"People can be categorised into four categories"

It has been narrated in the Sahihayn:

مثل ما بعثني اله به من الهدى والعلم كمثل الغيث الكثير أصاب أرضاً ، فكان منها نقية قبلت الماء فأنبتت الكلأ والعشب الكثير ، وكانت منها أجادب أمسكت الماء ، فنفع الله بها الناس فشربوا وسقوا وزرعوا ، وأصاب منها طائفة أخرى إنما هي قيعان لا تمسك ماءً ولا تنبت الكلأ

"An example of the guidance and knowledge with which Allah has sent me is that of a rain that falls on different kinds of land. One land is good; it accepts water and produces vegetation and grass in plenty. Another land is dry with a solid bed that reserves water so that people can drink and irrigate with it. Another kind is a porous land that can neither retain water nor produce vegetation".

Shaykh Ibn Jibreen first read this hadith, and then said:

We learn from this hadeeth that people can be categorised into four categories, just like the land:


The first category: A land that holds water and produces vegetation. This is the best types of land. This is the example of those who memorize ahadith and derive fiqhi rulings.

Imam Ahmad was blessed with both memorization and understanding. Al-Sarsari narrated about him that he had memorized one million ahadith with the asanid. He wrote "Al-Musnad". It's a hadith book consisting of 28,000 ahadith. He has another book which consists of 120,000 ahadith.

Imam Malik was also blessed with memorization and understanding. He collected ahadith in his "Al-Muwatta". Afterwards, his students collected his fatawa. They're collected in a book called "Al-Mudawanah". His madhab spread towards Morocco, Africa and the surroundingsand it's accepted by a lot of people.

The second category: A lands which reserves water, but cannot produce any vegetation. This is the example of those who only memorize ahadith. The companions of Ahmad, such as Yahya Ibn Ma'ien, Yahya Al-Qatan and Alee Ibn Al-Madinee were blessed with memorization but they did not indulge in deriving rulings from them.

The third category: A land which does not reserve water, but it uses that water to produce vegetation. This is the example of the fuqahaa (those who derive rulings).

Imaam Al-Shafi'ie did not memorize much, but Allah had blessed him with understanding. His book "Al-Umm" attests to his deep understanding. His narrations are very few as compared to Imam Ahmad. He studied in Makkah, but moved to Iraq and gave fatawa. His madhab spread from there throughout the world, up to Egypt.

Similarly, the Imaam Abu Hanifah was blessed with al-fahm (deep understanding) and means of deriving rulings from the ahadith. The ahadith he memorized were few. Allah supported him with his two students, namely Abu Yusuf and Al-Shaybani who wrote down his teachings. Their books, and what they learned from Abu Hanifah still exist.

The fourth category: A land which does not reserve water, nor does it produce vegetation. They are those who turn away from religion. They are like this useless type of land.

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