Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Bearing Witness to the Good of Muft Th Karn Addison 06102021
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To Allah Ta'ala we belong,
and to Allah Ta'ala we shall return.
There's a narration in the Muwata about the
people from before us,
that from Banu Israel there was a great
zahid and scholar,
and that when his beloved wife passed away,
he slipped into so much
depression
and into such sorrow at his loss that
he stopped meeting people.
And he cut himself off from the world,
and he would stop answering people's questions, and
he
isolated himself,
and only would have 1, person deliver him
one meal a day
and otherwise had no no other human interaction.
And he stayed like this for some time.
And then one day, an old lady came,
and she asked the,
the khadim.
She said, I wanna ask the I wanna
ask the sheikh a question.
He said, he doesn't meet anybody. He said,
no. I have to I have to meet
him and I'm gonna meet him and you
tell him. She said, no. He's not interested.
And she made a big fuss and raised
a big
fuss about it
to the point where it embarrassed the Khadem,
and,
coerced him to go and tell the sheikh,
look, this old lady is outside, and she's
making a big scene and a big fuss
that she has a question, and she'll leave
once it's answered.
And, but she has to ask you.
And so as some time had passed,
this,
this scholar consented
and asked the lady, okay. What's your question?
And she said,
I have a neighbor,
and she lent me some jewelry a long
time ago.
And I wear it, and I use it,
and I benefit from it.
And years passed by. She never mentioned it.
She never said anything to me. She never
asked anything about it.
And,
then all of a sudden, you know, just
out of nowhere,
she showed up at my house and said,
well, can I have my jewelry back? And
she insisted on having it back.
And,
do I have to give it back to
her given that I had it for all
those years and she just asked for it
back without warning?
And so the,
the sheikh says yes.
Of course, it's her property.
She has the right to take it back
whenever she wants,
and you have to give it to her
no matter how long it's been.
And so the old lady said to the
sheikh says, look this is what happened to
you. Allah gave you your wife. The 2
of you had a good time together.
And now Allah asked for it back. Why
are you making such a big fuss out
of all of this?
And so,
she said it in such a simple way
with such Hikma that it gave him pause
to think about it. And afterward,
he
he, you know, he would go and mix
and meet with the people and not just
cut himself off like that anymore.
But in the story, there's a very potent
lesson
which is that Allah Ta'ala is the Rab
and Allah Ta'ala is the Malik, Malik ul
Mulk.
He's the one who owns.
Decisions are his to take as he wishes
and to give as he wishes.
And
instead of
being immature
or being
unreasonable about it
and crying over what we don't have.
If we think about it,
rather, we should be thankful for what we
do have
because all of it is on loan from
him, and
all of it is going to return to
him.
And so for that reason when Allah
gives us some sort of loss that we
suffer,
It's not right to cry and complain.
People don't understand. You know, different people like
different things. Different thing people value different things.
Some people value one thing. Some people value
another.
This Mufti Saab passed away. A person may
say,
what's the difference between him and the other
10,000 Mufti Saabs that we have? All of
them are valuable.
What's the difference about this mufi taha karan,
for which you kick up a a din
or
feel or suffer such a loss.
I said, look. You know? Somebody who's really
into cars is gonna know the difference between,
you know, the Lexus this and the Lexus
data and the Mercedes this series and that
series and the BMW this and that. And
that person couldn't couldn't give less of a
damn. You know? It's just it's all it's
it's all the same to them. It's like
it's just a car.
So, you know, put that to the side.
All of these things, they're all gifts from
Allah
What can I tell you about? You know,
we don't have a tradition. We don't do
eulogies. You know? What's the point of a
eulogy? If I speak good about him and
he wasn't good, it's not gonna help him.
And if I speak good about him and
he was good,
he was good anyway. Even if I speak
bad about him, it's not gonna hurt him.
But
what I will say is this is that
there are people Allah
made
Allah knows the secret in everybody's heart, But
there are some people Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
placed as a Hijjah against his creation,
as a proof against his creation that there
is something better than what you're doing that's
possible, and other people who are like you
are doing it.
And it's not just a hijab against the
creation, not just a proof against the creation
in the sense that we're all gonna be
damned because of it, but it's an inspiration
as well.
Because
the oliya of Allah
they are who they are.
And,
the first level of wilayah is to see
them and to
admit that this person is
somebody who Allah
has given great good to you, to bear
witness to it and not to be so
stingy inside of your nafs to say that
I'm a person and they're a person. No.
The person who,
lived through poverty for his entire life and
taught his students who themselves were broke, who
himself used
to suffer with them, who himself used to
suffer poverty with them and for them,
and trained a generation of people to do,
the work of Dean,
and to defend the faith
and to counsel,
those people who are brokenhearted
and to make sense,
when other people are blabbering confusion.
Those people,
they did something good. So you can say,
well, I'm good too. You know? Like, I
whatever. I went to such and such conference
or I read a book one time or,
like, you know, I gave a good talk
and I have, like, a nice profile picture
on Facebook, you know, me standing behind a
lectern with a mic in my face or
something stupid like
that. Instead of instead of being stingy,
if you can say that is beautiful,
that's beautiful,
It makes me happy. It fills my heart
with joy
that this man,
his father,
Mawlana Yusuf Karan
passed away not very long ago
and who was
a disciple of Hazrat Sheikh Zakaria
He's the one who translated the Fadayullah Amal
which is a wonderful book. He translated it
into English, the book that everyone should have
and everyone should read whatever their,
opinion on going on 40 days is or
isn't. It's a wonderful book. It should be
read.
It far exceeds in its majesty the the
people who are reading it. Just read the
book. Don't worry about who's reading it.
That Milana Yusuf, I had a I had
the honor to meet him in Cape Town,
but he went and he studied in back
in the days at great peril and great
risk. Those people, they went, like, by ship
to go study
with very little support from behind them. And
they came and they changed, you know, they
changed the the places that they they they
came home to for the better.
That that pious man had a pious son
who loved. His father was a genius. He
himself was a genius. Both of them are,
you know, they're in the in the in
the, Cape Town, the Cape province, in the
western part of South Africa.
It is very different than the eastern part.
The eastern part, the Muslim minority is
heavily populated populated by people from the Indian
subcontinent. The eastern,
sorry, the western province, the Cape province,
that used to be something that was a
possession or a territory of the, imperial Dutch,
And they enslaved,
so many thousands of people from the from
Indonesia, what they call Dutch Indochina.
And they would bring them there. And they
used it as a penal colony for a
number of great masha'ikh and a number of.
They brought them there in chains to work
the fields,
and so that they couldn't inspire and lead
rebellion and revolt against,
their usurpation of of their lands.
And,
you know, it's a very different place. Their
and their. And
both Moana Yousaf and Moana
Taha,
they were also in. But what what can
I tell you that this Moana Taha, one
of his students from Toronto, Moana Azhar, he
told me
that he,
when he gave the exam, the final exam
in Darulum in Deoban,
large tracts of his exam
were verbatim?
The,
the the
the the verbatim, the,
the writing of Hafiz ibn Hajar,
in the Fatholbari to the point where the
Asat as and Deoband wanted to fail him
for plagiarism.
And so they called him into the to
ask about him,
that what is this? Why did you plagiarize?
We're gonna fail you and kick you out.
He said, look, you had your proctors in
the exam.
The is a very large multi volume work.
I couldn't have smuggled it in easily.
It's one of my favorite books, and I
like to read from it.
And I like to read from it means
what? That I memorized
large tracks of it.
And so if you want, I can take
the exam again. You can all watch me
while I'm taking it.
And, you know, you can see that, you
know, that I'm cheating. Am I cheating or
not?
And so they convene the masura again and
instead of,
instead of failing him, this young Shafir, he
graduated at the top of his class in
Darulun Deoban.
And I asked Musti Palin Puri
who we lost not not too long ago,
just a maybe a year and a month
ago or less,
about him. He was a very critical, person.
He's not a person that you go to
to get your, self esteem pumped up or
or or or or built up,
And he spoke very highly of him.
That that man
who reads the books of everybody, the different,
the,
the
the the philosopher,
the different modern,
you know, different modern,
lines of
of intellectual trajectory.
And he used to write prolifically,
and he used to actually teach in his
madrassa. His madrassa was a darshanazami madrassa that
would teach the Shafi'i school that would also
teach the books of Imam Khazali.
They used to teach,
introductions to and to modernism and philosophy.
That that madrassa
Mashal, the library of which he ordered should
be open 24 hours a day and students
should be free to take books and bring
them back without being harassed by any bureaucracy.
That should make you happy that people like
that were were in the world. And the
first daraja of willaya is just to bear
witness. This is a good
thing.
And,
you know, if you look for it in
the world, you realize how rare it is,
And, that's why it kind of hurts when
it's taken away. But again, Allah,
he's the one who gives and it says
to keep.
And if we are going to miss him
when he's gone in this world,
then we ask Allah
to forgive him and accept from him.
And we ask Allah who knows better than
any of us.
We ask Allah
to
make true
the good opinion that we have of him
and that he also should be waiting for
us or people like that that we loved
in this world for the sake of Allah
whether we met them or we didn't meet
them,
that they should also be waiting for us
on the other side as well. Just like
we make du'a for them right now that
they should also be waiting for us. They
should you know, like, sometimes you go with
friends, you're gonna go out and eat somewhere,
and so your friends get there before you.
So you tell them, hey. Can you just
order for me What? So that you don't
have to wait. Someone gets there earlier. It's
also a help.
Or someone has to leave early, and so
they leave the person behind and say, can
you do such and such thing for me?
I have to go. So, yeah. Sure. No
problem. We'll take care of that. That inshallah,
there's also a hikmah and a benefit in
that person being,
that person having arrived at their destination earlier,
sooner or later, all of us are gonna
catch up. No one's going to be left
behind.
But when you see how rare that is
and you know how rare that is, that's
such a person,
I don't know how to describe him other
than he has more knowledge in the,
section of his pinky toe of the left
foot than I have inside of me. And
if I had as much knowledge as he
had in the section of his pinky toe
of his left foot, I would be so
mutakabir. I wouldn't return the salam of anybody.
But despite all of that, having actually not
just the pinky toe, but the entire heart
and head that he had with him, He
was of the most kind people and of
the most humble people. You will see, you
know, when people now lament his loss that
the most normal of people used to give
them time
and he used to treat them with Shafaqah.
And, one of his most prolific legacies he
left behind was a reputation against deviance and
creed,
especially those people who made spurious and idle
attacks against
the Ahl al Sunnal Jama'a historically and currently.
And you'll see even in his refutations
and elegance that he never raised his voice
against anybody. He never called anyone names. He
never cast aspersions on people. He just dealt
with things in a very matter of fact
way. In fact, was very charitable with his,
with his,
the people that he,
you know, opposed in his in his polemics.
And, you never find any trace of
hatred or even heat in his
in his work. And that's not easy. That's
really hard
because it requires you care about the dean
a whole lot.
And then at the same time, it requires
that you care about people a whole lot.
And, it takes a very big heart to
be able to balance those two things and
not let them rip a person apart. And
I'll admit I'm not very good at it
either myself.
Not good at the care a whole lot
and not good about know a whole lot
and definitely not good at balancing them.
Try it. It's not easy.
Most people just clock out and don't don't
even worry about these things.
But, but that's that's that's who he who
he was. And when you realize the loss,
you know,
it does it does hurt, but we have
patience and we say that
all belongs to him, All of us belong
to him and we'll return to him. This
dunya was a limited time,
a fair and and enterprise anyway.
And,
you know, there's another place that we're all
going to go, and we're all going to
meet, and we're all going to be together.
And, that place, that meeting will be forever
and ever. May Allah give us the
preparing for it and that that work still
has to go on. And I don't know
who's gonna do his work. If Allah wishes
to someone, he can raise him to be
like him or greater than him.
But at any rate, you know, we also
should do that work, that we should also
send money to his madrasa that it keep
running, and we should also give recognition to
the that he trained.
Moana, right here in Dar es Salaam, right
up the road from where I am, there's
Moana
Abdulrahman Yaqub, who's the head of the research
department at.
There is,
Moana Azhar that I mentioned from Toronto. There's
Moana Westeli
in Toronto.
There's Moana Abdulrahman Khan, in Cape Town. There
are the
that are actually teaching in his madrasa,
many of whom I can see their, faces,
but I don't remember their names,
because we would meet, you know, very
not frequently,
and the students. But money should be sent
that that madrasa keep running
and that those students keep getting fed and
keep getting helped.
That library, you know how dumb of an
idea it is. So this tradition we're
in, is that what? That the only one
more stupid to than the one who lends
a book out is the one who returns
it. This is a heresof, the students have
knowledge for books.
And so I was very astonished with this
one. He told me that, his library is
open 24 hours, and whoever wishes should just
take a book. No checking out. None of
that stuff. Just take it and then return
it when it comes back. I said, you're
crazy. Who who the * is gonna return
your books?
He says, no. He says, no,
Should I tell you a funny story? I
said, go ahead. Tell me. He said one
time there was a student of his. He
just
took a whole bunch of books and disappeared.
Nobody even knew because who knows who took
them, who knows where they are. So his
father called and said that my son is
a student of yours, and he asks,
he asks,
for Duas.
And,
actually, he didn't call Mufti, so he called
up some other scholar and said my son
my son is very sick, and the doctors
have
been perplexed by his illness.
And, the,
you know, that we went to and we
went to doctors and we went to this
and that. Nobody even knows what's wrong with
him, why he's he's ill, but he's dying.
He's about to die. And so one of
the masha'ik said that that the only thing
that we can think of that's left is
that he's taken the zulm of somebody and
that someone needs to forgive him. Otherwise, he's
going to die.
And,
so his father started calling everybody he knows,
and he eventually called up. And,
and he admitted that he has a couple
of books from the madrasah, and can he
return him dead still and receive forgiveness for
this. Musaab said, I didn't even know who
had where the books went or who had
them or whatever.
He says that this this man showed up
with a trunk full of books,
full of books.
And he put them back in the library,
and his son got better.
So he says,
and people like
us people like us have to be like,
don't touch my book.
And, but, you know, I took it like,
you know,
The the man even his library
was
guarded by,
Al Hafir Al Raqib,
I said, Mufti Saab, you whatever charm
that I read over your library, you should
ease up. You might kill a person,
you know, with them.
But, that we should support the we should
support those those institutions and those projects that
are still going on.
Some of the most competent
scholars of the Shafi'i school and some of
the most competent exponents of the Shafi'i school
in America that are doing the silent work,
not of, you know, being social media stars
or celebrities or whatever,
but actually learning and teaching the school, learning
and teaching the books of, of the great
Shafa scholars and other subjects like Imul Kalam,
like Imam Ghazali, Imam Al Haramain Aljuani,
and others
that, that those should be supported
and they should go on and they should
continue
that Allah imagine a person is in in
the dark in a cave and they can't
see anything
and Allah sent somebody
with a torch,
and you lit a candle.
And he said, you know, he sat or
didn't say, you know that the angels are
not gonna come, like, you know, every every,
you know, every hour on the hour or
every week to give you this miraculous help.
The help comes at one time,
and you know it's not normal the way
it comes.
So it's our job now, to make sure
not to put the fire out completely,
not to put out the light completely,
to keep the candles burning ourselves,
keep the fire burning, keep the wood burning
ourselves, keep the light burning ourselves.
And the only person who wastes those opportunities
is a wretched person and a person who
is,
who is
who's ungrateful to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make us from those
khalil.
Allah
make us from those Khalil even if you
don't know how to reach them with your
support.
Financial support is like just one aspect of
it. You know? You have to find those
people. You have to honor them. You have
to collaborate with them. You have to seek
them out. If nothing else, make go offer
them.
You know? If you're not able to do
any of that stuff, at least make go
offer them. At least love love them. Bear
witness to what they're doing as being a
good thing,
in a time where everybody is
taking their deen from, like, viral TikTok,
sock puppets,
who, just regurgitate
all the same garbage that people wanna hear
with with, like, a hijab and with a
beard and with, like, you know, and stuff
and Bismillah and Allah like, and
all this other nonsense,
which is
it's like a mockery of deen. But there
were people that maybe, like, weren't viral on
some sort of Chinese spyware,
app, but,
they were people who who knew what they
were talking about, and they're people through which
society and civilization was held up and used
to change for the better.
As for the rest of it as for
the rest of it, speaking,
good and telling stories is fine.
The mention of the is
a occasion for Rahma to come down.
But,
my request is that, myself and others just
make
for him and for those who are left
behind and for our betterment that we,
do something good with what's rest left with
the rest of our lives
and,
that
Allah make,
just like their sorrow and firaq and then
being separated that there'd be joy in meeting
again one day.