KR

As higher Islamic studies are now privatised across the Anglosphere and are becoming increasingly commercialised, I am becoming frustrated at the lack of quality oversight in all these Alimiyyah programmes - whether full time or part time, in person or online - that are popping up. Every man and his grandad now seems to be offering an Alimiyyah of some sort without any quality checks. To compensate, quite a few rely on buzzwords across their brochures, websites, and social media handles. This kind of marketing of the Alimiyyah is highly unethical. Whereas some students may not have the luxury of choosing (may Allah help you), many do. An Alimiyyah without rigour, with guaranteed licensing at the end of the process (we all know who you are), and without proper checks and balances from enrolment to completion, produces half baked graduates who have the potential to do more harm than good to Muslim society, even though they themselves may have benefited. Below are ten potential pitfalls to avoid before enrolling. These are indicative and not definitive, as an institute or programme might be a genuine start up still in the process of getting its ducks in order. Also, this is about the current era, not about how Alimiyyah was conducted 50 or 500 years ago in lands where educational norms were very different. 1. No prospectus or website It should become socially unacceptable for an Alimiyyah to have no prospectus or website. It suggests a lack of effort or planning, which likely carries through into the institute's tuition and pastoral care. 2. The selection process is too easy If you can walk into a course with your eyes closed, that is a red flag. It is a sign that your future colleagues may not be at the same level of maturity as you. If there is a waiting list - or better still: an impartial selection process - it is a sign that the institute is selecting the best prospective students. Likewise, alarmist comments like "two spaces left!" or "limited places" or "discount!" are an obvious marketing tool that smacks more of a commerical operation than a serious knowledge endeavour. 3. No published curriculum If the programme has no published curriculum roadmap and instead settles for “We teach Quran, Fiqh, Hadith, Aqidah” but cannot show exactly which texts are covered, in what order, and why, that is a red flag. Alimiyyah programmes nowadays are essentially selling a product - details should be clearly specified. It can even be argued that such teaching, which is an ijarah contract, becomes legally questionable due to a lack of clarity in what is being taught. If the course, or a subject within it, is experimental, this should be clearly stated to students. Likewise, if the curriculum is overly text based or overly subject based, that is also a red flag. Being too text based leads to a lack of diverse thinking; being too subject based leads to a lack of foundation. The same applies to an imbalance between classical and modern texts. There must be a balance in both tuition methods or recommended reading. Likewise, if there is an imbalance in terms of the social sciences like history, that is a huge problem and creates highly deficient graduates that come out with little or no contextualised knowledge. 4. No list or profiling of teachers Vague references to teachers who studied “abroad”, or no names at all, are red flags. Full teacher profiles are a must, listing their teachers and/or alma mater, their areas of speciality and interest, and their written works. An extremely homogeneous group of teachers is also a red flag. If they are all graduates of one university (typically Madinah University), all from the same background (all Gujaratis), or all of a similar age (under 40), it suggests a lack of diversity in the teaching body. The point of having a diverse body of teachers - who may even disagree with one another of various things - goes some way to compensate for students who cannot travel widely for knowledge.

Fiqh or history of fiqh?

ومن شيم العالم أن يكون عارفاً بزمانه ...

This is damning. https://theoryinpractice.medium.com/zakāt-is-not-a-pac-revisiting-al-muallafah-qulūbuhum-in-modern-fiqh-d4a7d7eb2b6d Particularly disturbing is what is mentioned at the tail end:

I am quite disappointed to reveal this: this particular fatwā, and many of its conclusions and quotations were directly taken from an online fatwā on the Islamic Economics website, without citing the original reference…I did not find this exact research paper cited.

Also, the dissenting fatwa is available: https://fiqhcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Dissenting-Opinion-to-the-Councils-Position-on-Zakah-2026.pdf

❝All that can be said in criticism of the faults of the Ẓahiri tradition in terms of its flawed method of engaging with primary texts without regard for the core reasons and objectives of the Shariʿa, and in its focusing on a partial reading of texts, applies all the more to the literalists (ẓahiris) of legal texts; they readily assert a literal reading of legal passages, and pass fatwa accordingly, without duly considering the legal rationale or overall purposes of those positions, sufficing merely with the fact that a text explicitly states a certain position without further qualification. Thus, they issue fatwa rulings based purely on a partial (or superficial) reading of legal texts.❞

ما يقال في مفاسد وذم مسلك الظاهريّة في تعاملهم مع النصوص من ضعف أو عدم اعتبارهم لعلل الشريعة ومقاصدها وقصر النظر على بعض النصوص الجزئية يقال من باب أولى في ظاهرية المتون الفقهية الذين يسارعون لتقرير ظواهر بعض عباراتها والإفتاء بها من غير مراعاة للعلل والمقاصد وإنما يكتفون بكون ظاهر المتن كذا وكذا ولم يقيد بكذا فيفتى به ويقضى بمحض النظر الجزئي لعبارات المتون.

عبد الله مجموعه دار, [Feb 6, 2026 at 03:42] ما يقال في مفاسد وذم مسلك الظاهريّة في تعاملهم مع النصوص من ضعف أو عدم اعتبارهم لعلل الشريعة ومقاصدها وقصر النظر على بعض النصوص الجزئية يقال من باب أولى في ظاهرية المتون الفقهية الذين يسارعون لتقرير ظواهر بعض عباراتها والإفتاء بها من غير مراعاة للعلل والمقاصد وإنما يكتفون بكون ظاهر المتن كذا وكذا ولم يقيد بكذا فيفتى به ويقضى بمحض النظر الجزئي لعبارات المتون.

To share an example, this is Sh. Mustafa al-Zarqa's view on the order of performing Hajj rites - a question that frequently concerns Hanafi pilgrims.

While reading Sh. Mustafa al-Zarqa's (d. 1999) Fatwa collection, I came across a number of interesting points about his biography and his approach to Fiqh. As you may know, Sh. Zarqa was a famous teacher of Sh. Abu Ghuddah (d. 1997), someone who expresses great admiration for him in his works. Both scholars were Syrian so come from the same regional tradition. Sh. Mustafa al-Zarqa was raised in a Hanafi household. Both his father and grandfather were recognised scholars, and his son is likewise legally trained. The cheery Sh. Ali al-Tantawi (d. 1999) would label this lineage the 'golden chain' (سلسلة الذهب). The introduction to Sh. Zarqa's Fatwa collection was interestingly written by Sh. Yusuf al-Qaradawi (d. 2022) - at the request of Sh. Zarqa - and the contemporary Sh. Majd Makki who actually compiled the fatwas. While one might expect Sh. Zarqa's Fatwa collection to be a compilation of Hanafi legal conclusions - due to his family background and also the way he describes himself - it probably does not reflect his approach to Fiqh which is actually quite flexible and dynamic, taking from a range of legal traditions before. We find this both in his own introduction to the Fatwa collection, in which he states he will not be tied strictly to one legal school when responding to questions, but also several instances in the work where he adopts views from a range of legal schools. Examples of this can be found listed in the two introductions of Sh. Qaradawi and Sh. Majd Makki. Sh. Zarqa had also written an old article titled: العصبيةُ المذهبية في الفقه سجنٌ ضيّق مظلم في جنة الشريعة الفيحاء which, as the name suggests, calls for the same flexible approach. As he states elsewhere, it is this dynamism he believes is required to provide actual solutions to contemporary issues.

Abu Shamah (d. 665) arguing that while memorisation of the Quran and sound articulation (tajwid) are praiseworthy, it should not make one lose sight of the purpose of revelation which is actual understanding and practice. (al-Murshid al-Wajiz)

My series of post on how the Maslak of Deoband approaches Fiqh-un-Nawazil have been compiled now and the pdf can be accessed below:

A student in Dhaka memorized Sahih al-Bukhari in just forty-three days! I’ve met scholars who’ve memorized the Sahih (and even other hadith collections), but I’ve never heard of anyone doing it that fast.

On this eve: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/181noq4jTs/ What is shocking is that some charities could not even been bothered enough to remove their material with this “preacher”, from as late as two years ago. May Allah protect us.

I've always found it strange that words like 'rational' and 'intellect' are considered dirty words in some spaces. Allah tells us that the people of Hellfire will say: "If we had listened or used our reason we would not be among the inhabitants of the blazing fire." (Mulk: 10) It is a lack of sincerity and reason that the people of Hell express remorse. In other words, what leads to error is a misuse of reason, a mistake in one's line of reasoning, or even failing to recognise the limitations of human knowledge, not the mere use of the intellect itself. Otherwise, the final revelation contains constant appeals to reflect and use one's intellect to arrive at sound conclusions.

Ramadan is around the corner. If you still don't know Arabic make the resolve to let this be the last time Ramadan comes and you can't understand the recitation in Tarawih. Easy Dictionary of the Quran introduces each new word in the order it comes up in the Mushaf, so you can start with Fatiha and then go through Baqarah. By the time you have finished Baqarah, you will have covered 25% of the vocabulary of the Quran, and because some words recur more frequently than others, you will have enough vocab to get the general meaning of maybe 50% of the recitation for the rest of the Qur'an. That's not perfect but 50% is much better than 0% and the taste of understanding the Qur'an it will give you will be sufficient motivation to keep going to the end. I recommend listening to Surat al Baqarah daily in your commute or when you are walking along with reading from the mushaf when you have some free time. That will serve to reinforce any new vocabulary you are learning. Of course, in order to understand the recitation, it is important to have some basic knowledge of Arabic grammar as well. Ten Lessons of Arabic is a decent place to start for a bare-bones level understanding of how Arabic sentences are constructed. I'm not suggesting that this will make you Ibn Abbas, but at least you will be able to follow the Imam's recitation and benefit from understanding God's Word. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN2By9MECOE&