Book Review #06 – Riyad us Saliheen

Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Islam and welcome to another episode of the page turner, I'm your brother Sangeeta amok and for today's episode, I will be discussing the book RIA the soil in the gardens of the righteous, this amazing, famous compilation of Hadith compiled by a boozer Korea Yahia Ibn shut off and now we are Sheffy Imam and now he famously known as Imam nawawi Rahim Allah may Allah subhanho wa Taala shower His mercy upon him. So this book Brothers and Sisters in Islam is a book of Hadith. It is a compilation of different narrations. The compiler, as we said, was Imam and never we. And the reason why I chose

this book for the series, the page turner is Subhan Allah. So just one reason there are many reasons but let's let's start first with the reality of the author himself. Rahim Allah He was someone Subhan Allah that they didn't live such a long life he passed away at the age of 45. Some scholars even say 41 years of age he was he was young, but Allah subhanho wa Taala blessed his pen. And when he

put his mind to a book, and he completed that book, Allah subhanho wa Taala gave it acceptance, he wrote books related to Islamic jurisprudence, with the focus on the sheffey remains have been those books Subhan Allah all became famous, and you will not find a fix seminary across the world, in my estimate, be it a seminary that focuses on the Sheffy metaphor otherwise, except that you will see Subhanallah the books of Imam and never we present and not just present but used as a reference. We have the herbarium and never we Subhanallah, the famous compilation of 40 generations it has slightly more than 40 generations of Imam and never we many people don't know that many scholars put

together a 40 booklet, a book of 14 narrations and they don't know this because every time we talk about the 14 narrations, just one name comes to mind and that is the 14 narrations of Imam and nobody Allah gave this, this compilation so much acceptance that Subhan Allah, it spread across the world and even today Subhan Allah, we find the people busy with this book. So we have here Ria de Sala him, Imam nawawi Rahim Allah, he wrote an introduction to this book, Rio Sala him. And in it he mentions his reasoning for writing this particular book. And when we look at the books of Hadith, and the scholars of Hadith that gathered the you know, the, the collections of Hadith within what

would be their books, we see that they did it for with different styles, different purposes. Some did it for the sake of gathering the books of different narrators in one place, and it's known as, as the Messiah need, or the Muslim. Behind me, you see the Muslim of Imam Ahmed others, they had a different approach. They sort of gathered narrations under titles and chapters, and these chapters spanned the realms of theology, as well as jurisprudence, or

theology meaning Arcada like we have in Sahih al Bukhari, the book of Imam Bukhari, Sahih Muslim the book of Imam Muslim and the Sunon books of Hadith the books that were compiled by material MIDI by Imam,

Buddha would unnecessary Imam unnecessary, and so on and so forth at the books of of Hadith also chose this criteria, whereby they gathered narrations under titles and topics obviously with sahih al Bukhari Sahih Muslim, what makes them more unique is that there was a focus on only gathering narrations at a level of authenticity. And then we have the book the other side here. And in this particular book, Imam nawawi was dealing with what he felt was a gap and in the introduction to his book, he highlights the step. You know, when we look at the guidance of the Sharia, we see that it's all about connecting the creation to the Creator, and we will not create it except to worship Allah.

And then he also highlights this reality, a reality and I'm summarizing it here. Even paraphrasing it here. He mentions this reality of there being two rights, the rights of Allah and the rights of the creation of Allah subhanho wa taala. So he wanted a book that will that will cover those narrations that every Muslim should know, not just the students of knowledge, but the students of knowledge as well as every Muslim as well. And this is slightly different to the books by the other compilers of Hadith for you know, they gathered their books to protect Narrator

And as a result, you find some narrations in these books that they're not palatable if I could say so meaning it's not bad. They're not narrations that could be read in isolation by a person who was not from who was not a student of knowledge or not considered a chef, or someone knowledgeable in the religion. So remember Neville, you wanted to gather a book with narrations that would apply to all Muslims. And he focused here on not just matters of theology, and matters of faith, but also on morals on manners on etiquette. He also focused on matters pertaining to Tess Kia and the purification of the soul, again, narrations that every Muslim should know and on this point, we

spoke about sahih al Bukhari and Sahih Muslim and the Sulan compilations of Hadith. We also spoke about Brothers and Sisters in Islam of the of the Messiah need, we have some scholars who gathered compilations only focusing on Fifth generations like and have been hedger, Imam, and haffi. They've been hedger Rahim Allah, who gathered a book of Hadith known as boo boo her Maura and we have also for example, and have it in Makati see who who gathered a, you know narrations within a book and those narrations focused on

on on fic a hadith and his book was called Allah Kham

Kham and Cobra surah. And then another example is of magically been Tamia, Rahim Allah, who also gathered a book focusing on narrations pertaining to fit for Islamic jurisprudence merged even Taymiyah. His book was called when taka and Buck and here as we said, the other Solihull Imam. And now we wanted a book that would be read by not just the students of knowledge and the masses and Allah subhanho wa Taala has given it so much acceptance Subhanallah you rarely find, you know, a masjid or a home, you know, without a copy of real masala Hain in it. And in fact, it's been translated into multiple languages what I have, is it translated in the English language, this is a

two volume compilation, I'm just sharing with you one of those two volumes. And in this book, Imam nawawi has

separated the book into booklets and chapters. So the book is the other side of him. Within the book we find

booklets right, so the book of visiting the sick, for example, the book of the salam, for example. And then within these booklets he has chapters are what we call a Bab, which is the singular form of the term in the Arabic language or a verb which is the plural

formation of the term in the Arabic language. So he has these chapters. And when we look at the chapters, we see that he's divided his book into 372

chapters, and he's named these chapters except for the first chapter and sometimes he titles you know, a booklet as chapter but he means by chapter as we see in the book of virtues, when he talks about, you know, the virtues of TKF and the virtues of hedge. He titled The titles, the mess Kitab it decaf and Kitab and hedge, but he means by Babb, decaf and Bab el Hadji, referencing it being a chapter and not a booklet but generally, as I said, He separates it into booklets and then within booklets, he places chapters also, what we see here, unlike Sohail Buhari, and the other Sunon books of Hadith and other books of Hadith, he doesn't mention the chain of narrators, why because the book

here is not to preserve narration, these narrations have been preserved in the original sources. This is to be read by the students of knowledge by people of knowledge and by the masses as well. So he only keeps the name of the companion. And also he mentions the grading of the Hadith, because he was a scholar of Hadith as well, mashallah Tabarka Allah and sometimes he just leaves the grading done by another scholar. So for example, if he mentions a narration that we find in Sudan or in the book by Imam a theorem, he the he mentions what Imam a Timothy

mentioned regarding the grade of the Hadith also, from some of the unique aspects of this book, or part of the methodology of the book, it's not unique because we see this with other scholars as well. We see that he takes time to sort of guide people to be able to read certain terminologies correctly, especially if they are rare terminologies and the pronunciation might be difficult or unknown. So he he highlights you know, the the consonants that are that are attached to the pronunciation of the word as well. So this is another benefit which makes it easy to read for the masses. And sometimes he offers some form of explanation, although most of the times he suffice with

the Hadith however, however, in this book, even though it's just a quick

population we see the flick of the Imam and we see the flick of the Imam Subhanallah meaning his understanding and his, you know,

you know how amazing he he was as a scholar in two aspects number one in how he has placed the chapters, there's such synergy Subhanallah in how we find the chapters place that you finish one chapter and go to the next and you see the connectivity to the chapter before it and the chapter after it Subhanallah and this is something that requires a lot of work. And the second aspect Brothers and Sisters in Islam is we find the fit of the imam in how he titled The chapter, right? So for example, he'll say Babel is still a baby kinda cover that chapter denoting something being recommended or the recommendation of doing x y Zed. So here you see from how he titled The chapter,

that he has a view that this matter is recommended. Right so we will learn about the fifth of the Imam here. And last but not least Brothers and Sisters in Islam. We see also ayat from the Quran in the other side of him. So if Imam whenever we is dealing with a topic that has is from the Quran, also related to the topic, he places the ayat and he places them before the Hadith showing us that the Quran is the first source and then the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and how the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam explains the Quran. There's so much to say Brothers and Sisters in Islam, but this is the reason why for me, this book is a page 10