Which is more rewarding: building mosques or building schools?

The questioner : Which is more rewarding: building a mosque or building Islamic schools for the learning of knowledge?

The Shaykh : The Salafi methodology is that one is able to answer these modern questions, unlike the Khalafi methodology, which knows nothing but standing upon what the later scholars have explicitly stated. We have many incidents that indicate the low rank or status these people have reached due to their rigidity in following their schools of jurisprudence. I will mention an incident regarding this issue: a man in Damascus, who appeared to be religious, was a large merchant with refrigerators for storing vegetables and meats. One day, an Armenian man, meaning from the residents of Armenia in the past, came to him and said, "I have pork that I want to store with you for a fee, and I will give you whatever you want." As a Muslim, first, and one committed to his religion and the rulings of his Shari'ah, second, the mere mention of the word "pig" made the hair on his body stand on end. However, there was something in this generous offer that convinced him, so a discussion arose between his intellect and his soul that commands evil. Then the religious intellect overcame the soul that commands evil. He said, "I must ask the people of knowledge." So he went to the Mufti of the Syrian lands and presented the story, wanting to know if it is permissible or not. The Mufti told him to write his question, so he wrote it and submitted it to the presence of the Mufti. This Mufti was the Mufti of Syria, not the Mufti of a district or a region, but the Mufti of all of Syria. He told him, "Come back in a week and take the answer." By the will of Allah, he did not know that he would need to prepare for a week, and if only it had succeeded. He came back after a week and said, "By Allah, the answer is not yet ready." This happened three times, each trip taking a week to bear. In the third week, he knocked on the door, and no one answered. He took the liberty of opening the door, and there he found the Grand Mufti, just like that, on the table, absorbed in sleep. He made a movement and woke up... "Peace be upon you." "We have found the answer for you." After three weeks, he found the answer. He gave him the answer, "May Allah reward you with good," and he exited the Mufti's office to the courtyard. He stood there reading, not understanding whether it was lawful or forbidden. Storing pork—this pork, is it forbidden or lawful? He did not understand. He read from the beginning, went back to the end, from the end to the beginning, and did not understand. He had an employee, a car driver, who was one of our Salafi brothers in Damascus, named Salah al-Jazairi. He said to him, "Salah, look at this fatwa; I am not understanding it, and it is not understanding me." Our friend Salah took it and read it, and the story was the same; he did not understand whether it was lawful or forbidden. Our friend said to him, "Come, I will take you to a man who is not a Mufti; he is my hourly worker, but he will make the matter clear to you." "By Allah, I am in the shop as usual." "Peace be upon you." "And upon you peace." They told him the story, and it was the fatwa that we had not understood whether it was lawful or forbidden. He read it and said, "The truth is with you," because he was a Shaykh who did not understand whether it was forbidden or lawful, and one who lacks a thing cannot give it. What am I doing?The Shaykh : The Grand Mufti, Allah is the Greatest, quoted from some books of jurisprudence that are not explicit on the subject of the issue, but have examples. For example, he quoted: "Is it permissible or not to transport wine on a Muslim's animal?" And just as our friend said in the issue, there are two opinions. It was stated in such-and-such a book: "If a dhimmi hires a Muslim to carry wine for him on his animal, so-and-so said it is not permissible and the fee is forbidden for him, and so-and-so said it is permissible and the fee is lawful for him." And so it was stated in such-and-such a book: "If a dhimmi hires a Muslim to build a church for him, is it permissible and the fee lawful for him, or not?" Again, we say the opinions are contradictory. And strange to the general people, like our friend, these two are quoting from books that are strange by their names. He says to you, for example, "It was stated in—please, rest and have your share... you are doing a medical fast... al-Bazzaziyyah such-and-such, it was stated in al-Bazzaziyyah such-and-such." And so the contradictory quotations. And unfortunately, despite the contradiction of the quotations quoted by the presence of the Mufti, he did not summarize them to give his personal opinion for this.The questioner : Rather, he concludes the fatwa by saying, "And from what has preceded, the answer to the question is known." So, tell me, what is the answer to the question? He did not give an answer. Why? Because there are two opinions in the issue, and he is not able to exercise independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) because ijtihad is forbidden among them. Their duty is to transmit the text and that is all. So this method can never give you an answer to such an issue. As for me, my opinion is that the question is wrong, because it stems from a temporary custom, namely a mosque and a school. Do you see how the matter was in the earliest, purest Salafi era? The mosques were the schools. Therefore, if it were valid to direct such a question, at the very least we would say there is no difference between the mosque and the school; the mosque is more eloquent than the school. But we say the question is wrong in its essence, because we must verify the common saying, "History repeats itself." We must return, in the end of times, to what was the case in the beginning of times. In matters of worship, this is how it should be. Mosques today are like churches, without comparison; mosques are like churches in terms of reality... the Shari'ah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is not truly established in them. Mosques are only for praying the prayer and locking the door, whereas they are different schools, as was the case in the first era. I am from the present generation, and I witnessed the old Umayyad Mosque here: a circle for learning hadith here, a circle for grammar here, a circle for Hanafi and Shafi'i jurisprudence, and so on. So the mosque was full of teaching and education. History mentions that even astronomy was taught in the mosques in the past eras. Therefore, we should not decide on such a question; rather, we must demolish it completely. The goal is to say:
Have you not seen that the sword's value decreases when it is said that the sword is sharper than the stick?
What brought the school to the mosque? These schools are suitable for those who do not have mosques. But for those who have mosques, they are mosques of voices and acts of worship, and they are mosques for teaching knowledge. Here is the wisdom of these schools that are in the mosques: they are restricted to teaching what is beneficial, not teaching what is harmful. Thus, the science of economics is not taught in the mosque, with its dealings in riba (usury or interest), precise calculations, and what relates to that, and so on. So making the school in the mosque becomes an unconscious material cause for distancing Muslims today from studying what is not permissible, because in schools today, the fine arts, singing, and proselytizing are taught, and so on. Therefore, I say there is no equality; the mosque is what takes precedence over the school. Then, when Muslims follow the path of their righteous predecessors, the mosque becomes better than a school. Therefore, you must build mosques.

The questioner : ...academic classes in the mosque. The classes surround the mosque, as the Turks did. I have seen some mosques in Turkey. What is your opinion of this matter?

The Shaykh : And, well, this is naturally different from my view regarding schools. But I also think it is better for them to be in the same mosque so that one can benefit from these non-regular lessons. I mean, when the schools have their own doors, even if they are in the mosque, the general worshippers do not attend a lesson, neither in hadith nor in fiqh nor in any of the beneficial sciences, unless they are officially designated as students from such-and-such a school. So making the schools into rooms around the mosque—this is common with us in Damascus. I recall, for example, a school with a strange name in a district called al-Qaymariyyah. The name of this school is al-Qittat, meaning cats. They say there was a specific endowment for feeding cats. This is, of course, something that contemporary writers take pride in. And while this pride is justified, they display it before the disbelievers today, claiming that civilization came from us, not from you, and that kindness to animals reached a level beyond imagination with us, but with reasonable logic and transmitted wisdom. We had in Damascus meadows endowed for the care of horses; whoever had a horse would come and graze it for free. And this school is called al-Qittat. The point is that it consists of a mosque, of course, facing the qiblah, with rooms to the west and east. These rooms are schools, meaning school classrooms. We also have Sultan Salim Mosque in Damascus. If you go to Damascus, it is near the hospital they call the National Hospital, which was formerly called the Hospital for Strangers. There are also many rooms on both sides there, in the Turkish style, with a small dome over each room. Yes, I do not see this separation between the mosque and the school, because first, according to our methodology, which says
The Shaykh : "Every good is in following the predecessors, and every evil is in the innovation of the successors"
The Shaykh : And second, there is a reduction in the good. When the organized circles and organized lessons, which we want to place in rooms with doors closed to the students, confined and counted, are put in the mosque, the benefit extends beyond those students. And in reality, as I mentioned, I have observed many circles in the Umayyad Mosque that students of knowledge used to attend. Even though in some of these circles there are things we condemn, such as their gathering for dhikr that is not prescribed, and reciting what they call religious anthems, and swaying to the right and left. But the benefit is undoubtedly broader and more comprehensive if the lessons are open and not restricted to schools. But unfortunately, taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) prevails among Muslims, not only for the Muslim fathers and grandfathers, but taqlid even for the Westerners. This is the reality of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: , and in a narration of al-Tirmidhi: