By Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi Your question: I wanted to know if Hypnotherapy is allowed in Islam? Like to overcome any negative thoughts by listening to tracks which guide you to think positive while there is a trypnaural brainwave music used. In particular there is a woman by the name of Marissa peer who is renowned who uses hypnotherapy to help people overcome any limiting beliefs or those thoughts stopping them from being their best. Like nothing she says is against religious values but there is a particular kind of brain music to put you in a deep meditative state…
View More Avoid hypnotherapiesCategory: Fiqh
Virtue of the Juristic Approach in Fiqh
By this link: One particular matter really concerns us. I asked: What is that? They replied: People have differed in fiqh, as some take it from the jurists while others take it from the scholars of ḥadīth. I replied: Why do you always inquire about simple matters that contain no ambiguities? Were you to exercise your mind and intellect, you would have understood its reality quite well. Do you not respect your teacher enough to protect his time from being wasted? For the most valuable thing I am devoting myself to is my commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. I do not…
View More Virtue of the Juristic Approach in FiqhBetween Hadith and Fiqh
By this link: We were impressed by your article “Between Hadith and Philosophy“, benefitting from it, and thereafter, being able to distinguish between the nature of hadith and the nature of philosophy and their respective standards and measurements which are specific to each one of the sciences, thereby avoiding the conflation and confused mixing of the two. So, please expound for us the difference between hadith and fiqh in a way that eliminates any complications and obscurity. I said: Read the article again and you will find therein a comprehensive explanation regarding that which you have asked me. They said:…
View More Between Hadith and FiqhIslamic Law and Water
By Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi Water is the basis of life on earth in all its forms. It is a resource as essential as light and air. The spoiling of this resource, or the restriction or abuse of access to it, at the least harms life and, in the extreme, threatens its continuance. It would be astonishing indeed if Islamic Law, which is an inclusive guidance for the proper ordering of individual and collective life, did not offer guidance on the way we think about, the way we hold, and the way we share, this essential resource. Those three ways…
View More Islamic Law and WaterIslamic Finance
By Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi Islamic finance over the last three decades or so has grown into a huge industry. It is huge both in the sense that vast sums of money are handled by Islamic finance, and also in the sense that a great many scholars have been attracted to it, and they have helped to invent or justify financial instruments which claim to make it lawful for Muslims to do things with their money very similar to the things that non-Muslims do with theirs. Yet, if using the word ‘Islamic’ before ‘finance’ is to mean anything at all,…
View More Islamic FinanceSurrogate motherhood
By Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi Your question: Since the surrogate mother is being injected not with sperm, but a fertilized egg. I’m having difficulty understanding the basis of necessitating zawaj (marriage) between the husband and the surrogate carrier. If the issue is social protection and rights those are entirely accounted for via legal contracts. It seems to me that this practice is difficult to do qiyas on, so I’m wondering how you think of it? My response: Surrogacy is an arrangement, whereby a woman agrees to carry a fertilised ovum through to full term, and then give birth on behalf…
View More Surrogate motherhoodTarawīḥ Prayer is not Obligatory
By this link: Some people before us have condemned in very severe terms those who don’t perform the Tarawīḥ prayer. I replied: This condemnation is extremism in the religion of God and strictness where it doesn’t belong. Rather, you should be gentle and forbearing with people and strive to make them love the religion. Be wary of becoming excessive and extreme in any of its matters, lest you drive people away, for that is a trait of the deviated Khārijite sect and the innovators. They asked: What then is the ruling of the Tarawīḥ prayer? I replied: It is sunnah…
View More Tarawīḥ Prayer is not ObligatoryThe Length and Number of Units of Prayer
By this link: What are the obligatory and sunnah prayers (ṣalāh), and what is the number of their units (rakʿahs)? I replied: I have mentioned to you in a previous article that our prayers are scheduled according to the statement of Ibrāhīm: “I love not the things that go down” [6:76], avoiding the timings of the worship of the polytheists, those who worshiped the sun, planets and stars. Building upon this, the obligatory units of prayer are ten in the day and ten in the night. Ten is a number that denotes completion and perfection, as God says: “These are…
View More The Length and Number of Units of Prayer