Brief Biography of Imām Muhammad Sālim Ibn Muhammad Ālī Ibn AbdulWadūd Al-Hāshimī

الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على المبعوث رحمة للعالمين، وعلى اهله وصحبه ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

Assalāmu Alaykum Warahmatullāh Wabarakātuh

Respected brothers and sisters, we are all welcome to this morning’s Halqah Session,
We ask Allah to grant us its blessings, its rewards and its excellence, āmīn. Alhamdulillāh, we have discussed two very important topics in our Halqah  consecutivel; Reviving the Islamic Spirit;  Where we mentioned what forms the Universal and Pivotal message of Islām. Then, Classical Learning in Islām; Where we mentioned the traditional methodology with which the Ulamā of the past studied and learnt that made them the icons we all look unto in this era of ours, Alhamdulillāh.

Today, we would just simply take a personality who passed through such a learning process and talk a little about his worth of Ilm. May Allāh make it easy and beneficial. Aameen

It is the Shaykh and Allāmah, the icon of Ilm, the teacher of Ulamā, the Polymath and humble Imām : Muhammad Sālim Ibn Muhammad Ālī Ibn AbdulWadūd Al-Hāshimī, more known as ‘Adūd. He is of the progeny of Husayn Ibn Ali – radiyallāhu anhuma – and therefore of the Ahlu Al-Bayt. He was born on a Monday the 14th of Rajab 1348 Hijri, corresponding to 16th of December 1929 in the environs of Talmit in the Tirārazah state of Mauritania. His father Shaykh Muhammad Alī was a great man and an Alim that had a Mah’dharah in Mauritania called “Ummu Al-Qurā”.

This Mahdharah was the school that produced many of the great Ulamā of Mauritania that had the sound ‘Aqīdah of the Salaf. Probably it would be befitting to give a little introduction at the Mah’dhara school system of Mauritania for those of us that do not know…
The Mahdharah is the name for Madrasah in Mauritania but it has its own specific attributes that makes it different from the school system in other lands.
Amongst its specific attributes that makes it different from other Madrasah are the following:

1. It is more often times situated in the desert where a student sees or hears nothing aside from the Ilm he seeks to learn. This helps the student’s brain to concentrate and focus on what he is learning and studying. Those who have spent hours, days, months or years in isolation would understand the impact that this has on the brain and the immense help this can give the student in learning.

2. Students are made to migrate from their homes and live in the Mah’dharah. For this reason, the students are called ‘Murābitun‘ and they would call a student ‘Murābit‘.

3. The Qur’an is memorized first using the slate before any other thing, and all other texts that come after are hand-copied and memorized before they are studied and the student is allowed to attend to the Shaykh’s commentary and Shar’h.

4. The Mah’dharah is centered around the Classical Learning Methodology and most of the texts ‘Mutūn‘ that are used are in poetic metres (Mandhūmāt).

5. Emphasis is placed on tarbiyyah, manners, piety and discipline.

6. All the texts that are studied are transmitted by the Shaykh with his Silsilah (Chain of transmission from the original author of the book). What this means is that, there must be a successive line of transmission between the teacher and the author of the Text. This helps the student to appreciate the book and to possess some form of authority in its transmission.

This is also always necessarily accompanied with the license to teach the book ‘Ijāzah’
What we have mentioned of the Silsilah also always applies to the Ahādith. So, the student would listen to the transmission of the Hadīth from his teacher through his Isnād to the Rasūl – salallāhu alayhi wasallam.

Shaykh Muhammad Sālim Adūd – rahimahullāh – once said that the Mahdharah system was a tradition that the Ulamā of Mauritania have been upon right from the time of the the Murābitūn and their Imām Abdullah Ibn Yāsīn – rahimahullāh. What we have mentioned should suffice in understanding the worth of the Mah’dharah system and the graduates from it Māshā Allāh.

Thus, Shaykh Muhammad Sālim was from this tradition and school. He, at his most early age memorized the Qur’ān in the hands of his mother and grand mother. At the age of seven he had completed and perfected its memorization. While memorizing the Qur’ān, his father would dictate to him some of the rudimentary basic of Morphology ( Sarf).
This made him an adept in its understanding much later in his life. Before he was 12, he had memorized all the Mutūn of Ilm in all of the sciences.
Of the texts he memorized include:
In Mālikī Fiqh:
Al-Murahidu Al-Mu’īn
Matnu Ar-Risālah
Mukhtasar Khalīl
Ibn Āsim’s mabdhumah in Qadā
Al-Muwatta’,
And many others
In Hanafi Fiqh;
Nadhmu Al-Hāmili
Kanzu Ad-Daqā’iq
In Shāfi’i Fiqh;
Safwatu Az-Zubad
In Hanbali Fiqh:

Ibn Qudāmah’s Al-Umdah, and he made a Mandhūmah over it
In the science of Hadīth ( Mustalih ):

Nadhmu Al-Bayqūnī
Nukhbatu Al-Fikar
Alfiyyatu Al-Irāqī
Alfiyyatu As-Suyūtī

And many others of Ahādith itself, The Six Collections with their Asānid
Tartību Al-Asānīd
Al-Arba’una Al-Mundhariyyah
Al-Arba’una Al-Ajluniyyah

And others
In Lugga, he memorized more than we can say, of them in:

The Alfiyyah of Ibn Mālik
The Kāfiyah
The Lāmiyyah with the Ihmirār
Uqūd Al-Jumān of As-Suyūtī
Al-Akhdarī’s text on Balāgha
The Seven Mu’allaqāt
The Qasīdah Bānat Su’ād
And others

He was known as a library walking with two legs and was referred to in matters of Fatwah even by Ulamā in Mauritania. He excelled more and more in his later years in study, learning and teaching. He became a judge in the city that was next to his school and students of knowledge trooped to him from different parts of the world. He was referred as the Māliki authority in the Muslim World League and Ulamā always mentioned him with excellence.
When his father passed away, he became the Shaykh of the Mah’dharah ‘Ummu Al-Qurā’ and in the later part of his life was dedicated to teaching and training his students.
He authored a lot of standard books and texts that are in peer with what was authored by Ulamā of the past.

Among the Ulamā that gave him the Ijāzah was the Allāmah Muhammad Tāhir Ibn Āshūr – rahimahullāh – the author of the popular Tafsīr ‘At-Tahrīru Wa At-Tanwīr’. Among his students are Shaykh Muhammad Al-Hasan Ibn Ad-Dadw, who was his nephew through his sister, Shaykh Abdullah Sufyan Al-Hakamī, and many others which also include the two Shaykhs and Shahīd, inshā Allah, Abū Yahya Hasan Muhammad Qā’id Al-Lībī, and Atiyyatullāh Jamāl Ibrāhīm Ishtīwī – rahimahumallāh.

Amongst the stances of Shaykh Muhammad Sālim was the position he took during the Algerian upheavals when the Muslim Ummah in Algeria rose to establish Islām and the French controlled armies imposed a street assault on the Muslims that rose in this bid.
Shaykh Muhammad Sālim would not only pray for them, he would send his students to Algeria and command them to go lead the people in the struggle and to teach them their Dīn.

And when some of his students were arrested in Mauritania for their relationship with the Algerians, he would intercede for them to secure their release with the government. Shaykh Muhammad Sālim Adūd passed away on Wednesday the 4th of Jumāda Al-Awwal 1430 which coincides with 29th of April 2009.

May Allah be merciful to him and to grant the Ummah many of his likes, āmīn.
His death was considered a great loss for the Ummah in general and the Mahādhir of Shanqīt in particular.

Respected ones, this is just an example of what Classical Islamic Education can produce
We mentioned this to draw our attention to its importance and necessity in these days of ours. We ask Allāh to guide our Ummah to that which pleases Him, āmīn

“اللهم أبرم لهذه الأمة أمرا رشدا تعز فيه وليك وتذل فيه عدوك ويعمل فيه بطاعتك وينهى فيه عن معصيتك

Bārakallāhu Fīkum
Jazākumullāhu Khayran

سبحانك اللهم وبحمدك اشهد ان لا اله الا انت استغفرك واتوب اليك

Assalāmu Alaykum Warahmatullāh Wabarakātuh