The following was delievered on the Saturday 05th April 2008 at Masjid Hamzah, Ashton Under Lyne.
After praising Allah (subhan’allahu’watala), we begin,
He (da’makath’barakathu’hu) stated:
Beginning with the pure name of Allah (subhan’allahu’watala), who is the king of both of the worlds, who hides our sins, and gives plenty of chances. Today and in this time, the people do not have the problem that they are uneducated. We were enlightening ourselves with the knowledge of the rightly guided alims and the fake ones who take people further away from Allah (subhan’allahu’watala). In this world, there is light and darkness, there are Satan and the godly, the rightly guided alims, and the wrong ones. So it is imperative that we know which are the right alims from whom we must learn the deen and save ourselves from the wrong ones so that it does not take us far from the closeness of Allah (subhan’allahu’watala).
Today the problems that people are facing are not because of not knowing sins like adultery, drinking, fraud, not praying, not keeping a beard; everyone knows that these are wrong things. To have patience, grow a beard, or for the woman to cover up is rewardable, is also known. The problem we face is that we have difficulty in acting upon the knowledge we have. It is not the case that people do not know that not praying is sinful; it is just the fact that we find it hard to act upon it.
In this discourse, we examine who the rightly guided scholars are and the wrong ones. We do not know the correct imams (alims), which is the reason we tend to go round debunking them. We do not tend to know the difference between the fact that if a person simply keeps a beard, we cannot go up to them and ask masla’s of the deen. This is why it is important to know the difference between the two types.
Imam Ghazali said there are four types of people in terms of knowledge. The first is the ones who learn the deen for himself; the second is the person who learns, remembers, makes a concern in himself, and the third is the person who spends on himself by acting upon his knowledge. The fourth is the ones who act upon their knowledge and then take the message forward.
They say that the people from Yemen once by mistake landed upon Ireland, near the UK. When they landed, they saw large houses. As compared to Yemen, where they used to live in huts, the ship that they were in, by mistake, landed upon a European country. They saw the women of Europe and started to think this was jannah. Then someone told them that this is not the case, and they came to realize this example is much like us. We do not realize the real scholars from the fake ones.
Anyhow, the person who learns the deen and then portrays the message to others is like a king in the eyes of the angels, and the angels mention him to Allah (subhan’allahu’watala). This is the case also with someone who simply does zikr, whereas the one who learns and then takes the message forward is far greater. They are like the sun, the itr, which is that they themselves are fragrant and they give relief to others. It is like the blessed prophet (salla’hualihi’wa’Salam), who used to have natural fragrance coming out of his blessed body. As one of the companions said once, “I shook the hands of the prophet and then the blessed smell never failed to stop imitating from my hands”. In another instance, the blessed companion says that once “when I was young, the blessed prophet (salla’hualihi’wa’Salam) touched me with his hands, and then in his old age, he had white hair all over except the area where the blessed prophet (salla’hualihi’wa’Salam) touched his head.
The people who learn knowledge and do not act upon their knowledge are like a book that is not useful unless read. The ones who learn the knowledge but do not practice upon it but convey it to others are like the small needle, which is used to compile together clothes, etc., being used by other people. Whereas it self has no clothes, or they are like the lantern, giving light to others but is melting itself. This is why brothers understand, become like the sun or the itr (fragrance).
Anyhow, he (Imam Ghazali) was mentioning the two types of knowledge. Then he relates the hadith from the prophet (salla’hualihi’wa’Salam), which is that there are two types of knowledge. The first is the type only from the tongue, and the second type is from the heart. The first is the type that will give pain on the day of judgment to the one who had knowledge but did not act upon it, the second will be a source of relief for him on the day of judgment and, in the grave.
The second hadith which he relates is that near the day of judgment, there will be many who will be praying, etc., but will be jahil, and the scholars will be sinners. Hazrat Shaykh Sharabi (rah’mathullah’hi’ali), who was a wali, says that he was young and traveling with his father one time when he says that the caravan in which he was traveling would stop when it was very hot or at night. When night came and the caravan had stopped, his father started to worship, and the rest fell asleep so he said I was young so I said to my father “how unlucky are they that these people are sleeping and they have not got the ability to do the extra nafl namaz,” his father said that you should have gone to sleep rather than stay awake as you have now committed a sin by backbiting about them. As they were sleeping, it meant that this was backbiting.
There were two brothers, and one of them learned the deen and then after studying came home. When he met the other brother, who was just a simple worshiper without much ilm, he (the learner brother) said to the worshiper, “why are you like this?”, he said “when I used to pray in the cave for many years, there used to be a mouse which I had killed as it was disturbing me, and then I thought since I had left the world to attain the closeness of Allah (subhan’allahu’watala) and have now killed the mouse, then the punishment for me is that I must keep this mouse around my neck”, he kept it for so long that only the bones of the mouse were left, this is why his brother said “why are you in this state?”, the learned brother said: “my brother you have strived for so long and prayed for so long but all your worship is not going to be accepted as according to the fiqh, your clothes and body were not pure”. This just goes to show that doing extra ibadah without knowledge is not advisable.
The other day there was a conference where our sisters had organized it, the women who came were dressed in the devil’s clothes, almost naked, and then started talking so much that the person giving the speech, the nasiha, stopped giving it as she/he said “since you are not listening then I will stop”.
Hazrat Abu Hurayra used to say sometimes “I used to lay lying flat on the floor at times and sometimes people used to come and think I had died, and therefore used to place their feet upon me, the only reason I used to be in this state was because of hunger”. Now look, he is the sahaba who narrated so.
The other blessings he attained were that he once said: “ya rasulallah I want to remember your words but I find it very difficult to remember things”, then the prophet (salla’hualihi’wa’Salam) said “come here” and he made him come close to the chadar he was wearing and then the companion said that after this event he could remember almost everything the blessed prophet (salla’hualihi’wa’Salam) used to say.
The imam (Ghazali) further says that there will be scholars near the day of judgment who despite the knowledge they attain will not be of any use to them. Many times the imam that gives the khutbah sometimes has to say, or other people have to say to some people “stop talking in Jumah khutba” when this should not be the case. The other thing is that people forget to turn off their mobile phones. Simple people like us find it difficult to concentrate as it is, and when such events occur, it makes it even harder. The prophet (salla’hualihi’wa’Salam) said that “the ones who have knowledge and do not practice upon it then on the day of judgment will be given a very hard punishment, that a man will come with his intestines, coming out and in severe pain. It will be said to him that why are you like this, it will be said further that I used to tell others to do good when I never used to do it myself”.
May Allah (subhan’allahu’watala) forgive you and me and enable us to practice upon the knowledge. Ameen.
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