July | 2012 | The Albaani Site

July 29, 2012

Al-Albaani Asked About How to Find Happiness

Questioner: People strive to attain happiness, their ways in achieving it being diverse, if our Shaikh would clarify for the people some milestones in their path to attain it?

Al-Albaani: I don’t think there is any differing in this except among the philosophers.

Amongst the Muslims who believe in Allaah and His Messenger and who believe that there is no path to happiness in this life or the next except by clinging to Islaam there is no multiplicity of answers–[the only answer] is to cling to Islaam.

And vice versa, whoever wants misery should turn away from Islaam, and this is very clear from many verses, like His Saying, the Most High, in the well-known aayah, “And whoever turns away from My remembrance–indeed, he will have a depressed [i.e., difficult] life, and We will gather [i.e., raise] him on the Day of Resurrection blind. He will say, ‘My Lord! Why have you raised me blind while I was [once] seeing?’ He will say, ‘Thus did Our signs come to you, and you forgot [i.e., disregarded] them–and thus will you, this Day, be forgotten.’” [Taa Haa 20:124-126]

But the thing we must pay heed to, something which is a very big reality and painful from another angle due to many of the Muslims lacking it, many of them [lacking it] in terms of knowledge and some of them practically, is that Islaam with the Book of Allaah and the Sunnah of Allaah’s Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم upon the understanding of the Salaf as-Saalih is the cure for all diseases and psychological illnesses which have afflicted a people who have not tasted happiness.

Islaam derived from the Book and the Sunnah and the methodology of the Salaf as-Saalih is the cure.

But the thing I want to mention now is that many alien matters have entered this cure, which, if we don’t say have corrupted it completely then at the very least have prevented it from being an absolute one, [and I’m referring here to] those things which have come into Islaam which are not a part of it, whether they be in creed, worship, behaviour or manners, and due to these things which have afflicted it, this Islaam is turned inside out … its effect is not manifested in the community that practices it.

So the fault is not with Islaam but rather those things that have been added to it.

That is why we always and forever insist on saying that if we want this happiness, there is no way to it, as we already mentioned, except through Islaam–but not, if the expression be correct, Islaam with an ‘elastic’ understanding but with the special understanding based upon the Book, the Sunnah and the methodology of the Salaf as-Saalih.

It is then that it, and nothing else, will be the spring of happiness.

Whatever the case, I hold that questions like this are studied in universities which do not specialize, in fact, do not give importance to studying Islaam, but are concerned with studying general culture whether that be Islaam, or philosophy, or secularism or things like it [i.e., they don’t know that happiness is found in following the true Islaam so they spend time trying to find other ways to achieve it].

Amongst the Muslims, the understanding is that there is no happiness except by clinging to Islaam–I just wanted to add [through this answer the point about] clinging to Islaam with its correct understanding …

Interjector: O Shaikh! I had taken a booklet from you which I photocopied, called, ‘Useful Ways of Leading a Happy Life,’ by Shaikh ’Abdur-Rahmaan ibn Naasir as-Sa’di [who was Shaikh Uthaimeen’s teacher, may Allaah have mercy on them both], even though it is only a few pages long, it’s a very great book, O Shaikh.

Al-Albaani: Maa shaa Allaah.

Interjector: If a person was depressed, sad, ill at ease, overburdened with sorrow, and read it, subhaanallaah! Namely, if the expression is allowed, it’s as though it’s magic.

Al-Albaani: Maa shaa Allaah.

Interjector: Yes, by Allaah, ‘Useful Ways of Leading a Happy Life,’ truly amazing, O Shaikh. [Click here for the book]

Al-Albaani: You should read it.

Interjector: It is great, subhaanallaah! By Shaikh ’Abdur-Rahmaan ibn Naasir as-Sa’di. [Click here for his website]

Al-Hudaa wan-Noor, 311.

July 27, 2012

It is Not a Condition that The Reviver Sent Every 100 Years Be a Scholar Only, As Long as He is On the Methodology of the Salaf as-Saalih, He can Be a Specialist in Another Field Too

Questioner: There is an authentic hadith which states that at the start of every hundred years [Allaah will raise someone] who will revive this Ummah’s religion for it, is it a condition that these revivers [Mujaddids] be from Ahlus-Sunnah or not?

Al-Albaani: No doubt. It is a fundamental condition and this is the reality that I hold [to be the case]. In my opinion, this question is like if someone were to ask–and I hope that such a question does not actually emanate from a questioner—it’s like if someone were to ask, ‘Is it a condition that he be a Muslim?’ Naturally, such a question will not be asked, ‘Is it a condition that a reviver [mujaddid] be a Muslim?’ I think this will never occur to someone [to ask].

As for whether it is a condition that he be from Ahlus-Sunnah, then such a question may occur to some people, and for this reason it was raised just now.

The answer is that he definitely has to be from Ahlus-Sunnah, and [by saying that he has to be from] Ahlus-Sunnah, I don’t mean that he has to be from the scholars … but rather that he be upon the methodology of Ahlus-Sunnah and not deviated from the path which has come to us from the Salaf as-Saalih, may Allaah be pleased with them, this is a must, but the reviver [mujaddid]—and even though this [point] is not connected to the question I still believe that there is a huge benefit in it—it is not a condition that the reviver be a reviver of the religion only, rather he can be a reviver in everything which benefits the Muslims. So he could, for example, be a reviver in history, a reviver in medicine—but within the aforementioned parameters, i.e., of being from Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jamaa’ah.

So based upon this, in the end we can picture that during one time there can be more than one reviver, when we take this wide meaning into consideration, it is possible for me to picture, at one period, a gathering of a number of revivers, each one in his own specialist field.

Al-Hudaa wan-Noor, 313.

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July 26, 2012

Spending the Night Awake In Front of the Telly

The Imaam said, “Know that ‘as-Samr,’ which is to talk at night, is prohibited in more than one hadith [reported] from him صلى الله عليه وسلم [unless it is concerning knowledge as the Shaikh clarifies].

So what the majority of people today do in spending the night awake in front of the television and things like it is from the tribulations which have afflicted the Islamic world in the present age.

We ask Allaah for safety from all tribulations, both apparent and hidden, indeed He is the All-Hearing, the Responsive.”

As-Saheehah, 7/1/58.

July 20, 2012

The Common Muslim, Ijtihaadi Issues and Asking for Proof

Questioner: [Concerning] issues of ijtihaad, must the common person ask the scholar for their proofs?

Al-Albaani: If he is someone who understands the proof … and if not, then no.

Rihlatun-Noor, 44.

July 19, 2012

Someone Who Has Excelled in Studying a Madhhab Such that He Has Memorised It and Bases His Answers on it Alone is Not Called a Scholar but a Muqallid–So What of Someone Who Has Studied Nothing At All?

Questioner: A questioner is asking saying, ‘A Muslim who has memorised one of the four schools of thought and has accepted what it permits and [also what it] does not sanction, is it allowed for him to give a religious verdict based upon that to those who ask him questions?’

Al-Albaani: It is not allowed for him to give a fatwa based upon what he has learned from his madhhab except by clarifying that it is the madhhab of so and so and not upon the basis that it is some knowledge which he has arrived at through his own personal study–because the blind-follower is not a scholar, the blind-follower is narrating what he has heard.

So based upon this he should say, ‘The answer to what you asked about according to the madhhab which I have studied is such and such,’ and he should not say, ‘The answer is such and such,’ because the difference between these two answers is that the second one, i.e., being resolute that the answer is such and such, this is the state of the scholar who is versed in the Book and the Sunnah.

As for the blind follower, even if he is from the major, from those who are assumed to be from the major scholars, as long as he is a blind-follower then he is not a scholar.

In the opinion of the scholars, a scholar is the one who is as Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allaah have mercy on him, said:

“Knowledge is, “Allaah said … His Messenger said …
The Companions said …” and it is not hidden.”

This is the scholar.

As for a person who has spent his life studying the sayings of a particular madhhab without knowing whether its proofs are from the Book or the Sunnah or ijmaa’ or qiyaas–then he is a blind-follower, and according to the agreement of the scholars, the blind-follower is called ignorant and is not called a scholar.

For this reason in the book of judgments found in the books of fiqh it is stated that, ‘… it is not allowed for a jaahil [an ignorant person] to be given the position of a judge,’ the scholar explaining this said, ‘Namely, the blind follower,’–however much he knows about his madhhab he is still a blind follower and is not a scholar for whom it is permissible to give a religious verdict [fatwa].

And from the fruits of this distinction between the real/true scholar and between what some of the blind-followers have aptly named a, ‘figurative/metaphorical scholar’, i.e., a blind-follower, the difference between these two is that the real/true scholar gives a religious verdict based upon proof, he either says, ‘Allaah said,’ or ‘Allaah’s Messenger said,’ or ‘The consensus [ijmaa’] in this is …’ or he says, ‘There is no text [concerning the issue at hand] but I’m just giving my opinion, and this is my ijtihaad, and whoever has something better than it, let him bring it to us.’

As for the metaphorical/figurative scholar, i.e., the blind-follower, he is the one who gives an answer based upon his madhhab–and since the common folk do not differentiate between true/real knowledge and metaphorical knowledge, then this metaphorical scholar has to say, ‘My madhhab is such and such,’ and he should not say, ‘The answer is such and such,’–because he is not acquainted [with true knowledge] and he does not know.

Al-Hudaa wan-Noor, 319.

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Month: July, 2012