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Creed and the schools of theology
53 segments in 28 recordings · 2018 to 2023 · 0 verified · 33 checked positions · belief/creed-and-kalam-schools · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 13 Feb 2023
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
Earlier answers · 52 · newest first
2023 · 3
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
2021 · 14
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
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
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 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
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 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
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
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
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
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
2020 · 15
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
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
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
22 Sep 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Who were the Murji'a and why do Salafis talk about them so much?
Mufti Abu Layth says Salafis fixate on long-extinct sects because they read Ibn Taymiyya, whom he sees as a troubled man with mental health issues whom they all but worship.
machine6 min 25 s1:18:25on YouTube
22 Sep 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What do you think of the Mu'tazila?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Mu'tazila were an extinct, extremist yet rationalist sect, and mocks calling anyone who uses reason a Mu'tazili.
machine6 min 47 s2:06:56on 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
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
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
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
2019 · 5
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
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
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
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
2018 · 15
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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