Farewell to Shaykh Abdul Razzaq Balhawan

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

It is really sad for us today. It reminds me a lot of Rihla's final hours in Madinah. After finishing the teaching part, Shaykh Abdul Razzaq brought some refreshment for us as a gift for good. He has diabetes so he didn't have a lot but he never stopped offering us more juice and sweets. Fortunately we have prepared a set of pen & pencil engraved with his name on them as a gift for good to him. He refused to accept it and kept saying 'laa hawla wa laa quwata illa billahi' until Umm Hassan insisted that he finally took it and said that we have made him feel so shy. MashaALLAH, a very down to earth teacher.

His willingness to teach us is something that is not easy to get. Not that he is stingy in sharing knowledge but it is that he is too good that so many people are waiting for him to teach them. Some of his students follow him wherever he goes to read in front of him so that they may finish the Qur'an and receive a degree (ijazah) from him. The more students around him, the less each student will get to read from the Qur'an. Alhamdulillah, he kindly opened a class specially for the sisters. Though it's no more than 1 and a half hour daily, it is enough for us to read more than 2 pages a day including some lessons of the rules of tajwid. Of course, he gave full time for the brothers. Usually for a great teacher like him, those who want to learn from such a teacher will have to wait at the mosque. After the teacher finish leading Fajr prayer, then, the teaching begins. Usually from a crowd of brothers, each of them only manage to read 1 page a day. That's why I said that we are quite lucky, alhamdulillah.

If the mosque is willing, he will be invited to Cambridge again in Ramadhan. Before that, he will be judging the Qur'an recitation in Malaysia (but I won't be there). He said that he doesn't really like people singing the Qur'an because one will loose the tajwid rules, change the harakah, etc. thus change the meaning of the Qur'an which is completely haram as ALLAH asks us to read the Qur'an with 'tartil' (Surah al-Muazzammil, verse 7). It is fard al-ain to read the Qur'an according to rules (whether the person knows the rules or not). According to a hadith, it is recommended to read the Qur'an according to the rules and in our nature tone, or in another words not purposely beautifying the recitation with singing tone.

Anyway, I really am looking forward for his next visit to Cambridge, if I am still here. He said, for the next meeting, he will give us examinations. That give us about 4 months to practice.

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.