Faraz Rabbani – The Rawha #074 The Best of Allahs Bounty The Best of Actions Overcoming Hardships in Seeking Knowledge
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of hadiths in the holy Bible and their use in shaping one's behavior. They emphasize the importance of love and remorse, as well as the importance of polishing one's heart to receive reward and achieve success in pursuing one's worldly goals. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of learning and traveling in pursuit of knowledge, as it is necessary to travel in pursuit of knowledge. The speaker provides examples of successful examples of reward, such as sincerity and soundness, and provides guidance for listeners with hesitation and monthly donations.
AI: Summary ©
You're listening to the Roha, daily guidance for
seekers with Sheikh Farazrabani,
who will be covering Imam Yusuf and Abiheni's
beautiful collection of 40 sets of 40 hadith
of the prophet, peace and blessings be upon
him, as well as Imam Zarnouji's guidance for
seekers of knowledge regarding the ways of seeking
knowledge.
Muhammad
In our look at 40 hadiths on the
merits of the remembrance of Allah, mighty and
majestic,
we have reached hadith number 18
from this collection
by Sheikh Yousaf
and Nabihani
And
we saw in the previous
lesson
some of the hadiths
on the importance of keeping one's tongue moist
with the remembrance of Allah
And this theme continues
in the first hadiths that we look at
today. Hadith number 18,
So one of the
relates that Mu'adh ibn Jabal said to them,
to a group that was gathered.
Right?
So say, Nur ibn Jabal said to a
group
of those who came after
the time of the prophet
that truly
the final words
upon which I parted with the messenger of
Allah salallahu alayhi wa sallam
is that I said
to him,
which actions
are most beloved
to Allah
mighty and majestic.
That the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam said that you die
with your tongue
moist
in remembrance
of Allah,
mighty and majestic.
This is related by Ibn Abid Duniya and
Tabarani and Albazar and Ibn Hiban and others.
Right? And it confirms
the same meaning.
Right? And we see also from that the
emphasis given
of the from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam on remaining
consistent
on the remembrance of Allah. I remember
when I was studying
a commentary on the 40 in
Damascus with Sheikh Mohammed Kailish,
each of the and we're reading the commentary
of
of Al Jardani.
And each of the hadiths,
after we looked at the commentary, he'd pause.
And before ending the lesson, he'd connect
the hadith to higher spiritual meanings.
And then we reach the hadith of of
innovation.
The 2 hadiths of innovation
together
in in the 40 Noah.
Whoever innovates in this matter of ours that
which is not of it shall have it
rejected.
Whoever performs an action that does not con
conform
to our affair shall have it rejected.
So Sheikh Mohammed Kailish
smiled and asked,
what is the greatest bidah?
And I kept quiet because I didn't wanna
say something foolish
and there's many possibilities.
So he
said
that. Right? The greatest innovation
is to be heedless of Allah. Why?
Because the the bida, the innovation
is that which goes against
the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam was
is
so powerfully summarized. The messenger of
Allah would be in remembrance of Allah in
all his states.
Allah commands in the Quran,
the messenger
directly,
do not be of the heedless.
Right? Which is why
the great
Kurdish scholar from Iraq,
Sheikh Abdul Karim
Al Mudarris,
he in his
commentary on the poem
that he
authored summarizing
the seerah of the life of the prophet
Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him,
He says that the sunnah,
the the way of the prophet is
established on
on 2
fundamental matters, 2 pillars,
2 wings.
One is
remembrance of Allah,
and the second is to call oneself
and then others to Allah.
Everything
else in the sunnah
is built on and is derivative of these
two realities.
Remembrance of Allah and calling oneself
and then others to Allah. That is
Deen. Anything outside of that is
delusion.
Hadith number 19.
May Allah be all pleased with him relates
to the prophet, peace and blessings be upon
him, said, there is no
day or night except
that Allah, mighty and majestic, has
charity that he bestows
upon
whomever he wills of his servants.
Charity,
Sadaqah is
of
bounty, right, because you give of your excess
wealth. Right. So he this is bounty that
he bestows upon whomever he wills of his
servants,
And there's nothing that Allah
bestows upon a servant
that is better
for them
that is better
for them than than Allah inspiring them to
remember him.
Why?
Remember me and I will remember you. And
if
and if Allah remembers you, then
as
the poet said,
If love from you is true, then all
else is easy.
Of course, the poet said it in praise
of Saifed Daulah who's the ruler of Halab
way back
because poets
all poets and artists always needed funding. So
if if you love me, all else is
easy because I'll be set.
But the scholars took that because such praise
belongs to Allah.
If love from
you is true, then all else is easy.
Because everything above the dust is mere dust.
Yeah. Every concern
besides
Allah. As the prophet
said,
The truest words ever stated by a poet,
So the prophet
were the words of Labid.
Truly,
everything
besides Allah
is baseless.
Right?
And every
enjoyment
without doubt
is ending,
which is why he
said,
do not be content
with other than Allah as the object of
your love.
For everything besides him is mere mirage.
I counsel you if you have any ascription
to seeking Allah.
Right?
The people of remembrance
lost themselves
in the one
they love.
Right? And that's the importance of love, of
remembrance,
that it is only
by remembrance
that love
is expressed,
nurtured,
and attained.
And here the mention of Ibn Abi Duniya,
it's an important mention
because Ibn Abi Duniya was a great Hanbali
scholar
and a great imam of Hadith who wrote
amazing
treatises
on the virtues and the vices
in which he gathered
a lot
of hadiths
and a lot of the the sayings of
the companions and the early generations.
And in many cases,
the the scholars who came after
took some of what Ibn Abi Dunia mentions
and subsumed it in their works amongst them.
The likes of Abu Talib al Makki and
Al Qusayri and Muhammad al Ghazali
and after them, ibn al Jazi and others.
But
the works of ibn Abid Dunia, any of
the virtues of our deen
or any of the things that are warned
against, you'll find,
you know, a treatise of Ibn Abidunya related
to it. These these are gathered and they're
important works, and he was a scholar of
discernment
in the science of hadith.
So often he'll mention
hadiths that are rarer versions
of hadiths that are established in more famous
works,
right, as a point of benefit.
The next hadith,
which the Ulema mentioned, is one of the
most decisive
hadiths
about the preeminence of the remembrance of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. The hadith of Abu Darda
and Abu Darda
there there's a very powerful rhetorical
style in this.
Right? It's called
which is
length you know, mentioning something at length.
And in terms of rhetoric sometimes brevity
is best,
but sometimes
extending
something
is more suitable.
So the prophet
here uses itmad,
that should I not tell you about the
best of your actions?
That would be enough,
but he continued
and the purest of it with
your
master.
And the highest of it
in raising your ranks.
And better for you than giving
gold and silver in charity.
And better for you than your than you
meeting your enemy in war,
striking their necks and then striking yours.
Right? This is Itnaab.
Why? Because the person said, should I should
I not tell you?
And should I
not has.
It causes a person to yearn for the
response, but you delay it. So they pay
more attention
and are more avid
for the response.
Should I not tell you about the best
of your works
and its purest and highest and greatest reward
and better than charity and better than jihad?
They said, indeed,
do tell us.
And of course if there's
a negation in the question if you say
means no don't tell us.
So you say indeed meaning do tell us.
The remembrance of Allah, mighty and majestic. This
is related by Imam Ahmed
with a sound chain of transmission and by
many others.
So this
is a key,
a key quality. Right? So practically
practically,
the key
to transforming one's life is to bring remembrance
of Allah
into
one's life.
And then we'll look at
tomorrow
the hadith on polishing one's heart.
If you remember,
doctor Omar shared
a beautiful
explanation
of what it means to polish
and why you need you would need to
polish
a mirror. And the heart is like a
mirror,
but it requires polishing because of the nature
of what mirrors are.
Right?
But and this
metaphor of the mirror of the heart,
right, because what is it meant to reflect?
It is meant to reflect none
but the but the one whom one loves.
That's why
in his famous poet poem,
says,
I am the mirror
of my beloved.
In yearning for them,
in their love,
oh self,
find contentment.
From other than them,
oh,
self disappear.
Right?
And cast aside all lowly things.
May Allah
inspire us to be of those servants described
in the Quran
as being.
Right? Those who remember Allah much,
male or female,
for whom Allah has prepared
forgiveness,
k, and tremendous reward. And that's an amazing
thing
that some people have forgiveness.
Right. Allah has prepared for them, and it's
waiting for them.
Right?
And that that that makes someone very special.
Like one thing is you come and you'll
get something, but something just waiting for you.
Right?
And what is waiting for you?
And it's put in the indefinite because it
is
unconditional
forgiveness
and tremendous
reward.
We we also look in these daily rohas
at and you can, of course, if you're
connecting for the first time, these are Mondays
to Thursdays, 7 to 7:30.
And we also podcast them through the Seekers
Hub website. If you go to Seekers Hub
dot org slash podcast, you'll see the daily
podcast.
And if you go to Itunes or any
other
place that you find your podcasts,
you'll
if you search for SeekersHub,
we have
half a dozen different active podcasts. One of
them is this daily podcast. So you can
see the previous
sessions as
well.
So we're we're also looking at
instruction of the student on the ways of
learning by imam Zaroo by imam Zarnoohji,
and we saw in the previous lesson
his his counsel that it is absolutely necessary
for the student of knowledge
to diminish
their worldly
attachments
to the extent
possible.
And the most important of attachments,
as we know from the sunnah, is
to get rid of
the things that are not of clear benefit.
Right? The prophet
told us one of the
keys to attaining
benefit
and becoming of the people of excellence in
this life of fulfilling
the higher aims of of religion.
From the excellence of a person's
Islam is leaving all
that does not concern them. And what doesn't
concern you? That which is not of clear
benefit in your religion
or of clear benefit
in
your genuine worldly
aims.
So he says,
and that's why a lot of the great
scholars chose
to to be strangers, to be
to to live in foreign lands.
Right?
But the true stranger,
right, is not the one
who travels
to Sham or Yemen as the poet said.
Right? The true gharib,
right, the true gharib
is the one
whose concerns
differ
from the those
who
have merely worldly concerns.
That's the true gharib. The true gharib, the
true stranger
is the one whose purpose
is not
this world
and whose purpose is not merely worldly.
That's the true because you can if someone
who does not who's just got a worldly
purpose,
they go spend 6 months.
Spend a year in Damascus.
How was Damascus?
The traffic was terrible.
Pollution was awful.
You feel the cold there big time. However,
where where we lived in Midan,
you the best shawarma's you can find anywhere
in the world
in Sukhul Jasmatiyah.
And, masha'Allah,
I didn't find
croissants as good as the damascan croissants even
in Paris itself. And
were you studying there? Oh, yeah. Of course,
I was attending class, but but what are
your concerns?
Right.
So these are
you know, this is
you know, so just going somewhere else,
you find such a person, how much do
they do they benefit from the time there?
Right. So one has to be careful.
It is absolutely necessary from bearing
the toil
and difficulties
in one's journeying
for seeking knowledge.
And this applies in every way.
Everyone
has different
struggles
in their seeking knowledge or in their being
part of the seeking of knowledge. There's a
beautiful lesson,
and if someone
can can summarize it it
the its main points in English, Insha'Allah,
we'll we'll we'll be sharing that on the
secret one.
Habib Alil Jifri gave a lesson
on the on the passing
of Habib Omar's
mother.
Right? And as you know,
Yemen and the valley of Haramoth and the
city of Tareem
get intensely hot in
the summer.
But there was a time when Habi'ammar's father,
the only place he could teach was inside
his own house,
and the house was very small
and the students were many.
So Habib Omar's
wife, she herself gladly would sit on the
roof of of of her house
while he was teaching for hours,
the students.
Why?
And gladly
because this is being this is part of
being of the circle. Learning is
that
if you wish, then pay the price.
And the price you pay,
the return of it
the the return of it is in the
hereafter,
but the signs of its return are manifest
in this life.
And that's that sacrifice is required
wherever one is. Right? But there's also a
benefit when the time is right in traveling
in pursuit of knowledge.
As,
Sayidna Musa, peace and blessings be upon be
upon our prophet and upon him,
regarding
his journey of travel.
Right? That
I will not stop until I reach that
desired goal.
Right? I will not stop
until I reach that desired goal and
and that's not related
from him from any of the other journeys
and say, the Musa journeyed
before
his prophethood was manifest
and after prophethood.
And then he took his people
from Egypt to the promised land. There's all
these journeys of Sayidna Musa.
But which
one? And they're difficult journeys because his people
were being oppressed.
So he had to journey
before prophethood
and then after and then to the promised
land.
Right?
And these journeys
are mentioned. He's going to Mediyan and others
and all these.
However,
the time when the toil and struggle is
mentioned is with respect to seeking knowledge.
He's
he
said,
truly
we have found
in
this travel of hours
much
toil,
and this is before his meeting
Al Khabir
on the on the journey
there, which is a journey to seek knowledge.
And that's in the sunnah of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
In anything precious,
there are challenges.
Right? In order that it be known that
the journey of knowledge is never free of
toil.
Because knowledge is a tremendous matter.
And it's better
than
striving in the way of Allah in the
according to most of the scholars.
And
reward
is to the extent of the toil
and striving.
Of course, there's multiple variable
regarding
reward.
Right? The most fundamental being
sincerity.
Secondly,
soundness.
3rd is
excellence.
Sincerity
soundness
thirdly,
to
do it with excellence.
But then all these being equal that which
requires greater effort
would be greater in reward
all these being equal than that which requires
less effort.
Right?
And other than that has been said. Right?
So whoever is patient with that
will find
a
a joy, literally
a sweetness
that
far exceeds
all
joys
of this world.
Right?
But the point is not
the joy,
the but
the the one one one is seeking it
for.
And we'll close with
a mention from
of
Imam
the second
main student of Abu Hanifa,
and he also studied with Imam Malik and
was one of the main teachers of Imam
al Shafi.
And very interestingly, Imam Ahmed,
they say, you know, especially when it came
to commercial law, he was asked, like, where
did he get all this knowledge of commercial?
I said, by reading the books of Muhammad
al Hassan. So he is sort of. He
was a point of connection
between the various schools.
And some of Imam Malik's formal students amongst
them
studied under Muhammad al Hassan. It's a very
interesting
circle of benefit.
So Muhammad al Hassan,
when he stayed up at night
and some
complex issue became
clear for him,
would say, where are the children of kings
from these joys?
Right?
And, of course, Muhammad Al Hassan was
very, very precise with his time
and was very precise
with
how he allocated it. And he was very,
very careful with his books.
Sheikh Ay went to him and asked to
borrow some books and Imam Abu Hanifa said
no.
So Imam Abu Shaifa
that had to pull
a Trump card, he said, and he wrote
poetry to him
and told and it
said, that knowledge prevents
its people
from preventing it from its people.
And Imam al Shafi'ih
had tremendous praise for his teacher. Although they
also did debate, though many of the debates
related, as Imam al Kawthari mentions, are not
authentically established.
They're sort of it is said kind of
things. Imam Mohammed al Hassan,
also when
Asad ibn Forat, the student of Imam Malik,
went to him, asked him to study,
he said I don't have time.
And this is this great student, this great
imam by his own word, said
no. He said why? He said because I
don't have time. So what do you do
each day? And
didn't you say okay, you don't have time?
Okay. Let me look for alternatives. He kept
pursuing it.
So imam hamdulil Hasan said, my time is
busy right from Fajr
till the time I go to sleep.
It's all allocated.
And that's the way of those who seek
that they try to maximize.
And that's why that Imam Mohammed Imam Abu
Hanifa's own teacher, Hammad, it said about him,
that it was said to Hammad, you're going
to die tomorrow. He could not increase in
his good works because he's already going
beyond full tilt. So
I said to him, so what do you
do when you get before fajr? He said,
I worship my Lord.
So that's not it. He said, so what
do you do in the time that you
prepare
for worshiping
at night?
When you go
to wash up and make
and dress up before you go to pray.
He
said nothing.
Can I come at that time?
So Mohammed Al Hassan didn't really believe that
anyone would come at that time,
but they said Assad al Farhad didn't miss
a single appointment.
He'd go there,
whatever, an hour before Fajr, and that's the
time that he would study. And there's
many who
that's the only time they had, and the
the student who was serious took that time
and they made the most of it. But
that's of course, you only get to that
if you've taken care of other opportunities.
Right?
So we ask Allah to
recognize
opportunities and to make the most of them.
Right? And they say, do not be deluded
regarding the preciousness of of a path
by
the the the
the the lack of those who pursue it.
Right?
Because it's not
by
you know, it may be that only few
pursue it because it is so precious.
Right? So we ask Allah Subha Ta'ala to
grant us right priorities
and right striving. Muhammad.
Tomorrow we're going to look at his advice
that a seeker of knowledge should only should
not busy themselves with other things other than
knowledge.
But but how does one realize that when
one does have other responsibilities?
And many of the great olema and imams
of Istaa had many other responsibilities
as well. So we'll look at that.
Thank you for listening to the raha, daily
guidance for seekers with Sheikh Farazrabani.
Help SeekersHub
give light to 1,000,000 around the world by
supporting us through monthly donations by going to
seekershub.org/donate.
Your donations are tax deductible in the US
and Canada.