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View Full Version : Shaykh Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti'i [RH]



faqir
08-02-2005, 10:24 PM
[Excerpted from p. 1076 - Reliance of the Traveller]


x255 Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti'i (e14.1) is Muhammad Bakhit ibn Husayn al-Muti'i, born in al-Muti'a, upper Egypt, in 1271/1854. The grand mufti of Egypt and one of the leading Hanafi scholars of his time, he was educated at al-Azhar, where he subsequently taught before being appointed first as judge in A.H. 1297, and then as mufti in 1333/1914, which office he held for seven years. After contact with Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, he became one of the bitterest foes of the "Islamic Reform" movement of Afghani and Afghani's pupil and fellow Mason, Muhammad 'Abduh. An author of works in Sacred Law, formal legal opinion, fundametals of jursiprudence, tenets of faith, and Koranic exegesis, he was a godfearing traditional scholar who chose to lose his position as mufti rather than bow to government pressure to issue an opinion that a Muslim who had killed a Christian deserved to be executed for it (dis: o1.2(2)). His legal opinion on the purity (tahara) of alcohol (dis:e14.1(7)) appeared in the magazine al-Islam, published at al-Azhar in Cairo in 1938, while his opinion on the permissibility of photographs (dis:w50.9) was mentioned to the translator by Sheikh Shu'ayb Arna'ut, Sheikh 'Abdullah Muhammad Ghimari and others. He died in Cairo in 1354/1935

(al-A'lam (y136), 6.50; Sheikh 'Abdullah Ghumari; Sheikh Shu'ayb Arna'ut; and n).

Hypermodestmuslima
09-02-2005, 02:30 AM
What was his opinion on the permissiblity of photographs?

faqir
09-02-2005, 09:18 AM
Permissible.



pg. 963 from The Reliance of the Traveller"


"Photography did not exist in previous eras of Islamic scholarship, and contemporary scholars are divided about it. Some, like Muhammad Bakhit Muti'i , contend that photography is not picture making, but merely "the retention of an object's shadow" (habs al-zill) and therefore permissible, while others, like the author of the passage below, have not accepted such reasoning. Because of scholarly disagreement concerning its permissibility, one is not entitled to condemn Muslims who use photographs............."

faqir
09-02-2005, 08:41 PM
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/nuh/masudq6.htm


Indeed, when a wealthy trader from Jedda brought to life the long-dead ‘aqida of Ibn Taymiya at the beginning of this century by financing the printing in Egypt of Ibn Taymiya’s Minhaj al-sunna al-nabawiyya and other works, the Mufti of Egypt Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti‘i, faced with new questions about the validity of anthropomorphism, wrote: "It was a fitna (strife) that was sleeping; may Allah curse him who awakened it."