 بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والصلاة والسلام على أشف العلمياء والمرسلين السيدنا ونبينا عب القاسم المحمدين وعلى أهل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المعصومين المفلومين ولعنة الله على أداءهم أجمعين من الآن إلى قيام يوم الدين أعمين يا رب العالمين شكرا لكم وشكرا for joining us once more live from the holy city of Karbala أنتم معيني أخي يحيسي مور for this regular broadcast live show entitled Back to the Basics إن شاء الله سعلا I hope I can assume by now that none of the viewers are tuning in for the first time because it is getting long and tedious to have to explain the philosophy of the show every time we tune in but in short and in summary this is a show in which we are focusing Upon producing a productive methodology for those of us who live in the confusing world that's the modern ages and I say the confusing world because we admit that the modern world is both an era in which guidance is found in abundance and also misguided in found in an even greater abundance as well كل مجموعة توم، ستيف و حري is giving the ability to voice his view be it religious, social, political even something along the lines of views on race or gender every such person is giving their ability to voice their views and they are giving a platform to do such they will also find that that platform attracts other like-minded people but also more importantly they are able to get their voice to whoever they would like to because we live in the world of the internet and this has allowed every single person to have a voice the world of the internet the world of mass TV broadcasting which allows us to have this great technology which lets us reach you in the comfort of your homes from the holy city of Karbala but whilst this amazing technology exists it is both a blessing and a curse and of course the whole purpose of this show is in order to learn together insha'Allah how we want to be able to address such concerns of course when I say to learn such really to dialogue with others is a skill when I say it's a skill that is not to say I'm a particularly skilled person at this particular engagement and indeed any experience I have or any engagements I have have primarily been quite negative to be honest with you and I would argue that many of us we learn with age that there is a certain wisdom in not engaging in cheap polemics in not trying to learn your religion through the concept of debates but nonetheless that does not mean that we are not here to respond to the doubts and the challenges posed to us by others throughout the series we have been looking at the concept of religion as a world view that is to say a distinct package of interconnected beliefs which affect the way we view ourselves the way we view God and the way we view others around us things such as the way we view knowledge essentially an interconnected series of big questions which depending on how one answers you would find there would be drastic consequences and we've talked about how we compare world views against one another prior to this brief special which is known as the Christmas special although today's episode should probably really be called the New Year's special as we are drawing closer to the New Year of the western Gregorian calendar we have been engaging with one of the requests made by one of the brothers who had requested myself to give my thoughts on an argument put forward by non-Shia Muslims this argument is generally put forward by Sunnis although in reality it could be put forward by anyone probably with the exception of the Ibarvis who I doubt would be making this argument the argument goes as fast that just as the Christians claim to follow Jesus and the Jews would claim to follow Moses the Muslims on mass believe they are better followers of Jesus and Moses than both the two previous religions which attribute themselves to those prophetic figures and so the Muslim would generally argue that we believe your religion has number one been abrogated but number two has gone through a phase of distortion and therefore your attributation to such an individual does not mean you genuinely follow them however they come forward and they make this same argument about the key religious doctrinal and infallible figures of the Shia Muslims so they would say for example that whilst you Shias you claim to follow the Ahl al-Bait we dispute this fact we do not believe you are genuinely followers of the Ahl al-Bait rather we believe that you are claiming to follow the Ahl al-Bait and we believe that we are better followers of the Ahl al-Bait than you are of course the claim was made by someone who I have mentioned in previous episodes of all out of preference because he's always been very candid with me we could even loosely refer to ourselves as friends and we've known each other for many years this individual who I've known that is very respectful in person he's older than me as well I have not wanted to confront him in a way in which people think I am attempting a gladiatorial fight with him I'm not locking horns with a ball and I'm not interested in a wrestling match of sorts rather I wanted to put forward what our scholars have had to offer in addressing the claims made by such an individual the video which was sent to me was known as schooling the Shi'as in which this argument was put forward of course the argument is that we actually follow the Ahl al-Bait properly and the Shi'as do not follow the Ahl al-Bait rather the Shi'as follow a group of narrators who are unknown and we don't trust that these narrators accurately reflect what was being taught by the Ahl al-Bait عليهم السلام of course it's not just this individual it's not just the Salafis who put forward this claim you'll hear this claim very very commonly from many many Sunnis regardless of what their particular religious background is when I say that I mean their theological leanings you'll find Borelwis that say it you'll find Sufis that say it you'll find very very pro Ahl al-Bait Sufis claiming that we are the true followers of the Ahl al-Bait and I remember maybe a couple of years ago now I was sent a clip in the Arabic language by one of the Yemeni Shafi Sufi scholars very popular in the west amongst those who lean towards Sufism his name is Habib Ali Jifri and Habib Ali Jifri had been called out to Sudan where there had been a wave of conversion to Shi'ism and also a wave of conversion to Salafism what the world generally calls as Wahhabism in order to combat this spread particularly the spread of Shi'ism he put forward a claim which was that again you Shi'as claim to follow the Ahl al-Bait I follow the Ahl al-Bait more than you because I have this connected Isnad going back from my father to his father to his father all the way back to his ancestors where he talks about how he learned how to wrap his turban but of course our discussion tonight and our discussion with those is not who has an Isnad in turban wrapping this is not the interest of our subject tonight our interest is who legitimately follows the Ahl al-Bait in response to the claims made by my friend in a video of schooling the Shi'as he made the claim that the Shi'as do not follow the Ahl al-Bait as whole we've already responded to this particular doubt at the theoretical level where we stated that there are books of a سول الفق there are books of legal philosophy or the philosophy of law they specifically stipulate that the Ahl al-Bait may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them even if they have an اجماء even if they have a consensus that is to say an agreement amongst themselves about a particular opinion then such an agreement is not a هجة it is not legally binding as a proof of the correctness or validity of that position according to the scholars of the Ahl al-Sunnah and the Jama'a so we've shown that when you dismiss the Ahl al-Bait as being people that made mistakes people that even if they all agreed upon something we would not follow them then essentially at the theoretical level before we even enter the practical level you have excluded yourself from the discussion as to who follows the Ahl al-Bait now of course the question is do the Shi'a actually in theory or practice follow the Ahl al-Bait we've shown at the theoretical level the Shi'as minimally follow the people that they claim are the Ahl al-Bait so the Shi'a definition of the Ahl al-Bait will of course be the 14 infallibles the Holy Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم فاطمة الزحراء عليه السلام his daughter and also the 12 Imams going from عليه السلام عليه بن عبي طالب عليه السلام going all the way down to the awaited savior of mankind الحجبن الحسن and these are the figures who we believe are the Ahl al-Bait so we minimally follow the people that we claim are the Ahl al-Bait whether or not the dispute on who is the Ahl al-Bait is going to be resolved tonight that's a different question I don't think we should even enter this discussion and that's why we won't but the question is Sunnis define Ahl al-Bait in a certain way they say it's the wives and Ali ibn Abi Talib and Hassan and Hossein and anyone from the family of a prophet generally and Shi'a say no it's just these 14 individuals now the question is do the Sunnis have an evidence that they actually follow the people they claim are the Ahl al-Bait and we've already shown that this could be problematic because who would you follow in the battle of Jamal where the wife of a prophet goes out on open war a declaration of open war and slaughters thousands of her children to fight the legitimate Imam of her time now that's a secondary issue so when we now come back to the issue of who practically follows the Ahl al-Bait this claim which I've stated is not a new claim it's a very old claim a very very old claim and we find it is one promoted by one of the most renowned figures critically renowned and accepted as being a مجدد by those who call themselves the Ahli hadith by those that call themselves the Salafis and those who follow a more rigid and puritanical version of Sunni Islam this individual he states what I'll quote very quickly and we'll come back to the quote very soon he states we do not agree that the Imamiyah take the religion from the Ahl al-Bait neither the Ishan ifna asharia nor others dear viewers let's take a quick pause here we'll continue the quote after the break in addition to the implications thank you so much dear viewers for enduring patiently with that short break we were just citing the words of Ibn Taymiah a renowned Sunni scholar who states the following we do not agree that the Imamiyah take their religion from the Ahl al-Bait neither the ifna asharia nor others rather they are opponents of Ali and the imams of the Ahl al-Bait in all fundamental beliefs in which they differ with the Ahl al-Sunnah and in their toheed their beliefs and their belief in Imamah while it is firmly established that Ali and the imams of the Ahl al-Bait believed in the sifat attributes of Allah and in the khilafa of the three caliphs so the free people that came into the historical position of ruling over the early Muslim community after the death of the Prophet and in the superiority of Abu Bakr and Omar and others in all the questions they contradict the Rafa that is to say the Ahl al-Bait the proofs of this are firmly established in the books of the scholars in that the proofs in this aspect from the imams of the Ahl al-Bait necessitate certain knowledge that the Rafa are opponents to them and not their followers this is a classical quote and it's indicative of the very same claim that was made by our friend in the video in which we saw he happened to be claiming that she does not follow the Ahl al-Bait now if you can tell me a states in the same book the following namely علي ابن عبي طالب and they but in fiqh the jurists refer back to Imam Ali والجواب ان ها بالكيفب فليس ان ها بالكيفب بيناه فليس في العمة الأربع ولا غيرهم من عمة الفقه من يرجع عليه this the answer is that this is an obvious lie so the she of Ibn Taymiyyah's time we're claiming that the فقه refer back to Ali Ibn Abi Talib in fiqh the sunni fiqh Ibn Taymiyyah states this is an obvious lie neither of the four imams namely أبو هنيفة nor others refer to him in fiqh he took his knowledge from the people of Medina and the people of Medina did not take the words of Ali rather they took their fiqh from the seven jurists زيد عمر ابن عمر and others like them so Ibn Taymiyyah admits that they left Ali Ibn Abi Talib the people of Medina left Ali Ibn Abi Talib and they went with the zids and the amrs and the buckers of their time as for Shafi'a he took his fiqh primarily from the people of Makkah the companions of Ibn Jurayj like Sa'eed bin Salim Al-Qadha and Muslim bin Khaled Al-Zanji meanwhile Ibn Jurayj took from the companions of Ibn Abbas like Ata and others Ibn Abbas was an independent مجتهد when he issued fatwas he relied upon the statement of Abu Bakr and Amr and not upon the statement of Ali Ibn Abi Talib and he rejected many things from Ali moreover Shafi'a took from Malik and then wrote the books of the people and adopted the school of the Ahl al-Hadeeth and chose it for himself as for Abu Hanifa his sheikh from whom he specifically took was Hamad bin Abi Sulayman and Hamad took from Ibrahim who took from Al Qama who took from Ibn Mas'ud Abu Hanifa also took from Ata and others who took from Ali Ibn Abi Talib masha'a Allah they seem to be proud of it to be honest with you as for Imam Ahmed he belonged to the school of the Ahl al-Hadeeth the Ahl al-Hadeeth took from Ibn U'ayna who took from Amr bin Dinar who took from Ibn Abbas and Ibn Amr he Imam Ahmed also took from Heisham bin Bashir who took from the companions of Al-Hasan al-Basri he further took from bin Mahdi and bin Al-Jaraah and their likes he sat in the assemblies of and also took from and chose for himself a word and took from and and others like them so we see Ibn Taymiyyah admits when it comes to the form of Ahib do not take from and we saw from the commentary of Ibn Uthameen his تعليقات his footnotes on Sahih Muslim that he did not feel it was appropriate to also take from the opinion of Ali Ibn Abi Talib in certain places as well so it's not restricted to just the four classical Sunni schools of thought Ibn Taymiyyah states there afterwards about Tafsir and also Tafsir and and and and and and and and and others who did not take things from Ali there is no known reliable Tafsir in the hands of the Muslims and and and and and and and and and and and and and and إنهم يوجدون بشكل صحيح لذلك ما نرى هنا هو أن أبن تي مير أنه عندما يأتي ليس فقه لكن عندما يأتي إلى إنتبار القرآن إنتبار القرآن ما يأتي من علي إبنى بيطالب هو بشكل صحيح الآن why is that relevant to our discussion some people might argue well isn't that a straw man isn't that focusing on something that is not the crux of the issue tonight and I apologize if anyone feels that I am going overboard والله I ask Allah to guide us all and to guide us all to the straight path and I ask Allah before anything to give us all sincerity but the very point and the very crux which makes many of us even talk about following the Ahl al-Bait is what it's not the fact that the Ahl al-Bait we just abstractly felt that because they are from the bloodline of the Prophet that we should follow them absolutely not them being from the bloodline of the Prophet is an absolute honour and it's an honour for them to come from that bloodline for it is the greatest bloodline however that is not why we follow the Ahl al-Bait the reason we follow the Ahl al-Bait is of course حديث الثقلين that states that the Prophet صلى الله عليه و آله left behind two weighty things the book of Allah and the Ahl al-Bait and that these two things would never separate until they reach him at the lake font so when it comes to the book of Allah and you have a statement from the Prophet telling you that the book of Allah and the Ahl al-Bait never separate and عليه عليه السلام is one of those that we agree upon together is from the Ahl al-Bait what better person would you want to interpret the Quran for you especially when we find authentic Arthur from أمير المؤمنين عليه السلام in books like جامة بيان العلم وفضله and in books like تفسير الطبري in which he says ask me ask me about any ayah for Allah there is not an ayah except that I know upon what it was revealed this is علي ابن عبي طالب so we see just from these introductory statements of ابن تيمير this grand scholar according to them not only does he invalidate that his own scholars took from علي ابن عبي طالب in فقه in jurisprudence and he goes out of his way by the way in a detailed manner to try in detail and chart why none of them took from علي ابن عبي طالب and demonstrates specifically that they didn't take from him because they were too busy taking from others but he also demonstrates that they didn't take from him in تفسير عبر and he seems to wear this as a badge of honour brothers and sisters I hope throughout this short series of responses or let's not even call it responses let's call it reflections upon the initial challenge we've all come to see which sect does not follow the أهل البيت in any real way shape or form at the theoretical level and at the practical level I thank you so much for bearing patiently with a slight detour for our original course and insha'Allah tomorrow we shall return to the original discussion namely the worldview of atheism والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته