“After having the amazing experience of praying the eclipse prayer in the haram, I took a few of the brothers from our #BlessedVoyage Umrah group with me to sit in the class of Sh Abdullah AlShinqeeti, , May Allah preserve him, one of the scholars of medinah, a master of tafsir and usul (principles of Islamic law). In his class, he mentioned in passing that the root causes of entering hellfire are four, and the root causes of entering paradise are four, I waited for him to clarify, but he didn’t and went on to a different topic
During the Q&A I asked him to clarify what he meant by the roots being four and he said, “they don’t need clarification!”
He held up his fingers to count and said, “ read from, ما سلككم في سقر”
“What causes you to be in Saqar”
I said,
“We were not of those who prayed”
He said, “that’s one”
I said “and we did not feed the poor”
He said, “that’s two..”
“And we use to indulge with those who indulged”
“That’s three”
“And we used to belie the day of Resurrection”
He said, now for the roots of entering Jannah, “read from قد افلح المؤمنون”
I read “the believers are successful”
He said, “that’s one”
“They who are mindful in their prayers
“That’s two”
“And those who avoid vain talk”
“That’s three”
“And those who pay their zakah”
Then he said,
And notice the verse “And they pay their zakah” is in contrast to “and we did not feed the poor”
And “and those who avoid vain talk” is in contrast to “and we used to indulge with those who indulge”
And “and those who are mindful in their prayers” is in contrast to “we were not of those who prayed”
And “The believer have succeeded” is in contrast to “we used to belie the day of resurrection”
He then smiled and said, “the Quran is filled with treasures, we just have to dive for them!”
– Ammar AlShukry
Daily Fawaid