Bismillahi Al-Rahmani Al-Rahim

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A Comment from one of the Hanbali list subscribers:

Allah reward you on your work regarding the Hanaabilah. I believe their methods are misunderstood. In the West, there tends to be an almost bigotry against this small but influential school. They say there are four, but they carry on as if there are three, I think this is heartless and leads to division.

Also, may Allah reward you for the e-mails I have seen as of late. When you want to know what the madhhab says, you go to the guys and their books. If a Hanbali quoted just off the cuff rulings from the Hanafis, everything from one side of the Atlantic to the other would be on fire, but why this double standard with the Hanbalis, its' like some type of madhhab institutional racism. And with Allah is every success.

Before anyone cries "foul,” perhaps they can read message numbers 122, the recent message concerning Shafi`is reciting al-Fatiha behind the imam (7/Aug/2003) and the most recent message on wiping over socks (4/Aug/2003).


I hope that readers will take the time to read that first message (try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hanbali/message/122), since it shows that the brother's observations are not off. In that message I dissected someone else's "research.” Even after I showed others of his madhhab that this "research” from one of their students was worthless from several perspectives (Arabic, English, fiqh, adab, scholarly standards, and others), not only did they remain silent about the fact that what they had propagated might have problems – they continued to propagate the same "research” as if there was nothing wrong with it.


While my message did not prompt them to question what they were spreading as fact, it did prompt someone to recommended to Faraz Rabbani that someone "gently advise” me to adjust my attitude and to be less thorough; that I was right did not matter – what seemed to matter is that I gave a defense for the "wrong” madhhab that was too thorough instead of letting the "right” madhhab win a rigged match.


I guess "scholarship” has different meanings with different people.


And Allah knows best.


wa al-salamu `alaykum
--musa