A Semester of Growth...
Never did I think that I would be at the point that I am now.Never did I think that this semester I would learn finally learn what Islam is.
Never did I think that I would meet people who without them even knowing would nurture my heart solely through companionship.
Jeffrey Lang came to the University of Maryland a couple weeks ago and he spoke about the spiritual growth of a person. To answer a question about the requirements for Jannah he drew this diagram that was simple yet full of wisdom.
He drew a straight line near the top of the board, and drew arrows going up to that line from various starting points which were at variable distances from the line he drew.
He described this sketch as what people ignorantly feel is the 'requirement' for entering Paradise. People think that there is like a certain something that is to be done in order to enter it just like a test in school has a set grade for an A, etc.
He then drew another diagram which had different starting points for the arrows, and each arrow was drawn with variable lengths stopping at different heights.
This was what he described as the growth of a human being's soul. We will be judged not on where we end up, but on what we did with the circumstance we were given.
How much we grew is what we will be judged on.
So this leads me into the first tangent:
My understand of what fiqi is was so narrow that it inhibited me from practicing Islam comfortably. I had been coached by my environment to not trust the traditional Ulema of our Ummah, particularly the ulema of the indian subcontinent.
I saw them as backwards because I never heard them talk about how I need to read hadith and the such, instead they would just give me rulings and tell me to follow em.
How could I possibly follow that path? How could I follow a person?
Questions like this lead me to fill myself with a form of arrogance, thinking that I can learn this deen on my own by reading the works of fuqaha and deciding what was 'more authentic'.
What a freakin joke that statement is.
How could I think that I am going to be able to look at some complex jurispudic ruling, evaluate many of them, and pick one which is more 'authentic' without any knowledge of anything compared to these gargantuan Scholars of Islam!
Shaykh Riyadhul Haqq compared doing something like this to someone who goes to a doctor and is diagnosed with cancer, a form that if immediately treated with chemo it would go away. Then the patient goes home, consults books about his symptoms, consults the opinions of various doctors, and then decides that he is going to form a different opinion that he feels is more authentic based on his understanding.
How could someone who is lower in knowledge claim to have the ability to know and understand the usul of the various fiqhs, why doesnt this person just become a mujtahid of his own right instead of even consulting other rulings?!!
I reflected hard core on the path I was on because I was not content with where I was spirtually.
I remembered the khushoo' I had before I stopped recognizing scholarship, and I longed for that feeling again.
This lead me to making hard core dua, and Allah swt blessed me with people who presented to me clearly what traditional Islam was, and its legitimacy.
For instance the Hanafi Madhab is a school of thought that people ridicule and mock because they are accused of following qiyas over proofs. Yet I sat in the company of scholars of the hanafi madhab who are muhadditheen, and quote saheeh hadith for anything they ever give a ruling about.
And when you ask the people of the school, they can easily refute that issue and make extremely clear the fact that the school is merely the preservation of the jurispudic methodology of none other than Abdullah ibn Masood ra, considered one of the most senior in fiqi among ALL the sahaba ra ajmaeen.
So what I finally understood was the fact that following the hikmah established by the schools of thought, and relying on orthodoxy, is actually following the wisdom of the Prophet PBUH which was then ultimately passed down to his companions, then to their companions, and then to scholars such as imam Abu Hanifa.
Then another realization I had to make was that of understanding the refutation of the false notion that a school of thought is actually the rulings of one scholar, and then these rulings are passed down to students. What a school of thought is is a methodology of a senior sahabi (such as Abdullah ibn Masood ra) passed to his students who preserved rulings and added new rulings using that methodology, and then the chain continued until now. Scholars within the school disagree about rulings sometimes, and the majority opinion (Jumhoor which is a word I became familiar with) of the scholars within a madhab is usually best to be followed.
I finally was convinced that the best and safest of ways to practice this deen was that of following a particular fiqi, and not picking and choosing between different madhahib because to do so is very problematic (I will add a link to a lecture that explains this for anyone interested).
I was once again Hanafi.
The reasons I chose the Hanafi school are numerous but I will outline the main ones in no particular order insha Allah
- My family is Hanafi, and I was not benefitting them with any knowledge I was gaining because they didnt believe in my methodology
- The scholars in my area whom I already know and have a relationship with are Hanafi Ulema, so if I wanna have access to rulings I have to chose that which is easiest to find.
- I speak Urdu, so when I do start in depth studies insha Allah I will be able to start with Urdu as I learn arabic insha Allah.
- When I get married my wife will most probably be desi, which means she also most probably will be hanafi
- I was hanafi before, and I know alot about the fiqi so it wouldnt be too much of a learning curve.
There are also other reasons but I think you can see why I chose this madhab.
What did this mean? Now that I was hanafi, what was gonna change?Subhan Allah, the majority of what i was doing was already hanafi-acceptable so I didnt even ahve to change, but now I had the comfort of knowing that a mujtahid made the decision and not just some random person.
Now came the studies of what hanafi fiqi was.
I started having personal lessons with a local Imam, who is also the Shaykh who overseas my tajweed/Quran studies.
The main thing that you hear is the salafi/sufi battle. I had to ask what it is that legitimizes a group and makes them correct over another.
Now I do not believe that one group is absolutely wrong, but I did not know too much about sufis so I started researching.
All I knew was the fact that when I heard certian shuyukh speak about anything, they brought a depth to the topic unmatched by others. I would later find that these scholars were actually scholars of tasawwuf.
To my surprise, I found that Tasawwuf was no different in its science than that of hadith science and aqeedah science. For instance you can find someone who knows the hadith, record the hadith with its chain, and establish it as a tangible entity. So people can look and see exactly what the science is preserving because its something that is matter. Yet the science of Tasawwuf is merely the preservation of Ihsaan, and the methology that the sahabah used to establish ihsaan in their lives.
To think that since Ihsaan is something that cant be measured it isnt something that is preservable or something that can be made into a science is not correct. We have dua and adhkaar of the Prophet PBUH: Who preserved them? It was the scholars of tasawwuf who preserved the true hikmah of how to to use a dua correctly and what the conditions were of the dua. A dua is not just a hadith that is recitable by us, it is a piece of soul enhancing vitamins if you will, that you must know the dose of and the time you have to take it before you just take it any way you want.
The main thing I was skeptical about was the fact that I always heard about people worshiping awliyaa and praying at graves, etc. One of these nurturers of my heart confirmed to me that some people might participate in these actions, but it is not something that is correct. Some tariqas might provide evidences for things like this, but as far as the fiqi I now follow, I found it to be unacceptable.
This epiphony of sorts has totally changed my outlook on who I am and who I aspire to be.
Sincerity is the hardest of things to maintain in my opinion, and something I know I do sometimes is I try and not look sincere in front of people so that they think im just chillin and not really into the deen. This actually is backwards reasoning because you are then intending to please someone other than Allah, and this is something extremely dangerous wa naudhubillah. This problem that I have with sincerity is something that I have not been able to solve despite all my efforts, so now I have an avenue of solving this dilemma.
We had a tarbiyya conference at the masjid I go to for Quran/fiqi lessons and in this conference one shaykh descibed the importance of us to let go of our arrogance and to trust the elders IE scholars of this deen. This is an issue that is mostly just an issue in the west, and the shaykh said that this problem is one of the root causes of our issues within our communites.
So where does this leave me?
I have 3 weeks of school left, and I already mapped out for yall what my schedule is as far as school goes for the summer and fall, and I plan to make big moves as far as deen goes and how I want to learn it. I dont wanna get into details, but let me just say that many who think they know me would be surprised by what I may be about to do this summer wallahul musta'an.
May Allah reward those who have been vehicles of clarity and have given my contentment in my stance, and may Allah make them among those whom He loves, preferres, and guides...ameen
http://downloads1.nadeemdownloads.com/ISLAMIC%20SERVER%2005/Riyadhul%20Haq-Juristic%20Differences%20Part1.mp3
http://downloads1.nadeemdownloads.com/ISLAMIC%20SERVER%2005/Riyadhul%20Haq-Juristic%20Differences%20Part2.mp3
check those lectures to get a clear understanding of where im coming from if you have questions. I think Shaykh abu Yusuf does a stupendous job at explaining the topic of Juristic differences.
posted by Iboo LaL @ 10:41 PM
Comments: 2
