MES Second Meeting

 

 

Today was the second meeting of Raudlatul Ulum’s new program called Monday Extensive Speaking (MES) with Syaikh Ahmad Ragab Abdela Dessouki from Egypt. I find this second meeting much more interesting than the first one. Syaikh told us not only about tajwid, but also about the history of Al-Qur’an, the process of its journey into us today.

In its first coming, Al-Qur’an was delivered by Jibril to Prophet Muhammad verbally, then our Prophet memorized it. The way to recite Al-Qur’an just the way it was. There were no idgham, ikhfa, and others like what we know today. For the next generations, especially those who live outside Arab, it is hard to know how to recite Al-Qur’an the same like what The Prophet did then. That is why, tajwid exists. “Tajwid” is actually derived from an Arabic word “jayyid” which means improvement. It was made to help us to recite Al-Qur’an the way Rasulullah Muhammad SAW did. Why should we do? Because Al-Qur’an is special; It is the words of Allah. That is why, it needs a special way to recite it, too. Syaikh Ahmad said, there was no exact information about who firstly made a rule called “tajwid” in the past. However, Muhammad Ibn Al-Jazari was known as the leader of tajwid.

At the age of Rasulullah, not everyone remembered what he taught. He chose only few of them to be his “students,” those who were found bright and smart in memorizing. That is why Rasulullah was really in a deep sorrow, when his shohabat died. On Safar of the 4^th year of Hijriyah, there were tribes (I googled it, their names were called ‘Adhal and Al-Qarah. Syaikh did not mention their names) who saw Rasulullah, and asked him to send his students to teach them about Islam. They said they wanted to learn it. At that time, there was no lying in Arab, so Rasulullah believed in them. Unfortunately, what they told was all lie. They cheated, they killed Rasulullah’s students. It was known with the Tragedy of Ar-Roji’ah Well. It was also followed by another similar tragedy, the Al’Ma’unah. 70 shohabat of Rasulullah died at this tragedy. It made Rasulullah sad, and he kept praying for this for 40 days.

Syaikh Ahmad Ragab also told us to keep on writing what teachers say. “Always write, whatever. Never believe in your memory,” he said. One of Imam Malik’s friends at that time even said,” We study with Malik, and we have the same teacher as his, but what makes us different from Malik is about the writing. He always writes anything he gets, while we do not.”

Syaikh Ahmad Ragab told us, when he was young and was a student, he could memorize 100 verses of a poetry only in an hour (isn’t it amazing?), but now, he even cannot memorize only one of it, in a day. “Now I have a family, I have a kid, and I have problems. It’s different.”

Do you know that this is the same like what KH. Najib ever said? He ever said to the students of Raudlatul Ulum once, “Your age now, is the best time to “inject” all kind of knowledge. Because when you get older, you will not have much time to study like what you had when you were students.”

Syaikh Ahmad Ragab also told us about Imam Ghazali. Imam Ghazali once had a note book to write anything about fiqh. At one time, a gang of thief came to him and stole his bag. He remembered about his note book, then he chased after those thieves. He said, “Take anything from me, but please give my book back.”  The thieves were surprised that Imam Ghazali actually only wanted them to take the note book back. “Why do you chase after us only for this book? Aren’t you afraid of being killed or whatsoever?” Imam Ghazali replied, “I have nothing. That book is all I have. I write everything I know there. Without it, I’m nothing.” One of the thieves said, “You should memorize what you write, so you will not count on your book.” After that, Imam Ghazali started to memorize what he learnt. Syaikh Ahmad Ragab said, it was a kind of Allah’s guidance, though it was through a thief. How amazing!

After the learning session was over, Syaikh Ahmad Ragab let us ask about anything. There were three questions for today:

1.        This was my own question to him: “I ever heard that the world was totally perfect only 200 years after Rasulullah’s passing, and after that, it will keep on degrading, it will get worse and worse, is that right?” (I heard this from Alm. KH.Syairozi, Lamongan)

Syaikh Ahmad answered: “Yes, but it is actually 300 years, not 200. It is true that there is a hadith about it. But it doesn’t mean that after those 300 years, all humans are bad. There will always be good people and bad people in every generation. What this hadith means is that the people in Rasulullah’s age must be the best. We obviously cannot say, “I think I am better than shohabat, or so on.”

What an explanation! It makes me think, we could not surrender because of the mindset about our destiny to be bad. Through what Syaikh Ahmad Ragab said, it means that we should even try to be better all the time. Not to compete the sohabat (it is an impossible thing) or people before us, but to compete with ourselves, time to time.

2.    The second question was from Dyna Syarifa, she asked: “Why does Islam say “Arrijaalu qowwamuna ‘ala nissa? How about gender equality?”

Syaikh Ahmad Ragab smiled and answered, “You can’t look for the definition of Qowwamuna” in this verse through a dictionary. It will completely different. If you look for the meaning in a dictionary, you will imagine a relationship between a mister and a slave. However, it is not. ‘Qowwamuna’ in this verse means, that a man should protect, respect, and serve a woman as a lady. You can’t define Al-Qur’an using a dictionary. Because the language is qur’anic, so beautiful. Allah said in Al-Qur’an (An-Nisa 34),

 

وَاللَّاتِي تَخَافُونَ نُشُوزَهُنَّ فَعِظُوهُنَّ وَاهْجُرُوهُنَّ فِي الْمَضَاجِعِ وَاضْرِبُوهُنَّ فَإِنْ أَطَعْنَكُمْ فَلَا تَبْغُوا عَلَيْهِنَّ سَبِيلًا

Literally, it means: when your wife rebels, you can advise her, leave her sleep alone, and hit her. At the age of Rasulullah, there were many wives who complained about their husbands to Rasulullah. The wives got swollen because they were hit by their husbands, since the husbands define this verse literally. Rasulullah was angry, and then told them, that this is not what Allah means.

The definition of “wadhribuhunna” (and hit her), is not that you can hit your wife rudely. “Hit” in this verse means a movement of your hand towards your wife which is not hurting at all.

Allah and Islam do respect women, they are not racist. Women are even specialized by Allah, He believes in putting human souls within the women’s wombs, not men. Allah also says, “The best of you are those who serve their wives best.” Amazing.

3.      The third question was from Titi Faridhotun. She asked, “Why is a dog najis? Didn’t it even accompany the Ashabul Kahf?”

Syaikh Ahmad Ragab answered, “At the age of Ashabul Kahf, there was no rule relating to dogs, so everything was fine. After Rasulullah age, it is different. The three Imam (Syafi’i, Hambali, Hanafi) said, it is najis if your body exposed by a dog’s saliva. You should wash that part of your body seven times, and one of which was using some dust. While Imam Maliki had different interpretation. He said that it is not najis. The reasons were:

a.      There was once a dog which went in and out of a mosque, but Rasulullah only kept silent. He didn’t ask others to mop or wash the floor.

b.      If a dog haunts some food for you, their prey is not najis. You may eat it, though the dog bit it for you.

We discussed this whole thing in two hours, and it felt like a glance only. Everyone enjoyed it, and Syaikh was also pleased because it was communicative. He said, “Prepare questions for next meeting. I love questions. It is good when you are asking, because it means that your brain is working.” And everyone just laughed 😊.

 

Alhamdulillah, tsumma alhamdulillah.