Seeking knowledge
Imagine you are about to have a surgery, you sit in front of the doctor and he investigates what is wrong with you, when he diagnoses your sickness do not be upset, as it is an opportunity to be cured and take the given prescription. When you have a disease you think about what is the cure? How do I prevent myself from getting it again? And what are the causes of this sickness. We get all these answers from the qualified doctor. With Habib Hussain, we are also learning different sciences pertaining to the heart, such as hatred and envy, so we will learn where these diseases come from, the cure and the prevention from someone who is qualified like our beloved Habib Hussain.
Advice
"My dear son... How many nights have you remained awake seeking knowledge and reading books, forbidding yourself the pleasure of sleep! I do not know for what purpose you did this. If it was for attaining worldly benefits and securing its vanities, its status and position and asserting your superiority over your peers and brothers, then woe to you and again woe to you."
Imam Ghazali is addressing the student directly here; so from you seeking knowledge this is a benefit that the rest of the ummah will benefit from, as the best form of seeking knowledge is once you have attainted that knowledge, you share it and teach it to others. This is unlike reading Quran or praying your salaah as this is for you, but when you are seeking knowledge, then this knowledge will be spread and shared with the rest of the ummah.
When the student returns home and goes over his notes, when he revises and organises his notes in a good manner, he will come upon three benefits.
1- He has attained the knowledge by reviving his nights through the attainment of sacred knowledge.
2- He gets the reward where he puts into action the knowledge which he has attained.
3- The action of you taking the notes, in a specific notebook, if you pass away then you will come into the category of ‘passing on of knowledge’. As the hadith says- “If the son of Adam passes away, all of his actions are cut off except for 3.” One of these is knowledge that other people benefit from. So your notebook now, which has been well organised and maintained, people who find it and read it would have attainted the knowledge you wrote in your book and you would of attained reward for passing this knowledge on.
What purpose are you spending your night? What is your intention? Are you seeking the pleasure of Allah when staying awake all night and seeking knowledge? Or are you seeking status, wealth, or fame of some sort in the hearts of people? These are all worldly gains. There are those people who are seeking these dunya benefits to get some sort of gain in the dunya, and this is a big disaster.
Some people may stay up in the middle of the night to attain so much knowledge, especially in things like fiqh in hope that when the situation arises and someone asks a fiqh question, he will be the first to answer it. He in fact is seeking a reputation and fame, and this is a sickness in himself.
Your intentions for seeking knowledge should be that you benefit truly yourself, and that others benefit too for the sake of Allah.
There is a situation that happened between Imam Shaafi, and his student Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Two great ulema, (may Allah send His mercy upon them). One night imam Shaafi wanted to visit Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and stay at his house. Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal was very happy with this news and he ordered his daughter to prepare a great meal. So when Imam Shaafi arrived, Imam Ahmads young daughter was watching Imam Shaafi all the time as he was such a great sheikh, but then she noticed things about Imam Shaafi that disturbed her a little. One was that he ate to his fill, and that he ate a lot in her eyes (which is a disliked act of a believer). Another was at night time, after they had finished eating, Imam Shaafi went to straight to bed, whereas her father stayed up all night in Qiyam Al-Layl . So after that she approached her father and she told him “Oh father, I noticed that the sheikh he ate a lot and he did not do any Qiyam Al-Layl”. Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal felt that these questions were very heavy and embarrassing him, so he told her to ask him instead. So she went to Imam Ashaafi and said “Oh sheikh we know your background and your history however I saw two things that disturbed me...” The sheikh asked her to tell him what disturbed her. She continued saying “Firstly I noticed you ate so much last night, more than normal! Secondly, my father spent all night in Qiyam Al-Layl and you didn’t, you only got up at fajr time.”
The sheikh smiled and was happy to explain to her. “Firstly, I learnt that your father does not allow any food to enter his house unless it is 100% halal and healthy, so I wanted to increase how much halal food I eat (as eating haraam food effects your thinking) and healthy things to my body so that I can be an obedient servant to Allah. Secondly, Yes I did not stay up in Qiyam Al-Layl, but also I did not go to sleep, there was a particular issue that concerned the ummah and I was trying to think of the solution to this problem.”
The issue that concerned the ummah was the question “Oh Abu Omayr, what did Nughayr do?”
Background information about this situation: There was a situation which happened during the time of the Prophet. The father of Abu Anas saw the young boy crying one day, and he had with him a bird named Nughayr. So the prophet saw him and said, “Oh Abu Omayr, what did Nughayr do?”
From this speech of Rasoolullah the ulema had extracted over 70 rulings in our deen subhanAllah. As an example of some of the rulings , one was that nicknames are allowed if it has a positive meaning such as ‘father of pigeons’ if you’re someone who raises pigeons. Another is that it’s from the Sunnah to share in the sorrows and happiness of children. Something little to us could mean something very big to the child, we should still share in their sorrow. If a child has a toy, and then the toy breaks, you do not say to them ‘why are you crying over something so silly? No, you share the sadness with them and asked what happened, and they will appreciate that you shared in this sorrow with them. So from all these different ways we can understand that there are deeper meanings behind hadiths and not everything we can understand.
So this is just an example of Imam Ashaafi staying up all night, extracting rulings, manners and examples from this to benefit the ummah. How about during this week without using the internet of anything, we try to extract just 3 benefits from this, not even 70!
Advice
"However, if your purpose was to revive the shariah of the prophet and to train your character and break the nafs al-ammara (the soul commanding evil), then blessed are you and again blessed are you. The poet has spoken truly when he said “to spend a night awake and weeping for other than Allah is a foolish waste.”
In these last few words from Imam Ghazali, he taught us how to revive and how put life in our nights. :
1 - First thing we have do is to make our intentions. First being to revive the shariah of the prophet (shariah being fiqh, suluk, hadith, iman, tafsir, all of which came from the Prophet) by doing all this you are engaged in spreading the knowledge of the prophet and benefiting the ummah of the prophet. So this knowledge you are gaining in the middle of the night only draws you closer to Allah.
2 - The second intention in seeking knowledge in the middle of the night is to train and discipline your manners and character. All of us are in need of this as we all have short comings in the way we deal with Allah. These short comings we have could be a barrier between us and Allah, between us and the people, us and the Quran. When you attend these gatherings of seeking knowledge, you should find out what sicknesses you have within you that require a cure. Do not be upset by this, realise that the cure is a step towards you becoming closer to Allah and gaining spiritual knowledge. Half of the cure is in the hands of sick, how? Firstly if you only solely depend on Allah, and you have high moral that through the will of Allah this doctor or sheikh can cure you, then you are half way there.
Advice
"My dear son... How many nights have you remained awake seeking knowledge and reading books, forbidding yourself the pleasure of sleep! I do not know for what purpose you did this. If it was for attaining worldly benefits and securing its vanities, its status and position and asserting your superiority over your peers and brothers, then woe to you and again woe to you."
Imam Ghazali is addressing the student directly here; so from you seeking knowledge this is a benefit that the rest of the ummah will benefit from, as the best form of seeking knowledge is once you have attainted that knowledge, you share it and teach it to others. This is unlike reading Quran or praying your salaah as this is for you, but when you are seeking knowledge, then this knowledge will be spread and shared with the rest of the ummah.
When the student returns home and goes over his notes, when he revises and organises his notes in a good manner, he will come upon three benefits.
1- He has attained the knowledge by reviving his nights through the attainment of sacred knowledge.
2- He gets the reward where he puts into action the knowledge which he has attained.
3- The action of you taking the notes, in a specific notebook, if you pass away then you will come into the category of ‘passing on of knowledge’. As the hadith says- “If the son of Adam passes away, all of his actions are cut off except for 3.” One of these is knowledge that other people benefit from. So your notebook now, which has been well organised and maintained, people who find it and read it would have attainted the knowledge you wrote in your book and you would of attained reward for passing this knowledge on.
What purpose are you spending your night? What is your intention? Are you seeking the pleasure of Allah when staying awake all night and seeking knowledge? Or are you seeking status, wealth, or fame of some sort in the hearts of people? These are all worldly gains. There are those people who are seeking these dunya benefits to get some sort of gain in the dunya, and this is a big disaster.
Some people may stay up in the middle of the night to attain so much knowledge, especially in things like fiqh in hope that when the situation arises and someone asks a fiqh question, he will be the first to answer it. He in fact is seeking a reputation and fame, and this is a sickness in himself.
Your intentions for seeking knowledge should be that you benefit truly yourself, and that others benefit too for the sake of Allah.
There is a situation that happened between Imam Shaafi, and his student Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Two great ulema, (may Allah send His mercy upon them). One night imam Shaafi wanted to visit Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and stay at his house. Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal was very happy with this news and he ordered his daughter to prepare a great meal. So when Imam Shaafi arrived, Imam Ahmads young daughter was watching Imam Shaafi all the time as he was such a great sheikh, but then she noticed things about Imam Shaafi that disturbed her a little. One was that he ate to his fill, and that he ate a lot in her eyes (which is a disliked act of a believer). Another was at night time, after they had finished eating, Imam Shaafi went to straight to bed, whereas her father stayed up all night in Qiyam Al-Layl . So after that she approached her father and she told him “Oh father, I noticed that the sheikh he ate a lot and he did not do any Qiyam Al-Layl”. Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal felt that these questions were very heavy and embarrassing him, so he told her to ask him instead. So she went to Imam Ashaafi and said “Oh sheikh we know your background and your history however I saw two things that disturbed me...” The sheikh asked her to tell him what disturbed her. She continued saying “Firstly I noticed you ate so much last night, more than normal! Secondly, my father spent all night in Qiyam Al-Layl and you didn’t, you only got up at fajr time.”
The sheikh smiled and was happy to explain to her. “Firstly, I learnt that your father does not allow any food to enter his house unless it is 100% halal and healthy, so I wanted to increase how much halal food I eat (as eating haraam food effects your thinking) and healthy things to my body so that I can be an obedient servant to Allah. Secondly, Yes I did not stay up in Qiyam Al-Layl, but also I did not go to sleep, there was a particular issue that concerned the ummah and I was trying to think of the solution to this problem.”
The issue that concerned the ummah was the question “Oh Abu Omayr, what did Nughayr do?”
Background information about this situation: There was a situation which happened during the time of the Prophet. The father of Abu Anas saw the young boy crying one day, and he had with him a bird named Nughayr. So the prophet saw him and said, “Oh Abu Omayr, what did Nughayr do?”
From this speech of Rasoolullah the ulema had extracted over 70 rulings in our deen subhanAllah. As an example of some of the rulings , one was that nicknames are allowed if it has a positive meaning such as ‘father of pigeons’ if you’re someone who raises pigeons. Another is that it’s from the Sunnah to share in the sorrows and happiness of children. Something little to us could mean something very big to the child, we should still share in their sorrow. If a child has a toy, and then the toy breaks, you do not say to them ‘why are you crying over something so silly? No, you share the sadness with them and asked what happened, and they will appreciate that you shared in this sorrow with them. So from all these different ways we can understand that there are deeper meanings behind hadiths and not everything we can understand.
So this is just an example of Imam Ashaafi staying up all night, extracting rulings, manners and examples from this to benefit the ummah. How about during this week without using the internet of anything, we try to extract just 3 benefits from this, not even 70!
Advice
"However, if your purpose was to revive the shariah of the prophet and to train your character and break the nafs al-ammara (the soul commanding evil), then blessed are you and again blessed are you. The poet has spoken truly when he said “to spend a night awake and weeping for other than Allah is a foolish waste.”
In these last few words from Imam Ghazali, he taught us how to revive and how put life in our nights. :
1 - First thing we have do is to make our intentions. First being to revive the shariah of the prophet (shariah being fiqh, suluk, hadith, iman, tafsir, all of which came from the Prophet) by doing all this you are engaged in spreading the knowledge of the prophet and benefiting the ummah of the prophet. So this knowledge you are gaining in the middle of the night only draws you closer to Allah.
2 - The second intention in seeking knowledge in the middle of the night is to train and discipline your manners and character. All of us are in need of this as we all have short comings in the way we deal with Allah. These short comings we have could be a barrier between us and Allah, between us and the people, us and the Quran. When you attend these gatherings of seeking knowledge, you should find out what sicknesses you have within you that require a cure. Do not be upset by this, realise that the cure is a step towards you becoming closer to Allah and gaining spiritual knowledge. Half of the cure is in the hands of sick, how? Firstly if you only solely depend on Allah, and you have high moral that through the will of Allah this doctor or sheikh can cure you, then you are half way there.