Gifts of Knowledge

“Shaikh ’Abdur-Rahmaan al-Jallaal told me that one time he went out for a picnic with His Eminence [Ibn Baaz, may Allaah have mercy on him], and said, ‘When we prayed maghrib and sat, as far as I recall, a cloud came along and it started to rain with Allaah’s leave and it became heavy. The Shaikh told us to go back, we did and [by then] on the way darkness had spread. When we had left some farmers had seen us [earlier] when we had passed them by, and they knew that the Shaikh was with us, so [now] they started to light some fires with leafless palm-branches so that we could see our way, when we saw the fires we found our way to their farms and came to them. In those days the people were in difficult times, they took us to a small room made of clay where hay would be kept and it was still raining, we let the Shaikh enter and then got up on the hay along with him and sat on it, waiting for the rain to slow.

So the Shaikh said to me, ‘O Abu ’Abdullah, read.’ So I was surprised, how can I read at this uneasy time? It’s night time, raining and there’s lightning!

So the Shaikh said, ‘Since we’re sitting here, recite, and recite your portion.’

When the Shaikh said, ‘Recite your portion,’ I realised that the Shaikh meant that I should lengthen my recitation. So I recited from Surah al-A’raaf and when I finished the Shaikh started to elucidate and explain it and tears were preceding his words, may Allaah have mercy on him.”

Al-Imaam Ibn Baaz, Duroos wa Mawaaqif wa ’Ibar, pp. 19-20.

See this post for more about Ibn Baaz crying, may Allaah grant him Firdous, wa sallallaahu ’alaa Muhammad, Aameen.