People often say that he wears a black shalwar kameez, and just so he could refute this, Brother Adnan Rashid wore a green coloured one the first day of the conference. Referring to Musa’s ‘alaihissalam story, he told us how Allah sent him to warn Pharoah, and how Allah sent Muhammad sallallaho ‘alaihi wasallam to Arabs.
“Then be patient. Stand and warn.” This is a 40 year old man Allah is commanding. “We send you as a mercy for them. Be patient and Allah will be with you.” And this is what he taught his companions as well. The tehzeeb of Islam that is missing today. His advent was that mercy.
The words of the ustaadh make you wonder. What is it really that we have left behind? Aren’t we producing scholars each day, madrassah’s filled to capacity? They had courage in the face of their enemies because they had Allah on their side. Allah sent a forty year old man for the tough job of calling those hot-headed Arabs to Islam. The sahaba did not have the comfort of today, very far from of it, yet they accomplished what we can hardly even dream of! We are not doing what they were doing. They were very few and they were legends because they were few.
In every single generation, Allah sent revivers for mankind. But then people started venerating them. If we don’t stand up, then we will be destroyed. If we don’t do the work that we have been commanded to as the ummah of Muhammad sallallaho ‘alaihi wasallam, then Allah will bring better people to do it. If you saw a companion of the rasul today, the guards at the Marriott would turn him away because of how he looked. They had just one cloth to cover themselves with. But they are still our legends. Because of what they did and believed in. Don’t follow the likes of Michael Jackson, the man who did not have love in his life. Had he but gone to a masjid, he would have hundreds to love him for the sake of Allah. Abu Bakr is the legend to love and follow. A thin man, so thin that a strong gust of wind could blow him away, who gave away all he owned for the sake of Allah. There are hundreds of such examples.
Imam Bukhari, the compiler of the most authentic book after Quran, was once on a boat with 4 kilos of gold and he told this to his companion. That man raised uproar that he had lost his gold. They searched everyone including Imam Bukhari but found no gold on him or anywhere else. After they got off the boat, the man asked him where was the gold, since he had said he had it? Was he lying? Imam Bukari replied that he let it go in the sea, for he could not let the label of a thief stick to him even falsely, as he is a servant of the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallaho ‘alaihi wasallam. Two questions were posed to Brother Rashid:
- Where do we start from?
By reviving the legacy producing people like Ibn Taimiyyah, Imam Shaukani, because these people spent their lives studying the sciences of Islam and implementing them. Send your children to the best schools, get them to learn English and memorise Shakespeare but also teach them Islam! We have traditions of people who would travel a month for the sake of collecting a single report. Start today, learn a single hadith each day. - Do you see a difference between a madrassah and an Islamic school today?
Yes, for today a madrassah is considered one for only Islamic knowledge. Allah did not create this dichotomy, I don’t believe in it. Allah revealed two books, the Quran and the Universe or Nature. There is a man called George Maqdisi, who researched and wrote on how the Islamic schooling of the middle ages inspired the schooling of Western civilisation. They removed the religion side because of their prejudice. An Islamic school is what a madrassah supposed to be. We need to break this dichotomy, this was deliberately done by the British that the one who is miskeen, perhaps disabled, send him to get training for spiritual reward and send the best of our children to Oxford.
