Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 1 Ramadn 1441 Late Night Majlis Bridging the Chasm Addison 04232020
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Today,
we are
blessed to be
in the shade of a great month,
in the shade of a great blessing from
Allah
this month of Ramadan,
albeit in somewhat adverse circumstances.
The
propagation throughout the world of
the epidemic coronavirus
has caused,
Muslim and non Muslim alike,
in most places,
that we know of in the world to
be
in some sort of varying level of enforced
lockdown,
and,
people are
in a in a state of a fair
amount of angst.
The first line of those who are going
through difficulty are those who are,
in fact themselves,
ill and struggling
with the sickness or those who are involved
in treating such people.
We ask that Allah
give Shifa for any of our brothers and
sisters who now,
or in the future
suffer from this ailment in any way, shape,
or form. And that Allah
give his help and his
and his
and his
in full measure to anybody who's involved in
treating the sick or dealing with the
aftermath,
of the difficulties caused by this epidemic.
Allah accept from them,
their service and make it a means for
their,
najat and their salvation,
in the hereafter
and the rectification
of the
state,
not only of their own state, but the
state of the Ummah, the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam in this world,
Amin.
And then there's another strange,
I guess,
set of
difficulties or set of,
crises that the Ummah is suffering from and
that the world is suffering from.
The bizarre
kind
of being stuck between the devil and the
deep blue sea,
of
either staying at home
and,
enforcing
rigorous social distancing
and lockdown protocols,
which will save us from a
just a a blooming of
epidemic.
And on the flip side,
the specter of an economy which is
breaking
and that will,
continue to break.
And the more we,
I guess, stay away from business as usual,
the higher degree of irreparability
that will enter,
into that economy has caused
a kind of existential
pause,
and pondering,
a moment in which people,
who thought that those things that were too
big to fail and those things that were
too important to stop
are starting to falter
and,
are necessarily stopping.
And we're getting a moment to think about
those things that we never allowed ourselves to
think about,
that we were afraid of thinking about, which
is what is the world like, and what
will the world be like without,
a number of things that we took for
granted.
And, you know, this is an entire world
order. It doesn't have to do with
America or with Europe or with China or
with Russia or with any major world powers.
It's an entire world order,
based on
the model of commerce that we do,
the types of governments that we have, the
basic assumptions,
modern and postmodern that we have,
that society works on, what is real and
what's important for us. All of it is
shut down,
you know, the same oil that people are
fighting and killing each other,
for just not too long ago.
That oil,
because of a
small
batch of
nucleotides
and,
peptide bonded amino acids,
in a way that even a biologist
cannot confidently say is alive.
Kind of like Jahannam.
You can't say that it's
it's it's dead matter, but it's not quite
alive, is it?
And so this little thing is, like, flying
around, and it's turned that same oil that
we were all ready to kill each other,
over,
into what? Into
something that people are trying to get our
our their hands off of. Oil futures are,
you know, or, you know, for some point
of some time, if it's not still, trading
negative, meaning that it doesn't cost money to
get the oil, but they'll pay you to
take it off their hands.
Those things that were unthinkable just a couple
of days ago
have now become a new reality, and I'm
willing to bet that,
you know, things people are wondering and waiting
when things are gonna get back to normal.
I'm willing to bet they're not gonna ever
go back to quite normal.
And part of that is because they shouldn't
because normal wasn't right, but part of it
is because it can't,
because certain things, once they're broken, cannot be
unbroken.
One of the big concerns that I have
in this ummah and one of the big
concerns that I have, trust me, there's no
love lost at least with me,
You know, people people see me and they
ask where are you from?
You know, people random, people who sit in
an airplane with me, white folks and, like,
you know, black folks and just, you know,
people who are just,
I guess, don't know anything else other than
America. They asked me, you know, where I'm
from, and I said I'm an American. Of
course, I'm an American. You know how I
can tell I'm an American?
And they say, how?
I say, because an immigrant wouldn't be crazy
enough to grow such a huge beard and
dress like a foreigner right now. An immigrant
would be ready to
snap and integrate and yes, sir, no, sir,
and, you know,
be be avid to show
the enjoyment of the Kool Aid,
being drunk, of the American dream and being
accepted for it. Because they're coming was a
choice. I'm like everybody else. I'm born here.
You're born here. We all suffer from the
pain of not knowing who we are, what
our purpose is. We all suffer from the
pain of the aimlessness and the pointlessness of
this existence and the system, which we mentioned
just a minute ago, is breaking down.
And,
you know, it's not there's not a whole
lot of love lost. You know? I'm I'm
I I pray that anyone who's infected with
disease,
Allah give them comfort from their suffering. And
anyone who is,
you know, has lost their means of livelihood
or,
is suffering from economic difficulty
that, you know, Steve Mnuchin and Donald Trump
send them their their check quickly if it
hasn't already direct deposited
and that give them a solution for, you
know, whatever after 2 weeks when that runs
out as well,
if even that.
So I'm not I'm not saying that I
I I'm happy that people are suffering, but
the system itself, there's no love lost there.
But as a person who thinks about stuff
for a living and as a person who
I guess a significant portion of the and
and, of American society somewhat outsources their thinking
to the class of people that I belong
to,
for better or worse.
One of the things that really concerns me
is that this age has laid bare,
a very old
chasm and a very old gap in
the the the Muslim Ummah,
and in particular in its civilization, which is
what? Which is when the Ottoman Empire and
when the great when the great,
empires of
the pre modern Muslim world,
kind of had their
tryst with the mechanized and technologically
superior armies
of the colonizers, of the Farangi,
and they started losing battle after battle. The
Ottoman Empire, literally, like, after almost
300 years, if not more, of complete supremacy
and hegemony
on by land and by sea,
where they never lost any battles. Or if
a battle was lost, it was something that
was
that that's highlighted in a way to show
that it's the exception that proves the rule,
which is that the Ottomans never would lose.
Now they're winning battle after battle sorry, losing
battle after battle battle after battle to their
enemies
on what they would consider their home turf,
and they were smart people. They were not,
they were not stupid people.
You know what I mean? They weren't people
who,
you know, they weren't people who thought that,
like, well, we're Muslims. We say
we'll win one day, you know, for free.
They realized that there's only a certain number
of battles in a certain whether they be
in war or through economic
competition or cultural,
scientific learning,
related competition.
They knew there's only a certain number of
battles you can lose
until your entire civilization falters and it falls.
And that's the way of the world. That's
a stark reality.
And, you know, we're not immune to that
as Muslims,
and,
that's where the test lies, which is that
we have to survive as well, but we
have to survive in a better way. And
it's better for us in this world and
it's better for us in the hereafter.
But if we don't do the things that
we need to do,
to survive,
for sure, definitely praying 5 times a day
and, you know, being a Hafid of Quran
and all of these other things,
they're not going to in and of themselves
be sufficient.
And this is the lesson of Sahih.
This is the lesson of striving.
Says in his book that, Islam doesn't receive
anything except for the thing that he strives
for. Meaning that, say, the Hajar, alayhis salaam,
and said the baby Saidna Ismail, alayhis salaam,
who the Sahih of Hajj is named after
the striving of Hajj is named after. What
is that striving?
That you run you walk briskly
and between the green markers and the
you actually,
you actually run,
for some time.
And,
you know, everyone has that feeling of running,
You know, I go for my daily walk
when the coronavirus has shut down, and I
talked to a number of different people. Maybe
you've been
called by me and spoken to me for
a good 10, 15, 20 minutes. And sometimes
when a conversation goes into a weird direction,
I noticed that my speed of walking has
sped up. And sometimes,
I'm
walking faster because I like what's being spoken
about. So I guess my mind in some
way or another is telling my body to
hurry up and go toward that thing quicker.
And sometimes when I'm talking to someone, I
find myself walking faster,
and I know it's because my mind is
telling me,
speed up because
this thing we're talking about, you need to
run from it as fast as you can.
And sometimes I speed up
and,
you know, I don't know if I'm walking
towards something or away from something, but I
just speed up because there's an anxiety that
that that certain, topics or certain speech,
creates inside of my heart.
And so, you know, coming back to what
we were talking about
in terms of that,
you know, that that
there's a point in in that that walk
between Safa and Marwa, you literally have to
run.
You're literally to sunnah, I should say, for
the man at least to run.
And, you know, there are certain things you're
running toward and there's certain things you're running
away from.
And, but you gotta run. You gotta you
gotta hustle,
because you're not gonna get anything in life
except for that thing that you hustle for.
And then that thing that you hustled for,
it will be seen one day.
So, you know, your prayers and your,
fasting
and your dhikr of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala,
there's definitely great madad in them. And there
are miraculous
occurrences in which because of them and them
alone in a way that's clear for a
person to see,
may a person sometimes be granted help and
victory from Allah
But in general, they're not the they're
not the things you do that, they themselves
make victory, that you read like 5 jizzes
of Quran Quran and all of a sudden,
you know, your air force becomes invincible,
or that all of a sudden your business
becomes viable, or all of a sudden, you
know, you
get into shape and are in great cardiovascular
condition or whatever.
No. The the the you do those things
in order to receive legitimacy and mandate from
the Rav that he gave you these gifts
and you're actually worthy of them.
You're they're not wasted on you rather, they're
they're you're worthy of them.
And so, you know,
the elders, they knew that,
you know, this is not going anywhere good.
And it's definitely not the Ottomans were not
the first ones,
you know. The,
the the Mongols, they also desolated a great
amount of the central Muslim homeland.
And, you know, the Muslims knew people are
petty. They're fighting with one another. The Crusaders
desolated a great amount of the Muslim homeland.
Why? Because they knew every prince in every
city is fighting against his
brother and trying to sell out the the
Masjid al Aqsa or sell out Damascus in
order to get halalab or sell out halalab
in order to get Damascus or
sal Damascus in order to get, al Quds
or salah Quds to get what just people
are just there to,
sell
one another and sell those things that are
supposed to be sacred.
And so even in those generations, the people
knew
that when you behave in a bad way,
you're gonna lose, you're gonna get beat. The
immediacy, however, with the Ottoman experience and with
the experience of the Mughal Empire and with
the experience of,
the Muslims' tryst with
modern,
the modern Farangi
military economic
establishment
is that they they saw that if we
don't
figure out what we're not doing and we
need to do and what we're doing and
we not need to not do very quickly,
we are going to we're going to go
by the wayside. We're going to go from
being masters to slaves. We're going to become
obsolete very quickly.
And, that's not because we pray 5 times
a day, and it's not because we, you
know, because we fast in the month of
Ramadan.
Rather, what is gonna happen is that we
are going to be then placed under the
heel of a people who don't appreciate what
it means to pray 5 times a day
or to fast in the month of Ramadan
or as it would seem until a plague
comes down, how to wash yourself when you
use the bathroom or how to wash your
hands or do any of these things.
And, that's that's a problem.
And so what the Ottoman state,
what they you know, one of one of
the solutions that they had is that we
have to send, some people,
students, military officers, and intelligentsia
to
to Europe and study from them and then
bring some of their people over to our
lands and have them teach and have them
modernize and mechanize and show how things are
supposed to work. And that that that
that that tryst was
it was a mixed it was a mixed
experience. Maybe it happened also in Egypt,
to some degree as well, in the beginning.
And then afterward, all of the the rest
of the Muslim world
essentially will go through this experience. And what
it ends up producing is,
2 groups of people. Obviously, every group, there's
sellouts amongst them. There are people who are
just looking, you know, looking out for their
own good. There are people who are weak
in character,
morally weak people.
But not all of the but not all
of the problem I'm about to mention is
because of, you know, selling out or because
of being morally weak.
Rather, what happened is that this modernization,
this acquisition of material sciences and material,
you know,
proficiency in the material sciences and and advanced
knowledge with regards to material things.
It created
a chasm
between
the ulama class
and the class of people who were who
were who who were sent or who would
sit and learn these material sciences and materialistic,
arts and sciences from these people.
And that was a chasm that wasn't really
there from before. If you read the
the, you know, the the Ottoman state,
its history,
And, if you read the, you know, to
some degree, the Mughal Empire as well,
you see that the judges, the,
they form a very important part of the
state.
And that the understanding and the, you know,
the understanding that the populace had with with
the emir and the armies had with the
emir,
that made them you know, made made it
a really important and powerful state, especially in
the Ottoman,
in the Ottoman example,
was the idea that that, you know, the
point of the sultan or the point of
the or the point of the, later on,
the,
you know, the the the person who would
take the the title, the Khalifa,
was that they are there to be obeyed,
and they are there to receive the help
of the people and the help from the
higher realm.
Why? Because of their,
because of their intention
to implement,
the most beautiful and the best
form,
an interpretation
attempt
at bringing the order of the sacred Sharia
in the earth. And that's what the people
love them for,
that love them, and that's why the soldiers
would obey their orders.
That's why, interestingly enough, in the Ottoman state,
I don't know that anyone could be executed
except for if there was a,
you know, given by
by a by a judge, a a judge
of the court, which is really amazing because
the Ottoman state was a pre modern state.
And, you know, there's no concept of rights
in the in the modern sense.
But the idea is that, even even, you
know, high ranking military officers and bureaucrats and
cabinet ministers and governors,
they didn't have the the right to rule,
you know, just by decree or rule,
just autocratically.
And, yes, it is you know, the the
the history isn't far from ideal.
So sometimes the, the sultan would have the
sheikhul Islam executed,
But sometimes the sheikhul Islam would have the
sultan executed,
you know, and these are not definitely, these
are neither scenario is a good scenario. Something
is really horrible has gone wrong if if
either of them is happening. But the point
is is this is that, you know, the
the legitimacy of the state at its highest
levels was directly tied with,
a mandate given only by those who are,
who are who, you know, who are striving
in order
to bring,
the order from the celestial realm into into
into the into the farsh into the under
the ground,
as it was as it were.
And so what happens is that you have
now, like, large numbers of,
you know, large numbers of these, these type
of people who are
trained in material sciences,
but not necessarily
able to reconcile that with many of the
teachings and the concepts of Islam.
And you have numbers of people, large numbers
of people who are trained in the robust
philosophical
and,
the robust principled,
mode of thinking
that, Islam brought and that the developed and
ex developed and, expounded and defined,
that allowed these massive pre modern states,
in which people of different religions and different,
you know,
ethnicities and different languages
and, you know, all sorts of different,
you know, different,
demographic,
indicators to
live,
you know, with one another in a in
a in a viable state without the help
of technology and without the help of, like,
overwhelming,
overwhelming amounts of wealth or whatever, except for
what they could earn by their own hand.
Again, using premodern means.
It's nothing short of amazing. It's nothing short
of incredible.
Now you have 2 groups of people within
the state, both of which are necessary necessary
for the viability of the state, and both
of which have a genuine
have a genuine love for Islam,
and have a genuine love to see Islam
succeed, and have a genuine love to see
the the the not just the, you know,
religious,
ascendency,
but also the political
and economic
ascendance and dominance of of Islam.
But what they see
as both the definition of success and at
some point or another, the definition of Islam
itself,
it's now become divergent.
And that divergence has
continued, you know, from from that time until
this time,
and it's still there. It's still stark. You
can still see it
in a lot of, in a lot of
places in the Muslim world.
And it's an issue. It's a problem. And
I think one of the things with regards
to us in
the United States or in England or, you
know, to some degree, places like South Africa
or even in the Indian subcontinent
by the Ulema who are conversant in English.
Because we do have a number of people,
for example, that study in Darul Ulum or
study in the Madars in,
in the,
Indian subcontinent.
That may have been people who did some,
you know, whatever English medium school or,
you know,
some type of professional degree before,
before going back
to study.
Or there are a number of movements,
number of
or movements that basically cultivate these types of
people,
and they have met with a great amount
of success. Why?
Because now you have
in the Indian subcontinent
a
and those places that are culturally influenced by
them,
a number of scholars that, you know, perhaps
that chasm isn't so wide, or at least
it shows a trajectory of reconciliation.
But,
sadly
sadly,
you know, I think it's that reconciliation,
it's somewhat a false mirage.
And,
you know, it's,
if it's not false, if that's a bit
of a excess and a harshness, which maybe
it is,
I'm I'm I would I would, you know,
if someone were to say that, you you
know, that's excessive, I I I would give
due consideration to that that claim.
But the problem is this is even if
that reconciliation is happening, it's like very little
it's like too little too late or or
or at least too slow to,
help us to
as
a slowly
even as individuals, slowly but surely even as
individuals,
to be able to
bridge,
the divide that
that that that's opening up, that's really just
swallowing huge swaths of our of our our
our civilization as an ummah.
It's actually killing even, the concept of ummah
itself, making it dissolve in front of our
eyes,
to the point where there are many people
who, you know, just the concept doesn't exist
anymore like it did with our forefathers. It's
just become like a type of lip service,
which may have been the case for, like,
political actors.
But, you know, in general, the rank and
file of Muslims always,
bought into this
wholesale, bought into this concept that whoever says
that person, I see myself in them and
I see them in me, and their happiness
is my happiness, and their distress is my
distress, and their pain is my pain, and
their success is my success.
And so,
you know, that all of these things we
see them, they're they're getting ripped apart in
front of our eyes,
and it's problematic.
And then, you know, we have the sense
that perhaps it's starting to get better because
we have
some
who are college educated or university educated who
have,
you know, some ability to speak English or
who know some parts of the sciences or
whatever.
But, however, low low and behold,
coronavirus pops up in front of us, and
it just lays bare the fact that there
are a large number of people in every
Muslim country and in every community even here
in America
that are very educated in the medical sciences
or very educated in, you know, politics or,
you know, in the law or whatever.
And they have one way of thinking, and
there are a number of people
who are very educated in the dean, and
they have another way of thinking, and it
seems like the the the gap between them
is irreconcilable.
And the fact of the matter is it's
not irreconcilable.
It is very reconcilable, but the problem is
that that civilizational
infrastructure that was needed in order to
in order to
harmonize
between
these disparate
types of specialization
and knowledge.
The acquisition
of the material sciences
had to happen so quickly
that that harmonization
did not happen over any sort of organic
time scale.
And, you know, in some ways, it didn't
really ever happen at all.
And here we are, square 1 again
with, people
ranting and screaming. And there are always some
people who are like this that were like,
you know, the mullahs are backwards and they're
gonna kill us all and, you know, we
should just send them all to jail and
kill them all and shoot them and and
tell they're gone. You know, we're not gonna
make any headway, and we're not gonna develop
and blah blah blah. There are always people
like that, but they're kind of like stuffy,
you know, speak Lord Mountbatten,
you know,
turn of the the 20th century,
you know, English accent,
type people who, you know,
are wearing ascots or, you know, may as
well be wearing ascots and, like, smoking a
pipe.
You know, those type of people are few
and far between,
and they don't don't necessarily
share the hopes and aspirations of the general
public in order they represent them. And those
type of people always, you know, would speak
ill of the ulama,
but this time, it doesn't feel like that's
where it's coming from. It feels like something
more than that. And on the flip side,
you have, you know, that are talking about
things like
means that the contagion doesn't exist in the
first place and that, you know or so
one of the forwards that I received,
a couple of days ago, and it's starting
to spread by certain individuals that I feel
like are very opportunistic,
and I don't I never had a whole
lot of confidence in them in the first
place
that, you know, the hadith, you know, that's
there in the Sahih books about, you know,
that the the, like, pestilence that has, you
know, plagued a particular crop when the star
of
rises,
then, you know, it will take care of
that pestilence.
And, as far as I can tell,
that hadith is about
a certain season,
you know, coming and curing a crop from
a particular type of pestilence. Nothing
astrological
or even astronomical, but just
a a a a mention of a certain
stars rising,
of Pleiades rising,
you know, because of its connection with with
a certain season or time of the year,
and, you know, what a meteorological
phenomenon associated
with it that will, you know,
stave off that pestilence. And then people are
taking this to mean that, oh, look. You
know, like, May 15th, corona's gonna disappear or
whatever.
And
one could be forgiven for taking those things
literally
in an age where that knowledge wasn't present.
But now, you know, we have we have
people who are seemingly learned people who are
stumped and puzzled by these types of things.
And
you have
further than that, you have these ideas about,
like, for example, like, lockdown.
What happens in lockdown is
nonessential,
you know, nonessential sectors of the economy,
they have come to a grinding halt, and
only essential sectors are open. And every every,
nation will decide for itself what is essential
and what's not. So in the United States,
you can still hop an air you know,
an airplane flight from one place to another.
And, you know, there are places in,
in the world where domestic flights have all
been suspended.
And, like I said, every nation will decide
what is essential and what's not essential.
Now you have this idea where there's a
class of people for whom the salat is
essential
and a class of people for whom
you, you know, pray salat in the masjid,
no matter how much,
no matter how much social distancing and precaution
you take, it's just gonna cause, you know,
people to die and even one death is
unnecessary,
and let's just call off the whole salat.
And this is an issue. It's it's an
issue because from one side, it's like, look,
people are gonna die. And from the other
side, there's this understanding that the salat itself,
the it's iqama,
it's,
establishment,
and it's, you know, congregational
performance
in whatever mode,
maximal or or or or mitigated or minimal,
you know, different models of of of having
it. You know, do you wanna call as
many people as possible? Or do you want
to tell everybody who, you know,
is immunocompromised
or has an immunocompromised
person or high risk person at home not
to come, but still have all those people
who don't have those risk factors to come?
Or do you wanna have something minimal where
you just have Jummah with, like, you know,
imam plus 13 people or imam plus,
3 people as it were, according to the
Hanafi Fatwa or imam plus or 40 people
including the imam or perhaps not including the
imam according to the school.
Like, what do you you know, what do
you wanna do?
Or do you wanna just shut it down
altogether?
And there are very,
stark differences in terms of
modes of thinking, understanding
of
of the of the the the text of
Islam,
and,
at the end of the day, understanding of
what the objective is of having civilization in
the first place.
What the objectives are of having a state
in the first place, what the objective the
objectives are of, you know, having Umma in
the first place. That's more than just everybody
go to their own masjid on Friday, and
then, like,
say, which
is an utterance that was reserved
for the kuffar,
from the Muslims,
from the Muslims for the kuffar in the
Makan era,
and definitely not a way that the ummah
is supposed to deal with one another.
And so,
you know, like, what what model are we
gonna what model are we gonna use? And
people just talk past each other. And,
you know, the fun part is, like,
being a person who has kind of a
foot in both, in both worlds,
admittedly, I'll never be a hardened materialist, and,
admittedly, I'll never be,
I'll never be like, you know,
the
that drank the tradition from the, you know,
from, you know, from the breast of the
mother as it were.
I will never be a pure,
pure mullah even though I may dress like
it or try to dress like it. It's
just overcompensation,
you know. It's me trying to find find
out find out who I am. It's why
I'm an American because look, this guy's overcompensating,
you know. Whereas another person wouldn't be trying
so hard.
They wouldn't be so over the top. So
as a person who has kind of a
foot in both worlds,
and
a person who kind of like to think
of himself as someone who,
you know, is part of the solution and
bridging the gap between those two worlds, I
see even myself, I feel somewhat, like,
helpless at,
at seeing how how much of a fail
that attempt is in this in this age
and how much if I even try to
open my mouth and talk about these things,
I'll immediately,
come to the conclusion it would have been
better just to shut up and, like, not
even get involved with it because it's something
it's like a gargantuan
monster problem,
that anyone who tries to mess with it
at this point is probably gonna get trounced
and take a beating from both sides.
So,
you know, I I understood that from the
beginning,
and this is why I thought it was
a good use of my life to
do things like teach, like, the,
which is essentially a pamphlet on
and to teach things like malek I fait
even though very few people come and listen
and, those who do
oftentimes are not, you know, don't don't stick
with it. And,
more more often than not, I just get
a beating from people who are like, well,
you know, like, you're closed minded and dogmatic
and sticking to the, you know,
this book or that thing of the Madhab
and, like, you know, you should be open
minded, Malachi, which means, like, say, Malachi and
everything's possible.
You know, like but I thought it was
worth my time. Why? Because
the idea is if you have people who
have these disparate assumptions,
upon which they base their their life's teachings.
By giving people a glimpse into each other's
world, perhaps some sort of reconciliation
is possible.
And,
I feel very frustrated and overwhelmed
that,
the the work I've done in my adult
life,
it seems to be very,
too little and not having any effect on
anything.
But
in the absence of anything else, and because
a person of Iman is a person of
optimism,
and not necessarily because of the creation, because
if you run the numbers,
it's not looking good.
But because of,
hope and faith in the creator, who
created the heavens and the earth from nothing
and, who in every moment makes of the,
of the entire creation in every breath.
And if he wishes to, he can make
difficulty into ease and ease into difficulty,
and all of the rationality which with with
which we think the only reason any of
it makes sense is because he wants it
to.
That that Allah,
when we think of him and we think
that he's the one that our hopes are
pegged on and he's the one that our
hearts are are connected to,
then you have to be an optimist no
matter what's what's happening.
Because of that,
you know, I think
even though I get a lot of these
thoughts nowadays of, like, just run away
and stop wasting your time. Just, you know,
make your enough that you can pay off
your house or you can pay your bills
or you can, you know, find some simple
place to live and just read your books
and say, Allah, Allah, until the day of
judgment, if someone wants to come read from
you, they can come read from you. Otherwise,
I spent all of my days and nights
answering people's questions on WhatsApp and on Messenger
and on email and, you know, in person
and in private and all of these things
by the phone and whatever.
And it seems that, none of the people,
and none of the efforts that you put
in, they all seem to have come up
for not in the face of this,
in the face of this, you know, this
one test from Allah
that has shown that people still are not
getting it. That, a great number of the
are not getting it and a great number
of the, you know,
of the, of the materialist,
people. And when I say materialist, I don't
mean as a point, you know, that they
believe in material. They believe in Allah, but
their primary orientation
in terms of the way they think about
things is is it's
it's materialist.
That there's not it's not happening.
So,
to take a step back from teaching the
ilm,
in general, because I see that our materialist
friends were very usually
very keen,
on harping on religious people.
Why? Because they say religious people are extremely
dogmatic,
that they,
they fixate on little things and then they
become closed minded and they don't accept anything
anyone else says. And they feel like I'm
right and you're wrong, and
they're just, like, really, they become really
obstinate and belligerent, you know,
because of their dog dogmatism.
I see those are the same people who
are like, yeah, you know,
all the elama are wrong and this alim
is wrong and that alim is people, you
know, they, you know, they're all idiots and,
like, I'm talking about people who,
you know, in social media and in public,
consider themselves to be champions of Islam or
of traditionalism or people who work for the
Omar activist. Some some of them even consider
themselves students of knowledge or scholars or whatever
that's supposed to mean. You know, but when
somebody who can barely read Arabic,
even though they're proficient at giving the chotbar
at MSA,
when that person will say something ignorant about
someone like Mufti Taqi, somebody who wrote, like,
a
several volume,
commentary on the transactions in Sahih Muslim or
whatever,
you know something has gone wrong. You know,
something wrong is happening here.
And so, given given that all of these
things are being laid bare right now
and given that,
how am I gonna teach knowledge to people
and,
even such basic assumptions are are dysfunctional?
I thought we would start our Ramadan Majalis
by reading
from a simple book,
that's translated into the English language from Arabic.
The Arabic work is called by
Ibn Rajab al Hanbali,
and it's translated in English by Imam Zaid
Shaker. May Allah
protect protect him and give him long life.
Allah has given him riyasa and the leadership
of a great deal of our community in
North America
and from amongst the people who have this
riyasa in their hand.
I I really respect him and feel that
he's one of the more worthy ones,
and,
I I pray Allah
let him wield it in in with wisdom
and hikmah
and not waste it.
That,
this book is a book about
seeking knowledge.
And,
you know, many adab are mentioned in it.
And,
the point of adab because, you know, we
we hear that the ulama say that, you
know, so and so,
you know,
said, you know, learn adab before you learn,
learn knowledge. And I spent so many years
learning adab, and then afterwards, so many years
learning knowledge.
And adab is more important than knowledge. And
where's your adab CD? And, oh, so and
so playing the adab card and adab, adab,
adab. And the thing is we oftentimes translate
adab as manners.
And, it's not necessarily manners, but it's the
correct way of going about doing something.
It's doing something in the best way possible.
And so I thought we would take this
at least the first,
number of nights of it,
and
do something that we would do in the,
which is read books of of use.
And this book is a book in which
we can, go through some of the virtues
in the adab
of learning knowledge.
Because it seems like the information is going
in with adab are are are gone.
And, the point of the adab is not
necessarily so that when you're sitting with the
alama, you'll know, you know, how to eat
the salad with a salad fork or whatever.
That's all nonsense. Nobody cares about that.
You know? That's not nonsense that you should
say to this person, Molana, and this person,
Hazrat Molana, and this person, Sidi, and this
person, Khaja, and this person, Effendi and this
person Khaja Effendi and this person is Hazrat
and this person Hazrat Lab and this person
is, you know, whatever. That's not that's not
what I'm talking about. You know, which color
topia to wear on which day of the
week? I could give a I could give
a damn about any of those things.
You know? I really I mean, when push
comes to shove,
those are not the things that'll get you
into Jannah, and they're not gonna be the
ones that throw you into hellfire, and they're
not gonna be the ones through which the
ascendancy
and the,
the the ascendency of Islam,
culturally,
spiritually,
politically,
economically,
they're going to be made or they're gonna
be broken.
These are like the kind of white elephant
trappings of court culture,
which is a type of excess. There's a
beauty in them. In in that sense, that's
fine. I don't necessarily, you know, hate on
them too much.
But,
that beauty in those
and
those,
to put it in the model,
They're on the heels of the
the,
the proper performance of the those
things that are dire necessities and
those things that are that are that are
are needed.
You know, the dire necessities and the the
the the
the necessities that make up the bulk of
what's important in our deen. Then on top
of that, yes.
You know, if somebody is already half of
the Quran,
and they're going to lead Tarawi and, you
know, there's 3 candidates, then we'll worry about
the one who has a better voice,
thereafter. But you can't just have someone say,
well, you know, I have a beautiful voice.
I haven't memorized the the Quran, but, you
know, I can sing Bruce Springsteen or or
Morrissey or, you know, something other ludicrous, Depeche
Mode or something like that, ludicrous type of
nonsense. You know, I can sing Britney Spears
really nice between the.
That's kind of a fail.
Now,
one might find these examples a bit comical,
and excessive.
But the issue is this is that if
you don't approach the other the knowledge properly,
then it doesn't do for you what it's
supposed to.
And, that's the problem. So inshallah, we read
a little bit. Inshallah, Imam Zaid starts the,
the the book with a brief biography of
Ibn Rajab.
He says he is the man Zainuddin Abulfaraj,
Abdul Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Rajab Al Hambali,
born,
in Baghdad,
in 736
of the Muslim calendar.
At the age of 8, he moved to
Damascus along with his father.
It was in Damascus that he began his
religious studies.
He first memorized the Quran and its variant
canonical readings.
He then began the study of hadith,
a study which would take him to Makkamukarama
to Egypt
and other Islamic centers of learning.
Ibn Rajab took from the leading scholarly authorities
of his day.
However, he was especially influenced by the great
Hanbali scholar,
Ibn Qayyim al Jozia.
Although it was known although he was known
to issue some legal rulings based on the
opinions of Ibn Taymiyyah, it isn't possible that
he ever studied with him as some imagine,
only to the fact that Ibn Taymiyyah died
8 years before, ibn Rajab's birth. Allah
have mercy on all of them.
And then ibn Qayyam,
who he did study from, by the way,
is obviously the most famous and well known
and beloved and loving student of Ibn Taymiyyah.
Ibn Rajab was the leading Hadith scholar of
his age, an eminent Quran scholar, a jurist
of repute, a moving sermonizer,
and a major historian.
His enduring literary legacy includes Jami'lulhumulhikam,
the compendium of knowledge and wisdom
considered by most scholars to be the best
commentary on imam Nawis for the hadith.
The an
explanation of the hidden defects in hadith, a
partial commentary on Sahih Bukhari Al Qaida,
and the
subtleties of knowledge,
a beautiful compilation
of the religious duties and invocations that correspond
to the months and seasons of the year.
By the way,
you know,
making writing a
is a big deal.
Just understanding the hadith, it's one of the
most technical
and one of the most demanding,
one of the most demanding,
subspecialities
in the study of hadith.
And so someone's not going to be able
to explain those things inside out except for,
through through through
a type of mastery that very few people
will ever
be able to conceive of what it means
to much as attain it.
He has written many comprehensive commentaries on individual
hadiths, commentaries which amount to independent books. This
includes his commentary on the hadith of Abu
Darda, the
subject of this translation, and his commentary on
the hadith of Badal Islamu Hariban.
Islam began began as something strange or unknown.
Among his major historical writings is that Dayal
Tabakat Al Hanabilah, an appendage
to the encyclopedia
of Hambali Scholars.
Given to solitude,
deeply pious and known for,
the abundance and intensity of his worship, Ibn
Rajab passed from this world in Damascus in
the year 7 95 after Hijra.
It is related that he went to a
grave digger a few days before his death
and requested him to begin digging.
When the digger completed his task, Ibn Rajab
descended into the grave,
reclined at it, and remarked, excellent.
A few days later, Ibn Rajab passed on
and his body was brought to that very
grave,
to be interred therein.
Buried in Damascus, he left a rich heritage
of knowledge. God willing, this book will introduce
a small part of that heritage to the
English speaking world.
So, we begin, inshallah, the book, and we
will,
inshallah, carry on with our readings through the
next couple of nights with the hope that
for perhaps it will open some
understanding of how this knowledge should be approached,
from those people who mean well,
for, that are advanced in the material sciences
of this
so that they can also try to wrap
their head around,
the way the,
the the the sacred sciences of the deen
work,
and in order to get on with the
the important necessary task of reconciliation
because it's gonna take all of us to
make the ummah happen.
It's gonna take all of us in order
to make this ummah flourish again,
and it cannot happen just through money. It
cannot just happen through scientists. It cannot just
happen through doctors. It cannot just happen through,
material or political power, just like it can't
happen just through,
you know, just through writing a commentary on
Sahih Bukhari or Muslim, and it cannot happen
just through or
through Arabic grammar.
The hadith of Abu Darda.
A man came to Abu Darda
while he was in Damascus.
Obviously, the famous
Quran reciter from Khazraj
and,
famous Faqih and Alem, of this of the
companions
who have sent to Damascus to teach the
people their knowledge.
Baisid N'amr
nonetheless.
A man came to Abu Darda while he
was in Damascus. Abu Darda asked him,
what has brought you here, my brother? He
replied,
a hadith which you relate from the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Abu Darda asked, have you come to me
for some worldly need? He replied, no.
Have you come for business? He replied, no.
You have come to me only to seek
this hadith? He said, yes. Abu Darda then
said, I heard the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam say,
whoever travels a path seeking sacred knowledge,
and in the hadith it's in whoever travels
a path seeking knowledge, Allah will place
him on a path leading to paradise.
The angels lower their wings for the student
of knowledge,
pleased with what he is doing. The creatures
in the heavens and the earth seek forgiveness
for the student of knowledge,
even the fish in the water. The superiority
of the scholar of of Din, the island,
the person of knowledge over the devout worshipper
is like the superiority of the full moon
over the other heavenly bodies over the stars.
The scholars are the heirs of the prophets.
The prophets leave behind no money, as a
bequest, rather they leave behind knowledge and whoever
seizes it has taken a bountiful share.
And it's narrated by Imam Ahmed and by
Abu Dawood and by Thirmidi and Ibnu Majah.
All of them, they relate this hadith in
their compilations.
Chapter 1, traveling for sacred knowledge.
The early generations of Muslims owing to the
strength of their desire for sacred knowledge would
journey to distant lands seeking a single prophetic
hadith.
Abu Ayub, Zayd bin Khalid,
Al Ansari
traveled from Madina to Egypt for the purpose
of meeting another companion because he had heard
that this companion
related a particular hadith from the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
Similarly, Jabir ibn Abdallah, despite,
hearing much from the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam himself traveled a month from Syria
just to hear a single hadith.
Without hesitation, such men would travel to someone
of lesser virtue and learning in order to
seek out knowledge that they themselves lacked.
So inshallah, that's just the beginning,
so that this this,
majes doesn't go on for too long. We'll,
wrap up shortly.
Just so that,
you know,
the companions, if they were not too good
to, you know,
bust some hustle in order to go and
and and learn and study something, neither should
we, be too good for that
nor should we expect people,
you know, readily expect people
answer our questions to our satisfaction
on
social media or on on the phone even
though people don't even have the the
for phone no more.
And, you know, even those of us who
are
people of learning and scholarship,
you know, we should never,
be too big of a beard or too
big of a Molana or too big of
a Mulvih or a Sheikh,
or too big of a city to, you
know, sit and take darses
anymore. I myself still take duros.
I, in fact, took a darsh just today,
and I only mentioned that, you know,
and just to let you know that it's
a thing. It is possible just to encourage
you. And Allah knows,
the many defects in my in my seeking.
But inshallah with that, we'll leave off inshallah
and we'll continue tomorrow.
Allah to Allah accept from all of us
and may Allah
by the barakah of
this fiqhir and this intention to rectify our
own states and the states
in the Ummah of Saydna Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. May Allah
give us what we seek
and,
ward off from our heads
calamity and tribulation
in this world and the hereafter.