Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
In today's episode, we're going to be speaking about mu'awwiqat fi talab al-'ilm, obstacles that get in the way when seeking knowledge. I have with me here students of knowledge who we can discuss together, seeking knowledge, what are the obstacles they've experienced and how can a student or a person overcome that.
Introduce yourself again inshaAllah ta'ala, you're not in your best. Assalamu alaikum, my name is Ibrahim and I'm 14 years old and I study in Jamsmall again. Allahumma barik.
Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Allahumma barik. I'm 18 and I'm in university now.
Allahumma barik, mashaAllah. What are you studying? I study business. Business, Allahumma barik.
So when you make money, you're going to remember us inshaAllah ta'ala. So the topic inshaAllah ta'ala is mu'awwiqat. Mu'awwiqat just means obstacles, things that get in the way when it comes to seeking knowledge.
This is a reality which is when it comes to seeking knowledge, people always talk about the virtues of seeking knowledge and how it is good to seek knowledge and the status of the people of knowledge but they don't really tell the people the obstacles, the hardships they go through if they seek knowledge. And sometimes because of that, because it's just been the virtues and all of that has been said, the person goes in and they realize, oof, they get slapped with some obstacles and they stop seeking knowledge. As you know, the poet said, عرفت شر لا لشر ولكن لتوقيه ومن لم يعرف شر من الخير وقع فيه It was taken from the hadith of Hudayfat ibn al-Yaman where he said, كان الناس يسألون رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم عن الخير وكنت أسأله عن الشر مخافة عندي ذكر That the people used to ask the Prophet ﷺ about the good and I used to ask him about the bad because I wanted to avoid it.
So here from that perspective we're going to speak about the hard, tough things that get in the way when it comes to seeking knowledge. And sometimes it can be things that we do that are basically contributing towards not being able to seek knowledge. So can you guys think of any? So what I think is that when we talk about obstacles in seeking knowledge, there are basically two kinds of obstacles that we can see.
One of them are more personal obstacles, they have to do with a person's attitude, their mindset, their characteristics, things that maybe it's up to them. And then we have more which are external, which are more about the person's environment, where they live, how they're brought up, what resources they have in hand. So the personal ones to one degree I can say that a person has some kind of control.
And the lack of motivation in personal ones, where the person feels like he's not motivated now. That's true. For example, one of the first things I feel like, and may Allah protect us all from it, it's something we should always be scared of, is lack of sincerity.
And people don't understand this is an actual big obstacle. Because according to your sincerity you gain knowledge. Some of the scholars they say, knowledge is like, Allah has a high example and we can't compare anything to Allah.
But just to get the point across more clearer for people to understand. When a mother gives food to the child, she expects the child to bite on that food, to chew it, and then to digest it, to swallow it. Then she gives the next set of food, or another spoon of food.
Yes. That's the same when it comes to knowledge. Allah wants that what he gave you, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to go somewhere.
To go the right, so implementing it, acting upon it, being sincere with that knowledge and not showing off with it. Allah sees that from subhanahu wa ta'ala. More, more.
So lack of sincerity and not acting upon the knowledge is, I feel like it's one of the biggest things that we see on a regular basis. And also that reminds me of the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ where he mentions the adab for the one who gains knowledge to gain an upper hand against the sufaha, or to go against the ulama, and things like that. مَنْ طَلَبَ الْعِلْمَ لِيُمَارِي بِهِ السُّفَهَةِ The person who learns knowledge so he can, the dimwitted people, or the lame people, he wants to boast and brag in front of them, he wants to put the scholars down and say look they don't understand anything, I know it.
Put himself up, that's his purpose. This is an obstacle, the biggest obstacle that you have to overcome, which is be sincere وَمَا أُمِرُوا إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ He has to be sincere and do it for Allah. لذلك, let's break it down.
When you're seeking knowledge, there are, the intention has to be one. The poet he said, فَلْتَقْصِدُ أَرْبَعَةً قَبْلَ ابْتِدَى Intend four things before you even start seeking knowledge. أَوَلُهَا الْقُرُوجُ مِنْ ضَلَالِ وَالثَٰنِي نَفْعُ خَلْقِ ذِي الْجَلَالِ وَالثَٰنِي تُلْإِحْيَاءِ لِلْعُلُومِ وَالرَّابِعُ لِلْعَمَلِ لِلْمَعْلُومِ When it comes to seeking knowledge, there are four things that have to be replaced automatically.
That's your intention. فَلْتَقْصِدُ أَرْبَعَةً قَبْلَ ابْتِدَى تَعَلَّمْ لِكَي تَفُوزَ بِالْهُدَى أَوَلُهَا الْقُرُوجُ مِنْ ضَلَالِ وَالثَٰنِي نَفْعُ خَلْقِ ذِي الْجَلَالِ The third is to benefit the people. وَالثَٰنِي تُلْإِحْيَاءِ لِلْعُلُومِ The third aim or intention is to revive that science.
Because some of the sciences are dying, no one is learning it. No one is taking time out for it or a little while taking time out to seek it. So what you do is you are learning it to revive it, to bring it back.
وَالرَّابِعُ الْعَمَلِ لِلْمَعْلُومِ And the fourth purpose of why you are seeking knowledge is to act upon what you learnt. If those four purposes are not in place, you've got an obstacle and that obstacle is none other than yourself. So I think you are right, Abdulbaset, you are right.
It's obstacles that come from the person. You mentioned another one which is lack of motivation. Not having Uluwul Himmah, high aspiration.
There's a Kitab Ibn Al-Qayyim wrote, it's called Miftaahu Dar Al-Sa'ada. That Kitab is divided into two. The first segment of the Kitab, Ibn Al-Qayyim talks about the virtues of seeking knowledge.
And he mentions 153 virtues. Imagine that. SubhanAllah.
Yeah, the first portion of the book, 153 virtues. He takes it from the Qur'an, from the Sunnah, from the statements of the early pious predecessors, talking about the virtue of knowledge. And then the second segment of the book, he talks about aspiration.
The book revolves around where he says that whenever a person wants to attain his goal, wants to reach a place that he wants to reach, he says two things. What is it? It is... Having insight, knowledge, and the second one is having motivation and a drive. Let's say I know how to make this cup right now.
But I don't want to do it. Would it ever happen? Would I ever make this cup? No. What about if I want to make the cup? It is going to happen.
But I don't have the knowledge. I also still can't make it. So there has to be a combination of wanting to make it and also knowing how to make it.
Yes. When you get those two, Alhamdulillah, you're now going to move forward and you're going to get what you're looking for. What other obstacles do you think there are? But how do we solve this, you know, in terms of Ikhlas? How do we attain sincerity while seeking knowledge in terms of motivation? Because motivation, I think it's difficult while seeking knowledge, because knowledge is not something which has, you know, it's not instantly gratuitous.
You can't just learn a Masada today. You might not apply it. You know, you might need to read and go into a lot of other things before you actually get use out of it, practical use out of it.
So how do we attain motivation, attain sincerity? Reading the life of the pious predecessors always uplifts you. If you look at the Prophet's biography, whenever he would go through hard times in his life, Allah would tell him the stories of the early Prophets in the previous nations. And this was a form to bring comfort to the Prophet, that you're not the only one treading on this path.
Allah says, قَدْ كَانَ فِي قَصَصِهِ بِعِبْرَةً لِأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ مَا كَانَ حَلِيطًا يُفْتَرَى These stories are Ibra, there is lessons in it for you. وَلَقَدْ كُذِّبَتْ رُسُولٌ مِنْ قَبْرِكَ فَصَبَرُوا عَلَىٰ مَا كُذِّبُوا وَأُؤُذُوا حَتَّىٰ أَتَاهُمْ نَصُرُنَا يَعَلِي مُحَمَّدٍ صلى الله عليه وسلم There have come before you Prophets and nations that have been disbelieved, they've been even harmed. So you're not alone on this path.
So this helps you when you're seeking knowledge to know that you're not alone on this path. Feeling alone on a path makes your energy go and your drive and your motivation. That's why إِذَا مَرِضْنَا تَدَاوَيْنَا بِذِكْرِكُمُ وَلَا تُرْكُوا الذِكْرَ حَيَالِ الْفَرَجَةِ Whenever we feel sick or we feel low, the poet says that we go and we read the biography of these great Imams and then this revives us, wakes us up.
The other day, I was just quickly looking at the life of Al-Imam Ibn Al-Dhaqiq Al-'Eid. I'm trying to finalize and finish off reading the Kitab of Ihtam Al-Hakam with the Hashih of Ameer As-Sala'ani. The life of this man and what kind of person he was and his knowledge and what he wrote and the explanation he's placing on that book is profound.
You're amazed and by the way, it was just a book that he dictated. Imagine he sat down and wrote it. And then it shows you that, wow, this is what I want to work towards.
So reading the life of the great Imams, I think it's one of the best things or the best means to motivate. Also being in a gathering of people who have high aspirations, you know, you are like the people around. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, said in a hadith that the person is of the person they're with.
فَلِيَنظُرْ أَحَدُّكُمَنْ يُخَالِدُكُ So look at who you take as a friend. Why? Because your friend influences you to either have high aspiration or low aspiration. And people who you tend to see that have high aspiration, a lot of the times they are inspired.
Inspiring comes from two places. One, it could come from books and reading or watching something. Or it comes from befriending a certain person who speaks to you, talks to you, wakes you up, reminds you of something, triggers something in your mind and heart.
And there you are, you're energetic, you're enthusiastic about it. So I think those things support in high aspiration. Yes.
And there's one more point that, you know, us living in a modern world, there's a lot of distraction with the games and the shows and the movies. Social media as well. How can we balance that? How can we remove that from our lives? This one comes back to a point that I think is also from the obstacles.
I think we should merge it together, which is تنظيم الوقت, which came to my mind now, organizing your time. There are people who just cannot stop engaging in things that are unnecessary. There's a hadith attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. The hadith is not authentic.
It's in the chain of narration قرة بن عبد الرحمن. Because of him the hadith is weak. But the meaning is correct.
Abu Huraira narrated it, he says from the Prophet ﷺ. But the meaning is correct. من حسن الإسلام والمرأة. From the excellence of a person's Islam.
To show this person is an excellent Muslim is ترك ما لا يعني. He leaves off that which does not concern him. If a person lives his life to not engage, not be part of something that doesn't benefit you.
Nor does it benefit you in your dunya nor in your akhirah. If you learn and pick up a habit, is it going to benefit you? You ask yourself that first question. Is this going to benefit me in my dunya or my akhirah? If the answer is no, then walk away from it.
Because you're not giving importance to one of the most important things, which is your time. So people who are playing games, is that going to benefit them in their dunya? No. Is that going to benefit them in their akhirah? No.
No. What about those who are engaged so much in social media all the time, flicking through social media? Is it going to benefit you this thing? Is this thing going to bring you benefit? Sometimes social media might be a way to connect your parents. Yes, it brings some benefits.
You need to talk to your parents through WhatsApp and this and that. Okay, it's important for you. For example, I use Telegram.
I like it because I go on that channel so often because of PDFs. I'm looking for something. There's a PDF I can look through.
I'm in some Telegram groups, which are researchers. You won't find it on Google at all. Or you won't find it on the internet.
You'll find it there. All organized, sectioned, and everything. Keep up with some duroos of some of the shuyukhs.
Like, very well organized. So it has a benefit for me. Being there has a religious benefit for me.
But if something doesn't have a religious benefit for you, or a worldly benefit for you, ask yourself, is engaging in it going to benefit you? What's the purpose of you engaging in it? Other than it being an obstacle to everything that you stand for. So, Tanvimur works to organize your time. I think the reason why people don't know how to organize their time is because they don't know the value of time.
If you knew the value of time, for example, if someone doesn't know the value of gold and it's put on the table, they'll just think it's a normal rock. They'll just walk away and leave it, right? If they know what gold's value is, and what it can do, what does that person start doing? Hold it up. Hold it, put it in his pocket, make sure no one sees it.
Because he knows the value of gold. You need to know the value of time in order to take it seriously. I think time should be something a person needs in order to respect their time.
What about more practical ways to organize time? Do you recommend scheduling or making a checklist or something to do? When it comes to organizing time, I think a person has to realize that time is small and it's large. Some people think if they want to benefit from time, they have to get 2-3 hours to read or 2-3 hours to memorize. No.
You have to even look at 2 minutes that you're standing somewhere. What can I do with 2 minutes? Yesterday, my car, the tire, one of the tires wasn't working. I mean, busted.
So, flat tire. I had to go to the garage and get a tire. In that time that we're going back and forth to the tire and get it sorted, the guy's doing it for me, I actually read 67 pages from the Kitab Al-Hikam.
I was reading it. While we're in the car, we're driving there, we're coming back. 67 pages.
I even wrote it on the top of the book. You don't have to always be sitting somewhere. Sometimes life doesn't give you that chance.
You're in an awkward situation, right? Have the book ready? Use it. Or you have Qur'an, Mus'haf. You need to memorize it? Use it.
So, squeezing in those times. I remember, subhanAllah, there was a brother, subhanAllah, who memorized the Kitab Al-Riyadh Al-Sadiq between Adhan and Iqamah. Every Salah for the Adhan and Iqamah, he designated between that time, a portion of Hadith to memorize from Riyadh Al-Sadiq.
Until he completed it. Adhan and Iqamah, what do we do? It's like, we don't consider that to be any time. So, if you start valuing every minute, then you start benefiting from the large number.
Actually, I'll tell you something. I said this to a brother. I said, brother, calculate how much time, how many hours you spend driving.
Look at it. Every time you go into your car, press it. Stopwatch.
And when you reach your destination, stop it. Do that for a week. Write it down.
Calculate it. You tend to realize you're spending the majority of your time on the road. What can you do now? You can listen to a lecture.
You can listen to Qur'an. You can do something very productive. There's a Kitab called, and I encourage everyone, every student of knowledge, to try to buy this book.
Very beneficial. One of the early books I read. It really benefited me a lot.
It's called, It's written by a contemporary Shaykh. A profound Shaykh, to be honest. A very amazing person.
When I met him and was in his presence, Shaykh Abdulaziz Salhan. Abdulaziz Salhan wrote a Kitab with the Takdeem of the great noble Imam, Shaykh Abdullah ibn Jibreel. Ibn Jibreel did a Takdeem on the Kitab.
This book is a must read. It's a must read. And one of the things he mentioned in there was what I just mentioned right now.
The concept of, while still driving, designate the Fatawa of a scholar. That's what I did for a period of time. Took it from that book.
Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen's, Liqaa Baabil Muftuha. Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen's Fatawa, for example. Or Ibn Ubaid.
Or any other scholar. It doesn't have to just be them. It can be any other scholar.
I listened to the while I was driving. I finished Kutubs while I was driving. You see? Actually, the reason why my tire actually busted was I was writing from a tape.
I hit the pavement. So I parked my car later. And then the next morning when I woke up, I had a flat tire from that.
So I'm not going to advise anyone to do that. But I keep generally a paper and a pen on my lap. And as I'm driving, if I come across a lecture point, I generally park.
Sometimes you're in a situation where you can't park. So I quickly scribble the benefit down. I finished books.
I finished lectures. I finished Qawa'id. Just while I was driving.
It's very beneficial. So value time. It's important for student knowledge.
It's not just even Islamic stuff sometimes I listen to. Sometimes I listen to worldly matters, history, events that have happened, things that have taken place. It's important to know about these things as well.
I listen to while I'm driving. So there's benefit whilst you're driving. I encourage anyone who wants to benefit from their time, early start.
If you want to start, if you want to benefit from your day, you need to wake up early. If you wake up at Dhuhr or Asr, the day is finished. Yes.
What you produced that day is going to be so low. The earlier you wake up, the better. What's the saying? You snooze, you lose, right? Yes.
That's it. So 4.30. 4, 4.30. My children, Qur'an class, we have 4.30. That's it. So 4.30 is dark so they have to wake up at 4 o'clock.
Some people might say that's before Fajr. So it gives them time to pray Qiyam and Salat together. It also gives them time as a family to talk and if you need to ask them questions and prepare themselves.
4.30 they sit down and start memorising. 5 o'clock Fajr comes in, we pray. The boys go to the mosque and we pray.
The girls at home, they pray. We come back and we start our devs from there till 9.30. When we finish at 9.30, guess what? The day has just started for so many people right around the world. But they've finished their day.
The lump sum of what they needed to do, they've finished. From now this time, so from 9.30 till Dhuhr, they still have to do something. They have to revise and prepare.
From Dhuhr till Asr, they sleep. I myself do the same. Dhuhr and Asr I sleep.
And Asr I wake up until Isha. They are memorising and preparing for the next day. And I'm also preparing.
I'm doing my work and what I need to do. I have Monday's books that I have to read. So I divide my studying into two.
Books that I have to read for sciences. For example, every science, I've picked one book for that science. For example, Mustalah al-Hadith, I picked the Kitab of al-Mu'idh.
And I study that very often. I try to finish that every month at least. And I go over it.
That's just to keep the science in place. I don't forget it. But I also have free reading.
Qira'ah Hurma. Free reading. New books that have come out and etc.
I designate time for that as well. That I do layers of reading. So the first layer is just go over it fast.
And then I go over it again if it's worth going over. And then this time I read it with diligence, calmly. Start noting on it.
Copy it. Write a content page for it. Summarize it and etc.
Everyone has their style and their method. I don't think people should follow my time table and my schedule. Because بَلِلْإِنسَانُ عَلَى نَفْسِهِ بِبَصِيرَةٍ وَلَوْ أَلْقَامَ عَذِيرَةٍ I think this is also one of the obstacles that happen.
People follow exactly another person's lifestyle or another person's method. But sometimes it might not work for you. You might have another type of learning method.
They say that the learning method of people is categorized into three. Some people are kinesthetic learners. Some are auditory learners.
Some are visual learners. So you need to know where do you fit in. Which one are you? Study yourself.
I think one of the important things is when it comes to seeking knowledge, you have to know yourself. Also define your seeking knowledge. And this is another obstacle which is some people only understood from seeking knowledge, understanding.
So mashaAllah, Allah has given them understanding. They listen to a lot of lectures. They've read quite a few books.
But they've not memorized anything. And living off memorization is an obstacle. Because you have the understanding, but you can't talk right now because you don't have the books in front of you.
And as the poet said, not the poet, the sheikh, the teacher of Sebaway, his name is Khalil Ahmad Al-Farahimi. He said, Knowledge is not what's in scrolls. Yes.
Knowledge is what? What's in the chest. What's covered in your chest. The poet, he said, لَن تَكُنْ حَاصِظًا وَعِيًّا وَجَمْعُكَ لِلْكُتْبِ لَا يَنْفَعُ تَحْذُرُ بِالْجَهْلِ فِي مَدْلِسٍ وَكُتُبُكَ فِي الْبَيْتِ You're never going to be a scholar if your knowledge is based on a book that's at home.
In my library, I have this book. I wish I could speak to you about this topic. I can't, man.
This is in my book. So you're ignorant without your books. But when you have your books in front of you, you are what? You're a sheikh.
That's not knowledge. So memorize. First of all, start memorizing the Qur'an.
Memorize the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ. This is very important. Once you memorize those two, then you can start memorizing people's words. Scholars, what they've written.
And that's the level it should be. Allah comes first, then the Prophet ﷺ, and then every other scholar's works, their poetries and what they've written. What else do you think? It's an obstacle that I'm sitting on.
I'm talking a lot. I want you guys to hear me. Actually, I think that we've gone through a lot of the personal obstacles which a person has by themselves.
So perhaps now it's good to speak about some of the external obstacles, obstacles which might arise due to a person's environment, or things which might not even be under their control. Yes, some of them like lack of resources. Yeah, lack of knowledge as well, when it comes to seeking knowledge as well.
And also the language problem. I mean, not many, all of the books are in Arabic language, and many people don't understand the Arabic language. So how can they overcome that obstacle? This obstacle, when it comes to the methodology of seeking knowledge, I think is one of the biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest problems students suffer from.
One of the biggest. Because a new book comes out. Hawani.
But there's a previous book that's outstanding that you haven't finished reading. So you become like a child who's, you know what, in a candy shop. You want all of the sweets.
The kid wants, when he likes it all, he wants a lollipop, he wants the jelly beans, he wants this, he wants that. And so the person becomes like that when he goes into the market, he wants this book, oh I like this one, and I want this one, and I want this one. And guess what happens? The person takes all of those books, takes it home, and it sometimes could be a form of depression.
You could be depressed because all of these are in front of you, and you haven't gone through any of it. And believe that it, a student of knowledge has to have a teacher. Seeking knowledge by just gathering books is one of the harms a student of knowledge can face.
Exactly a harm. Many people were deviated, deviated from Islam, attained corrupted ideologies, became extremists. If you really look at them, one of the first questions I generally ask them is did you take knowledge from a scholar? Why do they condemn the ulama? People who are very fanatic, extremist ideologies.
Why do they condemn scholars? Because they didn't learn from scholars. If you take knowledge from just a book, the scholars they say anyone who checks his books, what? Your mistakes are more than what you get right. Thank you.
But at the same time, oftentimes we see, you know, sometimes people don't have access to shuyuk. Sometimes, especially I think now, when it's subsiding now, but due to COVID, there was limited access to shuyuk. So what do you think are alternatives? Are recordings of shuyuk alternatives to that? Yes.
Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen, similar question was asked to him. I believe to me, if a student of knowledge, dedicated his life to just listen to the words of Shaykh Muhammad bin Salih Ibn Uthaymeen, I don't think he'll be able to finish it. Just one man, the legacy he's left behind, so much.
It's vast. If you just say I'm going to follow him, he won't be able to finish his fatawa and his books that he's written, the tapes are out there, everything. That's why I say to brothers, take them, if you don't have a Shaykh, it's not available for you, you're not in a country where you can learn, first of all, learn the Arabic language.
Attain the key, as you mentioned, how important, the language is important, it's the key to the religion. Anyone, look, this has to be made clear to the students of knowledge out there who are aspiring to be students of knowledge. I don't want to deceive, I want to be honest and truthful.
You are not seeking knowledge if you don't know the Arabic language. You are not a student of knowledge and you should not categorize yourself or put yourself in the ranks of students of knowledge if you don't know Arabic. You have to go out of your way and study the Arabic language.
Now, I'm not saying you have to be a master in the Arabic language, because I'm not a master. And Imam al-Shafi'i, he says in his kitab, Jum'ah wa l-'ilm, that there's no one who's mastered the Arabic language, or any language, other than a prophet. There's always words that you're going to come across that you don't know, but have a good understanding of the word, of the language.
You study Nahu, Sarf, Talagha, all of these signs, Adab al-Lugha, Adab, all of those. You take that in. Once you've got the keys, and you've got the Arabic language, masha'Allah, and you've taken a year or two just to study the Arabic language, I say to brothers, go and sit down, and you don't have anyone to teach you the religion, right? Sit down, start with, after the Qur'an you've finished, Arba'u al-Nawiyah.
Sit down, Ibn Uthaynil has a complete audio on it. Alhamdulillah, his book, follow it. Literally, just play the recording of Ibn Uthaynil and get the book in front of you.
Any questions that pop up that you don't know, write it on the side, and whenever you meet a student of knowledge, whenever you meet a Sheikh, say, Sheikh Ibn Uthaynil said this, and I haven't understood it. The person would either say, can I hear it? Can you play it for me? Or he has, he's probably come across it as well, and he'll say, this is what he meant. Okay, and then you move on to the next, and then the next.
You use that method until you come in contact with the Sheikh. If you see a Sheikh, and you teach, you go to him, stop what you're doing, and go, sit down. Al-Imam al-Shatibi, in his Kitab al-Muwafaqat, in the Muqaddimah, the Kitab al-Muwafaqat is about maqasud al-shariah, the objectives of the shariah.
Amazingly, at the beginning of the book, he talks about Turuq al-Tahseel al-'ilm, methods and ways to attain knowledge. He says, Wa Turuq al-Tahseel al-'ilm al-tariqan The ways to attain knowledge are two paths. Al-Ula, the first one he says, and this is exactly his wordings, he says, Al-Mushafaha Wa huwa yajlis al-taalibu bayday yadayibu al-li It is that Mushafaha means from the mouth of the Sheikh, and it is the student crosses his feet and sits in front of a Sheikh.
He said, look, Shatibi said, Fa inna Allaha yafdahu lahu bima la yafdaha Allah will open doors for you. Through that, you will not gain through any other method. The second one is, it is, he says, Tajreed al-kutub Wa qara'at al-mu'allafat Reading books Ya'ani, Going through Butoon al-kutubi Wa al-mujalladat Going through books and studying.
This one, you have to remember. Why? What do you need to remember? This, the books, they are locked. There is a lock on it.
The keys are in the hands of the scholars. Because what? Originally, the knowledge was in whose chest? The scholars. The scholars felt sorry for us and said, you know what, we've got, because that's how they used to pass knowledge.
bal hu ayatul bayyinatun Fi suduri alladhina utul ilm Knowledge was in the chest of the people of knowledge, right? So, what the scholars did was, they said, you know what, why are we just going to keep this in our chests? Let's make it accessible. Let's make it available for the people. So, they put it in the books.
But, even though they placed it in the books, they have to unlock it for you to understand what they mean by these things. Are you there? Right. Yeah.
So, the person has to go to the scholars in order to understand it. The poet, he said, yadunnul ghumru anna al-kutba tahdi akha fahmin li idrakil ulumi wa ma yadilil jahulu bi anna fiha uluman qad ma he said, wa ma yadilil jahulu bi anna fiha ghawamitha qad hayarat aqla alfahimi idha rumtal uluman bighayri shaykhin dhalalta anisrafil mustaqilin wa taltabisul ulumu alika hatta taseer athalla min tauman hakeelin The person thinks by reading these books and looking into it that he's going to be guided from it. No, no, no.
We've seen it. We've sat with people where like it's literally every point he brings it's like it's a year course that I have to do for this because he's just picked things from here and there and there. It's like the doubts that are resonating in this person is so deeply rooted to take one by one it requires years of courses because he went through the wrong door and Allah s.w.t. says in the Qur'an وَادْخُلْ بُيُوتَهَا من أبوابها entered the houses from the doors he entered it from the roof or the window so now everything is mixed up so having a shaykh if you can if it's available that's the best method if it's not available then these ashritha and these tapes are the second method don't just pick a book by yourself and say I'm going to understand it myself now that's very good Muhammad Gharib just recordings even today we see they're very widespread very easy to get on YouTube actually what do you see when a person is learning Arabic should he just dedicate all of his efforts just into learning Arabic just into studying the language or should he just begin maybe some preliminary studies on the site in some you know important things and checking everything or does he just focus all his efforts in Arabic using English language whatever resources he can get so of course there are always knowledge that is this moment and this time that you need and knowledge of course that's going to be in the future the knowledge that you need at this certain moment at this particular moment is always first priority that's number one so if I need that science now I have to learn that first because it's called ilmul hal what's it called? ilmul hal ilmul hal means the knowledge of this moment this time is more important than any other science or any other knowledge that's going to be so you're learning about for example groups and sects within Islam and you don't know tahara and you don't know salah how to pray it properly and it's something that keeps coming up five times a day shows your that you haven't sought knowledge from the scholars it also shows that you went around seeking knowledge in the wrong way does that make sense? so your first priority first priority is what? what do I need now? make your way to all of those other points does that make sense? even within aqeedah there are certain things that are not concerning for you personally right now yes you need certain parts of just like fiqh certain matters of fiqh you don't need to know right now it doesn't concern you right now you need certain parts of it right? even when some people say I need to learn aqeedah and then he spends his whole life studying aqeedah from beginning to end it's a wrong thing study what is what? what is upon you for your aqeedah right now and even in tawhid what is important for you? now for you now and also fiqh what is important for you? now all of that is what's important for a person to learn because this do you know what it does? it becomes it takes the knowledge from being theoretical to what? practicality it makes it practical that's something you live by I learned this and I do it I learned this I acted upon it why do you think Abdullahi ibn Umar and others spent years in surah al-baqarah? why? what was the reason? they would learn 10 ayat and then they would apply what is in those ayat application they took surah as a form of application everything they learned Abubuham al-Sulaym he said that كانوا يقرؤون عشر آيات من القرآن they would read 10 ayat كانوا يقرؤوننا they used Abubuham al-Sulaym he says عبدالرحمن the sahabahs they would make us memorize 10 verses from the Qur'an and then what would they do is we wouldn't go move on unless we what? unless we acted and applied that in our lives so So what's another obstacle that you see with seeking knowledge? One more external obstacle is that people give up when they look at the long path of the knowledge.
The journey of the knowledge is so long, they say, Allah, this is very exhausting, I cannot do it. So how would you advise those people? Allah is so true, you're right. Anything, if you want to attain success through it, it's generally going to be hard.
I remember, SubhanAllah, I loved watching Wildlife, there was a series on animal wildlife and David Attenborough was in the series. I love it, I enjoy it. That's my biggest, I waste a lot of time sometimes watching that stuff.
One of the episodes I watched where he was talking about, is it called the cocoon? When it has to go out of the shell that it's in, in order to become a butterfly, right? Yeah, the cocoon. The cocoon has to break through the shell and keep hitting it and get out of that to become a butterfly. If anyone helps it, it will cripple it for the rest of its life.
Yes. SubhanAllah. SubhanAllah, looking at that, I learned something.
Sometimes in life you have to be left to struggle to seek knowledge and that's where you grow. If someone keeps spoon feeding you and giving you everything and you don't go through the real hardship that it has, even if you learn something, it's going to become easy come, easy go. Easy come, easy go.
There's a program that a lot of students are not able to use, to be honest I don't even use it. It's called Maktabat Al-Shamidah. I don't use it.
I'm not really familiar with it, to be honest, so I just read. There was a time a brother helped me try to use it. He said, look, this is it, press this button, this is what you do, look, you're missing out, etc.
The things that he helped me research in that particular certain field, because it was copy, paste, we weren't really going through the hard copy of the book and we weren't opening it and we were not looking for the exact volume, we weren't looking for the page, you know, that whole struggle you have to go through. Because we weren't doing that, you copy it in the search engine and then you press search and then it searches all the books that it's in and then you just copy it from there. I didn't even remember where it was taken from because it was so fast.
Copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste. He asked me the whole entire point that I was researching. I can't recall it properly because I didn't go through the struggle of what I used to go to.
So that's what I said, look, for me personally, I like the long road. I like that long path of going to that volume, getting it down, opening it and getting it from there. Because whilst I'm looking for that, sometimes I come over and I cross by another mess that I was researching and because I open the volume with my own hand, I remember it.
I know exactly where it is. Does that make sense? Yeah. Because I read the Kitab al-Hikam al-Hikam and I'm doing the biography of al-Allama Abdel Ghani bin Abdel Wahid al-Makdis, I needed to look up and see al-Allama al-Nobel.
Because I have the hard copy and I didn't copy paste it from the Maktaba, Maktaba al-Shamilah, I could tell what volume exactly it is. 21st volume. SubhanAllah.
So, because I had to go through from, because he died, al-Imam Abdel Ghani bin Abdel Wahid al-Makdis, he died year 600, right? So I had to start looking at everybody who died that year, 600, to get it out. I had to go through from volume 15, 16, 17 and I'm going, going, going until I got to that volume. That's how you remember the volumes.
I could tell Imam Sheikh that it's volume, I could tell you Ahmed Mohamed as well. When I was doing Bukhari, where I got it from, Muslim, all of the people I'm looking for, I know what volume it is. Because I had to literally look for it.
Struggle benefits you with that. You recall volumes, you recall pages as well sometimes, subhanAllah. It's still stuck in your head.
Whereas if you just copy paste it a bit fast, you forget. So anyone who thinks something is hard and it's long, enjoy it. Because it's going to stick, it's not going to go anywhere.
It's going to last for long. I think we'll end the episode here. So much other obstacles we could have spoken about.
Yeah, we can have another episode just talking more about this, subhanAllah. May Allah bless you both for coming on the show, inshaAllah ta'ala. It's really nice having you both.
We've had a lot of Ibrahim on the show. I mean, subhanAllah, I think so much, sit down and count how many Ibrahim we've had on this show. So it's a name of barakah, yeah? InshaAllah.
InshaAllah ta'ala, this is the end of this episode. Any mistakes or shortcomings or errors that you heard from us is from us and shaytan. And Allah and His Messenger are both free from it.
Subhanaka Allahumma walhamdulillahi wa ash-shahadu wa la ilaha illallah. Astaghfiruka wa atubu ilaih.
