Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – AbdurRahman Ibn alJawzi of Baghdad
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim hamdulillah Iran behind me or
Salatu was Salam ala say you didn't mousseline what are the
early he was soft me he or Baraka was sublimit asleep and the fear
on Elomi been another
one to Arizona in quantum in so the Kelowna lien,
my dear friends,
this evening in sha Allah will be looking at the life of a very
interesting individual. Somebody who I would say is my, if you can
have favorites, it's my second favorite scholar from history. And
my first has to be Imam Ghazali. And after Imam Hassan Ali, it has
to be most I have to be probably most inspired by Abdul Rahman
epner Josie, I will forge Abdul Rahman YBNL Josie again, he was a
scholar that has connections with butter that just like Abdul Qadir
jeelani, Rahim Allah has connections with Baghdad and so
does
Imam Hassan Ali have connections with badab What's the most
interesting thing is that
it was after Imam Ghazali was born in 450 Hijiri
Imam Abdul Qadir jeelani
AbdulQadir Gilani is born around the time that
480 Hijiri 470 JFD 470 literary
Abdul Qadir Jilani Rahim Allah then moves into Baghdad around the
time that Imam Ghazali departs from there for his 10 or 11 years
in seclusion and
YBNL Josie
just is older. If no Josie is actually younger, he comes after
she Abdulkadir Gilani but both of them are contemporaries in a
sense. So that's another exam ignore Josie is another great
example of a reformer renovator of the faith, a revival of the faith.
And he's been most noted for his
profound scholarship.
An amazing, absolutely amazing scholar. I could probably read his
books all day if I had the time.
Because he's just very candid in his approach to things in the way
he discusses things. He is known as a prolific writer. He was a
wonderful writer. He used to have 1000s of people in every gathering
of his and he was a master of the Quran, Quranic studies, Hadith
hottie tavsiye tafsir and also history and literary criticism.
She was also a wonderful writer, known for his literature and his
style and writing. He was born in 508, Italy 580 Do some, that's
three years after Imam Ghazali died. But that mashallah produced
some really, really impressive individuals that have preserved
the faith for us so much of our a lot of the knowledge that we have
to a lot of the great books that we have today. Somehow they're
connected to Baghdad, Baghdad, Damascus in the early in the early
centuries, because you have to remember, but that was also the
home of the Ambassade caliphs. After Damascus was the double
Khilafah during the time of the Romanians.
So now he's born in 508 Hijiri. He's 38 years younger than Sheikh
Abdul Qadir jeelani. He's four father died. I mean, this is a
very interesting story because his father died when he was young. His
father died when he was young. And his mother sent him to study with
one of the great scholars of the time was he was he was Muhaddith.
Ignacio, his name was so you went to study with him. So early age,
he memorized the Quran. He memorized the entire Quran, and
then started studying tirado, the study of reading Quranic reading
Hadith. He studied calligraphy as well. He studied calligraphy as
well. And he himself says about his childhood, I'm going to be
quoting a lot from him directly. He's because he's one of those few
scholars have written a lot about themselves. rozalia is another
one. So UD is another one. And Abner, Josie is another one. And
that's why
you don't have to speculate what they would have been doing or what
they did or whatever, because it's very clear what they wrote. And
the reason I like it, though, Josias a lot is because he's very
confessional. He's very clear about the way his thought was
about something before how it changed personal
dilemmas that he had to go through. So he himself says about
his very young age. He says, I recall clearly that I was admitted
to primary school at six
Boy, He's much older than me, you are my classmates in those times.
I mean, you didn't have to be of a certain age to be in a class. I
mean, you went by
ability in those days, and you still do in many places, right? I
do not recall if I ever spent my time playing or laughing with the
other boys. So he was different. From that time, he was different.
Instead of watching the jugglers perform, who frequently held their
shows in the field in front of the mosque, where I studied, I would
attend lectures on Hadith. Now, that's today saying that instead
of playing with your iPads, and the phones, and all of these
things that our kids play with nowadays, and are addicted to and
they cry, and shriek and, and tear things, you know, when and break
things when it's taken away from them, and their time is up. So
instead of doing all that, there'll be study not I want to
book on Hadith. How abnormal does that sound today? It's like a
dream. SubhanAllah. It's like a dream. I dream. So that that is
the recreation in those days, was the jugglers, the clowns, people
who would do a few tricks on the road, that is essentially what
entertainer was all about. Right? So how long I mean, we can
entertain ourselves to death today. Right? There's enough of
it. At every level, he says, Whatever Hadith or biographical
accounts of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam were related in the
lectures, I memorize them, say, the IG memory, an amazing memory
that I would just remember, memorize all of that. And then I
would write them down on reaching home. So he's not even taking
notes. While he's studying. He's just memorizing everything going
home, and then taking notes. What a wonderful way to study. Other
boys would spend their time playing along the banks of the
river Subhanallah, if those days can come when you go to bank of
river bank years, you know,
but I would invariably be sitting down with a book in my hand in a
corner, and I would just read it from cover to cover.
I was always so eager to attend the class on time that I was often
out of breath. Upon reaching the school before the lectures began,
it happened not infrequently, that I had nothing to eat the whole
day.
So there were times I would just be in class class, one class after
the other, and I will eat. But I'm thankful to Allah that I've never
had any occasion to be grateful to anybody else in this regard, which
means I would never have to beg anybody for foods.
SubhanAllah. Now, this sets the scene for this great man, what did
he do in his life? And you know, we've had millions of scholars,
we've had 1000s loads, but there's a few that stick in everybody's
mind. And still in every generation, the memory lives on,
because of certain works that they produced, because of the class and
this diligence that they had. So this is what you get out of it.
What does he get out of missing his play when he's young and
reading books from cover to cover? What does he get out of it? That
somebody how many years after we're talking about
it? He was born in 1100?
Basically 11 114 1100 14, so we're talking about 900 years after?
Because it's 2000. Now, so we're talking about, you know, the world
has moved, you know, the Gregorian calendar is nearly half over.
doubled. That since then. We're talking about 900 years
afterwards, then in Milton Keynes, we're speaking about New Jersey,
somebody who died 900 years ago, he had intense enthusiasm for
learning. His enthusiasm for learning was just intense. And
also for propagating Hadith. He wrote so much he wrote so much
during his life, that in those days, they used to use the
repents, depends that you had to make yourself. So you got like a
king or a piece of like a miswak. You've seen a miswak. Right? Yeah.
And it's not a miswak. But it's made of cane or read or something.
And then you chipped off the edge and made it into a nib. It's like
a calligraphy pen. And that's what he wrote with, you dip them into
ink, and then you write and then you dip it into ink, and you write
again. And those shavings of his work kept. He kept those shavings.
So when he passed away, those shavings were enough to boil the
water for his hosel for his bath. That's how many shavings So can
you imagine how much he wrote?
He used to read whatever he could get his hands on. I wonder what
he'd say about the internet today. Except that it's a lemon law. In
fact, most of it, it's redundant knowledge. This takes you from one
to the next endless supply of knowledge. But that's why there's
$1 of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, which says, Oh Allah,
grant me beneficial knowledge. And oh Allah protect me from knowledge
that is useless. That is non beneficial. We should all read
that dua because we all have
I have this as a challenge in front of us of just wasting lots
and lots of time on YouTube and other places online. And that's
the best maybe, you know, that's not even half the story. Anyway.
And he was he was very fortunate that he wasn't in some kind of
outlying area he was in Baghdad, Darren Khilafah, and Marsha are
the libraries, they were well stocked. So he really made use of
these libraries. He really made use of these libraries, well stop
like libraries of bathtub. And so he writes again, in his cycle
Hudson, he writes it about himself. He says, I may state to
my own cost of mind.
I am never tired of reading books. And my god knows no bound.
Whenever I find a new book. I know exactly how that feels. I'm
hungover, so I don't get to read as much as he does. But
Subhanallah it would appear to be an exaggeration, if I said that, I
have gone through 20,000 books during my student days. 20,000
books during a student days, and this is not Harry Potter books.
This is not fiction, only we're speaking about, if at all, we're
talking about some serious
nonfiction books that you're learning things from those books
are more difficult to read than fiction books, right? Because the
story just carries you through. But when you have to read
nonfiction, it's a study says 20,000 books here he read, I came
to know and you see what is the benefit of what is the benefit of
somebody who reads 20,000 Books
20,000 Books of the Muhaddith in both facilities in the books on
Arabic literature, the books, books and Arabic grammar, the
books on Arabic, of Islamic history or the history of the
world in general, when you 20,000 books on those subjects, right,
this is what you get out of it. And there's no doubt you'll get
this. I came to know of the courage, large heartedness
erudition,
the great memories, the piety, the eagerness of prayer, cherished by
the scholars of the past, I learned this is what I gleaned
from these books. This is what I received, which I could not have
learned without reading these books. I could not have learned
without reading these books. My study of books in those days also
revealed to me the shallow knowledge of scholars in our
times, and he's speaking about his fifth and sixth century.
So what do we speak about today? Allahu Akbar. Right. And the dull
spirits of students today. We don't have any students today. You
know, we hardly have students for that for the amount of students
they had in those days, we hardly have nothing and he's complaining
about his time.
And I think it's for In this spirit, that we also covering his
story today, and the story of Sheikh Abdul Qadir jeelani Later
today, and so on, so forth. My aim is to cover some of our major
scholars in our history, so that inshallah the OMA can understand
what kind of Greek people we have had. And you know, we're a
tradition, Muslims are a tradition that we look to our past, as much
as we look to our future, and we are guided by them. And when we
lose is when we're in a vacuum, when we think because that is the
most depressing state you can bring yourself in, is when you
don't when you know nothing about your past, because the state is
depressing. When we're, especially at this point in time, we're in a
bit of a low, we're in a bit of an ebb. You know, we're in a bit of a
low kind of season, in the history of things when we're being
attacked from all around and didn't seem to be much hope,
Islamophobia, which is rife everywhere, being challenged, day
in and day out a lot of the Muslim ummah and fortunately, Muslim
countries around the world are on fire. And you know, we've got
these major problems. If you don't know about your history, then
you're going to be extremely depressed if you care about your
religion. And that's why it's important to learn about these
things, because they tell us how these kinds of challenges were fed
by the people of the past.
In terms of he started writing from a very young age, and you
know, we have Subhanallah our problem today is that we just
don't have enough inspiration and guidance, direction.
For our young people, we've got talent, we've got huge because
same kind of human beings are coming here. It's just that their
entire talent is being directed elsewhere.
My son who just completed his GCSE is doing his A levels. I know the
amount of time that he puts into his work without me having to tell
him much. And then at the end of all of that, and he got some
really good grades and GCSE. But at the same time, he's also doing
an Alim course so he's literally studying from before eight in the
morning till about 12 at night coming in preparing and everything
like that. I know that right now I'm looking at him and I'm seeing
that most of his study is behind his maths and his science and you
know, all the other subjects
Which again, are useful subjects and we need to have some of them.
But it's only a minority of his time which is able to spend behind
his ILM course, because the school demands so much the academy
demands so much. So now, our greatest brains today I spending
huge amounts of time on this. But they're not spending enough time
on religion, or religious studies. So when are we going to have the
YBNL jerseys under the Saudis and Giovanni's because not enough of
our time, but now it makes a lot of sense that
person like, showery, Allah, of the great scholar of Delhi of
India, just about 200, and something years ago, he started
teaching some high level science, Islamic Sciences at the age of 16,
when his father passed away, I don't think in how does he How is
he able to do that. But he's able to do that if he if you know, like
the good students of today, how much effort they put behind the
GCSEs and a levels, and where they are in terms of what they want,
right? That you can do that if you spent that much time behind the
Quran and Hadith and, and the fsid, et cetera, et cetera, you'd
be able to do that as well.
So we're in a very strange situation. We're in a very strange
situations, but Allah subhanaw taala to help us. So he started
writing from an early age, he used to write for folios each day, four
pages for large pages each day. If you if you take all of his works,
and you're distributed in his entire life will come to an
average of four days, four pages a day, right? And you got so many of
our students, the writing blogs, just random blocks. If you look at
their Twitter accounts, right, they've got 50 6070 followers and
they've got like 20,000 messages, right? You look at their Facebook,
same thing right long, long things about this, that and the other,
but there's nothing else going on. It's all none substance. And then
it just goes right? Even though Tamia Rahim Allah says about him,
that when his works were counted, they came to be about 1000. So he
wrote about 1000 books, large and small, some in many, many volumes,
something just one volume, some smaller treaties. And he could he
was such a not such a scholar of Hadith that he could tell the
chain of any narration, and was able to was able to grade a Hadith
from understanding who the narrator's were. So he knew the
biographies of each of these narrators and transmitters in
Hadith about the deen. And he could he could he could give you
an ideas of great Hadith scholars known for his Hadith criticism,
and
in terms of literature, in terms of writing, and as an orator. She
was a master of everything. You know, some people are just very
good writers can't speak well. Some people are very good
speakers, but they can't, right. Well, he was both he could do
both. And he had no peer in his literature. In fact, if you study
Arabic literature of Baghdad of the embassy times, you will study
some of his works, right? Because they are pieces of literature in
their own right.
However, with all of this, you know, you generally hit somebody
who just
is after his work, that's all he's doing. He's got no time for
worship, but this was very different with him no Josie, he is
known for his piety, he is celebrated for his moral
uprightness his devotion. He used to do one Quran Hutton with all of
that he used to do one Quran hatom a week. So in seven days, he would
be completing a Quran with all of this as well.
Right? And that that Subhanallah in itself is a tough thing for
many people today.
He never He was also very particular in what he ate. So he
never ate anything of doubt very particular about what he ate in
terms of Halal even in the John mentions, that when you saw him
pre solids, he expressed Willa he you know, you could see Wilayat
being a friend of Allah be close to Allah, you could see that from
his prayers, it will Pharisee says that he used to make the hijab at
night, you know, he was given to making tahajud night vigils at
night. And he was always in the remembrance of Allah subhanaw
taala. And you can tell this from his books, and I'm going to be
reading a selection from from something he said, which really
tells us how his mind works, and it's quite impressive.
He writes, himself in his seydel heart and he says, from an early
childhood, I was inclined to devotion, religious contemplation
and worship. I used to zealously observe the obligatory as well as
the Knuffle, prayers, and all the preferred aitikaf etcetera.
spending my days like this, I used to felt I used to feel a lot of
peace and enlightenment, I severely regretted time spent
otherwise, for I had an ardent desire to utilize every moment of
my life in diligent consciousness of the omnipotent Lord. In those
days, I used to find my heart attune to Allah.
While my presence supplication
Hands were a source of indescribable pleasure to me. What
a feeling he was getting, may Allah give us some of that
feeling. My lectures and discourses, which appear to have
been quite effective in those days attracted a few high officials and
chiefs who wanted to come closer to me by paying homage and putting
themselves at my service. As it was, I also became inclined
towards them. So you get these wealthy people, these influential
people, they want to be close to him, so naturally, you start
feeling inclined to them. Now look at this, but in their company, I
lost the sense of peace and sanctifying grace I had enjoyed
previously in my doors in my supplication. Thereafter, other
functionaries of the government started gaining my favor, with the
result that the precaution I used to take earlier in avoiding
everything unlawful and doubtful evil.
It began, it gave way to a sense of complacency. I started
justifying things,
it was not yet to deplorable. But gradually, my specious reasoning
made even the doubtful appear lawful to me. And I realized that
I had now lost the sublimity, the sublimity and the purity of my
heart.
I started losing my state. Because of this mixing with this crowd, is
steam instead, as if a profane pneus had taken its place, which
gave rise to the restlessness and disquietude in me, I observed that
my sermons also bought a mark of mine get anxiety.
And then he says, I then visited the tombs of the pious and
earnestly beseech Allah to show me the right path. So one thing very
interesting is that YBNL Josie is known to be very, one of the most
powerful voices we have out there against bidding against
innovations. He has Toby's IBLEES where he really takes a lot of
Sufis to task, not of our own Omar to infect every category of the
Ummah, he takes each one to task according to their status. And
according to the fitness that they had, that they that they were
challenged by. And he's known for this he's not he's known for this,
he was a humbly scholar, and he was known for that great rigid
rigidity. In fact, in terms of Hadith, criticism, he is on the
extreme end. So when you look at Hadith studies and how you have
scholars who have you know, who Mark Hadith as being sahih, dari,
Hassan, etc, categorize the Hadith and so on. You have a corpus of
scholars who are known to be too harsh, like away from the path of
complete moderation. So in the eternal Josie ignore Tamia ignore
hasm of very thorough, cottony these are few of the names that
come in that then when you have some lenient ones like Hakima.
Tell me the so ut kind of comes in that as well. But then you have
the ones that are considered to be when they say something, it's very
balanced, like Iraqi, the hubby imagine as Kalani, sahabi, etc,
right? So you have that, although he is known to be kind of on the
extreme end of these things. But still, you know, he said I visited
the tombs of the pious and earnestly beseech Allah to show me
the right path. This is in his seydel heart him, what he means by
being there is if there's a pious, righteous person, there's always
been a tradition to believe that that was accepted, you know,
because of being in the era where these people are buried is not
You're not asking the person of the tomb. Right? You're asking
ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada. But they say that this is the belief among
many people, right? And it seems like he was also of that belief as
well. Ultimately, Allah helped me and I again felt inclined to spend
more of my time in prayer and solicitude. Now I came to know
what was wrong with me. And I thanked my Lord, the Most
Compassionate, the Merciful, for his kind, and that is really
something to wonder about. Because we all have these challenges. And
we, a lot of us have disquietude in our life. A lot of us have
restlessness in our life, a lot of us are not satisfied or not
tranquil. We're not peaceful, and what most of the time if not all
the time, the reason for this is the wrongs we have involved. We
have involved ourselves into whatever that may be. And he's not
even talking about completing committing haram. He's just
talking about just doubtful Association, just maybe not being
as scrupulous as he would like it, and it takes you it demoralizes
you, but when you're involved in it so much you don't even know
sometimes
his character and his characteristics he was known to be
well built, very handsome features imposing.
He was favored with easy circumstance. He wasn't extremely
poor, but yet he wasn't so well off either. But he had easy
circumstances in general. He possessed the refined taste in his
dress as well, and his dietary habits. He liked good things as
well. And he will talk about these things afterwards.
And he was very charming and graceful to speak to as well if no
Dini relates that ignore Josie was soft spoken, handsome, modern,
moderate height. And he was known for his clemency his for his
forbearance, generally, and his generosity. He was generally
careful of his health. But he liked what may be considered, as
he says, good things of temperate quality. So he liked good things.
And that's completely fine. He used to advise against the
practice, you know, by some of the extreme practices that had been
introduced by the Persian mystics of his time.
Now, if we move to his knowledge, one special thing about him about
Abdullah, Josie, that in which he probably towers above a lot of
others, except that you had many individuals who had the similar
kind of flexibility, and vibrance and extensiveness, in the
knowledge that they had, and in the sciences that they studied,
you had quite a few of them. But you know, from HEAR from Him, you
actually hear this from his own, from his own pen. Right. So one
thing about him is that he's very versatile. He towers above his
contemporaries, and of his time, do his due to his desire
to be well versed in every branch of faith, every science he wanted
to master it.
He wanted to master every Science
and Learning, he describes his in his on, again, seydel hearted he
describes as he says, the greatest trial for mankind lies in the
loftiness of his ambitions. So having lofty ambitions is a trial
for you. Because having lofty ambition ambitions means
am I going to be able to get this or not, but you can't rest over.
He says, the higher his ambition, the lofty his Aspire aspiration
for advancement or success, however, one is sometimes unable
to achieve one's ambition owing to unfavorable circumstances or a
lack of means. You're gonna go to the top universities, you don't
have the money to go, well you don't have the grades to go or
whatever it is, it is,
however,
but Allah has made me so ambitious, that I've always had a
yearning for something even higher. Yet to have never felt
that Allah was high, Matt might not have made me too ambitious. So
I don't mind being ambitious. I don't complain about it. But
that's how Allah has made me.
He says, it is true that life can be fully enjoyed
only by a carefree imprudence and listless person.
If you want to enjoy this life, meaning just be totally carefree
and just really enjoy it, and not care about the hereafter or
anything else. not have any worry in the world at all, whether it be
for your children, right, or for your family, or, or yourself or
anybody or you just want to enjoy them. He says, The Life can be
can be fully enjoyed only by a carefree, imprudent and listless
person. But nobody endow the brains would ever prefer the
retrogression of his intellect simply for the sake of getting
more fun out of his worldly pleasures. It's not a very
intellectual thing to do. Right? Then he says,
I know of many people who are boastful of their lofty ambitions.
So now he he's thinking about all of these great people of the past
who spoke about lofty aspirations, and he studied their life to try
to understand what their whether they succeeded. And if they did,
then what was their success? And if they failed, and what was their
failure. This is the thing about who was very critical in the way
he thought.
He says that.
I know of many people who boasted of their long, lofty ambitions,
but I found their aspirations actually limited to only one field
of the activity in which they were utterly desirous of achieving
success. So he saw that, yes, they had a lot of ambition, but it was
only about one project, or one science or one subject or 111
thing only. And these people were completely indifferent to their
Indus in their deficiencies in other fields. For example, there's
a famous poet called Sharif or Robbie very famous in Arabic
literature, right once he said in couplets. ill health is never
without a cause. But in my case, it is because of too high and
aspiration. So now that drives him to Josie to go and look into this
man to see what he was all about. However, on going through his
biographical accounts, I found that he had no ambition than
achieving power and position. That's all he wanted. Right? It's
also related by abou Muslim el horizonte that he could not sleep
well during his youth. He has sleepless
Last night's, when asked why he said, How can I sleep? Brilliant
and ambitious though I am,
I am condemned to lead a life of poverty and obscurity. So though
he was brilliant, and he knew it, he just didn't have enough money,
and he did not have fame. So then what would satisfy you somebody
else, he said, I'll be satisfied only if I achieve greatness and
power, then try for it. What's wrong, try for it. He said, this
would not be possible without putting my life at stake. So he
was cowardly. He wasn't he had high aspiration, but he was a bit
cowardly, in terms of putting himself into things. He was asked
again, why don't you do so? My intellect asked me not to run into
danger.
So weird combination, right? What would you do them the question
that demanded,
I would not accept the advice of my intellectual private, so using
this dilemma.
And finally,
it will Josie says about him, on giving further thought to the self
deluded, yet ambitious man, I came to the conclusion that he had not
given thought to one of the most important factors.
And that was the question of the life to come. Now, the reason why
I speak about this is because we all have certain ambitions,
whether that be to become the CEO of some company, right, or whether
it be to make this much money, or to become very famous, or to
become a star, or to become somebody of great repute, or to
somebody who has, you know, this much property to his name, or
whatever the case may be. Everybody has their little thing.
So this example is very good, because this is what he's saying.
He said, I came to the conclusion that he has not given thought to
one of the most important factors, and that was the question of the
life to come. He was madly seeking political power, for which he had
to be cruel and unsparing of innocent human life. He just got a
fraction of that worldly power and glory eventually, for which the
things he aspired to for a short period of only eight years
thereafter that he fell victim, because eventually that's what he
got the power and fame to a certain degree for eight years.
And then after that he felt victim he fell victim to the trick
treachery of the Abbas Al Khalifa of the time, Safar, the first
Abbas Al Khalifa, the one who took over from dominions, right, the
uncle of Abuja, frogman suit,
and then his intellect did not come to his aid. And it was the
same with another person, the poet would not be how many of you have
not heard him would not be a great Arabic poet would not be who was
as ambitious, as he was also a number of worldly success
is really a lot of thought in this. My ambition, however, is
different to this, he says, I aspire, and I look at what he
aspires for, I aspire for a profound knowledge, embracing the
entire field of learning everything, right, which I know I
cannot attain.
So he's understanding of that as well. Right? I want to achieve a
thorough and complete knowledge of every branch of learning, which is
obviously not possible in the short span of human life. I do not
consider anybody perfect in the knowledge of a science, so long as
he lacks perfection in another branch.
And then he goes on to say how
you've got scholars of thick, who don't know history, so that makes
some serious blunders. Scholars of Hadith, who again, don't know
history, so they'll connect two people together, and they don't
know. So he points out of these things. That's why he says you
can't be complete in one science, if you don't know the sciences
that are related to it. So he wants to know all of them.
Then he says,
the imperfection of knowledge, I think, can be actually muted to
lack of ambition alone, not only that, to me, the ultimate object
or objective of knowledge is an ability to act on it is very
particular about not being just academic, but for a being
practical for his hereafter. Thus, what I want to be able to combine
with my knowledge, is the diligence of Bishal haffi.
And the piety of MARUSAN Kurki. So it's not like okay, I want to be
academic, and I just make myself out some time. And I'll go for
hides. And I'll do this and then another, but no, both in terms of
his great aspirations for what kind of knowledge he wants. He has
similar ambitions in terms of his Wilayat and closest to Allah. So
he wants to be no less than Bishal, haffi and maruf coffee,
some of the greatest about aesthetics of the past, and that's
ambition.
But it is hardly possible to accomplish this, along with the
preoccupations of studying and teaching and other mundane
affairs. And that is not all. I also aspire to have.
Like others but do not want to live under their obligation. My
preoccupation with my studies is an impediment in the way of my
earnings. When I love my studies, I can't earn enough. Every scholar
aspiring scholar, in fact, every Muslim should read this passage.
This is, I think, one of the best passages that I've read from him,
because it really puts it together. And he really puts the
chariot on the top at the end. So wait for that. He says, It's
hardly you know, you can hardly do all of these things. Because
you're not going to get your earning. But I detest being
indebted to anybody or accepting gifts from others. I also ardently
desire to have children and he had many children. One of his
daughter's name was Shana from Lisa Another one was Joe Hara, he
had four sons. And he had problems with one of his sons. He had
promises one of his sons, and took for him he wrote an entire small
book called laughter to Cabot
which is to try to bring him back because his son was, and he was a
very promising scholar, his son became very promising scholar. But
then after that, he went in the wrong direction, got hooked with
the wrong type of people. So this can happen to people, right? Even
in those days, he got hooked with the wrong kinds of people. And he
went off track and started, I mean, doing some strange things.
So then he did write this entire book to him to explain all of
these things to him. And
he, I think it was his youngest son that actually served him the
most. So he had four sons, at least in he had a number of
daughters. So he says here, that I ardently also desire to have
children. So he's not like that mad scientist in, you know, in a
laboratory, right? A university professor, but the only thing he
worries about is studying and he goes home at 12, one o'clock at
night, and you know, he's marriages don't last because he
has no time for anybody else. He's not like that, either. You know,
he's got a functioning family, this is what assumptions do for
you, right? That not take you into accessing anything, whatever that
may be. So I two desire to have children as well as to be an
author of merit and distinction, so that these may honor my memory,
and truly they have, and truly they have Subhan Allah.
But both of these pursuits stand in the way of solitude and
contemplation.
And I spend some time just with Allah. But then this goes in
against that. I also like to enjoy lawful pleasures,
but do not possess the means of achieving level, you know, going
on holidays, and not like people like to do today, you know, things
of that nature.
Whatever his idea was, and if I devote myself to obtaining them,
then I would generally lose contentment, peace of mind. So to
with other matters, for example, I like the delicacies and
refinement, which might good taste desires.
All these mean, to aspire for mutually opposing ends? What have
they to do with such lofty ideals, who aspire simply for worldly
success, wealth, power and position, I too, want worldly
success, but in a manner, that does not cause me to impair my
faith, or to expose my learning of virtuous actions to any risk of
injury. He's got it right. You have to give preference to certain
things. There's always going to be choices in this life to make what
are you going to give preference for?
You know, I travel a lot, and I get a, I'm from a business minded
family. And
I see so many opportunities, but I have to pull myself back that no,
I've got a different path. I know if I get involved in, I can't do
what I want to do in terms of learning, study, and teaching,
etc. So you just have to give it up. There's sacrifices that you
have to make, right? And then he says, who can appreciate the
restlessness of my ambition. On the one hand, I relish the hygiene
at night, taking precaution, taco, but on the other hand, I have an
inclination towards the cultivation of knowledge, teaching
and writing, and the acquisition of appropriate foods for the body.
None of this is possible without occupying the heart. interaction
with people and educating them is also necessary. But on the other
hand, when the sweetness of supplication in seclusion and
intimate discourse with the Divine is diminished, this creates much
grief and sorrow.
This creates much grief and sorrow, spiritual decline is
unbearable for me, but making ends meet for my dependents stands in
the way of my spiritual progress. I have endured the strains all
through my life and submitted to the will of Allah. I guard myself
against every defilement, and I take care that not a single moment
of my life is spent in any vain efforts. And this is his final
point. He says, Glory be to Allah. If I succeed in my endeavors, I
won't mind
defy fail, however, for the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam has said that the intention of the Faithful is better than his
action.
That is so wonderful. That is just so wonderful that after talking
about this dilemma, juggling all of these ambitions, and all of
these challenges and obstacles in life, he says, well, at least I
have the, I have the intention. And that is what Allah subhanaw
taala will eventually deal with us for because that's where we're
going. Now you can understand how they say in number, that amount
will be niets actions that according to intentions is
supposed to be one of the fundamental narrations among all
generations that we have. Our Deen relies on it is based on it,
because everything is according to intention. Now, this is extremely
eye opening, this is extremely, extremely motivational. So do not
have less ambition, and have lots of ambition, aspire, aspire,
aspire, have high him, you may not be able to do everything at the
end of it. But as long as you've got the pious intentions and you
try for your piety, Allah subhanaw taala will help. Because really,
that's a different world and you may not get what you want in this
world, but you will get greater in the hereafter. That is one of the
most important things that you can learn from him. His sermons
were very powerful. He used to
he was in Baghdad, as you know, which was the double Khilafah it
had some of the best minds of the Muslim ummah of the time, because
people would come from all over, you know, like people come to
study in some of the top universities of the world. So
Baghdad had the new Tamia, the new army college, and he had numerous
other scholars. And in his lectures regularly speaking,
regularly speaking, how many people tend to 15,000? That was
the norm.
Right? And that's not difficult in Baghdad, it's not difficult,
right? In the sense that you've got a whole Muslim city, right,
but still 10 to 15,000 people as a norm in your lectures, there must
be something in your lectures to bring them like that.
That was just minimum, many times it'd be 100,000.
Now, how do you expect people? How do you expect somebody to speak to
100,000 people in those days? There's no microphone, there's no
system like that. I remember, we were in Minar. And we had what
about 150 men and 150 women, right? 300 people approximately.
And if we didn't have the microphone, it'd be very difficult
to get everybody you know, but they had a system in those days
that they would generally be people sitting all around you. You
wouldn't just be necessarily one way it could be that there's
people sitting all around you. And it'd be silent because there's no
noise pollution. Today, we have a lot of noise pollution, we know
that the ACs are on and this is on and that is on and you know,
there's just calmness, your voice will carry further anyway, but
still 100,000 people so that in some places, they had mysteries,
which are people sitting you know, like we have more competing in
Sadat's with iman says Allahu Akbar and somebody says Allahu
Akbar, see, have somebody maybe conveyed the knowledge like that.
But there must have been some it whatever it was for somebody to
speak to 100,000 people, and then for them to even come even though
there is no speaker system, we always complain you in and you
know, generally our messages and our places generally have problems
with the microphone and Hamdulillah this place hasn't so
far. And the Rila you know,
he was a very eloquent speaker, his sermons, they just breathed
the like a tragic urgency in his message, which really brought the
people up, it touched the hearts of his audiences. And
it said that he has aided in the conversion of at least 20,000
Christians and Jew Jews to Islam in those days. 20,000 people he
must have converted. In those days, he aided in that. And in
terms of just people giving up bad life to become really good people.
100,000 people at least took the solemn pledge to lead lead a
virtuous life after listening to his after listening to his
sermons.
If not, Josie is produced a number of great works. That's what he is
today. He is known through his books. So he's got some wonderful
books. One of them is called locatable Moldova ads, which are a
collection of all the Hadith that generally people make quotes or
found in books and so on, but they fabricated narrations, the
spurious narrations that made up narration so he's a great very
critical Hadith scholar right so he's guitar will move to art is
used quite quite in a widespread fashion today. And his other book
which is very famous, it's called the Toby's a bliss. We don't have
time to go into depth about it, but I believe there'll be a bliss
has also been translated into English and that just discusses
the vices
of different classes of society. So vices among business people,
vices among scholars, vices among Sufis, vices among the common folk
vices among leaders, rulers, kings. And he just deals it in a
very open, he's very critical, right? He's known for being very
critical and very harsh, right? And you'd have to take everything
with a pinch of salt, because he is known to be extreme in cases. I
mean, many of the scholars later have said that he's quite extreme,
but there is still a lot to be gained from that. You know, there
is still a lot to be gained from that. He is critiqued scholars and
administrators in his in history's bliss. I mean, they've got
passages, but I'm not going to go through all of them. He's
I'll just, I'll just quote one thing from about what he says
about scholars and the lack of sincerity. He says, if the
students have any scholar leave their teacher to sit at the feet
of another teacher, more learned, and reputed than him, he feels a
burning in his heart, that does not be fit a sincere scholar,
jealousy that we're speaking about. Sincere scholars and
teachers are like physicians, who should treat people simply to
secure Allah's pleasure and contentedly give their blessings
to any other fish physician who is able to cure that patient for
them. That's why one of my teachers, he says, Look, you're in
London, he's in another city. He says we're working together. If
you're working hard, and they support you, then you are doing
the work that I'm doing. One person can't do it all we need
there, there's enough to go around, essentially, there's
enough of a congregation to go around Subhanallah so there should
be no reason for somebody else being more popular, and you being
feeling jealous about that. should be no reason whatsoever. Because
Allah subhanho wa Taala you're complaining about Allah's
allotment to that person.
Just ask Allah for tofi. He points out some weak weakness of the
rulers and administration, he says, besides their persistence in
their wrongful ways, they always also ardently desire to pay a
visit to some pious and godly figure for the purpose of seeking
His blessings in their favor. This is talking about Muslim
communities, even today, in the Muslim countries that we have
some, they just don't care. But in other countries, in some
countries, some leaders, Muslim leaders, they do have this
tradition of inviting the scholars together, sitting with them, even
if it's for whatever it may be asking for their advice, maybe
doing whatever they want afterwards. But if he's asking for
their advice, and I'll see her and things like that, and there's
there's some barakah, in that. That's why, generally, the
countries which do them and they have respect for that, I've seen
that there's some Baraka in that place. Generally, the people love
the skirt. I mean, I don't I don't like to take names today. But
there's one country that I have in mind when when I visited, from the
scholars to the common person on the streets, they all had good
things to say about the leader. So not all Muslim leaders about I
know this kind of becomes some kind of stereotype or something.
You know, what some leaders, we think, and we think they're fair
game to just talk about, but they're not all like that.
So then, what he's saying is that what you have is some people, they
will go to scholars just to feel good factor, to feel that that's
their way of salvation. They do all our homes they want then they
just go to some scholars and or pious people and separate them. So
he says the devil has led them to believe that the solemn
invocations of divine blessings by a godly person will lighten the
burden of their sins.
Now he's saying this in a time when he's living in that society,
under their rule, right, and then he says, this is not so once a
trader whose transport filled with trade goods had been withheld by a
tax collector. He went to the venerated master Maliki bernadina.
Right and requested his help. Marty, given the dinar went to
that collector, right on behalf of that businessman whose things had
been confiscated, unjustly, right, he went to talk to him now
Mulligan the dinar is a well known and well respected. When he went
to the collector, he treated him respectfully. And he the collector
said to him, why did you have to come yourself? You could have just
said I am I want to see you and I would have come to you look at the
respect he gives him.
Thereafter,
he spoke to him about the goods and everything. And the official
ask Marikina dinar to make dua for him.
This is what Monica Medina then said to him. He said, Ask this
purse in which you keep your ill gotten money to pray for you.
Tell your bank balance to pray for you. Right? How can I invoke
blessings for you? When countless people curse you? All these people
are cursing you and you want my dua. What's my dog gonna do for
you? Do you think that Allah will accept the entreaties of a single
individual in preference to the prayers of 1000 or
Those that are praying against you. Now, this is not being harsh.
This is being clear. If a person comes to a scholar or to anybody
with regret, remorse, want to do toma wants to change his life,
then yes, pray for that person.
You understand you're praying for that person. But this is what
you're going to Josie Cortes his story. And he and he mentioned
this, which is in his critique of the masses, right? For us
generally, he says Satan has misled the masses to believe that
attending religious sermons, religious talks, and raising a
whale or a vote or raising a whale or a Whoa, at a highly meritorious
X, you know, when you cry in a barn or something like that, and
the sole purpose of delivering sermons, this is perhaps because
the people have been told about the merits of listening to these
discourses, but they do not know that their aim is should be
reformation of their own souls, and rectification of their
behavior. Nor do they appear to be aware that whatever they listen to
in these lectures, shall be cited as evidence against them on the
Day of Judgment.
And this is the kind of other people who even go, can you
imagine what he'd be saying about us? We don't even go, you know,
out of the whole city, how many people turn on to a program?
Right? Do you understand? So these are people who actually even
making some kind of effort, but you see, he was dealing with his
society. And there is this tradition sometimes is some, in
some places a tradition to carry at the speed review in some
communities in some countries. You see, everybody's got at the speed.
I don't know if they read anything on it, but they carry this display
as part of the gear. Right? It's just nice to have that.
I personally, he says, I personally know people who have
been attending such lectures for a number of years. They get excited
and hearing the sermons and burst into tears.
But they persist in accepting interest. Cheating, others in
their trade, remain remaining unmindful of religious duties,
that Miss prayers are other times and disobeying their parents, but
they're in every lecture there is. Satan has led them to believe that
their presence at these sermons, then lamentations and fits of
crying, will atone for their neglected duties and the sins of
omission and commission. They there are also others who think
that accompanying a pious and godly man are paying visits to
them shall be enough to expiate their sins. Then we go to a sable
heart, and I've already read you a few few points from his single
heart. What's a little heart is essentially like a blog, a modern
form of Twitter, Facebook, all put together, but very substantial. So
they're just these
really disjointed thoughts. He writes some, some, some of them
are two pages long, some half page, some a few liners. And what
he's doing essentially, is that he's looking at things like people
do today, they find a nice shoe in the, in the window of a shoe, so
Oh, look at that nice shoe and they send you a picture. Well, his
is a bit different. He's not like that, right?
Some people say, Oh, look at the food today, you know, all these
kind of weird things that people post on Twitter and Facebook and
just try to pass their time and fill up their pages, right and get
likes. His is obviously not like that. His is like a substantial,
substantial benefits in what he says in there. He's frankly,
admitting his mistakes, how he used to think about something. And
then he found out it was a delusion from the shape and he
shouldn't have thought about that. He is very open. And this really,
really helps anybody who wants to really understand their deen and
especially scholars, anybody in general to really understand
because we go through these kinds of dilemmas, that dilemmas we go
through, about righteousness, about how can Barton, about halal
and haram, although our things we're dealing with have changed,
but the dilemma and the morality there is still generic, it's still
the same and in all human beings, you know, we are the same
regardless of where we, you know, regardless of when we appear in
this world, in terms of that, so
he speaks about his own mental and emotional states, his social
experiences, and he relates the wisdom that he learns from certain
trials and tribulations, the rough and tumble of life, his dealings
with with others, his dealings with women, with other friends,
with servants, with the rich, and and so on and so forth.
The outstanding feature of this book, I don't think has been
translated, right. But the outstanding feature of this book
is this immaculate sincerity and simplicity. And it's also
literature, his writing style and so on. On one occasion, he says
that I saw two laborers. Do you know there's a construction going
on, and he sees two laborers, picking up a large beam
And while they're picking it up, he says that I saw them singing.
You know, they're singing something while they're picking it
up. So, for us big deal, you know, but what he did was he thought
about it, why do they sing?
You know, why they see why do you think to people picking up
something heavy will be singing? Right? Something to think about?
Okay, I'll give you the answer to this one. But you should think
about these things. Right? Then you can become an igloo Josie.
Okay. How old are you now?
You're eight. Very good, you still got time? Right? We are losing our
time, you still got time in Java. Okay.
So
he says that, by singing, the laborers make their work easier.
On further reflection,
that he says, I thought that if they did not do so they would have
a greater consciousness of their exertion, their mind will be on
the wait. On further reflection, I found that by engaging themselves
in singing, the minds of the laborers get a little respite.
Because everything is connected to the mind. They busy themselves in
another mental work for a short duration. Thus they refresh
themselves.
The diversion also decreases the consciousness of the burden by
drawing their attention away from the exertion of their work. And
that's why then he says, My attention was diverted from this
scene to the burden of responsibilities and obligations
of the sharing that we have. I thought that perhaps the
consciousness of these obligations constitutes a very heavy burden on
man, you know, I have to do this, I have to pray this, I have to
keep 31st This, that and the other. It's it is a burden at the
end of the day, right? It is a mental burden that we have to do
things and be careful and don't eat from here. You know, don't
dress like this. Don't show this. Don't do this. Don't speak like
this, we have all of these burdens. So he says that I arrived
at a conclusion that one should cover the path of endurance by
giving oneself unnecessary risk bites. And by allowing the
consciousness to refresh itself, by yielding to lawful pleasures.
So there's some people who get so extreme in their worship that they
have no time for anything else. I've spent so many years messing
around now, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that. No,
they should. Halal entertainment is allowed. Right. Another story,
he says,
is a story about Bashar Al haffi. Another one of the great
aesthetics of the past, he was going somewhere with a friend.
The friend became thirsty.
And he asked Vishal to wait a bit so that he could go and find water
in a well somewhere.
Now taking that detour, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it
is, it's going to take time off your journey. So instead of that,
what bishop said to him was,
wait until we get to the next well, because they know that there
was a well in this area, there's a well in the area, you have to kind
of take a detour. It's like this service station. Do we stop at
this one, too. So the next one, now let's do the next one. Let's
do the next one. Right after they had covered a considerable
different distance, Bishop told his friend, that the life in this
earthly world is also a journey which can be completed in the
similar manner
with the difficulties, right? In truth, whoever is aware of the
fact eluded by visual console himself, cheer it up when it's in
distress and assault assured of lowering the burdens so that it
may bear the weight of its responsibilities. If you start
taking too many holidays. Every holiday come your children get
used to it now they want you to take off in spring and in
Christmas, you know the winter holidays. And if you don't go in
summer as well as a we haven't been anywhere. Man, you just went
in spring, you just went in April SubhanAllah. So we get spoiled.
Now tell them to compare themselves with others in their
school, probably you haven't even been out of the city, you know,
but this is what it is we get spoiled. Sometimes another pious
muster of the past bias either be stormy once said, I used to lead
and this is very important. This one I used to lead my whaling self
flooded with tears, tears towards Allah. I used to force it to go to
a lice to be crying. No, you have to wake up at night. You have to
do this decal, you have to spend this this number of hours I used
to lead my wailing soul flooded with tears towards Allah. Then it
gradually became familiar with the way and then began to forge ahead
cheerfully. So you have to do things difficult with difficulty
first, you think this is going to come easy. It's just going to be
like that. No, Allah wants to test us. So this is a wonderful
statement. It shouldn't so ignore. Josie says it should thus be
remembered that it is absolutely necessary to console and enliven
the self so that it may bear its burden patiently. He speaks a lot
to himself, not outwardly like a madman, but he's right
a lot about his conversations. I'm going to try to read to you at
least one of these conversations because they're very helpful. For
example, He says once, once I acted on a legal opinion on a on a
fatwa, right, which was upheld by certain schools of jurisprudence,
but rejected by others, meaning Some said it was okay. But others
said, No, we have this dilemma all the time. All right. I, I acted
upon it, meaning I took the lenient view, however, I felt
uneasiness in my heart. See, this is a sound heart, it will feel
uneasy about these things.
caused me great spiritual contraction. I felt as if I was
rejected from the Divine Court.
And anger showered down upon me with a deepening sense of loss and
suddenness. I felt as if my own self was asking me. Now he's
talking to himself. You didn't act against you didn't really act
against the advice of the jury. So it is most these who have given
that fatwa, what's your problem? I mean, these are learned people. We
hear this all the time today, right? They also learned people
you can't you know, they're the people of Taqwa as well. They have
their studies. Why then? So his self is telling him you didn't act
against the advice of these jurists? Why then, is there this
feeling of deprivation? So then I replied, Oh, my knifes my minus
Amara, my insinuating self. I have two answers to your questions.
First, you turn aside from the teaching of your own school.
Right, the humbly school.
If you had been asked to pronounce a legal opinion on this question,
if you'd been asked a fatwa from somebody else, you would not have
advised him to do this.
So then he says,
I would not have acted on it interjected himself, if I had not
considered it lawful. You know, because this is self telling him
but I only did it because he still have, you know, maybe mcru, or
whatever it is, right? But it may have been hallelujah, and we're
not talking about Halal haram. We're talking about better or not
better here in this case. I replied, No, you would not even
advise others to act likewise, you would not have allowed others to
do that. And the second reason I added is that you should be happy
over the gloom, you have experience for had you not been
already favored with illumination, you have not have felt this loss.
The reason why you're feeling bad about this, of doing some mcru
like this is because you've had illumination before. Now the light
has dimmed in your heart. So that's what you're thinking about.
So you should be happy anyway. Don't try to justify it, you
should be happy, right?
And then he says, But I dislike the gloom coming over me replied
the self, the self is acting on both sides says then you should
make up your mind to give up the disputed act. I said, you think
that he has made lawful, you think that it has been made lawful
through consensus of opinion, still, you should decide to
renounce it simply out of the fear of Allah. Then he says the self
was then saved from spiritual decline and gloominess after it
had acted so.
So this is a personal dilemma that he speaks about, which we can find
a lot of benefit in.
Ignore Josie really, really like to study the biographies of
others. That's why he says that, to benefit from others. You need
to read their biographies. You learn a lot about their lead the
way they're leading their life because what essentially the pious
people are
practical
role models of what the Quran and Sunnah is if you want to see how
Quran and Sunnah is lived out. Right? You will read the
biographies of the pious individuals and you see how they
process these a hadith and Quranic injunctions and lead their life
with the challenges that they have. That's how we can benefit
from it. If you've just got raw Quran and Hadith that you're
trying to learn from, that is inspirational, but then this
should go with it, just to give us some supplementary practical
knowledge of it. That's why he wrote in depth biographies of
Hassane bacillary amadablam Abdulaziz Sofia and authority,
Ibrahim, Adham Bishal haffi, Ahmed immuno humble and maruf karate, so
our biggest people of that time. In addition to this, he also wrote
a four volume Compendium called suffer to suffer, suffer to
suffer. It's for volumes of the lives of starting from Sahaba and
then down of the great people. And what this book is really is that
there's a person before him a boon or amo ispahani, who wrote the
Hillier tool, Olia Hillier to earlier this was a much more
extensive.
You can say biographies and heart rending stories of the great
people of the past. However, it was filled with
quite a few weak narrations and so on. So YBNL, Josie, he's done this
also with this book, where he is kind of summarized it and taken
what he thought was the, you know, the Sahai part of it. He's also
done the same thing with Imam Hassan is a haomei. Dean. He's
written,
I forget the name of Islam in hydro Cassadine, or something like
that, an abbreviated version. So he loved the book. But then he
realized, according to him, that there were some issues in there.
So he tried to do that.
Another thing he mentioned in his title, Khartoum, you know, I
mentioned that he was a great orator.
So at one point, in time, he started thinking that his speech
was all artificial. But the reason why he has all of these crowds, is
because
of the style of words, his rhetoric, his poetry that he that
he includes. And he thinks it's not from the heart, and it's just
artificial, because he says, people are coming to listen to the
words.
So it's all artificial. So he gave up doing that for a while.
He used to do some simple, like speeches without using any speech
techniques. And he realized that, then he started thinking further.
And he said, No, this was a wrong move. To me. This is shaytaan.
Making me feel like that. Because at the end of the day, sincerity
is what matters.
Sincerity is what matters. Yes, if a person is doing this artificial
stuff, in a premeditated way, just to invite people, but he doesn't
have any sincerity, then it's wrong. But if his main thing is
sincerity. And similarly, he says that more than once, many times
over the course of his life, he felt like giving up working with
the people teaching and resign his life to seclusion, resigned his
life to meditation. But, again, he thought for a very long time, and
he won himself over
by arguing with himself, that it seems like this was a suggestion
hinted at by shaytaan, who did not like to see the 1000s of people
who would be carried away by his eloquence towards the path of
moral and spiritual reformation. April, Josie, finally, he dies on
a Friday night
597 Hijiri, which was 12,001. So you can put that in perspective,
about 800 years ago, the entire population over and over over 1000
years, obviously, the entire population of Baghdad suspended
its work to attend this funeral prayer.
That's big. That's big. Because you know, but that was so big that
when the Titus came about a century or two later, they killed
in Baghdad alone, a million people.
They killed in Baghdad alone, a million people. Right. So can you
imagine how many people were there? Right. So when we're
talking about giving you that understanding, and it says Mr.
Muhammad no humble some centuries before,
to his
funeral came 800,000 people, and 60,000 40,000 women.
Women don't generally go out for janazah. But they felt moved to
come out 40,000 women, and 800,000 people, as nearly a million people
came out for his now in this case, Baghdad is bigger now. Imam,
Muhammad, Baghdad, Imam, Ahmed Ibrahim El Paso in around 256, or
something of that nature around that time. 240 something, right.
So we're talking about good 250 years, 300 350 years afterwards.
But that was big at this time. This the Abbas in Baghdad, right?
And the entire population of Baghdad suspended its work. And
the janazah was held at the Grand Mosque of Mizzou.
It was a memorable day says in the city, numerous people we just
found crying weeping for the departed teacher. Because if
100,000 People used to come, you can tell his popularity you would
have had
I don't know how many million Twitter supporters and Facebook,
you know, friends and you know, you know what I mean, in terms of
today's way of looking at these things. It was Ramadan, and the
historians report that quite a few inhabitants of Baghdad spent the
entire night for the rest of the month at his grave offering
prayers and reciting the Quran for the peace of his soul. That's true
recognition.
That after somebody goes, somebody is still willing to make the offer
them. That's really what matters. And if it wasn't for all of that,
why would we be sitting here speaking about him? He is not some
kind of obscure person that I dug out of history his way
well known, an absolute inspiration. Unfortunately, we
don't have the time to go into much more of his life. But every,
every book of his is wonderful in that sense. He was a humbly as I
mentioned, he was a humbly scholar, while Hamdulillah he was
protected from the extreme of some of the other humbly scholars of
his time, in terms of the secret of Allah in terms of the
attributes of Allah subhanaw taala. In fact, he wrote a book
called The Pharaoh Shiva Hitoshi, which speaks about, and it's
actually been translated into English as well. The attributes of
God, I think it's called, it speaks about how the other
scholars of his own school at the time went into accesses about the
way they dealt with the suffering of Allah subhanaw taala. And he
points out their problems, and so on and so forth. How the Teach
seem, the corporatism and the anthropomorphism that was going on
right at the time. There's a very balanced in that sense, yes, he is
known for his extreme critic, his critique, and his criticism, and
his the way he is Hadith judgment is, but Subhanallah the amount of
knowledge that he has brought together, he has an element of an
element of which is this voluminous work on the Hadith
scholars, right. I didn't speak about that in too much depth. And
in there he has collected the stories, the biographies of
numerous individuals that if you're a hadith scholar you you
could use this book to understand who the narrators are, is said
this great man, may Allah subhanaw taala bless him. May Allah
subhanaw taala bless the city that he was from because Baghdad is
unfortunately suffering today, suffering today suffering today,
and we have so many great people who have been buried in Baghdad
alone, so many great people from mouthful querque to Imam Abu
Hanifa to Amber Dibner humble to
numerous, numerous other Abdul Qadir jeelani, numerous people,
and unfortunately today it's not safe, it's not safe. May Allah
subhanaw taala bring back, bring back the Kalamata ilaha illallah
and let it be elevated and Grant peace and understanding to the
people who are there working with that one and if Hamdu lillahi
rabbil aalameen