[Japakefrope]

I think Islamic forums often consist of threads with youngsters saying rash things and grown up Muslims trying to explain why they are not the case, and getting through only about 50% of the time.

I like this on the other thread that is linked too though, it should get through the thickest skulls on this issue;

Nawawi619
Senior Member

Join Date Sep 2005
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Madhhab Shafi'i
Posts 782

Default Re: Who is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and why is he so popular?

As Salamu Alaykum

I also would like to add he studied also studied with the Ba Alawi qutub the late al Habib Ahmad al Mashhur al Haddad, Shaykh Muhammad al Yaqoubi, Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah and many others.

A good audio set that explains a lot is his UK tour Religion, Violence and the Modern World.

I personally studied from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf way back in 1998 and been to Zaytuna institute as it was called back and forth (I am from CA).

I agree people need to have husn al dhann and refrain from speaking ill of Shaykh Hamza if they dont know the whole story, context, etc. You dont know what is in his heart. Plus he explained his whole beard situation YEARS AGO yet people so fixated on it to this day keeps bringing the issue up. Sometimes I feel some people on this forum have become too rigid and focus too much on outward appearance rather than the totality of the deen of islam, iman and ihsan.

Also, his influence has produced a new generation of people to study and learn the deen who are now ustadhs and up and coming scholars themselves like Shaykh Yahya Rhodus, Shaykh Abdul Karim Yahya who was the first westerner to graduate from Dar al Mustafa and is qualified to give fatwa according to the Shafii madhhab, Ustadh Usama Canon, and many others.

Why are people so fixated on his pre-9/11 speeches? because he fires people up? He said in his UK tour that he is trying to put fires out not stoke them. People mature when they get older. People change. I personally think he got better in his approach, more even tempered on his issues. By the way I have all his old talks as well as his new ones so i know how he transitioned. If he was in fact watering down or becoming more liberal (and other ridiculous comments ive seen on this thread) his teachers would have checked him. Anyone who knows Shaykh Muhammad al Yaqoubi personally knows he doesnt pull punches yet he fully supports what Shaykh Hamza has said and what he is doing.

People criticize him for going to the White House days after 9/11. If people were there (i was there when he came back and explained why he went at Zaytuna institute) they would know that he didnt want to go in the first place. He asked one of his teacher's Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah for naseeha. Shaykh bin Bayyah told him to go.

I see most people in here dont have full story or dont know Shaykh Hamza too well. I see why backbiting and slander is so dangerous and haram...because it starts silly stuff like this on threads.

Traditional Sunni Scholars support and have praised Shaykh Hamza presently. This includes the Ba Alawi scholars of Hadramawt like Habib Umar, Habib Ali.

It is really sad when people are still talking about Shaykh Hamza this way when he basically revitalized Traditional Sunni Islam in the West.

People really need to get a life and look at your own faults. It is easy to criticize behind a computer and say this and that but at the end of the day its going to be your deens and intentions before Allah.

NOTE: i am not some Shaykh Hamza groupie or whatever. He was one of my teachers in Maliki Fiqh (I am currently a Shafi'i). I know him, i know the people around him.

I've noticed that true people of 'ilm are not so rigid, condemning and petty as i see some on this forum. I would think people who have studied sacred knowledge would know better.

All the people who i look up to in 'ilm have good akhlaq, good adab, have hikmah in dealing with others even when correcting. This reminds me of the aya in Quran where Allah Subhana wa ta'Ala instructs Musa Alayhi salam to "speak gently" to Firawn depite the fact he was a clear Enemy of Allah, a person falsely claimed divinity and other terrible things. Yet for us Muslims we speak to each other worse.

Allah help us all...

Wa Llahu Alim wa musta'an
People need to respect the learned scholars they follow by emulating their Islamic adab and also by not associating themselves to them then saying embarrassing things about other learned scholars, even if they are associated to a different Sunni school of thought.