3 years on...

I thought I was having a bad day today (worse than a normal Monday)...I lost a large amount of data on a hard drive which became corrupted, the stress of which brought about a splitting headache. However, all my dunya-related worries faded away rapidly when I heard on the news that today is the third anniversary since the invasion of Iraq. It is sad to see such a blessed land which was once a centre of Islamic learning in such a state of anarchy. I pray that Allah makes it easy for the people of this land. Speaking of Iraq, it was in Baghdad itself that people decided to test the amazing memory of Imam Bukhari (رحمة الله عليه) - the incident itself is quite long and I won't go in to it now, but needless to say the great Imam of hadeeth passed with flying colours.

Also, related to my dunya loss today, Hadeeth 340 of al Tajrid al Sarih came to mind which reiterated to me how we (addressing myself first) attach so much importance to the dunya (in terms of profit and loss) and relatively little to any losses we may have in the Akhira.

Narrated Ibn Umar (رضى الله عنه): Allah's messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: "Whoever misses the Asr prayer unintentionally, then it is as if he has lost his family and property".

- This hadeeth was commented on by Shaykh in Lesson 76/77.

I'd like to end today's post by explaining what al Tajrid al Sarih is (for those unfamiliar with the study). Please see below.

Please remember me in your duas.

Wasalaam.

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Al Tajrid al Sarih

al Tajrid al Sarih is the Abridged Saheeh al-Bukhari. This abridgement of Saheeh al-Bukhari was conducted by Imam Zain-ud-Din Ahmad bin Abdul Lateef az-Zubaidi who was a scholar of the 15th century (CE) from Yemen. He was born in 812 Hijri and died in 893 Hijri. The original Saheeh al-Bukhari contains over 7000 hadeeth, many of which are repeated so in his compendium az-Zubaidi removed the chains of narration sufficing with only the name of the companion, and he also removed all the repeated ahadeeth leaving only the longest version of each hadeeth. Thus, he has reduced approximately 7400 hadeeth to around 2230. It is this abridgement of Saheeh al-Bukhari which is known as al Tajrid al Sarih, that Shaykh Abu Yusuf Riyadh ul Haq teaches each Friday in English.