Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 3 Ramadn 1441 Late Night Majlis Learning Increases Knowledge Not Ignorance Addison 04252020
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of learning from people who have turned the study of the Quran into a distraction and a distraction for the audience. They stress the importance of guidance in Islam, citing examples like the use of Islam's word Islam to encourage students to act on their dictates and the importance of guidance in shaping Islam's behavior. The speakers also discuss the misunderstandings of the people of the Hanbali faith and the importance of understanding the people of the Hanbali faith in order to achieve goals for Islam.
AI: Summary ©
We continue with our reading
of Ibn Raja al Hanbali's waas al Anbiya
rendered into English by Imam Zayed. Allah
raised the rank of the former and the
latter, and Allah give the mercy
and the blessings of the oliya to the
former and to the latter.
Both Tirmidi and Ibn Majic quote Abu Sa'id
al Khudiri
as saying,
indeed, the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, advised the
scholars with good treatment of the students of
knowledge.
Zir bin Habesh came to Safwan ibn Asal
seeking knowledge.
Zir said to him, news has reached me
that the angels lower their wings to the
students of sacred knowledge.
Abu Safwan also relates this directly from the
prophet
This is one of the things about the
translation,
interestingly enough, is that the word
is
translated as sacred knowledge,
and the word
means is translated as religious scholar.
And, who am I to question Imam Zaid's
choice of translation?
However,
I think one of the
reasons for picking this book is exactly that.
That why is it that we have to
translate as sacred knowledge and not just knowledge?
And why is it that we have to
translate
as religious scholar, not just a person of
knowledge?
The, you know, the idea is that the
history of the Ummah
was such that
we, you know, we didn't have to make
these types of
make these types of specifications.
Rather, whoever was whatever in the old days,
if they were a doctor, if they're an
engineer, if they're a mathematician,
all of them when they would write a
book, they would begin it with the hamdu
of Allah and the salat in salam and
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And all
of them wrote it for the readah of
Allah Ta'ala, for the pleasure of Allah Ta'ala.
All of them could tell you
the foundational
of,
the foundational
and issues of,
the foundational
messiah of,
of the Arabic language, its grammar, and its
morphology, its rhetoric.
All of them could teach you about logic.
All of them could teach you something or
another about the Quran and its meanings and
the hadith and its meanings.
If you needed somebody to give the, all
of them knew how to do it.
If you needed someone to divide your estate,
all of them knew how to do it.
And then they specialized
in their various branches of knowledge. And to
them, math was sacred, and engineering was sacred,
and medicine was sacred.
Now we have people who have turned the
study of
of of of, the Quran and the Hadith
into something mundane.
And in some cases, when into something profane.
And, that's why we have to use these
qualifiers, and I consider these qualifiers to be
a,
even though
it could
be necessary
because of the,
the ill understanding of the people.
However, I'll tell you something without having to
name names that there are many people who
are extremely famous and extremely wealthy that people
would fawn over in order to have them
speak at their fundraisers and speak at their
masajid.
And I know for a fact that these
people, have told me themselves that they study
psychology and marketing,
just as much as they studied any specialization
in the.
And, why blame them, you know,
However you are, that's the type of people
that will be putting authority over you.
So at any rate, coming back to the
topic, the
gave the people of knowledge from his companions,
the wasiya,
the bequest that when the students of knowledge
come to you, treat them well.
One day, people were crowded at the door
of Abdullah bin Mubarak
who said the students of sacred knowledge deserve
the friendship of Allah and eternal bliss.
He envied their gathering for this purpose because
it leads to eternal bliss.
For this reason,
who cried as his death drew near and
said,
I weep at how I will miss feeling
thirst from the midday heat from fasting,
standing in prayer during the long winter nights,
and the crowds of students kneeling around the
scholars in the circles of knowledge.
You know, what's more sad
is not necessarily that these things are gone,
but that nobody there's not even anyone there
to yearn for them anymore,
except for the elected select.
It is appropriate that the scholars welcome students
and urge them to act on what they
learn. Al Hassan al Basri greeted his students
by saying,
welcome. May Allah extend your life in peace,
and may he enter us all into paradise.
Your seeking knowledge is a good act. If
you persevere, are truthful, and are absolutely certain
of the reward Allah has prepared for you.
May Allah have mercy on you. Do not
let your share of this good be such
that it enters one ear and passes out
the other. One who hasn't seen Sayidna Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam should know that the
prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam, sees him moving
to and fro. The prophet, salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, did not erect tall buildings.
Rather, knowledge was given to him, and he
dedicated himself to it. Do not procrastinate.
Salvation is at stake.
What will make you heed? Are you hesitant?
I swear by the Lord of the Kaaba,
it is as if judgment day is imminent.
It's as if judgment day has come upon
us.
Chapter
2. Paths Leading Towards Sacred Knowledge.
Let us now begin explaining the hadith of
Abu Darda.
Whoever travels a path seeking sacred knowledge, Allah
will place him on a path leading to
paradise.
In another version of the hadith, we read,
Allah will make easy for him a path
leading to paradise.
Another version found in Muslim related on the
authority of Abu Huraira
reads, whoever travels the path seeking knowledge, Allah
will make easy for him a path leading
to paradise.
Traveling a path seeking knowledge can be understood
as literally walking to the gatherings of knowledge.
It can also encompass a more general meaning
like traveling an intangible path leading toward attainment
of knowledge.
This includes memorizing,
studying,
reading, making notes, comprehending,
contemplating, and other acts which facilitate learning.
This, by the way, this is a really
deep point, and, it's, something maybe perhaps the
author might be,
might be,
mentioned later.
It's it's there in the Mishkato Masabi hendah,
3rd
3rd Bab,
I believe, in the chapter regarding the virtues
of of seeking knowledge,
that
he mentioned that an hour of reviewing knowledge
in the night, I consider it to be
superior. I'm standing the entire night in prayer.
And, you know, like I mentioned whenever I
mentioned this
author in public is that, you know, nowadays
there's a bunch of haters who, you know,
think standing the night in prayer is a
waste of time. Those are the people who
actually used to stand the entire night in
prayer, and they knew how much nur and
how much barakah came with it. And so
when they would say it, it meant something
else.
The prophet
statement,
Allah will make easy for him a path
leading to paradise, conveys many meanings.
Among them is that Allah assists the student
of knowledge in his quest,
placing him on its path and facilitating his
success.
In these ways, the path of knowledge leads
to paradise. This facilitation is expressed in the
statement of Allah exalted.
We have made the Quran easy to memorize.
Is there one who will then be reminded?
Indeed. It's an emphatic statement.
Lakad, both lam and baqad are both
are both It's a double emphatic statement.
Indeed, we made this Quran easy to remember.
So is there anyone who will take the
remembrance?
Regarding this verse, commentators
say, is there anyone sincere in his quest
for sacred knowledge that he might be aided
in its attainment?
Many paths lead to Allah. Among them is
Allah's making it easy for the student of
sacred knowledge to act on its dictates if
he learned it solely for the sake of
Allah.
Thus, Allah will make it the cause of
his guidance, will lead him with it, and
cause him to act on it. These are
all paths that lead to paradise.
Furthermore, any student who seeks knowledge for the
sake of sincere implementation,
Allah will make it easy for him to
gain additional beneficial knowledge.
This is a path leading to paradise. It
is said whoever acts on what he knows,
Allah will bequeath unto him knowledge of that
which he does not know.
It is also said the reward of good
is the good it initiates.
This means, this meaning, it is indicated by
Allah's statement, Allah increases in guidance those who
pursue the path of guidance.
And similarly,
as for those who accept to be guided,
Allah increases them in guidance and bestows upon
them piety.
Whoever
searches for knowledge desiring to be rightly guided,
Allah increases them in guidance and beneficial knowledge.
This type of knowledge obligates righteous deeds. These
are all paths that lead to paradise. An
additional path is Allah making it easy for
the student of knowledge to benefit from that
knowledge in the hereafter,
to traverse the siroth, and to deal with
overwhelming
the overwhelming horrors and imposing obstacles which precede
it, meaning the day of judgment.
Knowledge is the essence of guidance.
The reason the path of paradise is made
easy for the student of sacred knowledge if
he desires Allah and his pleasure is explained
as follows.
Knowledge directs one to Allah from the most
accessible paths.
Therefore, one who travels its path without deviating
from it reaches Allah and paradise by means
of the most direct route.
The route leading to paradise or the routes
leading to paradise have all been paved for
him in this world and the next.
As for the one who travels a path
without knowledge, thinking it is a path to
paradise,
he has chosen the most difficult and severe
path. Such a person will never reach his
destination
despite tremendous exertion.
This is important as well. There are many
people who have this kind of, like, phantom
thought inside of their head or fantasy inside
of their head that somehow,
the you know, learning of sacred knowledge is
a waste of time.
Or worse yet, many of the people who
seem to have come and
inhabited these lands and immigrated to these lands,
they come from kind of weird modernist
type movements or just like, you know, quasi
modernist type movements in the Muslim world.
Many peep people of whom,
I don't know, they they they seem to
have this idea that the sacred knowledge is
a burden,
that the tradition, is a burden that has
impeded Islam for making its progress.
And,
once we've come to America, now we're, like,
in a brave new world where we're gonna
be able to, like,
use, like, what we learn about chemistry and
physics and mathematics in order to make Islam
better somehow. And this is, like, one of
the dumbest things I've ever, come across in
my
life. Why?
Because the Muslims,
you know, their societies were not lacking
because, because somehow they needed to, like, you
know, get a degree, a PhD in physics,
and, like, make their societies better. Their societies
were thrown into turmoil.
They were very highly
equilibrated and harmonized
societies,
that were to a very high degree concerned
with
living a harmonious life rather than a life
of, like, cancerous progress.
Meaning,
there were masajid. There were endowed positions.
There were means to produce the food. There
were means to, distribute the livelihood.
There were
very highly refined
skills and guilds
and,
trades
that people had a very clear and defined
path that they could progress in.
It was a very it was a it
was a very
highly developed society.
And they didn't, you know, they didn't lose
their power because of,
you know, some sort of, like, problem in
their moral system. They lost their power. Why?
Because someone sailed across the ocean and, like,
colonized a bunch of lands and took, you
know, huge amounts of gold and silver and
invested them into, like, military
ventures,
many of which were, you know, aimed at
the Muslim world. And so this is a
test and it's a trial Allah
throws at people to see who,
believes and who doesn't. Because when you're on
the top of on top of the world,
everyone will believe. Right? But when it's time
to,
choose, you know, that do you want to
hold on to the deen or do you
wanna run for the dunya? When you have
to choose one over the other,
and you try your best to keep both
of them together, which is a soon not
the prophet the prophet, but sometimes
the dastirqudarat,
the hand of providence forces you, you know,
that you either can choose 1 or the
other. You can't get both cookies out of
the jar. You know, which one are you
gonna choose? And so we have this idea
here, in America that like somehow this like
old ranting of the moolahs and this and
that is just gonna go ahead and, like,
destroy,
you guys. Like, it destroyed the Muslims from
before you, and we need to, like, somehow
leave it and, like, reinterpret the sources or
whatever. And so you have this dichotomy, like,
conservative and reformed Judaism, both of whom, you
know, choose very different expressions, modes of expressions
for their Judaism, but both of which are,
like, predicated on this idea that, like, taking
precedent,
in the interpretation of the Torah is,
not essential.
And, you know, even the explicit and,
undeniable commands of the Torah,
themselves are not something that you necessarily have
to take. It's optional.
And, you know, the conservatives,
you know, say that, like, okay. Well, we'll
we'll give it the benefit of the doubt,
whereas the liberals say that, you know, no.
Like, we're not bound to it at all.
Like, you know, we're not gonna lose any
sleep. You can be a Jew and not,
like, believe in God, and you can be
a rabbi and not believe in God and
all these other things. But the the the
usuli
difference is very little between them. It's just
a cultural preference that they have.
And so, like, I've had this I've had
this conversation with people before.
I remember one time I mentioned in the
Khutba
that,
you know, that I said, you know, that
the the ayah of
Surah Al Khasas
and seek,
for that which Allah has,
prepared for you in the abode of the
hereafter
in the abode of the hereafter.
And don't forget your,
your provision, you know, your your share of
provision from this
from this world. I said that a lot
of people I've heard in America, a lot
of people say, like, see, this is a
ayah. This is a you should balance between
the dunya and the akhirah.
If you look at the if you look
at
the if you look at the age of
the companions
this didn't seem to be what they interpreted
it to mean. They interpreted it to mean
something else.
They interpreted it to mean something else. Why?
Because they didn't seem all that concerned with
their
their their their dunya.
There were some who were more concerned than
others with the affairs of state and with
ruling.
And, even those people, it was because they
wanted to,
further the dean. Each party thought they would
be able to serve the din better than
the other.
Even then, like, you see that they lived
a life of zuhud. Like, you know, they
didn't live a live a life of opulence.
Even Banu Meyya, you know, the opulence and
this and that, this happens
much later. It's not
that, that live that kind of, like, you
know, kind of over the top type of
lifestyle.
And so,
you know,
you know, the
say what? That your provision from this world
don't forget your provision from this world means
don't forget that the only thing you'll take
with yourself from this dunya is what?
Is your kafan. It's your burial shroud.
And I remember,
in in in in in in a city
in California
called Davis,
where there's a
a college, UC Davis. I interviewed to be
imam there. It was one of the first
places that I interviewed when I came back
from Madrasa. And I mentioned this thing in
I mentioned this point in a Khutba.
And an uncle came to me, from a
Muslim country, an Arab,
uncle from our country. It could be any
of them, Arab or non Arabic. It doesn't
really make a difference. There are many uncles
of this jinns that that of this genus
who would say something like this.
And he says to me, he goes,
you know, this thing you said, this is
excessive and this is just, you know, the
the Sufis have corrupted Islam and, like, you
just added this corruption to the Sufis. And
I'm like, first of all, what's wrong with
Sufis?
What's wrong with what's wrong with Sufis? I
go, second of all, it's not a corruption
of Islam. I go, you will find it
in the tafsir of Korobe.
And he's like, yeah. Yeah. He's just all
corrupted by Sufis.
I said,
how someone could say something. So Jahil. And
it's fine. You can disagree with it.
But if you wanna disagree with it, disagree
with it based on some sort of proofs.
Don't just be like, oh, Sufi x, done.
You know, generations and lifetimes of scholarship that
are all, like, traced with Asani, like, in
the book, you dismissed it as some sort
of, like, you know, crackpot uncle from, like,
Davis.
So,
what are you gonna do? You know, what
are you gonna do? I don't know. Maybe
the uncle is around still. Maybe he's passed
from this world. Allah ta'ala forgive all of
us and guide all of us. You know?
Like, what are we gonna we're not gonna
rip each other apart. We're at the end
of the day, we're all the same,
but it's indicative of,
of a how, of a a kind of
a state of intellectual malaise that's that's there
amongst all people, that there are people who
are ready to
dismiss,
the knowledge without engaging with it. You understand
what I'm saying? Is such a nebbie. You
know, if you want to, like,
if you want to dismiss what he has
to say, see where did he get it
from? You know, I have very little doubt
that this stuff here actually is traceable back
to,
back to the alaf.
But if you want to if you want
to say this is wrong,
you know, go research, bring some proof, you
know, or research and and figure out that
you don't have proof or maybe that you
were wrong.
But if a person doesn't entertain the idea
and they just wanna, like, jettison the tradition,
you know, just, like, throw it like it's
dead weight
that, is going to, like, impede our escape
from, like, ignorance or whatever.
That's
a problem. What is Ibn Rajab saying here?
He's saying the reason the path to paradise
is made easy for the student of sacred
knowledge,
if he desires Allah and his pleasure, is
explained as follows.
Knowledge directs one to Allah from the most
accessible paths.
From the what? From the most accessible paths.
More accessible than fasting, more accessible than praying,
more accessible than giving sadaqa,
more accessible than establishing the caliphate. Even though
all of those things are wonderful, they're beautiful,
there's zina, there's beauty in them.
And they're definitely mandated parts of the religion.
But the highest path and the one that's
clearest to Allah
is what?
Is,
is what? Is is knowledge.
Therefore, one who travels its path without deviating
from it reaches Allah in paradise by the
means of the most direct route. What is
he saying? The most direct route.
The routes leading to paradise have all been
paved for him in this world and the
next. As for the one who travels a
path without knowledge, thinking,
it is a path to paradise, he has
chosen the most difficult and severe path. Such
a person will never reach his destination despite
tremendous exertion.
Which means what? We have a bunch of
cats running out around out there, many of
whom are people of of respect,
people who are respected, people who are in
positions of leadership,
people who are, you know and they literally
I mean, they do wish good for the
dean. It's not like they're sitting at home
and being like, how can I jack this
thing up
as bad as possible? They genuinely have good
intentions and good intentions are important. Without good
intentions, good things can't happen, but good intentions
aren't enough to make things bad into something
good.
So we have these cats, you know, that
they have the good intention,
but, what is it? They have the idea
that somehow they're gonna get to this
goal, through some other means. And the thing
is this. Right? Like, imagine some crackpot. You
know, there's this crackpot thing going around right
now
That, oh, Janaban, like May 15th or May
12th or whatever, the star, Thurayah, will rise,
the Pleiades will rise and there's a hadith
in Sahih Bukhari
in which the prophet
mentions that, like, the the ahad, the, like,
some sort of, like, pestilence that affected a
particular crop goes
away, when the star, Thuraya, rises, you know,
which is, you know, the the the the
moving of the stars,
can chart the seasons,
for the person who is an expert at
seeing,
the the, you know, the movement of celestial
bodies.
That,
you know, there's this crackpot theory that's making
the rounds in the Internet,
unfortunately,
egged on by a number of self promoting
and
a number of of kind of, like, drama
buzz showmanship
type people who are, you know, trying to
make some sort of, like, clickbait with a
turban and beard,
type of scenario go on. That the prophet
mentioned about a particular pestilence that hit hits
a crop
that,
that that when the star Pleiades rises,
that pestilence will go away. And the point
of it is what? When the weather changes,
then you'll see you'll see that, like, the,
you know, that pestilence will no longer affect
the crop. That's all. It's just a point
of
traditional tribal knowledge that the Arabs had, and
he was just mentioning it, you know, just
like a home remedy. Many of the the
the medical,
and he would he would tell somebody just
in good faith, you know, like, you have
this problem, then take this medicine and it'll
help you.
You know, if you have thatuljam or whatever,
you know, like, this this is the the
treatment for it or iktiwah or all these,
you know, there are many things like that
that he used to just
share the remedies. And this is there's a
chapter
or a kalam about this that Shahwulullah
shares in his Hujatullah
and no one like can in earnest,
you know, accuse Shawwalullah
of not valuing the hadith of the prophet
or of, you know, somehow
somehow not respecting it. He's the one through
which all the hadith, the asanid of the
hadith of the prophet are transmitted today.
I would say at least a conservative estimate
is like 85% of them in the world.
So, so, you know, this person is saying,
look, this hadith is saying that the will
go away. And because of that, inshallah, by
May 15th,
this coronavirus will go away or it will
be severely,
cut back, dialed back.
Now, how stupid is that? How stupid is
that to take something not only out of
context but more more stupid than that is
what?
Is that you're willing to sit and say
a statement on behalf of the messenger of
Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
without knowledge, you're making
a claim about
medicine,
a claim about medicine that this epidemic will
go away by a particular date
and you're saying it on the authority of
the messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Now, either you're,
just making conjecture
and making conjecture about deen is highly problematic.
It's highly problematic. It's one of the
sifat of the kuffar in the book of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
It's
just their
that
the kuffar, they speculate about deen and they
talk about it as if it's a certain
deen, it's just their deen, it's just their
speculation.
What if whatever May comes and goes and
we're June 1st and the numbers of people
infected and dying from corona are increased?
Are you ready to say that the prophet
was wrong?
If not, then maybe you should shut up.
Maybe you should say this is what it
seems like to me or maybe this is,
you know, hopefully Insha'Allah it'll be like this.
Maybe you should say, you know,
I have this like idea that came to
my mind but don't say that this is
what the hadith means.
Now it is clear for people who are
highly trained in the material sciences
that
using
ancient religious scripture in order to describe
the physical world around you,
using an ayah of the Quran as a,
quote unquote, proof that the earth is flat,
even though we can literally see it from
from space that it's spherical
or spheroid at any rate.
There are people, by the way, that do
that. There are people who are alive that
do that. Some of my teachers actually did
it. And you know what? I you know,
they're some of them are very expert in
certain fields and certain sciences,
and I learned those sciences from them. And
I don't really give much heed to what
their opinion about geography is.
Just like it's silly, it's stupid for a
person to take a verse of scripture
and use it to prove that the earth
is flat. Or take a verse of scripture
and use it to prove something about physics.
Or use, you know, a verse of scripture
and use it to prove something about,
about math or use a verse of scripture
and use it to prove something about
something, you know, from the material sciences. First
of all, it is a a lack of
understanding what the point of understanding what the
point of scripture is.
That that that that that scripture came down
to teach mankind that which he knew not.
Meaning those things that you can put 22
together and look at it. That's that's not
the point of,
of revelation to tell you about the things
that you could've figured out anyway on your
own.
The point of revelation is to teach you
about the unseen, about those things that you
would've never been able.
The things that a person didn't know and
the things that a person doesn't know and
that brings that the person doesn't would never
know if it wasn't for the Fable of
Allah coming down on them. And those occasional,
scenarios and situations where
it seems to a person when they read
a particular sentence, the meaning that comes to
their head first is something that is,
that is, like, physically impossible based on empirical
or rational
understanding of the world around us,
then what was the methodology of our olema
is what to say that my understanding is
wrong, This the the ayah is not talking
about what I thought it was talking about.
It's talking about something else. And this happens
all the time that the ayah seems to
be saying one thing, and then when you
go to or the hadith seems to be
saying one thing, and when you go to
the, you know, fuqaha, the ulama, you realize,
you know, like, it was just your bad.
Right? Al Khattabi, Rahimullah ta'ala,
the canonical commentator on Abu Dawood, he says
that one of the Muhadithin he used to
read from, who is a man of prolific
memory obviously, Muhadithin don't go to, like, people
who are not good in hadith in order
to learn hadith from them.
And so, he noticed that the sheikh would,
you know, pray salat with her after coming
back from the bathroom
anytime day or night. So he's you know,
after a while, he's like, this is kinda
weird. Like, why do you do this? He
goes, don't you know the hadith of the
prophet
The person
that
the person who the person who wipes his
private parts with stones, you know, to clean
them, let them let them make wither.
And kathabi says, sheyif, I think the meaning
of this is not that they should pray
salatul wither, but the meaning of this is
that they should use an odd number
because the word wither is literally means odd
number, and then we use it then afterward
to, describe the salatawitter, which is a salat
in which there's an odd number of raka'at.
So the sheikh is like, yeah.
That makes a lot more sense.
Now he's not gonna be like he's not
gonna cop an attitude and be like, oh,
look.
You're going against the hadith of the prophet,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. No. He was humble
enough to admit he thought it meant something,
but it really means another. And so this
is a principle this is a principle of
of of hermeneutics,
of of of of understanding,
the sacred text of Islam, that if it
is a text which is transmitted,
with,
that
if it's
transmitted
with with solid,
with solid,
like,
that it is solidly transmitted from Allah and
his rasul, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and we
have no doubt that it actually is attributable
to Allah and his messenger sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
If its meaning seems to go against something
that is, like,
completely, like, rational like, something that's rationally necessary
or against something that's empirically observed like
a 100% to be
like a verity,
then we say, you know what? We probably
just understood this thing wrong, and we'll look
for the correct meaning of
it. Now this this much what I just
said, there are probably a 1000000,
a 1000000
people who are, like, trained in materialist
in material sciences and material branches of learning.
If they were to hear what I was
saying, it's like, yeah. Stupid mullahs. They should
know that. Yeah. Stupid mullahs. They should know
that. Right? And maybe some you know, the
word, by the way, Mullah, is not, it's
now become like a cuss word. The word
Mullah in the old days used to be,
you know, only reserved for the greatest of
the scholars and the greatest of the ulama.
And this is a weird coast post colonial
or, like, in Afghanistan's
in Afghanistan's instance because they weren't colonized, but
post, like, communist
propaganda where they make this word mullah into,
you know, some sort of farce of, like,
some sort of ignorant backwards person, like, mullahazoo,
like, Mullah Jeevan, Mullah Ali al Khare. These
are big people. These are people who are
learned in mathematics and material sciences as well
as,
as well as the the sciences of revelation.
But, you know, I'm saying in the in
the in the in the,
lampooned
joke version of Mullah, they say, yes, stupid
Mullah, they should know this, that you don't
use the Quran to, like, tell you about
physics. You don't use the Quran to tell
you about,
about engineering or about chemistry or about math
or whatever.
Well, what about the other way around?
What about those people who try to interpret
the the the Quran without learning anything it
whatsoever
and try to interpret Deen based on their
understanding of material things.
Whereas the whole point of Islam is what?
Like, the first description of the believers in
the Quran is what? That they're the ones
who believe in the unseen.
They're the ones who believe in the unseen.
Unseen means what? Those things that math is
not gonna teach you about. Those things that
chemistry is not gonna teach you about, those
things that physics is not gonna teach you,
but everybody knows they exist. Everybody knows a
human being has a spirit inside of them.
Everybody knows that there's more to life than
material things. If you think that those statements
are not true, that the only thing in
this world is material things and the only
thing that's in this world is,
is is your physical body. And there's no
such thing as ruh, and your consciousness is
just an accident of, like, neurons and neurotransmitters
and, like, electrical shocks going up and down
your spinal cord and nerves,
and and, you know, like, sponge like matter
of your brain, then why do you waste
your time with Islam in the first place?
Why be on the masjid board? Why be,
like, you know, the nakayeb in mass or,
like, why be why be any of those
things? Why,
you know, why why why join the Hizb
ut Tahrir or why join the Tablija Jamaat
or why join any of these things? And
then sit there and then afterward,
pass judgments on the interpretations
of the book of Allah and the hadith
of the prophet or even on the meanings
of the book of Allah and the hadith
of the prophet
or on the sacred
law. If you want to pass judgment on
them, be my guest, but actually go ahead
and learn them first is just as silly
as a a a person who reads the
Quran and the hadith and nothing else and
then starts commenting on physics and medicine and
chemistry
is just as silly as what
as,
the the materialist
person who has high training in materialism, then
go and start commenting on,
on the law and on the creed of
Islam and on the hadith of the prophet
and on the
on
the spiritual verities of Islam.
And this is a a ancient piece of
hikmah
ancient piece of hikmah. The they say that
the
that the the the the half
the half,
doctor, the one who learned a little bit
but doesn't really isn't really, like, properly trained
in medicine, that person is a danger to
your
life. And the nimullah,
the person who learned a little bit about
deen but doesn't really know what they're talking
about, never really took training, will pass judgment
on things without reading or without, trying to
understand.
That person is a a a khatah. That
person is a a danger to your,
to your iman.
And, look look where how far we've come
from the state of our forefathers. Because the
funny thing is that many, you know, there
are many people who,
fit this profile and they'll quote Ibn Taymiyyah
and Ibn Taym,
who are Ibn Rajab's mashaikh and they'll misquote
them, like,
through the through the roof, through the nose.
I'll be honest with you. I'll admit to,
you know,
I didn't study in, in this tradition, the
Hanbali tradition in particular, the Tamian tradition. I
didn't study in it, and many of its,
functions are somewhat of a mystery to me
and they don't like, the parts that I
understand, some of them,
don't make sense. And that's not our tradition.
Whoever learned in that tradition, allata, give them
barakah.
And, they are our Muslim brothers, and we
love them. And we hope for the best,
for Islam from them and,
for them from Islam.
But that being said,
look. This is what Ibn Rajab is saying.
He says, as for the one who travels
a path without knowledge, thinking it's a path
to paradise, he has chosen the most difficult
and severe path.
Such a person will never reach his destination,
despite,
tremendous exertion.
And this is exactly, unfortunately, unfortunately,
the the era that we live in. This,
dichotomy of the person of knowledge having the
easiest path to Allah and the person without
knowledge having the most perilous path to Allah,
this is exactly diametrically
flipped.
So we have now, like, large numbers of
people who
are in important positions when it comes to
the public life of the deen and the
public life of the Muslims,
the, political ascendency,
economic ascendency, and what is their idea? Their
idea is that the knowledge of religion is
an impediment, and the less that you have,
the more you're going to be able to
do something good for Islam, and the
the
lack of knowledge is is is going to
help you and the amount of knowledge that
you have. The more you're burdened with, you
know, so so called dogma and and tradition,
the more the path forward is going to
be perilous for you. And this is manifested
in the Badamizi
and the the sheer just like tilatula
adab that the people have for their ulama.
It's one thing if a particular alum, you
know, I've called out particular
madrasa graduates and people of knowledge before for
things that I I think that they've said
and done as ludicrous.
But I've never issued a statement, look, all
the alum are like this. All the movies
are like that. All the mulas are like
this. All the mulas are like that. Why?
Because the only person who could do that
is a person who thinks that this knowledge
or the institutions that teach this knowledge are
gonna somehow,
set someone backwards.
And, this is Ibn Rajab, one of the
great Muhaddithin
of a very different strand of the tradition
than the one that that that we studied
in. But this is just common currency between
between all parts of Islam
in the,
in the pre modern era and all the
scholarly parts of Islam
in this particular era that haven't bent toward,
heresy,
and haven't bent toward, a a a heterodoxy,
which is what we all agreed the more
you study, the more you learn, the better
it's gonna be for your deen,
and not worse. Allah,
you know, rectify this
misunderstanding in the minds and the hearts of
our,
of our brothers and sisters,
whether they be, whether they be the students
of knowledge or the teachers of knowledge
or whether they be the
the the custodians of the political life of
the Muslims or the economic life of the
Muslims or the social life of the Muslims
or the media or,
you know, whatever other
critical control points there are in the life
of the Ummah, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, open
people's eyes and open people's hearts to understanding
this that by look, the more knowledge you
have, the more you'll understand
and the easier your path to Allah Ta'ala
will be. Just like people say, well, there
are people of knowledge who are screwed up
people. Right? Why are they screwed up? It's
because you can see, you can see clearly
this person is far from Allah. There are
people like that throughout the entire history of
Islam. There are people like that. The Quran
mentions Karun as a person
in the in in the Suratul Qasas,
who was a man of from Banu Israel,
a man of knowledge and the people could
see that this man was far far from
Allah. Right? It's the fur farness from Allah
that allows even an unlearned person to see
that these corrupt scholars are nowhere good.
The idea is what? It's not the knowledge
that made him far. It's some other defect
in him that
you see the knowledge but you don't see
the other defect.
What I'm saying is this is that people
defects whatever they have or whatever they may
have, put those things to the side. The
knowledge in and of itself will, in an
increase in knowledge, bring you closer to Allah
or will it bring you further take you
further from him? It will bring you closer.
Although there are particular defects that might, like,
you know, slash the tires of that car
still,
but it's not the fault of the knowledge,
it's the fault of the other defect. Otherwise,
it's ludicrous to think that somehow the less
knowledge about something you'll have, the the more
you'll know about it. That doesn't even make
sense. That's not you don't have to be
a Muslim or or a fanatic or whatever
to under that doesn't make sense in any,
way, shape, or form. Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
return this common sense to us and to
this.