DARS 50
What was the first Dar-ul-Uloom?
{ أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَۚ أَفَلَا تَعۡقِلُونَ}
Surah al-Baqarah v44
In the previous verse, Allah subhana wa ta'ala mentioned His great forms of worship, which are the most valuable and precious things for us to be able to live in this world. With the assistance, shelter and protection of these ‘Ibadaat, we can live our lives in such a way that every situation and condition of our lives will constantly improve and get better, and our enemies Nafs and shaytan will likewise weaken. And if we do these ‘Ibadaat of Salah and Zakah, and, as was mentioned, pray Salah in congregation, then Allah knows best what Hikmah of His is behind this. These are such precious resources for us to live our lives in the world. It is very sad if we leave these actions, and then the situation will be akin to that of a human being wandering around in the desert, with no route, no guidance. He has nowhere to go, no direction.
After this, Allah ta’ala gives a very important message in this verse that I have just recited. From Hadhrat Adam alayhi salam to the final Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam, all the Prophets were sent to this world with an objective, a purpose – just one objective. And they worked toward that objective all around the world. And what was that mission, that objective? Allah ta’ala sent them to the world to protect human beings, to give them shelter, so that one way or another, those people who were sent away from Paradise could avoid losing the battle with shaytan and ending up in hell - so that human beings could attain success in the Hereafter. It was for this that Allah subhana wa ta'ala prepared the Prophets, so that from time to time they would be sent to this earth. And all of the Prophets had this one objective. When it was seen that people had succumbed to the games of shaytan and Nafs, and had strayed far from the purpose for which they had been sent into the world, then Allah ta’ala in His Mercy and Grace, to save the human beings from hell, would send a specific Prophet to this world.
The mission of that Nabi would be such that, after coming to this world, he would do two actions. They would find people committing sinful actions that shaytan had made people busy themselves with, those weird and peculiar sins which Allah mentions in the Qur’an that different Prophets found when they came, like the people of Prophet Lut alayhi salam. Their sin was unique, because shaytan enables human beings to do anything and everything. It is sad to say that while previous Ummahs had their own peculiar sins, shaytan has now collected them and brought them all into this Ummah. In this Ummah, in this day and age, human beings combine all of the sins together; all of the sins under the sun are committed. That is how severe the situation is. Since this is the final Ummah, shaytan is working his hardest at this moment in time. Previous Ummahs had particular sins, like not weighing out full measures, or this sin or that sin, and a Nabi would be sent to remind that Ummah to stop that specific sin and to adopt the path of goodness – Amr bil-Ma’roof wa Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar. These were the two actions that comprised the work of all the Ambiya alayhimus-salam – enjoining good and forbidding evil. If they tried to implement this objective but their people did not listen, then Allah’s punishment would descend on those people and destroy them, - He would wipe them away.
This was the work of the Nabis, my brothers – promoting good and telling people to refrain from evil. This is very great work, and they made a very great effort. This is the greatest work, this work which Allah ta’ala gave to the Prophets, this task of going to the people to spread goodness, to speak goodness, to enjoin what is good and forbid evil – Amr bil-Ma’roof wa Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar. All of the Prophets came and went with this mission. The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam also came with this mission, and his age was the most severe in comparison to what had gone before. He had to confront all the sins together, not just one or two. The people at that time had scaled the heights of sinful behaviour and immodesty. And now, we have left no sin – we try everything, nothing is left out.
So the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam came, Allah subhana wa ta'ala sent His mercy to this Ummah, and the mission continued. Protection from bad actions was given and goodness was taught and disseminated – Allah ta’ala enlightened the people. Now the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam eventually left this world, after which Allah subhana wa ta'ala gave a special mercy which was an honour that had not been given to previous Ummahs; it was reserved for this final Ummah. Why? Because, regarding evil and wrongdoing, Allah ta’ala says here {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} – spread goodness when you see evil or wrongdoing. Enjoin good and stop people from doing wrong– this is that work, that mission, which was assigned to the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. But this Ummah has a particular brilliance, and Allah ta’ala gave a great honour, dignity and status to this Ummah. What did Allah ta’ala say in the Qur’an?
{كُنتُمۡ خَيۡرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخۡرِجَتۡ لِلنَّاسِ تَأۡمُرُونَ بِٱلۡمَعۡرُوفِ وَتَنۡهَوۡنَ عَنِ ٱلۡمُنڪَرِ وَتُؤۡمِنُونَ بِٱللَّ}
SubhanAllah. Allah says here that this Ummah is better than all the previous nations which came, the best Ummah, the Ummah of Khair, the superior Ummah. Why? At any given moment in time, it is the best Ummah if they continue that work of {تَأۡمُرُونَ بِٱلۡمَعۡرُوفِ وَتَنۡهَوۡنَ عَنِ ٱلۡمُنڪَرِ}. In other words, Allah ta’ala has given a very great responsibility to this Ummah, for it is not just about keeping the good for themselves and benefiting themselves, but rather they should spread it to people and benefit others. In other words, they should enjoin good and prevent evil. Allah ta’ala has given the responsibility for all the previous nations to this Ummah as well. And in the Hereafter, due to this work and effort, the men and women will be given a high rank status by Allah subhana wa ta'ala. Allah ta’ala has elevated this work so much for this Ummah. This work, this purpose, this objective is the unique feature of this Ummah. The previous Prophets came in order to do this work of the Deen, but Allah ta’ala gave this work to every individual of this Ummah – and Allah ta’ala has given the capacity and capability to everyone as well.
If Amr bil-Ma’roof and Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar is not done, then Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given a severe warning. Hadhrat Abdullah bin Mas’ood radhiAllahu anh narrates that Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that the first deviation of Bani Isra’eel came when a person would see another doing wrong and he wouldn’t prevent him, nor did he try to make that person afraid of Allah. He wouldn’t remind him about Allah or stop him from doing that bad action, nor would he tell that person who was doing wrong to fear Allah. This is the first change that came over Bani Isra’eel, that they would be more worried that their link with that person would be cut off, that they would no longer be able to eat and drink with that person and their friendship would evaporate and they wouldn’t be listened to– so they would just turn a blind eye. It is stated that when these actions started in Bani Isra’eel, and when this behaviour of not stopping others from doing wrong became common, what did Allah ta’ala do? The result was that sins and wrongdoing began to proliferate in the hearts.
This is an Adhab, a punishment. If a person sees sins and bad actions, but he looks on without caring and turns a blind eye, not trying to stop that bad action, Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam states that the Hal of that Ummah becomes bad. The Sahaba al-Kiram radhiAllahu anhum asked the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam ‘Can we be destroyed if we have righteous people who are fearful of Allah among us, Walis of Allah? If the Friends of Allah are present, will we still be destroyed?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam replied ‘Yes! When evil spreads, then everyone will be dragged into that consequence.’ Even Muttaqi people, righteous, upright people will also start to be destroyed by the Wrath of Allah.
If we look around us today, what generation are we living in? Where are we? What actions are commonplace and found everywhere? Make a note – observe. The Hadith mentions that the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was reclining on a cushion, and he stood up suddenly and swore by Allah, saying ‘You cannot attain success and you cannot attain salvation unless you stop people from oppression.’ What is oppression? Wrongful words, wrongful actions of the sort that we see right across society today. Until we stop people from doing wrong, we cannot attain success – the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam swore by Allah that this was the case. He told us to continue doing Amr bil-Ma’roof and Nahi ‘anil-Munkar, and that if we don’t stop the oppression and the wrongdoing, then our hearts would be affected such that we would also end up like that. He told us ‘You too will start doing wrong, and curses will come onto you just as curses came upon Bani Isra’eel.’
You can think of this Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar where Allah ta’ala says { أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} – ‘Do you enjoin righteousness?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that those who say La ilaha illa’llah, Muhammadur-Rasoolullah will always derive benefit from that. Obviously, this is the Kalimah of Tawhid and the statement of faith, so there will be benefit and elevation, but he said that this applies only if we do not break the rights of this Kalimah. The Noble Companions radhiAllahu anhum said ‘Oh Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, what are the rights of this Kalimah? How does a person fail to fulfill its rights?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam replied ‘Breaking the rights of this Kalimah occurs when sins are openly committed but no one from mankind tries to stop others from doing wrong. That is breaking the rights of this Kalimah.’
Reflect on this, now. What is the state of sinfulness around us today? Hadhrat Siddiqa radhiAllahu anha narrates a Hadith with this question: ‘If a punishment from Allah was to come down upon the earth, and there were some pious and upright present, would they also suffer the misfortune?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam replied ‘Everyone in the world would be affected, yes. In the Akhirah, there will be distinctions between groups according to their sins, but in the world, everyone is together. When punishment comes, they will also be included.’ SubhanAllah.
Nabi al-Karim sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that if a person in a group within a nation openly practices a sin, and that group do not stop him from sinning, then Allah will send Adhab upon them before he dies due to them not preventing him from sinning. These are a few Hadith regarding this topic that I have shared and presented in your service to show the importance of { تَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ} in our Deen.
How can we turn away from this, brothers, tell me – how can we ignore this? In all of these Ahadith, the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam made this very point, that it is a very bad state of affairs when you see bad or evil and you don’t stop it, you don’t prevent it and you don’t even speak against it. Hadhrat Abu Sa’eed Khudri radhiAllahu anh narrates that Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said: “مَنْ رَأَى مِنْكُمْ مُنْكَرًا فَلْيُغَيِّرْهُ بِيَدِهِ، فَإِنْ لَمْ يَسْتَطِعْ فَبِلِسَانِهِ، فَإِنْ لَمْ يَسْتَطِعْ فَبِقَلْبِهِ، وَذَلِكَ أَضْعَفُ الْإِيمَانِ”. “If you see somebody doing something bad, you should use your hand to stop him, and if you cannot do that, then use your tongue; and if you cannot even do that, then at least wish it would stop in your heart – and this is the lowest level of Iman.” Allahu Akbar.
So now, if we look at our own situation, my brothers, which of these three grades are we in? it is a very great thing for someone to stop a person’s sin with his hand, or his tongue, and at least we should accept that something is wrong in your heart. But we say ‘Oh no, they’re ok, they can do that - they are forced to do it. If they don’t do this, how can they advance in the world? If she doesn’t study or if he doesn’t do this or that action, how will they progress?’ Rather than considering wrongful actions as sins, we say that it is ok. We promote it. So where do we stand in respect of the three grades of this Hadith? We don’t even reach the lowest grade.
When we hear the Hukm that is given in the Qur’an, when we hear these words that we need to do Amr bil-Ma’roof, that we need to enjoin the good, then one thought comes immediately into our hearts. What is that? We think ‘Oh, this is not our responsibility. It is the job of the scholars to do this.’ We say this. Straightaway, we direct the issue to the scholars; we turn away and point fingers at the Ulema. And then we curse and disrespect their Madrasas and Dar-ul-Ulooms and say ‘Look at them. They are the ones who are doing wrong.’ We heap all the blame on the Ulema and deny that we have anything to do with the wrongdoing around us. Imagine!
My brothers, { كُنتُمۡ خَيۡرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخۡرِجَتۡ لِلنَّاسِ }. Allah ta’ala has given a special status to this Ummah. Where does it say that it is only the scholars who should enjoin what is good and forbid evil? Tell me, where is it stated that this is their duty alone? Allah ta’ala says ‘You people, all of you need to enjoin good and prevent what is bad.’ That is the command. Allah ta’ala didn’t say that only the Alims should be doing this or that it is their responsibility. Who said this? Where is it written? Tell me. Read the Qur’an. We absolve ourselves and say ‘It is not my responsibility’, and then allow whatever Fasaad we want at home. Daughters can do this, sons can do that, and so much wrong spreads out from our homes. And then when it all comes to a head and society blames us, we say ‘Oh, the Moulanas have spoiled them. The Ulema have done this, they have done that, it is their fault.’ That is our deception. We point the finger at them and play a blame game, despite the fact that the Qur’an says { يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا}. The Qur’an says this, ordering ‘Oh people of belief, save yourselves and your families from that fire whose fuel is stones and men.’ Who is Allah ordering? The scholars? The principals of the Madrasahs? Those who run the institutes? They do have a responsibility - definitely. But think about it - at what stage does it become their responsibility?
In relation to the Hukm Allah refers to in { أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ }, at what point is it the responsibility of the Ulema? The first responsibility to enjoin good and prevent bad should start where? We need to see the reality of this. { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا} First and foremost, the first Dar-ul-Uloom, the first Madrasah, the first institute, the first person who will be seized – remember this – the first people who will be questioned will be who? Questioning will start from the home, from the house. The respected scholars come after this. The husband and wife get married, and then a child is born – to whom does he come? To the mother and father. The daughter comes to us; the children come to us. They live in our homes and in our families. The first responsibility of spreading the Deen is on whose head? On the mother and father. Both have a heavy responsibility and will be first to be questioned on the Day of Judgement. The children themselves will say ‘Oh my mother and father taught us – what could we do? We didn’t know. Mum and Dad told us.’
So here the Qur’an is giving Hukm, with { أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ }, that you should spread righteousness – and where does righteousness start? It starts from the home. Societies are made in the home, cities are made in the home, the Ummah is made in the home, under that roof. So the first responsibility to make someone righteous and good is in our home, our very own home. Why would the Ulema be questioned? We will be asked first: ‘This was your son, your daughter, your child – what did you do in your home? What wrong would be done in your home? What was the situation in your home?’ Allah ta’ala has given us an order here. { وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ} - ‘Save yourselves and your families.’ Save them from evil actions and promote good. Give them education, give them goodness, enjoin what is good.
This is the Fasaad that has come into the Ummah; this is the disorder, the Fitnah. The Fasaad has sprung from here. If our homes are spoiled, then our society will be spoiled, and if the society is spoiled then our whole situation is finished. What is the situation among us? How are we imparting Deen to our children in our homes? What is the environment like? What does Allah ta’ala state about this? What are the Ahadith and teaching and education of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam about the home? Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given us a great Hukm. Hadhrat Ayub rahmatullah alayh was a Tabi’i who narrates from his father and grandfather that Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated: “مَا نَحَلَ وَالِدٌ وَلده مِنْ نَحْلٍ أَفْضَلَ مِنْ أَدَبٍ حَسَنٍ” – “A father can give no greater gift to his son than good Adab”, meaning beneficial manners in how he lives his life. No father can teach or give anything better than good etiquettes of life to his son. The greatest devotion, pastime and focus, and the first and greatest responsibility of a father towards his child is this, and the mother too. The father because he is the head of the family, just as the king is the head of the kingdom, and also the mother, because she is like the prime minister. They are like the president and the prime minister - they have to run the home together, in tandem. Both will be asked.
This is the first, most important and greatest thing – who is saying this? The final Prophet, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam is saying this to his Ummah, that if you want to keep your Iman steadfast, established and intact, then first and foremost you have to give Tableegh to your children, to impart the Deen to them, because through your children, the family is established and society is established. The first thing you need to teach your children is what? SubhanAllah! You have to teach them manners and the etiquettes of life.
Hadhrat Jabir radhiAllahu anh narrates that Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that there is no better gift; this is better than giving them lots of money. It is better that you give them Tarbiyyah, that you teach them good Adab, good manners and good actions. It doesn’t matter how much you have to spend to do this, for it is the best of actions, better than giving charity and spending time and effort and money all over the place. Better than spreading Khair and spending on normal charity is that you spend money on your children to teach them Akhlaq and Adaab and manners of life.
I will explain the meaning of this Hadith to you. Our thinking is that a child is born, and when he or she has grown up a little bit, we put a Qaa’idah book in their hand, teach them some Qur’an and send them to Madrasah. We assign the child totally to Moulana sahib or Alim sahib in the Madrasah, and then whatever mistakes are made, it is the Moulana sahib who is wrong. When they do something wrong, then Moulana sahib is at fault. If they attend Jumu’ah, we think that is enough. We think we have given a big teaching of the Deen by giving Qaa’idah and however many Juz’ of the Qur’an they learn at the Masjid. My brothers, what Deen is this? Our Deen doesn’t teach us this. Our children, as soon as they are born, are assigned to the mother and the father. This happens at birth – the Moulana comes in long after that when they go to Madrasah. Allah ta’ala has given the child to us - { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا}. Why has Allah ta’ala given such a great instruction in the Qur’an? We think he will study Bukhari and Hadith and Qur’an and will then become an Alim and will improve himself at that time and thereafter save himself from wrongdoing and do good. SubhanAllah.
Allah ta’ala has bestowed dignity upon this Ummah. { كُنتُمۡ خَيۡرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخۡرِجَتۡ لِلنَّاسِ } - that is why Allah ta’ala says we are the best Ummah. Why? How? Allah ta’ala has given the capability and capacity to every single human being, to every Ummati. We don’t need to go towards an Alim or a speaker or listen to a great, technical speech on Hadith to make someone pious and to make your children good. You don’t need to wait for years. Rather, Allah ta’ala has bestowed every human being with the attribute that if you tell them to do good, he will do so, and when you tell him to stop doing wrong, he will stop. If you enjoin what is good, he will start doing good. And Allah ta’ala has given us a syllabus, a complete syllabus of life. The syllabus of Bukhari comes later, and not everyone studies Tafseer of Qur’an in their lives, but Allah has given us a complete syllabus of life.
The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given us a comprehensive syllabus for life. What is that syllabus? Allahu Akbar. {لَّقَدۡ كَانَ لَكُمۡ فِى رَسُولِ ٱللَّهِ أُسۡوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ۬} SubhanAllah – this is the syllabus of life! In the Hadith that I have recited in front of you, Allah ta’ala has ordered us to teach our children the best manners of life, the correct methodology of life. This is the best gift that you can give to your children. How? When a child comes into the scope of your responsibility, then, at the appropriate stage and according to the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, teach him how to live his life. Guide him through the phases of life according to the Sunnah. This is how to give Tarbiyya to the children. This is Ta’leem, this is education. The greatest Madrasah in the world, the greatest education you can give to your children, Alhamdulillah, is where your child is brought up under the shade whereby everything is assigned according to the Sunnah. Teach them the Tariqa of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in standing, sitting, eating, sleeping, drinking, outside, talking, discourse, walking, travelling, buying, dressing – from birth, everything according to the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
This is Deen, the complete Deen. These things start to apply from the moment of birth, going forward throughout a child’s life. Teach them Adaab, the love of the Deen, the love of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam and his Tariqa at every stage of life. And children have consciousness - they are aware, they are alert; they have a lot of awareness. A six, seven or eight-month-old child is aware. I have observed a very alert eight-month-old child. In the home when time for Salah comes, if you ask him to do Adhan, he will put his hands to his ears – this is an eight-month-old child imitating the Adhan! By contrast, if there is no Tarbiyyah, a twenty-year-old son will say he doesn’t know how to pray. ‘I’ll learn when I need to’, he says. Who will be punished for this? Who? And Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that the punishment will be spread throughout their homes.
So our greatest institution of learning, the most important Madrasah, is our own home. And to make this a reality, the mother and father must implement the syllabus that we have been given. The message that we have heard in previous sessions regarding {ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٲطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ} is that this means {أَطِيعُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُواْ ٱلرَّسُولَ}. Allah ta’ala has made this so easy for us. It is not necessary for you to grow up and go to a Dar-ul-Uloom and learn all the technicalities, no. From birth, Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has demonstrated every action for us to follow – the child should sleep like this, drink milk like this, grow up like this, teach him this. And according to the alertness and capacity of the child, those actions will become engrained in his or her life. The child will become a great Alim within the home.
The greatest ‘Ilm of an Alim is that the individual lives their life according to the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam and follows the Sunnah Tariqa. This is the summation of ‘Ilm and knowledge. What else is there? The whole of the Qur’an teaches this, Dar-ul-Ulooms teach this, the Ulema al-Kiram teach this – what else do they teach? This is the syllabus of life. When the parents teach this from birth and give the child Ta’leem, they are giving this same Ta’leem of Amr bil-Ma’roof and Nahi ‘anil-Munkar – enjoining what is good and forbidding evil. That child acquires good lessons and understands what good is and avoids what is bad, and that child will automatically do Amal on the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, And if he follows the Sunnah, he will refrain from bad actions. So this order of the Qur’an when Allah ta’ala says {تَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} is telling the believers that they should enjoin righteousness. This is the meaning of this.
Speeches, conferences, Tafseers and narrations of Hadith at big gatherings are the next stage. These are further stages and are a very great achievement if a person does this. That is further down the line, a different subject. The real purpose, the crux of the matter, is that when a child is born and comes into the home, the first responsibility to teach these principles falls upon who? The mother and the father. When the Ummah rises on the Day of Judgement along with the sins and the ills of society, those who will be held responsible at that time will not be the scholars. What did they do wrong? The biggest responsibility will be laid upon the mothers and fathers; it is their fault for not teaching anything good to their children. The respected scholars are not expected to go into the homes of every child and teach them Qur’an and Hadith; that is not their responsibility. They have a different duty. It is our responsibility, but we point fingers at them and blame them, saying ‘Why is this happening in our society? Oh, the Moulanas are doing this and that. Our Alims are spoiled, they are this, they are that, they are wrong.’ These are such deplorable statements to make, appalling statements, blaming our mistakes on others.
Allah ta’ala is telling us to enjoin good upon mankind -{تَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ}. Where will this start from? { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا} – Allah tells us that it starts in our homes. And who are the two people who have to do this? Who will teach Bukhari to the children? Who will teach the child goodness, explain the six authentic collections of Hadith and deliver the whole syllabus of obedience to the Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam? The parents! When you bring this to life for your children and teach them Adaab, this is the greatest gift that you can give to your child, according to this Hadith that I told you about. The greatest gift is to teach the Sunnah to the child, to teach all the Adaab of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam to the child. This is a great teaching, a great principle that you are bringing into the child’s life, SubhanAllah.
The next statement is great indeed. Allah says {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ}. Allahu Akbar – Allah is saying ‘Enjoin righteousness, but remember one thing, be careful of one thing. This work of the Deen, enjoining good and forbidding bad, will only be accepted when you yourself are practicing what you preach.’ SubhanAllah. {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} Allah says ‘You forget yourselves’ {وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ} SubhanAllah. ‘You are telling people about the Kitab but you forget about yourselves.’ Allah is saying ‘Don’t be obstinate! Are you forgetting to practice it yourselves whilst you tell other people?’
Allah ta’ala is giving people a big warning here about our society. Me, you, Zaid, Bakr – everyone wants their child to be pious and attain high status. We try and we do this and that, but where do we fail and get spoiled? When {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} – when we forget ourselves. We tell others, but we forget about ourselves – and all the while we say we are placing great emphasis on our children. We say ‘I want my son or daughter to be an Alim’, and we send them off for two or three hours every evening. But during the day, we don’t know where they go, and they are running around all over. Two hours in the evening, but before that ten hours in the wrong places. For ten hours, they are learning the ways of the Dunya, and then for one and a half hours they learn about Deen, and on this basis we hope that they will become righteous and very pious. This is a massive mistake. Then we say ‘I don’t know what has gone wrong. I taught ‘Ilm to my children, and I did this and that. They studied at this Madrasa, so it must be that the Alims there didn’t say the right thing or teach them properly.’
Imagine! It was you who didn’t teach them properly. Never mind the Alim, you didn’t teach properly. Why is this? What education do we give? It is so weak, and why? {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} – because we forget about ourselves. We put a booklet of Qur’an into their hands and send them off to Madrasa every evening, but what is happening in our homes? There is not even one percent of Deen in our homes, not even one. Rather, there are sins and Kharafat, wrong actions. The child goes to the Madrasa for one and a half hours where the Moulana Sahib teaches Hadith, but when the child comes back home, he sees that the reality of life there is wrong. He says ‘What is going on? My mother and father are doing wrong and are acting contrary to what Moulana Sahib has said.’
What is the consequence of this? It is in front of us – I tell you the truth here. This is the reality of our situation. Those children who go to Islamic institutions but find the actions at home are at variance with those teachings end up like wild animals. I can tell you various examples of this that have come in front of me – sons and daughters ended up becoming deviated and running away from home. I swear by Allah, there will be severe accounting for this. In one Muslim household, there is a child who has grown up, and the mother and father do wrong actions at home, with open immodesty and wrongdoing, breaking of the Sunnah, committing Haram actions and living a shameless life. They put a Qur’an into their child’s hand and sent him to Dar-ul-Uloom with two-faces. So who causes the child to end up without Imaan? Can there be any greater Adhab than this? Tell me.
There is no Adab in our own homes, and no understanding; there is no fear and no concern or distress about the fact that our children need correcting. There is so much sin in our society. In every home there is fighting, quarrelling and disputes. Mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law – there are fights and quarrels all the time, and children are brought up in this atmosphere. They are born amongst quarrels between their mother and father, and they become people without Iman, like wild beasts. I can show you - right here. One such child comes to Dhikr – I can present his example to you and you can hear his words. Why is this? It is not his fault. It is because he has been brought up in an environment where the mother and father have quarrels and disputes and don’t make up afterwards. There is no Deen and they are always quarreling over silly things, and meanwhile they are telling him to practice Deen and to learn this and that – and then that child becomes the opposite!
I could give you several examples of this sort, not just one, of children who actually leave the circle of Islam to the point that they have no Deen. They cross that boundary. Nonsense comes from their mouths and they say to their parents ‘Why should we continue to live as Muslims.’ Their parents complain ‘Oh, we came to this country and the environment has affected them. We sent the children to Moulana sahib but he didn’t do anything.’ But they don’t see the contradiction in the fact that Allah defines their lives as so immodest and far from the Deen - and then they blame Islam. Rather than explaining the Deen and righteousness, their lives are opposite to that. They lead a double life, sending the child into Deeni education while they spend their lives in practical opposition to that. The sons and daughters see that in their homes an opposite way of life is practiced, and they end up leaving the Deen and running away from home. If you interview those children who have left home and left the Deen and ask them why they did this, they will tell you clearly that in their homes there was no Barakah, that their mother and father were something else. They say ‘Our parents did immodest and sinful actions, and all the while they told us to do good and to be righteous and pious. But they were the opposite. Their example was bad but verbally they told us to do good.’
Allah has mentioned a very severe Adhab for this. What will be the consequence for such people on the Day of Judgement? We cannot imagine how Allah ta’ala will take them to account for this. Their reckoning will be severe and punishment will follow – and a very severe punishment for this has been mentioned in Hadith. We spoil our children with our own hands. We teach them bad things and we say bad things to them. We have spoiled our children with our own hands because we haven’t done Amal.
Allah ta’ala says {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ} – ‘Do you enjoin righteousness while you yourselves forget to practice it?’ No child, son or daughter, should be spoiled. If we tell someone to do good, then the Qur’an is saying that we have to practice it first. Do Amal yourself before telling others. If you don’t do Amal and practice goodness yourself, then how can you stop your children from wrongful actions? How can you prevent it? Success comes when the human being who is teaching or preaching something is practicing it himself. He should be leading by example, at the front of the line, initiating the actions he is encouraging. Allah subhana wa ta'ala is telling us here that the previous nations were destroyed for this very reason. They used to say one thing but not practice it themselves. They would tell others to do actions that they themselves would not implement. This was the Hal of previous nations, and due to this Allah ta’ala gave them punishments.
The reality of this, my brothers, is that this situation, this scenario, and the displeasure of Allah ta’ala that is evident in this era, has its root cause in us not bringing up our children correctly. And due to this, the whole society has changed and the Ummah has been spoiled and we have gone down the path of destruction and evil. The Qur’an has told us this. If we live correctly and take the path of the Qur’an in the right way, do the right Tableegh to our children and tell them to live the right way, the condition is that first and foremost, we ourselves must do Amal on this message. If we don’t practice ourselves, then there will be no effect on others. Nobody will be affected and there will be no impact. The previous nations would do this, giving Nasiha and advice to others but not practicing upon it themselves. When a human being doesn’t do Amal, when he doesn’t practice what he preaches, then the order will have no impact; it will be hollow. Rather, the effect will be opposite to that intended, and the wrong influence will take over, and the people will get spoiled.
So this is the situation regarding the method of Tableegh. The biggest thing that is lacking in this Ummah is that we think that a person is only on the path when he becomes an Alim and gives speeches, but no – { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ}. The starting point is that the environment in our homes must be correct. The husband and wife should be agreed on this point. We engage in arguments and quarrels all life long and ignore the children – and the children see this game being played out. The biggest deficiency in our homes is that the husband and wife are not on the same page, and the children’s lives are destroyed by this, resulting in the children becoming devoid of Deen – and for this, both husband and wife will be punished in hell.
So the summary of this verse, the big lesson that is coming out, is that the best gift the father can give to the child is what? That the children, daughters and sons, should be given Tarbiyyah and education so that they live their lives according to the Sunnah Tariqa of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Allah subhana wa ta'ala has given this Hukm that every man should do this, and there is no condition in this that you should be an Alim or a scholar, but only that you yourself should practice the Shari'ah and Sunnah, for in this way you will demonstrate the right behaviour to your child and be a good influence. It is so easy to do this, so easy. Allah t’ala has made it very easy indeed to explain the Deen. All that is needed is that we ourselves adopt the Sunnah of eating, sitting, drinking, sleeping, and that we leave bad actions and refrain from immodest actions. If by your actions you show that you are not doing this yourself, then the child will not do it either, but if we practice on the Sunnah, the sins will not come; they will end.
You can never eliminate wrong from society without following this path. For example, if you get Ijazah and give Bai’ah and are lax about some things and strict on others – no. Have one standard of life; make the Shari'ah the boundary. Whatever the Shari’ah says about a given situation, you stick to that – end of story. Whoever takes the assistance of the Shari’ah and the Sunnah of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam and sticks to that, his decision can never be wrong. If Shari’ah says something is Haram, then it is Haram.
Don’t look at loss in the world. Deen and Dunya cannot be mixed. The statement ‘We want the Deen and also a bit of Dunya as well’ is a statement of shaytan. Where has this slogan that you hear in the world today come from? It is weird, like saying ‘We want night and day together’, or ‘We want rain and sun together.’ Can this ever occur? Can they co-exist? Tell me.
So we must realise that when we make complaints about our children being on the wrong track and in need of correction, it is we who are at fault, my brothers. We need correction. And the best way is the Tarbiyyah that Allah has prescribed, which is to start your children off in life with Deen. Give them Tarbiyyah, good lessons, and practice first before you tell your children. It is no good telling your children not to do Haram if the husband and wife sit all night long watching dramas. The children see what Mum and Dad are doing. If you look at dirty things, the children will say ‘Why are you telling us not to do look at such things if you are doing it?’ And then they start looking as well.
You send them to Dar-ul-Uloom to study this and that, but the greatest Dar-ul-Uloom is your own home. The main institute is the home – the child looks at that. So don’t complain, and don’t blame others. Allah ta’ala has told us in the Qur’an:{أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ}. This is one clear meaning that comes out of this verse, that first and foremost, initiation of Deen starts with this point. The wider aspects of society come after. Who is responsible for these? The Ulema al-Kiram, the respected scholars. Their responsibility comes at this next stage, and they are the deputies of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Who is responsible first and foremost? The mother and father. The Ulema come in a secondary position. That high ranking Jama’ah of the Ulema, their responsibility comes next.
And this verse also draws our attention to their role and directs us towards them, to consider how much they are fulfilling their role and responsibility in society. Allah ta’ala gave them ‘Ilm - { وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَۚ أَفَلَا تَعۡقِلُونَ }. Allah is saying ‘I gave you the complete Deen and the knowledge of the Kitab, so you have to worry about the whole of society, not just your own home.’ The mother and father look after the children at home and prepare them at home and bring them up, and afterwards they are free from that. So what is the duty of the Ulema al-Kiram? They have to look after the whole of society – that is the stage and platform that they are given. Once a person has attained ‘Ilm, the primary thing he should have in his mind is this one single point. There are thousands of things you can do in life - jobs and pastimes and so on. It is not Fardh for every person to become a scholar. What is Fardh is that every Muslim learns the minimum ‘Ilm needed to live life correctly – the Faraaidh, compulsory matters, the Mustahab actions, the Sunnah actions. We all need to know this knowledge, and there are Kitabs like the Heavenly Ornaments and other Kitabs through which we can gain ‘Ilm of this sort.
But there is a higher level of knowledge - Fiqh, jurisprudence, Masaa’il, in-depth commentaries, Aqaai’d, beliefs and all the other subjects – and to learn all this takes nine or ten years of study. A man says ‘I don’t want to become a doctor or engineer or go this way or that way’, so he selects and embraces this line, saying ‘I want to live my life like this.’ Alhamdulillah, that is a great choice. No one can compare to that person, no one. But let me tell you in advance how he should go about this and how he should embark on this path of ‘Ilm. If someone wants to become a doctor and make money - ok, fine. He says he wants to work in a hospital and do operations, and he selects his career for that purpose. Someone else says he wants to be an engineer so that he can earn money and get a nice car and so on – fine, let him. A businessman says he wants to run a business, and an accountant says he wants to become an accountant in this or that field. But when the mother and father give good Tarbiyya to their child and bring him up with Hadith, saying ‘Qala qala Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam’, when from his days in his mother’s lap his upbringing is so great that he has adopted all the Adaab and manners, and when he follows the Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam in every way, what will be the desire of that child? It will not be to follow his Nafs. When such a child grows up and says ‘I want to learn ‘Ilm’, then he will become a true Alim, SubhanAllah. He is what you call a scholar. When he learns ‘Ilm, he does so with passion, and says ‘I purposely left becoming a doctor or running after money and gadgets. I selected this career path myself.’ And this is due to the blessings that Allah confers through the Tarbiyya he received from his mother and father.
So we must do the work of the Deen. What should we do? The work of the Deen. Deen and Dunya are opposites, remember this. If he wants to earn Dunya, then he should run after other career paths. But the person who has a righteous upbringing, who learned how to live according to the Sunnah in the lap of his mother and the shade of his father, when he takes hold of Bukhari Sharif or Tafseer of Qur’an, SubhanAllah, his Niyyah will not be wrong. It could be that poverty or hunger or quarrels and disputes and problems and hurdles and obstacles and distress come his way, but he will be such an Alim that he will stand firm on the Haq. He comes to this career path, to this field, with a clear and clean intention.
About the Alims it is stated {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ}. This also applies to the Alim, as Allah ta’ala is saying ‘If the society is spoiled, it is your fault. It is your responsibility to guide this society.’ What is the reason that they went towards wrong? {تَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} They attained knowledge, but after doing so, they sold it away. Who does this? Allah ta’ala gives the example of previous nations who used to do this. Their learned people would do this, due to which their Qawm was destroyed and finished. They used to hide the knowledge and conceal the truth. I told you the Hadith where the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that the first deviation that appeared was that immoral actions would take place but the Ulema would not say anything. They remained silent and dumb because the greed of the world had come inside them and they feared losing what they had. This is the same situation that you find on the Mimbar. The people who stand are different, but the situation persists.
When a man stands on the Mimbar and speaks the truth, you can be sure that his Tarbiyya started from the lap of his mother, where he learned the truth and read ‘Qala qala Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam’. Such a one chooses to do this work of the Deen and stand on the Mimbar. When such a person does stand on the Mimbar, what does he become? Abdul Qadir Jilani rahmatullah alayh, whose speech from the Mimbar was such that several Janazahs would take place afterwards due to the intensity of the speech. At his gatherings, several people would pass away during his speeches. It was the intensity, not the topic that was different. The same Hadiths were recited, the same verses of Qur’an, but he would speak the Haq, the truth. He would forbid wrong and enjoin the good, nothing else. This was the mission of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam and he would do the same. In every gathering people would pass away, even numbering in the hundreds, for when they heard the Haq, Jadhb would overcome them – amazing!
When the Wali of Allah comes, Jadhb is attained, for he spreads the Deen with passion and makes sacrifices for this mission. Look at the great Akabireen of the Naqshbandi Silsila, who left the Dunya, abandoning kingdoms and worldly status and big homes and the pleasures of their youth. They didn’t run after Dunya, rather they adopted poverty, worry and hunger; they had no clothes and no food, just great simplicity in their lives. When people sat in their gatherings, their hearts would become clean and their lives would be strongly impacted. They would be overcome by the Deen.
This is what the Qur’an is saying, that if society is destroyed, it is due to those Ulema who didn’t implement the right path. They did not spread the Kitab correctly, but rather they utilized the Kitab to earn Dunya not Akhirah. They forgot their mission – why? Because they didn’t do Amal themselves. They had two opposite aspects, one when they took the stage to speak, and another in their actions. And this is what the previous nations would do, which is why Allah ta’ala gives this example and says ‘Beware! How dare you? {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} – don’t do what the previous nations did before you. You have the learning and knowledge and tell people about virtuous actions, but you yourself run around in the darkness doing wrong! Your lifestyle is wrong – opposite.’
Today, if you examine the situation, you can see that the root cause of the destruction in this society, and the whole Ummah that we see today, is the Ulema; the responsibility is theirs. It is stated clearly that the destruction of the previous nations was caused by this, that their learned men did not speak about the Haq and they did wrong. Allah is telling this Ummah ‘Don’t do the same!’ Allah has warned us. Are you telling others to do good but not doing so yourselves? No! Allah ta’ala has given you knowledge and the Kitab, the Book, so don’t worry about poverty and hunger, just establish the truth and stand firm on the truth. Leave wrong actions! If you are a righteous Alim who is on the Haq, people will envy you when you stand on the Day of Judgement – and there are people like this among us. SubhanAllah, their names are mentioned today, and their names shine like the moon and the stars in our Kitabs. What was special about them? What special qualities did they have? Hadhrat Rashid Ahmed Gangohi rahmatullah alayh, Hadhrat Hakim ul-Ummah rahmatullah alayh – what made them so special and unique? Tell me. What was so great about their tongues and the statements that came from them? What was the effect and the impact of their words? What was the greatness of Hadhrat Mahmood al-Hasan rahmatullah alayh, who spent time in jail and suffered affliction? Hadhrat Qasim Nanotvi rahmatullah alayh also, who spent his time inside – why? Didn’t they know how to enjoy life, or how to access luxuries and comforts?
This was the reason! There was no difference in their understanding of the Deen, but they weren’t foolish, and they knew the reality of life. They comprehensively shunned wrong actions, and always acted according to the Nasiha that they gave to other people, SubhanAllah. They didn’t have two opposite ways of life; there was no disparity. They would do Amal themselves, and then when they spoke, their words would have an impact and right action would follow. They would forbid the wrong, beginning with themselves, and would enjoin the good and practice it themselves. If an Alim just does this as a minimum, it will be so easy for him to spread the Deen. It is that simple, I tell you. All he has to do is sit on a stage with the Qur’an in front of him, as I am doing. I am speaking to you with the Qur’an in front of me, and there is no need to prepare or feel stressed. You already have the ‘Ilm, you have learned and Allah ta’ala has opened and expanded your chest and heart with the desire to spread the Deen. That is why you didn’t become a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer and left money and business behind. Allah! The situation now is such that they have more money than other people – they have houses, shops, businesses and everything – SubhanAllah. I will repeat this to you again.
I am not saying that one should run after poverty and hunger and simplicity – no. That is not the objective. If Allah gives to you, that is good. But the objective shouldn’t be to earn Dunya. The Alim who has studied with the intention that he spreads the Deen has a very high Maqam and status. At that moment in time, there is no one greater – I tell you this now. If he practices and also enjoins others to good, there is no greater human being in that generation. That scholar is the Qutb, he is the Ghawth, he is doing all of the work. But it is hard to find one such scholar among hundreds of thousands because shaytan buys them first. He buys them out. And what is the loss that follows? That there is a big disparity between their speech and their actions – they are not the same. This contrast is visible in their lives, and even if it is hidden, Allah ta’ala is Khabeer and Baseer – such a person cannot progress towards goodness.
I tell you, if there is one Alim who has attained ‘Ilm with this intention, he will not be worried about poverty, hunger or Dunya. If he comes to speak at a gathering, he needs no preparation, I swear by Allah, and I tell you that he only has to relate one Hadith, just one, whether from Sahih al-Bukhari, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah – from any collection. What is Hadith? Those blessed, honourable statements of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam are Noor, and if that Noor is spread by a true scholar, then all the hearts will be enlightened by that Noor. That is the impact of such an Alim, SubhanAllah. If he recites just one Hadith in that gathering, SubhanAllah, you will see the effect and the impact on the hearts of the people. Their lives will be transformed.
As for the rest, the result is the opposite. A person may have been an Alim for years and have travelled to this and that country, graduated from this or that city. He can do what he wants in terms of the heights of knowledge, but if the Akhlaq of his life is opposite to the Hadith which he is narrating, if his lifestyle is opposite to that found in Abu Dawud or to the Tafseer of the Qur’an that he is reciting, then he is worse than the animals. How can he be an Alim? He is worse than an animal.
The time has finished now, and when we speak again on this subject, I will sit with you and explain the very important topic that comes from this verse taken together with the next verse. Our whole Deen and society is based on this verse - remember this.
So first I started with the subject of the home and then we progressed to discuss society. Just as mothers and fathers will be seized and punished for their failings in the home, the biggest responsibility in society is on the heads of those who have learned ‘Ilm, Islamic knowledge – the Alims. And they have failed because their speech and their actions are in opposition to each other; they are poles apart.
May Allah ta’ala give me and you the Tawfeeq to understand this verse of the Qur’an. Ameen
What was the first Dar-ul-Uloom?
{ أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَۚ أَفَلَا تَعۡقِلُونَ}
Surah al-Baqarah v44
In the previous verse, Allah subhana wa ta'ala mentioned His great forms of worship, which are the most valuable and precious things for us to be able to live in this world. With the assistance, shelter and protection of these ‘Ibadaat, we can live our lives in such a way that every situation and condition of our lives will constantly improve and get better, and our enemies Nafs and shaytan will likewise weaken. And if we do these ‘Ibadaat of Salah and Zakah, and, as was mentioned, pray Salah in congregation, then Allah knows best what Hikmah of His is behind this. These are such precious resources for us to live our lives in the world. It is very sad if we leave these actions, and then the situation will be akin to that of a human being wandering around in the desert, with no route, no guidance. He has nowhere to go, no direction.
After this, Allah ta’ala gives a very important message in this verse that I have just recited. From Hadhrat Adam alayhi salam to the final Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam, all the Prophets were sent to this world with an objective, a purpose – just one objective. And they worked toward that objective all around the world. And what was that mission, that objective? Allah ta’ala sent them to the world to protect human beings, to give them shelter, so that one way or another, those people who were sent away from Paradise could avoid losing the battle with shaytan and ending up in hell - so that human beings could attain success in the Hereafter. It was for this that Allah subhana wa ta'ala prepared the Prophets, so that from time to time they would be sent to this earth. And all of the Prophets had this one objective. When it was seen that people had succumbed to the games of shaytan and Nafs, and had strayed far from the purpose for which they had been sent into the world, then Allah ta’ala in His Mercy and Grace, to save the human beings from hell, would send a specific Prophet to this world.
The mission of that Nabi would be such that, after coming to this world, he would do two actions. They would find people committing sinful actions that shaytan had made people busy themselves with, those weird and peculiar sins which Allah mentions in the Qur’an that different Prophets found when they came, like the people of Prophet Lut alayhi salam. Their sin was unique, because shaytan enables human beings to do anything and everything. It is sad to say that while previous Ummahs had their own peculiar sins, shaytan has now collected them and brought them all into this Ummah. In this Ummah, in this day and age, human beings combine all of the sins together; all of the sins under the sun are committed. That is how severe the situation is. Since this is the final Ummah, shaytan is working his hardest at this moment in time. Previous Ummahs had particular sins, like not weighing out full measures, or this sin or that sin, and a Nabi would be sent to remind that Ummah to stop that specific sin and to adopt the path of goodness – Amr bil-Ma’roof wa Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar. These were the two actions that comprised the work of all the Ambiya alayhimus-salam – enjoining good and forbidding evil. If they tried to implement this objective but their people did not listen, then Allah’s punishment would descend on those people and destroy them, - He would wipe them away.
This was the work of the Nabis, my brothers – promoting good and telling people to refrain from evil. This is very great work, and they made a very great effort. This is the greatest work, this work which Allah ta’ala gave to the Prophets, this task of going to the people to spread goodness, to speak goodness, to enjoin what is good and forbid evil – Amr bil-Ma’roof wa Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar. All of the Prophets came and went with this mission. The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam also came with this mission, and his age was the most severe in comparison to what had gone before. He had to confront all the sins together, not just one or two. The people at that time had scaled the heights of sinful behaviour and immodesty. And now, we have left no sin – we try everything, nothing is left out.
So the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam came, Allah subhana wa ta'ala sent His mercy to this Ummah, and the mission continued. Protection from bad actions was given and goodness was taught and disseminated – Allah ta’ala enlightened the people. Now the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam eventually left this world, after which Allah subhana wa ta'ala gave a special mercy which was an honour that had not been given to previous Ummahs; it was reserved for this final Ummah. Why? Because, regarding evil and wrongdoing, Allah ta’ala says here {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} – spread goodness when you see evil or wrongdoing. Enjoin good and stop people from doing wrong– this is that work, that mission, which was assigned to the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. But this Ummah has a particular brilliance, and Allah ta’ala gave a great honour, dignity and status to this Ummah. What did Allah ta’ala say in the Qur’an?
{كُنتُمۡ خَيۡرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخۡرِجَتۡ لِلنَّاسِ تَأۡمُرُونَ بِٱلۡمَعۡرُوفِ وَتَنۡهَوۡنَ عَنِ ٱلۡمُنڪَرِ وَتُؤۡمِنُونَ بِٱللَّ}
SubhanAllah. Allah says here that this Ummah is better than all the previous nations which came, the best Ummah, the Ummah of Khair, the superior Ummah. Why? At any given moment in time, it is the best Ummah if they continue that work of {تَأۡمُرُونَ بِٱلۡمَعۡرُوفِ وَتَنۡهَوۡنَ عَنِ ٱلۡمُنڪَرِ}. In other words, Allah ta’ala has given a very great responsibility to this Ummah, for it is not just about keeping the good for themselves and benefiting themselves, but rather they should spread it to people and benefit others. In other words, they should enjoin good and prevent evil. Allah ta’ala has given the responsibility for all the previous nations to this Ummah as well. And in the Hereafter, due to this work and effort, the men and women will be given a high rank status by Allah subhana wa ta'ala. Allah ta’ala has elevated this work so much for this Ummah. This work, this purpose, this objective is the unique feature of this Ummah. The previous Prophets came in order to do this work of the Deen, but Allah ta’ala gave this work to every individual of this Ummah – and Allah ta’ala has given the capacity and capability to everyone as well.
If Amr bil-Ma’roof and Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar is not done, then Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given a severe warning. Hadhrat Abdullah bin Mas’ood radhiAllahu anh narrates that Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that the first deviation of Bani Isra’eel came when a person would see another doing wrong and he wouldn’t prevent him, nor did he try to make that person afraid of Allah. He wouldn’t remind him about Allah or stop him from doing that bad action, nor would he tell that person who was doing wrong to fear Allah. This is the first change that came over Bani Isra’eel, that they would be more worried that their link with that person would be cut off, that they would no longer be able to eat and drink with that person and their friendship would evaporate and they wouldn’t be listened to– so they would just turn a blind eye. It is stated that when these actions started in Bani Isra’eel, and when this behaviour of not stopping others from doing wrong became common, what did Allah ta’ala do? The result was that sins and wrongdoing began to proliferate in the hearts.
This is an Adhab, a punishment. If a person sees sins and bad actions, but he looks on without caring and turns a blind eye, not trying to stop that bad action, Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam states that the Hal of that Ummah becomes bad. The Sahaba al-Kiram radhiAllahu anhum asked the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam ‘Can we be destroyed if we have righteous people who are fearful of Allah among us, Walis of Allah? If the Friends of Allah are present, will we still be destroyed?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam replied ‘Yes! When evil spreads, then everyone will be dragged into that consequence.’ Even Muttaqi people, righteous, upright people will also start to be destroyed by the Wrath of Allah.
If we look around us today, what generation are we living in? Where are we? What actions are commonplace and found everywhere? Make a note – observe. The Hadith mentions that the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was reclining on a cushion, and he stood up suddenly and swore by Allah, saying ‘You cannot attain success and you cannot attain salvation unless you stop people from oppression.’ What is oppression? Wrongful words, wrongful actions of the sort that we see right across society today. Until we stop people from doing wrong, we cannot attain success – the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam swore by Allah that this was the case. He told us to continue doing Amr bil-Ma’roof and Nahi ‘anil-Munkar, and that if we don’t stop the oppression and the wrongdoing, then our hearts would be affected such that we would also end up like that. He told us ‘You too will start doing wrong, and curses will come onto you just as curses came upon Bani Isra’eel.’
You can think of this Nahi ‘an-il-Munkar where Allah ta’ala says { أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} – ‘Do you enjoin righteousness?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that those who say La ilaha illa’llah, Muhammadur-Rasoolullah will always derive benefit from that. Obviously, this is the Kalimah of Tawhid and the statement of faith, so there will be benefit and elevation, but he said that this applies only if we do not break the rights of this Kalimah. The Noble Companions radhiAllahu anhum said ‘Oh Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, what are the rights of this Kalimah? How does a person fail to fulfill its rights?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam replied ‘Breaking the rights of this Kalimah occurs when sins are openly committed but no one from mankind tries to stop others from doing wrong. That is breaking the rights of this Kalimah.’
Reflect on this, now. What is the state of sinfulness around us today? Hadhrat Siddiqa radhiAllahu anha narrates a Hadith with this question: ‘If a punishment from Allah was to come down upon the earth, and there were some pious and upright present, would they also suffer the misfortune?’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam replied ‘Everyone in the world would be affected, yes. In the Akhirah, there will be distinctions between groups according to their sins, but in the world, everyone is together. When punishment comes, they will also be included.’ SubhanAllah.
Nabi al-Karim sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that if a person in a group within a nation openly practices a sin, and that group do not stop him from sinning, then Allah will send Adhab upon them before he dies due to them not preventing him from sinning. These are a few Hadith regarding this topic that I have shared and presented in your service to show the importance of { تَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ} in our Deen.
How can we turn away from this, brothers, tell me – how can we ignore this? In all of these Ahadith, the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam made this very point, that it is a very bad state of affairs when you see bad or evil and you don’t stop it, you don’t prevent it and you don’t even speak against it. Hadhrat Abu Sa’eed Khudri radhiAllahu anh narrates that Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said: “مَنْ رَأَى مِنْكُمْ مُنْكَرًا فَلْيُغَيِّرْهُ بِيَدِهِ، فَإِنْ لَمْ يَسْتَطِعْ فَبِلِسَانِهِ، فَإِنْ لَمْ يَسْتَطِعْ فَبِقَلْبِهِ، وَذَلِكَ أَضْعَفُ الْإِيمَانِ”. “If you see somebody doing something bad, you should use your hand to stop him, and if you cannot do that, then use your tongue; and if you cannot even do that, then at least wish it would stop in your heart – and this is the lowest level of Iman.” Allahu Akbar.
So now, if we look at our own situation, my brothers, which of these three grades are we in? it is a very great thing for someone to stop a person’s sin with his hand, or his tongue, and at least we should accept that something is wrong in your heart. But we say ‘Oh no, they’re ok, they can do that - they are forced to do it. If they don’t do this, how can they advance in the world? If she doesn’t study or if he doesn’t do this or that action, how will they progress?’ Rather than considering wrongful actions as sins, we say that it is ok. We promote it. So where do we stand in respect of the three grades of this Hadith? We don’t even reach the lowest grade.
When we hear the Hukm that is given in the Qur’an, when we hear these words that we need to do Amr bil-Ma’roof, that we need to enjoin the good, then one thought comes immediately into our hearts. What is that? We think ‘Oh, this is not our responsibility. It is the job of the scholars to do this.’ We say this. Straightaway, we direct the issue to the scholars; we turn away and point fingers at the Ulema. And then we curse and disrespect their Madrasas and Dar-ul-Ulooms and say ‘Look at them. They are the ones who are doing wrong.’ We heap all the blame on the Ulema and deny that we have anything to do with the wrongdoing around us. Imagine!
My brothers, { كُنتُمۡ خَيۡرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخۡرِجَتۡ لِلنَّاسِ }. Allah ta’ala has given a special status to this Ummah. Where does it say that it is only the scholars who should enjoin what is good and forbid evil? Tell me, where is it stated that this is their duty alone? Allah ta’ala says ‘You people, all of you need to enjoin good and prevent what is bad.’ That is the command. Allah ta’ala didn’t say that only the Alims should be doing this or that it is their responsibility. Who said this? Where is it written? Tell me. Read the Qur’an. We absolve ourselves and say ‘It is not my responsibility’, and then allow whatever Fasaad we want at home. Daughters can do this, sons can do that, and so much wrong spreads out from our homes. And then when it all comes to a head and society blames us, we say ‘Oh, the Moulanas have spoiled them. The Ulema have done this, they have done that, it is their fault.’ That is our deception. We point the finger at them and play a blame game, despite the fact that the Qur’an says { يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا}. The Qur’an says this, ordering ‘Oh people of belief, save yourselves and your families from that fire whose fuel is stones and men.’ Who is Allah ordering? The scholars? The principals of the Madrasahs? Those who run the institutes? They do have a responsibility - definitely. But think about it - at what stage does it become their responsibility?
In relation to the Hukm Allah refers to in { أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ }, at what point is it the responsibility of the Ulema? The first responsibility to enjoin good and prevent bad should start where? We need to see the reality of this. { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا} First and foremost, the first Dar-ul-Uloom, the first Madrasah, the first institute, the first person who will be seized – remember this – the first people who will be questioned will be who? Questioning will start from the home, from the house. The respected scholars come after this. The husband and wife get married, and then a child is born – to whom does he come? To the mother and father. The daughter comes to us; the children come to us. They live in our homes and in our families. The first responsibility of spreading the Deen is on whose head? On the mother and father. Both have a heavy responsibility and will be first to be questioned on the Day of Judgement. The children themselves will say ‘Oh my mother and father taught us – what could we do? We didn’t know. Mum and Dad told us.’
So here the Qur’an is giving Hukm, with { أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ }, that you should spread righteousness – and where does righteousness start? It starts from the home. Societies are made in the home, cities are made in the home, the Ummah is made in the home, under that roof. So the first responsibility to make someone righteous and good is in our home, our very own home. Why would the Ulema be questioned? We will be asked first: ‘This was your son, your daughter, your child – what did you do in your home? What wrong would be done in your home? What was the situation in your home?’ Allah ta’ala has given us an order here. { وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ} - ‘Save yourselves and your families.’ Save them from evil actions and promote good. Give them education, give them goodness, enjoin what is good.
This is the Fasaad that has come into the Ummah; this is the disorder, the Fitnah. The Fasaad has sprung from here. If our homes are spoiled, then our society will be spoiled, and if the society is spoiled then our whole situation is finished. What is the situation among us? How are we imparting Deen to our children in our homes? What is the environment like? What does Allah ta’ala state about this? What are the Ahadith and teaching and education of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam about the home? Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given us a great Hukm. Hadhrat Ayub rahmatullah alayh was a Tabi’i who narrates from his father and grandfather that Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated: “مَا نَحَلَ وَالِدٌ وَلده مِنْ نَحْلٍ أَفْضَلَ مِنْ أَدَبٍ حَسَنٍ” – “A father can give no greater gift to his son than good Adab”, meaning beneficial manners in how he lives his life. No father can teach or give anything better than good etiquettes of life to his son. The greatest devotion, pastime and focus, and the first and greatest responsibility of a father towards his child is this, and the mother too. The father because he is the head of the family, just as the king is the head of the kingdom, and also the mother, because she is like the prime minister. They are like the president and the prime minister - they have to run the home together, in tandem. Both will be asked.
This is the first, most important and greatest thing – who is saying this? The final Prophet, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam is saying this to his Ummah, that if you want to keep your Iman steadfast, established and intact, then first and foremost you have to give Tableegh to your children, to impart the Deen to them, because through your children, the family is established and society is established. The first thing you need to teach your children is what? SubhanAllah! You have to teach them manners and the etiquettes of life.
Hadhrat Jabir radhiAllahu anh narrates that Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that there is no better gift; this is better than giving them lots of money. It is better that you give them Tarbiyyah, that you teach them good Adab, good manners and good actions. It doesn’t matter how much you have to spend to do this, for it is the best of actions, better than giving charity and spending time and effort and money all over the place. Better than spreading Khair and spending on normal charity is that you spend money on your children to teach them Akhlaq and Adaab and manners of life.
I will explain the meaning of this Hadith to you. Our thinking is that a child is born, and when he or she has grown up a little bit, we put a Qaa’idah book in their hand, teach them some Qur’an and send them to Madrasah. We assign the child totally to Moulana sahib or Alim sahib in the Madrasah, and then whatever mistakes are made, it is the Moulana sahib who is wrong. When they do something wrong, then Moulana sahib is at fault. If they attend Jumu’ah, we think that is enough. We think we have given a big teaching of the Deen by giving Qaa’idah and however many Juz’ of the Qur’an they learn at the Masjid. My brothers, what Deen is this? Our Deen doesn’t teach us this. Our children, as soon as they are born, are assigned to the mother and the father. This happens at birth – the Moulana comes in long after that when they go to Madrasah. Allah ta’ala has given the child to us - { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا}. Why has Allah ta’ala given such a great instruction in the Qur’an? We think he will study Bukhari and Hadith and Qur’an and will then become an Alim and will improve himself at that time and thereafter save himself from wrongdoing and do good. SubhanAllah.
Allah ta’ala has bestowed dignity upon this Ummah. { كُنتُمۡ خَيۡرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخۡرِجَتۡ لِلنَّاسِ } - that is why Allah ta’ala says we are the best Ummah. Why? How? Allah ta’ala has given the capability and capacity to every single human being, to every Ummati. We don’t need to go towards an Alim or a speaker or listen to a great, technical speech on Hadith to make someone pious and to make your children good. You don’t need to wait for years. Rather, Allah ta’ala has bestowed every human being with the attribute that if you tell them to do good, he will do so, and when you tell him to stop doing wrong, he will stop. If you enjoin what is good, he will start doing good. And Allah ta’ala has given us a syllabus, a complete syllabus of life. The syllabus of Bukhari comes later, and not everyone studies Tafseer of Qur’an in their lives, but Allah has given us a complete syllabus of life.
The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given us a comprehensive syllabus for life. What is that syllabus? Allahu Akbar. {لَّقَدۡ كَانَ لَكُمۡ فِى رَسُولِ ٱللَّهِ أُسۡوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ۬} SubhanAllah – this is the syllabus of life! In the Hadith that I have recited in front of you, Allah ta’ala has ordered us to teach our children the best manners of life, the correct methodology of life. This is the best gift that you can give to your children. How? When a child comes into the scope of your responsibility, then, at the appropriate stage and according to the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, teach him how to live his life. Guide him through the phases of life according to the Sunnah. This is how to give Tarbiyya to the children. This is Ta’leem, this is education. The greatest Madrasah in the world, the greatest education you can give to your children, Alhamdulillah, is where your child is brought up under the shade whereby everything is assigned according to the Sunnah. Teach them the Tariqa of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in standing, sitting, eating, sleeping, drinking, outside, talking, discourse, walking, travelling, buying, dressing – from birth, everything according to the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
This is Deen, the complete Deen. These things start to apply from the moment of birth, going forward throughout a child’s life. Teach them Adaab, the love of the Deen, the love of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam and his Tariqa at every stage of life. And children have consciousness - they are aware, they are alert; they have a lot of awareness. A six, seven or eight-month-old child is aware. I have observed a very alert eight-month-old child. In the home when time for Salah comes, if you ask him to do Adhan, he will put his hands to his ears – this is an eight-month-old child imitating the Adhan! By contrast, if there is no Tarbiyyah, a twenty-year-old son will say he doesn’t know how to pray. ‘I’ll learn when I need to’, he says. Who will be punished for this? Who? And Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that the punishment will be spread throughout their homes.
So our greatest institution of learning, the most important Madrasah, is our own home. And to make this a reality, the mother and father must implement the syllabus that we have been given. The message that we have heard in previous sessions regarding {ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٲطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ} is that this means {أَطِيعُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُواْ ٱلرَّسُولَ}. Allah ta’ala has made this so easy for us. It is not necessary for you to grow up and go to a Dar-ul-Uloom and learn all the technicalities, no. From birth, Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has demonstrated every action for us to follow – the child should sleep like this, drink milk like this, grow up like this, teach him this. And according to the alertness and capacity of the child, those actions will become engrained in his or her life. The child will become a great Alim within the home.
The greatest ‘Ilm of an Alim is that the individual lives their life according to the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam and follows the Sunnah Tariqa. This is the summation of ‘Ilm and knowledge. What else is there? The whole of the Qur’an teaches this, Dar-ul-Ulooms teach this, the Ulema al-Kiram teach this – what else do they teach? This is the syllabus of life. When the parents teach this from birth and give the child Ta’leem, they are giving this same Ta’leem of Amr bil-Ma’roof and Nahi ‘anil-Munkar – enjoining what is good and forbidding evil. That child acquires good lessons and understands what good is and avoids what is bad, and that child will automatically do Amal on the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, And if he follows the Sunnah, he will refrain from bad actions. So this order of the Qur’an when Allah ta’ala says {تَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} is telling the believers that they should enjoin righteousness. This is the meaning of this.
Speeches, conferences, Tafseers and narrations of Hadith at big gatherings are the next stage. These are further stages and are a very great achievement if a person does this. That is further down the line, a different subject. The real purpose, the crux of the matter, is that when a child is born and comes into the home, the first responsibility to teach these principles falls upon who? The mother and the father. When the Ummah rises on the Day of Judgement along with the sins and the ills of society, those who will be held responsible at that time will not be the scholars. What did they do wrong? The biggest responsibility will be laid upon the mothers and fathers; it is their fault for not teaching anything good to their children. The respected scholars are not expected to go into the homes of every child and teach them Qur’an and Hadith; that is not their responsibility. They have a different duty. It is our responsibility, but we point fingers at them and blame them, saying ‘Why is this happening in our society? Oh, the Moulanas are doing this and that. Our Alims are spoiled, they are this, they are that, they are wrong.’ These are such deplorable statements to make, appalling statements, blaming our mistakes on others.
Allah ta’ala is telling us to enjoin good upon mankind -{تَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ}. Where will this start from? { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارً۬ا} – Allah tells us that it starts in our homes. And who are the two people who have to do this? Who will teach Bukhari to the children? Who will teach the child goodness, explain the six authentic collections of Hadith and deliver the whole syllabus of obedience to the Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam? The parents! When you bring this to life for your children and teach them Adaab, this is the greatest gift that you can give to your child, according to this Hadith that I told you about. The greatest gift is to teach the Sunnah to the child, to teach all the Adaab of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam to the child. This is a great teaching, a great principle that you are bringing into the child’s life, SubhanAllah.
The next statement is great indeed. Allah says {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ}. Allahu Akbar – Allah is saying ‘Enjoin righteousness, but remember one thing, be careful of one thing. This work of the Deen, enjoining good and forbidding bad, will only be accepted when you yourself are practicing what you preach.’ SubhanAllah. {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} Allah says ‘You forget yourselves’ {وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ} SubhanAllah. ‘You are telling people about the Kitab but you forget about yourselves.’ Allah is saying ‘Don’t be obstinate! Are you forgetting to practice it yourselves whilst you tell other people?’
Allah ta’ala is giving people a big warning here about our society. Me, you, Zaid, Bakr – everyone wants their child to be pious and attain high status. We try and we do this and that, but where do we fail and get spoiled? When {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} – when we forget ourselves. We tell others, but we forget about ourselves – and all the while we say we are placing great emphasis on our children. We say ‘I want my son or daughter to be an Alim’, and we send them off for two or three hours every evening. But during the day, we don’t know where they go, and they are running around all over. Two hours in the evening, but before that ten hours in the wrong places. For ten hours, they are learning the ways of the Dunya, and then for one and a half hours they learn about Deen, and on this basis we hope that they will become righteous and very pious. This is a massive mistake. Then we say ‘I don’t know what has gone wrong. I taught ‘Ilm to my children, and I did this and that. They studied at this Madrasa, so it must be that the Alims there didn’t say the right thing or teach them properly.’
Imagine! It was you who didn’t teach them properly. Never mind the Alim, you didn’t teach properly. Why is this? What education do we give? It is so weak, and why? {وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} – because we forget about ourselves. We put a booklet of Qur’an into their hands and send them off to Madrasa every evening, but what is happening in our homes? There is not even one percent of Deen in our homes, not even one. Rather, there are sins and Kharafat, wrong actions. The child goes to the Madrasa for one and a half hours where the Moulana Sahib teaches Hadith, but when the child comes back home, he sees that the reality of life there is wrong. He says ‘What is going on? My mother and father are doing wrong and are acting contrary to what Moulana Sahib has said.’
What is the consequence of this? It is in front of us – I tell you the truth here. This is the reality of our situation. Those children who go to Islamic institutions but find the actions at home are at variance with those teachings end up like wild animals. I can tell you various examples of this that have come in front of me – sons and daughters ended up becoming deviated and running away from home. I swear by Allah, there will be severe accounting for this. In one Muslim household, there is a child who has grown up, and the mother and father do wrong actions at home, with open immodesty and wrongdoing, breaking of the Sunnah, committing Haram actions and living a shameless life. They put a Qur’an into their child’s hand and sent him to Dar-ul-Uloom with two-faces. So who causes the child to end up without Imaan? Can there be any greater Adhab than this? Tell me.
There is no Adab in our own homes, and no understanding; there is no fear and no concern or distress about the fact that our children need correcting. There is so much sin in our society. In every home there is fighting, quarrelling and disputes. Mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law – there are fights and quarrels all the time, and children are brought up in this atmosphere. They are born amongst quarrels between their mother and father, and they become people without Iman, like wild beasts. I can show you - right here. One such child comes to Dhikr – I can present his example to you and you can hear his words. Why is this? It is not his fault. It is because he has been brought up in an environment where the mother and father have quarrels and disputes and don’t make up afterwards. There is no Deen and they are always quarreling over silly things, and meanwhile they are telling him to practice Deen and to learn this and that – and then that child becomes the opposite!
I could give you several examples of this sort, not just one, of children who actually leave the circle of Islam to the point that they have no Deen. They cross that boundary. Nonsense comes from their mouths and they say to their parents ‘Why should we continue to live as Muslims.’ Their parents complain ‘Oh, we came to this country and the environment has affected them. We sent the children to Moulana sahib but he didn’t do anything.’ But they don’t see the contradiction in the fact that Allah defines their lives as so immodest and far from the Deen - and then they blame Islam. Rather than explaining the Deen and righteousness, their lives are opposite to that. They lead a double life, sending the child into Deeni education while they spend their lives in practical opposition to that. The sons and daughters see that in their homes an opposite way of life is practiced, and they end up leaving the Deen and running away from home. If you interview those children who have left home and left the Deen and ask them why they did this, they will tell you clearly that in their homes there was no Barakah, that their mother and father were something else. They say ‘Our parents did immodest and sinful actions, and all the while they told us to do good and to be righteous and pious. But they were the opposite. Their example was bad but verbally they told us to do good.’
Allah has mentioned a very severe Adhab for this. What will be the consequence for such people on the Day of Judgement? We cannot imagine how Allah ta’ala will take them to account for this. Their reckoning will be severe and punishment will follow – and a very severe punishment for this has been mentioned in Hadith. We spoil our children with our own hands. We teach them bad things and we say bad things to them. We have spoiled our children with our own hands because we haven’t done Amal.
Allah ta’ala says {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ} – ‘Do you enjoin righteousness while you yourselves forget to practice it?’ No child, son or daughter, should be spoiled. If we tell someone to do good, then the Qur’an is saying that we have to practice it first. Do Amal yourself before telling others. If you don’t do Amal and practice goodness yourself, then how can you stop your children from wrongful actions? How can you prevent it? Success comes when the human being who is teaching or preaching something is practicing it himself. He should be leading by example, at the front of the line, initiating the actions he is encouraging. Allah subhana wa ta'ala is telling us here that the previous nations were destroyed for this very reason. They used to say one thing but not practice it themselves. They would tell others to do actions that they themselves would not implement. This was the Hal of previous nations, and due to this Allah ta’ala gave them punishments.
The reality of this, my brothers, is that this situation, this scenario, and the displeasure of Allah ta’ala that is evident in this era, has its root cause in us not bringing up our children correctly. And due to this, the whole society has changed and the Ummah has been spoiled and we have gone down the path of destruction and evil. The Qur’an has told us this. If we live correctly and take the path of the Qur’an in the right way, do the right Tableegh to our children and tell them to live the right way, the condition is that first and foremost, we ourselves must do Amal on this message. If we don’t practice ourselves, then there will be no effect on others. Nobody will be affected and there will be no impact. The previous nations would do this, giving Nasiha and advice to others but not practicing upon it themselves. When a human being doesn’t do Amal, when he doesn’t practice what he preaches, then the order will have no impact; it will be hollow. Rather, the effect will be opposite to that intended, and the wrong influence will take over, and the people will get spoiled.
So this is the situation regarding the method of Tableegh. The biggest thing that is lacking in this Ummah is that we think that a person is only on the path when he becomes an Alim and gives speeches, but no – { قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ}. The starting point is that the environment in our homes must be correct. The husband and wife should be agreed on this point. We engage in arguments and quarrels all life long and ignore the children – and the children see this game being played out. The biggest deficiency in our homes is that the husband and wife are not on the same page, and the children’s lives are destroyed by this, resulting in the children becoming devoid of Deen – and for this, both husband and wife will be punished in hell.
So the summary of this verse, the big lesson that is coming out, is that the best gift the father can give to the child is what? That the children, daughters and sons, should be given Tarbiyyah and education so that they live their lives according to the Sunnah Tariqa of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Allah subhana wa ta'ala has given this Hukm that every man should do this, and there is no condition in this that you should be an Alim or a scholar, but only that you yourself should practice the Shari'ah and Sunnah, for in this way you will demonstrate the right behaviour to your child and be a good influence. It is so easy to do this, so easy. Allah t’ala has made it very easy indeed to explain the Deen. All that is needed is that we ourselves adopt the Sunnah of eating, sitting, drinking, sleeping, and that we leave bad actions and refrain from immodest actions. If by your actions you show that you are not doing this yourself, then the child will not do it either, but if we practice on the Sunnah, the sins will not come; they will end.
You can never eliminate wrong from society without following this path. For example, if you get Ijazah and give Bai’ah and are lax about some things and strict on others – no. Have one standard of life; make the Shari'ah the boundary. Whatever the Shari’ah says about a given situation, you stick to that – end of story. Whoever takes the assistance of the Shari’ah and the Sunnah of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam and sticks to that, his decision can never be wrong. If Shari’ah says something is Haram, then it is Haram.
Don’t look at loss in the world. Deen and Dunya cannot be mixed. The statement ‘We want the Deen and also a bit of Dunya as well’ is a statement of shaytan. Where has this slogan that you hear in the world today come from? It is weird, like saying ‘We want night and day together’, or ‘We want rain and sun together.’ Can this ever occur? Can they co-exist? Tell me.
So we must realise that when we make complaints about our children being on the wrong track and in need of correction, it is we who are at fault, my brothers. We need correction. And the best way is the Tarbiyyah that Allah has prescribed, which is to start your children off in life with Deen. Give them Tarbiyyah, good lessons, and practice first before you tell your children. It is no good telling your children not to do Haram if the husband and wife sit all night long watching dramas. The children see what Mum and Dad are doing. If you look at dirty things, the children will say ‘Why are you telling us not to do look at such things if you are doing it?’ And then they start looking as well.
You send them to Dar-ul-Uloom to study this and that, but the greatest Dar-ul-Uloom is your own home. The main institute is the home – the child looks at that. So don’t complain, and don’t blame others. Allah ta’ala has told us in the Qur’an:{أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ}. This is one clear meaning that comes out of this verse, that first and foremost, initiation of Deen starts with this point. The wider aspects of society come after. Who is responsible for these? The Ulema al-Kiram, the respected scholars. Their responsibility comes at this next stage, and they are the deputies of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Who is responsible first and foremost? The mother and father. The Ulema come in a secondary position. That high ranking Jama’ah of the Ulema, their responsibility comes next.
And this verse also draws our attention to their role and directs us towards them, to consider how much they are fulfilling their role and responsibility in society. Allah ta’ala gave them ‘Ilm - { وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَۚ أَفَلَا تَعۡقِلُونَ }. Allah is saying ‘I gave you the complete Deen and the knowledge of the Kitab, so you have to worry about the whole of society, not just your own home.’ The mother and father look after the children at home and prepare them at home and bring them up, and afterwards they are free from that. So what is the duty of the Ulema al-Kiram? They have to look after the whole of society – that is the stage and platform that they are given. Once a person has attained ‘Ilm, the primary thing he should have in his mind is this one single point. There are thousands of things you can do in life - jobs and pastimes and so on. It is not Fardh for every person to become a scholar. What is Fardh is that every Muslim learns the minimum ‘Ilm needed to live life correctly – the Faraaidh, compulsory matters, the Mustahab actions, the Sunnah actions. We all need to know this knowledge, and there are Kitabs like the Heavenly Ornaments and other Kitabs through which we can gain ‘Ilm of this sort.
But there is a higher level of knowledge - Fiqh, jurisprudence, Masaa’il, in-depth commentaries, Aqaai’d, beliefs and all the other subjects – and to learn all this takes nine or ten years of study. A man says ‘I don’t want to become a doctor or engineer or go this way or that way’, so he selects and embraces this line, saying ‘I want to live my life like this.’ Alhamdulillah, that is a great choice. No one can compare to that person, no one. But let me tell you in advance how he should go about this and how he should embark on this path of ‘Ilm. If someone wants to become a doctor and make money - ok, fine. He says he wants to work in a hospital and do operations, and he selects his career for that purpose. Someone else says he wants to be an engineer so that he can earn money and get a nice car and so on – fine, let him. A businessman says he wants to run a business, and an accountant says he wants to become an accountant in this or that field. But when the mother and father give good Tarbiyya to their child and bring him up with Hadith, saying ‘Qala qala Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam’, when from his days in his mother’s lap his upbringing is so great that he has adopted all the Adaab and manners, and when he follows the Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam in every way, what will be the desire of that child? It will not be to follow his Nafs. When such a child grows up and says ‘I want to learn ‘Ilm’, then he will become a true Alim, SubhanAllah. He is what you call a scholar. When he learns ‘Ilm, he does so with passion, and says ‘I purposely left becoming a doctor or running after money and gadgets. I selected this career path myself.’ And this is due to the blessings that Allah confers through the Tarbiyya he received from his mother and father.
So we must do the work of the Deen. What should we do? The work of the Deen. Deen and Dunya are opposites, remember this. If he wants to earn Dunya, then he should run after other career paths. But the person who has a righteous upbringing, who learned how to live according to the Sunnah in the lap of his mother and the shade of his father, when he takes hold of Bukhari Sharif or Tafseer of Qur’an, SubhanAllah, his Niyyah will not be wrong. It could be that poverty or hunger or quarrels and disputes and problems and hurdles and obstacles and distress come his way, but he will be such an Alim that he will stand firm on the Haq. He comes to this career path, to this field, with a clear and clean intention.
About the Alims it is stated {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ وَتَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ تَتۡلُونَ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ}. This also applies to the Alim, as Allah ta’ala is saying ‘If the society is spoiled, it is your fault. It is your responsibility to guide this society.’ What is the reason that they went towards wrong? {تَنسَوۡنَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ} They attained knowledge, but after doing so, they sold it away. Who does this? Allah ta’ala gives the example of previous nations who used to do this. Their learned people would do this, due to which their Qawm was destroyed and finished. They used to hide the knowledge and conceal the truth. I told you the Hadith where the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that the first deviation that appeared was that immoral actions would take place but the Ulema would not say anything. They remained silent and dumb because the greed of the world had come inside them and they feared losing what they had. This is the same situation that you find on the Mimbar. The people who stand are different, but the situation persists.
When a man stands on the Mimbar and speaks the truth, you can be sure that his Tarbiyya started from the lap of his mother, where he learned the truth and read ‘Qala qala Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam’. Such a one chooses to do this work of the Deen and stand on the Mimbar. When such a person does stand on the Mimbar, what does he become? Abdul Qadir Jilani rahmatullah alayh, whose speech from the Mimbar was such that several Janazahs would take place afterwards due to the intensity of the speech. At his gatherings, several people would pass away during his speeches. It was the intensity, not the topic that was different. The same Hadiths were recited, the same verses of Qur’an, but he would speak the Haq, the truth. He would forbid wrong and enjoin the good, nothing else. This was the mission of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam and he would do the same. In every gathering people would pass away, even numbering in the hundreds, for when they heard the Haq, Jadhb would overcome them – amazing!
When the Wali of Allah comes, Jadhb is attained, for he spreads the Deen with passion and makes sacrifices for this mission. Look at the great Akabireen of the Naqshbandi Silsila, who left the Dunya, abandoning kingdoms and worldly status and big homes and the pleasures of their youth. They didn’t run after Dunya, rather they adopted poverty, worry and hunger; they had no clothes and no food, just great simplicity in their lives. When people sat in their gatherings, their hearts would become clean and their lives would be strongly impacted. They would be overcome by the Deen.
This is what the Qur’an is saying, that if society is destroyed, it is due to those Ulema who didn’t implement the right path. They did not spread the Kitab correctly, but rather they utilized the Kitab to earn Dunya not Akhirah. They forgot their mission – why? Because they didn’t do Amal themselves. They had two opposite aspects, one when they took the stage to speak, and another in their actions. And this is what the previous nations would do, which is why Allah ta’ala gives this example and says ‘Beware! How dare you? {أَتَأۡمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلۡبِرِّ} – don’t do what the previous nations did before you. You have the learning and knowledge and tell people about virtuous actions, but you yourself run around in the darkness doing wrong! Your lifestyle is wrong – opposite.’
Today, if you examine the situation, you can see that the root cause of the destruction in this society, and the whole Ummah that we see today, is the Ulema; the responsibility is theirs. It is stated clearly that the destruction of the previous nations was caused by this, that their learned men did not speak about the Haq and they did wrong. Allah is telling this Ummah ‘Don’t do the same!’ Allah has warned us. Are you telling others to do good but not doing so yourselves? No! Allah ta’ala has given you knowledge and the Kitab, the Book, so don’t worry about poverty and hunger, just establish the truth and stand firm on the truth. Leave wrong actions! If you are a righteous Alim who is on the Haq, people will envy you when you stand on the Day of Judgement – and there are people like this among us. SubhanAllah, their names are mentioned today, and their names shine like the moon and the stars in our Kitabs. What was special about them? What special qualities did they have? Hadhrat Rashid Ahmed Gangohi rahmatullah alayh, Hadhrat Hakim ul-Ummah rahmatullah alayh – what made them so special and unique? Tell me. What was so great about their tongues and the statements that came from them? What was the effect and the impact of their words? What was the greatness of Hadhrat Mahmood al-Hasan rahmatullah alayh, who spent time in jail and suffered affliction? Hadhrat Qasim Nanotvi rahmatullah alayh also, who spent his time inside – why? Didn’t they know how to enjoy life, or how to access luxuries and comforts?
This was the reason! There was no difference in their understanding of the Deen, but they weren’t foolish, and they knew the reality of life. They comprehensively shunned wrong actions, and always acted according to the Nasiha that they gave to other people, SubhanAllah. They didn’t have two opposite ways of life; there was no disparity. They would do Amal themselves, and then when they spoke, their words would have an impact and right action would follow. They would forbid the wrong, beginning with themselves, and would enjoin the good and practice it themselves. If an Alim just does this as a minimum, it will be so easy for him to spread the Deen. It is that simple, I tell you. All he has to do is sit on a stage with the Qur’an in front of him, as I am doing. I am speaking to you with the Qur’an in front of me, and there is no need to prepare or feel stressed. You already have the ‘Ilm, you have learned and Allah ta’ala has opened and expanded your chest and heart with the desire to spread the Deen. That is why you didn’t become a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer and left money and business behind. Allah! The situation now is such that they have more money than other people – they have houses, shops, businesses and everything – SubhanAllah. I will repeat this to you again.
I am not saying that one should run after poverty and hunger and simplicity – no. That is not the objective. If Allah gives to you, that is good. But the objective shouldn’t be to earn Dunya. The Alim who has studied with the intention that he spreads the Deen has a very high Maqam and status. At that moment in time, there is no one greater – I tell you this now. If he practices and also enjoins others to good, there is no greater human being in that generation. That scholar is the Qutb, he is the Ghawth, he is doing all of the work. But it is hard to find one such scholar among hundreds of thousands because shaytan buys them first. He buys them out. And what is the loss that follows? That there is a big disparity between their speech and their actions – they are not the same. This contrast is visible in their lives, and even if it is hidden, Allah ta’ala is Khabeer and Baseer – such a person cannot progress towards goodness.
I tell you, if there is one Alim who has attained ‘Ilm with this intention, he will not be worried about poverty, hunger or Dunya. If he comes to speak at a gathering, he needs no preparation, I swear by Allah, and I tell you that he only has to relate one Hadith, just one, whether from Sahih al-Bukhari, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah – from any collection. What is Hadith? Those blessed, honourable statements of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam are Noor, and if that Noor is spread by a true scholar, then all the hearts will be enlightened by that Noor. That is the impact of such an Alim, SubhanAllah. If he recites just one Hadith in that gathering, SubhanAllah, you will see the effect and the impact on the hearts of the people. Their lives will be transformed.
As for the rest, the result is the opposite. A person may have been an Alim for years and have travelled to this and that country, graduated from this or that city. He can do what he wants in terms of the heights of knowledge, but if the Akhlaq of his life is opposite to the Hadith which he is narrating, if his lifestyle is opposite to that found in Abu Dawud or to the Tafseer of the Qur’an that he is reciting, then he is worse than the animals. How can he be an Alim? He is worse than an animal.
The time has finished now, and when we speak again on this subject, I will sit with you and explain the very important topic that comes from this verse taken together with the next verse. Our whole Deen and society is based on this verse - remember this.
So first I started with the subject of the home and then we progressed to discuss society. Just as mothers and fathers will be seized and punished for their failings in the home, the biggest responsibility in society is on the heads of those who have learned ‘Ilm, Islamic knowledge – the Alims. And they have failed because their speech and their actions are in opposition to each other; they are poles apart.
May Allah ta’ala give me and you the Tawfeeq to understand this verse of the Qur’an. Ameen