Roots Of Knowledge ROK 😊

The Rabbis of Madina did not accept Islam because they wanted to stay relevant to their own people. Today, many Muslims on social media are sadly losing their faith in order to stay relevant to the algorithm.

register: https://as-suffa.org/blog/events/marriage-is-from-my-sunnah/

Books used for preparing for the course this Saturday 6th

Learn about marriage to appreciate it From all of my own research and interactions with people about marriage troubles, I've learnt that the majority of problems between husband and wife are founded on three basic problems: 1. Failure to grasp each other's backgrounds until its too late 2. Inability to listen and communicate honestly until the deep damage is done. 3. Underestimating the necessity of discussing and practising intimacy until they seek it elsewhere Its pointless trying to wish everything gets better if you dont deal with it practically first InshAllah ill be touching on these topics this Saturday, the 6th, at Assuffa. Links in the comments

ماذا أقول عن كلية أبراهيم؟ لم أكن أتوقع ما رأت أم عيني ولا ما قرع سمعي وليس الخبر كالمعاينة فما شعرت حين زرت كلية إبراهيم التي تقع في مركز مدينة لندن فوق ما تصفه كلماتي ولكن الإناء يترشح بما فيه. وهذا ما أحيى في نفسي الكتابة باللغة العربية ونبش ما دفنته الأيام وأنسته الخطب فدونكم نبذة من رحلتي إلى تلك المدرسة الدينية: كنت أتخيل في نفسي بأني سأجد نفس الهيكل المدرسي المنتشر في بلادنا اليوم طابق النعل بالنعل لا يجاوزونه قدر أنملة ألا هو عدم الاهتمام بتطور الأساليب التدريسية وانتقاء المناهج المفيدة المناسبة مع الجيل الراهن من المسلمين والمسلمات لا سيما مع ما يظهر من انحطاط الاستعداد العلمي فإذا قلت بأني فوجئت بما لدى هؤلاء أهل كلية أبراهيم فلا أكن مبالغا بهذه المقالة بدأنا ـ أساتذة الصفةـ السفر حين فلق الصبح فلذا لم حظي من النوم فأخذتني سنة و غلبتني عيناي أثناء الرحلة. ولكن سير السيارة لا تيسر لراكب نومة فكان نومي بين أضغاث أحلام وأصوات عجلات تسرع حينا وتبطئ آخر فاصبح الركاب تغشى طائفة منهم أمنة و نعاس وطائفة لم يمسها من ذلك شيء. استغرق الرحلة حوالى ثلاث ساعات فوصلنا الساعة العاشرة والنصف تقريبا وقد اتفقنا بالقدوم الساعة التاسعة وعشرين دقيقة فاخلفنا الميعاد بساعة أو ما تزيد على ذلك من غير ملكنا. والذي له أدنى إلمام بشوارع لندن يعرف جيدا ما يعاني كل من حاول أن يجلس مقعد السائق . وليس هذا فحسب بل ريث ما يحسب أحد أنه قد خرج من عقبة واجهته عقبات ومنها تيسر موقف المركب. على كل حال كان المفروض أن نحضر الدرس مبكرا لأحد كبار الأساتذة الأديب الحبيب مولانا مجاهد حفظه الله ونفعنا الله بعلومه وكرمه وحبه للتعليم . ولكن سبق القدر الإلهي فالله قد يعوض المرأ خيرا مما فاته رحبنا الشيخ فرحان أحد خريجين الكلية وذهب بنا إلى قاعة الدرس وهي تقع في الطبقة العليا في البناء . وذلك أمر آخر خلاف ما توقعت فإني كنت أتخيل بناء شامخا مميزا بساحة واسعة وطبقة فوق طبقة مثل ما يوجد للكليات الأخرى فوجدت كلية إبراهيم ليست تعريفا عن لبنات وجدران مادية ولو قلت أن كلية إبراهيم عبارة عن جهد وفكر وحب وتربية متوارثة من لدن صاحب الرسالة عليه أفضل الصلوات وأتم التسليمات تتمثل في صورة معلم وطالب يبتغون فضلا من الله تعالى ورضوانه فلا أأراه مبالغة وإطراء وكيف يكال ويوزن ما لا يجازيه إلا العليم العزيز فكان أول شآبيب الزيارة التي علقت بسويدات قلبي سماع الدرس باللغة العربية الفصيحة فشعرت كأني في حلقة من درس الأدباء القدامى تحت ظل نخلة في إحدى قرى بني عقيل. فدعني انقل لك ما حدث في الدرس: قرأت أحدى الطالبات نصا من الكتاب المقرر فوصلت إلى كلمة "تلكلك" فوقف المعلم قائلا بصوت عال يحضّ الطلبة على ذكر مترادفة لها : "أتني بكلمة أخرى بنفس المعنى" فأنشأ الطلبة يجيبون حسب قرائحهم وغوصهم اللغة وما حفظوا وتعارفوا عليه من قبل. فرأيت جو حرية السؤال والحرص على الإجابة من كلا الطرفين فيصحح هذا ويخطّأ ذاك حتى أضحكني الشيخ حين قال "ما هكذا تورد الإبل " ! بل أقول يا شيخ هكذا يورد العلم حفظك الله هنالك تذكرت أيام دراستي وبيئة التعلم وإصلاح النطق والتعبيرات التي غذّتني كذكريات الولد لأمه حين لطفت به وألقمته بأصابعها فتدلل عليها. فهكذا قضى ذلك القسم من الدرس ثم تلاه القسم الأخير وهذا هو الذي أوقع في نفسي رتبة المعلم الحبيب فإنه كان يراجع واجب منزل كل طالب وطالبة بيديه ثم يشرحه لهم وذاك أمر ـ كما يعرفه كل من قام مقام معلم- يشق على المرأ فإنه لابد له من القرأة كلمة كلمة مع محاولة تمييز الحروف بعضها عن بعض وهذا إذا كان الطالب ذا خط مناسب وأما إذا كان غير ذلك فلا حول ولا قوة الا بالله ! وبعدما انتهى الدرس أقبل الشيخ مجاهد علينا فجلس بين أيدينا متواضعا دون أي كلفة وأخذ يشرح لنا أسلوبه تعليم الأدب وما تعرض له في سبيله فعرفته عندئذ أنه لا ينفع الطالب إلا انتقاء أسلوب مناسب ونصوص متدرجة تأهله فتتشرب اللغة في نفسه ويصبح له ذوق أدبي . فهذا ما سطرت في عجالة ولي بقايا عسى أن أكتبها فيما بعد إن شاء الله كتبه لياقت زمان

Marriage is a sacred bond built on knowledge, clarity, and intention—not just ceremony. The Prophet ﷺ taught us that preparation, counsel, and compatibility are part of the Sunnah.⁠ ⁠ Join Mufti Liaquat Zaman for this one-day course to learn what it means to enter marriage with understanding and sincerity—from the rights and responsibilities that sustain it to the principles that protect it.⁠ ⁠ 🗓 Saturday 6th December 2025⁠ 🕙 10am–3pm⁠ 📍 As-Suffa Institute, 156 High Street, B6 4UX⁠ 🎓 Taught by Mufti Liaquat Zaman⁠ 💷 Onsite £15 (£20 with lunch) | Online £20⁠ 📘 Course notes provided⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Register now at⁠ https://as-suffa.org/education/marriage-is-from-my-sunnah/

Reading is the cure for tunnel vision and ignorance Reading is very important for Muslims, especially for students of knowledge. Reading has numerous benefits, such as opening the mind, allowing one to see things from different perspectives, fostering abstract thinking, and generating ideas that one may not have considered before. There are many other advantages, as you may already know. When information is fed to you from another source, it is akin to a child being spoon-fed. The child does not develop the ability to understand the food or how to obtain it; they are simply being fed all the time. In contrast, when a person reads sentences and the concepts within them ideas, storylines, facts, figures, and data they are empowered to think for themselves. Even if that thinking is not initially mature or sophisticated, it serves as the seeds that allow a plant to grow. I would definitely say that there is no substitute for reading. No moving images or talks can replace it. While they have their own benefits and ways of engaging a person, the most powerful method is reading or at least listening to an audiobook. This is something I believe students of knowledge must invest in. The more you read, the more you invest in your understanding, develop your ability to think for yourself, and enhance your reasoning skills. We need to encourage youngsters and students to read and explore different genres. Do not limit yourself to one type of genre. Read a variety of texts, whether they are books on productivity, self-development, or any relevant topic. If you are from the ulama, you should also read works by authors you might not normally consider. For instance, when studying the Quran, read what Muslims have written as well as what orientalists have produced. The same applies to hadith. Not necessarily to gain new knowledge but to understand why people say what they say. It is essential to have the ability to receive information and make sense of it in light of the Quran, Sunnah, and the Muslim tradition. Otherwise, ulama will remain restricted in their perspectives and will struggle to engage with society and respond to the real world in a balanced manner.

Dedication to do good is a gift from Allah Dedication to studies is considered to be a gift from Allah. When Allah gives a person the passion and fervor to study, to work hard, to ask questions, and to devote their precious time, whether that be time for sleep, eating, or any other activities, they demonstrate true dedication. If this dedication is directed towards good things like studying, Ibadah, or Da'wah, then it is a sign that Allah wants khayr for them, InshaAllah. I remember when I was studying in Madrasa, there were certain students who would forego their dinner and would rather hold a piece of bread in a bag. Whenever they got hungry, they would take a few bites from it. This amazed me. I recall seeing such students staying up late and, on many occasions, falling asleep on their books because they wanted to further their understanding. They weren't satisfied with the amount they studied; they wanted more. This kind of dedication, if a person possesses it, should inspire them to express gratitude to Allah. Unfortunately, some students may only develop this dedication later in life, not during their studies. Others, who are fortunate, may have this dedication from the beginning. It usually is an early indication of what this person will achieve in their khidma in society. This type of dedication can sometimes peak and sometimes trough. A person should always ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Arabic Zidni ilma "Oh Allah, increase me in beneficial knowledge." This is a dua that Muslims are instructed to say. It always amazes me when I see scholars with white beards or those who have been teaching for decades; they still ask Allah to increase them in knowledge. The more a person learns, the more humble they become. May Allah grant us rewarding Dedication

New Lesson of Sharh Qatr Nada added The Chapter of Faail :https://www.urooq.com/courses/18

New Lesson of Sharh Qatr Nada added The Chapter of Faail :https://www.urooq.com/courses/18

Debate Battles Outside the Ring Unfortunately, public debate battles in today's world are little more than entertainment for the public. If the debates were held behind closed doors with an unbiased panel of experts present, there would be no need for emotional arguments or appeals to irrelevant reasons. From my experience as a student and teacher, I have never witnessed a debate that caused a person to become more modest and improve their attitude and character in public life. It is simply entertainment for the public, which makes their critics dislike them even more and discourages the uninformed from wanting to associate with the 'bearded scholars' circles. Debates have a place in history when there is a fair way to evaluate the arguments and balance the criticisms. Otherwise, it's little better than a rap battle in Islamic outfits, which will probably do more harm to Muslim unity than anything else. We no longer live in a small village in the Indian subcontinent where our audience rarely questions our views, claims, and arguments. It wasn't difficult to get such a crowd going if you could shout the loudest and appeal to their emotions. Today, society has changed dramatically, and the audience is no longer the same. There is a more sophisticated generation that isn't satisfied with emotional slogans in the global village we live in. They anticipate well-articulated discussions and mature bearded men who can at least listen to one another for a few minutes before deciding how to respond. People today are impressed by debaters' and scholar's body language and attitude rather than the volume of their vocal cords. Allah bestows so much talent in our communities, but if we utilise it to attack other Muslims on trivial disagreements rather than strive for the betterment of RasulAllah's peace be upon him Ummah there is little hope in the new generations from seeing us as lanterns of hope for the unity of the ummah. I pray that Allah raises among us Ghazzali and ibn Rushd and protects us from egotistical religious leaders. Ameen

For those who have asked, these are the books I have read so far for the upcoming As-Suffa marriage course: As the course approaches closer, I plan to add more books, insha'Allah. Only writings about marriage by non-Muslims are included in this list. I haven't gotten a chance to read those authored by Muslims yet. I appreciate everyone who gave me some helpful titles. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D6x_iNK8nGVKNtqxaWq86QQB7083kpJi?usp=sharing If there are more recommendations, please let me know

The Changing Roles of Women and the Shift in Marriage in Europe Women in mediaeval Europe were primarily cared for and protected by the men in their homes. Their top goal was to find a companion who could offer security and stability [a provider and protector]. Living under one roof with big extended families, women might assist in the family business or on the family-owned property. However, as women started to become more independent through education, travel, and self-employment, the standards for selecting a spouse inevitably changed. Women were able to make their own decisions for the first time without being totally dependent on a man's support. As a result, marriage became more about friendship than it was about protection or survival. The traditional concept of getting married for stability started to give way to the idea of finding a spouse who shared your interests, perspective, and emotional connection. This change had significant repercussions. The average age of marriage started to grow as women spent more time in school and pursuing occupations. Expectations also increased with time. Finding a matching partner, i.e., someone who could connect emotionally as well as financially, was now more important than finding a dependable source But this also reduced the number of possible spouses. Many males in Europe still favoured younger women who prioritised their homes above their careers. Men continued to marry earlier or pick younger wives, while women who focused on their jobs frequently found it more difficult to locate companions later in life. Over time, the goal of marriage changed once more, moving from being pragmatic to passionate. Building a home or raising a family together became less important than achieving personal fulfilment and emotional contentment. And many started to wonder if marriage itself was really required when the job failed to provide women with equal respect or compensation. This historical shift shows that the institution of marriage changed rather than just weakened. Today's expectations for marriage are very different from those of a few generations ago. It's interesting to see how colonialism and World wars drastically changed the course of the family institution. Writing books on marriage must be based on the socio-economic evolution in the west especially. I'll try to share more interesting points inshAllah

Fiqh Without Real Life Experience Fiqh isn't just knowing rulings. Fiqh is the ability to understand the world a person is living in. Whether that be the four walls of their home, the city they live in, or the global world that we know today. To understand causes, human behavior, subtle realities, and then place all of these things within the realm of Allah's law. Now, this is very easy to sum up. In reality, this is something which I would say is the understanding after twenty-five years or so of studying and teaching the Islamic sciences. Now let's go back in time when I was studying fiqh in Madrasa. I, like many of you, was thrown straight into an intensive course, which I probably was not ready for at the time. When we would study, for example, the books of Fiqh, every page was filled with a list of scenarios and case studies. Every paragraph had problems of Zayd, Khalid, Zaynab, and Fatima. Issues related to whether it was purification with fruit juice, praying salat in a land that had been usurped, or matters related to divorce and strange scenarios of a man issuing divorces to his wife, a trader who contracts multiple contracts with different people at the same time, or inheritance, swearing oaths, and international law. These, in reality, were cases that were very alien to me at that time. I had no context to picture all of this, no life exposure. I was simply memorizing a list of what seemed to be random cases, which I never knew existed before I studied them. As the years went by, it was a repetition of going over these matters. To be honest, I could not see how these matters manifested in the world I was living in, especially when the world was changing so rapidly outside, with the advent of the internet and all these new different types of problems. I wasn't able to understand how these matters in the books were supposed to look and shape themselves in the real world. If I could go back in time and restudy Fiqh with my current life experience, I genuinely believe my brain would explode with clarity. Because now, when I read a case in Fiqh, I can literally smell the context. I know exactly; I can think of a dozen cases that I know of where this matter could apply. I can see the psychology of the husband who issues his wife a divorce by saying implicit words. I can see the business pressure of a trader trying to come out with a new model, which might resemble an interest-based transaction. I can feel the emotional chaos of families when they're dealing with distributing inheritance. Real life actually begins, or real life actually brings the illa to life. Now, this is the tragedy of many Madrasa students, even today. They are studying windows into the real world. They are being spoon-fed the real world without ever having walked in that real world themselves. It's like looking out of a massive window that is covered in mud, and only one tiny hole is clear from the outside. Through that tiny hole, you think you understand everything outside. You have this ideal image that you've created in your mind about what the real world is like and what the solution is for everything. But really, you only see a fragment. So your mental image of the world is inaccurate, and your fiqh becomes theoretical, dry, and pretty much academic. The more you engage with real people, with real mistakes, with real marriage disputes, and with real business transactions, the clearer the fiqh in books becomes. It starts to make more sense. You not only understand the scenarios that they have recorded in the books, but you also start to have a list of your own scenarios and questions that whizz around in your head. One of the scholars said, "Whoever does not understand the current state of people is the greatest ignorant." So, fiqh is not memorising rules only. Fiqh is the ability to see the world clearly and then apply Allah's laws onto it, within a framework that has been established by the experts with wisdom. And that clarity requires life.

New Lessons Added to Sharh Qatr Nada Course : Afaal Quloob & Faail https://www.urooq.com/courses/18