Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Imm Anwar Shh Kashmr and His Tasrh A Brief Introduction ICC 12242019
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This is a book that, I came across,
in my studies early on. I heard about
it, and then I I came across this
particular copy that was sitting out of place
in a mustard bookstore. Unfortunately,
we have no bookstores in America. Very few,
and the few that we have are poorly
curated.
So I saw it sitting amongst a bunch
of fluff books
saying, what is this book of doing here?
I have to save it from the calamity
that's befallen it, like, you know, like say
Nayyusuf in Egypt, Alay Saab.
So I I I took it home and
it was a good opportunity for me to,
for me to scrutinize it and study it
a little bit.
And, thereafter, I, felt that its content should
be shared with people.
So, in order
to disseminate its contents further,
one has to study it. And so in
a gathering of imams
and religious leaders,
that took place in Boston a couple of
years ago,
most of whom you know,
I had put on the WhatsApp group that
I have this book, so if in the
after hours, anyone wants to sit and read
through the hadith from beginning to end, like
Sheikh, Musa had mentioned, which is an old
custom of the udama that when the students
have knowledge that when they get together, they
sit and read the hadith of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and they exchange ijazah.
The only person who,
answered the call was interestingly enough,
someone associated with care.
Daul Waleed.
Reward
him, give him a long life. He's the
care. He's the head of care with one
of the founding members of care in Detroit,
which is not that far away from from
us. A very solid,
individual.
Allah keep him healthy and give him a
long life. So we sat and read the
book from beginning to end.
And,
I've been looking over it from time to
time because, especially because of its connection with
the,
with the,
the
of the Muslims. So it's called
the.
It is called the the clear,
unequivocal
unequivocal statement,
with regards to
the fact that coming back the coming back
of,
say, before the end of a is
a a a decisive part of the deed.
It's something about which there is no argument
whatsoever. And it's very interesting. There's so many
things about Islam that very interesting. There's so
many things about Islam that
people assume are known, and they're not questioned
until a person,
questions them, and then what happens is the
way fitna works, fitna is oftentimes something that
is more political or more,
psychological than it is,
intellectual.
So if someone were to tell you, you
know, like, do you have a dalil for
this? Do you have a dalil for that?
What's your dalil that it's permissible to breathe
while you're praying?
You know, one may have a difficult time
coming up with something like that, but, you
know, if someone were to make a big
issue out of it and then half of
the Muslims have a doubt about it, then
undoubtedly one of the will have to get
up and, like, write a book about why
it's permissible to read while bringing.
And so there are a number of strange
things that were considered to be,
just taken for granted that everybody knows these
things are a part of the deen until
somebody gets up and makes a big problem
about it, makes a big fuss about it.
And this issue about Sinai isa alaihis salaam
coming back is one of those issues.
And so the book itself is
compiled by,
one of the previous,
grand Muftis of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Allah
protected it, make it,
live up to its name.
His name was Mufti Mohammed Shafir.
He is the father of, of
Mufti Taqi, who is one of the foremost,
in in in in the Indian subcontinent and
the world as well. He's the architect of
much of what we consider the modern,
the modern discipline is of Islamic financing,
as well as, as well as significant achievement
in a number of other disciplines of learning,
including hadith.
He continued,
one of his uncles wrote a partial
commentary on,
on Sahib's.
And he finished about half of it. So
he finished his uncle's work.
Just a great of
the of the first rate.
If you wanna know who he is, perhaps
the the the one of the best resources
for the tafsir of the Quran in English
is a tafsir,
called.
You may have seen it. I don't know
if we have a copy of this masjid,
but you may have seen it lying around.
It's translated into English,
from the original Urdu, but it was written,
and compiled in such a way that it
was there to make accessible
the classical
the classical sources of to a lay reader.
And it's a really wonderful resource. It's a
really wonderful resource. It was based on a
number of
of tafsir,
lectures that were given in radio Pakistan,
I think in the fifties or sixties.
And, if somebody wants to read the tafsir
of the Quran, like, you know, if you
read like English translations, there's a very,
English is a very poor language in terms
of classical,
Islamic learning. So if you read, for example,
Yusuf Ali's translation and things like that, you
won't
actually see a lot of,
a lot of classical sources being referenced,
or Mohammed Marsin Khan or whatever whatever the
5 or 6 important important tafsirs that are
out there, or sorry, translations that are out
there, you won't see a lot of reference
to classical sources,
to Razi and and all of these people.
You have to actually know Arabic in order
to read those. And so,
he,
he's known for a number of different works.
Perhaps you've come across as Quran. If you
haven't, you can
find it online. It's a really wonderful resource
to, to understand in the Quran. And so
what he did was he compiled this book
in the name of his Sheikh,
in the name of his Sheikh based on
a number of lectures of his Sheikh as
well.
And his sheikh was who?
His sheikh in hadith was an individual by
the name of Muhammad Anwar Shah Kashmiri,
the same Kashmir that's in this, in the
news nowadays.
Kashmir is one of the the the old
lands that accepted Islam and one of the
first parts of the Indian subcontinent in which
people accepted Islam in great numbers.
They say that one of the,
one of the
idolatrous kings of Kashmir saw him, from afar
and was impressed by him and asked him
to come
speak to him. And after a conversation, the
the king, he accepted Islam, and and a
great number of the Kashmiri people accepted Islam,
thereafter.
So this, Sheikh Mohammed Anwar Shah,
he was
he is referred to as a.
He is referred to as a.
He is one of the last people
of the field of hadith,
from the that had the supernatural memory. That
had the
supernatural memory.
And so we're talking about, you know, turn
of the century. He passed away in the
early 1900s.
Supernatural
memory that he had a completely photographic memory.
He would see something once and then he
wouldn't have to ever see it again.
He would be able to quote from it
verbatim. So they say that the the the
light the library in the Darululum and Deoban
in the madrasa that he used to teach
in, That he had memorized every single book
in the entire library.
And someone wants to ask him, like, why
how did you get this gift from Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala?
And he said that because I venerated the
knowledge.
Venerated meaning I showed so much respect to
the knowledge. I considered the knowledge to be
sacred.
This is one of the reasons that she
said, we sentimentally, we say these things about,
like, this is, you know, you'll see the
value of this on the day of judgment,
and this is so important, so important. And
people are, like, in one ear out the
other. That is because we saw those people
who literally they consider this to be deemed.
And so, Mufti Takhi is alive. I've met
him before.
Right? His father is Mufti Shafi who compiled
this book and now we're talking about Mufti
Shafi's shafi on.
He said that I venerated the knowledge so
much. When asked how did Allah give you
this gift of being able to just see
something and remember it verbatim for, for 40
years,
or more after
He said that, when I,
when I yes?
Brother,
this is the this is the subject because
This chain of narration is from the dean.
And whoever if it doesn't if it wasn't
for this chain of narration, whoever wish to
say whatever they wish to say about the
the would have said whatever they want. So
with all the rest,
we mentioned the names of our, we were
mentioned where we received the knowledge from. And
this was specifically,
the request of the the the speaker who
will, inshallah,
speak at length about the topic that I
tell what is this book that we're reading,
and what is the of the book being
written, and who are the people who compiled,
the topic
and what is the of the book being
written, and who are the people who compiled
it.
So
the,
sheikh said that I venerated this knowledge so
much
that, you know, the the
marginal notes. So when you have a book,
especially classic books, sometimes the,
the language of the books is
it's very,
it's very terse. It's difficult to understand. They
used to write books in the old days,
in order to be as short as possible
for two reasons. 1 is because they had
to copy the books by hand. You didn't
just stick it in the copy machine,
or have printing presses.
And so if you make a book really
long, then it's not going to survive. No
one will be able to read it because
the copyist doesn't have time or energy to
copy it. The second second is that they
used to memorize the books in the old
days as well.
And so the shorter the book is, the
easier it is to memorize, but the harder
it is to understand. You have to have
someone explain it to you.
So he said that the how washi the
explanations that were written in the old days,
if you look at manuscripts, this is another
shame that we don't
You know, we don't have the culture of
learning anymore, so we don't see manuscripts. If
you look at a manuscript, it's not printed
like this. Rather, you have the the main
text in the middle, and then what will
happen is that they'll write the explanation of
the text around the margin. And sometimes they'll
write in circles,
so so that a person knows, where one
point,
that's very long.
They don't have to end it. They they
just keep writing. So he says that all
the other students of knowledge, they used to
when they would read the the the notes,
when the when the the direction of the
text would turn, they would turn the book.
And he
direction of text return, they would turn the
book.
And you said that I always revert the
knowledge so much when when it was, when
the direction of the text would turn, I
would get up and move.
Put the book in the center, and I
would be the one who would move with
it.
This is part of our deen by the
way. These are not just like tall tales.
Right? This is part of our deen. Those
people who revealed revered the knowledge and gave
it value, Allah gave them ill. And those
people who are too cool for school, then
Allah says, go do whatever you want.
This knowledge only goes to the people who
revered. So Anwar shalaamu wa ta'ala, why did
he compile this
book? The reason he compiled these lectures that
were then transcribed by his student
is because
during his lifetime,
there was in, Punjab, which is a,
a province,
both of Pakistan and of India now. And
someone might ask again, why are we mentioning
these things? There's Punjab has more Muslims in
it than any Arab country in the world.
It's it's a these places, these are part
of the. And not to say that one
is more important than the other, but to
ignore one or the other is not it's
a tragedy that we don't know, you know,
what's going on in the Ummah. In Punjab,
there was a man who,
who would debate with Christians.
Start to win the debate, he would start
to curse,
Sayna Nisa alaihis salaam.
And the ulama would tell him, it's fine
if you want to debate with the Christian
missionaries that came with the British colonialists. That's
fine.
But don't curse say that he's a nadi
of Allah.
And the man said, you know, he would
just dismiss it. He would be like, well,
I'm not cursing our son, I'm cursing theirs.
Which is what? It's a cop out. Right?
He doesn't want to modify his behavior and
admit that he was doing something wrong, so
he just copped out and kept doing it.
And, what ends up happening is this man
will eventually he'll become drunk with his with
his celebrity,
because if someone is teaching something normal, nobody
cares. But if something's something novel, like, oh,
look, I beat the missionaries in a debate,
it becomes very famous. And so he became
a famous man and the the fame,
kind of made him drunk. And because of
this bad attitude that he had, it kind
of deranged him, over time. And one day
he will say, well, I don't any longer
follow the fit of the madhhabs. I myself
am a mustariyah. I have my own fit.
Okay? And then after that, he'll claim that
I'm the Imam Mahdi.
And then after that, he'll claim I'm a
Lisa. I am Lisa.
And then after that, he'll claim I'm Nabi.
But not less than the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam. And then finally, he'll claim,
he'll claim that he is a prophet greater
than the prophet Muhammad
Now the problem with this guy is what?
Is that the Muslims no longer rule the
subcontinent, the British.
Things that he conveniently, will say, to his
followers is what? Is that the British rule
India because of God's will.
So the British, this is their guy now.
They protect him now.
To this day, this group still exists by
the way and their headquarters are
where? State. England and they're in the UK.
Why? Because they received the the patronage of
the of of the colonial, authorities.
And so
this,
this became a problem. This became a problem
because in pre modern times, majority of people
are illiterate.
And, this man already was famous, and he
started spreading his his, misguidance on its people.
And it was very politically convenient as well
because it means you no longer Now you
can like up to the suck up to
the colonial authorities. You no longer are obliged
to resist. By the way, there's
a there is there is this idea. Right?
It's the will of God. Right? Tell me
something.
If,
if you, for example,
trip and fall in a puddle of mud,
right? Is that the rule of God?
Yeah. If Allah didn't want it to happen,
nothing happens except because Allah wants something to
happen. Does that mean you just lie in
the puddle of mud for the rest of
your life?
Ground.
You should have to gather your human together,
stand up, go go home, change your clothes,
wash your clothes, and fix what what happened.
And so at any rate, this is a
type of laziness that's overcome from Ooma, is
that we kind of accept our problems as
the way things are supposed to be. A
last time that's the problems, and in solving
them is a solution for us as well.
And, so at any rate, we'll come back
to this point inshallah. I have 20 minutes
to get through all of these things, and
I will get through all of them. We're
we're we're going to finish on time, inshallah.
I'll continue with the beginning of the book.
And so what ends up happening is that,
this Anwar Shah, who is imagine he is
like
he is the type of scholar that is
very rare even amongst the.
Like the masjid would fill massages that are
5 times the size of this masjid would
fill with scholars, all of whom themselves teach
and have been teaching for decades, all of
them to learn from him because it's a
a type of ill that, you know, Hafiz
ibn Hajar or some of the great Muhammad
scholars in the past had. He took this
issue on himself personally
that, he will,
he will answer,
the,
the the lies that this false prophet
propagated, one of the beliefs that they had
was what was that, say, Nur Isa al
Islam
is dead and that he's not coming back.
Why he needed to substantiate
the death of islam in order to justify
him calling himself, saying that I'm metaphorically,
the coming back of Lisa. How do you
sound? It's metaphorical. And he's actually dead,
and which is a belief that's actually same
as the belief of the Christians. For granted.
When people were asked what's the proof that
he's coming back,
people just never thought about it before. Just
like the example we gave, if someone were
to tell you, give me a hadith that
proves that it's permissible to breathe while you're
praying or something ludicrous like that. People didn't
know what they were. So we needed somebody
who literally memorized 100 of 1000 of hadith
to go through and find,
to find the proof of that. So he
compiled that. He did that work and compiled
that that proof on behalf of the ummah
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And,
he
he, Mufti Shabeir, who compiled the Darce of
the Sheikh, he writes in the foreword to
this book that there were the of the
past who talked about this issue. The first
person, Amarshad is by by far not the
first person who mentions that this is a
part of that the Muslims were
the part of the of the Muslims that
the,
will return, and it's necessarily known, indeed.
It's mentioned he mentions Imam Tabari.
This was his opinion,
the great mufasa Rahim and
Muhammed.
He mentions that,
the Mufasa al Mu'affi al Harunati from Andalus
mentions that,
Ibn Rushd, the Fati, the Maliki Fati mentions
that,
Safarini,
who is the great Hanbali,
scholar.
He mentions it. Shokani,
who is also one of the kafad of
hadith,
in the later times, perhaps a 100 years
or so before Anwar Shah. He not only
mentions it, but he actually writes a small
just,
a small, book attract on this issue.
And,
he will
mention,
in that in that book, something like 26
different hadiths on the issue.
Shokani is himself he he's a he he
is a Muhadith of the later age from
Yemen, and he doesn't follow a madhab, rather
he has his own. He is himself, Mujtahir
by right, and he will,
he will one of the books that he
writes is a prolific author. He'll gather 20
something odd hadith on on the topic.
Mufti Shafi,
got from the Darce of the Sheikh, he
gathers 75.
But the longest book on the topic before
him is,
and to give you an idea, there are
very few issues in the Sharia in which
you'll gather 5 or 6 hadith on one
topic.
Usually, the the issue is considered settled if
it gets to that point. There's really no
longer any,
significant debate about that issue anymore.
He mentions that,
Mohammed bin Jafar Al Kitani,
the famous Hafiz,
hadith from
from Morocco.
He also claimed that this issue is,
established by Tawatr.
And
the last thing that he gives, is,
Muhammad Zahid al Kothari, who is the adjunct
to the last shaker of Islam of the
Ottoman Empire,
This is a very diverse group of people.
This group of people agrees about very few
things.
Often, many of them were actually intellectual adversaries
of one another that debated issues like tooth
and nail, but the reason for mentioning this
list of people is that they're from all
of the different
and they they're from all different,
ranges on the spectrum of the intellectual history
of Islam, and all of them not only
agreed but they wrote nas, they they gave
fatwa that this issue is a necessarily known
part of me. The last thing which we
mentioned, Muhammad Zahid bin Kothari.
Who is, who is probably in the last
century,
one of the most prolific, if not the
most prolific, Mohammed of the Arabs.
Allah ta'ala, have mercy on him. His students
are still,
doing valuable work of tahid,
and the hadith of the prophet salallahu alayhi
wasalam.
Kothari
will tell his student,
Sheikh Abu Fata, that Kashmiri is
like gold standard. Anything he writes, if you
want to serve the knowledge of Dean,
then,
then edit, prepare and,
proliferate his books. And so this copy that
both me and Sheikh Kamal are reading from
today,
this actually is the in case you think
that, you know, this guy's Pakistani
guy, he's like, In case you think that,
you know, this guy is Pakistani guy, he's,
like, tutoring this Pakistani scholar or whatever,
this book wouldn't have been printed if it
wasn't for the, Sheikha Abdul Fattah Mufaddah,
institution.
And he will not only compile the book,
but he will write footnotes on it and
give the tahreed of the the hadith,
of that book as well.
He actually will write in in the
of this book.
A small rasala. It's a very important,
it's an important word.
Talking about the misconception of of what that
if you're in a bad situation that accepting
means
if you're in a bad situation, you should
stay in it. And he summarizes
the the the the the error of that
mindset
by saying what? The, statement that is attributed
to the
and it's attributed to him wrongly. Actually, he's
saying it, but it's actually a statement of
That the man is not the one who
surrenders to his fate, rather the man is
the one who,
repels a bad faith with a good faith.
Meaning what? If you're down today, that doesn't
mean your faith is down for tomorrow as
well. Rather if you're a man, you stand
and you and you do the work you
need in order to fulfill your faith of
greatness.
That's also
accepting the faith. The qadr of Allah ta'ala
is also accepting predestination
and that's the,
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So he he wrote this, he wrote this
book for that reason,
but the benefits of the handiath in the
book have
are far more than what? Than just the
idea
of refuting this like weird nut job group
that was in Punjab in the 1800.
And one of the greatest benefits Sheikh Abu
Fattah writes in the in his forward to
the book is what is that our aslaf,
our forefathers, they they mentioned that we should
mention again and again in every age and
every time to the scholars, to the lay
people, to the men, to the women, and
the children in the highest of the Madars
and
in the children learn alifbaata in.
The description that the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam gives with regards to the end days
into the end of time so that we
can maintain the integrity of our community and
the integrity of the woman of the prophet,
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and protect ourselves from that
fitna which is going to come. It's gonna
come anyway, so we can ourselves protect ourselves,
our family, and our community. There is a
little bit more I wanted to mention with
regards to this, but because my time is
up,
inshallah, I will yield the remainder of my
time,
to the speaker,
not of the house, but, for tonight's