eachers…
o My T
T
e
With Lov
slam
By Saneela A
A
s every academic year, this final
year also started with Orientation
Day. Shaykh Sahab gave an
emotional and motivational talk
to help our minds refocus on our
main goal after a long summer break. The final
year is known as ‘Daura Hadith’, and in this year
we study the big books of ahadith (prophetic
narrations); Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Jami’i
Tirmidhi, and Sunan Abu Dawood.
We were being given our course books on the
same day, so we were told to bring trolley bags
to class as the multiple volumes of books were
really heavy to carry. We all received our
books with a sense of fear, gratitude and a
childlike excitement. I remember arranging
the books on my study
desk and
showing them to my
children excitedly, ‘Look,
mummy will study all
these books in one year.’
My sons seemed really
NISBAH 52
impressed, but my daughter the book worm, just
turned up her nose and said, ‘If babies can be
born in nine months, then surely reading these
books in one year is no big deal.’
Traditionally in madaris (islamic schools), Daura
Hadith begins with a ceremony called, ‘Iftitah-eBukhari’, in which the teacher narrates the first
hadith of Sahih Bukhari, along with its chain of
narrators and explanation. This is no ordinary
ceremony, and anyone who knows the status of
Sahih Bukhari in the books of Islam, would
know what a huge blessing and honour it is to
just be able to listen to these ahadith narrated by
a qualified teacher. We were
extremely fortunate to