Important Guidance for New/Aspiring Students of Knowledge

[justabro]

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah

In sha Allah, I intend to devote this thread to providing direction for new or aspiring students of knowledge, as I've realized for quite some time that most of our young Tullab al-Ilm or aspiring Tullab lack direction and guidance. We have seen the fruits of this in the results that have been produced over the years. In large part, the students who have studied in Saudi universities or elsewhere have come out without a proper foundation and often times with strange ideas that they have then promoted, spreading confusion and sometimes causing controversy. Madkhalism is just one example of that, and it's certainly not the only one.

One part of the problem is that young students tend to focus on learning certain details of certain fashionable issues that are 'hot topics' of the moment, while they neglect learning the fundamentals.

Basically, my goal is to give advice (and I hope HH, AZ, Abu_Abdallah and others will pitch in as well, in sha Allah) about how to study, what to study, and answer questions.

I'm sure there are other aspects to this problem that need to be addressed that are slipping my mind right now or will come to light as the discussion develops, in sha Allah.

For starters, for those who can read Arabic, I highly recommend reading this book by Abu Fihr al-Salafi. He has alot of excellent advices about Talab in general and programs of study for specific fields. The only disclaimer: his advice on what to study for Fiqh and Usul is not very good and I'm unimpressed with it, but otherwise, his recommendations are very good, particularly his recommendations on Aqidah.

[Harris Hammam]

To get out from being within the scope of a layman to a beginner student of knowledge [as quickly as possible], the method was well explained professionally by Ustadh Shakur Rehman in the Tayyibun Annual Conference of 2010, in East London Mosque, on a Sunday a few weeks prior to Ramadan. [I've forgotten whether he talked about Arabic though - read on]

Arabic language is a must. By Arabic, I'm not talking about those wishy washy Arabic courses. For the Arabic of the Kitab and Sunnah when you are not in an Arabic environment, nothing beats the traditional approach. For that, you need a traditional teacher with innovative modern methods (you don't want a way-too-old traditional teacher who would hamper progress). Nothing beats a face-to-face experience. Ebrahim College in East London is a good example as well. But...

Though I have not personally participated, but the hype surrounding Maulana Yusuf Mullan's online course ('Instructor' on Sunniforum) is supposed to be great; it would be no surprise to me if it is.

Make no mistake about it: if the Darul Uloom style of teaching Arabic can be optimised and tailored for non-Darul Uloom students at a mass level, that would be of a huge benefit to the Ummah. I would really love it if I could get the chance to share my Arabic knowledge that way and test out its benefits, physically or online.

A really, really nice thread.

[Abu Ray Ray]

Ustadh HH, Have you got a link for ustadh shakur rehman talk?

[Harris Hammam]

AH/HP, can either of you grab hold of it?

[Abdullah11]

Jazak Allahu khairan bro justabro. What do you think of bakr abu zayd's book on ilm?

[justabro]

In my opinion, all of Sh. Bakr Abu Zayd's works, short or long, are worth reading, even where I don't agree with some of his views. Here is the book and also the sharh of ibn Uthaymin.

مكتــبـة الأصالة للكتـب: حلية طالب العلم ( word + PDF ) المؤلف الشيخ بكر بن عبدالله أبوزيد
شرح حلية طالب العلم ابن عثيمين.pdf - 4shared.com - document sharing - download - abc

[Hamza Patterson]

AH/HP, can either of you grab hold of it?

If Tayyibun have released it then it should be pretty easy to upload or share the link, however if they haven't I would need to ask them

[Abu Najaax]

Assalamu aleykum, Justabro could you please expand on Sh. Bakr's (rahimahullah) statement:

عدم الاشتغال بالمطولات وتفاريق المصنفات قبل الضبط والإتقان لأصل

ه

From your observations is this one of the great pitfalls when a person starts to study ?

[justabro]

Assalamu aleykum, Justabro could you please expand on Sh. Bakr's (rahimahullah) statement:

ه

From your observations is this one of the great pitfalls when a person starts to study ?

It is the reason why the average salafi is a mujtahid in about 10 or so issues, but probably wouldn't know basics of Fiqh, Aqidah, Tafsir, etc.

[justabro]

It is the reason why the average salafi is a mujtahid in about 10 or so issues, but probably wouldn't know basics of Fiqh, Aqidah, Tafsir, etc.

I should add, that typically the ijtihad on about 5 or so of those 10 issues will be some disaster like "women can't trim their facial hair till it reaches fist-length" and other such gems.