Cultivate an ethical life seeking God based on a collection of short spiritual sayings each containing profound meaning driven from the Qur’an and Sunnah with Shaykh Samer Al-Nass at a weekend intensive on “The Book of Aphorisms (Kitab Al-Hikam) by Ibn Ata’illah. Shaykh Samer is a renowned scholar of Qur’an, Tafsir and Hadith.
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Saturday & Sunday, January 8 & 9 | MCC Conference Room | $20/in-person for entire weekend (includes materials and optional daily on-site lunch purchase option) or $10/person (watch live online both days and study materials sent via email)
Register at https://mcceastbay.org/hikam
The event will not be publicly live-streamed. Public release of the recordings will be at the discretion of every speaker. There’s no guarantee recordings will be released on the media channels for MCC East Bay. Please try to attend the program in person or live online. The event is taking place on Pacific Standard Time.
Questions? events@mcceastbay.org
MCC has a standing policy that financial need should never hold a person back from attaining spiritual knowledge. For a financial-based scholarship discount code, please email scholarship@mcceastbay.org
About the Presenter:
Shaykh Samer was born in Damascus, Syria, where he studied at the College of Medicine of the University of Damascus. He went on to study in the United States where he qualified in internal medicine.
The Shaykh has studied under some of the great ‘ulama of the Levant (Shaam) and the Arabian peninsula. He has a traditional licenses to teach (ijazah) in the ten styles of recitation of the narration of the Shatibiyyah and the Durra from the world-renowned Shaykh Muhammad Sukkar. He received an ijazah in the ten styles of recitation of the narration of Tayyibah from the Egyptian Shaykh Ahmad Mustafa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, himself a student of Shaykh Abd al-Aziz al-Zayyat of Egypt. Shaykh Samer has a traditional license to teach (ijazah) in Islamic law (fiqh) and theology and creed (‘aqida) from Shaykh Lutfi al-Fayumi and the late Hanafi Mufti, Shaykh Adib al-Kallas. He also studied with the previous Mufti of Syria, Shaykh Abu Yusr Ibn `Abidin. Shaykh Samer was honoured to study hadith in Mecca with the great Indonesian-Meccan Shaykh Yasin al-Fadani, and with Shaykh Nur ud-din `Itr of Syria. He also has an ijazah in Prophetic traditions (hadith) from the late Shaykh `Abd Allah Siraj al-Din of Aleppo, Syria.
Shaykh Samer is presently a teacher at Ma’had al-Fatih al-Islami in Damascus, teaching the Hanafi fiqh manual Al-Hidayah in the department of Islamic Law (Shariah), and lecturer on the ten recitations of the Qur’an in the MA program. The Shaykh teaches Qur’anic recitation (tajwid) after fajr prayers daily in the blessed mosque of Shaykh Ibn `Arabi, a post given to him by his Shaykh and father-in-law, one of the illustrious Shaykhs of Quran in the Levant (Sham), the late Shaykh Muhammad Sukkar. Shaykh Samer has been teaching at various Islamic studies intensive courses in England and North America since 2000.
About the Book:
The Book Of Wisdoms [Kitab al-Hikam with Ikmal al-Shiyam]
A Collection of Sufi Aphorisms with a Commentary
Muslim religious life not only consists of belief in orthodox tenets of faith and a determined effort to follow the Sacred Law, it also requires one to scale the heights of the spiritual path. The Kitab al-Hikam of Shaykh Ibn ‘Ata’illah al-Iskandari is the inspiring explanation of the soul’s journey through this life, as determined through the Qur’an and Sunna. Along with his treatises and intimate discourses (munajat), the substantive feature of the work is the author’s 264 spiritual aphorisms (hikam)—concise, comprehensive and sublime sayings on self purification (tazkiya), and guidelines to help strengthen the relationship between humans and their Lord. These aphorisms, which have never failed to inspire, are presented in this edition according to the systematic arrangement of the great Indian scholar Shaykh ‘Ali Muttaqi (d. 975/1567), together with the indispensable commentary of the twentieth-century sage Shaykh ‘Abdullah Gangohi.
About Ata’Allah Iskandari
Taj ad-Din Abu’l-Fadl Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim b. Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari, al-Judhami ash-Shadhili, known simply as Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah, was born in Alexandria, Egypt, as his nisbah indicates, about the middle of the seventh/thirteenth century. His family were renowned Maliki scholars from the Banu Judham tribe, originally from Arabia. His grandfather, Abd al-Karim (d. 612 AH/1216 AD) had distinguished himself as an expert in fiqh, usul (principles of jurisprudence), and Arabic, having studied under the famous Abu’l-Hasan al-Abyari. He had written several books, among which were al-Bayin wa’t-Taqrib fi Sharh at-Tahdhib, Mukhtasar at-Tahdhib, and Mukhtasar al-Mufassal, and had been very hostile to Sufism.
- Past Shaykh Samer video recordings: https://mcceastbay.org/samer