Why Muslims need qualified scholars
“You're not going to find guidance by trying to teach yourself.”
Because Islamic rulings require comprehensive knowledge of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and scholarly tradition, Muslims should consult qualified scholars, understand bid'ah contextually, and generally avoid innovations they cannot assess.
The khutbah in 6 steps
- Opens with taqwa and the Qur'anic command to ask people of knowledge.
- Explains the danger of partial knowledge through the hadith of the injured traveler.
- Defines bid'ah and presents scholarly distinctions between acceptable and blameworthy innovation.
- Supports the distinction with hadith and examples from the Companions, including Qur'an compilation and congregational Taraweeh.
- Warns against specific innovations involving calendars, prayer times, uncertain meat, and creed.
- Closes by urging reliance on qualified teachers with connected chains rather than self-study or random online videos.
In the khateeb's words
“If you don't know something, what do you do? You ask exactly what Allah Ta'ala said in the Qur'an. Ask the people of knowledge.”
“This is why we ask the people of knowledge to explain the deen to us, instead of us trying to figure it out ourselves, because there's too much that we don't know.”
“My advice is stay away from bid'ahs. Stay away from bid'ahs the same way you want to stay away from the hellfire.”
“You're not going to find guidance by trying to teach yourself. You're not going to find guidance by watching random videos on YouTube.”
For the dinner table
The khutbah reminds us that learning Islam requires humility: when we do not know, we should ask people who have real knowledge. The speaker uses the story of an injured traveler to show that confident but incomplete answers can cause serious harm. He explains that scholars distinguish between innovations that contradict the Qur'an and Sunnah and new practices that serve the religion without contradicting them, while warning that most innovations are still misguidance. He advises us not to decide difficult questions from a single hadith, app, calculation, or random video. Instead, we should learn from trustworthy teachers rooted in the early Muslim scholarly tradition and keep our worship within what we know is sound.
- What makes someone trustworthy enough to teach us about Islam?
- Why might knowing one religious text or hadith not be enough to answer a difficult question?
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