RasulAllah
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “Some of the signs of the Day of Judgement
is that knowledge will be lifted up and ignorance will replace it.” [Bukhari]
Knowledge will be taken away and ignorance will be established in the hearts
and minds of people. How does that happen? Does a knowledgeable person go to
bed and then in the morning they’ve forgotten everything? No. RasulAllah
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “Allah does not take away the knowledge by
taking it from the hearts of the people, but takes it away by the deaths of the
religious learned men, until none of the religious learned men remains. People
will take as their leaders ignorant people. Who, when consulted, will give
their verdict without any knowledge. So they will go astray and will lead the
people astray.” The people will appoint others who have no knowledge as mufti.
They will give out fatwas that are wrong and mislead the people and themselves.
We find that a
lot of the bid’ah and mistakes today are caused by wrong fatawa given by
scholars – or people who claim to be scholars. The issue of fatwa,
unfortunately, is taken very lightly these days. In the time of the sahabah,
they would run away from giving fatwas. One of the tabi’een said, “I have seen
more than 30 of the Sahabah of RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam sitting
in the masjid. A person would come into the masjid asking a question and every
companion of RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam would send him to the next
person. ‘I don’t have the answer, ask the other sahabi.’” Now, the answers
aren’t even asked of us, and we run to answer the question. And they used to
run away from asking – the sahabah knew it was a big responsibility.
‘Umar ibn
AlKhattaab was once asked a question. ‘Umar ibn AlKhattaab said, “Did it
happen?” The man said, “No, it didn’t happen.” ‘Umar said, “Then go back. When
it happens, come and ask us. I will gather for it the ones who were in the
battle of Badr (I will bring the sahabah who witnessed Badr) and then we’re
going to consult – I’m not going to give you the fatwa myself. We’re going to
make shoorah.” They didn’t even want to get into theoretical things: “If it
didn’t happen, don’t ask me about it.” Now, we ask a lot of theoretical
questions. We ask about things that have no practical use. And we answer them
ourselves.
Imam Maalik was
visited by a person who came all the way from alMaghrib – Morocco. Or it could
have been AlAndalus, Allahu ‘Alam. He came to Imam Maalik with 40 questions.
Imam Maalik responded with, “La ‘Alam” (I don’t know) to 36 questions. He only
answered 4 questions. The man told him, “I came all the way from Morocco to
hear you say ‘I don’t know’? What will I tell my people when I go back?” Imam
Maalik said, “Tell them Imam Maalik says, ‘I do not know.”
I hear about
situations where families are wrecked – big decisions in one’s life - that were
based on wrong answers. They get these wrong fatwas, that cause a disaster in
their lives, and in the end, they find out it was wrong. They didn’t even have
to do it. They did it for the sake of Allah, and then they found out it was
wrong. Look at the sin on the shoulder of the person [who issued the wrong
fatwa].
It happened in
the time of the sahabah. The sahabah were in a ghazwa (battle). One of the
sahabah got injured in his head. He had a wet dream, so he was in a state of
janabah (major impurity). He asked, “Do I have to take a shower now and wash my
head?” They said, “Yes, you have to wash your head.” When he washed his head,
he died, because there was a deep injury in his head. When he washed his head,
it may have caused an infection, Allahu ‘Alam(Allah is more knowledgeable).
When they came back to RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, they told him
what happened. RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “They killed him,
may Allah kill them. It was enough for him to wipe on the bandage (the tissue
wrapping the injury). Why don’t they ask if they do not know? “Because the cure
for ignorance is asking.”
These hadith are
talking about the decrease in the knowledge of religion – the knowledge of
alAakhirah, the knowledge of AlShari’ah.
There will be a
time when things are worse than this. There is a hadith in Ibn Maajah: Hudhayfah
said that RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “Islam will erode like
the marks on your clothes would erode or wash away.” At that time, the
colouring of the clothes was not permanent. When you would wash your clothes
frequently, it would fade away until it was gone. This is what will happen to
Islam – it will slowly fade until people will not know about fasting, salah and
ibaadah. RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallams said, “And Allah will take
all of the Qur’aan from the earth and there will not be one verse left. And
there will be people left – old men and women - who will say, ‘We used to hear
our forefathers say La ilaaha illallah and we’re saying it now.’” That is all
they would remember of Islam. They wouldn’t know anything of salah, etc.
Silah was a
tabi’ee [a student of the Sahabah], studying under Hudhayfah. When he heard
this hadith, he said, “What will la ilaaha do for them when they don’t know
anything about praying, fasting, hajj or charity?” Hudhayfah turned away from
him. He asked the question again. Hudhayfah turned away from him again. When he
asked him the third time, Hudhayfah said, “O Silah! La ilaaha illallah will save him from Hell
fire! La ilaaha illallah will save him from Hell fire! La ilaaha illallah will
save him from Hell fire!” Those people, Allah will excuse them because of their
ignorance and will accept from them la ilaaha illallah, even though it’s just a
word that they say. If the knowledge was there, then they have to pray, make
hajj, give sadaqah, etc.
Things will get
even worse than this. Anas said that RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam
said, “There will be a time when the name of Allah will not be mentioned on the
earth.” [Muslim]
Ibn Katheer says
that there are two interpretations of this hadith. One interpretation is that
there will not be any prevention of evil, because when you prevent people from
evil, you remind them of Allah. The other interpretation takes the meaning of
the hadith literally: you will not hear the name of Allah on the earth. This is
towards the absolute end of time, and the day of judgement will occur on these
people.
In a hadith
narrated by Ahmad: RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “The day of
judgement will not occur until Allah will take all of the righteous people away
from the face of the earth. Allah will take their souls and the people that
remain will not prevent evil and will not do good.”
Ibn Mas’ood
said, “In this time, all of the Qur’aan will be taken away from the earth; it
will not be in the hearts of people.” Ibn Taymiyyah says, “Allah will take it
away to the extent that not one ayah will remain in the hearts of people and
not one letter will remain in the mushaf, because people are so bad and evil
that they do not deserve it.”
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