Leisure reading from the world of Islam is a not-to-be-missed experience! Here are some very enjoyable books, both classic and modern, to feast your mind upon: Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad. The Alchemy of Happiness. London: The Octagon Press, 1983. Al-Jahiz, Abu Uthman ibn Bahr. The Book of Misers. Translated by R.B. Serjeant. London: Garnet Publishing Limited, 1997. Asad, Muhammad. The Road to Mecca. Gibralter: Dar Al-Andalus, 1980. Atiyeh, George N. The Book in the Islamic World. Albany: State University of New York, 1995. Attar, Fariduddin. The Conference of Birds. New York: Penguin, 1995. Baig, Reshma. The Memory of Hands. New York: International Books and Tapes Supply, 1999. Burton, Sir Richard. The Arabian Nights. New York: The Modern Library, 1932. Hafiz, Shamsuddin Muhammad. The Gift: Poems by Hafiz. Translated by Daniel Ladinsky. New York: Penguin, 1999. Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1978. Helminski, Kabir and ...
As for his worship, he (may Allah be Pleased with him) was unlike anyone else, as he would spend all of his time engrossed in it. He would not let anything - family or wealth - distract him from Allah.
During the nights, he would separate himself from everybody, secluding himself with his Lord, strictly maintaining his recitation of the Mighty Qur'an, and repeating the various types of daily and nightly worship.
When the night was over, he would rejoin the people for the Fajr prayer, praying the optional prayer before meeting them. When he would begin the prayer, your heart would want to fly from its place just from the way in which he would make the opening takbir. When he would begin the prayer, his limbs would shake, moving him left and right. When he would recite, he would elongate his recitation just as was authentically reported regarding the recitation of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). His bowing, prostration, and his coming up from them were from the most complete of what has ever been reported in regards to the obligatory prayer. He would severely lighten his sitting for the first tashahhud, and would say the first taslim out loud to the point that everyone who was present would hear it.
When he finished his prayer, he and whoever was present would praise Allah with what was narrated: ‘Oh Allah, You are Peace, and You are the Source of Peace. You are Blessed, O Possessor of Glory and Honor,’ and he would then turn to the congregation, repeat the narrated tahlil, as well as the tasbih, tahmid, and takbir, and complete the hundred with a tahlil as was narrated, and the congregation would do exactly as he did. He would then supplicate to Allah for himself and the Muslims with the various narrated supplications, and he would most often supplicate with: ‘O Allah! Aide us and do not aide anyone over us. Plan for us and not against us. Guide us and make guidance easy for us. O Allah! Make us thankful to You, depending on and remembering You, submissive to You, loving You, fearing You, and obedient to You. Our Lord! Accept our repentance, wash away our sins, and keep our words firm. Guide our hearts, and remove all malice from our chests,’ and he would open and close this supplication by praying for the Prophet (peace be upon him), and he would then proceed to engage in dhikr.
It was rare that any intelligent person would see him and not come and kiss his hands. Even the busiest of businessmen would walk from what they were doing to greet him and seek his blessings.With all of this, he would give everyone of them their share of attention, greetings, etc.
If he saw any evil in the street, he would work to remove it,35 and if he heard of a funeral taking place, he would rush to pray in it or apologize for missing it. Sometimes, he would go to the grave of the deceased after he finished listening to Hadith and pray over it.
Afterwards, he would return to his mosque, where he would remain either giving fatawa to the people or fulfilling their needs until it was time to pray Dhuhr in congregation. He would spend the rest of the day in such a manner.
His classes were open to the general public: for the old, the young, the wealthy, the poor, the free, the slave, males, and females. He attracted everyone that would pass by him, and every one of them would feel that Ibn Taymiyyah was treating them better than he was treating anyone else present.
And he would constantly raise his eyesight to the sky and would not stop doing this, as if he saw something there that kept his eyesight hooked. He would do this for as long as I was staying with him.
So, subhan Allah! How short were these days! If only they were longer! By Allah, until this day, there has never been a time in my life that was more beloved to me than the time I spent with him, and I was never seen in a better state than I was at that time, and this was for no other reason than the barakah of the Shaykh, may Allah be Pleased with him.
Every week, he would visit the sick, especially those at the hospital, and I have been informed by more than one person whose trustworthiness I do not doubt that the entire life of the Shaykh was spent in the way that I witnessed and described above. So, what worship, and what jihad, is better than this? writes The Imam, the Hafidh Abu Hafs ‘Umar bin ‘Ali al-Bazzar
During the nights, he would separate himself from everybody, secluding himself with his Lord, strictly maintaining his recitation of the Mighty Qur'an, and repeating the various types of daily and nightly worship.
When the night was over, he would rejoin the people for the Fajr prayer, praying the optional prayer before meeting them. When he would begin the prayer, your heart would want to fly from its place just from the way in which he would make the opening takbir. When he would begin the prayer, his limbs would shake, moving him left and right. When he would recite, he would elongate his recitation just as was authentically reported regarding the recitation of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). His bowing, prostration, and his coming up from them were from the most complete of what has ever been reported in regards to the obligatory prayer. He would severely lighten his sitting for the first tashahhud, and would say the first taslim out loud to the point that everyone who was present would hear it.
When he finished his prayer, he and whoever was present would praise Allah with what was narrated: ‘Oh Allah, You are Peace, and You are the Source of Peace. You are Blessed, O Possessor of Glory and Honor,’ and he would then turn to the congregation, repeat the narrated tahlil, as well as the tasbih, tahmid, and takbir, and complete the hundred with a tahlil as was narrated, and the congregation would do exactly as he did. He would then supplicate to Allah for himself and the Muslims with the various narrated supplications, and he would most often supplicate with: ‘O Allah! Aide us and do not aide anyone over us. Plan for us and not against us. Guide us and make guidance easy for us. O Allah! Make us thankful to You, depending on and remembering You, submissive to You, loving You, fearing You, and obedient to You. Our Lord! Accept our repentance, wash away our sins, and keep our words firm. Guide our hearts, and remove all malice from our chests,’ and he would open and close this supplication by praying for the Prophet (peace be upon him), and he would then proceed to engage in dhikr.
It was rare that any intelligent person would see him and not come and kiss his hands. Even the busiest of businessmen would walk from what they were doing to greet him and seek his blessings.With all of this, he would give everyone of them their share of attention, greetings, etc.
If he saw any evil in the street, he would work to remove it,35 and if he heard of a funeral taking place, he would rush to pray in it or apologize for missing it. Sometimes, he would go to the grave of the deceased after he finished listening to Hadith and pray over it.
Afterwards, he would return to his mosque, where he would remain either giving fatawa to the people or fulfilling their needs until it was time to pray Dhuhr in congregation. He would spend the rest of the day in such a manner.
His classes were open to the general public: for the old, the young, the wealthy, the poor, the free, the slave, males, and females. He attracted everyone that would pass by him, and every one of them would feel that Ibn Taymiyyah was treating them better than he was treating anyone else present.
And he would constantly raise his eyesight to the sky and would not stop doing this, as if he saw something there that kept his eyesight hooked. He would do this for as long as I was staying with him.
So, subhan Allah! How short were these days! If only they were longer! By Allah, until this day, there has never been a time in my life that was more beloved to me than the time I spent with him, and I was never seen in a better state than I was at that time, and this was for no other reason than the barakah of the Shaykh, may Allah be Pleased with him.
Every week, he would visit the sick, especially those at the hospital, and I have been informed by more than one person whose trustworthiness I do not doubt that the entire life of the Shaykh was spent in the way that I witnessed and described above. So, what worship, and what jihad, is better than this? writes The Imam, the Hafidh Abu Hafs ‘Umar bin ‘Ali al-Bazzar
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