Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Open-mindedness. The ability to look past yourself, the ability to look past just today, the ability to go past thinking that you are the know-it-all, the ability to assume that there is more to learn, the ability to understand more than one perspective and be able to tolerate more than one opinion. And it's important to kind of define the concept of open-mindedness for us as Muslims, which is the ability to have a tolerance for more than one view, to be able to look at things from more than one perspective, and to have the mental capacity, the mental faculty to look beyond the superficial or the immaterial things that distract people and being able to look at the crux of the issue, the internal most important aspect of an issue. The primary reason why people find it difficult to be open-minded is that they are ignorant of their own ignorance. And in fact, as Muslims, we kind of appreciate the beauty of knowledge, but we also have this great resentment towards what we refer to as al-jahl al-murakab, ignorance that is compounded. What does that mean? Ignorance is compounded is where a person does not know but believes they know. SubhanAllah. It's one of the greatest fears that you and I should have is that you are entirely convinced of what you know that it is the only truth, and you're unaware that there can actually be another legitimate opinion. And therefore, some of the great imams that we follow, for example, in our religious tradition, al-imam Abu Hanifa, al-imam Malik, al-imam al-Shafi'i, al-imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, radiAllahu anas-sahaba, wa rahimAllahu a'immat al-muslimin ajma'in,
may Allah's mercy be upon all of them, and their teachers, the sahaba of the Prophet ﷺ, they all have a very similar statement. They would say things like ma'ana alayhi haq, wa ma'anta alayhi batil, what I believe is what I believe to be the truth. The thing that I hold, I believe after studying it and learning it and understanding it, I believe I'm correct. And I believe you're wrong. Wa rubbama anta ala haq wa ana ala batil. But I will never ever take out of my heart the concept and the thought that perhaps you are right and I'm wrong. And that's a very important aspect of open-mindedness that we found in the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ was willing to engage with people and he tells us ﷺ, hadithun nasa ala qadri aqoolim, that when you speak to people, speak according to what they can understand. And approach people in a way that they can understand what you have to say. Because you don't want people to have a narrow-mindedness that is a result of our fancifulness in word. One man came to the Prophet ﷺ and he said a message of Allah, I don't know how to ask Allah in the way that you and your sahaba, Abu Bakr, you know you guys are very eloquent. I'm not very learned. I don't know how to ask Allah for the things that I want. So the Prophet ﷺ said, what do you say? He said, I say, Allahuma inni ya saluka aljanna, Allahuma inni ya'udhu bika minan naar. Oh Allah, I ask you to protect me from hellfire. Oh Allah, I ask you to give me janna and protect me from hellfire. And the Prophet ﷺ said, hawla hanu dandin. Everything we say is asking for that exact same thing. And therefore the Prophet ﷺ doesn't come to this man and say, no, I want you to say exactly what I said here and it has to be in this exact same way. This isn't something that he would do with all matters of teaching. Because there's always an openness for understanding that there's greater capacity for people to approach Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in ways that may be different to other people as long as they are on the
same Sirat al-Mustaqeem, the same sunnah and way and process of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. It's important for you and I to consider the nearness of the Prophet ﷺ in his heart to other people's hearts. And when I say open-mindedness, it becomes really important to also warn about being negligent. So I can't say, oh, I'm going to be open-minded, so let's get rid of hijab. Oh, let's be open-minded. Fajr is too early. We're just going to pray it as soon as we wake up. Let's be open-minded as Muslims. How else are we going to get to know each other? We need to date a little bit more and need to experience a dating culture and lifestyle within our communities. Oh no, we need to be more open-minded does not mean that we need to be people who bring about a negligence of our dealings and our treaties that we have as Muslims in our ibadah, in our akhlaq, in our teachings that were taught to us by the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. There is a direct balance and a barrier between being open-minded and being a person who is watering down faith. Do not ever assume that being a person of open-mindedness is an assumption that I can change what I like and not like from the Qur'an based on my mindset. No, in fact what it means is that you seek to understand the teachings and the rulings that Allah has set in the Qur'an through the path and framework and the habit of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. The greatest way of understanding the Qur'an is not your mind, is in the practice of the Prophet ﷺ, the practice of the sahaba, the practice of the early generations. They're the ones who codified, set and made the standard of our deen. And therefore one of the greatest assault that has entered upon the Muslim ummah
of the Prophet ﷺ in recent times, in the most recent times of the last 200 years, has been that people seek to undermine the thawabid, the things that have always been common amongst Muslims. It was unheard of in our ummah in the past and present that the regulations that are taken as things that could be today of liberty, about halal and haram and the sexual ethics and sexual immorality, that these are things that can be undone with. But in fact for us as Muslims, the word of Allah is true, the word of the Prophet ﷺ is true, but we also appreciate that there are things that are grey in the middle. So the Prophet ﷺ gives us a code of conduct. He says, al-halal bayyin, that which is permissible is clear. Wal-haram bayyin, that which is haram is clear. Wabaynahuma umur, in between the clear and the clear on the other side are things that mutashabihah, things that are ambiguous. A person who isn't trained in Islam is not able to sift through it. And the Prophet ﷺ tells us to go, fas'alu ahla dhikr. Allah says in the Qur'an, go back to the people of knowledge who have clarity and can separate between the issues with their open-mindedness and tolerance for the truth. We ask Allah ﷻ to make us of them. Thinking is very much a product of our belief in Allah in the Qur'an. Afala yaqiloon? Do they not ponder over the Qur'an? Awalam yatafakkaroon? Do they not think about the verses of Allah ﷻ? Liqawmin yatafakkaroon? This Qur'an has been sent for people who deliberate and ponder and study the words of Allah ﷻ. Unending mention in the Qur'an about the importance of thought and logic and learning and teaching. But never will we as believers make what we
deduce logically be put forward over what was authentically revealed to us. And therefore an naql qabla alAAaql. That which was revealed is always the standard of our practice, not what we understood of it as being a logical understanding. The wahy is always the center of our existence, not the understanding that we have. Because there may come a time, some of the times that we live in today, where the understanding of the majority is in direct contradiction of the revelation that was sent to us by Allah ﷻ. It might be that you and I live in a society where they have made permissible something that Allah has prohibited. It doesn't matter how many people agree to it, we do not have open-mindedness and say, we will change our Qur'an for it. We will change our sexual ethics for it. We will change our genderization of right and wrong for it. In fact, open-mindedness for us is that we understand the revelation in its practice, but we do not contradict it with our minds. Wa sallillahumma wasallim wa zidwabarak ala Sayyidina wa nabiyyina Muhammad ﷺ. Your brother Yahya Ibrahim. Wa salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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