A word by the Shaykh regarding the division by some members of political parties that Islam is divided into husks and kernels.

The Shaykh : Ready

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : The praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own selves and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He misguides, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows: We are in an age with few scholars and many preachers. Among these are some who claim affiliation with certain Islamic political parties and claim to be callers to Islam. In the course of this calling, they may deem it permissible to use expressions that are not restricted in their usage and application to the Shari'ah and its rulings. Among these is that some of them divide the Shari'ah rulings and fiqh issues into two categories, describing them by saying: one part is the kernel and the other part is the husk.
What I wish to mention before entering into the issue is a brief introduction, and that is: First, it is not permissible for a Muslim to divide Islam into two unlegislated expressions, saying: Islam is husk and kernel. And that Muslims should focus on the kernel and neglect the husk.
This division has no authority from Allah. Rather, it is a blow to Islam, whether they realize it or not. Yes, Islam contains different rulings, as you know, from the obligatory to the recommended. These are legislated realities. But the kernel, which consists of acts of worship, even the lowest in rank and virtue in the sight of Allah, it is not permissible to call it the husk.
And that is because the intention behind this naming is to diminish the value of what they call the husk. We say: the recommended or the desirable.
And we all know that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, in His immense wisdom, when He legislated Islam in degrees, as we mentioned above, from the obligatory to the recommended, did so only with immense wisdom. Perhaps one of us can clarify this meaning by the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): The point here is: Look, does my servant have any voluntary prayer? And voluntary prayer is the nafilah, meaning what is not obligatory. Does he have any voluntary prayer that completes his obligatory prayer? That is: The Muslim is created as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . So it is inevitable that a person will fall into some disobedience. Thus, Allah created the children of Adam differently from the angels, whom He described in the Qur'an, Blessed and Exalted is He: As for man, they were created to be the opposite, until the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . That is: The nature of man is to fall into sin. But it is not the desire of the Wise Lawgiver that this person be satisfied with sin. Rather, if he falls into it, he should follow it with repentance and return to Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, seeking forgiveness and making tawbah. So, if it is the nature of man to disobey the Most Merciful, and that is something that must happen, then he may neglect an act of worship, such as prayer. This neglect may sometimes be in quantity and sometimes in quality. I think you know with me the difference between quantity and quality? As for quantity, we all know that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, made it obligatory for every adult, accountable Muslim to perform five prayers every day and night. He may neglect one prayer or more. This is a deficiency in quantity. He may be keen to maintain the five prayers, as is the case, praise be to Allah, with many people. But due to their ignorance of the Shari'ah or the Sunnah, they fall into deficiency in quality, not in quantity. They are maintaining the five prayers, as we know, but their prayer may be deficient. The deficiency may be in one of the pillars, or in one of the obligations, or in a sunnah or a recommended act among the recommended acts. All of this is a deficiency in quality. And few are the ones who escape this, except whom Allah wills. And few are they. Many people pray while maintaining the five prayers, but they do not be at peace in the prayer; they rush through it. And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This one prayed, but he did not pray. As it came in Sahih al-Bukhari, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) was one day in the mosque. When a man entered, he began to pray. After he had prayed, he turned to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and said: Peace be upon you, O Messenger of Allah. He said: So the man returned and prayed.
And after the prayer, he turned again to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and said: Peace be upon you, O Messenger of Allah. He said: And so it was the third time. This time, as it is said, he was angered with this man, and he knew that he did not know how to pray properly, and he admitted that, saying: By Allah, O Messenger of Allah, I do not know how to do anything else. Teach me. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: If you do that, your prayer is complete. And if you diminish from it, you have diminished from your prayer.

The Shaykh : Welcome, welcome.

The Shaykh : I say: The hadith mentioned above, before the hadith of the one who prayed poorly, in which that man returned to pray three times without knowing how to do it properly, and he admitted that he did not know how to do anything else, saying: Teach me. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him, as you heard. The point in the hadith before it is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): .
The point of this hadith is that the Shari'ah rulings contain what is necessary, and what a person is given a choice in. But this second category is considered a backup for the first category. The first category, as I explained above, if there is a deficiency in it, in quantity or quality, the angels of Allah will make up for it on the Day of Resurrection from the voluntary prayers, which are not obligatory. So it is not correct to divide Islam into kernel and husk; especially if we intend by this crude, rejected expression that the husk is not to be concerned with, and only the kernel is; because Allah, Mighty and Majestic, as we see or witness in what Allah, Mighty and Majestic, created of fruits and vegetables and the like, has given many of them a husk and a kernel. And this husk was not created in vain, but to preserve the kernel. This is an analogy for the Shari'ah rulings, which contain what is obligatory and what is recommended. Some of the contemporaries today call what is obligatory the kernel, and what is not obligatory the husk. If only they meant that this husk is to be concerned with! But they claim that one should only care about the kernel. And here they fall into another problem when they divide Islam into kernel and husk, and they lose the kernel along with the husk. Not only from the aspect I pointed out, that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, created the husk to preserve the kernel, but from another aspect related to knowledge of the Shari'ah. They are unable, due to their ignorance, especially of the Book and the Sunnah, to distinguish, in their expression, between what is the kernel and what is the husk. So they neglect much of the kernel under the pretext of their saying that it is from the husk, while they have lost both the kernel and the husk.
I return now to the issue I wanted to specify and point out, which is: when a person enters, and those sitting wish him well, thinking he is one of those who deserve respect, honor, and greatness, even within the limits of the Shari'ah, they rush to kiss the hand of this noble person. I want to mention now two things:
First: What is the ruling on this kissing? And second: Is this the kissing we will discuss, or is it something else?
The truth is that it is a different matter. Based on what we know from the Prophetic hadiths and the reports of the Salaf, kissing the hand was a known practice in the era of the righteous Salaf, from the common people to the most prominent among them. Therefore, we cannot deny the permissibility of kissing the hand of a virtuous scholar. However, here it is necessary to remind you of two things: First, it is not befitting for us to make this kissing of the scholar's hand a continuous, established practice, because this contradicts the Sunnah. The Sunnah, as one of the Companions said—and it was likely Abu Dharr (may Allah be pleased with him)—was that we never met the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) without shaking hands with him. So, shaking hands is the recommended practice for a Muslim meeting his Muslim brother after the greeting. Many hadiths encourage shaking hands, such as his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) . Shaking hands is the regular practice, whereas kissing the hand, I call it a matter of human affection; that is, a man loves this scholar, and the Lawgiver has permitted him to kiss his hand. But to make it his habit, kissing his hand every time he meets him, this was absolutely not the practice of the Salaf. But more than this, and here is the crux of the matter as they say, and with this this word ends: it is not befitting, after the kiss, to place it on the forehead. This is what is constantly observed, unfortunately. That is, he kisses it like this and then places it on his forehead. This resembles prostration. And when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to Mu'adh ibn Jabal when he arrived from Sham—he had traveled from Madinah to Sham and saw there how the Christians honor their priests and monks—when their eyes fell upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), they were about to prostrate to him, so he said to him (peace and blessings be upon him): . In another hadith, but prostration is not valid except for Allah. Therefore, it is not befitting, and we remind our good brothers of two things, one of which is more important than the other: First, do not do this. The second thing: do not make kissing the scholar's hand a custom and a regular practice, but rather do it occasionally. This is what I wanted to remind you of, and the reminder benefits the believers.

The questioner : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Our brothers who came from the West have a large number of questions, and each of these questions requires a long time. But we will choose some of them, and perhaps Allah (Mighty and Majestic) will grant us more time so we can meet them, and we will also have answers for you to these questions they wrote. We will choose from them not in order, but rather we will choose from them randomly.