Sacred Law in Modern Life -- 140 Live Classes (One Installments)
Taught by Hamza Karamali
The Sacred Law — in Arabic, “shariah” — is a great miracle of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace)—he was unlettered, untaught, and born an orphan, and yet his teachings became the legal basis of a prosperous, tolerant, educated, creative, and moral civilization that lasted for over one thousand years.
Ignorance of our great legal tradition is dangerous. It opens the door for innocent Muslims to surrender their moral judgments to religious extremists and leaders who use the Sacred Law to pursue their own selfish interests. That is why the shariah has come to be associated with corruption, cruelty, intolerance, and stagnation.
This course will empower you to make your own independent moral judgments through a study of two traditional manuals of Sacred Law according to the Shafi‘i school: (1) Safwat al-Zubad, a famous 1000-line poem in Sacred Law by Ibn Raslan (d. 1440), and (2) al-Yaqut al-Nafis fi Madhab Ibn Idris, an indispensable late compilation of authoritative legal definitions, conditions, and integrals by the Yemeni jurist Ahmad al-Shatiri (d. 1941).
Although grounded in tradition, this course has a practical focus. It will teach you how to apply traditional Sacred Law to all aspects of your modern life—worship, dress, food, financial transactions, personal agreements, marriage, divorce, inheritance, and government—with intelligence, compassion, and integrity, and to do as the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) himself would have done had he been alive today.
Online students are encouraged to attend live, but they may also take the class by listening to class recordings and asking their questions by email and voice communication.
140 live classes
Start Date: 20 September 2020
End Date: 30 April 2021
Daily Live Classes on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
10:30 am Istanbul time (Convert to your timezone) to 11:15 am
What Will I Learn?
The topics that you will cover will include: purification, prayer, clothing, beautification, fasting, zakat, hajj, ‘umra, food, slaughtering animals, oaths, vows, commerce, usury, banking, stocks, renting, hiring, borrowing, debt, charitable endowments, insurance, inheritance, marriage, divorce, child custody, war, peace, legal procedures, slavery, and government (with a special focus on living modern government).
What Kind of Student is This For?
This course is designed for an adult audience, but enthusiastic teenagers are welcome to join and will also benefit from the course. Several teenagers have already registered for this course and will participating live from Istanbul. If you have time (about 4-5 hours a week), and are enthusiastic about learning the traditional Islamic sciences, you will benefit from this course, whether you are a teenager, a working professional, a community activist, or a parent.
This course will delve into the original Arabic text and will therefore benefit students who are able to decipher simple Arabic texts with the aid of a dictionary. But the topics of the class will be explained in English and students with little or no Arabic will also benefit and are welcome to join. (Watch Amina’s testimonial)
What Are the Class Dates and Times?
Classes run daily from Saturday to Wednesday at 10:30 am Istanbul time (Convert to your time zone). Each class is 45 mins long. Thursdays and Fridays are off. The full schedule is described below.
Fall Semester: September 15 to December 23 (70 days of instruction)
Winter Break: December 24 to January 9
Winter Semester: January 9 to April 11 (64 days of instruction)
Ramadan (Reduced Schedule): April 12 to April 30 (6 days of instruction)
Where Can I Get the Class Texts?
Both Safwat al-Zubad and al-Yaqut al-Nafis will be provided to students in pdf format