After you finished your studies in elementary school; did you complete your academic studies?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Al-Huwaini: Okay; so after you finished your studies, you did not complete your academic studies...?
The Shaykh : I did not go beyond elementary school, and the reason for that goes back to my father. Perhaps this was a shot from one who did not aim, because in what I think and what I observed later, if I had continued that education, I would not have been able to be in the position I am in now regarding my studies. Because formal education, in reality, while it does facilitate the path for one who wants to make great strides in scientific research, this is very rare among those who graduate. So my father (may Allah have mercy on him) had a bad opinion of government schools, and he was right to do so; because they did not teach of the Shari'ah except what was closer to form than substance. And so he did not enroll me in "Madrassat al-Tajhiz" (the preparatory school), for example, which was the secondary school at that time in Syria. And so I began to study from my father in the areas of Hanafi fiqh and the science of morphology (sarf), and from another shaykh namedThe Shaykh : Sa'id Barhani, whom I later found out was a Sufi of a specific order. I read from thisThe Shaykh : shaykh some Hanafi fiqh as well; specifically "Ma'ariq al-Falah Sharh Nur al-Iydhah," and I also read from him some books of modern grammar and rhetoric from the works of some contemporaries. I completed the recitation of the Qur'an with tajwid from my father. At the same time, I was engaged in the profession of carpentry, which is called today "Arabic carpentry." I graduated from two carpentry teachers, one of whom was my uncle named Isma'il (may Allah have mercy on him), with whom I worked for two years, and the other was a Syrian known as Abu Muhammad, with whom I also worked for two years. My work with them was mostly in repairing and restoring old houses; because the old houses in the Levant were made of wood and mud brick, so with the passage of time, rain, snow, and the like, some sides of those houses would collapse; they needed an Arabic carpenter to fix them. So I would go out with him, and in the winter days, we mostly could not do any work. I would pass by my father, who was engaged in the profession of repairing watches from his homeland. One day, after I had returned from my teachers, and he had felt that there was no work that day because the weather was cloudy, he said: "It seems there is no work today." I said to him: "No, there is no work." He said: "What do you think? I see that this job is not a job or a profession. What do you think about working for me?" I said to him: "As you wish." He said to me: "Come up." His shop was raised a little above the ground; he was afraid of the humidity. From that day, I stayed with him until I graduated in the profession from him, and I opened a shop of my own. And so it was.
Other than that?
The Shaykh : I did not go beyond elementary school, and the reason for that goes back to my father. Perhaps this was a shot from one who did not aim, because in what I think and what I observed later, if I had continued that education, I would not have been able to be in the position I am in now regarding my studies. Because formal education, in reality, while it does facilitate the path for one who wants to make great strides in scientific research, this is very rare among those who graduate. So my father (may Allah have mercy on him) had a bad opinion of government schools, and he was right to do so; because they did not teach of the Shari'ah except what was closer to form than substance. And so he did not enroll me in "Madrassat al-Tajhiz" (the preparatory school), for example, which was the secondary school at that time in Syria. And so I began to study from my father in the areas of Hanafi fiqh and the science of morphology (sarf), and from another shaykh namedThe Shaykh : Sa'id Barhani, whom I later found out was a Sufi of a specific order. I read from thisThe Shaykh : shaykh some Hanafi fiqh as well; specifically "Ma'ariq al-Falah Sharh Nur al-Iydhah," and I also read from him some books of modern grammar and rhetoric from the works of some contemporaries. I completed the recitation of the Qur'an with tajwid from my father. At the same time, I was engaged in the profession of carpentry, which is called today "Arabic carpentry." I graduated from two carpentry teachers, one of whom was my uncle named Isma'il (may Allah have mercy on him), with whom I worked for two years, and the other was a Syrian known as Abu Muhammad, with whom I also worked for two years. My work with them was mostly in repairing and restoring old houses; because the old houses in the Levant were made of wood and mud brick, so with the passage of time, rain, snow, and the like, some sides of those houses would collapse; they needed an Arabic carpenter to fix them. So I would go out with him, and in the winter days, we mostly could not do any work. I would pass by my father, who was engaged in the profession of repairing watches from his homeland. One day, after I had returned from my teachers, and he had felt that there was no work that day because the weather was cloudy, he said: "It seems there is no work today." I said to him: "No, there is no work." He said: "What do you think? I see that this job is not a job or a profession. What do you think about working for me?" I said to him: "As you wish." He said to me: "Come up." His shop was raised a little above the ground; he was afraid of the humidity. From that day, I stayed with him until I graduated in the profession from him, and I opened a shop of my own. And so it was.
Other than that?
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.