Abu Taymiyyah – EMOTIONAL The Struggles Of The Righteous When Seeking Knowledge
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
The talk or the lecture that the sheikh
is going to give the
title of the talk is this, the struggles
of the righteous
who sought knowledge in the past. Many of
you come to me and ask me how
can I seek knowledge but this is
gonna be a great
talk with regards to this issue so you
can absolutely benefit from it? So please pay
attention
and listen to it.
First and foremost, I just want to thank
the administration,
and of course our Sheikh, Sheikh Mohammed,
and to everyone else that comes. Like, this
is one of the very few misgids,
where you have young,
old,
right? Haafid of the Quran, students of knowledge,
common folk, people who go to school, You
Ni People, from different walks of life, all
they come together
in order to benefit from the reminders and
the programs.
It's honestly very very refreshing to see, right?
The crowd and the people here every single
time I come,
right. And I said this in the
morning, after the beginning of the Fajr reflection.
I think it's the only Masjid
where the Fajr reflection is like Taraweeh
or is packed
like a Jumah.
Right? So may Allah keep you all steadfast.
The brothers
have done a lot of work. Sheikh Mohammed
has done a lot of work,
right, in,
bringing the community together
and,
putting together a lot of that which brings
a lot of benefit to our community.
My brothers and my sisters, inshallah, today
I picked this topic.
When I deliver programs and lectures, I try
to cater for
people that come from different walks of life.
Right? Sometimes you have to cater for students
of knowledge,
sometimes you have to cater for aamatunas, the
general folk. The way you deliver the Khutba
is very different to how you might deliver
a program or a lecture to people on
the streets,
right? So this
is an attempt, inshaAllah ta'ala, for us to
all be encouraged and inspired,
to take this journey
to that which is going to bring all
of us
a huge amount of benefit, and you'll be
surprised my brothers and my sisters,
right?
A lot of the problems
that people bring to me,
sometimes I just think for a moment
a little bit of knowledge
would have saved them from this problem.
Right. A little bit of knowledge would have
saved them from these problems that they're currently
experiencing.
Right? But now
there's a problem that we have to deal
with, we have to pick up the pieces
as we always have to do.
They've bringing us all of the problems.
Right? I don't want to say it's too
late now to deal with it, but
it's gonna take a lot of effort now
to solve this problem. Even the doctors, if
we have any doctors, they can testify.
As they say,
prevention is better than
sents, doctors,
They said it before me, right? Prevention is
better than the cure.
What is the prevention
to a lot of the problems that we
run into?
It is none other than knowledge.
Wallahi laaalaima, it is none other than knowledge.
My Instagram, my DMs are full of people's
problems
and a lot of the time,
a small
amount of knowledge and guidance could have saved
them from the situation.
Just now me and my good friend, we
were discussing what some wives do
when they split up from their husbands,
right?
They
prevent the children from being able to see
their fathers.
This has become a pandemic.
Wallahi Al Aaleem, wherever I go, someone always
brings a case
of such up.
Right?
When you know clearly that this is something
that is horrible, it is horrendous,
and no one is perfect, of course, but
this is a red line,
unless, of course, you know, the guy is
going to be,
damaging his children and so on and so
forth, we're not talking about exceptional
circumstances, we're talking about
preventing your child from being able to see
his father or the mother, sometimes it's the
opposite,
right?
There is no excuse for that whatsoever.
And then you think Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is not going to deal with you.
Right?
SubhanAllah there was a situation
of a relative,
the mother would indoctrinate the child from very
young,
right? From very young, your dad's this, your
dad's that, your dad's this, your dad's that,
and
the child
eventually will end
up inhaling all of this information that you're
giving him.
It's going to psychologically
damage him.
So when he was brought over to the
west, to the UK,
he completely went off the rails,
right?
And somebody they call it He became one
of the road guys.
And then the mother completely lost control of
him,
to the point, subhanAllah, that
it's completely spiraled out of control,
and she had no choice but now to
admit
all of her mistakes from the past,
right.
And she
came to terms,
right, that perhaps
his father is the best guidance for him
now.
However, as they say,
you can't teach an old dog new tricks,
this is an English saying,
not that I'm trying to compare him to
a dog
When someone,
right, grows up doing something, it's very hard
to change their ways, isn't it so, guys?
Now you want to instill with him or
instill within him
new morals and new values,
or try to convince him that that everything
you've been telling him for the last 20
or 30 years was actually all a lie.
Right?
It backfires.
Right? It really, really badly backfires,
and then you eventually regret.
A little bit of knowledge could have solved
the situation. Right?
Just looking up custody rights and just backbiting
and dulm,
researching that a little bit, being oppressive,
what the consequences are.
Allah Azzawaju gives us the Valim, the oppressor.
Respite, go do as You wish, but then
there will come a time when you will
be dealt with accordingly,
right?
This happens a lot my brothers and my
sisters,
The brother, subhanallah,
he likened it to a,
a a a a suicide bomb, a suicide
bomb. I'm not trying to encourage you to
do it here.
I'm trying to tell you guys, when someone
does that, what happens?
He ends up blowing himself up. That's exactly
what's going to end up happening.
You end up blowing yourself up later on
down the line.
I thought that was a good analogy.
Right.
And I'm making it very I'm not encouraging
anyone to do it. This is no no
no good.
Another example that I tend to mention, my
brothers and my sisters, is,
again, how knowledge could have
prevented all of these problems. I dealt with
a case a couple of years ago. A
brother contacted me on Facebook,
and he said to me
that his cousin impregnated his sister.
This brother's sister has been impregnated
by their cousin,
she's now fallen pregnant.
These are 2 families that live next door
to one another.
He lives here and his cousin lives next
door.
Right?
What used to happen is in,
out, in, out, in, out.
Sahi? There were no boundaries.
Sometimes what we say, she's like your sister
Sahay?
Your cousin is like your sister. Let me
ask you guys a question, are you allowed
to be chilling and relaxing
and having a cup of tea upstairs with
your sis with your cousin?
But she's your cousin's sister though, right?
Cousin and sister has been connected together.
No, my brothers and my sisters. But with
your sister
or your auntie,
paternal and maternal auntie, you guys can be
relaxing together and having a chat, Adi.
But with your cousin, she's someone that you
can actually eventually end up marrying, Alisa Gedalik,
isn't it so?
So sometimes what happens is because we don't
put down any boundaries and any rules,
in out in out and eventually,
He ended up committing zina with his own
cousin,
which resulted in her becoming pregnant.
It doesn't stop there.
The two families now are at war with
one another,
and it's not like they live apart from
one another.
These are 2 families
that are neighbors.
Imagine having
a horrible neighbor, brothers and sisters.
How you would live? The Messenger of Salaam
alayhi wa sallam gave us numerous narrations.
Whoever believes in Allah is messenger,
whoever believes in Allah. And the last day,
then let him honor
his neighbor.
He Said it three times. He's not a
true believer. He's not a true
believer.
Whoever is not safe from
the
the horrid behavior of his neighbor, you're not
a true believer. So the Messenger emphasized that,
Right?
And even told us that committing with
your neighbor is so much more worse
than committing Fahisha with someone else. Why? Because
the neighbor is normally trusted.
Right? You tend to kind of like,
let your guard down with your neighbor a
bit more than others because of you being
familiar with one another, you speak more often
and so on and so forth.
So they had to send her to Dubai
because
things spiraled out of control,
and now he's asking me for help.
A little bit of knowledge, my brothers and
my sisters, could have saved this situation. Prevention
is better than
the cure.
What was the prevention here?
The messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
Beware of entering upon women.
So he was asked about the brother-in-law.
The brother-in-law,
right, who is the closest to the wife
of his brother, Sahih.
Messenger
said, alhamumot,
he is death.
If he's saying this about the brother-in-law,
imagine anyone else.
And then sometimes people are uneducated, they turn
around and they say, bro, why are you
being so overprotective?
Are you jealous?
No. It's not about being overprotective,
because in some cultures, what happens is when
they meet one another, they hug each other's
wives.
Sah,
and this they just consider it a greeting,
it's perfectly.
A little bit of knowledge
could have prevented this calamity that struck.
It's not about me being jealous or my
brother walking in and out because I'm scared
he's gonna run away with my wife. No.
It doesn't work like that. It's about doing
the right thing
and protecting
everyone from the devil.
Because when you're alone with the opposite gender,
3rd is a shaitan, the 3rd is a
shaitan.
No matter how righteous you think you are.
Ataib labi rabbah, my brothers and my sisters.
Ataib labi rabbah.
Who was pugnosed and used to limp one
eyed and eventually ended up losing his eyesight,
right?
He didn't have a wife
He would say, if you put
a lady who is extremely unattractive
and she's a slave girl,
right? Alone with me, I wouldn't
feel safe with myself.
But if you put me in charge of
gold and money,
no problem, I can look after that.
I can trust myself with that,
Subhanallah.
He was also paralyzed,
and he's not even the most
handsome of people.
Right? And he's talking about an unattractive save
girl. I wouldn't be what?
Feel comfortable in protecting myself in this situation.
Anyways, my brothers and my sisters, I gave
you guys these 2 case studies
so you realize.
Right? The first one was about
mothers
preventing their children from seeing
the father.
And I gave you guys of
I gave you guys the example
of a relative.
When they done that, eventually,
the child turned on the mother,
and completely
went off the rails,
and how it eventually backfires,
and a bit of knowledge could have what
prevented the situation. I gave you guys this
example
of 2 cousins that ended up committing haram,
she became pregnant and they were neighbors and
now 2 families are at war with one
another.
They're at war.
Fights after fights.
And they can't move out because what?
These are their properties that they own.
Right? I mentioned all of this, my brothers
and my sisters,
So that we can realize how important knowledge
is A lot of people think I only
need to seek knowledge if I want to
become the next big Mufti
or the next big Sheikh only then, or
when I want to give the Friday Jum'ah,
that's when I start seeking, no, my brothers
and my sisters.
Right?
The Messenger
and I'm going to start off with mention
this hadith,
and then I'll speak about the struggles
the Righteous of the past went through in
order to acquire knowledge.
And then, I will pose the question, why?
Why would they go through all of this?
What is it that is waiting for them?
What is it that they eventually want to
get to?
Right.
Because when we know why we are doing
something,
right? When we know why we are doing
something, it's more likely going to inspire us.
Right? Here the messenger says,
2 categories or 2 groups of people, they
never become full.
One of them is my brothers and my
sisters,
Number 1 is the one who is seeking
knowledge
He will never become full or he will
never become content. He just wants more and
more and more and more.
The second one is someone my brothers and
my sisters
who is chasing
after the
pleasures and the glimmers of this world,
This person will never full become full.
Even the messenger,
he told us in hadith,
you give him 1 mountain of goat,
he wants another, and another, and another, and
another. The only thing that you can fill
him up with, if you get the dirt
from the Earth and you shove it down
his interior.
You will never become satisfied.
You've acquired this house, you thought, khalas, I
will be fine,
I will be content.
He wants another.
He's got this guy, he wants another. He's
acquired all of this wealth. He had goals
that he wanted to accomplish.
But those goals are no longer enough. I
need now more goals.
So he's just constantly stuck in the cycle
and the happiness that you're looking for, you'll
never be able to acquire it through that.
Why do we have all of these YouTubers,
all of these famous people who come out
and talk about how depressed they are, and
why they are on alcohol, and why they
are on drugs.
Anyways, I've spoken about this topic multiple times,
right?
Multi millionaires, famous people. I've got a lecture
on it. It's online.
Asha'id bin Al Kalam, 2 groups of people,
they will never ever become what? Content and
full.
Right?
The first one is the one who seek
a knowledge just wants more and more and
more.
You know what's ajeeb, my brothers and my
sisters?
We want this dunya so badly,
right?
And we do it at the expense of
a akhirah.
The way we look at the world is
completely different to what the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam taught us, I'm gonna show you
guys how. The Messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said,
Menkaanati
Dunya Hamma
Whoever makes the dunya his main priority,
and he wakes up, that's the first thing
on his mind.
And everything else is secondary. Allah, the prayer,
ibadah,
doing the right thing is all secondary.
I need to make sure that I make
ends meet, and by
all means necessary.
Allah Azzawajal will make his affair fall apart
if you make that your number one priority
and your main concern.
And Allah Azza wa Jal will place poverty
in between his eyes.
You may say to somebody, these rich people
they have a lot of money, they're not
poor, even though they're chasing a dunya.
My brothers and my sisters, if you dig
deep,
right, and you place it under the microscope
to really try to understand what it means.
It can mean being poor,
and it can also be
being in dire need of something.
Oh people, you are
to what?
Meaning you are in dire need of Allah
Right? Here it doesn't mean poor,
means what? Being in dire need. So these
people are rich, all of this money and
wealth and whatever have you, right?
They are crying out for spiritual contentment,
they are dead and empty inside,
and money, fame and whatever else you can
think of, right, that people chase after is
not going to fill that void. The way
Allah created your heart, it craves for its
Creator.
It craves, it needs that connection with Allah,
otherwise brothers and sisters, it's going to die.
Right? And the messenger of Sala'i Islam also
told us,
Allah in the dunya mal'unna.
Indeed,
this dunya
everything in it is cursed and whatever we're
chasing after my brothers and my sisters,
right, it is cursed.
Except and then the rest of Allah has
made some exemptions. Illa Dikrullah,
accept the remembrance of Allah, wama wala yani
anything,
right, that is going to bring you closer
to Allah Azza wa Jal
Right? And then He said
The scholar
and the one who goes and seeks knowledge.
They have been exempted
from this cursed world.
Right.
So my brothers and my sisters,
now that we know a little bit about
it,
than I am. Okay. So, I'm going to
be a little bit more than I am.
Okay. So, I'm going to be a little
bit more than I am. Okay. So, I'm
going to be a little bit more than
I
am. Okay. So, with knowledge,
otherwise I'm going to run myself into a
lot of problems.
Right?
Look at the extent
that some of these great personalities,
right,
went through in order to acquire it
and then I'll mention
some other aspects as to why they perhaps
may have done that
Firstly, we know about Alima Malik, one of
the 4 great Imams Afiqh
You have Al Imam Abu Hanifa,
Imam Malik, then Shafi'i and then Ahmed
Imam Malik Rahmatullahi Alaihi says something very powerful
He
says
You will not be able to acquire this
knowledge,
right,
unless you taste,
right?
Unless you taste some poverty.
Once you've tasted that, perhaps Allah will
open these doors for you.
You know, my brothers and my sisters, would
you guys agree that with everything that we
try to achieve,
there has to be a sacrifice?
So there has to be a sacrifice.
Whether it may be that
you're trying to build a business.
Some of you guys know about Elon Musk.
Even this other one called,
Jeff Bezos, Matt Saba, Mark Zuckerberg, and however
you pronounce his name.
Right? Whenever you dig up their lives, some
of them my brothers and my sisters, they
were sleeping in their offices.
Sir?
Sleeping in their offices
in order to build his empire,
7 days a week he would be at
work. There has to be a level of
sacrifice.
Even I believe Elon Musk said, that he
had to borrow money
to pay his rent.
He's still borrowing money.
And then eventually ended up becoming the richest
person on the planet.
Right, multibillionaire.
There has to be a sacrifice for everything.
Sometimes people come up to me, I really
want to seek knowledge, I want to go
abroad. It's not going to be easy,
but the fruits
that come with it my brothers and my
sisters, will Allah you can't put into words,
let alone thinking that Allah is going to
abandon you.
Right? And it's going to be tough, it's
going to be hard
when you end up taking that journey. It's
not easy.
You guys see Sheikh Mohammed,
right? And some of the other Mashaikh, you
think they had a wonderful life up until
they got to the level that they're at
at this moment in time?
You see some of these Quran,
right, that lead you every night.
You think it was easy for them?
People only see that beautiful, wonderful recitation,
wow, Allah Umar Barik,
he sounds so wonderful.
But you don't know the story behind how
it became so wonderful and so beautiful.
Everyone has a story, my brothers and my
sisters.
Just about every Talib that comes and sits
in front of you,
right,
he has gone through a very, very tough
time.
He has gone through troubles
and hardships.
Right?
Maybe next time
comes, ask them.
What did you go through?
I know some of them,
right? When we were in Medina, how they
struggled
even in a Yemen,
sometimes the parent would cut off the funding,
right
Sometimes they're just about getting by with the
little that you have
So, Imam Malik Rahmatullahi
is saying
There has to be a sacrifice,
right, until you taste
poverty.
Isn't Abu Huray
a great example of that?
Who used to faint
Between the Masjid
and the Mimbar?
And the people would think that he's Majnoon,
that he's lost his mind.
And he would say,
It's not because I'm crazy,
It
was because of hunger.
He would sit there noting down all of
those hadith.
Right? I believe it was 5,342
Hadith that he narrated, Abu Huray
Right? Became the most prolific in terms of
narrating a Hadith,
right. The Messenger
would instruct him to get a stone and
then to tie it on his stomach,
because of how hungry he would become. If
food was brought to the Masjid, he would
eat. Food wasn't brought, he would go to
sleep
hungry.
Right?
But then eventually, my brothers and my sisters,
he became the governor of Al Medina,
and Allah blessed him with gardens.
Allah blessed him with gardens, my brothers and
my sisters. He became a very wealthy man.
Even the clothing that he would wear would
be extremely expensive,
and then he would blow his nose in
it.
And he would say, Bakin, Bakin.
Once upon a time, you are like that,
and now you're blowing your nose in this
expensive clothing
It's like you on the day of Eid,
you're gonna go to JD and buy Adidas
and
and whatever else, expensive clothing,
or Gucci in your Gucci top, and then
as you walk into your Masjid,
would you do that? I don't think anyone
would do that.
Look how where he was,
and look where he ended up.
Why is a sacrifice?
And this is a promise that Allah makes
Allah will give you authority on the earth,
those who do righteous deeds, and come with
iman, and the best form of righteous deeds
is to learn about your religion.
He will give you authority, and that's exactly
what happened in Abu Hurray. He's a living
example of that.
Of course, passed away by the time.
Let me tell you all, my brothers and
my sisters, about the great Imam Sahil Bukha,
not that's not his name. His name is
Muhammad Ismail Bukhari.
But the most authentic book after the book
of Allah, the Quran is what? Sahil Bukhari.
Right.
Again, we look at his
wonderfully,
compiled
a hadith book, right?
Did that just happen
overnight, Yani? Allah gave him some superpower to
put that together?
Now, He put the work in,
Right? He put the work in, my brothers
and my sisters.
So Umar ibn Hafs al Ashkar
who was a contemporary to Mohammed bin Ishmael
Bukhari, he says, Kunam al Bukhari Bil Basra.
Naktup.
We were with Bukhari in Basra,
which is where?
Iraq. Isn't
it pronounced as Basra today?
Basra.
Right? In Iraq.
We were with him and we were what?
Noting down a hadith
Fafakad Nahu a Yemen,
He went missing for a couple of days.
And then we found him in a house
while he was naked.
Right? And you're wondering why? What is he
doing to himself?
Whatever he had, he sold it. He got
rid of it.
So we collected some money for him
in order to be able to clothe him,
to put some clothes on him.
The money
that he had, the clothes that he was
wearing,
he ended up selling it. Why? Why, brothers
and sisters? So he can continue seeking knowledge.
Keep pondering upon this question,
why? Why is he doing all this to
himself?
To seek knowledge, why, Lesh?
He may have already a bit of knowledge
to be able to get by in his
life,
but all of that,
to the point he doesn't have anything to
wear.
Right? This is Imam Al Buhari,
one thing I forgot to mention about Imam
Malik,
who mentioned that statement, did you know my
brothers and my sisters, his mother was a
righteous person?
She would wake him up every morning and
she would say go to Rabii'a,
take from his etiquettes before you take from
his knowledge.
Sometimes it's the parent that puts a lot
of effort in as well,
The parent has to go through a lot
of hardship, the parent has to sell whatever
they have just so the child can go
and seek knowledge, and the parent end up
struggling,
and Allah is not going to make that
go to waste.
Then you have my brothers and my sisters
another example of Sharab ibn Hajjaj.
Sharab ibn Hajjaj, as Sufyanath Thawri Muhammaduallaih mentioned,
my brothers and my sisters, he was Amir
ul mumineen fil Hadith.
He was the leader of the believers when
it came to Hadith.
That's the status that he reached.
Right?
Also, ibn al Bihatim, he says,
He was above all of the scholars in
his time. He was from the Tabi'in.
You have the Sahaba,
then you have the tabi'in,
and then you have the at Saba'at Tabi'in,
the 3 golden generations
that the messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam praised.
The best generation is my generation, and those
who come after them, those who come after
them.
And that's where we need to be taking
our understanding
in how to understand the religion. Quran,
Sunnah, and then their understanding. The understanding of
3 golden generations.
So, Sharab ibn Hajjaz, my brothers and my
sisters.
He spent
18 months with a scholar called Al Hakam
ibn U Tayba.
He was learning about the hadith
To the point
Have you guys seen the trunk of a
house? Today, houses are built a little bit
differently. You go to places like Yemen or
anywhere else,
the more poorer countries,
they take a trunk of a tree and
they put it on top in order to
keep it together.
Yani, it is a fundamental
foundational part of that house.
Right?
You remove that, you may not be able
to have a roof.
Shoaib ibn Hajjaj,
18 months he's studying,
he so badly wanted to continue, but again
why, why?
Would he sell something
as important as the trunk of your house?
Think about it, selling this in order to
go and seek knowledge,
does it really add up?
But there's something that he so badly wanted,
right,
that he desperately needed in order to be
able to continue.
He was an amazing individual my brothers and
my sisters, when you read up his life.
Even another, Ibn Shumail, he mentions about Shubh
bin Hijaj,
He said, I never saw anyone who was
more merciful upon the Meskeen,
the poor, then what the Shaba?
And that is because if he saw a
Meskeen,
he would continue looking at him until someone
gave him something.
If he didn't have anything to give, he'll
be looking at him, he'll be making a
scene out of it,
just so
this person goes away
with something.
You know, my brothers and my sisters, I
think this is an important benefit to mention.
When I read up the lives of these
righteous individuals, it wasn't just about memorizing knowledge
or taking a knowledge.
It also was followed up with Al Amal
act.
Putting in the act of what you have
just learnt,
And this is something crucial for every individual
here.
Allah doesn't just raise people because of knowledge
that they have.
Right?
As Ibun Qayim
mentions,
right?
He says,
But rather following that which is the truth
and also acting upon it. That's when Allah
will raise that individual
Then you also have my brothers and my
sisters, Sufyan ibn Uyayna.
Sufyan ibn Auriyein, my brothers and my sisters,
was from the teachers of Al Imam al
Shafi'i.
If you look up the first hadith of
Inam al Amal Baniyat
and Sahib Bukhari, you find Khal Hadithna al
Humedi, Khal Hadithna Safiyal ibn Arayna,
right?
He comes after
Al Khomeidi.
So he was basically the teacher
of the teacher of Imam Bukhari.
He said,
I
heard Shirk Bibl Al Hajjaj,
this great
important
Islamic figure personality saying Shirk Bibl Hajjaj
Whoever goes after learning about hadith, he will
eventually become bankrupt
He said
I sold the pans and the pots of
my mother,
right? For 7 dinanir or dinars.
My brothers and my sisters, let me ask
you guys, right? What does this remind you
of?
Gambling.
Hassan.
Our brother he mentioned, someone who gambles.
Anyone else that he reminds you of?
Hasan, drug addicts.
Of course, we're not trying to compare Shabbib
al Hejaz, the great Tiber or Tabbi, right,
to a gambler also.
When you mention a drug addict.
But when someone desperately wants something, he will
sell what?
His essentials.
I'm assuming Shur'aib ibn Hijaj, he had permission
from his mother to do that,
right? I'm assuming.
But to that extent,
so he can go and seek knowledge.
Right?
SubhanAllah. The pans and the pots that you
have in the house.
Desperately
need your drug, right?
To sum my brothers and my sisters knowledge
is like a drug for them. They can't
function without it.
Nam, it's an addiction, I sent.
Wallahi non, it's an addiction.
Put him in a room
without anything, he might end up going crazy
brothers and sisters.
And we will come unto Ibn Khayyim in
a short while.
When the doctor told him to stop speaking
and stop delivering classes,
And what his response to the doctor was?
He was an addict, but an addict of
knowledge.
Ibn Nabi Hatim, again, from the great scholars
of hadith of the past.
He says about his father Abu Hatim Arazi.
And my brothers and my sisters
died on his deathbed,
and the last thing that came out of
his mouth was
They had entered upon him,
right? Abu Zuraat Razi,
and I forgot the name of the other
great Imam of hadith, when they entered upon
him,
they felt shy to say to him, say
La Illa Allah, say La Illa HIlla. This
is what you do, Ramaz Salam is on
his deathbed. Say? I think I've mentioned this
time and time again, we want to be
ending our lives with La ilaha illallah. But
do you think that just happens by chance?
And that's common sense. Whoever lives on something
is very likely going to die like that.
Right?
You have these guys making fun of me,
hey, when on that video, you guys saw
it about Alan Shearer, Alan Shearer.
Some of you guys know I'm talking about.
I became a meme on it,
SubhanAllah.
When in reality, SubhanAllah,
I heard it 10 years ago and it
came to me from different sources.
Isn't this something that can potentially happen possible?
When you think about it?
Someone is just talking about football all the
time, 24 hours or throughout the day, that's
all he speaks about. And then when he
passes away,
he's playing football, or he's talking about football.
Wallahi, my cousin called me one time, and
he said so and so, right,
so and so died on the football pitch.
Now my brothers and my sisters,
if you die on on the football pitch,
are you going to jahannam?
No, of course not.
Right? But would you preferably die in your
sujood on a football pitch?
Of course.
What's the likelihood that you'll die on a
football pitch?
It's possible, right, if you're always on the
football pitch.
By the way, it's playing football haram.
Of course not. Even I was a bowler
once upon a time.
Right?
Shaidmul Kalam, if you're playing forward,
but a hamshay doesn't want to distract you
from Allah Azzawajal Mustafa Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and
you don't do it excessively.
Point that I was saying is,
they entered upon him, Abu Zura and the
other one, I completely forgot the name.
When they entered upon him, they said, O
Sheikh, let's start revising hadith,
pertaining to when someone's on his deathbed. So
what he did was, he he read the
whole chain of narration till when he came
to the hadith,
and I'll say in English before I say
in Arabic.
Whoever's last statement is La Illa Illa, what
happens?
Taqalal Jannah.
And when someone's on his deathbed, you're aiming
to get him to say La Illahi La
Laa and
nothing after that, right?
Because if he says anything after that, you
start again, you say La Illa like that.
So he said,
hadith was narrated by so and so, and
then,
passed away.
He didn't even say daklal jannah because had
he said he would say against.
You think that happens by chance? Someone who
lived the life hadith
Last thing that he said was the Hadith
with the ilaha illallah.
Right? May Allah
give us similar deaths.
So he says I heard my father, even
though Abi Hattem says about Abu Hattem who
died like that.
I stayed in Basra
for
8 months.
I had the intention to stay for 1
year,
but whatever spending money that I had
came to an end.
So the cloves that I had, I began
to sell it,
one after the other,
until I had nothing.
So me and my friends, we would go
from one Sheikh to another
in order to seek knowledge,
right?
All the way up until the evening,
and then after that, my friends, they would
go back to
wherever they were staying
As for me, I would go back home
to an empty house,
and I would drink water
because I didn't have food.
I would just drink water in order to,
right, remove the hunger I had.
I drunk my urine
5 times
in order to continue seeking hadith,
learning about hadith.
So Khatib al Baghdadi, Khatib al Baghdadi,
he comments and he says, because the moment
you hear something like this, you're thinking, that
is disgusting,
how can somebody do something like that?
Right.
But he did that out of necessity. You
You know when you're in the middle of
the desert and you don't have
anything to eat and you're going to die
out of hunger, are you allowed to eat
haram?
It's mentioned
in the Quran,
right?
Whoever does it out of necessity,
there's no sin upon that individual.
Khatib al Baghdadi says
because He didn't have water out of necessity,
He did that,
right, to put context to the situation because
otherwise no one in their
sane mind is ever going to do anything
like that.
Right?
So ask us why brothers,
why
are they going to such extremes
in order to seek knowledge?
I touched a little bit about it because
we can't function,
Right? We can't function in this world without
knowledge.
You will lose your mind, my brothers and
my sisters.
People that immerse in haram, they are filling
our diem's brothers and sisters, crying out for
help, please help. They don't want my money,
they don't want me to put a roof
over there, they have all of that.
Give me some guidance, I am lost.
Right?
I am absolutely lost, I don't know where
to start.
So these are some of the falal,
and then we're going to conclude, Insha'Allah Ta'ala,
with something that happened to Ibn Taym,
right, the
sweetness that would come with it.
Ali
says,
It is enough
to say that knowledge is honorable,
that someone would claim to be knowledgeable
even if he doesn't have knowledge.
You know when you say about someone who
doesn't have knowledge, mashaAllah, he's got knowledge. Does
he get upset or does he get happy?
Even though he knows,
right, that he doesn't have any knowledge.
And he becomes happy when it's ascribed to
him, and then he says,
Right? And it is enough
of a disgrace to be ignorant that even
if someone is ignorant, he's going to what?
Disassociate himself from it. Like, if you knew
that somebody was ignorant and you called him
ignorant, he's gonna be happy.
He's gonna say, yeah, I'm ignorant brothers. Yeah.
Jazak Alakhair. I know I'm ignorant, I'm ignorant.
No, he gets upset, they get annoyed,
but if you call him knowledgeable, even though
he's ignorant, he gets excited.
He's saying isn't that enough of a virtue?
And isn't that enough of a defamation for
ignorance that one will try to remove the
ignorance from him?
Also the statement of Allah
when Allah said,
instructing his prophet to ask for an increase
in knowledge. Ibn Hajjar, he says,
this is clear indication.
That shows the virtue of knowledge.
Allah did not instruct His Prophet,
who had the wahid, the revelation coming down
upon him, the most knowledgeable on the face
of this Earth,
to ask for an increase in anything other
than knowledge.
Right?
This is Insha'Allah
Dua
that every one of us is going to
be what?
Supplicating
in our sujood today.
Right? As I mentioned at the beginning, people
only think that you need to seek knowledge
if you want to become the next big
mufti, but I gave you guys first hand
experiences and case studies
that you can't function without it.
So if you're an authority says,
there is no act that is better than
seeking knowledge,
either
only when the intention is correct.
Then there is nothing more greater, because with
the wrong intentions,
maybe because I want to be called a
Qari
or maybe I want to be the reference
point
for Qira'at or for Ilm,
right? You just want to be seen as
someone like that,
right?
You're missing out on it being the most
virtuous act.
Then you look at my brothers and my
sisters,
at Abdullah and Mas'udha
right, especially if you're young,
give this
a very close listen.
Abdullah ibn Surudi would say
Upon You seek knowledge,
right, before it is seized,
before this knowledge is seized.
And the way this knowledge is seized
is those who possess this knowledge that will
depart from this world, they will pass away,
and then He says
upon you seek knowledge
Because you don't know when that time is
going to come, when the people will be
in need of what you have.
My brothers and my sisters, you know, a
lot of time things happen. We look up
and we think we have Sheikh Mohammed, we
have Sheikh Fulan, we have Sheikh Mustafa,
we have this and we have that. When
will the people ever need me?
Here, Abdulai Mus'ud is speaking words of wisdom.
You don't know when that time is going
to come, when the people will be in
need
of what you have.
How many people do I know, my brothers
and my sisters? They came to a certain
locality because they needed something.
Maybe Durasa,
university studies, and they sought knowledge at a
very young age. It could be a Quran,
it could be anything else.
And then when the people
discover that this guy is a gem in
the community, a hidden gem,
everyone started flocking around him, and he ended
up changing the whole community.
From the benefits that I take from Surat
Yousef, my brothers and my sisters, is that
one person of knowledge, Yusuf Alaihi Wasallam,
he had the knowledge of being able to
interpret dreams, right?
He saved his whole society.
That through one person, Allah can save a
Ummah.
Isn't this what we learned from you, sort
Joseph?
He was able to interpret the dream of
the king,
told
them, don't eat this, make sure you store
and save this, wahakida.
And then SubhanAllah they lived on,
right?
Allahu Akbar.
Otherwise, they could have all died of a
famine.
He said this right after Abu Abdul Ahmed's
word, look at Abdul Abi Abbas radiAllahu ta'ala
Anumma.
When the messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam passed
away, does anybody know how old he was?
I'm getting conflicting information.
No, I'm talking about ibn Abbas.
Because everyone knows 63. Right? That's just a
lie.
10, anyone else?
9, 13. There is what conflicting reports,
right, from those who narrated it. Some say
12, some say what
9, 10, 11.
Al Akuli Hali was very very young, very
very young.
You know when the Messenger
passed away,
Abdul
Laban Abbas, his cousin,
when running from one halaqah to another,
to one great companion to another, taking down
knowledge, until one day an Ansari saw him
You know you have the and the Ansar,
right?
1 of the Ansars saw him and he
said
What are you doing?
Strange is your affair.
Do you really think
that the people will be in need of
what you have?
They have the likes of Abu Bakr, Omar,
Usman, Ali.
Right? Say, even the Sabbath or wave in
a cab. People gonna need you?
Oh, young one?
Abdulham Abbas says, I turned away from him,
And I continued doing whatever I was doing.
You know, Abdulayna Abbas, my brothers, my sisters,
sometimes he would sit on the doorstep.
Right? He would sit on the doorstep
at around door time where it's the scorching
heat,
and he would put what? The shawl around
his face.
Because of the
sunstorms and it would that would hit him
in the face.
And then Mu'adim Jabbal
or Zaidim Musthabit,
they would come out and say,
you're the cousin of the Messenger, come, come,
I would have come to you
if you told me, and then he would
say,
no. You travel to knowledge, not the other
way, and the teacher shouldn't be coming to
you.
Right?
So this is what Abdul Al Anwar Buses
used to do, running around.
Until one day,
when years had gone past, my brothers and
my sisters,
that same Ansari, we don't even know his
name, my brothers and my sisters. The narration
doesn't state his name. It just says Ansari.
Right?
But everyone knows Abdul Abba's name though, right?
He saw that everybody was sitting around Ibn
Abbas, taking knowledge from him.
Mujahid Tawus. You open up the tafsir of
Nukather, you'll hear these names. Mujahid Tawus.
Same Jubeir.
Right?
They were all the student Abbas. When he
saw this, you know what he said?
This young man was more smarter and more
intelligent than me.
Right. That's when he realized
I have 5 minutes, I know Sheikh.
Yeah? And she said, it's start time already?
Shaikh, please, I really want to just say,
please, Shaikh. Yeah?
My brothers and my sisters, I promised that
I would tell you guys about Ibnu Qayyim
Rahmatullahi alayhi,
because the knowledge comes with the halawah.
It comes with a sweetness that you cannot
put into words.
Right?
And now we will begin to make sense
why they would give up so much
just to be able to what? Continuous to
acknowledge.
What did we mention earlier? That the Ilm
is an addiction, right?
And I gave you guys the example of
Shur'bim Al Hajjaj, who would sell the trunk
of his house,
and the pans and the pots of his
mother for 7 dinars.
It reminded us of a gambler, and someone
who's a drug addict.
Not that we were trying to compare him
to that,
but how much it became so,
like, a part of them.
They couldn't do without it,
right?
Look at Ibn Al Taym Rahmatullahi Alaihi, right?
He says,
Sheikhuna.
Our Sheikh, meaning Ibrutay Mohammed Talaihi, who died
in the year 728.
Ibnukem is the rating he's talking about his
teacher.
The doctor says to him,
I'm gonna need the doctors here Whoever is
doctor, I want you to testify later
You
going through knowledge
and delivering classes, speaking about it,
is only going to increase
your sickness.
This is not something that I can accept
from you.
And I'm now going to challenge you to
what you believe.
We want to debate the doctor now.
He says
You know, you you as a person when
you're sick,
and you begin to do the things that
you like,
that ups your morale.
It says to him. Right?
Your nature now becomes stronger.
And then eventually, it will help it overcome
the sickness.
The doctor says, better, that's true.
Right? My soul feels at peace.
Normally, they will say to you take a
rest,
Stop whatever you were doing before, just take
a rest. He goes, I feel at peace,
and I'm resting
when I am now reading, when I am
now engaged in knowledge,
right?
The doctor then says to him,
This is outside of the prescription that we
can give you.
And he left him like that.
The leather that they felt to my brothers
and my sisters.
Right? The sweetness that it comes with.
Sometimes you're looking for a masala and then
you find it.
The way your whole day, my brothers and
my sisters,
your whole day changes
when you hear something or when you find
something that you're looking for, like a mess
Allah or an answer.
And if you're noting down your knowledge, you
will eventually find it.
But if you didn't note down the benefits,
you're gonna live
with Hasra, with regrets. Oh, I wish your
son may need an advice.
Your wife is asking you a question,
and you wrote it down. You can what
benefit them?
Right.
We've also, my brothers and my sisters, probably
heard time and time again Ibrahim ibn Adham
who died in the year 162,
Al Hijri.
Right?
A little bit about him, he would say
It was one time said to him, a
man came and said I'm not able to
pray in the night, again, the night prayer
has a laddah,
has a sweetness that you can't put into
words
Right?
Give me the cure for it or the
medicine for it
Don't disobey him in the day,
right, and Allah Azza wa Jal will allow
you to stand in front of Him in
the night.
Shut off. You standing in front of him
is from the greatest
of honorable acts.
The person who sinned,
he's not deserving
of dishonor,
this nobility, right?
He would be sitting by a river, my
brothers and my sisters,
and they would have a piece of bread
that had become hard.
Right.
And they would dip in the river in
order to soften it.
They would look at one another, him and
his companion, and he would say,
If only they knew their peace and their
contentment that we are experiencing,
they would have fought us with their swords.
Isn't this what rulers and kings do? They
go after one another in order to,
invade his kingdom, so he can then benefit
from it.
Right? Because they think that's what's going to
bring them prosperity, happiness, and peace.
Right?
And last but not least, my brothers and
my sisters,
I want to mention the story
that I came across
in Al Jami Al Akhlaqarawi.
Right?
Wa Adab Is Sami'a. Sheikh Mohammed is the
last story.
Yes. It's the last stories. Our doors are
opening. That's a sign.
Right? We know all the,
that happened between Abu Bakr Al Jahabi
and also Sulaiman ibn Ahmed Tabrani.
Right?
He says, Fakhanat Tabrani
He would overpower him with all of the
memorization that he had
Right?
As for Al Jabi
Right? He would overpower him with his
intelligence, he was very smart
And then one time SubhanAllah
the,
emotions,
right, went out of control and they started
raising their voices and what have you as
sometimes happens, right, in knowledge circles.
Right, the emotions gained between them,
that competitive
that competitivity.
So SubhanAllah, the one who was,
you know, the the host
was an individual called Ibnul Ibad,
who was one of the ministries of that
time,
Sahib Mansab Mansab.
He was a person of authority,
and he had money as well, and he's
looking at this.
So Al Jabi said to him, remember you
have Soleim Al Amin Al Tabrani and you
have Abu Bakr Al Jabi.
Abu Bakr Al Jabi, he says to
Sulaiman ibn Ahmed Tabrani,
I have
I know Hadith
that you will not find anywhere in this
Dunya except with me
So if you want to learn about it,
you have to take it directly from me
I would have to be in the chain
of narration.
So he said, Tim,
give it.
So he mentioned a chain of narration, listen
upright,
And then he mentioned the narration.
At Tabrani turns around to him and he
says,
remember what he said, right?
I want you guys to just quickly repeat
after me,
Khalifa.
That's his name Khalifa. Right? The one that
comes after is Sulaiman ibn Ayyub.
And then he mentioned hadith Tabran, he says
to him,
I am Sulaiman ibn Ayub.
Right? I am Sulaiman ibn
ibnayub. And Abu Khalifa sorry, I said Khalifa.
Abu Khalifa actually took it from me.
And then he went and gave it to
you. So come to me now. I'll give
you a shorter chain of narration.
And then look what he said, and this
is what I want to mention.
Ibn al-'Amid,
who is what? A minister,
a person of authority,
a person of status in a society,
I said
I wish that day that me being a
minister
was something that At Tabrani was, and I
was in his place.
Right?
And I became happy
the same way Atabrani was so happy because
he ended up winning the discussion
Hadith because of that Hadith
Okemaqal.
Right?
It comes with a lidah,
it comes with peace and contentment, my brothers
and my sisters, that you will not be
able to find in any of the glitters
and the glimmers of this world.
Right?
I hope insha'Allah ta'ala this can encourage us
to really look at the aspect or the
concept of knowledge differently.
Again, I just want to thank every single
one of you all
for coming here, for coming here, for honoring
me here with your presence.
And also Sheikh Mohammed and Masjid Al Furhan
are also extreme always extremely kind.
Right? Jazakumullah Khairi, Sheikh for rinsing me out,
right,
and taking away from me every remaining energy
that I had even though I have tarawih
now,
and then I have tajjud. This was not
part of the program, but who can say
no to Sheikh Mohammed? Right?
I ask Allah to reunite us in this
Masjid, in this world, and if he doesn't,
to reunite us in the highest part of
Al Jannah.
Again, brothers,
I have to show off the Bradford.
Right? I was here after Jum'ah, I gave
salaams to everyone, I think.
Right? But now, allay brothers, we really have
to show off.
I don't want to come across rude and
I say no to people. I don't like
using this word no to people. I don't
know how to say it.
Right?
So,
First of all, we wanna thank
our stars, our Sheikh from the bottom of
our hearts.
I say to
him, all of you together.
Say it one more time.
That's beautiful.
The Sheikh has to go, and and I
wanna thank him from the bottom of my
heart on behalf of this amazing congregation. And
this Masjid and this community, may Allah
bless him and take him back to
to his home safely be in the light.
Please don't come to the shaker. I'm gonna
take him to the office for a second,
and then he has to go.