One day a famous Imam went on a journey. On the way, he fell into the hands of robbers. The Imam pleaded very humbly, "Take all my belongings, but please return this notebook, as I have written down all my knowledge in it." The Robbers laughed upon hearing that and said, "This is not your knowledge, because if it were your knowledge, we wouldn't be able to snatch it away from you!". The Imam came back to his senses upon hearing that. He understood that knowledge must be kept in the mind, not just on paper. After returning back to his home, the Imam started memorizing all the notes he had written.
Yes, Our Salaf didn't consider reading the books of Hadeeth and Quran, and only keeping them on the shelf, as knowledge. Besides memorizing the Quran, they used to compete in memorizing the Hadeeths too. By memorizing thousands and thousands of hadeeths, some became Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and some became Imam Al-Bukhari, Rahimahumultah. With hopes of seeing another future Imam Ibn Katheer, in this series we have selected hadeeths which are small in length, but tremendous in importance and benefit. The weak hadeeths have been discarded by verifying their sources. The hadeeth numbers have been matched with Islamic Foundation's published Hadeeth Collections. Our hope is that all the kids, during their tender age, will find love for Rawl Allah (0) in their hearts and grow up to be wonderful Muslims. May Allah accept our good intentions and efforts for His sake. Aameen.