The scholars have divided the rulings of the Shari'ah into two categories: those of worship, whose meaning is not rationally comprehensible, and those whose meaning is rationally comprehensible. This is in continuation of the answer to the previous question.

The Shaykh : And now, by repeating your question, you have reminded me of the need to mention another benefit. The scholars divide the rulings of the Shari'ah into two categories. The first is purely devotional (ta'abbudi), where there is no room for the intellect; it is absolute submission. It came from the Shari'ah, so we submit to it. The other category also requires submission, but there is room for the intellect to think: "What is the reason the Messenger (peace be upon him) said such and such, or commanded such and such, or prohibited such and such?" There is another category called the counterpart to the first. We know the first is called devotional, and to add to that, devotional without a rational meaning. The second is rational in meaning. Let us take two clear examples. The first example: most acts of worship, the five prayers: four, four, four, three, two. Why? What is the wisdom in that? Allah knows best. Loud and silent, loud without silent, silent without loud. Why? What is the wisdom? Allah knows best. It is devotional; our Lord wanted to burden us to test us. Part of the trial is that He made obligatory upon us acts of worship that are not rational in meaning, to see if we will philosophize like the scholars of theology and logic, and so on, or if we will acknowledge our servitude to Allah, submit to Him, and submit completely. From another angle, He legislated for us rulings of another type that are rational in meaning, because Islam in its entirety is rational. and so on. But the first category is necessary for the servitude of man to his Creator to appear. So we gave the example of the five prayers and the different forms in them, as we explained. Many people who philosophize in the present age try to strain themselves to discover the wisdom behind this difference between the five prayers. We say this is purely devotional. The second category is rational in meaning. If we recall, for example, his saying (peace be upon him) These are prohibitions, and among them, for example, One might ask: why was the sale of gharar (excessive uncertainty) prohibited? Because the wisdom is clear, due to the harm or deception of the buyer by the seller, and so on. These are rulings that are rational in meaning. Among the scholars in these two categories, there are the thinkers and researchers, and there are the hesitant and rigid ones, because they fear that their foot may slip in some rulings, so they strain to claim that a ruling is rational in meaning and bring forth something that is not sound. This is from one side. From another side, they are scrupulous about philosophizing about the rulings of the Shari'ah, even if they are of the second category, i.e., rational in meaning, unless they are clear and obvious like the sun at noon. They are scrupulous about trying to adjust some of the rulings of the Shari'ah for the wisdoms and benefits of the servants. And why? This is something I have felt with my own hand in some of the youth. If they are not trained or accustomed to receiving the ruling of the Shari'ah accompanied by the rational reason, they become, over time, unwilling to accept the rulings of the Shari'ah unless they are accompanied by rational reasons or rational explanations. Then they fall into doubt about some of the rulings of the Shari'ah because they did not know their wisdoms. We say that this is a door whose appearance is mercy and whose reality is torment, because the matter, as we said earlier, is that deeds are judged by their endings. If the result of training students of knowledge to accept the rulings of the Shari'ah accompanied by rational explanations is that they become accustomed to not accepting what is of the first category, i.e., purely devotional, then I am scrupulous and avoid, in most cases, especially if the ruling or the reason is not clear, straining my mind and soul to discover the wisdoms of legislation, as is said in this age. But sometimes the matter is very clear and does not require straining, but only reminding. For example, if a person is sitting in the mosque or in any place, not leaning in the way I am leaning, and he was somewhat tired, what helps him to lean on rest, and from that the drowsiness that usually leads to sleep? If he is leaning, it is faster for him to reach drowsiness. Or if he is not leaning? This is known by experience. This type of leaning is called al-ih'tibaa' (sitting with knees drawn up). When a person does this in the mosque and the preacher is preaching on Friday, the nature of man will try to follow this person with the preliminaries of drowsiness, then sleep comes after drowsiness. And what may result from that is not just that he misses the benefit of the remembrance that he was commanded in the Noble Book to strive for, but it may also be a cause for the invalidation of his prayer. Because we see many people in the mosques, most of them from the general public, who do not care to understand what the preacher said. So they lean on rest and surrender to drowsiness initially, then they sleep. When the prayer is established, he wakes up and stands to pray. And you, you are praying, you slept? The Messenger (peace be upon him) says And it happened to one of the imams of hadith and fiqh, Abu 'Ubaydah al-Qasim ibn Sallam or Salam. This story happened to this excellent, learned, jurist, hadith scholar. He said: "I used to think that the sleep of one who is in control does not break the wudu' (ablution), until it happened to me once on Friday, and the preacher was preaching. A man next to me slept. When the prayer was established, I said to him, 'O so-and-so, you slept, so go and perform wudu', because you have passed wind.' He said, 'No, I did not pass wind.' The wind came out of you, and he was truly in control, meaning the imam noticed that he was in control, and yet wind came out of him. So what is circulated, old and new, that the sleep of one who is in control does not break the wudu' because he usually does not pass wind, this is possible to be the majority case if he is truly in control; it is possible that he does not pass wind. But the drowsy person cannot control himself; he may lean to the right and left, and there the wind is released. So we must take the hadith in its generality. So we must exclude the means that bring sleep to the person sitting on Friday listening to the sermon. Among them, it was reported in some narrations that if drowsiness overtakes a person, let him change his place. Now this is an example of the category whose ruling you know. Why did he say 'let him change his place'? Because changing the place removes drowsiness from that person. So al-ih'tibaa', if we suppose that its hadith is weak in chain, but here it is said to be rational in meaning. And it is not usually required that the weakness of the chain of a hadith, or that it has nothing to strengthen it, means that the text of the hadith is not acceptable in meaning legally. For example, you find some signs written on them: "The head of wisdom is the fear of Allah" This is a weak hadith, but its meaning is very beautiful. But what is the difference between saying its meaning is beautiful and saying the hadith is weak? That is, it is not permissible for us to say the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said it, as long as its chain is not established. But in terms of looking at its meaning, like any word said by any person, whether he was a scholar or a poet, or so on, his words may be correct and may be wrong. So if there is a hadith that is weak in chain and has nothing to strengthen it, its meaning may be acceptable and its meaning may be rejected. Weak hadiths, even fabricated ones, do not exceed these two categories. When some of the critics among the imams of hadith say in the biography of some narrators, for example, this is the phrase of Ibn Hibban (may Allah have mercy on him), as if it became a trademark for him, he says: "So-and-so narrates the munkar (denounced) or the mu'addal (difficult) from the thiqat (reliable narrators)" Meaning by this that he studied the texts of the hadiths he narrates and found them denounced, and found that he attaches them to the reliable narrators who it is not conceivable that they would narrate these denounced things. For example, we mentioned now "The head of wisdom is the fear of Allah" as an example of a weak hadith, but its meaning contains the utmost wisdom. But when a person hears the hadith "The miser is the enemy of Allah, even if he is a worshipper, and the generous is the beloved of Allah, even if he is an open sinner" This ... the Shari'ah, because a person does not draw near to Allah with a good trait, nor does he distance himself from the mercy of Allah with a bad trait. And when we hear the hadith "Eggplant was created for eating" the veil is lifted and it appears that the meaning is patently false. These weak hadiths contain correct meanings sometimes and incorrect meanings sometimes. The hadith is, in terms of narration, hasan (good) or sahih (authentic); I do not remember the exact grade now. And in terms of meaning, it is very rational, because al-ih'tibaa' brings drowsiness, and drowsiness brings sleep, and in that, this person who is sitting in al-ih'tibaa' is exposed to losing one of two things that are necessary, which is that he does not benefit from the sermon of the preacher. This is my answer to what you asked.