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The Devils Deception by Imam Ibn AL-Jawzi

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T H E D E V I L ' S<br />

D E C E P T I O N S<br />

Section One<br />

Censure of the $iijis in the Matter of Burying Books<br />

of Knowledge<br />

<strong>The</strong> content of the writings which they bury must be either true<br />

or false, or truth mingled with falsehood. If the content be false,<br />

they are not to be blamed for burying them. If truth is in difficult to<br />

distinguish one from the other, destruction of such writings is permissible;<br />

for people have written down matter dictated <strong>by</strong> the trustworthy<br />

and the misleading; the matter getting mixed, they have buried<br />

what they have written.<br />

This is how we are to interpret the case of Sufyan al-Thawri burying<br />

his books.<br />

On the other hand, if it only contains the truth, then it is not<br />

permissbile to destroy the books, seeing that they contain knowedge<br />

and cost money. So one who proposes to destroy them should be<br />

asked what his reason is. If he replies that they distract him from<br />

performing worship, then we would respond to him with three points:<br />

1. Had you had any understanding, you would know that seeking<br />

knowledge is one of the greatest forms of worship.<br />

2. You might not continue to retain the knowledge which you have.<br />

So you may regret destroying your books one day. Know that hearts<br />

cannot retain their purity; they are defiled and eften require cleansing, for<br />

instance, l?J reading books.<br />

Yusuf <strong>Ibn</strong> Asbat buried his books and afterwards he could not<br />

refrain from saying hadith. Thus he began to make errors in narrating<br />

l:iadith.<br />

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