In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Abridgment of the book:
"Ramadan:
Events and Lessons."
The Death of Imam al-Zuhri.
The date:
Tuesday night,
the seventeenth night
of Ramadan,
in the year one hundred
and twenty-four of the Hijrah.
Indeed, the death of scholars
who are firmly grounded, practicing, and sincere
is counted within the Ummah
as a monumental calamity
and a tremendous loss.
For these elite figures
are the guiding stars for the seekers
and the illuminating lights for travelers;
they are like the sun to the world
and like good health to the body.
'Abdullah
ibn Ahmad said:
"I asked my father:
'What kind of man was al-Shafi'i?
For I often hear you
supplicating for him.'
He replied:
'O my son,
he was like the sun to the world
and like good health to the people.
Can there ever be
a replacement for these two,
or anything to compensate for them?'"
And how could it not be a calamity,
when in this life
there are numerous intellectual dilemmas,
countless complex issues
and legal rulings,
and diverse doubts
and difficulties
that require scholars
who are firmly grounded?
Yet such scholars are few among the people;
so what happens when
even some of this precious few pass away?
People will remain in a state of goodness
as long as there remain among them
truthful scholars.
But when they depart from them,
ignorance and the ignorant multiply,
evil increases,
goodness diminishes,
the ignorant come to lead the people,
and they go astray and lead others astray.
On the authority of 'Abdullah ibn 'Amr ibn al-'As,
may Allah be pleased with them both,
who said:
"I heard the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, say:
'Indeed, Allah does not take away
knowledge by wrenching it away,
snatching it from the servants;
rather, He takes away
knowledge by taking away the scholars.
Then, when there remains
no scholar,
the people will take as leaders
ignorant ones.
They will deliver legal verdicts without knowledge,
thus going astray and leading others astray.'"
'Ali,
may Allah be pleased with him, said:
"The likeness of the jurists
is that of hands:
when a hand is severed,
it never grows back."
And he also said:
"When a scholar dies,
a breach is torn in Islam
that cannot be closed
except by a successor of his caliber."
'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud,
may Allah be pleased with him, said:
"The death of a scholar is a breach
in Islam
that nothing can mend,
so long as day and night alternate."
And he also said:
"Hold fast to knowledge
before it is taken away,
and its being taken away is the departure
of its bearers."
His name, lineage,
and birth, may Allah have mercy on him:
He is the eminent Tabi'i,
Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn 'Ubaydullah
ibn Shihab
ibn 'Abdullah ibn al-Harith ibn Zuhrah
ibn Kilab ibn Murrah
ibn Ka'b
ibn Lu'ayy ibn Ghalib,
the leading imam and distinguished authority,
the foremost hadith master of his era,
Abu Bakr al-Qurashi,
the hadith master, the jurist,
al-Zuhri al-Madani,
who later settled in the Levant,
one of the foremost
prominent imams.
He was trustworthy, possessed of vast
knowledge and narrations,
and a comprehensive jurist.
He was born in the Prophetic city of Medina
in the year
58 AH.
His apprenticeship
and pursuit of knowledge, may Allah
have mercy on him:
Imam al-Zuhri was born in the city
of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
and raised there
at a time when scholars were abundant,
including the remaining
Companions
and the senior Tabi'un.
That scholarly environment served
as a powerful impetus
that inspired him to seek knowledge.
So he set out drinking deeply from its pure fountains
and drawing from its rich springs.
He was aided
in carrying this knowledge
by what Allah Almighty had endowed him with:
a formidable photographic memory
and a brilliant, sharp intellect.
Indeed, it was related of him
that he memorized the Qur'an
in approximately
eighty days.
It was by Allah's divine facilitation for him
that he met several Companions
and heard directly from them,
though they were few,
among them Ibn 'Umar,
Jabir ibn 'Abdullah,
al-Miswar ibn Makhramah,
and 'Abdullah ibn Ja'far,
may Allah be pleased with them.
However, the bulk of his sustained study
was under the senior Tabi'un,
such as Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib;
indeed, he studied in his circle
for eight years,
his knee pressed
against his knee.
Ibn Shihab endured great hardship
in the pursuit of acquiring knowledge,
persevering patiently until
he attained all he aspired to.
He exhibited consummate etiquette
toward his teachers,
patiently enduring the sternness of some among them.
Al-Layth ibn Sa'd
once remarked to al-Zuhri:
"Would that you imparted your knowledge
only to those whom you hope will benefit!"
He replied:
"By Allah, no one has disseminated
knowledge as widely as I have,
nor has anyone borne patience for it as I have.
We used to
sit with Ibn al-Musayyib,
and not a single one of us
dared to ask him anything
unless he initiated
the discourse himself, or a man arrived
to ask him about an issue
that had befallen him."
His extraordinary memory, may Allah have mercy on him:
Imam al-Zuhri,
may Allah have mercy on him,
was a veritable sign among the signs of Allah
in his memorization
and a rare genius
in retaining information.
He was truly a blessing
among the blessings of Allah upon this Ummah
in preserving the hadith
of its Messenger, peace be upon him.
For indeed,
he was renowned for his precision, retentive mastery,
and flawless citation of texts.
Consequently,
his students and those who transmitted
from him grew vast in number.
Anyone who reads his biographical entry in the biographical dictionaries
of hadith transmitters will behold
the vast number of narrators
who received from him the hadith
of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.
Nor was
al-Zuhri merely memorizing hadith
and matters of knowledge by rote
alone;
rather, he combined
retention, deep comprehension, and exceptional
listening.
To recount the blessings of Allah,
he would speak about himself
and what Allah had bestowed upon him of retentive
memory, saying:
"I never entrusted my heart with
anything that I subsequently forgot."
He also said:
"I never asked anyone to repeat a hadith
ever,
nor did I ever doubt a single hadith
except for one;
so I asked my companion,
and it was exactly as
I had memorized it."
It seems that al-Zuhri's retentive power
became widely celebrated,
so much so that his contemporary
imams praised him for it.
'Umar ibn 'Abd
al-'Aziz said: "No one ever related
hadith in the manner of
al-Zuhri."
And 'Amr ibn Dinar said:
"I have never seen anyone
more precise in quoting hadith verbatim than al-Zuhri."
When doubts crossed
the minds of some regarding his mastery
and memorization, he was subjected to
a test to verify
the strength of his memory, for which he was renowned
among the people—
just as happened to Imam al-Bukhari
with the scholars of Baghdad.
It is mentioned that
Hisham ibn 'Abd al-Malik
asked al-Zuhri to write down
for his sons some of his hadiths,
so he dictated to his scribe
four hundred hadiths.
Then he went out to the scholars of
hadith and narrated them
to them. Later on,
Hisham said to al-Zuhri:
"That manuscript
has been lost." Al-Zuhri replied:
"Do not worry."
He then dictated to them
those very hadiths again.
Hisham then produced the first
manuscript, and behold:
he had not missed a single letter!
Indeed, Hisham
had only intended to test his memory.
And because
Imam al-Zuhri held this sublime
rank in memorization,
the Commander of the Believers,
'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz (may Allah have mercy on him), commissioned him
with the official compilation of hadith.
Al-Zuhri said:
"'Umar ibn 'Abd
al-'Aziz commanded us to compile the Sunan,
so we wrote them down notebook
by notebook;
then he dispatched to every land under
his authority a notebook."
Al-'Iraqi said:
"The first to compile
hadith was Ibn Shihab
al-Zuhri, at the turn of
the second century,
[commissioned by] 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz,
who dispatched it to every
land under his
authority."
For this reason, al-Suyuti says
in his Alfiyyah:
"The first compiler of hadith
and athar
was Ibn Shihab, commissioned by
'Umar." His broad learning,
may Allah have mercy on him:
Ibn Shihab (may Allah have mercy on him) attained
immense knowledge
through the extraordinary memory Allah granted him,
his brilliant intellect,
and his great eagerness
to hear from the masters,
sit with them, and receive knowledge from them.
As a result, he became
exceptionally well-read,
possessing vast material
and encyclopedic knowledge.
This was recognized in him
by anyone who questioned him, sat with him,
or sought knowledge under him.
His erudition was not confined
to a single aspect
of knowledge;
rather, his scholarship was multifaceted.
Al-Layth said:
"I have never seen a scholar
more comprehensive than Ibn Shihab.
If you heard him narrate
regarding encouragement and deterrence,
you would say he excels
in nothing else;
if he spoke of the Prophets
and the People of the Book,
you would say he excels only in this;
if he spoke
of the Bedouins and genealogies,
you would say he excels
only in this;
and if he spoke of the Qur'an and the Sunnah,
his discourse was
marvelous and all-encompassing."
Yet, despite this vast
knowledge,
he was remarkably humble,
acknowledging the merit of others.
Hence, he said:
"I used to think that I
had acquired a great deal of knowledge,
until I sat with 'Ubaydullah
ibn 'Abdullah ibn 'Utbah;
then it felt as if I
were merely in one small mountain pass among many."
Furthermore,
al-Zuhri (may Allah have mercy on him) was an expert
in pedagogical psychology:
he knew when knowledge reaches the soul
and takes root, and when the soul turns away
from it. For this reason,
he gave advice to scholars.
It is reported on the authority of Hammad
ibn Zayd that he said:
"Al-Zuhri would teach hadith,
and then say:
'Bring forth some of your poetry
and casual conversation,
for the ear is prone to weariness,
and the soul craves a refreshing change.'"
And on the authority of Ma'mar,
from al-Zuhri, who said:
"Whenever a gathering lasts too long,
Satan claims
a share in it."
Because of this profound scholarly mastery possessed by
Ibn Shihab, 'Umar
ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz urged the people
to learn from him, saying:
"You must adhere to this
Ibn Shihab,
for you will not meet anyone
more knowledgeable of the past Sunnah than him."
His death,
may Allah have mercy on him:
Imam al-Zuhri passed away
on the night of Tuesday,
seventeen nights
having passed of Ramadan,
in the year one hundred and twenty-four
of the Hijrah.
He owned an estate in Shaghb,
which marks the furthest border of the Hijaz
and the beginning of Palestine.
He went there,
fell ill there,
and died there,
and his grave is located there.
He had instructed to be buried there
right by the roadside
so that passersby would pray for him.
Al-Awza'i once stood
one day
beside his grave and said:
"O grave!
How much knowledge
and forbearance do you contain!
O grave!
How much knowledge
and nobility do you contain!"
Verses and Rulings;
Ramadan:
Events
and Lessons.