5. AL-ḤASAN
AL-BAṢRĪ (2)
A Bedouin was passing by Basrah and asked,
“Who is the Master of the city?” It was said to him: “Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.” The
Bedouin asked again: “How did he become their master?” They said: “It is
because they do not need their worldly wealth, but they are in need of his
knowledge.” He became a voluntary judge of Basrah in 102/ 720.
Al-Ḥasan
al-Baṣrī did not like conducting debates in matters of religion. For him this
kind of debate would create doubt. When a man asked him to debate with him
about Islam, he replied that he knew his religion, and if that man had lost his
religion let him go and look for it. His
reply to some questions indicated his piety.
When he was asked whether Iblīs
(the Devil) slept, he said had Iblīs ever slept, then we would have
time to have a rest. When he was asked how he was, he answered that his condition was worse than that of the
people who were on board of a sinking ship in the middle of the sea, each was
hanging on a piece of wood to save himself. In another time he said that his
condition was like that of a person awaiting death in the morning and in the
evening, not knowing whether he would survive through the night and in what
condition he would die.
When he was asked about the
world and the Hereafter, al-Ḥasan Al-Baṣrī, answered: “The world compared to
the Hereafter is like the place of sunrise and the place of sunset. Whenever
you come closer to one of them you would be farther away from the other. With
regard to this world, it starts with tiredness and ends with annihilation. What
is ḥalāl (legal, lawful, permitted) in it there is ḥisāb (reckoning,
accounting), and what is ḥarām (illegal, unlawful, prohibited) in it
there is punishment. Whoever becomes rich in it will be tested, and whoever
becomes poor in it would be sad.”
Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was loved, respected
and admired by his contemporaries. One of them was a man called who was called
Abū Qatādah al-‘Adawī. He advised people to follow him, and to keep close to
him, as Abū Qatādah had never seen a man who had similar opinions to that of
‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb except him, and was one of the most knowledgeable
people on the ḥalāl (lawful) and the ḥarām (unlawful) acts. His
close neighbour, Khālid ibn Ṣafwān, said he had never seen a man like him; his
outward appearance and words were identical to his inner reality and his deeds.
When he enjoined what was right he was the first one to do it, and when he
forbade what was wrong, he was the farthest away from it. He was never in need
of people, but people were in need of him.
Some wise
sayings of Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī are as follows:
- Islam is the capital of a believer; it is always with him, he does
not leave it behind when he travels, and he does not entrust it to another.
- Statements can only be correct with actions; statements and actions
can only be correct with an intention; statements, actions and intention can
only be correct if they are according to the Sunnah. (The Sunnah of the Prophet
is his path which we Muslims should follow in order to reach our destination,
namely, salvation in the Hereafter, without which we would go astray)
- The person who acts without knowledge is like a wayfarer without a
way, and such a person ruins more than he fixes. Therefore seek knowledge, in a
way that doesn't harm your worship, and seek worship, in a way that doesn't
harm your knowledge seeking, for there was a nation that sought worship and
neglected knowledge, until they went out with their swords against the ummah
(nation) of Muhammad s.a.w. Had they sought knowledge, it wouldn't have
led them to what they did.
- Evil has three foundations and six subsidiary branches. Its
foundations are: envy, covetousness, and love of the worldly life. Its
subsidiary branches are: love of leadership, love of boasting, love of praise,
love of filling oneself with food, love of sleep, and love of relaxation.
- The goodness
where there is no evil is: shukr (gratitude to Allah) in times of
well-being, and ṣabr (patience) in times of misfortune. But many people
are not thankful when they are blessed, and are not patient when they are tried
with misfortune.
- This world is
but a dream that a sleeper sees—he delights in it for a few moments, and then
wakes up to face reality.
- In order to be followed as an example, a Muslim has to be a father
(mother) to young Muslims, a brother (sister) to other Muslims, or a son (or
daughter) to the elders.
- Whoever does not find happiness in the dhikr (remembrance)
of Allah, prayer, and reciting the Qu’ran, will not find it anywhere else.
- Life is made up of three days: yesterday
which has gone along with all that was in it, tomorrow which you may never see,
but today is for you, so work on it.
- Do not sit
idle, because death is constantly seeking you.
- Someone has said that no one should do the religious duty الأَمْرُ بِالْمَعْرُوْفِ وَ النَّهْيُ عَنِ الْمُنْكَر (commanding what is good and prohibiting
what is wrong), except an infallible person, namely, a person who does not make
any mistake. Satan would like this statement, so that no one would command what
is right and forbid what is wrong, as nobody is free from wrong-doing.
-
If someone wants to know who he is, he should present himself to the Qur’ān,
namely to know how good or how bad he is according to the teachings of the
Qur’an.
-
The best season is winter: its nights are long for those who want to
pray night prayers, and its days are short for those who want to fast. This is
contrary to the belief that the best season is summer, especially among Western
people, where they can spend longer days enjoying themselves in the open air.
-
We are people who would not do any act in public if we can do it in
private. So, in making du‘ā’ (supplication) we do it without sound, but
to whisper to our Lord.
-
Do not feel safe from fitnah (test, calamity), and always ask
Allah for keeping your īmān (faith in Islam) at the time of death.
-
The sign of forgiveness given to the person who has been on hajj (pilgrimage
to Makkah) is that he abandons the evils he used to commit.
-
A man seeking knowledge could be
seen in humbleness in his sight, in his tongue, in his hands, in his prayers,
in his speech, and his disinterest in worldly temptation. A man possessing a
portion of knowledge and put it into practice, it would be better for him than
the world and its contents.
- Verily, Allah lets a person enjoy a blessing for as long as He wills.
But when he is no longer thanked for it, He turns it into a punishment.
- Do not detest the misfortunes that befall you, for what you detest
may be the cause of your salvation, and what you like may be the cause of your
ruin.
- You will never truly love Allah until you love obeying Him.
- Among the signs that Allah has turned Himself away from a person
is that he becomes occupied with that which does not concern him.
If the reports are genuine,
al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī might have been endowed with a special kind of knowledge
given to selected pious ascetic people called الْعِلْمُ الّلدُنِّي, namely, knowledge imparted directly by Allah through mystic
intuition, as mentioned in the Qur’an, as follows:
... وَعَلَّمْنَاهُ مِنْ لَدُنَّا
عِلْمًا (الكهف:65)
… whom [i.e. Khidr] We have taught knowledge
from Us (Q. 18:65)
It was related that al-Ḥasan
al-Baṣrī saw some men was passing by dragging a body of a dead man. He fell
unconscious, apparently from the shock. When he regained consciousness, he told
his friends that the dead man had been a pious man before, but he became an
apostate. How did he become an apostate? While on his way to the mosque to
pray, he saw a beautiful woman, and he fell in love with her. When he asked her
to marry her, she refused unless he followed her religion, Christianity. As he
could not control his passion any longer he became Christian and married her.
Time passed by, the woman said to him:
“You have forsaken your religion which was more important in your life for the
sake of lust which has no value. Now, I am also forsaking my religion, but for
the sake of eternal bliss under the care of the One, the Self-Sufficient.” Then
she recited sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, as follows:
قُلْ
هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ . اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ . لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ.
وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌ ( الإخلاص:
1-4)
Say (O Muhammad): "He is Allah, (the)
One, al-
Samad
(The Self-Sufficient Master, Whom all creatures
need,
He neither eats nor drinks). He begets not, nor
was He begotten; And there
is none co-equal or
comparable
unto Him." (Q., 112:1-4)
When
the people who heard her story asked her how she knew and memorized these
verses, she said that it was through a dream. In her dream she was shown her
place in Hell. She became terrified, but the angel Mālik, the keeper of Hell, told
her not to be afraid, as Allah had ransomed her with that man, who would take
her place in Hell, while the angel Mālik took her hand and admitted her to
Paradise. She saw a line written in it
as follows:
يَمْحُو اللَّهُ مَا يَشَاءُ وَيُثْبِتُ وَعِنْدَهُ
أُمُّ الْكِتَابِ (الرعد:39)
Allah blots out what He wills and confirms
(what
He will), and with Him is the
Mother of the Book
(the
Preserved Tablet). (Q. 13:39).
Then the angel recited surat al-Ikhlāṣ (Q.,
112) to her, and she began to repeat it, and she woke up memorizing it.
Another
story was narrated by ‘Aṭṭār in his Muslim
Saints and Mystics that al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
had a neighbour who had been a fire-worshipper for over seventy years called
Simeon. When the man fell ill nearing death, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī visited him,
advised him to fear Allah and to end his life by asking Allah’s forgiveness.
The man told him that he had been a fire-worshipper all his life, but Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
persisted, and the man weeping accepted the belief in Allah. He told him that
when he died he would let people wash his body, put him in the grave with his (al-Ḥasan
al-Baṣrī’s) hands, and place in his (Simeon’s) hands the document declaring his
conversion to Islam, as evidence. Feeling guilty of forcing Simeon to convert,
al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī fell asleep and had a
miraculous dream: he saw Simeon "glowing like a candle; on his head a
crown, robed in fine raiment, he was walking with a smile in the garden of
Paradise." He was amazed and Simeon thanked him for
his warning, and he gave him (Simeon) back the parchment containing the
declaration of faith. When al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī woke up, he saw the parchment in
his hand, and thanked Allah for His mercy and asked for His forgiveness.
Al-Ḥasan Al-Baṣrī passed away on the
first of Rajab, which was on Thursday night, 110 A.H./728 A.C. at the age of
89. His body was washed and the funeral prayer for it was conducted after the
Friday prayer in grand mosque, where he had spent his time teaching and calling
people to the path of Allah. That day the entire people of Basrah attended his
funeral, that the mosque remained empty at the hour of ‘aṣr (later
afternoon) prayer. It was the first time and the only time people did not pray
obligatory prayers in that mosque.
One of many lessons we learn from al-Ḥasan
al-Baṣrī is that despite of his being the son of slaves he turned to become the
most honourable person in his time and one among highly respected scholars in
Islamic history. It is achievement that counts rather than descent. (CIVIC,
14 August, 2015)
المصادر:
المكتبة الشاملة
( تفسير الطبري (ت. 310 هـ(
تفسير القرطبى (ت. 671 هـ(
تفسير ابن كثير (ت. 774 هـ)
د. عبد الرحمن رفعت باشا. صور من حياة التابعين
للصف الثالث المتوسط 1986\1406
Ahmad von Denffer, ‘Ulūm al-Qur’ān.
Kuala Lumpur: A.S. Noordeen, 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_of_Basra
www.tawheedmovement.wordpress.com
http://sunnahonline.com/library/biographies/365-al-hasan-al-basri
http://topfamousquotes.com/hasan-al-basri-quotes/
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