hadith on Jesus's return being mutawatir?
Qadhi's clip claims the hadith of the return are too numerous to discount, narrated from about ten companions, held to be mutawatir and found in dozens of theological works, including those of the Maliki school's leading figures. Mufti Abu Layth responds with sarcasm and says the reply is still to come.
machine5 min 16 s10:34on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
LatestWho does Yasir Qadhi say first denied the return of Jesus, and what is the Ahmadiyya connection?
Qadhi's clip claims ijma on the return, names Muhammad Abduh as the first to deny it and links deniers to the Ahmadiyya. Mufti Abu Layth calls the association ironic, since that movement is itself messianic, and says Qadhi's own evolution theory comes from Abduh.
machine6 min 35 s15:50on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Do those who deny Jesus's return reject the unseen, as Yasir Qadhi claims?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects Qadhi's charge that deniers of the return refuse the unseen: belief itself concerns the unseen God, and Mufti is preoccupied with consciousness, which science cannot explain and which he understands to be non-local. Qadhi's clip names Mufti among the heretics.
machine3 min 53 s22:25on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
What does Yasir Qadhi say about the claim that the return of Jesus came from Judeo-Christian sources?
Qadhi's clip calls the claim that the return of Jesus entered Islam from Judeo-Christian sources through Wahb, Ka'b or al-Zuhri a preposterous charge without evidence that would mean the faith was corrupted and the ummah misguided for fourteen centuries. Mufti Abu Layth asks listeners to remember these words.
machine2 min 34 s30:17on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
How does Yasir Qadhi answer the objection that Jesus killing pigs and refusing jizya makes no sense?
Qadhi's clip concedes that one early authority held Jesus died a natural death, and answers the objection that the return reports are irrational, Jesus killing pigs and refusing jizya, with 'Allah said so' and the claim that there will be no middle category between Islam and the Dajjal.
machine2 min 39 s32:51on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Was Yasir Qadhi's video on the return of Jesus an academic discussion?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qadhi's video, announced as academic, ended by fabricating a modernist-school narrative and declaring deniers heretics guilty of bid'ah, which he calls a preachy khutbah rather than academic discussion.
machine2 min 37 s35:30on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
What did Yasir Qadhi himself say about problematic signs of the Hour such as Gog and Magog?
Mufti Abu Layth plays Qadhi's earlier talk calling Gog and Magog the most problematic sign of the Hour and a cause of people leaving Islam. He accuses Qadhi of half truths, such as omitting that the Maliki authorities held the Jesus reports unestablished, and says a Jesus who descends from the sky to chase pigs is a reasonable thing to question.
machine5 min 17 s38:07on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Does the Muslim account of the Mahdi, Jesus and Gog and Magog parallel Jewish messianic literature?
Qadhi's own clip lays out the Midrash's two messiahs, Gog and Magog and judgement, notes the parallel with the Muslim Mahdi, Messiah and Gog and Magog, and suggests both traditions simply had it. Mufti Abu Layth responds with sarcasm and notes Qadhi's admission that Muslim books contain bizarre material.
machine3 min 55 s43:24on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Did Yasir Qadhi himself say a hadith came into Islam from Jewish sources through Abu Hurayra?
Qadhi's clip endorses Ibn Kathir's view that the Gog and Magog report is defective and came from Israelite material through Abu Hurayra and Ka'b al-Ahbar. Mufti Abu Layth calls this hypocrisy, since Qadhi called the same claim about the Jesus reports preposterous.
machine2 min 37 s47:19on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
What is Yasir Qadhi's zombie theory about Gog and Magog?
Qadhi's clip calls a hidden tribe of billions ludicrous and floats, through a friend, the idea that Gog and Magog could be zombie-like humans. Mufti Abu Layth responds with jokes and introduces Qadhi's answer to the Google Earth objection.
machine5 min 23 s49:56on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Is Yasir Qadhi consistent about whether Gog and Magog could be hidden underground?
In one clip Qadhi says it is not impossible, since Allah is all-powerful and Ibn Taymiyya's rule allows what astounds the mind, that thousands live underground; in another he says he cannot believe a tribe has been trapped for four thousand years. Mufti Abu Layth asks where the consistency is.
machine2 min 40 s55:19on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Does Yasir Qadhi hold that even positions in aqidah lie within a spectrum of opinion?
In the clip Qadhi says that even in aqidah positions lie within a spectrum, that absorbing one's teachers' view does not make it true, and that no scholar's word is evidence in itself. Mufti Abu Layth says this sits ill with Qadhi declaring him a heretic for departing from the majority on the return of Jesus.
machine3 min 54 s1:05:54on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Is there really ijma that Jesus will return, and did Muhammad Abduh invent the denial?
Mufti Abu Layth says none of Qadhi's claims hold: not one of the hundred narrations is sound, Ibn Hazm recorded Muslim disagreement on the return nine centuries ago, major creed works omit it, and the Maliki authorities Qadhi cites held the reports not to be mutawatir. He announces a reply series, Disclosure with a big D.
machine5 min 13 s1:09:48on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Is separating hadith from the Sunnah a Hanafi and Maliki principle, and what does Mufti Abu Layth say about Salafi creed?
Distinguishing hadith from the Sunnah is the usul of the Hanafi and Maliki schools, not Abduh's invention, and Qadhi applies to Gog and Magog the very reasoning he condemns in others. Mufti Abu Layth adds that Salafi kalam rests on fabricated chains, such as companions debating whether the Quran is created, a debate that arose only around 190 to 210 AH.
machine5 min 12 s1:15:01on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Does 'he will speak to people in maturity' or 'before his death' prove that Jesus will return?
The verse about Jesus speaking in the cradle and in maturity concerns those he addresses, children and grown men, and the first to read it as a return was al-Husayn ibn al-Fadl, who died in 282 AH and transmitted strange reports. 'Before his death' was recited by Ubayy and Ibn Abbas as 'before their death' and read by commentators as referring to Jesus, the Prophet, the truth or Allah.
machine5 min 14 s1:20:13on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Which Quranic verses count against Jesus returning?
Mufti Abu Layth reads 43:61 as the Quran being knowledge of the Hour, as Hasan and others said, and cites 5:75, 21:34 and 43:59 against a return: Jesus ate food and was subject to natural laws, no human before the Prophet was given eternal life, and Jesus is called an example for the children of Israel alone.
machine5 min 14 s1:25:27on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
LatestDoes the Quran say Jesus died, and how did the Prophet understand the verse 'when you took me'?
The verse 'I will give you death' and Jesus's words in 5:117 that he does not know what his people did after he was taken show, in Mufti Abu Layth's reading, that Jesus died; the Prophet himself, in a Bukhari report, applies the same verse to his own absence from his companions, confirming the reading.
machine5 min 15 s1:30:41on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Why does Mufti Abu Layth say the Bukhari chain for Jesus's descent is unreliable?
The first Bukhari chain leaves two narrators' names ambiguous, a practice al-Dhahabi and Ibn Hajar record of al-Bukhari, and passes through al-Zuhri, whom the critics describe as inserting his own words into reports and making mursal reports reach the Prophet.
machine9 min 18 s1:35:56on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
What problems does Mufti Abu Layth find in the Sahih Muslim chains for Jesus's return?
The second Bukhari chain passes through Qutayba, who once concealed a known forger in a chain, and the Sahih Muslim chains pass through narrators faulted for lax or inaccurate transmission from al-Zuhri, notably Yunus ibn Yazid, with al-Zuhri himself recurring in each.
machine5 min 16 s1:45:14on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Who are the problematic narrators in the Sahih Muslim reports on Jesus's return?
The Sahih Muslim chains include a narrator who suffered memory loss, a narrator who cannot be identified and could not have met Abu Hurayra, a major mudallis whose reports some critics discarded as fabrications, and Abu al-Zubayr, whom Abu Hatim did not consider reliable.
machine6 min 32 s1:50:30on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Is there a single hadith on Jesus's return with an unproblematic chain?
Every chain Mufti Abu Layth examined for the strongest reports in Bukhari and Muslim contains a criticised narrator, so Qadhi's claim that they leave no doubt fails; accepting a report because al-Bukhari included it, while ignoring critics who were his equals or seniors, is arbitrary.
machine5 min 13 s1:57:02on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Is the hadith of Aisha about Jesus and the Dajjal reliable?
The hadith of Aisha on Jesus's return rests on a lone transmitter, an undervalued narrator who dictated 41,000 reports from memory in Isbahan with a thousand errors, and whose version alone has the Dajjal emerging from the Jews of Isbahan, which Mufti Abu Layth finds suspicious.
machine5 min 09 s2:02:15on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Ibn Mas'ud hadith on the end of time and Jesus's return?
The Ibn Mas'ud report has unknown narrators, opens by noting the Christians' claim that Jesus will return, and ends with life regrowing from a seminal fluid sent from beneath the Throne, a detail Mufti Abu Layth calls preposterous and uses to argue that such reports can be questioned.
machine3 min 58 s2:07:24on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Who was the blind narrator of the return hadith who relied on his slave girl?
One transmitter of the return reports went blind, lost his memory and relied on his slave girl to check what he doubted; Mufti Abu Layth uses the case, with extended mockery, to argue that these hadith can be questioned.
machine2 min 36 s2:11:22on YouTube
14 Mar 2021video
Can the hadith on Jesus's return be questioned, and how many of them depend on Abu Hurayra?
Reports that go against reason can be questioned, and not one unquestionable hadith establishes the return: eighty percent of them come through Abu Hurayra alone, about half through one man, and the other companions cited are obscure. Mufti Abu Layth promises a continuing series, Disclosure with a big D.
machine3 min 48 s2:13:58on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can the revelation of the Quran be explained without the supernatural?
The words of revelation manifested in the Prophet's mind rather than being composed by him; whether that counts as supernatural depends on the definition, and trance experiences are only an approximation.
machine3 min 09 s44:10on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the great love Muslims have for the Prophet a kind of prophet worship?
Muslims' love for the Prophet is not prophet worship: people need a human figure to love, and for Muslims it is the Prophet, though praying to him is wrong. He strongly disagrees with the shaykh and calls it an unnecessary battle.
machine8 min 56 s48:28on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has Islam become a religion about Muhammad rather than the religion he brought?
No: there is a deep human need for a human archetype, not someone to pray to, and for Muslims that is the Prophet. He adds that his own life changed in the Prophet's mosque.
machine4 min 21 s55:37on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Qadhi's post on the 'drama of refutations', and tonight's reply
Mufti Abu Layth says Yasir Qadhi, who complained of the drama of refutations, cannot change the rules after his clips on the second coming of Jesus, and introduces his reply.
machine2 min 38 s1:03:51on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Which Quranic verses does Yasir Qadhi say point to Jesus coming back?
In the clip Qadhi says three verses strongly suggest Jesus's return; Mufti Abu Layth mocks the readings and says the return is not in the Quran.
machine7 min 27 s1:06:29on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the hadith about Jesus's return mutawatir, as Yasir Qadhi claims?
In the clip Qadhi says the hadith on Jesus's return are mutawatir, found in dozens of tafsir and creed works and held by the Maliki authorities; Mufti Abu Layth answers with sarcasm.
machine5 min 44 s1:13:56on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Was Muhammad Abduh the first Muslim to deny the return of Jesus?
In the clip Qadhi claims ijma on the return, names Muhammad Abduh as the first to deny it and links deniers to the Ahmadiyya; Mufti Abu Layth calls the link ironic, since the Ahmadiyya is built on a messianic claim.
machine6 min 28 s1:19:40on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do people who deny Jesus's return reject the unseen?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects Qadhi's charge that deniers of the return reject the unseen: belief itself is in the unseen God, and he is himself preoccupied with consciousness, which science cannot explain.
machine3 min 07 s1:26:08on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does Yasir Qadhi say about the return of Jesus coming from Jewish and Christian sources?
In the clip Qadhi calls the claim that the return came from Judeo-Christian sources baseless and says it would destroy Islamic epistemology; Mufti Abu Layth marks his words for later.
machine2 min 43 s1:33:47on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How does Yasir Qadhi answer the objection that Jesus killing pigs makes no sense?
In the clip Qadhi admits one early authority held that Jesus died, and answers objections to Jesus killing pigs and refusing the jizya with 'Allah said so'.
machine2 min 36 s1:36:30on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Was Yasir Qadhi's lecture on Jesus's return really academic?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qadhi's lecture, billed as academic, ended by branding deniers of the return innovators and heretics, making it a preachy Friday sermon rather than an academic discussion.
machine3 min1:39:06on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Yasir Qadhi giving the whole picture on the Maliki scholars and Jesus's return?
Using Qadhi's own talk on Gog and Magog, Mufti Abu Layth says Qadhi tells half truths, citing the Maliki authorities without their view that the hadith on Jesus are not conclusively established.
machine4 min 30 s1:42:06on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Muslim beliefs about the Mahdi, Jesus and Gog and Magog mirror Jewish messianic texts?
In the clip Qadhi sets out the Jewish belief in a minor and a major messiah alongside Gog and Magog, mirroring Muslim end-time beliefs; Mufti Abu Layth mocks his 'what a coincidence'.
machine3 min 50 s1:46:36on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Yasir Qadhi himself say a hadith came into Islam from Jewish lore?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qadhi is inconsistent: he calls Israelite origins for the return preposterous, yet with Ibn Kathir firmly believes the Gog and Magog report came from Israelite lore through Abu Hurayra's circle.
machine3 min 03 s1:50:26on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What is Yasir Qadhi's zombie theory of Gog and Magog?
In the clip Qadhi rejects a hidden tribe of Gog and Magog as irrational and floats a zombie theory instead, which Mufti Abu Layth mocks.
machine4 min 07 s1:53:29on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has Yasir Qadhi been consistent about whether Gog and Magog could be hidden underground?
Mufti Abu Layth sets an older Qadhi clip defending the Gog and Magog hadith as 'not impossible' against his later statement that he cannot believe it.
machine4 min 13 s1:57:36on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can positions in aqidah fall within a range of scholarly opinion?
Mufti Abu Layth shows Qadhi teaching that even aqidah positions lie on a spectrum and that no scholar's word is evidence in itself, while calling Mufti a heretic for departing from the majority.
machine3 min 38 s2:09:14on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is there really scholarly consensus that Jesus will return?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects Qadhi's claims one by one: the Quran does not suggest a return, no narration is sound, Ibn Hazm recorded disagreement on it, and the Maliki authorities did not hold the reports to be mutawatir.
machine5 min 21 s2:12:52on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is separating hadith from the Sunnah a Hanafi and Maliki principle?
The hadith-Sunnah distinction is Hanafi and Maliki usul, not Abduh's invention; Mufti Abu Layth lists Qadhi's inconsistencies and says Salafi kalam rests on fabricated chains.
machine5 min 03 s2:18:13on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the verse about Jesus speaking 'in maturity' mean he will come back?
Neither verse proves a return: 'in the cradle and in maturity' refers to the people Jesus addresses, the return reading began with a late transmitter of strange reports, and 'before his death' has several readings.
machine4 min 53 s2:23:16on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Which verses of the Quran count against Jesus coming back?
43:61 refers to the Quran as knowledge of the Hour, not to Jesus; 5:75, 21:34 and 43:59, which Qadhi does not mention, count against a return.
machine5 min 50 s2:28:09on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran say that Jesus died?
'I will give you death' and Jesus's words at the Judgement show that he died, and the Prophet applied those words to himself in a Bukhari report, which settles the reading.
machine4 min 56 s2:33:59on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the hadith in Bukhari about Jesus coming down reliable?
The first Bukhari chain is doubtful: al-Bukhari left two narrators unnamed, which he is known to have done deliberately, and the chain runs through al-Zuhri, who was known to insert his own words into hadith.
machine9 min 33 s2:38:55on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What is wrong with the other Bukhari and Muslim chains on Jesus's return?
The second Bukhari chain passes through Qutayba, who once concealed a forger, and al-Zuhri; the Sahih Muslim chains include Harmala, Yunus ibn Yazid and others the critics faulted.
machine5 min 42 s2:48:28on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the Sahih Muslim reports about Jesus's return reliable?
Further Sahih Muslim chains contain a narrator with memory loss, an unidentifiable narrator who could not have met Abu Hurayra, Ibn Jurayj, whom he calls a major mudallis, and Abu al-Zubayr.
machine6 min 14 s2:54:10on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is there a single hadith on Jesus's return with a flawless chain?
Every chain he examined among the strongest Bukhari and Muslim reports, including that of al-Nawwas ibn Sam'an, has a criticised narrator, so Qadhi's 'no doubt' fails; preferring al-Bukhari over equal critics is arbitrary.
machine5 min 49 s3:00:24on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the hadith of Aisha about Jesus and the Dajjal reliable?
The Aisha report rests on one transmitter who dictated tens of thousands of hadith from memory in Isbahan, and only his version has the Dajjal emerge from the Jews of Isbahan, which Mufti Abu Layth finds suspicious.
machine4 min 29 s3:06:13on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Ibn Mas'ud hadith about the end of time say, and is it reliable?
The Ibn Mas'ud report has unknown narrators, opens by citing the Christians' claim that Jesus will return, and ends with life regrowing from a fluid sent from beneath the Throne, which Mufti Abu Layth calls preposterous.
machine4 min 05 s3:10:42on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Who was the blind narrator of the return hadith who relied on his slave girl?
One transmitter of the return reports went blind, lost his memory and relied on his slave girl to check his hadith, which Mufti Abu Layth says shows the state of some of these narrators.
machine3 min 02 s3:14:47on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can the hadith about Jesus's return be questioned?
No report on the return is beyond question: about eighty percent come through Abu Hurayra and about half through one narrator, none from Abu Bakr, Umar or Ali; the series will continue.
machine3 min 41 s3:17:49on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the hadith about a woman breastfeeding the adult Salim authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth calls the report of the adult Salim being suckled fabricated and mocks al-Albani's fatwa permitting it directly, welcoming Mohammed Hijab's attack on it as a sign he is outgrowing Salafism.
machine6 min3:23:56on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Mohammed Hijab breaking away from the Salafis?
Mufti Abu Layth thinks Hijab's point against the fatwa is fair, though his language was crude and not Mufti's style, and welcomes what he sees as Hijab outgrowing Salafism.
machine6 min 20 s3:27:30on YouTube
22 Feb 2021video
Abdul Rahman Hassan's clip: the first Khariji, protest, and never criticising rulers
Mufti Abu Layth plays and mocks a clip in which Abdul Rahman Hassan presents protest against rulers as the mentality of the first Khariji, reading it as a defence of the Saudi rulers.
machine5 min 28 s0:02on YouTube
22 Feb 2021video
An invitation to MindTrap on aqidah and Bukhari, and an open challenge to Salafi imams
Mufti Abu Layth invites Abdul Rahman Hassan, and any Salafi imam, to discuss aqidah or Bukhari on MindTrap, challenging them to prove the Salafi creed from the Quran and Sunnah alone.
machine3 min 22 s10:01on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the companions actually see the angel Jibril?
Mufti Abu Layth says the report that it was Jibril may be the companion's interpretation, not the Prophet's words; repeated 'he said' in Arabic narration makes the speaker unclear.
machine2 min 26 s40:34on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the devil a real creature or a symbol of bad impulses?
Mufti Abu Layth presents two readings of Shaytan, a literal creature or a personification of negative impulses, and refers viewers to his detailed video.
machine2 min 38 s42:20on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why isn't the Mufti a Mu'tazili?
Mufti Abu Layth says he is simply Sunni; sects are defined by core doctrines, the Shia by the sacred bloodline's right to rule, and mut'ah was pinned on them as propaganda.
machine6 min 48 s44:58on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Were the Mu'tazila really defined by their use of reason?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Mu'tazila were defined by doctrines like a sinner leaving Islam and God being duty-bound, not by reason; the Sunni rejection of reason came later as a reaction.
machine7 min 02 s51:46on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Ash'aris believe the Quran is created?
Mufti Abu Layth says Ash'ari texts do teach that the Arabic Quran is created, but use the word muhdath instead of makhluq because of the stigma; many Ash'aris today do not know this.
machine2 min 34 s59:57on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Imam Ahmad really refuse to say the Quran is created?
Mufti Abu Layth says later Hanbalis made Imam Ahmad a hero of the Mihna, though he likely said the Quran was created to save himself; Ash'ari books also call the worded Quran created.
machine8 min 12 s1:02:31on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran say Jesus was raised up alive?
Mufti Abu Layth refers viewers to his detailed videos and says the Quran does not say how Jesus died, which does not mean he did not die, just as it is silent on Moses' death.
machine1 min 16 s1:10:43on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is following the Sunnah like believing in the Trinity?
No: following the Sunnah is of course not akin to the Trinity.
machine1 min 08 s1:16:17on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the Quran focus so much on the Israelites?
Most peoples had prophets, he says; the Israelites are highlighted because in the Prophet's Arabia they were seen as the scholars of the people of scripture.
machine1 min 46 s1:21:32on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can atheism explain consciousness?
Mufti Abu Layth says atheists have strong points, but their case collapses at consciousness and quantum physics; atheism only works against Newtonian, institutional religion.
machine4 min 28 s1:42:23on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did all prophets after Abraham come from his family?
No: the Quran nowhere limits prophets to Abraham's line, he says; the Israelites' favour is relative, and other peoples were favoured differently.
machine1 min 52 s1:46:51on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet say he would kill the first Khariji's descendants?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet never said 'I will kill his lineage'; in the Bukhari report he stopped Umar from killing the man, so the clip misrepresents the Prophet to defend rulers.
machine10 min 37 s2:13:51on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Mufti think of the Naqshbandi Sufi order?
Mufti Abu Layth says many Sufi orders have become institutionalised and dogmatic, the very thing mysticism set out to defy.
machine1 min 17 s2:23:08on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Who are the Ibadis and what does the Mufti think of them?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Ibadis, an early and now peaceful offshoot of the Khawarij based in Oman, give a third tradition by which to cross-check claims, such as the Petra thesis.
machine6 min 22 s2:31:10on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
The preacher on DMT: 'no proof of the unseen', and tahajjud instead
Mufti Abu Layth ridicules the preacher's claim that there is no scientific proof DMT users reach the unseen, asking what such proof could even look like.
machine6 min2:59:48on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are DMT and magic mushrooms haram?
DMT and psilocybin are not haram, he says, though they raise legal issues; brain studies give abundant evidence of their effect on consciousness.
machine2 min 36 s3:08:23on YouTube
14 Feb 2021video
Do Muslims have to believe that Jesus will come back?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects the hadith of Jesus returning as a judge who offers Islam or the sword, saying it came from Christian belief and clashes with the Quran's no compulsion in religion.
machine8 min 12 s0:01on YouTube
14 Feb 2021video
Can I blindly follow scholars in matters of belief?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says blind following in belief is forbidden by scholarly consensus, and the majority of one school is not ijma'.
machine5 min 37 s8:13on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Was al-Ghazali against science and philosophy?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Ghazali was not against reason at first, but after a crisis of faith he turned to ascetic mysticism, and through later Sufism this indirectly harmed the voice of reason.
machine12 min 41 s34:23on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Quran's verse about the stupor of death talking about DMT?
Mufti Abu Layth says the verse is not about DMT specifically, though the DMT death experience could relate to it; he sees psychedelics as a portal to the hereafter where legal.
machine6 min 15 s1:01:31on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the companions really see the angel Jibril as a man?
Mufti Abu Layth says only the Prophet saw Jibril, in a trance-like vision; companions who thought a stranger was Jibril were assuming.
machine2 min 29 s1:10:12on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it haram to use a sensory deprivation tank or meditation to hallucinate?
Mufti Abu Layth says using sensory deprivation tanks or meditation to bring on hallucinations is not haram.
machine1 min 16 s1:28:30on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does Birmingham have so many different Muslim sects?
Mufti Abu Layth says Birmingham's many strong sects cancel each other out, which he thinks is a good thing compared with towns one sect dominates.
machine2 min 47 s1:35:19on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What was Mufti Abu Layth's madrasa in Pakistan like?
Mufti Abu Layth says his madrasa's head was not hot-headed, and that Barelvi radicalism is recent while militancy has long existed in parts of the Deobandi world.
machine5 min 07 s2:05:32on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the Prophet's parents in heaven or hell?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet's parents are unquestionably among the saved.
machine45 s2:14:22on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs it haram to flip a coin to make a decision?
Mufti Abu Layth says flipping a coin is not haram, but important decisions should be made by reasoning, not by a coin or a dream.
machine6 min 26 s3:16:17on YouTube
2 Feb 2021video
Did Ibn Ashur say Muslims must believe Jesus was raised alive?
Mufti Abu Layth shows that Ibn Ashur, quoted in Shadee Elmasry's post, held only that Jesus was not killed or crucified and was raised and saved, leaving how it happened open to interpretation.
machine8 min6:15on YouTube
2 Feb 2021video
Did Ibn Ashur believe Jesus died?
Mufti Abu Layth shows that Ibn Ashur read 'inni mutawaffika' as real death, cited Imam Malik for it, and took texts calling Jesus alive as an honorific life like that of martyrs.
machine5 min 20 s8:00on YouTube
2 Feb 2021video
Did Ibn Ashur say nothing in the Quran goes against the second coming of Jesus?
Mufti Abu Layth says Ibn Ashur wrote that the Quran does not deal with the second coming, not that nothing in it opposes it; the post confused yata'arrad with a verb meaning 'to oppose'.
machine7 min 50 s15:02on YouTube
29 Jan 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Abu Hanifa really write al-Fiqh al-Akbar?
The guest says Abu Hanifa did write al-Fiqh al-Akbar but the text has later additions, and that Zufar's books survive only in fragments.
machine2 min 44 s1:20:26on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Mufti think of Pir Naseeruddin Naseer?
Mufti Abu Layth says Pir Naseeruddin Naseer was a widely respected authority across the spectrum of Sunnis.
machine1 min 20 s1:15:25on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
The snowman fatwas: building a snowman as an idol, or permitted by the dolls hadith
Mufti Abu Layth plays and mocks two fatwas on snowmen, one calling them idols and one permitting them by a hadith about dolls, saying such reasoning makes Muslims a laughing stock.
machine6 min 49 s1:45:37on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Would the Mufti make peace with Farid?
Mufti Abu Layth says he holds no hatred for Farid and would return respect if shown it, but answers public takfir against him with mockery and sees no reason to stop.
machine3 min 56 s1:52:26on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Could the hadith tradition evolve like a living organism?
As food for thought, he suggests that the hadith system, like other belief systems, behaves like an evolving organism that drives people to standardise and preserve it.
machine10 min 28 s2:12:03on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Quick chat: LSD, paratha and nihari, and jinn as microbes
In quick chat replies he refers to his video on psychedelics, jokes about food, and says reading jinn as microbes is one interpretation, held by Rashid Rida.
machine2 min 37 s2:25:08on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Mufti think of Dr Umar Faruq Abdullah?
Mufti Abu Layth calls Dr Umar Faruq Abdullah exceptionally talented, with remarkable Arabic, but says his later turn to a pir-style spiritual role wastes that talent.
machine6 min 33 s2:40:53on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Will you discuss reincarnation with a guest on Mind Trap?
Mufti Abu Layth is still looking for the right guest to discuss reincarnation on Mind Trap, and has only skimmed the Shia response a viewer mentions.
machine3 min 26 s12:21on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
A debater, Saqib Shaami's crew and a conference on the finality of prophethood
Mufti Abu Layth recalls a debater facing down Saqib Shaami's entourage when it disrupted a finality-of-prophethood conference in Birmingham.
machine5 min 41 s56:57on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy does Islam describe Paradise in such sensual terms?
Paradise is described sensually because that imagery works for people, Mufti Abu Layth says, meaning it functionally rather than cynically.
machine1 min 18 s1:32:09on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Ibn Rushd answer al-Ghazali's attack on the philosophers?
Mufti Abu Layth explains that Ibn Rushd answered al-Ghazali by showing that what he refuted was mostly neoplatonism, not Aristotle.
machine3 min 52 s2:16:37on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How does Ibn Rushd compare to other critical-minded scholars?
Ibn Rushd is the most philosophical and most inclined to reason of the critical-minded scholars, Mufti Abu Layth says, and steadier in temperament than one he calls quick to takfir.
machine3 min 13 s2:27:24on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How do I explain to someone why believing in God matters?
Mufti Abu Layth believes consciousness is the modern gateway back to God, and that following it will lead there.
machine1 min 21 s2:33:07on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can I say Prophet Yusuf was more handsome than Prophet Muhammad?
Praising Yusuf's beauty takes nothing from the Prophet Muhammad, Mufti Abu Layth says; the prophets are not in a competition.
machine2 min 22 s2:35:33on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Ibn Ashur say Jesus was raised alive and will return?
Mufti Abu Layth says a preacher's post misquotes the tafsir it cites, which takes the verse to mean Jesus really died and leaves how he was raised open to interpretation.
machine12 min 53 s2:45:11on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran say nothing against Jesus' second coming?
Mufti Abu Layth says the post mistranslates the tafsir: it says the Quran does not address the second coming, not that nothing in the Quran opposes it.
machine9 min 42 s2:58:04on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What do you think of a particular Salafi preacher?
From what he has heard, he says the preacher is generally level-headed and balanced within the Salafi dawah, though he has not followed him closely.
machine2 min 33 s30:07on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has the Salafi movement done more good or harm?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Salafi dawah revived interest in hadith and forced a re-evaluation, but its dislodging of the tradition did far more damage overall.
machine2 min 28 s32:40on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why can't there be any prophets after Muhammad?
Mufti Abu Layth says no new prophet or world religion will come after Muhammad; the statement about his son Ibrahim, if true, was hyperbole.
machine6 min 09 s1:06:52on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why would God stop sending revelation?
Revelation as a religion has ended, he says, but the Prophet said it continues in dreams, which can guide a person but are not for preaching.
machine1 min 58 s1:14:59on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIf you deny the evil eye, why do you cite scholars who believed in it?
Mufti Abu Layth says scholars who believed in the evil eye were following the science of their day, and one does not take science from them.
machine3 min 50 s1:47:10on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Could Socrates or the Buddha have been prophets?
Mufti Abu Layth believes figures such as the Buddha, Socrates and Zarathustra could have been prophets, though we cannot know since Islam does not mention them.
machine1 min 16 s1:50:22on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do clever preachers stay stuck in dogmatism?
Mufti Abu Layth says knowing a lot is not the same as reasoning well; much of the dogmatist scene relies on rote learning, and Zakir Naik has done Islam real damage.
machine6 min 55 s1:51:38on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Sahih al-Bukhari really say God dangled in front of the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Bukhari report of God 'dangling' before the Prophet is unacceptable, and any hadith that clashes with reason or the Quran must be rejected.
machine12 min 35 s1:58:33on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is process theology compatible with the Quran?
No: he says its idea that God depends on creation as creation depends on God is not the Quranic worldview.
machine2 min 31 s2:49:23on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it unfair that some are born Muslim, and is God's throne literal?
Mufti Abu Layth says the throne is a literary expression meaning the kingdom is God's, and that salvation in the hereafter is not the exclusive property of Muslims.
machine1 min 58 s2:52:39on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
A preacher's 'discoveries': Gog and Magog in Kyrgyzstan and Noah's ark at al-Judi
Mockery of a preacher's claims to have located Gog and Magog in Kyrgyzstan and Noah's ark in Turkey.
machine9 min 21 s3:02:00on YouTube
12 Jan 2021video
Why was Ibn Taymiyya put in prison?
Ibn Taymiyya made powerful enemies by declaring Muslims kafir, and Maliki judges finally jailed him over his fatwa, voiced by his student in Jerusalem, that one may not travel to visit the Prophet's grave. Mufti Abu Layth calls the view foolish but says no one should be punished for an opinion.
machine8 min 17 s0:00on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How can we stop Salafi ideas from dominating how people see Islam?
Denounce every preacher of hatred, Shia or Salafi, and spread a reasoned narrative; he feels the Salafi dawah is already losing ground.
machine6 min 25 s54:50on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do you believe in miracles?
Mufti Abu Layth accepts miracles in the sense of life's wonders and timely help, but says God does not break His laws of nature and the supernatural signs failed their stated purpose.
machine7 min 43 s1:17:29on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Quran a miracle that proves Islam to everyone?
Mufti Abu Layth holds the Quran is subjectively miraculous in its effect but not a universal miracle that converts all who hear it, and he cut the exchange short out of discomfort.
machine5 min 42 s1:24:16on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
If miracles don't break nature's laws, what is the point of miracles?
Belief does not need supernatural miracles; private belief in them is fine, but preaching them as standard Islam damages Islam.
machine3 min 02 s1:29:58on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can a Christian really speak with God?
Anyone can have a direct line to God whatever they call Him; he says the atheist one-god-further argument is a fallacy.
machine5 min 22 s1:52:12on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What miracle do you have as a saint?
Mufti Abu Layth answers with a joke about Sufi hagiographies rather than claiming any karama.
machine1 min 06 s2:17:07on YouTube
2020 · 138
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why don't madrasas teach the Islamic philosophers and the Mu'tazila?
The guest says traditionalists value only a narrow sliver of Islam's diverse intellectual heritage, ignoring the philosophers, the early Qadariyya and Mu'tazila, Shia thinkers and modernists, and that he found answers on religion and science in Ibn Rushd.
machine3 min 58 s15:30on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If blind following in faith is forbidden, why must I accept a school's creed without question?
Mufti Abu Layth finds it paradoxical that schools forbid blind following in faith but demand blind acceptance of their creeds; the guest says traditionalists use reason only to reach revelation and then discard it, whereas reason must stay in continuous use.
machine7 min 03 s24:25on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Isn't reason subjective, and is something good only because God commands it?
The guest says the Ash'ari voluntarist view of ethics is the real relativism and argues for universal moral values grounded in God's nature; Mufti Abu Layth calls the Ash'ari denial of inherent good and bad nonsense.
machine4 min 16 s29:42on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where does morality come from if not from God?
The guest says a theist can ground moral realism in God while an atheist who relies on evolution alone cannot, and that traditionalist debaters exploit opponents who know little philosophy.
machine5 min 49 s34:45on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is morality an instinct God put in us?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the fitrah is a hardwired moral instinct of recognising harm and feeling empathy, built on by environment and a collective consciousness; the guest adds that morality can be confidently grounded in God.
machine3 min 30 s39:47on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If we all recognise harm, why do people still do terrible things?
Mufti Abu Layth says empathy can be overridden by instincts such as power, and that a shared consciousness shapes the moral feel of an age; he notes the Quran commands justice without defining it, which the guest links to the Mu'tazila.
machine4 min 26 s53:58on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the stories in the Quran meant to be literal history?
The guest argues, following Khalafallah and Ibn Rushd, that the Quran's stories are sacred literature and legend, using symbol and parable for theological ends rather than reporting literal history.
machine6 min 58 s1:02:23on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can I accept evolution and still take the Quran's stories as true?
The guest calls for reading the Quran wholesale as sacred literature, accepting evolution as scientific fact while holding that religion's symbolic truths, not science, ground human rights and meaning.
machine3 min 46 s1:09:21on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are paradise and hell in the Quran meant literally?
The guest, following Ibn Rushd against al-Ghazali, says belief requires accepting the afterlife, not literal readings of its details; Mufti Abu Layth agrees the afterlife is symbolic but says the prophets' stories are of this world.
machine4 min 28 s1:15:55on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Jesus really speak in the cradle, and did the earlier prophets exist?
The guest says historians can be confident that Muhammad and Jesus existed but less so of earlier figures, and that the Quran's Jesus stories, such as speaking in the cradle, are dramatised; Mufti Abu Layth says no clear verse says Jesus spoke in the cradle.
machine5 min 37 s1:24:52on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet Muhammad perform miracles?
The guest argues that the Quran implies the Prophet performed no miracles and ties signs to compulsion, so traditionalists read miracles in from hadith; both speakers appear to reject the view that every prophet needs a miracle.
machine4 min 27 s1:30:29on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did angels really fight at the battle of Badr?
The guest says the angels at Badr are a literary description of God strengthening the believers' hearts, since the named Muslims who killed the enemy chiefs are known, and that the same reading applies to earlier prophets' stories.
machine4 min 06 s1:34:56on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Who were the riders seen at Badr?
Mufti Abu Layth takes the Badr angels as strength and vigour rather than a physical event and floats a theory that the riders seen were Persian knights of the House of Karen; the guest prefers a purely literary reading.
machine3 min 23 s1:39:02on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran actually say the miracles happened?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran often never states that a miracle occurred, as with the table for Jesus, and that the prophets were real though later assumptions colour them; the guest says the Quran rearticulates the discourses of its milieu.
machine5 min 43 s1:56:12on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Who was Dhul Qarnayn, and who are Gog and Magog?
Mufti Abu Layth identifies Dhul Qarnayn most likely with Cyrus the Great and reads Gog and Magog as havoc-wreaking forces, later the colonial powers; the guest says this already relies on ad hoc literary reinterpretation.
machine4 min 55 s2:01:55on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the guest criticise Yasir Qadhi's views on jinn and evolution?
The guest criticises Yasir Qadhi's dogmatic style and his literal readings of Dhul Qarnayn, evolution and jinn, offering a medical explanation for exorcism accounts; Mufti Abu Layth jokes about the zombie theory and calls Brubaker courteous.
machine7 min 56 s2:33:08on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the jinn real, or a symbol?
The guest says the Quran rearticulated a late antique belief in jinn to subordinate them to God, that he does not literally believe in them, and that Shaytan personifies human evil; Mufti Abu Layth agrees that inner impulses are personified as good and bad forces.
machine6 min 46 s2:41:04on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Was the Quran always fixed word for word, or was it flexible at first?
Mufti Abu Layth holds the Quran was dynamic in the Prophet's time, with companions allowed to substitute synonyms, and that a fixed vowel-for-vowel text is a modern idea. Writing it down in a worldly script brought its own constraints.
machine8 min 51 s19:43on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
Why do popular preachers promote belief in jinn possession?
Mufti Abu Layth will answer Omar Suleiman's clip as a prime example of preachers promoting superstition; he says they appease the market that buys their commodity.
machine2 min 39 s0:02on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
The clip: Omar Suleiman on jinn possession, the riba verse and disobedience
In the clip Omar Suleiman says jinn possession is real and affirmed by the riba verse, that most imams have seen supernatural cases, and that disobedience, especially leaving prayer and riba, removes Allah's protection and invites possession.
machine3 min 53 s2:41on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
Can there be a balanced view on whether jinn possess people?
A supernatural claim cannot be balanced; possession is either real or not. If disobedience, missing prayer and riba invited possession, most of the globe would be possessed.
machine5 min 15 s6:34on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
What would jinn gain by possessing people, and what follows if they could?
If jinn could possess people or take any form, nothing in Islam could be trusted and no one would be responsible for their crimes; Mufti Abu Layth notes that only Muslims who believe in possession seem to be afflicted.
machine5 min 16 s11:49on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
Does the riba verse prove that jinn can possess people?
The riba verse 2:275 uses the image of being struck by the devil as a frame of reference the Arabs knew, like the heads of devils in 37:65; it does not establish possession.
machine3 min 53 s17:05on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
If a jinn could possess me, how could I be blamed for anything?
Satan's own words in 14:22, that he had no power over people and only invited them, rule out possession: if the devil could physically prevent prayer or cause harm, people could not be blamed and responsibility would collapse.
machine5 min 16 s20:58on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
What did classical scholars say about whether jinn can harm or possess people?
Imam al-Shafi'i rejected the testimony of anyone claiming to see jinn, Ibn Hazm forbade adding to what Allah said about them, and al-Tahawi held that Satan can only insinuate, not harm; what is called possession is mental illness, and accepting it would void responsibility.
machine7 min 46 s26:14on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
Do any authentic hadith prove jinn possession?
The hadith cited for possession prove nothing: the Bukhari report that Satan runs in the veins concerns suspicion, the Bukhari report of the epileptic woman treats epilepsy as an illness to be borne patiently, and the remaining reports are weak.
machine9 min 12 s34:00on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
Is the jinn exorcism and ruqya industry a fraud?
The ruqya industry is largely a fraud drenched in abuse; the Mu'tazila, who rejected possession, were never afflicted, and al-Jahiz already recorded a practitioner using a possession claim to explain away a lost virginity.
machine6 min 37 s43:12on YouTube
21 Nov 2020video
Is Omar Suleiman trained as a scholar, and will anyone debate Mufti Abu Layth on jinn possession?
Mufti Abu Layth challenges any shaykh to debate jinn possession on his show and says Omar Suleiman, though commendable for his civil rights work, is not trained as a scholar or qualified to give rulings.
machine4 min 27 s49:49on YouTube
17 Nov 2020video
Would the Mufti debate a Salafi scholar on aqidah?
Yes: he challenges any learned Salafi to prove their aqidah obligatory from the Quran alone. He says he is sure none can do it clearly.
machine2 min 46 s0:00on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
A clip of Shaykh Hassan Ali on the evil eye from loved ones
A played clip in which Shaykh Hassan Ali says the evil eye can come even from loving relatives, with a story about his own son.
machine2 min 41 s0:00on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Does the Quran mention the evil eye?
No: the Quran mentions envy (hasad) but never the evil eye, and the verse about eyes making the Prophet slip is a metaphor for hateful stares, as Ibn Ashur and others explain.
machine6 min 43 s2:41on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
If the evil eye is real, why doesn't the Quran mention it?
The evil eye was believed to be an unseen force causing illness, death and impotence, yet the Quran never mentions it, unlike older scriptures. He finds that silence telling for something said to affect everyone.
machine8 min 20 s9:24on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Why did so many cultures believe in the evil eye?
Because people long believed the eye actively shot out rays, and the belief helped explain sudden illness and misfortune. He says the evil eye itself is nonsense.
machine10 min 48 s17:44on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Is the evil eye based on science?
It rested on the old belief that eyes shoot out rays, which people once took as science; Ibn al-Qayyim described envious 'arrows' from the eye. Ibn al-Haytham and later science showed that eyes only take in light.
machine12 min 34 s28:32on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Confirmation bias: reading the evil eye into the Quran
Mufti Abu Layth says that people came to Islam already believing the evil eye was science and, through confirmation bias, found it in verses that do not mention it, such as the verse about eyes almost making the Prophet slip, even though many exegetes did not read it that way. He recommends the Urdu tafsir of Abdul Karim Athari, whom he describes as coming from a small, unusually reason-based circle within the Ahl-e-Hadith of India, and says Athari also reads the verse as the disbelievers staring as though to trip the Prophet, before calling him insane.
machine3 min 22 s41:06on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Does Surah Yusuf prove the evil eye is real?
No: Jacob told his sons to use different gates for their safety and to avoid drawing attention, not because of the evil eye. They had already been to Egypt, so the evil eye reading makes no sense.
machine11 min 39 s44:28on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Are the hadith about the evil eye authentic?
No: he says the evil eye hadith rest on weak or criticised narrators and odd reports, and a belief so important would have come from many companions and the Quran. He calls them baseless.
machine12 min 11 s56:07on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Is Surat al-Falaq about protection from the evil eye?
No: it seeks refuge from the harm envious people act out and from the superstitious culture around magic, not from an evil eye. The Quran's silence on the evil eye is, to him, a sign of its truth.
machine3 min 53 s1:08:18on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
Did God really command Ibrahim to sacrifice his son?
No: in Mufti Abu Layth's reading the command did not come from God, and the Quran in Surah al-Saffat only reports that Ibrahim saw a dream and that his son urged him to act on it. The notion of sacrificing a son is traced to the culture of the ancient Near East.
machine3 min 58 s0:00on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
Is it wrong to believe that God asked Ibrahim to kill his son?
Mufti Abu Layth says the belief is absurd and, on inspection, blasphemous, because it has God asking a father to murder his child for his pleasure and then stopping him, like a mock execution. The Quran never says God told Ibrahim to sacrifice, though it could have.
machine2 min 38 s14:34on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
Why does the biblical tradition say God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Israelites adopted the name Yahweh, a Near Eastern war god from the household of El, and that god's brutal character carried over into their picture of God, making such a command plausible to them. For Muslims, he says, that is not the true image of Allah.
machine3 min 57 s17:12on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
Are Muslims who believe God commanded the sacrifice guilty of blasphemy?
No: Mufti Abu Layth does not accuse individual Muslims of blasphemy, because they repeat a story they were raised with and have not examined it. He distinguishes this from agenda-driven claims about the Prophet, and ridicules the defence that God only asked Ibrahim to assist his son's suicide.
machine1 min 18 s23:45on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
If God never commanded the sacrifice, why do the early sources all say he did?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees that no primary sources support his reading and explains it by early Muslims absorbing Israelite material, by the brutal environment of the age being projected onto God, and by the absence of anything from the Prophet saying God commanded it. He repeats that a God who stages a mock execution of a child is unacceptable, and that Allah never says the command was his.
machine4 min 55 s26:22on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does God really care whether I have a beard?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Sharia exists to preserve life and order, and that picturing God as obsessed with beards shrinks God into a child throwing tantrums.
machine6 min 28 s1:12:12on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are jinn just archetypes in our unconscious mind?
Mufti Abu Layth thinks the jinn are beings in a dimension of consciousness we cannot normally reach, not mental archetypes.
machine8 min 11 s1:34:18on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Would you debate a Salafi scholar?
Mufti Abu Layth challenges any Salafi scholar to debate him and prove a practice they call obligatory from the Quran or sunnah alone.
machine3 min 01 s2:18:30on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do you believe in God and that the Quran is from God?
Mufti Abu Layth says consciousness points to the transcendent divine, and that among world religions only Islam passes the test of reason for him.
machine1 min 17 s2:51:27on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do people with schizophrenia have real religious insight?
Mufti Abu Layth says an overlap between such disorders and religiosity is plausible, but it would be a correlation, not proof of cause.
machine1 min 40 s2:52:19on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the second coming of Jesus the right answer to the Qadianis?
Mufti Abu Layth says that the real answer to the Qadiani claim is that no messiah is coming, not a defence of the second coming.
machine6 min 21 s2:53:59on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Imam Malik say that Jesus died?
Mufti Abu Layth says there is no Quranic verse on a second coming and that the Imam Malik report of Jesus's death is in a reliable Maliki source.
machine11 min 07 s3:03:26on YouTube
20 Oct 2020video
Why do scholars avoid showing unity across Barelvi, Deobandi and Salafi lines?
Scholars from different sects who met privately refused even a group photo, saying their followers were not mature enough to see it. Mufti Abu Layth says this shows preachers feeding their followers' expectations out of fear of being disowned.
machine2 min 34 s10:33on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
Are psychedelics haram in Islam?
Psychedelics are not haram because they are not intoxicants like alcohol but entheogens that connect a person with God. Mufti Abu Layth says the political label of drugs wrongly lumps them with substances of abuse.
machine4 min 28 s0:00on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
How does Mufti Abu Layth explain what psychedelics do to consciousness?
Ordinary perception reaches only a sliver of what exists, as the eye sees only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum; Mufti Abu Layth says consciousness has layers we normally cannot access.
machine2 min 58 s4:28on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
Did the Sufi saints have psychedelic experiences without knowing it?
Many of Islam's great mystics, such as Junayd, al-Hallaj and Ibn Arabi, most likely had psychedelic experiences without knowing it, as initiates at Eleusis and communities eating ergotised grain did.
machine4 min 15 s7:26on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
LatestDid Rumi use harmala seed and a DMT-containing reed flute?
Rumi drank preparations of harmala seed, an MAO inhibitor, and was devoted to his ney flute, made from a reed that contains DMT; Mufti Abu Layth says it is very likely Rumi had psychedelic experiences.
machine6 min 43 s11:41on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
What were soma and haoma in the Hindu and Persian traditions?
Ancient traditions such as the Vedic soma and the Avestan haoma point to the same entheogenic experiences, which those cultures had no vocabulary to explain; soma is argued to be Amanita muscaria, which may explain the deification of cows and the drinking of their urine.
machine3 min 43 s18:24on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
What is the hadith of the night of the jinn, and was it a psychoactive experience?
The Tirmidhi report of Ibn Mas'ud's night of the jinn, in which he carried nabidh and saw strange figures, would most likely describe a psychoactive experience if true, and the report praising harmala shows such a narrative existed in early Muslim society.
machine7 min 41 s22:07on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
Does the verse of light describe an expanded state of consciousness?
The verse of light, 24:35, is an approximation that resonates with those whose consciousness has expanded, and entheogenic experience was part and parcel of the tradition without having a name.
machine6 min 13 s29:48on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
Does the Quran or Sunnah say anything against psychedelics?
Nothing in the Quran or Sunnah forbids psychedelics, which existed for Allah to prohibit had he wished; Mufti Abu Layth says they are non-addictive and therapeutic, unlike alcohol, and are about connecting to God.
machine3 min 43 s36:01on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
Why does Mufti Abu Layth hold views that most scholars disagree with?
Mufti Abu Layth takes his beliefs from the Quran in the light of reason, since God calls people to faith through reason, and tests whether a belief is coherent as a whole.
machine3 min 49 s0:45on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
Was Iblis condemned for using his reason?
No: Iblis was condemned for arrogance and stubbornness, not reason, and much of what people picture about angels is imagination filling in the Quran's outline.
machine3 min 12 s4:34on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
Why does Mufti Abu Layth not believe Jesus will return?
What collapsed the belief for him was its incoherence: a this-worldly event so spectacular must have a purpose, and the answers given raise hundreds more questions.
machine4 min 32 s7:08on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
Does questioning religion with reason destroy faith?
Not for him: he says he has put every matter of the deen to his reason and his faith stood the test, though he does not ask others to do the same.
machine1 min 58 s11:40on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
If God made the laws of nature, can He break them?
God is not stuck with the laws of nature; He created them by choice and keeps to them, just as He keeps His promises about salvation.
machine6 min 04 s31:16on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
Why do some Muslims struggle to accept that Adam might have had parents?
Mufti Abu Layth says nothing in Islam falls apart if Adam had parents, so the resistance must come from something other than Islam, and God keeping His own rules is no limitation.
machine7 min 30 s43:06on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
If human reason is limited, why rely on it in religion?
Reason has limits, but it is the best tool humans have for any shared dialogue, and a God who calls people through reason would not then demand belief in the irrational.
machine7 min 02 s57:31on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
If I commit a crime, was it my free will or my destiny?
Humans have real free will: as in a video game, every outcome was designed, but where you go and what you do is your own doing.
machine3 min 05 s1:04:33on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Were the hadith about the black flags against the Abbasids?
Mufti Abu Layth doubts the black-flag hadith were anti-Abbasid; if anything, he says, they were part of Abbasid propaganda.
machine1 min 50 s25:42on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are psychedelics like DMT haram in Islam?
Mufti Abu Layth does not consider psychedelics such as DMT haram or intoxicants, and advocates them as entheogens for spiritual discovery rather than recreation.
machine9 min 54 s30:58on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the hadith that Aisha was married at six authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth holds the hadith on Aisha's young age to be fabricated, since every transmitter is Iraqi, and says sectarian scholars defend it out of loyalty to their teachers.
machine5 min 44 s1:17:12on YouTube
23 Aug 2020video
Why do Salafis ignore Imam Malik's Muwatta?
Mufti Abu Layth feels Salafis struggle with Imam Malik because he is a master of hadith who also rejects hadith that go against established practice. In the Muwatta he narrates a hadith and then says it is not acted upon.
machine1 min 25 s0:00on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
What do Illiyyin and Sijjin mean in the Quran?
They refer to a record or place of the righteous and the wicked; he takes afterlife imagery as symbolic and promises more next week.
machine2 min 32 s39:04on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Is al-Zamakhshari's tafsir al-Kashshaf worth reading?
Mufti Abu Layth praises al-Kashshaf as linguistically overwhelming and al-Zamakhshari as a legend, while noting the Mu'tazili oddities in it; the Mu'tazila were great scholars, often over-demonised.
machine4 min 24 s45:21on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
What was al-Ash'ari's argument against the Mu'tazila about God always doing what is best?
Mufti Abu Layth tells the debate attributed to al-Ash'ari, in which a disbeliever asks why he was not allowed to die as a child, and says this is where the Mu'tazili view of a God bound to do the best crumbles.
machine2 min 34 s49:45on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is Imran Hosein's approach, and why did he disagree with Israr Ahmed?
Mufti Abu Layth praises Imran Hosein's stand on the age of Aisha but finds his outlook almost conspiratorial; the guest says Imran Hosein and Israr Ahmed fell out over eschatology.
machine4 min 54 s9:38on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran say every city will be destroyed before Judgement Day?
The guest reads Quran 17:58 as a sign that humanity is headed for trouble; Mufti Abu Layth points to verses of blessing and God's lack of need to punish.
machine3 min 12 s1:02:24on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Western culture uniquely shallow?
Mufti Abu Layth says the pull of glitter and the thirst for knowledge are human, not Western, and that people now seek meaning more than ever.
machine4 min 33 s1:16:33on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran motivate people through self-interest?
Mufti Abu Layth suggests, tentatively, that even the Quran motivates through self-interest; the guest distinguishes healthy from harmful selfishness.
machine5 min 09 s1:59:04on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the descriptions of paradise in the Quran literal?
Mufti Abu Layth says he takes the Quran's imagery of paradise as symbolic, a motivation for people, rather than literal.
machine1 min 58 s2:04:13on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did revelation end with the Prophet, or does inspiration continue?
The guest says that for Shi'is, Sufis and arguably jurists some form of revelatory inspiration continues; Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran will always continue to mean different things to different people over time.
machine2 min 38 s19:58on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Ash'aris and Maturidis believe the Arabic Quran is God's eternal speech?
In Ash'ari and Maturidi theology God's eternal speech is not Arabic sounds and letters; the Arabic Quran expresses it and is created.
machine5 min 51 s34:47on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do so many Muslims think God speaks Arabic if their scholars said otherwise?
Mufti Abu Layth says scholars' habit of not discussing this before ordinary people helped the public believe something different from their own scholars; the guest describes the popular Hanbali view that even the Mushaf is uncreated.
machine6 min 40 s40:15on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Ash'ari view of God's speech really different from the Mu'tazili view?
The guest says the Ash'aris borrowed heavily from the Mu'tazila but differ on whether speech is sounds and letters or meaning; Mufti Abu Layth says sectarian politics produced ambiguous creeds.
machine4 min 07 s46:24on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Arabic an eternal, divine language?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects grammarians' claim that Arabic is eternal; both describe the Ash'ari view that revelation takes the language of its audience.
machine2 min 02 s50:31on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Was revelation words dictated by Gabriel, or inspiration the Prophet put into words?
The guest argues that Quranic wahy is non-verbal inspiration through the ruh which the Prophet put into Arabic; Mufti Abu Layth says he finds himself with those who hold revelation was expressed within the Prophet.
machine4 min 57 s53:07on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Muslim theologians reconcile God being one with his many names and attributes?
The guest and host trace how the Mu'tazila, Hanbalis and Ash'aris reconciled God's oneness with his many names and attributes.
machine10 min 42 s1:10:57on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Salafis believe God has a body?
Mufti Abu Layth says Hanbalis and modern Salafis in effect believe God has body parts and so project a human image onto God; the guest notes philosophers and Isma'ilis objected that attributes give God parts.
machine3 min 20 s1:21:43on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where do anthropomorphic ideas of God in Islam come from?
Mufti Abu Layth suggests anthropomorphic texts were partly inherited from the Judeo-Christian tradition; the guest describes the Sufi, philosophical and Isma'ili view that God's names describe relations, not his essence.
machine4 min 41 s1:24:04on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is love one of God's attributes in Islam?
The guest says Sufi traditions understand God's mercy as love even though Kalam rarely speaks of it, and rejects the polemic that the God of Islam is not loving.
machine1 min 52 s1:33:37on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Quran eternal, or was it created?
The guest says the Arabic Quran in the tablet is, on most views, pre-existent but created; only God's languageless speech is eternal for Ash'aris and Maturidis.
machine1 min 47 s1:36:51on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does God not love non-believers?
The guest reads the verse as saying that certain deeds block God's love from reaching a person, not that God's love is selective.
machine1 min 30 s1:38:38on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Edip Yuksel write a reformist translation of the Quran?
The guest describes translating the Quran with Rashad Khalifa and says the Sunni religion distorted the message, beginning with adding Muhammad's name to the shahada; he calls Sunni and Shia translations deliberate distortions and says the Quran was betrayed through hadith.
machine8 min 32 s12:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Were the Prophet's judgements meant to bind Muslims after his death?
The guest says the Prophet's authority as judge and leader was for his lifetime only, that his bay'ah was a reciprocal social contract in which women voted, and that his messengership ended once the Quran was delivered, so obeying the messenger cannot mean obeying Bukhari.
machine6 min 31 s31:53on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran ban slavery, and what does 'what your right hand possesses' mean?
The guest says the Quran abolishes slavery as the greatest crime, since owning a slave is to claim to be a rabb like Pharaoh, and that what the right hand possesses means contractual marriage. Mufti Abu Layth holds that slavery is abrogated through trajectory hermeneutics rather than by an explicit ban.
machine10 min 29 s1:08:39on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If the Quran abolished slavery, why is there no explicit verse saying so?
The guest says rabb is used in the Quran only for God, so that owning a slave is shirk and la ilaha illa Allah is itself the abolition of slavery. Mufti Abu Layth notes that rabb has ordinary linguistic uses and that non-Muslims recorded Muslims as owning slaves.
machine7 min 51 s1:19:08on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is the miracle of the number 19 in the Quran?
The guest says the number 19 proves the Quran is God's word letter by letter and that Muslims otherwise have no objective evidence for its divine origin; he recounts a Turkish scholar insisting the bismillah has twenty-one letters rather than nineteen.
machine6 min 34 s1:26:59on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What numerical patterns does the guest find in the Quran's word counts?
The guest lists word-frequency symmetries in the Quran, such as dunya and akhirah 115 times each, month twelve times and day 365 times, and says the number 19 is a test that most people fail.
machine5 min 11 s1:33:33on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Could the number 19 patterns in the Quran be a coincidence or a human habit?
The guest says the 19 structure cannot be chance or subconscious habit, that mathematicians cannot refute it, and that 19 appearing only in chapter 74 and being unveiled in 1974, nineteen times seventy-four lunar years later, is a prophecy.
machine7 min 43 s1:45:14on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Rashad Khalifa claim to be a messenger of God?
The guest says Rashad Khalifa did claim to be a messenger, not a prophet, commissioned to unveil the miracle of 19, and that the Quran calls Muhammad the last prophet rather than the last messenger. Khalifa held the last two verses of Surat al-Tawba to be interpolations.
machine3 min 55 s1:52:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does khatam al-nabiyyin mean the last prophet or the best prophet?
The guest understands khatam al-nabiyyin as the last prophet, since the Quran addresses all people until the end of the world, and says the Quran gives the time of the end of the world.
machine1 min 20 s2:16:30on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is seeing the number 19 everywhere a sign or a superstition?
The guest rejects personal and anecdotal sightings of 19 as numerology and chance, distinguishing them from the Quran's structure, and invites Zakir Naik and Nouman Ali Khan to debate him.
machine2 min 40 s2:17:50on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is Mufti Abu Layth's own position on hadith compared with the Quran-only view?
Mufti Abu Layth is a Sunni who is critical of parts of the hadith literature without rejecting it wholesale, and he opposes labelling Quran-only Muslims as deviants or misguided.
machine1 min 19 s2:20:30on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is al-kitab the same book given to every prophet?
The guest says owning a slave is shirk, that kawthar means abundance rather than a pool, and that al-kitab is the one divine law sent to every prophet, whose goal, peacemaking, is secular while iman is distinct.
machine2 min 37 s2:29:34on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is consciousness in the brain, or is the brain a receiver for the soul?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that consciousness is non-local and the brain a receiver like a radio; the guest disagrees, describing a human as matter plus information that is backed up in God's record and restored to a new body at the resurrection.
machine7 min 51 s2:53:05on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Muslim scholars record disagreements about the Quran's text rather than hide them?
The guest says the scholars transmitted the variant reports out of sheer honesty, just as they preserved and marked scribal errors in the mushaf, and that variation was inevitable once the revealed sequence was rearranged. Mufti Abu Layth notes in passing that he agrees with Ghamidi that there is no second coming of Jesus.
machine5 min 16 s44:35on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If Allah promised to preserve the Quran, why are there variant readings at all?
The guest says Allah preserved his part, the real Quran, and left people the discretion that produced the other readings, just as he allowed hadith to be misreported; the test is in seeking the truth through them. Mufti Abu Layth states his own view that the Quran we have is from an umbrella revelation that allowed variations.
machine3 min 54 s1:27:17on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
In what sense is the Quran a miracle?
The guest says the Quran's miracle is linguistic, a composition that cannot be emulated, not mathematical. Mufti Abu Layth adds that for him it is a miracle in the subjective experience of reading it, in its civilisational impact and in its literary symmetry, not in bending the laws of nature or in scientific foreknowledge.
machine3 min 56 s1:42:47on YouTube
9 Jun 2020video
What does Mufti Abu Layth think of Hasan Farhan al-Maliki?
Mufti Abu Layth admires Hasan Farhan al-Maliki's open-minded rejection of folkloric Islam but disagrees with his dismissive, Shia-inclined stance on companions such as Mu'awiya.
machine2 min 24 s0:00on YouTube
29 May 2020video
Was the arrest of Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza justified?
No: Mufti Abu Layth calls the arrest unacceptable and the product of jealousy and sectarianism, praising Engineer Mirza as an open-minded scholar.
machine3 min 07 s0:00on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is using reason to interpret Islam just preferring my own intellect over revelation?
The intellect alone is not a reliable guide, but an intellect guided by the Quran is tamed and becomes the right tool for understanding revelation. The word aql itself means the tether that keeps a camel from straying, and the Quran praises its use.
machine2 min 37 s25:59on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do Muslims treat reason as the enemy of tradition?
Historically the Ahl al-Hadith defeated the Ahl al-Ra'y, which preserved the tradition but left reason demonised; today reason and tradition must work together. Mufti Abu Layth says asking whether one prefers reason to revelation is a false framing, since the real choice is between one understanding of the Quran and another.
machine5 min 16 s28:36on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Islam teach that jinn can possess people?
Mufti Abu Layth does not believe in jinn possession, saying the Quran and Sunnah do not support it. The guest recounts a young man at his da'wah centre whose 'possession' appeared only around believers in it and vanished in front of doctors, which he reads as a psychological phenomenon rather than a jinn.
machine5 min 13 s1:15:32on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran support the idea that Shaytan or jinn can control a person?
The verse cited for possession is about rising on the Day of Judgment, and the Quran as a whole gives Shaytan only the power to whisper and no authority over Allah's servants. Possession would also destroy personal responsibility and let any criminal evade punishment, and Mufti Abu Layth says the claim that jinn can take any form makes the whole idea absurd.
machine4 min 55 s1:20:45on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Was Jesus born of a virgin, and how could a jinn father a child?
Mufti Abu Layth says he has recently become inclined to the view of Abdul Karim Athari and Tamanna Imadi that Jesus was born naturally, since the Quran never explicitly states a virgin birth and 6:101 argues from the absence of a companion. The guest sets that controversy aside and says a jinn, being a different species, could not impregnate a woman.
machine3 min 56 s1:25:40on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If possession were real, why is there no sahih hadith of the Prophet casting out a jinn?
The Gospels make exorcism a chief miracle of Jesus, but the Quran never mentions it and there is no sahih hadith of the Prophet casting out a jinn, so the guest calls the belief overstated. Following Bilal Philips's study, he says the symptoms match psychological illness and medical treatment should come first.
machine3 min 55 s1:29:36on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is belief in magic spells and jinn possession part of Islam?
Belief in possession and magic spells holds Muslims back and harms mental health, and the guest says it is not a religious teaching because no verse or authentic hadith establishes it, whatever people believe they have seen. Mufti Abu Layth notes that to believers in jinn the ordinary explanation seems the far-fetched one.
machine6 min 33 s1:34:50on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Surat al-Falaq confirm that black magic is real?
The verse about those who blow on knots does not establish that magic is effective: the guest says it asks protection from the fear such practices create, and Mufti Abu Layth says the surah names things not harmful in themselves but the superstitions attached to them. The question whether Islam is feudal went unanswered.
machine2 min 38 s1:40:04on YouTube
19 Apr 2020video
What does Mufti Abu Layth think of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab?
On balance Mufti Abu Layth places Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the negative: a puritan dogmatist who demolished tombs, killed pilgrims and inspired the Salafi movement, which he feels did more harm than good and is a springboard for extremism. He adds that the movement also revived hadith and challenged blind following and superstition.
machine3 min 29 s0:00on YouTube
19 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where did Shaykh Kashif Khan study, and what is the difference between Salafi and Ahl al-Hadith?
The guest studied with Salafi scholars in Pakistan, mostly privately; he says Madinah graduates prefer the name Salafi and the Pakistani Ahl al-Hadith prefer Ahl al-Hadith.
machine5 min 12 s3:16on YouTube
19 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Shaykh Kashif Khan become religious, and does he regret his zealous phase?
The guest describes turning religious through the internet, cutting off friends and failing his degrees to travel with scholars, and says he does not regret it, calling it a developing experience.
machine9 min 11 s8:28on YouTube
19 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it haram for medical students to dissect dead bodies?
The guest says dissecting cadavers for medical training is permissible, and cites a Salafi fatwa forbidding it as an example of Ahl al-Hadith rigidity.
machine3 min 57 s25:17on YouTube
19 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is pornography today like the concubines of the past?
The guest rejects likening pornography to concubinage or mut'ah, calling it instant gratification, and describes Salafi efforts to suppress permissive classical texts; Mufti Abu Layth says these are real questions that need open discussion.
machine5 min 11 s1:56:54on YouTube
7 Apr 2020video
Do the prophets' bodies decay in the grave?
Mufti Abu Layth did not teach that the prophets' bodies decay: he read out a question and described a devotional and a factual approach, noting most Muslims take the devotional one. He says critics who present it as disrespect to the Prophet are lying.
machine7 min1:19on YouTube
6 Apr 2020video
What does Mufti Abu Layth think of Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi?
Mufti Abu Layth regards Shaykh al-Yaqoubi as a level-headed scholar who has spoken against extremism and would point someone set on joining a Sufi order to a figure like him, while thinking his admirers overdo it. He himself once took issue with al-Yaqoubi's statements on Bukhari.
machine2 min 37 s0:00on YouTube
6 Apr 2020video
What was in the letter attacking Shaykh al-Yaqoubi, and who sent it?
A Bradford-based board wrote to Shaykh al-Yaqoubi demanding he declare Shia, Deobandi and Salafi figures kafir and condemn The Study Quran and Hamza Yusuf, which Mufti Abu Layth calls a sectarian bullying session. He recognised only two signatories and was surprised to see Pir Saqib Shaami's name.
machine5 min 14 s2:37on YouTube
6 Apr 2020video
The letter's attack on Shaykh Akram Nadwi, and a played debate clip: 'one, two, three, kufr'
The letter also demanded that Shaykh Akram Nadwi be called a deviant. Mufti Abu Layth plays a debate clip of one signatory repeatedly counting 'one, two, three' and pronouncing kufr, which he holds up as absurd bullying.
machine3 min 40 s7:51on YouTube
6 Apr 2020video
Why does Mufti Abu Layth say both the attackers and the admirers of Shaykh al-Yaqoubi need balance?
People cannot be bullied into beliefs, and al-Yaqoubi has rightly not responded to the letter. But his admirers also need balance: claims that he performs miracles or read the Shama'il in four hours go too far and provoke hatred of him.
machine3 min 56 s11:31on YouTube
6 Apr 2020video
Why is demanding that a scholar make takfir a form of bullying?
It is bullying because it pushes a sectarian agenda by threatening to declare al-Yaqoubi a deviant or a kafir for refusing to pronounce on others' beliefs. The deen belongs to Allah, and it is nobody's duty to expel people from it.
machine1 min 25 s15:27on YouTube
31 Mar 2020video
Introduction: a map of Qadian and another Qadiani video
Mufti Abu Layth opens by locating Qadian on a map and announces that he will respond to another Qadiani video made against him.
machine1 min 21 s0:00on YouTube
31 Mar 2020video
Does Abul Kalam Azad praising Mirza Ghulam Ahmad prove anything?
Abul Kalam Azad may well have spoken kindly of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as people who knew and liked a decent man would. Mufti Abu Layth finds it illogical that the critics accept a prophet who achieved nothing yet call his view that tattoos are not haram absurd.
machine2 min 40 s1:21on YouTube
31 Mar 2020video
The caller from Canada: trolling, the word Qadiani, and pictures of Mirza
Mufti Abu Layth recounts telling a caller that the trolling did not suit him and asking whether he believed Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet, then mocks pictures of Mirza on screen.
machine5 min 15 s4:01on YouTube
31 Mar 2020video
What was the purpose of God sending Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet?
A prophet is sent with a purpose, as with Jesus, Moses, David and Muhammad, but Mufti Abu Layth sees none in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who lived and died under British rule without liberating even Qadian. The caller could not name a message and asked to call a friend.
machine6 min 38 s11:55on YouTube
31 Mar 2020video
What was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's prophecy about Muhammadi Begum and did it come true?
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's claimed revelation that Muhammadi Begum's husband would die if she married another was not fulfilled, since the husband lived on and the couple had children. Mufti Abu Layth also mocks his claim to be an incarnation of Ram and Vishnu.
machine5 min 16 s17:12on YouTube
31 Mar 2020video
Mirza's death from cholera, closing jokes and sign-off
Mufti Abu Layth closes with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's death from cholera, more jokes about his appearance, and a sign-off.
machine2 min 58 s21:10on YouTube
30 Mar 2020video
Should we recite Sahih al-Bukhari to protect ourselves from the coronavirus?
No: reciting Sahih al-Bukhari is not the way to tackle the coronavirus, and the Quran itself is not a medical cure; people can simply make du'a.
machine11 min3:43on YouTube
22 Mar 2020On Current Events
Abdul Raheem Limbada and the dream of the coronavirus as a man
Mufti Abu Layth mocks a preacher's account of a dream in which the coronavirus appeared as a man sent to punish, calling it nonsense that people are preaching and sharing.
machine10 min 12 s0:01on YouTube
28 Feb 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Do Muslims believe in reincarnation?
No: he does not believe in past lives in this world, though he feels souls are connected to each other and to God, which may explain the feeling of having lived before.
machine1 min 57 s31:30on YouTube
14 Jan 2020Quick Fiqh!
Is DMT haram?
Mufti Abu Layth says DMT is not haram and calls it an entheogen, though it is not for everyone; legality and health are separate questions. He holds the same for psilocybin.
machine2 min 56 s0:00on YouTube
2019 · 37
31 Dec 2019On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Did angels really fight at the Battle of Badr?
Mufti Abu Layth says many take the angelic help at Badr as symbolic language for strengthened resolve, and the companions' later descriptions as storytelling or what they felt they saw.
machine7 min 42 s0:00on YouTube
12 Dec 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Why does Mufti Abu Layth say Salafis cannot debate atheists without borrowing Ash'ari arguments?
Salafis argue from a standpoint that cannot hold its own against atheists, so Salafi-background debaters end up using Ash'ari and Maturidi arguments. The Hanbalis were literalists, not the theologians of the tradition.
machine1 min 19 s6:33on YouTube
12 Dec 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is al-wala wal-bara, loving and hating for the sake of Allah, part of Islam?
The doctrine of loving and hating for the sake of God (al-wala wal-bara) is a Wahhabi invention spread with Gulf money and not part of the tradition. The Quranic bara'a means detachment of association, not hatred.
machine2 min 57 s7:52on YouTube
9 Nov 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
What does Mufti Abu Layth think of Shaykh Imran Hosein?
Mufti Abu Layth has not watched much of Imran Hosein but finds him preoccupied with doomsday culture, which he opposes. Islam, he says, is about optimism and seizing the day, as the hadith about carrying on planting when the Hour comes shows, and doom and gloom can fuel death cults.
machine5 min 31 s0:00on YouTube
5 Nov 2019Hadith Studies
What is the difference between the Ash'ari and Athari (Hanbali) creeds?
The core difference is that the Athari (Hanbali) creed attributes body parts to God and the Ash'ari creed does not. Mufti Abu Layth would broadly align himself with the Ash'aris, with reservations, and ranks the philosophers above all the theologians.
machine6 min 33 s0:00on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
What are Ya'juj and Ma'juj (Gog and Magog), and could they be zombies?
Qadhi rejected the traditional reading of Ya'juj and Ma'juj on geographical grounds and floated colonialism and zombies; Mufti Abu Layth says the colonial reading holds strongly for him and mocks the zombie idea.
machine5 min 38 s6:22on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Can Yasir Qadhi's zombie theory of Gog and Magog be defended?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qadhi's zombie theory, refuted even by Salafi critics, cannot be justified and should simply be disowned.
machine4 min 47 s12:00on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
What did Yasir Qadhi say about Mufti Abu Layth on the Mad Mamluks podcast?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qadhi, trying to reassert his traditional credentials on a podcast, said people like Mufti should declare themselves Mu'tazila rather than Sunni.
machine5 min 42 s16:47on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Do most Sunnis consider Wahhabis and Salafis to be Sunni?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is ironic for a Wahhabi to expel others from Sunni Islam, since most Sunnis do not count Wahhabis as Sunni, while he himself is among the few who do.
machine3 min 04 s22:29on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Who were the Mu'tazila and what did they believe?
The Mu'tazila were an extinct early sect who held that a sinning Muslim is neither believer nor kafir; Mufti Abu Layth says later theologians' defensive reaction left some Muslims thinking the intellect is bad, which he calls the dumbest idea.
machine2 min 34 s25:33on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Is it inconsistent to reinterpret Gog and Magog by geography but not other beliefs by science?
Mufti Abu Layth says Qadhi calls him a heretic for revisiting interpretations on grounds of science and reason, yet revisits Gog and Magog on grounds of geography with his own teacher's precedent, which he calls hypocrisy.
machine7 min 29 s33:10on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Did the Salafi movement play a part in producing modern extremism?
Mufti Abu Layth says Salafis now oppose terrorism but their movement helped produce it, from the 1970s Salafi group to the 1979 Kaaba seizure, and that Qadhi's teachers belonged to that past.
machine6 min 20 s40:39on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Can old interpretations of the Quran be revisited, and what role does reason play?
Mufti Abu Layth says long-standing interpretations that are not the Quran's clear expression may be revisited and that reason has primacy, but one must not condemn others for doing what one does oneself.
machine1 min 47 s46:59on YouTube
18 Oct 2019Hadith Studies
Did the Prophet really split the moon in half?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the moon was not split; the companions described what they perceived, most likely a lunar eclipse, and Quran 54:1 is about the end of the world.
machine2 min 15 s0:40on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is listening to music haram?
In Mufti Abu Layth's understanding music is not forbidden, because no text is at once conclusive, sahih and explicit: the Bukhari hadith speaks of entertainment, not music, and the texts naming music are not authentic. People find this hard to accept because they come to religion expecting it to oppose entertainment and desire.
machine5 min 16 s10:31on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is it haram to write or sing lyrics about alcohol?
Lyrics about alcohol are not haram, since such poetry was recited in the Prophet's mosque, and declaring something haram because it might lead to bad behaviour is lying on God's behalf. Enjoining good is not policing, scholars need not be followed blindly, and God understands sarcasm as well as we do.
machine3 min 59 s26:09on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Why do people assume music must be haram before looking at any evidence?
People come to Islam with a prior picture of what religion must be, which includes sacrifice, suffering and asceticism and excludes entertainment, and this backdrop rather than the texts drives their judgement that music is haram. Even with no hadith against it, music would be forbidden on that basis.
machine7 min 54 s52:08on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Why is celibacy praised despite a hadith against it while music is condemned without one?
A sahih hadith condemns the vow never to marry, yet unmarried scholars are praised in books like Abu Ghudda's, because celibacy fits the picture of religion as self-denial; music, which fits the opposite picture, is condemned although no clear sahih hadith names it. The default law remains that everything is permissible unless proven otherwise.
machine6 min 30 s1:00:02on YouTube
14 Sep 2019video
If God knew earlier scriptures would change, why not send the Quran first?
The earlier prophets were sent only to the Israelites and their books were never meant to be preserved word for word, so the question rests on a misunderstanding.
machine1 min 55 s11:21on YouTube
21 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is the Quran's description of paradise and hell literal or symbolic?
Mufti Abu Layth reads the Quran's imagery of the afterlife as symbolic, chosen to resonate with the people it was revealed to, while holding that life continues after this world. Allah also describes himself in imagery, and people are free to disagree.
machine6 min 32 s2:38on YouTube
21 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Did the Prophet teach a formal creed of what Muslims must believe?
The Prophet taught faith, not a creed: beyond a handful of beliefs no hadith prescribes what to believe, and for 150 years the salaf up to Imam Malik wrote down no dogma. Policing people's ideas is the antithesis of Islam, so think for yourself.
machine2 min 36 s15:41on YouTube
17 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
What does Mufti Abu Layth think of Shaykh Saqib Shaami?
Mufti Abu Layth respects Saqib Shaami for turning people lost to drugs and crime into good human beings and finds his influence in the East unique for a Western-raised shaykh. He sees him as focused on spirituality and tasawwuf rather than academic or contemporary intellectual issues.
machine4 min 47 s0:00on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Can people be moral without religion?
Yes: humans know that killing is wrong without scripture, which came to reinforce it, and secular European societies have reached ethics without God. He strongly disagrees with deriding that.
machine5 min 44 s19:02on YouTube
2 Aug 2019Amigo-Enemigo: A Sunni-Shia Dialogue
Rumours of a Sunni-Shia debate, and building bridges with the Shia
Mufti Abu Layth is not interested in Sunni-Shia debates: he believes the split is permanent and prefers building bridges, avoiding contested questions such as who was the better caliph.
machine5 min 23 s0:01on YouTube
1 Aug 2019On Current Events
Is it wrong to judge someone who has become an atheist or left Islam?
A person's atheism or doubts are their own choice and he does not judge them; what he objects to, he says, is staged exorcisms and charity money taken under false pretences.
machine5 min 43 s10:45on YouTube
15 Jan 2019Responding to Refutations
Backdrop: trolling by Ahmadis and the video that prompted the reply
The reply was prompted by an Ahmadi video claiming Mufti Abu Layth borrowed his views from them, followed by days of online trolling. Mufti says he opposes persecution of Ahmadis but will respond.
machine6 min 33 s0:00on YouTube
15 Jan 2019Responding to Refutations
Who Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was and the claim that God spoke to him in Punjabi
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was born in 1839 in Punjab. Mufti Abu Layth argues that God intervening in an age of colonial suffering by merely talking to one man in Punjabi, with nothing changing, is not a credible divine plan.
machine7 min 59 s6:33on YouTube
15 Jan 2019Responding to Refutations
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's developing claims: reformer, messiah, prophet, Krishna
The claim that Mirza never claimed prophethood is a half-truth: he began as a reformer in 1884, then claimed to be the promised messiah, a prophet in 1901 and Krishna in 1904. Mufti Abu Layth quotes these claims from Mirza's own books.
machine6 min 34 s14:32on YouTube
15 Jan 2019Responding to Refutations
Early denials, the second coming, revelations in English and claims of divinity
Mirza's early denials of prophethood were superseded by later claims to be Christ, to receive Quranic verses, to own the real al-Aqsa and to be God. Mufti Abu Layth believes Mirza was mentally unwell rather than lying.
machine6 min 37 s21:06on YouTube
15 Jan 2019Responding to Refutations
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's unfulfilled prophecies, the mubahala oaths and his death
Mirza's prophecies about living to eighty, further marriages, another son and dying in Makkah or Madinah were not fulfilled, and he died first after mubahala oaths. He died of cholera and bowel illness, as his son's biography records.
machine7 min 54 s27:43on YouTube
15 Jan 2019Responding to Refutations
Final thoughts: mental health, persecution, free speech and the victim card
Mufti Abu Layth condemns any persecution of Ahmadis but says criticising their beliefs is free speech, not persecution, and that not calling them Muslims does not amount to persecuting them.
machine5 min 16 s35:37on YouTube
14 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Who was al-Khidr and why is he called the green one?
Al-Khidr is a figure of Islamic literature and folk belief whose name means the green one, said to be because the ground turned green where he sat. Earlier scholars preferred the pronunciation al-Khadir.
machine2 min 35 s0:00on YouTube
14 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Was the story of Musa and al-Khidr a dream?
Mufti Abu Layth reads everything after Musa and his companion fell asleep at the rock as a vision, which explains its strange details. Scholars who read it literally struggled to explain them.
machine5 min 40 s8:22on YouTube
14 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Is al-Khidr a prophet, and is he still alive?
Classical scholars disagreed on whether al-Khidr was a prophet or a saint, and many held he is still alive while others denied it. Mufti Abu Layth likens the stories of his appearances to saint legends in other religions.
machine8 min 46 s14:02on YouTube
14 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Is al-Khidr a real person who is still alive?
No: he reads al-Khidr as part of a vision shown to Musa, whose three events mirrored Musa's own life and mission. The boy was not really killed, and al-Khidr does not roam the earth.
machine6 min 19 s22:48on YouTube
8 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
If God can do anything, why not take the miracles in Quranic stories literally?
Reading the stories as suspensions of natural law means ditching reason, which leaves no ground to reject any myth; reason must be all in, though the prophets were real people.
machine6 min 26 s9:32on YouTube
8 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did a jinn really bring the Queen of Sheba's throne to Sulayman?
Mufti Abu Layth doubts it: following Athari's tafsir, the 'jinn' here were a division of Sulayman's forces, one of three branches of his state.
machine6 min 26 s27:28on YouTube
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24 Dec 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did the journey of Musa and Khidr really happen, or was it a vision?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that everything after Musa and Joshua slept at the rock happened in a vision, which explains the story's strange shifts.
machine5 min 51 s5:31on YouTube
24 Dec 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why did Khidr kill the boy in Surah al-Kahf?
Mufti Abu Layth reads the ship, the boy and the wall as a vision mirroring Musa's mission; no child was really killed, since God would never allow that.
machine5 min 18 s11:22on YouTube
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
Did the topic of Tawhid versus the Trinity favour the Muslim side, and how well prepared was Hijab?
Tawhid appeals to reason while the Trinity is held by Christians as a supra-rational truth, so the topic itself favoured Hijab. Even so, Mufti Abu Layth was impressed by Hijab's thorough biblical research and impromptu quotation of the Bible, while Wood seemed unprepared.
machine2 min 37 s2:38on YouTube
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
What was Hijab's main argument against the Trinity, and did Wood answer it?
Hijab's central argument was that the Trinitarian creed defined at Nicaea in 325 cannot be shown in any earlier Christian source, which Mufti Abu Layth calls precise and well researched and which Wood failed to answer sufficiently. Wood seemed shaky and unprepared, and the debate leaned less on reason than it could have.
machine3 min 56 s5:15on YouTube
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
Do Muslims accept doctrines as irrational as the Trinity, such as the uncreated Quran?
Wood's real challenge was that Muslims who mock the Trinity as irrational themselves accept doctrines such as the uncreated Quran and attributes that are 'neither God nor other than God'. Mufti Abu Layth says this was a genuinely tough point that Hijab did not fully answer, but Wood put it so badly that few noticed.
machine3 min 58 s11:16on YouTube
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
If Muslims accept miracles that defy reason, can they still object that the Trinity is irrational?
Muslims must hold the Quran to be in line with reason, because accepting miracles that make no sense removes any ground for objecting that three cannot equal one; consistency is all or nothing. Hijab denied that Muslims ever held anthropomorphic beliefs, but some did, though Mufti Abu Layth does not share them.
machine2 min 24 s15:14on YouTube
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
Did the Prophet teach a creed about God's attributes, and when did the Muslim creed emerge?
The Prophet taught faith, not a formal creed; the Muslim creed emerged two to three hundred years later, and its doctrine of attributes 'neither God nor other than God' is, in Mufti Abu Layth's view, irrational and unfounded in the Quran and Sunnah. Ordinary Muslims do not know this material, which is why Wood's objections did not land.
machine3 min 44 s17:38on YouTube
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
What should Muslims learn from the Wood versus Hijab debate?
Thorough knowledge wins debates, Muslims must raise their adab, and they must be consistent: if the laws of nature do not matter for miracles, then there is no ground to say three cannot equal one. Clips about camel urine or suspended laws of nature send a confusing message.
machine3 min 47 s27:53on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
What is Yasir Qadhi's background, and where does the Salafi movement come from?
Qadhi's arguments stem from a hard-line Salafi formation, and Wahhabism in Mufti Abu Layth's account is a doctrine of literalism hostile to reason founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, whom he calls a deviant for permitting the killing and enslavement of Muslims. He traces the Salafi scholars of the 1970s to the movement behind the 1979 seizure of Mecca.
machine10 min 29 s14:22on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
What did Yasir Qadhi write in the leaked emails about the Quran's preservation and the theological schools?
In emails leaked by Dawah Man, Qadhi wrote that the letter-for-letter account of the Quran's preservation cannot stand and proposed discarding the theological schools to rethink kalam from scratch. Mufti Abu Layth reads this as a radical reinterpretation from the man now condemning them.
machine3 min 59 s24:51on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
Are the Salafis themselves orthodox by their own standard?
The Salafis are themselves unorthodox: the orthodoxy of the ummah has been Ash'ari and the four schools of law, both of which they reject, so their appeal to orthodoxy against new interpretations is inconsistent.
machine2 min 37 s28:50on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
Is a new interpretation of the Quran the same as claiming to be a new prophet?
Equating a new interpretation with a claim to prophethood is out of order, since the Salafi movement itself is a radical reinterpretation that rejects the majority and holds that God has a leg and a foot. The majority of Muslims have always accepted metaphor in the Quran.
machine3 min 49 s1:19:53on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
When is a hadith set aside, and is rejecting hadith acceptable?
Mufti Abu Layth is not in favour of rejecting hadith in general, but follows Imam Malik in setting aside a report where it goes against the established tradition, reason, the principles of Islam or the Quran. He calls the khutbah dangerous and regrets what he sees as Qadhi's turn away from reason.
machine2 min 39 s1:23:42on YouTube
8 Oct 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Do Muslims really get 72 virgins in Paradise?
The number 72 or 73 has no basis and comes from a fabricated or very weak report that became an old wives' tale. The Quran does mention women and virgins in Paradise in modest terms, and some non-sahih reports speak of sexual relations there.
machine4 min 49 s0:00on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What is the Bukhari report about the Prophet seeing a woman beside Umar's palace in paradise?
The Bukhari report in which the Prophet sees a woman beside Umar's palace in paradise and turns away because of Umar's jealousy casts the Prophet in a poor light, Mufti Abu Layth says.
machine2 min 36 s13:02on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Why does Mufti Abu Layth say BukhariGate matters?
BukhariGate matters because the whole of Sahih al-Bukhari rests on one transmitter, al-Farabri, and because the reports in it repay the Prophet and his companions with disrespect. Mufti Abu Layth attributes their circulation to Wahhabis and their sympathisers, whom he condemns in strong terms.
machine2 min 38 s30:03on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Bukhari's persecution and why his book reaches us through one transmitter
Bukhari was persecuted and boycotted in his last years by Hanafis and Hanbali literalists, so few transmitted his book and it reaches us through Farabri alone. The same two groups now insist it reaches us with certainty.
machine3 min 57 s58:29on YouTube
2 Jul 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Are the descriptions of paradise in the Quran meant literally?
The afterlife is real, but he believes the Quran's imagery of paradise was an encouragement suited to its first audience rather than a literal description. Anyone who takes it literally is free to do so.
machine5 min 03 s0:00on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Accused of misquoting Ibn Ashur on the beast of the earth
Mufti Abu Layth says a scholar who accused him of misquoting Ibn Ashur accepted, after a civil discussion, that he had not, even while still disagreeing.
machine3 min 54 s0:01on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
What does the Quran say about the beast of the earth?
Mufti Abu Layth reads 27:80-84 as moving from the grave to the Day of Judgment, with the creature of verse 82 set within that sequence.
machine3 min 10 s3:55on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Will a beast really appear at the end of times?
Mufti Abu Layth says a literal beast raises questions nobody can answer, and that end-times reports are information to take with a pinch of salt, not literal events.
machine2 min 36 s7:05on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Do the signs of the Hour have to come before the Hour?
Not necessarily: Mufti Abu Layth accepts the view that the signs can occur with the Hour itself, as the world ends and a timeless realm begins.
machine1 min 18 s9:41on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Does Ibn Ashur say the beast comes before the Day of Judgment?
Mufti Abu Layth reads Ibn Ashur as treating the time from the world's end to the resurrection as one realm, not as placing the beast before the Day of Judgment.
machine4 min 31 s10:59on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Ibn Ashur: the creature speaks to the deniers at the gathering
In Ibn Ashur's reading, as Mufti Abu Layth presents it, the creature speaks at the gathering on the Day of Judgment to shame the Quraysh who denied the Prophet.
machine3 min 55 s15:30on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Calling it a misquotation is poor scholarship
Mufti Abu Layth says the misquotation charge reflects weak Arabic or a fixed mindset, and that scholars he consulted confirmed his reading of Ibn Ashur.
machine2 min 13 s19:25on YouTube
23 Apr 2018video
Who is Mufti Abu Layth's message aimed at?
His message is for the majority of Muslims who do not practise or feel Islam cannot stand up to reason, to show them that it can.
machine3 min 57 s0:00on YouTube
22 Apr 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
What do Saudi scholars say about women travelling without a mahram?
Mufti Abu Layth reports the Saudi fatwa board and Ibn Baz forbidding any journey without a mahram, even a short staff bus trip, and mocks the strictness.
machine3 min 23 s19:38on YouTube
20 Apr 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did Musa's staff really turn into a snake?
No: Mufti Abu Layth holds the staff was described as moving as though it were a snake, while the magicians' sticks moved by a chemical trick.
machine6 min 15 s0:01on YouTube
20 Apr 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did Musa beat Pharaoh's magicians with stronger magic?
No: Mufti Abu Layth prefers the reading that Musa's staff exposed the magicians' trickery, since out-doing their magic would only teach that might is right.
machine7 min 16 s6:16on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Does jinn possession exist in Islam?
Not as popularly pictured, Mufti Abu Layth holds: the idea of demons taking over a body and causing illness and insanity does not survive the Quran, the authentic Sunnah and reason. He asks what the jinn would even gain by it and sets out to trace where the belief comes from.
machine3 min 52 s0:00on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why did religious scholars end up explaining things like illness and the mind?
Because for most of history the ulama were the only educated class, so people brought them every unexplained question, from the divisibility of atoms to whether the intellect sits in the heart or the brain. They answered with the knowledge of their day, which is the background to the possession belief.
machine3 min 55 s3:52on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Does the Quran's riba verse prove that Satan can possess people?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the verse is imagery, read by the commentators as describing how riba-takers rise on the Day of Judgement or as a picture of consuming greed, and the Quran uses such images, like the zaqqum tree's heads of devils, because humans have imagination.
machine5 min 16 s7:47on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Are there authentic hadith showing the Prophet casting out jinn?
No report of the Prophet expelling a jinn is free of criticism: the Ya'la ibn Murra and Umm Aban reports are weak, and the sound version of Uthman ibn Abi al-As's story in Sahih Muslim mentions no jinn at all, as al-Nawawi points out. Mufti Abu Layth asks why a Prophet sent as a mercy would never have taught about so common a danger.
machine6 min 31 s13:03on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Should I believe something just because people say the Quran or hadith say so?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran itself appeals to reason, asking people to look, reflect and ponder, and condemns following forefathers blindly, so claims like possession must be tested against reason through the Quran. Someone reading the Quran without a cultural inheritance would never derive possession from it.
machine2 min 35 s19:34on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What does the hadith 'Satan flows through the son of Adam like blood' mean?
In context it is about suspicion: the Prophet said it after explaining to some men that the woman with him was his wife Safiyya, so it refers to the insinuations that pass through human minds, not to possession. Mufti Abu Layth adds that the exorcism trade is a large industry whose practitioners may nonetheless be sincere.
machine2 min 39 s22:09on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why do only believers in jinn possession seem to experience it?
Mufti Abu Layth says personal and family anecdotes are used to defend possession while the same Muslims dismiss Hindu miracles or Christian doctrine by reasoning against them, applying reason to everyone's claims but their own. He cites a study finding the brain's rational centre quietens during one's own religious experience.
machine3 min 58 s24:48on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
How do we know mental illness is not really jinn possession?
Mufti Abu Layth answers that an explanation which fits everything, like a child told that cyborgs cause all events, is not thereby true; the jinn have become the Muslim catch-all. Such belief is what Basil Mitchell's parable of the partisan describes, a faith no evidence can shake.
machine5 min 14 s28:46on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why does it matter whether people believe in jinn possession?
Because the belief brings mockery on Islam and sustains an industry of abuse, with beatings, sexual violence and extortion, including a house gifted to a practitioner as a 'cure'. Mufti Abu Layth says Islam will bear the blame and future generations will treat it as mythology.
machine2 min 39 s34:00on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What medical conditions could have been mistaken for possession in the past?
Conditions such as palinopsia, where after-images persist, and Charles Bonnet syndrome, where people see faces, teeth and buildings that are not there, have known brain causes today but would once have looked like demons. Oliver Sacks's patient knew her visions were unreal, unlike the persecutory beliefs of psychosis.
machine3 min 58 s36:39on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
If exorcisms and ruqya sometimes work, does that prove possession is real?
No: real symptoms can be produced or relieved by belief alone, as Ted Kaptchuk's study with fake pills and retractable needles showed, so an exorcism or ruqya can 'work' through the placebo effect. Some people would also have recovered regardless.
machine3 min 56 s40:37on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
If jinn do not possess people, what is ruqya for?
The Quran is a cure for what is in the hearts, meaning disbelief and superstition, not a medical treatment. Ruqya and the du'as taught against omens are a scaffolding that steadies a person's faith until it can stand on its own, because the mind clings to ritual.
machine3 min 55 s44:33on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What is the 'jinn of the gaps'?
It is Mufti Abu Layth's name for blaming the jinn for anything not yet understood, as atheists accuse believers of a god of the gaps. He lists conditions such as Capgras delusion, hemispatial neglect, aphantasia and foreign accent syndrome that have or will have natural explanations but would once have been called possession.
machine6 min 34 s48:28on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
LatestWhy do cases of 'possession' in Muslim communities so often involve women with trauma?
Because, Mufti Abu Layth says, such cases are usually breakdowns of a psyche tormented by control, suspicion, forced or cousin marriages and abuse, which the stigma around mental health stops families from acknowledging, so they call it jinn or magic. The hadith that every disease has a cure means go and find it.
machine3 min 55 s55:02on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Can a jinn fall in love with someone or break up a marriage?
No, in Mufti Abu Layth's view: jinn, if they exist, would be as different from humans as extremophile bacteria, and nobody thinks a bacterium is jealous of their marriage. Relationships end through human behaviour, and people should own that rather than blame the jinn.
machine2 min 38 s58:57on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
How does Mufti Abu Layth explain an exorcist who says he is possessed by a jinn?
As displacement of guilt: the exorcist's 'jinn' professed sexual love for him, which Mufti Abu Layth reads as the man projecting desires he could not reconcile with his religious identity onto a jinn. He says the man may sincerely believe it, but belief does not make it true.
machine3 min 56 s1:01:35on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Is jinn possession just a difference of opinion among scholars?
Mufti Abu Layth refuses to treat it that way: although scholars from Fakhr al-Din al-Razi to Shaltut, Ibn Ashur and al-Shawkani rejected possession while Ibn Taymiyya affirmed it, this is not a harmless fiqh difference like raising the hands in prayer, because the belief drives abuse and exploitation and brings ridicule on Islam.
machine2 min 07 s1:05:31on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What magic means: fantasy magic versus illusion, and the Arabic sihr
The question is not illusion or trickery but 'fantasy magic' that changes reality, which he calls absurd; the Arabs used sihr for anything inexplicable.
machine5 min 07 s0:00on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Three kinds of what was called magic: mind control, potions and illusion
What people called magic fell into three kinds: mind control and hypnosis, chemical potions, and stage illusion, all of which have natural explanations.
machine5 min 06 s5:07on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Magic in the Quran: Musa and Pharaoh's magicians, an illusion
In the Quran the magic of Pharaoh's magicians was only an illusion; Musa's fear was a natural human reaction, not proof that the magic was real.
machine5 min 10 s10:13on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Was magic done on the Prophet? Why he rejects the report
Mufti Abu Layth rejects the report that the Prophet was bewitched, even though it is in al-Bukhari, as an insult to the Prophet that clashes with the Quran.
machine9 min 40 s15:23on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Where the story came from: polemic, the poisoning report and the ajwa dates
Mufti Abu Layth believes the story is misconstrued, possibly fed by polemical rumours of the time, and notes it contradicts the hadith that ajwa dates protect from magic.
machine5 min 09 s25:03on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why great scholars accepted it: sectarian turf war with the Mu'tazila
Mufti Abu Layth argues that belief in magic, even on the Prophet, hardened as a sectarian reaction against the Mu'tazila, just as other issues hardened against Salafis or Shia.
machine10 min 12 s30:12on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Harut and Marut, and how magic 'splits' people
Harut and Marut may have been two pious men taken for angels who taught skills that looked like magic; the doll-and-needles idea of magic is not from the Quran or Sunnah.
machine3 min 14 s40:24on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
The seven ajwa dates hadith as hyperbole
The hadith that ajwa dates protect from poison and magic is hyperbole praising dates; classical commentators did not take it literally either.
machine2 min 37 s43:38on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Exploitation by 'babas', and the solution: proper help and mental health
Magic healers exploit desperate people; seek real help from your network or professionals, and communities should take mental health seriously.
machine5 min 06 s46:15on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
What does reason mean in religion, and what does the Quran say about it?
Reason is the ability of a healthy mind to think and make judgements based on practical facts, broader than formal logic; Mufti Abu Layth takes the Surah al-Hajj verse that the hearts, not the eyes, are blind as the backdrop of the talk.
machine5 min 13 s0:00on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Why do Muslims need reason if they already have the Quran and Sunnah?
Mufti Abu Layth asks why reason matters once Islam has reached us, hears audience suggestions, and says the most important answer still lies before all of them, in the prequel he is about to give.
machine4 min 07 s5:13on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
How do Muslims know Islam is true and other religions are not?
Muslims reject Hinduism and the Trinity by reason, relying on a shared human intersubjectivity that judges by practical facts; Mufti Abu Layth says the same standard of reason must therefore be applied to Islam.
machine6 min 34 s9:20on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Is blind faith (taqlid) in creed acceptable in Islam?
The theologians held that blind-following in creed is haram and that faith must rest on reasoning; later scholars tolerated inherited faith as a lower level while holding that Islam aspires to faith that knows God to be one.
machine7 min 47 s15:54on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Why are so many Muslims and scholars opposed to using reason in religion?
Opposition to reason comes from insecurity, Mufti Abu Layth says; God is not unreasonable and would not give people reason and then command what clashes with it, and Muslims have ceded reason, once called hikmah, to atheists and scientists.
machine5 min 04 s23:41on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
How do we know the Quran is the word of God, if not by reason?
Arguments that the Quran is true because it says so, is unlike other books, is eloquent or flawless, or speaks of rain and fruit are no stronger than a spiderweb, Mufti Abu Layth says; without reason one only believes Islam is true because one was told.
machine7 min 48 s28:45on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
LatestDoes Islam stand the test of reason, and why should Muslims not fear examining it?
Mufti Abu Layth says he has certainty that Islam has stood the test of reason as well as time, that the hadith of the grave condemns faith that merely repeats what people say, and that Muslims must take reason back rather than shy away.
machine5 min 14 s36:33on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Why did Muslims become hostile to reason?
Mufti Abu Layth traces Muslim hostility to reason to the centuries-long sectarian conflict with the Mu'tazila, in which the mainstream answered the Mu'tazila's use of reason by disparaging reason itself and defending absurd narrations.
machine6 min 35 s49:33on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
How did the Golden Age backlash and the clergy contribute to Muslim hostility to reason?
The philosophy and reason promoted in the Golden Age provoked a reaction that dumbed reason down, and institutionalised clergy found 'who said the deen is supposed to make sense' a useful tool of control.
machine2 min 36 s56:08on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Will using reason make me lose my faith?
No, Mufti Abu Layth says: fearing that reason leads out of Islam betrays a lack of belief that Islam is true, and doubt that leads to a more certain understanding is legitimate, as Ibrahim's request to see how Allah revives the dead shows.
machine2 min 36 s58:44on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Does Ali's saying about wiping the socks prove that religion is not based on reason?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the 'if the deen were by opinion' wording has a weak chain and is absent from several versions, that Malik's Muwatta records wiping both sides of the khuff, and that rituals are practices rather than claims against reason.
machine3 min 56 s1:01:20on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Do miracles in the Quran break the laws of nature?
No, in Mufti Abu Layth's understanding: Allah does not break the laws He set, so every event called a miracle in the Quran has an explanation within nature, as fish falling from the sky does; abandoning reason would make every religion's claims equally valid.
machine3 min 56 s1:05:16on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
When should a hadith be rejected, and can a Muslim refuse a religious command that makes no sense?
A hadith is accepted only if it does not contradict reason, the transmitted sources or an established principle, as Ibn al-Jawzi wrote; the companion who refused an order to jump into a fire shows reason rightly judging a command.
machine5 min 12 s1:09:12on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
If reason judges religion, whose reason counts, and what about rituals?
The concept of ritual must make sense, not every detail; the shared judgement of a healthy mind is the standard; and, by Malik's rule that only the Messenger's words are beyond rejection, following a school is not belonging to a cult.
machine2 min 38 s1:14:24on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Did a tree really cry for the Prophet, and why does Mufti Abu Layth reject the hadith?
Mufti Abu Layth does not hold the crying-tree reports to be established: their chains are problematic and Muslims cannot call other religions' miracle stories absurd while accepting their own; the Prophet's greatness does not depend on a tree.
machine2 min 37 s1:17:02on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Should loyalty to Sahih al-Bukhari outweigh how a report presents the Prophet?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says loyalty belongs to the Prophet, not to al-Bukhari, and cites the age-of-Aisha report, which he holds untrue and disrespectful since Arabs of the time did not marry girls that young, as an example of what must be re-examined.
machine2 min 31 s1:23:36on YouTube
9 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Does the Dajjal (Antichrist) exist in Islam?
No: the Dajjal as the Antichrist is a myth that does not exist in Islam, since a God who tested people with a miracle-working devil child would contradict al-Rahman and al-Rahim. The Dajjal hadith refer either to Shaytan or, tentatively, to an age where the virtual becomes indistinguishable from the real.
machine6 min 12 s0:00on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Introduction: reflections on Shaykh Hassan Ali's video, and respect for him
Mufti Abu Layth introduces his reply to Shaykh Hassan Ali's video on the second coming of Jesus and affirms his respect for him despite earlier disagreements such as on jinn possession.
machine1 min 19 s0:00on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Is the second coming of Jesus proven by the Quran or by the fact that most Muslims believe it?
The second coming cannot be proven from the Quran, as Hassan Ali concedes, and the fact that most Muslims believe it only reflects what they were taught as children, as with folk tales of Ya'juj and Ma'juj. The hadith on it have chain problems and, more importantly, details that clash with Islam.
machine3 min 54 s1:19on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Does it matter that the second coming of Jesus is the majority opinion and Mufti Abu Layth's view a minority one?
If every detail of the second-coming hadith is a metaphor, Mufti Abu Layth asks why Jesus himself is not. Majority and minority opinions are decided later by power and politics, as Abu Hanifa's case shows: condemned as a deviant by his contemporaries, his school spread when Abu Yusuf appointed only Hanafi judges.
machine5 min 13 s5:13on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why do almost all the hadith about Jesus returning come through Abu Hurayra?
Mufti Abu Layth does not believe the Prophet said the second-coming hadith: about eighty percent come through Abu Hurayra alone, who learned from the converts Ka'b al-Ahbar and Abdullah ibn Salam, and some of his reports appear elsewhere as Ka'b's words from the Torah. No such hadith comes from Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali or Uthman.
machine7 min 51 s10:26on YouTube
1 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
If I doubt one hadith in Bukhari, will I end up doubting the Quran?
The warning that doubting one hadith leads to doubting the Quran is scare-mongering: Bukhari and Muslim are not the word of God, some of their reports must be rejected, and the deen does not fall apart from questioning. Mufti Abu Layth says Jesus is not going to come but treats the matter as a difference of opinion, not a sectarian one.
machine5 min 12 s22:12on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Reaction to being called a probable kafir by Shadee Elmasry and others
Mufti Abu Layth rejects being called a probable kafir and apostate by Shadee Elmasry and others, says no pressure can remove him from Islam, and calls the readiness to throw people out of Islam a god complex.
machine2 min 36 s0:00on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Is someone who denies a line of al-Tahawi's creed a kafir?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says this makes al-Tahawi rather than the Quran the standard, that Elmasry himself departs from al-Tahawi on several points, that Ash'ari creed does not make takfir of the people of the qibla, and that al-Tahawi wrote 250 years after the Prophet and is not an Ash'ari authority.
machine2 min 37 s2:36on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Does the verse about Jesus speaking as a kahl prove he will return?
No: kahl means mature adulthood from about thirty or forty, and al-Razi says Jesus reached that age on earth. The reading of the verse as the second coming first appeared with a scholar who died in the 280s AH, not among the salaf.
machine2 min 38 s5:13on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Does 'before his death' in Quran 4:159 refer to the return of Jesus?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says early authorities including Ibn Abbas, Mujahid and al-Dahhak read the pronoun as the Christian who realises the truth at death, and Ubayy ibn Ka'b's recitation has 'before their death'. Referring it to Jesus's return would exclude every Christian who died over two thousand years.
machine2 min 35 s7:51on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Does Quran 43:61 say Jesus is the sign of the hour?
No: Hasan al-Basri read 'knowledge of the hour' as the Quran, others as the Prophet, and the verse says knowledge, not sign, so the critics must interpret it too. Mufti Abu Layth adds that the Mahdi was also called mutawatir by Ibn Hajar, al-Shawkani and others yet is absent from al-Tahawi's creed.
machine2 min 36 s10:26on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Why would Jesus need to come back at all?
Mufti Abu Layth says the reasons given for a return do not hold together: the Dajjal simply melts, hatred of Jews contradicts Jesus's own message as a Jew preaching compassion, and killing pigs contradicts a report in Malik that Jesus was peaceful towards pigs.
machine2 min 40 s13:02on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
What are the main problems with the hadith about Jesus returning?
Mufti Abu Layth says the return narrations conflict with the Quran, the Sunnah and Islam's principles, rest on solitary reports that cannot found aqidah, and contradict one another, from Constantinople to who the Dajjal is. He notes that the hadith of Jibril on faith and the Prophet's answers on the signs of the hour do not mention Jesus.
machine2 min 07 s15:42on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why the second-coming debate blew up and what tonight's prelude covers
The talk is a prelude to Mufti Abu Layth's case against a second coming of Jesus, prompted by the controversy and the takfir his earlier statements provoked.
machine6 min 30 s3:54on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Reply to Abu Ibrahim's post and Hizb ut-Tahrir's double standard
Critics who have long opposed Mufti Abu Layth, including Hizb ut-Tahrir whose own literature treats the return of Jesus as a solitary report, have united against him; he puts this down to sectarian politics.
machine3 min 52 s10:24on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Critics sharing clips of al-Dedew and al-Awni: double standards in scholarship
Critics are circulating old clips and articles by scholars they otherwise reject; Mufti Abu Layth says this is cherry-picking and poor scholarship, and that others have held his view before him.
machine3 min 25 s14:16on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why make a big deal of whether Jesus returns, and who is the message for?
Mufti Abu Layth says his critics, not he, made this a big deal; he has taught it for a year and stands by his position. He is addressing only one of two broad camps of religious people.
machine2 min 39 s19:00on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Two camps of religion: tribal mythology versus religion that must make sense
Religion is approached either as tribal custom with a mythology of superheroes, or as something that must make sense; Mufti Abu Layth says he is speaking only to the second group.
machine5 min 12 s20:20on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Calling to the Quran and Sunnah, not hadith; the winged horse on national television
Mufti Abu Layth calls people to the Quran and Sunnah rather than to hadith as such, since hadith must be sifted; the Dawkins and Mehdi Hasan exchange shows why religion must withstand reason.
machine3 min 51 s25:32on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
We are all seeking the truth: disagree without takfir
Muslims should be able to disagree about Islam without insults or takfir, since everyone is seeking the truth.
machine2 min 37 s29:23on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why do other scholars not see what Mufti Abu Layth sees about the return of Jesus?
Others do see it but fear their own group; Mufti Abu Layth says belonging to no sect lets him follow what makes sense in light of the Quran and Sunnah.
machine2 min 38 s32:00on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Stop obsessing about the end times: the hadith of Jibril and the planting hadith
Muslims should stop obsessing about the end times; the hadith of Jibril defines faith and the signs of the hour without mentioning Jesus's return or the Dajjal.
machine2 min 37 s34:38on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
A Christian belief that crept into Islam; creed cannot be blind-followed
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Jesus's return is a Christian belief that entered Islam and contradicts the Quran and its principles. Creed cannot be blind-followed, so he will not be intimidated into it.
machine2 min 37 s37:15on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
The second coming as a central Christian doctrine: Jesus returns as judge
The second coming is central to Christianity, and the New Testament's picture of Jesus returning as a judge matches what the hadith say.
machine2 min 26 s39:52on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why would Jesus need to return if the Prophet Muhammad completed the religion?
Muslims have no reason of their own for Jesus to return; Mufti Abu Layth rejects the descent hadith because they clash with the Quran and other hadith, not from any misunderstanding of yanzilu.
machine5 min 15 s42:18on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
If Jesus comes down from the sky, what is the point of faith after that?
Siddina's answer was that once Jesus descends, taklif ends and faith is no longer accepted; Mufti Abu Layth presents this answer for examination and finds it confused.
machine2 min 39 s48:53on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
If faith is no longer valid, why a judge? Psychology of testimony and detail
Testimony is tested through its details, and excessive detail is a warning sign; Mufti Abu Layth sets up this frame for examining the hadith of Jesus's return.
machine2 min 37 s50:12on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
The details of the Jesus hadith against the Quran: sword, judge, Jews, world peace
The details of the return hadith, conversion by the sword, universal Islam, the killing of the Jews and world peace, contradict the Quran and the Prophet's life and mirror the gospels.
machine5 min 14 s52:49on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
What Imam Malik transmitted: no return of Jesus, Zuhri's reports, the pig passed in peace
Imam Malik's Muwatta contains no hadith of Jesus's return and has Jesus greeting a pig in peace; Mufti Abu Layth reads this as Malik rejecting Zuhri's reports, half of which carry the return narrative.
machine7 min 48 s58:03on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
What about the Dajjal? Doesn't Jesus have to return to kill him?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Dajjal is not a man: the reports are defective or refer to the devil, he is absent from the Quran, and the narrations conflict and are tied to a conquest of Constantinople that happened centuries ago.
machine6 min 34 s1:07:11on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
The white minaret of Damascus: places that did not exist in the Prophet's time
Hadith placing Jesus's descent on a white minaret in Damascus describe a structure that did not exist in the Prophet's time; Mufti Abu Layth says such reports appeared once Damascus became the Umayyad capital.
machine5 min 16 s1:12:25on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Three conditions for accepting a hadith; Ibn Uthaymin and the Jassasa report
A hadith is accepted only if it does not contradict reason, the Quran and established Sunnah, or uproot a principle of Islam; the Jesus reports fail this test, and even Ibn Uthaymin rejected a sahih Dajjal report on such grounds.
machine2 min 38 s1:20:19on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Isn't the return of Jesus established by ijma and mutawatir hadith?
There is no consensus on what ijma is, and tawatur is applied selectively: the same scholars reject the Gospels, Hindu miracle reports and Shia transmissions that would qualify by their own definition.
machine3 min 54 s1:34:43on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Zuhri's reports: Fatima's anger, the attempted suicide, and half the Jesus hadith
Scholars discard Zuhri's Fatima and suicide reports as his insertions but refuse to question the Jesus reports, half of which come through him with disconnected chains; Mufti Abu Layth calls this a double standard.
machine3 min 57 s1:37:20on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
A belief that changed nothing for the dead; the hadith on his teacher's wall
The belief in Jesus's return has had zero impact on anyone who died until today, so it cannot be a core part of faith; Mufti Abu Layth introduces the hadith that shaped his approach.
machine2 min 37 s1:41:17on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Give glad tidings, make things easy: the hadith behind his approach; do not intimidate
The Prophet's instruction to give glad tidings and make things easy is the pillar of Mufti Abu Layth's approach; intimidating people into beliefs contradicts it, and learning Islam for oneself is what kept him in it.
machine3 min 56 s1:43:54on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Anwar Shah Kashmiri's claim of ijma, and the scholars who rejected the return
Kashmiri's compilation of over a hundred return hadith contains mostly weak reports by his own count, and a line of Azhar and other scholars from Abduh to Muhammad al-Ghazali rejected the second coming.
machine2 min 38 s1:47:50on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Rashid Rida at Deoband: how scholars disagree with adab
Rida and Kashmiri held opposite views on the return of Jesus yet honoured each other at Deoband; Mufti Abu Layth says this is how scholars should disagree.
machine2 min 36 s1:50:28on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Everyone picks and chooses: later scholars on mawlid, shrines, hadra and the Jesus hadith
Every group accepts later scholars against earlier ones when it suits them; Mufti Abu Layth says rejecting the Jesus hadith on the later scholars' authority is no different.
machine3 min 57 s1:56:59on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Ibn Ashur, al-Shatibi and Ibn Khaldun on the Mahdi: a discussion within Islam
Ibn Ashur, al-Shatibi and Ibn Khaldun all problematised the Mahdi reports and treated such matters as information rather than creed; Mufti Abu Layth says the return of Jesus is a discussion within Islam.
machine2 min 38 s2:00:56on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Reply to Shadee Elmasry and Hamza Maqbool: 'probably an apostate'
Mufti Abu Layth rejects being called a probable apostate: no one can expel him from Islam by pressure, and declaring people kafir over this shows a god complex.
machine2 min 37 s2:03:34on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
The Creed of Tahawi is not the Quran; Ash'aris do not make takfir of ahl al-qiblah
Denying a line of Tahawi's creed is not kufr: Ibn Taymiyya rejected several of its points, it refutes whole Muslim groups, and Ash'ari creed forbids takfir of the people of the qiblah.
machine2 min 38 s2:06:11on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Verse 3:46 and the meaning of kahl: al-Razi and the origin of the second-coming reading
Kahl in 3:46 means mature manhood, which al-Razi says Jesus reached on earth; the reading of the verse as a second coming began only in the late third century with al-Bajali.
machine2 min 36 s2:08:49on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Verses 4:159 and 43:61: 'before his death' and 'knowledge of the hour'
Neither 4:159 nor 43:61 establishes a return: the early exegetes read 4:159 of each Christian at death, Ubayy's reading is plural, and 43:61 says knowledge, not sign.
machine3 min 56 s2:11:25on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why would Jesus need to come back at all?
Muslims have had to invent a reason for Jesus's return; killing a Dajjal who melts on sight is an anti-climax, and the other tasks contradict Jesus's own character and the Quran.
machine3 min 55 s2:16:41on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Summary of the case against a second coming; Ibn Hazm on hadith against reason
There is no second coming of Jesus in Islam: the reports contradict the Quran, Sunnah and principles, are single-transmitter reports not creed, contradict each other, parallel the Bible, and are absent from the Quran and the Prophet's definition of faith.
machine2 min 39 s2:19:16on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Close: miracles and reason to come, follow the pages, closing prayer
Sign-off with a preview of talks on miracles and on the meaning of reason, an invitation to follow his pages, and a closing prayer.
machine3 min 15 s2:31:10on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Why does he reject the hadith of the tree crying for the Prophet?
The religion is built on reason, so one standard must apply to all religions: a tree that reasons and cries cannot be accepted while other faiths' claims are called absurd. He also urged his critics to reject the demeaning reports about the Prophet, which they instead affirmed.
machine3 min 56 s5:12on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Does he believe in miracles?
Yes, miracles exist on a spectrum, but none ever defies God's own laws. Rare events can occur, but they always have a cause and a natural explanation, whether or not it is known.
machine2 min 39 s9:10on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
How does he view the Salafi movement, and is hadith narrator criticism a divine science?
The Salafi movement began as a courageous rejection of tradition but, once established, became as dogmatic as what it opposed. Narrator criticism is a human science, so it is always open to revision and disagreement.
machine3 min 54 s10:29on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Is it acceptable to criticise a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari?
Al-Albani himself rejected around a dozen reports in Bukhari, so criticising a Bukhari report does not make someone a deviant. The salaf understood the Quran's miracles in several ways, and miracles had causes within God's natural law.
machine2 min 40 s14:23on YouTube
13 Feb 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Is the evil eye real in Islam?
Belief that a look can cause disease or disaster contradicts tawhid; the evil eye is simply envy, whose harm lies in how it is acted upon.
machine6 min 50 s0:00on YouTube
13 Feb 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Did someone really do magic on the Prophet?
No: he calls the report of magic on the Prophet falsely attributed and an affront to his honour, and says the Quls were revealed years earlier in Makkah.
machine3 min 44 s6:50on YouTube
14 Jan 2018Responding to Refutations
What did the Green Lane Masjid khutbah say about Mufti Abu Layth?
The khutbah called him a jahil who cannot be a mufti, said he mocks the deen, the people of tawhid and hadith, and blamed his followers' parents for not teaching them the correct aqidah. Mufti Abu Layth reports each charge with mockery and notes a well-funded Salafi organisation targeting one man on Facebook.
machine5 min 29 s0:00on YouTube
14 Jan 2018Responding to Refutations
Can the detailed aqidah taught today be proven from the Quran and Sunnah alone?
Mufti Abu Layth says aqidah as taught today was put together by Muslims over the ages, while the Prophet taught only simple belief. He challenges the maulana to a face-to-face meeting to prove his aqidah exclusively from the Quran and Sunnah, guaranteeing it cannot be done.
machine4 min 48 s5:29on YouTube
2 Jan 2018Responding to Refutations
Is the Quran created or uncreated? Why he calls the debate absurd
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the created or uncreated Quran debate is absurd: the Companions never discussed it, and it arose as a political dispute over the caliphs' authority in the time of al-Ma'mun.
machine6 min 35 s3:56on YouTube
2017 · 26
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What are the jinn and what can Shaytan actually do to people?
Jinn exist and Shaytan is a clear enemy, but his only power is to whisper, as human misleaders do, and Allah gave people the fitra and reason to resist. Any claim about the jinn must be met by asking for its proof in the Quran and Sunnah and weighing its consequences; an unexplained illness is not proof of a jinn.
machine7 min 49 s0:04on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Does the Quran say that Shaytan or the jinn can possess or control a person?
The Quran never says people lose their will; it commands believers not to follow Shaytan's footsteps, which presupposes the will and power to refuse. On the Day of Judgement Shaytan himself says he had no authority except to call people, so he teaches and whispers but never forces.
machine5 min 13 s7:53on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Is there any sound hadith that a jinn possessed someone?
There is no sound hadith of Shaytan possessing anyone; the Ibn Mas'ud report shows the jinn as a lowly creation fed on bones, not masters over humans. The guest's own investigations of 'haunted' houses and 'possessed' women found tricks and nothing else, and exorcism has become a big business.
machine6 min 34 s13:06on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
If doctors cannot explain an illness, could it be a jinn?
An illness doctors cannot explain is not thereby a jinn; that is a story made up without proof. The Quran attributes harm to Shaytan only in the sense that people follow his whispering, as in Ayyub's prayer, and forbids claiming what one has no knowledge of.
machine3 min 26 s19:40on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Which classical scholars denied that jinn can possess people?
Ibn Hazm held that claiming possession is a claim without knowledge and haram, since the Prophet spoke only of whispering; al-Tahawi noted that every taught du'a is against whispering, al-Razi said Shaytan cannot cause illness, and al-Shafi'i rejected the testimony of anyone claiming to see jinn, which only prophets can.
machine7 min 53 s23:06on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Did Ibn Taymiyya believe in jinn possession, and does his view have proof?
Ibn Taymiyya believed jinn possess people and treated them, but by his own rule of accepting nothing without proof from the Quran and Sunnah his claims fail: seeing something leave a patient does not prove it was a jinn. Levitating patients and beating the 'possessed' are tricks played on onlookers.
machine3 min 56 s30:59on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why does the guest warn women never to go to exorcists?
Exorcists exploit women: the guest recounts a girl coached to feign possession to hide her lost virginity, and says many women have been made pregnant by such men in India and on a large scale in Britain. Every illness has a cure that must be sought by proper effort.
machine3 min 56 s34:55on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Did the Prophet use ruqya or doctors when he was ill?
When the Prophet fell ill Arab doctors treated him, which is how Aisha learnt medicine, so recited verses were never meant as a cure-all and the 'treatment by Quran' books misuse the book. The Quran's verses help against whispering, and one reads them for oneself without any raqi.
machine5 min 18 s38:51on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why do jinn seem to afflict only people who believe in them?
Amulet writers, raqis and shrine touts run a business of lies, as the guest's stories of ambiguous amulets and promised sons show. Jinn never trouble him, atheists or non-Muslims, only those of weak belief, which he calls a lie against Allah and his Messenger that robs people of money and women of honour.
machine5 min 14 s44:09on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What do people mean when they say someone is possessed by a jinn?
The popular picture is that a jinn or demon takes over a person's mind or body, causing illness, obsessive or insane behaviour and broken relationships, supposedly to create mischief. Mufti Abu Layth presents this as the urban myth he will test against the Quran, the authentic Sunnah and reason, after the guest's closing call to disbelieve the whole business.
machine3 min 58 s49:23on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why did Muslim scholars of the past accept the idea of jinn possession?
Scholars of the past were the only learned people and were asked to explain everything, from the divisibility of atoms to where the intellect sits, so they explained strange behaviour with the best knowledge they had. That is the backdrop to the confusion over possession, not a proof of it.
machine5 min 14 s53:21on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Does the Quran's verse about the touch of Shaytan prove that jinn possess people?
No: the riba verse describes how usurers will rise on the Day of Judgement or pictures their greed, and the image of Shaytan's touch is drawn from human imagination, like the tree of Jahannam whose fruit is 'like the heads of devils'. It is a misused verse, not a proof.
machine3 min 56 s58:35on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Are there authentic hadith of the Prophet casting a jinn out of someone?
None of the hadith cited for possession is free of criticism; the only sound version, Uthman ibn Abi al-As in Sahih Muslim, mentions no jinn, as al-Nawawi notes, and the 'come out, enemy of Allah' reports are weak. The Prophet, a mercy to mankind, would not have left such a thing untaught.
machine6 min 31 s1:02:31on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Does the hadith that Shaytan flows in a person's blood prove possession?
No: the Prophet said it to two men who saw him with his wife Safiyya, about human suspicion, and nobody present was possessed. The Quran itself appeals to reason and proof, so possession must be tested by reason, which someone reading the Quran without cultural baggage would never find in it.
machine6 min 32 s1:09:02on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
People I know have seen jinn possession; does that not prove it?
Anecdotal experience is no proof: Muslims dismiss other faiths' miracle claims by reason while refusing to reason about their own, and possession afflicts only those who believe in it. A brain study found the prefrontal cortex shutting down during people's own religious experiences.
machine3 min 54 s1:15:34on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
How do we know mental illnesses are not really jinn possessions?
A theory that explains everything, like a child's cyborg conspiracy, is not thereby true, and 'the jinn' is such a theory for Muslims. Like Basil Mitchell's partisan who rationalises everything the stranger does, this is non-propositional faith that no evidence can reach.
machine5 min 18 s1:19:28on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What harm does belief in jinn possession do?
Belief in possession sustains beatings, sexual violence, exploitation and the extraction of money and even houses, and because it is dressed as Islam, Islam will be dismissed as mythology by the coming generation. Neurosis and psychosis are introduced as the frame for the psychological cases.
machine2 min 39 s1:24:46on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Could seeing figures or faces that are not there be a brain condition rather than a jinn?
Yes: palinopsia makes after-images persist and Charles Bonnet syndrome makes an overactive fusiform gyrus produce faces, teeth and buildings, as Oliver Sacks's patient saw men with long teeth while knowing they were not real. In the past such visions could only be explained as demons.
machine3 min 55 s1:27:25on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
If someone got better after ruqya or an exorcism, does that prove it worked?
Not necessarily: the placebo and nocebo effects produce real relief and real symptoms, as Kaptchuk's trial with cornstarch pills and retractable needles showed. Some patients would also have recovered anyway and are counted as cures.
machine3 min 56 s1:31:20on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
If jinn do not possess people, what is ruqya for?
The Quran is a cure for what is in the hearts, meaning disbelief and superstition, and ruqya and the taught du'as are a scaffolding to steady people's iman because humans cling to ritual and fall easily into superstition. The du'a against omens shows the Prophet using this method.
machine2 min 36 s1:35:16on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Could strange symptoms blamed on jinn have medical explanations?
Yes: face blindness, mirror-touch synaesthesia, phantom limbs, alien hand syndrome, the Capgras delusion, hemispatial neglect, aphantasia and foreign accent syndrome are all documented conditions that the past could only call demons. Blaming the unexplained on jinn is a 'jinn of the gaps'; the Prophet's hadith on cures says go and find the knowledge.
machine7 min 56 s1:37:52on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why are so many 'possessed' people in the community women?
Dissociative disorders that look like possession occur mostly among women with histories of trauma, excessive control, pressured or forced marriages and childhood beatings. The psyche breaks down under such treatment just as the body reacts to injury.
machine2 min 37 s1:45:48on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Could a jinn fall in love with my spouse and break up my marriage?
No: a jinn, created from fire, would belong to a domain of life as alien to us as extremophile bacteria, which do not fall in love or envy marriages. Blaming jinn or magic for a failed relationship comes from the stigma Muslims attach to mental illness.
machine2 min 37 s1:48:25on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
How does Mufti Abu Layth explain an exorcist who speaks as his own jinn?
The exorcist's 'jinn', which declared its love for him, is read as displacement of guilt: a religious man projecting feelings he could not own onto a jinn, believing it sincerely without it being true. People must own their failed relationships instead of blaming jinn.
machine5 min 12 s1:51:02on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why not treat jinn possession as just a difference of opinion among scholars?
Because it is not a harmless difference like raising the hands in prayer: belief in possession underwrites mass exploitation, a multi-million pound industry and ridicule of Islam and its Prophet. Al-Razi, al-Maraghi, Ibn Ashur and al-Shawkani are among those who denied it, and the abuse must end.
machine1 min 55 s1:56:14on YouTube
9 Sep 2017From the Mind of a Mufti
If Muslims want a khilafah, why not first establish Islam in the countries they already have?
Mufti Abu Layth says those pushing a purely politicised Islam are, in his understanding, near the modern Khawarij and use the same evidences as ISIS. The guest says Muslims already have fifty countries, that Pakistanis who sought Nizam-e-Mustafa now want to leave, that khilafah groups cannot even unite, and that Allah does not give what people do not deserve.
machine3 min 40 s8:49on YouTube
2016 · 2
15 Mar 2016video
Is morality innate? Language acquisition, divine command, and insecurity in faith
The speakers hold that the Quran treats humans as having an innate moral sense, compared to an innate capacity for language, and say faith should not depend on silencing those who question it.
machine6 min 32 s17:23on YouTube
15 Mar 2016video
Ritualisation of the deen and the angels' question about Adam: can believers ask?
The deen has been ritualised so that scholarly conclusions cannot be questioned, while the angels' question to Allah about creating Adam is read as a model that believers may ask questions.
machine5 min 12 s23:55on YouTube
2015 · 2
6 Apr 2015video
What does Mufti Abu Layth think of ISIS?
ISIS is a ruthless takfiri threat to everyone, Muslims most of all, and he signed the first British fatwa against it. He rejects collective guilt for Muslims and says Western foreign policy and the Iraq prisons helped create it.
machine3 min 54 s27:36on YouTube
6 Apr 2015video
Is extremism among Muslims really on the rise?
In one sense yes, since groups like ISIS did not exist in this form two decades ago, but he says the far greater rise is in Muslims awakening to traditional Islam, with some bad elements awoken alongside it.
machine3 min 56 s35:25on YouTube