Teaching a Sunnah is more superior than two hundred years of Worship
(Aboo 'Uthmaan said): "I found
in the book of the Shaikh, the Imaam, my grandfather, aboo 'Abdullaah Muhammad
ibn 'Adee Hamdawaih as-Saaboonee (rahimahullaah ta'aala), Abul-'Abbaas,
al-Hasan ibn Sufyaan an-Nasawee informed us that al-'Abbaas ibn Sabeeh narrated
to them (saying): 'Abdul-Jabbaar ibn Taahir narrated to us (saying): Ma'mar ibn
Raashid narrated to me (saying): I heard Ibn Shihaab az-Zuhree
saying: "Teaching a sunnah is more superior than two
hundred years of worship."
- Usool-u-Sunnah by Imam
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (rahimahullaah), Chapter Six: The Distinguishing Signs of
Ahlus-Sunnah
Student Abul-'Abbaas Moosa
Richardson (hafidhahullaah) said: "Meaning: 200 years of individual
worship, like optional fasting and praying, since those deeds are for the one
who performs them, and the reward for them would not increase over time, in contrast
to someone who teaches a sunnah. Teaching a sunnah is also a kind of
worship, yet its reward is multiplied over time based on the number of people
who practice what they learn, call to it, and teach it to others.
So there is no specification of a
reward of 200 here by Imaam az-Zuhree; rather he was giving an extreme example
of the difference between two kinds of worship: one kind [whose] benefit
is restricted to the one who performs it, and the other that has ongoing reward
piling up based on the actions of the people who learned from the teacher, and
those who learned from their students, and so on.
The Prophet (may Allaah raise his
rank and grant him peace) said, what means, 'Whoever invites to goodness will
have a reward like all those who follow him in that, without their rewards
decreasing in the least...' (Muslim)."
The Messenger of Allaah (صلى الله عليه وسلم)
said: Whoever revives a sunnah from my Sunnah and the people practice it,
will have the same reward of those who practice it without their reward
diminishing... (Ibn Majah)
