Musleh Khan – The Life and Times of Imam Ahmad (ra)
AI: Summary ©
The importance of practicing knowledge and learning to stay with one's own in learning to stay with one's own in the face of failure is emphasized. The struggles of former teachers and the importance of memory are also discussed, including the use of a scarf and praying. The importance of learning to be a doctor and finding the right answers to questions is emphasized, as it is crucial for achieving success in learning. The segment also provides a recap of the Islam culture's history and characteristics, including its cultural implications.
AI: Summary ©
We come to the last and final exam in which we will study and that is the life and times of the great.
The great scholar of Hadeeth and this is what he was very well known for. The great scholar, Eamon, I've met him the handbell rahima, who loved our island.
And we mentioned that he is going to be the last one that we study because in terms of birthright, he is the last one to be born. And as far as the year that he was born is concerned, he was born in the year 164. After the digital year 164.
Scholars have described this mmm as being the Imam of the entire world. They call him the meme of the the meme of the world. He was a leader of the sooner he was a master of patience. He was known for these things. He was known for his extraordinary patience.
Other scholars such as Emanuel, Chef Harry and others called him the magette did the reviver of the religion when he was alive during the third generation.
And as we mentioned, he was known he became very famous for his knowledge in it. It was said that Mmm, Rahim Allah memorized more than a million Hadith.
And there was a there's a very famous story, the two men came to him and asked him, you know, how is it possible for someone to memorize 1 million Hadith? How is this possible? an Imam, Rahim Allah answered with a very famous statement saying
that every Hadees that I memorize, I practice it. And this is how I've memorized all of this ahaadeeth lesson here for us.
The more you memorize, if you want to keep what you have memorized, especially from a Hadith, or from the portal earn, if you want this knowledge to stay with you, this is the number one way to do so is that you practice your knowledge. So anybody who recite something of the poor an order if they wanted to stay with them and stay in their hearts, then one of the things that you can do, which is the most effective way to learn, is to make the knowledge firm in your hearts in your life is that you practice it and this is a responsibility that all of us have.
In terms of his birth, he was born in Buffalo, Buffalo dead. And as we mentioned the year 164. He became very famous for his lineage as a medic ibni Hanbal.
But Hanbal is not the name of his father. It's actually the name of his grandfather. The name of his father is Mohammed. So if you want to have the lineage correctly, it's actually Akhmad ibni, Mohammed Ibn Hanbal. Okay. However, his grandfather became famous and so his lineage automatically went to his grandfather. And the reason for this is that some of the opinions that scholars have is that his grandfather was very famous. He was a soldier, and so he was very famous for his bravery onto the battlefield and his courageousness that he displayed.
His father died at a young age. His father died when he met Amador akima hola was at a young age. And Imam Ahmed himself says that he doesn't even remember seeing his father isn't remember his father at all.
In terms of his mother's name, his mother's name was Sophia.
And she used to and herself and the family they used to have a business where they would sell phobes and sometimes an Imam Muhammad Rahim Allah He used to act as a carrier, meaning he used to carry people, and he would act as what we would call a taxicab. So he would have a little trolley and he would have someone sitting there and he would carry them wherever they wanted to go. So this is one of the jobs that even medora human law, you could call a taxi boy or something like this, of this nature. He made Hajj five times in his life. Three of them he walked from Baghdad to Mecca, you walk to the entire distance three times he's done this
in terms of
aluminum, metal rocking mohalla his upbringing in terms of seeking knowledge, of course, like all the scholars, what is the first thing he began with he
what is the first thing that I noticed?
Scholars begin with is memorize the poor end solely man I've met, of course, began by memorizing the poor end and then this at a very young age. And then also he began studying the Arabic language. He used to wake up before fetchit
and begin to study whilst everyone else was sleeping. And mmm I used to wake up before fudger. And this is when he would start to seek His knowledge and memorize. He traveled to Mecca to Medina, to share them to Yemen and many other countries so much so that the people used to ask him, when are you going to stop traveling? Because they noticed that he was traveling so much. And they would ask him, when are you going to stop traveling so much? And he said, Well, law he I will continue to seek knowledge until I enter my grave. So until he enters his grave, he will continue to seek knowledge.
Some of the scholars them are documented a lot here. Eileen mentioned one of the main reasons why he did a lot of traveling, one of the main prime reasons is to seek a Hadeeth he would go and collect Hadeeth from various scholars that he would hear about. And once he went to Sham to collect Hadith from a very, very famous scholar. He met the scholar and he found that that scholar was feeding a dog who's feeding a dog. So Mm hmm. Rahim Allah SAT, and he observed this.
And as he's watching this great scholar whom he whom he came to, to learn from and get Hadith from, he watched him that he would give this dog some food, and he would give this dog a drink, and then he would leave the dog.
And so Mm hmm. Rahim Allah went and approached him and asked him why do you Why do you do this? And the scholar replied, and said, Are you surprised? Are you surprised to see me do something like this? And he said, Yes, not um, of course, you know, you're feeding a dog.
So the scholar replied to a very famous statement of the messenger Salalah while he was sending them, that anybody who provides help for someone in this dunya then Allah azza wa jal will relieve him of some sort of pain on the day of judgment in the earth or an enamel. Metal Rahim Allah heard this and he said, This is enough for me, what I have come for the purpose that I have come to see you and meet you has been fulfilled and email, Maduro Kamala left,
as far as his teachers are concerned, and as you can see, we're just going to zoom over these categories. He met Abu Yusuf Rahim Allah. Who did we say Abu Yusuf is Abu Yusuf is the student of what famous Amen. He was the number one student of an Imam we've discussed Abu
Abu hanifa Rahim Allah number one most famous student is Abu Yusuf and so a member of Madurai mala, also studied with him.
He learned Hadith he learned phip and actually Abu Yusuf was one of his very first teachers. However, there were many more famous teachers and scholars that lmm Achmad or Rahim Allah from them, there is one by the name of Rahim Allah who was a great scholar in Hadith in Buffalo died. Also an Imam Shafi Rahim Allah was one of his closest teachers. And actually,
Imam Rahim Allah loved him ama chef, he loved him so much, that he considered him to be like a father to him, only for knowledge, nothing else. They had no other connection with themselves except when it came to seek knowledge. And eventually when all of them were recognized as in he met a chef in Mecca when he went for Hajj and from there he began to study from him. They missed out on in Mecca.
And as we mentioned, the love that between Imam Shafi and mmm Ahmed was so strong that Lima Madurai mahalo was constantly invited by Imam Shafi to come with him. Wherever email machete traveled, Lima Ahmed would follow along and he lighted by an Imam Shafi himself
alemayehu sheffey Rio Rahim Allah once made a statement that he wished to study with Imam Malik he wished to study from him. However, according to many of the orlimar mm hmm Rahim Allah was still young when Allah Malik passed away.
And so this was one of the reasons why some of the scholars say that lmm Malik mmm hmm, Achmed never had an opportunity to study from him.
Another category that we wish to discuss
is that we realized
That, as we mentioned, he was known for seeking knowledge throughout his entire life. And as we mentioned that people used to be stumbled by this, to see that how is it possible for somebody to travel so often spend so many hours a day, seeking knowledge? This was the patience of an Imam Ahmed Al Imam Abdul Rahim Allah. He was not somebody that was very popular and known for memorizing and he himself while he can sit down with Allah, He himself stated that he was not somebody that focused on memorizing. Now the question comes, how did he memorize 1 million Hadeeth than the core n and all the other branches of knowledge that he memorized? How did all of this come and enter his hearts?
principle here when seeking knowledge, the more piety the more piety that someone possesses. The cleaner heart they have, the more Allah azza wa jal will teach that person
and cause their memory to reach to such an extent that whatever they hear, sometimes they will hear it for the first time and it would only take one instance, they would listen to some type of knowledge and immediately they would memorize it. And Such was the case for many of the scholars especially Imam and Bahar mahalo Tada. He was known for this for his for his memory and how strong his memory was. There's a very famous story of a member hardy rahima, who lived in where 10 people came to him. And each of them had a hadith that they wanted mm Buhari or Hmong law, to judge to give them the ruling regarding these a hadith. And what they would do is that each of them would come and
they would state the entire lineage of that Hadith, the names the narrator's in that Hadith, then state the Hadees. And then they would ask a man Buhari, what is the ruling on this? So 10 of them came at once each of them had one Hadith. So remember harnesses Wait, wait, okay, all of you line up.
You, number one, tell me that what you have, the person would begin to narrate all the names, and then the Hadeeth say, Stop. Number two, same thing. Number three, same thing, and he will go like this and reach the 10th person. And when he finished, he will say, number one, you said to me, and he would repeat the entire Hadeeth. Here is the ruling. Number two, you said to me, and he would repeat all the names of that Narrator And the Hadith. And he would say, this is the ruling regarding this. And he would do this for all and each and every one of them until he reached the 10th person. How is it possible for someone to have memory like this? And emammal chef Rahim Allah, as we
mentioned last week, when he would open a book, he would take one of his hands and he would cover the page that he wasn't looking at, because he was afraid that if he looked at it, he would memorize the entire page. So he would cover it. And yes, it is possible for someone to reach this extent in their memory. And this goes back to the piety of that person, as a law soldier that says in Surah Baqarah what tequila will your unlimited kumala if you have fear of Hannah who water Allah, then Allah azza wa jal will teach you very important when seeking the knowledge of Islam
and as as a teacher, how was he ma'am? Metal Rahim Allah as a teacher. He began teaching and one of the main message in Bell dead and he was at the age of 40. When he began teaching, scholars have two opinions why this happened? Now imagine an Imam Muhammad Rahim Allah 40 years old and now he begins to teach.
Number one, one of the reasons that scholars put out why Imam Ahmed waited this long to begin to teach is that he had respect for his teachers, and the knowledge that they possessed. Meaning that those teachers that he learned from he learned from they superseded him, they were older than him, or if they had more knowledge than him, and as long as he was a student to them, he said he remained this way so respect and honor for those who were around him. Another opinion, the second opinion that I have, and this Allah azza wa jal knows best but it's perhaps may seem to be the strongest of the two is that a mammoth metal Rahim mahalo wanted to imitate the prophets of the law more it he
was selling them when he when revelation began. And we know that the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam when he first got the first revelation of Islam, he was 40 years old. So an amount of metal Rahim Allah wanted to begin teaching in this manner. He had to teach
types of classes.
One was an open class and one was a private class. As far as the open class is concerned, there were over 5000 students that will come to his open class.
Open class meaning was open to the public, anyone could come and attend that class.
In that particular class, he had about 500 of his closest students writing everything that he would teach the rest of the students they were there to listen, to observe, to see to hear whatever it is, they can grasp from the mejlis for the gathering of aluminum metal Rahim Allah, as far as seeking knowledge in such a blessed gathering.
The people used to come and they used to describe this mejlis imagine 5000 people and more were there, they used to describe the dimensionless of Imam Ahmed was like a garden of the gardens of Paradise, that there was known that they could never recall one instance when Imam Madurai Mashallah would mention anything about the dunya. In his lectures, or in his majority, in his gatherings of knowledge, you will never speak anything about the dunya. So everybody who would come there, they felt that they have a taste of the earth hero. And this is why they described it as though they were sitting in a garden of the gardens of Paradise
as in terms of his private class, this is basically private sessions that he would have with specific students, students that excelled they would come to his home, and he would teach them in a private manner.
Aluminum, metal rahimullah was very strict in answering questions. He was known to say loudly, he was known to say that he does not know when you when he was asked a question that he didn't have knowledge of, you did not have knowledge of he would clearly say that he did not know. And as we've seen, this was the same for Eman Malik Rahim Allah and the others.
Such to the extent that aluminum ash metal Rahim Allah laid the six main conditions of a Mufti or someone who wishes to answer questions, there are at least six conditions that a person should have. When doing so, an even up to today, scholars follow the conditions of Imam Ahmed and what they were from them. Number one is that a person should have a house. And this is of course, by default.
A person should be sincere in his knowledge, sincere in what is what he is preaching, part of sincerity is practice what you preach. So a person who has knowledge must be able to practice that knowledge.
Number two, and that is along with this knowledge, they must have fun, or they must have understanding. So it is not enough for somebody to say that I have read a book or have studied a certain branch or a certain science. And if you ask them questions about that particular science, they have absolutely no clue how to answer the questions regarding that particular science. So they should have some form or understanding. Number three is that they should have knowledge of the questioner
meaning that when the questioner is asking a question,
the person should have knowledge and understanding of what the questioner is seeking, if it is something good, or if it is something bad, because there are times when a question or when they ask something, they have a hidden agenda behind them. Meaning they would like to cause some embarrassment to the speaker. They'd like to humiliate him, they'd like to show that they know something that the speaker doesn't know etc, etc, etc. So a smart speaker or teacher
or in this case, a Mufti. He knows and he understands when a person is asking a question, what it is that you're seeking. And one of the most effective ways to know this is look for changes questions that come one after the other. For example, a person may ask a certain question, and you give them an answer. They're not satisfied with this answer. They ask another one and they're very similar, not satisfied and they keep coming back and coming back and coming back. This is one of the ways that you can detect that a person say Listen, this is all that I have for you if it is not enough. The answer from this point on is it Allah azza wa jal knows best
number four from the conditions that amount of metal Rahim Allah put forth for you Mufti is that the the person who is ending
String should be able to give an acceptable answer
meaning that the answer that is given should not cause more confusion on to the question or herself.
Okay, and this happens may or may be very seldomly it happens. But the point is we have seen this happen, a question may be asked to someone and the answer the person is completely lost or is even more confused than prior to asking the question. And number five is that the Mufti should understand the question or situation or circumstance This is an important condition, understanding the situation or circumstance of the questioner meaning, you understand the people that you are talking to. And the questions they ask you understand you have an idea of where they come from, who they are, what country they live in, what is happening in that country. This is why today many of our
lemma or documental law highly him when you ask them questions about something that is happening in another country, they will say to you that they can't they can't answer this question. And when you ask them why they will say to you exactly this, say I don't live in that country and I don't know the people there. So I know these things, I cannot give you an answer to this question. Okay. So this is a sooner that many of the scholars practice even till today and number six from the condition is that the the Mufti should of course have knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah
and be able to prove whatever answer they give to anyone, especially regarding the religion of Islam, they should be able to prove their statement with something that is authentic.
From the students of Imam Ahmed Al Rahim Allah
we will mention some of the famous ones
and of course they are, remember Howdy, Rahim Allah, Allah Muslim,
Imam, Abu Rahim, Allah and many, many others. These are just some of the famous ones who eventually became leaders of the Sunnah.
Also one of his sons by the name, who was the eldest son that he had, who died in the year 266
was also a great scholar, it was said that his son Sala, had almost reached the level of Imam Ahmed, but not quite. This is actually the statements that scholars put forward, almost reached there, but not quite his father was still beyond when it came to the knowledge of Islam.
As far as his works are concerned,
he never authored any books outside of Hadith and Sunnah. And of course, his most famous collection that he puts forth is the collection of his Muslim head,
which he started writing in the year 180. You started putting together his Muslim ID in the year 180, which consists of more than 20,000 ahaadeeth in it.
Now, if he put together this Muslim in the year 180, that meant that he was 16 years old when he began writing the Muslim panelist 16 years old.
He had memorized as we mentioned, more than 1 million ahaadeeth. And from this 1 million he extracted a hadith that he felt was authentic according to his conditions, as well as a hadith that he thought that it would be befitting for those who were there, the people at that time as well as the future generations to come.
Of course, when we study the life and times of these scholars, we also pay heed to some of the important statements that they make some of the important sayings of the scholars and from an Imam Amador Rahim Allah, He once stated that this world is a place of struggle and work. This is a place of hardship.
And the Torah is a place of rest and ease.
Whoever does not well will regret this later. So if a person does not put forth the effort in preparing for the ethera then indeed when Allah azzawajal raises this person
raises this person from their grave and begins to question them about everything they have done in the dunya. They respond a little bit as your only lolly or metal saw the hen female product, or Allah returned me back to the juniors so that I can continue to work hard and do righteous deeds, especially those that have missed those that I have ignored.
From the famous statements of Alabama, Alabama.
To rahima hula
is he said that when we ask for wealth, we don't get any. When we ask for wealth, we don't get it. Instead we get what we don't ask for.
This statement here what it means, is less a person asks for from Allah azza wa jal
in they do this in order to build sincerity in their hearts, that the only thing that they are content with is whatever allies so it just gives them. So instead of asking Allah azza wa jal for something, whatever Allah azza wa jal has given them their content and pleased with this, realize that this person with this attitude and this understanding, this is the person alive, so, which I will continue to increase, the dunya will be sitting in this person's hands, and they will have all the happiness and contentment of this world. So, this is how we understand the statement of aluminum, metal rahimullah.
And the one of the other statements he's mentioned, and this is an important one, I'm sure many of us can relate to this. Meaning you can understand that we've met somebody who has, who has this characteristic in them. And in an ash metal Rocky, mahalo once stated, that if you meet someone who speaks a lot,
be careful of that person. for that person is a dangerous person,
simply by a person who has a busy tongue, not necessarily speaking about someone or liba, or lying, etc. No, this is not what we're talking about. Or it is not restricted to only those things. But even a person just speaking in general about anything and everything. Literally, you talk about the carpet in the question and why it's brown. This person can sit literally for hours and discuss about the carpet and why it is brown. And you bring another dead end topic. And you begin to discuss this topic, this person's tongue becomes busy all the time realize, this is what the statement of lmm amadora He is speaking about. The less a person speaks, the more piety a person has, the more
humiliation someone has in front of a large surgeon. And so this is why I'm very famous statement that the sellers have is that there is nothing that is worthy of being locked up more than the tongue. There's nothing that is worthy of being locked up, put into a sell put into a jail more than the tongue. And as we know the seller for Rahmatullahi, ie him, they were at to such the extent that they were able to count every single word they spoke in an entire week. How many people do we know can actually count the entire all the words they say an entire one hour or in one day? Now we are not saying that a person should be at this level, where the entire week they counted they've spoken
1020 words No, but rather the tongue is something must have control. It must not be left loose, but it should be or should have some type of control to it.
Some of the statements of the self or amatola here I leave him about an email
from them about how to Rahim Allah once stated that if I ever seen a man who loves Mm hmm. Then I know that that person loves someone from Jenna knows that we know that that person loves a person from the gentleman. And also another statement from the scholars and from the self. They describe that Imam amadora Hema, who loved
his fragrance
felt as though it was a fragrance from Paradise, the perfume that he would wear the words and the eloquence of his Arabic and the way he would speak. They felt as though they were to a unique creation of laws.
And so anybody who was around him, there used to be a crowd that would walk with Him Achmed, wherever he would go, you would know that there was a swarm of people that would follow him. We're talking about to law here Eileen. And then we will come in short alone conclude very quickly his description. It was said that Imam Ahmed was very tall he was a fair skinned person. He used to wear thick clothing all the time as well as a turban on his head. It was said that even though he wore the turban he would take a scarf and throw it on top of the turban as well.
And these are some of the descriptions you can find in his Muslim head.
He used
To eat very little, he loved fruits, there is a statement that he loved the watermelon.
He was known for his patience and his beauty. He was a very handsome man. It was also said that he would be unless he was spoken to. He was known for saying, I don't know. He also used to help the poor, the weak, the elderly,
and many, many other characteristics of him. He was humble, he was soft. He was a soft hearted person.
When he asked what softens the heart, he said, eat halal foods. This is one of the things that softens the heart is that you eat halal foods. He used to pray upon Allah. He used to pray more than 300 raw carrot a day. And when he was sick, he would pray 150 rocker today, this is the days that he was sick.
And he It was said that he used to finish the poor end every week, at least every seven or six or seven days he would finish the entire poor end. And then we come to the death of aluminum metal rahimullah. As the that all of these in have in common is that of course he became very sick.
But he had never become sick enough that he couldn't pray and stand up and do the movements of solder. It was said that his students still narrated that they could still see him even though that he was sick. They could still see him praying. And a man, Madurai mamilla used to sit by himself and think about the earth or a lot. So much so that he used to sit and think about it and begin to tear himself all the time.
It was said that even amadora himolla had three strands of hair, three strands of hair that belonged to the Prophet salallahu it he was selling them and he would carry this hair. He would have a pouch that was strapped around his back. And in that pouch is where he would keep three strands of hairs that belonged to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he died in the state of Lulu.
He eventually was so weak that he could not leave his home.
And of course, we conclude by stating that Alina moto Rahim Allah, He died on the day of Juma and then it was said that there were 10s of 1000s of people who came and attended his funeral and he is now buried in Buffalo dead. An email Rahim Allahu taravella died at the age of 77 died at the age of 77. And having said that, brothers and sisters, let us do a quick recap. Imam Abu hanifa Rahim Allah who was born in the year 18 and died in the year 150. And he was 70 years old. In America Rahim. Mahalo Toronto. Born in the year 93, died in the year 179. And he was 86 years old. enamel chef is a model born in the year 150, died in the year 204. And he was the youngest out of the four he memes
and he was 54 years old.
And then we have just concluded with aluminum metal Rahim Allah, who was born in the year 164, died in the year 241. And he was 77 years old. And having said that, brothers and sisters, I wish to leave you with a few points as to why it is important for us to study the life and times of the setup. And the great scholars of the past. For one of the number one reasons why we do this, and is that it is an increase of our IE men is when we watch and we study the lives of these men and women in the past who have gone and preserved the aim of Islam and who have struggled and gone through punishments and tortured for the sake of Allah azza wa jal of itself is an increase of our faith.
For we begin to appreciate this religion, we begin to appreciate Islam, we begin to appreciate the length that these people have gone through to preserve this knowledge.
We also learn by studying the life and times of the self, we learn and see how Islam is practiced to the extent that these men and these women have gone and practice Islam, that nothing would stand in front of their way. That regardless what they have done, regardless of what punishment or what torture, what hardship they would go through, at the end of the day, it was only them and Allah subhanho wa Taala and as we briefly touched on
you have an
appreciation to see how these people have sacrificed their health, their wealth, their time, their families, their children. They've sacrificed these people for the sake of Allah azza wa jal. And so all of these things eventually lead us to appreciating this religion appreciating Islam and appreciating those who have struggled and fight for the religion of Allah azza wa jal. And having said that, brothers and sisters, the source that I have used to compile the life and times of these four memes is a book which is written in Arabic entitled in Mattoon, autobarn by Dr. Ahmed shahbazi, who is a teacher in Egypt at the very most, Allahu Allah, I don't know if he's still alive or not.
However, this is one of the it's a one volume book, I'm not sure if it's available here. This is the source that I've used to compile this information to you. We ask Allah subhanho wa Taala that whatever has been said in the last few weeks of our time together to be something that is beneficial to us and to our families. And that's something that will punish us in the studio or in the earth or May Allah subhanho wa Taala continue to increase us in knowledge and understanding of the most beautiful and perfect way of life, the life of Islam. And these are the words that I leave you with. What asked you to Darwin and in 100 in learning or abila mean