Hussain Kamani – Reflections From Uzbekistan
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the success of Quraysh and the importance of remaining sincere and trying to be a better person. They stress the need for trusting Allah SubhanContinental and finding a solution to the crisis of Quraysh. The conversation also touches on the aftermath of the Iranian attack on the city of Hawarism and the loss of the lives of many people. The speakers emphasize the importance of learning about Islamic history and finding the great scholarship in the world.
AI: Summary ©
Will,
put our
series of
lives of the companions on pause,
and I wanted to touch on another subject.
InshaAllah, we'll continue the series from next week.
When the prophet was
digging
the trench
with the companions
as the Quraysh came with all of their
groups for one last big punch to the
Muslims.
The
Sahaba
were caught with a
an issue.
It was a massive rock that they couldn't
break.
And without moving it, the purpose of the
trench
wouldn't be fulfilled.
Someone can easily use that as a path
to cross the trench.
The trench has to be complete. It had
to be deep. It had to be wide.
So they came to Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasalam
after multiple attempts
to remove this rock.
The prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam took the pick
himself
and just
for a moment, capture what's going on here.
The Quraysh are coming with everything they have,
10,000 strong.
And the Muslims are taking an approach
to defending themselves that was unprecedented
in in the land,
which meant that they weren't even sure how
effective this would be,
whether it was this was going to work
or not, what was going to be the
outcome here.
And they've been working so hard because they
found out that the enemy was marching their
ways just a few days earlier.
So they have some months to build out
this moat. They just had a small little
window, and they had to take care of
it.
So they face this massive rock, rasoolullah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam takes the pick and he
strikes it,
and then there's a spark.
And the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam tells the
companions
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala just unveiled to
me that you will conquer so and so
land, and then he struck it again. And
you will conquer so and so land, and
he struck it again. And each time there
was a massive spark, and the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam made 3 prophecies that you
will conquer
the 3 great regions
of the world.
The hypocrites, when they heard these promises,
they they immediately rebelled, and they said that
this prophet of yours is crazy, and there's
no truth to his statement.
The Muslims,
when they heard the promise of the prophet
they said that the messenger of Allah has
spoken the truth and we will gain this
victory.
And that was the beauty of the Muslims
that every time they heard something from the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
every time Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made a
promise to them,
they held on firmly to that promise of
Allah and His Messenger.
Even though everything in the world
in that moment told them otherwise,
they trusted Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and the
messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And this
is a theme that you'll see in the
Quran.
The people who trusted Allah against all odds
were the people who gained
the ultimate victory, the ultimate outcome. Maybe today
someone lost their life. Maybe today someone had
a decrease in wealth. But ultimately,
when you look at the story as it
ends in this dunghiad, also in the akhirah,
these are people of victory.
The believer never forgets
that in everything that happens in this world,
the final say belongs to
Allah.
That's where the final say comes.
Can you change tomorrow and become a better
person as long as you keep trying today?
Of course you can.
Because you might think that, but I've never
passed. I've always failed. I keep coming back
to this very dark place. How do I
move forward? Just remain sincere and keep trying.
Allah
is the one that controls outcomes.
Where you are today is where you need
to be today.
Tomorrow Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will deliver you
to the greatness that awaits you.
Shaha Al Hassan alayannadbirahu wa ta'ala in his
commentary on Surah Kahf, he says the entire
Surah Kahf can be summarized
in one ayah.
The reason why the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam
emphasized this surah to be the the the
antidote to the fitla of the jal
lies in the secret of the battle of
faith versus materialism. Dajjal will be
the epitome
of
materialism,
and in the surah we are being taught
the lesson of Iban, faith, faith, faith.
So in this battle of faith versus materialism,
Sheikh Al Hassan, Aliyah Nudhrullahi,
points out that the entire surah can be
summarized. The entire Surah Kahf can be summarized
to 1 ayah.
What is that 1 ayah?
The whole surah is in that one verse,
that what Allah rules.
That you said, whatever Allah wills, as we
see in the story of the 2 people
who had a discussion over waaf in Surakaf.
The haseen goes down to, Ilaa iyasha Allah,
not what Anais, subhanahu wa ta'ala, wills.
So the believer spends their day and night
with their hands raised asking from the law,
You long, whatever you will. You long, whatever
you will. You long, whatever you will.
Whatever is best for me, open up that
door.
Give me sabah,
guide me,
take me by my full lock to what
is best for me. Wukhud binasiati il kayr.
Oh Allah, make the end of my affairs
Your pleasure that You are happy with me.
So the prophet
continued digging with the Sahaba, and they were
able to successfully dig out the trench.
Fast forward,
the Quraysh
are struggling to penetrate this trench, and there
is this long
drawn out,
stalemate.
At the end of it,
they come up with a second plan
that let's bribe the neighbors of the Muslims,
the Banu Qureira.
And if they betray the Muslims,
on one side there's a mountain, on the
second side there's a smote.
If we get them to betray, we will
easily walk through their fort. The Muslims will
have lower to run. We will butcher them
1 by 1.
They thought smart. Sneaky, but smart.
Banu Qurayna, unfortunately,
even agreed to the betrayal,
that we will betray the Muslims.
In that moment, everyone was
terrified and sad,
heartbroken
that they were going to be butchered 1
by 1. There was no solution.
Surah Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam stood up
again and he said to them, I swear
by the one in whose hand my soul
lies,
you will go on to conquer the lands
that I promised you.
And not only that, you will also conquer
Mecca, and we will do Tawaf of the
Kaaba together.
Now these conquests of roaming Persia
didn't happen during the life of
Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And this is also the doing of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
That one person makes du'a,
but Allah
sends someone else
to
execute
that du'a
for the acceptance.
Because Allah
accepts whoever he wills, and it also
didn't complete
during the time khilafa of Sayidina Abu Bakr
siddiq radiAllahu 1. During the khilafa of Abu
Bakr siddiq radiAllahu 1, the Roman and Persian
conquests were full fledged, but they
weren't complete.
During the khilafa of,
Lom and Persia were both conquered.
And we discussed this in quite some detail
in our last class
where we covered the life of Sabina Khaled
bin Walid,
which shares full story in detail. And at
that point, I explained to you some of
the
intricacies
and complications in the conquest of Roman Persia
and how Allah
gave the Israelis victory.
The Muslims conquered and conquered and conquered until
they reached
a river
known as Jhul.
What's the name of this river?
J'hoon.
Anyone know what the J'hoon River is?
No?
So
this jibon
becomes
the famous
nahr.
If you studied hadith or fiqh, you've come
across this or even language nahr and surf,
if you've heard classical works, there's a very
frequent reference of
vidaar.
That nah that is referred to in the
books of Aqidah, in the books of fiqh,
in the books of Ta'ih, in the books
of
Nahu and Saf,
that Nahu is called the Nahu of Jaihun.
Now to give you some perspective,
the Jaihun River, it's Amun River,
but a part of it ends right at
the tip of modern day Afghanistan.
And also, it
goes right on top of Persia.
So you have even above,
the
near Turkmenistan
and north of Iran and also Afghanistan.
The
what divides
Afghanistan from
what is north of it is a very
small river.
It's not that wide, actually.
One could,
at certain points of it, easily swim across,
potentially even walk across. I'm not sure how
deep it is. It's it's not too far.
Maybe from here to the end of the
parking lot. That's how far it is.
When the Sahaba came to the nahr, they
they sent a message to Umar ibn Khattar
that we have come so far. Now there's
this river in front of us. Should we
cross the river and continue our conquest?
Allah said no.
He said, don't cross anymore. Stop where you
are. We've spread far enough. Now it's time
to consolidate.
We need to control these lands, help people
be confirming their iman, establish the deen,
you know.
So they stopped there.
After Sayidr Umar ibn Sattab
later on,
the Sahar brought permission a second time from
the Khalifa
that, can we cross this river and continue
our conquest?
To that,
finally, permission was granted.
Exactly. And they started a second time.
Just don't forget that prophecy of Rasulullah SAW
Alaihi Wasallam that Islam will reach the corners
of the world.
One day Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was speaking
in the in a gathering,
and he said, from the children of this
man will come 1,
that if his if the bull was on
the furthest star on Faurya,
lana alahu, he would go to that star
and seek that knowledge. Nothing would hold this
person back.
Well
And Samad al Fazr radiAllahu an was Persian.
So then, Ulama always said that this is
referring to
great scholars at Wakanda in Persia. Imam al
Shafi'riyah, while commenting
on this statement of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
And he connected it to the ayah, wa
akhareenaminhum
lamla yalhaqubihim, that another group will come that
will join the first group. That some people
will come who will join this first group
of sahaba in their actions, their own sacrifice,
but there will be another. So Imam al
Shafi'i radiAllahu ta'ala he said, this is referring
to this this statement
of Rasulullah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam where he said
that from the children of Salman al Farsidhi
Allah, actually Imam Suhuti Ramtula makes this connection,
muzil Shafi'i
that he that this will he referring to
the statement of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and
Imam Shafi radiAllahu ta'ala when coming to him
as he said, this is referring to Imam
Hanifa That
if anyone was in the corners of the
world, this matter would go and seek it.
Now
so they finally crossed the Jehphun,
and they had their struggles. There were great
battles that took place.
Some pushed forward, but then they were unsuccessful
in conquering.
And in the group of people
that pushed this
army and fought and did jihad side by
side with the Muslims
was a Sahabi of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
who was also
a cousin of the Prophet Alaihi Wasallam.
The scholars differ in opinion on
how old he was.
He was the brother of Abdullah ibn Abbas
radiAllahu an. He was his direct brother.
Some say he was just a little older
than Hassan radiallahu an, which means when the
prophet of Allah passed away, he was 8
years old. Some say he was just a
little younger than Hassan radiallahu an, which means
when the prophet
passed away, he was 6 or maybe 7
years old.
Hassan ibn Abbas radiallahu an was in that
army,
and he fell,
and Allah
blessed him with martyrdom.
Just a few days ago,
I have the honor of standing at the
grave of.
K. Reached the top. You reached this hill,
and you enter in from there,
and you continue to climb, climb, climb,
until finally you reach the grave of the
cousin of Rasulullah
Such a beautiful place,
such serenity and peace,
and you stand there with absolute
humility and honor
can be so close
to someone that was dear and beloved to
the Prophet alaihis salam. Nabi salallahu alaihi wasallam
said regarding Qutam
that,
from all of mankind
this one is most resemblant of me in
character
and in physical features.
The most resemblance of me is this man.
That process of Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
That they
And the people of that region,
they all wanted to be buried in that
graveyard because in that graveyard was the cousin
of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
So the sultans,
and their wives, and their children would be
buried there.
If you see a aerial view of that
graveyard, on one side you have the grid
of Khutul Ibra Abbas radiAllahu and then it
spirals out as far as the eye can
see until they finally had to stop burial
there because there were too many people buried
in that graveyard.
But everyone wanted to be buried there. Why?
Because it was a cousin of Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
This land
became known as Bil Mawlanaar,
what was on the other side of that
river.
Islam was brought there by the Sahaba
and that promise of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
that vision of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
that Islam will reach far and beyond
came true.
And it became
not just the land of Muslims, but the
land of the righteous servants of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
The greatest theologians,
the greatest,
Some of the greatest, nafasirun.
Some of the greatest scholars of Islamic creed
and theology were all born in that one
region.
We went to
a city that is today known as Tashkent.
It's the
capital, at least,
of modern day Uzbekistan.
Historically, that city was not known as Tashkent.
It was known as?
Anyone
know?
No idea.
It was known as Ashash.
All of these Shasis were from there. If
you studied Hanafi I fiqh, you've heard of
the famous Usun al Shashi.
It's the most prominent Hanafi Usun book,
taught in the Madhub. One of the earlier
ones, students read it at the beginning, the
author of the book was from that exact
same region.
One of the great scholars,
Imam Abu Bakr al
Khabib,
was from that region. He was a Shafi'i
scholar.
He was a great he was
a great master in many subjects in science.
He lived there.
And he they refer to him as Harrat
al Imam, that's what they refer to him
as. They are entire,
you know,
masajid and in a whole area, a whole
district. Ajam al Masjid dedicated just to him
because he was the one that actually brought
the depth of rain to that region.
Many great scholars narrated from him, and then
many he narrated from.
Similarly in that region,
in that very same shash,
was another great scholar by the name of
Imam Abu Hafs al Kabir.
Abu Hafs al Kabir
is a teacher of
Imam Bukharir
A legend.
If you go to his resting place, his
grave,
his grave is there, and in front is
his son's grave, and then his grandson's grave,
and one of his most dear and closest
students.
And all of those graves
are engraved
a hadith of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam regarding
seeking knowledge.
Because these people dedicated their morning and evening
to Uqan Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And then
if you
come south from there,
a little southeast,
you enter into another great city known as
Samarkand.
Samarkand,
historically,
Samarkand and Bukhara sat on the circle
which connected the east to the west, a
famous trade war.
Senator An then went on to become a
hub of Islamic knowledge.
Great people lived there. Great ulama lived there.
Among them
was one of the most prominent scholars
by the name of
Imam Abu Mansur Al Maturidi.
Imam Abu Mansur Al Maturidi
was a 3rd century scholar
and he lived in this Mawaraha area.
So the Muslims in that region
interesting, they were kind of cut off from
the rest of the Muslim world because there
was a river that divided the region. Either
you were on this side or you were
on that side, Hiluk went this side.
And because he lived here, he dealt with
a lot of interesting fitan that other parts
where greater conquests occurred and more Sahaba settled
and more Tabi'i lived
didn't face those fitnas.
Here you had a lot of interesting wild
philosophies that existed.
And he understood that engaging with these people
required a more sophisticated approach.
It required understanding
their methodology,
using their language,
using their method of argument, and then proving
Islam to them.
And this is what makes his approach
so different.
His approach was in line with the teachings
of Imam Abu Hanifa
He himself was also Hanafi.
And he understood Imam Abu Hanifa radiAllahu alaihi's
methodology
while engaging with non Muslims.
Many people may not know this, but prior
to Imam Abu Hanif
dedicating his life to Islamic law,
the first part of his life he spent
it engaging with people who are non Muslim.
Therefore, one of his first books authored,
attributed to him is al Thiq al Akbar,
the greater fiqh. Al Thiq al Akbar, the
greater fiqh.
Fiqh is a deep understanding
of something.
Later on, it gets,
allocated to
refer specifically
to
legislation and Islamic law.
But Imam Ali point was by calling al
Fiyukul Akbar
that
understanding Islamic law, what is halar and haram
is secondary, the first thing you need to
understand is la ilaha illallah, Muhammadu Rasulullah.
And when you live in a world where
there's a lot of noise and a lot
of ideologies and the isms exist in every
corner,
people may either try to steal you la
ilaha illallah altogether or they're going to say
hold on to you la ilaha illallah,
but how about we say this thing in
addition to you la ilaha illallah. You can
still believe in Allah, but we're not denying
them now. We're just saying that Allah doesn't
know everything that's gonna happen in the life
of a human being. He only knows what
has already happened.
Are you guys following me? So let's just
mess a little bit, temper a little bit
with
Imam al Anm Surah Al Naturidi
built a methodology.
He trained the student on how to engage
in taweedah
interpretations.
Understanding deeper deeper nuances and meanings
in the Quran and also in the hadith
of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasalam.
We had the chance to visit his resting
place.
It's a very fascinating,
beautiful place also in Samadan.
That particular graveyard,
I was reading about this in the
works of the ulama. Go ahead. In order
to be buried there, they only allowed those
people to be buried there who were acknowledged
as fuqaha during their lifetime.
They had to be masters of Islamic jurisprudence
or masters in a particular subject matter.
Not only that, but they also had to
have written a book in that subject as
well.
But not only that, in order to be
dating that graveyard, in addition, your name had
to be Muhammad.
And then
your father's name also had to be Muhammad.
So when you're walking in that graveyard,
over 3,000
fuqaha are buried there,
All of them
the greatest of their time.
The headstones of those graves
are these thin rocks with curves on the
side.
I asked one person that was with me,
I said to him, what do those rocks
look like?
Because I had read in the works, in
the books,
why those rocks were shaped like that and
why those specific ones were chosen for the
headstones.
So he said they look like tongues, and
I said yes,
Because
they would place these rocks on the on
the headstone
as a symbol that their tongues will continue
to speak knowledge even though they've left the
dunya.
Knowledge doesn't end with them.
When the Russians
invaded
Sanalband,
the
Muslim army took their last refuge in this
graveyard.
This was their last stand, and we will
defend from here. We will fight from here.
However, the Russians were ruthless, so they bombed
and bombed bombed so much that the entire
graveyard was destroyed.
And then as
further punishment,
they resettled that entire neighborhood and the graveyard.
They built houses there,
for a Jewish settlement
to cause Muslims even more like separation
from their legacy and from their history.
Some of the greatest ulama will be right
there,
including
the famous Fatiha Abu Layf As Samarakandi,
the author of Tandib ul Qafidin for those
of you who've read it, you know, for
those of you who haven't read it, a
great book on wav and nasiha.
It has some narrations that are questionable,
but nonetheless, the eloquence of the author, the
method of writing, when we were young in
Madrasam,
I believe that every student had a copy
of this book. Every student had a copy
of Tamib ul Rafilim by Abu Laitasam Latamdi
on their table. And if you had to
give a khatira or khutbah, you know, you
guys search online for khatiras and khutlas, those
students would open up his book first. That's
where all khutba preparation would start. They would
open up Fatiha Bulayt,
a Samarqandi, istanbibugrafileen.
And,
my wife was with me when we when
we visited,
And I told her we're going to visit
Abu Laita Samarkandhi.
So she said to me that when we
first got married many years ago, 16 years
ago when I got married, she had a
haterah. So she said to me, I don't
know how to prepare for us. I gave
her fateboulay Saman Khandi's book. So I said
I remember benefiting from him 15, 16 years
ago, and I said this is the great
world that he's buried in. Similarly,
the great
Sahib al Hidayah, the author of Al Hidayah,
one of them is, leading books in the
Hanafiq,
5th century scholar 5th, 6th century scholar,
is also buried in that very same graveyard
of Fuqaha.
There is a book there are 2 books
that I I read
while in Samarkand.
One of them is called Al Fund,
and the other one was in Persian.
100,
100,
100 of ulama, thousands of
ulama who were the greatest of their time,
the greatest scholars of their time,
all buried in that same community and it
makes you think
what kind of scholarly class existed.
When we give our salaam to Imam Abu
Mansur Almatulli
We had a group of
90, 100 people with us who came from
America.
So, yeah,
I spoke
there,
to the group, and I addressed them. And
one thing that I said was,
after returning back to America,
the one person who I benefited from the
most was the works of Imam Matuidi Rahimullah
and his students.
Because
after learning here and going to university campuses
and engaging with the young folks, I realized
that their minds were polluted from all of
the isms that were out there and that
the philosophy classes that were taking had put
dark
doubts in their hearts.
And it was buried deep inside.
The old approach of signing a hadith or
signing a grace of the Quran and saying
end of discussion wasn't going to work with
these people, unfortunately.
For different folks, there are different strokes. Right?
There are different ways to engage with them.
And
when we were students reading the works of
Imam al Nasafi, Imam Laturi,
and this whole group of people was very
difficult because they didn't write an easy language.
They wrote in sophisticated language because that was
the audience they were addressing.
So as students, we were kind of sometimes,
you know, just
just get through a class without paying too
much attention.
But after coming back to America, I had
to go back and read all those works
again
and start studying them more deeply.
And I found so much fa'ida and benefit
in them. They started the tradition,
they set the pipes in place and put
the water where it needed to go, and
here we are sitting
almost a millennium later
drinking from that fountain.
Endless how much time later?
Endless 1000 years later, those very same arguments
we are benefiting from today.
And then to close off,
my reflections at the grave of Imam al
Mansur al Mafuni,
I read we read the
opening
page of his famous tafsir.
I thought it was befitting that such a
great scholar wrote something. Imagine lying in his
grave and hearing that people are still reading
these works
almost a 1000 years later.
Such a genius.
His tafsir is called tafsir.
Right? And he uses the word tafsir and
not tafsir very intentionally.
Tafsir is different. Tafsir is different.
Tafsir is exodus.
It's what we know right from the Sahaba,
ham deh al bayamish to the verses of
the Quran, that we are interpretations.
You can have many different ways of that
weed of interpreting a verse based off
of different perspectives and angles. You can look
at it from this angle and that angle,
and this angle and that angle. You can
have different tawilat.
How about the tafsir should be 1?
The true rule of that verse should be
one thing.
So in his opening
page,
the Nuqaddimah,
the first he's such a genius. He calls
this book Tawil and he knows the reader
will have questions about why is the book
called Tawil and not tafsir while everyone else
generally names their books tafsir, this and this,
tafsir,
you know, like this. So the first Muqaddana
he has, al fartubayna tafsiruat
taweeel.
That's where he starts his book. The difference
between tafsir
and the difference between
that we.
When you travel on from
Summer Fund
and travel a little further
south,
you reach this oasis,
right surrounded by desert on all sides,
surrounded by desert.
The great
city of Bishara.
We arrived
in the city of Bukhara in the evening,
and
after doing wudu and fashting up, we went
to,
the Masjid.
It was this massive
structure.
They call it the Qalan
Masjid.
Qalan means grand, the jannah, the big masjid.
We entered from one corner,
and
it was like a fort.
As soon as we entered, the brothers started
taking some pictures.
And
one of the group members,
he said to Mufti Mumtasir, would you mind
taking a picture of me?
So Mufti Mutasir
held the, camera
and right when he was taking the picture,
he
had an epiphany and that man almost crumbled
into
a pile of dust.
Why when he was taking that picture?
Because where he was standing taking the picture
of this person, he didn't realize was the
exact
cover that he the exact picture he chose
for the cover of his book Anbuwari.
Imam Mus'in Mansasser wrote a book on the
integrity of Sahih al Bukhari.
And the look on his face, he's like,
this is the place that I chose to
be the cover of the book.
This is the bukhara that I read about,
that I dedicated the years of my life
to.
This is the exact place.
So then he stood there and took one
picture as well.
We
prayed mother of salah
behind the imam, the masjid, and the qalam
masjid.
And after that,
we sat together
to share some reflections. Okay.
Mister Mendezer gave
a brief introduction
to to Sahih of Imam Bukhari
and the life of Imam Bukhari
And
it was so beautiful because
not only did this region produce
some of the greatest,
as
I've already mentioned, some of the greatest thinkers
in the subject of kalam and aqida,
but also
some of the greatest.
Some of the greatest muhadithun.
Imam Bukhari
that entire area, the Masjid Qalan, was the
original madrasah
where Imam Bukhari
used to study.
He was 10 years old.
Imam Qas Talali radiates
this in his Irshadu Sari and the Muqaddim
Ali introduction
that Imam Khari
was a young child
and he took an interest in hadith. He
said from a young age Allah just put
it in my heart that hadith is what
I had to do.
I needed to dedicate my life to hadith.
When he was young,
not many people know this,
but Imam Kharia
was blind.
He couldn't see.
His father left
this at a young age. There were 2
brothers, Muhammad and Ahmed.
He was the Muhammad,
and his mother made for him every day,
return
my son's eyesight. I really have a dream
for him to serve this deen.
So
one night while making dua for her little
Muhammad,
she fell asleep.
And
She saw in her dream saying about Ibrahim
alaihis salaam.
And Ibrahim alaihis salaam said to her, that
a nasa Muhammadu wa ta'ala has accepted your
duas, your son's eyesight has returned.
She woke up and she rushed to her
son and woke him up, and Imam Musa
Alhamdu Wa Ta'ala lay his eyes on his
mother's face,
the one whom sat by his side for
long hours making dua for him.
So when he was young, he was once
sitting in a dust
of one of the great scholars of.
Actually, I just have to say something because
it's bugging me now. I believe I I
have to double check. Earlier, I said that
Imam Wohafz al Kabir was a teacher of
Imam Abu Hari. I have to double check
that. And he may have been even a
generation above Imam Abu Hari
So this if you take if you take
a note of that, it's just bothering me.
I'll need to double check the dates on
that.
So then my mother was,
he was sitting in dust one day and
there's a teacher. He was narrating. And while
he was narrating,
actually, one second. I have to check right
now. It's gonna bother me too much.
But Let me see if I have it
here.
Can you check on your I will have
so could you pass away?
What year it was?
Narendra
World.
9th. What's the Hijidi event?
Yeah. He was he was one of Imam
Abu Hari Abdul Nadal's teachers then.
My mind is a little,
confused right now. Okay, sir. Anyway, we can
double check that after the class and get
back to you guys on that.
So,
I mean, when he was young, he sat
in the bar, and his teacher was teaching,
and
he said to the teacher
that you said so and so he's 10
years old. You said so and so and
narrate has narrated from so and so,
he's a 10 year old kid. He said
that's not possible.
These 2 people never met.
So his teacher said, buddy, why don't you
calm down?
Right? He said, trust me, I'm telling you
these 2 people never met 10 year old
kid. So the sheikh went inside and checked
his notes and he came back out and
he called the man who hadi that was
sitting in the corner of the majlis that
come sit in front of
me because your correction was absolutely right.
And he took the pen and made the
correction.
That's when the great journey of Imam Bukhari
of studying hadith starts.
For the 1st 6 years, I'm telling you
he was 16 years old, he went to
all of the the Dhanush locally and gathered
as many narrations as possible.
Until finally,
he said to his brother and mother that
it's time for us to perform Hajj.
So they traveled,
to Hajj when Imam Muharir
was 16 years old.
Yes, sir.
How old was he?
16 years old. Such a young age.
He said to his mom and his brother
that why don't you guys head back?
I'm going to study the deen.
His mother and his brother head back home,
and he remains
in the Shijaz, and from there travels the
Muslim world for almost the next 40 years.
He comes back in his 50 when he's
in his in his fifties.
And in between, he comes a brief few
moments here and there, but dedicates his entire
life
to studying hadith.
When he comes to Bukhara, he's gained so
much prominence.
Someone says to the leader of Bukhara
that this man, his prominence is such great
that his position in the city will threaten
your authority. People will listen to him more
than they'll listen to you. So in order
to subdue Imam Bukhari,
what he did was
he commanded Imam Bukhari to teach his 2
sons privately
that you will tutor my 2 sons because
it's his way of saying that that you're
on my leash.
Imam Bukhari, Abdullah,
was not interested in any such thing. He
said to him that your sons can study
and they should study, hadith, but they won't
be receiving any private gatherings, they can attend
with everyone else when they teach publicly.
The Amir became very angry,
and
he made an intention of
bringing harm to Imam Bukhari
So it was at that point that Imam
Bukhari
he left Bukhara.
He traveled in one direction, then he received
news that that wasn't the right place to
go and then he started heading towards Samarkand.
And on the way to Samarkand, right when
he was near Samarkand, not too far out,
there was something cooking in Samarkand,
some noise
that you know, mom Khan is coming here,
some people are in favor, other people are
against him, some people said, oh even the
leaders of Bukhara feel threatened by him. Do
we actually want him in Samarkand?
And Imam Muhaributualli
Alaihi he
made dua to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
He said, You Allah,
your vast land has become so narrow and
nobody wants me anymore. Where do I go?
I dedicated my life to the hadith of
the prophet of Allah alayhi salatu salam, and
now there's no harm to take me in.
There's no city that wants me in there.
What do I do?
And with this,
he made du'a to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and passed away. He left this dunya.
Outside
Sarrafan
is the
grave of Imam Musari rahuatullahi Alaihi.
In that very same salallatullahi
is the grave of Imam Adam radi rahuatullahi
Alaihi
who was one of the greatest Muhaddithun and
he was also a teacher of Imam Bukhari,
his famous Javyah and Surah Adami is known.
He was a teacher of Imam Buhari,
Imam Muslim,
and also Imam
al Tirmiri.
K. His grove is quite literally in the
middle of nowhere.
When we were driving there, we were driving
through Fines.
I kept saying to the person, are you
sure we're going in the right direction?
He said, yes. The great is buried here,
walking through whole fields.
Whole fields and fields and animals everywhere. No
city, no buildings, nothing. Just fields.
There wasn't even a proper road. The road
that the path that we took, it was
like one of those bumpy roads.
That the man lying here is the teacher
of Imam Bukhari.
He is the teacher of Imam Muslim,
and he is the teacher of Imam Atirmihirahu
ta'ala.
The one of the ulama who visited his
grave in the past wrote that he lived
a life of loneliness,
solitude, didn't socialize with people too much. And
maybe it was that demeanor of his
that Allah
preserved
and give him burial also alone without anyone
being there.
Lately,
due to an increase in visitors to the
grave of Imam al Baran al Huqalaiyay, people
go to give salam to him. Now the
government is building a massive masjid in a
whole area, a whole thing. They're building a
whole thing there to accommodate people.
Similarly,
in
Bukhara, there is one of the great, awliyah
of Allah,
the Sheikh
and iman
You guys never heard the word Naqshbandi before?
Yes? No? Hasn't you heard of it? Yes?
It's one of
the orders
in
the domain or area,
Teskea and Tesauf.
Now usually when we say the word teskia
and tesauf, people freak out because they're like,
oh, something crazy is gonna happen here. Someone's
gonna do some walking on water, someone's going
to be flying in the air, someone's going
to be worshiping a grave, someone's gonna be
break dancing.
I had to clarify this to the,
folks that were with us.
Anything or anyone
that does
any act or says any statement that is
contradictory to the sunnah of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi
Wa Salam is
out of line.
No Muslim should tolerate any shirk or any
billah. Is that clear?
No Muslim should tolerate any shirk
or any bidda at all.
Are there people who do things wrong?
Absolutely. In every single group, I can't emphasize
this. If you are someone who uses one
group's name and then passes a general ruling
on all of them, you're probably not doing
it right.
This is most likely sloppy research.
Someone says, all Shia al Qafir, what are
you talking about?
How can you say that?
Have you studied the beliefs of all the
Shias?
What about the Shias that remember
from the Sahih? You're gonna say that he
was never leaving from the Qasr? What are
you gonna do with saying, Ibrahim Bukhar, you're
gonna have to discard it? Because you can't
deny that Imam Bukhar
did liberate from people who had sheer inclination.
There's no there's no denying that.
This is facts.
Every group has people who do things right,
and they also have people that do things
wrong.
An intelligent student of knowledge understands
what
the permits and what it prohibits and engages
with the haram wholeheartedly
and turns away from the haram as well.
Today, the approach that we have
to tazkiyah and tasawwuf
is dangerous.
This whole cell approach that all of it
is bida and all of it is shirk
is very dangerous, which is a false
statement.
This is a false
propaganda that has spreaded our community.
A lot of it can be attributed to
the Saudi petrodollar.
They were in conflict with the Ottomans.
The Ottomans were a group of people that
represented themselves as people who were involved in
Teskiya and Tasawwuf.
So
they just,
you know, just blacklisted them that these are
evil people. Not to oversimplify,
but I'm not but the but it's not
as if there's no truth here.
So now you come to these countries and
you go and everyone says that, oh,
inherently,
the people of Tuskegee and Tasamuf represent simplicity,
staying away from sin, eating haram, dedicating yourself
to the Ibadah of Allah.
The sunnah and tazkiyah
is not a group of creed or ideology
of theology.
It's not a theological group.
Just that Hanafi 5th is not a theological
group. The shafi 5th is not a
it's not a theological group.
Is an area of studying
what is haram and haram.
Is an area of studying what to believe
and what not to believe in.
The the saya from Tazkiyah is an area
of how do you carry yourself to embody
the Quran and the sunnah.
That's what it
is. Therefore, the Kakashi
in
hadith Jibreel asked about mal iman, mal Islam,
mal Ihsan.
He asked, what is iman? So then the
creed elements were listed there by Jibid Ali
Salam. He asked, what is Islam? So the
fuqki elements were there were listed there make
sure you pray 5 times salah, zakat, and
then he asked, what is ihsad? What is
excellence? And to that, he responded by saying
that you worship Allah as he sees you,
emphasizing the importance of spirituality.
So because we, in wholesale, just said all
of its haram and it's all shirk and
all bidah, now you have a generation of
people who are lost when it comes to
connecting with Allah
The deen that we have is superficial, unfortunately.
It's locked between rituals while these while these
spiritual is absent.
Likewise,
when you look
at tafsir,
or you look at fiqh,
or you look at hadith,
or you study the development and evolution of
even language.
Lahuansarf,
balaga,
luwa.
You will notice in all of these fields,
listen to this very carefully.
At the beginning, the first stage, usually in
each of these fields is preservation of the
content.
Then what happens is as they're further analyzing
the content,
you will find scholars with different schools of
thoughts because their methodology and ideology on how
to approach the content differs.
Does that make sense to you?
Everyone has a different ideology. Not everyone. These
scholars who are qualified say, this is an
ideology I'm gonna take when dealing with tiqh.
This is the way I'm gonna study tafsir.
This is the way I'm gonna study Nahua.
This is the way I'm going to study
Noah.
So now you have madahib come into existence.
No same person
would deny
the madhabzafth,
and if anyone does, you're wasting your time
with them. You are literally wasting your time
with them.
Just as the al madahib that come in
hadith,
what is sahih, what is not sahih? What
is the definition of sahih? Imam Muhari, rhamdulillahi
aalehi has 1 madhab on where is a
sahi narration, and Imam Muslim rhamdulillahi aalehi has
another madhab.
The introduction of Imam Muslim Muhammadualli alaihisahi
and the state the the the at least
the second half of it or the last
third of it is dedicated to repeating Imam
Bukhari,
his own teacher. Right.
That's what he's doing in there. Some scholars
say that his language was too harsh so
he couldn't be repeating Imam Bukhari. It's probably
Sanadas who had the same appeal as Imam
Bukhari. That's possible too, if you look into
the claim a little bit more deeper. But
there are differences of opinion even when it
comes to hadith, even when it comes to
fiqhbeh or methodologies.
Similarly, when it comes to spiritual development,
the udama in that field created different tracks
of how to accomplish that ultimate goal.
What's the ultimate goal? That you worship Allah
as you see Him,
that you are present with Allah
That's the ultimate goal.
Someone asked
my teacher's teacher, Sheikh Zakariya kanda hai
what is the saluf?
Because people say it's gula, people say it's
shirk. He said,
the beginning of the saluf is in the
that
you start asking yourself, why am I doing
what I'm doing?
That's the beginning of it. Until you don't
start asking yourself, why am I doing what
I'm doing? Whether it's reading Quran, whether it's
doing tisbih, whether it's blessing the way you
do, whether it's praying salah, whatever it is,
whether it's studying hadith, you have to start
asking yourself, why am I doing this?
Why am I sitting in the front row?
Why am I sitting in the back row?
Why did I go for Fagir salah?
You have to keep asking why am I
doing it? And then the end of the
7th peacear was
That you worship Allah as you see Him.
And if you do not see Him know
that He sees you. Meaning,
the end of tazki and basalif is, now
you have your answer to your question. Your
question is why am I doing it? The
answer now is
Allah.
In between,
there are hurdles. There are different paths. There
are deserts that need to be crossed. There
are jungles that need to be crossed. Now
this is where the ulama come with different
ideologies and methodologies and guides students on how
to cross this path.
As long as what you do is not
contradictory to the Quran and sunnah, then it
is good insha'Allah.
But if what you do is contradictory to
the Quran and sunnah in any way at
all,
walk away.
It will not be a clear to you.
It will not bring any good to you.
So
the
among the different orders that
students follow in the path of teski and
tasarif, one of the most known ones
is the order of,
the Naqshbandi.
And the scholar
who is considered to be the founder
of this tariqah
is Iman Baha'udhin
Naqshbandi
al Bukhari who was also buried in Bukhara.
So now if you look at Bukhara again,
if you look at Bukhara,
you have
Imam Bukhara
there. If you look at this region,
you have Sahih al Khidaya, one of the
greatest scholars of the Hanafi fiqh there. You
have Imam Abu Mansoor al Matunidi,
who one may argue played
an equal, if not greater, in the domain
of aqidah than Imam Duhari played in hadith.
Imam al Mansur al Maathiri there and when
it comes to this, yeah, Imam Bahawdil
Naqshbandi.
The reason why they called him Naqshbandi
is there are 2 opinions. 1, they say
is because
naksh
anyone know what Naksh means?
K.
Impression. Yeah.
To engrave something, to put an impression on
something.
Right? So to put
an so they'll say that the reason
why that because his father had a business
of imprinting things,
right, engraving things, so he would join his
father in the business, so therefore they became
known as the Nakshban, the people who imprint
things. And
some
they
say
That he did dikr of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala silently
for such a long period
that Allah's remembrance was imprinted on his heart.
And the unique thing about this nakshband tariqa,
you know how I said all of these
orders have something unique, something different about them?
What is unique about this particular group is
that when they remember Allah,
they do it in a silent manner.
Why doesn't they do zikr out loud? Like
a person they say SubhanAllah,
Alhamdulillah,
Allahu Akbar.
In this particular method, Sheikh Bhaal din Naqshbandi,
he would emphasize that don't do dikr Allah
because that could also be a means of
shoring off.
Not necessarily,
but it could be. So he would emphasize
to his students that stay in the remembrance
of Allah
as silently
as you can.
If you look at his teachings and you
read the some of the lessons that his
students,
yell at, they said our Sheikh
was very
emphatic on eating halal
and earning halal.
This was the one thing he would always
remind us of.
He would say,
worshiping Allah involves 10 portions, ala ibadu to
ashura to adisa.
9 involves 10 adisaat
existing,
making sure your income is halal.
And
then the last portion,
all of the other Ibadah are connected there.
All of the other
are connected there.
Here it's saying,
that the presence of the heart starts with
consuming a hadal morsel.
He would make food with his own hands
for the poor people of the city.
He would always emphasize to his students
that there is no path of spirituality
and dazkiyah and personal growth
without the
Quran and
That all scholars,
we are your followers.
We will walk behind you, and we will
follow you in everything that you narrate from
the messenger of Allah and everything you clarify
from the from the prophet of Allah. If
our path ever differs from the sunnah of
Nabi salallahu alayhi wa sallam, then show us
our mistake, we will leave it immediately.
And Lord us,
till the Quran tells us, As
people of knowledge,
if you do not know.
He was a,
very firm follower of the sunnah, and
his students, they say
that when
Sheikh Mohammeddin was on his deathbed,
he says that I began to recite Surah
Yaseen
when he was in the final moments of
his life.
Okay.
Surah, when I reach the middle of the
Surah.
And lights begin to appear in the room
everywhere.
The light the room was
in line. It was beautiful.
I
had a feeling that the malaika were present
to receive my teacher's ruach, so I began
to say.
And shortly after that, my dear beloved mentor
and teacher left his dunya.
He reached the age of 73 years. Penang.
And when
he passed away before he passed away, he
said to
his students
that when you
carry my body to the graveyard,
read the following lines of poetry.
We are poor,
Ifflisoon,
indeed we are poor
and headed
towards Your city.
We are poor
and headed towards your city.
So be kind for the sake of Allah.
A small little shimmer of your beauty.
Be kind. Don't be mean. Don't be harsh.
Don't hold me accountable for my deeds. Be
easy with me, Allah.
One of his students says that I saw
my teacher
in a dream after he passed away. So
I asked him,
how can we find you on the day
of judgment, our dear mentor?
He said, by holding on firmly to the
sharia.
As long as you hold on to the
sharia, you will be with me but if
you leave sharia, you won't.
See, when we go back to these ulama
who set the foundation for these paths, you
will find them to be
connected to the Quran and sunnah
more than you can dream or imagine, and
the story will be very different from what's
being presented to you in today's world.
That these were all in Hushiqa, and these
were all looked at their own.
We ask Allah
to protect us.
When we were I mentioned earlier we went
to the grave of Imam Abdallah Mirhamdullahu alaihi
wa'alehi. While visiting Imam Abdallah Mirhamdullahu alaihi wa'alehi,
we recited a hadith of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
The hadith
is referred to as nusalsal
alusalsal
bisulat al Saf.
This is that narration
that every Sahabi who narrates it says that
when narrating this hadith, my teacher recited the
entire Surat al Saf to me.
The Sahami narrates it says that I asked
the prophet of Allah what is the best
of deeds so that Bibi salallahu alaihi wa
sallam recited Surat al Saf to me.
So then when he narrated it to history,
he recited Surat al Saf.
And when he narrated it to history, therefore
this is called al Musalsal
Biqirahati Surat Al Saf.
This is the nesh Sahih of the Musalsal
Sarat. Out of all the Musalsal Sarat Musalsal
Beinirhebuk
Musalsal Bein Ma'i Wa Thamr Musal salat will
be Musafaha,
Musal salat will Awaliyah. Out of all of
the Musal salat, this is the most authentic
one.
And this Musa Salat, the Surat Asaf,
is narrated by Imam Abu Dawi.
So when we sat and gave salam to
him, we thought it appropriate to read this
very same narration that he narrated.
And Qadir Uman recited for us Surah Al
Saff
to complete this practice
that,
exist, Amaludi
Muhajitul.
And then we went even further
south
to
what is known as Hawarism.
Hawarism. You'll hear the word the name Hawarismi.
Have you guys heard that before? Famous mathematician,
Hawarismi.
Khwarezm.
This is not the name of a city.
It's another Mohan region.
It sits on the banks of the
not the banks exactly, but not too far
away. It sits near the jilhoon.
And the jehoon actually cuts through parts of
the Khwarizm as well. It cuts through it.
If you recall that river that I told
you about at the beginning of the dars,
This is where it cuts through. Right here.
Yaquat al Hamawi,
he visited,
Khawarism. He was
one of the famous
travelers
in Muslim history.
There are some famous travelers whose works you
should read if you have time.
One of them is Ibn Fadlan.
Ibn Fadlan was probably the earliest
Muslim traveler.
He was sent by the Khalifa to go
and figure out what the situation was up
north.
Up north. So you know where he spent
his time?
Literally in Siberia and Russia.
He was up there.
And he has a small little travel log.
It's not too big. And in there, he
describes everything. He just it is so crazy
the way he describes that whole region.
Obviously, there's ibn Battuta. He's very well known,
Moroccan.
And then probably
more detailed work belongs to Ya'put al Hamri.
He has a book called Mu'ajam al Buldan.
Mu'ajam is kind of like a dictionary of
the cities.
So in every city he exposed all the
details.
He writes, Yaqub al Hanawi while while talking
about Khawadism.
But anything interesting to note, you know, this
whole region, Ma Wara'un Nahr area?
Anything to bear in mind,
the Ottomans never ruled here.
The Ottomans never ruled here because they were
too far away. They couldn't make it there.
And not only could they not make it
there, but even the other thanata that existed,
they didn't have too much control over this
region because it was kind of isolated.
They had soft control, not heavy control.
So most of their history involve
petty kingdoms,
small little kingdoms of their own. The Khawad
is in Kamait, and then they had the
Bukhara, and they had the Samarkand, so their
own little regions.
Yaqaddan Hamawi, he writes that
when Genghis Khan
attacked the Muslim countries, the Muslim lands,
fascinatingly,
he actually had no desire to attack the
Muslims.
That's not why he came. Many people don't
know this part of history. It's not a
You
can read some of the other historians and
you'll read it. You'll understand this issue further.
People assume that Genghis Khan one day woke
up and said, I'm gonna go and violate
Muslims, and they just came and nuked the
Muslims. That is not what happened.
Genghis Khan attacking the Muslim lands was a
very big misjudgment.
It was a miscalculation
by
the ruler of Hawarism.
Genghis Khan was actually interested in conquering
China.
And while trying to conquer China, he realized
that this requires a lot more influence than
he thought and will resources than he had
assumed.
Then his call was actually very favorable to
Muslims.
If you study his court and his advisers,
he always kept a strong number of Muslims
around him.
He was very in he was very impressed
by their ability
to structure things. They were very structured. They
can create good systems out of things, and
they were very good at documenting things and
creating systems out of everything. He loved it.
So he kept these people to manage his
affairs.
He had a good group of Persian Muslims
around him at all times.
So
what actually happened with the Genghis Khan was
that while he was attacking China, he realized
that he needed an ally,
for business and for trade financially and otherwise
for influence.
So he sent a group of
he sent an
a group of people to speak with the
leader of Hawarism,
which is today known as Siwa
or Kiva they call it. Not Kiev, don't
confuse that, from Kiva.
So these people that came how many people
came? There's a difference of opinion. Some say,
what some of the historians have actually written
that they were like, 99%
Muslim and then there were 2, 3 of
his own people.
This
rumor of
Khaladism,
he made a big mistake.
He made a colossal mistake, this guy did.
He thought that what Genghis Khan was doing
was trying to enter into his market by
putting pressure on him and forcing him into
an agreement, and then he would then come
and take over his whole city.
He then realized that this guy was trying
to build a trade trade relationship so he
can use that money and attack his main
enemy.
What this king of haudism did was
he killed the messenger, and
he sent a mess he sent his head
back and said that he don't even try
to come into our land.
The girl of Islam lost it.
He put China on hold,
sent those people, said he said to you,
nevertheless, time out. We're gonna come back to
you guys later. Somebody killed my messenger.
And that's when he came
all the way through the Muslim lands and
literally wiped out all of them.
And he
chased this man.
If I remember his name, it was Muhammad
Al Khwarizmi.
All the way he chased him. And and
he told the soldiers he actually said to
his soldiers, I don't wanna kill the Muslims,
I just want that guy dead. This guy,
instead of surrendering himself surrendering himself I know
there's a what? Surrendering is not a wise
thing, they're not a simple thing to do,
but I'm just making a point here. He
just kept running, and everywhere he ran, King
of Khan killed everyone along the way
running after him. Until finally,
he crossed some straight of water and reached
an island and he died on that island
alone. And the last lines of poetry that
he wrote was a lament
that I messed up a whole Muslim Ummah
and caused the death of people.
I destroyed a beautiful city,
I brought destruction to great scholars.
Yanis Khan is so angry that he couldn't
get a hold of him that at the
top of the map,
he actually had the dam broken.
His server said it's gonna flood everyone downstream.
He said, kill them all.
And this is where he went crazy. He
didn't call Khur Baghbab at that point. He
came back. His grandson came for round 2
later on. So Ya'u'llud al Hanawi, he describes
some of these details. One thing that Ya'u'llud
al Hanawi says regarding Hawaism is that
he said the place is beautiful. Everywhere you
look, the houses are gorgeous. It's beautiful. However,
there's one thing,
the water table is very high there.
You guys have understand? If you dig a
little into the ground, what happens? You find
there's water. It's right there.
So the downside of this is
the downside of it is
their feces flow to the top.
They can't bury their feces.
So Yakutul Halawi says that when I came
to that region of Khaleidism,
the smell of that region just put me
off and I had never smelled something as
horrible.
And you would find people walking around with,
you know, remnants of that feces everywhere they
went, even inside their Masjid.
The unfortunate state of and if you go
there, that's why even till today, they don't
bury under the ground. You guys ever been
to New Orleans before?
Anyone been to New Orleans? You notice that
they don't bury under the ground? They bury
on top of the ground because they can't.
They can't bury in the ground. The the
water table is too high. It's like a
swamp. Right? So the same thing in Khwarezm,
they can't bury you under the ground. They
build these mud holes that are all above
the ground, and then inside there, they bury
people. But it's mud, but it's above the
ground.
When we were there,
I I said to the tour guide, there
was one guy who was showing us around,
his name is Zayd. I said, Zayed, you
know, Ya'quot al hamu, we wrote this about
this region of Hawarism.
He said, wallahi he sheikh, the smile was
so bad that the government had to actively
get involved. This issue remained for almost 800
years after he wrote this.
And even when I moved there, I said
to the brothers, can you guys smell it?
When we stopped on the bus on the
side of the road outside of some of
the major cities, he said yes. Saidiya put
a hamul wrote about this issue. And it's
fascinating how these people were able to capture,
what was happening in these regions 100 of
years earlier, and they were able to preserve
it in their in their writings and in
their books.
A land of great people like Ibn
Sina, Abu Hawar, Azami.
A land of
even if you I really wanted to visit
the resting place of Imam al Zamasari
It was very close to where we were
in Hawadism.
However,
it was on the other side of the
border,
maybe like half an hour drive away in
modern day Turkmenistan.
And for those of you who know anything
about Turkmenistan, that's a place probably we won't
visit during our lifetimes.
Is it that? It's a very peculiar, weird
place.
Give guidance to them as well.
These cities
and these lands are the lands of the
righteous.
So many legends
are there and each of those legends,
they carry a story. They hold on to
a whole chapter of the deen.
And I kid you not, today, I only
shared a few snippets with you.
I did not share the whole story.
Great fuqihar like Shamsul 'Ain Mahlwani,
Qadhi allama Qadhi Khan, who's Fatawah Qadhi Khan,
are the most famous in the Hanafi madhab.
And outside of that, there are many more
on the Ma'am who are buried there.
Visiting
this land,
the last 8, 9 days I was there,
it gave me an appreciation
for Islamic history.
And today, I wanna distribute that with you.
Learning
where we come from,
knowing of the great scholarship
that existed in our history,
understanding the tradition that we belong to.
It's not a loose tradition.
It's not some goofy made up tradition.
This is a legacy of men and women
who dedicated their lives to
studying and teaching the deen.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
elevate them all and
allow us to follow their footsteps in faith.
We end here.