[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. In this
series, we are looking at the four major
areas of Islamic disciplines.
We looked at a which is the theological
basis for Islam.
We looked at taps which is the
interpretation of the Quran. And we
looked at hadith, the sayings of the
prophet, may God's peace and blessings
be upon him, which are particularly
relevant to the uh life of a Muslim from
a from a legal perspective as well as
from a moral perspective and social
perspectives etc. Then we have looked at
we began to look at the area of Islamic
law. We actually went through the
foundations of Islamic law, the basic
principles which are the Quran, the
Sunnah, that is the consensus of opinion
of the scholars and kas deduction by way
of analogy. And we looked at the five
rulings concerning u all issues and
things which is uh known as the halal
and the haram and its uh elements and
how those rulings came to be.
And uh in our previous session we were
looking at the uh reasons that there
were differences amongst the scholars
because if we have this common
foundation which is all agreed upon. So
where would differences come from? And I
explained that differences come from in
general interpretations,
interpretational differences. And where
these interpretational differences lie
and um scholars differ in their
interpretations,
then these differences are acceptable as
long as there is evidence for and
support for the different opinions. If
there are no if there is no support I
mean beyond human uh rationale or reason
uh you know opinions etc then those
differences we look at as being uh not
acceptable differences. I mean a person
may make a ruling because he has no
evidence. He makes a ruling based on
whatever he thinks. Just his intuition
tells him this may be the better choice.
But once we have another ruling where
there is evidence to support that
ruling, then it has to be given
precedence.
So uh we looked when we looked at the
differences, we looked at uh differences
which occurred concerning words and
their meanings. We pointed out how
certain words had shared literal
meanings. Words in Arabic, some of them
have two meanings. Just as the same way
in English, you know, you can have the
word um bow. Bow could mean a bow tie
that you tie a something into a bow. Or
it could mean the bow from the bow and
the arrow, you know. Uh or it could be
the word bow written the same way. Uh
bow could mean the act of bowing or it
could mean the bow in soundwise the
front part of a ship you know. So in
that way words in English when said
could carry different meanings depending
on the context. Similarly in Arabic you
have words which had
uh same written form or same said form
but having more than one meaning. And um
we also have words which had literal
meanings as well as figurative meanings.
Uh and that one has to take into
account. Some scholars would would go by
the literal meaning of a particular text
and say well this is what was intended.
This is what was said. This is what was
intended. we go with the text. Others
would say, but no, there is an intent
behind this text and it's not we don't
take it on face value. We take what was
intended by the text. This is a basis
for difference. And um we also had even
from a grammatical perspective that uh
constructions certain grammatical
constructions in Arabic you know could
have more than one implication. So
scholars looking at the uh constructions
some concluded it had one meaning some
con concluded it had another and uh as
we said in general where there are
evidences to support the differences
then these are acceptable differences
and the prophet may God's peace and
blessings be upon him had said that if
the ruler or the judge
uh strives to find the correct ruling he
makes an effort
The term uses
he makes
he strives to find the right ruling and
he is incorrect.
Allah will reward him still with one
reward
for his intention and for his effort. If
he strives and is correct, he gets two
rewards. One for the effort and one for
being correct.
So in that way um differences which are
a product of scholastic efforts to
arrive at the correct ruling these are
tolerated accepted.
People do have the right to make a a a
decision based on the evidence that that
supports uh their interpretation.
However, if clear evidence comes because
um the difference may be say linguistic
and we find support for each linguistic
position but then we have an additional
evidence come from a statement of a
companion of the prophet may God's peace
and blessings be upon him for example or
another statement by the prophet may
God's peace and blessings be upon him
himself which ends the discussion where
there is no room for interpretation. He
has already said what it is. In such
cases, then it is not acceptable for one
to cling on to that opinion
which was valid initially when there was
no clear evidence to resolve it. Now to
cling on to that is to cling on to
falsehood and that is not acceptable.
The uh second major area of differences
had to do with the narrations of hadiths
themselves.
We know as we mentioned earlier that the
major scholars who were the founders of
the schools of Islamic law, they were
from the third generation.
The um first generation being that of
the the companions of the prophet, may
God's peace and blessings be upon him.
The second generation being known as the
tab or the successors, the students of
the Sahaba or the companions. And the
third generation
referred to as the orb
different terms for them uh meaning the
students of the successors or the
successors of the successors. These
different terms are used. Anyway, that
third generation
um was where Abu Hanifh, Imam Malik,
Ashafi
and and Ahmed Hambal towards the end of
it uh were from that generation.
Now we should note that in that
generation
the compilation of hadith was limited. I
mean compilation was being done.
Scholars of that era in their various
areas. Al- AI in Syria. Uh, Sufyan Thori
in Abu Hanifh in Iraq. Uh, you know,
Albbad in Egypt. You know, the scholars
were in Imam Malik in Medina. Scholars
in different areas made their own
compilation. And from that era, the only
uh com complete compilation of hadiths
uh of a scholar of that time was that of
al- Mu of Imam Malik. He in Medina had
compiled a a text which was narrated by
a number of different uh students of his
written down etc. His compilation of of
hadith known as al- mata is the earliest
complete uh compilation to reach us. Now
this is the third generation and some
people might mistakenly think oh this is
some 200 years after the time of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam but
no this is not the case at all. Imam
Malik's grandfather was a sahhabi.
His grandfather was a sahhabi. Now he
did not
act learn from his grandfather directly
because had he done so he would be
considered a tabi
a successor a student of the sahaba and
not a student of the students of the
sahaba. But still the gap is very small.
There's no 200 years. We're talking
about a generation or less.
So,
uh the this is compilation in written
form to get to us. It doesn't mean that
there wasn't compilation being done in
the time of the tab and there was
because of the narrations of hadiths the
major narrators of the top 12 narrators
of hadith for example nine out of the 12
of their stu nine of those companions
out of the 12 the top 12
their students were known to record the
hadith that they got from them and the
companions Ian themselves were known to
record hadith. So the recording of
hadith was taking place from the time of
the Sahaba itself and continued on down
right increasing in volume as the
generations passed. Anyway, the point
that we're making here is that in the
time of the atbarin
uh when uh the
major scholars arose and had their own
compilations,
each scholar tended to have the rulings
that were handed down from the
companions who had been in his area
because the companions as generations as
time passed asked from the time of the
prophet Muhammad wasallam did spread
out. Some ended up in Egypt, some went
on to Syria, some were in Iraq, some
were in Medina, Mecca, etc. So naturally
the scholars that arose in those various
areas, they
would have compiled the hadiths mostly
of their areas. Some of them did travel
and of course compiled from more than
one area, maybe two or three areas like
Imm Shafi, he compiled from Medina. He
also compiled from Iraq and he also
compiled from Egypt. So he had a larger
compilation. Anyway, the point is that
naturally with the scholars not having
gathered these texts at that time uh and
that the major gathering took place in
the generation after them. This is the
generation of the Sah Sah Bkari Sah
Muslim. These are the major books in
which all of the hadiths were now being
gathered and sifted the authentic
clearly identified from the inauthentic.
U of course Imam Malik in his own
compilation was pretty uh stringent in
the principles he followed in gathering.
So most of his hadiths were also
authentic anyway but it was a limited
compilation. You know when we look at
Sahib Bkari which has over 7,000
hadith narrations and we look at you
know al- M whose total number of
narrations is you know right down to a
thousand plus uh narrations you know of
course it's a vast difference between
the two. Anyway, as we said, uh scholars
naturally would have made rulings based
on what was available to them of
hadiths.
So you find rulings for example like Abu
Hanifh he ruled that the
salatist the prayer for rain
uh did not include the
formal prayer. It was only a dua a
supplication which would be made. And
this was based
on the um position that an Malik
uh had narrated that on an on particular
occasion
the prophet Muhammad wasallam had made a
supplication without making the formal
prayer. Uh this was an incident an
occasion which it took place.
However,
there were other narrations
where the whole formal prayer was
completely described. So, Abu Hanifh
based on what had come to him from an
Malik, he ruled that the solatist is
just a dua, just a supplication. That's
all. No formal prayer. However, his own
students, the students of Abu Huh
Hanifh, Abu Ysef and Muhammad Shabbani,
they both agreed with the position of
the other scholars, Malik, uh, Ahmed and
Shafi, may Allah's peace be on them all.
Uh, they agreed with them that in fact
there was a formal prayer to be done.
Um and this was of course narrated
uh by Abad Tamim and also
that when the prayer was completed and
the imam and the people went back they
would reverse their garments.
Right? This was the uh part of the
sunnah or practices of the prophet
Muhammad wasallam with regards to the
prayer for rain. So
here we had a case of narrations not
reaching an imam. He make him making a
ruling based on what he had. Later on
his own students
uh changed their position from his to
that of the other imams because they
found the evidence that the other imams
had.
The second um area of difference could
come now also from the the
classification of the hadiths themselves
that as you know or may not know hadiths
were are classified into different
levels basically the authentic and the
inauthentic the and the those are the
that's the major difference between the
two
those which are the ones which may be
used for Islamic law.
Those which areif or weak, you know,
inaccurate, they may not be used for
points of Islamic law. Now, a hadith may
come to a scholar in a way which appears
to him to be authentic. He's not aware
of everything about the hadith and as
such he judges it to be authentic and
then he makes a ruling on the basis of
it. Later on others may find or others
may show that no this hadith is in fact
not authentic and there is an authentic
one which doesn't agree with it or there
is nothing on the topic. So no ruling
should be made in that respect.
An example of that can also be f found
in uh Imam Abu Hanifh
and um Ahmed Hamb's position
that woodoo or the state of purity
produced by the ablution wudoo washing
the hands face feet
uh that this state of purity or tohara
is broken
uh when a person vomits. If a person is
forced into vomiting, you know, you had
a feeling you vomited, then you had to
make wudoo over again. And this is based
on a narration attributed to Aisha
in which she reports that the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam had said,
"Whoever is afflicted
with vomiting
should leave the prayer." If it happened
to them in prayer, make woodoo then
continue where he left off without
speaking during the interval.
This particular narration
uh is found in Ib Maja, the Sunn of Ib
Maja.
However,
it is not an authentic narration and as
such the position held by Imam Ashafi
and Imam Malik
uh that vomit does not break woodoo
is the more authentic one
and this is based on one the fact that
the hadith which the other scholars used
was not authentic. Secondly that when
the prophet may god peace and blessings
be upon him specified the things which m
broke wudoo there's some narrations in
which he mentioned we'll do is broken by
passing wind urine urinating defecating
you know and sexual relations you know
he specifically mentioned these
uh grouped them there was no mention of
vomit in those narrations at all. So on
the basis of that uh the correct ruling
would be that held by Imam Shafi and
Imam Malik. So in this way you know of
course when a person comes across uh
issues like this they're obliged to
follow the evidence. They're not obliged
to follow even though they may have been
brought up according to the Hanfi school
of thought or the humbly school of
thought when the evidence comes to them
what they're obliged to do is to follow
the evidence. 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'll follow the program throughout the
year.
[Applause]