Omer El-Hamdoon – Stories from the Past #06 An Elephant in al Madinah

			Leaving
		

			in 2009, I had this
		

			intention of going to study in Mauritania, the time you know, even now what attend is a great great
place for learning and people learn how likely the traditional methods and it's a great way of, of
attaining knowledge so the intention was to go to my Tanya stay there for a few years learn and then
come back. Unfortunately, my dad was not really happy with me going to want to tell me and he vetoed
my decision. He said, No, you're not going there is not a best place to go in terms of
		

			safety, security. You want to take your family young daughter, so he said no. So I said, Okay, well,
what's the next best thing Where else can I go? Can I go to Morocco? Yeah, okay, you can go to
Morocco if you want. So I went to Morocco
		

			with the intention of finding somewhere to learn and study mashallah, there's there's great
knowledge to be found in Morocco.
		

			However, at the time I went, which was August, it seemed like the people on holiday say asking you
about the shoe where the shoe where the islands is, it's August, it's the summer break.
		

			Biomet share there. And with my with my friend who's happened to be there as well, my Moroccan
friend.
		

			And we said
		

			that we talked to him about him and Bernie, and he even him, he wasn't, I mean, he was an academic
he was it was also a chef on my Fiala chef, be out his name. And he didn't have time to teach me
either. So he was saying to
		

			to my friend walkaways Why don't you take you know take Omar show him the site you know, it's come
to work we're gonna show him all the heritage all the sites and etc. So my friend said you know,
Omar hasn't didn't come for the city to go see to do the sightseeing and all that. And on this case
in the chef he said you know, that reminds me of a story narration
		

			Imam Malik was was a very was a very great teacher and a great Hadith scholar also known as me Romeo
for Hadith and people used to go to Medina to learn from him and in fact one of the things that was
was known for Mr. Malik, who was born in the year 93 Hijiri. is uh, he never left Medina you know,
the usual thing was to go out and study and go to different cities and go meet with a score
scholars, but he never left me the unknown he was asked why didn't you leave Medina to go and study
he said, because all the knowledge is here, you know, all the higher order limit and this is the the
heritage of the prophesy Selim and the Sahaba and their families Why should I leave
		

			Medina to go and look for knowledge elsewhere? So anyway, people used to come to Imam Malik and one
of the people who came was a guy called you're here, even we are here at least.
		

			He came from an endless and he was sitting came to learn and study with him. On my one occasion,
everybody was sitting in this the chef's
		

			classes you imagine Imam Malik had you know, not 10s but hundreds of people sitting in his classes
in the masjid of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
		

			And
		

			then what happened is somebody entered the masjid and said,
		

			this, there's an elephant. An elephant is here, Medina somebody's one. Now, we will never seen an
elephant, if you like, you know, wasn't native to that place. It's almost like you know, like a
feature COVID Or like the circus coming to Medina. To everybody rushed out left this the school of
Imam Malik
		

			this class of Imam Malik to go and see this elephant was you know, they heard the elephant obviously
read the elephant. This is whole Surah called that field. But now to see an elephant real life this
is something indeed worth sneaks. Everybody left. Even radicals left, puzzled,
		

			left to go and see but you're here even we're here later. He didn't leave. He stayed put.
		

			He said What's wrong with you? Why don't you go and join everybody else go see the elephant. He said
You know, I didn't come all the way from Andalus to see that. I came to see you. Malik Imam Malik.
And I came to learn from you and learn from your sooner the sooner you haven't read 100 prophets
Allah Allahu alayhi wa sallam he said you know what? You are happy to add in Andreas you are the
most intelligent or rational amongst the people on the landless.
		

			And it shows you Subhanallah that yes, it is. It is it is a music story.
		

			Which obviously has that personal connection because as I remember it as well, but what what was
written for me
		

			You're here which is great. Most of the narrations of Imam Malik MATA is taken from this man. Yeah,
here we are here even though he's considered amongst his younger or junior students if you like, but
the narrations of the malapa is taken via here and we're here at Lithia and his son who transmitted
this narration is almost like a reward from Allah Subhana Allah for his dedication. In this regard.
Yeah, elephant is important. Let's see the elephant. Let's see, you know, people go to the zoo.
Nowadays, we will go on safari, they want to see the animals in the wildlife. But there are
priorities. If you're sitting in a lesson and in the study circle, the priority is to learn the
		

			priority is the focus and definitely our respect for your share. You shouldn't just get up and leave
without the chef's permission. Thank you for listening. Sorry.