Omer El-Hamdoon – Seeking Knowledge
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AI: Transcript ©
My dear respective brothers and sisters, fear of war as he should be feared, and diagnostics out in the state of Islam.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, in a very lengthy Hadees not very long, but it is considerable.
The summary of this hadith at the end, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
woman, Salah kabbalists gelten, the Sufi, Imam sallallahu. Me,
whoever walks
on a path, and in fact walks is not the right translation, because the word Celica
is not like the word machine, we're not talking about just walking on a path is somebody who takes up the route. So somebody who plans the journey, black plans to take a path
and walks and strives on that path. Seeking with that path,
knowledge, then Allah will make for him
easy, the path to agenda.
This is a very small statement. But you can already see that the wording of this statement is very big and very magnificent.
The usual translation that I've just told you is not very accurate when we say that whoever walks because the prophet SAW Salem is not saying that you just walk on a path. But it is more about a planned journey going on this journey, which is not
attaining knowledge. It's not gaining the knowledge, it's not the process, I'm not saying you're going on a journey, the end of the journey will be that you will become an alum or a scholar or an academic or with a PhD or is not talking about the end result. He's talking about yelton issue, fee, or even just almost like trying to attain to touch to search for an ailment and some knowledge, not la
not the absolute knowledge because you will never attain that will now ot terminally ill about gaining some knowledge.
And here the word aim as well is is not an definitive word.
The Arabic even in English, we have definitive nouns and non definitive and this one is not definitive. And the non definitiveness of this word, meaning it is a natural in the Arabic language, give gives it and gives the application of it being a wide, it's something that's not restricted,
meaning any knowledge,
seeking any knowledge or
attaining any knowledge that a law will give him and reward him
with that intention. Without walking on that path he will give him and make it easy for him, I'll pass off to a gentleman.
without going into too much detail what that means, there I have given different different different opinions about what that means either that this act itself is worthy of agenda or that this act will enable somebody to have better understanding, and therefore that better understanding will give him better practice which will lead to agenda or it will have better application and that application will affect other people and so therefore give him agenda because one of the things that person can leave behind is 81 your
knowledge which people can benefit from.
So my dear respected brothers and sisters, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam encouraged us
as humans to walk on the path of knowledge
and to have an attitude of knowledge.
Because in this life, as Abdullah Massoud said,
he said could alleman, omo demon be either someone who's Island somebody who has knowledge
or someone who is new to him and someone who is learning.
Well.
Don't be the third one.
Don't be outside this either have the knowledge or work to attain the knowledge but don't be the third, which is mean somebody who doesn't have any knowledge or is not
even bothering to learn about knowledge. So you are ignorant. But not only are you ignorant, you are happy to be ignorant because you're not doing anything to change your state.
And ever since the prophets I seldom instructed people to learn
Alhamdulillah, the vast
white
population of Islam, the Muslims walked on this path. And they learned Islam. They never accepted themselves to be
non educated.
They knew that there was an important for learning, it was important for knowledge, important for understanding.
And so you'll find right from the beginning, people were giving their time and their effort to learn.
And learn as a general words,
is not just about learning, Islam, although learning Islam is one of the highest levels, but it's about learning and having that education.
And you will see that through the, especially the early centuries, the early generations of Muslims, they exerted their efforts to learn.
And that's why
people not only wanted to learn, but they made effort to learn the tools as well.
They understood that to access the Quran, they needed to learn Arabic, and indeed, to understand the words of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So they learn the Arabic and the vast majority of the scholars of the Muslim world today. And some of the big names that you are you and I know, were non Arabs.
They were people who have were not from an Arab lineage.
Do they extend that once one of the
early on, I think it was zuri. Or he was at the presence of the halifa.
And the Khalifa asked him
who is who is the master of the knowledge of the people of
Egypt. And so he didn't
recall the names, where you mentioned to one of the names he said, Is this guy an Arab? Or is he a non Arab? Arab? He said, What about in a sham segment to name again? Non Arab? What's about in, in Persia, non Arab? What about in
Kufa, non Arab? What about even Mecca and Medina, the old non Arabs, what when he mentioned and Basra he mentioned to him? One of them who was Ibrahim? And he said to him, he's an Arab. He said,
all these non Arabs have become knowledge. So azuri said to him, yeah, Amira, momineen, this matter.
This matter, is all centered about knowledge. Whoever attains the knowledge, he will become the master.
In the huddle,
or in another team or in
a man tyla said, Whoever gets that knowledge you become the man doesn't matter what their lineage are, whether they're Arabs or not, is irrelevant. It's whether you walk and understand and take the knowledge. So the masters of herbal knowledge, they understood that learning was important for them. And they didn't learn to become masters. They learned it because they use an obligation from Allah subhana wa.
And even one of the strange things is what even the one who is the master considered the authority in Arabic language for many centuries. See, by way, who wrote his famous book called Al Kitab, the book, which outlines the grammar, the grammar and the morphology of the language and how it is derived. He also wasn't an Arab, he was Persian. But he only became like that.
His language wasn't very good. And he was trying to turn so once his teacher said, What's this Arabic you?
Don't understand you? So he thought he that was a motivation for him to go and learn. And he learned and he learned and he had to be the end he became the master. He's considered an authority in Arabic, even though initially he didn't have the language.
So never was this matter of I don't speak Arabic.
I go No, I don't have this well never was an obstacle for people People always sought to learn. And they never made that excuse.
And because people learn the Arabic as well, I mean, the Arabic arion principle is only a small area, but because people learned Arabic, and they knew the importance, the Arabic language became vast, and spread throughout the world, to the extent that people in in the West at that time, they thought, a pinnacle of civilization for a person to understand and read and communicate in Arabic.
Like today, today, people say to you, if you want to be civilized, you have to, you know, you want to be anywhere in the world, you need to speak English. You know, even lots of European countries today they have speak English is important language is a world world language. At that time, Arabic was that language, because all the sciences within the scientists and the people who contributed were part of that language. Secondly,
the people not only understood the importance of the language, but they were ready to sacrifice to learn.
They were able to sacrifice their time, their comforts, their money to learn Islam.
And all you have to do is just open the books, the biographies of the people before and you will see how much they spent of time and effort to learn Islam.
some occasions they would travel for months, months just to go and hear
some ideas or if they knew that there was a scholar at some time, they would go and learn from that scholar understand, try to understand the knowledge.
You know, and that's why they even some of the remark they made, they made that one of the conditions of learning was you have to be prepared to travel.
So most of the amount of the past traveled, except Mr. Maliki didn't travel, because you're not ready. And even when his contemporaries tried to make that an issue, they said you're you didn't travel you only stayed in Medina. He said, Well, I don't need to travel because I have the the fuqaha of Medina are all here. Why do I need to travel. But apart from that everybody traveled and they learned and they went look at the journey of the mama Shafi
from Makkah to Yemen, back to Makkah, back to Medina, then to Iraq. And then from Iraq went to Egypt, he all the all these places to learn, and to understand and then to, to give that authority.
And again, time is short, but I could have mentioned too many of stories of the people pass by or just mentioned one.
And that was the story of one of the person who was called shorter by had judge sure about was considered also amuro more meaningful. He was one of the authorities in hiding.
And one occasion he heard that somebody was narrating a hadith.
And he was based in
Basra, he wanted to go and listen to that person Hadees in a Kufa, which isn't far away the two cities in Iraq, not far away but still traveling. So he went to him in Kufa to go and listen to this haggis with a shorter chain and I mentioned to you about this in a previous katima. When you reached Kufa, he found that the person who narrates the heartbeat had gone to Hajj.
So he says a sham I said, I said I'm going to go and follow Him to Hajj, obviously walking. And he said I went to Hajj and my intention wasn't to do hygiene. And my intention was just to go and get this person. So I can hear that when he went there arrived. He didn't have he started to look for this guy. Obviously, when they asked about it, they said this guy's gone, he's gone back to Cooper. So then he followed him back all the way to Kufa to just listen to one ad from him.
And when he found him, he asked him about the Hadees that he narrates. And that guy who said to him, you know sure about this, the quality of this hadith isn't to your standard, because you knew that Shabbos looking for a very high standard of Hadees you know, that had to be authentic. He said this, this quality of hiding this into your standard. So Chava was very upset. He said somehow life this Hadees was sound, it would be more beloved to me than all of my, all of the all of my family and my relatives, because the distance he traveled just to listen to one and the examples Amen. So learning, needs efforts needs time, needs us to go out of our way.
But part of the calamity of times.
Part of the tragedy of times
is that
Sometimes you our knowledge is our fingertips. It's our doorsteps
and we can't be bothered to go and even make the car journey to go and learn or even walk.
We've become so many we feel so rich that we don't need to go learn and study without time before they traveled months on end and sometimes in some occasions they had no food and no water.
And they had to conserve and they suffered just to learn. Today we have the the lessons and classes and courses around us.
But people not don't feel that the necessity to learn.
And this brings us on to a very, very important subject because these people who preserve for us our Deen there were people who studied and learned and they gathered but there is a part of the deen which will not qualify you will not qualify you without you making that personal effort to learn
because not all the deen
you can just go and ask a scholar. There are aspects of your deen which you need to know you cannot be excused in front of Allah subhanaw taala
These include aspects of your deen which you need to do to perform your daily
your daily a bother
if you pray
if you do Salah without proper bahara
your Salah is your Salah is invalid the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in Allahu Allah Yakubu Salah can be Lyrica who Allah does not accept the Salah without purification.
So if you're not purifying yourself properly
if you're not doing your booboo correctly the other day we were an activity that we organized the paintballing activity and one of the children or the child is making moves but he wasn't when he was make Google he was just wiping his hand washing his hands he didn't wash the elbows just up to here like this.
That's not That's incorrect. It is incomplete. And if you don't complete
how this child I don't know how old he was but maybe 1415 years old so maybe a few years in puberty if he's been doing all this for the last two three years brain like this
and his father maybe has not sat down and taught him and made sure he's doing correctly
know what what makes how to make mobile you don't know what breaks you don't know how to clean yourself from the toilet and how to prevent some of our children today don't know that for example drops of urine they are images but not only are they notice but they will notify you they will meet your Salah is not correct because if you pray in in a pose which has an adjuster is incorrect. They might not give attention to that and indeed not just the prayer but even the prophesize lm said that zoom in about five
minutes you should protect and you clean yourself from the urine because the majority of the those who punished in the greatest because of urine
or the other day I mean while back when I was praying with one of the again praying in the Salah and there was a boy again he's probably about 1415 year old and he during the salah
and I wouldn't be exaggerating when I say this he was doing everything but Salah
he was praying with his fingers like this and then he was touching
his socks and everything except solid
and and I wanted to if it wasn't it was right for me to do something so that
you can't
remember once I was in Saudi Arabia as well they have this thing that
I was watching him and he was he was doing his hedge hedge console is doing this and then holding it there and putting his gun on everything like that and then he went like this and then he said a lot of like what went into
the all of this while he's standing.
Now that breaks the Salah. Now do you know that this breaks are solid you know what constitutes what nullifies masala This is for wine This is not something that you can be excused for. Because you need to know this knowledge and you have no excuse.
That's why the prophet SAW people washing their feet but not washing they use that argument enough.
Whoa to the heels from the fire by watching them go to the heels from the fire and the man who entered and he prays and then
He came and said set out to the province of Milan and said in the process
you thought you pray but you didn't pray. So he went back he prayed again came back
go back pray again because you can pray
so sometimes we think we are praying but we're not praying and there's a climate if you don't know what what constitutes the prayer, we don't know our can and the pillars and and what is important in the prayer. So my dear respective brothers and sisters, this is just two examples. There's many other examples which are necessity for versatile
and it's a sensitive for you as an adult to learn and to teach your family and children as well. Because you are responsible
every one of you is responsible, every one of you is a shepherd, every one of you is responsible for their flock
law
Law Reform are slightly leaning on him. So,
please, can you just close the gaps in between you so you can make more space for people outside
webs outside so, close the gaps?
Close enough
space
I think we managed to squeeze in one person this whole
time get some more people.
Now, when it comes to learning
for the past,
I mean the persons they prescribed a very important system of learning.
And that is what is known as learning
according to a school, understanding the deen according to a school
and hamdulillah Allah should not have accepted that there are four schools of thought in jurisprudence in
this the Hanafi. Shafi, Maliki and Hammond. And this has become a wide well, widespread consensus amongst the Omen, that these are considered the schools which have preserved the opinions of the Sahaba. So all the pieces have are contained within these within these.
And they encourage people to study
according to one method,
not for the sake of tribalism, or prejudice or anything like that, but to allow you to focus your study and to learn, because I mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago that
they differed, and they had differences of opinion, and their differences of opinion. were based on many things. I'm not going to repeat that hotpot, because go back and you can listen to that.
But there are differences of opinion was based on the fact that because they had studied, and I explained that last time, they had learned different aspects of how the Dinos practice. So it's important that if you don't have the necessary tools, if you're not somebody who has studied a high level, you will not have the ability to differentiate between the different different aspects of how to apply the knowledge of
and that's why following a method in terms of your learning is an important state in focusing your learning.
Because if you don't you will be confused. And let me give you an example.
When we look at the impurity of the dog, the impurity of the dog
now, the impurity of the dog is something which affects you in the deen because,
again, it affects the Salah affects you and adjust etc. There's a lot that can which are related to this.
Now between them as we have three opinions.
We have the opinion, which goes from saying that the dog is completely impure totally nudges the opinion of a Shafi
And then you have the opinion of that. Now, it says the only the tongue of the dog is impure,
and the saliva and the moisture that comes.
And then you have the opinion of the molokhia, who says that the dog is a pure
is not impure knowledge is the dog
Hadees, which says, you know, Hadees, which says by the dog the licks in the bowl, and you have to wash it seven times. Yes, I know that is headed by Mr. Malik actually knows this hadith before you were born. And before another 1200 years of history, he knows that. But he has other evidences,
which, through those evidences, and through understanding their philosophy has reached the conclusion that the dog is a pure.
And so I don't want to leave you confused, but just to say that there is a sometimes within the text of Islam. So we have that Hadith, which says that if the dog licks into a bowl, then you have to wash it seven times, one of one of which should be with Earth. So the Hanafi said, Well, this is just talking about the levy. So therefore only this Elijah
was the sheriff sale, well, actually, because the dog, we cannot divide the dog, we can't say the dog, we the whole, we have to treat the whole animal as one whole. So therefore, the animal is all impure. And there's a hadith where the Prophet said nahan semones, the prophet forbade the cost or the price of a dog, which means that the whole dog cannot be sold, and therefore the price of the dog is not accepted. Therefore it is niches and then you have the money to say well hang on a minute, Allah allows us to use dogs for hunting. So if dogs can be used as tools for hunting, then how can they be, because we're going to hunt and we're going to eat the food that they catch for us.
And in addition to that, the goal is is to enter the Messiah, the Ministry of the prophets of Allah sent a hadith narrated by Mr. Buhari, candidate Killa, butare to
enter. And if it was magic, then the Prophet wouldn't have lots of spectrum. So for someone just to say, No, I will just follow the hygienic and follow
this example where if you look at all the evidence, you're gonna be confused, because you don't know whether to treat the dog is pure or impure, or pure.
And that's why, and that's just one example. If I wanted to give you all the examples within the Fitbit, like what breaks the horrible differences of opinion, or breaks over the 195, what is
what are the things you can do, what you can't do, what you don't have, and so on. So this is the key of learning according to the method allows you to focus your knowledge. And so that you appreciate a way of practice. But then you appreciate that there are other ways of practicing as well, which is why I spoke about. And that's why it's important for us to study, to learn. And to follow that path of learning so that our Dean is correct, our practice is correct, or we're not doing something which we think might be right. But is in fact wrong. And not just a you will not be excused by us. Because as long as you have the faculties to learn that you have to learn and you
have to study, you will not be too happy to hear we're trying to make it easy for you. And that's why we organize tomorrow, a whole day intensive thing which summarizes to you the whole thing of purification, all that you need to know about purification bajada in one day, in a few hours. You don't have to go to muscle or muscle to learn this is just here in
this download. Okay? Now, this is a journey of a few few minutes or so. And that is something that you can learn you can study. It's not for children, because we only have adults, you can come and learn and teach your children to your wife, if your wife doesn't want to come or whatever, you have the opportunity to learn. And if you want to come to that cause you have to register because space is limited. So one side
and this is not the only cause there are other forces. opportunities as you passes
are organized to us every Sunday, from six to seven, four days, from the young boys from your men from 11 to 18, so that they can learn also similar issues related to their art in their practice.
So you don't become at least of us responsible as your local industry. We are doing what we can do responsibility