Liban's Online Notes

Welcome to my free online notes documenting my journey through the traditional Islamic sciences. The intent of this site is to provide structured, accessible notes and eventually downloadable references for anyone walking a similar path, whether you are studying formally under a teacher, attending circles at your local mosque, or learning independently. These notes do not assume you are in any particular program — they are meant to be useful to anyone who wants to engage with these sciences seriously.

The idea for this site came from an unlikely place. As a college student working through Calculus and Differential Equations, I stumbled across Paul's Online Notes and kept returning to it. This wasn't just to get through an exam, but years later, when I needed to revisit something. What made it useful was not just the content but the approach: clear explanations, well organized topics, and a site that felt like it was written by someone who actually wanted you to understand. I have always hoped something like that existed for the Islamic sciences, namely a place you could return to, build from, and navigate without getting lost. This is my attempt at that.

I would like to thank in advance anyone who writes in with corrections. These pages will inevitably contain errors, and I am not in a position to catch all of them myself. If you find a mistake, please do reach out. Corrections are a form of charity, and I am genuinely grateful for them.

These notes grew out of a simple observation. The teachers who shaped me, in particular Sidi Shaykh Abdullahi Ahmed, Sidi Shaykh Muhammad al-Maliki, Sidi Shaykh Rabie Rashwan, Sidi Shaykh Hussein al-Masri and Sidi Shaykh Ibrahim Niyass Shuru were not simply knowledgeable. They embodied the Sunnah in the way they walked into a room, in the way they treated people beneath them in station, in the calm with which they disagreed, and in the light with which they spoke about the Prophet ﷺ. There was a quality to their intelligence that I have not found in books alone. There was a breadth, a balance, and above all a love for the Sunnah that made their knowledge feel lived rather than merely memorized. This site is, in one sense, my attempt to stay connected to what they passed on.

Most of the loudest voices speaking against traditional Sunni Islam today, and in particular against the Ash'arī and Māturīdī schools of theology have never seriously engaged with the actual texts of those traditions. They often times will teach from the books whose authors they openly call out. They are critiquing a tradition they know largely through refutation literature written by its opponents. This is not scholarship. It is a series of inherited assumptions dressed in confident language. The Ash'arī and Māturīdī schools together represent the carefully reasoned theological consensus of the vast majority of this ummah across eleven centuries. Dismissing them without study is not independent thinking. It is simply a different kind of taqlīd. I hope this site plays some small role in changing that, by making these texts and their contents more accessible, and by documenting what it actually looks like to engage with them seriously.

At present the notes will cover Arabic Grammar, Fiqh, Usūl al-Fiqh, Ash'arī 'Aqīdah, and Hadīth. I will also include practice problems and I'rāb exercises throughout the Arabic sections, and plan to add downloadable PDFs for each subject as the notes reach a sufficient level of completeness. A complete listing of all subjects currently available on this site, along with brief descriptions of each, is given below.