Fix your attention to both fiqh and ḥadīth. Neglect one or the other and you will fall short in the end.

[1] The student should devote himself with great assiduity to the study of fiqh and adillah (proofs).

[2] When the servant attains fiqh in the matters of the religion, it is a sign that Allāh wants good for him. In a ḥadīth transmitted by Muʿāwiyyah ibn Abī Sufyān, the Prophet (ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said:

 مَن يُرِد الله بهِ خيرًا يُفَقِّهه في الدِّين 
“Whoever Allah wants good for, He grants him understanding of the religion.”¹

[3] Pursue the study of fiqh by reading books of jurisprudence. Make it your chief business to know what the dalīl and the madlūl is in the course of reading.

[4] Fix your attention to both fiqh and ḥadīth. Neglect one or the other and you will fall short in the end. A student who confines himself to the subject of fiqh will only secure knowledge of the different aḥkām, but not the basis upon which they lay. And a student who reserves his hours for the study of aḥadīth will know adillah, but not what can be derived from them. Engage therefore in both and you will have collected the two ḥusnayayn.

[1] Muttafaqun ʿalayhi.

ʿAbd al-Muḥsin b. Ḥammad al-ʿAbbād al-Badr, Sharḥ Shurūṭ al-Ṣalāh, Lesson I. The foregoing notes have been largely condensed. For this reason, where time allows it and in shāʾ Allāh, it will, the reader is advised to return to the original lecture for a fuller benefit.

Compiled and translated by Umm Sufyān.