Why Only Scholars Truly Fear Allah

Alhamdulillah.

[Silence]

I want to start with a verse that many of us, most of us even, are probably familiar with. This verse, many of us are acquainted with it or at least acquainted with its meaning. And it is perhaps one of the greatest honors and one of the greatest virtues that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions in the Quran for the scholars amongst his creation. He says subhanahu wa ta'ala that which translates to it is only those who are knowledgeable who are most knowledgeable that fear Allah. Now notice the wording here. forch.

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Subhanahu wa'ta'ala. He says subhanahu wa ta'ala it is only the very knowledgeable from amongst his slaves who fear Allah. And the word when we translate this there is so much that is lost when you look at translating Arabic and I'm not speaking about modern Arabic unfortunately a lot of what plagues modern Arabic today and I'm sure other languages as well is that it is now becoming a follower to English. So you'll see that a lot of idioms, a lot of a lot of sentence structures and so forth are taken from English and translated back into Arabic and then used. And this is natural the natural course of language that the languages of the weaker always try to emulate the languages of the more powerful of the time. And so we thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so much for the scholars of Islam who have who have protected the Arabic language. If it weren't for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala preserving the Arabic language through the scholars of Islam, it would spell disaster for the Muslims, for humanity because we would no longer be able to understand the Quran. In this verse here, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us and as I was mentioning before, when you when you try to translate Arabic, especially something the Quran into English or any other language for that matter, but I'm bilingual. English is is the only other language I know. It's taking It's taking a funnel, you know? You take a funnel, you put it in the bottle to pour liquids into another bottle. It's taking that funnel and flipping it upside down and then trying to pour the liquid in it. Most of it is going to what? Is going to leak out. You're losing most of it. You're only getting bare bones. You're only getting drops of what was originally there. And some of the scholars of Islam, not one or two but in the dozens have written up to an entire thick volume just on explaining this verse and its implications and what it includes and what it articulates. Islam has a huge respectable portion that is dedicated only to this fatwa only to this verse in his fatal. The point here is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is telling us that it is only the knowledgeable who fear Allah as he is rightfully feared. And he used the word because in the Arabic language is different than just fear. Fear and they have a a base meaning that is the same and they mean the same thing at base level. But there are implications of the word and so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is articulating in this verse that it is only the most knowledgeable only the most the the ones who exalt Allah the most. It is only those who are most knowledgeable with regards to the revelations of Allah who are the ones that have in their hearts the true meaning and embody fear of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is a great honor for the scholars. And that is why the scholars of Islam and when I say scholars of Islam, we're speaking about those who learn and implement and those who are scholars in the words of Allah and the words of the messenger of Allah sallall.aii And the implications of those words that these scholars they are gathered on the day of judgment by themselves. They have an elite gathering that is just for them that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gathers them. These are men and some women. But it is mostly the dominion of men historically that reach the level of peak scholarship. These men and women they are individuals that may not have been with the prophet sallall.aii wasallam physically. They didn't meet him. Maybe they didn't even see him in a dream. They had no contact with him. They may come from lands that are thousands of miles away, but these are men who lived every day of their lives and were with the messenger of Allah with every breath he took. Sallai wasam. Men that spent their youth and elder years hunched over books and on their knees at the feet of other scholars in order to inherit from the messenger of Allah sallall.aii wasallam. This is extremely important. Why? The prophet sallallah.aii Wasam tells us in Bkari Muslim, one of the great scholars of the companions, he narrates that the prophet sallall.aii Wasam said.

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The prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam said whomever Allah wishes good for he will grant him understanding of the religion of the religion of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ,.

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The prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam said whomever Allah desires good for then he will grant him and teach him understanding of his religion. Now if we were to take the opposite of that statement meaning if Allah does not desire good for someone he will not grant him understanding of his religion. He will keep him in the dark. He will keep him ignorance. He will not allow him to come close to understanding and learning the names and attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and what follows.

[Silence]

Whomever Allah desires good for, he will grant him understanding of the religion. Meaning a people or an individual. If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wishes a good for a community or a people or a country or a nation, he will place amongst them scholars of Islam who will teach him als men who will teach him because they are the heirs of the prophets and messengers. In the previous nations, there was always a prophet that would come to the people and he would preserve and continue the legacy of the messengers before them. The prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam said he said they were always in the presence or in the midst of prophets. Every time a prophet would pass away, another would be appointed from amongst them to take his place. a prophet in order to preserve the message of Islam to continue to teach it to propagate it to carry on the legacy of Musam the legacy of even these were examples of prophets they would take the place they would they would continue the legacy of the messenger now in this there's no more prophets. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam continues in this narration. He says,.

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He said, "And as for me, there is no prophet ever that will be after me, appointed as a new prophet after me." He said, "And the prophets do not leave behind inheritance of gold or silver. Rather, their inheritance is knowledge. And so whoever takes and embodies and carries that knowledge has taken and embodied and carried a great a very great and grand and illustrious and grave inheritance. So what do we understand from this? We understand that in this one of the great virtues and merits of the of.

[Arabic recitation]

Which is specific to this umah is that the scholars of Islam have been commissioned with what the prophets were commissioned with in previous nations. They're not prophets but they are filling that position that a prophet would have in the previous nations. And so because of this, if a person wishes to see where the ummah is generally and specifically in pockets here and there or generally on an international scale, you want to see where are where are people where is the ummah at you want to take the ummah's pulse. What do you look for? You look for the scholars. How numerous are there? are they? How common place are they? How knowledgeable are they? How connected are they? And because of this when a place or a people or the entire ummah for that matter has the death of scholars is frequent and those who come up to take those scholars place are fewer and fewer every generation. This these are footsteps that are being taken off of the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because the only thing that keeps this umah on the path of Allah is the Quran and Sunnah and we only have access to the Quran and Sunnah but by and through the scholars of Islam. The that's the only way we have access to the Quran and Sunnah. And so and we will end with this. The prophet sallallah.aii wasallam said.

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So,.

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He says su alaihi wasallam. Allah does not take back knowledge by extracting it from the hearts of men who have earned it. Rather, he takes back knowledge from a people by way of the death of the scholars. And this death of the scholars becomes more and more frequent amongst a people or in a place or amongst the ummah in general until there's no more scholars left in that place or amongst those people. And those people will then take for themselves ignorant leaders. These ignorant leaders, what do they look like? We have to imagine them. What do they look like? They they look like scholars. They talk the same. They wear the same kind of clothes. They have really really tall hats and fancy fancy you know all the get up and all the uniform of scholarship and they use a few buzzwords that are used amongst the scholars but they are ignorant. They have taken scholarship as what? as a trade. You know, they have degrees where they go and get this achievement or this degree and now they start to give fatawa and teach and lead people and make decisions that if those decisions were left to Omar, he would have gathered the muajir and to take their opinion before saying anything. And so these ignorant leaders will then be asked. They will then give fatwa without knowledge and they will hence go astray and take people astray with them. This is where innovation comes from. And so to close, what does it mean to be ignorant? What's the difference? If they look the same, what's the difference? The answer is one speaks with innovation and the other speaks with Quran and Sunnah. One does not take from the major scholars of Islam and keep that lineage continuous and one has a lineage that goes all the way back to the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. I'm speaking about a lineage of knowledge. I'm not speaking about a lineage of bloodline, a lineage of knowledge. Meaning that this person, everything he says can be traced back to the major scholars of Islam through 1,500 years of knowledge. Everything, no opinions, because opinions are the opposite of the revelations of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he teach us of his book that he raise us that he make our hearts a pure place that he fills with his revelation and give us the honor of being able to be the ones that pass this revelation on to the next generation. I think are you also packed? This is Abu J. This is Abdman. Abu.

[Arabic recitation]

When there where there are less scholars than previous generations? The answer is yes. And the scholars that are around whilst they are very high in caliber they are nowhere near the caliber of previous scholars. Scholarship has clearly gone down in the past 230 years. We could we could even ask Abu Abdahman when was the last agreed upon of Islam. Huh. So the closest of that are left amongst us, the last the last true of scholars, the last true hath that is agreed upon amongst the scholarship of Islam that is a the last one was around a some scholars say. Do you know when a passed away? Year 911. How many years ago was that? 500 years. And others mention a shani which is a very strong opinion. A shani was about 200 years ago. And so we see that not only are scholars less less common and so rare in our time but they are as well what they are as well not of the caliber that the previous scholars of Islam were. And there's a lot of reasons for this. Now this isn't mean that our scholars are of low caliber. Our major scholars are of very high caliber. However, they are few and far between and they pale in comparison to previous generations of scholars. You go back to the time of Iben Kaf which was which was about 700 years ago. How many hu were there in the there were tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands. And now the last known agreed upon. What is a h? We say h say h meaning he memorized the Quran that that wasn't that wasn't uncommon you know kir where he took his ria for a susi from his chain of narration in one recitation isi took it from his mother-in-law his mother-in-law he took his eza from his mother-in-law can you imagine your mother-in-law right now and taking an e jazza from This is how common knowledge was in his timeb in his time were in the tens if not hundreds of thousands. What was a the in the in Islam is a person who has memorized committed to memory verbatim at least 100,000 narrations at least. And when you reach the threshold of 100,000 narrations, you're considered a beginner hath a beginner. We say 100,000 narrations, we're speaking about the chains of narration. And so this is the lower end of the threshold of the spectrum of the last known half of the greed upon was and some say a from Yemen who passed away in the 13th century. The point here is that knowledge has become a lot more scarce and this is all as the prophet sallall.aii wasallam prophesized. This is not something that should be shocking or no. This is all as he prophesized. Why? The fitna is only going to be in a time of extreme widespread ignorance. And I want you to make a difference in your mind between a scholar, between knowledge and information. Information is everywhere, right? And we're all literate, but knowledge so rare.

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Subhanah. And when will we return to that day of might and is when we start to look at our children, choose the best most knowledgeable amongst him and say you you are my favorite. You belong to Allah and you send that child to be with the scholars for 2030 years. And we do that out of every household as the Muslims used to. And what do we have? We have an thriving with scholarship.

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You look you want to say something.