The first sign

Regular in congregational prayer and the emphasised Sunnahs (sunnat-e-mu’akkada): the scholars have said only of one who abandons the congregation without a valid Shar‘i excuse that he is not a scholar of the Hereafter but is one of the evil scholars. Today the state of affairs is such that very few will be found who are regular in the five daily prayers. Most do not pray even one or two of them. If they happen to get caught among people, they pray out of compulsion. Some pray when at home but drop the prayers when travelling. Some are regular but very seldom pray in congregation; those who are imams of mosques have no choice, since it is their means of livelihood. The particular reason for this is that the madrasas and Islamic universities do not instil any zeal for prayer at all.

The conditions of this age are strange. The majority of those called scholars are establishing madrasas and Islamic universities in order to earn a livelihood. Their aim is not the pleasure of Allah, the reward of the Hereafter, or the spread and propagation of Islam and the Sunni way; therefore they pay no attention to the training of students. They want a few students to stay in the madrasa so that by showing them off they can keep collecting donations and keep receiving government aid as well. Even the madrasas that earlier scholars founded for spreading the Sunni way have been made a prey to the world. There is no interest in prayer; when the teachers themselves do not pray, how can they press the students to pray?

What Needs to Be Done

Today the most important need is the reform of the madrasas. Students should be made sincere from the very beginning, the virtues of sincerity (ikhlas) should be described to them frequently, and they should constantly be made aware of its benefits. Their speeches and writings should all be for the pleasure of Allah, the reward of the Hereafter and the service of religion.

Second: a strong desire for the religious sciences should be cultivated in abundance. The way to do this is the same one the Quran and Sunnah have adopted: they should be made aware of the virtues and merits, and the excellences and benefits, of knowledge, and reminded frequently and repeatedly of what is gained in the Hereafter and in this world by means of knowledge, what the harms of remaining ignorant are, what perfections a person is deprived of, and what the loss in this world and the Hereafter is.

Third: acting upon knowledge should be made obligatory. Strict measures should be taken especially regarding congregational prayer, and emphasis should be laid even on voluntary prayers (nawafil); and this not merely by compulsion, but by creating eagerness and love for it, and instilling the zeal to invite people to prayer wherever they may be.

Fourth: they should be adorned with good character, and every effort should be made to purify them of base deeds and morals. In particular, they should not be made into troublemakers; they should be made people who love one another and who value the scholars and shaykhs of every Sufi order (silsila) and disposition (mashrab). Every effort should be made to purify them of lying and slander, of belittling and humiliating a Muslim, of fornication and sodomy, theft, backbiting, tale-carrying and the like, and of disputes and contradictions.

Fifth: they should be adorned with the qualities of a caller to Islam and the abilities of a leader; as much zeal for inviting people to the faith (da‘wah) as can be created should be created, and proper attention should be given to training in this matter. They should be made fully aware of the virtues, benefits and methods of da‘wah. It is also extremely necessary to inform them of the methods of da‘wah used by the deviant sects.

Sixth: the thinking of male and female students should be elevated and their hidden talents awakened. Whoever has the greatest aptitude for a particular thing should be prepared for that very work, and it should be firmly settled in their minds that they should spend the powers Allah has granted them on others rather than on their own people. They should be made aware of the virtues and benefits of this.

Seventh: they should be taught lawful ways of earning a livelihood, and it should be explained to them that they should acquire the religious sciences and act upon them solely for Allah. Whatever the community gives them of its own accord, they should accept; and apart from the services for which they are taking remuneration, whatever else they can do for Islam and the Sunni way they should keep doing for the pleasure of Allah. If by spending a little time they can take up some means of livelihood, they should take it up, and that too with a good intention, so that all their services, leading prayer and teaching, speaking and

writing, and da‘wah and preaching, may all become for Allah.

It should be understood that for all of this there is a need to establish a pure system of training and to hold reformative gatherings and assemblies regularly. It is necessary to adopt the Quran and Sunnah’s method of encouragement and warning (targhib wa tarhib) and to select those verses and hadiths that relate to these matters. There is also a need to adopt the way of the noble Sufis and their method of training. It should also be kept in mind that faith and the Sunni way are truly established, outwardly and inwardly, only when the blessing of purification of the self (tazkiya-e-nafs) and purification of the heart (tasfiya-e-qalb) is attained, and this is the work of the perfected Sufis, who are absent today. One method that can be adopted in the present age is to draw selections from the Ihya’ al-‘Ulum and other works of Imam Ghazali (may his secret be sanctified) and from the books of Sufism by other Sufi masters of deep insight. These elders did a great service in that they wrote out lists of good and bad character traits, and also explained in detail the means of adorning oneself with good traits and removing bad ones. This is especially true of the Ihya’ al-‘Ulum, which is a comprehensive book and quite sufficient for training.

The Harms of Neglecting Training

The harms and losses to which the lack of training in madrasas and Islamic universities has exposed students are beyond description. A few of them are these:

1. They have been deprived of the reward of the Hereafter and of the virtues and merits that have been reported for scholars. This is a very great loss.

2. The desire for the religious sciences has ended. Little by little knowledge kept being lifted away, and now it is disappearing very rapidly. Knowledge demands hard work; one must bear hardships for it. When its worth and value leave the hearts, why would anyone work hard for it? The dearer the object sought, the more a person strives to attain it. The world has come to dominate

religion; for it, everyone is ready to work hard.

3. Islam and the Sunni way are suffering great harm from bad conduct. Seeing our bad deeds, or by pointing them out, the deviant sects are depriving people of the Sunni way. The limit is that bad conduct has become our distinguishing mark.

4. Because of the decline of knowledge, we do not know the grades of rulings and injunctions. We say whatever we like about whomever we like. We ourselves abandon obligations, yet we make others the target of criticism for leaving recommended acts, and we pass whatever verdict we like on whomever we like.

5. We have split into various parties and groups, and all have begun to hate and loathe one another on the very grounds that were meant to be causes of love and affection, such as the master–disciple relationship (piri-muridi). Because of these hatreds, whether among scholars and their students or among shaykhs and their disciples, we have fallen into very great loss in the Hereafter, have grown bold in sin and have begun committing open prohibitions. The limit is that we have begun to regard bad deeds as good deeds, such as backbiting, tale-carrying, hurting the heart of a believer, and belittling and humiliating scholars; and for some people these very acts have become their hallmark, their whole way of life.

6. Ignorant shaykhs (pirs) and professional speakers have had, and are having, every opportunity to flourish, and instead of guidance they are doing the work of misguidance. The common people regard them as saints and holy men and hand over to them all their offerings of wealth and goods. Because of this, responsible scholars today are facing immense difficulties in doing religious work. The offerings of devotion, the kissing of hands and feet, and the wealth, gifts and presents that shaykhs and their children receive through other acts of reverence and honour, without the toil of knowledge and practice, have all become a cause of aversion to knowledge. Their princely sons have nothing to do with knowledge and practice. Seeing them, others too are thinking that when the blessings of this world come so plentifully in this way, then this is success, so become a pir. The people

of knowledge know how much harm this loss carries within it. Seeing the reverence and honour shown to ignorant shaykhs and their princely sons in religious gatherings and assemblies makes one weep tears of blood. Capable scholars sit there with no one to ask after them, no one to give them generous offerings or to stand up for them when they arrive, and no announcer or professional speaker to introduce them properly. But when the princes arrive, everything is for them; such exaggeration in their praise and such displays of reverence and honour are seen that a sensitive person is left lost in amazement, and fair-minded people of knowledge are left watching religion being torn to shreds.

7. The doors of tribulation (fitna) have opened, religious understanding has ended, and the Sunni community has been left scattered. The state today is that no capable scholar considers his honour safe any longer. As soon as he becomes a little popular because of his knowledge, practice and religious services, some way to disgrace him will immediately be devised. For one thing, those among us who work are few, and those who are working are having their legs pulled by their own people. These troublemakers tolerate outsiders but cannot tolerate their own.

8. Callers and preachers of lofty vision, in the number and abundance that we need, are not being produced, and people of great learning, to the extent that we need them, are not being prepared. The result is that the da‘wah and preaching of Islam and the Sunni way is not being carried out in the effective manner it should be, nor on the global scale it should be. The methods of da‘wah through which the work needs to be done are not being adopted. Likewise, the work that ought to be done for the preservation, protection, spread and propagation of the religious sciences is not being done. These are a few harms that encompass other losses and harms. Responsible scholars should strive to bring about the kind of revolution that is needed in the present age; facing these storms is no easy task. To understand what kind of efforts the circumstances of this time demand, knowledge, intelligence and complete awareness of the situation are required.

Seekers of the World and Their Signs

It should be understood that countless virtues and merits have been reported in the Quran and Sunnah and in the sayings of the early generations (salaf) for both students and scholars. The student who seeks religious knowledge for the pleasure and approval of Allah, for the Hereafter and for the service of religion deserves the virtues and merits that have been reported; and the one who seeks religious knowledge for the world instead of with the aforementioned intention deserves the punishments mentioned in the Quran and hadith. Likewise, a scholar of the Hereafter is one whose teaching and instruction are undertaken with the aforementioned intentions. Since intentions are hidden things, as has passed, the scholars have laid down certain signs for both; the sign already mentioned relates to both. The scholars have described the following further signs of a worldly student:

1. The student follows the desires of his self (nafs); instead of following the Shari‘ah, he follows the desires of his self.

2. He is greedy for the world and acquires it by unlawful means instead of lawful ones.

3. He is weak in judgement, that is, his intellect and understanding are weak and he errs in his opinions.

4. Leaving aside the sciences whose learning is an individual obligation (fard ‘ayn) and upon which action is necessary, he first busies himself with sciences whose learning is a communal obligation (fard kifaya), such as Arabic grammar and morphology (Kifayat al-Atqiya).

5. He does not act upon the obligatory and necessary duties (fara’iz wa wajibat) and the emphasised Sunnahs.

These are a few signs of those students who are not seekers of the Hereafter but seekers of the world, and they do not deserve the virtues and merits that have been reported. A few points should be kept in mind. In the Dars-e-Nizami curriculum current among us, the instrumental sciences, morphology, grammar and the like, are taught first, and Quranic exegesis and hadith later, although a few short books of fiqh begin after the first few grades. This method should be regarded as excluded from

what was described in the fourth sign. There is a necessity here: we non-Arabs cannot understand the Quran, Sunnah and so on without grammar and morphology, so how else could we acquire knowledge? But at the same time it should also be kept in mind that action is obligatory on male and female students from the very beginning. Even if they are not yet of age, the command of the Holy Prophet ﷺ, the leader of the worlds, is: Command your children to pray when they reach seven years of age, and when they reach ten, beat them to make them pray, and separate their beds (Mishkat, etc.). And if they are of age, then it is obvious that action is obligatory. So it should be said that, at the very start, the necessary amount of religious knowledge should be taught orally. In this way the necessary knowledge of beliefs and practices will first be acquired for the purpose of acting upon it.

2. Those responsible for education should give special encouragement to the sciences of the Quran, Sunnah and fiqh. Until a few years ago the craze for logic and philosophy was so overpowering that people gave no special importance to the Quran, Sunnah and fiqh; they neither studied them with particular attention nor had any special interest in their principles. Today the result of this has turned out to be extremely bad.

(a) Theology (‘ilm al-kalam), about which the scholars say that it is an individual obligation in respect of the three categories of rational judgement. So it is obligatory on every man and woman to know what is necessary for Allah, what is possible and what is impossible. Likewise, what is necessary for the noble Prophets (peace be upon them), what is possible and what is impossible. Moreover, the rights of the leader of the Prophets ﷺ are the greatest of all. Likewise, knowledge of these matters with regard to the Last Day is necessary. Today there is such heedlessness that even graduating students do not know a few of the necessary, possible and impossible matters.

The scholars have stated explicitly that the first obligation upon a human being is the knowledge of Allah (ma‘rifat). Without knowing the matters mentioned, how can such knowledge be attained? Therefore teachers in particular should formally teach these matters, instruct students in them and have them memorise them.

(b) The non-conformists (ghayr muqallidin) of today have created such conditions that they have shaped the minds of the common people, especially those with a

modern education, so that they demand an answer from the Quran and hadith for every issue. Further, to promote their false school, they declare weak the hadiths that support the Hanafis, and declare sound the hadiths on raising the hands (raf‘ al-yadayn) and saying Amin aloud. Likewise, regarding following a school (taqlid) and its ruling, they have entangled the common people in such debates that people now end up arguing with scholars; and our ordinary so-called scholars are acquainted neither with the terminology of hadith nor with the sciences of the Quran and Sunnah. Therefore in matters of belief and practice they often have to fall silent, which is becoming a cause of contempt among the people and of the apparent weakness of our school.

(c) Because we had no special attachment to the Quran and hadith, weaknesses in practice arose among us. We neither know the benefits of action nor are we aware of the punishments for neglecting it; therefore the care, regularity and steadfastness that are needed are not there. Seeing the elders, the young, and seeing the teachers, the students, have fallen and are falling into bad conduct. Even today many teachers, while staying in the madrasas, do not go to the nearby mosques to pray.

3. Now the craze for logic and philosophy has decreased, but its place has been taken by other worldly sciences and languages, such as English, computers and so on. So those responsible should take care of the order of priority and give each its proper rank. Along with teaching the sciences of the Quran, hadith and fiqh and their principles, as well as beliefs and practices, they should give special attention to ethics and the life of the Prophet ﷺ (sirah). This too is one of the misfortunes of the past, that no attention at all was given to the science of ethics and sirah, whereas the most important matter is adorning students with the Prophetic way of life and character.

4. The student who follows the desires of the self should be strenuously reformed. There is no hope of good results for those who follow the desires of the self. These people use religion for the sake of the world, and through their bad deeds they always harm

religion, and tribulations always arise from such people. They only ever want their own superiority. In every gathering their concern is for the slogans chanted in their honour and for their offerings; malice and rancour towards others and belittling and humiliating them are also their hallmark. They can take any step to fulfil the desires of the self. They have no shame or modesty of any kind. Most of the tribulations that have arisen or are arising today are the gift of such people.

Likewise, weakness of intellect and judgement also brings great calamity. Such people are unaware of the demands of the time and are blind followers of the beaten track. They become a great trial for those scholars who, along with knowledge, possess intelligence, understanding and penetrating insight, and who recognise the purpose and spirit of religion. The scholars of old were very cautious in imparting knowledge; they did not teach knowledge to every base and mean person, and their lofty vision very quickly recognised who was worthy and who was not. In a hadith, teaching the unworthy is likened to placing a necklace of pearls around the neck of a swine. Since the scholars of old possessed religious understanding and were devout, they very quickly recognised the worthy and the unworthy. Today, when many who are called trainers and teachers themselves stand in that same row, how will they recognise others?

It should also be understood here that the scholars have declared it forbidden and impermissible to teach religious knowledge to unworthy students and to worldly seekers of knowledge. It is stated in Kifayat al-Atqiya: Just as a person is sinful in learning knowledge with a bad intention, so is he sinful in teaching knowledge to one who acquires it for the world, when he knows the student’s bad intention; because in that case he has helped in disobedience and sin, and helping in sin is a sin. And when he becomes sinful by teaching him, it becomes obligatory to refrain from teaching him, because refraining from disobedience is obligatory. Yes, if he is unaware of the student’s intention, he is excused because of his unawareness. Know that teaching knowledge to one whose intention is corrupt

is like handing a sword to a highway robber. Just as knowledge has the capacity to be made a means of attaining nearness to Allah, so the sword has the capacity for battle, to wage war with it and strike the necks of enemies. So if the person from whom a sword is being requested knows that it will be used for highway robbery and harming Muslims, then giving the sword to such a person is forbidden. Likewise, if the scholar from whom knowledge is being sought knows that the student is seeking it to rob people of their religion, then teaching him religious knowledge is forbidden; indeed this case is worse, because harm to religion will result from it, whereas from the sword the harm is to the world, and disobedience in religion is greater. Yes, if he knows that by teaching him beneficial knowledge this disease of his will be removed (that he will be set right through training), then there is no harm in teaching him; rather, it is obligatory, because this disease is in his heart and its cure is precisely this kind of beneficial knowledge. It should be understood that beneficial knowledge is every knowledge that contains warning and caution, that is, which produces fear and awe in the heart and which protects from sins. Among such knowledge is the knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah.