An audio script from our nobile Shaykh Ahmad as-Subayee (Hafidhahullaah) as translated by our brother Abu Hakeem Bilaal. (SPUBS Dawrah 'ilmiyyah 1431)

[Abu.Tameem.Abshir]

Bismillah walhamdulilaah wa salaatus salaam ‘ala rasuulilaah wa ba’ad

''We live in times of...

The sheikh clarified the issue where people who claim at these times, these times of difficulty where the affairs have changed, the time where the presence of knowledge is little. The times where the scholars are little and where they aren’t many Mashaykhs around (as it relates to the west). As a result of these times we are urged to go these different people, get what we can get and do what we can. On the face of diversity and on of the face of these difficulties and the absence of the real scholars to teach us and so on. So on the bases of these claims those people use these misconceptions as an excuse.

The sheikh mentions the fact that this is present and the fact that we live in this era and we have the absence of people of knowledge and so on. That should NOT be an excuse to take us away from clinging to the book and Sunnah and being patient upon that, rather than saying ‘subhanAllah look we haven’t got teachers to teach us so we are forced to go here or forced to go there.

Rather that which is commanded upon us is to be patient on that which is correct. Our we not sufficed with what we have in the form of tapes of our masshaykh? Don’t we have sufficiency from the books and the amount of knowledge that is from correctness of this Deen?

We have substantial knowledge available to us to prevent us from going to the likes of these people and going to sit with them. So ikhwaan don’t be deceived from the likes of these people who claim that we are situated in the latter days – ''we have to get the knowledge from here and benefit from there and benefit from where ever we can get it from. Our sheikh mentions that this is not an excuse rather what we have been commanded with is not to betray Allah azza wa jal.

Our sheikh mentions that this goes against that which we find from our a’imma (imams) we have the likes which that occurred with Imam Ahmad. Somebody approached him and said that we have a person from the people of opinion who is vast in knowledge in other words an ocean of knowledge but he is from the people of opinion and we have another individual who is from the people of Hadeeth but he is even unable to distinguish the authentic Hadeeth from that which is weak. Who should we take from? So on the basis of that, we find this occurring within our time our Sheikh mentions . It is often claimed, and ikhwaan we are sure we hear ‘subhanAllah, this man has memorised the bible even’, and examples that are many our sheikh mentions. So the sheikh mentions Imaam Ahmad said; take from the person of Hadeeth, even if he hasn’t attained much knowledge because even though the other individual is vast in knowledge, he will still able to affect you in your believe where as the man of Hadeeth may not have much knowledge but he will not be able to affect your believe (aqeeda, manhaj and so on). That was advice given by the likes of Imaam Ahmad to the people of his time who was asked about a scenario that resembles a scenario in our time.

That manhaj of attaining knowledge from everywhere clearly opposes the manhaj of those who came before us. Which draws us back to the statement of Imaam Barbaharee where he mentions that knowledge is not ‘bi kafratil kuttub' ilm is not just mounting books i.e. basing ‘ilm upon books.

Wasalaahu wasallaam wabaarak ala nabiyyina Muhammad wa ‘ala alahee wa sahbihee ajma’een