Unscripted #9 | Sh Dr Yasir Qadhi joins the Unscripted Podcast

Although initially parts of this podcast make sense (like referring to your local ulema who understand the context better), I think the part at 44:03 sums up where this view of dawa in the West is heading and a big part of the problem seems to come from RESIDING among the disbelievers, which our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) warned us against.

It was narrated from the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) that he said: “I disavow every Muslim who resides among the mushrikeen.” Narrated by Abu Dawood (2645) and at-Tirmidhi (1604). Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Irwa’ al-Ghaleel (5/29-30)

What is worrying is when referring to local ulema who understand the context better, in practice, turns into compromising, appeasing and taking weak opinions over stronger opinions to avoid giving ‘hard core fatwa[s]…[that] nobody listen[s] to [and that are apparently] turn[ing] people away from Islam’. Consequently, it seems like, inevitably, residing among the disbelievers is, more and more, ‘changing’ us so much that we can’t even ‘recognise’ ourselves anymore. Let’s hope that our beloved Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) still recognises us as part of his ummah and worth interceding for, on the Day of Judgement. (See full quote from the podcast below).

Also the brothers mentioned a few times the importance of keeping ourselves in check, which we should also accept from those who have a different minhaj to us. It does feel sad to see Muslims disagreeing so vehemently with each other but in one way it is a good thing and that is that these differences do help us to keep ourselves in check as our differing views help us to keep ourselves balanced. It’s almost like a liberal versus conservative understanding of issues but the truth could sometimes lie one one side, sometimes on the other side and sometimes near the middle. It reminds me of the different personalities of Abu Bakar (ra) and Umar (ra) during Abu Bakar’s Caliphate, and how the softness of the former was balanced by the toughness of the latter, something that was unnecessary with our beloved prophet Muhammad (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) as he had the most balanced personality and revelation.

At 44:03 Yasir Qadhi says, “I met Shaykh Abdul Aziz Al-Fawzaan., a very, very dynamic shaykh and aalim and he had lived in America for 5 years…this is the first year after I graduated from Madinah, I met him in London actually, and I said Shaykh, coming back to America now, I’m seeing so many of the fatwas in fiqh that I held as being completely haqq, now I understand you cannot apply that any more and I’m changing so much because I see the context of my people and he said, …how true is this Oh Yasir, I spent 5 years in America and…every year I kept on changing my fatwas until I couldn’t even recognise myself from 5 years ago, like seeing the impact, you come you give a hard core fatwa and you see not only does nobody listen to it, it turns people away from Islam and then you realise there’s another opinion that actually makes sense etc, etc. You learn from experience what you don’t learn from books…He then sees all of these fataawa and he understands this is not going to apply in my society…and then we understand that this cannot be imported [inaudible].”