Intellectual Dishonesty Part 4: “You out of your jurisdiction Shaykh”

Some of the most common excuses I hear from the Muslims concerning their seeking of knowledge from other than the Scholars can be variations of the following excuse:

“Yea but the scholars over there don’t know about life here”

This excuse basically says that due to the scholars not living in a certain area they do not have the jurisdiction in places far from them to speak about issues and Islaam. This is a strange excuse because one might think that these youth are recognizing that the scholars do not live in their locality, but then they equate the scholars to these speakers and continue to take from them due to this excuse.

You cannot accept such an excuse because the lack of scholars in a particular region do not attest for the knowledge or the credentials or scholarships of a speaker who is not a scholar. Yet this is the excuse that the youth will make in order to continue taking knowledge from these people. A worse harm is that these people are not supposed to be issuing Fataawa (religious rulings) and taking positions without knowledge and ability to make Iftaa (give religious rulings).

Allaah says:
فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إن كُنتُمْ لا تَعْلَمُونَ

((Ask the people of knowledge if you do not know))

So what makes these people to be the People of Knowledge? And they themselves should know better than to put themselves forward in these positions and entertain the people in such manners.

Shaykh Ahmad bin ‘Umar Baazmool mentioned the statement of Imaam ash-Shaafi’ee in his lecture on the narration of Muhammad ibn Seereen (“Verily this is the knowledge of your religion so look to whom you take your religion from”):

ليس لأحد أن يقول في شيء حلال ولا حرام إلا من جهة العلم

((It is not for anyone to say a thing is Halaal or Haraam except from the direction of knowledge))

Imaam Muhammad bin Ismaa’eel al-Bukhaaree reported in volume 1 of his Saheeh (Number 100):

إن الله لا يقبض العلم انتزاعا ينتزعه من العباد ولكن يقبض العلم بقبض العلماء حتى إذا لم يبق عالما اتخذ الناس رؤوسا جهالا فسئلوا فأفتوا بغير علم فضلوا وأضلوا

((Allaah will not remove knowledge by removing it from the slaves, but He will remove the knowledge with the death of the Scholars, until a scholar cannot be found, the people will take the ignoramuses as their leaders and they will give rulings without knowledge and be mislead and lead others astray.))

Ibn al-Qayyim has a chapter in his I’laam al Muwaqi’een called:

الإفتاء في دين الله بغير علم

((Giving a Fatwa in the religion without knowledge))

He mentions this Ayah:

وأن تقولوا على الله ما لا تعلمون

((And that you say about Allaah, that which you do not know))

The Messenger of Allaah salallaahu alaihi wa salam said:

من أفتي بفتيا غير ثبت فإنما إثمه على من أفتاه

((Whoever gives a fatawa which is not affirmed, then he receives the sins of those who follow his fatwa)) – Sunan ibn Maajah, number 53 in the Muqaddimah

And you find these speakers and callers giving rulings on issues like Halaal and Haraam such as discussing Fiqh rulings pertaining to the foods found in America or the UK. They will make tahleel or tahreem without referring these affairs to the scholars of Fiqh so then the people take them as scholars whilst they are in no position to be speaking. Or you will find some of them making rulings concerning mixing with the sects and claiming such and such sect is from Ahlis Sunnah or they will say “The scholars don’t know the situation here” but you find that they never went to the scholars in the first place. So they co-operate with some of the people of deviations and desires. Or you find some of them making rulings concerning serious affairs of which they do not have authority in such as matters of Jihaad! Amazing how they will speak about issues of Jihaad and take it upon themselves to issue rulings and then they will insult and subtley attack the scholars because they are not in agreement with them on the issues. They will use various intellectually dishonest methods in order to discredit the Scholars to the people in their lectures by making statements such as “The scholars of today say… but the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said” and they never enter into such details which the scholars mention or actually deal with the proofs and evidences which the scholars bring forth. So they play a lot of games within their lectures and writings which many of the youth remain ignorant of but continue to follow because they’ve already become detached from the scholars due to the intellectual dishonest tactics of these fraudulant speakers.

I will speak more about these tactics and tricks in more details in another post.

Ibn Rajab reports from Imaam Maalik that he said to his companions:

اتق الله وانظر ممن تأخذ هذا الشأن أي العلم

((Fear Allaah and look to whom you take this affair from, meaning knowledge))

Having ended this part with that powerful statement of Imaam Maalik, the fifth post will be a summary of what has preceded.

~ by abulhaarith on December 9, 2008.