Between Ascension and Attachment: The Scholars of the Hereafter and the Scholars of the World by Habib Zayn bin Sumayt
We will be sharing the translation of chapter seven “Between the Scholars of the Hereafter and the Scholars of the World” from the book al-Minhaj al-Sawi: Sharh Usul Tariqat al-Sada Al Ba ʿAlawi — that steps into a living stream of sanctity, discipline, and luminous pedagogy, where knowledge and practice are made one.
It embodies the ethical-spiritual method by which the noble Ba ‘Alawi family transmitted guidance across centuries, weaving fiqh, adab, and inner purification into a seamless path of prophetic inheritance.
In the luminous chain of the Ba ʿAlawi nobles, whose roots sink deep into the prophetic soil of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAli, there emerges the author of this work, the erudite, exacting scholar, the caller to God, Habib Zayn ibn Ibrahim ibn Sumayt Ba ʿAlawi al-Husayni.
He is known not merely as a jurist of precision or a scholar of breadth, but as one whose knowledge has suffused with the fragrance of realization (taḥqiq) and whose teaching is a continual dawah to Allah through wisdom and gentleness.
Translated by Ustadh Mehraj Din
On the Attributes of the Scholars of the Hereafter
Allah Most High said:
وَالرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ يَقُولُونَ ءَامَنَّا بِهِ كُلٌّ مِّنْ عِندِ رَبِّنَا
— “But those firmly rooted in knowledge say: ‘We believe in it; all is from our Lord.’” [Quran, 3:7]
It is narrated from Anas that the Messenger of God (Allah bless him and give him peace) was asked about those firmly rooted in knowledge (al-rasikhun fi al-ʿilm). He said:
“They are those whose oaths are true, whose tongues are honest, whose hearts are upright, whose stomachs and private parts are chaste — such are those firmly grounded in knowledge.”
And some have said: The one firmly rooted in knowledge is he who finds in his knowledge four qualities:
- God-consciousness (taqwa) between himself and God,
- Humility (tawaduʿ) between himself and creation,
- Detachment (zuhd) between himself and the world,
- Striving (mujahada) between himself and his own self.
(Quoted from Baghawi’s Tafsir).
Habib Zayn ibn Ibrahim says: Their descriptions are — constant vigilance of God Most High, preservation of reverent fear of Him in all their states, and perpetual serenity, dignity, humility, submission, and modesty before the Exalted and Majestic.
Five Lights from the Book of God: Ghazali on the Scholars of the Hereafter
Imam Ghazali said: It has been said that five traits of character are among the signs of the Scholars of the Hereafter, each understood from five verses of the Book of God, Exalted and Majestic. These are:
- Fear (khashya)
- Humility (khushuʿ)
- Modesty (tawaduʿ)
- Good character (husn al-khuluq)
- Preferring the Hereafter over the world (zuhd)
As for fear, it is from His saying:
إِنَّمَا يَخْشَى اللَّهَ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ الْعُلَمَاءُ
“Truly, only those of His servants who have knowledge fear God.” [Quran, 35:28]
As for humility, it is from His saying:
خَاشِعِينَ لِلَّهِ لَا يَشْتَرُونَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا
—
“Humble before God, never bartering away God’s signs for a paltry price.” [Quran, 3:199]
As for modesty, it is from His saying:
وَاخْفِضْ جَنَاحَكَ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
“Lower your wing to the believers.” [Quran, 15:88]
As for good character, it is from His saying:
فَبِمَا رَحْمَةٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ لِنتَ لَهُمْ
“It was by a mercy from God that you were gentle with them.” [Quran, 3:159]
As for detachment (zuhd), it is from His saying:
وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ وَيْلَكُمْ ثَوَابُ اللَّهِ خَيْرٌ لِمَنْ آمَنَ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا
“And those who had been given knowledge said: ‘Woe to you! God’s reward is better for whoever believes and does righteous deeds.’” [Quran, 28:80]
When Learning Becomes Worship
Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) said:
A man is not truly among the people of knowledge until he does not envy those above him, does not belittle those beneath him, and does not seek worldly price by means of his knowledge.
And Shaʿbi (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
The jurist (faqih) is only the one who refrains from the prohibitions of God Most High, while the scholar (ʿalim) is the one who fears God, Mighty and Majestic.
A man once said to Hasan Basri (may Allah have mercy on him): “Our jurists say such-and-such.”
He replied:
“Have you ever seen a jurist at all? The true jurist is one who is detached from the world, desirous of the Hereafter, insightful in his religion, and constant in worshipping his Lord.”
Examples from the States of Godly Scholars
It was said to some people of Basra: “Who is your master?”
They replied: “Hasan (Basri).”
It was asked: “How did he attain mastery over you?”
They said: “The people needed his knowledge, and he himself was independent of their world.”
Abu Bakr Hudhali, the renowned poet, said:
Abu Abbas Saffah asked me: “By what means did your Ḥasan — meaning Hasan Basri — attain the rank that he did?”
I replied: “O Commander of the Believers, he gathered the Book of God while only twelve years old. He would never move from one sūrah to another until he had grasped its interpretation and the reason for which it was revealed. He never turned a dirham in trade, never held an office under a ruler, never commanded anything until he himself had carried it out, and never forbade anything until he had first abandoned it.”
Imam Malik ibn Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) said:
“Jaʿfar Sadiq, son of Muḥammad Baqir (may God be pleased with them both), was often cheerful and smiling. Yet whenever the Messenger of God (Allah bless him and give him peace) was mentioned in his presence, his face turned pale. I never saw him narrate a ḥadīth from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) except in a state of ritual purity.
I kept his company for a long time, and I never saw him in other than one of three states: either in prayer, or in silence, or in the recitation of the Qur’an. He never spoke of what did not concern him, and he was among those scholars and worshippers who truly feared God, Mighty and Majestic.”(Reported by Qadi ʿIyad in al-Shifaʾ).
Fudayl ibn ʿIyad (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:
“Imam Abu Hanifa was famous for his scrupulousness (waraʿ), well-known for his generosity, patient in teaching knowledge by night and day, much given to silence and speaking only when questions arose concerning what is lawful or unlawful. He kept away from the rulers.”
So great was his scrupulousness that he would not even sit in the shade of a debtor’s wall, saying: “Every loan that draws benefit is usury.” His constant habit was to point people toward the truth.
It is related that he was offered the office of judge, but he refused. He was beaten with whips for his refusal, imprisoned, and eventually died in prison. When he heard some compassionate men saying: “Why does he not simply accept the post, so as to avoid these lashes?” he replied:
“Lashes of this world are lighter than the lashes of the Hereafter.”
ʿAsim said: “If the intellect of Abu Hanifa were weighed against half the people of the earth, his intellect would outweigh theirs.”
Zafir ibn Sulayman reported: “Abu Hanifa would spend the entire night in a single unit of prayer, reciting the Quran.”
Asad ibn ʿAmr said: “He once stood the whole night repeating this single verse, weeping as he recited it again and again:
بَلِ السَّاعَةُ مَوْعِدُهُمْ وَالسَّاعَةُ أَدْهَى وَأَمَرُ
— ‘Rather, the Hour is their appointed time, and the Hour is more calamitous and more bitter.’ [Quran, 54:46]”
As for Imam Malik ibn Anas (Allah bless him and give him peace), he was a man of great dignity and reverence, excessive in his veneration of the knowledge of religion, and deeply respectful toward the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace).
Ibn Mubarak said:
“I was once with Malik while he was narrating ḥadith to us, when a scorpion stung him sixteen times. His color changed, his face grew pale, yet he did not interrupt the narration of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace). When the gathering ended, I said to him: ‘O Abu ʿAbd Allāh, today I saw something astonishing from you!’ He said: ‘Yes, I endured it out of reverence for the ḥadīth of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace).’”
Ibn Wahb said:
“It was asked of Malik’s sister: ‘What was his occupation at home?’ She replied: ‘The Muṣḥaf and its recitation.’”
Imam Shafiʿi (may God be pleased with him) divided his night into three parts:
- The first third he devoted to writing,
- The second third to prayer,
- And the final third to sleep.
Further Sayings and States of the Great Imāms
It is reported that he (may God be pleased with him) would complete a full recitation of the Qur’an every day, and in Ramadan he would complete sixty recitations.
He used to say: “I have never lied once, nor have I ever sworn by God — whether truthfully or falsely. And I have never left off the Friday bath (ghusl al-jumʿa) in cold, in travel, or in any other circumstance.”
He (may God be pleased with him) also said: “I have not eaten to satiety for sixteen years, except for once, and I vomited it out immediately. For fullness burdens the body, hardens the heart, takes away clarity of mind, brings on sleep, and weakens a man for worship.”
The Steadfastness of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal in Worship, Poverty, and Trial
Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (may God have mercy on him) used to pray three hundred units (rakah) of prayer every day and night. He would complete a recitation of the Quran every seven days, and in every seven nights. He was much given to night-vigil, sleeping only a brief moment after the ʿIshaʾ prayer, then rising until dawn in prayer and supplication.
When hungry, he would take a dry piece of bread, shake off the dust, moisten it with water until soft, and eat it with salt. Most often his condiment was vinegar.
Fudayl ibn ʿIyad said: “Imam Ahmad was imprisoned for eighteen months. During that time he was beaten repeatedly with whips until he fainted, pierced with swords, then cast upon the ground and trampled underfoot. He remained in this condition until Muʿtasim died and Wathiq assumed power. The trial intensified under Wathiq, so Ahmad went into hiding, not even going out to the congregational prayer, until al-Wathiq died and al-Mutawakkil succeeded him. Then the ordeal was lifted from Ahmad, and he was summoned and honored.”
Hilal ibn Muʿalla said: “There are four men to whom Islam is indebted.” He mentioned among them Ahmad ibn Hanbal, for he stood firm in the trial (al-mihna) and refused to say that the Quran was created.
The Courage of Ibn Tawus before the Caliph: A Lesson in Truth and Integrity
It is narrated that Abu Jaʿfar Mansur, the ʿAbbasid caliph, summoned ʿAbd Allah ibn Tawus and Malik ibn Anas. When they entered upon him, he sat silently for a while, then turned to Ibn Tawus and said: “Tell me something from your father.”
He replied: “My father told me that the most severely punished man on the Day of Resurrection will be one to whom God entrusted authority, and he brought tyranny into his judgment.”
Abū Jaʿfar fell silent. Malik said: “I gathered up my garment, fearing his blood might spurt upon me.” Then the caliph said to him: “Hand me that inkwell.” He asked three times, but Ibn Ṭāwūs did not comply. Finally, the caliph said: “Why do you not give it to me?” He replied: “I fear you will use it to write a sin, and then I will have shared in it.”
When the caliph heard this, he said: “Stand away from me.” Malik said: “That is exactly what we desired.” And from that day Malik never ceased to recognize the virtue of Ibn Tawus.
(Reported in Mirʾat al-Jinan by al-Yafiʿi).
The Fragrance of Piety: Anecdotes of the Imams and the Friends of God
It is related that Imam Abu Ishaq Shirazi was once walking with some of his companions when a dog crossed his path. One of them shooed it away, but the Shaykh forbade him, saying: “Do you not know that the road is shared between me and him?”
Another time he entered a mosque to eat something, as was his habit, and left behind a dinar. On the road he remembered it, returned, and found it still there. Yet he did not touch it, saying: “It may have fallen from someone else, and not be my dinar.”
In Majmuʿ Kalam al-Ḥabib ʿAli ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥabshi, it is related that Shaykh al-Qadi al-Muḥibb al-Tabari lived to the age of one hundred and two years, without any of his faculties failing him — neither hand nor foot, neither hearing nor sight. He continued to teach and give legal rulings even at that age.
One of his students asked him: “How has God preserved for you all your faculties until this age?”
He replied: “Why should He not preserve them, when I have never disobeyed Him with them?”
And it is also mentioned: When Shaykh Ahmad Ramli passed away, his son Muhammad Ramli stood before the people and proclaimed: “Bear witness that my father has died while the Muslims were safe from his tongue and his hand.”
Imam Shaʿrani (may Allah have mercy on him) said: “I accompanied Shaykh Muhammad al-Khatib al-Shirbini, the author of al-Mughnī, for forty years, and I never saw him commit a reprehensible act in all that time.” And the same was said regarding Shaykh Ibn Hajar Haytami (may Allah have mercy on him). This was recorded by Imām Habib Ahmad ibn Hasan Attas in his writings.
And Habib ʿAydarus ibn ʿUmar Habashi reported that someone who served Shaykh Zakariyya Ansari for nearly twenty years said: “I never saw him speak of that which did not concern him, nor was he ever heedless of the remembrance of Allah. Even during lessons, if the reciter paused to correct a mistake, Shaykh Zakariyya would occupy that moment with the remembrance of Allah until the reading resumed.”
CONCLUSION by Ustadh Mehraj Din
The true essence of scholarship (ilm) lives between ascension and attachment—between the heart’s remembrance and the intellect’s claim. The scholar of hereafter approaches knowledge with the awareness that he stands in the lineage of prophetic light and bearer of the prophetic trust. He is constantly aware of whom he represents, walking humbly beneath the weight of revelation, his knowledge a mercy that refines him before it guides others.
The worldly scholar (ʿAlim al-Dunya), by contrast, carries knowledge as a burden, not a light; like one who bears books without understanding their truth. Both possess learning, yet only one is transformed by it. The test of scholarship is not in citation but in sanctity—whether the learned becomes a mirror of the Prophetic heart or merely a vessel of forgotten words.
And we—those who seek, who read, and intend to teach—must choose which lineage we follow. We shoud strive and seek to be among the Scholars of the Hereafter, whose pursuit of knowledge is an act of devotion, whose learning refines rather than inflates. We should be continuously reminding ourselves that to know is to serve; to teach is to carry the fragrance of the Messenger in word and presence.
To end, true knowledge unveils rather than veils, polishes rather than adorns, humbles rather than exalts. Let us, then, seek knowledge that does not end in our intellects but begins in our hearts—knowledge that becomes light, mercy, and return to all one true creator of this universe.
Sayyid al-Habib Abu Muhammad Zayn bin Ibrahim bin Sumayt Ba’Alawi al-Husayni, of the Shafi‘i school of jurisprudence, was born in the year 1357 AH (1936 CE) in the city of Jakarta, Indonesia, into a pious and religious family, to parents known for their goodness and righteousness. His father — may Allah have mercy on him — was a pious and devout man, who emigrated with his young children to the city of Tarim in Hadramawt (Yemen).
In Tarim, Habib Zayn rolled up his sleeves in earnest pursuit of knowledge, devoting himself entirely to study and learning, moving between the blessed schools and institutions of that city, especially Ribat Tarim. There, he studied foundational texts in jurisprudence under the learned scholar Habib Muhammad bin Salim bin Hafiz.
He was also granted ijazahs (authorizations) by many of the great scholars of the Ba Alawi Sayyids and other notable scholars from across the Islamic world — among them: The gnostic scholar al-Habib Muhammad bin Hadi al-Saqqaf, the learned al-Habib Ahmad bin Musa al-Habshi, the hadith master Sayyid Alawi bin Abbas al-Maliki, the caller to Allah al-Habib Umar bin Ahmad bin Sumayt.
After twenty-one years of continuous effort in the fields of knowledge and calling to Allah, Habib Zayn migrated to the land of the Hijaz in Ramadan of the year 1406 AH.
May Allah Almighty preserve him as a treasure for Islam, benefit the Muslims through his continued life, protect him and his family from all harm, and prolong his life.
