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Is Dr. Farhad Shafti A Scholar
Peace!
In response to my question (can an easier opinion be adopted), Ghamidi Sahab said that the opinion should not be a layman’s but of a scholar. So, I wanted to ask whether Dr. Farhad Shafti is a scholar. He is a student of Ghamidi Sahab after all.
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28 Replies
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Is Dr. Farhad Shafti A Scholar
updated 2 years, 3 months ago
8 Members
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28
Replies
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Unfortunately, that’s not a type of question that you’ll find an answer to on this forum. You will have to do your own research and figure out who you trust enough as a scholar in order to consider their opinion as valid. If you share an opinion, however, along with it’s argument (or a reference thereof) we can help you understand that opinion and any potential issues that it might have.
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Peace!
But can I still ask questions like these, Faisal Bhai?
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Sure you can, even though I don’t quite understand why anyone would 😁
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Dr Farhad Shafti is a brilliant scholar, highly educated teaches in UK. He was a part of the Al Mawrid team but now is on his own.
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Peace! Oh, so he was a part of the team. I attended one or two of his online lectures. He has a different approach to religion and I like people having different approaches because then you get a lot to learn.
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I agree with Faisal Haroon. Do your research then the moderators will be able to help you.
Dr Khalid Abou Al Fadl is another brilliant scholar. It depends whose opinion meets your questions.
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I know about Sheikh Khalid About El Fadl. We have been blessed with a lot of brilliant scholars الحمد لله.
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Ghamidi Sahib has always encouraged his students to listen to different scholars for their point of view on different subjects
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What was your question that Ghamidi Sahib asked you to ask another scholar?
Yes God has blessed us with a lot
Of brilliant scholars with different approaches and views. It is good to enlarge your knowledge by listening to them.
Hope you find your answers
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Actually, he didn’t ask me to ask another scholar. I asked him that some scholars like Mufti Abu Layth give their audience opinions of previous scholars who had an easy going opinion on the religious matter in question so as to make things easy for the questioner and to not make things difficult for them. Of course, the opinions are still of scholars. I asked whether one can choose the easier opinion. So, he said that one can given that one is satisfied with the reasoning and when the opinion is of a scholar.
I was particularly asking this because I had refered an atheist man who wanted to marry a Muslim woman to Dr. Farhad Shafti who is of the opinion that interfaith marriage is allowed in Islam.
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I agree totally with what Ghamidi Sahib has said. You have to listen to all scholars and accept what convinces you the most with proper references. I heard Mufti Abu Layth once and he did not appeal to me at all.
Yes Farhad Shafti believes that interfaith marriages are acceptable.
Best of luck with your research!
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Well thank you!
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I would be interested in the results of your research.
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Results of the interfaith marriage question?
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There are scholars who believe that the Ayat in the Qur’an allowing Muslim men to marry women from the book also allows Muslim women to marry men from the book
I’m interested in your research on the scholars and your findings
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Ok, I will gladly share my results 😊
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Salaam
Like Ms Rafia above I too am interested in your findings and would appreciate very much if you share them with me too.
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وعليكم السلام
Sure. I actually paused that quest and now I have my A levels coming up. I will resume ان شاء الله after I become satisfied with my preparation. However, I don’t remember any other scholar other than Dr. Farhad Shafti who permits it. If I remember correctly, I did check the classical ones like al-Razi, Zamakhshari, Aaloosi, Ibn Ashur…Even some who have differing views from the traditional scholars like Maulana Abdul Kareem al-Asari did not permit it. He was actually very traditional in his views regarding rulings for women. Maybe Sheikh Khaled Abou El Fadl permits it, but I only remember him saying that he cannot think of marrying someone with whom he will not be able to enjoy the most essential parts of his life like praying, Hajj and Eid. But I also don’t remember him saying that it is Haram. However, I will ان شاء الله share my findings when I am able to continue my research.
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A bundle of thanks and best of luck for your A level.
P.S. A bundle of thanks also for the details you provided.
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I am sorry but my experience of Dr Farhad Shafti is very different
I met him for the first time in 2010 in UK with dr shehzad saleem. Both of them spent a long weekend get-together with few of brothers working to spread the work of Farahi school in England
He was Shia muslim and was working in middleast. Then he left Shia schools and studied with Ghamidi sahab and his students scholars and then part his ways. He has had many transformations in his ideas.
In short, he has his own philosophical ideas and structures. He formulated “how” a religion should be in this age then he looked at Quran, seerah, history etc and took whatever fits his philosophical structure and comes up with his version of Islam.
His believes in universality of religion and uses philosophical questions and then answers them by reformatting quranic injunctions.
Please read his long article Universality of Quran (3rd edition) and you will see how he come forward with his ideas (not quranic) and then fits different ayahs and his interpretation of history to prove his point. You can verify all the ayahs and you will see that they are either differently translated , out of context or broken. His interpretation of history is also his own and, frankly, without any basis or outright wrong.
His religious rulings are also based on his ideas of how religion of Islam “ought to be” than how it actually is.
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I want to know the exact differences in Dr. Farhad Shafti’s thoughts and those of Ghamidi Shabab’s. I have always been curious to know what could be the aspects in which one can depart from Ghamidi Sahab’s understanding after fully getting his point of view. I thought it would be very difficult to form a different opinion on a matter in question after going through ustaz Ghamidi’s undertanding. I do not want to be ustaz Ghamidi’s muqallid but seriously no other scholar has ever satisfied me to this level in understanding my religion. Please refer to the points where Dr. Farhad Shafti has developed a different understanding from ustaz mohtaram Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. Do they have developed different approaches of understanding? Or they differ in conclusions only?
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Please read his article that I mentioned in my post, it’s available online. Read his interpretation of the ayahs and then look up those ayahs in the Quran and read then in the context of there revelation. Then u can decide if the ayahs r verifying his claims
He’s a smart gentleman and very well read. In my opinion, he has his own philosophy of how the world should be.
There is nothing wrong in being a muqqallad. Don’t we become muqqallads of a doctor? Bad thing is that u believe that any scholar can never be wrong or his/her opinion should be the only opinion. For e.g. the argument Ghamid sahab uses as Arabi Mualla that Quran is in Arabic of quresh, he argued that the best source of that language is Jahili poetry. Interestingly, none of the poets of Saba Muallaqua or Ahra Muallaqa was from Quresh. Quresh was heavily involved in trade and travels so their Arabic wasn’t pure. Historians claim that Banu Tamim had the purest language.
So there will be another opinion in almost every matter which also is based on sound basis. We have to decide what makes more sense to us and respect everyone else.
Just food for thought
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Faraz Sahab, in relation to criticism raised on Principle of Arabi-e-Mualla, Ghamidi Sahab has responded at-length. If you haven’t heard it then I can share it with you. Since this topic is unrelated to the critique raised by you, you have to post a separate topic.
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Not at all
I have heard Ghamidi sahab, no doubt in my mind. I was trying to remind sister that there can be other point of views that may sound reasonable and some people may choose differently despite the fact that they r of sound mind and knowledge.
Apologize for the confusion.
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I got it! Thanks brother! 👍
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If one would listen from this podcast episode of Dr. Shafti:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Zn3osBUysX4IMS36B10tw
It somehow provides us the summary of his thought process. His understanding of the principle and ‘maqasid’ of the religion is heavily influenced by Ghamidi, despite hearing him quoting Khaled Abou el-Fadl and contextualizing Qur’an seemingly like Abdolkarim Soroush.
I think he differs mainly only on the socio-political ‘form’ of the sharia. Like cutting off the hands of a thief. He followed the wisdom of the punishment similar to Ghamidi, but for him this form of punishment is ought to be abandoned over time. Whereas for Ghamidi sahab, I believe, the court can apply the same punishment as a maximum penal prescription keeping in perspective the argument that human society’s current penal system (i.e. Jail) does not achieve the ‘maqasid’.
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If you want to understand Dr. Shafti’s differences with Ghamidi sahab, you can attend this lecture series:
Sponsor Ask Ghamidi
