Episode Details

Recap: The Text We Are Studying

We are studying Al-Ghayah wa’t-Taqrib, a classical short-form manual of fiqh written by Imam Abu Shuja’. Despite its brevity, this small text has been memorised and studied for close to a thousand years — from Cairo to Java, West Africa to Hadramaut. We are now continuing that same chain of transmission here in Western Australia.

What Is Fiqh?

* Literal meaning: deep understanding

* Technical meaning: ma’rifatul ahkam al-shar’iyyah — knowledge of the rulings of the Shari’ah

* These rulings apply to the af’al al-mukallafin — the actions of a mukallaf, a person legally responsible before Allah

Mukallaf = someone the Shari’ah holds responsible. A child in a car who isn’t wearing a seatbelt isn’t fined — the responsible adult driving is. In the same way, the rulings of fiqh apply to those who are accountable (typically, those who have reached puberty and are of sound mind).

The Five Categories of Rulings (Al-Ahkam al-Khamsah)

Every human action falls under one of five rulings:

1. Wajib (Compulsory)

* Do it → reward. Don’t do it → sin.

* Examples: the five daily prayers, Hajj

2. Mandub / Sunnah (Recommended)

* Do it → reward. Don’t do it → neutral (no sin).

* Examples: washing three times during wudu, the two rak’ahs of sunnah before salah, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, showering on Fridays

* Important: reward for a sunnah requires intention. Showering on Friday only counts as the sunnah if you intend it — and it must be done on Friday itself, not the day before.

3. Mubah (Permissible)

* Do it → neutral. Don’t do it → neutral.

* Examples: drinking water, eating, reading a book, breathing

* This is the default and largest category. The original ruling of anything is Mubah. To move something out of Mubah into wajib or haram, evidence is required.

4. Makruh (Disliked)

* Do it → neutral. Don’t do it → reward.

* Example: eating with the left hand (for someone able to use their right); eating something smelly like garlic or onions and then going to the masjid

5. Haram (Prohibited)

* Do it → sin. Don’t do it → reward.

* Examples: drinking wine, eating pork

Case Study: Rulings Can Change with New Circumstances

Two examples from the class discussion show how a ruling on the same category of item can shift as knowledge or context changes:

Smoking

Smoking was historically classed as makruh, on the same basis as garlic — an unpleasant smell. Doctors did not originally know with certainty that smoking was harmful to health; some even believed it had a calming effect. It was only in the past century, once it was conclusively established that smoking causes lung cancer, that many scholars reclassified it as haram — because causing harm to oneself is haram, and smoking was now proven to cause serious harm.

Coffee

Coffee has an interesting history in Islamic scholarship:

* Coffee beans were first eaten in Ethiopia before being ground into a drink.

* A Yemeni scholar, Sheikh Ali bin Umar al-Shadhili, repeatedly asked Allah for the strength to pray qiyam al-layl (night prayer) like the pious predecessors. He was inspired in a dream to grind and boil the coffee bean. It helped him stay awake for dhikr and night prayer — so coffee became strongly linked with worship.

* Imam al-Haddad of Hadramaut said the clinking sound of coffee cups would make shaytan flee — meaning that coffee became associated with gatherings of dhikr.

* As coffee spread to Mecca and beyond, some scholars observed young people becoming very animated after drinking it and grew concerned. Coffee’s Arabic name, qahwa, is also an old word for wine — which added to the suspicion. Some schola