The Jurisprudence of Consequences

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered at one of the sessions of an Islamic book club, followed by a dialogue with the audience, on April 14, 2019 Source: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Praise be to Allah, and blessings and peace upon our noble Messenger. O Allah, we ask You for the good of this night, the good of what it holds and the good of what follows it, and we seek refuge in You from its evil, the evil of what it holds and the evil of what follows it. O Allah, set right our hearts and our minds, make our tongues speak what pleases You, and do not disgrace us in our worldly life or in our hereafter. May Allah bless your gathering and reward your effort in coming to these blessed places, and we ask Him, blessed and exalted, that we be among those whom mercy envelops, upon whom tranquility descends, and whom Allah mentions among those who are with Him.

Our actions depend on how a person has been brought up: either they are considered, reasonable actions, or they are random actions. Among the random ones we notice is that a man comes to you weeping and says: Help me, Shaykh, the word of divorce has slipped out of me, I have divorced my wife! So what does this word mean? And what follows from it? And what do matters come to at such words? They come, for the most part, to ruin in the children's future, the breaking up of this family, hardship in the level of spending on its members, and so on, all that can follow from a single word that came out in a random, unconsidered way: he said "you are divorced" and the matter was over!

And take another example: a man in a quarrel with another pulls out his pistol and fires a bullet at the one in front of him. What followed from this act? Only that the breadwinner of a family went where you know, that a member of society was gone, and that a family was left homeless. And what follows from a quarrel between two parties over something trivial, or over some matter that occurs to one person and grows in his head until he goes out and acts randomly?

From the Beginnings of the Call: The Prophet ﷺ Teaches Looking to the Outcome

Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī (may Allah be pleased with him). In the beginnings of the da'wah movement in the time of the Prophet ﷺ we saw a prominent incident: Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī, may Allah be pleased with him, a man of Ghifār, came to become Muslim, so he entered upon the Prophet ﷺ and testified that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. So what condition did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ impose on him? Do you remember? He required him to go out among the people openly declaring his Islam.^[1] So what did Abū Dharr do? He went out among the people openly declaring his Islam. So what followed from that? They beat him very severely, until al-ʿAbbās or someone else came and said: Woe to you, are you killing a man of Ghifār, when your trade passes by them going and coming? Then he began to warn them of the consequences and outcomes of the act they were committing when they beat a man like Abū Dharr, who is from the tribe of Ghifār, and you know that Ghifār used to waylay travelers. For this is a man who, even if he were not Muslim, is from a tribe whose basic character is to attack people, so how do you expose yourselves to such things? And I see in this incident that the Prophet ﷺ, through his first stipulation to Abū Dharr, wanted to teach him what is called the jurisprudence of consequences: what will matters come to?

The Trench and Ḥudhayfah (may Allah be pleased with him). And on the day of the Trench the Prophet ﷺ says: «من يأتينا بخبر القوم؟» (Who will bring us news of the people?). Imagine the scene: the Muslims behind the trench, the polytheists gathered to the last man beyond the trench, and the Prophet ﷺ wants to grasp the dimensions of what matters are coming to over there: what is happening? So he sent Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān, may Allah be pleased with him, from among his Companions, and he set out toward the people. And when the Prophet ﷺ commanded him to investigate the features of the situation for him, he said to him: Do not provoke the people against us, or a phrase like it that the Prophet ﷺ said, meaning: do not stir up their grudges against us.^[2]

Ḥudhayfah says: So I went out, and while I was looking toward the people, there was Abū Sufyān warming his back by a fire, the night bitterly cold and the wind fierce, and the man was seeking warmth, leaning his back against the fire until he was warm. He says: So I looked at him from afar, and I placed my arrow in my quiver; had I loosed it, it would have landed between his shoulders, that is, at the very core of his neck, but I remembered the words of the Prophet ﷺ: do not provoke the people against us.

Why did the Prophet ﷺ say that? Because the people had come only to fight Islam, and they were now studying the situation and reviewing: what shall we do? Shall we continue? Shall we go back? They were planning and reviewing. And imagine Abū Sufyān being killed in such a place! These people would have stormed this trench like lions seeking revenge, because their chief and leader would have been killed treacherously while in their midst, and they would have taunted the Muslims with it for all time, and would never have let such revenge pass. So when the Prophet ﷺ uttered that one word, he uttered it with regard to what follows from a single act. Ḥudhayfah says: So I remembered the words of the Prophet ﷺ, so I put my arrow in my quiver and then continued on my way. This is how Allah, blessed and exalted, put this man's mind at his service until he regulated his action and looked to the consequences of the matters before him.

And if we mention Abū Sufyān, what do we add? Do we say "may Allah be pleased with him"? Had he been killed in such a place we would not have said "may Allah be pleased with him," because he would have died a disbeliever.^[3] And you can imagine all that would have followed from that.

The Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyah. Likewise the Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyah, which the Lord of the worlds called a clear victory. The Prophet ﷺ hears from the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, His words: ﴿إِنَّا فَتَحْنَا لَكَ فَتْحًا مُّبِينًا﴾ (Indeed, We have granted you a clear victory),^[4] and in this sūrah there came down: ﴿لَقَدْ صَدَقَ اللَّهُ رَسُولَهُ الرُّؤْيَا بِالْحَقِّ ۖ لَتَدْخُلُنَّ الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرَامَ إِن شَاءَ اللَّهُ آمِنِينَ مُحَلِّقِينَ رُءُوسَكُمْ وَمُقَصِّرِينَ لَا تَخَافُونَ ۖ فَعَلِمَ مَا لَمْ تَعْلَمُوا فَجَعَلَ مِن دُونِ ذَٰلِكَ فَتْحًا قَرِيبًا﴾ (Allah has certainly fulfilled the vision for His Messenger in truth: you will surely enter al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, if Allah wills, in security, with your heads shaved and hair shortened, not fearing; for He knew what you did not know, and He placed before that a near victory).^[5] The polytheists came out to the Prophet ﷺ, preventing him from entering Mecca, while the Prophet ﷺ had come only to perform ʿumrah; he came driving the sacrificial animals before him, but the polytheists prevented him. And Suhayl sat before the Prophet ﷺ to set out the indications of this agreement and its contents, so they wrote a draft of a preliminary agreement: that you return from where you came, and the Prophet ﷺ agreed. And that you not accept anyone from Quraysh who comes to you, while we accept whoever comes from you to us, and the Prophet ﷺ agreed. And that it be such and such and that it be such and such, and all of this the Prophet ﷺ accepted.

And more severe than that: when the Prophet ﷺ commanded that "In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" be written, Suhayl objected to this phrase and said: "In Your name, O Allah," and that is what we know. And when the Prophet ﷺ said: "This is what Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, has agreed," Suhayl said: If we knew you to be a messenger we would have followed you, so erase this. And ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may Allah be pleased with him, refuses to erase the words "Messenger of Allah," and the Prophet ﷺ does not read, so he commands him, saying: Where is it? So he points to it, and the Prophet ﷺ takes the sheet and wipes it with his own hands ﷺ.^[6] Why did the Prophet ﷺ do all that, while overlooking many errors that were occurring before him? Because they were things that could be borne, and from their people, because he looks to the consequences.

Then it happened afterward that a man came out of Mecca seeking the Prophet ﷺ because he had become Muslim, and within the framework of the truce, in the time of the treaty, and under these terms, a man went out from Mecca to Medina aiming for the Prophet ﷺ: Abū Jandal. So he came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ says to him, in effect: You know that there is a covenant between us and the people. Imagine the matter: someone leaves Mecca for Medina as a Muslim, and the Prophet ﷺ sends him back again! Imagine this matter. So what did Abū Jandal do? He went to the roadside, on the sea road as they say, and camped there, and people learned of him, so everyone who became Muslim in Mecca would head to Abū Jandal and not to the Prophet ﷺ, until they became a band, and they began lying in wait for those who came from Mecca, and it became like an ambush set in the middle of the road.^[7] The point is that it was Mecca that sent to the Prophet ﷺ to gather his Companions to him, so the people returned to the Prophet ﷺ as Muslims without any breach of the covenant on his part. And imagine if the Prophet ﷺ had accepted such a man: Quraysh, with those in it and around it, would have risen against him, saying that he is a man who breaks contracts, and that he is this and that he is that, and the odor of disbelief and corruption would have wafted up with claims that had no basis in truth. And this is what people of reason ought to avoid.

The Oppressed in Mecca. And the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, tells us in His words, the Mighty and Majestic: ﴿وَلَوْلَا رِجَالٌ مُّؤْمِنُونَ وَنِسَاءٌ مُّؤْمِنَاتٌ لَّمْ تَعْلَمُوهُمْ أَن تَطَئُوهُمْ فَتُصِيبَكُم مِّنْهُم مَّعَرَّةٌ﴾ (And if not for believing men and believing women whom you did not know, that you might trample them and thus incur guilt on their account).^[8] And this too is connected with the matter of the Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyah. His Lord, glory be to Him, informed the Prophet ﷺ that if he wished to raid Mecca, Allah the Mighty and Majestic would help him in that. But imagine, for example, that in Mecca there were Muslims who had not declared their Islam; so if the Prophet ﷺ had entered Mecca as a fighter, some people would have been killed, and among them might be Muslims, and then the Prophet ﷺ would have been taunted for the rest of his life with the Muslims who were killed.

And here I would like to stop for one minute to reflect that Allah the Exalted only preserved the blood of Muslims within the disbelieving society. Allah the Exalted wanted to preserve Muslim blood within the disbelieving society, and the Prophet ﷺ at that time had the right to storm this city: we came to perform ʿumrah and were prevented, and we want to defend our religion and move on. But he forbore and refrained ﷺ, in order to preserve the blood of some Muslims who represent a Muslim minority within the polytheist society.

And if the claim of those who are now killing in various countries, bombing sites, and producing what is called terrorism were true, if indeed they can rightly be called Muslims, or were truly Muslims, and not a hired group given this label... I do not think at all that a rational Muslim would extend his hand to harm anyone. So if it were believed that he is a Muslim, or that they belong to this religion, where are they from such a stance as the Prophet ﷺ undertook, concerning which Allah sent down upon His Messenger ﷺ verses from heaven to be recited until the Day of Resurrection pointing to the preservation of Muslim blood among minorities? The attacks that occur here and there, in many places, have a negative effect: how many women take off the hijab because they do not want to be accused of terrorism after Muslims bombed in certain places! And how many young people turn away from their religion or hide it! And how many Muslim men change their names! And so on, all the constraint that follows from that on mosques and Islamic institutions and relief organizations, and in the transfer of funds from abroad to inside and from inside to abroad. Huge undertakings whose numbers and names we cannot count are all affected, indeed demolished, under a single slogan that wants to say: I raise the slogan "There is no god but Allah," and this is jihad! By Allah, you have lied.

Other Incidents. In any case, as we present these proofs, we see for example the words of the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, the Exalted: ﴿وَلَا تَسُبُّوا الَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ فَيَسُبُّوا اللَّهَ عَدْوًا بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ﴾ (And do not insult those they invoke other than Allah, lest they insult Allah in enmity without knowledge).^[9] Did you see this business of consequences? And the story of Zaynab's marriage, may Allah be pleased with her, after she had been the wife of Zayd, may Allah be pleased with them all, came before the Prophet ﷺ, and the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, tells us in His words: ﴿فَلَمَّا قَضَىٰ زَيْدٌ مِّنْهَا وَطَرًا زَوَّجْنَاكَهَا لِكَيْ لَا يَكُونَ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ حَرَجٌ فِي أَزْوَاجِ أَدْعِيَائِهِمْ إِذَا قَضَوْا مِنْهُنَّ وَطَرًا﴾ (So when Zayd had concluded his need of her, We married her to you, so that there would be no difficulty for the believers concerning the wives of their adopted sons when they have concluded their need of them).^[10] Why? So that not. Do you see? It is attentiveness to the matter of what follows from the act.

These are a set of illustrations and proofs that establish for us the credibility of what we are speaking about, from the well-known incidents in the life of the Prophet's biography. Among them that a Bedouin man entered the mosque, the mosque of the Prophet ﷺ, and went to one corner of the mosque and urinated there, and the Companions jumped up! A disturbing scene, what is this man doing? A madman! Imagine a person in the mosque, in a corner of it, urinating and flooding the place, Allahu akbar! And the Companions were about to go for him, when the Prophet ﷺ says a word: «لا تُزْرِموه» (Do not interrupt him), and in one narration: do not cut off his urination.^[11] And as soon as the man had finished, the Prophet ﷺ took him by the hand and said to him: Mosques like these are not suited for this, and he taught him in a few words, and the man thereafter rectified his conduct and learned, though he had violated a number of sanctities: the sanctity of the Prophet's ﷺ presence, the sanctity of the mosque of the Prophet ﷺ, the sanctity of the presence of these Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, and exposing private parts in public places. Imagine what could have followed from this man being rebuked while he was urinating, and people cutting off his urination, which might have led to some kind of bodily harm or illness, whatever it might be!

And I still remember a remark from one of my friends, I ask Allah to bless him, and he is a physician. One day he lifted his son, you know when you swing your son like this and play with him, you lift him above your head, a small child. It seems the place was very comfortable for our little fellow, so he began to urinate, and the urine came down on his father's head. And the child's grandmother was sitting, that is, his mother-in-law, his wife's mother, and she said to him: Put him down, he is doing it on your head! He said to her: No, never mind, let him finish. So our friend waited until the child had finished, and Allah honored him and things settled in his hands, and what was in him was emptied, so he took him and hugged him to his chest, then put him down, then went off and came back, and said to her: Mother-in-law, do you know how many operations we perform in the hospital on a child who cannot pass urine from his body? No fewer than six successive operations until we make it possible for a child to let water out of his body. So that my son urinates by the creation of Allah, blessed and exalted, this is not only on top of my head, but on top of my head and on top of my head. These are the consequences of matters, and this is the mind that thinks about the matter before acting or before speaking.

And we say, before us, what happened with ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl, and what you know of the hypocrisy that occurred then, and it was suggested to the Prophet ﷺ that he kill him, so he ﷺ says: «أتريدون أن يُقال: محمد يقتل أصحابه؟» (Do you want it to be said: Muhammad kills his companions?).^[12] By Allah, besides whom there is no god, this sentence alone, if those working for Islam, specifically in Western societies, were to take it into account: Do you want it to be said that Muslims do such and such? Or that Muslims differ over such and such? Or that Muslims quarrel over such and such? By Allah, every one of us would hand over his neck to people in submission, because of the words of Allah, blessed and exalted: ﴿أَذِلَّةٍ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَعِزَّةٍ عَلَى الْكَافِرِينَ﴾ (humble toward the believers, mighty against the disbelievers).^[13] And that is the logic through which we can deal.

Consequences Within the Home

And among the important consequences is the matter of caring for the future. Let us enter the homes a little, among spouses. Divorce is not a word; it is a joint decision issued after deliberation and composure. Imagine the form of divorce recognized in Islam: that the man divorces his wife with a single divorce, in a period of purity in which he has not had relations with her. That is, the woman, may Allah honor you, has her menstruation, for example, then becomes pure from her menstruation, then he holds himself back from her, then he divorces her, then a month passes over her and she menstruates and becomes pure, and he divorces her, then a month passes. This is a decision with premeditation and lying in wait, and not merely a word in a moment: the glass got broken, or she did not make the tea right, or the cooking came out salty or whatever. It is true that divorce may be a word, and it really is a word, but what follows from it? This is the discourse with which we should appeal to the members of the Muslim society, so that they realize that it is not a word, but a decision that should come after living together has become impossible and after seeking all the causes and means by which the two parties could be brought together.

Why? Because we have children in our hands whom we want to raise for the future. If the home breaks, the hearts of these children break, and after that their minds break, because they are torn between two contradictory ways of thinking, and the parents differ, and not that courteous kind of difference. And few are the cases we see, when a man and woman divorce, in which we see each of them keen on the reputation of the other. Glory be to Allah the Almighty! I spoke with one of the brothers yesterday and said to him: By Allah, besides whom there is no god, when I spoke about you with your wife she said: He is the best man in the world, and if a woman were seeking a husband now I would nominate you for her! And you two are already divorced. And when I spoke with you, you said she is the best woman in the world, and if a man were looking for a woman to marry I would find none better to recommend to him! Glory be to Allah, you both say that about each other, so where is the fault? He said: Incompatibility. I said: I believe in Allah, the matter is finished. Incompatibility, they are not compatible, but respect remains, and common ground remains, and no insulting remains, and no vilifying, and there remains the word that preserves the privacy of bygone days and secures the future of the children who will come out.

Imagine: today I speak about my wife with a word, half a word or any talk, and ten years later someone comes to propose to my daughter, and this word is pulled from the archive of people's memory, and it is said to him: No, listen, this man used to say about her mother such and such! Allahu akbar, after all these years this word is pulled from the archive of memory and recorded in the minds of the suitors who are watching my door to propose to my daughter. And so the days pass, glory be to Allah the Most High, the Almighty.

Dear brothers, marital disputes, when one of us gets worked up and makes a row inside the home, are not "the salt of life," but rather the misery of the children. Children who live in an atmosphere pervaded by quarreling are not sound in any case. So do not imagine, sir, that you spent the night victorious, or began your night saying: I gave her a couple of words in her honor, I did it, I am the victor! Do not imagine that, for the real loser in this battle is not the other party, but the third party: your children. Glory be to Allah the Almighty!

And if we imagine that in most families there arises what is called material conflict, whether over daily expenses to be met among people: the wife wants this, and the husband says I don't have it, or I don't have on me, or he is stingy toward them or so on. These simple material conflicts that occur within families bring about in us a materialistic generation. By Allah, besides whom there is no god, these material conflicts are planning, with premeditation and lying in wait, for a generation that will disobey us after today.^[14] Why? Because when I raise my son on a purely materialistic mentality, then I come after fifty years, or after twenty years, and speak to him: My son, I have become incapable, I cannot work, please give me a tenth of your salary, he says to you: Who are you? I don't know you! Why? Because I never spoke in front of him except about money, and he never saw me speak about money for management or care, but rather saw selfishness and excess in trying to take as much as I could, even if it was from my life partner.

And likewise gossip inside homes is the manufacture of a foul future within the Muslim society, because the children hear the father talking about so-and-so, and the mother talking about so-and-so, and the this and the that. So imagine what the affairs of our children will come to in such atmospheres.

The Lesson of Maʿrūf al-Karkhī

If we imagine the matter of consequences in the world of those working in the field of da'wah... send blessings upon the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Before I give the answer on this point, I want to recall an incident that happened to a man of the early generations called Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, from the people of Iraq, there in the region on the bank of the Tigris, sitting with a group of disciples around him. Imagine the scene: a shaykh of the righteous predecessors sitting with his disciples around him. One of his disciples said: O Imam, have you not seen these young men in this boat? They are listening to music and playing and singing, and it seems they are in a state of some intoxication. A group of young men who went out at night, with a commotion, singing and enjoying themselves. If only you would pray against them! So he looked at them, then raised his hands to the sky and began to supplicate. What does he supplicate for now? Against these wicked young men? Against these disobedient young men? He said: "O Allah, as You have made them happy in this world, make them happy in the Hereafter." So they reproached him for what he said, and he answered them, saying: If He made them happy in the Hereafter, He would have delivered them to His religion in this world. Are we agreed?

I imagine the consequences here, and I want you to imagine with me: had our man raised his hands and prayed against them, may our Lord take vengeance on them and ruin their homes and so on, and then one of them met him the next morning drunk. You say to him: Are you drunk?! Why? He says to you: I have been drunk all my life because of our master's prayer, he prayed against us so we remain drunk all our lives. Do you see? The result may follow like this. And here we stop: and if someone conveyed to these young men the supplication of that Imam for them, that he had prayed for them for happiness in the Hereafter and happiness in this world, would that not be a motive for them to look for the means of guidance and to attend the Shaykh's sessions and listen to him? Just imagine. And this is merely one picture before we delve into the matter of those working in the field of da'wah and the jurisprudence of consequences for them.

(And one of them interrupted me with a question, so I joked with him: Why are you rushing? You do not know the consequences that will occur after your question! Then I said: Shall we continue, young men, or do you have a question? Fine, in the name of Allah.)

Consequences for Callers

Protecting the symbol. I am speaking here about the moral deviations that occur in the course of callers, and I am speaking about myself and the brothers who are in the field of da'wah. That is, if we imagine, for example: is it possible that an error will come from me as a human being? Of course, what prevents it? But do you know what prevents it? What prevents it is that a generation of young people, like the respectable young people here, look at one of us as a figure of stature within society, and a generation of young people is being raised at the hands of this brother of ours, and a generation is being raised at the hands of that brother of ours and listens to him in his various settings, and a generation looks to so-and-so, and so on. So I place a barrier between myself and what I desire, guarding against the deviation of these young people from their path, because they see before them a caller who has deviated: any kind of defect, whether a defect in money, or women, or lying, or deception, whatever the defect. Sometimes desire arises inside the man, or the human being in general, and he could do it, even lawfully, and yet he refrains from some of what he wants in order to guard against the reactions that occur in the generation of young people.

And whether it is moral deviations or an exaggerated responsiveness in the world of politics: how many people used to trust the learned Imam Shaykh so-and-so, or the great imam who represents a scholarly stature in such-and-such a place, but he sides with one party in politics, and suddenly he is spilling people's blood, or taunting so-and-so, or doing such and such, so the whole value collapses. And then the young people look at their points of reference and see them as dust, and the symbols fall with them, or the symbols fall in their eyes, and with them falls the phrase "There is no god but Allah" and commitment to the rulings. Imagine, for example, when people see the man with the big turban, in this appearance with the cloak and so on, walking behind politics in such a way, so what makes a woman walk behind the hijab? And what makes her protect herself when she can do this and that? What protects her from that? These are the consequences of matters.

Discourse far from people's lives. The second matter: the pattern of religious discourse, and talk about matters totally remote from what people live, creates before us a generation that feels that religion is on one side and life is on another, so it detaches entirely from questions of religion, and rarely asks except about certain things. Glory be to Allah! We are praying, and our dear brother says to the brother: Please, put your foot next to my foot. I said: Glory be to Allah, what is the importance of this matter now? Except that Allah the Exalted made of it a kind of training in general order in the nation, and if this detail were violated, perhaps the general order of the nation would be violated. But the reality and what happens is that he trades in forbidden things, then comes to say: Is this meat slaughtered or not slaughtered? So he totally separates between issues that carry weight and danger for the lives of Muslims, and he follows matters I cannot say are secondary, but he separates between a life he practices and food he eats.

And I still remember one of the brothers telling me, by Allah: He came in to me with a girl, masha'Allah, of striking beauty, and says to me: Brother, is this meat halal? And he is telling me this and says: By Allah, I was not ashamed. He entered a shop that by default is a shop of Muslims, and asked as if he wanted to verify. When I enter your shop and you are a Muslim, I should not need to ask; and it would be logical, if you came to my house to eat with me, and you know that I am a Muslim, not to ask. But this foolishness, or these trivialities we are speaking about, in our settings... I am not speaking about the matter of the lawful and unlawful in food, but I am speaking about the logic of people in dealing with certain particulars while leaving the other universals. The discourse far from people's lives, which issues from imams or from callers or from shaykhs, whatever the terms used, the discourse far from reality creates this generation that imagines that religion is on one side, and that the life we practice is on another.

Callers' disputes in front of people. We have a matter I alluded to briefly: the disputes that occur between callers. We are now speaking about callers and what matters have come to because of their disputes. I now have a problem with my brother, and we speak in the midst of the people, so we make the children watch us. So how do they watch us?

Not keeping pace with what people live: the crescent. And we have a second, more serious matter, which is the matter of not keeping pace with what people live, with all respect to those who insist that we see the crescent with our own eyes, and with all my esteem and respect for this matter, but I will repeat to you once more what my children and sons, the Muslims in the community in which we live, said last year in Ramadan. Some people fasted on Tuesday, and others fasted on Wednesday; do you remember, or have you forgotten? The kids said: Congratulations to the second half of the Muslims. Imagine, what is behind this sentence? Where is the first half? The first half fasted on Tuesday, and on Wednesday they say: Congratulations to the second half. By Allah, I heard this phrase with my own ears from some young boys. Imagine what follows from that: the beginning of their lack of trust in what we do, and their inability to distinguish between right and wrong in what is in their hands, and their feeling that we are unable to keep pace. And I do not want to speak about the matter of the crescent now, and I recall the words of our brother Dr. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, who is sitting in this blessed gathering, as he was telling us about this matter. But in all cases, in light of the development of life and the movement we live around us, we can bring the nation together, unify the word of the Muslims, and gather people on one ground on the day of ʿĪd, and at the start of Ramadan, and in the takbīrs, and so on.

Consequences for Those in Charge of Islamic Institutions

We have spoken about callers, so come, let us see the consequences with those working in the field of da'wah who are responsible for Islamic institutions. The Prophet ﷺ, when al-Ḥasan or al-Ḥusayn, may Allah the Exalted be pleased with them, climbed on his back while he was in prostration, would prolong his prostration until the two had finished and gotten down.^[15] Do you imagine what is happening? Imagine the scene with me: the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is prostrating in a congregational prayer, which means that all the Companions are prostrating. (Is someone moving with us? Is someone talking? Our friend wants to hear some sound from you! Fine, send blessings upon the Prophet.) So the whole Muslim society is prostrating, the whole Muslim society is halted in its movement on a sound from the Prophet ﷺ, and the Prophet ﷺ is halted in his movement on these two little children who are playing. And imagine now that a child comes running in our mosque, and someone yells at him and we drive him out...

And some brothers reminded us of what happened with a revered caller well known today, who in the beginnings of his upbringing in his town was a mischievous child moving about in the mosque, and the brothers would speak to him and say to him: Be quiet. I ask Allah to preserve him, guide his steps, bless him, and preserve for him his soul, his religion and his sincerity. Imagine that such a child is that revered caller! Had they driven him out of the mosque, he would have hated that mosque and hated those in it and turned into something else, imagine the matter.

Fine, and this is one behavior, and there is another matter: one of those who feel that they own the Islamic centers says: I am the largest donor to the mosque, so this mosque is mine. So when people enter they enter according to my whim and what pleases me. So what follows from that? He says to one of the women: How do you put this here? This is not right, please. So the woman looks at him and says: What bothers you? And why is it not right? This is bad manners! Then she gets up, she and her friend, takes her shoes and heads toward the stairs, and praise be to Allah... and behind her her children are saying: Mama, we came to see our friends at the mosque! What happened? And the mother left angry, her veins swollen with rage. (And you know our character, we Egyptians, but it is only a jest.) So what does this one incident alone do to the psychology of these children when they grow up, and come to regard this place as the place where our mother is insulted if she comes to it? Merely one witness to the control that exists among some of those in charge of mosque affairs, and the constriction and restriction on people: movement by calculation and word by calculation. Glory be to Allah, a matter that needs reconsideration.

The style of preaching. And the pattern of discourse we were talking about a little while ago leads to... imagine, for example, the group who are the satellite-channel people, may Allah preserve and bless everyone, (as if one of them were saying): I never speak to you except about the torment of the grave and the Fire, and that you are going to go to the devil. People come and people flee from them, because people by default love good. We by nature are already troubled in our lives, whether from home, or from work, or from financial matters, or managing the affairs of life and making a living; people are toiling and in hardship. And you come and darken it for me too? Man, turn it off! Let us see something else that gladdens the heart! Switch to the other channel. And by this logic the harm occurs.

Guardianship over people. And we have some callers, very unfortunately, and we sometimes speak with a view of guardianship over people: I am the imam, I am the leader, I am the one who is here, you cannot depart from my word, you cannot reply to my statement, you cannot even commend me for what I claim, I am the imam. This guardianship over people makes people flee from the sphere in which you are, so they go to another sphere, and what other sphere? Only the spheres of Satan and what follows them of whim and caprice, and so on.

Parents and the Neighbor

And if we imagine, for example, as we speak about the jurisprudence of consequences, and I have two minutes left: why is the commandment concerning parents elevated to the point of being paired with the oneness of Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted: ﴿وَقَضَىٰ رَبُّكَ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُوا إِلَّا إِيَّاهُ وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا﴾ (And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be good to parents)?^[16] Why all this emphasis in the commandment concerning parents? And why does the Prophet ﷺ make the neighbor's right a right most akin to a sacred right, so that he ﷺ says: «لا يزال جبريل يوصيني بالجار حتى ظننتُ أنه سيو…» (Gabriel kept enjoining me about the neighbor until I thought he would …)?^[17] Allahu akbar! Why? Because of the consequences: if I screamed at night, I, and said: Oh, my stomach! Who would be closer to me: my mother who lives in another place, or my father who is in another country, or my neighbor whose door is next to my door? And so are the consequences of matters when one uses reason and tries to reflect on the word or the action before we go past it.

This is perhaps a little of much on this subject. And praise be to Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, that we have come to speak about these subjects. And by the way, speaking about these subjects until a short while ago was an innovation and forbidden: What is this subject of consequences? And what is this subject of maqāṣid? And what is this empty talk you people are engaged in? So praise be to Allah that Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, has now put minds at the service of speaking about these subjects in abundance, and there has come to be good scholarly material on this subject, and they speak about it a great deal. But we want, by Allah's grace and with the permission of the Lord of the worlds, to also increase talk about other kinds of jurisprudence, such as the jurisprudence of reconciling hearts, and the jurisprudence of dealing with fluctuating psychologies, and the jurisprudence of dialogue and giving people more confidence in themselves. All these are types of jurisprudence we need to absorb and discuss as a Muslim society, that perhaps Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, will bestow His favor on us, and that our view of matters and our evaluation of them will develop. And Allah the Exalted knows best. And now to your questions, if you would be so kind, may Allah bless you.

Dialogue with the Audience

The issue of the crescent. The dialogue began with the issue of the crescent, an issue we live through every year, and the consequences in it are clear, and who bears the responsibility? I said: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. More than twenty years ago, it seems, one of the famous shaykhs was a guest with us in our simple, poor little town in Egypt, a village or a district town, and he was asked: What is the ruling on images, on photography? He said: Forbidden. They said to him: O our master, the Grand Imam, we are now compelled to be photographed for the ID card and passports and all these innovated things, so what do we do? He said: This is forbidden but pardoned! And I was at that time in the stage of study, turning it over in my head: forbidden but pardoned? I turned it this way and that, and I had never come across this term before. Where did he get it from? Okay, fine. And after a while this same man, one of the giants of the satellite channels, and his pictures, masha'Allah, on the billboards and banners found all over the world, filled with pictures of the Grand Imam who was a little while ago speaking about the pardoned forbidden! So what happened? If we think well of him we say: a kind of intellectual development occurred in people, praise be to Allah, and may Allah pardon what is past, and praise be to Allah we have reached this level.

And a short while ago we were saying that astronomical calculation is in itself objectionable, and should never be used; what matters is sighting. And things have developed now so that we hear that there is no objection to taking it into account, pay attention, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, no objection to taking it into account! Sweet talk, excellent. And after a number of years you will find him saying to you: Astronomical calculation is what is relied upon now. Let us see the matter simply: the astronomical calculation that was objectionable in the past was based on the science of astrology. Does anyone of us who are present believe in astrology? No one considers that these astrologers have any credibility at all. But there is what is called astrology, and there is what is called science. What does the word science mean? Principles, constants, controls, evidences, citations, experiments and conclusions. Science, are we agreed?

The first objection: who does the astronomical calculation? They are not Muslims, and accordingly we do not trust it or their statement or their speech. Why? Because they are disbelievers, if Allah wills, man! Aren't you paying attention? Fine, okay. If a disbeliever comes to me telling me of the sighting of the crescent, do I accept it from him or not? (The audience fell silent and people wandered off.) If a disbeliever came to me telling me of the sighting of the crescent, do I accept it from him or not? The default is that I ask for another witness with him, or that I accept the testimony from a Muslim, and that is preferable. Fine, when do I reject his testimony? To begin with, if he did not investigate the matter except for something that is a religious concern to me, then I allow that he has bad intentions, and that he wants to mix up the world for us, so at that point I say to him: Step aside a little, please, and let us see the Muslims. Don't we have anyone who sees the crescent but you? In Upper Egypt we had someone who came out and said: Folks, I saw the crescent, so the people said to him: A reward of a thousand pounds. Another came out: And I saw it, and another over there: Here, to get the second thousand. Of course we are joking, aren't we? We have many people who see.

But if we imagine, for example, these people, and the Muslims among them who are present in this science, and do we have famous ones among them? Of course, praise be to Allah. Fine, why do they investigate the movement of the crescent in the first place? For your sake, you Muslims? How many are you? How many of you are there in the world to begin with? What does the matter of the crescent of Ramadan in particular represent for them? Nothing. So why do they follow the movement of the crescent? They follow the movement of the crescent for the sake of air navigation in the sky, they follow the movement of the crescent for the sake of the tides and what happens in the seas, and these huge cargoes that are valued only in billions, they follow the movement of the crescent for this and that, all of it far from your subject. So my taking comfort in their opinion is merely taking comfort in the opinion of reliable people in their field, reliable in what? In their field; they have no connection at all with the matter of the crescent of Ramadan or the crescent of ʿĪd, al-Aḍḥā, the small or the big, whichever it is, it has no concern with this subject. He is investigating another matter.

The second matter: when the Prophet ﷺ used the means available to him, had more modern means come to him ﷺ, by Allah, with our simple modest knowledge, do we imagine that the Prophet would use any newly emerging means that came before him, or would he reject them? (I said jokingly in the tone of someone claiming guardianship: No, he will reject them! Do you know why? Do you agree with me that he will reject them first or not? I am the imam, is this acceptable? Or are we still talking about religious guardianship? What I say must be heard!) The one with this tone says: Do you know why he would reject them? Because the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: «نحن أمة أمية، لا نقرأ ولا نكتب، والشهر عندنا كذا وكذا» (We are an unlettered nation; we neither read nor write, and the month with us is thus and thus).^[18] So when the Prophet said "We are an unlettered nation," was he saying it as a report of a condition that existed already, all right? Or was he saying it as a legislative decision that the nation must remain in its illiteracy, neither reading nor writing? What do you think? He is speaking about what we are in now: the count with us is such, and if the month is completed... and he ﷺ indicates with his fingers. Are we agreed?

And imagine when the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Exalted, says: ﴿يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْأَهِلَّةِ ۖ قُلْ هِيَ مَوَاقِيتُ لِ…﴾ (They ask you about the crescents; say, "They are timekeeping signs for …").^[19] Do you imagine the word "timekeeping signs" (mawāqīt)? A word, and what is bound up with it? Fine, let us see: ﴿وَجَعَلْنَا اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ آيَتَيْنِ ۖ فَمَحَوْنَا آيَةَ اللَّيْلِ وَجَعَلْنَا آيَةَ النَّهَارِ مُبْصِرَةً لِّتَبْتَغُوا … وَلِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ …﴾ (And We made the night and the day two signs; We erased the sign of the night and made the sign of the day visible, that you may seek … and that you may know the number of years …).^[20] "And that you may know the number of years," Allahu akbar. And His words: ﴿وَكُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ﴾ (each floating in an orbit).^[21] All these Qur'anic phrases point to the fact that once a standard is reached by which the movement of time can be regulated, following it is preferable, in addition to what follows from it of the unity of the Muslims, bringing them together and uniting their word. And in any case, if we look at the consequences and see that the world now mocks us and we cannot gather our unity, by Allah, that would be a sufficient reason.

And if the man comes from the ends of the earth saying to the Prophet ﷺ: I have seen the crescent, and he permits fasting for his Companions... a matter I do not want to say is relative, but the matter is simpler than we complicate it. That we find people saying: No, we will not fast, because our brothers when they saw, this one saw the crescent, past tense, but they saw it with the telescope, they did not see it with the naked eye! O Allah! He refuses to fast because people saw the crescent with the telescope and did not see it with the naked eye! So you say to him: Were you wearing glasses? He says to you: Yes. You say to him: Glasses are a telescope too, of another little kind, or am I wrong? Isn't a telescope also something that magnifies? And glasses also bring near and push away and adjust things! So, fine. The matter is a matter of understanding, grasping the repercussions and looking at the consequences, and Allah, blessed and exalted, knows best. (Someone has come who wants to close the place, but I hope there is an answer in this.)

Following the nearest mosque. And one of them asked: Last year the Shaykh told us about fasting that the matter does not go back to us, and we waited a long time and in the end we followed the nearest mosque to us, and it was a problem for us, and at that time it was an individual decision; is this correct even if it is repeated this year? I said: May Allah make you happy and be pleased with you and bless you. The matter of people following the nearest mosque is a matter considered valid religiously, praise be to Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, and that is also to bring the nation together in a community or in a small sphere. And as an answer to the question: the default with us is investigation (taḥarrī). What does investigation mean? Seeking the most precise, seeking the most cautious. And is the most cautious to fast or to break the fast? Fine. Accordingly, if we have in our hands the means by which we can know whether the crescent has come out or not, then following them is preferable. If you do not have a means... and we have a problem: do we fast following the mosque next to us or do we break the fast? We are not even in the country to begin with... (garbled speech in the transcript) Everyone is fasting, and if I break the fast it will be a catastrophe; or everyone is breaking the fast, and if I fast I will burden the Muslims! We are in America! Welcome to the United States! That is, it means that no one knows what is going on inside your house to begin with, not even your neighbor knows where the entrance door is on your side, nor how life is going; everyone here is on his own with his Lord entirely, as we say about the farmers back home. One moment, fine. The default in the matter, religiously: whoever considered that if he fasts following his mosque that is next to him that is correct, then Allah the Exalted accepts it from him and we are not strict and do not burden people; and whoever considered the means and followed the surrounding community present... and I call Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, to witness that I am one of the people who, last year for example, by Allah, got in touch with about ninety percent of the shaykhs around us in the area, to try to bring the word of the Muslims together. And among them were those who responded, and among them were those who said: By Allah, I have my opinion and my point of view from which I cannot depart from one moment to the next. So we said amen to that, and the matter ended, and we ask Allah to accept from you.

A comment from one of the attendees. And one of the brothers mentioned that the Companions and the early generations used to differ and then in the end pour into a single opinion, and that revelation would sometimes intervene, and he asked that we agree on at least one thing, and pointed out that the shaykhs agree on slaughtered meat. And another commented that a scholar in Turkey mentioned that the Muslims held on to one hadith and quarreled over it and ignored another hadith, which is «الصوم يوم صومكم والفطر يوم فطركم» (the fast is the day you fast and the breaking of the fast is the day you break it), so they should have united on fasting with the government of their country. So I said: Dear brother, fasting is a time-bound act of worship, an act of worship tied to time; so whenever the Muslims agree on a mechanism, it is preferable that all people follow it. The problem for me is not in that, but in another matter: when the Prophet ﷺ said: «صوموا لرؤيته» (Fast upon seeing it), all the problems are around this sentence, around this single word: what does the sighting signify? And I always give an example and say: By Allah, I said to my son Anas: Please, stand at the door and see whether your uncle Abū Ḥamzah is coming from afar or not. And Abū Ḥamzah called me on the phone and asked: Where are you? And Anas has not yet seen whether his uncle came in or not, and the man is talking to me from inside the matter! So should I trust the words of the boy standing outside, or trust the words of the one who called me by phone? So the people who talk about sighting, or about following the crescent astronomically, they are already riding up on the moon, by the way! They are sitting up there talking to us from above. This one is talking to you from above, this man is from above, you, sir, are walking by the moon below, for example, may Allah honor you. So he follows the movement with extreme precision, and the one who goes up to look is not relying on the movement of the moons, but relying on an eye, which may be weak or strong. And Allah the Exalted knows best. So if we considered that modern mechanisms for tracking the moon are one of the means by which sighting is established, we would be out of all this dispute. But the problem is that we reject this talk and say: No, it won't do, and only our two eyes will do. And Allah knows best.

And one of the attendees said: It struck me that our relationship as Muslims with religion may not always follow logic or calculation or mathematics; so we reject science entirely in a matter like this and say that the Qur'anic text said such and such, then an incident like the one that happened a few days ago occurs and we say it is mentioned in the Qur'an from fourteen centuries ago, and he added that we fast and break the fast by the clock, so who set the clock but astronomical calculation, and who said that dawn is at such-and-such hour and such-and-such second. So I said: I agree with you very, very much. When a modern matter appears among us we go out and say: Wow!... (garbled phrase in the transcript) But when we come to deal with such matters... it is a way of thinking, and Allah knows best. And from following it, and Allah the Exalted knows best, I see that it is moving little by little, or is forced to move from time to time, when it finds the wall as a barrier before it and finds no way out, so it moves with you in development, Allah willing, toward the better. We ask Allah for steadfastness and well-being.

Balance in working with young people. Then a questioner returned to consequences in practice: a person always thinks about everything he does, what will happen, whether a negative or positive result, especially when working with young people, so you do some activities, and from one side comes someone who says: This is forbidden and not permissible, there is mixing, and the girl is thus and the boy is thus; and from the other side someone who says: If you are not lenient with them they will go away. So how can a person work with balance? I said: May Allah be pleased with you, a question of the utmost importance, may Allah preserve you. The answer: that a person works with balance. But your question: how can he achieve this balance? The matter depends on each case. There is a report that the slave girl would take the hand of the Prophet ﷺ and lead him around Medina and accomplish her need through him.^[22] Do you know what this means? She is taking him by the hand like this! When we used to go and collect donations for the mosque, for example, I take my brother ʿAbd al-Raʾūf with me because people know him, so I accomplish my need through him. And the slave girl takes the hand of the Prophet ﷺ and goes off with him to the people, and he gives me two kilos of meat... the Prophet ﷺ! Can you imagine the matter? But imagine if this were mixing between a man and a woman, even if it were the Prophet ﷺ, and he is the infallible ﷺ, still he represents an image before society. Is that not so? And there comes the matter of the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, when al-Faḍl was looking at the beautiful woman, and it seems the Prophet ﷺ was turning his face away from her.^[23]

We are speaking now about the issue of mixing, and mixing during worship and so on, and the criteria and controls of this mixing. We must teach our sons and daughters the constants. What do I mean by constants? That dialogue or speech has limits and has landmarks. Imagine, for example, a girl and a boy standing speaking on an important subject, confrontations... isn't this mixing? But it is mixing that is legitimized for this case. But then we sit and rub shoulder to shoulder, so we are like that no longer mixing? That has become a mess, dear Hajj! That speech is correct. And imagine, for example, that boys and girls sit in a session because they are working on a project. And we were in a situation recently, and the girls and boys were playing and jumping around, and one of the girls, may Allah preserve everyone, said: By Allah, when we do this, they make the activities girls on their own, jumping around and going up and down and drawing, so they bump into each other, and the boys on their own, young men now and men, and shouting... you know how kids are! So when we separate, we do the activities... The matter of balance, my dear brother, is tied to the situation and to the mind of the one carrying out the activity. For this reason it is required of everyone who is in charge of any work of da'wah to be a preserver and a scholar, that is, he has the knowledge with which he handles situations, and he has the trustworthiness with which he preserves sanctities, so he can deal with the young people of their generation and their age and their nature and their way, and can deal with situations in some manner, and at the same time has enough religion to preserve people's trusts and their private matters. The matter of balance has no answer with me, rather its answer is in the mind of the one carrying out the activity. My job is to tell him: Go and do. And Allah knows best.

The changing of fatwas. And another asked: The issues of the jurisprudence of consequences are practical jurisprudence, that is, we as Muslims, one commits to religion and jurisprudence, but fatwas come out, so forty years ago many things, among them insurance and among them transplants, kidney transplantation and others, were entirely forbidden, so the patient dies and does not get a kidney, then after twenty years it becomes permissible, so in the consequences here people went as victims. The hardship of life in terms of insurance or in terms of buying homes needs understanding from the mufti when he issues a fatwa on some matter: what is the effect on people? He needs consideration before he issues the fatwa: what will happen to people's lives in terms of hardship? And Allah is the One whose help is sought. So I said: Glory be to Allah. At the last conference of AMJA, which is the last conference of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, we found scholarly figures in the country, may Allah preserve everyone, permitting all kinds of insurance, in all its types even life insurance.^[24] Why did we not hear this talk ten years ago or fifteen years ago? That is number one. Number two: dealing with banks in a different way, and buying homes specifically, and those who forbade it, we found people now permitting all kinds of dealings openly, and in the conference, right in front of everyone. Accordingly, my brother, the development that takes place takes time, but unfortunately, as our brother kindly said, there are generations whose rights are wronged in this framework.

And as for the subject of life insurance, I do not issue fatwas on it, and I am not speaking about this matter now, but just suppose a situation: everyone who is in America, even if they are doctors and their income is large, and whenever we collect donations we knock on their door and they do a kindness and give us, masha'Allah, very, very rich, and yet... if he stops working in the morning: Thank you very much, you honored us! Forget the income and all these stories, right, unless he has made investments and the like. And with that we moved to speaking about another framework: I am one of the people who work as a shaykh, the income I have at the end of the month, if we come out of the end of the month and we have no debts, then we are covered, praise be to Allah, sufficient for our homes, a blessing and grace. Fine, if tomorrow morning a problem happens to your voice and you cannot speak, Abū Ḥamzah, will you keep us with you as an imam, or will you send us back? Will you bring someone else? I mean, as long as you do not make "den make sense" and I will not pray silently! I mean it's no shame! Right in front of the noon and afternoon prayers, now! Just something, merely an example. Fine, our friend, may Allah have mercy on him, Shaykh Ahmad, was good, the talk goes well, where will his wife go? She will go to Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raʾūf to do a kindness, you are talking about relief efforts, do a kindness, give us something for the kids, am I not also the wife of the Shaykh who was... By Allah, sister, may Allah reward you well, and we are at Abū Ḥamzah's command, give us something, my husband was an imam with you, so-and-so, do a kindness! How much will you collect from all these people in a month? They will give her for a number of months, and people will ask: Until when? And to where? And we imagine that we must remain the ones who beg! Merely an example.

And one of the brothers asked me some time ago: Is it permissible for my son to take out a loan to complete his medical studies? So I said to him: No, of course not! He said to me: Why? I said to him: Because we are Muslims, we must be the ones who remain sick all our lives, we must never be doctors ever! There, he goes and takes a loan and succeeds and becomes a doctor, outstanding masha'Allah, and he is pointed out in the newspapers and press as a famous Muslim doctor? Man, leave him thrown on the bed, let us be the sick ones, wonderful! So until when will this mentality keep thinking this way? We are living in a system in which the default is that we follow from it what does not conflict with the constants. And this word "constants," each one of us will understand it as he pleases, so as to say to you: Yes, this is a constant or a variable. And from here the study of the jurisprudence of constants and variables is also necessary, put it on the list, that is, and Allah the Exalted knows best. So the matter of moving with society must exist, otherwise we are besieged from time to time in a place from which we find no escape except to say: We surrender, what we used to forbid yesterday has become permissible today. So think from now and decide, even if you will face society. I have no problem coming out with words about which people say of me: You are not good, but some of them follow, and after ten years he says: May Allah have mercy on him, he was ahead of his time. And Allah the Exalted knows best.

Consequences in the first marriage and intention. And one of the brothers asked about consequences in marriage: (in garbled speech) about the consequences of the first marriage and the problems connected with the family, and whether there are certain choices so that error does not occur in the future, and is there a way to foresee the future? So I said: Permit me to put the question in another way: does Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, hold us accountable for mere acts, or for acts that were planned and reflected upon as to what they lead to? So if I married a woman under certain circumstances, then Allah decreed, with a righteous intention and a confident mind, then Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, decreed that we differ, so how do we differ now, and when do we differ, and what will this difference lead to? If these matters are settled in the contract, then Allah, blessed and exalted, rewards the servant according to the knowledge and intention he has. Are we agreed? Is the answer clear, or a little more? We did not marry so as to be sentenced to death: that we must remain together with this woman all our lives, or she must remain under this man's hand all his life. No, we live in a framework of life of give and take, between peace and so on. But what do you mean? I married in order to go and divorce her a little later after I get citizenship or get the papers or get the two pennies she inherited? Is that my intention? Or is my intention to live, but we differed, differed, differed, without any means of reconciliation? Then if the decision of divorce is taken with the required calm and the excellence that the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Exalted, sought, then there is no offense for which we seek forgiveness. Are we agreed? And if she comes to say: I cannot live with this man for the rest of my life, fine, why? So we gather the matter and reflect on the subject and so on. For this reason the man has the right of divorce and the woman the right of khulʿ; this is in the woman's hands, she requests it, and that is in the man's hands, he exercises it. And since when the woman requests khulʿ, and she has someone who manages her affairs during marriage, there must be someone who manages her affairs during khulʿ, whether a judge or the ruler of the Muslims or the imam of the community or whoever is in these matters. And Allah, blessed and exalted, knows best. So Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, holds us accountable for random actions, or holds us accountable for bad intention. But if the mind is balanced and the movement controlled, then Allah, blessed and exalted, taught our Prophet ﷺ to tell us: «إنما الأعمال بالنيات، وإنما لكل امرئ…» (Actions are only by intentions, and every person will have only …).^[25]

Divorce and the children. And another asked on the same point: Divorce used to happen in the days of the Messenger and the Companions and it was not considered a crime. So I said: No, it is not a crime. He said: I mean that the consequences for the children are sometimes that the spouses continue in marriage while the disagreement among them is great, so the consequences may be worse for the children, they imagine that this is the model of marriage and that this is the correct situation; and one of them added that the children, even after divorce, should not be a weapon of war between the divorced, neither the father falling short toward his children because he divorced their mother, for these are his children in the end and at the start and their maintenance is on him, nor the mother using them as a weapon, inciting them against their father because he divorced. And he added that the consequences are not in divorce itself, and that we have many texts on this subject if we study them with wisdom, because the idea of divorce is based on the fact that there are bad feelings between people, so Islam set controls, and if we truly made Islam the judge in our lives the consequences would not be bad for the children. So I said: Correct; when we spoke about the consequences of divorce we did not say that divorce in itself always has dire consequences, no, rather we spoke about how the decision will be taken, and why, and what will follow from it. And if the divorce results in benefit...

Divorce by three. And one of the sisters asked: If the husband says "you are divorced by three," we studied long ago that one divorce takes effect, because one of the conditions of divorce is that it be among three divorces in three separate occasions, but what I hear now is that people say: No, "divorced by three" counts as divorced by three. So I said: The matter has two opinions with us to begin with. The opinion that said the triple divorce takes effect as one divorce is the opinion of Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah the Exalted have mercy on him, and the point that the divorce resulting from the word is tied to the wording is also a respected position; so whoever says that is not mistaken, and whoever says that is not mistaken. So what do we do? We look at the case file, you know the clever lawyer who sees how he can come out with the least losing outcome? The least anticipated loss from the project; so if this is what is beneficial we use this opinion, and if that is what is beneficial we use that opinion. So whoever told you that is correct, and what you studied previously is as it is, unchanged, but it represents one opinion among a number of opinions. (And I was asked: Isn't there a preponderant opinion?) So I said: No, as I told you, we must distinguish between these as existing legal rulings. It works exactly like what? Like the medicines the doctor prescribes, but who hands out the appropriate medicine? The pharmacist. So the pharmacist says to you: You have such and such, he says to you: This will have a side effect, do not take this, take this, here is the generic for you. So the shaykh who is present, who is supposed to issue fatwas for the community or in the Muslim society, is supposed to know his community's circumstances and to follow the movement of these homes inwardly and outwardly and everything, so if a matter is presented to him he is the most entitled to know where to apply and what to apply, and what the ruling to be followed is or what opinion he will adopt. So each case file is tailored on its own and judged on its own, but the opinions in themselves exist. May Allah bless you.

And the gathering concluded with their saying: Glory be to You, O Allah, and praise; we bear witness that there is no god but You, we seek Your forgiveness and repent to You, and with the recitation of Sūrat al-ʿAṣr: ﴿وَالْعَصْرِ ۝ إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ ۝ إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا…﴾ (By time, indeed mankind is in loss, except those who believe and do righteous deeds and advise one another …).

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: This is what the speaker said, and it has been kept as it came. What is known in the narrations of the story of Abū Dharr's conversion in the Two Ṣaḥīḥs is that the Prophet ﷺ commanded him to return to his people and conceal his matter until Allah's command came to him, but he announced his Islam and was beaten. So the matter needs a review of the attribution. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The story of Ḥudhayfah at the Trench was narrated by Muslim, and in it are his words ﷺ: «وَلَا تَذْعَرْهُمْ عَلَيَّ» ("and do not alarm them against me"). The speaker said that the wording was something like what he related and that its meaning is not to stir up their grudges. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: This is from the speaker's words in estimating his being killed before his conversion; Abū Sufyān, may Allah be pleased with him, did embrace Islam afterward in the year of the Conquest. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: al-Fatḥ: 1. The speaker did not mention the verse number. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: al-Fatḥ: 27. The speaker did not mention the verse number. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The story is in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the hadith of al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, may Allah be pleased with him, and others. The speaker mentioned the name Suhayl bare because of the garbling of the transcript in his lineage. The wording of the Ṣaḥīḥ in the writing is: «هَذَا مَا قَاضَى عَلَيْهِ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ», and the speaker mentioned it as «هذا ما بين محمد رسول الله». ^[7]: Editor's documentation: The speaker attributed the coastal camp to Abū Jandal alone, whereas what is established in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī from the hadith of al-Miswar and Marwān is that Abū Baṣīr, may Allah be pleased with him, is the one who fled and settled at the seashore, and then Abū Jandal and others joined him until they became a band. The speaker's text has been retained, and this is a note of caution. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: al-Fatḥ: 25. The speaker did not mention the location of the verse. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: al-Anʿām: 108. The speaker did not mention the location of the verse. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: al-Aḥzāb: 37. The speaker did not mention the location of the verse. ^[11]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the hadith of Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, and in it is «لَا تُزْرِمُوهُ», and in one wording: «دَعُوهُ» ("leave him"). The phrase "do not cut off his urination" was mentioned by the speaker in the other narration. ^[12]: Editor's documentation: Its wording in the Two Ṣaḥīḥs from the hadith of Jābir, may Allah be pleased with him, is: «دَعْهُ، لَا يَتَحَدَّثُ النَّاسُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا يَقْتُلُ أَصْحَابَهُ» ("Leave him, lest people say that Muhammad kills his companions"). The speaker cited it in question form as it appeared in the transcript. ^[13]: Editor's documentation: al-Māʾidah: 54. The speaker did not mention the location of the verse. ^[14]: Editor's documentation: The transcript has «يعطنا», perhaps «يعقّنا» ("disobey us") on the indication of the context, though this is not certain. ^[15]: Editor's documentation: Something like it was narrated by al-Nasāʾī and al-Ḥākim from the hadith of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shaddād from his father, may Allah be pleased with him, and the speaker mentioned it by meaning. ^[16]: Editor's documentation: al-Isrāʾ: 23. The speaker did not mention the location of the verse. ^[17]: Editor's documentation: Agreed upon from the hadith of Ibn ʿUmar and ʿĀʾishah, may Allah be pleased with them. The transcript breaks off at «سيو»; the well-known wording completes it as «سَيُوَرِّثُهُ» ("he would make him an heir"). ^[18]: Editor's documentation: The well-known wording in the Two Ṣaḥīḥs from the hadith of Ibn ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with them both, is: «إِنَّا أُمَّةٌ أُمِّيَّةٌ لَا نَكْتُبُ وَلَا نَحْسُبُ، الشَّهْرُ هَكَذَا وَهَكَذَا» ("We are an unlettered nation; we neither write nor calculate; the month is thus and thus"). The speaker cited it with the wording «لا نقرأ ولا نكتب» ("we neither read nor write"), so it has been kept as he said it. ^[19]: Editor's documentation: al-Baqarah: 189. The speaker stopped at «مواقيت ل»; the verse continues: ﴿لِلنَّاسِ وَالْحَجِّ﴾ ("for the people and for the Ḥajj"). ^[20]: Editor's documentation: al-Isrāʾ: 12. The speaker cited the verse up to «لتبتغوا… ولتعلموا عدد السنين»; it continues: ﴿فَضْلًا مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ وَلِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ﴾ ("bounty from your Lord, and that you may know the number of years and the reckoning"). ^[21]: Editor's documentation: Yā Sīn: 40. The speaker cited it in summary. ^[22]: Editor's documentation: Something like it appears in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī from the hadith of Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, that a slave girl of the slave girls of Medina would take the hand of the Prophet ﷺ and go off with him wherever she wished. The speaker mentioned it by meaning. ^[23]: Editor's documentation: The story is in the Two Ṣaḥīḥs on the Farewell Pilgrimage, and in it are al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbbās and the woman of Khathʿam. The speaker's words about it are garbled in the transcript, so they have been kept in summary. ^[24]: Editor's documentation: This is the speaker's report of what he witnessed at the conference, and not a fatwa from him (and he stated that he does not issue fatwas on life insurance). The transcript did not specify the resolution or the conference; so the Assembly's resolution should be consulted before reliance. ^[25]: Editor's documentation: Agreed upon from the hadith of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him. The speaker stopped at «وإنما لكل امرئ»; its well-known completion is «مَا نَوَى» ("what he intended").