A Word on the Virtue of Dhikr Circles and Sessions of Sacred Knowledge

The Shaykh : I see that time is short, and we should make room for your questions rather than prolonging what we should present before your questions. However, I remind you with a brief statement: one of the means of knowledge and receiving it is directing every person of legal capacity to ask about what concerns him in his religion. This is because people differ in their needs; for example, there is a great difference between one who possesses the nisab for zakah and one who does not. The former must know the rulings of zakah that pertain to his wealth, whereas the latter, who is poor, does not have to. The examples of this are numerous and increasing. As it is said, "A free man is satisfied with a gesture." Therefore, it was part of the wisdom of legislation that Allah the Exalted made asking questions one of the ways to acquire knowledge, as He said in the noble verse: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) confirmed this in some of the authentic hadiths, such as the famous hadith in Sunan Abu Dawud and others: It has a context, but I do not wish to prolong the speech by mentioning it. So, it is a pity for the people today who are afflicted with turning away from attending sessions of knowledge, or perhaps more accurately, who are afflicted by the absence of such sessions to attend. We know that many of our Muslim brothers, the conscious youth, want to learn but cannot find anyone to teach them, unlike the situation in the past. I experienced some of this in my youth. Knowledge circles used to be held in mosques, especially the large, famous ones, with many circles that students of knowledge would frequent. But in this age, you see the mosques empty, with no sessions of knowledge. These sessions are truly sessions of dhikr, which, when mentioned in the hadiths of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), are meant to be sessions of knowledge. The intention is not the collective dhikr that the people of Sufism and innovation do not master anything else, and they do not know of sessions of dhikr except the collective dhikr that requires nothing of them except that they think the angels surround them and tranquility descends upon them merely for gathering to recite dhikr collectively. This is not prescribed. As for the sessions mentioned in the hadiths of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), such as his saying in the authentic, famous hadith: The intention behind such a session is only a session of knowledge, not a session of collective dhikr that is not prescribed.