بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله دب العلمين

الصلاة والسلام على رسول الله

وبعد

I came across a hadith handed down to us by al-Hakim in his al-Mustadrak.

The scholar al-Hakim, whose full name was Abd Allah bin Abd Allah al-Hakim al-Nisahaburi and lived from 933 to 1012 CE. He was born in Nisabur and studied with numerous teachers in Khorasan, in today’s Iran. He was a great muhaddith of his time and was called the “Imam of the Muhaddithin” and the “Muhaddith of Khorasan”. He has also been suggested as the mujaddid of the 4th century. Among his students was the famous muhaddith Iman al-Bayhaqi.

At the age of 70, al-Hakim started compiling his al-Mustadrak ala Sahihain, usually just called al-Mustadrak. The aim of the book al-Mustadrak ala Sahihain was to collect ahadith not found in the Sahihain of Imam al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim, but still meeting the criteria of a sahih hadith according to the two Masters’ criteria.
Let’s look the text:


The Prophet (pbuh) said:

“Take benefit of five before five:

your youth before your old age,

your health before your sickness,

your wealth before your poverty,

your free-time before your preoccupation,

and your life before your death.”

A whole book can be written on each and every line in his transmission. But since I’m not a scholar and don’t claim to be one. I’m a common Muslim that Allah has given the gift of love of knowledge, either it be as a scholar of biology or studying classic Islamic knowledge. And I teach because of the verse in Surah al-Baqarah…giving from what Allah has given me.

  
Let’s reflect for a moment on each line of the hadith, insha Allah.

“Take benefit of five before five”
HabibuLlah recommend us to consider 5 things before 5 things. This text is an excellent example on the use of language and the fact that the Arabic language was at its pinnacle at the arrival of our Prophet Muhammad.

“Take benefit of five before five”
Grammatically there are missing words here. We would say “Take benefit of five THINGS before five THINGS” in translation. However, this omission of words is a common technique in Arabic rhetoric. Like in the Basmallah; bismiLlah is missing something, it is not a sentence. So there is a meaning behind why YOU say the Basmallah. An example could be “Ibtidau bismiLla” I begin in the Name of Allah.

“your health before your sickness”
Obviously, health is almost a requirement for high activity of religious works, such as memorization, standing in long extra prayers, awrad in addition to what is required of us. These things require strength and energy, good health and wellbeing. If we loose our health, intended extra work may also be lost. But as we will see in the next section, the believer should not loose his/hers trust in our Magnificent Lord, Allah tabaraka wa ta’ala.

“your youth before your old age,”
Why? Young people, as healthy people have energy and strength for doing extras. For young people there is energy to get a lot more done in worship. I mean extra prayers, forcing yourself to get up before fajr to pray tahajjud (well that may be easier with age and the need of less sleep), memory is better, so one can more easily memorize more Quran. And have a lot of Qur’an in ones heart is a way to motivate one for night prayers. Even though a few rakat in the night were only Allah observes you are excellent. Old age means the body starts to break down and energy might be less and practice may start to be too difficult. However, we can read in Surah Tiin – Chapter The Fig, that the reward will continue when energy for your constant practices are lost. It should be noted that many scholars consider this an ishara – an interpretation other than the literal meaning of the words, but the mentioned tafsir is from Tafsir al-Jalalain and form Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi in his almost 5 hours long tafsir of this chapter.

“your wealth before your poverty”
Wealth and money have no intrinsic value what so ever. Wealth and money are only a mean, not a goal. Think of Abu Bakr when he gave all his wealth to the Prophet, where the Prophet replied “What did you leave for your family and Abu Bakr answered “I left them Allah and His messenger”.

It is many ways to use wealth and the que is charity, sadaqa is the Arabic and popular word. There are two forms of sadaqa; the gift that benefits immediately, like always carrying some coins in your pocket and give a little to a beggar or leave your change in the collection boxes we see in shops and masajid. This is helping people and great mean to get rid of miserliness, which is not a very nice character trait.

The second is the ongoing charity sadaqa jariah. This type of sadaqa involves things that last. For example, you contribute to building a school or a masjid. It is implicated in ongoing that you constantly rewarded as long as the project exists. Something like it is when you write a letter starting with the the basmallah, praising Allah and pray for the Prophet – the dua will continuously increase you in reward as long as the document exists.

So the essence for me in this line is that it is better spending when you can, before poverty overcomes you and all you have to give is your dua or share a meal. And remember Allah teaches us that giving away will NOT decrease our wealth. Rather, the opposite is true; Give Allah 1 kr as a loan, and He pay you back with at least 10 kr in this world OR He gives what He want in the akhira.

“your free-time before your preoccupation,”
As Muslims and as sufis, as tijanis in particulare, we should attempt to be maximalists with respect to our time. Maximalists in that we should not waste time by engaging in activities that have no benefit in them. Our free time is time we can dedicate to Allah. We need to think about that, first and foremost reminding my self of that fact. Because we all have limited time; a limited life time, jobs and families to look after. This time is not actually yours, if you think about it. Our free time is the time we can spend, as we like. And we can choose what to do! We can choose to watch the next football match or we could leave the television and rather grab the subha or the Mushaf and do something useful.

“and your life before your death.”
This life is our investment capital. This short life we has been give is the only time we have. If we spend it well – we can expect the forgiveness of Allah and endless bliss in His Garden. If we waste the opportunity,  khalass – one cannot do other than hoping for Allahs forgiveness.

To conclude with another hadith, which is hadith no. 66 in Riyadh as-Salihiin and taken from Sunan al-Tirmidhi:

Shaddad Ibn Aus (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wassallam) said, "A wise man is the one who calls himself to account (and refrains from doing evil deeds) and does noble deeds to benefit him after death; and the foolish person is the one who subdues himself to his temptations and desires and seeks from Allah the fulfillment of his vain desires".

والله تعالى أعلم