Shaykh Dr. Samer al-Nass on Quranic Expertise

Shaykh Gibril Fouad Haddad

SHAYKH DR. SAMER AL-NASS: “QURANIC EXPERTISE USED TO BE MIXED WITH THEIR FLESH AND BLOOD, BUT NOW IT IS A TITLE”

“Ibn al-Jazari in Ghayat al-Nihaya cites a Qur’an master who had three teachers, with the third of whom he read 90 khatmas of Qur’an (complete readings under examination) in the different canonical readings. Let me be frank with you: I only read a total of three khatmas with two different shaykhs. The one that read 90 khatmas, for sure knows more than the one who read 60, and the latter for sure knows more than the one who read 30. Their taste, their sense, their understanding of the discipline has become their flesh and blood. Now, I am sorry to say, we have covetous title-seekers. ‘Reading with ijaza‘? What is that? I never heard of that. Since when does every student who finishes a book automatically become qualified to teach it?? We will not ‘give you ijaza‘ just because you did a reading and just ‘to make you pleased’ but we will pound you like kebbeh in the old-style stone mortar until you are truly ready!

“It is the same, I am sorry to say, with some fatwas we hear nowadays. Such as that ‘for the Baccalaureate exams it is OK not to fast [in Ramadan]’. I went to the examination center and saw the fast-breakers, not two or three or a few, but the whole lot sitting and smoking openly. Of course these are criminals, but do you not think that the one who gave them that fatwa is their partner in crime?

“We have something the other communities do not have. We have the HERITAGE OF THE PROPHET (upon him blessings and peace) and if we do not keep that jealously then we are completely worthless.”