Essentials of Islam

Fasting was given to you so you could have taqwa. Taqwa is abstract. Can you give me some practical exercises I can do, some practical ritual that I can follow, that can actually bring that abstract into my life? What is that practice? Fasting is one of those practices.

The Problem: Separating Ahkam from Principles

What you're gonna find is every single obligation that Allah gave, fundamental obligation that Allah gave, it reinforces what? One of the principles. It's there to bring that principle into our life.

Now what unfortunately has happened in our ummah is that we've separated the ahkam of Allah from their principles. So people are fasting but they have no idea that the purpose of fasting is to develop taqwa. People are praying but they're not clear about the fact that prayer actually has certain purposes. Its purpose is not only that it's an obligation; its purpose is to fulfill and bring those principles into your life.

It's not prayer that will make us successful - it is those principles that will make us successful. Prayer is a means to an end. Fasting is a means to an end. Now we have made the means and we have turned them into the end. That's a very serious problem.

The Quran doesn't let you do that. The Quran every time it will describe an obligation, it will tie it to its end, tie it to the principle. We're the ones who separate it. We're the ones who cut it up.

Prohibitions Also Connect to Principles

It's not just obligations; it's also prohibitions - things we're not supposed to do. For example, one of the things that salah does is it prevents from evil, it prevents from shamelessness, because shamelessness will get rid of one of the most fundamental qualities: gratitude, selflessness, taqwa. It will remove them. So salah will prevent you from them.

The things Allah forbade you from are the things that, if you do them, will violate one of those principles. Every prohibition will violate one of those principles. It will go back to the usool.

Agreement on the First Two Circles

That's our second circle, which is the major obligations and the major prohibitions. Up until now, between these two, there is basically no difference whatsoever among any scholar, any Muslim. We're all in complete agreement what these principles are. We're all in agreement what the major obligations are. Nobody's gonna come along and say "I don't know, pork is not that haram." That's not gonna happen, and if they do, they're insane, because we know better.

Third Circle: Lesser Recommendations (Sunan and Enhancements)

Let's go one circle outside of that. One circle outside of that are the smaller recommendations, the lesser recommendations. These are you can call them the sunan, the sunnahs of the Prophet, or good deeds that the Quran talks about that can enhance your character.

Like lowering your voice, for example - Allah talks about lowering your voice or walking with humility. These are also, in a sense, enhancements to your character. Similarly, entering the masjid with your right foot, which is a sunnah, or eating with your right hand, and doing these small, small, small, small things - they are enhancements.

Priority Structure

Now, you should be a human being whose priority should be the principles. If they want to bring principles into their life, what should they be focused on? The major obligations. If they're taking care of their major obligations, then they should enhance them a little better by adding some of these things that beautify your life.

Salah is a major obligation. Dhikr after salah is what? It's an enhancement. Dua after salah is an enhancement. So you've already made the major obligation; now you can further it a little more.

Examples of Enhancements

The idea of these enhancements - here also there is no disagreement. There is no disagreement:

• Qiyam al-layl is an enhancement
• Praying tahajjud is an enhancement
• Extra fasting is an enhancement
• Some of the adhkar for traveling
• The dhikr for walking into your home

It's not haram for you to walk into your home without dua. It's not haram for you to travel without the dua, but it's good for you, isn't it? It enhances your deen, it betters you. So these are things that improve your life.

The Problem: Mixing Levels of Priority

Before I get to number 4, I have to help you understand something about number 3. 1 and 2 are actually what the prophets gave da'wah to. The prophets invited people to 1 and 2, which means they called people to these principles and they called people to their major obligations and their major prohibitions. That is the fundamental da'wah of prophets.

When people accepted that call and they internalized it and they absorbed it and they were good at it, then the prophets would give them tarbiyah and give them some additional enhancements.

What We Do Wrong

Now what do we do? What we do is we put all of these - we actually forget principles (we don't even know what that is anymore), major obligations and enhancements - we've mixed them together. If you're very serious about Islam, then all of them are major obligations to you.

So if you see someone, for example, praying dhuhr and not praying sunnah, then you'll run after them: "What are you doing?" In other words, now we enforce people to follow the enhancements, and if they're not following the enhancements, then we run after them. We question the way that they prayed or we question what they did or didn't do.

The Tajweed Example

For example, even tajweed - tajweed is not in the second circle. Tajweed is in the third circle. But what do we do? "Your salah doesn't even count. You're not reciting... You're getting sinned for reciting Quran." No, you're not getting sinned for reciting Quran. You should learn tajweed, you should try to improve it, but if you're sitting there counting how many lengths were the mads and how long was the qalqalah - this was not how sahaba did it.

You should be improving it, absolutely, but when you turn these things that were supposed to be enhancements, they're beautification, they're decoration for your home... Your home needs a door, it needs a lock, your home needs windows for air circulation, but your home does not need the extra kind of carpet. It does not need paintings on the wall. They're nice to have, it adds comfort. Putting a sofa adds comfort, but you can't tell people "You don't have a house, you don't have a real house if you don't have paintings in it." You can't do that to people.

The Serious Problem: Everything Becomes "Haram"

When you do that to people, do most people even make a distinction between the enhancements and the major obligations? No, they don't. So when you criticize them on one, they put them on equal level as everything else. When you do that, you have turned people away from Allah'sdeen.

I'll give you a serious implication of this. So for some people, for example, virtually everything is haram. Virtually everything is haram. So they'll tell somebody, "You know, by the way, video games? Haram." For example, "You can't play video games? They're haram. You can't watch TV? It's haram. Are you listening to the radio? That's haram." They'll just "Haram, haram," everything.

The Dangerous Equation

Now the thing is, there are certain things that are in the second circle - primary prohibitions like alcohol, like zina. Those are big and they belong where? In the second circle. And those Allah calls haram, doesn't He?

Now you just called video games haram. Now when you did that, you put those things that Allah made haram and the thing that you don't like on the same footing.

So for a young man, a young woman who's watching a movie, whatever they're watching, some film: "Watching movies is haram." "I say it's haram, but I watch it all the time. If it's haram, then I'm already in trouble. Since I watch a lot of movies, I'm in really deep trouble. But since I'm already in deep trouble, might as well try other haram, 'cause I mean, I'm going to hell anyway. Might as well go out with a party."

So now, since you put alcohol and listening to the radio and playing a video game on the same level, in the mind of the sinner they became the same. Video games is easy, just no big deal. Watching movies, no big deal. And now, zina became no big deal. Alcohol became no big deal. Drugs became no big deal.

The Prophetic Approach

So when we don't keep these priorities the way Allah intended them, then we start creating problems in society. People think the more things we list haram, the better it is for the people - we're protecting the people. Let me tell you, prophets protected people better than everyone else. We cannot enhance what they did.

Within limits, of course. Of course the fuqaha will judge whether something is actually explicitly haram or not. There can be things that are explicitly haram that didn't exist before they can be, but it goes back to a major sin or it goes back to violating a principle - a fundamental principle of our religion.

No Disagreement in Enhancements

Even in the enhancements - praying extra sunnahs, Mondays and Thursdays fasting, doing the adhkar, visiting the grave, doing the extra duas for entering and leaving the home, all the different things we do there's no disagreements on these. There are no disagreements. If you want to become a better Muslim beyond the fundamentals, go to the enhancements. Work on the enhancements and add a little bit of an enhancement every day. Learn a little new dua every day. That's what you should do.

Fourth Circle: Issues on Which the Companions Agreed

Then there's a circle outside of that. This fourth circle is issues on which the companions agreed. We don't find them in Quran, and by the way, these enhancements are predominantly found in the sunnah.

The circle outside of that is things that the companions agreed on. It's called ijma' sahaba. Ijma' means they had consensus, but actually there's no such thing as "all the companions agreed." That's oversimplification.

Three Kinds of Agreement Among Companions

There are three kinds of agreement. When the companions agreed, there are three kinds of agreement:

First: Agreement on Events

The first one is they agreed on an event. What does that mean? Not all the companions attended Badr. Some people became Muslim after Badr. But the ones who attended Badr will tell you it started on this day, it lasted this long, these were the supplies that we had. Why are they in agreement? Because they were all present.

Second: Agreement of Scholarly Companions

The second kind of agreement is the agreement of the scholars among the sahaba - the most knowledgeable among them. Sometimes they would all agree with each other - ijma' fuqaha' sahaba. Ibn Abbas (رَضِيَ ٱللَّهُ تَعَالَىٰ عَنْهُمَا) is of the scholarly companions. There are some other companions who don't know even a single surah - they're new to Islam, they're like new Muslims. We call them sahaba too, but their agreement is not part of this category. This category is when the most knowledgeable of the companions agreed.

Third: Agreement of Governors

The third one is when the governors among them agree - ijma' umara' sahaba. Like Umar ibn al-Khattab and his advisors - they all agreed on a particular rule, a particular governance. That's the third kind of agreement.

Three kinds of consensus or agreement among the sahaba:

1. Event (because they were present)
2. The scholars
3. The governors

When Umar ibn al-Khattab decides something, he doesn't consult every single sahabi - there's thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them. He has to take his advisory council and they have to make an agreement and they pass that verdict and they make that a policy and everybody else follows it.

The Problem of False Claims

The problem here is what people do nowadays. They say "All the sahaba agreed on..." All the sahaba agreed? Where did you get that from? "Well, it's obvious." Where is it obvious? "It's in the books." Which books? "Go read them."

You can't just throw these words out - "All the sahaba agreed." You can't do that. Your words have to be based on some evidence. You can't just throw those out.