Word Choice in the Story of the Israelites' Cow

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered on 9 December 2021Source: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings upon the servant of Allah, His Prophet and Messenger, our master and our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and upon his family and Companions, with abundant peace. O Allah, we ask You for the good of this gathering, its blessing and Your well-being in it, O Lord of the worlds, and we ask You to keep our minds safe from slips and excess, and to keep our hearts sound by Your protection and good pleasure. And now: welcome to you, noble gathering, may Allah increase you in goodness and favor, make what you learn part of the scale of your good deeds, and bless you in your families and homes. We had perhaps opened a discussion on the story of Adam, peace be upon him, as the Qur'anic context narrates it, and we were keen to take up the events according to this context, because the choice of Qur'anic words and Allah's arrangement of the events in recounting them has an effect on how we apply the stories in our lives. There is no story in the Qur'an without a yield parallel to time; every story in it has its benefits from which we profit generation after generation and individual after individual, despite the differences in our temporal, social, psychological and intellectual conditions. And in this we find for ourselves, as persons and as a society, applications embodied in the stories our Lord presented.

The role entrusted to us is greater than we imagine

Among the evidences we mentioned in the story of Adam is that the role entrusted to us in life is far greater than what we imagine as individuals. What does each one of us imagine when he is a child or a young man? He wants to graduate from university, to have an independent business or a job, to have a house, to marry and have children. This routine life, if we confine ourselves to it, does not differ much from the life of cattle, except for the difference of learning. And if this learning had no effect on the level of our thought and our view of our existential impact in life, learning would be a burden upon us instead of a benefit to us.

Accordingly, the matter of vicegerency (istikhlāf) that Allah pointed to in Sūrat al-Baqara, at its beginning and in the story of Adam, is an indication of a mind that should open up with its horizons and ambitions so as to take in the whole universe with everything in it. Vicegerency means that we develop the universe with all the energies and capacities we have, and that we excel over time and over the available means. And the mountains, rivers, seas, the sun and the moon are all, in the Qur'anic designation, subjugated (musakhkhar) for us. And what does "subjugated" mean? That it is under a command of use. If I lack the ability to use it, the incapacity is mine, and I am not qualified for the post to which I was assigned in this universe. An employee appointed in a company for a certain task who does another does not perform his job, even if he is skilled in that other craft. And if he is assigned as a worker in a company and then falls short in his work, or does not reach what was wanted from him in this work, he does not deserve his pay at the end of the month. Is that not so? (And I apologize if I am speaking a little fast; whoever is in a hurry speaks fast, imagining that he will get there sooner, like one who rides the bus or the plane and pushes the seat in front of him to arrive first, so it is as though I am doing that, glory be to Allah.)

Executive ambition: what do we leave behind us?

And the first point in the story of Adam, peace be upon him, is the story of executive ambition, the human ambition in accomplishing tasks. If I thought precisely about what I will leave behind me across the land I pass through, the output coming from me would differ completely. What will I leave behind when I move from this land to another? You see a man who worked in more than one company, and in every company he is looking for his own survival in it, and not looking to develop the company's affairs. And a man who married more than one woman, and from each time he had nothing but his own concern.^[1] And a woman who married more than one man. So what impact did we leave? And we had more than one child, and behind each child we had no particular aim for him, such as for me to say: this child should be a scholar in astronomy, so I concentrated my knowledge on him and gave him my attention. Then if we move to the more general system we see that the children of Muslims are children of ours, and we care about their future as we care about the future of our kids in our homes.

I do not want to belabor this point, but the matter of vicegerency is the matter of a mind that takes in the universe, looks at the places for reform in it and exerts its effort with all it can of reform, on any scale. If we do not, we are not carrying out the task that Allah assigned us. And we should not forget that the first term by which human existence in this life was described is: ﴿إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً﴾ [البقرة: 30] (Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successor). Whoever deviates from this term, that he is a vicegerent of Allah on this earth, has misjudged the value of his human existence. I am a human being, the greatest creature in this existence on this earth on which we live; and everything in it is in its origin subjugated to me, and the subjugated should not be preoccupied with the one for whom it is subjugated. So everything in the universe is in my service, and I am in the service of nothing.

So the house we live in and find too narrow, and want to leave for a larger one, imagining that this is ambition, we are swimming in it against the natural understanding. This house is subjugated for me, I arrange it however I wish, and I do not get fed up with it, but I use it in what benefits the Muslim community. Likewise this money, little or much, which I rejoice over or am wretched about because it is absent, I walk in it against the intellectual current of the enlightened human being who appreciates the value of his existence. And if I regarded this microphone in front of me as something I sanctify, as though I wanted to worship it because it is the reason for my fame, I would be going against the current. But I think of it as a means of transmitting sound; I have no purpose behind this session except that my voice reach with what I have so that I will have fulfilled what I have; if something correct comes from me, Allah benefits creation through it, well and good, and if an error comes from me then my only hope is that someone will come and correct what I have so that I do not repeat the mistake in another place. This is how we walk along the course of human presence in this life as Allah, Glorified, willed it.

And the summary of the matter: subjugate everything you have for the call to Allah, and let us be only for Allah, Glorified, and what is beyond that are causes that Allah carries out for us. Wealth, fortunes, positions and posts are things that pass through time, over which the curtain of days and nights is drawn, and which perish with the dust, and do not remain for anyone.

Error in the life of travelers, and it occurred from Adam

And the second point is that we may err, for everyone walking the road may be liable to error. And this is part of human nature, as the Prophet ﷺ said: «كل بني آدم خطّاء» (Every son of Adam is a frequent sinner).^[2] And Allah gave us this example in Adam, peace be upon him, so that none of us thinks that he, being an imam, will not err, and deals with people in a lofty tone; and if there are sisters among you who are callers, none of them should think that she is greater than the rest of the sisters and that she is the one who does and does, for she is not above reckoning. This is not part of Islamic thinking. Rather we find among the prophets of Allah those who sought Allah's forgiveness for a sin that came from them, and we found the Qur'anic expression speak explicitly about Adam: ﴿وَعَصَىٰ آدَمُ رَبَّهُ فَغَوَىٰ﴾ (and Adam disobeyed his Lord and erred).^[17] So Allah ascribed to Adam two terms that perhaps none of us would like to be described by: disobedience and error. This is what the Lord of the worlds called it. But the wise one is he who learns from Adam that when he erred and fell into what he should not, he quickly returned to where Allah, Glorified, is pleased.

And if the possibilities of error are present in our lives, what do we learn from this? We learn to feel our steps as we walk the road, and that self-monitoring be inside each one of us: what he says, what he does, where he looks, when he allows his gaze, when he speaks, how he behaves with people? All these are consequences we ought to be wary of. So the mind, which is the source of receiving knowledge, is itself the vessel that takes in its own movement, so that I do not move except with careful calculation, because I do not want to err as Adam erred, and I do not want to increase the proportion of sins. The innate sins that come with a word that slipped out or an act we did are enough for us, and we seek Allah's forgiveness for them, and they are what our Lord described with His words: ﴿إِلَّا اللَّمَمَ﴾ (except for the minor lapses),^[3] and we ask Him for well-being.

Our rank in the universe: a vicegerent with a function

So the first matter is that in the position of Adam, peace be upon him, we are vicegerents of Allah on this earth, so we should widen the circle of ambitions and raise the ceiling of aspirations in life, and our greatest aim should be the development of this universe and what is in it, not merely the rescue of ourselves. For the rescue of the self is a given, and there is no sane person who wants to destroy himself. So let us stop these trivialities and the foolishness that exists in the world, including money, positions and empty talk;^[4] because from the beginning I was appointed in this universe by Allah as a vicegerent. If you ask: what is my position? And I say: I am Imam so-and-so, this is not my real position in the universe. The real position is that I am a vicegerent, or that I am an imam with the rank of vicegerent, or that you, madam, are a homemaker with the rank of vicegerent, or that I am a shop owner with the rank of vicegerent, or an electronics engineer with the rank of vicegerent.

And I give an example of those with military and police ranks: one of them always looks at the insignia placed on his shoulders, saying to you: don't you see this? It has two swords, and it has such-and-such; so he acts by the logic of what is placed on his shoulders, whether he is a major general or a field marshal or a lieutenant general, in intelligence or air defense or electronic defense, in whatever position; he still carries this insignia, and this is his rank. So what is my rank with Allah, Blessed and Exalted? ﴿إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً﴾: a vicegerent with a rank, or with the function of an imam, or in the field of cooking and laundry, or in the field of some industry, whatever. And the first point is that we should be wary of error; the sensible person does not err much, and if he errs he does not repeat the error twice.

Complementarity, not rivalry

And the third matter, and it is the important one, is the complementarity that took place between Adam, peace be upon him, and Eve. Human relationships inside homes never rest on rivalry, and we have mentioned that often; if they rest on it at some stage, the home is ruined. The woman who knows from her husband's nature that he does not like to be competed with in some field, then deliberately does so, is only breaking this home, because perhaps he will not come back to his senses, or will not give up his principles to which he is accustomed. If she knows when to come to him and how to come to him, when to persuade him and how to maneuver around him, then the basic principle of human presence inside homes is the attempt at complementarity, not demolition or taking the lead. And the man who knows of his wife that she does not do well at this art should not press her on this point. And as we said, the basic principle in human presence between Adam and Eve is the basic principle between so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so; all of these are homes whose gathering we must keep up on what pleases Allah, Glorified.

The transition to the story of the cow

With this we content ourselves from the story of Adam, and we move today to what the Qur'an has declared, which is the story of the cow of the Children of Israel. Allah, Blessed and Exalted, opens it for us, and I think it is verse sixty-seven, and Allah knows best: ﴿وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوْمِهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَنْ تَذْبَحُوا بَقَرَةً ۖ قَالُوا أَتَتَّخِذُنَا هُزُوًا ۖ قَالَ أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ أَنْ أَكُونَ مِنَ الْجَاهِلِينَ﴾ [البقرة: 67] (And when Moses said to his people, "Indeed, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow," they said, "Do you take us in ridicule?" He said, "I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant.")^[16] ﴿قَالُوا ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ يُبَيِّن لَّنَا مَا هِيَ ۚ قَالَ إِنَّهُ يَقُولُ إِنَّهَا بَقَرَةٌ لَّا فَارِضٌ وَلَا بِكْرٌ عَوَانٌ بَيْنَ ذَٰلِكَ ۖ فَافْعَلُوا مَا تُؤْمَرُونَ﴾ [البقرة: 68] (They said, "Call upon your Lord to make clear to us what it is." He said, "He says, it is a cow neither old nor virgin, but median between that; so do what you are commanded.") ﴿قَالُوا ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ يُبَيِّن لَّنَا مَا لَوْنُهَا﴾ [البقرة: 69] (They said, "Call upon your Lord to make clear to us what its color is.") up to the end of the story as Allah, Glorified, related it.

And in some reports, which are not trustworthy through a sound prophetic chain, and Allah knows best, a man had a cousin he wanted to marry, and her father was a very wealthy man; it was as though he wanted to take the girl and her father's money and live a life of luxury in the whole town. So he asked her father for her and he rejected him in an unpleasant way, and did not accept him as a husband for his daughter, so he said: By Allah, I will not leave you alone. So he lay in wait for him and resolved to kill him, and wanted to combine the girl, the money and also the blood money, but from whom would he take the blood money?^[18] So he planned to go to the man by stealth at night and kill him and then slip out, and the people would discover the crime in the morning, and then he would come and say: What is this, people? This man is killed! O Allah, who killed my uncle? And it is the proverb said among us in Egypt: "He kills the dead man and walks in his funeral," and I think it is known throughout the Arab world; since all the people said this with one voice, the phenomenon is "international," masha'Allah, and devils resemble one another.^[5] So the people gathered, and our man called out among them: You are the ones who killed my uncle! They said: No. He said: Yes. So they went to Moses, peace be upon him, and he asked them to slaughter a cow.

Why did he ask them to slaughter a cow? This morning I was reading Shaykh Ibn ʿĀshūr, may Allah have mercy on him, and this is the question. And the explicit answer is in the Qur'an: ﴿وَإِذْ قَتَلْتُمْ نَفْسًا فَادَّارَأْتُمْ فِيهَا﴾ (And when you killed a soul and disputed over it) … ﴿فَقُلْنَا اضْرِبُوهُ بِبَعْضِهَا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ يُحْيِي اللَّهُ الْمَوْتَىٰ وَيُرِيكُمْ آيَاتِهِ﴾ (So We said, "Strike him with part of it." Thus does Allah bring the dead to life and show you His signs).^[19] Was it a separate law specific to Moses, peace be upon him, or was it present in earlier legislations? People differ: some say that if you read in the Torah you would find that if a person is killed and his killer is not known, they should bring a cow and slaughter it, and the nobles of the people go and each swears such-and-such. And these are stories that are not our concern, because they are not part of the legislation by which we Muslims worship; it is knowledge that does not benefit and ignorance that does not harm. And what I focus on is the Qur'anic context.

"To his people": why did he not say "O my people"?

In the Qur'anic context generally, when Moses, peace be upon him, speaks to his people he says: "yā qawmī" (O my people).^[6] But here the Qur'an said: ﴿وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوْمِهِ﴾ (And when Moses said to his people), and did not relate "yā qawmī" from him. Why? Because we are dealing with a crime, and dealing with crimes without identifying the real accused makes suspicion extend to all the people. So Moses would not attribute to himself people from whom a crime of murder may possibly have come. And as you know, every crime can be overlooked except the shedding of blood, and the Prophet ﷺ said, as is reported from him, that the son of Adam is the handiwork of Allah, and that whoever demolishes the structure of Allah is cursed.^[7] So the human being is the structure of Allah, Glorified, and whoever demolishes this structure is cursed with the Lord of Might, exalted be His majesty. And on this basis I find that Moses did not say "O my people" because he did not attribute them to himself.

Although we find that the other prophets attribute their peoples to themselves, and that Allah attributes that to them: ﴿وَإِلَىٰ عَادٍ أَخَاهُمْ …﴾ (And to ʿĀd, their brother …).^[8] And when Moses says to his people "yā qawm" in other places in the Qur'an he attributes them to himself, though they were not Muslims at that time. So what is the story? I say: if a man is in polytheism and has not yet believed in Allah, and it is possible that he will become Muslim, he acts on the basis of what he believes. And let us understand this: between one who acts on the basis of what he believes and is frank with himself and frank with others, saying: I am a thief, I tell you that with utmost clarity, so beware, and let each one hold his bag and secure it, I am like this; this is a frank man, he said that from the start, consistent with himself, knowing his course, at peace with himself, there is a very big difference between this one and that one. Is this one more dangerous, or another person who came into you with the language of religiosity and weeping and soliciting sympathy, until when all of you opened your bags you found nothing in them? Who stole the money? The shaykh who was giving us the lesson a little while ago? Good heavens, he was weeping! This is very ordinary, and so many of them steal, not only people's money but their thought and their creed. We seek refuge in Allah from that, and we ask Allah to bring us to our graves.

And the point of the statement is that Moses, peace be upon him, since there was a possibility that the accused was one of them, did not attribute them to himself, and did not say: you now deserve to be my people.

And as for us: do we deserve to be attributed to the servants of the Most Merciful?

And we sit in gatherings of gossip and we know them well; by Allah, do we deserve to receive the title of those given vicegerency, or the title of the servants of the Most Merciful? And if I sit thinking about a sin, how to arrange for it and follow its steps until I do and do, do I deserve the title of servants of the Most Merciful at that time? And I will take from the word only what was not stated in it: that he did not say "O my people" because he did not want to attribute them to himself in this instance. And I learn from it that I should not put myself in a situation in which I do not deserve to be a servant among the servants of the Most Merciful. So pay attention to behaviors, to words, to thoughts, to glances, to thinking ill, and pay attention to the raids of Satan through which he raids the servant, and these whisperings that overturn a person's being.

Thinking ill: the easiest of Satan's plots

The easiest thing Satan does is to let you think ill of so-and-so, with utmost simplicity. Imagine I write a message to someone, then he replies to me after a while, and I am away from him for five minutes, then I open the phone and find him saying to me: Fine, man, you are the people who looked down on us while we are poor folk, what can we do? And I had been telling him: with us, had I not been telling you that I need to talk with you, and so on. But he does not know that an important call came to me while I was writing to him, which I had to answer, and it took five minutes of mine, and when I hung up and went back to him to see, I found this whole calamity. What happened? Has the world fallen? It is thinking ill; with utmost simplicity Satan comes to a person's mind to draw him a picture that is not real.

And look in your homes: the husband enters scowling, and the wife says to herself: he is disgusted with us, he doesn't want to look at our faces; then she gets up and pins that on him to his face, and may he enjoy it whatever it is. Or the husband comes in from outside and finds his wife still disheveled from the cooking days that lasted all day, and says: she does not regard my presence, which is why she did not get ready to receive me.^[20] And these are just very simple things. So what of us if we move to the world of money and financial dealings between people? The easiest thing that can happen to a person from Satan's plotting is that he makes him think ill of people, because he is only moving a small button and the thinking turns in another direction.

And so this rule must be very firm, and it is the foundation: trust in people. Is there trust between us and one another or not? Period, and from the start of the line. Do I still trust this person or has the trust been cut? If I still trust him then all his actions are acceptable to me, and I fully respect them, and I place them above my head. And if we lose trust then thinking is over, so stop hurting your head.

"Indeed Allah commands you": he did not say "I command you"

﴿وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوْمِهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَنْ تَذْبَحُوا بَقَرَةً﴾ [البقرة: 67] (And when Moses said to his people, "Indeed, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow"). Moses expressed the command as a command from Allah, Blessed and Exalted, and not a command from himself. And I will depart a little from the Qur'anic context on this point to express a matter of the utmost importance: sometimes, being a jurist or an imam or a mufti, I bind people to my own opinion, and turn them away from the opinions of others, forgetting that my opinion is nothing but a kind of understanding of a Qur'anic text.

When they defined for us the science of uṣūl al-fiqh they said: it is the deduction (istinbāṭ) of sharia rulings from the detailed evidences. So what does "istinbāṭ" mean? Is it extraction? Is it as though we are unscrewing a nail? Or am I trying to understand and analyze? Whatever the term, it expresses that I ran my mind a little and understood something from the evidence. So what is the fixed thing in the matter: my understanding or the evidence? The evidence is the fixed thing. As for my understanding, I may say after ten minutes: I missed this point, I must change my thinking on the matter; or after ten years. Imagine: it has been eleven years for me in this country, and the fatwas I used to issue eleven years ago differ by a hundred and eighty degrees from what we are speaking about today. What happened? I came with the background from there, with my way of thinking, with Muslims in an Islamic society surrounded by an Islamic environment, the call to prayer all around them. We had not known what the development of youth in these societies means, with the strangeness we saw, living alongside our children and the children of the people we were exposed to.

And the point is that binding people to my opinion is not correct. Moses did not say: I command you, but said: Indeed Allah commands you. And it is as though Moses, peace be upon him, did not hurry to issue this request, though it was only a request, and even if it was known before that, except after the command came to him from his Lord, Glorified. So accordingly I ask: whose law are you carrying out in your life? Whose law are you applying? Sometimes, unfortunately, we apply our own law without noticing. And some people make lawful for themselves what Allah forbade, relying on their own understanding, and that with utmost simplicity, especially if we have become accustomed to diluting terms and swapping concepts and changing words in describing things. At that time we play with legislation. And here is a remark by the way: play with the sharia and you will find the whole world giving you money from every side. Why? Because those who buy falsehood are far, far more numerous than those who support the truth, unfortunately. We ask Allah for safety and well-being.

So we come out of this with the point that the servant must measure his condition on the scale that Allah set, and not on the scales of humans. And we used to say always to our brothers belonging to some groups: My son, you are more fanatical for your shaykh than your shaykh is fanatical for himself, so what is the matter with you and where is your mind going? You find some people fanatical for the opinion of only one person, saying to you: my shaykh said. So you say to him: listen to the other opinion, and he does not want to, as though he has taken his shaykh to a stage of sanctification. And we seek refuge in Allah, Glorified, from slips and error.

"A cow": generality is ease, and the religion is not to be made hard

﴿أَنْ تَذْبَحُوا بَقَرَةً﴾ (that you slaughter a cow): the generality that occurs in the word "a cow" is entirely consistent with the Prophet's ﷺ words: «إن الدين يسر، ولن يشادّ الدين أحدٌ إلا غلبه» (Indeed the religion is ease, and no one makes the religion hard except that it overcomes him).^[9] So matters in their complete simplicity, in utmost simplicity, and in Islamic legislation there is no kind of complication. So what is behind the legislative text? What is the purpose behind the sharia ruling that Allah, Glorified, set?

And the closing of some minds on specific concepts that we cannot go beyond, though they are mere understanding, is something that restricts people's movement. And I do not want to say that it harms, but it reduces the proportion of people's commitment to religiosity. And beside this, imagine a person coming to ask about the woman having to stay in her husband's house in application of this sharia ruling commanded by Allah, Glorified, while all his money has been lost, as it seems, on wine or the like;^[10] so you are talking about a legislative point in one place, and about a legislative calamity in another place, so how do we reconcile this and that? May Allah reward you that you hold to this point.^[11] And let us take the same issue from another angle: that I be at the utmost verbal brilliance and choice of words when I speak with people, and when I return to my home my wife is the lowliest of people on my tongue. Is this logic? This is empty talk, and a false claim, and its owner deals with one face here and another face there.

What we have harvested from the words so far

And the point of the statement is that Allah shows us through these Qur'anic terms how to cross the paths of life. So first, we should not be in a position in which we do not do well to be attributed to the servants of the Most Merciful, just as Moses did not attribute his people to himself in that instance. And the second matter is that the true understanding of the texts of the Qur'an, of the significance of Qur'anic words, is the renewed understanding.

Renewed understanding, and the fixed principles that are not renewed

I carry the words of Imam al-Ṭabarī and Imam al-Naysābūrī and Imam al-Suyūṭī, and all these people, on my head, as people who understood the significances of the Qur'anic word in relation to the course of life in their time. And I am not speaking of the texts of legislation; I do not want to change the ʿaṣr prayer to six rakʿas because we have become in America! Rather I am speaking about how I derive from the words of al-Ṭabarī, who died in that time, what I can benefit from now, and the intention is not that I run the state of my time on what al-Ṭabarī said in his time. We have two matters: how I use al-Ṭabarī's words in what suits reality and does not clash with it, or that I confine time itself to al-Ṭabarī's words that were said long ago. Imagine if the people of computing had confined computer language to what the inventor of the first computer said, we would still be sitting around a computer the size of a room, and we would not have the whole world with us in this phone I hold in my hand as though it were part of the small computer. And if we spoke of the world of medicine and the deductions of the early physicians from the reality of life and experience, and we confined the science of medicine to them, we would to this day be stitching wounds with needle and thread, with no anesthesia or anything else. And accordingly the application of the Noble Qur'an in the world of life should match the Qur'anic intent of developing life.

And I say the matter again: the word of Allah is fixed, present and fixed, with no change or alteration, and Allah forbid that we speak of any of that. And the Prophet's ﷺ explanation of the Qur'an is a fixed explanation, which no one can approach to change anything of it. And the words of trustworthy people of knowledge regarding language and linguistic structure and the Qur'anic significances of words and expressions, all of these relate to fixed principles. But we are speaking today about our understanding of applying this Qur'anic text in reality.

And I will give an example I have given scores of times before. Allah said on the matter of the bequest: ﴿إِذَا حَضَرَ أَحَدَكُمْ … الْوَصِيَّةُ لِلْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ ۖ حَقًّا عَلَى الْمُتَّقِينَ﴾ [البقرة: 180] (When there approaches any one of you … the bequest for the parents and the near relatives, in kindness, a duty upon the righteous).^[21] Our scholars say that this verse is abrogated; so no money is paid to anyone from the estate by bequest, rather the heir inherits. Abrogated by what? By the words of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿يُوصِيكُمُ اللَّهُ فِي أَوْلَادِكُمْ ۖ لِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَظِّ الْأُنثَيَيْنِ﴾ (Allah instructs you concerning your children: for the male, the equivalent of the share of two females).^[22] So we have a text in Sūrat al-Baqara saying that Allah prescribed for us the bequest for the parents and near relatives in kindness, and we have another text saying: Allah instructs you concerning your children. So to avoid the problem we said that the first verse is abrogated by the second, and we were content and believed in Allah the Almighty. And why did the verse remain? They said: so that we worship by reciting it. We put our trust in Allah, so we kept reciting the verse while believing that it is abrogated, until we came to America.

So America said to us: Come here, I must oblige you to return to applying the first text. O America, be guided by Allah, let us speak as sensible people speak. It said: No, never, I must return you to applying the first text. Why? Because if you do not apply the bequest intended in the first text your children will not inherit from you, and we will take the money to the dog you had in the house! That is: if we did not have this bequest written and recorded that I want those after me to inherit with these shares such-and-such, the judge will say to you: all this money, whose is it? Then he distributes it to charities, for example. So what did we understand here? That jurisprudential issues connected to legislative application on the ground also admit renewal of understanding.

And what frightens us if we say that we want to renew the understanding? That the renewers have become very lax, and everyone who attended two lessons like these became a jurist who wants to renew for the Umma. The matter is not so. Whoever renews for this Umma the matter of its religion, as came from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, must be at the level of absolute ijtihād as the people of uṣūl and the people of fiqh have spoken.

"Do you take us in ridicule?": reactions to obligations

And now we return to the matter. Allah, Blessed and Exalted, said: ﴿قَالُوا أَتَتَّخِذُنَا هُزُوًا﴾ (They said, "Do you take us in ridicule?"). And this part of the verse has a number of points.

The first point: creatures' reactions to legislative obligations. What are people's reactions to sharia obligations? They are according to the proportion of people's faith in the legislative texts. I received a call yesterday from a sister speaking about her husband, that in his discussions with the people around him he asks: What is this anyway? Let someone try to make me understand why I should sit without food from morning to maghrib? And he says: I fast like this? What is this nonsense? What is the logic of these people? And besides, I am a successful businessman, I have ten or twenty million dollars to play with in the market, so why should I leave all these very important businesses and get up and make wuḍūʾ and pray four rakʿas or two? What is this talk? Let us see to our work, and I put this talk aside.

So what is this man's proportion of commitment to these legislative texts? His reactions result from the absence of conviction. The convictions deposited in his mind are built in principle on one line only: growing the numbers and exploiting time. So we say to him: open for us just a small opening, a small window, through which we try to enter to make you understand. If you cut off these businesses... no one told you to cut off an important meeting, and we have in the legislation what accommodates that. If you need to combine two prayers we will permit it, and if you need to shorten the prayer because you are traveling we will permit it, and so on in this legislative system. But if you will allow us to give you one small piece of information: that when you pray you renew all your mental and psychological vitality, so you receive your work differently, so instead of earning fifty you earn seven hundred and forty, brother. But when he went in this direction, and this very talk is of the kind of the doubts that the polytheists raised when they said: «They are nothing but wombs that push out and earth that swallows»,^[12] he did not take in what is behind the text. They said: Do you take us in ridicule? Are you mocking us? Are you scoffing at us? What is this empty talk you say?

Why did they say this? Because their proportion of commitment to this legislative logic does not exist, this is number one. And number two: they compared what came to them of legislative obligation with what they themselves wanted, so they set themselves up opposite Allah, Blessed and Exalted. They looked at themselves and said: Do you take us in ridicule?

And let us give another example: we are speaking now on an arithmetic problem, an equation, and we differ in the method. I will arrive at the end at a result, and you will arrive at another result. Have we made ourselves a party in the equation, or is each of us working on the equation? And what do we want to arrive at? When you tell me that the result is such-and-such, I do not say to you: you are mocking me, and what stuck your nose into this point? So why does a person put himself in such a position? Because I do not look at the other party as a partner in the work, but I look at him as an equal rival to me. So when they raised themselves to the place of rivalry to Moses, who was a prophet, this term came out of them: Do you take us in ridicule? And I came to you, and I am speaking to you, and I say: Allah commands you to slaughter a cow, and they said: Do you take us in ridicule.

So the first point we understood: what is your proportion of taking in the existence of a sharia obligation, and your submission to applying it whatever its consequences? And number three, one of the very important things: do not put yourself in comparison with the Legislator. Do not say: this talk does not work. And if you say "it's unreasonable," say it in order to take in more and what is better, and to understand.^[23] And I always say: never receive a legislative text in your life without asking after it: why? But not a "why" by way of challenge, but a "why" by way of more understanding and comprehension. Because the one who applies while understanding is not like the one who applies while merely memorizing. The one who applies while memorizing messes things up, because he may forget a part in the middle. But the one who takes in what he says, who grasps the dimensions of the words when he says them, applies better: he applies comprehensively, and applies in depth, and applies with an order and system he follows through his life's journey.

"I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant"

Allah, Blessed and Exalted, said: ﴿قَالَ أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ أَنْ أَكُونَ مِنَ الْجَاهِلِينَ﴾ (He said, "I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant"). So what is meant by the ignorant here? Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge. And in the use of this word is an indication to them that they did not allow themselves to take in the information coming to them from Allah. So do not respond before you listen. Sometimes a husband and wife come to me, and the man begins to speak and the wife interrupts him, so I say to her: Madam, let him finish the sentence, may Allah be pleased with you. Do not get ahead with judgment before we take in the talk as a whole; let us complete a meaningful sentence, then we issue our judgments on it a little later. For haste in carrying out decisions makes us lose everything with utmost simplicity.

And there is what is called the momentary outburst, or momentary decisions. Our man says to her: Get up and make me some food. She says: Are you mocking me? Divorce me.^[24] What brought this? Be guided by Allah, do a kindness, calm down a little. For the momentary outburst is destructive. So he said: I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant, to indicate that the stages that should exist in a person's mind to take in a piece of information or to apply a sharia ruling must be longer than this. Why do you hurry? Why do you hurry in understanding? Why do you want to understand it quickly and insist that what you understood is right? And why do you hurry in reaction? And why do you hurry in decision? How many stages? As far as I understand, and perhaps you understand better than I: three stages at least.

So I hurry in understanding the matter, and I say: I understand, man, let me finish the explanation for you so you understand well. Number two: the immediate reaction, be guided by Allah, but after you finish understanding see what your reaction is, what your reaction is. Number three: the decision taken based on the understanding. And very often we lose people because a message came to me and I was very worked up, and I got up and sent him the reply, and he found the matter not easy, and I said to him: you are belittling me, so he came back replying to me, and I said to him such-and-such. What happened? What's the matter with you, man? Go read two verses, or make wuḍūʾ and pray two rakʿas, or calm down a little. What happened? Reactions: he said right to her and she said left to him, right, left, so each of us divorced the other and we were done. These momentary outbursts reveal a person's ignorance, because he did not give himself the full opportunity to take in the significances of the words and the natural situation of the matter we are speaking about, and how to make the appropriate decision, and to carry out this decision now or after a little, and so on.

The people's question: what is it?

﴿قَالُوا ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ يُبَيِّن لَّنَا مَا هِيَ ۚ قَالَ إِنَّهُ يَقُولُ إِنَّهَا بَقَرَةٌ لَّا فَارِضٌ وَلَا بِكْرٌ عَوَانٌ بَيْنَ ذَٰلِكَ﴾ [البقرة: 68] (They said, "Call upon your Lord to make clear to us what it is." He said, "He says, it is a cow neither old nor virgin, but median between that"). And it seems they were very hasty when they said to him: Do you take us in ridicule, as proven by their saying to him a little later: Well, which cow is it? Imagine it as though our man asked his wife to make him a pastry, and she said to him: Am I the servant working for you? So he said: Glory to the One who legislated the second marriage! So she said to him: Do you want it with dates or with cheese? What happened here? What do you think? Allahu akbar, thus by way of example.

And the point is that when they were very hasty in the initial reaction, they said: Do you take us in ridicule? And a little later, after he said: I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant, they said to him: Well, how do you want it, with cheese or with sugar? So they said: Call upon your Lord to make clear to us what it is. So he said: He says it is a cow neither old nor virgin, that is: bring us something moderate. And it is as though he is guiding them to the scientific method that should be followed in such situations.

The best of matters are the middle ones

And so the best of matters for us are the middle ones, and in the language of the legislation as a whole the best of matters are the middle ones:^[13] no neglect and no excess, we do not go to extremes in what we give or in what we take, rather we take things easy and calm down. And even in worship the Prophet ﷺ forbade excess. He entered and found a rope stretched out on which one of them would stand whenever she grew weary so as to complete her prayer, and this is a very good thing, but he said: No, «ليصلِّ أحدكم طاقته» (Let one of you pray according to his capacity).^[14] That is: whoever is tired, let him sleep; do what you can, and what you cannot do, do not strive for it until you destroy yourself. And why? Because if I asked you, all my sisters, may Allah bless you, to pray the whole night, what about the man who wants to wake in the morning to go to his work, does he not want a bite? Does he not have breakfast? And what about the children who went to school? If I said to them: go on, go on, I am praying all night, go and eat anything, I'm in night prayer all night long! Then he said jokingly: Yes, enough, «Allah sufficed the believers in battle, and Allah is Strong and Mighty.»^[15]

And the point of the statement is that Allah, Blessed and Exalted, showed us that moderation in things is the best way to complete the course of Islamic movement work.

We stop here, if Allah, Glorified and Exalted, wills, and we continue in a coming meeting. May Allah keep you safe, and may Allah reward you well.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer's wording here is garbled in the transcript («لم يكن له فيها إلا همه فقط»), so I recorded its closest meaning and added nothing to it. ^[2]: Reported by al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Māja, and its completion is: «وخير الخطّائين التوابون» (and the best of the sinners are those who repent). Editor's documentation: what appeared in the lecture is only the first part of the ḥadīth. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: it is from the words of the Exalted: ﴿الَّذِينَ يَجْتَنِبُونَ كَبَائِرَ الْإِثْمِ وَالْفَوَاحِشَ إِلَّا اللَّمَمَ﴾ [النجم: 32] (those who avoid the major sins and immoralities, except for the minor lapses), and the lecturer limited himself to the words "except for the minor lapses." ^[4]: Editor's documentation: the wording before it is garbled in the transcript («ومسألة أنني أنا الخلي الذي هو في الكون فاتنه عن هذه الترهات»), so I did not compose a meaning from it, and limited myself to what was clear of it. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: a jest that came out garbled in the transcript, and this is the closest of what can be understood from it, and I have recorded it as unclear. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: this is how the lecturer pronounced it. What occurs in the Qur'an on the tongue of Moses, peace be upon him, is «yā qawmi» as in the words of the Exalted: ﴿وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوْمِهِ يَا قَوْمِ﴾ [المائدة: 20] (And when Moses said to his people, "O my people"). I have kept the lecturer's wording in the body. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer conveyed this meaning as being from the words of the Prophet ﷺ, and I did not verify its authenticity in this wording, so I recorded it as it appeared in the lecture. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: it is in Sūrat al-Aʿrāf: 65, and its completion is: ﴿وَإِلَىٰ عَادٍ أَخَاهُمْ هُودًا﴾ (And to ʿĀd, their brother Hūd), and the lecturer limited himself to the words "And to ʿĀd, their brother." ^[9]: Reported by al-Bukhārī. Editor's documentation: the lecturer mentioned the ḥadīth in its wording, and connected it to the generality of the word "a cow." ^[10]: Editor's documentation: the transcript's wording here is garbled («أودى فلوسه كلها جام الخمرة أو...»), so I recorded only what was clear of it. ^[11]: Editor's documentation: after this phrase in the transcript comes a garbled sentence («لكن لماذا تحرص على التدين ما دام منتسبا إلى غيرك وليس منتز لك…») so I did not record it. ^[12]: Editor's documentation: this saying came in the transcript as from the doubts of the polytheists, and the lecturer did not name its location in the Qur'an, so I recorded it as it came without attribution. ^[13]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer presented it as a well-known principle in the language of the legislation and not a particular ḥadīth, and I did not attribute it to a book. ^[14]: Editor's documentation: it is the ḥadīth of the rope stretched between two pillars, reported by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. The lecturer did not give its text, but alluded to the incident and its meaning, and its text is: «ليصلِّ أحدكم نشاطه، فإذا فتر فليقعد» (Let one of you pray while he is energetic, and when he grows weary let him sit). As for the lecturer's word "capacity," it is from his own words. ^[15]: Editor's documentation: this is a quotation from the words of the Exalted: ﴿وَكَفَى اللَّهُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ الْقِتَالَ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ قَوِيًّا عَزِيزًا﴾ [الأحزاب: 25] (And Allah sufficed the believers in battle, and Allah is ever Strong and Mighty), which the lecturer offered by way of jest after his talk about night prayer, and the passage is garbled in the transcript, so I did not assert his intent. ^[16]: Editor's documentation: I recorded the verse in the Qur'anic spelling ﴿أَتَتَّخِذُنَا هُزُوًا﴾, whereas the transcript each time has «أتتخذون هزوًا»; it is not known whether it is a slip of the tongue by the lecturer or an error of hearing. And what appears afterward of «أتتخذنا» in the body refers to the verse itself. ^[17]: Editor's documentation: it is in Sūrat Ṭā Hā: 121, and the lecturer did not name its location. ^[18]: Editor's documentation: the order of this report is garbled in the transcript (it has «حتى قتله», then «أقسم أنه سيقتله», then the plan of the killing), so I limited myself to what is closest to what is understood, and the lecturer himself offered it by way of an untrustworthy "story." ^[19]: Editor's documentation: the two verses are from Sūrat al-Baqara: 72–73, and the lecturer did not name their location, and the first part of them came garbled in the transcript. The text of verse 72 is: ﴿وَإِذْ قَتَلْتُمْ نَفْسًا فَادَّارَأْتُمْ فِيهَا ۖ وَاللَّهُ مُخْرِجٌ مَّا كُنتُمْ تَكْتُمُونَ﴾ (And when you killed a soul and disputed over it, and Allah was to bring out what you were concealing), and the completion of verse 73 after what the lecturer quoted: ﴿لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ﴾ (that perhaps you will understand). ^[20]: Editor's documentation: the two scenes in the transcript are quick and mixed up (who is the speaker in each), and this is a cautious wording on the basis that the first is of the wife's suspicions and the second of the husband's suspicions. ^[21]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer limited himself to «When any one of you is approached… the bequest for the parents and the near relatives in kindness, a duty upon the righteous», and the full verse is: ﴿كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذَا حَضَرَ أَحَدَكُمُ الْمَوْتُ إِن تَرَكَ خَيْرًا الْوَصِيَّةُ لِلْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ ۖ حَقًّا عَلَى الْمُتَّقِينَ﴾ [البقرة: 180] (It is prescribed for you, when death approaches one of you, if he leaves wealth, the bequest for the parents and the near relatives in kindness, a duty upon the righteous). ^[22]: Editor's documentation: it is in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ: 11, and the lecturer did not name its location. ^[23]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer's wording here is garbled in the transcript («ما تقولش الكلام ده ما ينفعش، ما تقوليش… لو هتقول مش معقول قول مش معقول عشان تستوعب…»), so I limited myself to what was clear of it. ^[24]: Editor's documentation: in the transcript: «قالتله بقوللك انت بتتريق عل[يّ] طلقني» (she said to him, I'm telling you, you are mocking me, divorce me), so the one saying "divorce me" is the wife, not the husband.