The General Objectives of Islam

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered to university youth on October 3, 2018 Source: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Dr. Ahmed began the session by praying for the university youth present: that Allah make them the best leaders of this future, preserve their well-being and make them content, and make their youth a sign of sound faith and a mark of the righteous. Then he reminded them of where the previous session on the objectives of the Sharī‘ah had ended: that Islam is not a random religion, and not merely a religion that tells you: sit a little in the mosque, read something of the Qur’an, pray, and sit with yourself in seclusion, and when this time is over, do whatever you like. Islam came with great aims, aims that build up the universe and build up the human soul, that deal with the human being in himself, and connect him to the universe in which he lives, to the people around him, and to his Creator, glorified and exalted. The human being has many relationships, and the objectives of Islam organize all of them.

Our Relationship with Allah: It Has a Method and Rules

The first of these relationships is the human being's relationship with his Lord. Many people speak of it as though it were a private matter; one of them says to you: this is between me and my Lord, I am free in how I relate to Him, so what business is it of yours? So let us ask our Lord, glorified is He: My Lord, did You leave people to connect with You in whatever way pleases them, or did You set for them a method for dealing with You? And here the lecturer invites us to think together, simply, in the field of belief: may I believe about Allah whatever I wish, and say about my Lord anything?

We have an example in the Qur’an: some people said at one time: ﴿إِنَّ اللَّهَ فَقِيرٌ وَنَحْنُ أَغْنِيَاءُ﴾ (Indeed, Allah is poor and we are rich), and Allah, glorified is He, answered them: ﴿سَنَكْتُبُ مَا قَالُوا وَقَتْلَهُمُ الْأَنبِيَاءَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ﴾ (We will record what they said and their killing of the prophets without right)^[1], making this saying of theirs coupled with their other crimes. It is not my right to speak about my Lord with just any words simply because they crossed my mind or I imagined them. In belief there are rules and standards, and Allah has sent down for us something like an "instructor," that is, a method and a way in which we deal with Him, and we were told: you should not say about Allah anything except what pleases Him, glorified is He, and what suits the greatness of divinity and the majesty of Allah, mighty and exalted.

And by this we can answer the youngster who asks: why do I not see my Lord? Can't I sit with Him and talk a little? And how is He on the Footstool, how is He on the Throne, how is He in the heaven, or on the earth, or where is He? And what is the story of this unseen God whom you make us worship? And the answer, in the utmost simplicity: the station of divinity in itself does not allow us to deal with Him as some of us deal with one another. I deal with people here face to face; we sit like this, and I see your appearance and your glasses, and we have a common language and a mutual dialogue. But with the Lord of Might, glorified is He, I cannot do that, rather I connect with Him in what is called the unseen.

Every Kind of Perfection Belongs to Him, Glorified Is He

So if we agree that we have rules and a method for dealing with Allah, the first thing we believe about Him, glorified is He, is that He has every kind of perfection. And this is a very important sentence; so what does "He has every kind of perfection" mean? It means that everything good is attributed to Him, and that He, glorified is He, is in the most complete state of perfection. Take beauty, for example: beauty is relative; this one is beautiful by thirty percent, another by fifty, another by seventy, another by a hundred. So if I describe Allah as beautiful, His measure is a hundred percent, and what we cannot imagine beyond that. And take strength: I can lift these tissues and put them down here, and this is strength. But if their weight were five kilograms, it would tire me, and if it were fifty kilograms, and if it were five thousand, and if it were the universe and what is in it? Strength is one of the completions of human beings, or of a person; but if we attribute it to Allah, mighty and exalted, He is higher and greater than being a person we speak about, rather He is by His very self, glorified, exalted on high.

And accordingly, if Allah has all the attributes of perfection, then there is nothing ugly in Him, and therefore nothing ugly can come to you from your Lord. Just as the very tender mother, who does for her children everything they want, never imagine that she might hit you or hurt you.

So Where Is the Mercy If We See Affliction?

And here the lecturer asks those present: if we find some people suffering in their lives because they have problems, how do we answer this question? We have a patient complaining, and we all believe that Allah is gentle with His servants, merciful with His servants, compassionate toward His servants, yet in the hospitals there are very many people. So how do we reconcile these two?

One of those present said: This is a trial from Allah. So the lecturer asked him: And what does it mean that it is a trial from Allah? Is mercy, in people's general understanding, that nothing bad ever comes to you from Him? Someone said: training. Training for what? For patience. So the lecturer took this answer and went on with it: you train a person for something so that afterward he may practice other things. If you wanted someone to become world champion in boxing, or bodybuilding, or karate, or wrestling, you train him to be patient; he is patient through the blows and the knocks, and he falls and gets up and runs. This is true, but you do not train him in patience for the sake of patience itself, but so that afterward he may be able to accomplish greater works.

Then the lecturer objects to himself with a harder question: and what about someone with cancer, thrown in the hospital, who will remain in this state until he dies? (We ask Allah to grant well-being to all humankind). So where is the purpose here? And how do we reconcile Allah's perfect mercy with these cases? And as you see, entire peoples whose homes are demolished and who are bombed from the sky, so punishment, for what? And how do we combine this system visible before our eyes with what we believe about Allah, that He is generous, forbearing, gentle, and kind to His servants?

So he says: in principle we have two possibilities: we may grasp the reason with our minds, and we may not grasp it. And if we do not grasp it, then the problem is with me, not with my Lord. And here the lecturer gave several examples.

The small wound. Imagine that an older person was struck by a small wound in his leg, and he asked himself: how does this knock hit me and I suffer from it? And he found no reason for it. But fifty years later, as he walks with his grandson, he protects him from being struck by the very same knock that would have killed him, and he realizes that that small injury in his leg made him, fifty years later, protect his grandson from one of the places of destruction. And this is a very simple example.

The drowning man. And when we see someone who almost drowned in the water, and then suffered after that for two weeks or three or a month, the strong, severe experience he went through taught him swimming, so afterward he saved a friend of his who would have died a real death.

So the way in which Allah manages the world is greater than our minds, we simple people who think on a small scale. And someone may say to me: Shaykh, by this you are saying that we do not understand and will not understand our Lord's wisdom in the universe? And the idea is not that, but rather: if we had a group of companies, could one person set up the branches of Microsoft around the world? Is the manager of this place here of the same competence as the one who runs all of Microsoft's companies in the world? Should there be a difference between them? Of course, because the size of the responsibility is huge. And I here run this class with fifty people in front of me, masha’Allah, girls and boys, may Allah preserve everyone. Is the situation the same if there were five thousand people in front of me to talk to? If I were speaking to you now with my voice alone, and your number were double this, we would need a loudspeaker, and if it were five thousand we would need a complete sound system, of much higher efficiency. So what of Allah's, glorified is He, management of the universe, and His knowledge of every small and large thing, and His being the Cause of causes and the One who breaks through causes and transcends matters?

Then we return and ask: why, for example, was our master Moses, peace be upon him, among those tried? And you know that he suffered very much in his life. And why was our master Abraham, peace be upon him, thrown into the fire? And why was our master Joseph, peace be upon him, thrown into prison? And if we come to our master Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and the suffering he had, he is the most beloved of Allah's creation to Allah, and no one is loved by our Lord more than him. So if these are the most beloved, and yet they were tried, then imagine that the matter has wisdom in it. And this is very natural among people: when I love someone, I pamper him, and put him in a good place, and give him all he wants, and leave nothing to disturb him. But if I sometimes deliberately am harsh with someone I love, has the matter turned into hatred? It is not hatred, so what is it called then? Discipline.

And the summary of all this is that our Lord, glorified is He, made for us a way in which to deal with Him, as a method on which people walk, and that this was not limited to mere belief. We have believed that Allah, glorified is He, has all attributes of perfection, and we were also told: the servant must negate from Allah, the Exalted, every attribute of deficiency. So it is not right for anyone to describe the Lord of the worlds with an attribute that is not good; so he does not say that our Lord is a coward, nor that He fears, we seek refuge in Allah. This is not right because it does not suit the station of divinity in itself.

Islam Is Not a Random Religion

Then the lecturer returned to the root of the idea: everything in Islam exists for an aim and a purpose, and Islam is not a random religion. And he brought it closer with a familiar scene: when we sit eating seeds and crunchy snacks, you do not sit and arrange them one after another, rather they are thrown like this, and you pick from them what you like. This differs from when you cut a cake and divide it into pieces; some people cut triangles, and some do otherwise according to their taste, but the matter is relatively orderly. If we took these things and put them in a dish and they got mixed up with each other, we take anything that falls into our hands. But Islam is a very orderly religion; if we had a puzzle we wanted to arrange in its place, would it work to put one piece in the place of another? No, because it would not give us the final picture. And Islam in this sense is a religion that is organized in everything, and organizes everything in the dealings of life.

And accordingly the word "objectives" says that Islam is not a random religion. And Allah, glorified is He, says to us an important sentence: ﴿أَفَحَسِبْتُمْ أَنَّمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ عَبَثًا﴾ (Did you think that We created you in vain)^[2]; do you think that We created you just like that and that is all, and threw you away? Do you know the things that are thrown just like that and that's it? Animals in their place are thrown like this, so it is not known who entered first and who second and who ate and who did not, and all this for us is a random matter. But human beings, in the order of the world of creation, are different; Allah, glorified is He, created every human being for a purpose.

So if I return to the example I gave: why am I sick while someone else is not sick? Because Allah, glorified is He, when He created me, made it part of my job that I would be sick at this time. And the meaning of this is that you imagine an employee we have here whom we tell: your job is to supervise this place; from eight to ten you are in the library supervising the work there, so whoever sees him in the library says: this is a cultured person. And from ten to twelve you are in the restrooms, so if someone enters and finds the man wearing his uniform cleaning the bathrooms, he says: this one cleans the bathrooms, that is his job. And after twelve your task is in the garden outside, so someone comes in on him and says: My, this man works as a farmer! And he is originally the general supervisor of the place, but we assigned some times to some jobs, so his job differed with the difference of timing. So Allah, glorified is He, gave us jobs in life; He has given you now a job, that is, a position in this world.

So from the age of eight, or from six, until twenty-three, your job is that you are a student. And after that another job begins: employee, engineer, doctor, university professor, or whatever. And at the same time you are an employee, and you are also a husband, so you have two jobs. Then you had a child and became a father or a mother, so there are three jobs. And you are with us a volunteer at the university helping with such and such, so you have become in four positions. So is it possible that among the positions Allah gives me at some time is that I be a prisoner? This is Joseph, peace be upon him: at one stage he manages the affairs of the king's palace, at one stage a prisoner, at one stage a caller to Allah, at one stage in control of the whole country. All of them are positions Allah made for him, in all circumstances.

Islam Is Comprehensive: Knowledge and Woman

So the religion is a set of objectives, and Allah did not make Islam merely one single matter, but made it a general religion for all affairs of life. So if someone comes to you saying: why is Islam the enemy of knowledge, and Islam has wronged knowledge and the sciences and everything? Then say: No, by Allah, Islam was never an enemy of knowledge; Islam commanded people to learn, and commanded them to teach, and commanded them to preserve knowledge in the reality of life, and it never wronged knowledge in any way.

And if he says to you: why does Islam ignore woman and make an enemy of her, because she is a weak element in society, and treat her as a servant or for pleasure? Then say to him: Islam, when it spoke to humanity, spoke to the human being. And do we understand what the human being is? A creature with two forms: the form of a man and the form of a woman, who complement each other for the building up of this universe which is on this earth. And if it is said to you: be careful, for when Allah said: ﴿إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً﴾ (Indeed, I will place upon the earth a successor)^[3] He spoke about the man alone, about Adam alone; then say: no, He spoke about Adam and what results from Adam, peace be upon him. And if we suppose that woman was created from Adam, then she is an inseparable part of him; her place is like the place of the heart inside the chest, and the place of the mind in the brain, and she is the highest that can be in the life of that man. And when the cycle of life turns I see that I was created only because of a woman, and had it not been for her existence I would not have been in life, so then the status of this human being grows great in my eyes, and the level of obligation is the same level of obligation.

Do we have a difference or an agreement in the legal obligations between man and woman? When we said to people: pray, did we say to the man pray and to the woman do not pray? Or did we say it to both? It is the same. And if it is said: the girls have days on which they do not pray; we only gave them rest on those days for matters connected with that period and suited to that condition, so this is by way of respect and added dignity, not by way of diminishing.

And when we spoke about zakāh, did we say that men differ from women in paying it if they have money? And before that a question: did we give woman at all the right to have money? For we are speaking about societies that say that woman has no right to own anything, neither money nor any possessions, and among people there are those who say that to this day with a different logic. But Allah, glorified and exalted, established for woman a right from her being a daughter or a wife or a mother. Rather, on the contrary, she is the first and last one served inside the home in terms of financial sufficiency. For this man, our friend, with his mustache and beard, goes out in the morning to work so as to bring money at the end of the day, for whom? Not for himself, while the rest go hungry! Rather what is required of him before Allah, glorified is He, is that he feed these first before he eats: his mother, his wife, his sister and his daughter, for they come first in terms of feeding. Then we say to her: you have the right to own money. And when we imposed zakāh, did we say to the man: you owe zakāh on wealth, and to the woman: you owe no zakāh? No, we required it of both. And when we obligated people with Ḥajj, did we say that it is upon people except women? ﴿وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى النَّاسِ … مَنِ اسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيلًا﴾ (And due to Allah from the people … for whoever is able to find thereto a way)^[4], from men and from women, from both. So the legal obligations addressed all human beings, because Islam, when it aimed at objectives in life, took into account all the affairs of these human beings.

The Five Objectives and Their Order

And we agreed last time that we have five basic objectives which Islam works to preserve: the preservation of religion, then the self that embraces this religion, then the intellect that absorbs it, then the progeny that will carry the religion to the new generation, then the wealth that serves the whole system. Then he asked those present to repeat them with him: religion, self, intellect, progeny, and wealth. And he asked: religion is the greatest objective; so who is it that believes in the religion? The self. And who is it that comprehends how to apply the religion? The intellect. And who carries the religion to the next stage? The progeny. And who serves all of these? Wealth. And wealth: is it number one or the last number? The last number. And as we walk in the journey of life we must keep in mind that money is not everything.

And here the lecturer directed a point especially to the youth at the university: when you plan your specialization and think about what you will be, I know that very many people, before choosing the field in which they will work, go to "Shaykh Google," and ask him: tell us, our esteemed master Shaykh Google, what will the salary of these people be when they graduate? Is that not so? Who has done this? No one? I know you did that long ago, all people did that without exception: shall I enter engineering? Their salary starts at thirty or fifty or seventy, I don't know how much. No, I won't enter this, rather I'll enter that so I will sacrifice after so many years. They speak about what you will collect before they speak about the benefit that will return to society from your presence. And Allah, glorified is He, was teaching me from the beginning that before you think of yourself you must think of others, and the best thing you can sacrifice for, and live existing and honorably for, is to sacrifice for your religion, and establish its pillars, and establish its presence in life.

Why Do We Preserve the Religion? Its Enemies Are Many

So why do we preserve the religion at all? Does not each of us practice religion quietly, then go to his Lord one day and that is the end of it? Allah said to us: No, it is not right, because the religion specifically has very many enemies.

The first enemy of the religion is falsehood. Allah, glorified is He, says: ﴿بَلْ نَقْذِفُ بِالْحَقِّ عَلَى الْبَاطِلِ﴾ (Rather, We hurl the truth upon falsehood)^[5]; so there is falsehood and there is truth, and the two quarrel all the time. So we have falsehood present that is an enemy of this religion that I practice. And if each of us busied himself with himself, falsehood would come and take the religion and go off with it to another place and lose it.

And the second reason for preserving the religion is the instincts and desires. For when Allah created the human being He created in him a set of instincts and desires, and through them we see people staying up late in places where they drink wine, we seek refuge in Allah, and others who have gone off alone in some place doing what they do. So is all this a mistake present in the universe, or a right thing present in it? These instincts that were created and installed in us, Allah, glorified is He, says to me: I am not against them, but it is the religion that makes them proceed in the natural form and come out as a natural result. The relationship between man and woman is a desire at its beginning, but if it is completed in the lawful form there comes to us a beautiful child, whom we are patient with until he grows up, and we raise him until he becomes a respectable man, and he in turn, after the days turn, brings us a little child whom we raise, and life continues. And this child whom we brought through what is lawful will go and learn engineering and medicine and chemistry and physics and geology and others, so he will be a scholar from a generation that was educated before him, and thus life continues until the Day of Resurrection. But if we spent it in chaos, anyone fathering any child who is thrown in the street, and all the children came to know neither father nor mother, and the world got mixed up with one another, it is impossible for anyone to be raised in the street and then preserve the value of society and civilization. He will be lost as his family lost him, and will lose the world he found, not knowing a first from a last for it, because he is a lost human being from the beginning.

Da‘wah Is an Obligation upon Everyone

And since we agreed that the first of the objectives is religion, Allah commanded us to spread the call, and commanded the Prophet ﷺ with the direct command: ﴿ادْعُ إِلَىٰ سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَالْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ﴾ (Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction)^[6]. And this wisdom and good instruction are the means, while the command and obligation here is "invite," that is, that I convey the religion of my Lord to others. So it is a legal obligation. And let no one imagine that those who are asked to convey the religion are only the shaykhs; these shaykhs are people whom Allah honored by gathering the details in their heads, so He put the material in their heads so that they would convey it to people and teach them, and then the people begin to do what? Do they sleep, or do they begin to move?

And he asked those present: what if you entered my mosque or I came to you in this place and we began to speak about matters of religion, what is the next step? Do I say: I have finished today at seven thirty, so peace be upon you, everyone, our session this week is over? And what is asked of you after that? That you say: it was a very beautiful lecture, masha’Allah, thank you, and that is the end of it? No; for the obligation of da‘wah was not addressed to a number of individuals alone. And someone may say: by the way, Allah, glorified is He, says: ﴿فَلَوْلَا نَفَرَ مِن كُلِّ فِرْقَةٍ مِّنْهُمْ طَائِفَةٌ لِّيَتَفَقَّهُوا فِي الدِّينِ وَلِيُنذِرُوا قَوْمَهُمْ﴾ (So why should there not go forth from every division of them a group to become learned in the religion and to warn their people)^[7]; so what is required by this verse is only a number of people. So we say: let us read another text in Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān: ﴿وَلْتَكُن مِّنكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ﴾ (And let there be from you a nation inviting to good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and those are the successful), then He says after it: ﴿وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ تَفَرَّقُوا وَاخْتَلَفُوا﴾ (And do not be like those who became divided and differed)^[8]. So never, on any day, say: I have no connection, the religion is only required of me to practice it. For part of the religion is that you practice da‘wah, that you begin conveying the word of Allah, glorified is He, to the people who live around you.

How Do We Convey? By Speaking the Truth, by Not Taking Part in Falsehood, and by Example

So how do we deliver the message? Don't you feel that you cannot stand on the pulpit and say such and such? And it is not reasonable that you stand on the stairs of the building we entered by, or on the second floor, and call all the students passing in the street: O people, become Muslim or you will go to Hell! This makes no sense. So what do we do? We can at least say to what is right that it is right and to what is wrong that it is wrong when something happens in front of us. You see students, for example, plotting a scheme, wanting to cheat in a subject because it is hard, and wanting to pass it just like that without learning, and someone says: guys, this is wrong. And here those present all laughed at the same time, and the lecturer commented that this general laughter shows that there are calamities happening here! Then he said: perhaps we should leave this example. And one of them said to him: Our Shaykh, this is exam week and you are talking about this? He answered: I did not speak about anyone in particular. Then he returned to his seriousness and said: In any case, if a mistake happens under any name or any kind of mistake, and you said, or I said: guys, this is not right, then you have at least conveyed the call of your Lord in some form.

And another example: you see a classmate whose state is disturbed in class and who no longer focuses with us, then you suddenly discover that he has started using drugs or something of these things, so you begin speaking with him by way of advice and direction and guidance; this is a kind of conveying the call of your Lord. And he is giving very general examples, and does not want to go into details, for he knows that they exist a lot inside society. What matters is that every situation you see as wrong and you say of it that it is right or wrong is in itself a kind of conveying the call.

And if I cannot speak, or my speaking would bring greater harm, then at the very least I do not join with those who do the wrong. And the lecturer told about a friend of his who said to him days ago that it is the girls who have tired themselves out: they study from the beginning of the book to its end, and stay up night and day. So he said to him: So what do clever people like you do? He said: They know what is required and how to finish it. And the lecturer said that this is a subject we will ask about next time, but he is sure that his friend does not do anything wrong, but rather focuses on certain things. But if what is required really is cheating, does this mean that in order to be a "smart man" I do like those who cheat? No; at the very least, if I cannot convey, and cannot deliver my word and tell people: what you are doing is right or wrong, then I am not part of the wrong that is practiced. So when people say: come on, guys, let's distribute the "cheat sheets," how many copies do we need today? They know who does not take part with them in that, so they exclude him from the count, and count the copies according to those who do that with them.

Then your being inside the class or the university or among the people around you as a respectable model is in itself da‘wah, and it is what they call da‘wah by example: that you be a respectable person in the midst of people.

Preserve the Religion in Yourself First

And when we spoke about preserving the religion, we said that you are responsible, as a Muslim human being, for bearing witness to Allah, glorified is He, of divinity, and to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, of messengership, and that you preserve the religion of Allah. But take note: you will never be able to preserve the religion among people unless you preserve it inside yourself. And I give you a very simple example: our Lord, glorified and exalted, before He said to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him: ﴿قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ﴾ (Arise and warn), that is, before He said to him: come, begin now, move to convey the call of your Lord, there was a stage before it. What is the stage before it? He said to him: ﴿قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا ۝ نِّصْفَهُ أَوِ انقُصْ مِنْهُ قَلِيلًا ۝ أَوْ زِدْ عَلَيْهِ وَرَتِّلِ الْقُرْآنَ تَرْتِيلًا ۝ إِنَّا سَنُلْقِي عَلَيْكَ قَوْلًا ثَقِيلًا﴾ (Arise the night, except for a little, half of it, or subtract from it a little, or add to it, and recite the Qur’an with measured recitation. Indeed, We will cast upon you a heavy word)^[9]. So before you take part in wrestling and go up in the ring and enter the race, you must train yourself. So before you wait for people to pray, you must also be praying. And before I wait for those around me to refrain from something wrong that I do, I must be preserving this thing and not doing it. I must be an example for those around me in refraining from wrong before I command people to do so, and I will not be able to preserve the religion except if I preserve it in myself first. So before I speak about prayer I must be one who prays, and before I command people to do good and what is right I must practice it myself, naturally, between me and myself.

And the lecturer said: I will not speak more than this about the matter of religiosity, but let us speak about the preservation of the self, and how the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, commanded it, and we have agreed to finish the four remaining objectives today in about an hour.

Preservation of the Self: Before Existence, in the Womb, and After Birth

Islam wanted to preserve the human self, so it began by forbidding aggression against it: it forbade aggression against the human self before it exists, and forbade aggression against it while it is in the mother's womb, and forbade aggression against it after it came out into the world. And among people there were those who killed their children out of poverty, killing the kids and burying them in the dust and getting rid of them in one way or another to be relieved of the expenses, and look at this mentality! Allah, glorified is He, says in Sūrat al-An‘ām: ﴿وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا أَوْلَادَكُم مِّنْ إِمْلَاقٍ نَّحْنُ نَرْزُقُكُمْ وَإِيَّاهُمْ﴾ (And do not kill your children out of poverty; We provide for you and for them)^[10]. And in Sūrat al-Isrā’ He says: ﴿وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا أَوْلَادَكُمْ خَشْيَةَ إِمْلَاقٍ نَّحْنُ نَرْزُقُهُمْ وَإِيَّاكُمْ﴾ (And do not kill your children for fear of poverty; We provide for them and for you)^[11].

And the lecturer asked: do you imagine the difference between the two? A small word and a big one: "out of poverty" or "for fear of poverty." In the first verse He said: "We provide for you and for them," and in the second He said: "We provide for them and for you." Why? As for the first, when the children actually exist, and we kill them because we have no expenses to spend on them and want to be relieved of them, our Lord says: do not kill your children out of poverty, We provide for you; you do not in the first place have the ability to provide for yourselves, so what of the children? This is not your business.

The Story of the Father Who Went on Ḥajj, the Daughter, and the Prince

And on this occasion the lecturer told a charming story, which he said is related: that a father longed to perform Ḥajj, was very eager for it, and said to his children: I want to perform Ḥajj. His wife said to him: You will go on Ḥajj, so who will feed us? And Ḥajj in the old days was not five days in which you go and come back, rather when a man left one country for another he rode the camel and walked through the desert, and Allah knows whether he would return or not, and he might remain on the journey a month or two or three, or four, and perhaps six months. She said: So when will you return, and who will feed us all this time? The daughter asked her mother: Mother, what did you say? She said: I said to him: and who will provide for us and who will feed us? The daughter said to her: "I never knew my father as a provider, I only knew him as an eater." Meaning that my father is not the one who provides for us; he is one of the members of the household who eat, so if we eat and are waiting for someone to feed us, my father also eats and waits for someone to feed him. The mother said: But your father is the one who goes out to work and brings the money. The daughter said: The Lord of the worlds will provide for us without our father as He used to provide for us with our father. And the matter is settled for her; she understands that the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, is the one who provides, and that the father works and brings the money, but Allah is the one who sends the money.

So the man went, with his intense longing for Ḥajj, and left the children and said to them: your provision is upon Allah, glorified is He. And meanwhile the prince was walking through the town, passing in front of the houses, and he suddenly became thirsty and said: I want to drink water, let one of you bring me some water. And every time they brought him water he tasted it and found it hot, and the prince was used to a certain water. So this girl came out to him with a clean, beautiful cup with cold water in it, and she heard that the guards were running quickly wanting water for the prince. The prince drank and said: Allah! Where is this water from? They said: From this house. So he took out the bag of dinars, some beautiful gold, and threw it inside the house, and said to those around him: whoever loves me, let him do as I did. And of course whoever seeks closeness to the prince does likewise, so the people came out and the house filled with gold. And our friend, who is on Ḥajj, if he had been present he would have entered on them with half a dinar of that money which was all thrown, but he is not present; yet the Provider, glorified and exalted, suffices His servants with what He wills and as He wills, because He has power over the universe and what is in it.

And we return to the beginning of the talk we were in: when we describe the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, with the attributes of perfection, He is the One able to do everything in life without causes He needs, and without making His servants who believe in Him need anything at all^[12].

Abortion: The Default Is Prohibition, Then the Exceptions

And the first thing in the subject of the self is that Islam preserved you before you came and during your existence. So it forbade aggression against the fetus in its mother's womb, that is, causing it to be aborted; so is this lawful or forbidden? And he asked those present, and one of them answered: It depends on the case. The lecturer said: when we issue rulings and want a ruling without the exceptions, is the default in abortion prohibition or permissibility? Prohibition. And when does it happen otherwise? When there are exceptions. And the default for wine is forbidden, with one voice, unless an exception is found, so would you tell me that there is no exception with wine? Rather, if a man in the desert finds no water and will die and will not live unless he drinks some of that, then necessity is estimated by its measure. But it does not mean that we go to the place where these things are and we have no water and say: we will die of thirst, so just show me, and let us have some fun, so that I preserve my life, I am a religious man! And by way of example: is the default for water permissibility or prohibition? Permissibility, but in one of the sick conditions, if someone drank a glass of water it would kill him, and a drop of water might enter a certain place and he would die, then drinking water would be forbidden. Agreed? And one of those present commented: if the general term is stated in a legal ruling, it is applied to the generality, then the exceptions come afterward attached to it. The lecturer thanked him.

So we agreed that the default in abortion is prohibition, unless exceptions arise on which the specialist has issued a ruling, that in it there is life for something else, or the fuller benefit results from it, or that not aborting will cause harm, and so on. So we have many possibilities, and the jurists debate the cases of deformities of fetuses in the mothers' wombs, and whether it is in the interest to keep a deformed child or not, and the degree of deformity present, the resulting benefit and the resulting harm, and the proportion of probable life for the mother or probable death for the mother if we keep the fetus or abort it. Many matters revolve around this issue, and we can speak about them in detail at some time, and perhaps he alluded to them last year when he spoke about the subject.

And he asked: do you see, do we have abortion forbidden if the fetus is a boy, and permitted if it is a girl? So can we get rid of a fetus if it is a girl because we do not want girls? This talk is wrong. If I preserve the fetus, I preserve it whether it is a boy or a girl, and I have no kind of discrimination, and I seek Allah's forgiveness that I should be of the mentality that thinks in this way as though it were religion.

After Birth: Nursing, the Sanctity of the Self, and Moral Killing

And as soon as the fetus is born: does the mother have a choice in whether to nurse it or not? And in a more correct formulation (and his speech here is confused in the transcript): if it is obligatory upon the parents to feed him, it is because his life is dependent on their act. So if that newborn died because of his parents' negligence in feeding him, the sanctity of his life would be upon them, and they would be a cause of his killing. So Allah, glorified is He, preserved the human self during its existence in the womb, and after its coming out into the world. And can we kill him, when we did not finish him inside the mother's womb, so that we finish him now? The answer: no, if he came out into life he is counted among the living existing on the face of the earth, so what is forbidden to the rest of humanity is forbidden concerning him, so it is forbidden for me to kill him or to commit aggression against him.

But the matter is bigger than killing. For Allah, glorified is He, when He preserved the human entity, and we are speaking about the five objectives, the human self, forbade the demolition of the human structure both physically and morally. What is the meaning of that? If you kill a human being morally, that is, you diminish his standing to the point that he loses confidence in his life, this is called moral killing. Is this lawful? No, it is forbidden. It is forbidden that you destroy a person's psychology so that he goes out into the world having lost his human identity, feeling that his existence is like his non-existence, and that he is a human being no one needs. Whoever did that has committed a sin, and here we distinguish between the one who did it deliberately and the one who did it out of ignorance. Therefore we always say to people: as you deal with your children, beware of destroying them morally before they grow up, rather give them confidence in themselves so that they go out into life feeling their worth, so they can change the thing.

And here is a very simple example; they say that there was once a very big elephant, pardon me, a small elephant that its owner brought and tied its leg with a chain at whose end was a block of iron. And whenever the elephant pulled the iron to walk it found it holding him, for it was strong and heavy and the elephant was small. And the elephant grew big, and every so often the man would come and widen the circle for him according to his size. But the elephant's owner discovered after a while that the elephant no longer tried at all to pull the iron. Why? Because he had gotten an "attitude" in his brain, a self-conviction that he was unable to pull it. And the surprise was that the man needed at one time this quantity of iron to sell it, so he was forced to put something else of wood in its place, its shape resembling iron, so that if he blew on it, it would fly, yet he did not try to drag it, not even by sheer chance. Why? Because he had a self-conviction that he was a being incapable of doing this. And from here come the skills of building the self from within.

So are you raising your children as ones who are able to face problems or not? And do you leave someone to drive the car and say to him: drive, it is no concern of mine, are you able or not? And this is an example of that. And did your father ever say to you: here, take this sum, spend it on the house? Wow if he had! Then he said jokingly to those present: do not sit in front of me like that. And he prayed for them that Allah be pleased with them, and said: say amen. Then he asked: Do you like the elephant topic more, or do you like more that your father gives you your allowance? And the first half ended with the break.

The Question of Cheating: Its Forms and Limits

And after the tea break the lecturer resumed with the basmala and praise and blessings on the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and said that some of those present had spoken to him during the interval that the topic of cheating that was discussed in the first half needed more detail. So he defined cheating as the use of information available at the time of the exam for which its owner did not exert effort in acquiring.

Then he presented the forms. The form that reached him: that one of the students has old exams of the same course which passed on the same class before with the same professor, so he studies them well and says to the people: these are the exam models. So does the professor display these exams publicly or not? For we must distinguish between two things: between someone who has a question bank, which is a stock the professor keeps to himself, and the questions he puts within people's reach. And he gave an example from his experience as a teacher: I renew the exams every year, but I can mix and blend among the questions and bring out a new product from this quantity of questions. And I explain to the students, and the idea occurs to me that in this point there is a question, so I put it after the course ends, so after the course I have twenty questions or fifty or thirty or forty, until the system of questions is complete and reaches seven hundred questions. This is my bank. So have you stolen my bank and taken its questions and gone out with them to the students? Or did I put the questions of past years on my website on the internet and say: these are the materials and these are their questions and these are the passages, so you went and took from this material and studied it well and said to your classmates: guys, whoever doesn't know, let him know, this man has a website on which he puts such and such questions? In this case we have no ground for prohibition, as long as the matters are within people's reach. And Allah knows best, there is no harm in that, unless the form is unclear to me myself.

And one of those present presented the case of "inheritance": I took the final exam with me and the semester ended, then I went to the class in which my friend is, in the same course, and told him the questions. The lecturer said: My dear, if the questions left me as a teacher to you as a student they have left my possession; so they became, for you, common property, and you are free to dispose of them, you can take the paper and tear it up. Unless I stipulated to you before I gave you the exam that I would take the paper from you a second time and that you are not permitted to transmit these questions to others; then you are bound by the condition, so do not pass on what you have to others because you are bound by the condition. And one of those present pointed to many problems in that, such as a student having a friend who gives him the questions and other students not having this way, so it becomes an advantage for one and not the other. And another asked: before I enter the exam committee, may I benefit from my classmate who took the course before? And he was answered that if the talk is about questions that are put out there, there is no harm in that. And the lecturer said: you are not required to publish the books from which you studied or the references you consulted to complete your duty. So imagine you are studying the course of fiqh for example, and I tell you that I am explaining Ḥanafī fiqh, so you went to such and such and such books, and another student was content with the book we carried, so you came in the exam and gave me extra information. So the man from whom you took the old exam copy, if you consider it a model of the exams that may come, this side is lawful, and Allah knows best. But if you took it from him on the basis that it is what will come in the exam today, then you are cheating in advance and memorizing the answers and questions to go and write them, so this is a completely different matter, a "different story."

And one of those present mentioned that the problem in this case is with the professor, because he puts people in a predicament, for if he brought the same questions every year it would be known from reality by necessity that these questions will come in the exams, so he would not be intending to teach people at all. And another saw that cheating in the end comes back on you, you harm yourself. The lecturer said: we are not talking about the stage of study, but about what comes after the stage of study and proceeding to the exams. And we have an obsession called the exam obsession; very many people fear the exam in itself even if they have studied the whole book and other books, and this is generally among students, though the proportions vary among people.

Then he reminded them that whoever neglected study did not fulfill his duty as an employee in the stage of seeking knowledge; he was late to class and absent from lectures. And this is a breach in fulfilling the trust, and we must take the matter as a job. So he asked them: what do you work at? What is your job in life? If you say: nothing, I study; then I say to you: your study is the job. So your work is that you attend lectures, and sit with the teachers, and study and do the assignments; otherwise this is a betrayal from you of the work you are doing, and this is your job at the present time. So when your father, or someone behind you, or even you, pay the tuition fees, you are bound to fulfill what these payments require. So whoever wastes his time, or plays at something, or sits with people instead of entering the lecture or the class, I consider that in itself a kind of betrayal, and Allah the Exalted knows best.

Then one of those present presented a scenario: we are sitting in the exam, and I noticed that my classmate wrote the number seven and it is wrong. The lecturer said: In this case we distinguish between a diligent student and a non-diligent student; one knows the subject but was inattentive, and another has no idea about the subject. So if the intended number is the number of the solution of the problem for example and you give it to him, this is cheating. But that your friend, for example, instead of writing seven wrote eight by mistake, and you alert him, this is a matter of correction, not a crime, and not among what I would call cheating, because you know from the goodness of his condition and his eagerness for study and his commitment what moves you to help him. You are not bringing him a piece of information, but correcting for him a slip of the pen or the hand. And some people may say to you: no, our Lord wrote it so for him, and if Allah had wanted him to write seven he would have written it correctly, and you by this are altering what Allah decreed. But we must distinguish between the cases. And the lecturer noticed that some of them seemed to object to this talk.

Then he said: And Allah the Exalted knows best, for matters, young people, are estimated by their measure, and every ruling in such matters, you may hear something from the mufti in it that differs from the other, because of the case and the person and the person's circumstances and conditions and the proportion available to him, and so on. And he opened the door of questions: do you have comments about this issue, or do you need questions on it before we continue?

Preservation of the Intellect: The Vessel That Comprehends the Sharī‘ah

And after that he returned to the objectives: number one religion, number two the self, number three the intellect. And we said before that the intellect is the vessel that comprehends the Sharī‘ah. When the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, said: establish the prayer and give the zakāh, matters were utterly simple: I will stand, then bow, then stand, then prostrate, then sit, then prostrate. And the proportion of intellect I need in order to pray may be ten percent and may be ninety; do two people praying side by side perform the same movements? Yes, we agree on this. But does a task like the judiciary and applying the legal rulings to persons need an intelligence level of ten percent? How much intelligence does it need? And is the level of intelligence we need to pray the one we need to invent a spaceship? And is inventing a spaceship part of worship? So we joke: perhaps the one who does that wants to go up to the moon, and whether he prayed two rak‘ahs up there or on the way, it is a shortened prayer, but this is not our subject; rather you are going up and you find yourself close to our Lord, glorified is He. In any case, this is by way of joking.

But let us ask right now: is inventing something new in the world of life, which human beings benefit from, a kind of worship or not? And the level of intelligence we need to invent something new is not the level of intelligence required in a child who will stand and pray four rak‘ahs for Allah at ‘Aṣr or ‘Ishā’ or Ẓuhr. Rather, if someone's mental capacities were limited and his whole life was to strike the earth with the hoe so that the crop comes out of it, this is all that exists; he is not asked for a quantity of mental intelligence out of which inventions result. He knows the method, he has the "manual" and goes by it, one two three four, and the produce comes out for you at the end of the year. So if there is a difference in the intellect required for practicing the works of life, so likewise there is a difference in the proportion of intellect required to comprehend the obligations of the Sharī‘ah.

And when we want to apply this religion, where will we apply it? We said: as we pray. So is prayer everything, with nothing after it that we speak about in the religion? No, we have many things. So what do you think about the world of economics? The stock exchange and shares and international trade and trade on the internet? Does this talk need minds or calves? It needs minds that think about it and think about the degree of harmony of these financial dealings with the commands of the Sharī‘ah, or their difference from them. And on that basis I rule, so the text comes from the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He: ﴿أَحَلَّ اللَّهُ الْبَيْعَ وَحَرَّمَ الرِّبَا﴾ (Allah has permitted trade and forbidden usury)^[13]. And if someone says to me: what is the difference between trade and usury? You went to buy a car and bought it with an interest rate, three and a half percent for example... So the matter needs a mind that says: this is lawful and this is forbidden, this is sale on deferred payment and this is sale with pure, outright usury; it needs someone who distinguishes between the two, so who distinguishes? The human mind.

So Allah, glorified is He, when He placed the intellect in the human being, made the intellect the locus of obligation. And the meaning of the locus of obligation is that without the intellect there is no obligation; this whole Sharī‘ah, without intellect, no obligation. Therefore they say: among the conditions of obligation are puberty and intellect; that the human being reaches the stage of transformation from a child to a man or a woman, so that he has the competence for that. And the second very important matter is the intellect. And when we speak about the intellect we are speaking about different levels of obligation; there is the intellect that comprehends that a person be one who prays, and for that we need only a modest measure of intellect so he prays and that's it, and there is the intellect that is required to take charge of the works of managing life and the universe. And you study engineering or biology or any of the sciences, medicine or other, so you need a very large amount of knowledge.

The Maqāṣidī Way of Thinking: Medical Experiments on Animals

And the questions we were talking about a little while ago: are medical experiments on animals forbidden or lawful? What do you think? And if I said to you: I have no mind with which to answer you, how could I answer you if I have a mind that can think about such things? So let us investigate this matter together. So come, let us say Allah's name and investigate.

Number one: what animal do you want to experiment on? And number two: what is its kind? Then we say: what is the benefit that results from this experiment, and who is the first and last beneficiary of it? Based on a very large system called the system of benefits and harms, you can tell me whether this is lawful or forbidden. So if we imagine that this experiment will be conducted on a biting dog, or a very peaceful dog sitting in front of the door, and we gave him an injection to test something on him, and among the possibilities was that this dog would turn into a lion eating far and near and harming people, is it logical for someone to say: this is lawful? Or do we need rules and precautions in the matter? Then a questioner said: No, our Shaykh, may Allah honor you, I am not asking at this level, rather I am asking: do we do it at all or not? The lecturer said: Before you ask, what is the ground of prohibition? What is the obstacle? It was said: the obstacle is that it is an animal, and it has a right to live a sweet life, "five star," like the rest of creation. He said: And until when do we leave the mouse in its hole? We must bring him and pamper him! You know. So I answer in utter simplicity: what is the benefit that results from doing that? And the people who say that it is an animal and has a right to live well, do you eat its meat or are you vegetarians? They say: No, we eat its meat, "gobbling it up," like the grown-ups. So we say: excellent, where did you get it from? We got it from a slaughtered animal. And what did you do to it to get meat from it? We slaughtered it. So did you slaughter it once and eat its meat? This is lawful, and it has no right to live. So when you went and conducted an experiment to benefit humanity and increase the well-being of these creatures so that they increase in obedience to Allah, glorified is He, and the universe is built up with such and such and such, these are matters that result from one another: whoever thinks about the topic from the start negatively comes out with a negative result, and whoever thinks about it positively from the beginning comes out with a positive result. And how can you think about the topic? You may tell me: all the talk you said is wrong, and I say to you: amen, I have no problem, bring me another mind that thinks differently and we will walk together and arrive at the correct in any of its possibilities, and Allah the Exalted knows best. And I am not saying now lawful or forbidden; we are exchanging ways of thinking together about how to direct and analyze issues.

And one of the women present asked: Is there a difference if what we do harms the animal? He said: In some cases it harms and in some it does not, and what is the result that results from the existence of this animal in itself? Do we have a difference between the existence of the mouse and the existence of the dog and the existence of the cat and the lion and the gazelle and others? Is there in the existence of the kinds of these creatures in themselves a difference in terms of abundance and scarcity, and in terms of strength and size, and in terms of mutual benefit between it and humanity? And is the proportion used in the experiments affecting the existence of this living being, so that we say: if we did this experiment it would become extinct? Or is its number very large? And what is the result that results from this test in itself? Are we amusing ourselves; we have nothing to do so we play a bit and torture an animal? Then we enter the circle of torturing animals, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, when he saw the child who was playing with the sparrow said such and such to him. Or are we doing something useful? So the aim behind the work, the result resulting from the work, and the means used during the work: I think that these are three important measures by which we measure whether what we do is right or wrong.

So I am now conducting an experiment on a mouse, very small or very big like this, and the resulting outcome: the medicine I make may be made by the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, a cause for exempting many of creation from diabetes, for example. So the result resulting from the experiment with our uncle the mouse is a result that leads to the life of a generation or generations to come of humankind. So is the resulting benefit stronger or the harms present, that the mouse complains? So we measure by the matter of benefits and harms, and I find the resulting benefit in bringing humans to life again and their happiness and sparing their bodies these diseases is very much greater than that the mouse complains once or twice or three times; because I made a testing ground in the laboratory, on condition that the intention behind that is not insulting this animal or despising its status or the like.

And one of those present intervened with a question about cosmetic products, are they tested on animals before being applied to human skin? The lecturer said: What is the benefit resulting from the drug I gave this mouse to conduct an experiment for diabetes patients? Great benefits or few? And I conduct experiments on it to measure the percentage of this medicine in lowering blood pressure in humans or its raising, or for hepatitis C, to save humans. But cosmetics, what is the story? One of them said: It is not necessarily cosmetics, it may be for example a lotion. Then it was said: everything in which there results in principle a direct benefit to the human, the default is no prohibition by the measures we spoke about (and it is not clear from the transcript whether this is from the lecturer's speech or from one of those present). And the objector said: But if a creature exists on the earth, no one has the right to harm it, and even if it is among the "fawāsiq" (the harmful vermin)... The lecturer said: In principle it is a creature and a living being, and these harmful vermin, when we were commanded to kill them, we were commanded to kill them because of a harm that reaches us; you are not required to go out wandering in the street and circling the whole world to search for them and kill them, but you found in the house something that will harm you, so you get rid of the harm reaching your house and your clothes and your apartment and your wife and your children; you do not want a little child you find outside carrying the tail of a mouse and walking with it. But our question now, regardless of the harmful vermin or others: this point, a living being, do I conduct an experiment on it or not? Why do I conduct an experiment on it?

And one of them said: And why did our Lord create the pig at all? It is forbidden to eat it and we do not use anything of it, and its whole condition is such from beginning to end. The lecturer said: In general it is a creature; we were commanded not to eat it and we were not commanded to destroy it. I do not know, and someone else may know otherwise, I do not know that I have a text in the Islamic Sharī‘ah telling me: whenever you meet a pig, kill it. Has any of you come across anything of this talk before? No; rather I am commanded not to eat it: ﴿حُرِّمَتْ عَلَيْكُمُ الْمَيْتَةُ وَالدَّمُ وَلَحْمُ الْخِنزِيرِ﴾ (Forbidden to you are carrion, blood, and the flesh of swine)^[14], so this is the sum of the forbidden things in food, and the most important thing in it is that it not enter my stomach in any case, but I was not commanded to kill it. So can that extend to the rest of the animals in the matter of testing grounds or not? One of those present said that the pig ruins urban areas and agriculture and ruins a great deal. The lecturer said: The killing here is not out of sheer harshness toward the living being, but a killing for another reason that resulted from its presence with me, based on the case you mention; so the killing took place because of harms greater than its existence, even if it does not ruin, if there is a potential harm in it. This is from the interpretation of the doer; just as when I lifted the tissues from here, their original presence with me is lawful, but when harm resulted from their presence in this place I lifted them from this place to another place, or I lifted them from the bond of life to death, on condition that it is not protected in itself by a legal text, and Allah the Exalted knows best.

And one of those present mentioned that the law with them addresses a kind of these animals, and he was asked: is killing it permitted or obligatory? It was said: permitted. The lecturer said: So if I meet this one and the law permits killing it, I personally will not do that, and I do not advise you to do it. And Allah the Exalted knows best. Then he said: Excellent, masha’Allah, and may Allah bless you.

What Harms the Intellect: Addiction in Its Kinds

Then he said that he would continue in utter simplicity and speed: that the Lord of the worlds, when He wanted to preserve the intellect, forbade everything that harms this intellect. So among these forbidden things is that you confuse your intellect. And sometimes what is called addiction comes. So what enters into addiction? Those present said: your phone, drugs, coffee. He said: Everything that can affect the intellect, whether it is forbidden in itself, or permissible in itself but excess of it affects the intellect, the default in it is prohibition. Why? Because I want to keep my intellect at the required level. And let no one say to me: But our friend, if he takes a puff of a joint, his head goes up to the sky; this is empty talk. Likewise physical stimulants: people take stimulants to strengthen their bodies, so are they useful or harmful? Useful now, and after five minutes he is like a lion striking his opponent and running and racing, but after years... So everything from which harm is possible sooner or later, the default in it is prohibition. Do you remember when we were talking about the subject of cigarettes?

And addiction is not to substances alone; there may be people who are addicted to TV series and films and video, that is, the screen, to the point that it takes their minds from them and draws away their concentration. And from here some scholars think about the matter of games for children who reach a stage of addiction, so are they lawful in themselves or does prohibition extend to them at some stage? That is, if I find my son has entered a stage where he has become addicted and cannot go back, may I prevent this from the boy for his benefit or not? Forbidden and lawful may be a somewhat difficult word for people, but at least, where does the benefit go that preserves for me my intellect and preserves for me my balance? That is what I want to focus on.

And he added a practical example about a boy for whom the time of prayer entered while he is sitting on the phone, so you say to him: get up, my son, pray. He says: Yes, I'm coming with you, then he stands at the end of the row, and when you say: Allahu akbar he steps back (and the rest of his wording at this point is confused in the transcript, so his point is not clear). Then he stipulated that the boy return and complete his prayer before you say: as-salāmu ‘alaykum wa raḥmatullāh, so that he has begun with you and finished with you and takes the whole reward. Then he invoked blessings on the Guide and Bearer of glad tidings.

And he said: number two, among the aims of preserving the intellect is using mental energy in the building up of the universe, and it is among the aims through which Islam stressed the preservation of this human intellect.

Preservation of Wealth: A Means, Not an End

And finally the preservation of wealth. Is wealth a means or an end? One of those present said: an end. He asked him: How? He said: because you bring in the money. He said: And why do you bring in the money? You do not work to bring in money; the currency that is in the middle, the thing between your work and the achievement of the goal is money. So you work to bring money, and why do you bring money? To pay the rent of the house. So you do not work for the money, but for the rent of the house. And what will pay the rent of the house is money. And I work to eat in the end, so money is what will bring me food, so I worked for money through which the resulting benefit is obtained. So wealth, in Islam's view, is a means to achieving ends greater than itself.

And Allah stipulated two conditions for Muslims in the matter of wealth: first that the wealth come from what is lawful, and second that the wealth be spent on what is lawful; so you do not earn from the forbidden, and you do not spend your money on the forbidden. And the Prophet ﷺ says in clear text: «لا تزول قدمُ عبدٍ يوم القيامة حتى يُسأل عن أربع» (The foot of a servant will not move on the Day of Resurrection until he is asked about four things), then he ﷺ mentions: «وعن ماله من أين اكتسبه وفيمَ أنفقه» (and about his wealth, from where he earned it and on what he spent it)^[15]. So let no one say to me: I earned the money from what is lawful and I will go and build a mosque with it; because you will not be asked about spending alone, but you will be asked about the source as well. And let no one say: I brought my money from what is lawful so I do with it what I wish, so I buy drugs or spend it on something not good. No, rather: from where he earned it, and on what he spent it.

And since wealth is a means for dealing among people, Allah commanded us not to use it in exploiting people, and therefore what is called usury (ribā) was forbidden. And what is the reason for the prohibition of usury? That you exploit the needs of people. You go because you do not have, so you take five or what is worth five, then when you return it you return it as seven or fifteen, and if you do not have it again you are forced to delay the payments, so it becomes nine and becomes thirteen and becomes twenty-seven and becomes ninety, until you find yourself either bankrupt or going to prison. So Allah, glorified is He, forbade that wealth be earned from the forbidden, and that it be spent on the forbidden, and that it be used in exploiting human beings by any means. And then you will see among the necessary consequences of these rules what is called trustworthiness, and safeguarding people's material and moral rights, and fulfilling covenants among people, up to the end of the moral system connected with the matter of business or wealth altogether. So the employee fulfills his duty because he fears Allah in what he earns, and the employee gives the employee his right and more because he fears Allah in what he spends, and thus the circle turns: I am going to do a service with you so I will pay you its price, because I am afraid that our Lord, glorified is He, will ask me and say: you, on what did you spend your money, or why did you not spend it on such and such, up to the end of this system of thinking. And Allah, blessed and exalted, is Most High and knows best.

Conclusion: What We Wanted from the Two Sessions

The lecturer said: Roughly, we have by this done a semi-brief coverage of these things. And of course each one of these subjects, or each of these topics, if we wanted to speak about it for ten hours we might not do it justice through the Qur’anic and prophetic texts that have come, but we are only giving an overview. And my aim in this session and the one before it is to say that our Islam is not a random religion, and that it has purposes in society, and that it is in great harmony with human life, rather it is the basis for the establishment of human life at a mature and respectable level. Then we add after that that people's deeds are not scattered dust, but your deeds are connected to the legal rules that order life. So the people and the method, if both proceed well, we can develop society and elevate it; but if both, or one of us, goes awry, society collapses.

And the defect present in the life of Muslims now is that they do not believe in maqāṣidī thinking, so no one looks at what will result from the act. And this that we said on the subject of experiments on animals and others, we did not say in it the word lawful and forbidden and finish; I gave you an idea of how we can think about the topic in some way, even if we do not come out with a result. We are thinking about the topic how: what are the benefits that result from the existence of this thing in our lives? And what benefit will return to humankind? And what harms might be borne during these experiments? And what negatives will result for society? All these questions produce for me a product in the end called: lawful or forbidden, valid or invalid, permissible, disliked, forbidden, recommended, obligatory, and so on. And Allah, blessed and exalted, knows best.

Then he concluded by saying: May Allah the Exalted reward you well, and may Allah, mighty and exalted, be pleased with you, and may Allah the Exalted keep you safe, and the peace of Allah be upon you, and His mercy and blessings.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān, verse 181. The lecturer mentioned its content in parts and did not name the sūrah. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Mu’minūn, verse 115. The lecturer paused at "in vain," and its completion is: ﴿وَأَنَّكُمْ إِلَيْنَا لَا تُرْجَعُونَ﴾ (and that you would not be returned to Us). ^[3]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 30. The lecturer mentioned it by its meaning and did not name the sūrah. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān, verse 97, and its full text in the muṣḥaf is: ﴿وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى النَّاسِ حِجُّ الْبَيْتِ مَنِ اسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيلًا﴾ (And due to Allah from the people is the pilgrimage to the House, for whoever is able to find thereto a way). The lecturer pronounced it in a close form ("wa lillāhi ‘alā al-nās … li-man istaṭā‘a ilayhi sabīlan") and did not name the sūrah. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Anbiyā’, verse 18. The lecturer paused at "falsehood." ^[6]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Naḥl, verse 125. The lecturer said that "with wisdom and good instruction" are the means, and that the point of the command is "invite." ^[7]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Tawbah, verse 122. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān, verse 104, and the lecturer named the sūrah, then said after it "and do not be like those who became divided and differed," which is in verse 105 of the same sūrah. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: The words of the Exalted "Arise and warn" are in Sūrat al-Muddaththir, verse 2, and what follows is in Sūrat al-Muzzammil, verses 2–5. The lecturer did not name the two sūrahs. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-An‘ām, verse 151, and the lecturer named the sūrah. ^[11]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Isrā’, verse 31, and the lecturer named the sūrah. The lecturer explained the difference between the two verses for the first only and then moved on to the story, and did not explain the second in the transcript. ^[12]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer narrated the story with the words "they say that…" without attribution to a source, so it is conveyed as he narrated it, as a tale and not an established report. And the phrase attributed to the daughter came in the transcript in a form close to what has been recorded. ^[13]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 275. The lecturer pronounced it "aḥalla Allāhu al-bay‘a wa ḥarrama al-ribā," and it is in the muṣḥaf with the conjunction wāw at its beginning: ﴿وَأَحَلَّ اللَّهُ الْبَيْعَ وَحَرَّمَ الرِّبَا﴾. ^[14]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Mā’idah, verse 3. The lecturer mentioned it with the words "forbidden to you are carrion, blood and the flesh of swine." ^[15]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by al-Tirmidhī from the ḥadīth of Abū Barzah al-Aslamī (may Allah be pleased with him) in nearly this wording, and its full text: «لا تزول قدما عبد يوم القيامة حتى يُسأل عن عمره فيم أفناه، وعن علمه فيم فعل فيه، وعن ماله من أين اكتسبه وفيم أنفقه، وعن جسمه فيم أبلاه» (The feet of a servant will not move on the Day of Resurrection until he is asked about his life, how he spent it; about his knowledge, what he did with it; about his wealth, from where he earned it and on what he spent it; and about his body, how he wore it out). The lecturer limited himself to the four in summary and detailed the wealth.