[Applause]
in the name of Allah the beneficent the
most merciful I'd like to welcome you
dear viewers to another in our series
studies in
Islam May Allah's peace and blessings be
on each and every one of you we continue
to look at the module on
F we're looking at the reasons for
conflicts among the opinions of the
scholars though they had one Foundation
the Quran the
Sunnah
and the
consensus and the deduction of
law they did differ they did differ we
said for a variety of reasons but we did
point out carefully that these
differences are acceptable differences
where there is evidence supporting the
differences if a scholar makes a ruling
he had no evidence but that's all that
was available for him then of course
that's he's done the best he could in
that given circumstance an and if he has
made a ruling based on his
interpretation of evidence and there is
another interpretation which is more
correct again he is not held accountable
or as wrong or as a person who has
misled people no if he has made the
effort to find the the correct position
and that's what he arrived at he is
rewarded for it and we mentioned a
particular Hadith of the Prophet may
God's peace and blessing be upon him to
that
effect uh if he is correct then he gets
double the reward and uh this is the way
we look at these differences see people
sometimes they get very
um fanatical about a particular school
of thought and they feel that if you say
something is wrong in this school then
it means that the Imam was defective or
inferior or whatever the one who founded
that school the leading scholar of that
school this is not the case they were
all human beings meaning that in every
case there are going to be errors and we
will look at some of the statements of
some of the leading Scholars to that
effect where they admitted openly don't
follow us blindly we are human beings we
make errors you know you follow the
evidence where the evidence is that's
really our opinion if it were before us
we would have followed it so this is the
correct way of approaching the
differences within the schools of
Islamic law and previously we looked at
certain differences which had to do with
word meanings then we looked at uh some
issues concerning hadiths whether the
hadiths were available or not we talked
about how the actual compilation took
place after the their time of those
leading Scholars the major compilation
and
classification uh so some of the
differences as were a result of uh
authentic narrations and inauthentic
narrations where some used inauthentic
narration thinking they were authentic
While others uh had the most authentic
narrations and differences resulted from
that the third condition with regards to
the Hadith themselves was to what degree
will we admit admit them as
evidence though we agreed the scholars
agreed that yes the Sunnah is um a
source the second source of Islamic law
the question
arose uh on what basis will we accept
certain evidences uh some Scholars like
Abu hanifah he made the stipulation that
the narration must be well known it's
has to be MH welln why because the area
in which he lived and he taught was the
area where the
fabrication of hadiths had begun and was
most widespread in the area of
Iraq much of the fabrication took place
in that area so naturally the scholars
of that area were very very particular
you know the a Hadith had to be well
known before they would accept it even
though it may have had the basic
requirements for authenticity they would
not accept it unless it was narrated by
a number of people which would put it in
the category of mhor or well-known
before they would admit
it of course other Scholars didn't hold
that opinion their opinion was that if
it's fulfill the requirements for
authenticity that is
enough that is enough because in the
time of the Prophet may God's peace and
blessing be upon
him a single companion would narrate
from the prophet information and people
would accept it they didn't require that
a group of people narrate of course one
would say but they didn't have any
doubts in those times that they would
have to worry that people were
fabricating well that's besides the
point if it were a requirement that one
that information be conveyed by more
than one person and this has become an
issue later on became an issue a big
issue later on where people started to
make distinctions in how they will
accept hadiths so they said for example
that we will not accept
Hadith that Hadith who who which have
been narrated by single narrators at
some point along its chain of
narrators we will not accept that as
evidence in areas of AA in areas of
theology belief in Allah and things
related to it we may accept it in May
accept it in
tap but we will not accept it in AA they
made this distinction of course uh the
mesites and others there philosophical
groups rationalists that broke off they
brought this up as an excuse and as a
means of escaping the implications of
authentic
hadiths by weeding much of the
narrations out of AKA it left them free
to reinterpret the AKA according to
their own whims and wishes so this is is
the root this is the basis behind it and
the reality as we said is that there are
so many examples of individual
companions conveying Islam to people
nobody questioning them why don't you
have others along with you and when they
conveyed Islam they did not convey it
without AA for example when mu jabal was
sent uh to Yemen as the governor ruler
there the
teacher the prophet Muhammad wasallam
told him that the first thing you must
call people to is the Oneness of Allah
and if they accept that then inform them
that five times daily Salah is
obligatory on them and if they accept
that then inform them that
Zak had to be paid taken from the
wealthy among them and given to their
poor so on and so forth so when Allah
when the prophet of Allah sent him
sallallahu alaihi wasallam sent him to
Yemen he instructed him first to teach
them a and he was one person and then
teach them about the other things
similarly
when was sent from Mecca to Medina
people had accepted Islam in Medina and
they needed somebody to come and teach
them the prophet may God's peace and
bless be upon Him sent one man musab to
be amongst them he sent him not to
Medina for 3 days or 40 days or no he
sent him to live amongst them to stay
there and to teach them he didn't send
an ignorant one to them he sent one of
the most knowledgeable of his companions
he sent him to them he stayed amongst
them he taught them he went with them to
make dawa and of course they had to
guide him they had to show him who to go
to when to go and all these things
because he didn't know the environment
of Medina so he had guides from among
the people of Medina but he stayed
amongst them and taught
he was one person the people of Medina
didn't say you're only one person you
know we need you at least two or three
other companions to come and confirm
what you're saying in a no of course not
nonsense so this position that Hadith
had to be narrated by many many people
before we'll accept it I know this is
not an acceptable um condition in the
case of Abu hanifah and his students at
that time they were in a particularly
dangerous circumstance where a lot of
hadiths were being fabricated so this
was just a precaution to protect them
from the harm of Fabrications but later
on as the knowledge grew the Hadith were
compiled classification took place Etc
then you find that his students moved
away from that position they shifted
from that uh position with regards to
accepting
evidences you also find that um uh Imam
Malik for
example he would give uh precedence to
the customs of the people of
Medina CU he would say okay we have the
hadiths which are coming narrated by the
various companions but Medina was where
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
spent the last years of his
life the last years of his life were
spent
there 10
years this is where all the laws
came and he died
there
the people of Medina were descendants of
the companions of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi
wasallam so they were not only
conveying the Sunnah or the way of the
Prophet may God's peace and bless be
upon Him by their words but they were
also doing it by their deeds they were
living that Sunnah so whatever was
customary among them by Imam Malik's
generation he felt much must have been
inherited from the companions of the
Prophet may God's peace and blessing be
upon him and having been inherited from
them they likely would have done it in
the presence or with the knowledge of
the Prophet may God's peace and blessing
be upon
him therefore the customs of the people
of Medina were accepted by Imam Malik as
a source of the Sunnah of understanding
the Sunnah and he on on occasions would
give precedence to it over authentically
narrated Traditions
hadiths so this was his position other
Scholars said no we cannot accept the
custom of the people of Medina as a
deciding factor meaning that it has
given precedence over the others uh we
may accept it as a supporting Factor but
not as a deciding factor the authentic
traditions this should be the deciding
factor because the people of Medina yes
many of them were descendants but many
of them weren't other people migrated to
Medina after the time of the Prophet to
come and learn from them you know the
companions who were there and many
people came from outside and they
settled there they studied under the
comp the companions of the prophet muhm
wasallam and stayed there and they
brought with them their Customs too and
those Customs could spread by the by the
following generation their children
their Rel reles Etc you know could have
Customs now which are not necessarily
the customs of the true people of
Medina and again there were Customs uh
maybe amongst the Pagan Arabs that were
in Medina who didn't convert until after
the time of the Prophet mamm wasallam or
the Jews of Medina you know that were
handed down also are we going to accept
those as evidence is of course not so
that uh principle followed by Imam Malik
in terms of accepting uh the custom of
the people of Medina as a deciding
factor was not accepted by other
Scholars we also had a
practice uh with Imam
Ahmed uh that he would accept what we
classified as Mel Hadith Hadith which
were weak
weak uh
because one perhaps a tab was narrating
something a student of the sahaba when
was narrating something and he didn't
mention the name of the sahabi he got it
from he didn't mention the name of the
sahabi he got it from now that in the
technical
classification of Hadith is
automatically listed as
inauthentic because the possibility is
that that
tab may have heard it from another
tab from another tab before it went to a
companion and then to the prophet
muhamad wasallam and then again it might
have been the actual statement of a
companion and not actually the statement
of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam so there were too many
possibilities here of error that the
majority of Scholars held that such
narrations were not admissible as
evidence Imam sha and others they
accepted this only in the case of one
particular or one or two who were like s
Al who were known only to narrate from
the companions of the Prophet sallallahu
alhi
wasallam they didn't narrate from
anybody else from many other companions
only from the pro the companions
themselves sorry they didn't narrate
from other successors but only from the
companions themselves so where this
individual is known that is his practice
his Norm he never does with no evidence
for him to do other than that then if he
makes a
narration mentioning uh the statement of
the Prophet Muhammad s Ali wasallam it
is assumed that he did get it from the
uh
companions
unnamed and uh as such some Scholars
like a Shafi and that accepted this as
evidence so um we can see uh in terms of
the Hadith themselves there were
different conditions which Scholars
placed for their acceptance as
evidence we said Abu
hanifah he required the Hadith to be
mure welln and we looked at the reasons
why then we looked at Imam Malik he
included the custom of the people of
Medina and we explained why others
didn't accept
it uh we had Imam Ahmed hbal who
accepted the morel
Hadith those hadiths in which the names
of the companions were not mentioned it
was narrated directly from a successor
from a tab directly from the prophet may
God's peace and blessing be upon him and
we talked about what was the principle
and what aspect of it could be
acceptable so Scholars differed in terms
of the
admissibility of the evidence uh of
Hadith
itself the other area which had to do
with
Hadith uh had to do with now an
interpretation of of Hadith which had
General and specific implications right
where we may have two Hadith which
appear to
conflict one has a general both of them
have General meanings and specific
meanings how do we interpret how do we
put the two Hadith together if both of
these hadiths are authentic of course if
one is inauthentic one is authentic
automatically we just discard the
inauthentic but if we have a case where
two hadiths are both authentic and they
have implication
how do we resolve this how do we
harmonize the two hadiths what this
process is called uh J
or you know Jam meaning we combine them
both and extract meanings from both
aspects or we favor one over the
other now you have as an example of this
to put this in a more practical sense
that the Prophet Muhammad wasallam in an
authentic
Hadith uh found in sah Muslim and
sahkari had said no Salah is allowed
after fjer prayer until the sun has
risen and after Assa prayer until the
sun has set had is very
clear no Salah no formal prayer is
permissible after the formal prayer of
fjer the morning prayer until
sunrise or after Asser the afternoon
prayer until sunset we know that the the
sun worshippers pagans who worship the
sun son is a part of their mode of
worship they would particularly choose
to worship at the time of the rising of
the sun and the setting of The son so
the prophet prohibited Worship in those
times may God's peace and blessing be
upon him so as
not to have
Muslims uh praying at the time that uh
Sun worshippers prayed you know pagans
prayed where ignorant people might
assume that they're doing the same thing
worshiping the same God or whatever so
to remove that possibility Pro prayer at
those times were particularly prohibited
but at the same time there is an also an
authentic
narration which is uh also found in
sahkari and sah Muslim in which the
prophet mam wasam had said if any of you
enters a
mosque he should not sit
down until he has prayed two units of
Prayer
if any of you has entered a mosque Do
not sit down until you pray two units of
prayer okay now this Hadith doesn't
specify any
time
when the other Hadith says no prayer at
these times this Hadith says
whenever you come in the mosque so what
do we do if you come in the mosque after
the formal prayer of fjer or after the
formal prayer of Asser what do you
do Scholars had different approaches in
resolving this apparent conflict some
Scholars said that no prayer at those
times is our general
instruction
so we pray two units of prayer before
sitting down whenever we enter the
mosque except for the time after fuder
and after AER until sunrise and
sunset others said no it's the other way
the general instruction is whenever we
enter the
Masjid we pray two
units uh before sitting down right this
is our general
instruction and uh the instruction about
not praying is uh sorry is
specified by any other prayer meaning if
you have any other prayer to do you
don't bother to pray it except this one
before sitting down with that dear
viewers we' like to thank you for being
with us in this segment of our program
studies in Islam and we hope that you
continue to follow the program
throughout the year we are doing it
based on a book which I've put together
called the foundation of Islamic Studies
this book is is available at Dar Al fat
press in Chara and this course is also
being taught at Preston University in
the Islamic Studies Department which I
set up um a year ago and uh it is known
as Islamic Studies uh or Islamic
fundamentals
too anyway we'd like to thank you for
being with us and we hope that you'll
follow the program throughout the
year
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