Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Imam Sha’rani’s Code of Companionship Series Life of Imam Sha’rani
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Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa
Salatu was Salam o Arlen libera. roofie Ramadan de Lara Alameen WA,
he will be abarca was seldom at the Sleeman cathedral EULA Yomi.
Dean about
the book we're about to cover in Sharla is called
Anwar fee Adobe software.
Which means
Anwar means the lights. So the whole idea here is to show the
light.
And mentioned the etiquettes of companionship with others. So
although the primary reason for speaking about this companionship
is how one can benefit from others, and then inshallah benefit
others, so one is to sit with good company,
and to benefit from righteous people, from righteous groups of
people,
and sit with them how to best benefit from them, and then
inshallah benefit others.
So the reason why this book was written was as the author
mentions, that the way he says it, it could be open to two
interpretations, uses the word batalla.
The word batalla, as in Arabic, there's many terms in Arabic,
which seem to there's many words in Arabic, which can be used for
the positive and for the negative, the same word can be used for a
positive idea. And the same word can be used for a negative idea.
And batalla is one of those words. So bathala Betula, one of it is to
be positive, to be invalid,
to be idle, to be useless, to be ineffective.
And to be redundant, that's one meaning have to be bought in
batalla. That's what it means. But other would mean idleness to be
ineffective, nothing.
But
Batala can also mean, in fact, if you look at the modern
usage of the term, it's about heroism to be a hero. So it's
totally opposite of being idle, to be a hero to get up and do
something. So Arabic has this ability to and you might be
wondering, well, how do you determine whether it's a positive
or a negative meaning? Generally, that's done with context. There's
many words like that in Arabic. In fact, as you know, Arabic is
mostly written without vowels. And you have to try to figure out what
exactly this word is saying. But once you get used to it, you
understand the method of the language, it's quite easy to
figure these things out. However, the way he uses this word here, as
we will cover when we actually start the book, he says that
batata has pushed me to write this work.
The reason I wrote this book is because of batalla. Now, what does
that mean? Is it because of chivalry, it's only common decency
to write about this, it's necessary for me to write about
this. That's the
demand of the time to write about this.
Some would say, that is what he meant. Yet, there's other people
who've explained this book and said, No, he doesn't mean that.
He's actually referring to the fact that what he saw of the
people of his time,
he saw a lot of Bacala, among the scholars of his time.
Among the Elector of his time, which is idleness, they've learned
so much they've studied so much, but they don't practice. Now,
people who are not scholars should not think that they have a clear
ticket here. And all the blame is on the scholars. If that's the
case with the scholars, that generally is a reflection of the
community. It's generally a reflection of the committee. If
the scholars sit down and become idle, then everybody will sit down
and become idle.
If everybody sits down and becomes useless and redundant, they don't
act according to their knowledge. Then if the scholars do that, then
non scholars will also do that because nobody's there to
encourage them. People just need an excuse.
So
there's no doubt that he's looking at his contemporaries. And he
feels that people have maybe spent a lot of time in learning and
remember, this is the time after a rich period in Egypt.
He's he's in Egypt. He's in Egypt, he entered Egypt,
rather Cairo. Cairo is the center of Islamic Studies at the time.
The different areas have had this honour of being the place where
knowledge and science is being studied and analyzed and lots of
new research is coming to the fore. Baghdad, Damascus
Egypt. Cairo was one of these places so initially, Allah Masha
Irani was somewhere else he was outside in the reef.
reef of missa, which is Upper Egypt, the side side of misery,
then he came into Cairo and that's where he bended Andre scholars
This is he was when he was quite young.
He was born in 890 Something so just towards the end of that
century, Imam suity died in 911 911 Hijiri. So he met so ut as
a, as an as a small as a as a child he met so youth.
But that's the time when you had some great scholars in Egypt line
of Greek scholars had just passed and produced and contributed to
the sciences of Hadith and fiqh and Tafseer, and many, many other
sciences. So he came in, there's a lot of buzz, there's a lot of
activity down there. So he came in benefited from all of that. But
what he did see was that a lot of people did study, there were a lot
of aroma, but he felt that they were idle, they were ineffective.
They weren't doing the work. So can you imagine the state of the
scholars of this time and the people of this time, that's why
you see that the Muslim world is on fire right now, with constant
problems throughout.
So Mr. Shah Rouhani, he generally define this term in other places
as not acting by the knowledge that you have Batala to be bound
to, to be ineffective and useless if you don't act by the knowledge
that we have. And each one of us is required to increase our
knowledge and then to act by that knowledge, and may Allah give us
the Tofik because knowledge without practice is like a bee
without honey.
What does a bee do that without Honey, if it's not producing
benefit and honey, then it's going to go and sting someone.
The only other thing can do is harm people. So that's why if it's
not producing honey, it's not busy with the production of honey, what
else is he going to do? It's going to die out, nothing's gonna happen
to it.
So
the topic of this book is about encouraging good companionship,
because he believes that to learn closeness to Allah subhanaw taala
to get true piety and righteousness for the majority of
people. The only way to do it is by the way that has been shown by
Rasulullah Salallahu Salam in his time
who are the most famous people of Rasulullah sallallahu I use in
this time,
the Sahaba and they call the sahaba.
They are called the Sahaba Sahabi which comes from the same term
which is Sapna. His books name is Adela Surah, Surah. Al Anwar, he
added is some of the traits of companionship, the etiquette of
companionship. So he's saying that this is a terroir that we have,
this is a heritage, that we have an inheritance from the time of
the sahaba. So that's why they're called Sahaba. Because they stayed
in the company, companionship, Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, the tambellini, not only called the tambourine because they
followed the Sahaba and stayed in their companionship.
But they can't call them Sahaba as well, because that would be
confusing. So they call them Tabby in followers successes instead,
and then and so on, and this has been the tradition. So he reckons
that the way to connect knowledge and action together is by
witnessing it, staying in the company of the righteous and the
pious. And thus you learn you get that environment to learn this in
and that's why Allah subhanaw taala says in the Quran, in fact,
it's a command in the Quran Allah says yeah, you will. Lavina you
Alina, amen, tequila.
Yeah, you will Edina taco Lucha Kulu. Masada
are people who believe fear Allah
and be with the truthful ones, truthful not just by their tongue,
but truthfully in action,
who have really shown Allah the truth that I am a truthful
individual, in my behavior as well, in my connection with you.
So Samba is the practical way that we take someone to purifying the
heart,
purifying the heart,
shedding the blameworthy traits, purifying the blameworthy traits
and calamities from it
to take on the adornment of the righteous
people that we read about
it is the way by which the believers heart is strengthened.
And a believers reliance in Allah subhanaw taala increases.
And the best of people are those who treat others with affection,
and who themselves are treated with affection.
Whether and the Prophet sallallahu sallam said and mocked me no
matter what or how you're a female liar, they follow you.
The believer is a place of affection. The way he deals with
others. It's an affectionate way. That's his behavior. That's his
His way of doing things and he's such that people will also deal
with him with affection. They don't run a mile from they don't
want to speak to him, or you know, they he's not such that they don't
want to speak to him at all.
So, a poet says alchemy is not that stones become silver pieces.
But that darkness in a person's heart to darkness from around us,
is removed by the light that comes in.
Because if light shines and takes away the darkness and the miseries
and the worries,
then that is superior to stones becoming silver pieces. So who is
this author that writes about this? Nobody, anybody who studied
any kind, the heritage of spirituality in Islam, the soul of
Sufism, whatever you want to however you want to turn this
field, they are anybody who studied Egypt for the last several
100 years. He is one of the big scholars of Egypt, one of the big
scholars of vision Allah Mashallah. And he has written
numerous, I was totally amazed when I just read what kind of
studies he'd undertaken. It's just kind of borders on the
impossibility. You know, it's kind of amazing. So his name is Abu
Mohammed that's his title. Abdul Wahab ignore a shower army Shalabi
famous scholars in Egypt called SHA Ravi,
the author sha Allah and the same thing SHA Ravi Shalini they use
either a chef or a sous chef or in his shower vide in his to solve
another mystery that Egyptian what what happened with his family was
that his family came through telemedicine. Telemedicine is a
place in Algeria. And it's kind of very interesting these days that
how Allah subhanaw taala gives honor to certain places for
certain times, in certain centuries for certain periods of
time. There's a great honor of a place everybody wants to go there.
It becomes very famous. And then suddenly, it no longer remains
this famous till him son several 100 years ago, was known. That was
the place of the machine if there was a boom at the end of the great
the Great's worry of Allah was there. Numerous scholars came
through numerous pious Olia came from tell him son, today.
Brothers, do you know anything about Algeria? Do you know about
any scholarship from Algeria? Do you know anything about what do
you know about Algeria today, unfortunately, you will be talking
about the civil war that took place where they voted for an
Islamic government. And it was the army overturned it. And the next
10 years saw gruesome killings and murders and things of that nature,
massive civil war. Now there's some semblance of stability, but
still a very militant militant government that's there. You don't
really hear about much scholarship, that Jazz at scholars
that you hear you hear about today, are living in other
countries like Saudi Arabia and other places. Allah subhanho wa
Taala provides different places with these things. So ajeeb
Baghdad has had that great, Baghdad is a place of amazing,
amazing, amazing audio. Unfortunately, today, it's
difficult to visit and difficult to to visit these, you know, to
see these places. Damascus, again, another place totally surrounded.
May Allah subhanaw taala protect these areas.
Egypt has gone through its stages as well. And you have many, many
places like that. So his family, some of his ancestors had settled
first in tilam son,
his grandfather, there was one grandfather of his whose name was
Sheikh Musa in Minnesota and Muhammad.
He was the one who met this great shakable Medina.
There's some great books about Sheikh Mohammed and the wedding of
ALLAH. So he stayed in his company, and he was nurtured by
shakable media and he benefited greatly from him. He took his
spiritual path from him, he had all of his tarbiyah and all of his
spiritual education and understanding was, was through a
boom idea. And then a boom at the end sent him to Egypt, that you
should go and help the people that to Upper Egypt aside of misery, as
they call it, Upper Egypt. Egypt is a very strange place. Upper
Egypt is actually southern Egypt, because you have
you have Cairo and then above that, to the north to the
Mediterranean, you have Alexandria, these are the two main
cities of Egypt today. And you have some cities in between like
them and rude and matura and other other cities. But when you go down
south, that's where you get places like Taha from where Imam Taha he
was from a suit
which is a famous city in Egypt. It was a major town during the
Crusades as well. This is where nama suity is from. So this is all
southern Egypt, but they call Upper Egypt because that's the
Upper Nile. Egypt, I think if there's one country which
everybody knows about, it's Egypt, Egypt ology with all the Pharaoh,
you know, the Pharaonic heritage. And that is quite an amazing,
quite an amazing fact. If there was any country that we learned
about first because we had a geography teacher who was an
Egyptologist, that's probably Egypt. It's got so much culture so
much heritage starts off with the Pharaonic goes into Amrit Blosser
the Allah one was the first one to conquer Egypt and bring them to
the hands of the Muslim mean. So you have his great Masjid called
the masjid of amaranth NAS. Of course, it's much bigger than it
was at that time, but that's where Kairos that's where Egypt started.
Cairo started there. Right, which is kind of south of the city right
now. Then you have other dynasties that came in and took over. For
example, the two reunions they ruled Egypt for a while so you
have the blow to loon musk, he was the capital of the two unit
empire. Then after that, you have the Fatimids. The ethnology, the
Shiites is my default teammates who ruled much of that area at
that time they don't want to establish the first university
which is Azada was established by them, they were shear. The seventh
is the bowtie knights. So they you have the 14th you have their kings
palaces and masjids and so on and so forth. So you have the heritage
from that time. You have the heritage from the Hmong loop time
from the Seljuk time from Muhammad Ali Basha, you have the ottoman.
So you have like seven eight like that, then you have
would you call it you have a number of others that I can't even
recall at this point in time, you have about seven to 10 dynasties
that have ruled and they've left the remnants down there. That's
why they say that Cairo is a city of 1000 minarets.
There's Masjid all over the place. Sometimes massages next to each
other. You go behind the US or in front of the other into the
gullies and you'll see some huge complexes, huge complexes
sometimes the messages are next to each other is the Sultan has an
under refer you must right opposite each other literally. May
Allah subhanaw taala fill them up again once once again may Allah
fill them up and have the place blazing with its nor.
So you can see that this is a place of great heritage and any
scholar that came from there, you can understand that there must
have been they must have got the best of what was available at the
time. But anyway, initially his great great grandfather, he
settled in outside of Cairo, in the in Upper Egypt and their
family. It hails from Mohammed YBNL Hannah via who knows who
Muhammad Abdul Hanafi is
Mohammed YBNL Hannah Thea
he is
right he is the son of it are the Allah one the kind of lesser known
son not from Fatima that's why he's said Mohammed Abdullah Hanafi
Mohammed the son of Hanafi are another way for value of the Allah
one because I literally alone was married to Fatima out of the
Allahu anha party one of the Allah one had passed away within six
months after Rasul Allah Lawson passed away. I needed the Allah
and married others after that. So Hannah Thea, so this was his son,
he had Hassan and Hussein from 14, one of the that's where you get
the seeds in the short offer. But then there's another descendant
line of descendants from him, which is from Mohammed dibutyl
Hanif here, and this family comes from HumbleBundle Hanafi from
annually Allah one. So he's a Qureshi and a Hashimi in that
sense. Still a Qureshi and a Hashimi in the general tribe?
He was born in particular, he was born in 898, Hijiri 898. So how
many years are we speaking about? What 500 years?
So about 500 years ago, 898. He was born in the in the village of
his forefathers, and his father, his father passed away very early
on nine, nine of seven. So he was what? How old? Was he? Nine years,
nine years old?
Yes, he was nine years old. He was born in 898 907 was when his
father passed away. So he's about nine years old at this time. His
mother also passed away very soon after that. Then that family moved
to Cairo in 911. The year city passed away.
That's the only monsoon he passes away. 911. So they moved to Cairo
in 911, from Upper Egypt, at the age of 12. He was by then around
12 years old when he moved, and there he was brought up as an
orphan. But now this is the great thing. Subhanallah we have so many
people I mean that this is the Sunnah in a sense because the
profit center lorrison is brought up as an orphan, but look what he
achieved.
Look what he achieved. Generally speaking, single parent families,
orphans, they don't
unfair to well, but there are so many examples of success. There
are so many successful examples. And Shalini is definitely one of
them and our school allah sallallahu Sallam is another one.
So from a young age, he comes to Cairo, huge scholars around, he
gets into studying he first memorizes the Quran memorizes
numerous other texts of fic and Hadith and others by heart, some
of the books or even logic and so on, he was memorizing, by heart
Telkomsel miftah in the memorize that by heart as well, for their
own Ummah, who know that. Then he moved on to studying the lengthy
commentaries and the bigger books, the mob suits, the bigger books,
the commentaries, and the larger books, he starts studying them.
When I just read the list of tuxedos that he has read, that he
has studied.
I just was absolutely astonished. Like, just studying one of those
major tough series of 789 10 volumes from cover to cover isn't
achievement today. You know, how many people do know who've read
the whole of Sierra Tabari?
Right, which is about 20 Something volumes, or even if you took a
theory from cover to cover, he's Objective C.
Even though cathedra is not that big, it's about four volumes.
But still, these are big things. Most people use them as references
today rather than actually read through them. And he read through
at least 25 C's. Some of them are two volumes and three volumes, and
others are 50 volumes and some even 100 volumes and he read them
all.
And just that much that if you just look at the theory that he
read and studied. It's amazing.
It's absolutely amazing.
So he studied at least 20 to 25 volume in a series of the Quran.
Then he studied a number of Hadith collections, the actual Hadith
collections themselves. Then he studied the major commentaries on
those Hadith collections. So if I just give you the example of
Buhari when he studied sahih al Bukhari, he started studying the
commentaries on Sahil Buhari, for example, on Sahil Buhari, he read
the commentaries of ignore hudgell The Federal body, the factual body
is about 18 volumes and not an easy read. Very complex.
It really opens up Sahil Bukhari and explains it. You know, they
teach Sahil Buhari in one year in the many of the modalities, but
it's very difficult to teach every single Hadith and studied
carefully, you know, you have to rush through some of them because
it's you got so many you only have so much time.
He was just literally locked away reading all of these things he was
studying. He was in a masjid where he was studying with one of his
teachers. And that's where he was he was away from people just
studying just focus, focus, focus, just study, study study.
He read the commentaries of factual body kilimani, Burma, we,
ami, another 18 Volume commentary, cluster learning, among other
commentaries as well then I don't I'm not mentioning the
commentaries on Muslim that here at Sahih Muslim that you read the
commentaries of Novi, and chickens, Zachary, Yemen, Saudi
and numerous others.
And it says that he had a very good contact that was able to get
all of these books for him, because in those days, it wasn't
easy to get books. Now. Now, nowadays, you nowadays within the
last 10 years, you can actually search online, you get PDFs of
most of these books.
You know, somebody scan them, the Alexandria library in Egypt is in,
in Alexandria, it's a massive library. They have this
project to scan.
Huge number of books
that are published. And there's there's many of these websites
that include a lot of these books nowadays.
In those days, these books used to be handwritten.
And you know, it was expensive to have them written to get them but
somehow Allah subhanaw taala gave him a contract, where he was able
to get this. Now, this is I just to give you an example, in every
subject, this is what he did. He did this in fifth. The kinds of
books that he studied in fifth Allah Shafi works, the big and
small, it's not a joke. He didn't just study three Shafi cookbooks
and now call himself a Mufti. You know, he studied 10s of books in
shutter effect
in sural film in fatawa, this range of fatawa he studied books
on set our numerous books he read in logo and language. There was
one Arabic
lexicon, Arabic
lexicon, which he read about 20
At times,
so you can see his mastery over the Arabic language.
Today you have to specialize. You can't do everything. But this was
a time when the baraka somehow you were able to do lots of things. I
will I'm spending some time on this because I want people to
understand that we have a heritage, we have a legacy. And
this is just one scholar among those that you didn't even know
about. So can you imagine the likes of Azhar Lee and even with
Amy and others that people do know about Sharon? Yeah. How many of
you had heard of Chardonnay before this?
Come on at least one hand? Okay. 123. There you go. Yeah. So we
have a few people who've heard about Shara Annie, can you then
imagine the people that were well known? The people like like,
ignore Hydroflask, Kalani and others who people know more than
Shah Ronnie. So I just wanted to give you an idea about this in
Sierra. He read a number of books. There's one which is called a
Sierra Halaby, which the Sierra Shamia was considered to be one of
the most comprehensive books on Sierra because it's based on 100
books. He also read that one and he read a number of other series,
the famous series of ignoring shaman, so many other tidy books
that he read, when it comes to the books of the soul, of
spirituality. He he here he ran all of them MK Abu Talib and maki
Scootaloo nourishment of the hearts
imamo has to be is a rehire a boon or aims Hillier Haney is a massive
book a little earlier. It's a story of the of the Olia hundreds
of stories 1000s of stories of the earlier and you know, big book,
Henrietta earlier crocheted is Resava. So what are these allawah
Our riffle mirdif rezaul is here. You know how many scholars today
are they will read the whole of the haomei Deen which is in about
five six volumes.
Bahama desert he decided to new humare is mineral Mina Hara is
mana Azusa in CA Chinese for Sue's custody Charbel Iman not be happy
custody another one. Some of these we haven't even heard about Alia
and all of Alia fees books then he also read hypnotherapist for to
heart, which is a bit of a controversial work, which he then
abridged and cleared of all the interpolations that he thought
were found in it.
So he did an abridgment of the work.
So this was a highly study, studious, productive scholar.
Believe me if if if any scholar can read all of these books in
just one subject today, they would think it's an achievement.
Reading just one complete series and achievement today.
Because we have we're so busy with so many other things.
That was the simple life.
He that's what he was focused on. He didn't care about other
pretenses and other other honors and things of that nature. Now
remember, he was in Cairo. This was the time of the Ottoman
caliphate, which was being ruled from Istanbul, from Turkey. So on
one occasion that the Hadith of the Muslim in the Muslim world
that time Sudan, saline Sudan Selim as they say, he visited
Cairo. Now this was like an eighth day for the Sultan to have visited
Cairo, this became like an eighth day didn't happen often. It was
all the dignitaries all the great Allah MA and all of these people
were out there visiting the king, Shah, Ronnie,
prefer to stay in the shadows. He stayed in his area. Now, he was
not a person unknown. He was very renowned at that time for his
knowledge and his piety.
So the Sultan, recommend, you know when rule is no who are the big
people of each city and town, they keep tabs. That's why the rulers,
they can't be silly. They they keep abreast of all of these
things. They know what's going on. There are certain countries in the
west and Muslim countries, they don't even they don't even
encourage scholarship in their countries. That's why you have so
few scholars from around from from their own population, from their
own citizens. All the scholars are important. And they cannot speak
whatever they want. They have to speak you have to give the hotbar
that's produced by the state. That's why those countries have
been called the refrigerator of the other man, Alma freezer, big
scholars from different parts of them, they go there, they become
Imams, and they can't do anything but give small, small lectures or
whatever. They can't teach what they want. Because the government
does not want anybody to become so popular that it would threaten
them.
The idea is to keep peace. The idea is to keep peace. There's
some there's some countries who have a tradition of scholarship so
they can't help it.
So if you look at Saudi Arabia, for example,
They've got scholars like Latifi, and others who are very popular.
The government definitely does probably feel threatened by these
individuals. But they can't do much because they're their own
citizens. They do end up like Jose V and others, they do end up going
to prison once in a while. But you just have to understand the psyche
of what's going on here. And this is not just the case of today.
This has always been the case, this has always been the case. And
that's why the majority of scholars have always preferred to
just do their work without challenging because that's the
safe way. If everybody was to challenge it could become a
rebellion. There's very few who actually challenged and got away
with it. Like the likes of Imam Muhammad, you know, humble is the
dean of the of the tsunami is probably the boldest scholar that
I've read about, who actually did what he did and was not persecuted
while he was imprisoned for a while. But he was able to just go
in and say what he wanted, and he still got away with it. Because
that's how he managed to get to the hearts of the rulers. He was
just an IG personality. He was in Egypt as well, at one time.
Anyway, the salam became aware that Sharon is not around, he did
not come to visit. So he himself went to visit him in his retreat.
to the amazement of all of those who witnessed this. Everybody was
out there to visit the king. And the king goes to visit Shalini.
And everybody's totally amazed by this state.
You can't put this on. You know, you can't say I'm not going to go,
he's going to come to me. That's just not going to happen. That's
pride. That's arrogance. Allah subhanho wa Taala doesn't allow
that to happen. When you are so humble and when your soul must
study, which means you're so independent of anything in your
focus is directly on Allah subhanho wa taala. Then these
kinds of things happen. It has to be true piety and true reliance
and trust in Allah. That's why the main governor of the area whose
name was Ali Bhatia, Ali Bhatia, once he came to him, he and he was
going to go to Turkey to Istanbul to visit the Salif. So maybe as a
favor or whatever the case is, he came to shake Shalabi Shalini and
he said to him that I've got a position with the Khalifa and I'm
very close to the Helene. I've got contacts with him. Right? If
you've got any need, if you have any hedge if you have any
requirement from your let me know, basically saying that I'll put in
a good word for you if there's something that you need.
Oh, yeah, give me this big land. I need to build a mother so I need
to build this. I need a bigger build house. So this that and the
other No, you know what he said? Allahu Akbar. He said, Do you have
any need with Allah? Do you have any need with Allah were very
close to his presence. So you're trying to intercede for me to the
king or intercede for you to Allah subhanaw taala that obviously he
did this as a teacher as a as a Murghab be to teach him to
admonish him you didn't do this out of arrogance. It says he did
this out to teach him that look, you don't these are not things
that you speak about like this. Now a person who can say that in
the face of this kind of request is that that is that is sincere
that is true.
Allama Sharma is studied with some of the greatest scholars of his
time some we will have heard about some we don't. I said as a child
he met him I'm so ut
he studied many books with Sheikh Zachary on on Saudi ships the
Korean on Saudi is the the Shafi is they call him they say che
called Islam. When a Shafi say Sheikh Al Islam, they mean sheiks
the Korean Ansari, Kala che Holy Son they just refer to him as the
he is the shaker the some of the Sharpies. When the Hanafi say che
when Islam we have about three or four or five famous ones, shakily,
some high desire, the shakily some number of others. So when it the
Hanafi say you have to know who they're talking about. When the
Shafi said it shakes the Quran, sorry, he's buried next to Imam
Shafi.
You go to Egypt today Imam Shafi is great.
She executed on Saudi is buried there.
So he studied with Shakespeare Creole on Saudi for a lengthy
period, lengthy period. He studied many many books with them.
Sheikh Ali Al house was his main teacher and his spiritual Sheikh
as well. Great body of Allah. He studied with Sheikh Ali Al mercy.
He studied with Sheikh Shabbat dinner customer learning. Great
commentator of Buhari he wrote the commentary of Buhari so you can
kind of see who which kind of scholars his studying by their
caliber, their status, their level of knowledge and understanding and
academics. So you can see it has to rub off. Sheikh Mohammed has
Janome however, he was closest to Sheikh Ali Al Havas al house,
such that generally the names in fact, he was probably more famous
than his sheep. That's why they're names coming in. He was the one
who probably popularized the sheep. He was relatively unknown
What do you have Allah subhanaw taala.
She had ideal house was an accomplished spiritual guide of
the time, a beacon for spiritual inspiration all around him. And
Shalini was his proof that this is a man he had produced by his
tarbiyah. This was a man that he had produced.
After SHA Ronnie, had spent those years studying on the primary
texts, and then completed his other higher books and other
studies, the Sheikh Al Havas told him once, I want you to take all
of your books that all of these books that he had acquired, you
take all of them and sell them,
I'm gonna get rid of them, I want you to sell them. And then I want
you to donate the money.
That was very difficult for him to do. Because he said that these
books were really excellent copies that I, you know, get good
scholars, they're going to try to get the best books, most excellent
copies in those days, said I'd really collect did some of the
most excellent copies. And I found that very difficult to do. So I
did what my Sheikh told me to do. This was all about the tarbiyah.
Right, this was to move him to focus away from apparent words to
the inner spirituality.
Some of you may not understand this, but he says when I did sell
them, and I did get rid of them,
my mind constantly went to them, I was still preoccupied with them,
you know, scholar getting rid of his books, that's a sacrifice. And
that sacrifice has to be for something bigger. So then my
Sheikh said,
I want you to engage yourself in abundant Victrola to occupy
yourself away from that this will take care of it. So he said that's
what he did. And then after that, Allah subhanaw taala gave him gave
him much more than before. He opened up much more than before.
And this is not something that is so mystical. It doesn't have to
be. If you become a teacher, a serious teacher, you will sit in
this place and teach something. When you're teaching, things will
open up to you by the Grace of Allah subhanaw taala
that you did not understand before. This is not something that
only
you know, that has to happen only to big scholars. Anybody who's
serious about this, Allah will open up because you're sitting
here as a representative of His Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam.
Nobody receives ye
after Rasulullah sallallahu sallam. But there is divine
inspiration. There are unveilings, there is divine insight and
ferocity. All of these things are possibility. There's been cases
where I have been preparing something.
And because I was in a hurry or something, I couldn't really
understand it. When I'm sitting here I start explaining it, it
suddenly just opens up. And believe me, I never had this idea
before. It was not something I knew before. But there's some
connections that you make between what an understanding it's an MS
really, books are an excuse. Teachers are an excuse.
They're just the pipeline between you and Allah subhanaw taala you
and the prophets Allah Allah, Allah and Allah subhanho wa Taala
Allah subhanho wa Taala can give directly as well. Right? So he was
then after he reached the heights that he did, and you can see that
from his books.
After this, Allah Masha, Allah Annie, he established the lodge.
When I've been a lodge, it's like a mother a retreat, a place where
people can come and stay and study with him.
Learn from him, learn classes are taking place, vicar is being made.
So there's a schedule. It's like a place of discipline. 1000s of
people would come there and benefit from him. He would
undertake all their expenses. All their expenses are people that
came there. There was no fees you have to pay. You know, he would
undertake everybody's food living expenses. This was done not by
money that he necessarily had.
Right? This was done by through endowments, wealthy people,
governors leaders, they would set up these endowments
and this is something we're missing today. That's why mustards
are always struggling and mothers are always struggling because they
have they have done they have abandoned. What was an Islamic
tradition of endowments Whoa, cough Oh cough. So before you
establish a mother Assa, you also establish with a business of some
sort, seed capital, some kind of investment that will pay for that
madrasa.
You know, who took that from the Muslims,
universities like Cambridge and Oxford and these other big
establishments, the reason why they're so well
And they can do what they want is because they have these old ogof
and endowments from centuries, that produce millions for them
each each year. So they can go over and above the fees of the
students and do a lot more things than other universities can. And
this is the Muslim tradition. I gave a talk once with this German.
With with this German scholar, the talk is on Zoom Academy as well,
it's about he spoke about is the Prophet Muhammad, the capitalist,
right. So this is this is all about studies in business and
capitalism and so on. And he, he is not a Muslim either. But he
said that these are cough, he's traced it, they're taken from the
Muslims. But today, you have mothers that are constantly
struggling. All these mothers that come from India every year in
Pakistan and other places, and they're asking for money, they
don't have enough. They don't have a source of income. That's what
they should be doing. You establish a masjid establish a few
shops, a few businesses or whatever, get somebody to manage
that the profits are coming here. People know it's a masjid shop,
they'll even go there and you know, they'll get more
patronization anyway, there's something you guys can seriously
consider as well. It's, there are massages, mashallah there's one
masjid they have, they have several houses, they don't need
any money from anybody, they still collect money, but they don't need
any money. Right? They got lots of money, you know, because and they
don't, they don't need it.
But this is this is this is what what they should be doing to
become self reliant, then they can really do that the Muslims are
struggling today, because they're just struggling to survive.
When you have more at your disposal, then and you got pious
people at the helm, then you can give a lot of contribution.
So he established his Zawiya through these endowments. And if
you're a wealthy person, then this is what you should be thinking
about doing. If you're a wealthy person, you should try to set up
certain endowments, this will be sadaqa jariya, for you forever and
ever. As long as that establishment continues.
Right, whether that be a madrasah, you find a scholar who wants to do
something, but he's, you know, restricted, because he doesn't
have the money to work in London is very difficult. Prices are
crazy, in terms of property and everything. So if you want to
start something here, our Masjid system is based on committees,
which is the totally wrong, wrong kind of program, the wrong kind of
model for masjid, it's, you know, the Masjid model that we have in
England, and in many Western countries where it's committees
that run these run these messages. It's the wrong model. Sorry to say
it's just the wrong model, because they have no idea. That's why you
get so much culture in these messages. And the scholars cannot
really do what they want to do.
They it should be, it should be an there are messages which have been
established by individuals along with the scholars and they are
successful. You're not going to get the politics there. Because
that's the for a better purpose. They won't always be liked. You
know, we love criticism, we love to criticize others, so we're
never going to be happy with anything that anybody does. To be
honest, you know, that's, that's the way people aren't going to be
happy with even what the biggest Scholar does. Nobody you know.
But at the end of the day, they just work better. They're able to
do more, there's no restriction. Because generally what happens
when it's a committee running a masjid, and they get a powerful
scholar who's part of that masjid, and then Sunday, he gets a lot of
popularity, their fear is that he's going to take over those two.
They should give it to him. If he's not, you can't give it to
every scholar. There are people who believe that only scholars can
run messages, not every scholars and management as a management
degree. There are some scholars who just into their books, they
don't understand management, you get their message, the message
out,
right? Remember that as well. So I'm not I'm not of that view that
you should just be people say Maulana Salim Dora's, you know, he
was a success story, but not every score is a Mawlana cylinder rods.
So you have to remember that, but if you are a wealthy individual
listening to this, and you want to do something for your dean, that
you find a scholar who wants to do something, and you set them up
like this. All they have to do is teach, teach, teach every person
that benefits from that every second of benefit, you will get
and you die and they still benefit from this place. It's continuing
and people are learning and those people are then teaching others
that's your investment. That's a massive investment. This is this
is really important.
There are Muslims have a lot of money.
Muslims are well off in some
She in the West, mashallah they've done well for themselves. Now do
something.
Right. And if you can't do it for yourself, get a few. And there are
people who've done that, you know, there's a there's a group that
from America, they contacted a friend of mine who's into
publishing. And they said, Look, I'm we are professionals in the
he's a dentist and there's a few others. We want to put some money
together to translate this big commentary of Muslim and Bihari.
It can take years we don't mind we will, we will pay for the
translation, you find something translated, pay them good money,
and let's get it done. It's not an easy task, it needs a lot of
money, you got five doctors or others will come together business
people, whatever, they can do something, it doesn't have to be
one person either. Somebody has to raise the awareness. It's very
difficult, especially for serious scholars, it's very difficult for
them to go and ask people for money.
It's a different ballgame. It's so difficult to do that. You know,
you become agenda guy eventually. And then that's it, you know, you
can't study anymore. You can't research anymore. Very difficult.
But if Allah was to give the Tofik as one scholar in South Africa,
that his setup is beautiful. His brothers are all into businesses
that needs to scholars who I know like this, his brothers are all
in, they've got family businesses, they all do the work. They pay him
to do the work of the dean. So he does free work of the dean.
He is teaching lecturing, writing, and he gets a martial law salary
from the family business, they run the business, but then he does all
of this kedma that they get the reward from that as well because
they share in it.
But that's a selfless attitude that has to come by. These are all
models that work. And that can work.
So he used to send students for Hajj, send people for Hajj, pay
for all of that through this archive system. He used to marry
others off. And if they're dedicated to studying, he would
take care of their expenses.
You go and study, no problem, I'll pay for your expenses.
And he would assist the number of other scholars around with their
food and their clothing and so on so forth. The place where all is
abuzz, it literally says that it was night and day, there was
always a buzz in that place. Literally the word buzz that the
bees buzzing, that's what it says in Arabic. There was always
recitation of the Quran and Hadith taking place.
Eventually, remember, this is in Cairo. And you have the US of A
university there with all of his glory at the time, big scholar
sitting there. This is more of a spiritual retreat along with
teaching
and welfare work and all of this is happening.
So it became like a competition to answer. In fact, it says that
there was probably no other place with so much light in terms of
spiritual light that was disseminating, because it wasn't
raw academics. There was a pious, what do you have Allah at the
center of
that institution.
Unfortunately, though, this is the dunya. And all of these successes,
they do have a they do bring about reactions. And these reactions are
not always positive reactions. There is an aspect which is the
human feeling of jealousy and envy acid. And unfortunately, Imam Shah
Rouhani became targets of huge amounts of jealousy from people.
And it affected him in a number of ways. There were accusations made
against him in his own time, of course, in his own time, which he
had to respond to in many cases, people said that he's claiming,
some people said that he's only a Sufi, he doesn't know anything
else.
I mean, subhanAllah, if you if I read all of those stuff series,
and I don't know anything at the end of it that then I must have
been sleeping through it.
And then the second, the Hadith and all of these other subjects.
So one was that another one met, he's written many books, which
some of the great scholars of his time in fact, one of his great
students was Alana manavi allow manavi His work is used today as
some of the best commentary on Hadith. A Buddha with another's
best commentary on hadith is quoted often in Hadith books allow
Menai for his commentary, he's a student of Shabani. And
that was another another one was that he considers himself to be a
much the head Mukluk like in parallel to Abu Hanifa and Shafi
and so on, he disposer himself, I mean, he he he was a Shafi and
very adherent follower of the Shafi school. He made no such
claim whatsoever, a number of other things of that nature. And
number three, the other thing they did at his time, and it was easy
to do it at that time today. It's a bit
More difficult, although actually it's going to become a it's become
easier. With ebooks, they will take some of his books and add
things in there that were totally against the Sunnah. And put it out
there as his book. In those days, it was just folios put together.
So you just add another sheet in between or just write out a new
copy. And it's somebody's really serious hazard can be a very bad
disease. It can make you do things that you would never dream of
doing. Today, you can do it by ebooks, just take somebody's books
out a few pages, tape it up, or whatever, put it out as a ebook,
shake. So Ansel wrote this book, and then today, people don't
investigate. They see what the media says, or anybody says, and
they make judgment straightaway.
I've seen that so many times. There are some popular speakers
today. And I've seen people will make up Facebook posts.
WhatsApp conversations,
purporting to be between themselves and the scholar saying
something that people don't like that all of that happens. It's
just human failing. This is what this world and dunya is about. One
mustn't be surprised. One must be careful. That's why be careful of
what you see around. So shake up the roof up the roof, Holman Al
manavi says about him. He is our chef, the practicing Imam, the
ascetic, the jurists, the Hadith scholar, the legalist, the Sufi
and the and the Morumbi. So these are all very comprehensive
individual. He wrote a number of books on other subjects such as El
Amin hygiene and rubine on the Sunnah, cashflow Houma and and
Jeremy Aloma, comprising the proofs of the
the jurists, he wrote a number of books. Some of his famous students
were the wrongful Mahna Mahna Hui who died in 1031, another great
Hadith scholar, Medina Mohammed Al Bukhari
Araya Arani 1049 He died, the Hadith scholar mockery, Mohammed
Al Hijazi, more well known as a wife, alkyl Khashoggi, with Aiden
1035. And there was another person who was so inspired by him, he was
royalty. He was in line to be the Emile he was the emir, Governor,
special emir of the area, he left that to study with him. His name
was Amir Hasson buckle sanjak. He abandoned his Imara his leadership
to become a student and to study and follow the path of of
academics and study in Mount Charlaine. He left numerous books
on many subjects. And he has actually written his own
autobiography. His own biography has been written by him, not only
for men, and I believe that's that's the one he departed this
world on the 12th of June model Ola 973 Hijiri. So mashallah, he
had a good
at just less than 80 years, just less than 80 years, he died in
1565, Gregorian
1565, so about 500 years, just less than 500 years ago,
just less than that, his final words were,
I am departing to my mercy for a noble lord.
To be honest, that is the summary, the conclusion and the fruit, the
cream of his whole life. If you can say that at your death, then
there is nothing more valuable than that.
That if I can say, and we can all say at our death, as we're about
today, I'm departing to my mercy for the noble lord, you can
imagine that time, which is a serious moment, a critical time.
Mind is where's our mind at that time? We're dying? Imagine, you
know, when you go on a holiday, do you just pick up a bag and walk?
Or do you have to
tie up many loose ends before you go, make sure the boilers off and
make sure this is off and make sure the doors are locked and make
sure you know, your bills have been paid? You know, there's a lot
of things that you have to do before you take any journey of
this one. You can't just take a bag and walk off. Unless you're
flying every day and going for two days or whatever, right?
Generally, can imagine the life of the hereafter you have to go
there. And at that time, you can be very comfortable about knowing
where you're going. Your mind is not about what you're leaving.
It's about where you're going.
Because even when you depart for a holiday today, your mind is still
at home. You get to the hotel, you get to the airport, you think Did
I lock the door? You know, the shaytaan even brings that idea to
your head.
But hear forward thinking forward thinking always. And that's how it
is if a pious person is always forward thinking in this world,
this is what's going to happen here after this is what's going to
happen in the last month.
moments of their life. So this is the great scholar. This is the
great scholar Alana SHA Rouhani. And inshallah we'll be looking at
what he has to say from with all of this experience, the
conclusions of his work. And this is a very popular book of his This
is a very important book of his that we're going to be covering in
sha Allah, which is on the etiquette of companionship,
because he believes that the secret of success in this world in
the Hereafter lies in that. Inshallah that's what we'll be
looking at from the next class in sha Allah, through Dawa and
hamdulillahi rabbil aalameen.
The point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get
further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion. The
next step is to actually start learning seriously, to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on there, the Islamic
essentials certificate which you take 20 Short modules, and at the
end of that insha Allah you will have gotten the basics of most of
the most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more
confident. You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue
to live, you know, to listen to lectures, but you need to have
this more sustained study as well. JazakAllah Heron Salam aleikum wa
rahmatullah over a card