Yasir Qadhi – In Remembrance Of Shaykh Abdul Majeed Al-Zindani
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Today, the Ummah buried
one of the most prominent global scholars of
our time. And so, today's Khatr will be
dedicated to him a brief biography
of that Sheikh and Alem. And even though
I'm sure some of you might not have
heard of him because obviously he was in
Arab lands,
I guarantee you that almost all of you,
99% of you have benefited from his works
directly or indirectly.
And
the sheikh I'm speaking about is none other
than
who passed away today and was buried,
Sheikh Abdul Majeed al Zandani.
Sheikh, Abdul Majeed al Zandani, I'm giving a
biography of him even though it was not
my fortune to meet him. I wasn't able
to meet him, he was a scholar from
Yemen,
but
I have
admired and respected and loved the shaykh without
having met him, wallahi, for over 40 years
of my life. Even before going to my
Islamic studies,
when I was growing up as a teenager
and reading his books, one of the first
books that I read as
a teenager here in this land was translations
of Sheikh as Zadani Bo, as I'm gonna
come to. And it was not my honor
to ever meet and interact with him, so
my biography is gonna be as that of
an outsider. He's not somebody that I was
able to interact with, and yet his impact
is global, and I think that there's much
to benefit in in his biography.
He is of course from Yemen, and before
I talk about his biography,
I must
bless and ask Allah to bless the people
of Yemen. Not because I said so, but
because
our Prophet
alaihi wasallam prays to the people of Yemen.
And he prays them in such a powerful
manner that
it makes me positively jealous. I wish I
was a part of that peoples and places,
halal to be positively jealous. Our Prophet salallahu
alaihi wasallam said, hadith is in bukhari.
Allahumma bariklana
fee shamina wafi yamanina.
Oh Allah bless us in our sham
and our Yemen.
And he said this, when neither Sham nor
Yemen were a part of the Ummah, were
a part of the Islamic empire, were actually
had converted, Yet, he said, these are our
core. Sham is ours. Yemen is ours. Allahum
abadiklana fee shamina wa fee yamanina. And our
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
once a group came to him from, Yemen.
He said, The
people of Yemen have come to you.
They have the softest of hearts. The adidas
says in Bukhari, they have the softest of
hearts. Their akhlaq are the best akhlaq. They're
the most humble people. And I know the
people of Yemen themselves, amongst themselves, they have
their issues, that's between them. Us outsiders,
how is our interaction with them? We all
know them to be
the most humble, the most kind, the most
always smiling and whatnot. This is from a
prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam. They have the softest
of hearts. And then he said, al imanu
yamanin
walhikmatu
yamaniyya.
Iman is Yemeni,
and wisdom is from Yemen. Iman will always
be in the people of Yemen, and wisdom,
yani, scholarship will be from the people of
Yemen. So our prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam
said, scholarship will be from the people of
Yemen. And
since the beginning of Islam, some of our
greatest ulama have been from Yemen. And we
hope insha'Allah, the Adam that passed away today
is also included in that hadith of our
prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam telling us that
Yemen is gonna produce many hakeems, many wise,
scholars. And, of course, the people of Yemen,
they played a vital role, especially in early
Islam. In all of the conquest, there was
always I don't know if you know this
or not. If you read Islamic history, they
would divide the armies based upon tribes and
ethnicities.
So because it will help them cooperate together.
So you had this group, have one tribe,
this group, another tribe, always the people of
Yemen
were at the forefront
of every single major battle. In Qadisiyyah,
in Yarmouk,
in the Fata, the conquest of, Andalus, there
was the army of Yemen. So the people
of Yemen were actually at the forefront
of all of these great military
conquests as well. And so we hope, insha
Allah, all of those blessings, they are also
demonstrated in our scholar of today, walanuzzakhi
aallahi ahadah.
Sheikh Abdul Majeed is Zandani, he was born
in 1942
in Yemen. 1942 in Yemen. So he passed
away at the age of 80 2, 83,
Gregorian years. And
what is amazing about this person
is that he combined between
so many different
disciplines and fields. He was a politician,
and he gave up politics. He was a
'alim. He was an academic and a deen.
He also participated in Afghanistan,
which makes him, you know, what it makes
him. And all of these, it's combined in
that one person that throughout his life, he
was also known throughout his life for being
very ascetic, very humble, never living in grandiose
palaces, always the most humble person. He was
known to be an abid and a zahid,
like you rarely get all of this combination.
He began to study in the sciences, I
believe it was, if not engineering, maybe it
was,
maybe pharmaceutics or something. He began studying the
sciences in Egypt back in the sixties under
Nasser, but he was always an Islamic activist.
So under that time frame, he was jailed,
he was thrown in jail in Egypt, and
then he was banned from Egypt. So he
decided to change the course of his career
from medicine or or or something into Islamic
studies. So from that time forth, he started
studying Islam, and he traveled on his own
to other various lands. He traveled to Arabia,
Saudi Arabia. He went to other lands. And
then when he came back, at that time
frame, very few people were educated to that
level, and so the government gave him a
position. And he continued to rise
until he became,
the the the second in command of the
minister. So he's the vice minister. He's literally
going to now become the minister. This is
back in the, seventies or so. He was
very popular in his political party, and he
decided to resign
and start teaching and preaching full time. He
gave up a career in politics. They say
he was on his way to become, if
not the prime minister, if not the president,
then within that in inner circle. And he
gave up politics, which is so rare. At
the prime, he was in his forties. He
gave all of that up. Why? His dream,
his vision was to teach Islam. So what
did he do? Single handedly, without any government
support, he founded one of the most interesting
amazing universities
of Islamic studies in the whole world, in
San'a in Yemen, Jama'atul
Iman it is called. And I was hearing
about this university even when I was in
Madinah, and we would meet students who would
come for umrah. We would meet them, and
we would be impressed and surprised at their
curriculum.
It is said that he devised one of
the best curriculums in the whole world. It
was a 10 year program.
There was no bachelor's, master's, PhD, just one.
You study 10 years. And single handedly, without
any government support, he opened up a massive
institute and university with free tuition,
free room and board for any student from
anywhere in the world. This is just mind
boggling. And as you know, Yemen is not
a wealthy country. Yemen is not, you know,
a country, yet, subhanallah, Allah blessed him to
do this.
5,000 students will study at any one time.
This is a massive university,
and free of charge. And he's teaching students
from every single country. And along with this,
even though he resigned from the government position,
he never resigned from political engagement. He was
always involved influencing
the politicians, wanting his country to be better.
So he had a lot of positions that
made him popular,
unpopular along the way. And,
one of the things that
he was known for, as I said, was
his humility and his ibadah.
Everybody who knew him, knew him to be
a worshipper of Allah. He would constantly cry
in his salah, he would pray tahajjud every
night. Today, I called up one of his
main students in America, one of our Yemeni
masha'if, he studied with him, he graduated from
that university, I called him up to give
him my condolences, and I said, Tell me,
what do you know about the sheikh? He
goes, Wallahi, I'm telling you privately, so you
don't know the sheikh's name, so that's why
it's private. It's still private. I asked permission
without his name. I'm telling you privately I
accompanied him in his journeys and his tours
for years,
and I saw him always
crying in salah. I saw him when I
would go to sleep in the room, he
would stand up and pray tahajjud. He would
pray tahajjud thinking I'm asleep, and he would
be praying tahajjud and crying to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. That level of scholarship,
and of being a politician, giving it up,
and of teaching and preaching, and of constantly
worshiping Allah, this is something that we hear
about in the books of the past, and
it's rare to find in our times. And
he had, as well as this, a well
known, humility, humbleness, like he was never arrogant,
he was always down to earth, Anybody would
come and teach and preach to him. But
I want to,
I want to emphasize 2 things.
The first of them,
why did I say every one of you
in this audience
is indirectly,
if not directly affected by Him? Because
he single handedly
carved out
and globally
popularized
an entire
strand of knowledge
that was hitherto
almost
unknown, untouched, undiscovered.
Single handedly, from the late seventies,
eighties, nineties, 30 years, single handedly,
his name is associated
with the whole aspect of scientific miracles of
the Quran and sunnah.
You know all of you have heard lectures,
right? The scientific miracles of the Quran. You
grew up. I grew up. This is my
first exposure to him. I told you I
read him as a teenager. This is my
first exposure to him. His name
became associated
with sponsoring
conferences,
bringing top notch non Muslim researchers who would
compare and contrast the Quran, the hadith with
modern science. All of these khuttab and duroos
around the world that you guys are accustomed
to, we can honestly say, he's the one
who was began the first domino. He's the
one who started all of this, and it
just trickled down and became a global. He
would sponsor conferences across the globe, in Jeddah,
in Yemen, in across the places, and he
would bring many scientists, Muslim and non Muslim,
to discuss those aspects of the miraculous nature
of the Quran. And perhaps the most famous
product of that, one of the most famous
embryologists of the eighties nineties, Keith Moore. He
was he attended that conference, and Sheikh
Zandani
suggested to him to co write a book
together, because he spoke English. He understood English,
Sheikh Zandani. And so Keith Moore and Sheikh
Zandani
coauthored a book that some of you might
have seen, Embryology in the Quran.
That's his name is on that book, Embryology
in the Quran. And Keith Moore, at the
time, was one of the world's leading embryologists.
And he said, I have never seen any
book, you know, from, from the past, like
the Quran, that is so vivid in its
description of the human embryo. And he goes,
I don't know how to explain this. We
don't know whether Keith embraced Islam or not,
but he coauthored the book with with, Sheikh
Zandani, and it is still available online. Now,
again, for the record, some people said that
perhaps he's reading in too many miracles, and
that's a criticism to be given. But the
point is, he began the project. And, you
know, you can agree or disagree about every
single ayah, was it actually,
you know, in its place or not, but
that's fine. The point is he began and
he popularized. And that's why I said, everyone
amongst you, even if you haven't heard of
his name, you have been impacted by his
thought. He has
Ummah in a way that hardly any scholar
has in our times. And when he saw
atheism
began in Yemen, Yemen had no atheists. There's
beginning to have atheist associations.
He wrote one of his most famous books.
It is still available in Arabic and English,
Kitabul Iman, the book of Iman. And in
it, he defended belief in Allah in a
way that was meant to appeal to the
modern minds, to appeal to the modern scientists.
And he wrote a book that is one
of the most popular books, of his in
the Arabic language. It is available in English
as well, the book of of Iman. So
this is the first point, is that, subhanAllah,
he really did an amazing thing in this
regard. The second point that I really admired
about him, and this was something I admired
since I began to know of him and
hear of him, and that is that without
a doubt, he was an independent
thinker.
He did not follow
any one particular group or strand. Even though,
you know, he was associated with, let's say,
the brotherhood, he studied with many of the
Salafi scholars, but in the end of the
day, he wanted to benefit the global ummah,
and he didn't just stick with 1 group,
or 1 jama'a, or one strand. Because, you
know, if you look at the ulama, and
this is I'm being factual, I'm not being,
I'm just telling you how it is. Most
ulama,
they stick with the group they studied with,
which is fine, no problem. Most ulama, the
institute they study with, they will just replicate
those views, and preach those views, and that's
good, and they're gonna benefit the people.
Some ulama, they
break away, and they become
global. They want to benefit the ummah. And
so because of this, I wanna bring this
point up. I was in Madinah at this
time, and because at the time, Sheikh Abdul,
Sheikh Zandani was at his prime, as the
president of the university, the professor
being involved in politics, advising politicians,
constantly,
whatever he would do, some people would praise,
some people would criticize.
Constantly,
this is the reality. And you know, subhanAllah,
you get caught up like, what do you
believe? Well, this guy is liking him, this
guy is not liking him. But you realize
as you grow older, that
when a person wants to unite and bring
about benefit for the broader society, not just
any one strand, then that person will be
attacked, that person will be criticized. Because when
you break away from your jama'ah, you no
longer have a base, you no longer have
one group. And so, whoever attacks you, you're
an individual, because now you don't Had he
been subscribing to one group, then he has,
you know, allies. But he's he's not interested
in that. He wants to benefit the ummah,
and so that's exactly what he did. At
times, members of the brotherhood would attack him,
at times, the Salafi group, at times, this
and that, but he did not care. His
goal was to benefit the ummah. And now
that he's gone, subhanAllah,
all the criticism is gone and the good
remains. Now that he's gone, all of this
back and forth that happened in his lifetime,
everybody has forgotten, and everybody recognizes
what an asset he was to the ummah.
And I know one thing as well, and
I confirm with the person I spoke with
today as well, that despite all of the
criticisms people would give him, he would never
stoop and go criticize them back. In fact,
the person I spoke with today gave me
another benefit. He said wherever the Sheikh went,
wherever the Sheikh went, he would always have
a private non public gathering
with members of other groups who would criticize
him.
He would invite them, and just have a
gathering of brotherhood,
Islamic brotherhood, which would usually solve the problem,
or at least, you know, lower the criticism
about that. The level of humility to be
invited as the Sheikh of the city, and
he's the one who says, no, 2 hours
before, I wanna meet so on, so on,
so on, so on. And he would invite
people from people outside of his entourage, outside
of his group, and he would ask them,
get to know them, find out what's happening.
Once upon a time, he would visit America
as well in the eighties, but then
as you know, our country bans everybody they
don't understand or like, and so he also
became eventually banned as well, but he would
come here regularly in the eighties. And so
his humility
at interacting with all people and hearing their
side and never,
and minds. It is this type of level
of scholarship and of ibadah and of sincerity
that truly it is mark of an 'alim.
And now that he has gone, now that
he's passed on, SubhanAllah,
all of the critics
are gone. But his positive and his work,
we now recognize
what a revolutionary
thinker he was. And he was, as I
said, involved in multiple fronts. Unfortunately, because of
the,
civil war in in Yemen, you know, the
other group that came
and attacked, they wanted to assassinate him. You
know, the other group that is now in
charge of that place. And so they literally
targeted his house. This is, I think, 2
years ago. They targeted his house. Allah saved
him. Before the attack, he managed to flee,
and so he fled to,
the northern the southern borders of Saudi Arabia.
And then from there, he fled for his
life to Turkey, Turkiye, where he died because
the country now is in civil war there.
So he passed away in Istanbul, and he
is buried over there. May Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala have mercy on him, grant him firdosida'ala.
And I wanna make one final plea. And
I'm being blunt because I want us to
grow as an ummah. Please excuse me if
this offends anybody, but I want us to
grow and benefit.
All Muslims,
understand
that
the religion of Islam
is broader than one strand, and one maslak,
and one madhab, and one firqa. And my
humble,
sincere
advice to all of you is to listen
to ulama outside of the strand you happen
to like.
Just listen.
Because
you will be surprised
that actually there's a lot to benefit.
Actually, there's you will I'm talking about mainstream.
I'm not talking about fringe.
Every mainstream
stream movement
within Ahlus Sunnah,
every main stream jama'ah,
it has people of iman, and taqwa, and
ilm. And they will benefit you to think
in ways you did not think before. And
a person like Sheikh Zandani is an example
of this, that in fact, you cannot classify
him as this or that. He had independent
opinions, And in the end of the day,
he left a legacy that truly is global.
That is the type of scholarship I personally
admire the most. And my sincere advice to
all of you, don't just stick with the
same type of people that's in your bubble.
Don't just stick with the same because then
your mind will just become exact same. Be
brave enough
to go listen to ulama. I'm talking about
ulama, who have massive followings in mainstream ahlul
sunnah. It's not you're not gonna die. You're
not gonna have a heart attack. Believe me.
It's gonna be okay. And you will be
surprised that, wow, okay, this guy is making
sense, and wow, I'm actually benefiting. And in
that benefit, you will gain in knowledge,
you will gain in iman, you will gain
in tolerance, and you will realize the ummah
as Allah has promised is an ummah that
is marhuma,
an ummah that has rahma in it. And
the ummah of the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam is way bigger than my and your
one small jama'a.
There is good in all people. This is
my sincere advice, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
knows best and will continue next week. Jazakumullahqir,
Assalamu Alaikum