Goals of learning – #1

My brothers and sisters words are always original. I always thank Allah SWT a great deal for the fact that there is a lot of interest, especially among the younger generation, among the youth in Islam. And that is something which I hugely appreciate and I thank Allah for. There was a time when this was not the case and Alhamdulillah, we seem to have broken that. So lots of discussions and questions and halaqas and people teaching and learning. That’s the upside. The downside of this is that in this eagerness to learn and eagerness to be doing something, very often the people involved, they lose track of the methodology of learning. They lose track of their actual goals of learning. And as a result, they fall into the term of shaitan and these discussions and halaqas and so on end up with people getting irritated with each other and fighting each other and so on. And the chief reason for that is because there is this, quite understandable, but there is this fascination for fiqh, for different masailah fiqh. So now this is a terrible thing because it’s something that fiqh is a, it’s something that is dangerous because fiqh is a specialty and it is a specialty that even to get there you have to have a whole lot of other things that you should know before you approach fiqh. And then you have to study the usul and the rules of fiqh. And only then can you get into understanding fiqh. So fiqh is not something that you just pick up a book and you, you know, read through it and you find one hadith and you say, well, this is what the ruling is. This is what happens, unfortunately. And that’s why I want to talk about that. So many times, you know, people will write to me, send messages or call and they will say, I was discussing this matter and what is the ruling on it, you know, which is halal or hara. And many times or almost all the time, the matters that they are talking about are what we call in the stella of the sharia, the language of the law, furu-i-masail, which is tertiary, things which are, I won’t say unimportant because, you know, they are important, but they are like secondary importance, tertiary importance. They are not things that will send you to Jahannam or Jannah. Thanks to the internet, may Allah have mercy on us and on the internet, the fact of making things easy also opens the door for falling into problems because things become so easy that you lose the vaqar of that thing, you lose the greatness of the thing, you lose the respect for the thing. On a side note, that’s why Rasulullah said don’t make umrah again and again and again. You know, let that, let that, the magnificence and the nobility, the holiness of the experience enjoy that and let that be with you. Don’t make it into a routine thing that okay, you know, and I normally pray asr in Masjid al-Haram, so I go there, I make umrah, I just pray Masjid al-Haram in asr. Please go and pray asr every day, no problem. But don’t make umrah every day, don’t make umrah again and again and again because it can take away the awe of the experience, which is such a beautiful thing. To come back to my subject here, so when people get into this issue of just referring from here and there and the internet and whatnot, they get a lot of material, no doubt about that, but most people who are not trained in the Islamic sharia, in the Islamic methodology of teaching and learning, do not know what to do with the material that they see. So when they see something, they say, well, okay, this is what should be done, and many of them get very rigid about it, and they say, no, this has to be done. This is something which is compulsory, or they get into that kind of a sort of mental framework with that. Whereas it might not be, it might be something in which there is a lot of flexibility. Yes, there is a rolling, but it is not necessarily something which is so strong, or vice versa. It may seem to be something which is not so serious, but it might be very serious. Now, if you understand the methodology of it, then you will not be, it won’t be received, you will not be confused, but if you don’t know that, then there is a chance. So what I tell people is be clear about your goals of learning and have benchmarks for them. So the first thing is learn about Allah’s Rehman, that’s the first and foremost thing, because our religion is based on the worship of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala alone, and therefore you cannot worship somebody you don’t know, so learn about Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala. Memorize Quran. Ask yourself, how much Quran do I know? How many Surahs? Then benchmark yourself and say, how much did I know same date last year? Is there a difference between how much I knew same date last year and how much I know today? If there is no difference, then there is a problem. So say, how can I increase my knowledge of memorization? Knowledge is a correct, I’m talking about just memorization first of all. So memorize. Now, once you have, you’re doing that and there is some progress, even if it is, even if you are memorizing a little bit every year, every month, that’s good enough, Alhamdulillah, but try to ensure that you continue on that journey of memorization. Make the Niyah and say, Allah, I want to become a half-ease of the Quran. I want to memorize the entire Quran and start and make sure you are learning something, no matter how little it is, even if it is one ayah, but make sure you’re doing that, because the beauty of that is that if in that journey you die, then Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala inshaAllah will resurrect you and me, if I make the same Niyah, with the hufas, with the people who actually memorize the entire Quran. So this is the baraka of the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, that even though I did not reach my goal of memorizing the entire Quran, because I had that Niyah, I had that intention and I made the effort, even though my effort was not completed, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala will give me inshaAllah the reward of having made the effort as if I succeeded in my goal. So that is very important. Memorize the Quran and say, how much do I know now? Start from there, how much do I know now? And then say, how much did I know last year? Is there a difference? If there is no difference, then start memorizing and increasing that every year. How much more this year? Number one. Number two is, then you say, understanding the Quran. So it’s not only a question of memorizing, you say, am I reading the meaning of the Quran? First of all, start just with reading the meaning, the translation of the Quran, just if you don’t know Arabic. And even though people don’t know Arabic, the Quranic Arabic is not easy. Quranic Arabic is classical Arabic. It has very beautiful nuances and so on in it. It’s not so simple to understand. So read the meaning of what you are memorizing. So do that. And there again, spend some time with that. Say, how much more do I, I’m reading the translation, how well do I understand that? Then try and read the tafsir of it and the exegesis of it. So that’s elaborating on the translation and say, well, in this tafsir, how much more do I know now? So for example, you are reading Surah Al-Fatiha. You say, Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim, in the name of Allah, most beneficent, most merciful, Alhamdulillah, Rabbul Alameen, all praise and all thanks be to Allah, Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, who is the Rabbul Alameen, the creator, the sustainer, the protector, the maintainer of the entire universe. Al Rahmanir Rahim, he is the most merciful, the most beneficent, the most merciful, Maliki of Al Deen, right? He is the owner of the Day of Judgment. He is the king of the Day of Judgment. The Day of Judgment, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, is the day when we will be presented before Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala. Ia ka na’abdhu, Ia ka na’stayin, wa la, I worship only you. We worship only you and we worship and we ask help only from you. And then, Hidraa Salatul Mustaqeem, Allah guides us to the path of those, part of steadfastness, part of righteousness, to the straight path, Salatul Ladheena an’amta alayhim, the path of those who you blessed, who received your ni’ma, your blessings, your gifts, ghari al-maghdubi alayhim wa al-adallin, not the path of those who incurred your wrath because of their actions and who were also not the path of those who went astray. Maybe they had a good intention, but they did wrong things and they went astray. So now you memorize Surah al-Fatiha and after memorizing Surah al-Fatiha, you have now read the translation of Surah al-Fatiha. Now go into the tafsir of Surah al-Fatiha and say what is it that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, when I say, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, what is the kaifi’at on me? What is my heart saying? How does it feel to take the name of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala in His glory and majesty? And when I say that, how do I feel and what not? I mean, this is the thing. The thing is to spend time with the kalam of Allah. To spend time with the Quran, to spend time with the kalam of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala. So do that, to make sure that you are doing that, the tarjumah and the tafsir. Now once you do that, then you, to whatever you memorize, to do that, memorize it. And once you have done that, then you go to the next stage of whatever you are memorizing. Right? To ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala to help us to be focused correctly and to do what pleases Him and to stay far away from what does not please Him. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala to be with us and for us and to enable us to live a life where it is a means of khair and baraka for us in this dunya wal akhirah. Wa sallallahu ala nabi’il kareem wa ala aalihi wa sahbihi ajmain bi rahmatika ya arham wa rahimina wa alhamdu lillah rabbilahi wabarakatuh.