ST#66: Problematic Hadiths Case Study - Part 2 | Sh. Anwar Arafat (2022-09-04) ​

0:00:14 upon you all
0:00:15 and welcome to sapient thoughts another
0:00:17 episode where here we discuss theo
0:00:20 philosophical issues we answer some of
0:00:21 the contentions that are brought against
0:00:23 islam and we offer
0:00:25 hopefully a robust case for the veracity
0:00:27 and beauty of islam insha'allah as a way
0:00:29 of life my name is anwar arafat and
0:00:32 today we are doing
0:00:34 episode 2 of our case study a
0:00:37 problematic hadith that seems to put
0:00:39 women down or that might seem
0:00:41 disrespectful or demeaning towards women
0:00:43 and a person might read this come across
0:00:46 it in some of the books and say hey wait
0:00:47 a second this is problematic
0:00:50 so how do we deal with this well as we
0:00:52 demonstrated the hadith of course it's a
0:00:54 little longer
0:00:56 if you haven't listened to the hadith
0:00:57 you can go back to that first episode um
0:00:59 in this episode we will apply our hadith
0:01:02 toolkit as we shared it where we we have
0:01:05 10 tools so for this episode we're going
0:01:07 to go actually through the first five
0:01:10 in applying them to this specific hadith
0:01:13 in sha allah ta'ala
0:01:14 tool number one
0:01:16 is sincerity and remember we said this
0:01:18 is sincerity towards the material
0:01:21 sincerity towards whatever goal it is
0:01:23 sincerity towards your own biases
0:01:26 and obviously as muslims first and
0:01:28 foremost sincerity towards god allah
0:01:30 subhanahu ta'ala
0:01:32 sincerity towards the corpus
0:01:34 means that
0:01:37 when i read a hadith i don't take it by
0:01:40 itself i understand that as part of an
0:01:42 entire corpus a person easily can seize
0:01:45 on one hadith and take it out of context
0:01:49 and show hey look muslims say one two
0:01:51 and three
0:01:52 i can do this to almost any book i can
0:01:54 do this to almost any religion
0:01:55 um not only is it
0:01:58 unwise it's unjust right we're not being
0:02:01 fair to the material not being fair to
0:02:02 anything if i am muslim and i come
0:02:05 across a problematic hadith i have a
0:02:07 bias if i'm not muslim i also have a
0:02:10 bias if i'm an academic
0:02:12 i have a bias there as well what are
0:02:15 some of these biases if i'm muslim and i
0:02:17 read a problematic hadith that seems to
0:02:18 put women down
0:02:20 my sincerity to my paradigm is that wait
0:02:22 a second i know that the prophet sallam
0:02:24 doesn't put women down in fact there are
0:02:25 so many hadith in which he praises women
0:02:28 right he thanks them he's appreciative
0:02:30 he's respecting he's accommodating he's
0:02:32 doing all these things in fact arguably
0:02:34 no one throughout human history has done
0:02:36 more
0:02:37 for women giving them rights etc then
0:02:40 somebody like the prophet saws
0:02:42 especially 1400 years ago when nobody
0:02:44 was doing anything for one whatsoever so
0:02:46 i know that wait a second if i'm reading
0:02:48 this in a way that it could be putting
0:02:50 women down i know this goes against what
0:02:51 i already understand from my paradigm
0:02:54 because i am muslim and i am aware of
0:02:56 all these things
0:02:57 if i am an islamophobe
0:02:59 i already have my bias i'm going to
0:03:00 seize upon something like this and i'm
0:03:03 going to be like hey oh this is more
0:03:04 fuel to my fire but if i'm an academic i
0:03:08 know that i have to take everything
0:03:10 within its context that means i look at
0:03:12 it i analyze it i don't just take
0:03:15 something and run with it without
0:03:16 actually analyzing it correctly this is
0:03:18 why the toolkit is so important for us
0:03:20 and i believe that this toolkit will be
0:03:21 helpful whether you're a muslim or
0:03:23 you're not muslim meaning
0:03:25 how can we actually look at something
0:03:26 like this did the prophet saw salaam
0:03:28 really mean to say that women are less
0:03:31 than men in terms of their religion or
0:03:33 in terms of their intellect
0:03:36 let's analyze this let's test this just
0:03:38 because we have one hadith that seems to
0:03:40 insinuate this is this actually the case
0:03:42 if i'm an academic if i'm actually being
0:03:44 honest this is why sincerity is so
0:03:46 important that it makes us aware of our
0:03:48 own biases and it makes us aware of what
0:03:50 it is that we're actually reading so my
0:03:52 bias as a muslim is that i know that the
0:03:54 prophet sallam respects him so why would
0:03:56 he say this and by the way this bias
0:03:59 informs how we actually read the hadith
0:04:02 and we'll get into it when we do the
0:04:03 reread at the very end we'll go into
0:04:06 why did the prophet say this
0:04:08 what did it mean
0:04:10 and this is why sincerity is very
0:04:12 important so this is applying tool
0:04:14 number one
0:04:16 tool number two
0:04:19 tool number two
0:04:20 is
0:04:21 patience
0:04:24 now what does patience mean here
0:04:28 patience of course is in contrast to i
0:04:30 want an answer now we want everything
0:04:33 instantaneous
0:04:35 um i read it
0:04:37 and i want to run with it
0:04:39 a lot of times people will come and
0:04:40 they'll say
0:04:43 what does islam say about women
0:04:46 okay what does islam say about women are
0:04:49 deficient in their intellect and
0:04:51 and
0:04:52 religion
0:04:54 the thing is this is an incorrect
0:04:55 question
0:04:56 what does islam say
0:05:00 is
0:05:01 a problematic question we can look at
0:05:03 what does the quran say what does the
0:05:05 hadith say what do some scholars say but
0:05:08 islam has a huge concept is such a big
0:05:11 thing that islam
0:05:13 is represented through a lot of these
0:05:16 different avenues but there's
0:05:19 it's not that there's one there's not
0:05:20 one islam
0:05:22 but that the question itself is
0:05:24 inherently wrong this is how for example
0:05:26 the khawarij
0:05:28 the kharajits when they came to alibi
0:05:32 and they said we want the quran to rule
0:05:35 between us
0:05:37 right and so he brought or i think in
0:05:39 this generation it was
0:05:41 he brings a mushaf and he puts it in
0:05:43 between them and he says quran rule
0:05:46 between us
0:05:48 and everybody looks at him like he's
0:05:49 crazy
0:05:50 what they said this is a book it doesn't
0:05:52 speak he said that's what you asked
0:05:54 though
0:05:56 you asked for the quran to rule but the
0:05:58 thing is the quran is always read
0:06:01 through a human being meaning there's an
0:06:02 interpretation happening always
0:06:05 right whether we like it or not now i
0:06:06 can interpret it according to what i
0:06:08 know the prophet saws said i know what
0:06:09 some of the companions said etc which is
0:06:11 what we do all the time
0:06:13 but we're reading it through an
0:06:14 interpretation i saw something wonderful
0:06:17 where there was a lady who came to a
0:06:18 scholar
0:06:20 and she said what is the what is the
0:06:22 ruling in my case i think it was an
0:06:23 issue of divorce
0:06:25 right on a certain ayah
0:06:28 and so the scholar told her well i can
0:06:30 tell you what
0:06:32 allah says or i can tell you what the
0:06:33 quran and sunnah says
0:06:36 she says no tell me what is says and the
0:06:39 man got upset he's like what i am
0:06:41 telling you that i have the quran and
0:06:43 sunnah and you're telling me shafer she
0:06:45 says no
0:06:46 what you're going to tell me is your
0:06:48 interpretation of the quran and sunnah
0:06:50 and when you quote michelle it's his
0:06:52 interpretation of the quran and sunnah
0:06:54 both of you guys are interpreting
0:06:56 as he says i trust his interpretation
0:06:58 over yours
0:07:00 he's a big imam i don't know who you are
0:07:02 basically she's saying
0:07:03 and that's interesting thing because we
0:07:05 have to realize that it's always taken
0:07:06 through that lens so we have to have
0:07:07 patience when it comes to we want
0:07:09 instantaneous answers we want to know
0:07:11 what does islam say about women that's a
0:07:13 big question
0:07:14 right let's look at what are some of the
0:07:16 verses say what are some of the how do
0:07:17 you say what do some of the scholars say
0:07:18 etc so patience when applying this
0:07:20 toolkit we can't automatically just
0:07:23 write off something because we don't
0:07:25 like it or don't agree with it from the
0:07:27 outset there might be something going on
0:07:29 and in fact in this case there is
0:07:30 something else going on
0:07:32 so that's tool number two
0:07:34 tool number three is to talk to someone
0:07:37 of knowledge
0:07:38 and in this case i would encourage
0:07:40 anybody if you come across a problematic
0:07:42 hadith one of the best ways to overcome
0:07:44 it is to ask somebody of knowledge and
0:07:46 in this case we did we consulted many
0:07:47 scholars they offered their
0:07:48 interpretations and their takes which
0:07:50 was great and we'll share them inshallah
0:07:52 at the end
0:07:53 of this whole scenario so we already did
0:07:55 that but we don't want to get ahead of
0:07:56 the gun here tool number four knowledge
0:07:59 of arabic
0:08:01 we said knowledge of the prophetic
0:08:03 language in this case it would save the
0:08:05 person so much headache because as i
0:08:07 said the translation is outright
0:08:09 incorrect so let's pause and go back to
0:08:12 the translation inshaallah
0:08:14 the translation of the problematic so
0:08:16 we're only going to go over the
0:08:17 problematic or one of the problematic
0:08:19 um phrases is where he says
0:08:23 in arabic
0:08:32 now it was incorrectly translated as i
0:08:35 have not seen anyone more deficient in
0:08:36 intelligence i'm sorry i have not seen
0:08:38 anyone more deficient in intelligence
0:08:41 and religion than you
0:08:43 so this is sentence number one and then
0:08:45 sentence number two he says a cautious
0:08:46 sensible man could be led astray by some
0:08:48 of you now it's right off the bat in
0:08:51 arabic it was one complete sentence and
0:08:53 in english they translated it into two
0:08:55 which caused a big problem
0:08:57 meaning it's as a statement and not as a
0:08:59 thing let's look at another translation
0:09:01 this is the translation of mishkatun
0:09:03 that appears for us in the english
0:09:06 translation and what did he
0:09:08 that same phrase how was it translated
0:09:10 here
0:09:11 he said
0:09:12 so look at how different the translation
0:09:14 is among women who are deficient in
0:09:17 intelligence and religion i have not
0:09:20 seen anyone more able to remove the
0:09:21 understanding of a prude man than one of
0:09:24 you
0:09:25 this is a completely different meaning
0:09:28 okay let me repeat this again he says
0:09:30 among women who are deficient in
0:09:33 intelligence and religion i have not
0:09:34 seen anyone more able to remove the
0:09:37 understanding of a prudent man than one
0:09:39 of you
0:09:40 meaning this is sarcasm
0:09:42 here he's being sarcastic in that other
0:09:45 translation he's stating facts
0:09:48 huge difference between sarcasm and
0:09:51 facts and by the way a person might ask
0:09:52 wait was the prophet ever like um
0:09:56 sarcastic or ever he was mentioning it
0:09:58 here trying to highlight the irony
0:10:02 that despite women being deficient
0:10:05 supposedly being deficient in their
0:10:07 intellect and in the religion they can
0:10:09 lead
0:10:10 a wise and intelligent man astray
0:10:15 so he's saying maybe they're not so
0:10:17 deficient if they can lead somebody
0:10:19 who's
0:10:19 more intelligent than them how can they
0:10:22 lead them astray
0:10:24 so that's that's uh something that will
0:10:26 give light inshallah to what is actually
0:10:28 going on here's another translation this
0:10:30 translation i thought this is the
0:10:31 translation of sunan of numaja
0:10:35 and this is narrated by
0:10:37 omar but the same thing it doesn't
0:10:38 mention the first part about the khutba
0:10:40 but it just talks about how he comes to
0:10:43 the women
0:10:44 and then he tells him this is what he
0:10:46 says i have never seen anyone
0:10:49 lacking in discernment and religion more
0:10:51 overwhelming to a man of wisdom than you
0:10:55 very simple straightforward this is the
0:10:56 translation of the same now in arabic
0:10:58 they're all the same
0:11:00 men
0:11:03 very good
0:11:04 so here they translated it as
0:11:07 i have never seen anyone
0:11:09 lacking in discernment instead of
0:11:11 intellect he uses the word discernment
0:11:13 here and religion more overwhelming to a
0:11:15 man of wisdom than you
0:11:18 meaning you're able to over overwhelm a
0:11:20 wise man despite
0:11:23 that deficiency obviously he's saying
0:11:25 that it's technically or in reality it's
0:11:27 not a deficiency even though technically
0:11:30 there is a deficiency and we'll talk
0:11:31 about what it means actually by this so
0:11:33 as you can see translation makes a huge
0:11:35 difference and in some of these like i
0:11:37 said the one of
0:11:39 unfortunately is completely wrong in
0:11:42 some of the other versions like we said
0:11:45 um
0:11:46 is okay
0:11:48 the translation the typical one that's
0:11:49 given
0:11:50 he says
0:11:51 in spite of your lacking in wisdom and
0:11:54 failing in religion you are depriving
0:11:56 the wisest of men of their intelligence
0:12:00 okay so again irony it says in spite of
0:12:03 your lacking in wisdom and failing in
0:12:05 religion now failing and religion is
0:12:06 completely wrong it doesn't use that
0:12:08 word you are depriving the wisest of men
0:12:10 of their intelligence okay
0:12:12 translation matters
0:12:14 and unfortunately the translations are
0:12:16 out there are not perfect these are
0:12:17 human endeavors
0:12:18 sometimes they get it right often they
0:12:20 get it wrong
0:12:22 in this case that
0:12:24 mistake
0:12:25 has led a lot of people to have issues
0:12:28 with this and i completely understand
0:12:29 that and in fact i'm sympathetic and
0:12:30 empathetic towards that
0:12:32 um
0:12:33 and this is why
0:12:35 tool number four when you can access the
0:12:38 original arabic it solves so many
0:12:40 problems you're not reading it through
0:12:41 someone else's translation someone
0:12:42 else's take on the hadith you're reading
0:12:44 it through
0:12:45 what did the prophet saw actually say
0:12:47 this is why it's so important for us to
0:12:49 to kind of realize this inshallah ta'ala
0:12:51 will stop here
0:12:53 and we will go to the
0:12:56 next tools inshallah in the next video
0:12:58 we'll see you guys then assalamualaikum