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Hadith studies
375 segments in 98 recordings · 2014 to 2025 · 0 verified · 259 checked positions · hadith
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 18 Oct 2025
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow the dialogue came about: a guest who waited two hours at the last meetup
The guest waited two hours at the previous meetup, said his followers wanted a dialogue, and tonight Mufti Abu Layth wants to hear a Quranist make the case for the Quran-only position.
machine2 min 40 s4:52on YouTube
Earlier answers · 374 · newest first
2025 · 28
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy does Mufti Abu Layth see the Quran-only movement as a reaction of anger?
Mufti Abu Layth sees the Quran-only movement as a reaction of anger, sometimes justified, to hadith that are misused, such as the Bukhari report on Aisha's age, the report on killing apostates and reports used to justify abuse; the question is what Quranists actually mean by rejecting hadith.
machine3 min 12 s7:32on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs there a middle way between rejecting all hadith and accepting every hadith?
There is a middle way between rejecting hadith and hadith absolutism: Malik and Abu Hanifa distinguished Sunnah from hadith and accepted reports only if they do not contradict reason, the Quran, the living tradition or a principle of Islam. Mufti Abu Layth says Quranists should be met with love, not cornered, and recalls his own past anger.
machine4 min 54 s10:44on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs the Quran-only position an argument from epistemology or from principle?
The guest says the Quran-only position rests on principle, since God refers earlier communities only to their books, and is confirmed by epistemology, since hadith are contradictory and insulting; Quranists reject the religious authority of hadith, not history or narrations as such.
machine6 min 51 s18:31on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Quranists accept any Sunnah of the Prophet?
Both agree the Quran is central, but the guest says the Quran names only two sunnahs, of earlier peoples and of God, and that the Prophet's own clarifications were not preserved and so cannot have been necessary; Mufti Abu Layth presents this as the school of Madinah's Quran-centred view with other sources orbiting it.
machine5 min 13 s24:01on YouTube
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
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy did Mufti Abu Layth challenge hadith in BukhariGate, and can the Prophet be called the most beloved of creation?
Mufti Abu Layth says his hadith criticism, including BukhariGate, was driven by reports that insult the Prophet, whose honour comes before Muslims' own; the guest says calling the Prophet the most beloved of creation is unprovable and a lie against God, and that the Quran favours Abraham, whom Muhammad is told to follow.
machine7 min 13 s43:36on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhat is the 'wisdom' the Prophet teaches alongside the Book in 2:129?
The guest holds that the wisdom taught alongside the Book is the Quran's own application and is found in the Quran itself; Mufti Abu Layth says the primary reading of 2:129 is that the messenger teaches the Book and, separately, the wisdom, and himself purifies the people.
machine5 min 51 s51:35on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes 16:44 mean the Prophet explains the Quran, or that the Quran clarifies earlier scriptures?
Mufti Abu Layth reads 16:44 as showing the Prophet's role in explaining the revelation, as nearly every tafsir does; the guest says the verse is about the Quran clarifying earlier scriptures to the people of the book, and points to 5:15 as naming a single source.
machine4 min 44 s57:24on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the 'light' that came with the clear book in 5:15 the Prophet or the Quran itself?
The guest reads the light of 5:15 as an aspect of the book itself, arguing from the pronoun in 5:16 and the conjunction in 33:7; Mufti Abu Layth presents the view of the mufassirun that the light is the Prophet and accepts the guest's reading as one interpretation while objecting that the others are not negated.
machine6 min 48 s1:02:02on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can 'light' in 5:15 refer to the Prophet, or only to guidance and the book?
Mufti Abu Layth says the primary readings of 'light' in 5:15 are guidance or the Prophet, as many mufassirun held, and that the guest's reading as the book is acceptable but may not negate the others; the guest says the word cannot refer to a human and that the mufassirun inserted the Prophet from presupposition.
machine9 min 01 s1:08:12on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow do Quranists perform Hajj and apply Islam without the fiqh tradition?
The guest says the application of Islam is all in the Quran: his group performs Hajj in months other than the usual days, since the Quran speaks of plural months, and Ramadan is fully detailed; he does not rely on the fatwa tradition.
machine2 min 45 s1:18:06on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow does a Quranist pray salah?
The guest's prayer has no unit count: after wudu he seeks refuge, reads al-Fatiha by his own choice and a full chapter, then prostrates once with supplication, filling the prayer time as the moment dictates; in congregation the imam leads a single long prostration and prayers last up to an hour, three times a day.
machine6 min 20 s1:19:58on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How do Muslims know how to pray if the Quran does not spell it out?
Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims know how to pray from an unbroken living tradition of more than 1,400 years, father to child, documented in the books of every century; the guest asks why God describes prayer in the Quran if it must be learned at the mosque, and why two prayers are silent when 17:110 forbids silence.
machine4 min 51 s1:27:01on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quranist prayer have any set structure?
The guest's prayer has no set structure: it changes in the moment, may include hours of prostration or prostrating mid-recitation when a verse moves him, and its purpose per 29:45 is to restrain immorality; he says Quranists may also pray like Sunnis, minus words not from God.
machine5 min 45 s1:31:46on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy does the guest's prayer have no fixed number of units, and what counts as wudu?
The guest's prayer is about duration and connection rather than numbers of units, with an imam supplying structure only in congregation; prostration, kneeling and standing are components without a set order, and wudu is as 5:6 describes it, without the tradition's additions.
machine5 min 07 s1:36:54on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes the Quran alone say what breaks the fast?
The guest says 2:187 shows that eating, drinking and intercourse break the fast by making them lawful at night; Mufti Abu Layth says the verse does not explicitly forbid them by day, so the Quran-only reader is inferring by reason rather than reporting what God said.
machine4 min 25 s1:42:01on 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
LatestIs the daytime ban on eating and intimacy in Ramadan stated in the Quran or inferred?
The daytime prohibition of eating and intimacy in Ramadan comes from 2:187 by mafhum al-mukhalafa, an adverse inference Mufti Abu Layth accepts but which is not the explicit reading, so some verses need the tradition's explanation; the guest says each reader is rewarded according to his understanding.
machine5 min 35 s1:50:43on 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
Does 3:188 mean everyone who likes praise will be punished?
The apparent reading of 3:188 threatens anyone who loves praise for what he has not done, which troubled the Companions until the Prophet explained it as concerning tyrants and the arrogant; the guest reads it as a warning listing traits a believer must shed.
machine6 min 06 s1:58:33on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it a sin to enjoy being praised?
The guest holds that 3:188 describes people buying into the worldly life, exulting in what they have and loving praise for what they have not done, and that such people are punished; pressed, he confirms that anyone with these traits faces punishment.
machine6 min 07 s2:04:39on 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
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is Mufti Abu Layth's case for keeping the Islamic scholarly tradition?
The guest restates Mufti Abu Layth's view as relying on the tradition for a few hard verses and says the Quran's overall message has no such problems; Mufti says the 1,400-year tradition beginning with the Prophet's Sunnah is invaluable and discarding it is a disservice to Islam.
machine5 min 10 s2:22:37on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy do Quranists reject the Islamic tradition as a whole?
The guest says Quranists differ in interpretation but agree that the Islamic tradition is riddled with errors, and that Mufti Abu Layth's BukhariGate work leads people to Quranism; Mufti says the guest's own prayer choices came from the tradition and objects to disrespect towards the people of the mosque.
machine7 min 08 s2:26:38on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why are two of the daily prayers recited silently when 17:110 says not to be silent?
The silent prayers come from the living tradition Malik described, handed down from the Companions' descendants; Mufti Abu Layth reads 17:110 as being about crying out to Allah, neither in despair nor in silence, rather than the five prayers, citing 8:35 where 'prayer' means whistling and clapping.
machine10 min 12 s2:31:09on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes the Muwatta show that the Companions' practice had already changed by Malik's time?
The guest cites a Muwatta report that a Companion's contemporary recognised nothing of the Companions' practice except the call to prayer, as proof the religion had changed; Mufti Abu Layth says the report refers to those in governance and that Malik throughout his works transmits the living practice of Madinah.
machine5 min 05 s2:42:52on YouTube
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How should Muslims engage people with very different views of the religion?
Those with very different views still come from love for the religion, and the only way forward is dialogue and humanising one another; the guest says the Quran is the only thing that can unite Shia and Sunni, and both sign off warmly.
machine2 min 58 s2:46:26on YouTube
2023 · 8
19 Apr 2023video
LatestDid Imam Malik reject the hadith he did not act on?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says Imam Malik respected such hadith by recording them in the Muwatta while noting that Madinah did not act on them, a model of hadith relativism he recommends following.
machine6 min 48 s0:01on YouTube
19 Apr 2023video
LatestWhy does the practice of Madinah matter more than a single hadith?
Mufti Abu Layth says the inherited practice of Madinah, like its adhan, outweighs an isolated report, since not every Sunnah was documented and narrators made honest mistakes; this is why he favours the school of Madinah.
machine5 min 15 s6:49on YouTube
10 Mar 2023video
What did Imam Malik's teachers teach him about hadith and Sunnah?
Rabi'a taught him that a practice transmitted by a thousand from a thousand outweighs a hadith passed one from one, the living tradition of Madinah.
machine1 min 15 s22:12on YouTube
10 Mar 2023video
LatestIs the Muwatta of Imam Malik more authentic than Sahih al-Bukhari?
The Muwatta, with Malik's 'golden chain', is arguably the most authentic book of hadith and predates al-Bukhari, though others do not rank it first.
machine5 min 01 s26:01on YouTube
10 Mar 2023video
Why did Imam Malik sometimes reject authentic hadith?
Malik would cite a hadith and say Madinah did not act on it, a devastating stance for later hadith-centred scholars, given his unmatched authority.
machine6 min 22 s31:02on YouTube
10 Mar 2023video
What is the difference between a hadith and the Sunnah in the Maliki school?
The school of Madinah is 'hadith relativist': it accepts a hadith where it matches the living Sunnah and not otherwise, since hadith is historical data and the Sunnah is the Prophet's teaching.
machine5 min 01 s37:24on 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
6 Feb 2023video
Is Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza consistent in how he criticises hadith?
Not fully, says Mufti Abu Layth: Engineer Mirza's rational critique of others' hadith stops short of scrutinising how sahih hadith were authenticated. Mufti still calls him a legend and a much-needed voice.
machine8 min 28 s0:01on YouTube
2022 · 8
19 Aug 2022video
LatestWhat are the satanic verses in Islamic history?
Mufti Abu Layth explains that the Prophet's recitation of Surah al-Najm and the prostration of everyone present are documented, but that the added story of him praising the three goddesses is false.
machine8 min 45 s1:00:37on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
LatestIs Quran 22:52 about the satanic verses incident?
No: he rejects the link to 22:52, noting that Surah al-Hajj is Madinan, that the Prophet refused the Makkans' offers of compromise, and that the Quran calls the idols mere stone.
machine5 min 18 s1:09:22on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
LatestWhat did the classical Maliki scholars say about the satanic verses story?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Maliki scholars, Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi and Qadi Iyad among them, rejected the story as fabricated, and that al-Tabari records the narrations but concludes they are false.
machine4 min1:14:40on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
Why did Ibn Hajar say the satanic verses story has some basis?
Mufti Abu Layth says Ibn Hajar wrongly argued that the many weak chains give the story a basis, and attributes the mistake to passion for the hadith project rather than malice.
machine7 min 49 s1:18:40on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
What does the Quran say against the satanic verses story?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Suyuti repeated Ibn Hajar's mistake, while the Quran rules the story out: the Prophet does not speak from desire and Satan has no power to speak in his voice.
machine7 min 51 s1:26:29on YouTube
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
Should loyalty to a scholar ever come before the honour of the Prophet?
No: he says loyalty belongs first to the Prophet, so a report that disparages him must be rejected whoever accepted it, citing Imam Malik's maxim that everyone's words can be accepted or rejected except the Prophet's.
machine5 min 21 s1:47:24on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
Recap: the novel, insult versus critique, and the false story summarised
Mufti Abu Layth recaps that Rushdie's novel was an insult rather than a critique and that the satanic verses story is a fabrication rejected by al-Tabari, Ibn Khuzayma and Qadi Iyad, recommending al-Shifa and al-Albani's book.
machine6 min 09 s1:52:45on YouTube
2021 · 85
20 Nov 2021video
What does the Mufti think of Quran-only Muslims?
Mufti Abu Layth commends Quranists' love for the Quran but feels they have misunderstood the living tradition. Most of the ummah, Hanafi and Maliki, were hadith relativists who put the sunnah before hadith.
machine2 min 02 s0:00on YouTube
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
25 Oct 2021video
Did Muslims learn how to pray from hadith books?
No: the practice of Islam reached us through the living tradition, taught from parent to child, not through hadith collections compiled two centuries later. Quranists are not one group, and many only doubt the accuracy of hadith.
machine2 min 37 s4:30on YouTube
25 Oct 2021video
Should I debate Quranists?
No: arguing never changes anyone's mind and only breeds hatred, so give your view if asked and see Quranists with compassion. He finds their case weaker than they think, since fiqh was built on the living tradition, not on hadith.
machine5 min 45 s7:07on YouTube
6 Oct 2021Malik Resources
Is there a sahih hadith on where to put my hands in salah?
There is no sahih hadith fixing where the hands go in salah; sadl, praying with the hands at the sides, is a sunnah of the school of Madinah without a hadith. Not every hadith is sunnah and not every sunnah was recorded in a hadith.
machine9 min 51 s0:00on 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 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
Why do some religious people dislike laughter?
Mufti Abu Layth says humour lets ordinary people see absurdity and question authority, which is why institutional religion dislikes it and why reports against laughter were fabricated.
machine3 min 58 s1:10:13on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Dr Abdul Majid refute Mufti Abu Layth's BukhariGate arguments?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says Dr Abdul Majid accepted Bukhari because other scholars had and did not answer the points on its transmission, though he respects him for having the dialogue.
machine6 min 37 s1:53:57on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did one of al-Bukhari's teachers call Imam Malik a disbeliever?
Mufti Abu Layth knows of no such takfir by a teacher of al-Bukhari; harsh words against Malik came from a contemporary who objected to his not acting on some sahih hadith.
machine2 min 37 s2:33:20on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDid the Prophet say a wife should prostrate to her husband?
The report is not authentic: it was probably put into circulation to support the family hierarchy of a patriarchal society. The report urging violent jealousy over female relatives is likewise fabricated.
machine4 min 55 s51:13on 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
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
Is distinguishing the Sunnah from hadith a modernist invention?
Mufti Abu Layth says distinguishing hadith from the Sunnah is the teaching of the madhhabs and of Imam Malik, not an invention of Muhammad Abduh, and that he does not treat Bukhari as special but judges every hadith by the same criteria. Qadhi's clip calls this separation a bigger problem than denying Jesus's return.
machine3 min 59 s26:18on 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
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
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
Did Yasir Qadhi say that majority scholarly opinion rests on socio-political factors?
In the clip Qadhi says correct opinion is independent of the names and number of scholars and that dominant positions rest on socio-political factors such as the Ghaznavids, the Hanbalis of Baghdad and the Seljuks. Mufti Abu Layth says this is exactly what modernists say and contradicts Qadhi's appeal to the giants on the return of Jesus.
machine3 min 57 s1:01:57on 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
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
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
Is distinguishing the Sunnah from hadith a modernist invention?
Qadhi calls the hadith-Sunnah distinction a modernist invention worse than denying the return; Mufti Abu Layth says it is what the madhhabs and Imam Malik actually teach, and that Bukhari is not beyond criticism.
machine4 min 32 s1:29:15on 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
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
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
Does the majority of scholars holding a view make it right?
Mufti Abu Layth shows Qadhi saying that majority opinion rests on socio-political factors and that numbers do not make a view right, against his own appeal to the giants on the second coming.
machine4 min 09 s2:05:05on 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 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
22 Feb 2021video
Did the Prophet say he would kill the lineage of the first Khariji?
Mufti Abu Layth says the speaker, carried away defending the Saudi rulers, attributed to the Prophet words he did not say: in the hadith the Prophet stopped Umar from killing the man. Respect for the Prophet comes before kings.
machine4 min 31 s6:10on 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
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 the Prophet tell people to drink camel urine as medicine?
Mufti Abu Layth says camel urine is not medicine and the Prophet never really told anyone to drink it; the report is weak in its chain and, if taken at all, reads as a rebuke.
machine6 min 30 s1:26:20on YouTube
15 Feb 2021video
Why does Bukhari accept a narrator who praised Ali's killer while Shia narrators are rejected?
Mufti Abu Layth calls it a double standard that al-Bukhari accepts as trustworthy a narrator who praised Ibn Muljam for killing Ali, while reports from Imam Jafar and other Shia imams are rejected because of their source.
machine3 min 33 s0:00on 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
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can al-Firabri, the transmitter of Sahih al-Bukhari, be trusted?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Firabri deserves some suspicion: not evil, but not the great imam later generations made him.
machine3 min 07 s58:18on YouTube
29 Jan 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Musnad really Imam Ahmad's book, and is it authentic?
The guest says the Musnad is Imam Ahmad's draft but cannot be authentic by its own rules, since it reached us by wijada with additions by his son; Mufti Abu Layth holds that it was not Ahmad's book at all.
machine4 min 09 s55:06on YouTube
29 Jan 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do Hanafis defend Sahih al-Bukhari when their school differs from it?
Mufti Abu Layth says Bukhari has question marks and is not the gold standard; the guest says its canonisation was an Abbasid-era Athari project, and that for Hanafis the Athar of their own imams should rank highest.
machine7 min 38 s59:28on YouTube
29 Jan 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is wijada, and why does it matter for the hadith on killing apostates?
The guest says the apostasy hadith cannot justify killing, since its own wording is not followed and it reaches us only by wijada; Mufti Abu Layth blames the Salafi call for putting raw hadith in place of the madhhabs.
machine4 min 38 s1:06:26on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
If a lot of anything can intoxicate, does that make tiny amounts of alcohol haram?
The hadith refers to drinks that intoxicate in the amount normally drunk, so a little of such a drink is haram; foods with trace alcohol that cannot intoxicate are not covered.
machine3 min 53 s46:28on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the debate with Dr Abdullah Abdul Majid answer the BukhariGate challenge?
Mufti Abu Layth says the discussion did not settle BukhariGate but strengthened it, since doubts about the book's transmission mean reports contradicting reason or the Quran should be set aside.
machine5 min 14 s1:16:45on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How did the BukhariGate discussion go on manuscripts and problematic hadith?
Mufti Abu Layth says the guest did not contest the manuscript evidence, and that defending the problematic reports amounts to claiming the Prophet could err but al-Bukhari could not.
machine10 min 29 s1:21:59on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Mufti Abu Layth against Imam Bukhari?
No: he says he respects al-Bukhari as an outstanding hadith scholar, though not infallible, but holds that the book reaching us was altered in transmission, so troubling reports deserve caution.
machine5 min 17 s1:32:28on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
If a hadith is also in other books besides Bukhari, does that confirm it?
Not necessarily: he says transmitters and editors, often with good intentions, aligned names and texts with versions they knew, as Ahmad Shakir did in al-Muhalla, so parallel versions may not be independent.
machine7 min 51 s1:56:22on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How could hadith chains and texts have been standardised over time?
Mufti Abu Layth says editors who standardised variant chains and texts, as Ahmad Shakir did with Ibn Jurayj's version, erased how reports were really transmitted, and that this may have happened unnoticed in the classical collections.
machine7 min 50 s2:04:13on 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
Should we throw away hadith altogether?
No: he says the hadith tradition is a beautiful, unparalleled record of the Prophet that should be filtered for corrupted reports, not discarded.
machine2 min 37 s2:22:31on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How could Abu Hurayra narrate 5,000 hadith after only two years with the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is implausible that Abu Hurayra narrated so much after about two years with the Prophet, that Umar restrained him, and that impossible reports such as the Ruqayya comb story should be rejected by Sunnis themselves.
machine9 min 15 s2:50:05on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
If money was earned in a haram way, is it haram for whoever receives it?
Money is not haram in itself, Mufti Abu Layth says: the sin lies with whoever earned it unlawfully, not with someone who later receives it unknowingly.
machine7 min 31 s40:27on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Who is Dr Abdul Majid, your Mind Trap guest?
Mufti Abu Layth will discuss BukhariGate with Dr Abdul Majid on Mind Trap, despite past hostile videos, and hopes it will be positive.
machine8 min 59 s47:58on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How do I find the true Sunnah in the hadith books?
The true Sunnah does not clash with reason, the Quran or Islamic principles, Mufti Abu Layth says, and the safer way is to take it from fiqh.
machine1 min 09 s1:33:27on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it haram to eat with my left hand?
Eating with the left hand is not haram, Mufti Abu Layth says; the right hand is good etiquette taught to a child, so do it if you can.
machine6 min 30 s2:37:29on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do I have to be in a state of purity to say verses of the Quran?
Mufti Abu Layth says religion should be natural, not ritualistic: the menstrual state is not impure, and revelation came to the Prophet while in bed with Aisha.
machine5 min 14 s39:18on 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
Will you critique Sahih Muslim like you did al-Bukhari?
Mufti Abu Layth chose al-Bukhari, not Muslim or others, because it is the symbol of the Salafi-Wahhabi legacy; that is the fortress he wanted to take on.
machine1 min 58 s1:13:41on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Announcement: a Mind Trap discussion with Dr Abdullah Abdul Majid on BukhariGate
Announcement: a Mind Trap discussion on BukhariGate with Dr Abdullah Abdul Majid is set for next Thursday, and he asks viewers to be respectful.
machine4 min 03 s1:30:41on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Am I doing wrong if I follow a minority opinion?
No: the hadith is weak, and even its valid meaning is about the whole ummah agreeing, not about majorities, so following a minority view is not doom.
machine2 min 21 s1:38:29on 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 the hadith 'if there were a prophet after me it would be Umar' authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says the hadith is a fabrication, made up to glorify Umar; one may revere Umar and still disagree with his opinions.
machine5 min 26 s2:56:34on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Dr Abdul Majid's response to BukhariGate, and an invitation to Mind Trap
Mufti Abu Layth has invited Dr Abdul Majid onto Mind Trap to discuss BukhariGate, and says he found no actual refutation in the response he watched.
machine3 min 47 s10:15on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Which hadith book is the most authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth takes each hadith on its merits rather than trusting one book; if anything, he would call Imam Malik's Muwatta the most authentic.
machine3 min 01 s17:21on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDo I lose good deeds if I keep a dog as a pet?
No, owning a dog does not cost you reward; he reads the dog hadith as hygiene measures against diseases like rabies, citing Ibn Rushd al-Jadd.
machine8 min 27 s40:54on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Was the woman who refused the Prophet in Bukhari's divorce chapter his wife?
The chapter's reports are confused and defenders strain to reconcile them; he says hadith scholars, like doctors, were institutionalised in their field.
machine5 min 58 s48:31on YouTube
2020 · 69
6 Dec 2020video
Why don't Sunni imams like Malik and Abu Hanifa transmit from Imam Jafar al-Sadiq?
Mufti Abu Layth's theory is that the early imams of the Ahl al-Bayt were for the most part as the Shia describe them, so Malik and Abu Hanifa, though respectful of them, did not transmit from them because it would have caused a political storm. He adds that this does not make the Shia theological claims more authentic.
machine6 min 35 s0:02on YouTube
6 Dec 2020video
Did Imam Malik and Abu Hanifa study under Imam Jafar al-Sadiq, and what did they learn from him?
Malik and Abu Hanifa kept Imam Jafar's company and attended his circles but transmitted nothing from him, which Mufti Abu Layth explains by their disagreement with teaching that largely reflected the Shia da'wah. He calls the claim that they took only 'spirituality' from him absurd.
machine2 min 09 s6:37on 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
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
28 Oct 2020video
Why did most commentators say God commanded the sacrifice?
Ibn Abbas is reported to have read Ibrahim's words as 'I think I have been commanded', and some commentators say the relief itself was the test. Mufti Abu Layth attributes the common view to early Muslims absorbing Jewish narratives.
machine2 min 39 s11:55on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet forbid Ali from taking a second wife?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet objected not to Ali taking a second wife but to his marrying the daughter of Abu Jahl.
machine2 min 32 s1:18:40on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are there other narrations of Aisha's age besides Bukhari's?
Mufti Abu Layth says every chain on Aisha's age was engineered, with Hisham as the common link and Iraqi narrators throughout.
machine5 min 56 s1:27:50on YouTube
21 Oct 2020video
Why criticise Sahih al-Bukhari but not Imam Malik's Muwatta?
The Muwatta is not caught up in the same debate: many people transmitted it, and Imam Malik himself shows in it that some well-chained hadith are not acted upon, so there is no dogmatism around it.
machine1 min 20 s0:03on YouTube
20 Oct 2020video
Why do critics refuse to debate the authenticity of Sahih al-Bukhari?
Critics who say Mufti Abu Layth knows nothing about Sahih al-Bukhari decline his invitation to debate it, and Jonathan Brown admitted on Facebook that he lacked the research. Mufti says al-Farabri's reliability can only be asserted from sources centuries later, not from anyone who knew him.
machine3 min 59 s0:00on YouTube
20 Oct 2020video
Who vouched for al-Farabri, the transmitter of Sahih al-Bukhari?
Sahih al-Bukhari reaches us through al-Farabri alone, and nobody who knew him vouched for him, so Mufti Abu Layth says the whole edifice rests on one man. Critics who only know how to debate the Shia avoid this question.
machine2 min 38 s3:59on 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
12 Oct 2020video
Writers who place Aisha in her teens, and how narrators exaggerated ages
Several modern writers conclude that Aisha was in her teens at marriage, and the speakers explain the hadith's figures as numbers garbled and exaggerated downwards by narrators. Khadija's age, by contrast, was exaggerated upwards from about twenty-eight to forty.
machine4 min 05 s5:13on YouTube
28 Aug 2020video
Does Edip Yuksel believe in praying five times a day?
Mufti Abu Layth thinks Edip Yuksel accepts the five prayers but not as the primary objective. Mufti calls rejecting all hadith the opposite extreme to hadith dogmatism, since all we know of early Islam comes through the living tradition.
machine8 min 13 s0:01on 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
Doesn't the practice of Medina show that music is haram?
Not necessarily: Malik disliked music by temperament, but Medina after the Prophet was known for its musical instruments.
machine1 min 18 s28:39on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can I hit my children if they don't pray?
Yes: he says hitting children over prayer misreads the hadith, and that children should be drawn to prayer by example and love, not fear.
machine1 min 59 s46:48on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Should the zakat threshold be different in each country?
Mufti Abu Layth says regional thresholds make sense to him, since the nisab rests on weak hadith and the detailed zakat system was largely built by later scholars.
machine8 min 15 s50:33on 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
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet really order Jews and Christians expelled from Arabia?
Mufti Abu Layth finds the hadith ordering the expulsion of Jews and Christians from Arabia suspect, since the Prophet traded with a Jewish man days before he died, and sees it as a later fabrication.
machine10 min 45 s2:07:28on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
An offer to discuss Sahih al-Bukhari live, and a demand for a moderated debate
Mufti Abu Layth recounts inviting the critic to a live discussion on Sahih al-Bukhari, which the critic declined in favour of a moderated debate.
machine7 min 39 s2:39:40on 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
Where did the idea that Aisha was six or nine come from?
Mufti Abu Layth says the six-and-nine narration seems to originate with Aisha's nephew Urwa, countering rumours spread against her, and that every chain runs through him.
machine4 min 19 s54:44on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Does 'leave what makes you doubt' mean I should always follow the strictest opinion?
No: he reads it the opposite way, since nothing should be made binding unless proven with certainty; it is a general rule about dubious matters, not a call to strictness.
machine1 min 58 s59:42on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
How do I make sense of the hadith that the Prophet banned mut'ah?
Mufti Abu Layth says the reports on the banning of mut'ah are inconsistent and contradict each other, so they are hard to rely on.
machine2 min 33 s1:01:01on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Why follow hadith if the Quran is complete?
Mufti Abu Layth follows hadith because some of the hadith and Sunnah are clearly accurate and the Prophet legislated in addition to the Quran.
machine1 min 14 s1:44:49on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Is the hadith about conquering Constantinople authentic?
It may be authentic, since Constantinople symbolised Byzantine power, but he feels many further hadith about it were fabricated to encourage campaigns.
machine1 min 16 s1:46:03on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How reliable is the story of the first revelation in the cave?
The guest doubts the historicity of the cave story, attributing it to al-Zuhri; Mufti Abu Layth says he would take the whole description with a pinch of salt.
machine5 min 38 s57:30on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Were the companions allowed to change words of the Quran, and was that only a temporary concession?
The guest argues the Prophet allowed multiple oral forms of the Quran; Mufti Abu Layth says this dynamism was the Quran's inherent nature, not a temporary concession.
machine6 min 54 s1:03:43on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
The guest's background: languages, translations, books, Beltways and a constitution for Turkey
The guest describes his languages, his Turkish and English translations of the Quran, his books on the number 19, his unpaid religious work, his Beltways transit project, a proposed Netflix documentary and a draft constitution for Turkey.
machine8 min 29 s4:28on 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
Was the hadith literature a conspiracy against the Quran?
The guest says the hadith corpus is a deliberate conspiracy against the Quran by its enemies, including the Umayyads, and that reports such as the Banu Qurayza massacre and the killing of a woman critic were fabricated to justify later rulers' crimes.
machine6 min 30 s21:29on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the guest think every hadith is fabricated?
The guest says not every hadith is evil, but truth is mixed with falsehood and even genuine sayings cannot be a source of religion, since the Quran makes God the only source of law and limits the messenger's duty to delivery.
machine3 min 54 s27:59on 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
Can Muslims do ijtihad from the Quran alone?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees with the guest that making Islam Bukhari-centric is a problem, as his BukhariGate series argues. The guest says the Quran declares itself easy to understand and that whoever thinks it difficult or rejects its clear verses loses access to it.
machine2 min 36 s38:24on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are any hadith genuine, and what about reports confirmed by history?
The guest says even genuine sayings of the Prophet are not religion and that the hadith paint contradictory portraits of him. Mufti Abu Layth agrees that the Mi'raj negotiation, the child-marriage report and the Uraynah torture reports are false narrations.
machine7 min 57 s41:00on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can hadith be sifted with criteria, or must the whole corpus be rejected?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet's practice survives as a living tradition in fiqh and that he accepts a hadith only if it passes reason, the texts and the principles. The guest replies that narrators who fabricated a stoning verse forfeit all credibility, like a false witness in the Quran.
machine3 min 53 s48:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does any hadith actually explain the Quran?
The guest challenges hadith followers to find a hadith that explains the Quran, says the Quran uses the word hadith negatively and sunnah only for God's law, and holds that descriptive reports are history, not religion.
machine6 min 37 s52:50on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran abrogate its own verses?
The guest denies abrogation, reading 2:106 as about miracles replaced over time, since ayah in the singular never means a verse. Mufti Abu Layth says he is not against abrogation in principle but that 2:106 does not prove it and that no verse was ever lifted from the Quran.
machine9 min 12 s59:27on 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
How does the guest's number 19 differ from Bible numerics, and how does he read 74:29-31?
The guest says 19 is a test most people fail, distinguishes his system from Ivan Panin's Bible numerics, and retranslates 74:29-31 as describing a precise, obvious mathematical structure rather than scorching the skin in hell.
machine6 min 30 s1:38:44on 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
Why was Rashad Khalifa assassinated?
The guest says Rashad Khalifa was declared an apostate by a 1989 Madinah gathering under Ibn Baz and killed within a year by a group linked to al-Qaeda, and he lists coincidences of the number 19 around the murder, Y2K and the 9/11 attacks.
machine5 min 12 s1:56:52on 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
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
Does the number 19 structure work in all the readings of the Quran?
The guest says the 19 structure is found in the Hafs reading, where it revealed two spelling errors and two added verses, and that the Warsh reading differs little; he also expresses regard for Ghulam Ahmad Parwez.
machine2 min 35 s2:21:49on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What does Edip Yuksel think of Sam Gerrans?
The guest respects Sam Gerrans as articulate but says his failure to see the number 19 leads him to invent arbitrary meanings for the initial letters, and that 19 is a divine test of one's bigotry.
machine2 min 38 s2:26:56on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If you reject all hadith, how do you know how to pray?
The guest rejects every hadith collection, including Nahj al-Balagha, as a source of religion, and says the objection that the Quran does not detail the five prayers is a circular argument built on fabricated details.
machine3 min 55 s2:32:11on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the word salat mean in the Quran according to the Quran-only view?
The guest defines salat from the Quran as solidarity rather than ritual: with God, which is remembrance and connection, and with people, which is the secular Friday gathering; the essence is dhikr, not physical form.
machine3 min 54 s2:38:46on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does prayer have to be physical, or is remembering God enough?
The guest is not against the physical form of prayer but says it is only an expression; the one necessary component of salat according to the Quran is conscious connection with God, so one may pray sitting or while travelling.
machine2 min 34 s2:42:40on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How was the Quran preserved: by memory or in writing?
The Quran was preserved primarily by thousands of companions memorising it and passing it on generation to generation, which is what tawatur means; writing was secondary and always needed a hafiz's testimony.
machine3 min 55 s17:05on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet leave a written Quran, and what did the caliphs really do?
At the Prophet's death the Quran lived in the community's recitation, teaching and notes; he deliberately left no official codex. The caliphs merely spread copies, and the guest says the Bukhari narratives about their compilation are weak in chain and content.
machine3 min 57 s21:00on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did the earlier recitation and other readings get mixed up with the Quran?
The guest names four sources of the variant readings: remnants of the earlier revelatory sequence kept by the companions and later blurred with the Quran under al-Shafi'i's scholarly transmission, the mixing of similar passages, companions' explanatory synonyms taken as readings, and fabrication in the second and third centuries.
machine7 min 53 s28:54on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the hadith that the Quran was revealed in seven ahruf authentic, and what does it mean?
The guest says the seven-ahruf hadith is ambiguous, as al-Suyuti admitted, that its forty-odd interpretations are inconsistent and its versions unsoundly reported and contradictory, so they cancel each other out. He refrains from guessing what the Prophet originally said.
machine5 min 12 s38:06on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did the seven canonical readings of the Quran come about?
In the second and third centuries leading reciters were given the privilege of ikhtiyar, choosing one of the inherited variants for each verse by their own criteria, and Ibn Mujahid later popularised seven of them. Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees these readings are not mutawatir and not on the level of the common reading.
machine5 min 16 s53:49on YouTube
25 May 2020video
I stopped praying because it feels mechanical and forced; will I go to hell?
Pray out of gratitude and connection, not fear of hell, and do not develop hatred for the prayer even if you slack or combine prayers; each person's journey is their own. The Prophet told a Companion who slept past dawn simply to pray when he wakes.
machine11 min 26 s0:00on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Have Muslims moved towards giving the Quran primacy over hadith?
The guest says the ummah has split: a traditional strand that in practice lets hadith override the Quran, and a growing body of thinking lay Muslims who already see the Quran as primary. Some scholars agree but are trapped in traditional discourse or silenced by dangerous circumstances.
machine3 min 56 s3:44on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran prescribe stoning for adultery?
The Quran's penalty for adultery is flogging, not stoning, which the guest says entered Muslim law from hadith and is biblical in origin, so explaining Islam to the public must start from the Quran. Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees completely that the Quran must have primacy.
machine5 min 14 s7:38on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did earlier scholars not see what reform-minded scholars see today?
Past scholars were great but fallible and bound by their time, like people in a smoke-filled room or marchers in a procession, while today we can see the whole history of ideas from the balcony. Mufti Abu Layth adds that the apostasy rule rests on one problematic narration from Ikrima in Bukhari.
machine3 min 57 s15:30on 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
Is questioning Aisha's age just an attempt to please non-Muslims?
The guest says he once made the same accusation, but came to see that a girl of nine is not fit for marriage and that Muslims themselves do not marry girls at that age. A report being in Bukhari does not make it the final word, since scholars have always differed with Bukhari where something more authentic exists.
machine6 min 30 s49:19on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari be questioned?
Sahih means Bukhari and Muslim verified the chains, which says little about the content, since reliable narrators still err and insert explanations; only the few mutawatir reports, mostly practices like the number of units in prayer, are beyond doubt. Mufti Abu Layth says he believes all the hadith on Aisha's age are weak.
machine6 min 33 s55:51on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can Sahih al-Bukhari be proven to be the book Imam al-Bukhari wrote?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that what is really mutawatir is the living tradition, not any hadith, and that Sahih al-Bukhari cannot be proven to be Bukhari's exact book since it rests on one unvouched transmitter, Farabri. Each report should therefore be weighed against reason, the Quran and the principles of Islam like any other hadith.
machine3 min 59 s1:01:06on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How should hadith be evaluated, and did the companions ever misreport the Prophet?
Hadith should be judged one by one against the principles of the religion, observation and reason, as the earliest Muslims did before reason was sidelined. Aisha herself rejected several companions' reports, such as the dog, woman and donkey breaking the prayer, the dead punished by weeping, and the bad omen in a woman, showing how reports were misrelayed.
machine6 min 31 s1:05:05on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is criticising Sahih al-Bukhari an attack on Imam al-Bukhari?
Imam al-Bukhari deserves credit for sifting hadith and his shorter narratives are usually the more authentic, but he was a human being and his book is not the Quran. Mufti Abu Layth says BukhariGate critiques the myth of an untouchable gold standard, not the man.
machine3 min 56 s1:11:36on 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
16 Feb 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Is it Sunnah to drink camel urine as medicine?
No, you should not drink camel urine: he calls it nonsense and says the report is problematic in its chain and its text, even though it is in al-Bukhari.
machine4 min 55 s0:00on YouTube
17 Jan 2020Responding to Refutations
Is it a Sunnah for women to pray in a wardrobe or the innermost room?
The claim that women praying in a wardrobe is a Sunnah rests on a weak, indeed false, hadith that is not a saying of the Prophet. Mufti Abu Layth sees the following of such claims as dogma and herd mentality.
machine2 min 24 s5:05on YouTube
2019 · 17
17 Dec 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is growing a beard compulsory in Islam?
Growing a beard was an ancient Arab custom shared by Muslims and their opponents, not an Islamic requirement in itself. The command to grow it is worded like commands to dye the hair and pray in shoes that nobody treats as obligatory, and no sahih hadith says how to grow it.
machine7 min 50 s0:00on 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
28 Sep 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
If some hadith are unreliable, doesn't that make the Quran unreliable too?
No: the Quran was passed on en masse as a recited living tradition, so doubts about particular hadith chains do not carry over to it.
machine7 min 37 s1:58on YouTube
28 Sep 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why people fabricated hadith: good intentions, false memories, money and politics
Hadith were fabricated for many reasons: pious intentions, false memories, malice, commercial interests, and political and sectarian aims on all sides.
machine5 min 09 s7:38on YouTube
28 Sep 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why the Quran could not be corrupted like hadith, and the fashion for chains
Corrupting the Quran was next to impossible because it was recited en masse everywhere; hadith, written down a century later, were easy to fabricate, and chains for the Quran came later as a fashion.
machine10 min 59 s12:47on YouTube
19 Sep 2019Responding to Refutations
Are the hadith about Aisha's young age authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says every chain for Aisha's young age is flawed, resting on narrators accused of tadlis and all going back to Urwa. Those who defend them put al-Bukhari's sanctity above the Prophet's honour.
machine6 min 10 s6:57on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is the hadith that singing breeds hypocrisy in the heart authentic?
The hadith that singing breeds hypocrisy in the heart is weak in every one of its chains, which run from Ibn Mas'ud to the Prophet in some versions and stop at Ibn Mas'ud in others. Mufti Abu Layth restates that nothing categorically proves music haram and that lyrics do not make it so.
machine2 min 37 s0:04on YouTube
21 Aug 2019BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Is al-Yaqoubi's edition of Sahih al-Bukhari really the most authentic copy on earth?
No special claim can rest on being based on the Sultaniyya, Mufti Abu Layth says, since every copy of Bukhari is. He sees the advertising as business, which he does not mind in itself, but calls the tactics problematic.
machine3 min 55 s20:54on YouTube
21 Aug 2019BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Would Mufti Abu Layth debate Shaykh al-Yaqoubi on Sahih al-Bukhari?
Yes: he invites al-Yaqoubi to a civil, respectful discussion because he rejects the claim that Sahih al-Bukhari is impossible to doubt. He expects it will never happen.
machine2 min 15 s24:49on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Who transmitted the hadith 'whoever changes his religion, kill him', and does the Quran punish apostasy?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran is ambivalent about those who leave Islam and that the call to kill apostates is nonsense; the report 'whoever changes his religion, kill him' in Bukhari rests solely on Ikrima, a Khariji whom Imam Malik and Ibn Umar distrusted. He introduces Abdullah Sameer's post as the subject he will answer.
machine5 min 07 s1:18on YouTube
24 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Quran say there are three or five daily prayers?
The Quran does not spell out the number of prayers, but Sunnis, Shia and Ibadis all hold there are five, which Mufti Abu Layth takes as proof of an early living tradition that preceded the hadith books. The Shia combine the five rather than reducing them to three.
machine3 min 21 s0:01on YouTube
24 Jul 2019Quick Fiqh!
Can reports from Shia sources about Hasan and Husayn be trusted?
Mufti Abu Layth accepts the reports as factual, saying the Shia had no reason to invent earrings for their own Imams, and calls it hypocrisy that Sunnis accept Imran ibn Hittan, a Khariji who praised Ali's killer, as a narrator in Sahih al-Bukhari while rejecting anything from Imam Jafar al-Sadiq.
machine5 min 16 s31:22on YouTube
24 May 2019Hadith Studies
If I drank alcohol, are my prayers and fasts rejected for 40 days?
No: the fast and prayer are valid. He calls the forty-days hadith an isolated, weak report that clashes with the Quran and reason, though alcohol stays haram.
machine10 min 57 s0:38on YouTube
10 May 2019video
Did Islam invent marriage?
No: Aisha's hadith lists four kinds of pre-Islamic marriage, and the ordinary one of proposal and acceptance continued with Islam's approval.
machine4 min 59 s15:25on YouTube
4 May 2019On Current Events
Is it better for women to pray at home than in the mosque?
No: sahih hadith show women regularly praying in the Prophet's mosque, the Prophet forbade stopping them, and Umar and Ali provided imams for them.
machine8 min 09 s15:11on YouTube
4 May 2019On Current Events
Is the hadith about women praying in the darkest part of the house authentic?
No: the chains run through unknown, abandoned or weak narrators, so the reports are fabricated or very weak and clash with the sahih hadith.
machine8 min 22 s23:22on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Sana'a manuscript show that the Quran was changed?
The Sana'a manuscript and others such as the Birmingham manuscript date to the first century of Islam, when the Quran was the one text Muslims documented and taught everywhere. The Quran was too widespread and too distinctive in style to corrupt profitably, which is why fabrication targeted hadith instead.
machine5 min 15 s7:47on YouTube
2018 · 136
20 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
Does Islam say homosexuals should be thrown off buildings or executed?
There is no sahih hadith in which the Prophet spoke about homosexuals, the reports of Ali ordering executions are not authentic in Mufti Abu Layth's view, and the early jurists disagreed, with the Hanafis holding it is not a hadd offence. The claim of a consensus that homosexual acts deserve death is false.
machine7 min 56 s0:00on YouTube
30 Nov 2018Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
What evidence suggests Aisha was older than nine when she married?
Mufti Abu Layth argues that a six-year-old could not have been the help the Prophet needed, and that the battle reports, her earlier engagement, her age at death and her memory of a Makkan verse point to her being at least seventeen.
machine5 min 16 s10:27on YouTube
30 Nov 2018Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Why do some scholars still insist Aisha was nine?
Lacking an earlier authority is no reason to keep the young age, since medieval scholars also accepted slavery and other rulings no one would defend today. No hadith gives certain knowledge, so an inconclusive report that blemishes the Prophet's honour is rejected.
machine4 min 36 s15:43on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
What are the three points of Yasir Qadhi's khutbah on orthodoxy, and is hadith certain knowledge?
The khutbah's three points are that reinterpreting the Quran through reason or science is heresy, that doubting the hadith sources is heresy, and that a radical new interpretation amounts to claiming prophethood. Mufti Abu Layth agrees that rejecting hadith wholesale is wrong but says the hadith quoted for it is weak and that hadith is khabar ahad, not certain knowledge.
machine6 min 33 s3:53on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
Is hadith the same as the sunnah, and is hadith certain knowledge?
The sunnah is distinct from hadith and reaches Muslims through the living tradition of fiqh, not from hadith books. Hadith are khabar ahad, not certain knowledge, so the Ash'ari and Maturidi orthodoxy does not build beliefs on them, and the Hanafis and Malikis reject solitary reports that contradict reason or their principles.
machine6 min 35 s1:13:18on 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
20 Sep 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
What is the war-wager hadith paradox?
Mufti Abu Layth presents the report that the Prophet was commanded to fight people until they believe, which hadith dogmatists call mutawatir, and notes that the same scholars agree no one may be fought merely for disbelief or compelled into Islam.
machine7 min 54 s0:00on YouTube
20 Sep 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
If a mutawatir hadith has to be reinterpreted, what does that say about hadith transmission?
Mufti Abu Layth says that because its defenders must reinterpret a report they call mutawatir, the transmission system itself is shown to be fallible rather than airtight.
machine7 min 49 s7:54on YouTube
20 Sep 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Why does hadith dogmatism fail, according to the war-wager paradox?
Using the crocodile paradox, he argues that a sound system cannot produce an unsound result, so hadith dogmatism fails and Imam Malik's method should be followed instead.
machine3 min 46 s15:43on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Was the Prophet Muhammad poisoned, and did he die from it?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet did not die of poisoning. The report in Bukhari that he felt the poison cutting his aorta in his final illness is, in his view, a fabricated story that contradicts itself and fails on its chain.
machine3 min 25 s0:01on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Is the chain of the hadith that the Prophet died of poison reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth finds the chains unacceptable: the Bukhari version runs through Yunus, whom early critics faulted for his memory, and through al-Zuhri, who does not state that he heard it, while the Abu Dawud version has a narrator criticised for mistakes.
machine3 min 23 s3:26on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
How can the same poison kill one companion at once and the Prophet three years later?
The story contradicts itself: the companion who ate the food died at once, so the same poison cannot have killed the Prophet three years later, and the Prophet in Muslim's version says Allah would not let the woman do it.
machine3 min 42 s6:49on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Does the hadith that the Prophet died of poison contradict the Quran?
Yes, in Mufti Abu Layth's view: the Quran promises that Allah will protect the Prophet from the people, and it describes cutting the aorta as the punishment for one who forges revelation, so a report that the Prophet died that way humiliates him.
machine2 min 16 s10:31on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Why should Muslims reject the hadith that the Prophet died of poison?
Following Imam Malik, a hadith that contradicts the overall message of the Quran is set aside; Mufti Abu Layth rules the poisoning report false on chain and content and says that calling the Prophet's death a poisoning insults Islam, God and the Prophet.
machine6 min 04 s12:47on YouTube
3 Sep 2018Responding to Refutations
Are the hadith about the khilafah authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says every hadith about the khilafah is fabricated, since the notion did not exist in the Prophet's lifetime and the Companions did not know them.
machine2 min 38 s12:04on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What is BukhariGate and why does Mufti Abu Layth say Sahih al-Bukhari is not reliable?
Sahih al-Bukhari cannot reliably be traced to its author because it reaches us through one transmitter, al-Farabri, whom nobody vouched for in his lifetime, and because transmission and memory reconstruct what they pass on. Mufti Abu Layth accepts hadith by the scholars' own standards, that a report not contradict reason, the Quran or an Islamic principle, while relying on the living tradition that Imam Malik called the Sunnah.
machine5 min 10 s0:00on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Does Sahih al-Bukhari say the Prophet forgot verses of the Quran and that there was a verse of stoning?
Two Bukhari reports have the Prophet forgetting a verse of the Quran and Umar speaking of a verse of stoning that they used to recite. Mufti Abu Layth says there is no such verse, that this disrespects Umar and the Prophet, and that it implies the Quran has changed.
machine5 min 13 s5:10on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Bukhari report of the Prophet falling unconscious when he uncovered himself?
The Bukhari report that the Prophet removed his izar while carrying stones for the Kaaba, fell unconscious and was never seen naked again is, in Mufti Abu Layth's words, nonsense that disrespects the Prophet, and he dismisses the scholars' attempts to soften it.
machine2 min 39 s10:23on 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
What is the Bukhari deathbed report in which the companions ask whether the Prophet is delirious?
The Bukhari deathbed report in which the companions dispute and ask whether the Prophet is speaking deliriously portrays the companions badly and is not true, Mufti Abu Layth says, and Sunnis hand the Shia a weapon by accepting it.
machine2 min 37 s15:38on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Why does Mufti Abu Layth reject the Bukhari report of Sulayman and the hundred women?
The report of Sulayman going to a hundred women in one night is absurd and disrespects a prophet, and its moral that God punished him with a disabled child paints a troubling picture of God. A report that clashes with reason, the Quran or Islamic principles goes out of the window.
machine3 min 55 s18:15on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Bukhari report of the wolf and the cow that spoke?
The Bukhari report in which a wolf and a cow speak eloquent Arabic about purpose and the future is absurd, Mufti Abu Layth says, and the phrase radi Allahu anhuma placed in the Prophet's mouth is an anachronism from a later age.
machine3 min 55 s22:10on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What does the Bukhari report that Shaytan touches every newborn except Mary and Jesus mean?
The Bukhari report that Shaytan touches every newborn except Mary and Jesus makes even the Prophet Muhammad subject to the devil's touch while exempting the two figures of Christian doctrine, which Mufti Abu Layth presents as a Christian idea in the collection.
machine2 min 38 s26:05on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Does Sahih al-Bukhari say the Prophet pointed to Aisha's house as the source of fitna?
The Bukhari report in which the Prophet points to Aisha's house and says the fitna and the horn of Shaytan will rise there is, Mufti Abu Layth says, disrespectful to the Prophet and to Aisha, and Muslims should question what they pass off as authentic.
machine1 min 20 s28:43on 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
Backdrop to BukhariGate: a widespread debate, his training, and transparency
The criticism of Sahih al-Bukhari is a widespread debate that Mufti Abu Layth joins as a trained scholar who studied the book in full. The religion is not diminished by questioning it, and he refuses requests to keep the discussion private.
machine6 min 32 s0:01on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
The first problem: Bukhari's semi-divine status above the Quran in practice
Sahih al-Bukhari has been given a semi-divine status that in practice places it on par with or above the Quran, which he rejects outright. The Quran always takes precedence, and Bukhari is a book like the other hadith collections.
machine5 min 17 s6:33on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
The third problem: can Bukhari be traced to its author? The bullet points
Sahih al-Bukhari cannot be traced to its author beyond reasonable doubt. It rests on one unvouched transmitter, his students admit an incomplete and altered copy, their copies disagree, and later editions needed correction.
machine6 min 33 s11:50on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Problematic reports in Bukhari: the Isra, Moses and the rock, magic on the Prophet
Several reports in Bukhari are factually wrong or disrespectful: the Isra dated before prophethood, a woman spurning the Prophet, Moses chasing a rock, a verse corrected on the spot, and magic making the Prophet forget intercourse. He also holds the night journey to have been a vision.
machine9 min 39 s18:23on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Solomon's ninety women, the rich held back from paradise, Fatima angry with Abu Bakr
The reports of Solomon's ninety women, the rich held back from paradise and Fatima dying angry with Abu Bakr are all in Bukhari, and he calls the first disgusting and disrespectful to a prophet.
machine4 min 01 s28:02on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Nonsensical Arabic in hadith 5492: the alcohol slaughtered by fish and sun
The closing words of hadith 5492 are nonsensical Arabic that early scholars crossed out as an error. Later commentators should admit this rather than strain to make sense of it.
machine3 min 59 s32:03on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
The marriage to Aisha at six: consent, and the command to pray at seven
The report that the Prophet married Aisha at six dishonours him: Bukhari itself requires a virgin's consent, which a six-year-old cannot give, and the command to separate children's beds at ten contradicts the claim that a nine-year-old had a woman's body.
machine7 min 52 s36:02on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
More troubling reports: Umar's stoning verse, the adulterous monkeys, women in hellfire
Reports such as monkeys stoning an adulterous monkey, women lacking intellect and women filling hellfire are fabricated or misunderstood. Adultery is a human institution that animals cannot commit, and most crime and bloodshed is committed by men.
machine3 min 57 s43:54on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Imam Bukhari's own practice: transmission by meaning, hidden names, a Khariji narrator
Imam Bukhari set a gold standard but did not always apply it: he transmitted by meaning, hid the names of problematic teachers and narrated from a Khariji who praised Ali's killer. Mufti Abu Layth's quarrel is not with Bukhari himself but with how the book is treated.
machine10 min 38 s47:51on 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
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Bukhari in his own chain, and the other students whose copies did not reach us
Sahih al-Bukhari reaches us through Farabri alone, although other students transmitted it. Nasafi's copy survives only in a summary of twelve hundred hadith, little of Hammad ibn Shakir's remains, Bazdawi's did not reach us, and Bukhari even appears in a chain in his own book.
machine7 min 52 s1:02:26on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Ibn Hajar and Ibn Rushayd on the transmissions: Farabri alone, found copies not taught
Ibn Hajar and Ibn Rushayd both record that Farabri's is the only transmission that reached later generations through teaching. Copies found centuries later cannot be taught from, so claims of independent connected transmissions are not honest.
machine6 min 33 s1:10:18on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Who vouched for Farabri? Baji, Sam'ani and whether transmission implies reliability
Nobody who knew Farabri declared him reliable, and the attributions to al-Baji and al-Sam'ani cannot be found in their works. That scholars transmitted from him proves nothing, since transmission is not endorsement.
machine9 min 12 s1:16:51on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Farabri's incomplete copy, the differing student copies and the manuscript patchwork
Farabri's copy was incomplete and rearranged, his students' copies differ in chains and hadith, and every later manuscript down to the Sultaniyya edition was a patchwork that needed correction.
machine6 min 41 s1:26:03on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Summing up: judge Bukhari like any other book; the deen comes through living practice
Bukhari should be read like any other hadith book, each report judged on its merits against reason, the Quran and established principles. The religion itself reaches Muslims through the living tradition of practice, not through this book.
machine7 min 53 s1:32:44on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Replies to critics: Jonathan Brown, academic dialogue, going public, the Aisha debate
The problems with Bukhari should be discussed openly, because hiding them is what makes people lose faith. He finds Jonathan Brown's response emotional rather than academic and will take up the debate on Aisha's age.
machine7 min 57 s1:40:37on YouTube
12 Aug 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
What is the hadith about Abu Hurayra, the thief and Ayat al-Kursi?
The report has Abu Hurayra guarding the zakat treasury and releasing a thief three nights running despite the Prophet calling him a liar, until the thief teaches him to recite Ayat al-Kursi before sleep. Mufti Abu Layth calls it fabricated or mis-transmitted and contrary to the Quran and Sunnah.
machine5 min 14 s0:00on YouTube
12 Aug 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Did Abu Hurayra learn to recite Ayat al-Kursi at bedtime from a devil?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects the report as blasphemous: it has the devil teaching Islam while the Prophet confirms it, against Imam Malik's principle that everything of the deen came from the Prophet. It also portrays Abu Hurayra as clumsy and disobedient and the Prophet as tolerating theft.
machine2 min 37 s5:14on YouTube
3 Aug 2018Responding to Refutations
Why does Mufti Abu Layth call the Sunni Defence channel blasphemous?
Mufti Abu Layth says the group's own words, asking what is wrong with the Prophet being sexually impotent and defending the report of Musa running naked, are blasphemous. That, he says, is why he described them as he did.
machine3 min 50 s0:00on YouTube
3 Aug 2018Responding to Refutations
Is there an authentic hadith that a wife may never refuse her husband sex?
Mufti Abu Layth says no version of the report that a wife cannot refuse her husband is free of criticism, since its chains run through al-A'mash and Qatada and carry hidden defects. He challenges his critics to produce one that cannot be faulted.
machine5 min 15 s3:50on YouTube
3 Aug 2018Responding to Refutations
Can Sahih al-Bukhari be proven to go back to Imam al-Bukhari?
Mufti Abu Layth says it cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt: the printed Sultaniyya rests on the lost Yuniniyya, the copies disagree, al-Saghani's claimed copy of Farabri's text is unseen, and Farabri himself was vouched for only centuries later. He challenges his critics to prove otherwise.
machine6 min 30 s9:05on YouTube
3 Aug 2018Responding to Refutations
How should Muslims decide which hadith to accept and which to reject?
Follow Imam Malik: accept some hadith and reject others. A report is accepted if it does not clash with reason, the Quran, the transmitted and corroborated Sunnah such as the practice of Madinah, or a principle of Islam; otherwise it is treated with caution.
machine3 min 26 s15:35on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Did the Prophet say women lack intellect and faith?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the report, though in al-Bukhari, is a false attribution to the Prophet, and that he once took it as a joke but now holds it inauthentic.
machine6 min 30 s0:00on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Does the Quran say most people in hell are women?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran speaks of mankind as a whole, all created weak, and never divides the people of hell by gender, so the report clashes with it.
machine6 min 23 s6:30on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Why do the versions of the 'women in hell' hadith contradict each other?
Mufti Abu Layth says the versions disagree on which Eid it was and whether the women were addressed privately, so the male narrators heard it second-hand from someone unknown.
machine3 min 48 s12:53on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Do women really curse more than men, as the hadith says?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says men swear more than women across cultures and ingratitude is shared by both, so the report's reasons are factual errors.
machine7 min 03 s16:41on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Is not praying during menstruation a sign of weak faith?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says women refrain from prayer during menstruation because the religion told them to, so calling it a lack of faith is absurd and the report is a misattribution.
machine6 min 58 s23:44on YouTube
29 Jul 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Are the chains of the 'women lack intellect' hadith sound?
Not unquestionably: Mufti Abu Layth says every chain, in al-Bukhari, Muslim and elsewhere, has a weak or disputed link, too little to override the Quran.
machine9 min 13 s30:42on YouTube
8 Jul 2018Responding to Refutations
Do the angels curse a wife who refuses her husband in bed?
No: Mufti Abu Layth holds the hadith is weak, resting on narrators who practised tadlis, and clashes with the Quran's command to treat wives with kindness.
machine3 min 48 s3:12on YouTube
8 Jul 2018Responding to Refutations
Thanks for the correction, but the chain is still flawed
Mufti Abu Layth accepts that three forum quotes were misrepresented but says he never relied on them: his case rests on the narrator's tadlis, which his critics have not refuted.
machine5 min 34 s7:00on YouTube
8 Jul 2018Responding to Refutations
Is it haram to pressure a wife into sex by saying God will be angry?
Yes: marital rape is categorically haram, and so is religious blackmail, using God's anger to get sex. He reads the hadith of the angels cursing a refusing wife as justifying that.
machine4 min 25 s0:00on YouTube
8 Jul 2018Responding to Refutations
Was al-A'mash a reliable hadith narrator?
Mufti Abu Layth cites classical critics who say al-A'mash committed tadlis, sometimes hiding weak narrators, and made many mistakes. This does not mean every narration of his in Bukhari and Muslim is weak.
machine9 min 28 s4:25on YouTube
8 Jul 2018Responding to Refutations
What is the point of checking a hadith's chain of narrators?
Chain criticism exists only to judge whether a hadith's content is sound; content against reason, the Quran or Islam's principles is a problem. Treating Bukhari as infallible is nonsense.
machine2 min 35 s13:53on YouTube
12 Jun 2018Quick Fiqh!
Do I have to grow a beard?
The beard was the custom of all Arabs, not something the Prophet introduced, and the 'be different from the Jews and Christians' wording is applied selectively, since the same words command dyeing hair and praying in shoes. The Prophet never defined what a beard should look like, and scholars disagree whether the command was binding.
machine4 min 34 s0:00on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Were apostates punished for disbelief or for fighting against Muslims?
The classical punishment targeted apostates who took up arms against the community, not disbelief itself: Umar preferred to restrain and persuade, al-Tahawi tied it to waging war, and the Hanafis exempted women because they were not combatants.
machine7 min 46 s15:42on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Which hadith are used to justify killing apostates, and were the scholars who used them right?
Some scholars did rule that apostates be killed, and he says they were clearly wrong, products of a ruthless age; the time given to apostates in the reports makes sense only as time to withdraw from rebellion.
machine2 min 38 s23:28on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
What is the context of the hadith 'whoever changes his religion, kill him'?
The report 'whoever changes his religion, kill him' clashes with the Quran, and in full it is Ikrima's account of Ali burning people alive and Ibn Abbas objecting that he should have executed them instead.
machine2 min 36 s26:06on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Is Ikrima, the narrator of the apostasy hadith, reliable?
The main chains of 'whoever changes his religion, kill him' run through Ikrima, whom he describes as a Khariji, and whom Imam Malik and many early authorities rejected or called a liar.
machine6 min 34 s28:42on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Is the chain of the apostasy hadith through Anas reliable?
The alternative chain of the apostasy hadith through Anas is also weak: it includes a narrator with Mu'tazili tendencies and Qatada, who is known for tadlis, and the report clashes with reason, the Quran and the Prophet's life.
machine3 min 58 s35:16on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Are the Abu Hurayra and Hamza al-Aslami narrations on apostasy authentic?
The other narrations used for killing apostates, from Abu Hurayra and Hamza al-Aslami, also have problems in their chains: rejected or unknown narrators and a known mudallis.
machine3 min 57 s39:14on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Can a life be taken on the basis of a doubtful hadith?
There is no verse and no conclusively established hadith for killing apostates, and a life, whose sanctity is conclusive, cannot be taken on isolated reports that carry doubt; defending it while demanding religious freedom in the West is a double standard.
machine5 min 17 s48:25on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Is it haram for men and women to shake hands?
Nothing in the Quran or Sunnah explicitly says shaking hands with the opposite sex is haram; that is a popular convention, not an established ruling. The iron-rod hadith is not authentic as claimed, and many scholars read its 'touch' as a euphemism for sex.
machine2 min 36 s0:00on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Which scholars say men and women may shake hands, and what about 'I do not shake hands with women'?
The hadith 'I do not shake hands with women' is set against Umm Atiyya's narrations of the women's pledge, which some read as the Prophet shaking hands. Contemporary scholars including the Shaykh of al-Azhar, Bin Bayyah and the European fatwa council have ruled that shaking hands is permitted.
machine3 min 57 s2:36on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
What evidence do scholars use to allow men and women to shake hands?
Scholars who permit it cite 'do not frighten people away', the verse on returning greetings, Abu Musa having a woman comb his hair on Hajj, and the Sahih report that Umm Haram combed the Prophet's hair and let him nap at her house. The Umm Haram report is one scholars struggled with.
machine2 min 37 s6:33on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Should I refuse to shake hands with the opposite sex where it is the custom?
Follow the convention you are in: where people do not shake hands, do not; where they do, you may act on the fatwa of the scholars who permit it, since no clear verse or hadith forbids it. Losing citizenship over a handshake was not a battle worth choosing.
machine3 min 16 s9:10on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Is there a hadith that says a woman who wears perfume outside is a zaniya?
The report, transmitted only from Abu Musa al-Ash'ari and found in al-Nasa'i, Abu Dawud, Ahmad and al-Tirmidhi, says a woman who passes people while wearing perfume is a fornicator.
machine2 min 39 s0:00on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Is the hadith about women wearing perfume being zaniya authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says the report is not authentic: every version comes through one weak narrator, Thabit ibn Umara, from the obscure Ghunaym ibn Qays, and some early authorities stopped it at the companion.
machine7 min 53 s2:39on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Would the Prophet really call a woman wearing perfume a fornicator?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says calling a woman a fornicator is the crime of qadhf under Quran 24:4, punished by the Malikis whatever the intention, and the Prophet was never obscene, so the report insults him.
machine9 min 15 s10:32on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Doesn't the hadith of Zaynab forbid women from wearing perfume to the mosque?
The report only tells women not to wear perfume to the late Isha, sometimes Zaynab alone, so Mufti Abu Layth reads it as a specific instruction, not a general ban.
machine3 min 53 s19:47on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Is a woman's prayer rejected if she wears perfume to the mosque?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the report is a statement attributed to Abu Hurayra through unknown and weak narrators, not a hadith of the Prophet, and no one holds that such a prayer is invalid.
machine2 min 35 s23:40on YouTube
4 May 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Can women wear perfume when they go out?
Yes, women may wear perfume when they go out; Mufti Abu Layth says people should smell good and be presentable, and the slanderous reports must not be attributed to the Prophet.
machine1 min 48 s27:34on YouTube
22 Apr 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Can a woman travel without a mahram?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth says a woman can travel without a mahram, since the ruling was about safety. The reports behind it disagree on how long a journey they mean.
machine9 min 31 s1:12on YouTube
22 Apr 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Why did the Prophet say women should not travel without a mahram?
For their safety: Mufti Abu Layth says the limits tracked how far the safe zone around Madinah reached, widening as treaties spread, not a rule to confine women.
machine4 min 27 s23:01on YouTube
22 Apr 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
What did the Maliki scholars say about women travelling with a safe group?
Mufti Abu Layth cites al-Baji that a woman is safe without a mahram in large caravans and busy highways, and reads Imam Malik's ordering of the hadith as showing they were about safety.
machine4 min 28 s30:39on 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
If Mufti Abu Layth admires Qadi Iyad, must he accept everything in al-Shifa?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says al-Shifa was written to instil love of the Prophet in a context of insults and knowingly includes weak and fabricated reports, and that admiring Qadi Iyad, who himself disagreed with Malik, does not make him a clone.
machine3 min 57 s1:19:39on 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
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
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
On what principles can a hadith in Bukhari be rejected, and may ordinary Muslims do so?
A valid chain is not enough: a report must not go against reason, the established Quran and Sunnah, or the principles of Islam, and the Hanafi-Maturidi majority require mutawatir hadith for creed. Lay people may suspend a hadith that troubles them while seeking guidance; the gecko hadith is given as a report Mufti Abu Layth considers made up.
machine3 min 55 s18:17on 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
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
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
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
Israiliyyat in hadith: man in God's image and creation on the Sabbath
Reports such as man created in God's image and creation on the Sabbath are Biblical material that Malik and Ibn Taymiyya rejected; Mufti Abu Layth says the Jesus narrative shows the same Israiliyyat influence.
machine2 min 38 s1:17:41on 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
How could fabricated hadith have crept into mainstream Islam?
Fear of questioning drives the backlash; Mufti Abu Layth says the murder of Uthman, Karbala, the sack of Madinah and the catapulting of the Kaaba all happened within decades, long before hadith were documented, so corruption of reports was possible.
machine3 min 55 s1:24:13on YouTube
13 Mar 2018Islamic Eschatology
Why hadith, not the Quran or fiqh, was corrupted: Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, Zuhri and forged chains
Mufti Abu Layth holds that early opponents corrupted hadith, not the Quran or fiqh, in the century before chains were demanded; this is why Malik relied on inherited practice and treated isolated reports as information, not creed.
machine6 min 34 s1:26:52on 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
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
Shawkani against claimed consensus: music, following a madhhab, four wives, raf' al-yadayn
Those who cite Shawkani's claim that the return is mutawatir do not follow him when he rejects other consensuses or calls raf' al-yadayn mutawatir; claimed consensuses have been overturned before.
machine3 min 55 s1:53:04on 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
Stop calling Bukhari the most authentic book after the Quran; fiqh preserved the living Sunnah
Sahih al-Bukhari is an excellent effort but should not be called the most authentic book after the Quran; hadith are sifted, while fiqh and the madhhabs carry the Sunnah in living form.
machine3 min 59 s2:21:55on 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
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
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Does the Maliki school distinguish between hadith and Sunnah, and did Imam Malik ever reject a hadith?
Yes: the school of Madinah embraces the Sunnah while remaining critical of individual hadith, and Imam Malik rejected several reports when the practice of Madinah did not reflect them. He says he stated clearly that scholars differed on the report's grading.
machine2 min 38 s17:03on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Can a hadith narrated by Jabir alone be mutawatir?
No: mutawatir requires so many transmissions that a lie is impossible, which a report from Jabir alone cannot be, and he says the report is not even sahih. He defends following the critics who weakened the narrator rather than those who graded him reliable.
machine5 min 01 s19:41on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Is the chain Hammad ibn Salama from Thabit from Anas for the crying-tree hadith sound?
Mufti Abu Layth argues it is not: critics report that Hammad ibn Salama's memory failed late in life, that Bukhari did not transmit from him, and that Thabit was not the most reliable transmitter from Anas, Qatada and Humayd al-Tawil being ranked above him.
machine6 min 33 s26:01on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Are the Jabir chains for the crying-tree hadith through Isra'il, Abd al-Razzaq and Ibn Jurayj sound?
Mufti Abu Layth argues they are not: one chain rests on Isra'il, whom Yahya ibn Sa'id and Ibn al-Madini weakened, and an unknown narrator; the other on Abd al-Razzaq, criticised for errors from memory, and Ibn Jurayj, a mudallis whose 'akhbarani' referred to books rather than hearing.
machine5 min 13 s31:15on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Did Ibn Ma'in consider Isma'il ibn Abi Uways and his family reliable?
Mufti Abu Layth says that although one transmitted opinion of Ibn Ma'in accepts him, Ibn Ma'in is also transmitted as counting the household of Abu Uways among the weak. He adds that Abu al-Zubayr was weakened by several critics, so none of the chains the critics brought is conclusive.
machine3 min 51 s36:28on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
What does he say to critics who accept that the Prophet was impotent, married a nine-year-old or was bewitched into clumsiness?
Mufti Abu Layth says these claims are untrue attacks on the Prophet's honour, resting on reports whose chains he has shown to be defective, and that critics who affirm them to win an argument are themselves being blasphemous. He adds that he does not support capital punishment for such speech.
machine6 min 14 s42:14on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Why do the hadith about Safiyya's marriage contradict each other?
Nearly all the reports come through one companion, Anas ibn Malik, who was a teenager at Khaybar and died decades later, and they contradict each other on almost every detail, so none can be taken as it stands. Only two facts are certain: Safiyya left with the Muslims and later became the Prophet's wife.
machine7 min 52 s11:37on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Could the Prophet have married Safiyya right after Khaybar?
No: she was a widow and the Quran requires a waiting period of four months and ten days, so a marriage at Khaybar would contradict the Quran. The companions only assumed a marriage because they saw the Prophet veil her and took a victory meal for a wedding feast.
machine5 min 15 s19:29on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
When and how did Safiyya actually marry the Prophet?
She embraced Islam in the months after Khaybar, became interested in the Prophet herself and married him with her consent, not on the night of the battle. Abu Hurayra reported that nothing was taken from Khaybar but clothing, cattle and sheep.
machine2 min 38 s32:35on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
How should Muslims judge hadith that say the Prophet took Safiyya on the night of Khaybar?
Weigh them against the Quran and the Prophet's character: the story contradicts the widow's waiting period, the verse on no compulsion and everything known of his conduct, and all its versions come from one conflicting source. Mufti Abu Layth says relaying it is a lie against the Prophet and the picture it draws is rape.
machine5 min 12 s35:13on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
If the Safiyya story is in Sahih al-Bukhari, why question it?
Because Bukhari's own narrations of the incident conflict, all rest on Anas, and Anas himself says nobody witnessed a marriage and they only assumed one from her being veiled. Earlier scholars were great but shaped by their times, and loyalty to them should not come before the Prophet's honour.
machine5 min 09 s40:25on 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
9 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Viral claims that Mufti Abu Layth insulted the companions
Mufti Abu Layth explains that he called the crying-tree reports unestablished, and only suggested that, if accepted, some companions exaggerated out of love; that is not blasphemy.
machine4 min 30 s0:00on YouTube
9 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Is every hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari authentic?
Not necessarily: Mufti Abu Layth says al-Bukhari did an excellent job, a hundred unreliable reports among eight thousand would be no big deal, and great scholars disagreed in their rulings.
machine3 min 08 s4:30on YouTube
9 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Is the hadith of the crying tree trunk authentic?
No: Mufti Abu Layth finds weak narrators in each chain, including those in al-Bukhari, and says only the Quran is preserved in its entirety.
machine8 min 52 s7:38on YouTube
9 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Are some hadith about the Prophet actually blasphemous?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth says reports that the Prophet married a nine-year-old, was bewitched or became impotent are the real blasphemy, and urges scholars to denounce them.
machine7 min 41 s18:41on YouTube
2 Jan 2018Responding to Refutations
Music: the hadith on singing and hypocrisy, and scholars who permitted music
Nothing proven categorically makes music haram, and lyrics by themselves do not make listening haram. The hadith the critic cited on singing and hypocrisy is weak in every chain, and he lists scholars who said no sahih report forbids music.
machine10 min 26 s14:24on YouTube
2 Jan 2018Responding to Refutations
Anal intercourse: the difference of opinion and the chains of the critic's hadith
On anal intercourse Mufti Abu Layth says only that there is a difference of opinion: the majority held it haram, many Malikis did not and disliked it for hygiene. He argues that every hadith the critic quoted against it has a weak or disconnected chain.
machine11 min 53 s24:50on YouTube
2 Jan 2018Responding to Refutations
Refute me with sahih evidence: lying about the Prophet and the charge of misguidance
Mufti Abu Layth invites refutation but only on categorical evidence from the Quran and sahih hadith, and says quoting weak reports falsely attributed to the Prophet is shameful.
machine3 min 55 s36:43on YouTube
2017 · 16
19 Oct 2017video
What is riba al-fadl and what does the hadith on gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates and salt say?
The six-commodities hadith requires equal, hand-to-hand exchange and makes delay riba, even between different goods. Taken literally it would make credit impossible, so the scholars exempted gold and silver by a kind of consensus.
machine5 min9:16on YouTube
29 Sep 2017From the Mind of a Mufti
Should religious leaders be held to a higher standard than everyone else?
The claim that leaders deserve greater scrutiny is a modern Western ethic that its proponents apply selectively, in Mufti Abu Layth's view, while a hadith tells Muslims to overlook the slips of people of standing. Workplace rules on relationships are corporate productivity ethics, not religion.
machine3 min 56 s19:37on YouTube
29 Sep 2017From the Mind of a Mufti
Is cyberbullying and attacking someone's honour haram in Islam?
Harming the honour of a Muslim is graver than destroying the Kaaba, Mufti Abu Layth says citing a hadith, and bullying, cyberbullying and maligning people are haram. A crime goes to the authorities; a haram act is for God alone to judge.
machine6 min 16 s40:31on 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
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Premise two: hadith absolutism versus hadith relativism
Scholars were divided from the start between treating every authenticated hadith as binding and reading it against Islam's wider principles. Imam Malik and the school of Madinah left many sound-chained reports they did not hold to be the sunnah.
machine13 min 02 s16:58on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Unacceptable reports in the Sahihayn and judging a hadith by its content
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim contain some reports scholars reject as wrong, so a report is judged by its content as well as its chain. Their sanctification came centuries later.
machine3 min 58 s30:00on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The reports: Bukhari's six and nine against three other Bukhari reports
The six-and-nine report conflicts with three other Bukhari reports: Aisha as a jariyah at an early revelation, her memory of her parents' Islam and Abu Bakr's migration, and her presence at Uhud when a fourteen-year-old boy was refused.
machine10 min 31 s47:06on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The reports: Hisham's Iraqi transmission, Madinan silence and Asma's age
The six-and-nine report rests on Hisham ibn Urwa's later Iraqi transmission and no Madinan compiler carries it. Asma's reported age makes Aisha about eighteen at her marriage.
machine5 min 12 s57:37on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The ramifications: jurists on marrying a minor, and the conclusion
Aisha was in her late teens, most likely eighteen or nineteen, Mufti Abu Layth concludes. Jurists from early on held marriage impermissible with a girl incapable of it, and the Ottomans set a minimum age of fifteen.
machine11 min 49 s1:02:49on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Which books argue that Aisha was in her late teens when she married the Prophet?
Several works argue Aisha was in her late teens, including ones by Habib al-Rahman Kandhlawi, Salah al-Din al-Idlibi and Khalid al-Jundi. Mufti Abu Layth has read them and the refutations written against them.
machine2 min 38 s1:14:38on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Why is Aisha's age only being questioned now, and is it just to appease the West?
The age was treated as an issue historically through rulings against marrying girls incapable of marriage, and it is prominent now because Islam faces more scrutiny. Mufti Abu Layth rejects the report with certainty and calls the appeasement charge preposterous.
machine10 min 25 s1:18:33on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Why is the report that Aisha was six and nine so much better known than the others?
The six-and-nine report became prominent as a by-product of hadith absolutism and the later sanctification of Bukhari and Muslim. Ordinary Muslims historically knew only that Aisha was young.
machine7 min 53 s1:27:41on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Doesn't the hadith about Aisha playing with dolls show she was a child?
The word 'play' is also used of adults, and the detailed figures described in the report read as figurines rather than a child's toys. The report does not show Aisha was a child.
machine3 min 55 s1:38:13on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Can an ordinary Muslim reject a hadith that seems irrational?
An ordinary Muslim should refer puzzling hadith to scholars rather than reject them, but may decline to act on a report that clearly clashes with Islam's universal teachings. Going through the hadith books one by one is not the duty of the unskilled.
machine7 min 50 s1:42:08on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Is judging hadith by their content a modern invention of jurists rather than hadith scholars?
Judging a report by its content is not modern; it goes back to Ibn Abbas and Imam Malik, who left authentic reports they did not hold to be the sunnah. Hadith absolutism displaced it only at times.
machine5 min 13 s1:49:58on YouTube
2016 · 2
21 Dec 2016video
What is the reward of sitting in a gathering of remembrance?
Gatherings for remembering Allah bring tranquillity, mercy and forgiveness, even for someone who only happened to sit with them.
machine4 min 15 s3:57on YouTube
21 Dec 2016video
Is Islam still relevant in today's confusing times?
Yes: the Prophet foretold confusing trials like layers of night, but Islam is for every time and place and has spread against the greatest odds.
machine3 min 53 s8:12on YouTube
2015 · 1
5 May 2015video
Is a short back and sides or faded haircut haram?
A short back and sides, or hair of unequal lengths, is permissible and does not fall under the hadith forbidding qaza'. Shaving patches and leaving others (qaza') is at most disliked, not haram, in the view he presents, unless done to disfigure or to imitate a religious practice.
machine15 min 52 s1:20on YouTube
2014 · 4
12 Apr 2014video
What do the sound hadith about the beard actually say?
Only three hadith on the beard have undisputed chains, and each pairs trimming the moustache with the beard and gives the reason of differing from the Jews and Christians, the Majus or the mushrikin. Many read this as an obligatory command, but Mufti Abu Layth says other hadith show otherwise.
machine4 min 02 s9:16on YouTube
12 Apr 2014video
Is it haram to trim my beard shorter than a fist's length?
Trimming the beard below a fist is not haram according to many great scholars, a well-founded view in the tradition, though others may follow stricter opinions.
machine12 min 48 s0:04on YouTube
12 Mar 2014video
If the madhhabs differ so much, how can they all be valid?
Compare the hadith an imam relied on with the hadith you quote, not the imam's fatwa with the hadith. The schools differ in application under one constitution of Quran and Sunnah, like US states, and learning every ruling from its evidence without a school is impractical.
machine3 min 59 s7:47on YouTube
18 Jan 2014video
What is the dua for memorising the Quran and how do I perform it?
On Thursday night, in the last part of the night, pray four units with al-Fatiha and a set surah in each, then say the dua the Prophet taught Ali asking that the Quran stick to the heart, for three, five or seven Fridays. The Quran may be held and read from during the prayer according to the majority.
machine5 min 21 s2:39on YouTube