AsSalamu Alaikum and welcome to a stem focus. Today’s programming shala will be our 29th in our series Mohamed May peace be upon him last messenger of Allah. And our segment today would be the first on the sources of sera. I’m your host a shot and admission here once again from St. Mary’s University, stack the gem over the semiconductor.
For the benefit of our viewers, can we have a summary of last week’s program? Last week, we continued to discuss some of the methodological problem in studying the Sierra on the part of some represented by Dr. Hagen’s volume. And we indicated essentially that his major problem that he tried to replace authentic
reports with his own opinion and what he thinks is more rational or more
scientific in the way he wanted to present his views. And we indicated that this is neither scientific nor objective and you give various reasons why one should not reject and authenticated deport simply because in his own taste, or opinion, it shouldn’t be there.
And we indicated that this is particularly true in his treatment of Americans or extra ordinary things that happened in the life of the Prophet. And while the greatest miracle of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was the Quran itself. But there are also very authentic reports of others. extraordinary thing that took place. And we give an example of the difficulty with this approach used by Hakan by analyzing what happened in the year of the elephant, the years of the birth of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and they attempted the destruction of the Kaaba by the king of Ethiopia. And we have indicated that, in his attempt to explain that in a way different from what
the Quran really presented,
he had fallen into logical errors, historical errors, and even purely scientific error that no epidemiologist would agree with his interpretation that this was a smallpox for example. So this was basically the essence of of our discussion last week. Now, before moving on to the next section, we have a couple of questions. First, why did you feel it necessary to critique high counts book in some detail? I think there are at least three major reasons for that. One is that the volume written by Hegel, under the light, the title life of Muhammad, is known has been published several times in Arabic, and also recently has been translated into English and printed also in English, by the
American trust publication. So it is widely circulated. And as such, it’d be useful to, you know, critique, a popular or widely circulated volume like that.
Secondly, is that this book,
I must say, with the exception of this methodological errors that he fell into, and his attempt to reject or deny any extraordinary events other than the Quran itself. But the book, however, is well written. And maybe that’s, that’s why it’s circulated widely. It’s very well written book. And to be fair, again, it’s, it’s a good book otherwise,
except for this provenance. And the problem is that for many unsuspecting readers, especially in the West, the reader might think by mistake that this view represents the general view, upheld by Muslim scholars simply because the name of the author is a Muslim name, and the person is a Muslim.
A third reason is that this book
simply represents really a trend of thinking or a school of thought that emerged at the time of the, of the weakness of Muslims in the late 19th century and early 20th century, which led me to claim that full and complete imitation of the West in every respect, right or wrong, is the only solution to the dilemma and the problems faced by the Muslim world at that time.
And the difficulty with that school is that it’s thought that this is a new objective and scientific approach, but in fact, it really, it wasn’t it reflected simply the current events at that time. And I can easily understand why, for example, if a Marxist tried to interpret the message of Jesus, that
Probably superimposed on etc things which are not really related to it. And
I must add, besides these three reasons that on a person I live in,
I know some people from the Huygens family I met his daughter and his son in law and their children and they were living in Halifax here and they were our neighbors. And as people that are finding people, I have no problem or no reason really to be critical, but I think on a scholarly level, and when we speak about the search for truth, we have to be forthright, we have to indicate
any problem with the methodology or presentation of any writer whether he’s a Muslim or non Muslim, he has to be impartial in that sense. So I believe that this is basically the reason it’s a presents a given school.
Like your documentary, what happened to her school, the school of thought is it
is paramount has a survived? Well, according to some scholars, especially for example, Dr. alberty, whom we quoted for, he believes that this approach of that school was not particularly helpful, really.
Aside from the good intention, it’s quite possible that he can and I suspect he probably had good intention, but perhaps was misled into a wrong Mrs. ology. Because you see, to reject or deny anything that does not fall within the tangible words, something that’s tangible or empirical
results ultimately in weakening the impact of religion or faith in the hearts of people.
Because after all, the phenomenon of revelation itself the phenomenon of profits being sent by God, the idea of interpreting
revealed religions as such,
can easily be go in the air really, if we try to use a methodology to present this deep rooted phenomena that has been always with us for centuries, as near sociological, economic, or political type of phenomena. And as such, even though the writers in that school did not really mean it this way, but that seems to have been the impact of that way of thinking. But as far as your particular question as to what happened to the score,
some people like doctor and bowtie, for example, say that as time went on, and as the writing of that school, has been analyzed carefully,
it was quite clear that the school failed,
on one hand to recognize the unique characteristics of religion and the spiritual elements or metaphysical element of life and tended to mix it up with other physical phenomena or physical sciences, which is, of course, an area that should be a little bit different in the way it should be approached.
And other hand wired that school claimed to be following the scientific approach, objective approach, he also failed in that, because what happened really was no more than a reflection of an attitude of psychological and ideological defeatism.
Nor did that score data result in any major scientific or technological advancements, which they were really pushing for. In later decades, however, we find that there have been some excellent studies made of the life of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, which did improve on the methodology of the study, but without really denying
or refuse to accept authentic reports, even though they might be referring to extraordinary events, at least as we normally define them. And we will be referring to some of those sources as the program in the series unfolds. But I think the main thing really is that the original, the most ancient and most authentic sources, must be used as the primary sources for writing about the life of Prophet Muhammad is.
Now nurse, examine these sources on Sierra, what are the first of all?
Well, in the orders of importance,
we can say that there are at least three basic sources that scholars would agree would be very fundamental to understand the life of the Prophet.
The first one is the Quran, which is the word of God to the Muslim revealed to his last messengers, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
And that revelation used to come to him to show him how to implement Islam, so that he can show people again so it becomes a living religion rather than just something in the book by way of laws. It also
Team the Quran in different periods of time, commenting on certain events that took place in the life of the Prophet and the followers, directing them,
steering them in the right direction as to how to decide how to take actions and whatever problems they they’re facing.
And in fact, we find in the Quran specific references to specific events that took place in the life of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. In fact, there is even one of the short sutras toward the end. They speak about his three Prophetic Mission even when he speaks and then the logistical achievement for our didn’t God find you an orphan and he found refuge for you. So there’s even reference to his life, at least in a passing way. Before even being commissioned as a prophet and messenger of God.
This reference the Quran, while it is very important, why it is number one, in the priority of references, is not the sole source of information about the biography or life of Prophet Muhammad peace.
Because we must remember after all, the doctrine as distinct, for example, from other scriptures is not primarily a biography about the life of the Prophet and as such, the two other references are very relevant. The second
reference is Hadees, which refers to the sayings, the deeds and approvals of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and matters pertaining to the implementation of faith in life.
Like the Quran, also, Hadees was not intended as a biography or history, but rather as a source of legislation, guidance and direction, the Prophet and the Muslim community at large. That’s why you do not notice, for example, any specific chronology and hobbies because it was a source of legislation rather than historical anecdotes as such, even though it contains history, and that’s why it is also another source. The third source is the CLR. Or you might say, the verified and authenticated reports or biographies written for the sake of history, that’s for the sake of actually writing with the purpose of describing the life of the Prophet and his characters and what
happened
his lifetime.
Now, the of course, the third source becomes more specific and deals more with historical events.
However, in addition to these three basic sources, some scholars like Dr. Mustafa Seabury, Chilean scholar,
adds a fourth source and he said, The study also of the contemporary
points, three, in the lifetime of the Prophet might reveal the environment. Why, because some of the opponents of the Prophet used to fight him using poetry. And then there were some Muslim poets like a son of metallic and Abdullah of Noah who responded to the unbelievers and defended the Prophet and his message. And what stubai say basically, is that the study of this kind of poetry also may shed some light about the environment and milieu, in which Islam initially emerged in its final form during the lifetime of the Prophet This is just like sort of listing of the major sources. So authentic, for that matter, how dependable are the sources of Syrah? Okay, when we speak about
authenticity, and dependability, we have to take each one of them separately. To begin with.
The Quran is in the highest or the highest,
and authority book authority and authenticity that is approved that it is revelation as well as
the authentication in terms of accuracy of transmission that what we have today is what was indeed reviewed for the
this issue. We’re not going to detail it here because, as you might recall, this was a topic of a 64 segment series that dealt a great deal of depth. In both the issues of authority and authenticity, and ample proof was given that the Quran is the highest, both in authority and authenticity. Just to refresh the memory of our viewers, we indicated that there is not only evidence that the Quran cannot be of the composition of Prophet Mohammed or come from any other human sources, but that there is ample proof that the Quran was written down.
And memorized simultaneously in the original language in which in which it was revealed in the lifetime of Prophet Mohammed under his supervision and has passed to us generation after generation in exactly the same form fully intact. So this is something that is really indisputable really any scholar really respect his integrity and knowledge cannot help but admit like many William weld and others were critics even if it’s true, that the authenticity and authority some of them even admit of the Quran is just not a matter of question video at all, plenty of evidence for that,
as far as Hades, the same deeds and approval of the Prophet as a source of information about his life.
Those again, we will not detail it much for a simple reason that this is an important topic. Very interesting one fact when one examines the very methodical and scientific approach used by the conductors of this prophetic scenes.
Since this is a topic that hopefully would be forthcoming, we will only mention at this point that it is true, that not all the sayings of the Prophet were recorded in his lifetime,
lifted perhaps has been written down or preserved in writing.
But there is also evidence that the hobbies literature or the setting of the Prophet has been circulated orally,
on a wide scale, actually up to the years 99 of hijra of his migration from Mecca to Medina.
And it is only at that time when as an attempt at systematic writing and recording of habeas has had taken place.
But of course, because they have been some attempts on the part of some unscrupulous people in the nature of time to fabricate, saying then attributed to the profits, we find that the scholars who collected Hadees have already developed a very scientific approach to verify various reports, both from the standpoint of criticism of the chain of narration, and again, we’ll come to that property time, very meticulous review of who heard from whom and what degree of integrity, good memory, and dependability of each of the people in the chain of narration is very thorough type of study,
as well as the criticism of the text itself, because, for example, if any text of Hadees appears to be in conflict with the Quran of the assistance of Ernest de the most authentic source, then of course, it cannot be accepted if there is something in Hades, which shows a sort of contradiction that that’s not befitting of this, obviously, that might be one sign that it is not an authentic, how do you start that’s a topic and again, like I said, by, by itself.
But because of that, it would be honest to say that one cannot claim that all reported Hadith, or sayings of the Prophet are all of the same high degree of authenticity, like the Quran, but there are degrees. There are some of those sayings of the Prophet, which has what had already passed the most rigorous test of verification. And those kind of a hadith known aside or sound, very dependable, come very close to the heart, in terms of their authenticity.
And finally, when we speak about the third source, that is the biographies or histories written by the followers, or by other later historians, in the latest time, this is another source again. And it might be useful to notice here that the careful historians, the careful historians have used the same kind of scientific methodology that they used in verifying the same of the prophet to also verify other historical reports about his life. In fact, some scholars report that some of the early biographers of the prophet like Anwar is available now when
he began actually his careers as a mahabis, which means a collector and verifiers of the hobbyists are saying of comments or they applied the same skill. They used to verify the thing of the Prophet, and also verifying the histories. They wrote about the Prophet these
American brother invented these biographers and actually begin to report about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
Okay, if we take the word report, which I think is the more
Road turn, as you know, report could mean reports orally or report in a written form.
And if we take it in that broad sense, then we can say yes reporting about traffic 100 bc upon him began in his lifetime.
And as I said before, the reporting included the description of events in his life, and also what he talked by where you’ve had these because this, again, is one part of history because it tell us what happened.
And we indicated also that Hades was a very important source for exhortation legislation clarification of Creed’s
and as such course, it assumed a much more important role than simply reporting of history.
But in spite all of that we have seen also that haddish has been very widely circulated orally, but also some of it has been committed to writing. So you can say some of this report actually has been available not only orally, but in writing, beginning even with the lifetime of the Prophet peace be upon him.
And of course, the
Hadees being a major source for Islamic teaching, and how to apply Islam in a varieties of the various spheres of life was disseminated very widely and was also attempted to be preserved by a lot of people by lots of scholars. So that’s one source. But if you’re asking about, for example, when was the beginning of writing a history for example, or reporting history about the lifetime of the Prophet we can say that it wasn’t really written for the sake of history, or biography in his lifetime, as a history in itself,
and that this took place during the generation, following the immediate companions of the Prophet. In Islamic terminology, these are called a tabula in a table that those who followed the eyewitnesses are the companions of the Prophet. So just like a second generation, journey, the lifetime beginning of writing took place.
Can you give us some examples of such early writings? And maybe comments and which of them survived, and which are presently in existence? When that’s submit your questions might take me a little bit to clarify, but I think it would be useful, perhaps to divide it as some scholars suggested, the I’m talking only about the early printing that you asked about the very early period, they are divided basically into three groups.
The first group, which is the oldest group, the very first writing that took place, include the following and just have the seven that minister mentioned has proven early writing.
The first was
the son of the bears the son of a worm.
And this person actually was a son of one of the companions of the Prophet, a famous companion and has appeared
in during the dates here, we will be using the date of death, because sometimes the date of birth might not be as clear or as available as the date of death. Which means of course, when we say, for example, Ottawa died in the year 92, of hedgerows or migration of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina. It means, of course, that the book must have been written before that it could have been decades before that, because that’s only the date of his death, which is available to us.
The second was a band, the son of us monadnock fan who died in the year one or five,
the third world
who died in the year 110 of migration. The force is awesome. The son of Qatada died in year 120. of migration. The system should have been in Assad died in 123. The six ignition hub azuri, who died in 124. And the seventh is Abdullah Abu Bakr Ibn hasn’t died in the year 135 of Niger. In other words, the range in terms of date of death between 92 to 135, of the migration of the prophets.
As far as the second part of your question, as we apply to this first group,
did any of these sightings survive? The answer to that mock much very little perhaps survive.
In fact, there is a part of the book written by the Blue Moon up there. That’s the third person in the list I mentioned.
Without even the 110 of migration, which is in existence in the library of hi
In Berlin in Germany,
there are also status portions of some of those early writings, which can still be found in an available reference reference that has been preserved. And that is the history of nations and kings tradition Omen one book, which is written by the famous Muslim historian of poverty, he quotes them.
But this does not mean that the early works has been completely lost. Because as we have seen, the second as we will see, in fact, the second group of writers are biographers were almost contemporaries of those people. And they base their writings also on this earlier contribution. So that moves us to the second group. The second group includes three basic or crucial individuals. One is Musa, the Nakba, who died with 141, Unit Two c 141. The previous group, the last one by 135. So this close instead, man in Russia died 150. And a very important person Mohammed is have died in 152.
The other question again, even if that group has based its writing, at least in part, it must have been on the first earlier writings. Did any of those writings survived? The answer’s no. Even though, as you can see, in the third group, the last one didn’t start. His writing, in fact, survived, but not the origin that you wrote. It survived on in the form, preserved by another person that belonged to the third group. Finally, coming to the third and last group of ancient historians, there have been a number of people, including Al Baqarah, he died 183 and waka D two or seven, ignition 218 Hamad bin Saad 230 and a poverty who died in 310. The consensus of Muslim scholars is
that and others that the most authentic of all of these is the third one in the list is a sham because in fact, it is nothing but the earlier writings of igneous rock which has been preserved with some editing comments from the part of evasion. Well, thank you very much like to be they will have to pick up on this next week. inshallah. Thank you all for joining us here in a second focus. As always, your comments and questions will be most appreciated. Our phone number and address will be appearing on your screen from all of us. Assalamu alaikum love to see you next week, inshallah.
