Mufti Akmals request to Dawate Islami regarding Bahare Shariat

it certainly is. but our people don't know the value of our treasure.

 

Bold comment. But if this is the case then what an underrated book BES is. Subhanallah.

 

Mufti akmal says BeS is not an "alim bananay wali kitab", one should consult ulama, specially mufti akmal because he thinks he is an autority, but unfortunately he himself does not understand BeS



Did he not see this so clear one-line statement in BeS


One who goes against the opinion of the majority does not go out of ahlussunnah

I think it is better to rely on BeS rather than muftiyan e kiram who do not know the correct masail of aqidah and fiqh and try to belittle BeS

 

i asked that question and tried to answer it. a follow-up post on levels of madrasah-grads is pending, in sha'Allah wa bi tawfiqih.

 

bahar e shariat is a marvel. and i get irritated if someone downplays its importance. you will not find a hanafi fiqh work that has all the relevant hadith of the topic, definitions, and mufta-bih masayil in one place.

the author of the work is not only a master of hanafi fiqh himself, but the teacher of major teachers. among the many distinctions of bahar e shariat, takhrij of mas'alah - when it is mufta bih. see the sample below from the first edition of bahar (1918edition):




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bahar e shariat is not just another fiqh book. but a compilation of ahadith al-ahkam not unlike bulugh al-maram. if one is indeed an aalim of bahar e shariat, they would have practically covered

- nearly a dozen books of fiqh or more (check the bibliographies) with mufta bih opinions.

- ahadith related to the topic/chapter

- takhrij of masa'il

- qur'an verses related to ahkam (cited in the beginning of each chapter/topic)

- definition of terms​

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how many graduates from madrasahs have the ability to cite ahadith on any given matter? especially in our age of fitnah where salafis shove bukhari-muslim in your faces and demand hadith for everything? [again i am not saying it contains everything - just that it contains plenty and sufficient for an aalim].

i will go out on a limb here and make an audacious claim: going by my experience (i could be wrong), other than an exceptional student here and there, 99.9% madrasah graduates will not be able to present hadith on ahkam on their own and anyone who is comfortable with bahar can comfortably beat salafis black and blue.

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you must forgive a long time admirer or student of bahar for getting irritated if someone tries to make it look as if it madrasah grads are far higher than it. after all, a madrasah grad becomes so proficient that they can fetch masayil on nawazil from ancient and later ulama, easily get their masayil and the arguments for and against the mas'alah in radd al-muhtar and even look up taqrirat and hawashi...and even refer to usul for insights.

no?

sarcasm aside, how many madrasah graduates are capable of lookin up a work like radd al-muhtar for masayil and hand it to the awam as mufta bih?

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don't bite the hand that feeds it.

 

If someone becomes an aalim after reading Bahare Shariat, then what is the difference between that person and an educated layman? A layman who knows all the fard ayn knowledge relating to him.

What is the actual technical definition of who is an aalim and who is not? In the modern subcontinent urf, anyone who graduates is usually automatically called an aalim whether he passed his exams with 40% or 100%. To some, it will be whoever has sanad in certain sciences.

I understand that the term 'muhaddith' was differed upon i.e. does a person need to know 100,000 hadith with chains of narration or 500,000 hadith? When we call people muhaddith today, are we using a watered down definition e.g. someone who teaches hadith but hasn't memorised them? What about the term 'aalim'- is our definition different to the definition a classical scholar would have held?

 

Originally in the Hanafi school, how were opinions established as being 'mufta bihi'? For instance, if I understood correctly, the Hanafi time for Asr was from the opinion of Hazrat Abu Hanifa r.a. but his two most famous students differed from the opinion of their teacher. As layman, this had me curious.

 

The tag line reads "fiqh hanafi ki allim banany wali kitab"; so, it qualifies that one can become alim in masail of fiqh hanafi, not an alim in all Islamic sciences.

once an alim, who studied in dimashq, told me that his teacher used to present different aqwal (rulings) from hanafi fiqh books and ask the class to come prepared with mufta bihi or rajeh rulings. the subcon students used to tell immediately which opinion was mufta bihi. their teacher admired and questioned that it was not possible that you always give a correct answer, where do you take it from? they told him that we have BeS which is a compilation of all the mufta bihi rulings. their teacher opined that BeS should be translated into Arabic, it would be a great work.

 

the main reason to learn and master Islamic sciences is to live our lives in accordance with the shari'ah. now, an erudite scholar compiles his years of education and research in a simple readable format such that the majority of common folks can read it, lookup solutions to their everyday life masail, and eventually benefit from it. with such a comprehensive book like BeS in hand, common folks are relieved from going through such a long process of education that requires at least decades, they get to know directly what they would acquire after spending their entire lives, this knowledge is pure and core ilm, and those who possess this knowledge are certainly alim of at least those masail.

the difference is in the depth of their knowledge which can vary from little to enormous depending on the knowledge they have acquired; for example, the difference between mufti akmal and mufti amjad ali's knowledge (alahi rahmah was riDwan) is so huge, there is no comparison. as a test mufti akmal can try finding some mistakes in BeS (not by DI), we will provide a list of numerous glaring mistakes in mufti akmal's speeches and writings. does this mean that mufti akmal is not an alim or mufti? similarly, a person who knows BeS very well is an alim, though not as equal in-depth as a good graduate alim (not those who cannot read ibarat after graduating).

btw, there would be very few gems who hold complete command on BeS, and would have read it entirely. I've seen muftiyan e kiram who even make mistakes in masail of BeS, but it does not mean that we should not call them alim.

mufti akmal says in his above video that the person studying BeS with the help of an alim should first consult with his teacher before he tells a masalah he knows to another person. it means that common folks should not even touch BeS. what is the purpose of BeS or any other fatwa or fiqh book then? if mufti akmal says that only ulama should read it then why it is not an "alim banany wali" kitab?

what mufti akmal said can be true in some (very) complicated issues, but there is a lot of stuff that is simple and straightforward for common folks.

 

mufti akmal sahib is mixing up things - aalim and mufti ka farq nahin kar rahe hain.
aur ek jumla par atak gaye hain.

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brother, we are talking about the kasbi and you are asking about the wahbi ...

untiring hard-work, sincerity and humility put together, are greater than the sum of their parts.

 

@abu Hasan.

Please checks DM's.

 

the case mufti akmal mentioned is so artificial and even as a hypothetical case, it is far fetched and i doubt such things would actually happen.

how many cases have you heard where someone broke out in the middle of a jama'at and said: 'everybody stop your prayer. your prayer has now been nullified.'?

besides, even if you consider the most extreme fault-finding type of a person - how realistic is that he will be watching the imam carefully to ensure that he does not scratch more than three times in a rukn?

does mufti akmal now recommend discarding rulings of amal-e-kathir? (please note his scoffing at the three time rule).

if not, what constitutes amal e kathir? he has mentioned one generic rule that if one sees a person from afar and can tell he is praying, it does not constitute amal-e-kathir. the question is: did sadru'sh shariah not know of this or did the fuqaha of ancient times (apparently, there is a concession for modern youth according to mufti akmal).

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so will mufti akmal issue a fatwa that the hukm of lifting hand thrice in a rukn (without need) does not constitute amal kathir and the namaz of such a person is valid? and the mas'ala in fiqh books should be revised.

also, how many times does lifting a hand in one rukn constitute amal kathir?

if it is amal kathir, is there a limit for such an action in one rukn - say n times? (i.e. lifting a hand in one rukn n times constitutes amal kathir) what is that n?

in the above case, why does it not break at 3 and breaks at n (assuming n>3).

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SubHān Allah

Beautiful Mawlana sahib.

May Allāh bless you in abundance and protect you from all sorts of calamities and fitna.

This might be abit too personal, but rather let me ask it than regret it.

How can one be an aalim like yourself? MāshāAllāh you are so well rounded with alot of the topics including modern day Masayil.

Please any advice for students of knowledge to become more competent Aalims.

Many students at university want to study the Deen but can't do so due to commitments required by Darul Ulooms. What can such students do?

As I said I rather ask this than regret this. Please feel free to avoid.

May Allāh bless you and grant the ummah more benefit from your knowledge and wisdom. Āmīn

 

it was mufti akmal's own statement. and am really sorry to say that his clip has many fallacies. HS post below also is riddled with fallacies.

"bahar e shariat aalim banane wali kitab" - even if you take it at face value, it means someone who has read it end to end and is well-acquainted with its masa'il. now, if someone just looked into a book and picked out a quote and argued with a graduate-scholar, he is not the same as the person who has actually READ bahar shariat (and not just browsed or fished out a quote).

so using a quote-hunter's case to justify that bahar e shariat won't make you an aalim is bad reasoning.

suppose someone has read bahar e shariat and is familiar with the masayil - i doubt any such well-informed person would delude himself to be at par or above a madrasah graduate. so it is a hypothetical case (a person who has not been to madrasah, but is adept at masayil in bahar) and then it is another hypothetical situation that he would consider himself to be better than madrasah graduated ulama on the basis of his knowledge of bahar e shariat.

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my beef is with this holier-than-thou approach of madrasah graduates and sanad-yafta muftis. they think that going to madrasah and obtaining degrees by writing answers to exams makes them scholars and sneer at the world as if they are themselves alahazrat of our time.

mufti akmal sahib gets offended with a common man positing with a mas'ala - but the likes of sayyiduna umar were confronted on masayil by lesser people and they didn't mind clarifying their positions. i don't buy this 'don't criticise or question ulama'. only those who are afraid of being quizzed - and afraid that their depth would be exposed will forbid people from questioning or cross examining them.

imagine imam bukhari - in that well known incident - sneering at the crowd. "you folk? i spent more than a decade near the rawdah writing the hadith. you dare question me and test my competence? shoo - go away..."

if an aammi questions a scholar, the scholar should clarify his stance. if the aammi is mistaken, they should explain to him the correct position instead of getting angry.

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around 4:30 mufti akmal sahib says there is no qada for women who are forced to miss their fasts in periods and lochia.

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then it is easy to gauge the level of graduates.

how many sanad-yafta ulama - immediately after graduation are capable of explaining most of the masayil in bahar e shariat? after all they would have read it in the first two years!

i may be wrong but most madrasa grads will probably fail the bahar-e-shariat test. you can ask them masayil about namaz hajj zakat, especially the uncommon ones and they will be stumped.

how many madrasah-grads post graduation are capable of explaining nuz'hatu'l nazar or nur al-anwar? pardon my suu-zann, i have seen people with mufti certificates from very big institutions and studied under big names - but have poor knowledge of books and authors. they are not even aware of prominent hanafi ulama or the ages they have lived in.

it is easy to belittle bahar-e-shariat as another fiqh book. personally, i hold a very high opinion of bahar and consider it a marvel. a great gift to urdu speaking muslims. but we do not value our jewels.

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i have ranted on this elsewhere.
hand a copy of sharh al-aqayid, or tahawiyyah, or bahar e shariat v1 to any certified aalim. if he is able to use these texts to explain the masayil therein (by memory or even by looking up commentaries) he is indeed an aalim. if not, he has a certificate but he needs to work hard to become an aalim. i am sure you will find one or two exceptional ulama. the next question would be: how many grads are capable of doing this? the answer to this question will determine my rather audacious claim.

we can phrase this with a slight variation: indo-pak urdu speaking grads will be asked fiqh questions, and they should be able to answer them without looking up bahar e shariat.

exactly. certificate does not make one an aalim. KNOWLEDGE does. if you cannot make the differentiation between knowledge and certificates, i will not be able to convince you of anything.

imam azam is an aalim. alahazrat is an aalim. mufti akmal is an aalim. a graduate of furqan academy is an aalim.
does this mean all are equal?

bahar e shariat DOES make one an aalim. an aalim at a lower level who can know masayil of everyday needs and help those around him.

look at the fallacy of mufti akmal (in the clip in the opening thread):

kaise aalim ban sakta hai kitab padh kar. jab ke us ne ustad se seekha hi na ho. agar koyi kahta hai ke waqayi yeh sahi likha huwa hai. intiha'yi aajizi ke saath haath jod kar ek talib e ilm ki haysiat se arz karta hoon ayiye baythiye. main bahar e shariat ko padhwa kar usi par chand questions karoonga jawab de ke bataen. ab aap to aalim ho chuke hain na. to phir saath mein ek ye bhi ibarat badha den ke jo yeh kitab khatam kar le woh hamare paas aaye hum use aalim ki sanad de denge kyun ke aalim banane wali kitab hai? jaari karen sanaden. kyun nahin dete hain?

use bithaen maqam e fatwa mein taa ke woh fatwey de.​

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mufti sahib on his own, spun a simple statement into whatever he wanted it to mean. does every furqan graduate become a mufti by default even without takhassus in ifta?

the problem here is, mufti akmal created a false equivalence unwittingly: an aalim should be a mufti. so if BeS makes one an aalim - he MUST be able to give fatwa.

if i have misunderstood it, please explain it to me.

mutlaq muqayyad aam khaas and many other terms got intertwined and melded into one term: aalim.

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this brings us to a definition of an aalim

- every muslim should have minimum amount of ilm necessary for his daily use.

- a common man need not learn every subject - just those subjects that concern him. if he is not married, he doesn't need to know the masayil of nikah and talaq. if he is not a businessman, it is not wajib on him to learn masayil of partnerships and mudarabah and the like.

the above types of KNOWLEDGE is mandatory on every muslim. that which is classified as fard upon every muslim. (i.e. knowledge of what is obligatory or forbidden in his/her situation).

beyond this knowledge, is fard kifayah. if a few people or even one individual obtains knowledge in a community, the whole community is absolved from sin. if none in the community is a scholar - an aalim - then everyone becomes a sinner.

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so who is an aalim? [from a subcontinent, urdu-speaking perspective]

1. the base definition of an aalim is someone who is able to answer most (lets say 90%) of commonly faced issues concerning farz, wajib, etc. of prayer, fasting, ablution etc. and this KNOWLEDGE can be gained either by sitting with scholars, listening to them, reading reliable books like bahar e shariat, and so on. if the person cannot find it out himself, he is capable enough to find a scholar with more knowledge, or a mufti and obtain answers - both for himself and his community.

2. a higher level is one who reads a lot of books, translations of intermediate works and takes help of other ulama for clarifications. anwar e hadith, kimiya e sa'adat, minhaju'l abidin, shifa, arbayin, madarijun nubuwwah, history works and biographies in urdu etc.

3. even higher than the above is one who has been reading for decades and after reading most of the intermediate level books - works upward and reads tafsir in urdu (khazayin for example), translations of hadith works (mishkat, sihah sittah etc) and works by alahazrat etc. is acquainted with polemical works etc. BUT is not conversant with arabic per se and cannot read arabic; has not read kalam text books.

4. has covered the ground of the previous three and reads more translated works on tasawwuf - perhaps even looks into usul works or seeks clarifications for terms and concepts mentioned in books. now reads fatawa of sunni ulama (in urdu) and is also dipping in and out of fatawa ridawiyyah. after having read hadith translations, now working on hadith commentaries in urdu. and translations of quran commentaries.

----this is the farthest a common man without attending a madrasah can go. however, none of the above are qualified to issue fatwa. there is no harm in considering any of the above as 'aalim'. if you disagree - tell me with Allah as witness, how many certificate holding graduates have you met who can answer up to level three?

now, let us take the FIRST level. we said: he should be capable of answering most of the commonly faced issues (roz-marrah ke masayil) by referring to books. and bahar e shariat is one such book. mufti akmal says in what appears to be a dismissive tone: 'it has only mufta bih aqwal'. so that is all the more reason to stick to it.

here is an exercise: take the past 40 episodes of ahkam e shariat programme of mufti akmal sahib and list down all the questions in these episodes and the answers by mufti akmal. how many of those masayil can be found in bahar e shariat either min-o-an OR with slight variance?

if this indeed is the case, then ulama should encourage people to read bahar. after all mufti akmal (rightfully) complains about common people not learning about masayil and gaining knowledge of the religion.

i think people need to read the tafsir of the aayah. not every aalim has to be a mufti or a mujtahid.



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who made this comparison or claim?
regardless, as a matter of experience, i have met many graduates who don't know common masayil in bahar e shariat.

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- why did sadru'sh shariah compile bahar?

- is a common man allowed to read bahar or not?

- if a person reads bahar and has learned the mufta-bih masayil of bahar quite well, can he not be called an aalim? why not?

- this is an exercise for all those who consider only madrasah grads as ulama: which book of fiqh specifies an 4/8/10-year darsi course to be called an aalim? which book specifies the AMOUNT and QUALITY of ilm that an aalim must possess? it will be easier for us to say that "oh yes, knowledge of bahar e shariat is not sufficient to consider someone an aalim".

- how many madrasah grads are willing to stand the test of bahar e shariat? how many know the masayil quite well (especially the first 5-6 vols).

- going by the dismissive manner of cons bahar e shariat, how many madrasah graduates have read as many hadith mentioned in bahar e shariat (these are ahadith of ahkam mostly)?






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Allah ta'ala knows best.

 

In my opinion Mufti Akmal is not arguing against Bahar e Shariat but how layman use it.

Self thought man who only studied Bahar e Shariat is equal, if not better than Students who done Dars e nizami for 4 years under the supervision of scholars in Al Furqan scholars academy!!!

I find the comparison disingenuous.

 

I repeat, i clearly remember having read the proviso that the book will make you an aalim if read under the tutelage/supervision of another aalim, this was back in early 90s.

I don't know if DI or anyone else did away with that part of the sentence.