Revisiting Our Concepts: Lessons from Life, #5

By Dr. Tareq Al Suwaidan

"his is the fifth part of the series "Lessons from Life" in which I will discuss some points and topics that are usually raised the wrong way, proposed in the wrong manner or are tangled with a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. One or several of the following points usually cause this misunderstanding:
The overlap of habits and laws for some people
Sanctifying the unsanctified for others
Drawing red lines on issues that are still debatable according to Islamic law
Being ignorant about the legal rulings or the objectives of Islamic law in handling the major concepts
In the end, these points produced deformed concepts and self-imposed barricades on many issues that affect our lives. The way I see it; our failure to understand these concepts led us to much bigger catastrophes. Failure to understand will inevitably lead to failure to practice and eventually results in a backward or retroactive civilization and reality."

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ebdaa Fekry
• Release date: Jan 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393434382

Book preview

Introduction

All praise be to Allah (swt) - subhanahu wa ta'ala (glorified and exalted be He) - , the Lord who created and then proportioned, who destined and then guided, and all Prayers and Peace of Allah be upon His Prophet, by whom He awakened dead souls, rendered the deaf into hearing, and led stray hearts into guidance; and may this prayer be upon his family and his companions, who impacted and changed every place they inhabited.

This is the fifth part of the series Lessons from Life in which I will discuss some points and topics that are usually raised the wrong way, proposed in the wrong manner or are tangled with a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. One or several of the following points usually cause this misunderstanding:

The overlap of habits and laws for some people

Sanctifying the unsanctified for others

Drawing red lines on issues that are still debatable according to Islamic law

Being ignorant about the legal rulings or the objectives of Islamic law in handling the major concepts

In the end, these points produced deformed concepts and self-imposed barricades on many issues that affect our lives. The way I see it; our failure to understand these concepts led us to much bigger catastrophes. Failure to understand will inevitably lead to failure to practice and eventually results in a backward or retroactive civilization and reality.

I am not talking about a particular case here or even a particular ruling. I am only discussing misconceptions that are usually the outcome of rigidity without evidence or prohibition without a valid argument, leading us ultimately to disabling the elements of civilization and the basics of revival and renewal.

In this fifth part I will not address the proposed topics from a strictly Islamic perspective, but rather from different angles while taking my stance from Islamic principles which act as basic starting points throughout our lives. I will try to give a bird’s-eye view of all these raised topics as well as showcase ongoing misunderstandings and wrong approaches. This part is called Revisiting Our Concepts.

I cannot assume that everything here is right without a possibility of being wrong, but this is how I see Islamic law within its general provisions and totalitarian objectives. For this I ask Allah (swt) to enlighten and guide us to the best and most truthful of thoughts.

I wish to thank the kind brothers who have helped in bringing this book to light, especially the enthusiastic Mr. Yusuf Al-Masaeid, who took on the troubles and difficulties of transforming the TV episodes, Lessons from Life, into books with excellent production as well as interesting style. I truly appreciate and thank him for his efforts.

I would also like to thank the brothers at Al-Ibda’ Al-Fekry Publishing House, Mr. Ahmad Al-Shourbajy (the company manager), the creative Mr. Osama Al-Faress (the director), and the generous Mr. Anas Salem. I thank them all for their efforts and generous contributions.

Allah (swt) is The-Supporter and The-Guide to the right path.

Dr. Tareq Muhammad Al-Suwaidan

The latter days of this nation will only be reformed by what reformed its earlier days; what was not of religion then, cannot be religion now.

~ Imam Malek

Renewal

With all its beauty, the word renewal will always be one of the most controversial issues ever. This term has indeed witnessed many varied differences, viewpoints and opinions. Some people have dedicated their entire lives to renewal and others to fighting it, considering it a perilous threat without any distinction between variables and constants. Others have stepped in between these two camps to embrace renewal under certain conditions and according to a set of rules. So what is renewal?

Four terms

We cannot discuss renewal without tackling some terms that are intrinsic to it like: originality, novelty, creativity and invention. A lot of confusion arises from not being able to distinguish between all these terms.

1 Originality: This means originating something new. If this thing is old we cannot use the term originate. From this perspective Allah (swt) is described as, The Originator of the heavens and the earth... (2:117). This means that Allah (swt) created the heavens and earth without having any prototype. For human beings, originality is to combine some things that already exist in the universe with the result being something original, but for the sake of the argument we will use the word originality for this definition.

2 Creativity: This means something new not based on any preset model and from this perspective it is not much different from originality.

3 Invention: This is being creative in the scientific and technical fields, like inventing new machinery. We say someone invented a machine while we don’t say someone invented a painting. In the field of art we use creativity.

4 Renewal: This will be the topic of our discussion in this part of the book.

Useful tip: The terms innovate or renewal never came in the Qur’an, only the term new.

What is Renewal?

It is reusing something old but in a new way!

This thing is not new in itself but rather renewed, so this thing was originally there. So far this meaning is clear to many people, and when we hear someone saying that he/she renewed their house this means that the house was originally there but some changes and modifications have been applied to it. So renewal means using something after adding some modifications and improvements.

Renewal is to renew what was obliterated of the Quran and Sunnah and to prompt people to live by them.

~ Al-Alqamei

I am not talking here about the renewal that is associated with creativity and creative thinking but rather the renewal that is associated with our unimpaired religion. There are still questions that are being raised about renewal in Islam and whether Islam is liable to renewal or if is it constant and unchanging. Can the Islamic law (Sharia) accommodate any renewal or can it not?

Renewal is an ongoing process

One of the facts of this life is that renewal is a constantly ongoing process which will never cease to exist as long as Islamic law is interacting with life. Islamic law is not rigid and its details were never stagnant because Allah (swt) made it to fit all times and places, which means that rigidity and stagnancy would defy its whole purpose.

"All of us have arguments that are liable to be argued against except for the one buried in this grave (meaning: the prophet pbuh – peace be upon him)."

~ Imam Malek

The question that poses itself now is: Can Islam be renewed? Or rather, do we need to renew Islam?

The answer in a nutshell is, yes it can. I would not be exaggerating if I said that today’s reality enlists us to renew, it practically spurs us to do it. But what is this religion that we are supposed to renew? What is the Islam that we call for renovating? Islam is all that is revealed by Allah (swt) to His Prophet and the narrations and traditions of the Prophet (pbuh). Everything else in Islam, other than the previous two elements, is a result of scholars’ deductions. These deductions can most certainly be argued against within the known guidelines and rules that are known to the scholars of fiqh and other Islamic sciences.

Why do we renew?

As we said earlier, the changing of time, place and conditions all call for