Al Firdaus Chronicles

2006-04-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Gems of Wisdom: from our master Abu Dardaa Radiallanhu

"If you knew what I know, you would go out to the jungle, weeping and crying and leave your property unguarded. But your hearts are heedless of the requirements of the Hereafter and you have, before you, worldly hopes and aspirations. That is why the world has become your master and all your activities are directed towards it; you have reduced yourself to a condition of stark ignorance. What is worse, some of you have become like the animals, indulging in lustful activities, not minding the evil consequences.

What has happened to you that you do not love one another, nor admonish one another, though you are brothers in Islam? There is discord among you because of your wrong desires, arising out of the corruption within you. If you are united in the cause of 'Deen' and affairs of 'Deen', your bonds of mutual relationship will be strengthened.

What has happened to you, that you counsel one another about affairs of this world, but do not do so about affairs of the Akhirah? You are incapable of admonishing those whom you love and do not give them good counsel about the affairs of the Hereafter. This is only because of your weak faith. If you had faith in the good and evil things of the Hereafter, like your belief in the good and evil things of this world, you would certainly give preference to the Akhirah. The Akhirah should have greater control over your affairs.

You may say that the needs of this world are immediate, while those of the Hereafter are remote. Just imagine how many activities there are, in this world, of which the fruits have to be reaped later. Still you toil and fret and struggle hard for them! For example, you work hard in the fields, for months together, hoping to reap crops in the end. Similarly, you take pains to plant trees in the garden, hoping to pick the fruit after years of hard labour and patient waiting. You have deteriorated, in matters of faith, so much that you do not care to gauge the level of your Imaan (faith) by doing things that would reveal it'.

'If you have any doubts about the revealed knowledge conveyed to us by Rasulullah Sallallaho alaihe wasallam, please come to us, so that we may show you the truth of this knowledge and make it abundantly clear to you. Come, we will show you the light by which you will be able to see, for yourself, that whatever Rasulullah Sallallaho alaihe wasallam said is absolutely true. You are no fools that we should regard you incapable of understanding it. For, you hold sound views about worldly affairs and act upon them most carefully. Then, what is wrong with you that you do not exercise wisdom, nor act with due care in affairs of the Akhirah.

What has happened to you? Why is it that you feel very happy over a paltry gain of this world and feel very sad over a little loss, to the extent that its effect is reflected in your faces. You complain of your 'sufferings', calling a little trouble a 'suffering' and hold meetings to console one another. But you are not grieved, nor feel sad, when you happen to miss an important religious requirement; your faces do not wear an __expression of sorrow.

When I see your indifference towards 'Deen', I feel inclined to think that Allah Ta'ala has forsaken you. You greet one another happily but everyone avoids saying anything which may be unpleasant, though true, to the other. He fears lest the other person should say to him something in return, which would displease him. So, you live amicably, keeping all dark thoughts to yourselves. Thus you have become corrupt from within though, outwardly, you seem to be enjoying life. And you seem to have all agreed not to think of death.

I wish Allah Ta'ala would grant me death and relieve me of sorrow on your account! And, I wish to join the company of those I love most dearly (meaning Rasulullah Sallallaho alaihe wasallam and the Sahabah Radhiallaho anhum). If they were alive, they would not have liked to associate with you, even for a short while. If there still remains an iota of good in you, take heed. For, I have told you what I think of you clearly and without hesitation, and I have spoken the truth. It is quite easy to achieve that which Allah Ta'ala has got in store for you (the boons of the Hereafter). And I seek help from Allah Ta'ala, both for you and myself'.

2006-04-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

One moment of Ikhlaas with Allah (swt) is enough to take us into jannah - Sheikh Hamza Yusuf

2006-04-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

The mufassireen have mentioned that this verse indicated the preservation of Ahadith as well as the preservation of the quran. Because one can not understand the quran without taking into consideration the words and the actions of the prophet (s). If quran was all we needed, Allah could have sent the quran down to the earth with out intermediaries like the Prophet (s). The only reason of the prophet (s) coming is that we follow his examples. And the ahadith are the embodiment of his examples.

Now, people who claim that ahadith were not preserved like the quran was are complete idiots. and they have not studied the methods of preservation of ahadith. If one studied how the ahadith were preserved, THERE WOULD BE NO DOUBT THAT ALLAH HAS PROTECTED THE SAYINGS OF THE PROPHET (S) JUST AS HE HAS PROTECTED THE QURAN.

Well, first, let’s look why the quran is authentic beyond the shadow of doubt. Quran, till the point it was ordered to be written down during the time of abu bakr and completion of compilation at the time of Uthman, the chain of narrators, if you will, were mutawaatir. meaning a huge number of people had memorized the quran word by word so much so that there could not be any discrepancy in it whatsoever.

what people dont know is that a lot of the ahadith that are mutawaatir are also of the same category. now, the difference is, as the quran would reveal, people would memorize it from the prophet (S). but since ahadith consists of the daily actions and the sayings of the prophet (s) it would obviously be impractical for 100s of people to be with the prophet (s) all the time. and its also impractical that whenever the prophet (s) would utter a single word, everyone would try to memorize it.

you can memorize the quran as it is revealed but how can you memorize every word a person has spoken in his entire life? you possibly cant. and at times the prophet (s) would be accompanied by a single companion where he would instruct him to do something. but you dont expect that companion to memorize every word the prophet (s) spoke while he was with him abd tell everyone else in the masjid. it just doesn’t work since the prophet (s) is a man and his speech is of a much much larger quantity than the quantity of the words of the quran.

but even then, the sahabah in medinah, would at times write down the words of the prophet (s), though not 24/7 a person woudl walk around him with a pencil and paper and record every action.

so the problem that arises is when the sahabah were passing away and the fitnah broke out, people started to claim that prophet (s) said this and he (s) said that. they couldnt do this with quran because every bit of quran is memorized, but they can do it with hadith because there isnt a single person who was with the prophet(s) for all 23 years of his prophethood, spending every second and minute with him.

so what our scholars did is that they created a completely new science of validating and authenticating ahadith. and this science of authentication is unique to this ummah and will never be done again. and this science is so precise that if anyone studies into it, he/she will realize that there is no way we can reject the saying of the prophet (s) because we know every person in the link of the chain who has narrated the hadith going back to the prophet (s).

and as a matter of fact, the mutawaatir ahadith that have been passed down through generation by its exact matn, just in the same league of authenticity as the quran. its inconcieveable for so many pious people to lie and agree upon a lie and conspire.

so point of my post is, if people just shut up when they dont have the knowledge to speak, it would be good for themselves and good for others. as the scholars said, "an ignorant person harms himself and others around him as an enemy harms another enemy."

2006-02-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

AA,
hmmmm....this is rather interesting. I never pictured myself having a blog and ranting about my day but here i am. Well, i actually dont feel that geeky since i met few Maulanas recently who also have their own blogs. 21st century Maulanas, they are hip, they got the beards and the blogs to fulfill all your islamic needs. So why should i be any different? disclaimer: I am not a maulana (not yet atleast ;) )

So anyways, I was reading jinz's blog about switching to the maliki madhab. Jinz if you are reading this, thats pretty interesting stuff bro. But here is where i disagree. But in order to get to my point, lets first examine the issue at hand - the concepts of madhaahib and the feeling of necessity of changing ones madhab.

First of all, to me, at the end of the day, a madhab is nothing but the set of usuls or principles its founded on. Thats what defines what that madhab is. Not necessarily its dominant fiqh rulings. Why do I say that? Because in any madhab, there are plenly of differences of opinions with in. The biggest proof of that is how Imam Abu Yusuf would often disagree with Imam Abu Hanifah on certain issues (and sometimes even usul) but that didnt lead him to create the Yusufi Madhab. Imam Abu Yusuf just sucked up all his differences and worked to make the Hanafi madhab the state adopted madhab. It surprizes me that someone as knowledgeable as Imam Abu Yusuf would have so much respect and love for his teacher Imam Abu Hanifah that he didnt invent a whole new madhab of his own though he was surely fit to do so. Well, if he didnt have that much respect for his teachers, he probably wouldnt have gotten to where he was to begin with.

Hence, unless I disagree with a particular madhab on its usuls or principles, I wouldnt switch to another madhab. Because as long as those usuls are sound, scholars can work within that framework and come up with different rulings on the same issue. I can follow which ever ruling I feel is stronger or leave whichever ruling i feel is sort of wack and doesnt portray the proper solution in accordance to the time we are living in.

So, if a person wants to read surah fatihah behind the imam they can while being in the hanafi madhab. Because that opinion also exists with in the madhab. We need to understand that due to the mercy of Allah, not too much of the religion that we practice and call Islam is written in stone. A lot of it is the educated opinions of committee of scholars and generation of scholars, and their fatwaas are religiously non-binding. But why re-invent the wheel and leave chances of mistakes?

But again, its not a sin to switch madhabs. Heck, i dont even know if its a sin to be ghayr-madhab. But there are things which makes more sense intellectually, and since our scholars have given Islam all of their attention, we have learnt the ins and outs of intellectual stability in our religion and how madhabs can keep a sence of intellectual stability with in one's religious practices.

And as far as ghayr-madhabis are concerned, you guys need to suck it up and pick a madhab, you guys have too much instablity in your usuls.