Topic 5: What are the sources from which we get our Aqidah from?

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ

We get our Aqidah from the:

1. Quran
2. Authentic Sunnah(the sayings, actions, approvals and descriptions of the Prophet ﷺ)
3. Ijma – Consensus

-Ijma is the agreement of the all the scholars of a particular time, especially the Sahabah and the Tabieen.
-Ijma gives a clear ruling which must be followed the same way the Quran and Sunnah is followed.
-Ijma can’t oppose a previously established Ijmaa
-Ijma also needs to be properly proven(Imam Nawawi and Imam Ibn Hajar Al Asqalani are good at mentioning issues where there is Ijma)

Ijma as a source of Islamic knowledge is due to evidences from the Quran and Sunnah, but the one mentioned in the lecture was:

At-Tirmidhi (2167) narrated from Ibn ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Allah will not cause my ummah to agree on falsehood; the hand of Allah is with the jamaa‘ah (the main body of the Muslims).” Classed as hasan by al-Albaani.

IslamQA explains the Hadith:
“The meaning of this hadith is that Allah has protected the scholars of the ummah of Muhammad (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) from unanimously agreeing upon something false.(2)”

Ustadh Tim mentions an example of an example of a consensus in Aqidah that changed. He mentioned how the two Sahabi, Abdullah ibn Zubair and Husain Ibn Ali(may Allah be pleased with both of them), rebelled somewhat against the Muslim ruler. This shows that there is no Ijma(unanimous agreement) among the Sahabah. However, after the very brutal battle of Ibn Al Asha’th, there was Ijma that you can never rebel/speak ill of the Muslim ruler no matter his evil.

However, and Allah knows best, what seems to be correct is that Husain and Abdullah Ibn Zubair never actually rebelled against the Muslim ruler. This means that there was total agreement of all the Sahabah about obeying the Muslim leader (Ijma). The explanation requires quite a bit of background knowledge, but you can find this in AMAU’s 14 hour long podcast on the obligation on obeying the oppressive Muslim ruler. (3) Regardless, Ustadh still mentions the Ijma that came after the battle of ibn Al-Asha’th, which puts AhlusSunnah on the same page.

Allah knows best.

Sources:

1. IslamQA’s explanation on the Hadith about Ijma:
   https://islamqa.info/en/147341
2. AMAU’s Podcast on Obeying the Muslim leader
   https://www.youtube.com/live/xrqdKEwkNTI?feature=share
   (There’s a comment that has time stamps to sift through the lengthy podcast easier. Also this podcast is relatively advanced. I don’t recommend it to beginners)

Inshallah, we’ll talk more about obeying the Muslim rulers and not causing revolutions or speaking bad of him later.