Mirza Yawar Baig – Teacher Par Excellence
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, wasalatu wassalamu
ala sharafil anbiyai wal mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasulullahi sallallahu
alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam,
tasliman kathiran kathirakum wa ba'du.
My brothers and sisters, the topic of my
khutbah today is Rasulullahi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
teacher par excellence, teacher par excellence.
I submit to you that driving transformational change,
I'm not talking about teaching people skills and
so on, driving transformational change is the most
difficult of tasks, but the most rewarding because
you have to get people to change their
hearts and minds.
Now if you take the two ahadith that
are quoted on this subject, in one Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam described himself and he
said, wa innama buistu mualliman, he said, I
have been sent as a teacher.
And in the other one he said, buistu
li utimma husna al akhlaq, he said, I
have been sent to beautify good conduct, to
make good conduct perfect.
We can say from these two that he
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was sent as a
teacher to transform society, which is what he
did.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called the teacher,
Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, his blessing on
the people.
We write books to be read, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala's book came to be taught,
not simply to be read and understood according
to the capacity of the reader.
The book was sent to the teacher and
the teacher was sent to the people to
teach them to live the book.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, tabarakalladhi nazzala
al furqana ala abdihi.
He did not say ala al nas or
ala al mumineen, no.
Tabarakalladhi nazzala al furqana ala abdihi liyakuna lil
alameena nadheera.
Allah said, blessed is the one who sent
down the standard, the criterion, which is the
kitab of Allah to his slave, to his
abd Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, so that
he may be a warner to the whole
world, which explains the role and critical importance
of the teacher as the medium between the
message and the recipient.
It was a verbal message.
Without the messenger, we cannot understand the message.
There is no Sahabi on record who claimed
to understand the Qur'an on his own
without the agency of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
This is a point worth deliberating on and
thinking about because people today are so free
with claiming to understand the Qur'an and
making all kinds of interpretations when they don't
even know the language of Arabic.
No Sahabi ever did that.
Nobody.
For example, on the other hand, for example,
Abu Bakr radhiyallahu anhu, one time he said,
what earth would give me a place to
live and what sky would shade me if
I should speak about the Qur'an with
my opinion or by something I do not
know?
And he said this when Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala revealed the ayat al-surat al
-abasa.
Allah said, wa faqihatan wa abba.
So a man went to him and he
said, we know habba, which means a growing
shoot as soon as it comes out of
the seed.
But what is abba?
And this was Abu Bakr radhiyallahu anhu's response.
He said, what earth would give me a
place to live and what sky would shade
me and protect me if I should speak
about the Qur'an with my opinion or
by something I do not know?
And Umar ibn al-Khattab radhiyallahu anhu also,
he said, beware of using your opinion in
religious matters.
Ibn Abbas radhiyallahu anhu, radhiyallahu anhuma, the one
who Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam made dua
for.
I think we should think about this.
Did the Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam make
dua for you and me, those who give
their opinions so freely?
You must ask this question to yourself.
But Ibn Abbas radhiyallahu anhuma, Abdullah Ibn Abbas
radhiyallahu anhuma, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam made
dua for him to understand the Qur'an,
to get the understanding of the deen and
to be given by Allah the ta'weel
or the understanding of the Qur'an.
He also said, all that there is to
follow and obey is the book of Allah
and the sunnah of his messenger sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
Whoever makes any statement after these two, according
to his opinion, then I do not know
if you will find it among his good
deeds or among his sins.
Now, this was the style of Ibn Abbas
radhiyallahu anhuma, meaning that even if what you
did looks like something good, you will find
it among your sins, meaning what you're doing
is prohibited.
This humility and turning to the teacher with
humbleness are fundamental conditions of learning.
That is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
gave Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam four related
tasks, which are a teacher's checklist.
Tilawat al-Qur'an, Tazkiyat al-Nafs, Ta
'leem al-Qur'an and Hikmah.
Inform, purify, explain and demonstrate, which is the
wisdom of the actions.
This is the key to teaching anything.
What, prepare, how and why.
That is why in our tradition of scholarship,
whenever any scholar is mentioned, they don't ask
how many followers he or she has or
had, but who their teachers are or were.
Followers, especially in today's world of virtual followers,
mean nothing and add no value to you.
On the contrary, popularity is a big test
of ikhlas, of sincerity, and a potential slide
into ar-riya, which is shirk, which is
showing off which is shirk.
For the unwary, when the person starts believing
what people say about him.
That is why I advise myself to look
in the mirror.
I remember, may Allah grant my mother Jannatul
Firdaus without Hizab.
In 2008, I was invited to speak at
the International Hajj Conference in Saudi Arabia.
And after that, I was invited to also
meet the king at that time, King Abdullah
bin Abdulaziz Rahmatul Ali.
So in Mina, there was a banquet on
Eid day.
So I was invited and we went to,
we had the Eid lunch with him.
And this was on, this was on television
and that's a different story altogether.
My mother, somehow I can't explain how she
saw this in Hyderabad, in India and so
on.
So, but anyway, when I came back, when
I got back to Hyderabad, my mother said
to me, she said, I saw you meeting
the king.
And she said, many of your aunts and
uncles and so on, they have been calling
and congratulating me and saying good things about
you.
So I said, Alhamdulillah, I'm very happy about
that.
She said, but no, remember one thing.
Remember one thing very clearly.
She says, none of this matters.
None of this matters.
The fact that you were invited, the fact
that to an international conference of that stature,
the fact that you met the king, the
fact that all these people are saying good
things about you.
She said, none of this matters.
All of this is zero.
The only thing which matters is whether Allah
is pleased with you or not.
The only thing which matters is if Allah
is pleased with you or not.
And she said that you will find out
when you die.
So don't let all this get to your
head.
Alhamdulillah, may Allah bless her.
She was my teacher of the Quran.
She was the first person who taught me
the Quran when I was a little kid
around four years old.
And I enjoyed her du'as as long
as she lived, she and my father, Alhamdulillah.
So it is teachers who add value.
A person without teachers in deen remains ignorant.
The teacher is critical to learning and that
is how the Sahaba are distinguished and recognized
and blessed because of their teacher.
They are the Sahaba of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
We don't say the Rasul was a great
Rasul because he had so many followers.
No.
The followers are distinguished and they are recognized
and honored because of their teacher.
We recognize the importance of the teacher in
all bodies of knowledge that impact lives.
Nobody becomes a pilot or a surgeon or
a physician by reading books on aerodynamics and
flight or surgery and pharmacology and physiology.
Reading is important, but to qualify, one must
practice under the guidance of a teacher until
the teacher is satisfied, not the student.
But when it comes to sacred knowledge that
impacts not only the life of this world,
but much more importantly, the Akhira, we imagine
that reading some books and watching some videos
and some pseudo intellectual discussion, we have become
experts and set ourselves up as teachers.
I remind myself and you that as in
life, so also with Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
When you become a teacher, the rules change.
You become accountable and culpable and punishable.
The student can be excused, not the teacher.
So be very careful.
Reading is important, but it takes you only
to the first step, which is information.
To truly benefit, we need the human agency
of the teacher.
We need humility to go to the teacher,
accept that we need to learn and put
ourselves under his tutelage.
Develop the attitude to enable learning, accept that
we do not know, accept that the teacher
has something of value to impart, which we
desperately need and cannot get except from the
teacher.
Accept that it is our need to learn
and not the teacher's need to teach us.
Be like a patient going to the doctor.
You feel the pain.
You need to get relief from the pain.
You need the doctor.
The doctor doesn't need you.
If you don't get to a doctor, you
will die.
In the case of spiritual illness, you will
suffer endlessly in the akhira.
The doctor is doing you a favor by
giving you his time and sharing his knowledge
and prescribing medicine.
So be humble.
So be humble, be eager to learn and
be grateful.
Learn the adab, the etiquette of learning before
you try to learn Islam.
There are innumerable stories of the great scholars
of this deen who in their childhood were
advised by their parents, by their mothers mostly,
to learn the adab from the teacher, to
learn the etiquette before they take the ilm.
Adab are the password into the database.
Without that, you may own the database, but
you will not have access to it.
Allah subhana wa ta'ala said about Rasulullah
ﷺ, Allah
said, which means indeed, Allah has done the
believers a great favor by raising a messenger
from among them.
Reciting to them his revelation, purifying them and
teaching them the book and wisdom.
For indeed, they had previously been clearly astray,
clearly misguided and ignorant.
Allah subhana wa ta'ala emphasized two things.
The fact that the sending of his messenger
ﷺ who was human is a double blessing
and that before the coming of the messenger,
the believers had been misguided.
This is the most certain evidence that guidance
is only in the way of and through
Muhammad ﷺ and that all other ways that
do not come from him or bypass him
are misguided.
It is critical that we do three things.
Believe in Muhammad ﷺ, believe Muhammad ﷺ, meaning
whatever he told us, and follow him, obedience
and emulation.
Obey and emulate.
All three are critical to being Muslim.
That is the foundation.
I remind myself and you that Allah subhana
wa ta'ala sent Rasulullah ﷺ with four
connected duties.
Another way to understand this is to see
these four as progressive stages of teaching and
learning.
Four steps to Jannah.
These four are recite, purify, teach, demonstrate.
Recite, purify, teach, demonstrate.
For the audience, for us, these steps would
be listen, submit, learn and practice.
Listen, submit, learn and practice.
When he recites, you listen.
When he purifies, you submit to the purification.
When he is teaching, you learn.
And when he is demonstrating, you practice.
These four are not independent of each other,
but they are a continuum like a staircase
which takes you to the top.
We must experience each of these to benefit.
If we leave out a stage, we will
fail.
Let's see how that works.
Listening is different from hearing.
Listening implies a level of interest, a relationship
and an effect of the words.
Imagine that you are a mother with an
infant who is sleeping in the next room,
while you are with some guests in the
living room.
Your child makes a little sound.
Will you hear it?
I bet you will hear it.
What will it do to your heart?
Immediately your heart will start pulsating differently.
Will you continue your conversations or instantly get
up and go to the infant?
It doesn't need an answer.
Now listen to this.
What happened?
If nothing happened, then you didn't listen.
You only heard.
The Sahaba listened.
That is why the Quran changed their lives.
We only hear, so it does nothing.
That is the first step.
Learn to listen.
Learn to monitor your heart to see the
effect of the Quran on it.
Allah mentioned the condition of our hearts and
responsiveness to His word as the criteria of
true believers.
Not how much or how well we can
recite the Quran.
That goes without saying.
But when we teach or learn the Quran,
what do we concentrate on?
What do we monitor?
What do we examine our students on?
And most importantly, do we question ourselves about
our own condition?
It shows how skewed our focus is.
This must change because Allah said Allah
said the true believers are only those conditional
statement.
The true believers are only those whose hearts
tremble with the glory and majesty of Allah
at the remembrance of Allah.
Whose faith increases when his ayat are recited
to them.
And who put their trust in their Rabb
alone.
They are those who establish Salah and who
spend from what we have provided for them.
It is they who are the true believers.
They will have elevated ranks and forgiveness and
an honorable provision from their Rabb.
We must listen.
We must monitor the effect of the Kalam
of Allah on our hearts.
Then we must change our lives to make
them compatible with what Allah wants from us.
This is very, very critical.
That is why we have the story of
Abdullah ibn Umar who took between four and
eight years based on different narratives in Muwatta
ibn Malik and Musnad ibn Ahmed and others.
And then he gave a Walima, he gave
a party to celebrate.
He took four to eight years to memorize
Suratul Baqarah.
Only one Surah.
When he was asked why it took him
so long he said this is how the
Sahaba learned the Quran from Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
You would take 10 ayat, memorize them, reflect
on them, practice what was mentioned in them,
clarify any doubts.
And only then when we were satisfied we
would go for the next 10.
The Sahaba learned the Quran to practice, to
live by it.
They didn't learn the Quran for entertainment or
to debate or to intellectualize or for any
reason other than to listen and obey.
To practice it in their lives and to
modify and mold their lives according to the
Quran.
The Quran came as the spoken word.
It affected hearts and minds and it transformed
lives.
It still has the same power but only
for those who approach it as the Sahaba
approached it.
We change the approach and so we got
nothing, we get nothing.
That is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
called the whole life of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam as an excellent example for those
who look forward to meeting him Jalla Jalaluhu.
He said, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Indeed, in the
Messenger of Allah, meaning in his life, you
have an excellent example for whoever has hope
in Allah and the last day and remembers
Allah a great deal.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caused the blessed
life of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam to
be carefully preserved to the smallest detail by
those who loved him more than their own
lives so that those who came after people
like us could practice every little detail in
our own lives.
From the appearance of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, his likes and dislikes, his facial expressions
on different occasions, to the way he cut
his nails, what the soles of his feet
were like, how much water he used for
wudu, how and what he ate and drank,
how he slept, how he walked and talked,
how he treated friends and enemies, how he
administered justice, how he behaved in all kinds
of situations have all been carefully preserved.
All of them are the recipe for a
life and success that has no parallel in
place and time.
We have the blueprint and the field book,
the Quran and the Sunnah.
We just need to follow it to succeed.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded, Allah said,
say, oh Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, tell
them, if you sincerely love Allah then follow
me, emulate me, imitate me and Allah will
love you and forgive your sins.
For Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is all
-forgiving, most merciful.
Emulation is the sincerest expression of love, not
speech, but emulation, imitation.
So it is not how many nasheeds we
know or can sing which makes a difference.
It is whether we emulated Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam or not, whether our appearance, our
behavior, our dealings, our manners and above all,
why we do anything, our motivations, which Allah
will look at.
Emulation is independent of directive and includes everything.
Little children emulate their parents.
People emulate so-called influencers, most of whom
are case studies and what not to do.
People buy what brand ambassadors tell them to
buy, knowing full well that the brand ambassadors
are paid to say that.
I say to my brothers and sisters, we
must follow, there's no doubt about this, we
must follow, so follow Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, because the reward is that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala will love us.
Reflect on the statement of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that he will love the one
who emulates, not only obeys, but emulates his
messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Think about this, feel it in your heart.
What does it mean to be someone who
Allah loves?
What is the benefit of that?
The one who truly loves doesn't do it
for the benefit or even thinks of the
benefit.
But I say let's start somewhere, let's start
anywhere.
Do it, because that is the road to
Jannah.