The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 612
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنُصَلِّي عَلَى رَسُولِهِ الْكَرِيمِ SIGN OF THE DAY OF JUDGMENT One of the major Signs of the nearness of the Day of Judgment which comes to be known from this hadith that Imam Bukhārī related in his Şahih [al-Bukhārī] from ‘Abdullah bin Amr bin al-Ās, and it is as يُقْبَضُ الْعِلْمُ بِقَبْضِ الْعُلَمَاءِ حَتَّى إِذَا لَمْ يَبْقَ عَالِمُ اتَّخَذَ النَّاسُ رُؤُسًا جُهَّالًا فَسُئِلُوا فَأَفْتَوْا بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ :follows 2 . فَضَلُّوا وَأَضَلُّوا Meaning that: 'Knowledge will be lost through the death of scholars until the point when no scholar is found, the people will take the ignorant as their leaders and rulers and will go to them for inquiries about religious issues, upon which those people, on account of their ignorance and lack of proficiency, will draw conclusions that are opposed to the way of truth and upstanding fatwas. So they them- selves will go astray and will lead others astray. Then, in another hadith is: 'Those who will issue fatwas in this age'-namely the maulawis, muhaddith [scholars of Hadith], and jurists 'will be the worst of all creation on the face of the earth. In another hadith, it is said: 'They will recite the Quran, but the Quran will not go down their larynx';⁴ that is, they will not act upon it. 1. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. We praise Him and invoke blessings on His Noble Messenger. [Publisher] 2. Şahih al-Bukhārī, Kitābul-'Ilm, Bāb Kaifa Yuqbadul-'Ilm, Hadith 100 [Publisher] 3. Mishkātul-Maṣābīḥ, vol. 1, Kitābul-Ilm, p. 68, Hadith 276, published by Sharikat Dar Arqam ibn Abi Arqam, Beirut, Lebanon [Publisher] 4. Şahih al-Bukhārī, Kitāb Istītābatul-Murtaddin, Bāb Man Taraka Qitālul- Khawarij. . . , Hadith 6934 [Publisher]