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In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to God, the Lord of the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers.
Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace and blessings upon him and his family.
And after all this, in response to a question I was asked by one of my very dear friends who is doing his 6-year Alimut course in Madrasa.
And his question was, he said, I have difficulty remembering technical terms, shuraiz, tala’ats, and I have difficulty remembering masail,
and being able to quote them, babatim, quote them extempore, and so on.
And I feel bad because after studying all these years, I still can’t get myself,
I can’t remember these things.
Now it’s of course absolutely understandable, especially with the shuraiz, tala’at,
because the words, the names are in Arabic.
Arabic is not his.
Another point, he has not learnt Arabic itself.
So just a matter of, you know, memorizing that or mugging it up, something.
So my advice to him and myself and anyone else interested.
First and foremost,
look at the Quran.
Look at and examine your niyyah.
Why are you studying this course?
Why have you taken the time and the trouble?
May Allah bless you and put barakah in this and make it easy for you.
Why have you taken the time and the trouble to enroll in a full-time course in Islam, an Alimut course?
Why?
First ask that question.
And if the answer is that I want to become an Alim,
I want to be somebody who will be addressed as Maulana.
Then make istighfa or make tawbah.
And do not go to the next class until your heart is free from this aib,
from this very big sickness.
Continuously make tawbah, right?
It means if you go to the next class,
continuously make tawbah.
Because this is the worst reason to study Islam.
And I’m not saying this by myself.
This is the hadith from Rasulullah ,
where I think if I’m not mistaken, it is Abdullah ibn Mas’ud who quoted this.
And he said that the Prophet said,
do not study Islam for three reasons.
Do not study for three reasons.
One is to argue with the fukaha,
is to argue with the scholars,
is to argue with the jurists.
And the second one,
reason why you should not learn Islam,
is to look good before the sufahaar,
to look good before the fools,
which includes all of us.
People who have little or no knowledge,
who try to pretend to be knowledgeable,
and general, janta, awamunnas.
And the third one he says,
to attract people towards you,
to attract the eyes of people towards you.
Meaning to become popular for Facebook likes and thumbs up and whatever it is.
So here is the Nabi telling us specifically why not to study Islam.
So you say that I’m studying Islam so I can,
you know, in my heart you may not say that,
but that I may be called alim,
I may be addressed as Maulana Fulan bin Fulan,
then that’s the worst reason to study Islam.
So I said, if you continue to do that,
may Allah protect us,
you know, we might be answered by Allah swt.
So why should you study then?
First and foremost,
we should study deen,
because it is our dire need.
It is something which is even more important than food and water.
Something which is more important than food and water.
You might say, well, you know,
what’s more important than food and water?
I said deen, because,
if I do not get food and water for a certain period of time,
I will die.
That’s it.
But if I don’t know my deen,
and I live a long life,
because I did not know anything
and I didn’t make any effort to learn anything,
and my long life was spent in disobedience of Allah swt,
in rebellion against Allah swt,
in all kinds of stuff,
and I die,
even though I had plenty to eat and drink,
even though I lived in luxury,
the chances are that I might end up in Jahannam.
If Allah does not forgive me.
So, therefore,
knowing deen is the number one important thing
in life for a Muslim.
Far more important than food and water,
so obviously far more important than
whatever professional qualification that you are getting,
far more important than
becoming a doctor, engineer, blah blah blah, what not.
So, why are you rolling?
Why am I rolling?
Because,
this is the most important thing.
So, I am going to give this
my best time of the day,
my maximum effort,
I am going to spend money if I need to spend money,
and then I will learn this deen,
because, number one, this is the most
critically important thing for me to learn.
So, that’s one.
Secondly,
as far as quoting Vabhati Maan swan is concerned,
who said that quoting
quoting
extreme poor is required?
It’s not required.
There is absolutely no problem
if you are asked a question
and you refer to a book
and you look it up
and you answer the question.
Now, I know that part of this problem is because of also,
may Allah protect us,
the way we teach.
Because we have taken into our deen-e-mada, that is,
the system of the
duniya biwala,
the way anything else is taught in any school.
So, we teach books,
we have lessons, we have a curriculum,
we have syllabus,
we complete that,
and then we have an exam,
and in this exam we mark people
purely on random recalls,
not on their understanding,
not on how much they practice it,
not on the level of their taqwa,
because that’s very difficult to assess anyway, but
the point is none of those things, just random recall.
And based on the random recall,
we pass or fail people.
And so, obviously,
if a student is so stuck
on the fact that he cannot randomly recall stuff,
it’s understandable.
But my advice to the student is,
forget all this,
you are not studying the deen
to pass exams.
Even if you fail the exam, it doesn’t matter.
If you do not know that istila, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is,
did you have taqwa in your heart?
Did this enable you to develop taqwa?
Are you practicing Islam?
Are you concerned about the rida of Allah ?
What are you getting to get the rida of Allah ?
These are the things which matter.
This is what Allah will question us for.
Just to ask you a simple question,
today if you are studying fiqh, for example,
and that’s another one,
everyone wants to become a mufti.
I say, why don’t you want to study tafsir al-Qaran?
Why don’t you want to become an officer?
Why don’t you want to study the seerah of Rasul
without studying which it is important?
It’s impossible to be a Muslim.
It’s impossible to practice it.
No interest in that.
Why don’t you want to become a muhaddith?
Study a hadith.
No interest.
Mufti.
Why?
By Allah’s mercy, I’m not casting aspersions on anybody.
My apologies in advance.
Because if you become a mufti,
the chances are that you will get a job in an Islamic finance place.
Either it’s an Islamic finance window
in an openly,
haram bank,
or it’s an Islamic bank.
And for that.
Now that’s the worst reason to study fiqh.
Because if you study fiqh in order to get a job,
then where is the integrity of the usool
where you are supposed to judge on the basis of
right and wrong for the pleasure of Allah.
You’re putting yourself in a line to become somebody who is
open to all kinds of corrections.
And you’re not saying that getting a job in a finance organization
or in a saving bank is wrong.
No, it’s not.
But that should not be the reason why you study fiqh.
So anyway, the point being,
why do you study?
For this reason.
But as I said, the examination system maybe pushes you to this.
Forget the examination system.
It doesn’t matter.
A person who actually practices Islam
and practices Islam in the sense,
for example,
you want to cover a side note.
Take any admission paper,
the first year, second year, third year,
first grade in a darlum or madrasa,
take that paper and take it to any of the great sahaba of Rasul
and ask them to answer it.
Believe me, they would fail.
Because they don’t know those istilahat.
Those terminologies didn’t exist.
Makru, tahreemi, tanzihi,
they did not exist.
What did they do?
They said,
Allah does not like this.
Allah’s Rasool does not like this.
Alayhi salatu was salam.
And so I will not do it.
That’s it.
Period.
They don’t like it.
So won’t do it.
That is why they have the position that they have.
And we can be,
we can become half hufadh of all the books.
But we cannot for a certainty say that
my imar,
my ikhlas,
my is completely intact.
Right?
So beware of that.
So what must you do?
Focus on learning,
focus on practice.
And as far as referring to books is concerned,
I even advise people and I do it myself.
I’m not a Hafidh of Quran,
but I do it myself,
which is that if I need to recite anything,
and I know this,
I know it very well.
I recite it all the time.
I recite it all the time.
But if I need to recite it,
especially in public,
especially in a khutbah,
in a bayaan or something,
I always have it written down and I look at it.
And thought comes into my mind.
Oh, people say,
oh, this guy doesn’t know it.
So he has to look it up.
Alhamdulillah, very good.
Very good.
I don’t want them to say,
oh, this bayaan is not happening.
No.
It’s good for your class.
Let people think that you are ignorant.
Let people think that you are a fool.
Because it keeps you firmly grounded.
When people start thinking that you are Bafal Lolo,
that you are this ocean of knowledge,
that is a trap of shaitan.
Because you will also start believing that at some point in time,
because of what people keep saying.
That’s why we have a beautiful saying in Urdu,
is that,
Peer saab nahi urte muri durda pe.
When the Peer saab,
Murshid,
the share doesn’t fly,
his murids make him fly.
They have all these karamat stories.
That this happened and that happened and what happened.
So,
please,
let’s understand this.
Study Islam for the right reason.
And what is the right reason?
The opposite of what the Hadith says.
Don’t study to look,
to argue with the faqah.
So study so that you know enough when you study.
And when you come to a faqih,
when you come to us,
to a,
to a,
to a alim,
go and sit there,
in an attitude of genuine submission,
and genuine studentship,
and ask.
Don’t argue.
Second one is,
to look good before the people.
How can you avoid that?
By not talking to the people about all these things.
No need.
Somebody comes to ask you about a masala,
don’t tell him, even if you know.
Even if you know, don’t tell him.
Tell him, please go and ask your,
your sheikh,
go ask your Imam Sartre.
Go ask your,
the alim in your community.
Don’t give them a,
don’t give a ruling.
It is a big trap.
Very big trap.
Especially I know because I go,
I speak publicly in many places.
And when you ask the question answers,
almost all of them,
although even though right in the beginning,
I say, I have it announced very clearly.
I’m not answering your questions.
I’m not, I’m not giving fatwa.
I’m not a mufti.
Any question you have,
ask your, ask your ulama.
No.
As soon as the thing is finished,
sheikh, is this permissible?
Is that permissible?
Never answer that.
Say, I don’t know.
I don’t know, even if I know,
I won’t tell you.
Go ask your scholar.
Go ask your Imam.
Keeps you grounded.
And as far as attracting the masses is concerned,
I remind myself and you, fear the hellfire.
Fear the hellfire for yourself because
if you are doing it for Riya,
this is shirk.
If you are doing it to attract people,
it means that you are doing it for the people.
And if you are doing it for the people,
this is shirk.
And the place of shirk is the fire.
So fear the hellfire.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to
make it easy for us to learn,
make it full of barakah for us to learn,
and have us focused completely and totally
and exclusively on the amal,
on the action,
not on anything other than actions.
Completely focused on action,
completely focused on studying the deen
in order to please Allah
and for no other reason.
Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi
remember, take care of yourself.
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