Reflections From Uzbekistan Part 2 w/ Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed | The Compass Ep #19 | 04/13

Reflections From Uzbekistan — Part 2

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Insha'Allah Mufti Azeemuddin will be joining us shortly, and we'll continue our discussion from last week. For those of you who are not here, we're speaking about our recent trip to Uzbekistan and some reflections from there.

A Reflection From the Seerah: The Global Mission of the Prophet ﷺ

Before we get into some of these stories and incidents from Uzbekistan itself, just a quick reflection from the Seerah, from the life of the Prophet ﷺ. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent Rasulullah ﷺ as a messenger, not just to the people of Mecca and Medina, but rather to the entire humanity.

Allah says: We have not sent you, O Rasulullah ﷺ, except to the entire humanity, to all people — كَآفَّةً لِّلنَّاسِ بَشِيرًا — as somebody who gives glad tidings, وَنَذِيرًا — and somebody who warns as well. وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ — however, most people, they don't know, they don't understand.

So while the Prophet ﷺ was born in Mecca, he migrated to Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. That's where he lived, that's where he was calling, inviting people towards Allah Ta'ala. His vision, his mission was always global. How can this Deen of Islam reach into every single home? This was always his vision from day one.

The Narration of Sayyidah Fatimah رضي الله عنها

In the early days, according to the narration of al-Tabarani, one day the Prophet ﷺ comes home, and his daughter Fatimah رضي الله عنها is standing at the door, waiting for her beloved father. And when she sees the Prophet ﷺ, she starts to cry. Then the Prophet ﷺ asks her:

(al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir)

"What makes you cry, my beloved daughter?" She replied:

"Your color has become pale, your face has become pale, your clothes have become worn, they've become tattered. You've exhausted yourself so much in calling people towards Allah." Rasulullah ﷺ told her:

(al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir)

"Oh my beloved daughter, don't cry. Don't be so saddened at the physical state of your father. For indeed Allah has sent your father with such a Deen that there will not remain a single home on the surface of the globe — made of baked or unbaked bricks — in today's terminology, no house, no apartment, no permanent structure, no temporal residence — إِلَّا أَدْخَلَهُ اللَّهُ — except that Allah will allow this Deen of your father to reach."

And you see this prophecy of the Prophet ﷺ manifest in a very short span of time. During the era of the Sahaba رضوان الله تعالى عليهم أجمعين itself, the Sahaba reached far and wide. All over you find the graves of the Sahaba, from the east to the west, from the south to the north.

Uzbekistan: A Land of Scholars

In the north, as we discussed last week, in Uzbekistan you have the grave of Qutham ibn al-'Abbas رضي الله عنهما, the cousin of the Prophet ﷺ. In the time of Mu'awiyah رضي الله عنه, just over three decades after the passing of the Prophet ﷺ, the Sahaba had made it all the way up to what is now present-day Uzbekistan. Qutham ibn al-'Abbas رضي الله عنهما, this cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, he's buried there in Samarqand. Three weeks ago, alhamdulillah, we had the opportunity of standing at his grave.

So the point that I'm making here is that this Deen was not restricted to Mecca and Medina. Rather it spread all across the globe. And Allah used people from various parts of the globe to become 'ulama, to become scholars, to become those who would preserve, those who would defend the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

Uzbekistan is a land which is rich, filled with the 'ilm, with the 'ulama. All across the city, all across the country — be it Tashkent, the capital, be it Samarqand, be it Bukhara, be it Tirmidh — thousands and thousands of 'ulama, scholars are buried there. Masters, experts in all fields. You look in the field of tafsir, 'aqeedah, hadith, fiqh, tazkiyah, tasawwuf — you name it. All the masters, all the giants are over there.

The Giants of Islamic Scholarship From Uzbekistan

In the field of 'aqeedah, one of the greatest scholars is Abu Mansur al-Maturidi رحمه الله — his grave is over there. We visited his grave. And we spoke about that incident last week in great detail: the graveyard where he is buried is known as the Muhammadi graveyard. In order for you to be buried there, your name had to be Muhammad, and on top of that you had to be a scholar of Deen. They say there were over 3,000 people buried in that graveyard — 3,000 'ulama whose names also happened to be Muhammad. It just gives you an idea of how many 'ulama, how many scholars were there.

In the field of fiqh, you have the master Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani رحمه الله, Sahib al-Hidayah — the famous fiqh manual which is studied even here at Darul 'Uloom. The students in their 4th and 5th year study Hidayah. It's a four-volume book, and they spend two or three years studying this work. It's a masterpiece in the field of fiqh, authored by 'Allamah al-Marghinani رحمه الله. His grave is also there in Samarqand.

In the field of hadith, Imam Bukhari رحمه الله is the first name to come to mind. But it's not just Imam Bukhari — there are hundreds and thousands of scholars of hadith buried over there. We visited Abu Hafs al-Kabir رحمه الله, one of the teachers of Imam Bukhari, also buried there in Samarqand.

The Story of Imam Bukhari رحمه الله

Imam Bukhari رحمه الله — you say his name, there's so much to speak about him, so many incidents, so many anecdotes which come to mind. You can't just pass his name without mentioning something.

Imam Bukhari رحمه الله was born in the year 194 after Hijrah. He had very weak eyesight, so his mother used to make lots of du'a for him. Not long after he was born, he lost his eyesight completely — he went blind. His mother would cry and make lots of du'a: "O Allah, restore the eyesight of my son." She had great hopes in her son.

One night she sees Ibrahim عليه السلام in her dream — it's an authentic narration. Ibrahim عليه السلام tells her:

"Allah has restored the eyesight of your son — لِكَثْرَةِ دُعَائِكِ — because of the immense amount of du'a that you make for him." According to another narration: لِكَثْرَةِ بُكَائِكِ — "because of the amount that you cry for him." In the morning when Imam Bukhari woke up, his eyesight was restored and he was able to see.

At the age of 16, Imam Bukhari's mother and his older brother Ahmad traveled for Hajj. Imam Bukhari told his mother and his brother: "Okay, you can go back to Bukhara. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not going back anytime soon. I want to make use of the 'ulama that are present here in the Hijaz area." And he started studying, taking hadith from them. He didn't stop there — he started traveling from place to place, from city to city, from country to country. From Baghdad to Kufa to Misr to Egypt, you name it — he went all over the known Muslim world at the time, gathering the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ. He spent the next approximately 40 years, four decades of his life, gathering and compiling the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ.

The Famous Test in Baghdad

He was such a master of hadith that everyone recognized his skills, his excellence in the field of hadith. When he came to Baghdad, the scholars of hadith decided to test him. Ten scholars gathered together and took a hundred hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, dividing them among themselves — each one would narrate ten hadith. They decided to flip the asanid — the chains of narrations — to confuse Imam Bukhari and see if he would pick it up or not.

So the first muhaddith narrated ten hadith with the wrong chain. Second one, same thing. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth — after all ten of them narrating a hundred hadith, they asked Imam Bukhari: was it right or wrong?

But what Imam Bukhari did is he said to the first one: "Here is what you narrated to me." And he narrated the entire chain — the wrong chain — everything, the whole thing. Then he said: "Let me tell you the correct version." And he narrated the correct version. He did that to the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth.

Hafidh Ibn Hajar رحمه الله, commentating on this incident, says: the amazing thing isn't that Imam Bukhari had memorized a hundred hadith — he had memorized over a hundred thousand hadith. A hundred hadith was nothing, this was easy for him. But the amazing thing is that just by hearing the wrong narrations once, Imam Bukhari on the spot memorized all of that, and he was able to repeat all of it to these people and then narrate the correct narrations.

The Expulsion and Final Days of Imam Bukhari

Finally, this great giant — after 40 years, traveling over 14,000 kilometers, studying from over 18,000 teachers — returned back to Bukhara. At this point, Imam Bukhari was a celebrity of the town. Everyone welcomed him, everyone loved him. Students would come from all across the world to study hadith in Bukhara at the feet of Imam Bukhari. They say over 20,000 students at one time would be present there. We visited the very birthplace of Imam Bukhari in Bukhara, and then we also visited the masjid — the courtyard where Imam Bukhari رحمه الله would sit and narrate the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ.

Eventually, the governor of Bukhara became very jealous. He felt that Imam Bukhari was becoming too prominent, and that his name and fame spreading all over was a threat to his authority. So he decided to expel Imam Bukhari from Bukhara. To do this, he hatched a plan. He told Imam Bukhari: "You have to give my children private tuition. Come and tutor them privately. I'm not going to send them to your public lessons."

Imam Bukhari said: "Of course not. The hadith of the Prophet ﷺ — respect demands that you send your children and they come on their own. I'm not going to bring it to your doorstep." Because of that, the governor expelled Imam Bukhari from Bukhara. Imam Bukhari went to the outskirts of Samarqand, to a city called Khartang. That is actually where Imam Bukhari رحمه الله is buried.

When he reached that area, he made a du'a to Allah:

"O Allah, the earth has become very constrained on me. Nobody wants me. My own people, the city I grew up in — Bukhara — they've expelled me. There's no place left for me. O Allah, allow me to meet You if You are pleased with me." It was about a month after he made that du'a that Imam Bukhari passed away. And he is buried there in Samarqand, in Khartang, on the outskirts of Samarqand.

So just to conclude this point: look at how this Deen reached so far away — thousands of miles away from Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah to Uzbekistan, about a six-to-seven hour flight today. Yet the Sahaba — Qutham ibn al-'Abbas رضي الله عنه — made it there. And the generations after produced the greatest scholars: Imam al-Marghinani in fiqh, Abu Mansur al-Maturidi in 'aqeedah, Imam Bukhari in hadith, Baha' al-Din al-Naqshbandi in tasawwuf. These great giants, these leaders of their fields of Islamic knowledge — they all hail from this land, Uzbekistan.

Lessons for Those Working in the Service of Deen

JazakAllah khairan for reminding us of that beautiful memory of visiting Imam Bukhari's masjid, his grave, his place of birth as well as his place of death. I think one immediate take-home point for all of us is the fact that those who do the work of Deen will be faced with lots of difficulties — including these types of difficulties of jealousy and not being appreciated.

All of us are beneficiaries of Imam Bukhari. And I want you to understand that the shaytan and nafs of the people who gave so much pain to Imam Bukhari — that caused him to be expelled and exiled from his town and die in forced self-exile — that same nafs and shaytan is working extra hard now. Those of us who are in the field of serving the Deen in any capacity need to realize that this is going to happen a lot.

Many times a brother is doing khidmah of Deen and he will feel — just today someone was telling me — "I'm serving somewhere, but somehow the people don't appreciate me. They didn't put me on the board of some specific organization, and I'm very hurt, I'm very burnt. I did so much, but no one put me on the board." Sometimes people say they don't put me in the shura. The brothers of da'wah always complain many times: "My bayan is not happening, such-and-such is not happening, I did so much."

What we're not realizing is — subhanAllah — why are we desiring this in the first place? It's so hard to remain sincere. And now on top of that, if you're openly saying "how come I'm not on the board, how come I'm not on the shura" — and then someone else establishes something, and you are an outsider just participating, yet you keep on doing the work — this is a test of our ikhlas.

Number two: sometimes, honestly, you do deserve to be at the front. You do deserve to be in a leadership position. You do deserve to be part of some board. It's true. But people will out of jealousy push you out. And the Prophet ﷺ already warned the Ansar that this is going to happen to them — that others will be given preference over them — and he encouraged them to remain steadfast.

My beloved brothers and friends, we need to also remind ourselves that this is part and parcel of the dini effort. When you go to get the roses, you have the thorns. When you want fresh barbecue right off the grill, you're going to have to handle the smoke, the heat. Similarly, when you want to do the dini work, you will have to face lots of challenges.

Advice to Students of Deen Returning to Their Communities

And especially to our Tanweer students here: when you go back to your community, excited from what you saw at Darul 'Uloom and your year here, and you say "I'm gonna go do some great work, youth work back at home" — you may not always receive a red carpet arrival. More than likely, unfortunately, you will receive cold shoulders. You will hear: "Brother, take it easy. We've been in this community for 30 years. You're in diapers in front of me. Why are you sitting here getting all excited? Just sit down and go back to college."

And you will be shell-shocked. "Why am I being treated like this? I thought you're always complaining there's no youth in the masjid. I came up with a game plan to get the youth in the masjid — we'll have sports, after that we'll have a halaqah, and then we'll have dinner." And instead of being excited, they'll get upset. Sometimes.

So you wonder, why would people get upset? Because people have all sorts of agendas. I want you youth to understand that. Because we're young, we haven't many times seen how evil things can become. A person says, "My son, I lost him. He's not here in the masjid anymore. He's gone." So for him to see you — his neighbor's son — going and studying the Deen, then coming back and being a huge resource for the community, it hurts. So why? "We're just going to put obstacles on you so that hopefully one day — astaghfirullah — you'll become just like my lost son." Does that sound evil? It's true. This is what it is.

Not all people. There are some people like that. The leadership in many places is so disconnected from the youth because their own kids are lost. So they don't know what the youth need. So when you have a youth-director type person coming and saying "we need that," they say "no, no, we don't need this."

My beloved friends, understand that our work — we don't have to have an organization to work. You don't need everyone's trust and love to work. Decide what you want to do, and do it. With the will of Allah and the mashwarah of your parents and your teachers, you can grow very well.

If the masjid does not allow you to do a program, do you need the masjid to do the program? When this madrasah started, we had a flyer in 2008. There was no masjid. There was just a bunch of trees over here and some old houses. But we wanted to start the summer program and the Hifz class. So we literally just put a phone number that forwarded to a cell number — a Magic Jack, they called it then. We couldn't even put the address because it was not in a school building. Just put "near the intersection of North and Swift" or near Lombard, something like that. And it was in the house here. We had 95 students, alhamdulillah, over the summer. And outside of the summer, maybe 20-30 students in every single room — from the garage to every single room, one separate class in that simple small house right here on the property.

Similarly, we have post-Fajr. There was no jama'at here. Jama'at used to happen in the house, and I had multiple people coming to take Quranic Arabic class post-Fajr — working professionals, a class of about five or six people. Similarly our winter intensive — I had five or six students, a full winter intensive, done in one of the bedrooms of the house.

And I'll also add: when I made mashwarah with some people about doing it in the house, some people said, "No, no, no — why are you doing it in the house? Wait till you have a proper place to start." I warn all of you that you will get opinions like this from people who are not your well-wishers — and not well-wishers of the Deen. You're going to see it. One day you'll remember what I'm telling you.

As sad as it is, I don't want to pop your bubble. But when you do the work of Deen, you will see a lot of these types of evil spiritual diseases within those working in the effort of Deen. That you wouldn't believe. You're like: "Brother, I was involved in all sorts of haram. I just came to the Deen. I'm trying to repent. You've all been in the masjid scene for so long — I can't believe you suffer from this level of ostentation, this level of jealousy." Yes. Everyone sins, but in different manners.

The reason I'm telling you this is that this should not push you away from doing what you need to do. Don't pack up. Don't cower. Don't say "forget it, I'm done with this." Instead, understand that as you want to make effort on the community, these people who are trying to pull you down — they also need effort. They also need help. The Deen did not reach us without sacrifice. And I want all of you to make that firm resolve today, insha'Allah, that we will be willing to make huge sacrifices to preserve the Deen.

General Reflections: The Importance of an Islamic Environment

One of the general reflections I want to share — beneficial for all of us, and for those joining for the first time on this second session on the Uzbekistan trip — is the importance of living in the East for some time, or living in a predominantly Muslim country. Even if it's not super practicing, there is a serious benefit that I saw in this trip.

There are certain adab and etiquettes, and certain cultural norms that you see in a Muslim country that you don't see outside of it. As much as we are connected to the house of Allah here, and as much as we are students of knowledge or regulars in the masjid, what we don't realize is that the environment we are living in has a very powerful effect on the way we see things.

We had the winter intensive this past December — on the four madhahib, beautiful and amazing. We had al-Hanbali, al-Shafi'i, al-Maliki, and al-Hanafi scholars speak about their own schools of thought. Most of them were revert scholars who are now, alhamdulillah, great scholars in their own fields. I interviewed each one of them post-Fajr every day — Saturday, Sunday, Monday. They're available online. One thing you would hear from them was the fact that living in America, or living in the UK, we don't realize how un-Islamic the mindset becomes — even if you are a practicing Muslim. And you only realize that when you get yourself out of this place and go into a strong Muslim community where you have traditions, etiquettes, and expectations of a Muslim community.

The idea of listening to the adhan from the minaret five times a day — we shouldn't take that for granted. It has a powerful effect on a person. Five times a day you're being reminded. When you even see two, three, four, five people, or even more, walking towards the masjid — or as you're sitting doing whatever you're doing — it's a reminder that our Deen is alive and that there's an expectation for all of us to come to the house of Allah.

A brother told me yesterday — he said he went to a gym here, visiting from a Muslim country, and he was shocked. He said: "Coming from a Muslim country, you have a men-only gym, and even if there were a mixed gym, the way people are dressed is relatively modest." But he was just shocked at what he saw over here. And he was like: "Wow, this is a wake-up call of what happens when you don't have an Islamic environment." How many Muslim brothers and sisters have no problem today going to work out in a public gym? Not only that — they actually have full Instagram channels. Sisters have Instagram channels of working out in a gym, not for women only, but for the whole world to see — they've got a scarf, they've got a Muslim name — and this is a by-product of living in an un-Islamic environment.

Right now, we don't realize how different our mindset is. You know what it will take? When you have a conversation with somebody who is living in a Muslim country — someone just living an average life, not always on social media, not trying to idolize the West — you spend time with them and you'll realize your approach and understanding of things are so different.

For example, the waiters in the restaurants in Uzbekistan — I made a comment there. Not even the waiter, the person who wipes down the table after the customers leave — I felt that, subhanAllah, they had more etiquette than students of knowledge. The way they speak, the way they interact with you, was genuinely felt like adab. Very much so. And it's so hard to teach that over here. People don't realize the lack of etiquette — the way people speak to their moms, the way they speak to their dads, the way they speak to their teachers — there is an absolute lack of adab. It's a by-product of our environment.

As they say in Urdu: پانی میں کچھ ہے — something in the water over here that creates this type of disrespect for elders, disrespect for hierarchy. There's no such thing as elders, no أكابر, no بڑے. It's all individualism.

Someone told me a beautiful point recently: the issue is not just Christianity versus Islam. The issue is individualism — modern-day individualism. When that comes in, even in a Muslim country, even in a Muslim home here in America, you have the capitalistic individualistic mindset that we need to succeed at all cost regardless of anybody else.

Going abroad and spending some extended period of time — I felt that was a good idea. Not in the main cities especially, and not staying at the resorts or expensive hotels in the main cities, because they're very westernized, the same individualistic, TikTok fashion going on over there. We were in Turkey together a few years ago — Istanbul, we spent 10 days there and in surrounding areas with our ustadh, Shaykh Muhammad Abdullah, حفظه الله تعالى. And I noticed that the dressing of the youth was unbelievably poor. Some Turkish scholars and professors told me: "What you saw in Turkey was not the Turkey of even 2017 or 2018. Major change happened in the last five years." COVID time — people were stuck at home, everyone went on social media. They started watching how other people in other parts of the world dress, what the fashion trends are, what the influencers wear. And it literally changed the whole country.

So find a place where they have less internet, less of these things. When I went to Malawi last year in Africa, we would be there for a whole day, day and a half in a village, and we didn't find a single person with a smartphone. There are still places like that, where subhanAllah they're in a whole different world, disconnected from this type of social media nonsense.

Part of our plan should be going to a country — or even if you're from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, or the Middle East — finding some time over the summer, traveling with our children, and spending a summer over there. There are great schools everywhere: Qur'an schools, Islamic schools, and what not. Just going to the local masjid five times a day, attending some classes, meeting the mashayikh, visiting the country. You will realize a lot of things will slowly start changing in your mindset. Your moral compass will insha'Allah be affected. The things we have been accustomed to seeing and don't mind will start creating within us an aversion — "no, this is wrong." Especially regarding adab.

Arrogance: The Seed of Atheism and Agnosticism

Atheism and agnosticism — that is a big problem in every community. One big reason for that, the seed for that, is arrogance. A dislike to take orders from somebody. A hatred for hierarchy. It starts off with older brother, older sister. My father, hafizahullahu ta'ala, raising us would always say — may Allah grant me the tawfeeq to follow this advice fully — he would always say: the older brother is like your father. No matter what happens. And shaytan creates this aversion to respecting and listening to elders within your siblings. Then it moves up to uncles and aunts. Then to mom and dad. Then eventually it moves up to where? Allah and His Rasul ﷺ.

A person who cannot listen to his parents — the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 4811; Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1954)

The one who doesn't thank people cannot thank Allah. Similarly, the one who cannot be appreciative towards his parents will never be able to appreciate Allah. Because the mom and dad feed you with their hands — you can see them. And Allah is actually the one feeding you, but His action is invisible — اللَّطِيف — Allah is subtle. You don't see it. So if a person cannot respect the hand that feeds him openly, how is he going to respect the hand that feeds him behind the scenes?

Respect for the Symbols of Islam — شعائر الإسلام

Also, the adab of شَعَائِرِ الْإِسْلَام — the symbols of Islam. The majority of people there don't have beards, don't wear kufi, don't wear turbans. But you see genuine respect for the people who do. I'm walking down the street at rush hour and I'm just noticing — is anyone staring at me? Nobody. Everyone is going to work, but nobody is looking at us saying "look at this guy." Our color is different, our dress is different — nothing. There was no sense of making us feel uncomfortable or like outsiders. It was genuine respect, wherever you went, subhanAllah. Even if a person is not so practicing, but he sees this type of garb, he says: "Okay, you are a representative of the Deen."

That's something I'm afraid we're losing here. There was a time when people would respect scholars even though they were very far from the Deen. Maulana Sahib, Hafiz Sahib, Imam Sahib walks in — stay quiet, change the conversation, "we can't speak about trashy stuff right now." Out of respect for who's there. But that respect for scholarship is going. That's very dangerous. There has to be changes within us depending on who walks into the room.

Observations From the Masajid of Uzbekistan

Additionally, what we saw in the masajid — the masjid was quiet. You would come in early before salah and it was amazing. People were there performing their tahiyyat al-masjid, performing their sunnah, and then engaging in adhkar. Every masjid had these tasbihs all over — on their window sills, on stands. People would take them and do their adhkar. And likewise after salah, they would have multiple rounds of dhikr collectively. The imam would start and there would be pin-drop silence. You would hear the beads moving as you're sitting in the row — those on your right, those on your left — everyone just doing their adhkar. Then they would always have a recitation of the Quran.

Here's the order: the imam leads salah. After salam, he reads his basic astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah. Then Allahumma anta al-salam wa minka al-salam. Then Allahumma a'inni 'ala dhikrika wa shukrika wa husni 'ibadatik. Then he usually just recites the first part of Ayat al-Kursi — اللَّهُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّوم — and that's like a cue for the entire congregation to then recite Ayat al-Kursi. As it comes in the hadith:

(Sunan al-Nasa'i al-Kubra, Hadith 9928; al-Mu'jam al-Kabir of al-Tabarani)

The individual who recites Ayat al-Kursi after every single fard salah — nothing will prevent him from entering into paradise, except death. So they would recite Ayat al-Kursi. Thereafter, the imam would make a du'a — sometimes in Arabic, sometimes in the local Uzbeki language. And then they would always have a recitation of the Quran — sometimes the imam himself, sometimes he would call one of the qurra', who would come and do a short recitation. There was no chit-chatting, no "let's plan this, let's do that" — none of that. There was so much respect for the houses of Allah Ta'ala.

A Sign of the Day of Judgment

One of the signs of the Day of Judgment is raf' al-aswat — people raising their voices in the masajid. This is a sign the Prophet ﷺ prophesied for the Day of Qiyamah, that respect for the masajid will be gone.

The masajid will be full and packed — you see thousands and thousands of people coming to the masjid in droves and scores — وَهِيَ خَرَابٌ مِنَ الْهُدَى — but they will be completely, totally bereft of guidance.

عَامِرَةٌ can mean external and internal — beautiful, well-built — and can also mean populated. So you can have a masjid that is not just well-built, but populated, subhanAllah, and yet it is completely devoid of any guidance.

Especially in Ramadan nights, many masajid are filled with people. But filled with people doing what? If there are men and women — 18, 19-year-old boys and girls — rubbing shoulders with one another, chit-chatting over chocolate chip cookies and hot coffee in the lobby at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., and we think this is Deen — the Prophet ﷺ already warned us. Just because a masjid has got people does not mean guidance is coming from it. It has to be according to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. In the desire to fill up masajid at all cost, we end up doing things that take away the soul of the masjid, the soul of spirituality.

That's why the signs of the Hour will become so common — because people won't realize what they're doing is wrong. They will continue to do things which completely go against the foundations of the Deen.

The Masjid: Open to All, but With Respect

SubhanAllah, some people say the masjid is supposed to be open for everybody. Is that right? The masjid is open for everybody, regardless of what you're involved in. But the condition is: you have to come to repent, not to celebrate your sins in the masjid. Come to the masjid to repent, and no one will ask you what you did, where you did, why you did. But do not come and celebrate your sins in the house of Allah in front of people.

A person doesn't wear hijab outside — okay, we're not asking about that. But right now, when you come to the house of Allah, please wear the hijab. A person smokes — don't come to the masjid when you're high. Whatever the person does outside, we're not asking him. But please have respect for the house of Allah. That is something we all need to start demanding — in a nice manner. If someone is going through issues, by all means, don't berate anyone, don't call out anyone publicly. But privately speak to them. If we don't remind them what they're doing is wrong, it will continue to spread from one person to another.

The Importance of Dhikr After Salah

I want us all to practice dhikr after salah tonight in our 'Isha' prayer and make a habit of it after every single salah — do not stand up and leave. Complete your dhikr. When we prayed Jummah — 1,500, 1,800, 2,000 people, full, there was no place to stand — the entire crowd prayed four raka'at before Jummah and the four raka'at after Jummah. Not one individual, like an army, the entire crowd stands up and prays their sunnah. And after salah, the entire crowd prays — you can't even move.

This is where I found the power of culture. How many of these people wanted to pray, I don't know. How many people even know the surahs, I don't know. But the culture is so strong that there's no way to move. That is why our masajid need to make a culture — that when you come to the house of Allah, this is what is expected.

As Mufti Sahib was speaking about the dhikr and people not standing up after salah, I was just reminded of a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ when he actually tells us why people stand up after salah and run. He said:

Shaytan comes to a person and starts reminding him: "You have to take care of this, your family is waiting, your children are waiting, your boss is waiting, you have to respond to that message." He reminds him about everything. فَيَقُومُ — so he stands up, وَلَا يَقُولُهَا — and then he doesn't complete his adhkar. So when we sit after salah and there are a thousand and one things running through our minds, let us remember that this is a moment when we are fighting shaytan. We're making shaytan angry. Why not make shaytan cry?

The Visit to Shaykh 'Abd al-Halim in the Mountains

One morning we were sitting in the hotel in Bukhara having our breakfast, and there was a brother at the table next to us who started speaking about his Shaykh in the field of tasawwuf — the inner purification, the purification of the heart. Just like you have your 'aqeedah, fiqh, hadith, tafsir — you also have the science of tasawwuf.

In the famous hadith of Jibreel, when Jibreel عليه السلام came and asked the Prophet ﷺ about iman, Islam, and ihsan, he said regarding ihsan:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 50; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 8)

"That you worship Allah as if you see Him. And if you do not see Him, then indeed He sees you." From here the scholars have derived the field of tasawwuf.

This brother next to us was telling us how he has this elderly Shaykh — over 90 years of age, living up in the mountains. We were very curious, and we started asking him more about his Shaykh. We said: "Okay, why don't we go and meet him? This is such a senior scholar. Let's go." He kind of discouraged us — "No, you won't be able to go, it's very far away, there's snow up in the mountains." But we were insistent. After a lot of convincing — even the local brothers who were with us didn't feel it was a good idea — we said, no, we want to go. So the local brothers hired two drivers and two Kia vans — not at all fit to drive up the mountains. We said, "Bismillah, let's try. Allah Ta'ala will open up the doors."

It's a four-hour drive through the mountains — extremely bumpy. Just as we started the journey, right after breakfast, they stopped at a restaurant. They said: "Okay, we're going to have lunch over here." We said: "What, we just ate breakfast!" They said: "Listen, you better eat and eat well now, because once we go up, there's no food." Very interesting — they had this huge fish tank outside with fish swimming in there, and they literally caught the fish in front of us, fried it, and served it fresh.

Outside there was a whole strip of small shops — shacks, really. Each one selling the exact same things: nuts, dried prunes, dried apricots. Our honorable teacher, Shaykh 'Ubaidullah, mentioned in a comment: "SubhanAllah, it's amazing how Allah Ta'ala provides for all of these people — each one selling the exact same thing, yet each has his shop running, making enough for the day, able to take care of his family."

As the saying goes in Arabic:

If you don't know the address of your sustenance, don't worry — your sustenance knows your address. Your sustenance will make it to you. And Allah says:

"How many an animal does not carry its own provision — Allah provides for it and for you." The very Allah who takes care of them will take care of you as well. The Allah who fed you yesterday will feed you today as well.

Arriving at the Village

We continued the journey, driving through the mountains on an extremely bumpy road. Finally we got to the village. There's no signal — phones don't work, GPS doesn't work, nothing works up there. We rolled down the window and the first person we saw, we asked: "Brother, you know Shaykh 'Abd al-Halim?" He said: "Yeah, he's my neighbor." "Can you hop in the car and take us to his house?" He said: "Okay, sure." These village people are very laid back. He came along and took us to the house of Shaykh 'Abd al-Halim.

When we arrived, it was a little bit before Salat al-'Asr. We freshened up. His grandson came out to meet us and we asked: "Where's the bathroom?" He took us outside to these little sheds. We opened one — inside there was a pile of what looked like firewood, another pile of rocks, and a very deep hole in the middle. We thought it was a storage room. We opened the next one — same thing. We asked him: "This is the bathroom?" He said yes.

It was a reminder of what we read in the fiqh books — how they would use stones and pieces of wood for istinja because there's no toilet paper. And that's exactly what we were seeing in front of us. For water, they had a stream running down the mountains. There was still snow — we were very high up — but alhamdulillah, exactly the right amount had melted such that the makeshift road was clear. They had a little pipe from which water was coming non-stop, no faucet, no turning on and off. Just a stream running. And the water was extremely cold — some of us asked if someone could go boil some water inside.

SubhanAllah, though, the water was so fresh. Pure, crystal clear. After we were leaving we took some of our bottles and filled up with that water for the journey onwards — هَٰذَا عَذْبٌ فُرَاتٌ سَائِغٌ شَرَابُهُ.

Sitting With the Shaykh

After we freshened up, we went inside the house of this honorable Shaykh — just over 90 years of age, I believe 91. And he stood up to greet us. MashaAllah, the physical health Allah had given him — even at this elderly age, he stood up to greet us. He had prepared a feast — whatever he had in the house: bread, dates, chocolates, biscuits — he put it all out on the cloth. That's the tradition there.

When we sat down, he kept repeating the word "welcome, welcome" in the local language. The neighbor who was with us — that local brother we picked up on the way — said: "Please excuse the Shaykh, he's gotten a little bit senile because of his age. He went through two surgeries recently and because of this, he's not able to hear and doesn't understand properly." But as we started speaking to the Shaykh, yes, his memory was not as sharp as it probably was in yesteryears, but it definitely was not as bad as this person made it out to be. So much so that when that person walked out of the room, one of the brothers with us said: "You know, this guy — he's the one who has a problem. The Shaykh is fine."

The Shaykh had a few things he kept repeating — he kept repeating the ayah:

He kept repeating the importance of Tawheed — worshiping Allah alone — and Risalah, the Prophethood of the Prophet ﷺ. These few things he kept repeating over and over again. We tried to ask him a few questions, but it was difficult for him to hear and process and answer. But there's this idea of just suhbah — spending time with the pious — that has such a profound effect. Sometimes you have to benefit from a person's silence before you benefit from his speech. Just observing him, just being with him — a very profound effect of being in the company of the pious.

As the scholars say:

When you mention the names of the pious, the rahmah — the mercy of Allah — descends. So imagine when you're sitting in the company of the pious, how much mercy from Allah Ta'ala is descending at that time.

We sat with him for about an hour. Then before we left, he insisted — as is the culture there — that someone recite the Qur'an. The brothers kept insisting that I recite since I had become the dedicated qari of the trip, reciting at every grave or place we visited. So finally I put the phone down and recited a few verses of the Qur'an.

After that, we went down to his musalla to perform Salat al-'Asr with the Shaykh. SubhanAllah, at the age of 91, he was still performing salah on the ground — no chair, nothing — still going up and down. After salah, he gathered us and said: "Okay, let's have a dhikr majlis." He pulled out his tasbih and told one of his grandsons: "Go and bring tasbihat as gifts for all of our guests." The grandson came back with tasbihat for each of us. He gave Shaykh 'Ubaidullah a very nice one and the rest of us a simple one — as if he was expecting guests. He had no idea we were coming. Then we sat with him for a while doing dhikr — subhanAllah, alhamdulillah, la ilaha illallah, Allahu akbar — and we tried to ask him some more questions. At that point he had opened up a bit and we were having some fun requesting du'as from him.

After that, he was quite tired, and we helped him walk back to his house. Then we proceeded down from the mountains and stopped at the local masjid in the village for Salat al-Maghrib. The local Uzbeki brother with us insisted: "You have to lead the salah." He went and spoke to the management: "We have some scholars with us, I want one of them to lead the salah."

A Beautiful Inscription on the Wall

On the wall of that masjid, there was one line written — Mufti Sahib pointed it out to me and said: "When you go back, you have to tell people about this line." It was written:

"Hasten with tawbah — hasten to repent to Allah — before death overtakes you. And hasten with your salah, with your prayer, before you miss it." Because when that moment comes and it's too late and a person wants to make tawbah, Allah says:

It was a beautiful line that was inscribed — and this is literally the practice of the people. This is what you see within them: the Deen, the love for the Deen of Allah, instilled within them.

The Uzbek People Under Soviet Rule

As I was mentioning earlier, though some of them may not appear to be so religious outwardly — honestly, it's not their fault at all. They were under the Soviets for about 70 years. During that time, they had no connection to the Deen. Their masajid, their madaris, everything was shut down. And even now, though they've gained their independence, there are still a lot of restrictions from the side of the government. Recently only the ban on hijab was lifted. And even when it comes to the beard, many of them are not allowed to grow it out.

I was speaking to one of the hotel managers and when he saw me — without me saying anything — he said on his own: "I wish I could have a beard like yours. But over here, since I'm working in the public sphere, my boss doesn't allow me to grow out my beard."

You read many stories in the books of how they would hide in underground bunkers. Sometimes they would put alcohol bottles around the entrance so when the police would come, they would think "there's a bunch of drunkards here, no Muslims" — and then they would go deep into these underground bunkers, take whatever food they could, and stay there for weeks on end, memorizing the Qur'an, having lessons of hadith down there. There was so much difficulty. So it's not their fault that there isn't so much 'ilm today — a lot has been lost because of the circumstances they went through.

This is an important point: we should never look down upon them. Rather, it should be a moment of reflection that the peace and security Allah has given us, Allah can snatch away at any time. That's why we're taught to make du'a:

"O Allah, You grant us safety, peace, and security in our lands."

Though many of them perhaps don't appear to be so religious outwardly, the Deen — the love for the Deen — is in their hearts. When they hear about 'ulama, when they hear about hadith, when they hear about anything related to the Deen, they just love it. That's why they're flocking to the masjid. They may not have the knowledge many of us have, but they have that Deen in their hearts, they are practicing upon whatever they have, and they're there — they're part of that culture. And alhamdulillah, you see that there are a lot of efforts now to revive the Deen. Last week we spoke about Shaykh Muhammad al-Sadiq رحمه الله and his efforts. There is a lot of growth happening now, post the departure of the Soviets, to revive Islam in the country.

The Importance of Correct Methodology — Manhaj

Shaykh 'Awwamah رحمه الله, one of the leading scholars in the field of hadith today, has a beautiful statement:

"Whoever excels, whoever does well in life — you will always find within them the quality of good manners. And whoever fails, whoever is expelled, whoever is a loser — you will always find within them the quality of bad manners and lack of respect." This is perhaps one reason why Allah Ta'ala used these individuals for the preservation of the Deen, for defending the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ — He allowed this land to produce thousands and thousands of scholars because of the adab they had, the respect they have for the Deen of Allah.

Sincerity is not enough. You have to have the correct manhaj. You cannot just say "I'm sincere." As our ustadh gave the example — if you have a sincere but foolish friend, he can cause you a lot of harm. He said: one day a person was sitting with his friend, who threw a rock at him and he started bleeding on his face. He said: "Oh my God, what happened? Why did you do this?" He said: "My beloved friend, I saw a fly on your face and I wanted to remove it." He saw a fly on the face and threw a rock at him.

That's why Ali رضي الله عنه mentioned in Bidayat al-Hidayah and elsewhere: an intelligent enemy is better than a foolish friend. Because if your enemy is intelligent, you will know what his probable next step will be. But when you have a foolish friend, you honestly don't know what he's going to do — in trying to benefit you, he may end up severely harming you. So: sincerity is not sufficient. You have to have correct methodology.

Creating a Culture of Sunnah

Dear students, dear listeners, you will be told time and again that times are bad, the Day of Judgment is around the corner. But we cannot change people — this is absolutely incorrect thinking. There is still lots of good in people. What they are lacking is a strong leader — a strong leader to push them in a certain direction, to teach them. They're willing to listen. And you don't have to be a scholar for that. Each one of us needs to be a leader within our own homes. To say: "In my home, we're going to fast Mondays and Thursdays. In my home, I'm going to have miswaks — every member of the family will use the miswak. When we enter the house, every one of us will say as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah." You can create the culture.

Now imagine if you have 50 homes around the masjid, each one on Sunnah. Imagine what will happen to the house of Allah. The key thing is not just building another masjid and another musalla — the key thing is to do it on the proper methodology, the manhaj of Rasulullah ﷺ. Creating a culture of Sunnah in our masajid is very important.

Closing Reflections and Du'a

May Allah Ta'ala allow the Deen to grow back in Uzbekistan to what it was before — like how it was at the time of Imam Bukhari, Imam al-Marghinani, 'Allamah al-Maturidi — may Allah allow those giants to once again rise from the country of Uzbekistan.

JazakAllah khairah. We thank all of you for coming and benefiting. Insha'Allah, hopefully we are inspired to practice on some of the things we heard and shared today.