Massoud Vahedi

. السؤدد «قال الجاحظ في كتاب «شرائع المروءة»: وكانت العرب تسود على أشياء: أما مضر؛ فتسود ذا رأيها. وأما ربيعة؛ فمن أطعم الطعام. وأما اليمن؛ فعلى النسب. وكان أهل الجاهلية لا يسودون إلا من تكاملت فيه ست خصال: السخاء، والنجدة، والصبر، والحلم، والتواضع، والبيان، وصار في الإسلام سبعا. وقيل لقيس بن عاصم: بم سدت قومك؟ قال: ببذل الندى، وكف الأذى، ونصرة المولى، وتعجيل القرى. وقد يسود الرجل بالعقل، والعفة، والأدب والعلم. وقال بعضهم: السودد: اصطناع العشيرة، واحتمال الجريرة. وقال الأصمعي: ذكر أبو عمرو بن العلاء عيوب جميع السادة، وما كان فيهم من الخلال المذمومة -إلى أن قال-: ما رأيت شيئا يمنع من السودد إلا قد رأيناه في سيد! وجدنا الحداثة تمنع السودد؛ وساد..». «خزانة الأدب» ٩٠/٣. - لم يمنعه ذلك العيب من السيادة؛ إما لزيادة تقدمه في الأمور الأخرى، أو لعدم المنافس. - صاحب الخزانة عنده كتب كثيرة نفيسة نادرة.. وفي كتبه نقول كثيرة منها. وفي «رسائل الجاحظ» ١٨٣/٤ -«النبل والتنبل وذم الكبر»- نقل كلام أبي عمرو بطوله.. وصوب منه -إن شئت- ما وقع من خطأ في «الخزانة».

من الأخطاء المشهورة المُتداوَلة في ترتيب كتب التفاسير : جعلُ تفسير الجلالين موضوعا للمبتدئين، نظرا إلى صِغر حجمه واختصار عبارته، مع أن واقع هذا التفسير غير ذلك، فإشاراته دقيقة وعباراته غامضة أحيانا، وتفكيكها وبيان ما أُدمِج فيها من المباحث والمسائل يقتضي تطويلا أصلا، بل لو عُدَّ هذا التفسير عُصارة وخُلاصة غيره من كتب التفسير لم يكن ذلك بعيدا، ومِن ثَم فجعلُه للمنتهين هو الأقرب، اللهم إلا أن يكون المُطالع يكتفي بظاهر الكلام فقط دون معرفة ما وراءه.

"The people who are able to say the Shahadah at the point of death are very few. Perhaps I mentioned previously a story, and there is nothing to prevent one from mentioning it again, since it is an exhortation. I asked a noble doctor who works at a university hospital: How many people have you witnessed at their deathbed [in your work experience]? He mentioned a number that was close to 1700. I said: Of those 1700, how many of them did you see utter the Shahadah [before dying]? He said: Four or five. La ilaha illallah! La ilaha illallah! This is because - and we ask from Allah well-being ('afiyah), a good end, and being able to say it at the end of life - many people are busy with their world, don't take these things seriously, and hope to keep living even at that point, and fear that if they say it at that stage they will die, so they refrain from saying it. And perhaps many of them were heedless of this during their lives, so they are not given tawfiq [facilitation] to say it. One is not facilitated in saying it in this place unless one who constantly says it, remembers it, and bears it in their mind at all times; this is the one who remembers it and says it ... Then later on I re-examined this issue with the doctor. He said: the number of deaths [from the original 1700] have now increased. I asked: what about the number of people who say the Shahadah? He said: They did not increase. La ilaha illallah! I said to him: Brother, what do they say to you [when dying]? He stayed silent for a while, and then said: Some of them say insults, some of them curse, and some of them say the most disgusting of words. We ask Allah for our 'afiyah and salamah. For this reason, let a person accustom his tongue in saying the kalimah at all times, for it is not an easy thing to say at all [at the point of death]." - Dr. Mansur al-'Idi

Trusting and Relying on the Experts of a Field Despite being weak, al-Waqidi's authority in the Sīrah genre is highlighted in an interesting story. It is reported that Imam Mālik was asked about the case of the woman who poisoned the Prophet ﷺ at Khaybar, and he replied: "I have no knowledge about [what happened to] her, but I will ask the people of knowledge." Imam Mālik went to al-Waqidi, and asked him: "What did the Prophet ﷺ do with the woman who poisoned him at Khaybar?" Al-Waqidi told him: "What we have with us [in terms of related information] is that he [the Prophet ﷺ] had her executed." Mālik then said to the questioner who asked him about the woman: "I have asked the people of knowledge, and they informed me that he executed her."

It is because monumental books like al-Waraqat are being neglected that many of us are falling for the fallacious and usul-less arguments of neophytes and modernists on social media. By regularly reading and reviewing books like it, someone will be able to understand how legal reasoning works and develop an intuition of where an argument being made online feels "off" and should be re-looked.

Out of all of Shaykh Musa Furber's translations, I think this is probably the best and most important work: a complete translation of Imam al-Juwayni's primer in Usul al-Fiqh, along with Imam al-Mahalli's explanatory notes. Al-Waraqat is a very underrated text; despite its brevity, it is a very precise and detailed text, containing the primary subject matter pertaining to Usul al-Fiqh. When referring to the work, Shaykh Salih al-Shamrani always call it al-Waraqat al-Mubarakah, noting that the work is a blessed compilation that benefits learners at all levels. The Shaykh insists that students at the intermediate and higher levels should regularly review it and ensure they understand all its mabahith. Your local masjid should be teaching this book. It should be read and reviewed by the imam or legal authority in your community. If readings of the book are not being arranged, you should develop the courage to request them and ask why this topic is being neglected.

Positive news from Afghanistan: A number of girls' schools in Kabul will be re-opening in the near future for Grades 6 and above.

When even Wikipedia doubts you're a Sunni ("unreliable source"), you know you're in deep trouble.

Women have been arrested and detained in Kabul, Afghanistan, for "improper hijab". This is nothing new, happening already in Lashkar Gah and Herat a few months ago. The issue is that when a government adopts the strictest position on a legal issue, everything below it will be deemed "improper". Ignorant brothers will share posts like these, smile, call it "based", and use the #AfghanistanRising hashtag.

Saying that al-Razi died upon "pure tawhid" implies that he lived upon "pure falsehood" until he was on his deathbed. Such a statement is unbefitting and denigrates a scholar who served the Ummah with his works, no matter how much one may disagree with his theological positions. As for the brother's claim that al-Razi's 'aqidah was corrupt because he wrote works on magic and sorcery, this is a weak argument. Biographers of al-Rāzī - like Taha Jabir al-'Alwani - explain that Fakhr al-Dīn maintained that the nature and properties of magic and spells had to be understood - and, to some extent, mastered - in order to distinguish them from the authentic signs of prophethood. Without such knowledge, magical practices, spells, and rituals could potentially be misconstrued as miracles performed by the Prophets or by the true friends of Allah. For al-Rāzī, an inability to discern the signs and mechanisms of magic could ultimately lead to the conflation of truth and falsehood.

I love people who give my posts a "thumbs down" and then immediately unsubscribe from the page! Must have been the smoking post....

"Imam al-Shafi'i's al-Risalah is to Islamic legal thought what Plato's Republic is to Western philosophy." One of my friends said this to me a while back, and the more you think about it, the more powerful it sounds. Let us build on it: If all of later philosophy "consists of a series of footnotes to Plato" (a statement made by Alfred North Whitehead), then much of usul al-fiqh that developed post-Shafi'i can be said to be the same.

The same methodological point is applied to the issue of smoking: where the authoritative texts do not establish a position, one should not confidently declare a later derivation to be the Hanbali madhhab.

Shaykh ʿĀmir Bahjat, in his poem Rasm al-Muftī al-Ḥanbalī (رسم المفتي الحنبلي), explains that a ruling should not automatically be attributed to the madhhab of Imam Ahmad simply because a later scholar of the school tried to derive that ruling from Hanbali principles. He distinguishes three situations: 1. If the authoritative Hanbali books already contain the ruling, it can be attributed to the madhhab. 2. If those books contradict the later scholar's conclusion, his conclusion cannot be attributed to the madhhab. 3. If the authoritative books are silent – neither supporting nor contradicting the later scholar's conclusion – then the conclusion should not be attributed to the madhhab. The Mawlid falls into this third category. Shaykh ʿĀmir Bahjat says that one should not claim that the Hanbali madhhab either permits or prohibits the Mawlid based merely on later scholars' attempts to derive its ruling.

"Take this as a benefit in dealing with different opinions, especially in books of Tafsir. If you find between the different opinions for the Tafsir of an ayah containing a common factor (al-qadr al-mushtarak) between them, then it is possible to hold all meanings to be correct. For instance, we have the Ayah stating: 'Establish the prayer at the duluk of the sun.' What is the meaning of the duluk of the sun? Some scholars said that it refers to the sun passing the meridian after midday (al-zawal). While other scholars said that it refers to the setting of the sun (al-ghurub). What is correct is that both opinions are valid, since al-duluk refers to inclination (al-mayl), and in both times mentioned the sun inclines. For this reason Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim held both opinions to be correct, because between them there is a common factor: inclination [of the sun]." - Dr. Mansur al-'Eidi

"If Muslims let go of the Arabic language, they will be even more divided than they already are. The French will read their translation [of the Qur'an] in French. The English will read Pickthall. Americans will read whoever they want. Some translations are absolutely absurd. The unity of the ummah depends, in part, on the preservation of Arabic as the language of worship and scholarship." - summarized from Dr. Sami Shamma

For people in Toronto, this event is definitely worth attending:

Thank Allah that you did not turn His Din into a plaything to justify turning girlfriends into female concubines, thereby making sexual intercourse with them "religiously permissible". When Fiqh al-Hiyal is coupled with Dar al-Harb discourse and an insane use of AI, it leads to a perverted "fiqh" like the following.

People often ask for evidence that the large speaking fees demanded by popular Muslim speakers are actually being paid. But the question itself betrays a certain naivety. Unless you’re completely out of touch with the conference circuit—or simply haven’t spoken with organizers in the area—you’ll quickly find that these figures are well within the normal range of what speakers are paid.

"One does not simply refute Salafism and the Najdi Da'wah without making 17,000."