Khatira [ Fellow Shaykhs… We Hold Everyone Accountable Except Ourselves? ]

Occasion: Transcription of a khatira delivered on August 17, 2021 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

O Allah, we ask You for lasting covering, complete well-being and successive mercies, by mercy and generosity from You, O Lord of the worlds.

Today I had a discussion with one of my shaykhs, may Allah preserve him and prolong his life, in which we touched on the matter of the conduct that comes from the people of knowledge: what comes from them? And how do we deal with it when we hear of a mistake made by one of them? And what are the causes that led to many mistakes among those affiliated with knowledge, who speak to people about virtue and good?

We Hold the Owners of Wealth Accountable, So Who Holds Us Accountable?

I said to him: if you permit me, my shaykh, we always speak to the owners of wealth and say to them that Allah, the Most High, will hold you to account for every cent or piaster or millim or dāniq, whatever the currency, the smallest thing in the world; He will hold you to account for all your wealth and for everything in it, so beware of extravagance, beware of excess, and beware of spending money where it does not belong. So does any one of us think of comparing what people have of wealth with what we have of verses, ḥadīths and information? If our Lord is going to ask you about the number of thousands of dollars you have: where you earned them and on what you spent them, is it not fitting, all the more, that He hold me to account for the number of pieces of information I have gained, the number of verses I have memorized, the number of ḥadīths I have learned, and where I placed them and how I handled them?

If we sit in a gathering and I lean to one side and not the other, and I prevail with texts and verses, and you yield before me while your right has been wronged, how will I stand before the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him? And if I deceive so-and-so to obtain some benefit or money or material gain through him, and I overcome him with the texts of the Qur'an, the Sunnah of the Prophet, the deeds of the Companions and the guidance of the righteous predecessors, then where do I stand before this information, which was shaped to reach some end? I forbade you to spend your money on a bribe to obtain what is not yours; was it not all the more fitting for me to forbid myself from putting verses in the wrong place to gain material benefit?

Four Divine Endowments

The Prophet ﷺ said that a servant's feet will not move on the Day of Resurrection until he is asked about four things: about his life, in what he spent it; about his knowledge, what he did with it; about his wealth, from where he earned it and on what he spent it; and about his body, in what he wore it out.^[1] So these are four divine endowments to this human being, and his Lord asks him about each of them specifically.

So what about the first: about his life, in what he spent it? The spending of a life: what goal did you set from the beginning? What do you want to come out as in the end? An engineer, a doctor or a shaykh? Then about his knowledge; because life is not credited with any entity or existence together with ignorance, so the ignorant person's life is not counted, as though he never came to the world at all. Life is counted only for the possessor of knowledge, through whom money will come afterward; money comes straight along.

Knowledge Is Not Counted

And look at the difference between the two phrasings: about his knowledge, "what he did with it," and then he stopped. As for wealth: "from where he earned it and on what he spent it," there is detail in it. Do you know why? Because money is counted: how much did you bring in today? How much did you earn? Or did we lose today? It is a number, and at the end of the day you put the revenue and the expenses and a number comes out for you. Knowledge, however, is not counted; you cannot count it. Perhaps we walk together, and you are walking beside the scholar and we are silent, having said nothing, and you learn calm and tranquility. And perhaps we sit talking about a topic and you learn from what I say lessons that perhaps I did not intend, because what comes to your mind of thoughts may exceed the wording of what I say; I tell a story and a scene from fifty years ago comes to you, and you remember and compare and say: surely the shaykh means such-and-such, though I did not mean that.

That is why, when the Prophet ﷺ spoke about knowledge, he did not say "from where he earned it and on what he spent it," but said "what he did with it." We have spoken before about the difference between fiʿl, ʿamal and ṣunʿ, and we said that fiʿl may be random, coming out of you naturally, as when you drink water or breathe. So it is as though knowledge is a life and not merely a performance, lived by its possessor with his wisdom, gentleness, forgiveness, firmness, strength, good conduct and quickness of wit, and this is the true accomplishment in the world of life. That is why, when the Prophet ﷺ was described, he was not described as having been a scholar, but it was said: he was a Qur'an walking; a Qur'an in motion.

People in Places Not Their Own

Among the afflictions that exist, because of which the misdeeds coming from some people of knowledge have multiplied, is that people have been put in places that are not theirs. Imagine a pharmacist or a chemist who mixes this with that and a medicine comes out for you. Then he recites two verses with correct vowelling, and it is said to him: step into the miḥrāb, your voice is very sweet, be an imam, we have easy work with good reward that will cover us a little and keep us going a couple of steps until we find other work. And he does not find other work, and it remains every day. And someone enters the Maghrib prayer, for example, and finds someone standing in the miḥrāb: "Straighten your rows, may Allah have mercy on you." Who is this? The imam. So he says the takbīr and they pray behind him, then he gives the salām, and the prayer is over. They do not know whether he has a diploma in agriculture, or is an engineer or a doctor. And if the imam, the pharmacist or the doctor or the engineer, turned to them and said: fear Allah and be moderate in seeking, they say: mā shāʾ Allāh, at your service, imam, at your command. And our man drives on in it, and becomes not the Imam of the Two Sanctuaries but the imam of all the sanctities in the world (he says it jokingly).

So someone who has no business with the matter, who is not a specialist, enters upon it. In medicine, for example, there is a difference between the general physician and the specialist: the general physician gives you a general prescription and then refers you to the specialist, even if he understands, because he does not want to bear the responsibility. Among us, however, anyone who gets up on the minbar and says two words issues rulings and judgments on people, and puts matters in their places or not in their places, and mixes everything up, and it does not matter, for he is not the specialist and knows nothing.

We Were Not Raised to Be Callers

And among the things that helped bring about many problems among some callers, or those affiliated with the call, is that we were not raised from the beginning to be callers; the matter of the call came at the end. Let us speak about my generation, for example: we entered the crisis while we were in secondary school, what do you want to be? I want to be a doctor, or an engineer. And very few were those who said: I want to be a shaykh. And the one among them who was raised to be a shaykh, his goal from the beginning is to be an imam. So you say to him: how much does an imam take if he works? He says to you: it is not important, I want to be an imam. And how many came out like this? We, when we were raised, were raised to be among the generality of people; we were not raised to be callers. And the call came late, and afterward we realized the value of the work, its importance and the reward of those who do it, and the vision began to become clear and matters to proceed in their courses, God willing, natural courses as Allah, Blessed and Most High, wants.

But consider when you come to plant a plant, and it is said to you: this plant needs sand of such-and-such a type, so we sit searching for this sand, because this tree grows only in this sand or this clay. And if we plant it in other than its soil, some of it grew soundly and some came out useless, because it is not its soil. And so we need to prepare the soil from which comes forth a caller who is able to bear responsibility, endure the heat of the sun, endure the blasts of the wind, and bear the consequences of this call from all its sides.

How the Khatira Was Concluded

O Allah, we ask You that we be at Your expectation when You placed Your message in us, and we ask You, our Lord, to rescue us from every evil that surrounds us, to forgive us every slip, and to continue Your covering over us as long as we live. O Allah, keep us upon the truth and by the truth, and make us fit to carry the trust of this call. O Allah, we ask You that what You have deposited in our hearts and minds be a witness for us before You on the Day of Resurrection and not a witness against us. O Allah, we seek refuge in You from being a place of suspicion, and ask that we be in aid of the righteous among Your servants as long as we live, and bring us out of the world safe, by mercy from You and good pleasure, O Lord of the worlds. And may Allah send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon his family and Companions, with abundant peace.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is narrated by al-Tirmidhī and others from the ḥadīth of Abū Barzah al-Aslamī (may Allah be pleased with him), and the speaker transmitted it by meaning, so it has not been placed between quotation marks.