Transcription
Assalamu alayikum, dear brothers and sisters. This is Matani. I hope everyone is doing well. Inshallah.
Today, inshallah, we're going to take some time to delve into, uh, a series that was put out by Yakin Institute. Uh, it was recorded by Imam Tom on the topic of the, uh, Shia-Sunni divide, and it was entitled, um, "Sunnis Versus Shia." I believe later the title changed, and I wanted to take some time to have an opportunity to discuss the series. I think it carried a lot of implications for the dialogue that the Sunni community and the Shia community, and Sunni scholars and Shia scholars, um, could potentially, uh, engage with.
And of course, the reason why I'm taking the time to respond to this series, which is not normally something that I do, I'm not into the business of reputation videos and things of that nature, is because it was platformed on this large platform that belongs to Yakin Institute, with millions of audience that, of course, tune into the content that is put out, uh, from, uh, Yakin Institute. Had this happened on someone's personal podcast, um, I may have not felt the need or the urgency as much to respond, uh, and to clarify, uh, some of the issues with the series. But because it is something that was placed on Yakin's platform, and now, I believe, after two weeks or so, um, is still there, and you know, people are still, uh, you know, engaging with the content, I really did feel the need to, um, clarify and to explain a little bit about the series.
Now, before I go any further, let me just start by saying that, first and foremost, um, I have been following Yakin Institute for a number of years, and I truly do appreciate a lot of the work that they do for the, um, they do work that on topics that affect both the Shia school of thought as well as the Sunni school of thought. I would appreciate their work even if the topics that they address is only related to the Sunni school of thought, and yet sometimes they address, uh, um, topics that are relating to all Muslims, and truly they do, uh, amazing work. I've been following their work for a number of years now. Um, and I'm not a stranger to the content that they put out, um, on the topic of Islamophobia, on the topic of their high school curriculum. And I, I could go on and on. There's a lot of really great work, uh, that comes out of Yakin Institute that I definitely, uh, appreciate.
Moving on from that, I also want to take a moment, before I get into the details of the series itself, to say that I think that Imam Tom, in putting together this series, I do really think he had good intentions, and I don't think there were bad intentions at play. But I think anybody who watches the series and has studied the Sunni-Shia dialogue, the Sunni-Shia divide, will immediately realize that there is, there was a very, um, uh, very hastily approach to a lot of these sensitive topics. There was not a scholarly approach to them, and, um, it almost seemed like everything was being viewed only from the perspective of presenting an idea and immediately rejecting it, without really understanding the idea, and without even checking to see if the Shia perspective that is being presented is, is even the Shia perspective, or if the Shia perspective is being misrepresented, as, uh, we saw in the series many times. So, that level of care when it came to presenting something from a scholarly level was certainly, I think, missing in the series.
And again, if this was just somebody with their own podcast or whatever the case might have been, someone giving their opinion about another school of thought, that would have been a different scenario. Because it was platformed on Yakin Institute, which is a mainstream Sunni, uh, you know, institute, right? And I know that Yakin has its own critiques and so on and so forth, but at the end of the day, it is a mainstream Sunni, uh, institute, um, that, of course, changes things a lot. So, I do think the intentions, I hope, were good intentions. And I'm always say this, and people who are familiar with my content are very familiar with this line. I'm not in the business of intentions, actually. I don't, you know, I'm not here to sit and say, "What did this person intend?" I'm in the business of approaches. Okay. And so, I want to make sure that the approach is a scholarly approach when it comes to this discussion. And so, that's why you'll see, inshallah, I want to clarify that today's, uh, video is not going to be a quick, uh, you know, reactionary reputation video, right? It's not about that. It will be a response for two main reasons.
First and foremost, the reason for the response is to set the record clear and straight on some of these issues because, as I'll discuss, some of these issues that were being alleged in the, in the series are really, really serious. I cannot, um, overemphasize the level of potential harm they can do when these issues are misrepresented on the Sunni-Shia, uh, issue and the Sunni-Shia divide. So, that's number one, to set the record straight on some of these issues. Um, and then also, number two, I hope that this response will serve as a, uh, way of diagnosing and pointing out a bigger issue that we have when it comes to the interaction between the two schools of thought. That bigger issue is this approach of not really wanting to understand the perspective of another school of thought, rather only approaching it from a purely polemic perspective, and using this opportunity only to respond to other schools of thought. And I think this is a deeper problem, it is a deeper issue, um, and there's a lot of different ways to hopefully, you know, come up with solutions to this issue. And one of them that I want to humbly suggest, if there are any Sunni, uh, scholars who might listen to this, is I would suggest, uh, that, uh, you reach out and you connect with, uh, Shia scholars. And if there's a Shia scholar listening to this, I would connect that you reach out or suggest that you reach out and connect with Sunni scholars. I think this problem, and this issue that we have, is a big problem. I don't think it's going to be solved with just people coming together, but I think that is part of the solution. Okay? That is certainly part of the solution, and I think that can have a deep impact about how we discuss these issues, um, moving forward.
Um, I personally, if someone were to ask me, "What is my personal vision? What is my personal understanding when it comes to the Shia-Sunni, uh, divide?" I would tell you that there is a bare minimum that we have to aim for, and, um, in some parts of the world, we don't even have that. And then there is an ideal, uh, maximum that we could look for. We certainly are not there in most parts of the world. Um, and then there is something that lies at the root of this. So, let me explain what I mean by that. There is a bare minimum that I think is required by the both schools of thought, and that is a bare minimum of tolerance. Okay? You have an opinion, I have an opinion. We tolerate each other. We're not going to be attacking each other, and we know that in some parts of the world, certainly these attacks do happen, and it's very unfortunate. Um, I think for those of us living maybe in western countries or whatever the case might be, the bare minimum, of course, should be, uh, tolerance. Then, from that, we can start to move and work our way slowly, and I say very slowly, because this word I'm about to use is a very, very heavy word, and I don't think we're even close to even getting there, to be honest with you. And that is what we call, you know, I'm going to use the U word, unity. Okay. And that's the idea of coming together for a greater cause, or because there's a common enemy, whatever the case might be. But, um, between these two, you know, that's where we are essentially right now. And I think there's a lot of work that needs to happen before we can start even moving in the right direction.
But what lies at the core of this, I want to mention this before I actually get into the content. What lies at the core of this, at least from my perspective, brothers and sisters, is a deep level of brotherhood and sisterhood. Islam teaches us that this brotherhood and sisterhood is there. It's there whether we like it or not. It's there whether we want to admit it or not. The person who comes within the fold of this greater ummah, this greater umbrella that Islam comes calls the Islamic ummah or the Muslim ummah, that person has a deep connection with you. Whether you recognize it or you don't recognize it, whether you admit it or don't admit it, that doesn't change anything. And so, I just want to share from my perspective that if I come across our brothers and sisters from Sunnah, or if I come across a Sunni scholar who, by the way, I heavily disagree with, and we will always disagree, I don't see that person as a foreign, uh, person or as a foreign, foreign entity, rather someone who I have a brotherhood and a sisterhood with. And, um, that's not up to me to decide, by the way. That's something that Islam has put into play, right? And so, that's truly how I personally see it. And with certain Sunni scholars that, alhamdulillah, um, we have engaged with, that is what we feel, alhamdulillah. And I think that that is, uh, the way to go. Now, how much does that play out in terms of our communities and so on and so forth, is the next stage, and hopefully we can slowly move in the right direction. This is such a long process, and I don't think we're even close to being where we need to be. But that is deeply how I personally see, uh, this issue.
If I talk about Yakin Institute, I'm talking about brothers and sisters within the Muslim ummah. And Yakin, of course, has the right of Islam upon us. And also has the right of being neighbors upon us, because, you know, we're based here in Dallas, and, uh, as many of our Sunni brothers and sisters say, Dallas is one of the holy cities. That's the, that's the joke that I hear a lot, right? Um, and so, you know, in that sense, they're neighbors, and so even more of rights upon us. And that's why, as I get into this content, you will see this is not a harsh reputation video. It is to set the record straight on some very, very problematic, uh, polemic statements that were made, um, and that I think need to be addressed. And also, hopefully, uh, the start of, uh, you know, us diagnosing and realizing, uh, what, you know, a little bit of the problem that we have when it comes to addressing this, uh, Sunni-Shia, uh, divide.
Um, now, if someone watches the presentation, I think there are three main issues or three main approaches that I found problematic, um, in the series. And so, I'll mention these three, um, and then I, and then we'll work our way, uh, starting from the last one to the first one. The first of those, uh, problematic issues and problematic approaches that I found in the series was that a number of the topics, um, and they were such, so high in number, we won't be able to cover all of them, but I just want to clarify what part of the approach was wrong. A number of the issues were presented in a very simplistic manner from the Shia perspective, and they were misrepresented, essentially. And because they were misrepresented, you'd find the speaker in a lot of situations just immediately dismisses them and moves on, as if there is nothing to be said as it relates to the Shia perspective on this issue. So, approach number one that I think was, uh, you know, problematic in the series was the issue of misrepresenting what the Shia even believe on certain topics. Of course, as a Shia scholar, as a Sunni scholar, whichever school of thought you belong with or belong to, you are always going to present both sides of the discussion, and then you're going to disagree with the other side. That is part of your job. That's what that is very normal. I've always done that. I'm sure all of the other scholars have also done that as well. But the condition to that is first representing what the other school of thought is even saying about that issue, right? So, if I misrepresent the perspective from the very beginning, then I'm not serving this dialogue. I'm not bringing hearts closer to each other. I'm not really doing, uh, any of those things. Um, so that was, I think, approach number one that was very problematic. And I'll give you examples of that as we continue.
Approach number two, which was even more problematic, was that on some of these issues where the Shia perspective is misrepresented, uh, you will find the presenter, uh, presents stereotypes that have been debunked and have been discussed for years, are being now repeated. Okay? And some of these are so problematic that if any Muslim hears this about another school of thought, they really will never take that school of thought seriously. Okay? And, um, that is why it's important to set the record straight on some of these issues because, for example, if the Shia school of thought is said to have believed that the Shia believe that all of the Sahabah are kafir, except for a couple of them, or three of them, or four of them, or whatever number we choose. Any Muslim who hears this would certainly look at this school of thought and, you know, have a million questions. Uh, these are some of the stereotypes that were repeated in the, uh, in the videos and in the series. And so, for those, they're not just areas where the Shia perspective was misrepresented. They were stereotypes that have been debunked, that have been explained many, many times, and are still being repeated. And, you know, I, when I was watching the series, I was thinking, if this is the, the understanding that Yakin Institute is putting out, and as far as I know, this was the first time that Yakin Institute had done a deep dive on the, uh, Shia school of thought. As far as I know, uh, I haven't seen like a deep dive like this, uh, before. If this is what a mainstream organization like Yakin Institute is putting out, I was thinking, what would other organizations be putting out, and what would their, uh, interpretation, uh, be on these issues? So, that's approach number two, and we'll go into that.
There's two issues that fall under this category of the second approach, and the third approach, which is, uh, a matter of tone and how we approach another school of thought that is, uh, you know, held in belief and is embraced by 10, 15% of the Muslim ummah, yeah, you know, like 200 million people believe this faith, and so how we approach it is very important. And what we saw from the presenter, on a multitude of occasions, was painting the Shia interpretation of theology and history in bad faith. This is so, let me go into some detail here. Uh, the, uh, points that the presenter makes on a multitude of occasions in the series. He says, you know, "The Shia have revisionist history." That means they all know they're wrong. They're just coming back to try to, you know, kind of make up something to support their opinion. "The narrative that the Shia have constructed. This kicks off the, a project of historical revision and revisionism, looking back at many of the events that unfolded even at the time of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and after, and trying to really bend the interpretation of what was going on without any consistent method in order to portray a certain prefabricated, predetermined story." How does this paint a school of thought with 200 million people who embraced it? It paints them in bad faith. It paints them as an actor who is coming and knows he is wrong, but it's almost like he's trying to infiltrate the Muslim ummah. These types of terminology and this dismissive tone, uh, I saw it multiple times, uh, in the, uh, in the series, right? Um, "The Shia try to bend and torture the text just to, like, you know, prove, uh, their own point, right?" So, the Shia are not genuine, in other words, in their interpretation of history, they're not genuine in their interpretation of Islamic theology. They know they're wrong. They're just, you know, they just want to force their opinion upon the Muslim ummah, okay? So, this is the, the third approach, okay? So, let's work our way from the third approach going backwards, right? So, the tone, I already talked about, this dismissive tone, brothers and sisters, is very problematic. If we want to engage with other schools of thought, we never paint a whole school of thought as an actor in bad faith, right? We don't come and say, "The Sunni school of thought knows it's wrong, but, you know, the million something people who believe in it, they just, you know, they have a trauma, and because of that, they are building this narrative. They are constructing this narrative." I hope our Shia and Sunni audience who's watching this, um, clearly understands what's, what's a problem here. How much of a problem this type of tone is.
At one point, I think 57 minutes or so, I've put down a note here into the presentation of the first episode, the presenter says, "Well, the Shia, what they have is a Quran that is incomplete, which we will discuss, and some weak narrations." So, thousands of narrations in multiple books of Hadith are just dismissed with one sentence. "Yes, the Shia have some weak narrations." This is not, brothers and sisters, the tone and the approach that I think is befitting of a scholar who is approaching this topic. Certainly, I would never take this tone when it comes to other schools of thought. So, that's number one. I think that's problematic, and I think it's quite evident. So, I don't want to spend too much time on it. But let us go now one step further on the issue of the second approach. The stereotypes that were repeated. We came across the issue of the Quran, brothers and sisters, and the Quran being incomplete. >> In his review of Shia sources that disturbed him so much that made him sour on the project and so skeptical. One of the things was he found a consistent claim that the Quran has been corrupted, and the Quran is incomplete, and the Quran is not authentic in various degrees. So he highlights passages in authoritative sources, particularly al-Kafi, and that explicitly assert the claim that the Quran has been altered. And there's an argument that no authoritative Shia figure has ever really upheld that doctrine, but he is not convinced in his book by this defense, and he points out again, he goes right to Kafi, page 202. There's nothing ambiguous about the claims that are being made about the Quran. >> The >> Now, something you will notice in the presentation, if we're paying attention to some of the details and being a little bit more applying a little bit more scrutiny, is that on one hand, the presenter introduces this idea that, of course, the Shia, they believe that the Quran is incomplete. There are verses of the Quran that are missing from the Quran. Now, he is, of course, quoting another well-known Sunni scholar by the name of Sheikh Yusuf al-Alawi, who I grew up watching, by the way, um, his works and his his interviews and whatnot. Um, on one hand, this is the claim that's being made. And immediately the next sentence is, "Well, the response is, there's no authoritative scholar in the Shia school of thought who has had this opinion." And then the presenter moves on. But wait a second, if you are presenting something as the opinion of 1200 years of scholarship of the Shia school of thought, shouldn't you start out with, "These are the scholars who have this opinion. These are the top-tier scholars who have this opinion." But that's not what the presenter does. And this is part of the problem, brothers and sisters. I cannot allege something as problematic as the Quran being incomplete to a whole school of thought, and in the same breath, and in the same sentence, turn around and say, "Well, there's no authoritative scholar who has this opinion." Well, then why is it being brought up? Why is it even being introduced? I don't understand this.
Now, you will see in the presentation, then, uh, the presenter then says, "Well, Hadith says this, right?" And he starts quoting Hadith from al-Kafi and other places. Um, "These texts describe the present codex, which is shared by Sunni and Ibadis alike. So, all they're using the same, but in their books, they're claiming that the Quran is, that Quran that they use is incomplete or corrupted. Some reports allege that the original Quran contained 17,000 verses rather than the 6,000 some that are found today." And he says, "Well, this narration says this, and this narration says this." So, let me clarify this, and then we're going to come back to the issue of this approach and and repeating these stereotypes that have been, uh, you know, debunked. They've been explained many, many times. Brothers and sisters, and I think this will be helpful both for our Shia audience and our Sunni audience. Number one, we do not have books of, okay, we do not have books where if you point to an individual narration in those books, that the Hadith is then taken and we put it into our theology all of a sudden. That is not how it works. We do not have an equivalent of Bukhari and Muslim in the sense that we point to a book and say, "If you find a Hadith in this book of Hadith, we believe in it." Cliff notes on some of the major authoritative Shia works. Again, we're talking 12 Shia, their version of Bukhari and Muslim, um, would be, there's four major canonical books of Hadith. One is >> that does not exist in the Shia school of thought. I mean, these are simple things I'm mentioning, but it seems necessary now to have to explain them. And so, when people say, "This is what al-Kafi says," okay, that's the beginning of the discussion for our scholars. It's not the end of the discussion for our scholars. Someone might say and go on to like the next step, right? Say, "Well, the chain is authenticated." Yes, for us, a Hadith that has a chain, that is again, is not the full discussion. For us, a Hadith that is, especially if it is, especially if it is an individual narration. These narrations, brothers and sisters, are not an end-all-be-all. And of course, in the Sunni school of thought, in certain groups like the Salafi school of thought, Hadith many times does play this role. It is the end-all-be-all. If you have a strong Hadith, you build your based off of it. Okay? And you pay attention that when I'm talking about the Sunni school of thought, there are multiple groups amongst them, and there's a spectrum, and this is not things that I'm attributing to the whole school of thought. No particular groups amongst them who are actually very open about this idea. Okay? For us, Hadith is not the end-all-be-all. If I come across a Hadith and the content, uh, is problematic, even if it has a strong, uh, chain, that doesn't mean that I believe in it. And so, you find unfortunately, this is something we see very often. Sunni speakers will impose their understanding of Hadith on the Shia school of thought, and then they will problematize the school of thought because of some narrations that they have found that they say is a problem. Well, who said I believe in that Hadith anyways? Okay.
Now, let's move on to step number three as it relates to the topic of Hadith. These narrations that some of them indicate that the Quran is incomplete. Brothers and sisters, some of them have problematic chains. Our scholars have done a lot of work on this. There's books written on this. There's articles written on this about how many of them came from particular individuals who had their own agenda. But having said all of that, these Hadiths are also many of them understood in a different light. Many of them are understood when the, the narrations say, "Well, the Quran had this much more," and so on and so forth. Many of them are understood in the light that these narrations are referring to the, uh, of the verses of the Quran that were revealed upon the Prophet when the verses were also being revealed upon him. So, why you find in a number of narrations this term of, and so on and so forth. This is a more detailed discussion. But let me move on now to point number four on this topic of Hadith. Brothers and sisters, there are also tens of narrations that we find in the Sunni Hadith corpus that also presents the same challenge to Sunni scholars as it relates to the Quran being incomplete. And typically, those narrations are understood in the light of the concept of ayat. It is a famous example of this that the second Khalifa talked about, and there's many, many other examples of this as well. So, what we conclude with is that the Shia school of thought has these narrations. The Sunni school of thought has these narrations. They have both understood them in a different light. Neither of them has understood them in the light of the Quran being incomplete, by the admission of the presenter himself, no authoritative top-tier Shia scholar has ever had this opinion. I would, uh, request the brothers and sisters, right, to go back and look the, uh, well-known scholars who laid the foundation of the theology of the Shia school of thought, right? Many of them, when I say laid the foundation, I mean formalized it, right? If you look at the, uh, Sadduq of the world, and the Mu'tazila of the world, and of course, these scholars, they each played their own different role, but I don't want to go into that right now, and the Tusi of the world, and Muhaqqiq, the heavyweight of Shia, uh, Imami theology, which of them came forward and had and made a claim like this, brothers and sisters?
The presenter brings up the idea of the Akhbari approach. The approach, brothers and sisters, is a small slither within the long history of Shia scholarship. And to take that and present that as the default, I think is very inaccurate from an academic perspective. If I wanted to give a little bit more of an example, imagine, brothers and sisters, if I was speaking about Sunnism. And my introduction to Sunnism was, "Well, brothers and sisters, the Sunnis are those who believe that Allah has an eye and has a hand and sits on the throne and so on and so forth, but they don't know how, right? They don't know the kayf, but they do believe in all of these things." Well, many of the would come to me and raise objection to me. They would say, "Sheikh, what are you talking about?" Right? They'll say, "Well, that's the, the Salafi. I have that opinion. That's not our opinion." So, imagine if I took a group and I introduced it. Now, let me go one step further, because the impact, or the, you know, the group, the place that Salafism has in today's Sunni world is far greater than the Akhbari school of thought had when it came to Shiism over, uh, you know, this, 1200 years of scholarship. I think the equivalent would be almost as if coming forward and presenting Mu'tazila opinions as Sunni opinions. Why? Because in, at some point in, uh, you know, in the history of Islam, they were also there. Okay. No, any Sunni scholar would say, "No, no, like all the scholars who came after them disagreed with them, and they are not within, uh, they're not considered part of, and so on and so forth, right?" Those are the, the responses that I might hear. All right. So, why is the opinion even being brought up as something that is introducing this school of thought? And you will find the presenter, instead of explaining that this Akhbari approach is a minority approach that does not even exist today, he says that this is the approach, and then the us came and tried to make apologia for, uh, these things. I, I think this was a major problem there, brothers and sisters.
I also want to touch on this point. I heard another, uh, Sunni speaker who, in fact, was trying to clarify this issue. He came forward and said that, "No, no, the Shia, uh, you know, from the 10th century onwards. So, meaning like from 400 years, uh, onwards, 400 years ago onwards, they now believe that the Quran is not incomplete." No, no, this is wrong. This is not correct. The idea of the Quran being incomplete has never been the mainstream dominant opinion in the Shia school of thought. Individual scholars, from time to time, brothers and sisters, will appear in the Shia school of thought and in the Sunni school of thought. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had his own understanding of, would that mean that the Sunni school of thought has the opinion of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who said that no other scholars understood the way I have? Certainly not. So, that is very important to understand. So, if you come across works of individual scholars here or there, many of them, or all of them, are not amongst the first-tier scholars, this does not represent the opinion of our school of thought. While we're on this topic, by the way, I want to mention the name of a book. Who, someone on social media will find every five to six months and they will think that they have uncovered this, this, you know, thing that nobody ever knew about when it came to the Shia. Nobody ever knew about this work, and I'm the first one who has found it. And that is the work of Muhaddith Nuri, who had this opinion that the Quran was incomplete. Brothers and sisters, Muhaddith Nuri is not a first-tier scholar. His works are not referenced in the Shia school of thought. He had his own opinion, and a multitude of scholars rejected what he had put forth. And the discussion on that is a longer discussion, and I'll leave it for, uh, a different time, right? But individual scholars, brothers and sisters, do not represent what a whole school of thought with 200 million people, uh, embracing it, believe.
I would, um, suggest, this is not an academic point I'm about to make. It's a more of an anecdotal point. Brothers and sisters, go, if you know someone who is Shia, go and ask your Shia friend. Tell him, "I've heard you believe in a Quran is incomplete." Okay? Record his reaction and tag me. Um, you will see. Brothers and sisters, this idea, it sounds absurd to the Shia brothers and sisters, and they don't even know what exactly you're talking about. Okay? So, that's just an anecdotal point I'm just putting in there for now. It's not an academic, uh, argument, right?
So, now let us go back to our discussion on the topic of stereotypes that were repeated. This one, brothers and sisters, was probably the most problematic. And I want to set the record straight with regards to this. Then the presenter, unfortunately, does not stop there. He goes one step further. >> The second point is the corruption of the Sunnah. So if they're going to claim that the, that the Quran is corrupt, then what do you think they're going to say about the Sunnah? >> He says that if the Shia say that the Quran is corrupt, then what do you think they will say about the Sunnah? I, these types of terminology, brothers and sisters, these are heavy words. We have to be thinking about what are the implications of these things, right? And so, then the presenter moves on to the second stereotype. "While the Shia have narrations that say that all of the became kafir except for one or two or three or four." Now, the one he mentions is the narration that has three in it. >> And the claim there is that all the companions except for three of them apostated, and the three that didn't are apparently Abu Dhar, and al-Miqdad, and Salman al-Farisi. >> Brothers and sisters, again, Sunni approach to Hadith being opposed or imposed on Shia Hadith. "Say this, Hadith says this, okay?" So, what this is Hadith, it's open to scrutiny, and if it doesn't mesh with other things that we know, then we don't act upon it, brothers and sisters. So, this Hadith, brothers and sisters, there are scholars who questioned the chain. Beyond that, there are scholars who questioned what the narration is actually referring to, and our scholars did not understand this narration from the perspective of everyone became our scholars did not understand this in the literal meaning of the word, or they not understand it in the term of takfir. Many of them understood it in the literal meaning, and like I said, there are those who also, uh, understood it from a different perspective, as in, they, uh, found the chain to be problematic. How could this be when we find has Sahaba with him that are praised in the Shia school of thought? Abu Bakr being one of the many. How many Sahaba were there, by the way, brothers and sisters? Well, we don't know. We don't know the exact estimates, but if you read from, uh, the sources of Sunnah, right, easily in the thousands, we know that for sure, right? Does it hit 100,000? Some have said that, some have said that. So, many of these Sahaba, no, the Shia school of thought does not believe that these individuals are all kafir. Yes, the Shia school of thought, there's something that they have always been very open about. They are critical of some of the Sahaba, and that depends on how they acted, uh, after the Messenger of Allah left this world, right? I'll give you a very good example. Umar, clearly someone who the Shia school of thought is critical of, there's no doubt about that. Uthman, in the Shia school of thought, we are critical of them, there's no doubt about that. Yes, but this idea that all of a sudden, all the Sahaba are kafir, no, brothers and sisters, this is a stereotype, and I want to set the record straight on it.
From this, then the speaker moves on to a really, really problematic statement. >> This is pretty extreme stuff, right? This is like really extreme. It's far worse than anything that you would find in any Sunni book, um, or even that the Khawarij were doing. Like, you, as bad as the Khawarij were, you don't find such mass um as you do in these 12 Shia books. Now, >> The do more than the Khawarij. The Khawarij, brothers and sisters, were a notorious group of people for their. >> The presenter alleges that the Shia have this high level of and that they are worse than the Khawarij, actually. Um, what, what are we trying to achieve here? What's like, what's the goal here? Um, if someone from or any other school of thought, you know, uh, hears this and says, "Well, the, they are Muslim, but they have worse than the Khawarij." Deep down, would you ever want to engage with that school of thought in good faith? Would you ever sit there and say, "Well, let me, let me hear what they have to say." I don't think anyone would. And I actually wouldn't blame them. If that's what I've heard about another school of thought who has an incomplete Quran, and then does of all of the Sahabah except for the two or three that they believe in, why would I engage with that school of thought? So, as I continue through this, I want to bring back that point I mentioned at the beginning. This video is not meant, brothers and sisters, as a quick reputation video. And let me respond to, no, no, these are all indications of a deeper problem in the Sunni-Shia discussion. And that is that in many times, the Shia perspective is misrepresented, especially on these stereotypes that have been mentioned for, for many times now. All right.
From there, of course, the presenter moves on to the idea that if we believe all the Sahabah are kuffar, then how did we even understand Islam, uh, because it came to us through the Sahabah? I don't need to respond to that because the premise is fundamentally false to begin with. These are the two issues that I found the most problematic in the series. But now, let me move on to some of the other issues that might be a little less problematic, but the Shia perspective, uh, was then, you know, misrepresented, or the approach was wrong. Of the other points, brothers and sisters, that the presenter makes is that he says, "Well, even if the Shia don't believe all these narrations, it's still in their Hadith corpus, and so in the Friday khutbahs and different places, these things will still be repeated. And so until these things are taken care of, what type of unity can we have with the >> We can't really have the type of unity that we have to have unless Shia are going to repudiate and and disavow some of these claims." Everybody has a responsibility to call out falsehood. This, brothers and sisters, reminded me of an approach that we have all been, uh, on the receiving end of, that is when you find someone who is a non-Muslim but doesn't really want to engage with you. He doesn't really want to understand your religion. What will he do? He'll say, "Listen, you Muslims have these violent texts. You guys have this violent scripture, and I don't know if I can engage with you until you like apologize first for all of the stuff that is in your scripture, right?" What would you and I as Muslims respond to that? We've all been on the receiving end of that, right? Sometimes individually, and sometimes as a community, and sometimes as a, you know, as a on a societal level. What we would respond to that is, "Well, you're misunderstanding the scripture to begin with, and then you're saying, well, these are all problematic things, so these things need to be purged first before we can really talk about a serious unity." Well, that's not the understanding I have of that text to begin with. So, this is another major issue we find here.
Let us move on to another one. Then the presenter moves on to the issue of, and he says, and of course, I think in in this, he was quoting Yusuf, but either way, it doesn't matter because, you know, I, I can't come and quote a Shia scholar and say, "Here's the problems with Sunnism. These are the 10 issues." Who said these? So-and-so scholar said these. Well, the so-and-so scholar has to present his his evidence for why he thinks these are problems, right? He moves on to the issue of, and he says, "Well, there are, right?" In this case, he mentions in particular, who have done of non-Muslims or non-Muslims in a multitude of their works. >> Similar things like like Khomeini makes takfir of non-Muslims in various places. He dismisses like, which of these works is it that in which he is saying that if you're not, you are kafir? The presenter does not present this, right? And when we look in the works of, because he's mentioned this example in particular, I'm mentioning, when you work in the works of, you don't find this. In he very clearly indicates, this is his famous work of, that no, if you're not, uh, the reason why I'm laughing saying this is because it's just so simple. This is such a well-known, uh, idea that you are certainly within the fold of Islam. Uh, I want to draw your attention, if someone says, "Well, what is the Shia take as it relates to non-Shia Muslims?" Okay? Because this is a question I've heard in other settings as well. Brothers and sisters, today, look around in the world and see who is the most authoritative scholar, uh, in the Shia world today, okay? At least in terms of the number of people who follow him, as the number of people who refer to his rulings, that would be none other than Ayatollah Sistani. He has a famous line that he's been saying for years, which is the idea that are not only within the fold of Islam, they are not only our brothers. He has this famous line that, "Don't say our brothers, say ourselves." This is something that has been mentioned by in a multitude of meetings that he's had with Sunni groups. In is something that he has mentioned on a multitude of occasions, or occasions rather. And in that famous line, he says, he says, "I listen to Friday khutbahs of Sunnah sometimes more than I listen to, um, the Friday khutbahs of, uh, the Shia school of thought. I refer to the opinions of Sunni scholars on different issues as in, it's part of the, you know, process of understanding how the Muslim ummah has looked at a particular issue. I respect those opinions." And the, the actual statement is quite a long statement, and it continues. Yes, this is the approach, brothers and sisters. I'm not sure why something so heavy and so dangerous, um, is being alleged.
Moving on from that, you had also the issue of, and I put this issue all the way at the end because I don't want this response to be seen in the light of, you know, going back and trying to, uh, discuss things that happened, 1400 years ago. No, no, these are things that affect us today. So, I've put this point a little bit further at the end, just to show that the academic level and the level of scholarship was really, unfortunately, missing from, uh, the series on the topic of, which actually comes up early up in the early on in the series, um, that Imam Tom was presenting. Uh, the issue of Ghadir is explained, brothers and sisters, in a very simplistic manner. In a very simplistic manner, of course, the only source that is used is. And even in the narrations that are chosen from Sahih Bukhari, they are not properly explained. So, the presenter, of course, quotes Hadith 3667 from Bukhari that touches on the issue of, and essentially portrays this conversations and the heated debate that took place amongst the Sahabah as a minor disagreement. People came together, and they all agreed that the first Khalifa would then be given, well, if you read Hadith 33, 3667 from Bukhari, you will find out that that's not what happens. You will find out that there were major threats that were made to the Ansar, and so on and so forth, and details that I don't want to really go into. The idea is, when we present the perspective of another school of thought, we have to be, you know, we have to stick to what is actually their opinion, right? Right now, in this case, it's not even, this is not even Shia Hadith, this is Sunni Hadith, actually, that I don't think was presented, um, properly. And so, all of that was, you know, presented as, um, Ali was salty that he didn't become the Khalifa, and because of that, you know, uh, later on, he came and he pleaded to the, and so on and so forth. These are details. My main issue is when we're presenting these parts of history, we have to be honest in terms of the details that are there, even in the narration of Bukhari, yes. Where the threats that were made against the Ansar, and the fight that broke out, and things of that nature, these were all, you know, just, uh, passed over very, like, very quickly.
Very similarly, you find also the approach on the issue of. Uh, now, in the presentation, was not even mentioned. What was mentioned was, or that took place at, which is one of the narrations of the Prophet. The narration where the Prophet of Allah held the hand of Ali and said, "This was not even presented in the whole, uh, presentation, which I think if you're presenting the Shia perspective, this is something you would present, right? This is what I was talking about, misrepresentation. And then also, so on, orith, what was presented was only the Muslim version, where the Messenger of Allah is quoted by Muslim, and in that narration, Muslim puts a gap between the Quran, what the Messenger of Allah said about the Quran, and then he moved on to the B, and the famous understanding of Sunnah on that narration is that the Messenger of Allah did not say, "Hold on to the B the way he said, hold on to the Quran." Brothers and sisters, I'm not going to go into detail on this, but I've, we've already done, actually, I think two, three months ago, we did a full series on this that fully went into detail to help us understand that the Messenger of Allah, in fact, did not put a, a pause and a gap between the Quran and the B. In fact, in multiple narrations, he said, "You hold on to the Quran and the B." Why is it narrating this pause and gap between the two in this version that Sahih Muslim has narrated is something we have discussed in detail, but in many other Sunni sources, six of which Albani does, of at least, there's no pause between Quran and so that series, brothers and sisters, is called "The Case for Shiism." And interestingly, when I was putting it together, in the back of my mind, these moments are exactly what I was.
Thinking about that, if someone from might disagree with our opinion, and that's fair. That's nothing wrong with that. But wants to understand where they are coming from, why do they believe that they have this role that they have? One of the strongest points that the Shia make in this regard is, and so I put together that presentation with this point in in in mind. I didn't think that so quickly it would come handy, but here we are. And so I'm not going to go into detail on that topic. You can refer to that presentation.
In in all of the different versions that you find in Sunni hadith sources where the messenger of Allah did not separate between the Quran. And these are the three main approaches, brothers and sisters, that I find problematic. Um, again, to reiterate, number one, a dismissive tone and a tone that paints the Shia school of thought in a negative light. Uh, and as a, when I say a negative light, I don't mean disagreeing with it. Rather, as people in bad faith, people who know there's no truth to their opinion, but they're just constructing a narrative. It's problem number one. Problem number two were stereotypes that were repeated in the series. And problem number three were other misrepresentations, um, that we just went through. All of this as it relates to episode number one.
There were, of course, three more episodes to the series. U, the majority of that then had a political aspect to it. For me personally, the political aspect, uh, is a little less of a priority right now to address for a lot of different reasons, but also because I don't think we can even get to a discussion on politics if we're getting the theology wrong to such a degree where we're not even understanding the theology properly. Like, the first step would be understanding the theology of another school of thought, and then we can talk about the political aspect and all of that kind of stuff. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on episode, uh, or responding to episode 2, 3, and 4.
I am going to mention one thing, one very important point, because again, it connects to the religious side. It connects to the theological side of what the Shia believe. If you watch episode three of the series, brothers and sisters, there are three assertions that are made by the presenter. And uh, two of these are a little less problematic. The last one is the most problematic of all. The first assertion in, uh, episode number three is that certain governments who are Shia in terms of their identity, certain groups who are Shia in terms of their identity, should not have gotten involved in Syria and Iraq and so on and so forth. This is a political analysis, and so on and so forth. Everyone is open to having their own opinion on this issue. I have my own opinion on this issue. That's less of my worry right now in this context. Okay, this was the first assertion.
The second assertion is that those governments and groups that got involved, for example, let's say in the case of Iran that got involved, they only did so out of sectarian motives. This, I think, is, uh, problematic, brothers and sisters. And you will find that the presenter, especially in episode three, struggles with this idea because it doesn't even fit into the evidence that he is presenting. So in multiple occasions, the presenter says it's sectarian, but it's not sectarian. So is it sectarian or is it not sectarian? And I think that for us as Muslims who, of course, live in a different part of the world and we, we're looking at things unfolding in different parts of the world. Now, of course, the war on Iran and so on and so forth. It's important that when we see things that we disagree with, we don't immediately chalk it up to sectarianism. And the speaker himself and the presenter himself actually touches on this. He says, well, Palestine is Sunni, so it doesn't really make sense that all the motives are sectarian. Um, he says that the group that used to be in power in Syria is considered kafir from the Shia perspective. There's details there and so on and so forth, but let's just go based off of that assumption. So then the sectarian narrative then doesn't really make sense. Then why is it being pushed so heavily and why is the approach in the series so pmic and so, uh, you know, sectarian in its nature? That was the second assertion.
But number three, which is really why I brought up this whole point to begin with, number three, I think was the most problematic, brothers and sisters, and I have to just be very, very honest. Near the end of episode 3, the presenter then moves on from saying that if there are Shia governments who act out of sectarianism, it's not the government's fault itself. It actually goes back, and I am quoting, to the sectarian content of 12ism. "And the sectarian content of 12ism, it likely forms a limit on Iran's ability to make good on its stated panislamic goals." What does this mean? This means that now, instead of looking at what a government is doing and saying, I find this problematic, now we moved on to, no, no. The reason why this government actually acts in this way is because 12ism, in its essence and in its nature, is sectarian. 12ism is anti-Sni at its core. This is an extremely problematic assertion. And I, I'm not sure if the thought process, like, there was a thought process behind these types of claims that were being made. Or so, so now we have put together a series to remove sectarianism, right? To digest the idea of another school of thought called the Shia school of thought and to, you know, understand it in the proper light, and now we are concluding with 12 orism is sectarian by nature. It has sectarian roots. It has sectarian content baked into it. That itself, brothers and sisters, is, is a sectarian statement. I, I hope that's clear.
How would our brothers and sisters from Sunnah react? If I looked at particular groups, particular insurgent groups, militias who committed crimes and so on and so, and I said, well, you know, why this is happening? Because of the sectarian roots of this faith. Certainly the Sunni population, or anyone from Sunnah, our brothers and sisters from Sunnah would, you know, they would react to this in a very heavy manner. They would find it, quite honestly, and I don't use this word a lot, I barely ever use this word, but I think they would find it offensive. They would say, like, what do you mean? Like, you're you're accusing the faith itself, a faith that is held by 200 million people, by having sectarian content, and that is why we see these governments doing what they're doing. So I think this last assertion, brothers and sisters, was very problematic. Um, and I don't know what the thought process was to, like, you know, put together a series that brings people together. I'm not sure what the, what the goal was, or like, if the thought process was well thought out and so on and so forth, or the methodology was well thought out. Nonetheless, I found it necessary to highlight these points. Uh, again, I don't think that there were bad intentions involved. As the messenger of Allah said, when there was one of the Sahabah who saw someone who he thought was tricking the Muslims, but in fact, he was saying the shahada and he was professing his faith, and that Sahhabi took the life of that person, and when they came to the messenger of Allah, Shia and Sunni sources have talked about this, but predominantly in Sunni sources, what you find is the messenger of Allah said, did you open his heart to see his belief, you know? So, I don't want to, God forbid, attribute any bad intentions. And as I said at the beginning of the video, I'm not in the business of intentions. I am in the business of approach. And I think the approach here was, um, you know, was not, did certainly did not, uh, you know, achieve the goal that I think, uh, the presenter and then also Yakin Institute probably, uh, had in mind.
And we pray, inshallah, that this is part of us understanding and diagnosing a bigger problem, uh, that we have, that Shia and Sunni have to come to a level of maturity, inshallah, where they understand each other, they can tolerate different opinions. And I will tell you, brothers and sisters, as someone who's studied in the seminary for about a decade, different opinions is what you deal with every single day in the seminary. So if someone cannot tolerate this, and I'm not mentioning this in the context of this presentation, I just mean it in general. If someone cannot tolerate different opinions in the Muslim ummah and they are quick to kick people outside of the fold of the ummah, this is a sign of a lack of scholarship. Scholarship itself inherently always carries with it the idea of differing opinions, as long as they're all within a certain umbrella. And so we pray to Allah subhana wa ta'ala, uh, that that day comes, inshallah, where both schools of thought can have a better, deeper understanding of one another, both Shia and Sunni. And I hope that this video helped us understand the problem that there is and hopefully will be, uh, can be part of the, uh, solution, inshallah. Thank you so much for, um, carrying on all the way to the end of this, uh, video, and I hope that the content was, uh, beneficial, uh, inshallah, to both our Shia audience as well as our Sunni audience as well. Thank you so much.