ashabul_kahf's Xanga

Saturday, November 09, 2002

Sat, 09 Nov 2002 00:47:08 GMT

Assalamualaikum,

This following link is a passage on the meaning of Tasawwuf written by a Sufi Shaikh of the Chistiyya Sufi Order, Shah Shahidullah Faridi. His introduction to Sufism is probably one of the best and most simple to understand. So go on and check it out!

http://www.nfie.com/Faridi.html

Salams.

Thursday, November 07, 2002

Thu, 07 Nov 2002 04:15:04 GMT

Assalamualaikum,

This piece is taken from a website called

www.the-heart.net

I know it is a bit long, but it gives an indication as to where we stand to benefit from performing Dhikr alone or in a group(recommended).

Din Abd Majid

What The Qur'an Says About Dhikr-Allah
--------------------------------------

Those who remember Allah while standing , sitting, and lying on their sides" (3:191)

(Quran and Durud Shareef Khatam falls into it)

"Those men and women who engage much in Allah's praise. For them has Allah prepared forgiveness and a great reward." (33:35)

(Quran and Durud Shareef Khatam falls into it)

"He is successful who purifies himself, and remembers the name of his Lord, and so prays." (87:14-15)

Allah Ta'ala said in His Book: "And mention the name of your Lord and devote yourself to Him with a complete devotion" (73:8).

"Those who believe, and whose hearts find comfort in the remembrance of Allah! " Behold in the Remembrance of Allah do hearts find satisfaction." (13-28)

" O ye who believe let not your riches or your children divert you from the Remembrance of Allah if any act thus, the loss is their own." (63:9)

" Then do ye remember Me I will remember you." (2-152)

" Men whom neither traffic nor merchandise can divert from Remembrance of Allah nor from regular Salaat, nor from regular practice of Zakaat." (24-37)

"He who turns away from the remembrance of His Lord He will cause him to undergo a severe Penalty." (72-17)

------------------------------------------------------------

What Ahadith Say About Dhikr-Allah
==================================

Hadith Qudsi, "Those that remember Me in their heart, I remember them in My heart; and those that remember Me in a gathering (i.e. that make mention of Me), I remember them (i.e. make mention of them) in a gathering better than theirs."

Dhikr in a gathering can only be done aloud and in unison. The above hadith thus constitutes proof that dhikr done outloud in a gathering is an exalted kind of dhikr which is mentioned at the Highest Assembly (al-mala' al-a`la.)

Hadhrat Jabir (Radi Allahu anhu) reported that the Prophet (Peace be upon him), said: "The best remembrance of Allah is to repeat la ilaha illallah and the best prayer (du'a) is al-hamdu lillah (all praise belongs to Allah)."

(Narrated by Nasa'i, Ibn Majah, and Hakim who declared its chain sound)

In Bukhari and Muslim: The Prophet (Peace be upon him) said that Allah Ta'ala has angels roaming the roads to find the people of dhikr, i.e. those who say La Ilaha Illallah and similar expressions, and when they find a group of people (qawm) reciting dhikr, they call each other and encompass them in layers until the first heaven -- the location of which is in Allah's knowledge. (This is to say, an unlimited number of angels are going to be over that group).

This is further indicated by the hadith Qudsi which runs: "Allah says: I am to my servant as he expects of Me, I am with him when he remembers Me. If he remembers Me in his heart, I remember him to Myself, and if he remembers me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly better than his..." (Bukhari and Muslim)

Thus, silent dhikr is differentiated fron dhikr said outloud by His saying: "Remembers Me within himself," meaning: "silently," and "in an assembly," meaning "aloud."

The Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: hatta yaqulu majnun "Remember Allah Ta'ala as much as you want, until people say that you are crazy and foolish"

(Narrated by Ahmad in his Musnad, Ibn Hibban in his Sahih, and al-Hakim who declared it sahih); that is: do not care about them!

Ibn `Umar (Radi Allahu Anhu) reported that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: "When you pass by the gardens of Paradise, avail yourselves of them." The Companions asked: "What are the gardens of Paradise, O Messenger of Allah?" He replied: "The circles of dhikr. There are roaming angels of Allah who go about looking for the circles of dhikr, and when they find them they surround them closely."

(This include Quran and Durud Shareef Khatam). Tirmidhi narrated it (hasan gharib) and Ahmad.

Abu Sa`id Al-Khudri and Abu Huraira (Radi Allahu anhum ajma'een)reported that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, "When any group of men remember Allah, angels surround them and mercy covers them, tranquility descends upon them, and Allah mentions them to those who are with Him." Narrated by Muslim, Tirmidhi, Ahmad, Ibn Majah, and Bayhaqi.

Muslim, Ahmad, and Tirmidhi narrate from Mu`awiya (Radi Allahu anhu) that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) went out to a circle of his Companions and asked: "What made you sit here?" They said: "We are sitting here in order to remember / Allah (nadhkurullaha) and to glorify Him (wa nahmaduhu) because He guided us to the path of Islam and he conferred favours upon us." Thereupon he adjured them by Allah and asked if that was the only purpose of their sitting there. They said: "By Allah, we are sitting here for this purpose only." At this the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: "I am not asking you to take an oath because of any misapprehension against you, but only because Jibraeel ('alahis salam) came to me and informed me that Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, was telling the angels that He is proud of you!" Note that the hadith stated jalasna -- we sat -- in the plural, not singular. It referred to an association of people in a group, not one person.

The Prophet, peace be upon him, would often tell his Companions, "Shall I tell you about the best of deeds, the most pure in the sight of your Lord, about the one that is of the highest order and is far better for you than spending gold and silver, even better for you than meeting your enemies in the battlefield where you strike at their necks and they at yours?" The Companions replied, "Yes, O Messenger of Allah!" The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, "Remembrance of Allah." (Narrated by Tirmidhi, Ahmad, and Hakim who declared its chain of narrators sound

The Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: "He who loves something mentions it much".

Qadi Thana'ullah Panipati said in his Tafsir Mazhari (10:111): "Know that this verse points to the repetition of the name of the Essence (ism al-dhat)," that is: "Allah." The same meaning is intimated also by the end of verse 6:91 in Surat al-An`am: "Say ALLAH. Then leave them to their play and vain wrangling."

Almighty Allah says, I treat my slave (man) according to his expectation from Me and I am with him when he remember Me. If he remembers Me in his heart I remember him in my heart . If he remember Me in a gathering
I remember him in a better and nobler gathering (i e Angels). If he comes
closer to Me by one span I go towards him a cubit's length. If he comes
closer to Me by one cubit length I go towards him an arm's length, if he
walks towards Me, I run unto him

Rasulullah (Messenger of Allah) The Prophet Muhammad (Sallalahu alehi wasalim) Peace be upon him) has once said: to companions
"Shall I tell you something that is the best of all deeds, constitute
the best of piety in the eyes of your LORD (ALLAH),will elevate your status in
the hereafter life (jannah) and carries more virtous than the spending of
gold and silver in the service of allah or taking part in JIHAD and slaying
or being slain in the path of Allah "The companion begged to be informed of
such an act .the prophet (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) replied

"its Zikr of Almighty Allah"
"its Zikr of Almighty Allah"
"its Zikr of Almighty Allah"
"its Zikr of Almighty Allah"

"There are many a people who do zikr of Almighty Allah, while lying down comfortably in their
soft beds,and for this they will be rewarded with the highest position in
the paradise by Almighty Lord"

"The contrast between a person who glorifies Almighty Allah and one who does not remember him is like that between the living and dead"

"If a person has a lot of wealth and distributes it amongst the needy ,while the
other person is only busy with the zikr of allah ,the latter who is engaged
in zikr is the better of the two."

"Those who are admitted to Jannah (Paradise) will not repent over any thing of this world ,except the time spent without zikr in their life."

"No other action of a person can surprass zikr of almighty allah in saving him from the punishment in the grave."

"One who is too weak to bear the strain of keeping awake at midnight( in the worship of allah) is too misery to spend his wealth in the path of allah and is too cowardly to take part in JIHAD is advised to remain engaged in the zikr of allah".

"Almighty Allah says Do My zikr for some time after fajr and asr salaat ,and I will look after your Interest.

"I know of a kalimah such that if any body recites it with sincerity of belief in it and dies hell become forbidden for him This kalimah is La illaha illalla

"Whoever recites La illaha illalla any time during day or night his sins are remitted from his account and the virtues are written instead.

Lengthening the Pronounciation of LA ILAHA ILLALLAH
Ibn `Abbas said -- may Allah be well pleased with him and his father -- that
the Prophet said: "The day Allah created the heavens and the earth he
created an angel and ordered him to say: "There is no god except Allah
alone" (LA ILAHA ILLALLAH). The angel lengthens his delivery as he utters it
and will not rest from this until the trumpet is blown." One of the
Companions said that whoever says: "No god except Allah" and lengthens his
pronounciation intending thereby to magnify Allah, Allah will remit four
thousand grave sins for him, and if he did not commit four thousand, Allah
will remit the difference for his family and neighbors. It is related in the
hadith: "Whoever says "No god except Allah" (LA ILAHA ILLALLAH). and
lengthens his pronounciation intending thereby to magnify Allah, four
thousand of his sins are struck thereby from the register of his sins."
Hence it is praiseworthy to lengthen one's pronounciation upon uttering it,
as Nawawi said, may Allah the Exalted have mercy upon him. The Prophet also
said: "Whoever lengthens his pronounciation upon saying "No god except
Allah," Allah will make him dwell in Paradise in the Abode of Majesty by
which he has named Himself when He said: "There remaineth but the
countenance of thy Lord of Might and Glory" (55:27), and Allah will grant
him to behold His gracious countenance."

Anas ibn Malik said - may Allah be well pleased with him - from the Prophet:
"O human beings! Whoever says "No god except Allah" in astonishment at
something, Allah creates from each letter of his utterance a tree with as
many leaves as the days of this world, each leaf asking forgiveness for him
and praising Allah on his behalf until the Day of judgment."... It has been
related that this phrase has on the side of Iblis the effect which a
gangrenous sore

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said "There is a pillar of 'Nur'
(Divine Light) in front of a Arshi Elahi (The throne of Allah) when somebody
recites La illaha illala , this pillar starts shaking .when Allah asks it
to stop shaking it says "How can I stop when the reciter of the kalimah has
not yet been granted forgiveness" Thereupon Allah says,'Well i have forgive
him ,' and then that pillar stops shaking

The Prophet Isa (Jesus) (Alayhis salam) had said the deeds of the Nation of
Muhammad (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) would be reckoned weightiest
on the day of judgement ,because their tongues are accustomed to the
recitation of a kalima,which was found too hard by the ummats of other
prophets and this kalimah is La illaha illala

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " There are checks in the
way of every action before it reaches Almighty Allah but the recitation of
La illaha illala and the prayer of a father in the favour of his son go
up to Allah unchecked."

Hazrath Nooh / Noah (alayhis salam) summoned his two sons and said to them i
recommend to you two things and warn u against two things . the two things
which i warn u against are "SHIRK" and "ARROGANCE". and of two things which
i recommend is Kalimah 'La illaha illalla' which is heavier than all the
universe together with all its contents infact the latter if placed under it
will get crushed and crumble on account ofits weight and the second is
Subhan-Allahi Wa bihamdhi (Allah is far from imperfection and his is the
praise) Which two constitute the prayer of all the creation and by the
virtue ofits blessing everything gets its sustenance

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " Whoever recites the
following line 10 times 2 Million virtues is written to his credit
'La illaha illala wahadu la shareeka Lahu Ahadan Samadan Lam Ya
lid wallam yulad wallam yakul lahu kufuwan ahad'

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " A person who recites La
illaha illala 100 times a day, will on the day of judgement be raised
with his face shining like a full moon and none can surprass him in the
excellence on the day except on who recites this kalimah more than him

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " there are 2 statement
which are very light for tongue (easy to utter) but are very weighty in
reward and are very pleasing to Allah : These are

1). Subhan-Allahi Wa bihamdhi (Allah is far from imperfection and His is
the praise)

2).Subhan Allahil Azim (Glory to be Allah and his is the praise)

Hazrath Abu Zar (Radhiallaho anho) Narrated that once Rasullallah
(sallallaho alaihe wasallam) had said "should i tell u what speech is most
liked by Allah ? "Do tell me", Said I. He (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said
Subhan-Allahi Wa bihamdhi (Allah is far from imperfection and his is the
praise) ." the thing Allah ordered his angels to recite is undoubtedly the
best one and it is Subhan-Allahi Wa bihamdhi .

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " ,"Whoever says La illaha
illala his admittance in paradise is guranteed and whoever recite 100
times Subhan-Allahi Wa bihamdhi he is credited with 1,24,000 virtues.

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " one who is unable to toil
at night ,ie' he cannot keep awake and pray at night or he is too misery or
poor to spend money in the path of Allah or he is too cowardly to take part
in JIHAD (fightining in the path of allah) should recite Subhan-Allahi Wa
bihamdhi Excessively because his action is more valuable with Allah than
spending in his path a mountain load of gold

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " And he who utters
Subhan-Allahi Wa bihamdhi (Allah is far from imperfection and his is the
praise) 100 times in the morning and in the evening .all his sins will be
obliterated even if they are equal to the extent of the foam of the ocean

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said " Whoever recite

1.)Subhan Allah 33 times

2.)Alhamdulillah 33 times

3.)Allah ho Akbar 33 times

and complete the 100 th one with

LAILLAHA ILLAHU WADAHU LA SHARIKA LAHU .LAHUL MULKU WA LAHUL HAMDU ,WA HUWA ALA KULLI SHA' IN QADIR (there is no go true god except Allah. He is One and He has no partner with Him .He is the sovereignty and He is the praise He is the omnipotent) After every fard salaat (compulsory prayer) ,all his sins are forgiven even if they may be like the foam in the sea.

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) once said " Is there no body
amonst you who may be able to do every day ,good deeds equal to Uhad (a
mountain near Madinah)." The Sahaaba (Radhiallaho anhum) Said "O Rasulullah
! (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) who has the strength to do that?'
Every body has the strength to do it ,"He said.' 'How is it? enquired the sahaaba He explained the reward of
1.)Subhan Allah
2.)Alhamdulillah
3.)Allah ho Akbar
4.) La illaha illala
"Is greater than mountain uhad" "Is greater than mountain uhad""Is
greater than mountain uhad""Is greater than mountain uhad"

Once Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said "Ah-ha! How weighty in
the scales are five things
1.)Subhan Allah
2.)Alhamdulillah
3.)Allah ho Akbar
4.) La illaha illala
5.) Excercise of patience by the father or mother over the death of his or her child .

Rasullallah (sallallaho alaihe wasallam) said "When a person recite the
greatness of Allah,(i,e) recite
Subhan Allah Alhamdulillah La illaha illala Allah ho Akbar .
These kalima revolve around the "Arsh" (Throne of God) with a low humming note and mention the name of reciter.

Thursday, November 07, 2002

Thu, 07 Nov 2002 04:06:07 GMT

Salams,

This is a very good article to read up on Tasawwuf and its importance in Islam and one's life. Sheikh Nuh Keller is the Shaikh if the Shadhili Tariqa. He resides in Amman, Jordan and runs a Zawiya there which I hope to visit soon inshallah.

This is taken from my favourite website www.masud.co.uk

Perhaps the biggest challenge in learning Islam correctly today is the scarcity of traditional ‘ulama. In this meaning, Bukhari relates the sahih, rigorously authenticated hadith that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
"Truly, Allah does not remove Sacred Knowedge by taking it out of servants, but rather by taking back the souls of Islamic scholars [in death], until, when He has not left a single scholar, the people take the ignorant as leaders, who are asked for and who give Islamic legal opinion without knowledge, misguided and misguiding" (Fath al-Bari, 1.194, hadith 100).
The process described by the hadith is not yet completed, but has certainly begun, and in our times, the lack of traditional scholars—whether in Islamic law, in hadith, in tafsir ‘Koranic exegesis’—has given rise to an understanding of the religion that is far from scholarly, and sometimes far from the truth. For example, in the course of my own studies in Islamic law, my first impression from orientalist and Muslim-reformer literature, was that the Imams of the madhhabs or ‘schools of jurisprudence’ had brought a set of rules from completely outside the Islamic tradition and somehow imposed them upon the Muslims. But when I sat with traditional scholars in the Middle East and asked them about the details, I came away with a different point of view, having learned the bases for deriving the law from the Koran and sunna.
And similarly with Tasawwuf—which is the word I will use tonight for the English Sufism, since our context is traditional Islam—quite a different picture emerged from talking with scholars of Tasawwuf than what I had been exposed to in the West. My talk tonight, In Sha’ Allah, will present knowledge taken from the Koran and sahih hadith, and from actual teachers of Tasawwuf in Syria and Jordan, in view of the need for all of us to get beyond clichés, the need for factual information from Islamic sources, the need to answer such questions as: Where did Tasawwuf come from? What role does it play in the din or religion of Islam? and most importantly, What is the command of Allah about it?
As for the origin of the term Tasawwuf, like many other Islamic discliplines, its name was not known to the first generation of Muslims. The historian Ibn Khaldun notes in his Muqaddima:
This knowledge is a branch of the sciences of Sacred Law that originated within the Umma. From the first, the way of such people had also been considered the path of truth and guidance by the early Muslim community and its notables, of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), those who were taught by them, and those who came after them.
It basically consists of dedication to worship, total dedication to Allah Most High, disregard for the finery and ornament of the world, abstinence from the pleasure, wealth, and prestige sought by most men, and retiring from others to worship alone. This was the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims, but when involvement in this-worldly things became widespread from the second Islamic century onwards and people became absorbed in worldliness, those devoted to worship came to be called Sufiyya or People of Tasawwuf (Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima [N.d. Reprint. Mecca: Dar al-Baz, 1397/1978], 467).
In Ibn Khaldun’s words, the content of Tasawwuf, "total dedication to Allah Most High," was, "the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims." So if the word did not exist in earliest times, we should not forget that this is also the case with many other Islamic disciplines, such as tafsir, ‘Koranic exegesis,’ or ‘ilm al-jarh wa ta‘dil, ‘the science of the positive and negative factors that affect hadith narrators acceptability,’ or ‘ilm al-tawhid, the science of belief in Islamic tenets of faith,’ all of which proved to be of the utmost importance to the correct preservation and transmission of the religion.
As for the origin of the word Tasawwuf, it may well be from Sufi, the person who does Tasawwuf, which seems to be etymologically prior to it, for the earliest mention of either term was by Hasan al-Basri who died 110 years after the Hijra, and is reported to have said, "I saw a Sufi circumambulating the Kaaba, and offered him a dirham, but he would not accept it." It therefore seems better to understand Tasawwuf by first asking what a Sufi is; and perhaps the best definition of both the Sufi and his way, certainly one of the most frequently quoted by masters of the discipline, is from the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) who said:
Allah Most High says: "He who is hostile to a friend of Mine I declare war against. My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and My slave keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him. And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him" (Fath al-Bari, 11.340–41, hadith 6502);
This hadith was related by Imam Bukhari, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Bayhaqi, and others with multiple contiguous chains of transmission, and is sahih. It discloses the central reality of Tasawwuf, which is precisely change, while describing the path to this change, in conformity with a traditional definition used by masters in the Middle East, who define a Sufi as Faqihun ‘amila bi ‘ilmihi fa awrathahu Llahu ‘ilma ma lam ya‘lam,‘A man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know.’
To clarify, a Sufi is a man of religious learning,because the hadith says, "My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him," and only through learning can the Sufi know the command of Allah, or what has been made obligatory for him. He has applied what he knew, because the hadith says he not only approaches Allah with the obligatory, but "keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him." And in turn, Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know, because the hadith says, "And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks," which is a metaphor for the consummate awareness of tawhid, or the ‘unity of Allah,’ which in the context of human actions such as hearing, sight, seizing, and walking, consists of realizing the words of the Koran about Allah that,
"It is He who created you and what you do" (Koran 37:96).
The origin of the way of the Sufi thus lies in the prophetic sunna. The sincerity to Allah that it entails was the rule among the earliest Muslims, to whom this was simply a state of being without a name, while it only became a distinct discipline when the majority of the Community had drifted away and changed from this state. Muslims of subsequent generations required systematic effort to attain it, and it was because of the change in the Islamic environment after the earliest generations, that a discipline by the name of Tasawwuf came to exist.
But if this is true of origins, the more significant question is: How central is Tasawwuf to the religion, and: Where does it fit into Islam as a whole? Perhaps the best answer is the hadith of Muslim, that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said:
As we sat one day with the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace), a man in pure white clothing and jet black hair came to us, without a trace of travelling upon him, though none of us knew him.
He sat down before the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) bracing his knees against his, resting his hands on his legs, and said: "Muhammad, tell me about Islam." The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Islam is to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and to perform the prayer, give zakat, fast in Ramadan, and perform the pilgrimage to the House if you can find a way."
He said: "You have spoken the truth," and we were surprised that he should ask and then confirm the answer. Then he said: "Tell me about true faith (iman)," and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: "It is to believe in Allah, His angels, His inspired Books, His messengers, the Last Day, and in destiny, its good and evil."
"You have spoken the truth," he said, "Now tell me about the perfection of faith (ihsan)," and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: "It is to worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you see Him not, He nevertheless sees you."
The hadith continues to where ‘Umar said:
Then the visitor left. I waited a long while, and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to me, "Do you know, ‘Umar, who was the questioner?" and I replied, "Allah and His messenger know best." He said,
"It was Gabriel, who came to you to teach you your religion" (Sahih Muslim, 1.37: hadith 8).
This is a sahih hadith, described by Imam Nawawi as one of the hadiths upon which the Islamic religion turns. The use of din in the last words of it, Atakum yu‘allimukum dinakum, "came to you to teach you your religion" entails that the religion of Islam is composed of the three fundamentals mentioned in the hadith: Islam, or external compliance with what Allah asks of us; Iman, or the belief in the unseen that the prophets have informed us of; and Ihsan, or to worship Allah as though one sees Him. The Koran says, in Surat Maryam,
"Surely We have revealed the Remembrance, and surely We shall preserve it" (Koran 15:9),
and if we reflect how Allah, in His wisdom, has accomplished this, we see that it is by human beings, the traditional scholars He has sent at each level of the religion. The level of Islam has been preserved and conveyed to us by the Imams of Shari‘a or ‘Sacred Law’ and its ancillary disciplines; the level of Iman, by the Imams of ‘Aqida or ‘tenets of faith’; and the level of Ihsan, "to worship Allah as though you see Him," by the Imams of Tasawwuf.
The hadith’s very words "to worship Allah" show us the interrelation of these three fundamentals, for the how of "worship" is only known through the external prescriptions of Islam, while the validity of this worship in turn presupposes Iman or faith in Allah and the Islamic revelation, without which worship would be but empty motions; while the words, "as if you see Him," show that Ihsan implies a human change, for it entails the experience of what, for most of us, is not experienced. So to understand Tasawwuf, we must look at the nature of this change in relation to both Islam and Iman, and this is the main focus of my talk tonight.
At the level of Islam, we said that Tasawwuf requires Islam,through ‘submission to the rules of Sacred Law.’ But Islam, for its part, equally requires Tasawwuf. Why? For the very good reason that the sunna which Muslims have been commanded to follow is not just the words and actions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), but also his states, states of the heart such as taqwa ‘godfearingness,’ ikhlas ‘sincerity,’ tawakkul ‘reliance on Allah,’ rahma ‘mercy,’ tawadu‘ ‘humility,’ and so on.
Now, it is characteristic of the Islamic ethic that human actions are not simply divided into two shades of morality, right or wrong; but rather five, arranged in order of their consequences in the next world. The obligatory (wajib) is that whose performance is rewarded by Allah in the next life and whose nonperformance is punished. The recommended (mandub) is that whose performance is rewarded, but whose nonperformance is not punished. The permissible (mubah) is indifferent, unconnected with either reward or punishment. The offensive (makruh) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded but whose performance is not punished. The unlawful (haram) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded and whose performance is punished, if one dies unrepentant.
Human states of the heart, the Koran and sunna make plain to us, come under each of these headings. Yet they are not dealt with in books of fiqh or ‘Islamic jurisprudence,’ because unlike the prayer, zakat, or fasting, they are not quantifiable in terms of the specific amount of them that must be done. But though they are not countable, they are of the utmost importance to every Muslim. Let’s look at a few examples.
(1) Love of Allah. In Surat al-Baqara of the Koran, Allah blames those who ascribe associates to Allah whom they love as much as they love Allah. Then He says,
"And those who believe are greater in love for Allah" (Koran 2:165), making being a believer conditional upon having greater love for Allah than any other.
(2) Mercy. Bukhari and Muslim relate that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Whomever is not merciful to people, Allah will show no mercy" (Sahih Muslim, 4.1809: hadith 2319), and Tirmidhi relates the well authenticated (hasan) hadith "Mercy is not taken out of anyone except the damned" (al-Jami‘ al-sahih, 4.323: hadith 1923).
(3) Love of each other. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "By Him in whose hand is my soul, none of you shall enter paradise until you believe, and none of you shall believe until you love one another . . . ." (Sahih Muslim, 1.74: hadith 54).
(4) Presence of mind in the prayer (salat). Abu Dawud relates in his Sunan that ‘Ammar ibn Yasir heard the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) say, "Truly, a man leaves, and none of his prayer has been recorded for him except a tenth of it, a ninth of it, eighth of it, seventh of it, sixth of it, fifth of it, fourth of it, third of it, a half of it" (Sunan Abi Dawud, 1.211: hadith 796)—meaning that none of a person’s prayer counts for him except that in which he is present in his heart with Allah.
(5) Love of the Prophet. Bukhari relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "None of you believes until I am more beloved to him than his father, his son, and all people" (Fath al-Bari, 1.58, hadith 15).
It is plain from these texts that none of the states mentioned—whether mercy, love, or presence of heart—are quantifiable, for the Shari‘a cannot specify that one must "do two units of mercy" or "have three units of presence of mind" in the way that the number of rak‘as of prayer can be specified, yet each of them is personally obligatory for the Muslim. Let us complete the picture by looking at a few examples of states that are haram or ‘strictly unlawful’:
(1) Fear of anyone besides Allah. Allah Most High says in Surat al-Baqara of the Koran,
"And fulfill My covenant: I will fulfill your covenant—And fear Me alone" (Koran 2:40), the last phrase of which, according to Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, "establishes that a human being is obliged to fear no one besides Allah Most High" (Tafsir al-Fakhr al-Razi, 3.42).
(2) Despair. Allah Most High says,
"None despairs of Allah’s mercy except the people who disbelieve" (Koran 12:87), indicating the unlawfulness of this inward state by coupling it with the worst human condition possible, that of unbelief.
(3) Arrogance. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "No one shall enter paradise who has a particle of arrogance in his heart" (Sahih Muslim, 1.93: hadith 91).
(4) Envy,meaning to wish for another to lose the blessings he enjoys. Abu Dawud relates that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Beware of envy, for envy consumes good works as flames consume firewood" (Sunan Abi Dawud, 4.276: hadith 4903).
(5) Showing off in acts of worship. Al-Hakim relates with a sahih chain of transmission that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah . . . ." (al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn, 1.4).
These and similar haram inward states are not found in books of fiqh or ‘jurisprudence,’ because fiqh can only deal with quantifiable descriptions of rulings. Rather, they are examined in their causes and remedies by the scholars of the ‘inner fiqh’ of Tasawwuf, men such as Imam al-Ghazali in his Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din [The reviving of the religious sciences], Imam al-Rabbani in his Maktubat [Letters], al-Suhrawardi in his ‘Awarif al-Ma‘arif [The knowledges of the illuminates], Abu Talib al-Makki in Qut al-qulub [The sustenance of hearts], and similar classic works, which discuss and solve hundreds of ethical questions about the inner life. These are books of Shari‘a and their questions are questions of Sacred Law, of how it is lawful or unlawful for a Muslim to be; and they preserve the part of the prophetic sunna dealing with states.
Who needs such information? All Muslims, for the Koranic verses and authenticated hadiths all point to the fact that a Muslim must not only do certain things and say certain things, but also must be something, must attain certain states of the heart and eliminate others. Do we ever fear someone besides Allah? Do we have a particle of arrogance in our hearts? Is our love for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) greater than our love for any other human being? Is there the slightest bit of showing off in our good works?
Half a minute’s reflection will show the Muslim where he stands on these aspects of his din, and why in classical times, helping Muslims to attain these states was not left to amateurs, but rather delegated to ‘ulama of the heart, the scholars of Islamic Tasawwuf. For most people, these are not easy transformations to make, because of the force of habit, because of the subtlety with which we can deceive ourselves, but most of all because each of us has an ego, the self, the Me, which is called in Arabic al-nafs, about which Allah testifies in Surat Yusuf:
"Verily the self ever commands to do evil" (Koran 12:53).
If you do not believe it, consider the hadith related by Muslim in his Sahih, that:
The first person judged on Resurrection Day will be a man martyred in battle.
He will be brought forth, Allah will reacquaint him with His blessings upon him and the man will acknowledge them, whereupon Allah will say, "What have you done with them?" to which the man will respond, "I fought to the death for You."
Allah will reply, "You lie. You fought in order to be called a hero, and it has already been said." Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face and flung into the fire.
Then a man will be brought forward who learned Sacred Knowledge, taught it to others, and who recited the Koran. Allah will remind him of His gifts to him and the man will acknowledge them, and then Allah will say, "What have you done with them?" The man will answer, "I acquired Sacred Knowledge, taught it, and recited the Koran, for Your sake."
Allah will say, "You lie. You learned so as to be called a scholar, and read the Koran so as to be called a reciter, and it has already been said." Then the man will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire.
Then a man will be brought forward whom Allah generously provided for, giving him various kinds of wealth, and Allah will recall to him the benefits given, and the man will acknowledge them, to which Allah will say, "And what have you done with them?" The man will answer, "I have not left a single kind of expenditure You love to see made, except that I have spent on it for Your sake."
Allah will say, "You lie. You did it so as to be called generous, and it has already been said." Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire (Sahih Muslim, 3.1514: hadith 1905).
We should not fool ourselves about this, because our fate depends on it: in our childhood, our parents taught us how to behave through praise or blame, and for most of us, this permeated and colored our whole motivation for doing things. But when childhood ends, and we come of age in Islam, the religion makes it clear to us, both by the above hadith and by the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) "The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah" that being motivated by what others think is no longer good enough, and that we must change our motives entirely, and henceforth be motivated by nothing but desire for Allah Himself. The Islamic revelation thus tells the Muslim that it is obligatory to break his habits of thinking and motivation, but it does not tell him how. For that, he must go to the scholars of these states, in accordance with the Koranic imperative,
"Ask those who know if you know not" (Koran 16:43),
There is no doubt that bringing about this change, purifying the Muslims by bringing them to spiritual sincerity, was one of the central duties of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), for Allah says in the Surat Al ‘Imran of the Koran,
"Allah has truly blessed the believers, for He has sent them a messenger of themselves, who recites His signs to them and purifies them, and teaches them the Book and the Wisdom" (Koran 3:164),
which explicitly lists four tasks of the prophetic mission, the second of which, yuzakkihim means precisely to ‘purify them’ and has no other lexical sense. Now, it is plain that this teaching function cannot, as part of an eternal revelation, have ended with the passing of the first generation, a fact that Allah explictly confirms in His injunction in Surat Luqman,
"And follow the path of him who turns unto Me" (Koran 31:15).
These verses indicate the teaching and transformative role of those who convey the Islamic revelation to Muslims, and the choice of the word ittiba‘ in the second verse, which is more general, implies both keeping the company of and following the example of a teacher. This is why in the history of Tasawwuf, we find that though there were many methods and schools of thought, these two things never changed: keeping the company of a teacher, and following his example—in exactly the same way that the Sahaba were uplifted and purified by keeping the company of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and following his example.
And this is why the discipline of Tasawwuf has been preserved and transmitted by Tariqas or groups of students under a particular master. First, because this was the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in his purifying function described by the Koran. Secondly, Islamic knowledge has never been transmitted by writings alone, but rather from ‘ulama to students. Thirdly, the nature of the knowledge in question is of hal or ‘state of being,’ not just knowing, and hence requires it be taken from a succession of living masters back to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), for the sheer range and number of the states of heart required by the revelation effectively make imitation of the personal example of a teacher the only effective means of transmission.
So far we have spoken about Tasawwuf in respect to Islam, as a Shari‘a science necessary to fully realize the Sacred Law in one’s life, to attain the states of the heart demanded by the Koran and hadith. This close connection between Shari‘a and Tasawwuf is expressed by the statement of Imam Malik, founder of the Maliki school, that "he who practices Tasawwuf without learning Sacred Law corrupts his faith, while he who learns Sacred Law without practicing Tasawwuf corrupts himself. Only he who combines the two proves true." This is why Tasawwuf was taught as part of the traditional curriculum in madrasas across the Muslim world from Malaysia to Morocco, why many of the greatest Shari‘a scholars of this Umma have been Sufis, and why until the end of the Islamic caliphate at the beginning of this century and the subsequent Western control and cultural dominance of Muslim lands, there were teachers of Tasawwuf in Islamic institutions of higher learning from Lucknow to Istanbul to Cairo.
But there is a second aspect of Tasawwuf that we have not yet talked about; namely, its relation to Iman or ‘True Faith,’ the second pillar of the Islamic religion, which in the context of the Islamic sciences consists of ‘Aqida or ‘orthodox belief.’
All Muslims believe in Allah, and that He is transcendently beyond anything conceivable to the minds of men, for the human intellect is imprisoned within its own sense impressions and the categories of thought derived from them, such as number, directionality, spatial extention, place, time, and so forth. Allah is beyond all of that; in His own words,
"There is nothing whatesover like unto Him" (Koran 42:11)
If we reflect for a moment on this verse, in the light of the hadith of Muslim about Ihsan that "it is to worship Allah as though you see Him," we realize that the means of seeing here is not the eye, which can only behold physical things like itself; nor yet the mind, which cannot transcend its own impressions to reach the Divine, but rather certitude, the light of Iman, whose locus is not the eye or the brain, but rather the ruh, a subtle faculty Allah has created within each of us called the soul, whose knowledge is unobstructed by the bounds of the created universe. Allah Most High says, by way of exalting the nature of this faculty by leaving it a mystery,
"Say: ‘The soul is of the affair of my Lord’" (Koran 17:85).
The food of this ruh is dhikr or the ‘remembrance of Allah.’ Why? Because acts of obedience increase the light of certainty and Iman in the soul, and dhikr is among the greatest of them, as is attested to by the sahih hadith related by al-Hakim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
"Shall I not tell you of the best of your works, the purest of them in the eyes of your Master, the highest in raising your rank, better than giving gold and silver, and better for you than to meet your enemy and smite their necks, and they smite yours?" They said, "This—what is it, O Messenger of Allah?" and he said: Dhikru Llahi ‘azza wa jall, "The remembrance of Allah Mighty and Majestic." (al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn, 1.496).
Increasing the strength of Iman through good actions, and particularly through the medium of dhikr has tremendous implications for the Islamic religion and traditional spirituality. A non-Muslim once asked me, "If God exists, then why all this beating around the bush? Why doesn’t He just come out and say so?"
The answer is that taklif or ‘moral responsibility’ in this life is not only concerned with outward actions, but with what we believe, our ‘Aqida—and the strength with which we believe it. If belief in God and other eternal truths were effortless in this world, there would be no point in Allah making us responsible for it, it would be automatic, involuntary, like our belief, say, that London is in England. There would no point in making someone responsible for something impossible not to believe.
But the responsibility Allah has place upon us is belief in the Unseen, as a test for us in this world to choose between kufr and Iman, to distinguish believer from unbeliever, and some believers above others.
This why strengthening Iman through dhikr is of such methodological importance for Tasawwuf: we have not only been commanded as Muslims to believe in certain things, but have been commanded to have absolute certainty in them. The world we see around us is composed of veils of light and darkness: events come that knock the Iman out of some of us, and Allah tests each of us as to the degree of certainty with which we believe the eternal truths of the religion. It was in this sense that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said, "If the Iman of Abu Bakr were weighed against the Iman of the entire Umma, it would outweigh it."
Now, in traditional ‘Aqida one of the most important tenets is the wahdaniyya or ‘oneness and uniqueness’ of Allah Most High. This means He is without any sharik or associate in His being, in His attributes, or in His acts. But the ability to hold this insight in mind in the rough and tumble of daily life is a function of the strength of certainty (yaqin) in one’s heart. Allah tells the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in Surat al-A‘raf of the Koran,
"Say: ‘I do not possess benefit for myself or harm, except as Allah wills’" (Koran 7:188),
yet we tend to rely on ourselves and our plans, in obliviousness to the facts of ‘Aqida that ourselves and our plans have no effect, that Allah alone brings about effects.
If you want to test yourself on this, the next time you contact someone with good connections whose help is critical to you, take a look at your heart at the moment you ask him to put in a good word for you with someone, and see whom you are relying upon. If you are like most of us, Allah is not at the forefront of your thoughts, despite the fact that He alone is controlling the outcome. Isn’t this a lapse in your ‘Aqida, or, at the very least, in your certainty?
Tasawwuf corrects such shortcomings by step-by-step increasing the Muslim’s certainty in Allah. The two central means of Tasawwuf in attaining the conviction demanded by ‘Aqida are mudhakara, or learning the traditional tenets of Islamic faith, and dhikr, deepening one’s certainty in them by remembrance of Allah. It is part of our faith that, in the words of the Koran in Surat al-Saffat,
"Allah has created you and what you do" (Koran 37:96);
yet for how many of us is this day to day experience? Because Tasawwuf remedies this and other shortcomings of Iman, by increasing the Muslim’s certainty through a systematic way of teaching and dhikr, it has traditionally been regarded as personally obligatory to this pillar of the religion also, and from the earliest centuries of Islam, has proved its worth.
The last question we will deal with tonight is: What about the bad Sufis we read about, who contravene the teachings of Islam?
The answer is that there are two meanings of Sufi: the first is "Anyone who considers himself a Sufi," which is the rule of thumb of orientalist historians of Sufism and popular writers, who would oppose the "Sufis" to the "Ulama." I think the Koranic verses and hadiths we have mentioned tonight about the scope and method of true Tasawwuf show why we must insist on the primacy of the definition of a Sufi as "a man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know."
The very first thing a Sufi, as a man of religious learning knows is that the Shari‘a and ‘Aqida of Islam are above every human being. Whoever does not know this will never be a Sufi, except in the orientalist sense of the word—like someone standing in front of the stock exchange in an expensive suit with a briefcase to convince people he is a stockbroker. A real stockbroker is something else.
Because this distinction is ignored today by otherwise well-meaning Muslims, it is often forgotten that the ‘ulama who have criticized Sufis, such as Ibn al-Jawzi in his Talbis Iblis [The Devil’s deception], or Ibn Taymiya in places in his Fatawa, or Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, were not criticizing Tasawwuf as an ancillary discipline to the Shari‘a. The proof of this is Ibn al-Jawzi’s five-volume Sifat al-safwa, which contains the biographies of the very same Sufis mentioned in al-Qushayri’s famous Tasawwuf manual al-Risala al-Qushayriyya. Ibn Taymiya considered himself a Sufi of the Qadiri order, and volumes ten and eleven of his thirty-seven-volume Majmu‘ al-fatawa are devoted to Tasawwuf. And Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya wrote his three-volume Madarij al-salikin, a detailed commentary on ‘Abdullah al-Ansari al-Harawi’s tract on the spiritual stations of the Sufi path, Manazil al-sa’irin. These works show that their authors’ criticisms were not directed at Tasawwuf as such, but rather at specific groups of their times, and they should be understood for what they are.
As in other Islamic sciences, mistakes historically did occur in Tasawwuf, most of them stemming from not recognizing the primacy of Shari‘a and ‘Aqida above all else. But these mistakes were not different in principle from, for example, the Isra’iliyyat (baseless tales of Bani Isra’il) that crept into tafsir literature, or the mawdu‘at (hadith forgeries) that crept into the hadith. These were not taken as proof that tafsir was bad, or hadith was deviance, but rather, in each discipline, the errors were identified and warned against by Imams of the field, because the Umma needed the rest. And such corrections are precisely what we find in books like Qushayri’s Risala,Ghazali’s Ihya’ and other works of Sufism.
For all of the reasons we have mentioned, Tasawwuf was accepted as an essential part of the Islamic religion by the ‘ulama of this Umma. The proof of this is all the famous scholars of Shari‘a sciences who had the higher education of Tasawwuf, among them Ibn ‘Abidin, al-Razi, Ahmad Sirhindi, Zakariyya al-Ansari, al-‘Izz ibn ‘Abd al-Salam, Ibn Daqiq al-‘Eid, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Shah Wali Allah, Ahmad Dardir, Ibrahim al-Bajuri, ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Imam al-Nawawi, Taqi al-Din al-Subki, and al-Suyuti.
Among the Sufis who aided Islam with the sword as well as the pen, to quote Reliance of the Traveller, were:
such men as the Naqshbandi sheikh Shamil al-Daghestani, who fought a prolonged war against the Russians in the Caucasus in the nineteenth century; Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdullah al-Somali, a sheikh of the Salihiyya order who led Muslims against the British and Italians in Somalia from 1899 to 1920; the Qadiri sheikh ‘Uthman ibn Fodi, who led jihad in Northern Nigeria from 1804 to 1808 to establish Islamic rule; the Qadiri sheikh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, who led the Algerians against the French from 1832 to 1847; the Darqawi faqir al-Hajj Muhammad al-Ahrash, who fought the French in Egypt in 1799; the Tijani sheikh al-Hajj ‘Umar Tal, who led Islamic Jihad in Guinea, Senegal, and Mali from 1852 to 1864; and the Qadiri sheikh Ma’ al-‘Aynayn al-Qalqami, who helped marshal Muslim resistance to the French in northern Mauritania and southern Morocco from 1905 to 1909.
Among the Sufis whose missionary work Islamized entire regions are such men as the founder of the Sanusiyya order, Muhammad ‘Ali Sanusi, whose efforts and jihad from 1807 to 1859 consolidated Islam as the religion of peoples from the Libyan Desert to sub-Saharan Africa; [and] the Shadhili sheikh Muhammad Ma‘ruf and Qadiri sheikh Uways al-Barawi, whose efforts spread Islam westward and inland from the East African Coast . . . . (Reliance of the Traveller,863).
It is plain from the examples of such men what kind of Muslims have been Sufis; namely, all kinds, right across the board—and that Tasawwuf did not prevent them from serving Islam in any way they could.
To summarize everything I have said tonight: In looking first at Tasawwuf and Shari‘a, we found that many Koranic verses and sahih hadiths oblige the Muslim to eliminate haram inner states as arrogance, envy, and fear of anyone besides Allah; and on the other hand, to acquire such obligatory inner states as mercy, love of one’s fellow Muslims, presence of mind in prayer, and love of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). We found that these inward states could not be dealt with in books of fiqh, whose purpose is to specify the outward, quantifiable aspects of the Shari‘a. The knowledge of these states is nevertheless of the utmost importance to every Muslim, and this is why it was studied under the ‘ulama of Ihsan, the teachers of Tasawwuf, in all periods of Islamic history until the beginning of the present century.
We then turned to the level of Iman, and found that though the ‘Aqida of Muslims is that Allah alone has any effect in this world, keeping this in mind in everhday life is not a given of human consciousness, but rather a function of a Muslim’s yaqin, his certainty. And we found that Tasawwuf, as an ancillary discipline to ‘Aqida, emphasizes the systematic increase of this certainty through both mudhakara, ‘teaching tenets of faith’ and dhikr, ‘the remembrance of Allah,’ in accordance with the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) about Ihsan that "it is worship Allah as though you see Him."
Lastly, we found that accusations against Tasawwuf made by scholars such as Ibn al-Jawzi, and Ibn Taymiya were not directed against Tasawwuf in principle, but to specific groups and individuals in the times of these authors, the proof for which is the other books by the same authors that showed their understanding of Tasawwuf as a Shari‘a science.
To return to the starting point of my talk this evening, with the disappearance of traditional Islamic scholars from the Umma, two very different pictures of Tasawwuf emerge today. If we read books written after the dismantling of the traditional fabric of Islam by colonial powers in the last century, we find the big hoax: Islam without spirituality and Shari‘a without Tasawwuf. But if we read the classical works of Islamic scholarship, we learn that Tasawwuf has been a Shari‘a science like tafsir, hadith, or any other, throughout the history of Islam. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
"Truly, Allah does not look at your outward forms and wealth, but rather at your hearts and your works" (Sahih Muslim, 4.1389: hadith 2564).
And this is the brightest hope that Islam can offer a modern world darkened by materialism and nihilism: Islam as it truly is; the hope of eternal salvation through a religion of brotherhood and social and economic justice outwardly, and the direct experience of divine love and illumination inwardly.

Thursday, November 07, 2002

Thu, 07 Nov 2002 03:47:00 GMT

This was posted in the Forums Section of Islamicsydney.com under the Homeschooling thread.

http://islamicsydney.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=634#634

Salams,

I think that the problem in most Muslim communities all over the world is that they fail to acknowledge that the way to move ahead is to start with education. We do not want an Ummah of secularly educated professionals who can sustain a talk on political science and what not, bu t could not relate that science back to Islam, namely the Quran and Sunnah. If we cannot produce an Ummah of people who are God-concious and people who are intellects in the Islamic sciences, then there is little hope for the advancement of the Muslim community regardless of where they are. Most Muslim parents, sad to say, put more emphasis on their children getting degrees from secualr tertiary institutions, although I am not negating that, instead of putting the same if not more emphasis and time to educate their children in Islam. Most of the time, the duty is shifted to teachers who work at Islamic Schools who are just in need of Islamic education as everyone else.

Islamic scholars of the past, who established Andalusia and other major Islamic cities of learning, were professionals in their chosen field as well as being Scholars of Islam at the same time. We can see that during times like these, Islam flourished. There has never been an Islamic renaissance without the people putting much emphasis on Islamic education and turning their hearts sincerely to Allah.

Therefore, this is why I think that home schooling is a step in the direction of reviving the traditional Islamic education and the study of Islamic sciences. If we can't get the knowledge of the Islamic sciences, then why don't we send our children to known traditional Islamic schools in Syria, Yemen, West Africa to gain the knowledge and impart it to society. More than often, this has been adopted by reverts to Islam with the likes of Imam Hamza Yusuf, Sheikh Nuh Ha Mim keller, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al Murabit and other known scholars. These people loved allah and his messenger so much that they went out to seek a path of knowledge and look how Allah rewarded them.

It is sadi that the learning of Arabic grammar increases your intellectual capacity and broadens your mind. It is an educational system that has been working effectively for the last 1400 years. It has only been declared redundant by some only in the last 50 years or so. Now students of these traditional Islamic schools are branded as terrorists and the schools as terrorists training camps. Wallah-u-a'lam.

Salams,

Din Abdul Majid