 Bismillah Alhamdulillah, Lord of the worlds, Wassalam ala Rasul Kareem, Wa ala alihi, Wa sahbih, Wa min tabi'a sunnatahu ilayyumiddin Assalam wa alaikum wa rahmatullahi wabarakatuh Welcome again to another episode of your weekly Islamic chat show, Guests of the Week coming to you from Sharjah Television, Sharjah Broadcasting Authority. As always, I'm your host Ismail Al-Bulak. And today, insha'Allah, we want to talk about a very, very important topic which is the status and the importance of the sunnah. And do that with me, insha'Allah. It's no stranger to the show. Salamu alaikum. Jazakallah khayr for coming on. So as I mentioned to the viewers, a very, very important topic which we're going to discuss today is the status or the importance of the sunnah. Alhamdulillah, Lord of the worlds, Alhamdulillah, When a person wants to become a Muslim, they have to come with a testimony of Allah, Shadu an la ilaha illallah, wa ashadu anna Muhammad al-Rasulullah. Those are the two things that I mentioned, the closest. Shadu an la ilaha illallah, and right next to it is, wa ashadu anna Muhammad al-Rasulullah. So following the sunnah of the messenger, salallahu alayhi wasallam, and adhering to the sunnah, it's what wa ashadu anna Muhammad al-Rasulullah entails. It's what it means. If you think about it, if the person was to come with a shadu an la ilaha illallah, it testified that there was no true God worthy which he accepted Allah, but he doesn't testify that Muhammad al-Rasulullah, he still hasn't done enough to become a believer. He must have that Muhammad al-Rasulullah. Yes, he has to come with both of them, wa ashadu an la ilaha illallah, wa ashadu anna Muhammad al-Rasulullah. When the scholars say, when the person says, wa ashadu anna Muhammad al-Rasulullah, it means, that you obeyed the messenger, salallahu alayhi wasallam, and that which he commanded you, wa tasdiqoo fima akhbar. You believe him in everything he told you about. wa chtinaboo manaha anhu wa zajr. And you stay away from that which he prohibited you from. And that he told you to stay away from. Wa alla yu'bada allahu illa bimashara. And that Allah is not worshipped except in the way that he, salallahu alayhi wasallam, had told us. So the last one is what concerns us, which is, we worship Allah tabarak wa ta'ala in the way that the messenger did it, alayhi salallahu wasallam. The scholars, they say, al-turgu kulluha masdoudah illa tariqa maniqa ta'ala atala Muhammadin, salallahu alayhi wasallam. That all of the roads to Allah Azawajala are blocked. The only road that you can take that will take you to Allah Azawajala is the road that the prophet, salallahu alayhi wasallam, took. The path that he tread on. There's no other road. Because a ibadah is that which Allah loves and is pleased with. That's what a ibadah is. How do you know what Allah loves and is pleased with? The only way you can know is through the messenger, salallahu alayhi wasallam. And that's why when you look at the Quran and the Quran, you find that it emphasizes on the concept of following the sunnah, following the messenger, salallahu alayhi wasallam. Allah says in many places in the Quran, If you love Allah Azawajala and your love for Allah is real and it's true, then the way to determine it is your following of the sunnah of the messenger, salallahu alayhi wasallam. And the scholars, they call that verse, ayatul imtihan. The verse of testing. Testing what? Testing a person's love. If it's real or if it's not. Or if a person wants to test his love of Allah Azawajala. Is it real? Is it really there? Then the way to determine it is to look at how his adherence is towards the sunnah. And when you mentioned there are so many verses and I can't remember, I believe it's 20 odd something verses that say, Obey Allah and obey his messenger. Obey Allah and obey his messenger. So there's a very big emphasis there. And we have people who pop up and probably we're going to talk about that later on anyway, but people who pop up and say we just need the Quran. Everything in the Quran is enough. There's no need to look at any hadith. But we continue to see Allah and self in the Quran saying, Obey Allah and obey his messenger. So, Whatever the Prophet SAW gave you or told you, take it. And whatever he forbids you from, stay away from it. So that itself is a very strong, strong evidence, strong proof that you need to listen to the teachings of the Prophet SAW. Ameen. Even if you look at the Quran, Allah, the Almighty, the Most Merciful, the ones who do it, obey Allah and obey the messenger Those of you who believe, obey Allah and obey the messenger. What's amazing is that Allah says, those of you who believe, obey Allah and he didn't just say, or he didn't say, obey Allah and the messenger. But it repeated the word obey again. He said, obey Allah and then he said, obey the messenger. Scholars, they said the wisdom in that is that the obedience of Allah is unrestricted. Also, the obedience of the messenger, SAW is unrestricted. You obey him in everything. Aleyhis Salatu Salam. We obey him in everything he told us. We obey him in everything he prohibited us from. We obey him unrestrictedly. Whereas when it came to those who have authority over us, Allah says, what will he learn from you? Those who have authority over you, whether it be your parents, whether their obedience is restricted to if it's in line with Allah and his messenger. So this ayah really benefits us that the obedience of Allah is obeying the messenger. If you want to obey Allah, obey the messenger. I obey Allah and I obey the messenger. Obey Allah and obey the messenger. They cannot be separated from one another. You know the famous hadith of the Prophet SAW where the Prophet prohibited his companions from saying If Allah wills and if he wills, and if he wills. The Prophet prohibited his companions from saying that. If Allah wills and if he wills, they were prohibited from saying that. Because the will is only for Allah. When you don't want it, it's Allah. No one's will, no it's Allah. Everything first is Allah as-so-jalla. The Mashi'a is only attributed to Allah. So the Prophet prohibited his companions from saying that. He said, If you want to say it, say If Allah wills, and if he wills. If I remember correctly, he also added that have you made me an equal with Allah? So now we see that even in the statement which may seem to some people it's very simple. It's an interesting point to add slightly off a topic but relevant is that even in this just make a statement of if Allah wills and Muhammad and we see now people going and praying to the Prophet Muhammad and asking him for things like they should ask Allah. So if that was forbidden just to make that statement, imagine making du'a to him and turning your bad towards the Prophet Muhammad are all as serious and big mistake this is. If the Prophet Muhammad said, have you made me an equal with Allah? Just by the statement they made. I prohibited that. He said to his companions, Don't go overboard with me as the Christians were overboard with Isbnu Maryam. Say about me, Abdullah and the Prophet. Say that about me. But the reason I wrote that up was when Allah says wa ati'u Allah Allah says wa ati'u Allah wa Rasoolah Obey Allah and the messengers but the waw was used here when it came to the obedience but it wasn't used for the the worship because obeying the messenger is obeying Allah both of them are the same in obedience because the Prophet doesn't speak from his own whims and desires. I forget the full ayah but there's the ayah that says whoever has obeyed the messenger has indeed obeyed Allah. This is also very strong emphasis to what you mentioned. 100%. It's true. And Allah says wa mayamtiku anil hawain wa illa wahyun yuhaa and he doesn't speak from his own whims and desires Everything which he says is a revelation from Allah. The Sunnah of the Prophet is what? It's a second revelation. It came from Allah. Nowadays as you mentioned before there are those who want to say you know what the Quran is all we want but are they really following the Quran? Are they adhering to the Quran because it's the Quran itself that's telling us what? to follow the messenger it's instructing us to follow the messenger I mean how are you going to know how to pray? How do you know how to pray? How do you establish a prayer? How do you give zakat? Say good to the people. How do I say good? What should I say? What should I not say? You wouldn't know those verses are ambiguous. They need clarity. And that's what Allah said to the Prophet Muhammad we sent a revelation on to you and the reason why Allah chose to send it down on the messenger so he can clarify it for the people he can tell them what is it that he wants them to do and what is it that he wants them to stay away from and one of the early things that happened within Islam when all the deviated groups came out is that they strayed away from this path following the messenger one way or another the first group that came out was the khawarij and when this group came out the first mistake that they felt short in was they didn't follow the sunnah they actually abandoned and stayed away from the sunnah when he told you the famous story of Aisha when the woman came to her she said to her Aisha the woman who was on her menstruation why is it that the woman who is on her menstruation why is it that the woman who is on her menstruation she has to bring back the fasting she doesn't have to bring back the prayer Aisha said to her are you a harouri and a harouri were a group of the khawarij who ran away from Khufa and they went to a place called Harura in Iraq he said to her Aisha said to her why did she say that because the khawarij never took the sunnah so this woman she might have abandoned the sunnah and not wanted to take the sunnah so she wanted to know first something that comes to mind as well some people as well they may not think they are abandoning the sunnah but they are in the sense of they are starting to practice innovations for example and you can probably clarify the story but what pops to mind is the story of one of the Sahaba and I believe it could have been Abbas but when he saw an individual who was praying so many raka'at every single day a certain fixed amount and he went to advise him and he told him this is innovation and he said to him will Allah be smart we see this in modern day when you tell people this particular way of doing zikr this is not from the sunnah they say things like Allah punish me for making for praying he said no Allah will not punish you for praying but he will punish you for your opposing of the sunnah so this is what we also see in modern times many people they will come back and say come on brother I am making zikr Allah will punish me for making zikr so he may not punish you for the zikr itself but the way you are doing it you have made it up it is not from the teacher Al-Imam Al-Khattab Al-Baghdadi mentions the Kitab Al-Faqih which attributes to the story it is true that is how it is and what is amazing is Sheikh Al-Albaadi mentioned in the Sahih Hadith it was amazing he said that he said he said Allah will punish me Allah will punish me Allah will punish me for praying Allah will punish me for praying I prayed Allah will punish me for opposing the sunnah Allah will punish me for opposing the sunnah just hold you on that point inshallah and we will just go for a short break Salam wa alaikum and welcome back just before the break we were talking about we ended on the point where you said he went to the man who was doing so many extra prayers in a way that is not from the sunnah and he mentioned the man said will I be punished for my prayers you will not be punished for the prayer but you will be punished for doing it you are opposing or you are going against the sunnah that is where we ended off he said something he said that Allah guided a statement like that a statement really shows a lot of wisdom in his words and how he thought about the answer he is going to give Sahih Allah will punish you for praying that you prayed but you are opposing the sunnah that is what you are going to be punished for and something like that happened to Aliman Malik and he said to him I want to do Umrah from the Qabr of the process right next to Prophet's grave I want to start from there I want to wear my Ihram from there and then I am going to go to the Meqat of the people of Medina and then from the Al-Hulaifa I am going to go to Umrah so Aliman Malik said to him don't do that and then he said to him I am just going to increase the distance really that is going to be a big problem and then he said to him I fear fitnah for you and then he responded by saying I am just going to increase a couple of miles that is really it what fitnah could possibly come from this and then he said to him that the fitnah that could come from this is you thinking that you can get closer to Allah you can get closer to Allah in an action that the Prophet s.a.w.t. getting closer to Allah with and Aliman Malik has one powerful statement of his which is Aliman Malik said anyone who innovates into this religion he adds something to the Deen so Aliman Malik has claimed that the messenger has deceived the message of Islam because Allah says in the Quran today I have completed your religion on to you and I have fully established on you my blessing and I have become pleased with Islam as your religion and Aliman Malik went on to say what wasn't the religion of Islam and the messenger was alive will not become a religion today it's powerful that he said the person innovates something into the religion he sees it to be good he thinks this is good this is another statement which is anyone who sees something to be good and says wow I need to do this because it seems to be good he said he legislated so the innovation starts very small and then finally what do you see that he becomes very serious I mean look at the people Abdullah ibn Mas'ud entered on to who just using the pebble and one would say the famous story the narrator mentioned that those same individuals who Abdullah ibn Mas'ud rebuked were the ones who were against Ali ibn Talib and became part of the group known as the Khawarij something that small and I follow the steps of shaytan don't follow the footsteps of shaytan it starts so very small you think it's just one innovation it's just one small innovation I'm going to start and then you can't stop it because you've now adapted yourself to opposing the prophet shaytan won't just stop there it will make you oppose him in more issues and then you start to oppose him in your your belief until you throw yourself into destruction and any action that's not done in accordance to the sunnah is rejected based on the hadith of the prophet man ahadata fi amnina hadam alaihi sammin hofa warad someone might say the hadith says anyone who innovates into the religion will be rejected a person might say I'm not the one who introduced it it wasn't me someone else did it al-imam al-nawis it's amazing because right after that he put the other wording which is just to repeat that point in case it comes to your mind which is anyone who does an action that's not from our affairs will be rejected as well and the poet he said he said he says for an action to be accepted it's amazing it has to be in accordance to the sunnah and it also has to be done with sincerity that's another we see because some people also claim I'm doing this only for Allah so they may do a certain action and they may truly be doing it only for Allah but it's not enough because they're not doing it according to the sunnah and they could be doing something according to the sunnah but doing it to please people only and then they're not fulfilling the first condition of doing it sincerely for Allah so there has to be both of those conditions for it to be a valid and accepting act of worship and that's the two things Allah rejects if a person doesn't come with and the shirk Allah told that he wouldn't accept it if any act is done upon shirk Allah said I'm going to accept it shirk Allah said I am rich I am rich I am not in need of being associated partners with me anyone who associates partners with me in an act I will abandon him and the act and the person who he has associated me with and the second one is so he's rejected you're going to be rejected the person you're trying to do all of it rejected the second one is of course we mention the hadith it's rejected and we as Muslims we want to go to Jannah we want Allah to take us to Jannah we want Allah to distance us from the Hellfire we want Allah to be pleased with us there is nothing that's going to get us close to Jannah and there is nothing that's going to distance us from the Hellfire except that it was clarified to us the Prophet SAW hadith the Prophet SAW had the right to show his nation what he knows about them Allah did not send a prophet no prophet, no messenger came it was a responsibility and it was obligatory upon that prophet to show his nation what he knows about them that he informs about any good that can take them close to Jannah the Prophet SAW hadith there is nothing the first hadith I mentioned was the Sahih Muslim this one, I came across it in the Kitab Al-Risala and Ahmad Shaikhil in the Taqiq of Al-Risala he authenticated this that there is nothing that brings you close to Jannah and that distances you from Allah SAW except that it was clarified so there isn't any act that you're trying to achieve that you're trying to do except that it has been explained if it's going to take us to Jannah or not if your act is not being prescribed is not being mentioned anywhere I can reassure you it definitely is not going to distance you from the Hellfire and definitely is not going to be pleased into Allah SAW I guess what might be a good point to mention to the viewers here because this comes up quite often which may seem too many to be a very silly argument but it does often pop up maybe you can shed some light on that a lot of times when you speak to people they come off with literally statements like why using a car then or why using a mobile phone or why using a microphone in the mosque when you leave the prayer or why using megaphones to amplify the sound of the Adhan all of these are bid'ah how would one if one is trying to advise somebody and they come back with that how would one reply to them respond to them and show them that those things is not what we're referring to here the Hadith that we mentioned in our affairs means the religion anyone who introduces a matter in our religion that's what the Prophet said in our affairs in our affairs means the Sunnah, the religion, the Deen anyone who adds anything to the religion so no one is talking about the dunya rather the Prophet clearly and categorically said you guys know your dunya better go and innovate in the dunya and achieve and accumulate and make the discussion is not about the dunya the discussion is the religion and the Adhan and the Adhan until it becomes the Adhan and it's not a project of matters that are not in our affairs the principle of worship is our norms and our customs is permissibility as long as there doesn't come an evidence that diverts it from us and it's not a project of matters there's nothing that is permitted for us to do unless it's mentioned in the Quran or the Sunnah unless it's stated in the Deen unless it's found in the Quran one should never think to himself and become full of himself and be conceited to think to yourself that you can get closer to Allah or you can get to Jannah in an act that Abu Bakr Omar, Uthman if there was any door to Jannah if there was any door to to be distanced from the Halifah I swear Abu Bakr would not have pulled back Maybellah Muhammad would definitely not with help he would not have withheld that information from his Ummah anyone who innovates in the religion and brings a matter into the religion or even does an innovation the scholars they said his action speaks and says that Muhammad has deceived us I have mentioned the statement of my Malik when he started in Islam he started saying because that person has claimed that Nabila Muhammad has deceived us how is that the case the scholars they said the way that is is because the religion is complete Allah clearly said I have completed your religion on to you this is the 10th year of the Hijriah it came down the religion after that was complete the scholars they said after that verse no hukum, no jurisprudence was sat down it was the last verse because but they said it was the last hukum based verse there was no hukum that came after that there is no rulings that came after that so after I completed your religion came down and Allah said I am pleased with this for you this is what I am pleased with anyone who then adds something on to it has two options to either say the religion was not complete Allah is lying that's a very serious statement to say or to say that Allah did complete the religion so the question is why are you doing this then because this was not mentioned in the religion you would be forced to say Nabila Muhammad deceived us he did not convey the message he was told he conveyed so that's the danger of innovating the danger he warned us of this he said to us that every newly invented matter is a misguidance and every misguidance is in the half fire so the Prophet told us to stay away from innovation which is the opposite of following the sunnah I'll just hold you on that point inshallah please join us after this short break Assalamu alaikum and welcome back we just ended on that very very important point of Bida'a and if you practice this innovation you're either saying that or claiming that Allah is not making a statement of truth or you're saying that the Prophet didn't truly complete this message to us now in this last part of the show something I think also confuses some people is what can we class as the sunnah some people take it to an extreme where they read a hadith that the Prophet used to wear a certain item of clothing and they then say that everybody must wear that certain amount of clothing so you may say a group of Muslims they say there's an evidence that the Prophet would wear a long shirt with baggy trousers for example with a white emama so then they say it is a must for everybody to dress exactly the same whether you're in the middle of the west or wherever you may be everybody must wear that so how can we define what is truly sunnah and what are the things of the sunnah that we kind of must follow and what are we rewarded for and what are the things that we they're just out of a customer out of preference that we don't literally have to follow to the T the scholars they mention that his actions are not all ibadah there were some things that were jibilli, was natural this is how he was a.s and there were things that were ibadah that he did out of ibadah for instance the Prophet's actions just show permissibility the Prophet does something a.s and there's no external evidence that makes it restricted to him alone it shows the permissibility of us doing this but it doesn't show that we have to follow him or we get rewarded for following him every time in every case what i mean by that is for instance the Prophet s.a the way he walked and the way he talked this is a natural way it's not ibadah Allah created him like that his people and the culture that he was from they used to do particular things follow them in those particular things as long as he wasn't prohibited in the religion he would follow them in it a.s those are cultural things that he did they were cultural things they were adat of his people and taqali that he took from them also it's not something that's a worship that you get closer to Allah by doing it one may then interject and say well what about the bid wasn't that the custom of the Arabs at that time we'll say that you're right but then a clear statement came your argument would have stood but he said s.a let your bids grow leave your bids this now became a statement and we need to distinguish between the statements and the actions the statements of the messenger s.a the default position for it it shows obligation the unrestricted commandments of the messenger s.a they the unrestricted commands of the prophet s.a so this is for the viewers this is even a principle in Islam Jewish students isn't it that the command of the prophet s.a is considered to be obligatory just so the viewers understand that even for centuries going back from the famous scholars like the four imams etc this is what was considered to be if there was a hadith or a stated process that clearly was saying do this don't do this generally speaking they would take that as an obligation or as something not being permissible as well on the other flip soil unless there comes an external evidence that removes it from it that shows that it's not obligatory but yeah that's why I said the unrestricted commandments of the messenger s.a shows obligation rather than we have to do that we have to do it we have no choice in this issue like the law and the rule of Allah is this you have a choice if you want to do it you can sin and commit disobedience but you have no right to now tamper with the hukm of Allah but you're right some people because they haven't understood how the sunnah is and what is not the sunnah and the definition of the sunnah the definition of the sunnah is maybe sallallahu alaihi wa sallam ibn qaulin or fi'alin or taqreelin or sifat or khuluqiya or khilqiya there's five things they mention they say number one sunnah generally is the prophet's speech, his actions the consent things that were done in his presence that he approved of alaihi s.a his approval and they also add into the sunnah his manners and the way he carried himself alaihi s.a and last but not least the way he created him and that's the books of sunnah it's a hadith book but we don't follow the process in the way Allah created him that's how he was i want to come back to a point that i think is very important to mention as well before the session is over is that the concept of rejecting the sunnah or not giving the sunnah any weight and saying look i just want to follow the Quran that's what really matters to me the rejection of the sunnah occurs in two ways there's a partial rejection that's a completely rejected but there's a partial rejection and they're the ones who say we don't take single generations in akida we don't want to take single generations in akida that's one group of people that is a form of rejection of the sunnah because we were told to come we were told to upon you is my sunnah not the mutawatil one is upon you upon you is my sunnah unrestrictedly so this is in relation to people who hadith which is has singular narrator where some people say oh look we do take hadith but when it comes to matters of akida because they're so serious according to what they claim one narrator is not enough upon al-khattab narrating some of these akida based hadith in arabic and naui etc so this is what just so some of the viewers the terminology for them so this would be for those people who deny or don't accept hadith in akida narrated by one companion for example you just gave one good example which is Umar r.a the hadith of the hadith umar is the only one who narrated to us from the prophet as-salamah and the only person narrated from umar al-khattab is al-qamah bin abu waqas al-leithi and the only person who narrated from al-qamah bin abu waqas al-leithi is muhammad ibrahim al-taimi and the only person who narrated from muhammad ibrahim al-taimi is yahim al-saeed al-ansari and then the scholars they say after muhammad ibrahim al-saeed al-ansari he became 200 people narrated Sufiyan al-thawri, Hameed ibn Abdulhamid al-Zubair Mubarak, ibn Uriyina all those numbers came the point is like how many chapters does he enter he enters so many chapters of the religion Mu'ad ibn Jabal the prophet sent him by himself and he said so that's one form of rejection of the sunnah but it's partial rejection and it's a stepping stone to the complete rejection it's going to come to that finally the second one is the complete and ultimate rejection the person just doesn't take the sunnah and they call themselves unjustly and it shouldn't be allowed for them to be called this Qur'an yun they call themselves this is what Qur'an yun no they're not Qur'an yun because if you follow the Qur'an the Qur'an told you to follow the sunnah what you should be called is munkiri as sunnah the rejecters of the sunnah that's the real name that should be given to you the rejecters of the sunnah but they call themselves Qur'an yun so you mentioned people they call themselves Qur'an yun so obviously you mentioned if they really were Qur'an yun follows the Qur'an they no doubt would have to accept the sunnah because we mentioned earlier pointless areas and pointless parts where the Qur'an keeps pointing continuously to obey in Allah and obey in the messenger saying to the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam I have sent you with the wisdom to make clarity and show the people the meanings whoever has obeyed the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has obeyed Allah continuous verses so if they were truly the followers of the Qur'an they would have to no doubt be following the sunnah no doubt and the Qur'an actually pointed us there are many ibadat that are connected to following the sunnah like when the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam stood up on the pulpit and he said to the people sallu kamara pray the way you see me pray take from me your hajj the one who just follows the Qur'an will not be able to do that the one who follows the Qur'an and only sticks to the Qur'an he or she will not be able to do hajj because all of that is found in the sunnah all the finer explanatory details just like for the salah as you mentioned earlier and how to give zakah all of this is within the hadith that these people unfortunately deny and it's within the sunnah that a person learns how to how to care for the neighbors how the prophet did it how to treat your wives Allah says live with them in good how is that good how is it determined all of that is more explained in the sunnah that's what Allah sent him for us so we can learn these things from him how to do things the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he sunnah and the way that he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sunnah was the most beneficial thing for us the thing that will bring us to Allah the thing that will protect us from the hellfire the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam all of my umma will enter jannah except the one who rejects the sahabah says the sahabah says who are the ones who are going to reject it who are the ones who are going to reject who would say that I don't want to go to jannah because jannah is who is the person who is going to say I don't want to enter jannah the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said the one who obeys me will enter jannah and the one who disobeys me is the one who refused he doesn't want to enter jannah that's a really good point to end on that inshallah and thank you for all tuning in inshallah same time, same place assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wabarakat