One thing people don't get taught when studying is how to actually read books.

There's a difference between reading a book beginning to end, and actively grappling with its contents.

Ask yourself this question: When you engage with a book, what are you actually doing?

- You're connecting paragraphs together.
- You're linking a sentence in chapter 5 to a sentence in chapter 1.
- You're constantly agreeing, disagreeing, or suspending judgement on the arguments put forth.

Now, a good teacher will train the students to do this, or at least demonstrate it in class.

Otherwise it's something students must figure out themselves.

And if you don't figure it out, you'll just read books without processing what's being said.

You'll end up speed-reading technical material like you're reading a Harry Potter novel, and then think you've actually read the book.

But have you actually read it??

Take a step back for a moment.

If you don't figure out how to engage with a text yourself, you'll never be able to engage in any independent study and will only be able to regurgitate arguments.

Your learning will always require you to be spoonfed, and that's always an inferior and limiting state of learning.

Remember: 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'

That's independent study. It's teaching yourself how to fish.

Fatwas are often influenced by the degree of responsibility a scholar offers his audience.

What do I mean?

The degree of responsibility you offer another person is based on two factors:

1) Your confidence in the person's intelligence (to be able to understand that responsibility).
2) Your confidence in their sincerity (in taking on that responsibility as it was intended).

Now, a fatwa from someone who has a good opinion of the public's intelligence and sincerity will naturally offer them more responsibility and allow them to be accountable for their own choices and decision making.

Take these three examples:

1) Determining difficulty (hajah) and matters that relate to internal and inherently subjective feelings (like sickness, pride, and attraction)

Those who have more confidence in the public will share the ruling's rationale and let one decide for themselves whether this subjective meaning applies to them.

On the other hand, those who don't trust the judgement of the public will naturally share stricter parameters for application.

2) Adopting a fatwa between scholars with differing opinions

Those who have confidence in the public's intelligence and sincerity will allow them to follow various scholarly authorities and will then offer guidelines for them to adopt whichever fatwa they are confident in.

On the other hand, those who do not have this confidence will hold the public by the hand and highlight which view they must follow.

3) Matters of sadd al-dhari'ah (i.e. prohibiting or discouraging something that is itself permissible because it may lead to something else that is prohibited)

If someone has a good opinion of the public and believes they likely won't fall into the prohibited, they're naturally less likely to prohibit things on account of sadd al-dhari'ah.

On the other hand, those with little confidence in the public's intelligence or sincerity are likelier to declare the act a sin.

Now, my purpose here isn't to necessarily say one approach is always better than the other (though you can probably guess where I stand lol).

I recognise that some people need more guidance than others (which ought to be reflected in fatwa), and I also understand that humans themselves lie on a spectrum in terms of how much responsibility and accountability they're willing to offer themselves (based on the degree of confidence they have in their own intelligence and sincerity).

I think not only is it important for scholars and the learned to note these psychological elements within the fatwa process (which I believe is also part of the science of Usul al-Fiqh), but also the public to think about for themselves when identifying scholarly authorities.

I'll leave that for you to reflect on.

I was recently asked about the Fiqh concept of 'Sadd al-Dhari'ah'.

Sadd al-dhari'ah in a nutshell is blocking the means towards something prohibited.

It is to prohibit or discourage something on account of it likely leading to something else that is prohibited.

An example of this is the prohibition of seclusion (khalwah) between an unrelated man and woman.

The seclusion itself is not intrinsically harmful, but because it is a circumstance that can lead to fornication, it is prohibited. This is sadd al-dhari'ah.

Now here's the question: Is sadd al-dhari'ah an agreed upon principle?

Although this principle is commonly attributed to Imam Malik, it is in reality a rational principle not only accepted by various jurists in practice but also a principle applied in the Quran & Hadith themselves.

Sadd al-dhari'ah is simply an extension of accepting that the Law is built on benefits and harms (masalih and mafasid).

In other words, if a jurist knows that something will certainly lead to what is prohibited, it rationally makes sense that that thing will too be prohibited as a result of its consequence.

Now the issue that arises isn't so much in accepting the principle in theory. Rather, the problem is in applying this principle because it can often lead to slippery-slope arguments.

If the principle of sadd al-dhari'ah is void of any framework, it leads to moral relativism because it allows one to arbitrarily alter the default ruling of permissibility.

And without understanding the framework of sadd al-dhari'ah correctly, you could technically prohibit the use of all phones, social media, Telegram, or even leaving the house in cases beyond need -- because each of these instances can technically lead to prohibited actions.

But the fact that these things aren't prohibited indicates that there's a framework for the principle that isn't so superficially applied, and that there's a legal analysis beyond "can X lead to Y sin?"

We also see botched applications of this principle in two contemporary issues:

1) Prohibiting women from driving because they might visit their boyfriends if they have a car. (A very strange argument for blanket prohibition lol.)

2) Some fatwas on interaction between an unrelated man and woman. There's a tendency here to fall into slippery slope arguments that aren't actually based on texts of prohibition.

People often forget that they don't need to jump to claims of prohibition (tahrim) when applying sadd al-dhari'ah.

It is possible that something is not prohibited but rather simply discouraged (makruh) as a result of sadd al-dhari'ah, and this discouragement may itself be contextual.

Although this category of discouragement (karahah) is extremely important, it's often neglected in discussions on sadd al-dhari'ah broadly, and gender interaction more specifically.

Now there's certainly more to say on this principle, its framework, and how it relates to other concepts, but I'll leave that for another day and I hope this has offered some clarity.

A relative of mine took issue with "conflating religious obligations with culture".

I responded: it's easy to address this if you just tackle the root problem.

And the root problem is your approach to learning.

People have two ways of understanding Islam:

1) Accepting everything in their environment without reflection.

2) Maintaining a position of uncertainty about things until you have reason to believe they're true.

These are two very different approaches.

The first approach requires little thought and throws you a list of problems by design.

Think about this:

If you're simply taking religious ideas in your environment for granted, then know that you could've easily adopted a different set of beliefs were you raised in a different environment, a different country, or a different tradition.

Therefore, your environment alone cannot be a yardstick for truth.

People who find themselves in this position would do themselves a great service by simply starting from scratch - from first principles!

Focus first on areas of scholarly agreement, and build on that. This ensures that you're creating a solid foundation.

I'm actually planning to deliver a course with this very thing in mind. Stay tuned! 🙏❤️

I was asked an interesting question recently: What makes you confident in responding to Islamic questions?

I would often ask myself this very question when I began studying.

And I think the answer lies in two parts:

1) The confidence one has in their learning.
2) Being liable for responding to questions when standing before God.
I always assumed it was easier to avoid responding to questions and passing the buck, as this always appeared "safer" when standing before God.

But is it actually "safer"?

This entirely depends on your perspective.

It can certainly be safer to let someone else respond, from the perspective that you're ultimately speaking on behalf of God and should know what you're talking about.

But, for a moment, ask yourself these two questions:

1) What if, by you abstaining from providing an answer, you are certain the questioner will get their response elsewhere and likely from someone who has no idea what he's talking about?

2) Or what if you're certain you've researched the question (quantitatively) to a degree that puts you in a better position to respond than most others?

In either of these two cases, is it actually "safer" to not respond to the questioner and pass the buck?

Can someone not argue that you are now actually liable before God for refusing to respond to the questioner?

As you can see, the script is now flipped.

Ultimately, whether or not you respond goes back to how confident you are in your answer and your learning.

True knowledge has an unusual characteristic that empowers the learner. And with that feeling of empowerment comes confidence, and with confidence comes your ability to answer questions.

If you're confident in your answer, you'll respond. If not, then you won't (which is fine).

A former colleague asked me, "Are your criticisms of students about me??" 😂

I'm glad the posts are relatable. ❤️

Would you rather learn something to remember it for a week, or the rest of your life?

The answer's pretty simple, but if you're only learning to pass an exam then you'll never remember anything you learn.

Studying merely for the sake of an exam is targeting your short-term memory.

You're trying to cram everything in your brain in a short space of time.

What this means is that you're not paying much attention to the things you're learning, nor are you giving yourself enough time to build mental connections with the information.

You're just storing everything in your short-term memory, which is why you forget everything the day after the exam.

The purpose of studying is never the exam.

It's to internalise the content.

And you can only internalise your studies for as long as you remember them.

If you can't speak about your past studies now, then you can't claim them. It's simply something you learnt in the past. It's not what you know now.

So focus on long-term memory.

You can do this in three ways:
(i) Constantly review the things you learn.
(ii) Read more on the content you're studying.
(iii) Discuss the topics with others.

It's these activities that'll bring your learning to life.

Live class of Surah 'Adiyat in 10 mins:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/5485476408?pwd=xavtUJB9BC4Kk6dUbnQbrynAkazM5u.1

Learn how to take notes.

Taking notes is the single most important thing as a student.

Yet students either don't take notes or don't know how to take notes.

Writing is a form of capturing knowledge.

If you don't write, you're simply losing information.

You're allowing important information to slip your mind.

Without taking notes, you're simply relying on your memory.

And unless you have some phenomenal brain, that simply doesn't run.

By taking notes, you do three things:

1) You train your brain to process the information you're writing.

2) You create a visual image of the notes you've documented in your head.

3) You allow yourself to review the notes later.

And as time passes, you also teach yourself how to write notes.

You'll eventually develop your own note-taking methods and strategies.

And when that happens, you'll finally enhance your learning and take it to the next level.