KR

Mufti Taqi's lecture at Ebrahim College: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1so3WdUdXs8

The entire “Dawah Bros” Dawah scene is gangrenous that needs to be amputated in its entirety. I am increasingly coming to the view that it shouldn’t be afforded any oxygen. If I had the courage to issue a fatwa here, I would have declared it outright Haram to follow these individuals. This is what happens when there is too much “Dawah” and not enough actual knowledge. These “bros” have got too long taken the fast-track “conveyor belt” to fame through controversy, but don’t have the hard hours of knowledge acquisition to back it up. They cheapen Islam and Islamic knowledge through their antics. Far from being a force for good, they are becoming a source of strife. Furthermore, they have repeatedly demonstrated they are incapable of staying in their lane. It’s not really about proving any truth any longer; rather, it is now all about ego - and sacrificing the unity of the Ummah under for that ego. I pity the person whose introduction to Islam is through these sorry people. At this point, for these individuals - bar none - being designated a cancer in the Ummah would be an understatement. Never in the history of this Ummah have such large swathes of ignorant and unqualified egotistical Du’at held such sway over thousands of Muslims. The only apt analogy for them are the hundreds of fabricators of Hadith in the medieval era who thought they were doing something good for the Ummah - and the thousands of Muslims who fell into their trap. It is high time to boycott them all in their entirety and for the rest of us to return to first principles in Da’wah. There is no point addressing these egotistical Du’at directly so long as there are in the snares of Iblis himself. So my plea to people of knowledge is to not rub shoulders with them, share a platform with them, or share their content in public, even if they’re right on occasions. Their harm is now demonstrably far greater than their good.

A newly published collection of Shaykh Anwar al-Kashmiri's transcribed lectures on Sunan Abi Dawud. It is published under the supervision of his grandson, Shaykh Khadhir Shah Mas'udi.

Vol. 3, by Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhalwi.

The Texts Are Divine the Challenges Are Not For most of Islamic history, scholars lived inside a stable intellectual world. The Qur’an, Sunnah, and Fiqh were studied in societies that largely shared the same assumptions about Allah, truth, and family. A person living in that world didn’t need to understand foreign philosophies to preserve their faith. The society itself reinforced it. Today, a scholar does not operate inside a bubble. He serves in a global environment saturated by Liberalism, Secularism, Materialism, Feminism, and Post-Colonialism. These aren't just "optional ideas" we can ignore. They are embedded in our education, our media, our laws, and even our language. If we produce a graduate who knows the texts but does not understand the intellectual forces shaping the modern mind, we are doing a disservice to the Deen. Many institutions educate as if their students will live in an isolated bubble. They teach them to read but not to analyse the ideas that dominate the minds of the people they lead. Why did this book's author write in such a different style than that of that scholar? What difficulties did so-and-so encounter that prompted them to talk about a certain subject? Fragility rather than piety is the outcome when students' minds are not engaged. When these graduates are inevitably hit with sophisticated arguments regarding human rights, history, or science, they often panic. Because they lack the tools to engage, they retreat. They struggle to make sense of where they stand and why this clashes with the tradition they've studied. If they don't give in to the warped ideas and belittle their own teachers, they try to avoid providing sound responses. They label anyone who asks a hard question a "modernist," a "deviant," or a "sell-out." They do this not because the labels are accurate, but because fear has replaced analysis. This is not loyalty to the tradition. It is insecurity. Real preservation of the Deen requires what our classical scholars did. They didn't hide from Greek philosophy or Materialism. They studied it, mastered it and then dismantled it. The day we stopped doing that we started paying the price. We need to include a curriculum that gives students contentment of the Heart and tools to accurately make sense of the challenges in the real world, preserving the tradition of knowledge. We must decide whether to continue producing graduates who are secure only in their classrooms, caretakers of a museum. Or we can create intellectuals who are capable of standing tall in the contemporary world without submitting to it and identifying as the heirs of a civilisation. Teachers should think about the following: While the teaching of advanced Quranic subjects, Hadith, Aqeda, and Fiqh teachers must expose pupils to contemporary critiques by orientalists and so-called progressive Muslims. These authors and writers, regrettably, are the ones whose opinions dominate academic circles without graduate students challenging them. Madrassas and graduates should publish books and papers that demonstrate their depth of knowledge and intellectual rigour for the wider public and academia.

An expose on the conman and fraudster that is Dawahman (in his latest iteration as the Dubai-based financial whore and scam artist) https://youtu.be/F6HLXaopcJs

Sample pages of this.

Example pages

This will be uncomfortable reading for Usman and Abdul Haleem: In terms of the British context, when many of the Ulama associated with Darul Uloom Bury accomodate such an approach when it comes to the festive season, then this is not necessarily their own Ijtihad. Rather, this is aligned to the example of Hazrat Moulana Yusuf Motala saheb. The following is a text; from Jamale Muhammadi ki Jalwa Gahen, where he, famously, mentions the giving of cards during the festive period, himself; when he lived in Bolton, and through the institution; after the founding of the Darul Uloom:

For the last 14 months, I have been spending all of my free time translating the Qur’an. I based the work primarily on Ibn Atiyyah, Abul Su’ud Efendi, al-Tabari, and Ibn Ashur, constantly going back to the other great books of tafsir. It has been one of the most delightful and humbling projects of my life. I pray it helps readers connect with the Qur’an in a clearer and more meaningful way. I present to you all: The Purple Quran Translation offered by Quranly. To preorder, feel free to join the waitlist: https://www.purplequran.com/pages/waitlist Preorders will start very soon, so make sure you’re ready when the time comes. Arabic-English will be available soon! I pray Allah accepts and makes this beneficial to all English-speaking Muslims.

^ This starts tomorrow by the way. Due to the late notice, a free session is being offered tomorrow for anyone who wishes to make a more informed decision.

THE INTERSECTION OF FIQH AND HADITH This advanced module, designed for Dar al-Iman's students, is being rolled out to external students. It explores how the core Islamic sciences work together to shape legal reasoning, textual interpretation, and scholarly judgment. The course aims to strengthens the participant's methodological thinking. It is ideal for graduates and advanced ‘Alimiyyah students with interest in Fiqh, Usul, Hadith, and Qur’anic sciences. Online / On-site for both brothers and sisters Website for enrolment: https://www.qiman.org/hadith Start Date: 10/01/2026 ​Occurrence: 17 weeks on Saturdays, dates provided on website​ Timings: 14:00 - 18:30​ Address: Paddington Academy, 50 Marylands Rd, Maida Hill, London W9 2DX

Maybe these Mufta Bihi Mullahs and mosque committees will only start taking heed when they are threatened by the Tory government of allowing both genders equal access to places of worship. Or if a Salafi mosque opens next door and starts converting sisters into their doctrine. That, in their eyes, carries more weight that the Maqasid of the Shariah. If so, shame on them. And so what if there's some minor Fitnah if women attended mosques? Zafar Ahmad Usmani himself said, speaking on a related issue: وكم من مكروه يؤتى به لضرورة التعليم. So even if the attendance of women is undesirable, there is no case that a lifetime ban should be placed on them in their local mosques? My advice to Hanafis is to get your heads out of the mud and start living in 1437 A.H. And if that is not punchy enough for you, then start living in 2016. Just like TV and digital photography was declared prohibited ten years ago by you but isn't anymore, then likewise the issue of women and mosques. The only difference is you are too invested in your lack of infrastructure for women, and until that isn't resolved, you will cover that up by stubbornly sticking to these ancient edicts. In the meantime, women with an ounce of sense are not too impressed. They will have an excuse on the Day of Judgement for your incompetence. You are a man who, by prohibiting them from mosques, has assumed responsibility for religious and spiritual well-being of the weaker gender. So what excuse will you have? Or are you such an idiot that your (lack of) conscience and macho Hanafi egoistic tendency refuse to acknowledge there is a fundamental problem with your position? To wrap up, I come back to the story of how those Mullahs were embarrassed. For any change to happen to the status quo regarding the treatment of women, it will have to be good dose of embarrassment all round. Evidence and Tahqiq 'l-Manat just won’t cut it with stubborn Mullahs and religiously-ignorant committee members. When sisters are forced outside mosques in humiliation, or are becoming apostates thanks largely to not being able to see Islam or its beauty at a communal and societal level, and this is brought forth to the men in power, only then will something start to happen. Nothing will happen without it. I’ll leave some links and comments from colleagues below, which are relevant to this topic. - What I have found is that the act of legal scaffolding that is so common in the tradition often muddles the fact that the ruling is ma'lul bi'l urf wa'l zaman and not an explicit textual legislation. There is an accretion of textual evidence in Hanafi literature that sometimes gives the impression that this is not the case but the evidence, when systematically scrutinized, reveals a number of inconsistencies. At the end of the day, it is almost purely an act of fatwa that is based on an extra-textual societal consideration of fitna and fasad. Thus, a mufti is perfectly entitled to change such a rule based on similar and other relevant extra-textual considerations. What is interesting is that no one really has any issue with *extending* the prohibition by appealing to the clearly discernible extra-textual illa of fasad al-zaman and fitna. As the Nahr says, the original prohibition was "only" (innama) due to this consideration. So, the extension of the prohibition to all prayers for all women is consistent with the reasoning of the early Imams. Therefore, it is acceptable. But when the prohibition is reversed in certain settings because a jurist says that we need to take into account other equally pertinent extra-textual considerations (of which there are many for us in a largely precarious Western context), it is dismissed. I think this is rather strange and the attempt at sadd al-dhara'i in this manner in certain contexts may actually have the effect of creating other types of fasad that we are ignoring. At the end of the day, this becomes about competing considerations and it is the job of the mufti to determine what should be given preference.

A'ishah's statement (“Had the Prophet been present in our era, he would have prevented women from the mosques”) is also presented decontextualized. The reality is she was known to emphasise her point via exaggeration (مبالغة) – just like when she said that the Prophet (peace be upon him) never read over 8 Rakah during the nights, even though she herself reported that he performed more than 8. Ibn Hajar expertly analysed her statement: وتمسك بعضهم بقول عائشة في منع النساء مطلقا . وفيه نظر إذ لا يترتب على ذلك تغير الحكم لأنها علقت على شرط لم يوجد بناء على ظن ظنته فقالت : لو رأى لمنع . فيقال عليه : لم ير ولم يمنع . فاستمر الحكم حتى إن عائشة لم تصرح بالمنع وإن كان كلامها يشعر بأنها كانت ترى المنع وأيضا فقد علم الله سبحانه ما سيحدثن فما أوحى إلى نبيه بمنعهن ولو كان ما أحدثن يستلزم منعهن من المساجد لكان منعهن من غيرها كالأسواق أولى وأيضا فالإحداث إنما وقع من بعض النساء لا من جميعهن فإن تعين المنع فليكن لمن أحدثن والأولى أن ينظر إلى ما يخشى منه الفساد فيجتنب لإشارته صلى الله عليه وسلم إلى ذلك بمنع التطيب والزينة The irony here is that, if anything, edicts that make a blanket prohibition on women entering mosques, either de jure or de facto by placing next-to-impossible prerequisites on the entire female population of a Muslim community, as actually treating their own women like Israelite women who were banned from their places of worship. In that sense, this falls under Tashabbuh, which the prophetic tradition rejects for the women of this Ummah. A'isha made this suggestion as a temporary measure until women are educated out of their ignorance, not as a perpetual measure. Besides, if there is an insistence that the Israelite women narration is to be taken at face value, then the apparent meaning of the narration also suggests that all women must be banned; this is not something that was adopted even by the early Hanafi Imams, let alone the non-Hanafi Schools. Fitnah is all about perspective, and is a subjective matter. That is why the non-Hanafi Schools (who came into existence after Abu Hanifah, when arguably there was more so-called Female Fitnah) did not 100% agree with the stricter position taken by the Hanafi School. Assessing Fitnah is by essence a Madhhab-agnostic issue that requires sober analysis outside the juristic framework of the schools; it is not an issue of Madhhab-partisan edicts that everyone for hundreds of years must adhere to come what may. Indeed, an assessment of what type of Fitnah are present in mosques that allow women, typically women in non-Hanafi-administered mosques, as well as their educational and religious state, might give an insight into whether the pro-prevention, anti-Fitnah stance is the right one to adopt. But even if there was some Fitnah in non-Hanafi mosques: Are Hanafis going to have an “I told you so” attitude with Malik, al-Shafii and Ahmad? Look at the greater good for women and stop banging on about the prerequisites for women attending – Hanafi Mullahs are the first ones to violate prerequisites in other religious issues. Does anybody need reminding how many times they violate the prerequisites of narrating and acting upon weak Hadith, or their fanaticism on the type of Taqlid one may adopt in practice while disregarding the concept of Adab 'l-Khilaf while harping on about it to others? On balance, all of this is far severe than the one issue of women attending mosques. Let’s also have discussion on the greater Fitnah this insistence of preventing women from the mosques has caused: Women-only mosques (see heading picture), feminist mosques, gay mosques, women leading men… Although the prohibitionists are not to blame 100%, they should man up and assume a very large portion of it. Their policies of intervention, prevention and segregation have fostered for this climate. In the 21st century, this approach is simply untenable and unsustainable.