Explaining the Best Books for the Student of Knowledge
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
As you know, in these days, writings and compositions have multiplied in all disciplines. If you would explain to us the most important books in all disciplines for seeking knowledge, please inform us, may Allah reward you.
First: May Allah bless you. I do not encompass all these disciplines, nor do I encompass everything that has been written in a single discipline. If that is the case, then Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity.
But I advise with a general advice: You should turn to the books of the predecessors; the books of the earlier generations, for they are more blessed, more meticulous, and issued from faith. They are not infallible, but the later scholars, as we have seen, have more superficial knowledge. There is no deeply rooted knowledge. For this reason, if you were to take this great doctor, who is a doctor of a thousand and two hundred and a thousand, and remove him from his path, he would fall. These people are superficial in most of what they write.We say: And it may be that their work is not edited or is also distorted from the original, because they do not know the meanings well. Then they quote from this and that and this, and it becomes mixed up. So my advice to students of knowledge in general is to take the books of the predecessors, which are more blessed and less contrived and verbose. With the later scholars, you read a page or two and you only get two lines; it is fluffed up. But the books of the first generations contain blessing, glory be to Allah! Because they did not have contrivance.And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) says: (The overzealous are ruined) Sometimes we find university theses where the discussion between scholars is written, and it says: "The first group argued with such and such," and it lists them, "The second group argued with such and such," and it lists them. Meanwhile, you find this discussion that has become ten pages, and you find it in only two pages with the predecessors, like the author of al-Mughni, and Sharh al-Muhadhdhab, and others. So my advice to my brothers, the students of knowledge, is to focus on the books of the predecessors.
The questioner: In jurisprudence, which book do we take?Answer: Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudamah, and Sharh al-Muhadhdhab by al-Nawawi. This is what I know. There may be other books about which I am not aware.
First: May Allah bless you. I do not encompass all these disciplines, nor do I encompass everything that has been written in a single discipline. If that is the case, then Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity.
But I advise with a general advice: You should turn to the books of the predecessors; the books of the earlier generations, for they are more blessed, more meticulous, and issued from faith. They are not infallible, but the later scholars, as we have seen, have more superficial knowledge. There is no deeply rooted knowledge. For this reason, if you were to take this great doctor, who is a doctor of a thousand and two hundred and a thousand, and remove him from his path, he would fall. These people are superficial in most of what they write.We say: And it may be that their work is not edited or is also distorted from the original, because they do not know the meanings well. Then they quote from this and that and this, and it becomes mixed up. So my advice to students of knowledge in general is to take the books of the predecessors, which are more blessed and less contrived and verbose. With the later scholars, you read a page or two and you only get two lines; it is fluffed up. But the books of the first generations contain blessing, glory be to Allah! Because they did not have contrivance.And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) says: (The overzealous are ruined) Sometimes we find university theses where the discussion between scholars is written, and it says: "The first group argued with such and such," and it lists them, "The second group argued with such and such," and it lists them. Meanwhile, you find this discussion that has become ten pages, and you find it in only two pages with the predecessors, like the author of al-Mughni, and Sharh al-Muhadhdhab, and others. So my advice to my brothers, the students of knowledge, is to focus on the books of the predecessors.
The questioner: In jurisprudence, which book do we take?Answer: Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudamah, and Sharh al-Muhadhdhab by al-Nawawi. This is what I know. There may be other books about which I am not aware.