Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah gave lessons on ‘aqeedah (Islamic creed) using the primer ‘Aqeedat Al-Najaat (Creed of Deliverance) by Imam Muhammad Ibn Ja’far al-Kittani. This course was taught over 7 days in Cairo, Egypt from January 7-13, 2013. These are the recordings of each class and subsequent Q&A sessions.

The accompanying text and author’s bio can be downloaded here.

Photos of the event:

Session 1 – Dr. Umar highlights the importance of knowing our ‘Aqeedah (Creed), stating that it is the first obligation in Islam. He does this through discussing the principles of cognitive frames and discursive knowledge. He ends with explaining the first two lines of the the text “‘Aqeedat Al-Najaat” (Creed of Deliverance) by Muhammad Ibn Ja’far Al-Kittani by giving examples in science (such as thermodynamics, the Doppler effect and the theory of the expanding universe).

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Session 2 – Before making a commentary on the text, Dr. Umar talks about the temporality of the world and the infinite knowledge of God. Line 3 is a greeting on the Prophet (PBUH) and a protection from God, and lines 4 to 5 of the text cover the ontological attribute of God, which is Necessary Existence.

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Session 3 – According to the text, there are thirteen basic attributes of God that need to be known in order to have a solid understanding of our Lord. Dr. Umar explains that there are three realms of existence (necessary, possible and impossible existence): God is the Necessary Being, the world and everything in it belong to the realm of possible existence as God causes them to exist or not. In this lecture, he covers the first four attributes of God which are: the Self attribute, Preexistence, Everlastingness and Dissimilarity (lines 6 and beginning of 7).

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Session 4 – In this lecture, Dr. Umar briefly talks about the two schools of interpreting Mutashabihat (i.e. Hand of God, Eyes of God): the Salaf and the Khalaf (Ash’ari, Maturidi and Mu’tazili). The fifth and sixth attributes (Self-Sufficiency and Absolute Oneness) are here interpreted (line 7).

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Session 5 – Dr. Umar offers an interpretation on all the attributes mentioned on line 8 of Al-Kattani’s text: Life, Knowledge, Will and Power. Through these, he speaks of the impossibility of this world created randomly and by chance as God’s Knowledge is infinite; and the two cosmic relations of God’s will: preexistent efficient and preexistent sufficient. He ends with the concept of Destiny as the function of God’s Power.

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Session 6 – Dr. Umar explains the last three basic attributes of God which are Hearing, Seeing and Divine Speech that are on line 9 of the text. He also shows how the change in the world is a manifestation of the existence of God. He also shows the difference between opposites and contraries. He ends with the idea that we can only know God only to the degree that we know ourselves.

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Session 7 – In this last lecture, Dr. Umar covers the concept of freewill and the idea of cause and effect.