THE LAST OTTOMAN SCHOLAR BY IMAM KHALIL ABDUR RASHID It is with - TopicsExpress



          

THE LAST OTTOMAN SCHOLAR BY IMAM KHALIL ABDUR RASHID It is with deep humility and honor that I sit to transmit a snapshot of the life of my teacher whom I spent 8 years of my life studying under; who would refine me, educate me, advise me, and transmit ijaaza to me thus becoming the father of my spiritual life, Shaykh Muhammad Emin Er. Shaykh Muhammad Emin Er was born in 1909 in the village of Kuluyan (recently renamed Kalash) in the province of Diyarbakir, in the southeast of what is now Turkey but was at that time the Ottoman Empire. Shaykh Emin’s family belonged to a Kurdish tribe called Miran. His father, Haji Zulfikar, was a wealthy farmer who took a great interest in science and education, and happened to be a person of some wealth. There being no school in the village of Kuluyan, Haji Zulfikar employed a private tutor to educate his two young sons, Muhammad and his elder brother Ali. Then just as his sons were learning to read and write in the Arabic script (at the time still the official script of the Ottoman language and state), Haji Zulfikar passed away. The future Shaykh had already lost his mother Hawa while he was still a young child of the age of three or four and thus (like the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace) he was left an orphan. To this day, Shaykh Emin travels to the graves of his mother and father in the village of Kuluyan at least once per year. ** At this time, Muhammad Emin was 10 years old, and the Ottoman state still stood as one of the largest in the world extending from North Africa to Yemen, and from the Balkans to the frontiers of Persia. It faced coordinated attacks on many fronts, east and west. Because of the war, the economic situation became ruinous, as the Ottoman state was increasingly forced to deplete its already overextended financial resources in the defense of its territorial integrity. The resulting economic hardship was severe throughout the country and the young Muhammad Emin passed through the remainder of his early life in much straightened circumstances, first under the care of his stepmother and later under the care of his elder brother. He contributed to the support of his family by shepherding goats in the high mountains surrounding the village. All the while, his desire to learn to read and write, ignited both by his late father and his former tutor, persisted and grew. Having neither paper nor pen, he used stones to scratch words and sentences on flat rocks, while tending his goats on the mountainsides. This striving to improve his reading and writing skills despite great deprivation gave rise to the legend in his village that Khidr, the companion of Moses and saintly figure who comes to the aid of the destitute, provided the young Muhammad Emin lessons in his sleep. ** So great was his passion for knowledge that he would cry bitter tears wile imploring Allah to help him learn to read the Quran. He missed no opportunity to seek out people whom he thought might help him. He would journey on foot for several days at a time simply to visit knowledgeable people in the vicinity of his village. He would eventually learn how to write letters and read books in the Ottoman script. As for the Arabic language and knowledge of the traditional Islamic disciplines, there was at the time no one in the region able to introduce him to this type of scholarship. Thus he sought what he could from books. However, as the new Turkish Republic was established, the traditional Ottoman script was abolished and its use outlawed altogether with all Quranic and Islamic education. Families began to fear the consequences of teaching the Quran to their children even in the privacy of their own homes. As Shaykh Emin recalls: “…at that time, everything was forbidden in Turkey. Even to read and to learn the Quran was forbidden in those days. It was not easy, like it is today. We had very hard times, so I resolved at my first opportunity to seek religious learning in Syria.” This was not to be. Reaching the border city of Gaziantep, Muhammad Emin was not permitted to cross into Syria. He resolved instead to travel first to Adana, and soon thereafter to Istanbul. Knowing no one in Istanbul, he soon ran out of money, and thus went on foot to Bursa where he worked as a servant for a wealthy family in order to make a living. At the age of 25, Muhammad Emin made his first of many trips of pilgrimage (hajj) to the Sacred House, in Mecca. Upon his return, his desire to seek scared knowledge undiminished, he undertook extensive travels in eastern Anatolia to seek out scholars and ask them to teach him. He later resolved once again to cross into Syria in search of scholars who could instruct him. By now, World War II had begun, and although he succeeded in crossing the border, he was detained by security forces who suspected him of being a spy. He spent some time in prison in Syria before being cleared. Set free by authorities, he returned to Turkey, particularly to Diyarbakir. There he was able to study the remaining subjects in the foundational curriculum of the traditional Islamic sciences, many of them concerned with Arabic linguistics. These included propositional logic (mantiq), historical semantics (ilm al-wada’), figurative usage (isti’ara), etiquette of debate and argumentation (munazara), literary meaning (ma’ani), rhetoric (bayan), refined usage (badi), fundamentals of Islamic creed (usul al-din), methodology of Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), Islamic jurisprudence of both the Hanafi and Shafi Legal Schools (fiqh), and Islamic spiritual psychology (tasawwuf). The teacher with whom he spent the greatest part of this time was Molla Rasul, a classmate of the famous Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. Shaykh Emin would later meet Said Nursi and study briefly with him as well. In 1951, Shaykh Emin completed the last of his studies, completing the study of discursive theology (kalam) and received his full license (ijaaza) in all of the rational and traditional Islamic disciplines which have constituted the curriculum of the greatest of scholars of the Islamic tradition since the time of Imam Ghazali in the 11th and 12th centuries. In addition, Shaykh Emin mastered and received ijaaza in the sciences of exegesis of Quran (tafsir), religious laws of inheritance (fara’id) and the sciences of the prophetic traditions (usul al-hadith). Shaykh Emin has devoted his entire life to emulating the example of his teachers and teaching the inner and outer discipline to student, issuing ijaaza to those who successfully complete their study under him – efforts he continues to this day. Central to this is his position within a chain (isnad) that is within an unbroken lineage of transmission of knowledge extending back to Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. And, according to the custom of Muslim scholars of this mold, he in turn passes on the knowledge transmitted to him by his mentors, bequeathing a place in this unbroken chain to students in the 21st century. Even if seldom encountered, it is nevertheless true that such an isnad persists to the present day. Shaykh Emin has six children and 40 grandchildren. A seventh child of his passed away as a toddler. Having retired from many years of service as imam in several cities, he continues to live a life of rigorous worship. He has little free time, but uses it when it comes to read and contemplate the Quran and consult the commentaries of the great scholars on questions that occur to him in his reading. Shaykh Ein sleeps very little –by his own estimate, perhaps three hours during the night, and an hour or two before noon if possible. He always sleeps in a state of ablution, in emulation of the sunna of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and mindful that, should he die in his sleep, he would want to face his Lord in a state of purity. He rises every day at around 3a.m. for the night prayer called tahajjud, remaining awake in a state of contemplation until the time of the prescribed dawn prayer (fajr). He then remains in the place of prayer and reads Quran until the sun has risen, and then remains for a bit longer, finally offering a voluntary cycle of prayer. He passes the rest of the morning in scholarly writing, sometimes receiving visitors. Shaykh Emin writes only in Arabic, always facing the direction of prayer (qibla) in a state of ritual purity (wudu). When his work is interrupted for some reason, he performs ablution and two cycles of prayer before resuming his writing, a demonstration of profound reverence, typical of the foremost representatives of the Islamic scholarly tradition but seldom encountered in the present day, before the grave responsibility of transmitting knowledge.* * His modest home in Ankara, Turkey witnesses a steady stream of guests, and he never refuses any request of learning, regardless of the level of the student. Shaykh Emin and his guests sit on carpeted floor of a room lined with shelves of books from floor to ceiling. The students and visitors are always served tea and sweets, and even a complete meal at the appropriate times. He teaches his students on an individual basis, through the pace and method of instruction best suited to each person’s aptitudes and constraints. Although it is his habit to fast whenever possible, he goes out of his way to accommodate those guests who are not fasting in order to set them more fully at ease in his company. This observance, far from being merely the exemplary of the manners of his generation, is the living sunna of all the Prophets. The importance of this for people in his company is tremendous, and not to be overlooked. It is possible to learn a great deal about exemplary conduct from books, and even to some extent to imitate what one reads. But not everything we need to know on this matter is written, nor could it be. It is by keeping the company of those who know it that we acquire the essentials of exemplary conduct in both its written and unwritten aspects. Shaykh Emin’s conduct exemplifies what was transmitted to him from his teachers, and they from theirs, and so forth along lineages extending to the teaching and example of Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. All of this gives us a greater sense of what could be lost to us forever if the last chains of transmission of this tradition were ever to be broken.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 21:57:04 +0000

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