[gWhya5ct]

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This is not a tirade against the Ulamah who have legitimatized scanning and forwarding ebooks for FREE.
Just a humble appeal to everyone including Ulamah to rethink their methods for the propagation of Truth.
At times like these when we Muslims should be thinking of ways and means to strengthen the hands of each other and esp. Ulamah's for the propagation of Truth, we in our own way are killing the efforts.

Tier 1 Ulamah's write books.
Tier 2 Ulamah's sell it.
Tier 3 Ulamah's manage book stores and the stuff.
Meaning, there is a whole industry built around books - writing, publishing, selling like all industries.

Haven't we heard of the Trickle down effect?

We spend millions dunyavi educating ourselves, right from kindergarten until our bachelors and masters, but for most of us spending wealth for the sake of Deen means just learning the basics of the Glorious Quran from the local Hafiz saheb or the maktab where we spend or send our kids to learn for half an hour each day or an hour on weekends and when the dunyavi studies start demanding a lot of our time, the first thing to go out of the window is even that half an hour at the maktab or with the local Hafiz saheb.

Thats the importance [azmath] we have for Islam.

Thats our shameless commitment to learning Deen.

If we truly had any importance of Islam in our hearts, we'd weigh our Ulamah in gold, at-least we'd do everything we are capable of help the cause.

To borrow a phrase from an other thread:

Ulamah's live in the same world as we do.

A dollar gives the same value to a billionaire as it does to an Ulamah.
It costs the same for them to fill up their car* at the gas station.
*That is if they have cars in the first place, you would be hard pressed to find any Ulamah in South Asia who is driving a car.
Their kids need to have the same amount of nutrition as any other.
They too need the same hygiene levels as any other Human being.

So, I ask what sort of a mind would in these times would prefer to download and read FREE ebooks if those books are still in print and available on the shelf to buy for everyone who is interested to read.

Ask any top Ulamah, from Deoband to Al-Azhar, you'll never have importance of something you get for FREE. I don't know about Al-Azhar really, but I do know about Deoband.

There are people who have made it their profession to scan and upload Islamic books for FREE (you know who I'm talking about). By all means thats a noble thing to do, but why upload books which are still in print? Why not spare effort to:

a) To scan / upload books which are no more in publication.
b) To translate books (mainly Urdu) into English - its the need of the hour.

Alhamdulillah, thanks to Allah SWT, we have enough avenues today through which we can buy books from any part of the world.

South Asians and people of South Asian origin have got around customs to import pickles to the west, but when it comes to Islamic books they'd rather download, oh, sorry, they run out of space in their suitcases while packing.

Not saying, we should only buy hardcovers, because there are people who'd rather buy ebooks if given a choice because of the obvious reasons. Thats also Fi Sabilillah, you also spend money over there too to procure books.

Amazon already does it: sell ebooks of hardcovers, you know that. Old story.

Why not let the Ulamah get their due for the efforts they have put in to write books, why not pay them using payment modes like Paypal or NetBanking, don't tell you don't have access to that.

Almost all madaaris have a bank account number, why not pay them for books which you have got for free if the Ulamah's (who have wrote books which you are reading now and which have come into your possession for free - read ebooks you downloaded without paying a dime) are no longer alive, or you don't know their kith and kin?

1. We blame Ulamah's for not speaking the Huqq,
2. We blame Ulamah's for dancing to the tunes of the masjid / mosque committees,
3. We blame Ulamah's for not doing enough for the up-liftment of the Ummah,
4. We'll murmur gheebah amongst ourselves when we see the Ulamah's driving cars or eating out - hey! Where'd he get the EXTRA money from?!!
5. They should make no mistake during the prayers, or else we'll make them pay for it. The next thing you see, they are on their way out.

WE have a part to play in all of the above. Don't sit there looking like you didn't have a part to play in all of this when this happened at your masjid.

I have seen Huffaz working in shoe stores!

Shame on us people who don't hear their cries, don't listen to the wails of their hungry children, shame on us when we point out their error when we see them attending any bidah gatherings to make some money.

Shame on us people who download ebooks without paying for them.

Thanks to Allah SWT for Deoband, for Maulana Qasim Nanotwi (rh) who said when people give their hard earned money for a cause, whatever little, they'll come closer to it, they'll feel its importance (ahmiyatt / azmath) in their hearts. (Refer to the bayan of Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani Saheb db that brother Ahmed uploaded recently).

Thanks to Allah SWT for Markaz Nizamuddin which strongly encourages spending your life, wealth and time to learn Deen and strongly discourages funding other's khurooj. Its your life, time and wealth for YOU.

Never will anyone ever get near the essence of Islam by reading up on free materials even though having the means to procure it. Yes, he may get access to a lot of knowledge. Never the wisdom.

This thread is not for discussing demand and supply ratio of Ulamah's (Astaghfirullah) (We've had that before - I think it was started by an other member).

Rather its only for discouraging free downloads of ebooks.
With growing penetration of the Internet even in developing countries - this fitnah is only going to get bigger.

The next time you sit besides an Aalim or an Haafiz, try to smell his breadth, 'coz if it seems strange, it very probably might not be coming because he is fasting,

but more so because he may not have had anything to eat since morning.

Hyperbole?
Leave home.



(to be continued)
May Allah SWT guide us all. Summa aameen.