The Science of Shari’ah

The Science of Shari'ah

Opening

Introduction to Al-Qawa'id al-Fiqhiyyah

Inshallah, this is a quick overview of what's known as al-Qawa'id al-Fiqhiyyah, which is beneficial in terms of studying Fiqh or the law in order to understand what the intentions behind the law are.

The Nature of Divine Law

The first thing that should be understood is, although unlike the Mu'tazila, who were the rationalists, we do not believe that Allah has to benefit His creation. The Mu'tazila said that Allah, that what He did had to be for the benefit of His creation. It was a wajib for Allah. Whereas, we don't say that. Allah does it out of His bounty, not out of any obligation.

The Five Preserved Matters (Al-Kulliyat al-Khams)

So, the first thing to know is that the shari'ah and the usurliyoon, or the people of these roots, say that all of the sacred dispensations from Allah to the human are based on the preservation of five matters. So, every shari'ah that was given to the human being was in order to protect five things.

First: Preservation of Deen (Religion)

The first of which is deen itself. Because the human being is a homo religiosus, he is a religious creature by nature. The human being is a religious creature by nature. Human beings will act out ritual in every culture.

This is something anthropologists recognize. And part of the reason that you veil people is because if people become known for doing wrong things, tawbah is harder. Do you see what I mean? Because people will always see them as, you know, oh, that's the guy that used to own the liquor store. Seriously, he might have made tawbah, but people will still bring up that years later. And I've seen this in Muslim communities. Somebody will literally make tawbah, and yet it will be brought up, you know. Oh, by the way, did you know he used to own a liquor store?

The Requirements for Proving Zina

Four witnesses. Four witnesses. You don't want to press charges. You want to veil people. But four simultaneous witnesses is not... Almost impossible. But if it is happening, you still want to veil them? It's a public act. How

can you be veiling them? That has to happen in public. Four people. And you have to... Four people that actually see penetration.

And the way it's described in the books is like the, you know, the kohl? The... Yeah, the kohl. The ud, the stick that goes into the kohl bottle. It has to be like the kohl... The stick into the kohl bottle. Or like the bucket into the well. That has to be seen by all four people. Can't just be a man on top of a woman.

And it's... I don't know. I think, you know, if somebody came into the room, first thing they do is, whoop, you know, shut the door and get out of there. They're not going to start going and investigating. Right? Let me make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing is really happening. You know, I just don't imagine that. You have to have a very strange person that's going to, you know...

I mean, the Sharia is there to veil people. It's not there to expose people's faults. And the Prophet didn't want to hear it. A woman came and confessed to him. You know? One man went to Abu Bakr and he said, you know, I commit fornication. Abu Bakr said, did you tell anybody? He said, no. He said, then don't tell anybody. Make tawbah.

It was still bothering him. He went to Omar. Look what Omar said. Did you tell anybody? This is from the same school. Did you tell anybody? He said, Abu Bakr. What did he say? He said, don't tell anybody. Why are you telling me? Say astaghfirullah and don't tell anybody.

And it was still bothering the man. He went to the Prophet. And the Prophet had the punishment established, you know. And in the one riwayah of the woman who was stoned, who confessed. She was stoned after giving birth, after nursing her child for two years. She still came back. And she was stoned. And somebody mentioned something about her, cursing her.

And the Prophet said, don't curse that woman. If her blood was spilt across this city, all of the people in this city would be forgiven. You know. In other words, that is a real tawbah. So, and that's the thing. Those people wanted the punishment in this world. Because if you have the hadd punishment, that's it in this world. It's finished. Whereas, if you don't, you're in the mashia.

Do you see what I mean? They were worried about, is this tawbah gonna be accepted? So, and historically, there have been very few people that have been punished. And another thing about sharia and confession, if a person leaves the pit, you have to stop. If they get out of the pit by their own volition, then you have to stop. You can't continue to stone them.

There's a pit in which they're stoned in. And if they leave the pit, the people have to stop. They can't stone them. They only stone them as long as they stay in the pit. If they leave the pit, they have to stop. Because confession is, you know, Allahu ta'ala anam.

The Five Major Principles of Fiqh (Al-Qawa'id al-Fiqhiyyah al-Kubra)

The five most important principles. In the principles of jurisprudence.

First Principle: Matters Are Based on Intentions

The first is that matters are based on the intentions behind them. الْأُمُورُ بِمَقَاصِدِهَا What does that mean? That you have to look at what the intention behind the affair is. The amr. And that is what things are based on. And nothing else.

So, if a person says, you're divorced, if Allah wills. Then you have to ask the person. What did you mean? Did you mean, did you say, because you wanted just to make tabarruk with the name. Take a blessing by mentioning Allah's name. Or did you say, if Allah wills your divorce. Because if you said Allah wills your divorce, then the divorce isn't binding. So, you have to look at what intentions are behind actions. And what intentions are behind matters.

Second Principle: Certainty Is Not Lost Due to Doubt

And then certainty is not lost because of doubt. Right. Certainty is not lost due to doubt. الْيَقِينُ لَا يَزُولُ بِالشَّكِ

An example of that would be, if I'm in prayer. And I entered into prayer with certainty that I had wudu. And then I start doubting it. I do not leave my prayer. To finish my prayer. Because I went in with yaqeen. And nothing will take me out but yaqeen.

Now, if after I finish the prayer, I still have doubt. And I start thinking. No, I'm not sure. Then I should do the prayer over. But the doubt itself does not take me out of the prayer. And so, yaqeen is the foundation. Certainty is the foundation. That is not removed by doubt.

But if it's certainty that you didn't do. No, then you have to leave. But interestingly enough, if I'm an imam. And I go into the prayer. I pray two rakats. And then I realize that I didn't even have wudu. When I went into the prayer. If I leave the prayer immediately. Once I realize that. Then the prayer of the people praying behind me is sound. Because there was certainty while I was praying.

Examples of Building on Certainty

Then what you do is you build on certainty. So, that's a good example. Certainty is not removed by doubt. So, if I pray. Say I pray. I'm praying my prayer. And then I suddenly. I'm up and I say, is this my fourth or my third rakat? Right? Then what would you do? You would base it on three. Because with three you have certainty.

So, you base it on three. You would pray an extra one. And then do sujud as-sahw. Do the forgetful prostration. Exactly. The last certainty that you have. Then you would get up and finish. If you said salam. And you're still sitting in the same place. And you have doubt. If it was three or four. You get up and do a fourth one.

So, if the imam leaves, what would happen? Somebody else has to go and become imam at that point? They don't have to. The imam can either, there's three possibilities. The imam can do what's called istikhlaf, which he pulls somebody from the group. Or the group can push somebody forward. If he doesn't. Or they can all pray on their own.

Third Principle: Difficulty Necessitates Facilitation

The next one is called: Difficulty necessitates facilitation. الْمَشَقَّةُ تَجْلِبُ التَّيْسِيرَ In other words, if there is difficulty, the sharia says things need to be made easy for people. Because Allah... يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ بِكُمُ الْيُسْرَ )Quran 2:185) "Allah wants ease for you." He gave us the Sharia to make things easy, not to make them hard. And so... لَا تُشْدِّدُوا عَلَى أَنفُسِكُمْ فَيُشَدِّدَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمْ "Don't make things hard for yourselves because Allah will let you do that and then you'll destroy yourself." So don't make things hard.

Things are meant to be easy. Which does not mean things are meant to be... Easy. It means that the responsibility should not be undue, duress. It shouldn't be to the point where, you know, that you're really having a hard time.

Examples of Facilitation

You live in a place where it's daytime 20 hours a day and 4 hours, it's night time. You don't fast 20 hours. You work it out to the closest place if you want. Some people say Mecca. The point is that you don't... It's harmful for the body.

If a woman is pregnant and the doctor says don't fast or she feels that it's harmful for her fetus, she doesn't fast. Allah says no, don't do that. Don't destroy yourself. If it's hard to do something, Allah gives us ease. If you can't pray standing up, you pray sitting down. And that's a principle in usool that we have to understand. Allah doesn't need us to torture ourselves. There's no benefit in that.

Pregnancy and Medical Danger

What if you're pregnant and the pregnancy is causing harm to the person? Should you have the child anyway and take the risk? If a physician said that the pregnancy has become a danger to the life of the woman, then the pregnancy can be terminated by Sharia. And that would be a judgment call. But the woman's life is over the life of the child by Sharia. As long as it's unborn, the woman's life is over the life of the child.

So there's no time period where she's allowed to, like if it's too late, it's too far? No. If they feel that a doctor who's knowledgeable in his field feels that there's a serious danger to this woman in continuing the pregnancy, that she probably will die. There has to be a probability. He will say, if this continues, this woman is going to lose her life.

The Obligation to Follow Medical Advice

Generally, you don't have to go to a doctor by Sharia. But if you go to a doctor, then it becomes binding on you to follow the guidelines of the doctor. You don't have to go to the doctor. If you're sick, there's nothing in Sharia that says you have to go to a doctor. But if you do, then it's incumbent upon you to follow the guidelines of the physician.

But if he says, look, you have diabetes, and if you take sugar, you're going to kill yourself. Sugar becomes haram for you, and it's a tahrim aradi. It's a tahrim that's related to circumstance. It is not haram by its nature, but because of a special condition, it becomes prohibited for you. But if you never went to the doctor, then you don't have to follow that guideline. If you die, mashallah, you die.

But by Sharia, you do not have to go to a doctor. You can go and get a second opinion. Nothing in Islam says you can't get a second opinion. You go to a holy path, right? Nothing in Sharia says you have to follow one school of medicine. It's like, you don't have to follow one madhab. There's different madhabs in medicine. Chinese madhab, right? Imam Yellow Emperor. Islamic madhab, Imam Ibn Sina. And you can follow different madhab of medicine.

Fourth Principle: Harm Is Removed

One of the things the Prophet said, "Use medicine, for Allah has not created a disease without creating a cure for it." (Sunan Abu Dawud 3855)

Now, the next one, the fourth is called: harm is removed. الضَّرَرُ يُزَالُ Now, this is a really important... To give you an example, it is prohibited for us to expose our nakedness. But if there is a reason, because out of fear of harm or actual harm that's present, then we can expose our nakedness to a physician, for instance.

So if we find like a lump, you know, if a woman finds a lump in her breast or has pain, she can go to a physician and expose that. Now, if it was a Muslim woman, then that's still all right because the breast is not nakedness for her, right? But if it was a non-Muslim physician, there was no Muslim physician in that area, then this is an example of adara yuzal, right? That you have to get rid of harm from people.

So it's permissible to do things that, in order to remove harm from people. Is it different between Muslim woman and non-Muslim woman, as far as nakedness? The nakedness of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim woman is the same as her nakedness to a non-Muslim, to a man. Yeah. Her nakedness to a sister is the nakedness of a man to other men, between the surah and the rukba.

A Muslim woman should wear her hijab in the presence of non-Muslim women. Yeah, she should wear her hijab. Except if it's a family, right? Family is all right. Non-Muslim family. It's the same hukum. Hukum doesn't change. Yeah. It's the same hukum. There's a difference. Islam makes a very strong separation between kufr and iman. It's a barrier that's put up. Hijab means barrier. That's what it means. It's a barrier.

Fifth Principle: Norms Are Binding

And then, norms are binding is the fifth one. (الْعَادَةُ مُحَكَّمَةٌ - al-ʿādah muḥakkamah) In other words, the shariah recognizes norms within a society. What's called urf and adat. And for instance, if it's an urf in a culture, to say for instance, the way they divorce would be like a word that maybe the shariah doesn't mention in the book. But that's the norm in that culture. Like to say, you're free. Right? And that's the way they say you're divorced. Then that's binding. He can't say, I didn't say, right?

He used a local customary practice. And that is binding. Even if it's in English. Like here, we're through. Right? We're through. That's it. We're through. Right? That could be binding if that's the intention. This marriage is dissolved. It's over.

And that's why a qadi has to know the language of a people. He has to know when a qadi comes in, he has to understand the people's psychology. He has to understand their mentality. Imam al-Shafi'i said when he was in Iraq, they had a very, very high level of discourse. And then he went to Egypt. The Egyptians were less sophisticated than the Iraqis. And he said, I had to take my, you know, I went down and down to explain things more clearly to them. Because in Iraq, he was talking at a very high level. The Iraqis were very sophisticated, cultured people. When he went to Egypt, they were, you know, more simple. He's not saying there's anything wrong with that.

The Categories of Rulings: Darurat, Hajiyat, and Tahsinat

There is something related to what's called darurat, hajiyat, and tahsinat. And that is how things are categorized. There are things called necessities, and those are things in which the five kulliyat are jeopardized. And in that position, that's always above hajiyat.

So, for instance, food is a necessity, and that's why it's permitted to eat pork if you're dying of hunger. Because pork is from tahsinat. It's tahsinat, isn't it? Because it's prohibited. Or pork. It's tahsinat. Pork is from the third category, from tahsinat. Like najasa is from tahsinat.

Which are those... I mean, if you look at the way I was taught, with the people I studied also with, they said that the darurat are like the shelter. It's a necessity to have shelter. And the hajiyat are like the doors and the windows. And then the tahsinat are like the furniture in the house.

This is related to categorizing things of level of importance. In medical language, you call it triaging. In other words, like in an intensive care unit, if somebody comes in, his hand's chopped off, and then there's a person next to him that's saying I've got a really bad headache, you deal with the guy with his hand chopped off. You don't worry about the headache until... Right?

The darurat are related to if they will jeopardize any of those five things. That moves into darurat. And the hajiyat are those things that are... Make you live. Make you live. Yeah, it would be undue duress. And then the tahsinat, it makes life, you know. Yeah, it's just not enriched.

The Implementation of Hudud

Very few people historically have been punished that way in the Muslim world. Really, very few people. There's probably more nowadays. Arabia just does it too. Astaghfirullah. Yeah, there's no hadd punishment now. There cannot be hadd without khalifa. Khalifa establishes hadd. There's no hadd punishment.

And the other thing is, you can't establish hadd punishment in places where you have 80% unemployment. I mean, you can't, you know. The Prophet said, "There's no cutting of hands when there's famine." (Muwatta Malik 1609) You know, shari'a is... You're not trying to harm people. It's when you have healthy society. That's when the hudud are being implemented. Not when societies are totally dysfunctional.

I mean, I've heard people say, No, that would be impossible to do in America. Well, that's true. You have to radically alter the American society before it's ready for shari'a. Right? Really. It has to be completely, radically altered. Understandings have to change.

I mean, people need to be honored. People shouldn't go hungry. They shouldn't go hungry. That's a crime in itself, to have people in your society that are going hungry. That is a crime. Prophet said, "He does not believe the one who eats and his neighbor is hungry." That is not a believer.

So this makes the implementation of shari'a somewhat of an abstract concept at this point in time. Absolutely. But it still has to be studied and understood for when the time comes. I mean, there always have to be people that know shari'a, whether it's being implemented or not.

And the Prophet told us that the first thing to go would be the hudud, the rules of governance. That would be the first thing that would go. He said it would go step by step till nothing remained but the prayer. And that's the time we're in now. We're just holding clinging to the prayer and to fasting. And we pay zakat out of conscientious behavior, not because we're forced to. You know, in the olden days, they had zakat collectors came and you paid zakat.

Contemporary Applications of Islamic Law

Authority and Implementation

You can impose upon yourself. Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. Yeah, to the best of our ability. But I can't. In America, I can't establish a hadd. If I have a community. We had. I was in a community where a woman and a man did commit adultery. And there was a mufti there who was asked. Sheikh Shaybani. Very excellent mufti with a lot of taqwa. He was asked what to do. He said just, if she made tawbah, accept the tawbah. And just veil her and don't talk about it. That's what he said. Just veil her and accept the tawbah. You know, don't ostracize them. And don't. It's a bad time. Part of this condition that we're in.

Well, technically, if like King Hassan is, you know, he's the ruler of his country. And he's called Amir al-Mu'minin in his country. That's what he calls himself. Amir al-Mu'minin. Technically, the ruler of a country.

Because even though the people of sunnah and jama'ah say that there should be one ruler. The Prophet indicated towards the end of time there would be many rulers.

So, technically, if a ruler did establish sharia. Like in Sudan, that that is valid. That they do have that authority because they are a sultah. Because Islam prohibits anarchy. There always has to be some government. Even if it's a non-Muslim government. There has to be some government. Governing body. You cannot have anarchy.

See, there's some communities in this country that want to establish hadd. They can't do that. Then it becomes vigilantism. And who are they to do that? They don't have the authority by sharia. Allah did not give us that authority. I mean, I can't just declare myself Khalifa of California. You know, and take bay'ah with me. And then if somebody does something wrong, I tell some of the brothers, go out and, you know, whip them. I can't do that. I can't do that.

Maslaha and Public Benefit

That would go under like maslaha. I mean, technically, the government could do that if it was seen as a maslaha. Traffic laws generally go under the rules of maslaha al-mursala. Which is where there's public benefit. So, technically, because the reason there's traffic laws is to protect people's lives. So, by the shari'a, you should follow traffic laws. You should follow traffic laws by shari'a.

In fact, some of the muftis have said that if you purposely go through a red light, you should say astaghfirullah. Yeah. Because it's endangering other lives. And those laws were established for public safety. And that relates to shari'a. The shari'a honors that. In fact, it incorporates it.

The Importance of Knowledge

So, the next is preservation of aql, of the intellect. You have to preserve the intellect. Because that's where we were honored, with the intellect. So, shari'a came to preserve the intellect.

Seeking Knowledge

Seek knowledge. In that, whenever you see knowledge, alif-laam, seek knowledge, al-ilm, it is talking about sharia knowledge. Now, that includes fard kifaya. In other words, there has to be enough people learning the kifaya sciences. So, seeking medicine, there has to be a group within the community that is fulfilling these obligations, but not everybody.

So, is it the community's responsibility to ensure that the community, in order for them to get an education, that they should be allowed to take care of themselves and provide that service to the community? Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know too many people that are going to university now to fulfill a fard kifaya. And the proof is, they don't know their farda'in. You cannot seek a fard kifaya until you learn your farda'in. So, they're just fooling, deluding themselves.

And to give you an example, in the Bay Area, there's one doctor to about every hundred people. In Mauritania, there's one doctor to every ten thousand people. So, a Muslim going to California to practice medicine, he's not fulfilling a fard kifaya, believe you me.

Naming Children

You don't have to name your child an Arabic name. Nothing in Sharia says that you have to name your child an Arabic name. There are good names to name because of who the people were. And the Prophet definitely said, "The best names are those that have عَبْدِ in them or have praise, like Mahmood, Hamid, Ahmed, Muhammad. Those type names." Hamid, right? Those are the best names. And Abdurrahman. There's another riwayah that's Abdurrahman.

But you could, if you were Greek, you could name your child Demetrius. There's nothing in Sharia that says you can't do that. I actually thought about doing that with one of my sons. I didn't, but I thought my grandfather's name was Demetrius. You know, I thought about doing that.

Juraij is a name that comes in the Hadith. And Juraij is George. And the Prophet praised a monk whose name was Juraij. And you will find some Muslims that had that name historically. George, Juraij, right? Juraij is a Greek name, Yorgo. So it's in the Hadith. It's in the Sahih Hadith, Juraij. Prophet, he was one of the people that, you know, the infant spoke to...

The Story of Juraij

Because you know the story of Juraij, the monk? These people were very envious of him. And so they wanted to destroy his reputation. And so they paid a prostitute to go to his monastery because he was a very righteous Christian. And she came at the night and she said, I don't have a place to stay. Will you let me in?

And so he was, you know, his humanity was there. But at the same time he was worried because monks flee the world. And women, you know, that was symbolic of the world for monks in a lot of ways. But his humanity, you know, the spirit of the law overrode the law. And so he let her into the monastery. And then she tried to seduce him.

And he would put his hand into the candle to remind himself of the fire. So he did not sleep with her. But she went. And then on the way back, she failed. But she met a shepherd on the road back. And she seduced him. And she became impregnated. And she claimed that Juraij seduced her.

So the people went and tore down his monastery. And then when the child was born, they went to the child. And the child said she lied. The child in the cradle said she lied. I'm the son of the shepherd. And so they knew that Juraij was, that he was such a righteous man. That was a miracle that Allah gave to prove his innocence. And so they built him a monastery with gold.

Changing Names

In fact, the Prophet said that anybody that called themselves by other than the name of their father, that he was free from them. He had no relation with them. That's one of the things you cannot do. So somebody, you know, whose last name was, you know, like Zain Al Abideen and he changed it to Smith or something like that. Can't do that. But if his name was Muhammad and he came and he changed it to Mo, you know, they do that. Things like that, right?

Well, when I converted, my father's name was... and my grandfather's name were Joseph. And I asked my Sheikh if I could be Ben Yusuf. I asked him that. And he said that I could do that. So, I don't know. But I went back to Hanson. So, for a long time, that's what I went by. I Arabized my name. And then I just thought, you know, I'm not an Arab. So, there's no reason why I should have an Arab name. As I kind of matured and got older, you know. You're young. You're kind of zealous.

No. I wouldn't. In fact, I really have reservations. I don't think it changed their name at all. I don't... Legally. Because I have more problems in the Muslim world when they go to visit with a Muslim name than they would with a non-Muslim name. Unfortunately. So, because I've had that. I've suffered because of it. I've been denied entry into countries with an American passport simply because I had an Arab name in my passport. And I watched Americans go in next to me. Right?

So, I just, you know, why bring yourself that trouble? There's no reason why you should do that. There's nothing in Sharia that says you have to change your name. If you want to take a Muslim name, that's perfectly fine. You know, I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's probably a good thing. Yeah, the first name. I wouldn't change the last name personally. Again, these are just... You know, but if you're denying your father, that's wrong to do that.

Social Issues and Islamic Guidance

Education and Children

With your children, we have children of age, and they say it's too difficult to learn. Yeah, that is not. I wouldn't, no. You see, because first of all, they don't have to go to school by Sharia. There's no law in Sharia that says you have to go to school. All you have to do is learn your farda'in by Sharia. That's it. No law says you have to have a BA. Right? Really. No law in Sharia says all you have to know.

You don't even have to be literate by Sharia. You have to simply know the basic rules, know how to say Fatiha, and these things. So if somebody's in school, I really think it's very detrimental to send our children to non-Muslim schools. I think it's detrimental to send them to Muslim schools. I think schools altogether are detrimental.

Now some people say I have very radical ideas about education, but that's where I am. Sorry about that. My opinion is just my opinion. It's not based on, and I'm not just saying this to be like, you know, radical or something. Really, I'm not. I mean it's based on thinking and studying the matter.

Meat Consumption in Islam

Meat is not a necessity in Sharia. And in the old days, most Muslims used to eat meat. If they were wealthy, middle class, once a week on Friday, and if they were poor, on their Eid. Why do you think we sacrifice on Eid? It's to give people that all year have not had meat.

So, traditionally, the Muslims were literally semi-vegetarian. The Prophet ﷺ was, I mean, technically, the Prophet ﷺ was, would go under that category. He was not a meat eater. The most of his meals did not have meat in them.

And the proof of that is clearly in the Muwatta when Sayyidina Umar says, beware of meat. Because it has an addiction like the addiction of wine.

And the other hadith, in the Muwatta, there's a chapter called the chapter of meat. Both are from Sayyidina Umar. And Umar, during his Khilafah, prohibited people from eating meat two days in a row. He only allowed them to eat every other day, and the Khalifa has that right, to do that. He did not let people eat meat every day.

And he saw one man eating meat every day in the Muwatta, and he said to him, every time you get hungry, you go out and buy meat. Right? In other words, every time your nafs wants meat, you go out and buy it. And the man said, ya amir al-mu'minin, ana qarim. Which in Arabic, qarim means, I love meat. You know, he's a carnivore. He loves meat.

And Sayyidina Umar said that it would be better for you to roll up your tummy a little bit so that other people can eat. Now, Umar, if there was a prophet, after the prophet, it would have been Umar. And that is really verging on prophecy, that statement.

Because if you study modern meat industry, you will find out that a lot of the famine in the world is a direct result of the over consumption of meat in countries like the United States, and Canada, and Europe. Because the amount of grain that is needed to produce one pound of meat, right, is much greater than the amount that you need to produce grain itself.

Gender Interaction in Muslim Society

I'm wondering if there's anything about the argument that, particularly like in high school situations or sometimes on the job, that you know, Muslims are interacting and are forced to interact with people of other gender. And then when they come into Muslim circles, they have to interact with people of the other gender. And that maybe there would be a benefit for Muslims in Muslim circles to have respectful interaction because

otherwise, you know, particularly like in the high school situation, you know, they start dating non-Muslims. Because that's who they learn, that's who they get to know.

Right. This is a big problem in this country and it's a major problem. The one, the delaying of marriage is a problem. Because it's better for young people to marry early. Ali was 17 while Fatimah was 15 when they married. And that's really when you have a serious problem. That is the real period of trouble, is that what they call here kind of an adolescent period.

In more traditional cultures, people begin to act like adults at about 11, 12. Really, they do. I mean, it's quite interesting to meet a 12-year-old Mauritanian boy as opposed to a 12-year-old American boy. There's an incredible difference in the intellect and maturity. So, that's a problem.

In terms of what's called ikhtilat, there's really nothing in Sharia about ikhtilat. It's not a traditional word. It's not a word. And that's the word modern Arabs use for mixture of male and female. The first community, you know, I really find it really hard to believe that they were as obsessive about these matters as some modern type of Muslims. Personally, just from my own reading and things like that. I think there's a basic adab that's expected.

You'll get into some differences of opinion like in the Maliki school, the face of a woman is not considered a part of her awra, her nakedness. So, it's not prohibited for a man, as long as he doesn't look upon her with lust to see her face or her hands.

Now, there's other opinions that the face of a woman, particularly a young woman, it's that a man should not look at. And the ayah in the Qur'an, tell the believing man to lower their gaze. There's some, you know, difference of opinion about that. The Malikis understood it to mean one way. Some, Fakhruddin al-Razi mentions the min there as for tab'id. It's for lowering the gaze, not completely. Like looking down like this. But not contemplating her mahasin, her zina. Not looking upon her lustfully, things like that.

So, you're going to get difference of opinion that are related to cultures. And the ulama talk about when times get corrupt, it's preferable to be more strict. To interpret things on a more strict, because you have a lot of just bad people. And unfortunately, in a lot of the Muslim countries, the behavior of the men is quite frightening. I mean, you know, you were just recently in a country, where the men's behavior is shameful on the streets. You know, the ogling of women, shameless.

It's a shameless behavior on the streets, the ogling of women. I mean, even in some of the quote-unquote strictest Muslim countries, you're shocked at the type of accosting that goes on to some of the women. And I had a personal friend, Americans that have lived, who became Muslim, and went, these women went with their husbands. They're shocked, because these things don't happen to them in this country. Really? And these come from Muslim men.

Now, you know, I really think this is fasad. I mean, this is corruption. This is the fasad. The society has become corrupt. And at that point, women, you know, we need to protect our women from that type of abuse. Because

by Sharia, that is abuse. In fact, the ayah in the Qur'an about the hijab is in order that you are not abused, not accosted. It's a protective measure against those type of people.

Now, in the Muwatta of Imam Malik, and if you don't think Imam Malik is from the Salaf, then who's from the Salaf? Because he's from the Qarn al-Mushahadah al-Khayr, from those periods of time that the Prophet testified to their uprightness. And he was from the most virtuous of those people by the consensus of the Ummah. In the Muwatta, he was asked about what do you think about a man that can his wife sit with his company and eat with them?

And Imam Malik said, I don't see any harm in it if they're correct, if there's adab. They don't become frivolous, there's not, you know, improper intimacy, there's not... And a woman can come in to the gathering and do these things according to Imam Malik, as long as there's some basic adab. Done.

So, you know, I think beware of extremes, you know. I mean, Imam al-Busayri says, beware of the two extremes of satiety and hunger. And then he says, maybe hunger, in many cases, is worse than satiety. In other words, to go to the extreme of deprivation is often worse than going to the extreme of overindulgence.

So, if we become too puritan, right? This is what happened in this country. They became puritans. And boom! Now look at the country. Gone to the complete opposite. Muslims are balanced. We're the middle people. If you have too much... If you have this type of puritanism in a culture, what happens is, it goes to the opposite. And people become...

So, in our quote-unquote most puritan of countries, pornography is a major problem, the accosting of women is a major problem, rape is a major problem. And this is a reality. You see? So, Muslims traditionally were balanced cultures and balanced societies. And, you know, I've been in cultures where they're very Muslim and there is interaction between the men and the women and they don't have these social problems. But it's done with adab. It's done... It's not... There's not like a complete, you know, oh, how you doing? And, you know, this... No. It's done with adab and things like that.

Financial Matters and Usury

People take out the usury loans to go to college. Is that permissible? It's not according to what I was taught. And I don't know, maybe there's 1-800-FATWA, you get all kinds of answers. But, again, college is not a necessity. Nor is making a lot of money.

In Shari'ah, necessity is literally when one of these five things is in danger. That is necessity. If you want to understand necessity, when prohibited things are permissible, mashaqqa tajlib at-taysir is not to that extreme. There's another qa'ida that would say addarar yazal tabi'i al-maharrat. This is not the same principle here.

A car or a home. As far as I know, a car is not a necessity. Renting is, you can rent. I mean a house is not a necessity. In America, a car, Allahu ta'ala. I mean, I think that there might be a case for people, in terms of

livelihood, being able to support their family and things like that. Allahu ta'ala, I don't know. So I'm just going to say I don't know about that. I really don't. I don't know.

Literacy and Religious Obligation

It's mustahab to learn how to read the Quran. After Fatiha and one surah, memorized it by heart, it's mustahab. It's not wajib to learn how to read Arabic. Well, iqra means recite. That's the primary meaning of iqra. The vast majority of sahabah were illiterate. The Prophet said إِنَّا أُمَّةٌ أُمِّيَّةٌ لَا نَكْتُبُ وَلَا نَحْسُبُ "We're an illiterate people. We don't write and we don't calculate."

I mean, reading is encouraged very strongly. And it is a fard kifaya that there are people in the community that learn grammar, learn these things. No doubt. And it's highly encouraged. But you can't say it's a wajib. In other words, an illiterate person is not in a wrong action. They don't have to make tawbah from being illiterate if they learn their farda'in through oral teaching, which is traditionally how much of the teaching in Islam was done.

Many women, very righteous women historically, did not know how to read or write, but they knew their farda'in and things like that historically.

Conversion and Names

When I converted, there's an interesting book called Dawa in America, written by a Christian missionologist, which is people who study conversion. And he's actually not a Christian. He's a researcher. And he was doing this as an academic exercise. And one of the things he said in there is that he studied the reasons people convert. And I think he identified about ten dominant reasons.

And he said that Islam was uniquely the only religion amongst the religions that Americans convert to that had all ten of the reasons. And he said, so he had to deduce from that that the Muslims were just doing a really bad job at presenting their religion because they had so few conversions.

But one of the things he said is he felt that Americans would not convert if they felt that they had to take Arabic names. And he actually felt that Muslims should, if an American does become a Muslim, they should just keep their American name. That was his idea, anyway. I mean, he's not a Muslim, but it's an interesting concept, you know.

The Prophet did not change people's names unless they were bad names. Because one of the rights of a child is to be given a good name by the father. So if he found somebody's name was inappropriate, he would change it. Like Shaqiyy means wretched. He said, no, your name is Sa'id, which means happy, felicitous. That's all.

So if you want to take a name, you can take a name. If you don't want to, you don't have to.

Closing Discussion and Practical Applications

Individual Capacity and Difficulty

Does the point of difficulty depend on individual, or is it determined by... No, there's rules. I mean, this is, the mashaqqa is clear when there's undue duress. And in certain situations we know, like if you're traveling and you're finding it difficult to fast, then you can break your fast.

But some people could handle different levels of... And it would be on, at the individual level. Absolutely, that's a good point. It would be based on an individual. Some people can endure things that other people can't.

I mean, to give you an example, Shaykh Khatri, when he was here, he had an eye operation. The physician wanted to give him anesthesia. He refused it. And he's a Bedouin from... They're tough. You know, he's an older man. He said, I don't want anything that affects my intellect. And he asked the doctor, is it going to affect my intellect? He said, yes, but it's going to hurt.

He said, I can stand the pain. I don't want somebody... I'd rather bear the pain than have my intellect affected. So they actually did a cataract surgery without him having... And the doctor was amazed. You know, he was amazed that he did... But I mean, I lived with those people. You know, I saw a man, this really heavy camel loaded, stepped right on his foot and just walked. And he just, like that, just kept walking.

Had the doctor told him, I will not do the surgery unless you do this, then he... And even Shaykh Khatri said, I don't mind going blind because blindness is a kafara for wrong actions. So he said, I don't mind. If I go blind, that's Allah is purifying me of wrong actions. He said, in fact, he was worried about getting his eyesight back from the cataract surgery and the lens replacement because he said, you know, he realized the cataract, it's like kafara. And so he's kind of, yeah, that's a level of taqwa, I mean, mashaAllah.

Understanding Cultural Context

Like Shaykh Abdullah used to be Al-Ahsa'i, right? Means he's from Al-Ahsa'. Now he's Al-Portlandi. Because he lived in Portland first. That's where you got your name from. Al-Portlandi. Each one of them have different qualities.

Imam al-Shafi'i said when he was in Iraq, they had a very, very high level of discourse. And then he went to Egypt. The Egyptians were less sophisticated than the Iraqis. And he said, I had to take my, you know, I went down and down to explain things more clearly to them. Because in Iraq, he was talking at a very high level. The Iraqis were very sophisticated, cultured people. When he went to Egypt, they were, you know, more simple. He's not saying there's anything wrong with that.

Shaykh Abdullah, he knows it very well. He's lived here. In fact, four years is the time. Yeah, but like Shaykh Abdullah, you live in a place four years, right? Isn't it four years?

The Reality of Authority

Well, technically, if like King Hassan is, you know, he's the ruler of his country. And he's called Amir al-Mu'minin in his country. That's what he calls himself. Amir al-Mu'minin. Technically, the ruler of a country. Because even though the people of sunnah and jama'ah say that there should be one ruler. The Prophet indicated towards the end of time there would be many rulers.

So, technically, if a ruler did establish sharia. Like in Sudan, that that is valid. That they do have that authority because they are a sultah. Because Islam prohibits anarchy. There always has to be some government. Even if it's a non-Muslim government. There has to be some government. Governing body. You cannot have anarchy.

See, there's some communities in this country that want to establish hadd. They can't do that. Then it becomes vigilantism. And who are they to do that? They don't have the authority by sharia. Allah did not give us that authority. I mean, I can't just declare myself Khalifa of California. You know, and take bay'ah with me. And then if somebody does something wrong, I tell some of the brothers, go out and, you know, whip them. I can't do that. I can't do that. In California, it's possible. In California, right?

The Six Protected Matters

So, those are the six mahfuzat. Alright, kulliyat al-khams. And that's what sharia came to protect. And all of the rules of sharia can be found to something related to those things. All of them. If you look. All of them.

Like fasting is part of preservation of deen because you learn taqwa. And it's also preservation of the body because you become healthy. (صُومُوا تَصِدُّوا - ṣūmū taṣiḥḥū) "Fast and you will be healthy." The rules related to prayer. Preservation of deen. Also preservation of intellect. Because one of the things about prayer is that it balances the intellect.

People that don't pray have more psychic troubles than people that pray. Even by within cultures. You know, like in this country. People that pray. They've done. The Christians have done a lot of research on it. But there's physicians. Dossey. What's his name? Larry Dossey. Very interesting research has been done.

People that are religious in this country. Whether they're Christian, Buddhist, other. Have lower blood pressure. Lower heart disease. Lower. Right. So, there is. There are benefits in these things. Even in other traditions. There are benefits. Bonafide.

Conclusion and Shahada

I'd like to... Hamza, inshallah, wants to make shahada, because he's never done this officially. So, I'll leave that. And this is, mashallah, Abdul Hay's son. And so, we'll just, bismillah, say the shahada, inshallah. Just repeat after me. I know he knows everything. So, he's doing this, you know, based on knowledge. So, I don't have to go over five pillars or anything like that.

So, we just say, in presence of Allah, as our witness, in the Muslim community:

"I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah."

"And I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."

صَلَّى ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ

That's, you know, it's a big thing, shahada. Great thing. Great thing. Alhamdulillah.ybody who studies human societies recognize that every society has rituals. Yet, are those rituals from the human being himself, or are they derived from revelation? This is the difference between the Muslim and the rest of societies.

And I'm saying Muslim here in the ideal sense. Because many Muslims around the world have fallen into ritual that is not from Allah. And Allah gave them no authority to do that.

Islam and Cultural Customs

Many, many examples we could use from the Muslim world for those things. Now, some of them would go under what's known as urf, or customary practice. But others are clearly against the teaching of Islam. For instance, the female giving a dowry in a wedding. You will find that in some Muslim countries where the female is forced to give a dowry. Because of previous religious traditions that were strong in those cultures. And yet, that is against Islam. So, that's an example of tradition becoming part of a jahiliya, or an ignorance within the culture.

So, Islam is not against the customs of the people. Islam honors people. Where it goes, Islam acts as a sieve. It doesn't say everybody has to become Arab. Like for instance, I happen to be wearing Moroccan dress. I'm not a Moroccan. I don't have to wear this dress. There's nothing in my deen that tells me I have to wear this dress. Nothing. Nothing in my deen that says I have to wear a turban.

Now, this is not even sunnah dress, really. This robe, the type they wear in North Africa, is not from the sunnah. The turban is sunnah of adat. And some say sunnah of fada'ib. That it's a virtuous thing. Because it's virtuous to bury a person with a turban. So, many of the scholars have said it is a sunnah of fada'ib. Because there are weak hadiths that indicate that it's a good thing to wear a turban. But, there's nothing in sharia that in order to be a Muslim, you have to wear a turban. And if you don't wear a turban, you're not a good Muslim. Nothing says that. It's encouraged to cover the head. It's mandub, to cover the head. It's a good thing for men to cover their head.

Islam as a Cultural Sieve

So, there are adat or characteristics and qualities within cultures. When Islam comes to a culture, it shakes things up like a sieve. And it will separate what is good from the culture and what is bad. And this is why, if you travel across the Muslim world, Muslims aren't all eating Arab food. Right? The Arabs have peculiar foods. And

even within Arab cultures, there are differences. So, if you go to the Arabian Peninsula, they don't eat like the Syrians. They don't eat like the Yemenis. They don't eat like the North Africans. If you go to Indonesia, they eat different food. If you go to China, Chinese Muslims eat Chinese food.

So, these are just qualities and characteristics of culture that Islam leaves within the realm of mubah, within the realm of norm, within the realm of custom. But when the culture has a custom that goes against the teachings of Islam, then it is incumbent upon the people within that culture, when they embrace Islam, to relinquish those things and to abandon them. That's what the Muslim is commanded to do. To leave jahiliyyah. To leave the ignorance of the previous life.

The Power of Religious Submission

So, when we do that, what we are doing is we are submitting to a teaching. And what we are saying. And this is the power of religion over the mind of the human creature. Because when a human being embraces a religion, what they are doing is they are recognizing there is truth outside of my experience. I recognize that truth and I am submitting to that truth. And so, a person who fully surrenders to Allah is willing at that point to abandon his previous or her previous world view for the truth.

And that's an amazing thing. And people have done it. Historically, people have done that. The human being can do that. If you look at when Islam moved to Africa. See, Islam civilized Africa. In the same way that Christianity civilized Europe to a certain degree. Every culture is based on a book. It is the book that civilizes people. It is the book that brings consciousness to people. It is the book that humanizes people. And every culture has a book. And the book of Islam is the Qur'an. The book of the Muslim peoples is the Qur'an.

The Re-emergence of Jahiliyyah

So, when the Muslims went to Africa, they went into cultures that had many, many Jahiliyya practices. And they abandoned those practices for the truth of Islam. But then, the practices reemerged. And this is an interesting phenomenon. Because we have to ask, where is this reemergence from? Where is it coming from?

To give you an example. I don't know how many people know about Burning Man. Anybody here know about Burning Man? Burning Man is a phenomenon in California that started, I think, about 10 or 15 years ago. Where a man who had love-lorn troubles. He lost his girlfriend or something. And somebody told him, we should do something to get your mind off this. So, they decided to build a 40-foot man of wood and burn him. Like, whatever gets you through the night, right?

So, they did this. And they took this huge wood man to a beach in San Francisco. And they reassembled it. And there was this huge man. And then they put gas and lit it on fire. And suddenly, everybody on the beach came. And it happened to be the time of the solstice. All these people came onto the beach. And they recognized something amazing is happening here. In fact, one woman actually touched, put her hand into the fire. And got severely burnt. Touching this Burning Man.

And this became a ritual that was repeated now every year. The last one, I think, was somewhere near a bar store or something. There were over 20,000 people there. And it's like a Dionysian. It's become like this cult. Dionysian cult. In Mexico, this is Zobra. Zobra. All these... It's a Dionysian cult. They go and they dance naked. And they... It's a very, very strange thing.

But the Burning Man is Wicker Man. You see, the ancient... The pagans in Europe used to do the same thing. Build this huge man from wicker. And fill it with offerings to their pagan gods. And burn them. It's a ritual they did around the solstice.

So, where does that emerge from? For the Muslims, we would say this is Shaitaan. Bringing back his gifts to the culture. Really. There's something within the human condition where these things re-emerge again and again. And the thing about Shaitaan which is interesting is he is not original. Shaitaan doesn't come every... He is always coming with the same thing. They slightly change and there will be variations of them and things. But they are basically similar things. He brings a type of Jahiliyyah to people.

And for some reason, although there are similarities around the world, there are going to be different ones for different cultures and different peoples because peoples are not the same and they are different. So, this same thing phenomenon occurs within the Muslim cultures. A Jahiliyyah re-emerges that had been absent. It's almost like it went to sleep and then somebody wakes it up. And the Prophet cursed the one who wakes up a sleeping fitna. In other words, fitna can go to sleep but it doesn't mean it's not there and it can be aroused.

Shari'ah as Protection

So, the Shari'ah is the protection for us. This is what protects us. Allah says, if you disagree about a thing (فَرُدُّوهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَالرَّسُولِ - faruddūhu ila Allāhi wa-r-rasūl) (Quran 4:59) "Take it back to Allah and His Messenger." ذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌ - dhālika khayrun "That's better for you." وَأَحْسَنُ تَأْوِيلًا - wa-aḥsanu taʾwīlā "And that's the most perfect of interpretations, of understanding." So, take things back to Allah and His Messenger.

Submission to Divine Guidance

What does Allah and His Messenger say here? Now, when we submit to Allah and His Messenger, what we are submitting to is we are submitting to the fact that Allah and His Messenger know what is good for us. Allah knows what is good for us and He taught His Messenger what is good for us and His Messenger communicated to us what is good for us.

The Prophet said, "I did not find any evil except that I warned you about it. Nor did I know of any good except that I showed you the path to it." That's a blessing from our Prophet. Everything that he prohibited us to do, he did it because he knew there was harm in it for us. Everything that he told us to do, he did it because he knew there was good in it for us. And Allah is the one who taught him that through Jibril.

So to understand Sharia is to understand that this is for the benefit of the human being. And the first and primary benefit is the preservation of the true Deen with Allah which is Tawheed. The Deen is Tawheed. The Sharia will

differ but the Deen is Tawheed. And this must be preserved within the human community.

True Freedom Through Servitude

What Tawheed does is it frees people from the chains, from the yoke of creation. And the free man in Islam is not like people in this culture think. People in this culture associate liberty, right? It's a Latin word, liber, free. Liberty with freedom. They associate this idea that I'm free to do what I want.

Now the problem with that argument is that if the person is doing what their nafs wants, they're not free. They're a slave. That true freedom is doing what Allah wants. That is freedom by definition in Islam. The Abdullah is the only real Hurr. That's the only free human being. Is the one who's a servant to Allah and no longer a slave to himself.

And the one who is a slave to himself is not free and will never be free until he's freed of himself. And this is why in the Arabic language the word for freed slave is also the word for master, Mawla. Mawla is from the Addad. It's from the words that have an opposite meaning. Mawla is a master like we call Allah, Mawlana. Mawla is master and Mawla is freed slave.

So the freed slave is the one who is a master of himself. That is the freed slave. And the one who is a slave to himself is a slave and has no freedom.

So no matter how much freedom they give people in this culture or any other culture, if they're out fornicating, if they're out chasing their personal passions, if their passions take them to destruction, if their addictions take them to destruction, they're not free, they're slaves. They're just slaves to the wrong thing. They're a abdul makhluq and they're not abdul khalaq. They're a slave of creation and they're not a slave of the creator.

The Statement of Rib'i ibn Amir

And this is why Rib'i ibn Amir, his great statement, he's a Bedouin man, comes into the court of Kisra, the great Persian, Kisra. And he asked him, he asked him, what's this thing you're calling us to? And he said, we are calling you to becoming those who worship the creator of things and not those who are slaves of created things. We are coming to free you from the slavery of things to the slavery of the creator of things. And that's real freedom. And that's what Islam came to offer to the human condition.

Freedom from Superstition

If you accept that and understand that, then deen is the first thing and the tawhid is the most important thing because once you understand that Allah is the only one who can harm you, Allah is the only one that can benefit you, then you're free of superstitions. Look at the superstitions in cultures. They're everywhere. Rife, cultures are rife with superstition.

This country is filled with superstition. Why don't they have a 13th floor in their buildings? Seriously. Why don't they have a 13th floor? You go to a hospital, they don't have a 13th floor. I'm not making that up. Why? A

Second: Preservation of Life (Nafs)

So, the first is the preservation of deen. And that is primary because we'll even give our life to preserve the deen. Really. The life has to be even given to maintain the preservation of deen. The next is the preservation of life. Sharia came to preserve life.

And this is why if you kill a person, you are killed.

"You have in retribution life." So, if somebody kills a life unjustly, they forfeit their life. And in that is life for the society. It is a deterrent. Right. Deterrent in Latin means to wash out dirt, filth. You see. It's a deterrent. You have to get rid of it before it spread. Like gangrene. You have to cut off part of the body in order to save the whole body.

So, life is one of the things Sharia came to preserve. And it gave us rules to preserve life.

Third: Preservation of Lineage (Nasab)

And then it came to preserve nasab, which is lineage. People, it is a right of a human being to know who their people are. You should know who you're from. Like what happened in this country with the African black people in this country in the 1950s. Really, it goes back to earlier than that. But the idea of attaching an X to the name. That was a statement.

This is what the nationalist movement was making. What they were saying is X is the mathematical symbol for the unknown. And what we're doing is rejecting our slave name, like Washington. See, a black man whose name is Washington, he didn't come over on the Mayflower. Right. He didn't come over on the Mayflower. Why does he have a nice Anglo-Saxon name? Because that was a name that was just given to him. Right.

Some of the blacks, when they were freed, they literally just gave them names. Washington, Jefferson, Carver, Smith, like that. Just names. And some of them took the names of their masters, like that. So what they were doing is they were saying, no, we don't accept that anymore. We don't know who we are, but we know we're not

Washington. Right. At least we know that now. They didn't know that for a long time, so that's a type of consciousness.

But what they were saying is we don't know, and this is a right that was taken away from us. That was taken away from us. They were literally stripped from their families. And that was erased from their consciousness. Because children were taken from their parents and sold into slavery. And this is what happened. This happened in this country.

The Rules Protecting Lineage

So a human being has the right to know his lineage, who he is, who your father is. And this is why in fornication the rules are so strong. Because with fornication that breaks down. And this is why a woman who bears a child out of wedlock, even if the father is quote unquote known, that child does not... out of wedlock. Even if the child is born out of wedlock and knows the father, right, and knows the father, the child does not take that father's name. Doesn't take the name.

A bastard cannot say that's my father. By Sharia. Cannot say that. Even if you did a genetic test, anything, no. Ibn Zina has no lineage. By Sharia. None. Why? Because every religion, every deen has recognized marriage. Every deen. Marriage is the way lineage is preserved.

Polygyny and the Protection of Lineage

The Muslims are polygynous and not... they are not polyandrous. Because a woman will not know if she takes more than one husband who is the father of the child. And you can't say oh well we could do a DNA test. 80% of the world doesn't have telephones. Right? You know, DNA tests aren't cheap. They cost a lot of money. Right? 80% of the world doesn't have telephones. So don't use this, you know, the people of Bayan, they say... The anomaly is something you keep in mind but you don't use it as a standard to measure things.

So, and Islam permits polygyny because the lineage can be preserved. If there is one progenitor, a woman will know if she guards her private parts, she will know who is the father of her child. And the child has a right.

Now if a man has an amma, which is a bondswoman, and the bondswoman only becomes impregnated, she becomes umwalad. Just by becoming impregnated, by missing a period, she is umwalad. If the child is born, the child is the legal son or the legal daughter of that man by sharia. There are no bastard children in Islam. Islam came to eliminate that. You see?

The Consequences of Fornication

And one of the things the Prophet said, if a culture, if fornication becomes prevalent in a culture, then prepare yourselves for the wrath of Allah. You see? And the wrath is in those children because they are filled with rage. And look at, we are now reaching 50% in this country. Children born out of wedlock we are reaching 50% or past. And look at all the crimes. Look at all the violence. There is rage.

If you go into the prisons in this country and ask these men, they don't have fathers. They don't even know who their fathers were. That is oppression. That's unjust. You can't do that to a human being. They have the right to know who their father is.

And so Islam came to preserve that right through the prohibition of fornication and through the guidelines of sharia in proper marriage. And this is why Islam recognized any marriage outside of Islam. If two people become Muslim, they do not have to renew a marital contract. Islam recognizes marriages of other deens. You see? As long as it is a marriage that is recognized by the custom of a people.

But two people living together with no responsibilities, Islam rejects that completely. And people forget that in 1968 it was major news in this country that a woman on the east coast was kicked out of her university because she was living in sin. 1968. Kicked out of a university because she was living in sin. People forget how quickly morals have changed in this culture.

There was an article in News & World Report about fornication, premarital sex. And what they were saying was even conservatives won't condemn adult consensual premarital sex. They'll condemn teenage sex, but they will not condemn adult, consenting adults, because everybody is doing it, the article said.

Well, why should the children, why should the teenagers not do it if that's their example? You see? Why? And everything in this culture is saying have fun, enjoy yourself. The media is showing it, promoting fornication. Most of the television sitcoms and the films, they don't have relationships. Marriages are usually dull and boring on television, uninteresting. It's soap operas. What's exciting is illicit relations. Really? This is what they're seeing and this is what they're being conditioned to believe.

Adoption and Lineage in Islam

They keep their father's name. They can call the stepfather what they want, nickname or whatever, but they have to understand that the stepfather is the stepfather. He's not a legal father. He's actually only a guardian. He's not a stepfather. We don't even have that term. And we do not have adoption.

And the reason for adoption, you see what happens, if I adopt a child and my last name is Hanson and that child takes my last name, three, four generations down the road, they forget that there was an adoption. And suddenly they think that's their lineage. So lineage is maintained in Islam. Islam abrogated adoption. Did not allow for adoption.

The Prophet adopted Zayd. Called him Zayd ibn Muhammad. And fostering, as the Prophet said, "I and the one who takes care of an orphan are like this in Jannah." (Sahih al-Bukhari 6005) You put these two fingers together, it's one of the highest things you can do. Right? Kafir ul-Yateem. It's one of the highest things you can do to take care of people that don't have parental care. One of the highest things in Islam you can do.

But you cannot say, this is my son, this is my daughter. That's a lie. That's a lie. They are not your son and daughter. And they're not your stepson, not your stepdaughter. You say, this is my ward. Right, exactly. It's my

ward.

He adopted Zayd, absolutely. And he announced it at the Kaaba. No, that was abrogated. The Prophet was prohibited to do that after. Yes, he did that before. Yes, absolutely. He did that before Islam. Kafala is a... In Fiqh, Kafala is a... What's called Kafala, which is taking care. It's taking care of the needs of children that don't have those to take care of them. Highly encouraged.

Women's Names and Lineage

Even the woman can't take, is not supposed to take your name. She's not Mrs. So-and-so. She has her own lineage and that should be preserved. She's not, she hasn't become you. Right, that's a co-option. It's not part of the Muslim tradition. This is a modern, this is a bid'ah. You know, it's a bid'ah muharramah to do that. To give a woman a name that's not her lineage.

No, she has her own. She's the so-and-so, the daughter of so-and-so. And we're patrilineal. The lineage goes through the father. Sometimes, rarely men were attributed to a woman because of her righteousness. I mean, that does happen. Like even Taymiyyah. Taymiyyah is from his grandmother. Taymiyyah was a woman. So that does happen, you know, sometimes. But we are not matrilineal. We're a patrilineal dean. The dean is patrilineal.

Fourth: Preservation of Wealth (Mal)

And then preservation of wealth. Property. That is a right. It's a human right. And, you know, it's interesting. All property is theft. I mean, what a piece of sophistry that is. All property is theft. Because you can't have the concept of theft without property. Right? There's no concept of theft without property. All property is theft. Yeah, that was one of Marxist ideas. All property is theft. You know, the idea that everything should be communally. Communal property.

Rules of Theft in Shari'ah

So, the idea of preservation of property is that theft, the rules applying to theft, the cutting of the hand, which is just radical. Right? Cutting of the hand is a very radical concept. Now, there is... It has to be from a hirs. You know, it has to be... Like if we left something outside. Like I left my bicycle outside unlocked. Right? And somebody took it. There's... It has to be in a place that's recognized as that you cannot go into it. If you leave something out for people, that is not a hirs. That's not protected area or protected space.

And it's interesting. I'll tell you something really interesting about Sharia. If I go and like... If I go to Hakeem and he's got a bunch of money in his hand and I start fighting him, beat him up and take his money, there's no cutting of the hand there. That's called ghasb. A ghasb. The cutting of the hand is if it's when it's done furtively.

It's very interesting. And the idea is that if you're a ghasb, there's more... It's less dishonorable. In other words, at least you're giving a person the opportunity to fight for his property. But if you steal it from him without even giving him that opportunity, it's like you've reached the depths of depravity.

Armed Robbery

If they have a weapon, then that's actually the worst form. That is armed robbery which the punishment is death. You see, armed robbery is... Even if they don't kill anybody. If a man goes into a store with a gun and points that gun at a person, then the punishment is death. In fact, very severe. It's one of the worst things you can do.

Because the society... The one thing that people should feel within a society is security in their being. That is the most important thing, is feeling a sense of security which is protection of self. Human beings should feel safe in their homes and safe in their streets. They should have that sense of safety. You shouldn't have to worry about who's this guy behind me. You know. People should not have to feel that fear.

So the society... The Islamic laws are very severe when it comes to these fundamental breaches of human rights. Or not human... I don't like that word. Of shariq rights. Because we don't have human rights. We have legal rights that are given to us by Allah. Not by our solely our humanity. They're given to us from Allah. God-given rights. Thank you. That's the old-fashioned way of saying it. Human rights are a modern concept.

Fifth: Preservation of Intellect (Aql)

So, the next is preservation of aql, of the intellect. You have to preserve the intellect. Because that's where we were honored, with the intellect. So, shari'a came to preserve the intellect. So, it prohibited things that harm the intellect. So, anything that harms the intellect, shari'a says, avoid it, to preserve your intellect. Like intoxicants. They harm the intellect.

And now, the amazing thing about it is, you know, 1400 years later, oh, by the way, every time you have a glass of wine, you destroy all these brain cells. Right? Literally, you kill brain cells. And then there's people who say, well, we've got so many, that's okay, right? I mean, we can afford to lose a few, right? Right? The problem is, how do you know you're not losing the right ones, right? Maybe it's the reserved ones that you don't lose. It's the ones you're using, right?

Because we're only using, what, point, I think it's, now it's .01 or something. It used to be 10% of the brain, and now, then it went to 5%. Now they say it's less than 1% of the brain is actually being used, right? Latest neuro... I mean, these are theories, obviously. But the reason they got that information is because they had people that were hydrocephalic, who had literally less than 5% of normal brain mass, born with that. And they had normal IQs, and went to universities, and got degrees.

Right? With literally less than 5% of the brain mass that we have. And I really think, in some ways, Allahu ta'ala alam, this is purely speculation. I have absolutely no evidence for this. But I think in some ways, what they call a fatah from Allah, an opening. Like, I think people like Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, you know, they were probably, like, given, like, just massive amount of intellect. You know, it was opened up for them.

People like that. Because you wonder, I mean, how these people could write what they wrote. You know, man writes 400 books. And, you know, just the things that they knew. And just sitting with some of the people I've

sat with, like Murab Tarhaj, who's mastered... I mean, he's mastered around, you know, 15 sciences. That just one of them, if you master that in your lifetime, that is a major accomplishment.

I'm not making that up. I mean, just the Arabic language, if you mastered that in a lifetime, nowadays, that is a major accomplishment. Because these so-called doctors, PhDs in Arabic language, they have nowhere near the mastery of these people in the desert. Really, they don't. So, you know, you just wonder, what is all that massive cerebral power to do that? Some kind of opening from Allah. You know, it's an opening, quite literally. Allahu ta'ala.

Sixth: Preservation of Honor (Ird)

So, where did we go? We said the deen, nafs, right, nasab, wealth, and intellect. Those are the five. Now, there's a sixth one, which is called ird, and honor, which is added often. And most of them put that under nasab also, that it's... your lineage is part of your honor. But here, these are the rules that prohibit slander, calumny, accusing people.

This is why, even if you see a person, you know, you go into a room, and there you see two people, you know they're not married, and something that shouldn't be happening is happening. It is haram for you to go and tell anybody. Haram. You have to veil them, and that relates to their right to honor.

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