Signs of the Hour: Lifting of Knowledge - Dr Ahsan Hanif

Signs of the Hour: The Lifting of Knowledge

Opening

As for what follows: the most authentic speech is the Book of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad ﷺ. And the worst of things are its innovations, and every innovation is a newly-invented matter, and every newly-invented matter is a misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.

The Hadith of the Signs of the Hour

What is authentically reported by Abdullah ibn Mas'ud in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad and in other than the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, that our Prophet ﷺ said:

(Musnad Imam Ahmad, Hadith 3848)

Indeed from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah, from the signs of the Hour, is that people will only give salams to those that they know. And that commerce will become prevalent to the extent that the woman will help her husband when it comes to his business. And people will break off the ties of kinship, and people will give false testimony — they will invoke the name of Allah and they will lie whilst invoking the name of Allah. And they will conceal truthful testimony. And literacy — Zuhur al-Qalam — will become prevalent.

In this hadith, the Prophet ﷺ spoke about a number of the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah. And it is the final sign within this hadith that I want to focus on in today's khutbah — that from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah is what is known as Zuhur al-Qalam, that the people will become literate.

Literacy and Prosperity as Signs of the Hour

Today within our community, within this very congregation, in this masjid, you will find that there are doctors and lawyers and accountants and engineers. You will find that there are many people here who are university graduates, and others from amongst them who have masters and PhDs. There are businessmen and entrepreneurs. People are generally more literate and educated and qualified than their fathers, and their grandfathers, and their great-grandfathers were. And this is from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah, that people will generally become more prosperous.

Whereas when we look at the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah, we find that even though there are signs that lead to more affluence, more prosperity, more stability at face value, the morals beneath them — the morals that should drive them, the deep-lying values that the Quran and the Sunnah embeds within us — they slowly become lost.

The Prophet ﷺ told us that from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah is that the ummah will be many in number, but despite their vast number, they will be weak in what they are able to achieve. From the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah is prosperity, that the people will have much wealth, the earth will bring forth its treasures, but at the same time the people will become more miserly and stingy. And likewise, just as people are more literate, more qualified, more educated, more able to read and write, and they have access to knowledge all around them, they will increase in ignorance at the same time.

The Lifting of Knowledge

The Prophet ﷺ said in the hadith of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 85; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2672)

That indeed from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah are days that are about to come upon you, in which knowledge will be lifted and ignorance will become prevalent.

Despite people becoming more literate in terms of their dunya — in terms of their business, in terms of their secular education, people becoming more qualified — despite all of this, they will increase in ignorance. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of their religion, ignorance of the Quran, ignorance of the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, ignorance of the halal and the haram, ignorance of that which pleases Allah and displeases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Knowledge as the Foundation of Islam

When we look at the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, when you look through his life and his seerah and his biography, you find that his religion was based upon the principle of knowledge, the foundation of knowledge — to the extent that the very first verse of the Quran that Allah chose to reveal to His Prophet ﷺ directly addressed the issue of knowledge:

Read in the name of your Lord that created. Read, seek knowledge, learn — because you can never come close to Allah unless you have knowledge of Allah. You can never truly love Allah until you know Allah, and you know the names and attributes of Allah, and you know the powers and the qualities of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so this Islam was based upon knowledge, based upon research, based upon learning.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2699)

Whosoever treads a path upon which there is knowledge, then Allah will make it easy for them to tread the path to Jannah.

So many ahadith speak about the virtues of knowledge — not just seeking that knowledge, but then teaching that knowledge. As the Prophet ﷺ said in the hadith of Abu Umamah:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2685)

Indeed Allah and His angels, and the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth, to the extent of the fish within the sea and the ant within its colony — all of them supplicate for the one who teaches other people good, for the one who teaches other people their religion, for the one who brings people closer to Allah and closer to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

The Example of the Companions in Seeking Knowledge

When we look at the time of the Prophet ﷺ, this was the principle that he nurtured his companions upon — that they should seek knowledge, that they should learn what they are able to learn. Even those from amongst them who accepted Islam in later years, those who were in their 30s and 40s when they became Muslims, they too were encouraged to learn the Quran, to memorize the Quran, to study with the Prophet ﷺ, to learn the knowledge of their religion. Because when people lose knowledge of their religion, that is when innovations become prevalent. When people lose knowledge of their religion, they no longer know what is correct and what is incorrect, what is halal and what is haram, what is sunnah and what is bid'ah, what will bring people closer to Allah and what will drive them further away from Allah. People don't even know what Islam is and what shirk is. People can't even differentiate the basics upon which this religion was based.

And that's why the companions were eager to seek knowledge, and they had a thirst for seeking knowledge. Abu Hurairah, despite coming to the Prophet ﷺ only in the 5th or 6th year of the hijrah, and despite only being with him for 4 or 5 years, he was the most prolific narrator of hadith. And he wouldn't work, and he wouldn't seek a living, but he would spend his time upon hunger and thirst, patient upon this, so that he could learn the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, and so that he could then narrate those ahadith to the people who would come after him.

Abdullah ibn Abbas, after the death of the Prophet ﷺ — he would spend his time, even though he was only a teenager in those days — he would spend his time going to the various major companions, seeking knowledge of this religion, listening to the ahadith that they would narrate of the Prophet ﷺ. Sometimes he would go to one of their houses after Salat al-Dhuhr, when the sun was at its highest point and the people generally in that area would sleep and rest — they would take their midday siesta. But he would take his siesta outside the doors of the houses of the companions, waiting for them when they would emerge, so that he could seek knowledge from them.

And when they would come out and they would see the cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, the son of his uncle, lying down in front of their houses, they would say to him, "O son of the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, why didn't you just call for us? We would have come to you." And he would say, "No, for this is the way that you seek knowledge. This is what it takes — that determination, that zeal, that enthusiasm."

Ibn Abbas said that when the Prophet ﷺ died, he said to one of his companions from the Ansar, "Let us go and seek knowledge from the companions of the Prophet ﷺ." His companion said to him, "O Abdullah, do you think that the people will have need of the likes of you, when there is amongst them the likes of Abu Bakr and Umar and Uthman and Ali?" And so Abdullah ibn Abbas said, "I ignored him. I left him. And I went and I sought knowledge." And within the space of a few years, he became one of the greatest and most knowledgeable of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ.

This is how the Prophet ﷺ instilled this within his companions. And this is how the companions then instilled that same zeal and thirst for knowledge within those scholars who came after them.

The Great Scholars and Their Love for Knowledge

Imam Malik, when he was a young boy, it was his mother who first told him to go and seek knowledge. And she told him to go to one of his first teachers in Medina, a scholar by the name of Rabi'ah. And she said to him:

Go to your teacher Rabi'ah and take from his etiquettes before you take from his knowledge.

Even the mother of Imam Malik — not someone who is well-known, not a scholar in her own right, not someone that you will hear much of — even the average woman, the average man, the mother, the father, they had that interest in knowledge. They had that love for Islam. And so they would instruct their youngest children to go and to seek knowledge. Because at that time, the aspiration was not that their children would become doctors or lawyers, it wasn't that their children would become prolific businessmen. Their main aspiration was that their children would come close to Allah, that they would have Jannah, that they would know the path that led to the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Imam Shafi'i, when he was a young boy and he was an orphan, it was his mother that told him to go and study. And it was his mother who — in some narrations it is said — gave up most of her wealth and sold some of her property so that her young son would be able to travel from Mecca to Medina so that he could go and study with Imam Malik. It was the average people.

And at that time, the mother of Imam Malik, the mother of Imam Shafi'i — may Allah have mercy on all of them — they did not know that their children would become great Imams of this religion. Never could they foresee that their children would become the Imams of madhabs that 1,400 years later the Muslims of the entire world would still ascribe to — the opinions and the knowledge that they gave. Yet they had that sincerity and that love for Islam. They had that love and zeal and enthusiasm that their children should aspire to greatness. And the greatness within this religion is based upon knowledge — knowledge of the Book of Allah, knowledge of the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, knowledge of what the scholars said, the sayings of the companions.

And so those people, they instilled this within their children. And their children became the great scholars of Islam. Not only did their parents have this enthusiasm, but then they themselves would grow to have a similar type of enthusiasm. They would learn through their knowledge that it is not just about narrating a hadith, but it is about putting it into action. It is about learning the etiquettes and the exemplary character that Islam brings.

Imam al-Bukhari, in his Sahih — a book that contains thousands upon thousands of ahadith — it is said that he did not place a single hadith within this book except that he prayed two rak'ahs before it, asking Allah to make sure that this hadith would be authentic. This is the etiquette that the scholars had towards knowledge. This is the love that they had for the knowledge that was contained within their hearts. Imagine — for thousands of ahadith, for every single one of them, you pray two rak'ahs, and then you go and place this hadith within your book. This is how the scholars of Islam were.

And not only did they learn etiquettes with the knowledge that they had, but they learned etiquettes with the people around them, so that the Muslims of that time were exemplary in character — to the extent that people would see them and see their character and they would simply enter into Islam.

It is reported that Imam Abu Hanifa had an elderly mother. And his elderly mother, as many parents do, didn't fully realize the value of her child — that her son was one of the greatest scholars of Islam. To her, he was simply her son. So every time she had a question, she would ask him to go and ask it to another person in the community, a storyteller who would speak about issues of Islam. He wasn't a scholar, but he was very prolific in the way that he narrated stories. And so she would say to him, "Go to that man and ask him this question on my behalf."

Imam Abu Hanifa — one of the greatest scholars of Islam ever to have lived. Imam Shafi'i would say that the people are dependent on Abu Hanifa when it comes to their fiqh. Imam Abu Hanifa wouldn't say to his mother, "Don't you know who I am? Don't you know how many students I have? Don't you know how many people travel thousands of miles just to come and learn from me?" He would go to that man and he would ask him the question that his mother instructed him to ask. And the man would say to Imam Abu Hanifa, "How do you ask me this question when you are Imam Abu Hanifa? You tell me the answer." And so Imam Abu Hanifa would tell the man the answer. And the man would say, "Go back to your mother and tell her this is what I said." This is how the scholars of Islam were — the etiquettes that they had, the love and zeal and enthusiasm for knowledge that they possessed.

The Warning: Islam Will Fade Like Worn Embroidery

But from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah is that this ummah will lose this. That even though we will become more proficient in our reading and writing, our education — we will become more skilled and more learned, we will have more access to knowledge than those who came before us, we will have technology and all of these other things at our disposal — despite all of this, we will lose our Islam.

As the Prophet ﷺ said in the hadith of Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman:

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4049)

The Prophet ﷺ said that a time will come when the people will study Islam just as the way they study embroidering a piece of cloth — it will become like any other thing that they do. The Prophet ﷺ said to the extent that the people will no longer understand the meaning of prayer, nor the meaning of fasting, nor the meaning of charity, nor the meaning of pilgrimage. And Allah will decree that the Quran will be lifted in a single night and not a single verse of the Quran will remain. But there will be groups of people — like the elderly and the infirm — who will say that we heard our forefathers, once upon a time, say لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ, so now we repeat this statement as well. This is how Islam will become. This is how knowledge will be lifted — to the extent that people don't know the meaning of prayer.

And we are already seeing this in our time today. How many people know authentically the way that the Prophet ﷺ prayed? How many people have prayed according to the way of the Sunnah? How many people fast and give charity and make their Hajj and Umrah in accordance with the Sunnah? We are already losing this knowledge. We are already losing that attachment to the Quran and the Sunnah. And it will only get worse, for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will decree that knowledge will be lifted, the Quran will be lifted.

And as the Prophet ﷺ said, the lifting of knowledge will not be by Allah snatching it away from the chests and hearts of people, but it will be with the death of the scholars. So every time a scholar dies and passes away, a piece of that knowledge will be lifted with him. And all that will remain will be ignorance — until there will only be a group of people, the elderly and the infirm, who will have heard the statement لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ, will have heard this thing that is called prayer and salah and sadaqah, but they won't understand what it means. So they will say that it was our forefathers who used to say this, and so we too now say this.

Following the Footsteps of Previous Nations

And that's why the Prophet ﷺ said that from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah is that this ummah will follow the way of those who came before it. Those nations that preceded us — they lost knowledge of their religion, so they were unable to differentiate between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong, between halal and haram — to the extent that they would just follow the cultures and the ways and the habits and the customs of their forefathers. And if someone came to them and said that what you are doing is wrong, they would say, "It is our forefathers that used to do this and we are upon their religion."

This is what you have today in many Muslim communities. When you go across the world and you see Muslims doing all sorts of strange and unusual things and ascribing them to Islam, and then you say to them that you don't find this within the Quran and you don't find this in the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, they will say, "Our father taught us this. Our grandfather taught us this. The elders of our community are upon this, so we too are upon this." And this is what the Prophet ﷺ was warning this ummah against — that they should fall into the same traps and into the same mistakes of those previous nations.

But despite all of these ahadith, despite the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah, despite these warnings upon the tongue of our Prophet ﷺ, we find that we as an ummah, we as a community, we as individuals — me and you — are working and moving towards that same path.

The Danger of Taking Religion Without Qualification

They take their knowledge from the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, and from his companions, and from those who are qualified — the scholars from amongst them. And when they begin to take the religion from those who are not qualified and they get immersed within their desires, that is when they will be destroyed.

Mu'adh ibn Jabal said: "A time will come upon this ummah when wealth will become prevalent, and everyone will begin to read the Quran — the believer and the hypocrite, the man and the woman, the old and the young, the freeman and the slave. And each one of them will think that simply because they have read the Quran, they understand the religion. To the extent that one of them will say, 'Why don't the people follow me even though I have recited the Quran? By Allah, they will never follow me until I innovate something new into this religion.' So they will innovate into this religion." So Mu'adh said, "Beware of those people and beware of those innovations."

The Prophet ﷺ throughout his Sunnah was bringing our attention to these issues so that we can divert our attention towards knowledge — taking knowledge from those who are qualified. When we don't know issues concerning the religion, we simply say that we don't know.

The Humility of Imam Malik

A man traveled from Andalus — southern Spain — all the way to Imam Malik in Medina, with 40 questions that his community had given to him. And when he came and sat before Imam Malik, from the 40 questions, he only answered 4, and for 36 he said, اللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ، لَا أَدْرِي — "Allah knows best, I don't know." So the man said to Imam Malik, "My people sent me, and they gathered these questions, and I traveled the distance of months in order to come to you, because my people don't know of anyone who is more knowledgeable than you. So what will I say to them when I return?" Imam Malik said, "You will go back and you will say to them that Malik says that he doesn't know."

This is the way that the scholars of Islam were. This is the etiquette that the scholars of Islam had. This is what the Prophet ﷺ nurtured the companions upon.

The Call to Action

And unfortunately, this is something that we are beginning to lose. So the message from this minbar and from today's khutbah is that we need to instill within ourselves — first and foremost — this love for knowledge, and instill it within our children, within our families, within our wives and our husbands and our family members, so that they come closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala based upon authentic knowledge, based upon the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. That they take their knowledge from those people who are qualified to disseminate knowledge, and they ignore those people who are not qualified to do so.

Closing Du'a

O Allah, send Your prayers and blessings upon Your servant and messenger Muhammad ﷺ. And may Allah be pleased with the Rightly Guided Caliphs — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali — and the rest of the companions, and the followers, and those who followed them in righteousness until the Day of Recompense.

O Allah, protect the Muslims — the men and the women, the believers — the living and the dead. O Allah, give our souls their righteousness and purify them — You are the Best of those who purify them, You are their Protector and Guardian. O Allah, we ask You for guidance, righteousness, restraint, and self-sufficiency. O Allah, aid those who aid this religion, and repel those who seek to harm Islam and the Muslims. O Allah, give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter, and save us from the torment of the Fire.