Globalpeace
Banned
Asslamo Allaikum,
I am flying away for the next few weeks so won’t be around to be a kill-joy and party-pooper on the forum but I ask all to make dua for my safe journey and safe return (so I can continue bugging all of you Insha’Allah)
I find it interesting as to how many Muslims don’t understand the difference between someone who can write well (Journalist), speak well (orator), sing well (Nasheed dude/dudette), have dialogues about comparative religion (Da’ee) and an Islamic scholar.
An Islamic scholar is someone who has “exclusively” studied subjects pertaining to Islamic Shariah (Qur’aan, Hadeeth, Fiqh, Jarh wat-Ta’deel etc.) under other Islamic scholars for a number of years; now you can have Brothers/Sisters with “knowledge” about Islam but that doesn’t make them a Scholar!
When you read about scholars of the past e.g. Imam Bukhari (RA) as most of us are familiar with him and read his life story you will find that he had teachers and later he had students (who he taught) so there is a system.
In the West we often seek the support of a “Specialist”, when our car breaks down we go see the best mechanic that we can, when we get Eczema we seek a Dermatologist not a Psychologist...All of us have friends who know about cars and we take their advice but we dare not let them loose to Service our new shiny BMW…we take it to a BMW specialist because we admit that our friend has knowledge about the car but the BMW guys are the specialist and our friends don’t get offended. Similarly people like Sister Yvonne Ridley, Dr Zakir Naik, and several Imams in USA/UK are Masha’Allah great orators, writers and doing great service to Islam, may Allah (SWR) reward them immensely BUT they never call themselves scholars so why do Brothers/Sisters get offended when it is politely pointed out to them that we should seek Islam advice from Scholars? Why do we not think that Islamic sciences deserve a specialist? If we are a doctor and someone tells us that they need to build a house therefore need an Architect; we admit and help them find an architect…so why get offended when it is pointed out that someone is NOT a specialist in Islamic sciences i.e. a Scholar?
When someone is a scholar they often have views which are in conflict & I am not judgemental to impose my views on others but I must say that when certain “Scholars” like Hamza Yusuf elevate fire-fighters in New York to the status of Shaheed I find that deeply disturbing. I also find it disturbing when the clear verses of the Qur’aan and Ahadeeth are interpreted in a manner which is in conflict with the interpretation of the earlier scholars. I don’t know Hamza Yusuf and I have no way of finding out his reasons so I will leave it at that. The reason I am not using the title “Imam” or “Shaykh” in front of his name because I have seen the back of his tapes/videos which quote him to say that he dislikes the usage of such titles and my omission is not due to spite and disrespect. I am myself not a scholar and don’t like to issue verdicts/judgments about who is or isn’t a scholar; I just leave alone things that don’t make any sense to me, point them to the people who listen to me and leave the judgement to Allah (SWT).
Anyways I digress my point was that most of us don’t even get to the stage of verifying the words of a scholar but fail on the 1st stage and believe that the Da’ee, Journalist, Nasheed artists, web-master that we like is an Islamic scholar and go to unnecessary lengths to defend them as a scholar when even the person we are defending never says that he/she is a scholar.
As always, comments are more then welcome to correct my misunderstandings.
Jazakullah Khairun
I am flying away for the next few weeks so won’t be around to be a kill-joy and party-pooper on the forum but I ask all to make dua for my safe journey and safe return (so I can continue bugging all of you Insha’Allah)
I find it interesting as to how many Muslims don’t understand the difference between someone who can write well (Journalist), speak well (orator), sing well (Nasheed dude/dudette), have dialogues about comparative religion (Da’ee) and an Islamic scholar.
An Islamic scholar is someone who has “exclusively” studied subjects pertaining to Islamic Shariah (Qur’aan, Hadeeth, Fiqh, Jarh wat-Ta’deel etc.) under other Islamic scholars for a number of years; now you can have Brothers/Sisters with “knowledge” about Islam but that doesn’t make them a Scholar!
When you read about scholars of the past e.g. Imam Bukhari (RA) as most of us are familiar with him and read his life story you will find that he had teachers and later he had students (who he taught) so there is a system.
In the West we often seek the support of a “Specialist”, when our car breaks down we go see the best mechanic that we can, when we get Eczema we seek a Dermatologist not a Psychologist...All of us have friends who know about cars and we take their advice but we dare not let them loose to Service our new shiny BMW…we take it to a BMW specialist because we admit that our friend has knowledge about the car but the BMW guys are the specialist and our friends don’t get offended. Similarly people like Sister Yvonne Ridley, Dr Zakir Naik, and several Imams in USA/UK are Masha’Allah great orators, writers and doing great service to Islam, may Allah (SWR) reward them immensely BUT they never call themselves scholars so why do Brothers/Sisters get offended when it is politely pointed out to them that we should seek Islam advice from Scholars? Why do we not think that Islamic sciences deserve a specialist? If we are a doctor and someone tells us that they need to build a house therefore need an Architect; we admit and help them find an architect…so why get offended when it is pointed out that someone is NOT a specialist in Islamic sciences i.e. a Scholar?
When someone is a scholar they often have views which are in conflict & I am not judgemental to impose my views on others but I must say that when certain “Scholars” like Hamza Yusuf elevate fire-fighters in New York to the status of Shaheed I find that deeply disturbing. I also find it disturbing when the clear verses of the Qur’aan and Ahadeeth are interpreted in a manner which is in conflict with the interpretation of the earlier scholars. I don’t know Hamza Yusuf and I have no way of finding out his reasons so I will leave it at that. The reason I am not using the title “Imam” or “Shaykh” in front of his name because I have seen the back of his tapes/videos which quote him to say that he dislikes the usage of such titles and my omission is not due to spite and disrespect. I am myself not a scholar and don’t like to issue verdicts/judgments about who is or isn’t a scholar; I just leave alone things that don’t make any sense to me, point them to the people who listen to me and leave the judgement to Allah (SWT).
Anyways I digress my point was that most of us don’t even get to the stage of verifying the words of a scholar but fail on the 1st stage and believe that the Da’ee, Journalist, Nasheed artists, web-master that we like is an Islamic scholar and go to unnecessary lengths to defend them as a scholar when even the person we are defending never says that he/she is a scholar.
As always, comments are more then welcome to correct my misunderstandings.
Jazakullah Khairun