 The respected viewers, thank you for joining us once more live from the holy city of Karbala and this is your show back to the basics in which we normally discuss a feasible framework in how to address others in regards to the areas of dispute, areas of disagreement and areas of difference. I'm your host Yahya Seymour and you're joining me live from the holy city of Karbala, of course we have a beautiful shrine of Abul-Fadl al-Abbas in the background here as per every week and it's my pleasure to be joining you live tonight. Of course for many of you who are in the west you had the busy and bustling day of boxing day of course I'm sure many of you benefited from the great festive sales which exist in the west right now even those of us who were not celebrating Christmas just for anyone that happens to be tuning in and thinking we were. Of course tonight's episode name again for those of you who did not happen to tune in yesterday is slightly deceitful in the sense that we're not actually celebrating Christmas. Our sect does not promote the celebration of festivals that belong to other religions at least not as an act of ebada not as an actual aid. Of course that is not to say we will not be polite and wish well those who are celebrating other festivities for the nature of them being a national holiday much like people celebrate national holidays in the Middle East irrespective of the connotation of that holiday we likewise have the same position and since Christmas has become a very western occasion part of the national holiday system and something which everyone is affected by in one way shape or form due to the nature of the rather secular festivities going on I felt it was only befitting to give it this particular title based upon a slight in-joke between one of the brothers and myself which I mentioned yesterday. Of course that in-joke was pertaining to a video uploaded the day before called Schooling the Shi'as in which several contentions about the Ahl al-Bait alayhum salam and their followers were mentioned. Of course for those of you who were not able to tune into yesterday's episode you may catch that inshallah ta'ala on the re-broadcasts or you'll find that online and I don't wish to waste any more time giving too much of a context to what the nature of tonight's particular discussion is or is a continuation of rather needless to say I am responding to some of the contentions raised particularly in this video which was entitled Schooling the Shi'as. It was a video of one of my dare I say a close old friend of mine who happens to not be Shi'a and someone that is quite well known within these speaker circuits of the Ahli hadith or Sunni school of thought. The claim that was issued in that video or the claim that was made rather is that we Shi'as can't possibly be followers of the Ahl al-Bait. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them. That is to say there's no way we actually do follow the Ahl al-Bait but rather in the same way that the average Muslim will say to the Christians I believe we follow Jesus more than you do or the average Muslim will say to perhaps someone that follows Judaism we believe that we follow Musa or Moses more closely than you do. The Sunni likewise makes the same claim. He states that we follow the Ahl al-Bait more than the Shi'a do and the Shi'a have no legitimate claim to be those followers of the Ahl al-Bait. Of course we went right into the topic yesterday and we analyzed the reasons for why this claim is made often what leads up to this claim and indeed whether or not this claim has any substance or value to it. So just to recap very briefly the main objective in trying to make this claim is to distance the original followers of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu ala wa ala that is to say the followers of the original Islam brought by the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu ala wa ala the original pristine Islam Shi'a Islam from the legitimate claim to be those who hold on to the Ahl al-Bait may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them. This claim is done because one of the main issues which allows for Shi'as to be taken seriously or given some form of credence in that which they call towards is the claim that other sects have neglected and essentially abandoned the mention the praise and more particularly the commemoration and attachment to the Holy Prophet s family may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them that family unit known as the Ahl al-Bait. Now of course Ahl al-Bait in the Arabic language means the people of the house the household of the Holy Prophet sallallahu ala wa ala. So when does she make the claim that they follow the Ahl al-Bait? I mentioned in yesterday's episode that this will often lead to some saying what does Ahl al-Bait mean? Who are these group of people known as the Ahl al-Bait? May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. And when a Muslim asks that it just shows the general nature of the Muslim ummah today that people can be familiar with the historical legends and figures of every other nation but unfortunately the nation which attributes itself to the Holy Prophet Muhammad sallallahu ala wa ala has lost the remembrance of his close family members. And of course those who finally do find out about the Ahl al-Bait they would of course be introduced to the very known, famous, multiply attested and beyond doubt narration known as Hadith Athakalain, the Hadith of the two weighty things. When they first hear it it's as if the narration rings a bell in their ears particularly those who are Sunni because they would have heard from the pulpits of their masajids they would have heard in the groups of Tabligh and Jamaat those other groups who claim to be following the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu ala that the point of legitimacy given to the particular dawah is to make the claim that the Holy Prophet sallallahu ala wa ala had stated oh people I am leaving behind two weighty things the book of Allah and my Sunnah. This is something that we've all heard we've all heard it from the pulpits and that's why so many people get surprised when they find out that this narration does not even stand the test of authenticity it does not meet the criteria of being considered an authentic narration and note I specifically said in the in the usage of the terminology that is used I am leaving behind two weighty things the book of Allah and my Sunnah that particular narration is not trustworthy using that particular seer or formula that is to say Thakalain of course they might bring another narration which resembles it but that is not our topic tonight we are talking about what the Thakalain what are these two weighty necessary things that the Holy Prophet sallallahu ala wa ala left behind and anyone that is familiar with even the most authentic of Sunni books would understand that this is referring to the Kitab of Allah the book of Allah the Quran in addition to his households and what he specifically says is and my progeny my Ahlul Bayt and then he goes on to state that these two things will never separate until they reach each other at the lake font so the question we need to ask here is why are so many of the Muslims ignorant about this and when they are in their ignorance why is it that so many of them come forward and make the claim now that you don't actually follow the Ahlul Bayt rather it is we who follow the Ahlul Bayt your claim is just an empty claim well that's the case surely the average religious Sunni would know what the Ahlul Bayt were but since the average religious Sunni doesn't know what the Ahlul Bayt are what this reference what this title is a reference to it goes to show that even if you were following the Ahlul Bayt you're not doing a very good job of teaching people about the Ahlul Bayt that's the minimal that it shows but of course we don't concede to the claim that you are following the Ahlul Bayt for how could it be that a nation which claims that the best of generations is the first generation and after that the second generation and after that the third generation and they are the greatest of role models in terms of us emulating them in their practice how is it that this could be claimed when the second of those generations massacred the grandson of the holy prophet sallallahu alaihi in this city that we are broadcasting from now and Karbala really serves as a giant wake-up call a slap in the face which reminds us all that the Ahlul Bayt may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them were persecuted by people that called themselves muslim in the same way that people today who call themselves muslim go around perpetuating and perpetrating acts of violence against innocent human beings in the name of Islam and these actions which are done in the west they always come from the same sect for some strange reason but that is not the topic for tonight so allow us to return back to our topic which we are continuing on from last night which is the question who really follows the Ahlul Bayt one of the main points i raised in yesterday's conversation which i believe still stands valid and is the first point which must be discussed in any claim to follow the Ahlul Bayt is do you really follow the Ahlul Bayt and can you really justify that claim on even a theoretical level so we may differ in regards to whether or not the Shia have legitimate and accurate sources for what Ahlul Bayt claim but there's no doubt for those of us who go to the books of usul and fiqh or the books of the philosophy of law the books of the science of deriving legal derivations would find that the first thing which is stated in regards to the legitimate sources for islamic law and doctrine are number one the quran and number two the sayings deeds and approval tacit approval of those individuals known as the infallibles those infallibles of course being the Ahlul Bayt and we would stipulate them as being the holy prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaih fatimah al-zahra alaihi salam imam alaihi alaihi salam going all the way down to our awaited savior may Allah hasten his reappearance the twelve imams and so at the very least we have on a theoretical level a claim that we and the philosophy that we must follow what is taught by the Ahlul Bayt now of course you're missing the point if you get into the question of whether or not we actually implement that practice the question is not at the implementation level the question has not yet reached a practical level although we will get to that inshallah the question is at the theoretical level do we follow the Ahlul Bayt and we saw in yesterday's episode I quoted from at least three sources of a surul fiqh of those who call themselves the Ahlul Sunnah where they openly admit that even if there is a Jama'a of the Ahlul Bayt it is not a legitimate source of law meaning what meaning that at the theoretical level by definition they don't follow the Ahlul Bayt but dear viewers please join me for a short break and join me afterwards in which we continue to discuss this but at a more practical level inshallah wa sallamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh dear viewers thank you for waiting patiently during that short break and you're joining me back on the show in which we're discussing whether or not those who claim to follow the Ahlul Bayt be they Sunni or Shia actually follow the Ahlul Bayt I'm going to request the technical team quickly to just turn off the echo on my earpiece inshallah and we're coming back to the topic we're coming back to the topic which is that whether or not those who claim to follow the Ahlul Bayt be it myself or someone from the Sunnis actually follows the Ahlul Bayt and whether or not we can legitimately make that claim it's a very interesting question and of course before we get to it I quickly want to just address some of the claims made some of the claims made were of course that the Shia they don't know anything about the narrators and the narrators that they do know about we know that the imams condemn them according to their own books now the problem I have been highlighting throughout this entire series is this problem of what we call atomization and I don't I don't blame I really don't blame the individuals who are involved in this form of polemics because you tend to find that what they're involved with is they're involved with Christian polemics and with Christian polemics there really is this inconsistent standard of utilizing very secular postmodern anti natural anti supernatural scholarship which attempts to dissect the text in such a way that you just pick and choose what you like and that's exactly the same approach they have with Shiaism they'll read our narrations but then they'll reject the entire worldview that comes along with those narrations and they'll read the narrations in such a way where they must interpret these narrations according to their whims and desires so for example when the imam condemns Zorara may Allah be pleased with Zorara in a particular narration the person will say look your imam has done lana on Zorara in this narration now as I've said a good thing about any decent reliable worldview is whether or not it can account for something does it have explanatory scope for a certain phenomenon now one thing that one might say is that when you have a curse of Zorara it's going to be difficult for you to have an explanatory scope for that I would agree in normal cases it would be very difficult for me to find a decent explanatory scope without having to engage in El Mordrijal and trying to weaken this particular narration but then when you have an equally sound narration in which the imam says about Zorara and about others that we condemn you and curse you in front of others in order to protect the lives of our Shia and they make reference to the practice known as Taqaya due to the severe circumstances existing at that time and due to the fact that the governments were killing our imams and their followers it's pretty clear that our religion has an explanatory scope which explains away the apparent contradiction now if you don't like the explanation that's fine we can discuss why you don't like the explanation but then we move into the realm of not objectivity anymore but subjectivity and what it would become is a debate on your whims versus my whims but thankfully this discussion isn't based on my whims it's based upon an interpretative framework which exists within my worldview you're not liking that interpretive framework is not really a decent or sound argument it's merely your subjective whims but if we want to go with an argument entirely let's see where it gets us because one of the main accusations that was put against our narrators was that people like Hisham bin al-Hakam and Hisham bin Salam al-Jawalqi had deviant beliefs in regards to Tauheed so let's question that did they have deviant beliefs in regards to Tauheed or not of course when we look at what the Ulema of narrations have stated to be it Sayyid al-Khoi or be it a great scholar like al-Mamaqani or any other of the Ulema who dwells into primarily aqaids be it Sharif al-Murtava or any of the other great Ulemaq we would see that they have come forward and analyzed these narrations with Sharif al-Murtava he specifically states that when he looked back at the books of Hisham he did not find such teachings in them so if you want to now base your claims that the Hishamain cannot be trusted because they believed in touch seem then let's see if your apologetic is consistent with your own theology when we go to the theology of the people that are making this claim the theology of the man in the video who was schooling shears according to the video's title we find in Sahih al-Bukhari that the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is claimed to have said you will definitely see your lord with your own eyes likewise it is claimed that he said Allah's apostle came out to us on the night of the full moon and said you will see your lord on the day of the resurrection as you see this full moon and you will have no difficulty in seeing him now of course there's already been a cave here because in the same way that I see this moon with my eyes I will likewise see Allah according to this fabricated narration from the sects of others with my physical eyes as well so when you go around saying that we can't trust the Hishamain because they're anthropomorphists then you might want to ensure that you're not an anthropomorphist before you go around making that claim about the Hishamain and why we should reject them so you see even if we were to submit that Hishamain had these very strange and bulky beliefs about Allah Azza wa Jalla the least we would say is that well we would adopt the principle that in the same way you have some of the theological schools who believe in touch seem today narrating a few accurate things about the prophet and his practices we likewise would just reject the theology of the Hishamain and take the narrations from the imam because they're not lying about those things especially when the narrations we find from the Hishamain even in al-Kafi itself seem to belie this concept of touch seem and seem to teach the very immaculate form of tawhid that we find in every other book attributed to the imams so when we see such a theology being brought out by the very people that accuse the Hishamain we have to ask ourselves what is the agenda why are we condemning our narrators for things that why are they condemning our narrators refer for things that their own theological school teaches standard doctrine it's inconsistent and inconsistency is the sign of a defeated argument again question the assumptions don't just let anyone pick and atomize from your sources ask yourself are they being consistent with the teachings that they themselves adopt so again when they tell you something like we can't trust the teachings of the narrators from imam sadaq because they're all iraqi i didn't realize our religion was a racist religion where you can't narrate from iraqi to be honest with you and are all from the city of kufa as well again i didn't believe that our religion was so racist that you're not allowed to take from a kufin if that was the argument then i'm sorry you're going to have to come up with a slightly better one or you're going to have to bring the unauthentic narration or ayah of the quran which states oh you who believe do not accept narrations from people unless they live in the same vicinity as the person they're narrating from and until they can do that then we're not going to take for claim seriously and if they can do that then we're not going to take for claim seriously either because their own narrations don't live up to this standard dear viewers unfortunately where we're unable to finish the topics necessary for tonight but we will continue tomorrow night and inshallah we will round this topic off to a close thank you so much for joining me once more