Abdul Nasir Jangda – Creating Celestial Companions
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AI: Transcript ©
My teacher
and my sheikh and my mentor,
who passed away about 4 years ago,
his
teacher and his mentor
shared a reflection.
And he's written it in his work as
well, Ma'adif al Suran, which is
his commentary
on the book of Hadith by Imamatidmidi, the
Jami Abi Tirmid.
He shares this reflection within that, within his
writing.
That
we we learn from the Quran, this is
alluded to in the Quran,
where the prophet Isa
is quoted as saying,
Surah,
And then he goes on to tell them,
That he tells them that the Prophet, the
Messenger that will come after me
will be Ahmed. And of course referring to
the Prophet
sallam. And then we have it in an
authentic narration that's found in Sahih Bukhari and
other places,
in which the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam confirms
for us that there were no prophets
or messengers that were sent between Isa alaihi
wasallam and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
There were no old prophets sent during that
time.
And what we generally know from the history
and the, you know, kind of record keeping
of the world at that time is about
6 centuries
past, almost 6 centuries past between Isa alaihis
salam and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, 600
years.
And because there were no prophets and messengers
for 600
years,
humanity
fell to its lowest point.
Now someone may wonder,
well it's been 1400 years since the Prophet
but the difference is that we have the
Quran.
And
those people,
those generations,
they did not have something like the Quran.
The revelation,
the text, the scripture
was not preserved
for them the way the Quran
has been preserved for us.
The Quran in fact tells us,
They altered
a lot of it, and they omitted
huge chunks of it.
So
now do the math, now let's get back
to the facts here.
So 6 centuries
600 years, no prophets,
no messengers
and no preserved
scripture.
So because of that kind of deprivation,
humanity sunk to its lowest point.
The lowest point in human history
was the day before the prophet was
born.
That was the lowest point in human history.
And when you read, and even in the
Quran itself, and what it describes about them,
it becomes very evident.
These are people,
one narration of Sahih Bukhari,
the Sahabi after becoming Muslim is reflecting on
his life before Islam.
And
he says,
do you know what life was like?
We would be worshiping a rock. I would
have a rock at home that I would
worship.
And one day, while coming home from work,
I would see a nicer, shinier rock,
a cooler looking rock.
And I would take it, dust it off,
take it home, throw the other rock out
and put it there and start worshiping it.
There is nothing lower.
Think about what the condition of humanity is.
And the Quran tells us,
how they killed each other.
And they murdered each other
for the smallest,
you know, things that they interpreted as slights
or disrespect.
They would bury their own daughters alive.
So, humanity had sunk to its lowest point,
and when at that time,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
decreed
to reveal
his speech into this world.
When Allah opened the gates of the heavens
and spoken to this world once again,
after 6 centuries,
to bring humanity from the darkness back into
the light.
The very first word that Allah spoken to
this world,
the very first word that he revealed
was Iqra,
was read.
And so the teacher of my teacher, Allama
Yusebunuri
he
writes
that
it is not a coincidence. We believe there's
no coincidence.
That the very first word of revelation was
read.
And that right there is
the significance and the importance of knowledge.
That knowledge
and learning,
and understanding,
will always be the pathway
to bringing humanity
from the depths of darkness and deprivation,
to the peaks of enlightenment and illumination.
And we have to empower ourselves
with that understanding and that knowledge of our
deen, of our religion.
Now,
I wanted to talk a little bit about
how do how do we go about this?
How do we exactly go about this? So
there's a couple of narrations.
Number 1,
there's a few narrations rather. Number 1, the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says in authentic
narration from Ibn Umayyah,
Majah, The seeking of knowledge is a requirement
and mandatory upon every
Muslim, every believer.
So number 1,
you have to want it.
Knowledge will not come to you.
And that's why there are many aphorisms
of the early generations of Muslims.
One of them they would say,
Knowledge is you go to knowledge, it does
not come to you.
And this is not to put anyone or
anything on a pedestal.
We're not talking about that people of knowledge
are too good to go to anyone, that's
not the point. It's talking about the knowledge
itself.
To the point where the person of knowledge
could come to you and could knock your
door.
They could bang your door down.
But if you don't want it,
if you don't you're not seeking it,
you're not motivated for it,
then it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
And that's why,
right?
There was a famous scholar in the subcontinent.
He wrote a translation of the Quran.
He wrote a translation of Sahih Bukhari,
and a very prolific scholar, a remarkable person.
His name was Ahmed Ali Lahori.
And
he was born into
a Sikh family.
Right. His parents were Sikh.
They were not Muslim.
And
he sometimes in his later years,
where he would give Durus in the Masjid,
he would reflect on this.
And he would say that how strange
is Allah's decree.
How fascinating?
Where he would say
that,
You have people walking around here today,
and they were born into the homes of
Muslims, and even born into the homes of
of scholarly people,
who don't know anything about their religion.
And someone else can be born into
the home of non Muslims
and now be in a position to teach
other people.
And so there's no guarantees.
The child of the scholar
could know nothing.
And the child of a non Muslim could
be the teacher of a generation.
And so the very first thing is, I
have to want it.
I have to be seeking it, I have
to want it.
And I guess,
coming to a 10 am session on a
Sunday discount for something, right? It's seeking it
at some level.
So, that's
something that I want everyone to really think
about.
You have to desire it, you have to
want it, you have to be motivated for
it. Number 2.
In another narration the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
he says, Inna mala'almu bi ta'alum,
knowledge is sought through learning.
Now that seems like an obvious statement, right?
Knowledge is sought or knowledges through learning.
But think about it, saying something very profound,
that unless
I
commit
to the exercise
and the process of learning,
the rigor of learning,
I
can't know something.
And we live so much in this, we
live in this era, the age of information.
But maybe
knowledge has never been more scarce.
And that's the irony of it. How can
you be in the age of information, and
have such little knowledge
as a civilization?
Well, because
information
is easy.
The goal and the objective with information is
to make it as easy as possible.
Information,
the easier it the more easily it is
acquired,
the more praiseworthy it is.
Right? So I've
created the system that is just amassing data
and information
with one click of a button. That's a
good thing,
in information.
When you're dealing in information and data, you
want to achieve as much as you can
with as little
work as possible.
Knowledge,
the more work that is put into it,
the more
praiseworthy it is.
Knowledge, the more effort, the more work that's
involved,
the better it is.
And it's not about the outcome and the
results,
which is exactly why the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam in the authentic narration, he says that,
The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says that,
Somebody who learns or reads the Quran,
is trying to learn the Quran, and it's
He is struggling in doing it.
He or she is tripping, and falling, and
struggling.
And it's so difficult.
That person gets doubled the reward,
because that was the actual goal. You know
those things where we talk about it's not
about the end, it's about the means, It's
about the journey, not the destination.
It's about the process, not the outcome.
That exactly is the case when it comes
to knowledge. It's all about their journey. It's
all about the process. It's all about the
exercise.
What am I,
and I'm going to say this, and it,
you know, it's kind of it might sound
a little corny,
but
I mean it in all genuine sense.
One of my greatest role models
when it comes to learning
is my mother.
Very, very
simple lady.
My father, may Allah have mercy upon him,
he passed away last year.
He was
like an intellectual. He was a mathematician.
Like literally, he just did math, because he
enjoyed it. Alright?
And was very, you know,
just sophisticated
that way.
My mother
who is
amazing and a hard working person, but it's
very simple when it comes to these like
math and all this, like I don't know
all this, I don't care about it.
And my mom has been trying to learn,
like, Quranic Arabic
for as long as I can remember.
She's been on that journey for most of
my life.
And so much so, that even now,
every Tuesday evening,
she attends her Quranic Arabic class,
every Tuesday.
And, you know, she's a lot older now,
and so it's a little bit harder for
her to get around and move around. So
I always make sure that I am there,
and I take her, and I sit her
down.
And the teacher,
who's one of our students, always freaks out
every time she sees me in the classroom.
It's like And I said, no, I'm not
here for you. You do your thing. Right?
I'm here for my mom. So I make
sure she gets seated with her water and
everything like that. And then I come and,
you know,
and she tells me last week,
as I'm dropping her off at home,
she's like,
do you have time tomorrow? I said, yeah,
sure, of course. What do you need? I
think, you know, she's like, oh, I need
you to come fix the sink. I need
you to go buy some milk. I need
you well, I figured something like that.
And she's like, I need you to come
and help me with my homework,
Right? I'm not getting it.
I'm not getting it. Right?
And the reason why I say,
right, this isn't some amazing story of somebody
who wrote a tafsir of the Quran.
Who knows? But I just don't see the
trajectory. I'm being honest with you.
All right? Who knows? But I don't see
it.
But the reason why I called her a
role model
is because
she's still seeking it.
It's the exercise. She spent her whole life
trying to learn a little bit of Koranic
Arabic
language grammar vocab.
And that's the goal.
That's the goal.
We're a product of this culture. I was
talking about the culture that we're a product
of today, that we are products of today.
I talked about the age of information.
The other thing that's an unfortunate
kind of reality of our culture today
is
the issue of expediency,
convenience,
try to make everything faster, easier.
Knowledge isn't supposed to be faster and easier.
It's not supposed to be.
I remember even when, you know, we were
starting
out
with,
putting together the seminary
in Dallas at Qalam.
And there were a lot of discussions about,
you know, what's realistic, what's not realistic, can
people study
for this long or that long, or do
this much, or this many days a week,
and this many months a year, and a
lot of discussions. And of course, you know,
I don't know nothing. I went and I
spoke to my teachers, and my shiuk, and
I consulted with them.
And basically,
the conclusion we came to is, well, this
is what is
this what it takes.
It is what it is.
And we can't compromise on that.
Now there needs to be different options available
for people in different situations in life.
But the one thing that will be true
across the board, is you're going to have
to put the work in.
You got to learn.
You got to put in that
sweat equity.
It's all sweat equity.
You don't even need 2 nickels to rub
together
to seek
knowledge. But all but you do need that
hard work. So first of all, you gotta
be internally motivated,
have that that
and number 2, you got to put the
work in. It's not easy.
It's not supposed to be easy.
And Allah does say in the Quran, So
it is easy, but what that means is
that, it's not something that is unattainable or
unachievable.
Allah will facilitate it for you, but you're
still going to have to put the work
in.
And it can be
it doesn't have to be necessarily
the quantity of the work, but it is
the quality of the work. Consistency.
Consistency.
And there's another narration that's in the book
of Abu Dawood, even though
it's more authentic as a statement of
but it's mentioned in the book of Abu
Dawood from the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And that is a very fascinating narration. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he says,
trap
knowledge
by
writing it down.
Trap knowledge by writing it down.
And the reason why I bring up this
particular narration is, there are certain,
there is a certain etiquette,
and there is a certain system to seeking
knowledge,
and you have to comply with the etiquette
and the system.
I'm going to say this,
no one
is going to reinvent
seeking knowledge.
In fact, if somebody ever tells you that
they revolutionized,
reinvented,
reimagined, and revolutionized
seeking knowledge,
my recommendation
is run.
Because you do not want any part of
that.
There is been there has been a system
and
a methodology
from the
Prophet
all the way till today.
And so,
again, put in the work,
be
ambitious,
have Himma,
dream big,
put in the work, be consistent,
and then follow
the proper system in the methodology.
And if we do that,
then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will enlighten us
with knowledge. Now I wanted to spend just
a couple of minutes talking
about
what exactly where do we start? Because again,
a lot of times when we talk about
knowledge, we just keep talking about knowledge, knowledge,
knowledge, and it just sounds like this
big
mountain of a thing.
So, what is the practical aspect of starting?
So there is
a prioritization seeking knowledge, and the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam gave us that prioritization.
He said,
He said, I leave you with 2 resources,
you will not go astray,
you shall not lose your way so long
as
you hold on to these 2 things.
And what are those two things? The book
of Allah, the Quran,
and the way of the messenger
Now,
when we talk about the Quran, and when
we talk about
the sunnah, the life
of the Prophet
that itself is a huge endeavor. And that
involves a lot of things,
right? Because if we talk about learning the
Quran, are we talking about the vocabulary?
Are we talking about the grammar? Are we
talking about the
balaga, the eloquence? Are we talking about the
recitation and the different modes of recitation? The
and
the
Are we talking about the tafsir
and the in-depth analysis? And then what kind
of tafsir?
Tafsid by narration,
tafsid with diraya,
analytical
tafsid, or are we talking about tafsid,
reflect
tafsid, right? And the list goes on and
on and on.
And if we talk about the sunnah, then
what again are we talking about? Are we
talking about Mutulul Hadith,
the basic, the more smaller concise
collections of Hadith? Are we talking about the
Sunan, the expansive compilations, the Jawamya,
the authoritative compilations?
Are we talking about the meaning
of the narrations themselves?
Are we talking about the historicity,
the history behind the Hadith? Are we talking
about the Rayatul Hadith? Are we talking about
at taghrijwalasaneed,
The chains of narrations and the analysis of
that. All Asma wal Rijal, all the people
who have narrated the ahadith and their biographies,
like what are we talking about? That's a
whole lot.
So I'd like to
And again, at some level, it'll depend on
different people and where they are in their
journey.
But I'm going to make
a more general recommendation
that is applicable to everybody in this room.
Number 1,
we start with the Quran. The Prophet
said, I leave you with the Quran.
So we start with the Quran, and what
is the primary thing
that I will
recommend to start with when it comes to
the Quran?
Read
the translation of the Quran,
cover to cover.
Read the translation of the Quran from cover
to cover,
and have your translation
a written copy.
If again, you kind of got to read
it, on the go, and so you're reading
it through an app, I guess that's okay.
My recommendation would be to have like a
physical copy
where you are then writing down any questions
didn't understand what it was saying.
So that if and when the opportunity presents
itself, and then you find a person of
knowledge, you're able to say, Hey, can you
explain this to me? Can you answer this
for me?
But make it a mission and a goal
that I will not stop until I complete
the entire reading of the translation of the
Quran from cover to cover. And there's many,
many different translations that one can read from.
Right? The translation of the Noble Quran by
Marmaduke Pickthal,
one of my personal favorites. It's not for
everybody, it's written in old English.
Or the translation of Professor Abdul Halim,
or the translation of Professor Ahmed Zakir Hammad,
the gracious Quran. There's a number of them.
And start there.
Now, I'll give you step 2 in case
maybe someone says that's something I've started or
I've done. I'll go ahead and give you
step 2, and then I'll move on to
the next major area.
Step 2 I will say is,
a lot of times we hear, learn the
language of the Quran, learn the Arabic language.
And while that's important,
let me qualify that.
Learn the vocabulary
of the Quran.
Learn Quranic vocabulary.
Learning Quranic Arabic grammar, and language,
and syntax, and morphology,
a stage comes for that.
But you'll know when you're there, and a
teacher will guide you to that and through
that.
But this next step, if you've completed the
reading of the translation of the Quran, the
next step is learn Quranic vocabulary. I know
it sounds simple like vocab, really? Like flashcards?
Right? Vocab, really?
Yes.
Vocab, really?
Because you know what's going to happen?
Day 1, you're going to learn 3 words,
or
or or we'll say 4 or 5 words.
Book,
means no, means doubt, means it, he means
it.
That book no doubt in it. Now understand
every single time those words come again, you
know, you have some idea of what it's
talking about. And if you learned one vocabulary
word today,
see that's the other thing, shaitan,
You gotta keep on learning. Shaitan gets in
our head and says, Oh, big deal, you
learned one word.
You're never going to learn anything.
After a year,
Inshallah, if we're still alive
and we see each other next year here
at ICNA.
Remember at that time,
I'll make eye contact with you
to make you uncomfortable.
It's been 1 year,
365
days.
And that could have been
365
words of the Quran that you would understand.
But what you did was
you psyched yourself out.
And you gave in to the weakness.
And you got nothing to show for it.
So learn Qur'anic vocabulary
after completing the reading of the translation of
the Quran. The second area the prophet
advises for is the way of the prophet,
the life, the sunnah of the prophet,
and like I said, that's a really big
huge topic. It's impossible to, you know, encompass
all of it.
So where's the starting point? The starting point
is what we call the Sira, the prophetic
biography, the life and times of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Learn the Sira, read the Sira, listen to
the Sira, start
somewhere.
Start with the Sirah podcast
on the Qalam podcast.
Just start there, just start listening to it.
Go through it, one after another.
While you're going to school, driving to work,
picking up the kids, washing the dishes, working
out, whatever it
is.
And then preferably
go down to the bazaar,
find
a book on the life of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, the Seerah,
the Sealed Nectar,
Prophet of Mercy, couple of recommendations, sealed nectar,
Great scholar of Hadith
in India of the past
generation.
Or there's prophet of mercy,
beautiful translation of Nabi Ar Rahma, a beautiful
silla of the prophet written by a philosopher
and a great scholar of India of the
previous century. I had the honor and the
pleasure of meeting him, Abu al Hassan Ali
and Nadwih Rahamullah.
But go and buy that book of the
seelah and read through it. But read and
learn the life of the prophet
and it will be game changer.
And
I'm over my time,
but I'm gonna end, and I talked about
this last night,
while we were having a little get together
at the Qalam booth. So if you were
there, I apologize. It'll be a repeat for
you. But I just want to end on
this story,
so that it's a bit uplifting.
Stop
underestimating yourselves.
The prophet said, do not underestimate the opportunity
to do good.
Stop underestimating yourselves. Last night I was sharing
the story of Al Qanabi.
He is one of the most
illustrious people
of knowledge of the early generations.
He is one of the most
authoritative students of Imam Malik,
and he was one of the teachers of
Imam Bukhari.
His name is all over the Sahih of
Imam Bukhari, Al Qanabi.
What is who is Al Qanabi? What's his
story? His story was that he was
a troublemaker, a criminal
on the streets of Baghdad.
And he used to drink
and harass people.
He was literally like a thug in the
streets.
And one day a great scholar of Hadith
and Baghdad, Shu'aba
is a student
of the Tabi'aun and even, you know, of
the Kibaru Tabi'aun.
And he was going and he was teaching,
going with the students. Students were with him
and he was going to teach hadith.
And Al Qarnabi
sees him
and then just making trouble,
he blocks him in the street, and he
said, where are you going?
Who are you? Why are these people with
you?
And he says, My name is Sheurba.
And he starts mocking him. What's
a Sheurba?
And then the one of the students
who gets irritated says, when Muhadith,
he's a teacher of Hadith.
And he says, oh, really?
Teacher hadith.
Wow.
Says hadithni,
teach me some hadith.
And the narration describes, he was wearing red
colored like lower garment, a red izar, like
red pants and he had no shirt on,
and he had a dagger
tucked in right here, like he had his
gun right there,
and he says teach me hadith.
And Shu'arba said, lasta aalen
lidalik.
You're not appropriate
worthy of being taught Hadith.
And so,
he gets
agitated,
and he pulls out his dagger,
and he says,
teach me,
tell me hadith.
And the students start to move and
Sharba tells them, it's okay, relax.
And he narrates a hadith of the prophet
If you have no shame,
then do whatever it is you want.
He gets it.
He throws his dagger aside.
He grabs his hands and cries and begs
and apologizes.
He goes home,
packs his bag,
changes.
He's got alcohol
at home. He throws it all away.
Tells his mother, Make some food, some friends
are going to come looking for me. Tell
them the alcohol is gone and feed them.
And then
basically tell them that I'm gone.
And he leaves Baghdad and he goes and
he doesn't stop until he gets to Madinah.
And when he gets to Madinah, he finds
Imam Malik there. And then he spends the
next 30 years studying with Imam Malik and
becomes one of the most illustrious narrators of
Hadith.
Do not underestimate yourself. I apologize for going
over time.