We ask the Shaykh to clarify the status of the Sunnah and how to understand the Qur'an during recitation.

The questioner: His EminenceThe Shaykh : In reality, sitting with Your Eminence is a wish fulfilled.

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you.

The questioner : Most of the questions raised have dealt with the details.

The Shaykh : Yes, exactly.

The questioner : In my view, if each of us could spare some of our time and spend some of our money to buy some books of Islamic jurisprudence, we would not need these questions, because one might find answers to them. But as you know, Your Eminence, we are today in a whirlpool, and it seems as if Islam is receding in our society, and the Sunnah is lost. If you tell a person, "This is the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)," he says to you, "I am committed to the obligatory acts, and I think that is better." I believe the one who best clarifies the position and status of the Sunnah in the pure Shari'ah and in our religion is Your Eminence. We know that we may be taking up too much of your time, and we know that there may be a circumstance requiring you to leave, but this specific issue, namely clarifying the position of the Sunnah, is important because many of us are exposed to it. The hadith you mentioned a moment ago, the hadith of the Bedouin who said to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): , I heard it yesterday, and a person discussed it with me. He said to me, "What does tarawih mean?" I told him, "It is a Sunnah." He said, "What did the Bedouin say to the Messenger? He was required to do the five prayers, zakah, and that is it, and he entered Paradise." The reality is the complete ignorance of this Ummah regarding the noble Sunnah. Secondly, as you mentioned a little while ago in the mosque, the ignorance of the Noble Qur'an and the status of the Noble Qur'an is what drives many people to neglect the Sunnah, and sometimes to be careless with it. So if you would be kind enough, Your Eminence, to clarify for us the position of the Sunnah in legislation, and how we can, even briefly, understand what we recite and read from the Noble Qur'an? May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you. This is a very important and broad question, and one or even several sessions are not sufficient to cover it, especially your last point: how do we understand the Qur'an? If a non-Arab asked an Arab, "How do we understand the Qur'an?" we would want to tell him, "Go and learn the Arabic language, learn the basics of Arabic grammar and letters, learn syntax and morphology, and so on." This same answer is now directed at Arabs, because just as in the past there were non-Arabs who became Arabized, meaning they became Arabs, and among them were great scholars in various fields—such as Abu Hanifah in jurisprudence, Sibawayhi in language, al-Bukhari in hadith, and al-Zamakhshari in Arabic language—now the situation has reversed. The Arabs have become non-Arabized; the Arabs have become like non-Arabs. Therefore, they hardly understand what is said in the Qur'an or in the hadith. So, your question, in reality, the last part of your question, is a matter of great breadth. It is obligatory for the general Muslim Arabs to resume learning the Arabic language, because their language is inherited, not learned, if that expression is correct. Over time, foreign elements have entered it, and they no longer understand what Allah said or what the Messenger of Allah said. The issue requires learning anew, and this is a broad matter, as every person feels. As for the topic of the Sunnah, the Sunnah in reality has implications in the Shari'ah. There is a Sunnah that it is not permissible to take lightly, and it is obligatory. And there is another Sunnah that falls under the category I mentioned earlier, in the hadith of the Bedouin. As for the first Sunnah, it is the path upon which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) proceeded in applying the Qur'an and the rulings of Islam. Every Muslim must adopt this path, from a general beginning to a detailed end. The Sunnah in this sense is what is intended by the authentic hadith: This hadith has a context that clarifies the meaning of this noble hadith: It is not intended, for example, to refer to one who leaves the Sunnah of the midday prayer or the Sunnah of the afternoon prayer. No, that falls under the hadith of the Bedouin that we mentioned earlier. But this person you referred to in your speech, who asked you, "What is the tarawih prayer?" and brought you this hadith of the Bedouin, we naturally have a different discussion with him. Perhaps we can return to it after I finish my speech regarding the hadith: This hadith was narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim from the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him): regarding his standing in night prayer, his fasting during the day, and his visiting the women. So their answer was that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stands and prays at night and sleeps, meaning he is not sleeping all night, nor is he standing and praying all night. Rather, he combines rest with worship. As for fasting, he fasts and breaks the fast as well. The women meant that he (peace be upon him) did not always fast, meaning he did not fast forever, nor was he always breaking the fast. Rather, sometimes he fasted and sometimes he broke the fast. Then, he is a human being who visits the women and performs ghusl. Anas said that when the group heard the words of the wives of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and this was his worship, he said: meaning they found it to be little. But they returned to themselves and excused their mistake and their statement that this worship is little, and that we used to imagine the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was not like this. So they excused the littleness of the worship, according to their assumption, by saying: As if their inner state was saying, "What does the Messenger need to exhaust himself? Standing all night and fasting forever, why? He put his feet in cold water and rested because Allah forgave his sin." This is a grave error on their part, and this is ignorance on their part. First, ignorance of the Sunnah. The Sunnah does not mean that a person is always in worship, in worship, because this would lead to neglecting other rights. Nor does the Sunnah of the Messenger and his life mean that he is always in worldly matters, not fasting or praying voluntarily. Rather, as Allah the Exalted said: So when they excused the matter as you heard, one of them said: because he wanted to attain the forgiveness of Allah. In his opinion, the way to do so was to fast forever. The second said: The third said: And they left. When the Messenger (peace be upon him) came, and his wives told him what they had heard from the group, he entered the mosque, gathered the people, and addressed them, saying: repeating their words: saying such and such and such: This Sunnah, meaning knowing what the Messenger (peace be upon him) was upon, his methodology in his life and his worship, is a matter that every Muslim must be knowledgeable about, otherwise he will fall into what your friend fell into, whom you mentioned earlier. This man mentioned the hadith of the Bedouin, and we support the hadith of the Bedouin, but we do not want all Muslims to be Bedouins, nor do we want all Muslims to restrict their worship to only the obligatory acts. Rather, we want them to also maintain many of the Sunnahs. The Sunnahs that are not obligatory for Muslims but are recommended for them. So we want Muslims not to be like that Bedouin, but rather to be like the Companions of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), who were extremely eager to follow the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his worship, even with exaggeration and excess, which the Messenger (peace be upon him) rejected from the group. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) fasted one day a voluntary fast and continued it, connecting the night with the day. Some of his Companions followed him in that. When he (peace and blessings be upon him) saw that from them, he rejected it from them. He rejected the continuation of the fast and said to them, "If one of you must continue, then from suhur to suhur," meaning suhur is necessary. This is a dispensation. They said to him, "O Messenger of Allah, you continue." He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So here we take two things. The first thing is related to the Messenger and his special status. He spends the night with his Lord, feeding and watering Him. It is not material food or material drink, but rather spiritual food and drink, as they say today, spiritual. But at the same time, he said to his Companions: So he forbade them from continuing the fast, because it causes hardship for a person beyond what he can bear. But what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) rejected was for a person to make it a habit contrary to the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and his methodology, as came in the hadith of Anas: He is not always fasting, and he is not always breaking the fast. So it is not befitting for a Muslim to be a Bedouin who restricts himself to maintaining only the obligatory acts. Especially since our prayer today, O Muslims, O you who want to imitate the Bedouin and do not want to follow the Messenger (peace be upon him) who said, for example: So I say to Muslims today, it is not befitting for their role model to be the Bedouin, but rather their role model should be the one about whom Allah Mighty and Majestic said: So today, due to the negligence and ignorance of Muslims, they take the Bedouin as an excuse between themselves and Allah, and they forgot that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is the only role model, and no one else absolutely. And I say it is obligatory for Muslims today to be eager to follow the worship of the Messenger and his Sunnahs, not to add to them or subtract from them. Why? Because the obligatory acts that they perform today are themselves deficient. And here is a lesson for whoever takes heed. We said earlier that the Bedouin in the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) used to see the Messenger and pray the five prayers behind the Messenger, and his prayer would be accepted, if Allah wills. He said: meaning if he persists in that. But today, you see the imams of the mosques, their prayer, in the Syrian expression, is a mess. So what about the individuals and the general public? Here comes the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): In many cases, and in the best of circumstances, half of the prayer is written for a person. I am as certain as I can be that the prayer of those who made that Bedouin their role model and want to suffice with performing only the five prayers is deficient. Rather, if Allah wills, it will be accepted, not just ten percent of it. It will not be a hundredth of it for it to be accepted. Why? Because most of them do not be quiet in ruku' and sujud. And he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And he said in another hadith: So in my opinion today, most people, especially those who are content to make the Bedouin their role model, undoubtedly are stealing their prayer. If these people do not maintain the regular voluntary prayers, and like now in Ramadan, the Sunnah for one month, these people will come on the Day of Resurrection with their prayer deficient. And he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: If I were satisfied with those who want to imitate the Bedouin, that their prayer be complete, because then his saying would be true of them: But we see with our own eyes that the least of people are those who perfect their prayer. So these people whose prayer is deficient must maintain the Sunnahs for the following hadith, and with it I end this session. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said in some narrations of the previous hadith: So the deficiency that occurs in the obligatory prayer of a Muslim is compensated for by the voluntary prayers. If a person does not have voluntary prayers, he will hit his face with that prayer due to the deficiency in it. So those who are the most indifferent to the Sunnahs and the most eager to maintain only the obligatory acts are the ones who must be the most eager to maintain the Sunnahs, because from them the deficiency that occurs in their obligatory acts is completed. And we ask Allah Mighty and Majestic to inspire us with guidance, to teach us the Sunnah of our Prophet, and to guide us to follow it. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
Abu Layla: May Allah reward you with good, our Shaykh.