Alhamdulillahi rabbil aalameen was salatu was salamu ala ashrafil ambiyai wal mursaleen.
Amma'ba'ad.
Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu....
This is my story on how I became AhlulHadeeth......
I was born alhamdulillah in a muslim family. My paternal relaties were mukhallids of Shafii maslak,who worked with Jamat-e-Islami and my mother was from a staunch Deobandi Hanafi background who also had some affiliations with Jamaat-e-Islaami.
My mother was the one who hardened my foundations in my faith, Alhamdulillah, and she taught me how to be a fundamentalist muslim. Even before I joined school she started teaching me how to speak English and forced me to have a command over it, she also coaxed me to learn Urdu and always insisted on me to learn the Urdu language.
My mother used to narrate to me inspirational stories of Mohammed(salalllahualihiwasallam),Umar ibn al-Khattab,Hussain(the story of his martyrdom karbala),Salahuddin Ayyubi,Aurangzeb, Tippu Sultan,etc.
Though I still had little knowledge of Islam,I always held the belief that there can be no religion superior to Islam.
In my house there were two types of literature,as i said,Deobandi as well as Ikwani. I only remember reading Khutbaat of Sheikh Maudodi (May Allah forgive him) and little bit of Tafheem-Al-Quraan. I never touched his other books. I still hold the memories of the books of Ashraf Ali Thanvi (May Allah forgive him) my mother read out to me.
I however did not participate in the Tablegi Jamat,actively,because i was put up in Kuwait from Lkg till 10th standard.
Neither did i ever hear the word ahlehadees or salafi till now.
The place i heard the word 'wahabi' is still strong in my memory. In my eighth standard Social Science text book. It said that the people of a muslim sect 'wahabis' were the ones who started the freedom struggle. I however did not feel proud of it,because i thought what was the use of fighting against the british when you (the wahabis) will anyway go to the hell fire.since i had never heard of 'wahabis', i thought they might be some sect like shia or bohris,so without proper beliefs any other action wont be accepted,and too must be the case with the wahabis.
Meanwhile, I did have a faint picture of Brother Zakir Naik. Once when i saw him on QTV, with a coat and tie,and brother zakir was saying it's halal to wear it. I switched off the tv, thinking him to be a modernist and deviant trying to defend modernism in islam, as i was taught that the tie was a christian symbol.
For my 11th i came to india.i stayed in my grandmother's place.
In my grandma's place,they would often ask me to lead the prayers,as they assumed that i have good knowledge on islam. However,they would,remind me to pray in the shafii way,but i would insist and pray in the hanafi way-because i believed that all 4 imams were barhaq.
0nce in the fajr prayer,i remember,that after the 2nd rakath i was about to go into sujud without reciting the dua-e-qunut!on that my uncle,standing beside me,pulled my hand forcibly,and so i stood again,and recited the dua e qunut!!!(For the shafiis reciting the qunuut was a wajib in the second rakah of fajar prayer)
I once went to our family mosque,which was lead by a hanafi deobandi imam,he too was forced to pray the shafii way by the public.
When i asked him,what was the ruling if i missed some part of the salah.he replied me telling that it depended on which maslak i belonged to.i was silent and came back.
This year,was when,i actually had an insight into jamat e islami's activities.
I understood some basic things about jamat-e-islami. They velhemently supported Iran,and abused the govts of saudi arabia.This feature of theirs did appeal to me.
Some two sessions of dars-e-quran in the weekly SIO meet,and singing some hamd-o-naat in jamat e islami programs was what i contributed to them.I really liked the way they grouped people irrespective of their differences.
One thing of theirs,which i hated was,their linency towards,sporting the beard,wearing the cap and pants above the ankles.they considered this to be mere sunnah which could be comfortably neglected!
In my 12th my mother came to India,and i started staying with her. far from all jamat e islami activities,now.
There was peace tv english in our cable channel,which i rarely saw,and when i did,it had only comparative religion dawah which was really impressive to me.i picked up many things like stats and verses etc,even though i watched it for less than 3 hours a week.
I was interested in doing dawah now,being still a hanafi within!
There was a barelvi mosque near our house,which i liked going to,to listen the friday khutbah.I thought that the naats and salaams they sung,were the best way of showing love to the prophet sallallahualaihiwasallam. I also loved their show of love for the prophet. But one day in some khutbah the imam of that mosque cursed Aurangzeb because he supposedly dug out the grave of some aulia-allah! Even before praying the friday prayer in that mosque,i left the mosque and went out in disgust.
The reason i left that mosque,was not because of tawheed,but because they cursed Aurangzeb!!! With all these confusions in mind,i finished my 2nd puc. I wanted to do medical,but my mother forced me to select engineering.With utter disgust i decided to opt for engineering,but i settled for a course which would be available only in bangalore!because i wanted to stay away from my strict mother who never allowed me to enjoy student life and meet my friends outside college.for your info the course was aeronautical engineering.
All my decisions,which i made to rebel against my mother,made me happier by the day.
Because i was soon going to enjoy life in bangalore!
In bangalore, my college's muslim friend's circle was tableeghi.I was happy finally,as i got my roots back,they said they were deobandi hanafis! Six months i was with them,sitting in the fazail e amal 'gashts' and speaking on eeman was the norm.
There were two 'fitnah maker' ahlehadith guys in our group. When these guys would tell about quran and sunnah to me, They would talk sense,but then i would give lame arguments to prove that 4 imams can exist in co-existence!
But the tableeghis soon realised the scene.and started making me listen anti-ahlehadis speeches by Anzar Shah Qasmy from bangalore.i heard quite many of his speeches.mostly extracts.topics like-'ham hanafi kyu hain','ghair mukhalid ka operation',etc.this was the time i started sporting a beard,i.e,a trimmed one,not a salafi beard.
Whenever i would argue with these 2 salafi guys,i knew my argument was lame,yet i would continue.
All what I heard about the salafis from Anzar Shah Qasmy was that they,
*Only accept authentic ahdeeth,*Reject or throw away statements which contradict the hadees,*That they rob from the houses of the 4 imams,*They hate blind Taqleed,*They dont do any shirk or Biddah!!!
Even before they could tell me what being an ahlehadith actually was, soon there was some ramzan students program in the mosque near our college in bangalore.brother Mehtab from CIS had come there to give a speech.
What i always heard of salafis was that they always has 'benoor'(darkened) faces!but when i saw brother mehtab,even though i had never seen many salafis,i felt that,this brother is most probably an Ahlehadith. His talk was on 'ilm'.and in the Q&A session,he classified one hadith as fabricated. i was really impressed by this.i never knew hadith too were classified as authentic or unauthentic.
I was made to believe in everything i was told to be a hadeeth....!!!
Just after the programme,i went in to congratulate him and ask questions like how to do dawah n stuff!
But even without me asking him !this brother started explaining me on the topic- Where Is Allah? I agreed to the belief that Allah was on His Throne..alhamdulillah....
(The Deobandi Aqeedah and Jamaat-e-Islami's founder Moulana Moudodi'd Aqeedah was that Allah is everywhere-this is a serious mistake in aqeedah)
This was the real beginning of loving ahlehadith.and a journey to a rugged terrain.
One of those 2 fitnah makers,who actually did not sport a beard,asked me how was this daee! i replied positively.to this he said that the brother was also an ahlehadith.
Then our college holidays started and i went back home with the beard!
When i reached my hometown,udupi,my relatives asked me if i had become a salafi(i never heard the word salafi yet,i just knew ahlehadith!).
I asked in amazement- who are they?they told me all vices about them just like i heard from Anzar Shah Qasmy's talks-that they criticise,they think only they go to jannah,that they support israel etc. i in innocence made a sort of promise with one of my jamateislami uncle that i would never become a salafi!
Soon this incident happened in my grand mother's place.(Allah opens up the hearts of the people in the way He has planned, Masha'allah.....)
My younger uncle XYZLMN came from kuwait.he wanted to buy a gift to his christian boss because he had done many favors on him.
I went with my uncle to the bazaar.soon my uncle entered a shop which had sandal wood idols of hindu gods! My uncle then brought a sandal elephant for rupees3500,i told my uncle that it is haram to buy an idol from an idol worshipper.he had lame arguments saying that the christian boss wont worship this.i still insisted that buying from a shop specifically selling them was haram.but my uncle brought it and we went home.
From my grandmothers place,i went back to my house,approx 5 kms from there,but i was really disturbed!
Next day i went to my grandmother's place,with an intention to advice my uncle to return back the idol.
My uncle refused and scolded me.
I had very meagre knowledge of islam,and that too not salafi islam.but still. . . . .
I told my uncle-"you have become mushrik by buying the idol."
My uncle-"you have become a salafi who nags on the smallest of things."
Me-"what salafi,i m not a salafi?''
Uncle-"you will now keep beards like the jews".
Me- "uncle,can you see i trimmed my beard,but uncle dont slander the salafis,they have got hadiths to support them,the prophet never trimmed his beard."
(I got this knowledge from my arguements with the 2 salafi brothers i mentioned above)
Uncle- "oh wow! And then you will keep the hands on your chest like this(showing me the way salafis do in a mocking way)".....
Me- "uncle,dont joke them like this,there is a hadith in abu dawud which supports their action."
Uncle-"do you shake your index finger in namaz''.
Me-no!
Uncle-"but the salafis do it! they distract people in prayer!"
Me-"they may have some hadith for that,we should ask them!"
Uncle- "haan! The salafis have only got all the hadiths in the world! do you know The barelvis also have hadith to go to dargah ! "
i was immensly angry at this. . .
I roared,forgettin that he is a fatherly figure to me. . .
I said- "barelvis have got hadith!!! shut your mouth and getlost,if you dont know something dont speak about it! "
My uncle-"ya allah! My child said this to me"(he was almost about to cry)
My mom-"son you shouldn't have spoken this way!"
Me- " ammi! He is supporting the mushriks! Mocking the hadith! Mocking the acts of the prophet!should i sit quietly. . ."
My mom and me,we left the place soon, i was hurt,i felt why did i support the salafis. it has already started division, just like I heard about them......!
Tears are rolling down my eyes as i m typing this.perhaps Allah loved this argument of jihalat of mine.and allah pushed me into the maslak e haq.
Next day,a salafi boy, Muzammil ,who had become salafi from barelvi long before me, came to our house.
After we finished the zuhr prayer,he asked me.
Muz-"why are your hands below the navel?"
Me-"see there is no authentic hadith for any placement of the hands."
Muzamil,he immediate opened my desktop and showed me a zakir naik video,from his pendrive, supporting placement of hands on chest,saying that the hadith of placement of hands on chest was stronger that the other two hadith!
(As I never considered brother Zakir to be an authentic guy I felt that Zakir bhai's authority in islaam is nill!!)
Me- "see brother,when there are 3 weak hadith,we can follow anyone.i ll enquire it elsewhere and see."
muzamil did not have enough material to convince me.and my heart deep inside did not want to agree to this guy who was 4 years younger to me;though i strongly felt it was true.
With great pain within,i reached bangalore,i felt that there must be something wrong with these salafis.or else why would people resort to mocking someone with so many evidences.
I remembered,CIS!
Just as i reached bangalore,i went there,and brought the book-"prayer of the prophet by sheikh albani."
br.mehtab asked me if i wanted to see postmartem of fazail e aamaal by meraj rabbani.! I was perplexed as though hearing something new. . .i asked again-"what?"he replied 'fazail e amal' ka postmartem!
I brought that too.and by the next week i finished reading almost 15 pages of the book from the front,and 15 pages of the back!the way imam albani refuted taqleed in the beginning and the way with which he refuted zaif hadith in the end was superb!masha'allah. and the videos of shaikh rabbani blasted out to me the wrong aqaid of the deobandis! my mind was salafi now.but not yet proclaimed.
For the remaining queries,i went to shaikh ijaz nadwi of charminar mosque bangalore.he with his handsome salafi face and politeness would clear all the doubts i had.Mashaallah....
The news of my arguments with my uncle reached all corners of my family.
Even after becoming a salafi by heart.when my uncle ifthikar asked me by phone, if i m salafi-i said-"dont you lie please,i m not a salafi?"
i kept tellin that to many of my uncles who called me.
I was irritated by all this,this was getting too much.besides that,the tablegis near my house were arguing with me as to why i was doing rafadain,etc etc.
When one day, after watching 'the serah of umar ibn khattab-by shaikh rabbani',when i heard how umar proclaimed his islam! i went to the internet center,opened my social networking account,which had many of my relatives,and i changed my name.from 'Mohammed Thajammul Hussain Manna'. . . to 'MANNA MOHAMMED SALAFI'!
And whenever my uncles called to verify the change,i said-
"you were forcing me to become a salafi? yes i m salafi now!"
when one of my uncles asked-"you promised me that you would never become a salafi".
Me: "this is only the correct path! And i m a salafi now!"
After this incident all my relatives from my fathers side broke their ties with me.my mom and younger bro became ahlulhadith very soon.my dad rejected my manhaj for one year.but when he returned to kuwait and asked the scholars there about 'ahlehadith',i dont know what they said.but then my father too accepted maslak-e-ahlehadith.
This was how i became 'manna mohammed salafi'.
I never removed the word salafi with my name,even now, till date after 3 years.because i never wanted to hide the truth.and i never had the misconception of naming oneself as an adherant to AhlusSunnah or AhlulHadees or Salafi because descriptive names like AhlusSunnah, AshaabulHadeeth and AhlulHadeeth wer used by the people from the first 3 generations inclusive of the Sahabas! Alhamduliillaah....
May Allah reward the brothers Mohammed Naqeeb and Zameer Pasha for doin dawah to me, may Allah guide Anzar Shah Qasmy ,who curses the salafis in his speeches, to accept the truthfullness of ahlehadees , it is because of him that I felt the need to research on Islaam. May Allah raise the status of shaikh Nasir uddiin Al-Albani (rahimullah) for his works, May Allah preserve Shaikh Meraaj Rabbani and give him a long and healthy life and extract more service from him for His deen,May Allah preserve Shaikh Aijaaz Nadwee for clearing my misconceptions about Salafiyyah...Aameen Summa aameen.....
Finally all praises are for Allah, who guides whomsoever He wills....
