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Contested verses
35 segments in 18 recordings · 2018 to 2022 · 0 verified · 28 checked positions · quran/tafsir/contested-verses · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 19 Aug 2022
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
Earlier answers · 34 · newest first
2021 · 4
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Quran 33:40 mean the Prophet's descendants cannot rule?
Mufti Abu Layth says 33:40 simply states that the Prophet is not the father of their men but the seal of the prophets; it is not a proof that his descendants may not rule.
machine1 min 17 s1:15:00on YouTube
2 Feb 2021video
Did Ibn Ashur say Muslims must believe Jesus was raised alive?
Mufti Abu Layth shows that Ibn Ashur, quoted in Shadee Elmasry's post, held only that Jesus was not killed or crucified and was raised and saved, leaving how it happened open to interpretation.
machine8 min6:15on YouTube
2 Feb 2021video
Did Ibn Ashur believe Jesus died?
Mufti Abu Layth shows that Ibn Ashur read 'inni mutawaffika' as real death, cited Imam Malik for it, and took texts calling Jesus alive as an honorific life like that of martyrs.
machine5 min 20 s8:00on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the Quran seem focused on men, and why are two women witnesses needed?
The Quran asks for two women witnesses only for debt contracts, because a lone woman was easier to intimidate, not because women are lesser; otherwise one woman equals one man, and the masculine address reflects historically patriarchal societies.
machine9 min 11 s21:34on YouTube
2020 · 9
15 Nov 2020video
Does the Quran mention the evil eye?
No: the Quran mentions envy (hasad) but never the evil eye, and the verse about eyes making the Prophet slip is a metaphor for hateful stares, as Ibn Ashur and others explain.
machine6 min 43 s2:41on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Confirmation bias: reading the evil eye into the Quran
Mufti Abu Layth says that people came to Islam already believing the evil eye was science and, through confirmation bias, found it in verses that do not mention it, such as the verse about eyes almost making the Prophet slip, even though many exegetes did not read it that way. He recommends the Urdu tafsir of Abdul Karim Athari, whom he describes as coming from a small, unusually reason-based circle within the Ahl-e-Hadith of India, and says Athari also reads the verse as the disbelievers staring as though to trip the Prophet, before calling him insane.
machine3 min 22 s41:06on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Does Surah Yusuf prove the evil eye is real?
No: Jacob told his sons to use different gates for their safety and to avoid drawing attention, not because of the evil eye. They had already been to Egypt, so the evil eye reading makes no sense.
machine11 min 39 s44:28on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does 'justice' mean in the Quran's verse on marrying more than one wife?
Mufti Abu Layth says the verse requires equal treatment of wives as the benchmark, accepting human shortfalls, and does not rule polygamy out.
machine9 min 51 s50:22on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Who were the Bedouin Arabs criticised in Surah al-Tawbah?
Mufti Abu Layth says the a'rab of Surah al-Tawbah were semi-nomadic raiding tribes not under settled rule, some of whom joined only as a power play.
machine6 min 11 s2:22:11on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does God not love non-believers?
The guest reads the verse as saying that certain deeds block God's love from reaching a person, not that God's love is selective.
machine1 min 30 s1:38:38on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes the Quran allow a husband to hit his wife?
The guest reads 4:34 as telling a persistently flirting wife to leave rather than as permission to beat, and says four words in the verse were mistranslated to create male authority. Mufti Abu Layth says the statement that men provide is descriptive, not prescriptive.
machine7 min 49 s2:04:43on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How does the guest translate the verses on cutting off the thief's hand, jizya and polygamy?
The guest's translation renders the thief's punishment as cutting off the means, the tax on non-Muslims as war reparations, sa'ihat as women active in society, and polygamy as permitted only for widows with orphans in exigent circumstances.
machine3 min 58 s2:12:32on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Quran mean by 'what your right hands possess', and did the Prophet have a concubine?
The guest reads the Quran's 'right-hand possessions' as a category of wife who was not free, since 4:25 speaks of marrying slave girls, and thinks Mariya al-Qibtiyya may have been a wife misunderstood as a concubine. Mufti Abu Layth says Mariya was a wife, as he has taught, and that under trajectory hermeneutics slavery would have become haram.
machine7 min 13 s1:42:42on YouTube
2019 · 16
29 Dec 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Who is Uzair mentioned in the Quran?
Mufti Abu Layth says the common reading of Uzair as Ezra does not really fit, since Jews never called Ezra the son of God.
machine5 min 45 s0:33on YouTube
29 Dec 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Could Uzair in the Quran be the Egyptian figure Osiris?
Mufti Abu Layth says it now appears to him that Uzair is Osiris, a divine hero of Egyptian mythology who shaped the culture the Israelites grew up in.
machine5 min 41 s5:45on YouTube
29 Dec 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why did the Israelites ask Moses for an idol after leaving Egypt?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Israelites' request for an idol in 7:138 shows the Egyptian culture they carried, which explains them calling Osiris a son of God.
machine3 min 03 s11:26on YouTube
29 Dec 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why did Moses carry a staff?
Mufti Abu Layth says Moses' staff partly reflects the Pharaonic culture he grew up in, and that keeping cultural practices is fine without affiliating with paganism.
machine4 min 55 s14:29on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Quran actually tell women to cover their hair, or only their chest?
There is nothing explicit in the Quran or Sunnah about covering the head; the verse of al-Nur tells women to cover the jayb (the chest opening) with the khimar they already wore, and whether the khimar itself is obligatory or circumstantial is an open question. Covering the hair became the settled teaching within a generation of the companions.
machine9 min 06 s0:04on 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
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
What is the iddah after divorce and why does the Quran require it?
The iddah is a waiting period of one to three cycles after a divorce which establishes whether the woman is pregnant and prevents suspicion and conflict, and during it she keeps the right to stay in the home. Mufti Abu Layth reads this as the opening of the passage the objector quotes from.
machine3 min 54 s6:26on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
What does Quran 65:4 say about the waiting period for women whose periods have stopped?
Women who have despaired of menstruation wait three months, a rule Mufti Abu Layth reads as addressed to men who are unsure whether a woman has reached the menopause, so that pregnancy can be excluded; the pregnant wait until childbirth.
machine2 min 36 s15:33on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does 'those who have not menstruated' in Quran 65:4 refer to little girls?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the phrase refers to women whose cycles are absent through illness or irregularity, as Abu Hayyan, Ibn Ashur, al-Samarqandi, Abu al-Su'ud and Ibn Atiyya read it. Al-Tha'labi records that the verse was revealed about a man who divorced his wife during her menses.
machine3 min 57 s18:09on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did classical scholars really say Quran 65:4 includes little girls?
Yes, some did: Mufti Abu Layth concedes that commentators such as Ibn Kathir and al-Qurtubi wrote that the phrase can include little girls, which he condemns as a mistake. He says their saying so is not the Quran saying so, and the evidence lies in how the passage opens.
machine2 min 37 s22:06on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the word 'women' in Surah al-Talaq rule out children?
Yes: the passage opens with nisa, women, a word never used of a six- or seven-year-old, just as boys are never called rijal, and the verses go on to envisage pregnancy, which nobody would expect of a child.
machine2 min 36 s24:43on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did Imam Malik allow marriage to be consummated with a girl who was not yet nubile?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says Imam Malik's fatwa was clear that sexual relations with a wife are haram unless she is nubile. Scholars who read 65:4 to include girls were men influenced by the patriarchy of their age and were wrong, while others such as Ibn Ashur, al-Samarqandi, Abu Hayyan and al-Alusi did not read it so.
machine2 min 39 s27:19on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
How does the rule that a clear verse overrides an ambiguous one apply to Quran 65:4?
By a principle of usul the ambiguous phrase 'those who have not menstruated' is read in the light of the clear opening term women, which cancels any reading that includes girls. The Quran could have said fatayat but addressed them as nisa.
machine2 min 38 s29:58on YouTube
10 May 2019video
Does Quran 60:10 mean a marriage to a non-Muslim is automatically void?
No: Umar divorced his non-Muslim wives after the verse came down, which shows their marriages had been valid. The verse on the emigrant women was specific to the Hudaybiyya context.
machine3 min 56 s33:03on YouTube
23 Feb 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did Jesus really speak as a baby in the cradle?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran does not say Jesus spoke as a baby; the Maryam passage most likely refers to Jesus at twelve debating the priests in the Temple, as in Luke.
machine13 min 55 s1:15on YouTube
23 Feb 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
What does it mean that Jesus spoke to people in the cradle and in old age?
Mufti Abu Layth says the verse means Jesus would relate to people of every age when he preached, not that he spoke as a baby; that story likely came from apocryphal infancy gospels.
machine3 min 37 s13:57on YouTube
2018 · 5
24 Dec 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did the journey of Musa and Khidr really happen, or was it a vision?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that everything after Musa and Joshua slept at the rock happened in a vision, which explains the story's strange shifts.
machine5 min 51 s5:31on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
What does the Quran say about the beast of the earth?
Mufti Abu Layth reads 27:80-84 as moving from the grave to the Day of Judgment, with the creature of verse 82 set within that sequence.
machine3 min 10 s3:55on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Does Ibn Ashur say the beast comes before the Day of Judgment?
Mufti Abu Layth reads Ibn Ashur as treating the time from the world's end to the resurrection as one realm, not as placing the beast before the Day of Judgment.
machine4 min 31 s10:59on YouTube
29 May 2018Islamic Eschatology
Ibn Ashur: the creature speaks to the deniers at the gathering
In Ibn Ashur's reading, as Mufti Abu Layth presents it, the creature speaks at the gathering on the Day of Judgment to shame the Quraysh who denied the Prophet.
machine3 min 55 s15:30on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Harut and Marut, and how magic 'splits' people
Harut and Marut may have been two pious men taken for angels who taught skills that looked like magic; the doll-and-needles idea of magic is not from the Quran or Sunnah.
machine3 min 14 s40:24on YouTube