What are the most important books in all disciplines for the student of knowledge?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : May Allah reward you, O Shaykh. You are aware that in these days, the writings and compositions have multiplied...
The Shaykh : Multiplied what?
The questioner : The writings and compositions.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : In all disciplines.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : So if you would clarify for us the most important books in all disciplines for the student of knowledge? Please inform us, may Allah reward you.
The Shaykh : First, may Allah bless you. I do not encompass all these disciplines, that is one thing, and I do not encompass everything that has been composed in a single discipline. If that is the case, then Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity. However, I advise you with a general advice: stick to the books of the predecessors, stick 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 generations, 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, the doctor who is doctor number one thousand and two hundred and one thousand... very great, if you were to take him out of his path, he would fall, he would fall. These people are superficial. Most of what they write, we say, may be unedited or even distorted from the original, because they do not know the meanings well, and then they quote from this one and that one and this one, and it becomes mixed up. So my advice to students of knowledge in general is to take from the books of the predecessors, which are more blessed, less contrived, and less verbose. With the later generations, you read a page or two and you do not get more than two lines of fluff! But the books of the earlier generations have blessing, subhan Allah! Because they do not have contrivance, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) says: Sometimes we find university theses where the discussion between scholars is written, and then it says "the first group argued with such and such" and lists it, and "the second group argued with such and such" and lists it, whereas you find this discussion that took ten pages 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. Yes.
The questioner : In fiqh, which book do we take?
The Shaykh : I mean, like al-Mughni by Ibn Qudamah, Sharh al-Muhadhdhab by al-Nawawi. This is what I know; there may be other books that I do not know about.
The Shaykh : Multiplied what?
The questioner : The writings and compositions.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : In all disciplines.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : So if you would clarify for us the most important books in all disciplines for the student of knowledge? Please inform us, may Allah reward you.
The Shaykh : First, may Allah bless you. I do not encompass all these disciplines, that is one thing, and I do not encompass everything that has been composed in a single discipline. If that is the case, then Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity. However, I advise you with a general advice: stick to the books of the predecessors, stick 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 generations, 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, the doctor who is doctor number one thousand and two hundred and one thousand... very great, if you were to take him out of his path, he would fall, he would fall. These people are superficial. Most of what they write, we say, may be unedited or even distorted from the original, because they do not know the meanings well, and then they quote from this one and that one and this one, and it becomes mixed up. So my advice to students of knowledge in general is to take from the books of the predecessors, which are more blessed, less contrived, and less verbose. With the later generations, you read a page or two and you do not get more than two lines of fluff! But the books of the earlier generations have blessing, subhan Allah! Because they do not have contrivance, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) says:
The affectationists are ruined.
هلك المتنطّعونThe questioner : In fiqh, which book do we take?
The Shaykh : I mean, like al-Mughni by Ibn Qudamah, Sharh al-Muhadhdhab by al-Nawawi. This is what I know; there may be other books that I do not know about.