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Personal stories and reflections
20 segments in 14 recordings · 2014 to 2025 · 0 verified · 5 checked positions · wellbeing/personal-stories · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 18 Oct 2025
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
Earlier answers · 19 · newest first
2021 · 10
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What was Lupe Fiasco's childhood like?
The guest describes growing up in Chicago in a family of martial arts, music and engineering, giving up chess over a hadith, and turning to rap when he could not learn the clarinet.
machine7 min 43 s6:52on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Lupe Fiasco go from science to rap?
The guest says he wanted to be a rocket scientist but struggled with maths, and signed a record deal straight out of high school.
machine4 min 27 s15:14on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has Islam become a religion about Muhammad rather than the religion he brought?
No: there is a deep human need for a human archetype, not someone to pray to, and for Muslims that is the Prophet. He adds that his own life changed in the Prophet's mosque.
machine4 min 21 s55:37on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What qualifications does Mufti Abu Layth have?
Mufti Abu Layth lists degrees in psychology and education, an alim and mufti course and ijazahs, but says degrees mean little to him.
machine3 min 03 s1:07:37on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhat accent does Mufti Abu Layth have?
Mufti Abu Layth says he has no set accent, and that in Britain one can usually hear a caller's ethnicity in the texture of their voice.
machine3 min 14 s1:38:06on YouTube
2 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDamascus, 1998: the two people who inspired Mufti Abu Layth to memorise the Quran
Mufti Abu Layth credits a scholar's Quran ijazah and a convert classmate who memorised on the bus with starting his own memorisation in Damascus.
machine10 min1:07:17on YouTube
2 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Kidnapped in Cairo: Mufti Abu Layth and the Egyptian police
Mufti Abu Layth recounts being kidnapped in Cairo and the farcical police inquiry that followed.
machine15 min 53 s1:32:28on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
People are cruel: complaints used to try to stop a retreat he spoke at
Mufti Abu Layth recounts how a self-styled journalist tried to get a 2016 retreat he spoke at cancelled by complaining to the venue and the police.
machine5 min 05 s1:44:04on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What was the hardest time of your life?
Mufti Abu Layth names his arrest as the most overwhelming time of his life: it left an imprint, but he says he came back stronger and many opportunities followed.
machine8 min 56 s2:30:13on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Two to three months in prison: learning, poetry and the humanity of inmates
A personal story: prison was bearable, even fruitful, and he found a humane side in feared inmates.
machine10 min 21 s2:38:30on YouTube
2020 · 4
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Mufti Abu Layth's sixth-form story: walking out and landing a college place by mistake
Mufti Abu Layth tells how walking out of sixth form with a friend led, by a case of mistaken identity, to a place on a business course the same day.
machine9 min 11 s33:47on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Mufti Abu Layth's chat round: Birmingham over London and channel housekeeping
Mufti Abu Layth picks Birmingham over London and handles housekeeping in the chat.
machine3 min 14 s2:46:42on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it OK for Quran teachers to beat students?
Beating students is categorically haram; he says even a classical manual for teachers forbade forceful discipline of children.
machine5 min 08 s42:20on YouTube
20 Jun 2020video
Why did Mufti Abu Layth change from how he looked and spoke in his old videos?
The change in his look and views came gradually over more than a decade through study, reading and new circles, not from any event or loss of faith. His personality, he says, was always the same; the old clip only shows the serious speaking style he was taught.
machine17 min 59 s2:32on YouTube
2019 · 1
21 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
How should I deal with religious circles that pressure me into beliefs?
Leave the judgmental bubble of religious circles and be true to your faith and yourself rather than letting people bully you into beliefs. He cites a shaykh attacked for calling for updated thinking and Usama Canon's regret at having deprived himself for fear of what others said.
machine6 min 31 s9:10on YouTube
2018 · 1
31 Aug 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
An imam faking his tarawih recitation: a memory from Mufti Abu Layth's hifz days
A personal story: as a teenager memorising the Quran, Mufti Abu Layth caught a village imam faking his tarawih recitation and told him privately that misleading people with the Quran was wrong.
machine13 min 18 s0:00on YouTube
2015 · 2
6 Apr 2015video
Why was Mufti Abu Layth sent to prison?
Mufti Abu Layth was charged with aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office after contacting a police officer to arrange mediation for a friend whose children were missing, and served about seven weeks of a six-month sentence. He says he did nothing wrong and was treated unfairly for refusing to testify against the officer.
machine2 min 38 s0:10on YouTube
6 Apr 2015video
What was Mufti Abu Layth's time in prison like?
Contrary to expectation it went well, and he is grateful for the insight it gave him into people from all walks of life whom he would never otherwise have met.
machine2 min 35 s2:48on YouTube
2014 · 1
2 Jul 2014video
How did Mufti Abu Layth become a mufti?
It was not planned: an interest in Arabic and the Quran grew step by step, taking him from self-study to Syria and then Pakistan, where he trained as a mufti.
machine6 min 16 s0:11on YouTube