I have with me a very dear friend and
colleague an American Muslim whom I've
known and admired for perhaps 15 years
now is that the food for the year the
last we first met he's here on a lecture
tour in England very briefly and I'm
going to ask him a few questions about
Islam and Muslims in the West but
focusing particularly on how we get this
most precious of commodities I'm how do
we become scholars or how even nowadays
do we find scholars many people
including I think chef Pham's I believe
that they are something of an endangered
species so how is it that young Muslims
in the West particularly can overcome
this obstacle we don't have proper
institutions of our own so can we travel
to the Islamic world should we do the
traditional way by sitting at the feet
of polymer or should we put our faith in
these great new Islamic universities
that are appearing in all sorts of
countries and I perhaps associate hands
if I could start with that I know that
you've been perhaps one of the last true
advocates of the traditional practice of
a RIF Allah the atala billon we know
that the great medieval anima from a
mammal Bukhari to so many of the great
scholars even in the 19th century all
always spent all of their lives
traveling now they would have liked even
seen her was was well known for having a
thousand camels who have carried his
books wherever he went and use somehow
in this age of mass communications seem
to be trying to maintain this tradition
why do you think that's necessary when
we have Islamic universities why should
we go and find a scholar in say the
depths of Mauritania where I gather
you've been rather than going to a new
university and studying in one place I
think it's it's interesting you brought
that up the idea but I know and it's
certainly something that classical
scholars often wrote books called errata
is then and they would talk about their
experiences traveling and the importance
of actually leaving one's place of birth
in fact Imam and Junaid the famous
scholar and
what they call him the Imam of the to
the five attaining the two groups
because he was both a scholar but he was
also deeply spiritual that man in a
spiritual educator and he talks about
that a man's Iman really is complete
when he enters into a state of Allah
which is estrangement from one's own
land and and I think he's getting that
from the hadith that the Prophet SAW
lisen him said in Sahih Muslim that
Islam began a strange thing and it
returns a strange thing and he said
blessed are the strangers and our Eve as
you well know is one of the meanings is
to be in a strange land where you're not
you're not from and so the idea of going
out is is really you become a hadith and
that in itself is a spiritual station in
Islam to be a hub and what you do is is
attempt to find kindred spirits and I
think also there is a blessing I found
that there was a blessing in setting out
because there is a hadith that the
prophet sal i said i'm said men Sarika
Paria Pagnotta me sophia
el faro fisa BD day hatha yoga whoever
sets out on a path and said ik is so
Luke whoever sets out on a path seeking
knowledge is in the path of God in other
words like a Mujahid somebody uh
struggling in the path of God until he
returns and then there's another
tradition that says that Allah has taken
it upon himself to provide for the
seeker of knowledge so there's I think
one of the wonders for me of literally
setting out was to see that you know my
provision came from places unexpected
because I really when I went out I did
not have the money I didn't really have
the means to take care of myself
and yet I saw just really wondrous
things happen without ever being forced
to ask or beg even though the
traditional scholars consider that
acceptable for a seeker of
sharukh knowledge to ask wealthy people
to help them while they were seeking on
it really never it never became an issue
with me so I I just think there's a lot
of great benefits in doing that it's
kind of setting out literally into into
the world and trusting in Allah and
inshallah with the noblest of intentions
which is to to acquire a knowledge you
must have met some extraordinary people
during our travels Ryan we have any
regular experiences or individuals stand
out in your memory I think we've met
that we we share some common remarkable
people that we've met and and this is
another one of the blessings is that we
are in an age I mean I I like in this
age too in terms of what a human being
is I think you know in a lot of ways
we're 2.2 people now and say this is
human society this is what human beings
are for me is like somebody going to a
into a room with a decrepit old man on a
bed like 80 years old and literally
defecating and urinating in his own bed
and completely incapacitated to say that
this is a human being in other words not
to recognize that it was once a young
man in his youth and vigor and in a lot
of ways the age were living in is like
that it is that the state of human
beings is really so horrifying so going
out and literally seeing individuals
that still represent you know Benny Adam
you know that the Adamic man and the
Adamic woman and they still exist but
unfortunately many of them are literally
hidden I'm saying I only said that
people in a tradition that are called ìa
relates that people will always allow
will always have his head judge his
proofs on the earth and he said either
Aziz Omaha either outwardly
in a state of dignity and strength or -
love more or you know obscured and
hidden out of fear and unfortunately
this is that type of age where
people's adapt their their spiritual
manners have become so detestable that a
lot of really righteous people out of
mercy really to the Ummah have withdrawn
because of the hadith whoever is a
harmful of a friend of mine I declare
war on him and so for that reason many
of the scholars have said that in times
of great distress oftentimes the people
of Allah will literally they'll
disengage from the society until
conditions change so that that for me
was a great blessing mapa has the man
that I studied with in Mauritania is
lives in the middle of the Sahara Desert
and it wasn't just his knowledge I mean
like Imam maddox mother said to madacorp
B'Elanna when he he went as a child to
even hormoz learn from his courtesy
before you learn from his knowledge and
just seeing this man it's one thing to
read about the ancients and to read
about people that spent their nights in
prayer like abu hanifa praying fudger
with the ruler of Asia for 40 years or
something like that you could we can
read these you know had react of
hagiographies about these great holy and
things like that
but to actually see a human being that
embodies that is really shocking because
what you realize is these aren't
mythologies that we're reading about
that these people did exist and that is
is something for me that I think that's
one of the greatest benefits that I have
gotten from meeting these people is to
realize one that the potential of a
human being what we can rise up to and
to to recognize that that that our path
the path of Islam is is a path that
elevates and dignifies and exalts the
human being this is something that's so
difficult for particularly young people
I think brought up in the West isn't it
because the educational matrix here
stresses so much the imparting of
information and the ability to make
konzern into
judgments on the basis of that
information but the idea of education as
being process of osmosis were by or not
just packed with facts but your
potential as allows halifa on the earth
as beautiful dignified compassion of
being something that you learn from your
teachers or learn from your society
that's never stressed monster I've
noticed a lot of young Muslims in
England they have not just lost in many
cases the traditional beautiful adapt
that politeness compassion that way of
being that the metabolism of the
traditional Muslim because of the school
they've been contacted but they've even
lost any access to individuals who can
help them to recover that you can learn
from books but as you well know you
can't really learn Islam from a book you
learned it from a human being a there's
a harbor didn't an Islamic from above it
from the the radiant umbrella of the
Prophet would somehow in 23 years of his
presence took them out of Stone Age
barbarism of the worship of idols and
this crude magical practices you could
imagine and turned them into these
radiant Saints a hundred thousand
defender proceeded to go out and change
the world the entire world there are 23
years just of his presence had that
effect right and on and that
traditionally have tried to be heirs of
that traditionally and pass on some of
that light they've gained from their own
teachers and a continuous chain going
back
I always thought that one of the most
astonishing things I encountered in
studying with as I occasionally did real
traditional Ajith scholars was this
institution about hadith and also that
which you've almost didn't believe when
you read about it in the classical texts
right that somebody cannot just say oh
this hadith is narrated in Bukhari with
such a narration and it's hadith is
noted by Dale and me or someone with
another narration and I have my own it's
an ad for it and then the scholar sits
down and I've seen them do it but it had
definite word it brought him a whole lot
on his shift will learn on Isha for them
and they mentioned perhaps 18 or 20 or
25 people going right back to the
Prophet Allah Salih - and they know all
of these individuals and you've seen
that chain great scholars like you
number than Hadji RA and the soil to use
their own teaching didn't die with their
death that continues today that's one of
the most impressive experiences I think
that I ever ever had doing my my
unfortunately few encounters with with
real additional added scholars but of
course it's vanishing and one of the
great problems we have is that the anima
are getting old and the younger
generation have no access to them and
there are no institutions and channels
whereby the wisdom and also that this
sense of being of the older generation
can be transferred transmitted to the
new veneration of Mosul
I didn't want your opinions are of the
Islamic universities that have been
popping up in various Islamic countries
I studied for a while at al-azhar
and the Tsar was unfortunately
nationalized by NASA who almost closed
it down but one of the nasty things he
did was to abolish the traditional
system of other education whereby every
student was attached to a particular
shape somebody who have you as possible
making sure that he went to the right
classes that he was making good progress
and also his moral and spiritual more
yes Rose was being improved constantly
every single student in the US have had
a shake on sometimes they were quite
terrifying sort of hit masterly figures
with big sticks and then people are
scared of them but as our produced whole
regiments of scholars for the entire
Ummah who are not just bearers of
knowledge but also bearers of the
beautiful adult of Islam tomorrow that
NASA abolished that and he put all of
the students particularly the non
Egyptian students in this great concrete
encampments on the outside of Cairo
he actually demolished a cemetery and
built this just student hostel on top of
it 4,000 students and they just play
around some of them are listening to pop
music some of them well it's quite
appropriate they built it over a salad
do you know and the environment there is
occasionally they come back with a
certain amount of knowledge but they do
not go back with witness of wisdom and
that the bearing of the traditional
Muslim or that has been lost so I don't
know if you think that that's problem
with all of the Islamic universities or
whether they're perhaps some exceptions
I think that that you know we had a
lamented assess systems fascinating
system the you know the word itself
madrasah is not only does it mean a
place of a lesson like it's the noun of
place in Arabic but also dasa which
means to be effaced you know to it has
the idea of you know data set an earth
are the traces literally disappeared and
part of them at essa was that the the
ego or the nafs was effaced the the the
crude you know the jewel literally what
the teachers were doing were carving in
fact they say a talented sila cannot see
the
for the hotel the teaching a youth is
like carving in stone and this is really
what they were doing was was taking this
Johar this essence that has the coal
around it and chiseling away all of this
black coal until you have this diamond
this this precious jewel that then can
go out and and literally illuminate like
you said and transform the places where
they came from but the the system was
beautiful in that you had literally
small method asses all over the Ummah
and the youth of the the villages would
study in these these cook tab and would
memorize the Quran and memorize basic
mattoon
the texts like in Konya and hadith and
even I shot for instance in Morocco and
North Africa in basic fill and then they
would take the extremely bright students
from that group that showed great
promise and they would be then sent to
the major areas of learning like in
Morocco would have been fast so the more
Italians the scholars of the Sahara
would study in the mattresses there
which are now considered these producing
these great allama and they're the first
to admit that they're not automatic this
system that they had was really a
preparatory school for the real
universities of Islam and so they would
go then to fast as a tuna to Clemson to
us how to the nizamiah schools by the
dad Syria the AMIA all these different
or the josiya all these different
schools and there they would after
memorizing quite a considerable amount
of textual material they would learn
not only the a dub but also how to how
to literally take this material and
apply it with intelligence contextually
and this is something that that I my
experience of the the Muslim world is
that we have people that oftentimes
learn a considerable amount of
information it's certainly theirs in the
Muslim world there's much more emphasis
still on rote memorization then say the
Western universities now which teach
more learning kind of theories and
understanding how things work and are
formulated rather than having the wrote
that you can keep your calculator to
plug in but just understand how how the
thing works
but despite that fact what what I'm
witnessing and I I don't know if you'd
agree with this but what I'm seeing is
that we we have yet to deal with the
issues of our age we have yet to to be
able to take the Islamic all of this
massive amount of information and
literally apply it to the age we're
living in in terms of dealing with the
issues of the age and healing the the
diseases of the age because that's what
it was sent down for and I think it's
it's like the story about the student
who stayed with the Sheikh for years and
the chef used to go and he would do the
rakia on the people and and and read
Fatiha and then use his spittle and they
would get well that usually immediately
and when the Sheikh had died they went
to the student and and so the student
read the fact it had then put the
spittle on the person nobody got well
and they asked him what's the matter and
he said well the fact it has still the
same but I think the spinels changed so
you know I think this is part of our our
problem is that the information is all
still there but but the
and women that possess the wisdo