Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Saviours of the Islamic Spirit
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And one of them is Hassanal bacillary Rahim Allah and I would
completely agree with him. If you look in Tafseer books you find his
name there. If you look in Hadith books, you find his name there. If
you look in fifth and Messiah books you find his name there. And
if you look at speech he is a master. If you look at the science
of Ischia and and
purification, you find him high up in there as well. Great scholar,
very pious. The second person he mentioned was Imam Ahmed, no
humble Rahim Allah, again another perfect individual. And the third
person he mentioned, which many of us may known not know too much
about is Sophia and authority, who is a great Muhaddith but also a
great ascetic and pious individual.
Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu
salam ala so you will mousseline while he was so happy about raka
was seldom at the Sleeman Kathira on Eli. Oh me Dean, Amma Barrett,
God Allah Who Tabata Katara Allah Phil Quran in Nigeria well for
carnal Hamid one Tamil or Ilona In Kuntum Momineen
My dear respected brothers and sisters, our dear friends salaam
aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
The topic for the theme for today's conference, mashallah is a
very appropriate one. Hamdulillah, all of our brothers and sisters
have been before me have been speaking to you about relevant
aspects of this topic.
This particular topic that a week, the particular topic that we have
today, there was a book that I worked on, and it took us about 10
years to work on this book.
It was a book by a very famous scholar, thinker, and polymath of
the Indian subcontinent, whose name was Sheikh Abdullah Hassan
Ali. Another way, Rahim Allah. Very interestingly, he died on the
31st of December 1999, the last day of the millennium.
He wrote a book called Tari Dawa of limits, which was originally
written in Urdu, it's a very analytical book. It was published
in it was translated and published in Arabic. And then in English, it
was published as the saviors of Islamic spirits. The first volume
of this book is what we worked on. And the reason is that when I read
this book, at the age of approximately 18, or 20, or so, I
wish I had read it before that. And the reason I wish I had read
it before this is because, you know, we are living in this time
in which it seems to be one of the lows of this ummah, throughout our
history, since this time of Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi
wasallam. We have experienced the lows, and then the highs, the
pitfalls, the challenges, then we've had the successes and the
victories. So there's been a constant up and down, which is the
nature of this world. Right now. Unfortunately, with the Muslim
world, there is no Arab spring out there, by the way, just to let you
know, in case you haven't worked it out already. It's an Arab
storm. It's a hurricane. It's it's really bad, unfortunately, may
Allah subhanaw taala bring some relief to the our brothers and
sisters in Syria. And in all of the other countries in that
region. It's a really a sad case. We are currently in a law. We're
currently being challenged the Muslim ummah, the monolithic
Muslim Ummah of the world. Anybody who lives today and looks back
just 20 years or 30 years. It's quite depressing for a lot of
people. They think, Why should I be a Muslim? What is there in
being a Muslim? If you look back beyond that time, though, and you
look in our history, to the great people that have been the saviors
of this of the Islamic spirit, the revival of this ummah, then you
will notice that this is just a cycle. Allah subhanaw taala wala
who multimodel wala who you Tim MINOURA who Allah will complete
his light.
Regardless of whether we're on the train or not, but Allah has
trained Allah has newer Allah's light will continue. When I read
this book, it inspired me immensely. It filled me with
optimism.
It provided a much better perspective of world events. It
wasn't a depressing outlook. It showed how Allah subhanho wa Taala
will bring about people choose people select people, guide people
and divinely enabled people to do certain things. It gave me a sense
of understanding. I felt that if I had read this book when I was
younger, it would have a substantially
increase and enhance my awareness of my faith.
Its history, and above all, the incredible people who have kept
our deen aloft and how it gave
median understanding of the hard work that service for Allah will
entail a person whose endowed I mean, there will be people sitting
here who have been endowed with particular qualities like a sound
mind, intelligence, we have many, many intelligent
brothers and sisters in our community, both young and old.
We've got very, very intelligent people in our communities, healthy
physique, and wealth. If Allah has given these things to people, but
they do not use it and put it into service of others, then they have
not thanked Allah for the gifts that Allah subhanaw taala has
given them, Allah requires from each one of us to do our parts.
I also learned that the true success lies in high aspiration,
exertion, but abundant prayers. You can't just be exerting all
along and not asking Allah, you have to be connected to Allah to
do something productive. We need Allah's assistance. We have to
constantly interrogate our intentions, are we doing what
we're doing for the right reason? If I'm helping out with something,
providing a service for someone, assisting people, what's my
intention for doing so. And then we must also trust in Allah's plan
for this world.
Above all, it gave me a desire that I also want to be accepted
for his service, as the great saviors of the past had been.
I'm going to quickly go through some of the main people who are
covered in this first volume of this book. So the book is here.
It's called saviors of Islamic spirits. And
the first volume of this deals with the first seven centuries of
Islam, the ups and downs, how when we were at a very precarious in a
very precarious situation, very challenging point, and Allah
sudden suddenly brings up someone to assist in this regard. This is
what this book is all about. It will just fill us with enthusiasm.
So, the first person this book deals with is Hasson bustling. The
second person it deals with is Omar Abdulaziz. It deals with
double hassle Ashati is the dean of no Abdus Salam, Abdul Qadir
jeelani, I will forge ignore Josie
Babu, Hamid Al Hassan sallahu Dena, UB and nurudeen Zambia Of
course, and it deals with the tarsus.
Just to give you a quick synopsis in the short time that we have in
the Khalifa, Omar Abdullah Abdullah Aziz, I see an individual
who remained unblemished from the corruption that power and wealth
often bring all the while he maintained the trust to preserve
the entire Muslim nation. Do you know that his reign only lasted
just over two years? And he became a colleague by accident? Not by
design? Not by not not he was not in the line of big being the
Halevi his cousin saw a man named Abdul Malik. On his deathbed, his
children were too young. Somebody whispered into his ears that what
about your cousin who was the governor of Madina? Munawwara. He
said, Yes, of course, okay. Until then, number of nerve disease was
like a *. He was the most expensive garments. You know,
today, if you see me in this garment, then for Omar Abdulaziz,
you will never see him again. In this same garment again, he spent
huge amounts of money on garments, clothing and perfume. That's how
he was. He was indulgent, but as soon as he became the Khalifa,
something overcame him. And he left all of this. His wife was the
daughter of the previous Khalif Abdul Malik Hypno. Marwan the
great OMA yet he took a he Indus after discussing with her they
gave back all the jewelry that they had to the beetle man. And
then after that he started his reform in an absolutely selfless
manner. But we can tell by this, that in his reign of just over two
years, it demonstrated that a nation can be transformed. If the
guiding values
are the honesty, fairness, selflessness, and God fairness.
Then if we move to Sheikh Hassan Al bacilli Rahim Allah, recently I
was reading in New Jersey in his seydel Hardy YBNL. Josie says that
I took an assessment of all of the scholars before me because if not
Josie, the great scholar of Baghdad, was a historian and a
hadith scholar as well. mazing humbly scholar, he said, I looked
at all of the scholars of the past, and I tried to find which
ones were most perfect in knowledge had mastered all of the
sciences. But at the same time while mastering the sciences. They
had also achieved a very high level in piety, taqwa and God
fearing this, because a lot of the time you have a lot of worshipers
in aesthetics, but they're not as masterful when it comes to
knowledge and sciences. Sometimes you have great aroma but they're
not as
Great in their worship, so which of the three scholars sorry which
of the few scholars had mastered both? And he said after searching
quite in depth with a full investigation, he said I came up
with three people. And one of them is Hassan Al bacillary Rahim Allah
and I would completely agree with him. If you look in tafsir books
you find his name there. If you look in Hadith books, you find his
name there. If you look in fifth and Messiah books, you find his
name there. And if you look at speech, he is a master. If you
look at the science of Ischia and, and
purification, you find him high up in there as well. Great scholar,
very pious. The second person he mentioned was Imam Ahmed immuno
humble Rahim Allah, again another perfect individual. And the third
person he mentioned, which many of us may known not know too much
about is Sophia and authority. It was a great Muhaddith but also a
great ascetic and pious individual. I personally would add
a number of other people in there like Abdullah hymnal, mubarak for
example. But anyway, in the short time that we have, we have to move
on. So Hassan Al bossy Rahim Allah He shows that a heart that is
connected to Allah subhanaw taala the benefit of being nurtured in a
pious household because his mother was a servant of one of the Omaha
minion, one of the wives of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, and
thus, it created for him. With his firm grounding and knowledge, his
eloquence and his confidence, it gave him undeniable power to
rectify the people. At that time, people had become a bit obsessed
with the dunya however, Hassan Al Basri with his exhortations, his
lectures, his Bionz he managed to keep people stable. Then we move
on to the next person that is discussed is Imam Abu Hassan Al
Ashanti Imam mobile hustler shady Rahim Allah He starts off as a
mortal easily without going into any kind of depth as to what a
mortality is a mortality was a rationalist of the time, who whose
rationalism, you sometimes forced them to deny certain durations,
they had certain principles that they made up, they developed and
if certain Hadith went against that, then they would deny those,
if certain Quranic verses went, went against it, they would
reinterpret those. So it was a heresy, a sector, a sect. He was
one of them, he was actually trained by one of its masters, one
of its leading scholars, they thought he is going to be the next
major leader and spokesperson, Allah gives him guidance, He
suddenly comes out after 15 days, and he goes on to the big mosque
of Basara. And he says, just the way I'm taking this garment off
the show off, or whatever it was, he says, this is the same way I'm
coming out of martyrs realism, and then he attacked them. And thus,
through this Allah tells us how Allah protects his faith by taking
people from the very, from the very people that you would
consider to be the enemies and thus turning them against and
making them work for the benefits. I remember a few years ago, when I
was in the back in the plane of ordered when you go for Madina,
Munawwara you go to they take you to Earth where the battle took
place. And subhanAllah one of the things that came to mind was that
there were three people on the on the enemy side on that day.
Famous individuals, one was none other than Khalid bin Walid he was
fighting on against the Muslims on that day. Another person was Ahmed
Abdullah us now the Allah one, again, not a Muslim at the time,
and the third person was the son of Abuja Hall, a crema in Abuja.
I don't know what da the professor was made, but three of these
people become Muslim afterwards. And then you know, the story of
heart had been relieved. You know the story story of Amma ribbon
Ross, who conquers Egypt, and then there's equity might even obj
that is why we should make dua, everybody's frightened of Trump.
And maybe they've got a reason to be to be frightened. Make dua for
him, don't stop cursing people make dua for people and you don't
know the power of Allah and His and our doors to Allah subhanho wa
Taala that Allah could suddenly turn people around. And it'd be a
whole different thing and or her is a lesson like this three of the
biggest enemies a few years later come into Islam, Subhan Allah, and
then they assist.
Then we move on to the next individual. Imam Ahmed immuno
humble history is long. However, again just a synopsis, a
pioneering sage suffering at the hand at the hands of his the same
Marta zilis They had now effected Munna Rashid, the governor, the
who was the Khalifa of the time, he had Imam Ahmed wept because he
would not agree with one of their false ideas. I don't want to go
into the idea as well, but he refused many of the other
scholars. They changed they
They said outwardly what they didn't believe inwardly just to be
safe but Imam Ahmed Mohammed Rahim Allah He stood up, he stood firm,
He was whipped, he was punished. But still, it gave him a lot more
respect because eventually that whole martyrs elitism collapsed
after his time.
We learn, we learned from him that when you have scholarship, it
comes with great responsibility. The general masses fervent
reliance on the scholars is understood from because the
scholars they were looking at Mr. Muhammad, if he had fallen on that
day, then many, many people would have been become corrupt. That is
why if scholars become corrupt, they will corrupt a lot of people
and may Allah protect us from that.
However, we also understand that when you have a pious, sincere
scholar, even the non Muslims will pray for that person. And that is
why on so many occasions with Imam Muhammad didn't know humble, he
was told that we were in such in such a place, we met some
Christians and they prayed for you. They said he's a man who
brings about mercy and peace and amazing how you have non Muslims
who are giving credence to what you to what you do.
However, probably one of the most inspiring for me accounts was no
doubt that of Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali. He is the reviver the
Majid of the fifth century. He was born in 450. And he died in 505,
only 55 When he died. what history tells us is that he had abandoned
one of the most prestigious posts of the entire Muslim lands, which
was in the naamyaa colleges, like somebody becomes the head of
Oxford or Cambridge, Harvard or Yale. And then suddenly, he leaves
that purely to look for Allah, purely to connect to Allah
subhanaw taala. That's what he did. People thought he was crazy.
He left for 11 years, he went to Morocco, Morocco, Rama and Madina,
Munawwara. Then he went to Damascus, and he stayed there in
the Ahmed mosque. Then he went to Jerusalem. And he remained above
the Golden Gate. For those who have been to Jerusalem, there is a
Golden Gate, which you're not allowed to go to right now. But he
stayed on top of that in a room or somewhere. And this is where he
wrote much of his book called The haomei. Dean.
This tells us that this world is if you understand that Allah
subhanaw taala is who you need to be connected to, then it tells you
that losing any part of this world doesn't make too much of a
difference anymore.
His hair omit Dean addresses the different levels of society in a
clear way to try to connect them with their Creator. He addresses
the scholars and he criticizes them. He addresses the low leaders
and he tells them what's wrong. He addresses the business people. He
addresses just the worshippers. He addresses every single level of
society telling them what the problem is, what we understand
from his from his life that in 550 505, sorry, 55 years to have
produced what he did. There is no university in the world who I
think hasn't done some kind of study on Imam Ghazali in the east
or the west. Even when I was doing my Masters, we had to write an
article on Imam Ghazali as to whether his theological
contributions were more profound, or his spiritual contributions,
and this was in sewers. So they all studying him today because he
was they call him the proof of Islam. This tells us that age is
only an excuse for Allah, divine enablement and Tofik is
everything. So it doesn't matter how old you are Allah subhanaw
taala can accept you for his faith. Following him is the great
humbly jurist Sheikh Abdul Qadir jeelani. Again, he is one of the
finest and most renowned mystics of all time. Ignore Tamia Rahim
Allah used to praise him abundantly. He arrived in the
metropolitan of Baghdad after Rizal is departure. And he took up
the task of filling the hearts of 1000s with the love of Allah
subhanaw taala. And that's why you had the rulers, the governance all
sitting in his gathering. You had people hundreds of people
literally nearly every day doing Toba out his hands repenting on
his hands, people coming into the faith Subhanallah
then, after his departure, Baghdad produces a Bulfinch Abdul Rahman
YBNL, Josie, who I alluded to earlier,
another person who have I felt great affinity with a scholar par
excellence, for whom there was no limit. The sky is no limit for
him. He went beyond that, and I'll tell you why. And a model of high
ambition if you are feeling depressed, if you are feeling
lazy, if you feel that you have no inspiration to do anything, then
read the story of renewal Josie and he will inspire you. He will
tell you what you should be doing. He will motivate you.
He he was a model of high ambition, time management and
Effective execution of goals, he had an insatiable appetite for
consuming a diverse range of sciences, he wanted to be a master
of all, and a jack of none, this is what he said, I want to be a
master of all and a jack of none in those days, you could do that.
Today, it's impossible because sciences are really proliferated
and become very split specified. In those days, the main Sciences
of the world, you could master all of them. That's why you had
polymaths in those days that were masters of all various sciences.
And, and this is YBNL. Josie.
He says in his seydel, hotter, which is called captured thoughts,
the way I look at it, it's like a Facebook, an early Facebook, but
with really profound posts that are really, really beneficial, not
just telling people that these shoe shoes look really nice,
right? Or this is what I have for breakfast, or whatever else you
tell people, you know, subhanAllah we got some people on Twitter, who
have about 50 followers, but they've got 50,000 posts, Allahu
Akbar, where do they get the time to do this? Right. And then the
other thing is that you know, if you want to know who a person is,
read his Twitter profile, his or her Twitter profile, to see what
really matters for them. Because in the limited amount of words
that they have, they can only put so much see what they've chosen.
That's what matters to people most we should look at our own Twitter
profiles to see what what we are how we define ourselves on
Facebook, you could write million you know 1000s of words, but on
Twitter, you can't.
So it reveals the challenges many scholars face, how one works
through them, and above all, the necessary thought process
essential for competency. That's what YBNL Josie dealt with, then
after that, just to move on very quickly,
at a time of great political turmoil.
Amid the Crusader assaults are assaults in the holy lands.
Suddenly there appears noted in Sandy and sallahu. Deena up their
story very lengthy indeed, teaches us fortitude, and resilience in
our faith, the firmness of a warrior in the path of Allah and
etiquette with one's enemies. These are some other side lessons
we can draw from them. Do you know that Richard the Lionheart who was
a foe or fighting against Salahuddin Richard became sick,
Salahuddin is fighting against him, but because he became sick he
sent him precious ice precious ice to his enemy Subhanallah This is
in stark contrast to the daily the prop the current day propaganda we
hear from the so called terrorists so called jihadists who take a
small piece of land in Iraq or wherever and then the first thing
they want to do is cut people's hands off the first thing they
don't want to educate their own doing. They want to first thing
they want to do is start whipping people. Come on, that's Sharia as
well. But that's not the only Sharia there is there. And they
give a bad name to Islam throughout the world immediately.
Moving on from that to the fight, fight, not final one is the Sultan
of Scholars is the Dean ignore Abdus Salam, just to sum him up.
He is one of those scholars who were so bold and fearless. You
would go and say whatever he wanted to the ruling, and the
stories about him and amazing, amazing, absolutely amazing.
But one thing about it, there were other scholars were had no fear.
But one thing about is the dean of damnedest Salaam is that he got
away with it. He said what he did, and he managed to get away with
it, get away with it. Once he said something and the king of Egypt,
the ruler of Egypt got a bit unhappy with him. The next day
somebody comes to the ruler of Egypt and he says is your main
scholar is the dean is leaving Egypt and the people are following
him out. Go quickly bring him back. Can you imagine it? This is
his power.
Regardless of all of that, finally, we learn about the
tortoise who swept through the Muslim lands, literally laying
waste to everything, only SubhanAllah. When you look at the
story of the tortoise, even the great Muslim biographers like
YBNL, Athena and others, they say that our pens shake to write this
history. These people they went through the lands leaving just a
few people alive if they were lucky, just erasing everything.
However,
just decades later, the same people who tore down Baghdad
killed about a million Muslims in Baghdad alone the Muslim
headquarters and kill the Khalif rolled him up in Iraq and beat him
to death. The same people later end up embracing the very same
faith faith that they had set out to annihilate. This demonstrates
the power of Islam to sweep even its arches enemies out of
disbelief into faith and lead them eventually to add to Islam divine
splendor. So in closing, I will let you read the book because this
is the only time that I have to cover this just in closing. What
do we do? One thing that is very important is that
We need to ask Allah for Tofik Oh Allah except this for something.
Junaid Jamshed that Sheikh Yasuo just mentioned. He was a singer.
Allah gave him Tofik to come out of it one of the most celebrated
singers and pop stars of Pakistan comes out of it becomes religious
dies on a religious journey. He is a Shaheed because he dies in a
plane crash, and he dies in the path of Allah. And one Hadith that
comes to mind is somebody asked the prophesy is the Muslim Ahmed
Hadi the Prophet sallallahu sallam said, My God Allah will be higher
on his stamina, who, whoever Allah intends goodwill, he will use him
the Sahaba they asked What do you mean by a stammer? What do you
mean by he will use him and the Prophet sallallahu sallam said,
You are fickle Hooli I'm an insider him Kubla Mota he
Eurodollar and oneness. Allah will give him two feet to do something
before his death by which the people around him will be
satisfied with him. He will please them they will make dua for him.
And this I believe we're all of the saviors. And I believe every
single one of us the housewives included, the people who are
driving taxis included, whatever you may be doing, whatever you may
think about yourself, ask Allah, Oh Allah accept me for the service
of my Deen whether that be assisting somebody helping
humanity or on an intellectual level, on some other level, doing
something like that Allah knows we have to have the fervor. May Allah
subhanho wa Taala grant us the ability to take this ummah forward
in its great glory, working with Darla Anna and Al Hamdulillah.
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 the Islamic essentials
certificate which you take 20 Short modules and at the end of
that inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of the
most important topics in Islam and you will 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 as local law here and Salam
aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.