Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa'l-Ḥikam 9: ‹What I Have Forbidden You, Avoid It› and Abandoning Excessive Rigor

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 14 June 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

O Allah, set right for us our religion, our worldly life, and our Hereafter; grant us right guidance in our affairs; bless us in what You have provided us; and protect us from the punishment of the Fire.

Our talk today is about the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: «ما نهيتكم عنه فاجتنبوه، وما أمرتكم به فأتوا منه ما استطعتم، فإنما أهلك الذين من قبلكم كثرةُ مسائلهم واختلافهم على أنبيائهم» ("What I have forbidden you, avoid; and what I have commanded you, do of it as much as you are able; for what destroyed those before you was only their many questions and their disagreeing with their prophets").^[1]

What Does the Prophet ﷺ Want for His Companions?

Let me repeat the ḥadīth: «ما نهيتكم عنه فاجتنبوه، وما أمرتكم به فأتوا منه ما استطعتم» ("What I have forbidden you, avoid; and what I have commanded you, do of it as much as you are able"), and then he explains the reason with his words: «فإنما أهلك الذين من قبلكم كثرةُ مسائلهم واختلافهم على أنبيائهم» ("for what destroyed those before you was only their many questions and their disagreeing with their prophets"). And as you read the narration, you do not ask: What does the Prophet ﷺ want from his Companions? Rather: What does he want for them?

If you read the other narrations of the ḥadīth, you find yourself before a development in thinking and its levels. Abū Hurayrah says in one narration: «دعوني ما تركتكم، إنما أهلك من كان قبلكم سؤالُهم واختلافُهم على أنبيائهم» ("Leave me as long as I leave you; what destroyed those before you was only their questioning and their disagreeing with their prophets"). In the first narration the conclusion came: «ما نهيتكم عنه فاجتنبوه» ("What I have forbidden you, avoid"), and here it is as though we go back a small step to learn more about why the ḥadīth was said. So what is the meaning of «دعوني ما تركتكم» ("Leave me as long as I leave you")? Its meaning: what I have not touched on in my talk with you, do not press in asking about it, for leaving it is better for you, and do not keep reminding me of what I have been silent about.

The Scene of the Sermon

And in another narration from Abū Hurayrah the scene becomes clearer: the Prophet ﷺ stands on the minbar addressing the people and says: «يا أيها الناس، قد فرض الله عليكم الحج فحجّوا» ("O people, Allah has made ḥajj obligatory upon you, so perform ḥajj"). A man says: Every year, O Messenger of Allah? The Prophet ﷺ is silent. Then the man asks: Every year, O Messenger of Allah? He is silent. Then he asks a third time: Every year, O Messenger of Allah? So he ﷺ says: «لو قلتُ نعم لوجبت، ولَمَا استطعتم» ("Had I said yes, it would become obligatory, and you would not be able"). Then he said: «ذروني ما تركتكم، فإنما أهلك من كان قبلكم سؤالُهم واختلافهم على أنبيائهم، فإذا أمرتكم بشيء فأتوا منه ما استطعتم، وإذا نهيتكم عن شيء فدعوه» ("Leave me as long as I leave you; what destroyed those before you was only their questioning and their disagreeing with their prophets; so when I command you something, do of it as much as you are able, and when I forbid you something, leave it").^[2]

And in a narration from Anas ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him), they questioned the Messenger of Allah ﷺ until they brought him to the utmost burden in questioning, so he ﷺ became angry until he ascended the minbar, and then said: «لا تسألوني اليوم عن شيء إلا بيّنتُه» ("Do not ask me today about anything except that I will make it clear to you"). Then a man stood up who, whenever he spoke with men, they would taunt him that he was ascribed to someone other than his father, meaning that there was talk about his mother, and he said: O Messenger of Allah, who is my father? So the Prophet ﷺ told him the name of his true father. Then ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: We are pleased with Allah as Lord, with Islam as religion, and with Muḥammad ﷺ as Messenger; we seek refuge in Allah from trials.^[3]

And this is a door that, if opened, every single one would stand up saying: And I? I want to know, who is my father? And news may come to him that turns his life upside down.

From Questioning to Excessive Rigor

What is the relation between what we are in, the matter of obedience and disobedience, and the matter of our friend asking about his lineage? The understanding I have is that if we begin asking about obedience and disobedience until we reach the stage of tanaṭṭuʿ (excessive rigor), that is, asking about what lies beyond the natural and what exceeds it, then we have reached a place we do not want to be in again.

And the tanaṭṭuʿ that has occurred in the lives of Muslims has brought us to where one of us does not pray behind another! We are two Muslims who came to the same mosque to pray behind the same imam, and then one of them establishes the prayer in a way different from mine, so I do not pray behind him or with him. And if one comes with the basmalah before al-Fātiḥah and the other does not, I may accuse him and I may not. And this one places his hand here, another lets it hang at his side, and a third places it over his chest, so I accept this one and do not accept that one. This is tanaṭṭuʿ.

And the examples we see these days are very many, especially from the field of ḥajj. People declaring other people disbelievers! I swear by Allah that at one moment someone said: No, you are not upon the religion. Literally like that. And the disagreement was over what? Over the stoning: after the zenith or before the zenith, after Fajr or before Ẓuhr? And you know what disagreements there are among the scholars in this issue. Then someone comes who is a leader among his people, speaking about his brothers who perform ḥajj with him in the same tent, in the same prayer, in the same exhortation, in the same movement, and says: You are not upon the religion! You have gone very far. What brought you to the end of the road so that you come out with "the religion" from its very end? It would have sufficed you to say: You are not on my school; I do not agree with you; this is not the preferred way in my view; I see that this is more correct. We are used to these gentle phrases, and you say: We would prefer to do such-and-such. Fine, may Allah bless you. But to throw far away entirely and put people outside the whole circle, no.

So what does the Prophet ﷺ say, proceeding from this repeated question "Every year, O Messenger of Allah?" He says: «هلك المتنطّعون» ("Ruined are those who go to excess").^[4] They are the ones who want to proceed in one single way with complete literalness.

"If I Convinced You, Would You Change Your Opinion?"

I still remember, by Allah, other than whom there is no god, a conversation on the day we were speaking about the beginning of the month of Ramadan, in a group call among a number of honored imams, may Allah bless them all. The call went long and everyone fell silent except one. So I said: Our Shaykh, I apologize, just one last question: if I convinced you, would you change your opinion? He said: No. So I said to myself: Then we are wasting time. And it ended with thanks and salām.

The point is that there are minds that run on iron rails. And this is acceptable in the root of legislation, for my creed is that we may never associate partners with Allah, and this is upright, praise be to Allah. But consider the car that travels between two lines on the road: it moves between the lines of the lane, but it signals the turn and looks whether anyone is behind it, then moves to the next lane, then the one after, until it takes the exit it wants, slowly and comfortably. This is how the legislation gives you latitude in these fields. As for one who keeps going on the same line and tells you, "This is the line they travel on," and misses his exit time after time and says, "No, I go this way," we do not know where he will end up.

A Hardship a Person Brings Upon Himself

And imagine a person who goes along like this and has no place of flexibility in his body! And perhaps the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ, may Allah be pleased with them all, were made subservient by Allah, glorified is He, to show us this rule, for we are before hardship and severity that a person brings upon himself.

You remember the day the Prophet ﷺ entered and saw a rope, and asked: For whom is this rope? They said: So-and-so prays, and when she grows weak she uses the rope to stand and complete the prayer. Imagine one of us praying until he tires, with a chair beside him on which he puts his hand to stand up. We do not need this effort from you. And the Prophet ﷺ said, in meaning, that one of you should pray as long as he is energetic.^[5] And the meaning of this sentence: pray according to what you are able. And here you find yourself squarely facing the saying of Allah, blessed and exalted: ﴿لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا﴾ (“Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity”)^[6] in all fields.

That is why I pause at the narration that the Prophet ﷺ sometimes combined two prayers without an apparent excuse. It is related of him that he once combined two prayers when there was nothing the people could see of rain or fear or the causes that give a concession to combine. So how did the Prophet ﷺ do that?^[9] The speaker says: It is as though in that there is an indication that weakness may have outward forms and hidden forms. And what are the hidden forms? That you enter into a quarrel at home, and quarreling with the "higher authorities" is well known! So you enter a dispute and come out distressed and troubled, and it does not occur to you to stand before Allah in this moment, and you are ashamed to pray before the Lord of the worlds. (I give an example only, and every situation is on our heads, and we do not like to be so, if Allah wills.) The point is that there may come to you times in which you cannot stand well, and it is a one-time case that we do not take as a rule. So the point for me is that you may have an excuse that people do not see, so you act in a certain way, and the religion supports you, backs your state of mind, lifts your morale, and multiplies this latent good within you, even if you are not acting in a way people see.

From this comes the saying «إن الدين يسر، ولن يشادّ الدين أحدٌ إلا غلبه» ("The religion is ease, and no one burdens himself in the religion except that it overcomes him"),^[7] and the saying of Allah, blessed and exalted: ﴿يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ بِكُمُ الْيُسْرَ وَلَا يُرِيدُ بِكُمُ الْعُسْرَ وَلِتُكْمِلُوا الْعِدَّةَ وَلِتُكَبِّرُوا اللَّهَ﴾ (“Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship, so that you complete the period and glorify Allah”)^[8] to the end of what our Lord, glorious in His exaltedness, said.

"By What Percentage?"

The Prophet ﷺ lays down a law in this. Everything forbidden we keep away from by what percentage? Percent! And everything we are commanded we do by what percentage? These engineers have their own ways with Allah, they want the result immediately: «وإذا أمرتكم بشيء فأتوا منه ما استطعتم» ("And when I command you something, do of it as much as you are able"). By what percentage? Thirty? Seventy? Ninety? I have constants that I do not exceed and do not go below: five prayers in the day and night. But some of us pray the Sunnah of Ẓuhr as four and four, if he has a narration for that, and some of us pray four and two, and some pray two and two, and some got permission from his manager for five minutes in which to pray Ẓuhr, so he says: Four rakʿahs? No, it is better to limit myself to what suits my schedule. Here: "Allāhu akbar," then "as-salāmu ʿalaykum" the first and the second while I am running to the left!

And imagine a doctor, may Allah honor our brothers the doctors, who has a long surgery, and wants to finish the Ẓuhr and ʿAṣr prayers because he knows the matter will extend on him past that. You know that some surgeries run twelve hours, we ask Allah for well-being and safety, O Lord of the worlds. The point is that each person assesses his capacity in expending acts of obedience according to what he is able.

Concessions: For Those Among Whom Hardship Is Supposed

And from here there came to us a statement that makes understanding easy when you hear it: the concessions that Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, granted to those He granted them, He granted to those among whom hardship is supposed. I say it again: to those among whom hardship is supposed. I am traveling eighty-four miles (or kilometers, or whatever the distance of shortening is), riding whatever type of car you like, a luxurious car with air conditioning, the world respectable, with cold water, the weather beautiful, the world calm. Do I have the concession to shorten the prayer or not, with the conditions of travel being easy and there being no hardship in the matter? So why did Allah give me this concession? Because hardship in travel is presumed and possible: you may be distressed, the road may be long, the journey may be hard on you, and a call may come to you that upsets you. Yes, Allah is at this degree of ease that encompasses the hearts of those attached to Him.

And of course you will find another who says to you: Ride a motorcycle and circle around the house (on what is attributed to a circulating fatwa). This is empty talk, and that is tanaṭṭuʿ.

Do Not Burden Others with What Is Hard for Them

I do not want to lengthen it for you or weigh you down, but from the greatness of the legislation is that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stands with the people angry because someone wants to burden society with what it cannot do or bear. So let none of us burden his family or his brothers with what is hard for them. You want to be scrupulous and practice the religion one hundred percent? Do it by yourself, but understand that the people around you have their circumstances, and that among us is the able and the unable, among us is the one who can and the one who cannot, and our Lord, in the root of the matter, is merciful, gentle, loving, and kind to His servants.

Then you see yourself before Allah, blessed and exalted, on the ladder of ascent, so who takes you by the hand? Allah. And if Allah is the one who takes you by the hand, do you think you stop at a limit or a degree? Or does Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, raise you however far the capacity of any of us reaches, and he is unable to accomplish what he wishes? If the One taking him by the hand is Allah, then he must have an ascent that has no stopping.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: This is the ninth ḥadīth of the Forty Nawawī, narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. The speaker began by mentioning another narrator and then returned to the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah, so what his speech settled upon is adopted. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The narration is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah; the transcript has «ولما استطعت», and what is given is «ولَمَا استطعتم», according to the well-known narration. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The narration is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the ḥadīth of Anas. The transcript is garbled regarding the name of the questioner's father, so it has not been recorded. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by Muslim from the ḥadīth of Ibn Masʿūd, «هلك المتنطعون» ("Ruined are those who go to excess"), three times. The speaker cited it in connection with the context. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs, in the narration of Anas, and in it is «ليصلِّ أحدكم نشاطه، فإذا فتر فليقعد» ("Let one of you pray while he is energetic, and when he tires, let him sit"). The speaker conveyed it by meaning. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: al-Baqarah: 286. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by al-Bukhārī from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: al-Baqarah: 185. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: The narration is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both), in which he combined «من غير خوف ولا مطر» ("without fear or rain"), and Ibn ʿAbbās explained that by saying: «أراد ألّا يحرج أمته» ("He wished not to put his Ummah in difficulty"). What the speaker mentioned after that regarding hidden forms of weakness is his own reflection and not from the narration.