It is reported that Imam Abu Hanifa said “When a hadith is sahih, it is my school (madhhab)“. I have heard this saying of Imam Abu Hanifa on numerous occasions; it is especially useful when one wishes to promote a hadith (in say Sahih Al-Bukhari) which is inconsistent with the (Fiqh) position of the illustrious Imam. Basically the report serves the purpose of encouraging dropping of fiqh with all its usul and qawaid built up and consolidated over hundreds of years of scholarship for a hadith on the assumption that Imam Abu Hanifa was ignorant of the said hadith.
I heard that report again last night, the shaykh who mentioned the report – may Allah prolong his life and enable us to benefit more from him – wanted to lead the witr salah according to the position of Imam Malik, who preferred it be offered in three rakats separated with a salutation. Now, I have been taught that on matters of genuine scholarly difference there is to be no condemnation; that the difference of our scholars shows the dynamic, tolerant and merciful side of our Shariah.
Surely it is not right, in the name of difference, to undermine the other opinion. We have been offering the witr salah according to the Hanafi position for a number of years, three rakats without any separation by means of salutation. I felt that, the Hanafi position with all its heritage, scholarship and research was slightly undermined, dare I say a tad belittled. “When a hadith is sahih, it is my madhhab!”
Our scholars have had age old disagreement regarding the witr salah on at least five major points:
Its hukm: It is wajib or Sunnah?
Its description: is it one rakat, three, five, seven or nine? Are the rakats separated by salutation?
Its timing: can it be offered after dawn?
The Qunut(supplication): is Qunut permitted in the witr salah or is it just for Ramadan or even the 1st ten days of Ramadan?
Its observance while travelling on a riding beast: Is it allowed or not?
These differences are not always based on ignorance of hadith but preference. It is more often the case that the hadith was known to the imam but he preferred another narration – this is Fiqh! So perhaps it is best that a personal opinion or preference is presented as just that, a personal opinion and preference, and not as categorically as the strongest opinion or the opinion which is closest to the Sunnah. That I believe shows more respect to scholarship and is more befitting of adab al ikhtilaf.
I wonder if the renowned mosque in the depth of East End is aware of the points you raise. I was at the famous tarawih prayers a few days ago when I was left confused of what madhab they were following. I guess that as a Hanafi I would gravitate to this mosque as the majority of people in attendance were Hanafi. The pre Witr advice was bizarre even further, a Maliki scholar stood to inform us that his methodolgy was the right one with the Hanafi imam of the mosque nodding away like the Churchill advert. Let’s get this straight I accept another way to pray but to be told that the majority way was not the correct way undermines this scholarly tradition, where was the imams backbone? To make things worse many people did not understand and mid-prayer looked around in dispair, some breaking their prayer others walking out in disgust. The next day he reverts back!!! My issue is that shouldn’t this guest imam respect the majority ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’. Imam Shafi when praying at a Hanafi mosque prayed just like them. This elusive mosque calling the likes of Quilliam Foundation ‘intellectual facists’ is suddenly courting people with ‘intellectually facist’ views – is that hippocrisy or was it that they couldn’t argue their corner? Come on I expected better! I wonder if they will find a ‘new’ way to pray next week!!!!
Perhaps petition for Eddy to lead the next witr? He may have found new rules which abrogate ALL schools of thought.
Check out Darrul ummah, some fantastic recitors and one clear witr prayer
Slm, the best recitation is at finsbury park mosque. The qunut is very deep and emotional
Assalamu Aleikum Wa Rahmat Allahi wa barakatu!
I was at the same prayers and would like to point out that the witr has been done differently before – i recall one year when the whole month was done according to the 2-1 format. We have even had recitation in Warsh for witr. Alhamdulilah. The benefit? the congregation learnt a new sunnah which can only be a good thing.
Polk – have some respect! You refer to the Imam of the Masjid “nodding like the churchill advert” – which contains a nodding dog? Is this how you view a venerated Imam of the community? Its interesting how you bring in the Quilliam foundation – perhaps you are a closet supporter? Or are you Mahbub Hussain is disguise?
May Allah forgive you for your foolish statements. I have no problem with robust debate but aspersions such as the ones you have made against Sheikh Abdul Qayyum will get you no respect nor honour. Shame on you. If you have any sense of dignity, come back on this forum and retract your nodding dog association, your accusations of hypocrisy and your expectations of gross innovations.
For your information about do as the Romans do – there is an incident where the two of the great Imams [I forget which two...] are participating in an eid salaat. The Imam who leads the salat does it in accordance with the methodology and approach of the Imam who was in the congregation. After the salat – the Imam who was in the congregation says if “I were leading the salat I would have done in accordance with your opinions” According to your example, the leading Imam should have done it his way and the following Imam should have accepted it. Instead as all great scholars do – they illustrated respect through action – perhaps taking heed might help you get closer to Allah?
Some of the Bengali community are notorious, in my opinion, for rejecting any form of difference. I would argue that occasionally practising different sunnahs will help them to open their minds. Your “observations” of people walking out in “disgust” proves this point perfectly – though one does wonder why people would miss their witr after having spent the previous 90 minutes in ibadah….
More pertinently you obviously didn’t have khushu [if you were praying witr] in your salat as you managed notice all these people walking out. Did you read their intentions written in their hearts – perhaps you were ignorant of the fact that some people pray witr after Tahajjud? Maybe they were trying to catch the last train home? Maybe they needed to get the bathroom?
All plausible possibilities – instead you go for the one that wants to blame an Imam for causing confusion whilst trying to educate the ummah.
Wa’salamu aleikum wa rahmat Allahi wa barakatu.
Imam Hasan al Basri states that the Muslims are in consensus that the witr prayer is performed in three units, and with one taslim at the end. This is the view of Abu Bar and Aisha, may God be pleased with them both.
Very Good observation br Abul Kalam….its about time some of us critically reflected on the activities and highly controversial fiqhi opinions of ELM in the name of enlightening the community. This is a mosque that many of the us love and have close affection and respect for…however this is often taken for granted and that respect and appreciation is not always recipricle.
What annoys me is Brs who are associated with ELM/IFE often find it impossible to accept any positive crticism or feedback of their work/activities and immidietly get on the defensive…without even engaging in a discussion or hearing the concerns of musallis/islamic counterparts.
What we seem to forget is that the community is developing and maturing in its understanding of fiqh and Islam …and its about time we started to recognising that stop beating down all arguments with the Saudi/Salafi stick of Bidah and herersy etc.
I truely love and respect the great imams of this mosque but find some of their comments and attitude often very condescending and intolerant …which is a shame for mosque with so much to offer.
I pray to Allah to guide us all and make ELM the flagship mosque in Europe
Ameen.
Salaam,
Shafi, Yasn – Nice to know there are better alternatives.
Bodruz – can’t imagine it. I would rather pray any methods described by the madhabs, than add a Whirling Dervish move to replace my Qunut. (LOL)
Mohammed Abdullah – Literalism, is what comes to mind – you articulate well, don’t undo that by dumbing down! I do not refer to the illustrious imam as the canine sort, rather use an expression to describe an action. If you hear ‘I am going for a Barnet’ it doesn’t mean the person actually going to Barnet, but going to have a haircut! If someone says , ‘wake and smell the coffee’ it literally doesn’t mean that, rather take a reality check (more of that in a second). I was in the main hall when the announcement was taking place and if I was the beloved Imam’s osteopath I would be fearful that his nodding would cause him severe spinal injury, the reference to the Churchill advert is simply ‘an expression to describe the vehement shaking of the head’. Enough said on this trivial topic.
More to the point is the referencing you give to your example (or lack of), without concrete examples it is just anecdotal. Means nothing!
Issue of hypocrisy – The Imams own teaching in his fiqh classes and his Q&A sessions on radio, he expresses that one should not pick and choose different elements of the madhabs to suit personal choice. The example he cited is, if you are a Hanafi the Asr time begins at the 2nd Mithl, if on an occasion you have other commitments you don’t change to a Maliki or Shafi school of thought and for that one day you follow the 1st Mithl! It doesn’t make sense! Similarly, the majority following in the East End of London is Hanafi, why change that to suit the personal choice of the guest imam – how did he live up to his own teachings?
The learning of other sunnah’s is good, but at the right learning circle – not as a testing ground for people who as you say do not have an open mind and are susceptible to be confused and be critical.
I accept your plausible possibilities, but they do not take away from the scores of people, of various backgrounds to make sniding comments about the confusion. Not just in the mosque but in variety of other social circles. Won’t bode well if you are trying to expand while upsetting people who you rely on for donations.
The world does not revolve around the four walls of the main hall of the mosque (wake up and smell the coffee!!), there are community sensitivities that need to be taken into account, even if they do not meet your ideal. Recall back three to four years ago when your example of 2/1 rakats was performed – did the mosque not have to buckle to the pressure exerted by many local mosques that this methodology was causing great rifts, and did the mosque not have to re-energise relations because its PR was so bad? Once bitten twice shy – why make the same mistake again?
it seems there is a revival of the salafi literalist approach in the east london. Of course, people behind this movement are only gaining some sort of moment due to them being funded greatly by the vehement salafi evangelicals of saudi arabia, however this will not last Insha’Allah. The shallow approach will be broken IA!
wassslam
Salaamualeykum
The separatist disease has infected the greatest of dawah organizations. Like with HT, Al-Muhjrn and most recently ISB, IFE is falling into a self created problem. There are the intellectual facists who take the Arien approach to their world view and impose it in everybody, there are those who have created their own sub circles because they do not agree with the facists,, then there are the leaders who believe by not taking action will the problem go away. Little do they realise that the trend will become like that of the early 90’s with a massive split. I doubt if any of them are aware. This split may cause the greatest loss to them as the mosque will stand to lose the most. One particular sign is that a full mosque can’t fill up its main halls for prayers because no one wants to take part in this fitna.
ISB is focussed and going strong. Islamic Fitna of Europe is messing up that their own members defect and go off to the people they criticise. Did you notice how many were in attendance at the jimas camp this year?
Kalam,
Thanks for posting an email and creating a fitna out of nothing. If you start something you should end something. Looks like after opening the hornerts nest youve gone in hiding.
What is this blog achieving?
bickering
fitna
people becoming ‘blog warriors’
why is there a ping pong going on between ife and isb? what has the ummah come to!
peace
For all those commenting on Shaykh Abdul Qayyum’s failure to prevent Kamal Uddin Jafry from leading the Witr Salah in a different way to what we are accustomed to, please bear in mind that there is a mosque committee involved in the decision making process as well. If anyone attended the first Jummah at the masjid you will have noticed that it was lead by Yusuf Estes. Whilst the brother is knowledgable he is by no means a Shaykh, and fails to meet the fundamental requirement of an Imam, the ability to recite with Tajweed and tarteel. May Allah accept the brothers efforts but that should not have been allowed. If you were paying any attention he did mention that Shaykh Abdul Qayyum interviewed him prior to the salah to check his competence. That’s the most he can do. If you wish to blame anyone it should be the committee. As for the witr salah, we accommodated a guest for one day. Can we not have sabr and just let that go? From what I understood of what he said, the current format used was a hybrid of the Witr as offered by the followers of the Hanafi Madhhab and the Qunut after the Ruku. He personally felt that the 2 and 1 rakah was stronger. When he said that Imam Abu Hanifah said any sahih hadith is my madhhab, it was’nt an attempt to try and abbrogate the opinion of Abu Hanifah with his own but rather to reassure the community elders who are otherwise very ignorant of anything which doesn’t conform to what they have been taught.
Assalamu alaikum concrened_brother,
Thank you for your comment – perhaps it can be written in a more brotherly manner? Anyway…
1. I have not gone into hiding; you can catch me at the East London Mosque main hall for tarawih, i am more than happy to discuss this with you. If you are asking why i have not commented on the blog, it’s because I have not been directly questioned on the blog, and thus felt no need to. You will notice, unlike other bloggers, i tend not to comment on other peoples comment on my blogs.
2. I feel this blog has achieved a robust and frank discussion. Yes some comments have been very direct and perhaps have lacked adab, yes some comments have gone of on a tangent and off topic but i can not really help that.
3. At no point in my blog have i mentioned any individual by name, any organisation or institution.
4. My intentions in writing the blog was to suggest that the issue of offering witr is in fact a matter of difference and disagreement as such there should be no condemnation of the various methods. I also suggest that the position of the various imams has less to do with ignorance and more to do with preference of text and understanding of the text. I thus suggest that it is perhaps better not to make categorical statements such as “this is closer to sunnah”.
Wasalam
Are standards dropping so bad that selection of imams to lead the prayers are being sought from the streets? First the standards in tarawih drop, then the jumma is led as a joke. If the committee are responsible they would reprimand and ask questions to the staff who are employed to uphold standards, not run the organisation in an incompetent way. The attack on the blogger is because truth hurts. This is from observers outside the mosque operations. I wonder how much dirt three in under the new carpets of the mosque. Perhaps some reflection is required.
Salam Polk,
1) The fact that the expression “doing a churchill” is based upon an advert with a nodding dog indicates poor choice on your behalf – i spoke to at least three people before making my comment and each of them felt that it was an inappropriate assertion to make.
The crux seems to be to dont say something that will cause others to misunderstand your perspective and given the contents and tone of your post it is clear why a hostile intent was interpreted. I apologise if any untoward aspersions were cast in your direction.
2) Literalism is not, as you assert, dumbing down. It is the starting point to all Islamic practices. This misused notion of “maqasid” (objectives) that aim to do away with “literal” aspects of the deen will be used by mischievous people to water down the sunnah of Muhammad (SAW). I do not say this is what you are calling for but i remind myself and others that we take the letter of the law and the principles that derive from it without one being used to negate the other.
We cannot for example say that the goal of Salat is rememberance of Allah therefore any thing that fulfils that purpose is salaat and sufficient due to the change in time/lifestyle/other inane excuse. The salat will, inshallah, maintain its literal form the takbeer tahrimi to the concluding salam. This probably a detailed discussion for another post (hint: Abu Kalam!?) but my point i hope is clear.
Community sensitivities are important but at the same time we do need to try different ways of educating them; the fact that the community accepted doing the qunut after the ruku indicates that they are willing to change (the hanafi qunut is before the witr). Another proof is the dua after the salaat was also stopped a couple of years ago and again the fact that they have not reverted back provides further proof of acceptance.
On a side note ELM also introduced Somalian reciters to a predominatly bengali area; why is this so pertinent? In my experience with bengali elders there is racism towards black people and by establishing such a practice it would have caused people to examine their attitudes towards our brothers. I have no doubt that it would have led to sniping and derision but in the greater scheme of things it would be closer to the Islamic goal of brotherhood.
Should they have avoided doing it because Bengali people would have said “I am not praying behind a black man?” No. It had to be done. An interesting analogy can be found in the changing of the Qiblah; At first many elements of the then muslim community were happy that the orientation was toward Al-Quds but when the change of the qiblah came it exposed the nefarious attitudes among some of the community and helped to direct the Muslims efforts towards addressing these shortcomings.
So it is clear that ELM is trying to do things differently; they will fail in some and they will succeed, inshallah, in many others. We pray that Allah (SWT) accepts the good and forgives the bad. We are reminded that simply adopting a hostile attitude because someone holds a valid difference of opinion is unacceptable. Let us pray that we live up to such a standard and not become demagogues in our pursuit of Allahs pleasue.
Wa’salamu aleikum wa rahmat Allahi wa barakatu.
well done br Muhammed Abdullah.
some small discussions exist on ISB and i have to say i do worry about that organisation and its connection with the lifestyle magazine emel. i wonder how they are going from strength to strength?
It is usual that we may not like others decisions or we may think someone is not doing the right thing. What are we supposed to do regarding that? I think the answer is we should go to him n tell that,’sir I confusion about about your view. Can pls produce any proof regarding that?’ Isn’t it? Now what we are doing over here is nothing but backbiting and criticizing someone without giving him ny chance to reply. It is not bringing any good but rather confusion.
Hope you understood my point.
MashAllah! Referring to a Mufti is best.
I keep hearing Bengali community is backwards, ignorant, Mohammed Abdullah in his comment said that the Bengali elders are racist towards black imams. All those people who are making these comments/ assertions about the Bengali community need to reflect on what they are saying. Which community out of all the Muslim communities is not as ignorant or backward or racist as the Bengali community, if not more so? I lived in London all my life and I know how the different communities are. We all know not to generalise about any people, not just Bengalis. But if you go to the generalisation game I would expect that the Bengali community would be far better then many of the communities that make up the ‘Muslim community’ in UK. The Bengali community have accommodated much change, and supported financially and morally a very forward thinking institution such as the ELM which reflects their position as a community. ELM is the only mosque where you see imams from many different origins come together and pray. many of the mosques you go to wouldn’t even provide basic services such as a women’s prayer room, hot water for wadu, or even toilet paper, and I’m not just talking about the small mosques but also the large purpose built ones. And I have to stress here that the basic services are provided to a high standard in almost all local Tower Hamlets mosques even the small ones. After seeing mosques conditions in some parts of London and UK you can forget about even thinking of having Kutbah in three different languages or a projector screen in every hall accommodating 7 thousand worshippers. Brothers who are at the administration of ELM and the community who support them should be proud of their contribution to the Muslims in London. People who keep talking derogatively about the Bengali community and often Bengalis are ‘programmed’ into doing that themselves were in fact forced into that predicament because of the racist views hammered into them from the non-Bengali Muslim community at large.