Unfortunate Scholars

Assalamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

Knowledge is important for human-being. Human-being could be civilized and reaching success through knowledge seeking and sciences. The noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w mentions, "Seeking knowledge is obligatory over each Muslim". Obligatory knowledge here refers to important sciences pertaining the relation of an individual with his Creator such as monotheism, physical and spiritual worship together with the morality. Later, communal sciences pertaining the relations between an individual with his society such as finance, working ethics, matrimonial and criminology.

Definition of Obligatory Knowledge

Ibn al-Qayyim proposes that 'obligatory knowledge' is related to the pillars of the faith, Islamic jurisprudence on legal and illegal matters and the social sciences.

Imam al-Ghazali defines that 'obligatory knowledge' refers to gnosis which is the knowledge about the God the Highest, spiritual worship such as sincerity, devotion and dependency only to the God the Highest and jurisprudence sciences.

Islam emphasizes greatly on knowledge and those who are knowledgeable as what has been mentioned in the Glorious Quran. Says the God the Highest which means, "And among people and moving creatures and grazing livestock are various colors similarly. Only those fear the God the Highest, from among His servants, who have knowledge. Indeed, the God is Exalted in Might and Most Forgiving" (Surah Faathir 35:28).

Division of Unfortunate Scholars

Scholars of religion, the righteous and ascetics are those people who gives their attention to the fullest to knowledge and science since it is the essence of worship and the basis of obedience to devote their life for the God the Highest. However, there are also those who were deflected where Abu Hamid al-Ghazali has divided them into six groups of people......

a) A person who feels that he possess the gnosis which enables him to see the God the Highest with his heart, thus assuming that his self is close to the God the Highest.

While he only knows His attributes and Names which he listens only from the chanting. It could also make them confuse and deviated. With all of these, he thought that he already has the highest knowledge among the nations from the alpha to the omega. He looks down on the religious scholars, jurists, exegesis compilers, hadith researchers and even more, he looks at the public just like looking at the cattle.  

b) A person whose tendency is more to the physical science and avoiding the spiritual science. He is proud with it and think exceedingly that he has a place at Him.

He assumes that he is free from the torment and bitterness of the God the Highest with his one-sided tendency in seeking the knowledge. He believes that he could become a savior to others and his sins will not be retaliated. These are dangerous assumptions that will rise for this type of person.

c) A person who never practice with his knowledge. Knowing everything means nothing if it is not accompanied with practices. There is of no use if one knows a science or method of worship but never practicing it.

Prophet Muhammad s.a.w mentions, "The God the Highest never look at your appearance nor your luxury but He is looking at your deeds and heart".

In the book titled "A Warning to the Negligent" (Ar. Tanbeeh al-Ghafileen), the noble prophet Jesus a.s was quoted as saying, "Anyone who knows (knowledgeable) and later practicing and teaching the knowledge to others, thus he is the person mentioned as the greatest in the realm of angels".

Indeed, noble angels are far of these three things:

1. Evil and hypocrite religious scholar who preaches to others but never practicing what he preaches.

2. Graveyard of treacherous people which is adorned with structures made of bricks and cements.

3. Carving of treacherous people's name on their gravestones.

Abu Amru Abdul Rahman bin Muhammad al-Auza'i of Damascus said, "Whoever perform whatever that he knows, he will achieve the success in whatever he does not know before".

Sufyan al-Thawri says, "Knowledge is in the first, silence. The second, listening and observing. The third, recalling. The fourth, practicing. The fifth, propagating it".

d) A person who spends all his time to clean himself from impurities and too much dwelling in it and he keeps looking for his own flaws looking at the tricks of "self" until it becomes his daily dealings.

He is too meticulous and too ritualistic until he feels that this is shameful. That is hideous and so on. This kind of person is the same with the person in the condition where he always imagine and reckoning that to perform the pilgrimage to Holy Mecca is too dangerous and later he ends up with not performing it at all, na'udhubillahi min dhaalik.

e) A person who thinks that he has already fulfilled the obligation to study by just attending lectures and sciences recital.

He makes this as his common habit and assuming that listening is just enough for him. He is not practicing whatever that he listens in the lectures since he is qualified for the meritorious deeds of listening and attending the lecture ceremonies.

f) A person who study just because he wanted to have the fame, to get the name, position and making fortune out of it.

His knowledge will bring no benefit to him. His dealings will be of no success and he receives no gain. Noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w says, "Whoever studies the knowledge with the intention to compete among the scholars, to show efforts to the ignorant or to get attention of public thus the hell is his place of return!".

Conclusion

I would like to highlight here as a part of our discussion... Well, a discussion with my self because this is a serious warning to my self!! That we have to give the attention to the key words such as, "heart", "feel", "thought", "assume" and "intention". All of these are related to our faculties of mind that manifest from our astral body such as the mind, memory, intellect and ego. These are more to philosophical findings but is still useful to understand one self. Many people still cannot understand these and I tried so hard to tell them even I was almost in conflicts with people around but it is still a failure. So, that is why I choose to stay in silence and observe but not giving up. I am not giving anything which I cannot practice because it is against the principle taught to us.... May the God the Highest forgives us our errors and sins, amin...... Only He knows the best...  

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace and love, amin!  

Science of Pillars of Islam: Obligation to Study the Path

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

Tomb of our noble father, prophet Abraham a.s - Hebron

We return to this science because it is very very important yet crucial. It is obligatory for every Muslim to study about their own path. Those who neglect it will be sinful. This is the order of the path as what has been generally mentioned by noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w: "Getting the knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim."

Other than that, it is obligatory for every Muslim to ma'arifatullah. What is this term means? It means knowing Allah or the God. Learning about His characteristics which bring everyone to confidence. It has been explained in the Zubad: "Early obligatory on human-being is to know their Lord as possible as they can."

Another explanation from the sermon of Habeeb Tahir bin Hussain mentions: "Be known to you dear brothers and sisters. Indeed the root and branches of religion is to know whom should we direct our worship to before we perform acts of worship. And that is the fact of the testimony of faith."

It is almost similar to an officer who works with the employer or his boss. The employer gives him his wages for the job. When he do his task, he should also know what is his job about, its rule and regulation and its specification. The Lord is our Boss. He gave us sustenance which is His grace in term of air for us to breath, minerals in the earth for us to stay sustainable (one of my current institution getik's mottos is sustainability, lol), natural resources, and etc for creatures to do a job for Him which is to worship Him and to glorify Him. 

If we know the interpretations of the testimony of faith, we should also know the Lord. And everyone should also aware about the jazam on the rightful with evidence which is rational with evidences and their explanations.

Definition of Jazam

This is the definition according to the science of usool. It means the strong faith or the faith without doubt. According to today's terminology, it means a firm faith, strong with a basis and without any compromise. Jazam also means unanimous and final decision. 

Division of Jazams 

Division of jazams refer to four types of people regarding their attitude toward their knowledge and sciences regarding the path. I am not sure how to clearly explain about these but one needs to ask their teachers and clerics regarding these terms. Find the right ones and not those who are like the 'scriptures on the donkey' although they look like a cleric. In certain creed science books, the terms are quite ambiguous because of the language style used are backward. We have to update those kitabs in term of language style too. Using simple words and checking compatible terms especially in modern languages such as modern English and according to the field such as the law.

1. Ma'arifa 

Ma'arifa refers to a person who knows and realize that he knows about these particular sciences. He is a specialist in his field of knowledge and is not stingy with his knowledge. Instead he shares it with others since he knows the obligation and his responsibility to spread the knowledge or science about the Lord in the society who needs it. This person does not associate his knowledge with money or materialism. He only teaches it for His sake and not to make a living. This is the type of human which refers to past imams that we learned about some of them in our schools or in our fellow brothers' and sisters' sites. The Lord says in glorious Quran surah al-Baqara verse 41 which means: "...never change My verses with lower price, and only to Me should you be dependent!!!" This type of person is represented by minority of people in the earth.    

2. Taqlid Shaheed

A person who knows but he does not realize that he knows about the Lord. Maybe he knows that he is aware about the Lord, but due to few problems he does not know how to use his knowledge and could not spreading it widely. There are few factors or reasons which lead to these such as occupied, financial problem, didn't given the chance by people or environment around. But if given the chance, having sufficient financial support and his worldly occupation being loosen up that he could benefit society with the wisdom and knowledge that he posses.   

3. Jahel Murakkab

I always heard this term, hahaha. In Malay it is used to mean bodoh nak mampos but the definition according to the science is slightly different if without the twice word. This is actually a tasawwuf science term but not many are aware about this and using it even in daily speeches without knowing the definition. It refers to double ignorance. He is ignorant and aware that he is ignorant. He is humble with his ignorance and asking others who are more knowledgeable than him. This kind of person always attend the sciences lecture in masjids. He is easy to accept advises, listening to others and is open toward criticism on his ignorance. This kind of person needs to only learn more and his ignorance will shy away. 

4. Taqlid Bateel

This refers to an ignorant person who is not aware that he is ignorant. If he has an assumption, he would treat it as his faith without checking it with others who are more knowledgeable than him. It also refers to a civilian who is ignorant and refuses to accept his ignorance or stupidity. Noble prophet Jesus a.s mentions this as ahmaq or in rudimentary word means stupid! Many tasawwuf specialists use the word Jahel Murakkab twice to refer to this type of person since he is ignorant in term that he has no knowledge in certain science and he is ignorant because of his attitude. In the easiest way to explain this, he is stupid but he thinks that he is a smarty ass. This type of person is in the majority of society in the world and they could easily being influenced by rumors or fake news like what we always read in comments in youtube or other sites by those who call themselves as anti-Islam or Western civilization ass-wipers. It is not only unique to these people but there are also these kind of people in Muslim society as well as other society in the world. Those fanatics are in this group of person. Sorry for some rude words as it is easier to explain in street way of talking, haha.

Closing

Next time insha Allah we would learn about the definition of daleel or evidence according to our path sciences. There are also definitions for taqlid, fanaticism and taqlid bateel/jahel murakkab twice. When we look around, watching TV programs like forum in Western medias, accusations of political parties on each other, quarrels between Muslim denominations or movements and etc... We could see all of these and compare it what we get from this division of jazams.     

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace, and love, amin!  

Jurisprudence : What is Fiqh or Jurisprudence?

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

This is the Chinese or perhaps Sino-Japanese depiction of King Yama. Buddhists always talk about him when it is regarding punishment that a person will get as a way to cleanse up one's karmma. Usually elders will threaten youngers that King Yama will cut our tongue if we tell lies to others as lying will also bring bad karmma. King Yama is a judge and the guardian of hell. Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms in South East Asia also had used Brahminical texts such as Tharmmasastram to derive code of conduct and legislation provisions in the kingdom or anachakra ruled by a king or chakravarttin. One of the law practiced in ancient Buddhist kingdoms such as of ancient Malay kingdoms are like Sulo or impalement to execute a woman who commit adultery or treason against the king.

We have many branches of knowledge and sciences in the studies of religion after the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w who is our seal of prophethood had returned to His Mercy. One of them is called as Fiqh. 

So, straight to the point, what is Fiqh brethren? Roughly it is a science related to the Islamic jurisprudence. It is an expansion of the code of conduct where we call it as Shariah and expounded from the glorious Quran. Shariah usually is supplemented by the tradition of prophets and we call tradition as Sunnah of prophets. Sunnah of prophets were re-introduced again by the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w and some came from him according to the period where he live. Shariah which consists of the conducts of life from the sources of Quran and Sunnah then will be implemented through rulings and interpretations of jurists whom we call as Qadhi. 

Sometimes I would also refer to Jesus Christ as a future Qadhi. I will always wait for his arrival and rulings if I do not die yet. It actually signifies the end of the world : ) We already have our own guidelines and we do not need others to teach us especially in our own countries. The God is teaching us with basic rulings and the observance of morality is considered as apart of the prevention of evil and crimes. We don't need secularism or French concepts of looking at this world. French are just human-being and human-being are imperfect. We also don't need Karl Marx to teach us or whatever ideology proposed by these people. Those ideologies are anathematized and not natural. I would translate the word anathematize for my Malaysian compatriots as dilaknat.  We refuse to accept their ideas as they also refused to accept others' ideas. If they perceive others as barbarians, we also perceive them as barbarians. 

我詛咒歐鬼的思想... 他們多數人不接收啟示然後他們學的事沒有天的指導和聖靈... 別人都可以說出來他們的偏見對我們的道,我們的聖人和穆斯林所以我也想嘗試看感覺是怎樣,哈哈哈... 我感覺很蠢...  

Fiqh deals with the observance of rituals, morals and social legislation in Islam. For Orthodox Sunnah Muslims, we have four schools of Fiqh established by four honorable imams which are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'ie and Hanbali. Our Shi'a Muslim brothers have two major schools of Fiqh inherited from Ja'afar as-Sadiq and Isma'ili Fatimiyya. Those who are trained in this science will be called as Fuqaha' (sing. Faqih). I am following and learning the method of Hanbali and most of brothers in Saudi Arabia are also following Hanbali methods. My brothers in Malaysia, Yemen, Lower Myanmar, Indonesia, and Southern Thailand are following Shafi'ie methods. My brothers in China and India are following Hanafi and those in Northern Africa in general are following Maliki methods. 

Definitions of Jurisprudence

Fiqh literally means the science of something in order to understand something, common sense in it, and the thought for the honor of the science of law as the quote from the glorious Quran where the God mentioned again what the people of Sho'ayb (Jethro) said to Sho'ayb a.s : "They said, o Sho'ayb! We do not understand many of what you had said and we indeed only see you as a weak person in front of us. If not because of your family, we would have thrown you with stones. And you are not respected for us." (Surah Huud verse 91). And the word understand in the verse signifies anything which lead people to think and ponder.

Terminologically, Fiqh means the science on the rulings of the way of leading life, practices, benefits, based from valid and accurate proofs in accordance to the origin of the fiqh or understanding.  

So, basically when newspapers wanted to tell everyone about this, they should also check the books and sources regarding this from the root source and not just from internet googling or by reading something at the surface. Reporters today are just as ignorant and irresponsible as the mat rempits who illegally racing on the road and later banging young bitchy girls if they won the illegal race. Orientalists, they went to study these too but they were also bias. The same thing also happen to some Muslims who just google up this and that about other system of belief or faith or reading certain blog related to some nonsense conspiracy theories which denies the Wisdom of the God the Most Highest. 

My past experience as a "deviant Muslim" boy for few years in my life had also helped me to understand many things and I found that bashing others are just making people mind restless and later it affects the environment around. These kind of people would put some information in their sites or books and they later including their opinions based from their hatred to others, irrationality, unstable emotion or based from their perception game. Nothing is better than whatever they think because the thing which they prefer will eventually come to their favor. They could not propagate anything without telling that others are less better than them. Later others who had never read root sources and sharing the same hatred would also use the points from that and spread it worldwide. Again, these sick people no matter Muslims or non-Muslims need heart and soul purification. They would also easily being affected by diseases and die early I could assure this because not only glorious Quran talked about people who bite their fingers because of baseless anger but also the teachings that I had followed for some times which was Buddhism : )

Regarding science in religion, Ibnu Khaldun in his book Muqaddima (Introduction) had divided science into two branches :

I. Rational ones which have been generated by human intellect. Another one is revelational which is received through revelation and transmitted to others such as what happened to prophets for example the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w who had received knowledge through revelation and not from studying it in school and he then transmitted it orally to his companions, contemporary, people around him, and later generations.

II. Excludes the use of intellect as far as its reception, reporting, and transmission are concerned. It relates to injunctions of secondary report, derived from usool or origin, calls it into play one's intellect and ability to exercise analogical reasoning. Fiqh is included in this second category. It is a product of later generations since companions of prophet Muhammad s.a.w do not need its formulation into a new branch of science as the law-submitter or the prophet and messenger of the God was still around with them. They may straight away ask the prophet s.a.w for clarification or looking at how he acts when they are not clear on something.

Sources for Legislation Reference

Many people can understand about British Common Law on how the decisions were derived. Whether from past cases as examples for rulings of court or from the jurists decision like some raping cases in the United States. I do watched American short series but I can't remember all of them. Some scene, I still could remember. 

I also learned legal language which involved the Common Law and Tort Law during our translation and interpretation class where one of our lecturer is a Sikh lawyer whose name is Harpal Singh. Well, many students especially girls love him and he is a single guy in the middle age. For me, he is a generous guy who donated a lot to students in order to make class more lively and interactive. I gave all of the food that I get from his class to my roommate, brother Zaydi simply because his father name is Hussein and I want him to be my imam in prayer services in our room. I think he must thought that I was crazy, hahaha. I was also fasting to calm down my mind at that time but I could not waste the food so I just offer them to my roommate and sometimes if I have vegetarian meals I would also offer them to some Hindu friends neighboring my room. At least my acquaintance and friends are healthy and they could save their money, I would be very happy : ) I treated brother Zaydi badly in the beginning simply because he is a Kelantanese and I was also influenced by bad talks of people around. It has to do with misconception and generalization too that we become racist, no? We never have any contact with majority of certain people that we don't really like so we created some negative image for something that we had never experienced. Just get a life and do beneficial things like enhancing amity among human, environment, and animals instead of spreading hatred just because of differences and misconception...

From what I had also learned in our masjids and school for final exam for the course of Islamic Rulings and Legislation, our sources for rulings and details must be obviously come from :  

1. The Glorious Quran.

2. Sunnah or the prophetic traditions and Orthodox Sunnah Muslim have four major methods.

3. Ijma' (agreement) between jurists and ulamas.

4. Qiyyas or common sense for matters which had never happened during prophetic era like smoking which kills others because of the smoke is harmful for human health and environment or rulings regarding the selling of harmful drugs or cracks. It needs human intellectual consideration and jurists need to think or using their head. It also needs researches and evidences.

5. Sources of rulings and legislation from the Ahlul Bayt.     

The Root of Fiqh

What is the root of Fiqh? It refers to methods which had been implied within the derivation of the development of legal provisions of the way from detailed and discreet proofs. On the other hand, the root of Fiqh which places the root or basic methods to develop jurisdiction and legal provisions according to clear Divine guidance and guidelines. The relevance of Fiqh is for jurists to derive legal provisions and rulings with clear evidence in order to implement the execution of nature laws from it.

While for the root of Fiqh, its motive is to to find clear evidence from where emerged the object of evidence on the legal provisions. And each that had been stated from the agreement and consideration based on common sense which falls under the name (of legal opinion) which includes :

1. Plaudits : It is reversing the jurisdiction of the way for example on the provisions on what had been perceived to face is stronger and reversing the jurists.

2. Sent Interests : The meanings or the matters which are linked to the jurisdiction and developed upon it and causing damage or harmful to human society however yet it is always being discussed. 

3. Known to people : It means legal opinions which is based on customs and norms. Custom or norms which is known to people, whatever had been in the character of speech, verbal, their way of thinking, and whatever is accepted and not accepted by the norms of society being repeated until it is accepted by the jurists and there are also other sources to derive opinion on jurisdiction between trained jurists in addition to whatever had already existed in agreement of jurists and various of considerations whether the past or through any other methods proposed by jurists. Sometimes those in India or Pakistan also seeking Brahmin priests to derive law and the effect is that, we can see people without nose or ears because those priests are using Tharmmasastram and Puranas in the derivation of customary law. Media then capture the pics and showing it to lazy people or those who has no feet to come to talk with real people asking this and that.