A speech by Ibrahim Shuqqa on the etiquette of receiving and transmitting knowledge from scholars, with praise for the Shaykh’s status.

The Shaykh : You have gifted us, and may Allah reward you with good.
Abu Malik: May Allah forgive us... Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, none can mislead, and whom He leaves to mislead, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows, the most truthful speech is the Book of Allah, the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and the worst of matters are their innovations. Every innovation is a religious innovation, every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. My brothers, may Allah bless you, reward you with good, and make you a means of connection to Him, so that you remain on the path of truth through Him. May the truth be strengthened by you and you be strengthened by this truth, and may you be, if Allah wills, worthy of carrying this call, which we hope Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) will support with victory from Him, and make us among its supporters, those who work to raise its banner, call to it, and spread it across the horizons. I consider speaking in the presence of our Shaykh and teacher, Abu Abd al-Rahman Muhammad al-Nasir al-Albani, a great honor, first because I am not accustomed to being the speaker before him, nor even the speaker who speaks while he is present.The Shaykh : Abu Abd al-Rahman Muhammad al-Nasir al-Albani, I consider this a great honor, first because I am not accustomed to being the speaker before him, nor even the speaker who speaks while he is present.

The Shaykh : There is blessing in you.
Abu Malik: But my Shaykh’s desire took precedence over my own desire, so I find myself speaking to you as one with little merchandise, possessing only a little to offer, advising myself before offering it to you. Second, some of my speech serves as a reminder to you and to me of what a student of knowledge must be. I say that the presence ofThe Shaykh : among us is a great favor that Allah has bestowed upon us, a blessing we have not appreciated to its full extent. If we or the Shaykh have any right over us, the least we can do is strive for him, night or day, to take from the abundance of knowledge Allah has granted him. We are in dire need, in this land and in other lands of the Muslims, not of all knowledgeThe Shaykh : of all knowledge,The Shaykh : of all knowledge. This is a very difficult matter, as it requires complete dedication and sitting with him in all the hours in which he can benefitThe Shaykh : at any time of night or day. Since this is not achieved and is not easy, it is not difficult for us to seize such opportunities and take advantage of such occasions to gather with him and sit as the early students used to sit with the previous scholars. I do not say this as praise or eulogy for the Shaykh, nor against him, for he is worthy of all praise, honor, and eulogy, not from me, but from everyone who is more knowledgeable than me and knows his worthThe Shaykh : and his status. This leads me to move from this introduction, in which I do not consider myself to have praisedThe Shaykh : him, to another matter that all students of knowledge must know, which is the etiquette of receiving and taking from Shaykhs and scholars. We read in the history of our scholars who traveled across the horizons and roamed them, recording their knowledge. One of them might have reached a far point in knowledge, but upon hearing that so-and-so among the people of knowledge, perhaps of a lower rank and lesser status in knowledge in such-and-such a region or country, would head toward him, either on foot or by riding, according to his financial capacity, to go to thisThe Shaykh : to take from him. From this, the history of this knowledge shows the great ones taking from the lesser ones. How much more so are we with our Shaykh and teacher, the mark of the time in the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), while we are scattered drops, with what our chests contain of some of the knowledge of His Book and the knowledge of the Sunnah of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that Allah has bestowed upon us. Therefore, I advise you and myself not to waste a single minute from which we can benefit from the knowledge ofThe Shaykh : may Allah bless him. But let us not forget a second etiquette: the student of knowledge must ask good questions and know where the word that comes from his tongue falls in the heart ofThe Shaykh : and his mind, not merely to gain his pleasure, for this is a matter that must be striven for. But so that his question is beneficial and so that the one being asked knows how to answer his question. It was said long ago: "A good question is half of knowledge," and of course, the answer is the other half. A good question indicates two things in the self ofThe questioner : first, it indicates thisThe questioner : person’s desire for knowledge and his sincerity in it. Then it indicates that he is proficient in this issue or not proficient, but at least he is proficient in the question that leads to knowing this issue or that. Therefore, it is necessary thatThe questioner : he asks good questions. As for the third matter, there must be humility from the student of knowledge toward his Shaykh. We are in a time when this character, which was prevalent among students of knowledge in past eras and previous centuries, is no longer present. We see that when a student of knowledge takes some issues, he becomes rich with them or thinks he has become rich with them, and flies with them in joy. He barely finishes presenting these issues or emptying them from his mind with words from his tongue before he returns poor and destitute in the issues of knowledge, searching the corners of his self for an issue and not finding it. Where does he find this issue or that which he did not humble himself before his Shaykh while wanting to ask about this issue or that? He finds it withThe Shaykh : the one he thought he had equaled in knowledge or surpassed, or perhaps he found something from his Shaykh and thought in his self, or with a bad assumption, that his Shaykh did not want to benefit him in this issue, so he turns his face away from his Shaykh. This is the raging evil that, if it strikes a student of knowledge, becomes a back-breaker for him. Therefore, the student of knowledge must also be humble. As I have said repeatedly, we are students of knowledge who think we are drawing from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Yes, perhaps we have benefited with knowledge, but we lack something else, which is good etiquette withThe Shaykh : him. Therefore, for the student of knowledge to benefit from his Shaykh, he must combine two things: striving to seek knowledge, and then etiquette withThe Shaykh : Through humility, good listening, and good observation and assessment of the shaykh from whom one takes knowledge. So, as I have said repeatedly and am mentioning a second time, we have indeed obtained some of the scholarly issues, but we have not obtained the required etiquette in taking knowledge from the shaykhs. How much we need the knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah, and then the etiquette of the people of etiquette, those known as the people of the path and the spiritual experiences, whom we know in our time as the Sufis. But our knowledge, without doubt, completes the etiquette or fills the deficiency in the etiquette of those people, so that we combine the correct etiquette with the correct knowledge. And in that way, the student of knowledge benefits from his shaykh. Also, it is obligatory for him to be sincere in seeking knowledge. Then there is a fourth issue, and may my shaykh, may Allah bless him, permit me to say it: it is necessary for the student of knowledge who carries an issue and has exhausted it from all its sides with its evidence, and has investigated it in its details, its apparent and hidden aspects, and whatever can encompass it from near or far, to convey this issue to his relatives, his family, his children, his neighbors, and the Muslims whom he is able to contact and benefit with these issues that he has benefited from. The life of knowledge is in two things: it is in study and reading, and then in giving and bestowing. This is how knowledge is. So the student of knowledge, in his own view at least, knows whether he has benefited or not. These are the issues I wanted to remind you of, so that we may all, if Allah wills, be clear about the scholarly issues or about the morals of the students of knowledge that must be present in the student of knowledge. Let us recall a past whose light shone in the horizons, in a present that has darkened, refuge in Allah, except for a little bit of light that has begun to spread or seep into the horizons to spread as it spread in the past centuries, if Allah wills. And we ask Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, to make us among those who listen to the statement and then follow the best of it. And I now yield the speech to our shaykh and our teacher, may Allah reward him with good and bless us in his age, prolong it, and grant him health and well-being, and bestow upon him from His bounty in this world and the Hereafter, and make him always a place of trust and hope with his knowledge for all Muslims. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon his family and his Companions.