Short biography of Shaykh Yahya bin Alī Al-Hajūri

بســـم اللــه الرحــمــن الـرحـــيــم

By our Shaykh, the 'Allāmah, the Trustworthy Advisor, Abū 'Abdirrahmān Yahya bin 'Alī Al-Hajūri - may Allāh preserve him -

🖋 Short biography of Shaykh Yahya bin Alī Al-Hajūri may Allāh preserve him 

Al-Hamdulillāh Hamdan Kathīran Tayyiban Mubārakan feeh, wa Ashhadu an Lā ilāha illa Allāh wahdahu lā sharīk lahu wa Ashhadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa Rasūluhu,

As for what proceeds, 

I have been requested to write something brief regarding my birth, name, town, upbringing and some of what is related to that, and after repeated requests from the the loved ones - may Allāh honour them - I am yielding to their request by writing these lines..

Therefore I say, and success is with Allāh:

As for my name: Then I am Yahya bin Alī bin Ahmed bin Alī bin Ya'qūb Al-Hajūri, from the tribe of Banī Wahān, from the village of Al-Hanjarah in the root of the mountain of Al-Kua'ydanah - I ask Allāh to honour them with the seeking of knowledge of the Book of Allāh and the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ -.

Then my grandfather Ahmed bin Alī bin Ya'qūb moved to a village further down by a long distance called the village of Jabr, the tribe of Az-Zaghābiyah, and he married from them, so they are the maternal-uncles of my father, he grew up amongst them, amongst some of his family and married from them, also with my mum from the family of 'Iqāl village of Az-Zaghābiyah - may Allāh have mercy on their dead and rectify their living - and my birth was in it roughly 40 years ago, during the days called the Republic of Yemen revolt. 

And my father - may Allāh have mercy on him and give him long life in his obedience - was passionate with farming so he used to work on a big farm and owned alot of good from corn and sesame and other than this. Even some people used to borrow corn and sugar cane from him in drought alongside what Allāh gave him from livestock goats and cows, so he was - and all praise is to Allāh - from the angle of lifestyle in the best of conditions.

 And he brought us up - me and my brothers - a good upbringing far from Qāt and cigarettes and chewing tobacco and other than that from the catastrophes. And the thing that made him get angry with us the most was to see any of us falling short in the congregational prayer or voluntary.

And the most beloved thing to him was to see one of us become a scholar. And there was nothing except elementary-schools, so he placed me in what was called Mi'lāma of As-Shaykh, the Amīn of that village and its jurispudent and Khatīb (Yahyā Al-'Itābī - may Allāh have mercy on him - ), and learning in that Mi'lāmah was the affair of the old-fashioned learning, learning how to recite the Qurān looking at the Mushaf, and learning calligraphy, and whoever graduated from it mostly would become the jurispudent of his town, Imām and Khatīb in some authored Khutbas and composing marital contracts and the likes of that.

And this Faqīh - may Allāh have mercy on him - used to love me the most from his students. So when I graduated from that Mi'lāmah with the reading of the Qurān and knowing a little calligraphy my father was determined to taken me to the town of the Zaidis whereby it was propogated that it is a town of knowledge, and they used to be people of Fatwa in divorce and inheritance and the likes of it.

And my father -may Allāh preserve him- loves knowledge and religion, and would fast a lot and and stand in prayer much, and I don't know him to have consumed a dirham of harām.

But he never used to know anything about the Sufiyyah and Shīa or other misguided sects, so he used to revere them and they would visit him alot, and whoever visited him from them he would honour them with the upmost honouring.

Then Allāh saved me from studying with those Sufis through my mother, may Allāh preserve her and give her a good ending, whereby she cried for me not to go and stay in other than my area alone without a friend from the town while I was young. So my father made me stay and herd sheep, and he - may Allāh preserve him - was the first to build a Masjid from wood and straw in our town which they are in now, with the fact that it is a small Masjid that fitted about 40 people at that time, it was considered a congregational Masjid for the neighbouring villages.

So when it broke down he rebuilt it with stone and expanded it, and I used to be the Imām, and on Jum'uah he made someone take over for me in herding the sheep and I would deliver the sermon for them with some pre-composed Khutbas, and what I would rely on the most was (Al-Futūhāt Ar-Rabāniyyah by Bayhān - may Allāh have mercy on him -) until I almost memorized it due to often repeating it.

Then after that I went to Saudiyyah and I used to attend the circles of reading after Fajr prayer with the virtuous Shaykh the known reciter 'Ubaidullāh Al-Afghānī - may Allāh preserve him - in the city of Abhā, and we read to him something from Sahīh Muslim, he used to begin with it before we read to him, then he travelled and I moved to Shaykh the reciter Muhammad 'A'tham who used to teach the Qurān in the Masjid Al-Yahyā, so I read to him Suratl-A'rāf, then the Shaykh travelled also, and I finished upon the recitation of Hafs on the authority of 'Āsim with the reciter Muhammad Bashīr walilāhilhamd.

And with my severe love for knowledge at that time I didn't find anyone who would direct me to join with Shaykh Al-Imām Ibn Bāz or other than him from the scholars of the Kingdom from those who were involved in teaching may Allāh have mercy on them. 

Then I heard of the Shaykh Al-Allāmah Muqbil bin Hādī Al-Wādi'ē - may Allāh have mercy on him - and that he is a Salafī scholar teaching the sciences of the Book and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ in Dammāj - one of the villages in Sa'dah - may Allāh protect it and grant success to its people with all good, so I joined him in his blessed Dār in the year 1405H, and my father came with me and the Shaykh advised me with good, then my father went, and he remained aiding me from time to time with financial aid.

And I remained from that date seeking knowledge not liking to travel much, nor waste anything of time until Allāh made it easy from his grace upon the hands of our Shaykh Al-Allāmah Al-Muhaddith As-Salafī Al-Maymūn Muqbil bin Hādī Al-Wādi'ē - may Allāh have mercy on him - alot of good in benefiting in numerous sciences.

And as it was the condition in that blessed Dār, In addition to everything I took from our Shaykh, I used to take from the Shuyūkh of Da'wah Salafiyyah in Yemen Muqbil bin Hādī Al-Wādi'ē - may Allāh have mercy on him - some lessons in Nahw (grammar), Aqīdah (creed) and Fiqh (jurisprudence)...., with some of the virtuous Shuyūkh from the major students of our Shaykh Al-Imām Al-Wādi'ē -may Allāh have mercy on him - in the Dār, may Allāh accept from them all.

After that our Shaykh Muqbil may Allāh give him a dwelling place in highest part of Firdaus used to command me to take over for him in lessons if he became sick or travelled, and when his appointed term came close - may Allāh have mercy on him - he advised me to be his successor upon that condition.

And the enemies of this Dār used to have bad thoughts that with the death of the Shaykh -may Allāh have mercy on him - this Da'wah would end and its building become a place of socialising and sittings of Qāt as we and other than us used to hear them during the period of sickness of the Shaykh and before that. 

So when Allāh made the hearts of the slaves turn towards this good after the death of the Shaykh -may Allāh have mercy on him - and the Da'wah expanded more and the students became double what it used to be during the life of the founder of the Dār our Shaykh Al-Imām Al-Wādi'ē -may Allāh have mercy on him - it angered some of those who were afflicted with the sickness of envy from those who were students of the Shaykh - may Allāh have mercy on him - and other than them from the people of wordly benefits and fitan and Hizbiyyah, so Allāh repelled their evil and destroyed their plots.

And this Da'wah remains in all good to the Imām and grace is to Allāh in the beginning and the end, and He is the one who says:

(وَمَا بِكُم مِّن نِّعْمَةٍ فَمِنَ ٱللَّهِۖ)

"And whatever of blessings and good things you have, it is from Allah."

[An-Nahl, 63]

✍🏻Written by: Abu Abdirrahmān Yahyā bin Alī bin Ahmed bin Alī bin Ya'qūb Al-Hajūri 19th, Sha'bān, 1427H

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Translated by: 

Abu 'Abdillāh 'Omar bin Yahya Al-'Akawi

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