Return to Wisdom

Return to Wisdom

Opening Praise and Counsel

Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Sayyidina Rasulullah wa ala alihi wa man wala.

Alhamdulillah, we praise Allah and we ask for His help and we ask for His forgiveness and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, no one is misguided, and whom He misguides, no one is guided and His blessings and peace be upon the best of Allah's creation upon Sayyidina and Habibina Rasulullah wa ala alihi wa man wala. I counsel myself and all of you inshallah to have taqwa of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

The Beginning of Wisdom

The saying that the fear of Allah is the beginning of wisdom and wisdom is the ability to act appropriately in any given situation and this is something that unfortunately is lacking today. When you look at the conditions of the world you see that very often people do the opposite of what the actual situation entails. So the word hikmah which is wisdom is the word that the Qur'an uses for sunnah because the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم in his sunnah he always does the right thing.

The Prophet's Wisdom and Divine Correction

In the few times when he didn't do the right thing and he was rebuked by Allah he actually was doing the right thing but it was not the best thing and that's why he always does the best thing. So his censure from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, his censure from Allah when he was rebuked in the Qur'an by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it was because the hikmah in that situation was to be speaking to the one that wanted to hear the message and not the one that was uninterested in the message. One was wealthy and the other was poor and so the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was giving his attention to the wealthy man hoping that he would strengthen Islam and so the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was rebuked there. So that's an example, a rare example when his hikmah was readjusted by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم his tawfiq from Allah is that he was always hakeem.

The one that's given wisdom is given a great good. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who sent the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم to recite His verses وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ (Quran 62:2) - that He's the one who sent amongst the gentiles, amongst the unlettered people a Prophet and He sent him to recite His verses to purify them and to teach the book and the wisdom, the hikmah.

وَاذْكُرْنَ مَا يُتْلَى فِي بُيُوتِكُنَّ مِنْ آيَاتِ اللَّهِ وَالْحِكْمَةِ (Quran 33:34) - Remember, the women of the Prophet's household were told to remember the blessing of the Qur'an being revealed in their houses, the hikmah and the sunnah of the Prophet and this is what Imam al-Shafi'i in his famous book about Usul al-Fiqh says the hikmah is the sunnah.

Knowledge Versus Wisdom

So you can have knowledge, but knowing how to apply the knowledge is the wisdom that's the hikmah and that's the difference between those who might know the hukm of Allah as a text and those who know when the hukm of Allah is applicable. That's wisdom and this is where the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was constantly teaching his sahaba.

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said وَمَا آتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوهُ وَمَا نَهَاكُمْ عَنْهُ فَانتَهُوا (Quran 59:7) - that whatever the Prophet has given you, take it and whatever he's prohibited of you, avoid it.

The Miracle of Preserving the Sunnah

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, a time will come when a satiated man will be sitting on a couch reclining and he'll hold up the book of Allah and he will say, whatever's in this book, follow it and whatever it says is halal, make it halal whatever it says is haram, make it haram and he said, he won't mention my sunnah and this is a miracle of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم because the people that reject the sunnah never in the history of Islam did any group reject the sunnah until these latter days when people rejected the idea that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم came with wahi.

He does not speak from his caprice, from his whims, from his passion. This is revelation being revealed.

The Preservation of the Prophet's Words

If you look at the Prophet's life every single thing that he did after the revelation is recorded because how many conversations do we have we don't record them they go off into the air, it's just wind coming out of us and we have maybe an enjoyable conversation we might even have a wise conversation but when the conversation's over, the words are gone we might not even remember them and over time they're simply gone. But every single thing the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said sahaba were memorizing they were recording it.

Abu Hurairah, people say how could Abu Hurairah relate over 5000 hadith he was only with the Prophet for two and a half years. This is one of the people that attack the hadith how could he relate over 5000 because Abu Hurairah spent his entire life collecting hadith it wasn't just during the lifetime of the Prophet and in many of them he doesn't say I heard the Prophet say he just says the Prophet said and he doesn't have to say where he got it from because he's a thiqa and the person he took it from, another sahabi, was a thiqa. Aisha relates over 2000 hadith so the hadith were preserved.

The Role of Scholars in Understanding Hadith

Now one of the tragedies of the time we're living in is historically the hadith were the domain of the ulama. There were small books written for common people but overall the hadith were in a tradition of isnad. You had to study hadith with scholars and they would explain to you. Ibn Wahab one of the greatest scholars of Islam he

said I learned so many hadith and this is one of the rijal of Al Bukhari he said I learned so many hadith I became confused and he said if it wasn't for Malik and Laith I would have perished out of confusion. I went to Malik and he would say take this hadith don't take that hadith take this hadith that hadith is no good that hadith is no longer practiced and he sorted it out for him. Malik knew over 100,000 hadith and yet his muwatta only has less than 700 hadith. He learned over 100,000 hadith.

So now you have people opening up the book or worse going on google or mektaba shamila looking at hadith and then they get confused and then they confuse others and one of the groups that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala cursed on the throne and the angels said amen. Allah said and the angels said amen: the one who leads simple people astray, the one who leads simple people astray. So this is one of the problems, the calamities of our time.

The Two Sources of Guidance

If you look at the hadith of the prophet, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in hadith that are sound, Malik related, Tirmidhi and others, he said there's two things that I left you if you hold to them you will not go astray: the book of Allah and my way. His way is the wisdom because the quran says that there came a light and a book. You need the light to read the book you can't read in darkness. The light is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He's the light that illuminates the book. Without the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the book can become a source of people going astray and every group in the history of Islam that went astray they went astray with quran and verses. They said this means this this means that and they interpreted it they all used the same text and they went astray but a normative tradition in Islam emerged and it was difficult. They had to come out there were many fabricated hadith they had to sort those out they put all the hadith they collected them all.

The Religion of Moderation

Now the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said لَنْ يُشَادَّ الدِّينَ أَحَدٌ إِلَّا غَلَبَهُ (Bukhari hadith 39) - this religion, this is a tough religion. This is a tough religion. He said لَنْ يُشَادَّ الدِّينَ أَحَدٌ or لَنْ يُشَادَّ الدِّينَ أَحَدًا إِلَّا غَلَبَهُ - no one will become an extremist in this religion except he will be overwhelmed.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said هَلَكَ الْمُتَنَطِّعُونَ - the zealots will perish. The zealots he said it three times هَلَكَ الْمُتَنَطِّعُونَ (Muslim hadith (2670). He said إِيَّاكُمْ وَالْغُلُوَّ فِي الدِّينِ - beware of extremism in your religion. He said moderation and you will get to paradise. This is our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

He said سَدِّدُوا وَقَارِبُوا - be upright and do the best you can. مُقَارَبَة is attempt to get close with, get close to Allah, do your best. بَشِرُوا وَلَا تُنَفِّرُوا - give glad tidings to people, give them glad tidings. طُهُ * مَا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْقُرْءَانَ لِتَشْقَى (Quran 20:1-2) - we didn't reveal this Quran for you to be miserable. That's what the Quran said we didn't reveal this Quran for you to be miserable.

Obedience With Intelligence

When one of the amirs of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he got upset with his companions and they إِنَّمَا كَانَ قَوْلَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذَا دُعُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَهُمْ - you just obey the amir سَمْعًا وَطَاعَةً were told to obey the amir (Quran 24:51) - when the believers are called to Allah and His messenger to deliberate amongst them then what do they say? سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا - we hear and we obey.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said obey your ruler وَلَوْ تَأْمَّرَ عَلَيْكَ عَبْدٌ - even if it's a servant that becomes a ruler obey him. So the sahaba had this mentality of obedience so they made their fire at the camp because they're out on a trip and he got angry at them. He said you all have to jump in the fire. Wallahi there are people today that if the amir said jump in the fire they would jump in the fire. The sahaba had brains. That's one of the blessings that Allah gave the Prophet, companions that were intelligent. One of them said we joined this religion to get out of the fire and so they refused to obey him. When they got back to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam they told him. He said لَا تُطِعْ مَخْلُوقًا فِي مَعْصِيَةِ الْخَالِقِ (Ahmad hadith 1065) - don't obey a man if it means disobeying the creator of men. And Allah says وَلَا تُلْقُوا بِأَيْدِيكُمْ إِلَى التَّهْلُكَةِ (Quran 2:195) - don't destroy yourselves.

So the companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam they were using their intellect. They didn't just say oh he's the amir we have to obey him. يا أخي ادخل النار قال الأمير - get in the fire the amir said we have to obey him. No they used their intellect. حكمة - this is hikmah. It's a gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just to have wisdom, have intelligence and that's why this religion has to have نقل and عقل. It has to have the transmission the hadith but it has to have the عقل.

Understanding Hadith With Intelligence

There are hadith that you read them and you know they can't be true just by intellect like the blind man that assassinated the woman because there's different riwayah about that but if you think that a blind man can crawl up a building go into a room not wake the children according to the riwayah and then kill the woman, no it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense and there are many things like that. The early people gathered all the hadith and they put them and they left them for the ulema to sort them out.

Imam al-Bukhari he put a hadith in there he doesn't believe but he wanted to show people I know the hadith so the ulema would know. Sheikh Mohammed mentioned about burning the hadith that has you cannot burn people. The same section in al-Bukhari has a hadith saying one of the sahaba burned somebody as a punishment. He wanted to show both are there and I know both of them and there are many examples of that but this traditionally was the realm of the ulema it was not the realm of the others.

The Source of Our Calamities

So everything that happens to us that is calamitous and this is hard to swallow, this is a bitter pill to swallow but everything that happens to us that is calamitous is from disobeying Allah and his messenger. That's just, that's simply reality and until we come to terms with that our faith is not sound and that's why the Qur'an tells you. I

was once traveling with Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah and I said it's so interesting how the early people they always looked to themselves for the problems but modern people they point to other things and he said كَانُوا عَلَى مَذْهَبٍ قُلْ هُوَ مِنْ عِنْدِ أَنْفُسِكُمْ (Quran 3:165) - they were on the madhab say it's from your own souls. What happens to you comes from your own souls.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says وَأَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَلَا تَنَازَعُوا فَتَفْشَلُوا وَتَذْهَبَ رِيحُكُمْ (Quran 8:46) - obey Allah and obey his messenger and don't differ amongst you. تَنَازَعُوا is like don't start fighting because you will fail and your wind will go. What does the wind mean here? قوة - power.

Sayyidina Omar brought windmills to Medina because wind is power. Now we know the modern people are going towards wind because it's one of the most powerful forces on the planet and you can derive energy from wind. Allah uses wind as a metaphor for energy. Your power will go if you start fighting amongst yourselves.

Historical Lessons: The Fall of Unity

We had, I mean I'll just give you an example. The Ottomans defended for centuries, defended the Muslim lands but then the Muslims turned on the Ottomans. They turned on them. There's reasons for it and I'm not gonna deny the Ottomans were very, at that time they were, they had lost their way as well but they started allying with the colonialists who were promising them things and they went against their brother Muslims. The last attempt at defending Palestine, it'll bring tears to your eyes if you read the Ottoman what they tried to do to defend Palestine and we know that Abd al-Hamid would not sell Palestine to pay off all the debts of the Ottomans because he said it's not mine to sell but they were betrayed and people betrayed them and now we suffer the consequences of those people's mistakes.

Because Allah says وَاتَّقُوا فِتْنَةً لَا تُصِيبَنَّ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا مِنكُمْ خَاصَّةً (Quran 8:25) - beware of calamities that don't just affect the guilty amongst you they affect the innocent too. So people inherit the sins of people who went before them.

Bearing the Consequences of Past Sins

In the Quran Allah says وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ أُخْرَى (Quran 6:164) - no soul bears the sins of another. Some of the ulema say in dunya they do. There's things your father does that you end up being disgraced by and people will treat you badly because of the sins of your father. There's people that are born out of wedlock and they suffer from the sin of their father. They did nothing. That ayah is in the akhira. You're not going to have any of the calamities or the sins of anybody else in akhira but in dunya, no we bear the sins of other people. We bear the sins of other people.

We're suffering today from choices people made 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago. We're still suffering. This country is suffering because they didn't resolve the problem of slavery at the very start. It was a problem, they were dealing with it but they didn't, so they had to have a civil war. We're still dealing with the

problems of the civil war today, the confederate flag. It happened over 150 years ago. We're still dealing with it. Syria is going to be dealing with this civil war for generations. These things don't go away.

The Prophet's Sunnah as Wisdom

So, we were given guidance. We were given a covenant. When the covenant is abandoned calamities happen. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, his sunnah is the wisdom of this book and if you look at our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam all you have to ask, you know the christians have this thing would jesus do it? What would jesus do? They ask that. We should have the same criteria. Do you think the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would tell people to strap bombs on them and go blow up innocent people? Is there anything in his sunnah that indicates that that would be a methodology that he would use?

Because he was in Mecca he could have had his sahaba go assassinate people. They were brave. Abu Dhar al- Ghifari was a Ghifari really. He was an incredibly brave man. Ibn Masud was incredibly brave. These men were lions in battle. He could have said, go kill secretly, go sneak into so and so. He didn't do that, why? Because that's not his methodology. What he does is out in the open. He never did anything by stealth other than to escape because Allah commanded him to do. He didn't do things by stealth. He told people exactly what he was going to do and he did what he was going to do.

The Cult of Death Versus Love of Life

He didn't shed blood. We have a cult of death. I was just reading a book the other day, and it was all about just death, like these people love death more than life, and they quote all these early things. In war you want people to have that mentality, that's not the mentality that you want people to just have as human beings. The Prophet said, don't desire death. The only time he asked for death is fitna. He said take me to you without civil strife and he said that when Allah wants rahma, this is a sahih hadith, when Allah wants rahma for an ummah He allows the Prophet who gives them the message, to live to see them accept the message but when He wants to punish an ummah the Prophet who gives them the message sees their destruction in his own life. Subhanallah.

And so our ummah, He wanted rahma for this ummah. Allah wanted rahma for this ummah and the Prophet said don't go become kuffar after I gave you this. Don't become kuffar how? By killing one another. The ulama say, the kuffar here means don't do the actions of people that don't believe in Allah as a rahma because even sahaba fought. So the wisdom of the Prophet is something that we have lost in our community. We've lost it and it's something that we need to regain and it's regained with knowledge because the Prophet said I was sent to teach.

The Path to Regaining Wisdom

It's regained with humility because he was the most humble of men and he said I was commanded to be humble until no one deems himself superior to any other. Because if the Prophet was humble then who am I not to be humble? If the best of creation was humble who am I not to be humble? The Prophet was commanded to be humble. Everything about him was wisdom. Everything he did, the way he ate, the way he sat, the way he

walked. He walked briskly. He walked with intention. He didn't meander. When he spoke, he spoke intelligently. He never minced his words, he always spoke beautifully. If he joked, he joked with truth and then he honored people.

The Story of Asma al-Ansariya

There's a beautiful hadith. Asma al-Ansariya came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and she said ya rasulallah ana wafidatu an-nisa - I was sent by the women. So they picked this woman Asma al-Ansariya to come and speak to him and she said ya rasulallah ba'athaka Allahu ila rijali wa nisa - Allah sent you to the men and the women. Fa amanna bika wa bi ilahika - we believe in you and in your god. Wa nara anna Allaha faddala ar-rijal 'ala an-nisa bil jama'a - but we see Allah has given some preference to the men, they get the jama'a, they get to gather like juma'a, they get to go to juma'a, they don't have problems. There's no little room in the back smelly, or hidden with a curtain or something like that, no, they get to go in the big nice masjid. Wa jama'at, the women were encouraged to pray in their homes. They can pray in the masjid, but they were encouraged to pray in the home. The men go to the jama'a, and the jama'a the Prophet said is 27 times better.

And then she said wa bil hajj ba'd al hajj - and hajj after hajj. For the women, it's mandub, she makes the fard one time and then it's because it's jihad al nisa. And then she said, and then jihad they get jihad, subhanallah.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, he said iltafata ila ashabihi bi wajhihi kullihi - he looked at his companions with his entire face and he said hal sami'tum ahsan min mas'alati hadhihi al-imra'a - have you heard a better question than the question that came from this woman? Like he's pointing out, look at the intelligence of this woman and the sahaba, they said wallahi ma kunna nadhunnu an nisa - we didn't think women could come up with things like this right. He's teaching them, no right, shaqa'iq ar-rijal, they're your other halves, your better halves, right.

And then he said ya imra'a - listen woman, he said aqri'i as-salam 'ala an-nisa khalfaki - give salam to the women that you left who sent you. And then he said wafhami - understand this. Husnu taba'ulikunna li azwajikunna ya'dilu dhalika kulluhu - just being a good companion equals all of that that the men are doing. Just being a good companion equals all of that that the men are doing. It's an amazing hadith and that's who he was, he was somebody that elevated and honored people, male, female, slave.

The Story of Zayd and Osama

You know he had in his house Zayd ibn Haritha and Osama bin Zayd. Zayd was very dark and Osama was light