Instilling Knowledge in Ourselves & Our Families - Shaykh Wasim Kempson

Khutbah Opening

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَسْتَهْدِيهِ، وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ

أَرْسَلَهُ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى بِالْحَقِّ بَشِيرًا وَنَذِيرًا وَدَاعِيًا إِلَى اللَّهِ بِإِذْنِهِ وَسِرَاجًا مُنِيرًا، وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ الطَّيِّبِينَ الطَّاهِرِينَ وَمَنْ سَارَ عَلَى نَهْجِهِمْ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ

Indeed, all praise and thanks is due to Allah. We praise Him, we thank Him. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah — jalla wa 'alā — who is free of any partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam is his final messenger.

The Perfection of the Deen

My dear brothers and sisters, I want to mention and start with a topic which starts from the fact that Allah — akmal ad-deen — completed our religion. And that there is no need for any one person in any era or time for them to add to this beautiful deen.

Allah revealed on the day of Arafah during the Hajj of an-Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam:

That today I have perfected your religion and completed my favour upon you and named Islam as your religion.

So the deen of Islam, alhamdulillah, is perfect. Allah gave us everything that we need to know — the path, the blueprint for us to follow — to be from the people of al-Jannah and how to stay away and to avoid being from the people of the Hellfire. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam explained everything to us that we need to know, warned us of every danger, and anything that would take us away from the path of Allah.

A Time of Strangeness

But we are living in a time of strangeness. We are living in a zaman in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam warned us a time would come — and how many narrations begin:

— that there would be a time that would come upon a people — whether it would be people like ar-Ruwaybida or those unknown people speaking about great matters that affect many Muslims, as we have mentioned before.

Similarly, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam informed us that knowledge would slowly but surely disappear. And if you might say, "Isn't the knowledge in the books? Are the books disappearing?" The books are there. But throughout times, the books were not the places that the people would go to to seek knowledge — rather it would be the Ahl al-'Ilm, Ahl adh-Dhikr, the ulama and the scholars — this is where knowledge would be taken from.

But if you ask yourself — or you ask others, maybe you ask the next generation or the older generation — if you talk about who were the ulama of your younger days, who were the people of knowledge that the people would refer to, who were they? They have passed on. Now in the year 2021, if you ask the people:

Who are the scholars? Who are those people that you regularly refer to? There are, alhamdulillah, for example, conferences that occur once, twice, maybe thrice a year — but who are those people of knowledge that you refer to concerning your daily affairs of your deen?

The Disappearance of Knowledge

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us in a sound hadith:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 100; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2673)

That knowledge isn't just stripped away from the people just like that. But knowledge is taken away by the taking of the ulama, by the taking of the knowledgeable people. Until there was a time when there were no ulama. The people — what did they do? They took ignorant people as sources of knowledge. They are asked and they give answers with no knowledge. They are misguided and they misguide others.

So it is upon every single one of us to ask ourselves — and those who are under our responsibility, our children and so on — how are they learning? How are they being taught with regards to their deen? Easily, months and years can pass, and when our children reach adulthood, what assessment — what foundations — have they been given? What have they been taught to remain upon the deen of Allah?

The Responsibility of Teaching Our Families

It is upon us to ask Allah to keep us firm upon the deen, to protect our children. But wahy — revelation — will not fall upon your children for them to be guided. They need to be taught and they need to be shown. And in a time where ilm, or knowledge, is becoming more difficult to get hold of — where it is thought that access to scholars is so much easier with the internet, telephones, and technology — the actual opposite is happening. Twenty to twenty-five years ago, somehow there was a connection with ulama even though there was no such thing as the internet in the form that we have now.

So we need to ask ourselves about the direction of what we are doing with regards to instilling knowledge in ourselves and in our families.

The Companion Who Died Due to Ignorance

Some companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam travelled north, and on this journey there was a small group of them. One of them fell and cut his head, and there was blood pouring from his head. They took rest that night while this companion — radhiyAllahu 'anhu — was injured. He woke up in the morning having ghusl needing to be done; he was in a state of janabah. He needed to perform ghusl. So he did not know what to do. He asked his companions, "What do I do? Do you find for me a permission to make tayammum?" They said, "No, you need to make ghusl." He made ghusl and he died.

This news came back to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he was told about what happened. And he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said: "They killed him — may Allah fight against them." The ruling that they gave led to the death of this individual. "If only they had asked" — because they did not know.

If one does not know, the cure for not knowing — for ignorance — is just to ask. We are warned by Allah in many places. Our Lord has made forbidden many things, from them — to speak about Allah's deen by that which you do not know.

Where Do We Start?

How many opportunities and ways do we have — because we are not living in a time where there is absolutely no recourse or connection with Ahl al-'Ilm, with the people of knowledge — there are. But because the broad spectrum of who we can refer to or what to refer to has become so diluted and confused, people do not know what to do. So where do I start? What do I do?

There are many ways, many things you can do. Nobody is asking you to go to Sahih al-Bukhari and start reading from that. But start with what the generations before us would start with — something that is accessible and easy for us. An example: the 40 Hadith of Imam al-Nawawi. This compilation of 42 or so hadith covers all aspects of our deen — the articles of faith, the pillars of Islam, manners, characteristics, all the mabadi of deen — the introductory affairs of our religion can be found in these 40 or so hadith.

And imagine going through those narrations one by one, understanding them correctly. There are so many explanations out there — in book form, in recorded lecture form. It could be said: if you go through the 40 Hadith of Imam al-Nawawi properly and correctly with a teacher, you may be in the top 10% of people in terms of knowledge in Islam — maybe an exaggeration, but if you were to go through this correctly, how much you would raise yourself in terms of your basic knowledge in Islam. Matters which we do not have an excuse not to know.

So this may be an area, something you can think about. You can start with yourself, with your families — how to introduce some knowledge into your home. And you start with yourself. Allah tells us:

Save yourselves and your families from the Hellfire. How do you start doing that? By removing jahl — removing ignorance — from yourself, and replacing that with ilmun nafi', with beneficial knowledge. Knowledge which involves:

Starting with that which Allah has told us and that which His messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has told us.

The Necessity of the Scholars

And not to listen to individuals or people who hold the understanding that says, "I'm going to refer to the Quran and Sunnah myself. I'm going to refer to the sources myself." The best of nations never did that. The tabi'un, the students of the companions, never said to the Sahabah, "We don't need you — we're just going to go to the statements of Allah and the messenger and we'll understand it ourselves." They were reliant. They felt it is a must to go to the generation before them, to learn from them, to understand the texts in the correct fashion. And this same methodology continued throughout the ages.

So for people to disassociate themselves from the people of knowledge is a clear marker that the person is on a path of dalalah — that the person is on a way of misguidance. Saying that they themselves are the ones who are going to interpret, that they have no link to the ulama, that they do not quote the ulama — and if they are asked, "Who did you study with?" — "I can't tell you and I won't tell you." These are clear signs that this individual is to be marked off. There has to be a link with the ulama.

And so we need to ask ourselves: if there are matters of the deen that we do not know, who do we ask and who do we refer to? And when was the last time I actually asked a person of knowledge about a matter? Or is it that in the past year I never asked one person about a matter of my deen — everything and anything came past my way and I had an answer for it? How can that be? There are matters of the religion — and you had answers for everything? Nobody has answers for everything. We are all in need of referring back to the people of knowledge — if not for matters of halal and haram, then to advise you as the companions would advise each other, to fear Allah — jalla wa 'alā. "How is your iman? Let us sit together to mention and remember Allah."

Closing Du'ā

We ask Allah to guide us to the straight path. We ask Allah to protect us from ignorance and all of its ills.