BEAUTIFUL.. "I see that occupying oneself with jurisprudence (fiqh) or learning hadiths is hardly sufficient to rectify the heart, unless one adds to this the reading of heart-melting traditions (raqa’iq) and the study of the lives of the pious predecessors (al-salaf al-salihin). For they reached the objective of the texts and transcended the external form of the prescribed duties to taste their inner meanings and intent. I do not inform you of this save after personal exposure and experience. For I have found that the majority of scholars and students of hadith are mainly concerned with attaining the briefest chain of transmission, or to increase the collections of hadiths narrated by a single narrator or dealing with a single theme or subject. While the majority of jurists concern themselves with dialectics or how to win arguments. So how can hearts ever be softened by such things? Previously, groups of the predecessors would visit a pious person only to observe his manners and conduct, not to learn knowledge from him. For the fruits of knowledge lie in comportment and conduct; so understand this. Hence combine the learning of fiqh and hadith with study of the lives of the predecessors and the worldly renunciants (zuhhad) so that this may be a cause for your heart to soften. To this end I have written monographs on each of the famous and noble personalities, detailing their lives and character. I have written one on al-Hasan [al-Basri], Sufyan al-Thawri, Ibrahim b. Adham, Bishr al-Hafi, Ahmad b. Hanbal, Ma‘ruf [al-Karkhi], as well as other scholars and renunciants. And God grants the enabling grace to achieve the objective. However, actions cannot be rectified with a paucity of knowledge. For their example is like that of a commander and a subordinate, with the soul stubbornly between the two. Only with the combined efforts of the commander and the subordinate can the goal be reached. And we seek refuge in God from apathy." - Ibn al Jawzi [Sayd al-Khatir (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 2004), 228-9]
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 21:08:36 +0000
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