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Islam and modernity
70 segments in 36 recordings · 2015 to 2022 · 0 verified · 49 checked positions · society/islam-and-modernity · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 19 Aug 2022
19 Aug 2022video
LatestShould all religions be free to compete without state backing?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees religion should not be forced on anyone and that people may criticise it freely, but says criticism with an objective is different from insults meant only to hurt.
machine1 min 19 s55:22on YouTube
Earlier answers · 69 · newest first
2021 · 15
15 May 2021video
What solutions are possible for Palestine?
Israel is here to stay, so the realistic options are a two-state solution, naturalising Palestinians within Israel, or relocation, for which al-Albani gave a fatwa of hijrah, compared to evacuating a house whose fire cannot be put out.
machine3 min 53 s14:26on YouTube
15 May 2021video
What can people realistically do for Palestine, and is migration an option?
Politics runs through every side of the crisis, and ordinary people are largely helpless beyond pressuring MPs, boycotts and dua; Mufti Abu Layth says no land is worth a genocide and that the Prophet taught migration where an assessment calls for it, or else meaningful negotiation.
machine6 min 19 s27:26on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can a Muslim work in the music industry and keep their faith?
The guest says religion should be judged apart from the actions of its followers in any industry; Mufti Abu Layth says relatable poetry and music inspire people more than being told to go to the mosque.
machine7 min 48 s1:02:56on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDid everyone at the time of the Prophet accept Islam without questions?
The guest says early Muslims, including poets, had real critiques; Mufti Abu Layth says the deen should complement life rather than complicate it.
machine5 min 51 s1:10:04on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is humanity becoming more or less moral?
The guest says morality is remade daily, with no overall rise or fall and no consistent definition; Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees.
machine5 min 13 s1:24:22on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Will traditional religious institutions survive if they do not adapt?
Mufti Abu Layth predicts that institutions refusing to adapt, such as many Deobandi madrasas, will fossilise, while Barelvis who modernised their style stay approachable.
machine2 min 39 s1:01:00on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Do I need a religious authority to own my faith?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says Islam has no papacy, the deen belongs to everyone equally, and no one can throw you out of it.
machine1 min 19 s1:06:16on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Will religious dogmatism ever disappear?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says dogmatism is built into institutional religion and will survive, so his aim is to keep the voice of reason alive as a choice.
machine1 min 19 s1:51:19on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Without colonialism and the Mongols, would the Muslim world have had its own enlightenment?
Yes: he thinks Muslims left to themselves would have pioneered the enlightenment, but Europe's head start in industrialisation, used to subdue the Muslim world, provoked a reactionary rejection instead.
machine3 min 43 s25:06on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Mufti think of Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia?
His impression is that Malaysians and Indonesians have absorbed Islam naturally into daily life, though he feels extremism has risen there in the last fifteen years.
machine1 min 06 s23:34on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Mufti think of liberal Islam?
Liberal and conservative are political labels about authority, he says, and they do not truly fit Islam, which never had a church-like hierarchy.
machine3 min 40 s33:30on YouTube
2 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is trading stocks, crypto or on margin halal?
Mufti Abu Layth believes modern trading, including crypto and margin trading, is permissible with sensible risk management; risk was never the reason for a ban.
machine8 min 23 s2:28:10on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
A clip on parent titles for LGBTQIA+ families, and gender-neutral language
Mufti Abu Layth plays and reacts to a clip on alternative parent titles in LGBTQIA+ families and comments on gender-neutral language, saying people forget humans are part of nature.
machine3 min 56 s7:07on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What do you think of the Muslim community in Birmingham?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Muslim scene everywhere is suffering, and the youth do not listen to scholars because the scholars are irrelevant and outdated.
machine4 min 16 s25:37on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has Islam become more polarised between puritans and liberals?
Yes, he says Islam is far more polarised today than historically, but he is optimistic it is a fever through which a more natural Islam can return.
machine4 min 10 s35:37on YouTube
2020 · 21
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do imams in the West wear 'Islamic' robes?
Mufti Abu Layth says there was never an Islamic clothing; clerical dress came centuries later as a symbol of status that distances scholars from people.
machine6 min 38 s1:21:12on YouTube
22 Sep 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it right to build very elaborate mosques?
Mufti Abu Layth says there is little need for so many lavish mosques, and that mosques should suit their local surroundings.
machine2 min 39 s1:15:17on YouTube
22 Sep 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are Sharia rules brand new, or based on what people already did?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Shari'ah did not bring otherworldly rules but took existing practices and set limits on them, like kintsugi mending pottery.
machine5 min 41 s1:36:57on YouTube
16 Jul 2020video
Should Pakistan allow a Hindu temple to be built in Islamabad?
Yes, he says: Pakistan is a nation-state of equal citizens, not a khilafah, and Muslims who demand tolerance abroad while opposing a temple at home have become bigots. The Quran itself says Allah's name is glorified in other faiths' places of worship.
machine4 min 08 s26:20on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Should Pakistan allow a Hindu temple in Islamabad?
Mufti Abu Layth supports the Islamabad temple: Pakistan is a nation-state of equal citizens, and Muslims who demand tolerance abroad but deny it at home are bigots.
machine4 min 27 s1:40:22on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran predict that modern industrial society will collapse?
The guest reads Quran 10:24 as a warning that oil-based modern life will collapse; Mufti Abu Layth expects human knowledge to find new energy.
machine2 min 30 s50:17on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is humanity better off today than ever before?
Mufti Abu Layth argues that humanity lives in unmatched prosperity built on trust in the future; the guest doubts people have become any less greedy.
machine5 min 44 s52:47on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Have nuclear weapons made the world more peaceful?
Mufti Abu Layth argues that nuclear deterrence has ironically kept the peace; the guest fears what the people holding the weapons might do.
machine3 min 53 s58:31on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the world getting better or worse?
Mufti Abu Layth sees humanity heading in a more positive than negative direction; the guest says the loan-based Western economy will bust.
machine3 min 14 s1:05:36on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are people basically good, or is the system the problem?
Mufti Abu Layth sees goodness in people despite immorality; the guest says the problem is a system run by corporations, not individuals.
machine3 min 54 s1:08:50on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Iqbal see Western civilisation?
The guest sets out Iqbal's two-layer view of the West; Mufti Abu Layth says the prophets' message was simply to reconnect creation with the Creator.
machine3 min 49 s1:12:44on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Western culture uniquely shallow?
Mufti Abu Layth says the pull of glitter and the thirst for knowledge are human, not Western, and that people now seek meaning more than ever.
machine4 min 33 s1:16:33on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is the main theme of Surah al-Kahf?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees consumerism is destructive and reads Surah al-Kahf as also being about identity and belonging.
machine3 min 14 s1:21:06on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran ban slavery, and what does 'what your right hand possesses' mean?
The guest says the Quran abolishes slavery as the greatest crime, since owning a slave is to claim to be a rabb like Pharaoh, and that what the right hand possesses means contractual marriage. Mufti Abu Layth holds that slavery is abrogated through trajectory hermeneutics rather than by an explicit ban.
machine10 min 29 s1:08:39on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where does the claim that the Quran is preserved to the very dot come from?
Mufti Abu Layth says the slogan that the Quran is preserved to the very dot is not traditional but a creed cemented in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when religious people entrenched themselves in fundamentalism against modernity and colonialism. Early Muslims were comfortable with a Quran that was preserved while allowing variation.
machine3 min 29 s1:21:11on YouTube
28 Apr 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Is slavery haram in Islam, and did Muslim scholars ban it before the UN?
Slavery is categorically haram today, and Maliki scholars issued fatwas forbidding it long before the UN; Mufti Abu Layth explains this through trajectory hermeneutics. Concubines were female slaves, not wives.
machine2 min 37 s0:00on YouTube
28 Apr 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
How could men in early Islam have sex with their female slaves?
Sexual relations with female slaves were condoned because the society Islam was revealed in had a very different mindset: its slavery resembled servitude rather than transatlantic slavery, and it drew no line between a slave's labour and sexual utility, so the practice could not be changed at once.
machine9 min 11 s3:55on YouTube
28 Apr 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Why did Islam not abolish slavery outright?
Islam did not abolish slavery outright because the collective consciousness of the age could not yet see it as wrong, but it encouraged emancipation as a route to that change. Slavery was always wrong, and Mufti Abu Layth says Jonathan Brown's three axioms rest on a shallow analysis.
machine9 min 23 s11:48on 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
7 Apr 2020video
Message to critics: criticise truthfully, not with lies
Mufti Abu Layth believes in Allah and His Messenger but rejects folkloric, medieval readings of Islam. He asks critics to attack his real views, not lies.
machine3 min 13 s12:46on YouTube
12 Jan 2020On Current Events
Is it good that Hamza Ali Abbasi left showbiz for religion?
Mufti Abu Layth welcomes Hamza Ali Abbasi's turn to religion but hopes he does not become a full-on mullah and stop being a bridge.
machine3 min 26 s1:52on YouTube
2019 · 7
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Mohammed Hijab's liberalism lecture argues like a sectarian polemic
Mufti Abu Layth turns to a university lecture by Mohammed Hijab on liberalism, which people had sent him and which claimed liberalism is baseless. He says the lecture seemed aimed at a Muslim audience and that, since Mohammed Hijab is intelligent, he is unsure whether he has not grasped the concept or is deliberately arguing to win points, but calls it a very poor job. He explains that the lecture argues against liberalism the way Muslims conduct sectarian debates: finding a figure the opponent supposedly reveres, such as Abu Hanifa, Ibn Taymiyya, Imam Malik or a Shia ayatollah, and quoting him to corner the opponent through compelling authority. He says this tactic makes no sense outside religion, where people do not feel bound by allegiance to such figures.
machine6 min 24 s0:00on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
What is liberalism, and do liberals have to follow John Locke?
Liberalism is essentially a stance against authoritarianism, not allegiance to historical philosophers. Agreeing with Locke on one point does not make anyone a Christian or bind them to his whole philosophy.
machine6 min 19 s6:24on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Should Muslims campaign against LGBTQ people, and is homosexuality unnatural?
Muslims should leave LGBTQ people alone, since fighting them will only deface Islam. Calling homosexuality unnatural is inaccurate, as it is widely found in nature, unlike incest.
machine6 min 19 s12:43on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Ethics evolve: slavery, human agency and the genetic fallacy
Mufti Abu Layth argues that if ethics do not develop over time and only seventh-century ethics count, one would have to say slavery is fine, since the Quran acknowledged its ubiquity without abolishing it at the time, which he calls ridiculous. He says people hold liberal attitudes without having read Locke or Rousseau, being capable agents, not automatons. By the lecture's logic, he says, everything in Islam first championed by others would belong to them, as Socrates and Plato spoke of God and the soul first, which he calls an infantilising theory. He gives his own opposition to capital punishment, shared by most people in Europe, as an example of a view held without allegiance to Rousseau, Locke, Bentham or Bertrand Russell.
machine5 min 06 s24:46on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
'Islam gave these rights first' and blinding people with jargon
Mufti Abu Layth addresses the lecture's point that Islam gave rights such as voting 1,400 years before the suffragettes, saying that is fine to mention but people alive in 2019 will ask why Muslim rulings are still backward today, so it is nothing to gloat about. He criticises dropping philosophical names and terms that impress those who do not know them but make Muslims look weaker to those who do, as some did in arguments for God, and parodies such jargon. He says a real discussion would define liberalism and admit that some fascist versions of it exist and can be dangerous, but that liberalism is an attitude against imposed authority, not a separate religion. He concludes that the lecture was a straw man resting on Locke, Hobbes and Kant, and hopes Mohammed Hijab might reflect on it.
machine6 min 08 s37:17on YouTube
25 Jul 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Is forcing your wife to have sex a sin in Islam?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth says coercive sex with one's wife is haram, and that Muslims who deny this create the problem. He cites Imam Malik's saying that what set right the first of this umma will set right its last, meaning the independence to challenge inherited readings shaped by medieval patriarchy.
machine3 min 51 s32:36on YouTube
4 May 2019On Current Events
Is Islam meant to be applied the same rigid way everywhere?
No: Islam was revealed to a tiny population but came for all mankind, so it is flexible enough to take in every people's backgrounds and needs.
machine3 min 03 s38:06on YouTube
2018 · 5
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why did some classical scholars rule that apostates be executed?
Where classical scholars ruled that apostates be executed, they were dealing with what would now be treason or armed rebellion in a very different world; those rulings do not apply today, and their prevalence then did not make them right.
machine3 min 57 s7:52on 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
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
LatestDoes Islam stand the test of reason, and why should Muslims not fear examining it?
Mufti Abu Layth says he has certainty that Islam has stood the test of reason as well as time, that the hadith of the grave condemns faith that merely repeats what people say, and that Muslims must take reason back rather than shy away.
machine5 min 14 s36:33on YouTube
5 Mar 2018On Love, Romance, and Relationships
Is zina today the same issue it was in the past?
Much of the inherited social theory on relationships and marriage no longer matches today's reality, and Mufti Abu Layth calls for ulama to re-examine the context with fresh ijtihad. He describes marriage today as costly and idealised, with divorce and polygamy stigmatised.
machine5 min 10 s1:18on YouTube
5 Mar 2018On Love, Romance, and Relationships
Why is it so hard for young Muslims to marry, and what are they supposed to do about desire?
Men of eighteen or nineteen are generally not ready for marriage but have strong sexual needs, and Mufti Abu Layth says current religious teaching offers no real solution. He calls advice to fast and lower the gaze inadequate and asks scholars to acknowledge the problem.
machine5 min 15 s5:10on YouTube
2017 · 11
19 Oct 2017video
Why does Mufti Abu Layth say riba has become a symbol rather than something people understand?
Riba has become a symbol of Islam that many hold important without understanding it, because religion for many people is a matter of visible symbols. What people know is that Allah declared war on riba and destroys it while increasing charity.
machine3 min 27 s2:04on YouTube
19 Oct 2017video
Are mortgages and bank loans the riba forbidden in the Quran?
Mortgages and bank loans are not the riba forbidden in the Quran, which addressed a tyrannical loan-shark culture. Today's borrower is the one giving more, not taking, and is protected by a legal framework of cooperation, debt management and bankruptcy.
machine7 min 59 s21:46on YouTube
19 Oct 2017video
How was the economy of the Prophet's time different from today's?
The Quranic prohibition came in an economy of finite gold, where wealth could only grow by taking it from others. Money, which Mufti Abu Layth calls humanity's greatest invented story, was later dematerialised into paper, changing everything.
machine7 min 14 s29:45on YouTube
19 Oct 2017video
How did Adam Smith and industrialisation change attitudes to greed and lending?
Adam Smith's idea of the pursuit of self-interest and the industrial-era promise of a better tomorrow changed a mindset in which greed was simply evil and nobody would lend. These are ingredients of the modern economy the Quran did not address.
machine4 min 40 s36:59on YouTube
19 Oct 2017video
How can a bank lend out more money than it has?
Banks lending out far more than they hold, though it can be abused, is what allows communities to flourish. Money today is created out of nothing, but spending it enriches others.
machine5 min 44 s42:32on YouTube
19 Oct 2017video
Are student loans, car finance and mortgages haram?
Mortgages, student loans, car finance and other bank loans are not haram in Mufti Abu Layth's understanding, though nobody is obliged to take them. He encourages Muslims in the West to invest in property, while leaving renting or Islamic mortgages to personal choice.
machine3 min 25 s56:42on 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
6 Sep 2017From the Mind of a Mufti
Is it wrong to choose the easier opinion in Islam?
Mufti Abu Layth says choosing what is easier is the nature of Islam, citing hadith that the Prophet always chose the easier of two options. Islam came to connect people with God, not to make secondary details the main issue.
machine2 min 40 s5:27on 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
If ethics change over time, how can today's ethics judge the Prophet's marriage?
Base ethics such as the wrongness of harm do not change, and the issue is consent, which a minor cannot give. Mufti Abu Layth does not believe people will ever come to accept otherwise.
machine2 min 39 s1:35:34on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
If Aisha's age is a problem, aren't polygamy and the Prophet's wars problems too?
Polygamy and the Prophet's wars are not irrational and differ from marrying a child, where consent is impossible. Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet remains a perfect role model and that he does not accept Aisha was that age.
machine5 min 12 s1:55:11on YouTube
2016 · 5
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
21 Dec 2016video
Why do so many young Muslims feel confused or embarrassed about Islam today?
Negative media portrayal, extremism, postmodern questions, doubts about rulings, culture and racism all weigh on young Muslims, and Mufti Abu Layth asks what the answer is.
machine8 min 07 s12:05on YouTube
21 Dec 2016video
Where will the answers to Muslims' problems today come from?
From Muslims themselves: as Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said, legends will be born to carry the deen, and Allah sends revivers in every generation.
machine11 min 46 s20:12on YouTube
21 Dec 2016video
Is it wrong to watch Bollywood films and TV series?
Mufti Abu Layth does not see films and TV as a priority issue: entertainment is human, as poetry was for the companions, so focus on adding good rather than pushing people away.
machine7 min 36 s56:03on YouTube
15 Mar 2016video
Western human rights, unquestioned presuppositions and the labels liberal and conservative
Both speakers say Muslims should question their own presuppositions and scrutinise Western values rather than dismiss or adopt them wholesale. One objects that Western moral markers shift every decade; the other that labels like liberal and conservative replace argument.
machine7 min 50 s6:55on YouTube
2015 · 5
27 Dec 2015video
Can I say Merry Christmas to non-Muslims?
Yes, saying Merry Christmas is permissible: old rulings against it came from a very different world, and in the UK Christmas is largely a winter festivity. Those who prefer another greeting may use it without feeling pressured.
machine3 min 20 s0:00on YouTube
6 Apr 2015video
Should Muslims deny that jihad exists in Islam to counter extremism?
No: he says denying jihad or reducing it to self-defence feeds extremists, who use it to call scholars sellouts. The answer is to reclaim traditional Islam and own the concept with its context and conditions.
machine3 min 55 s31:30on YouTube
6 Apr 2015video
Is extremism among Muslims really on the rise?
In one sense yes, since groups like ISIS did not exist in this form two decades ago, but he says the far greater rise is in Muslims awakening to traditional Islam, with some bad elements awoken alongside it.
machine3 min 56 s35:25on YouTube
6 Apr 2015video
Is Mufti Abu Layth a modernist?
No: he follows the school of Madinah and Imam Malik, teaches thousand-year-old texts and holds chains back to the Prophet, and calls boycotting classical thought a heresy. Looking modern in dress, he says, is not modernism, and Abu Hanifa too was criticised for his dress.
machine5 min 11 s39:21on YouTube
6 Apr 2015video
Why is Islamophobia rising?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is rising as a reaction to the worldwide awakening of Muslims to their faith, because people fear what they do not understand, and because of scaremongering and a few fools who misportray Islam.
machine2 min 38 s44:32on YouTube