HAhmed.com

Source: Sacred Learning

Another great practical talk by Shaykh Husain (May Allah mercifully reward him)

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Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi’s Three Advices Toward Success [for students]:

1. As a student, he would minimize his interaction outside his studies. (He wouldn’t check his mail during the duration of his studies)

…You can see how distracting how e-mail can even be. You know sometimes you get an email about something that has nothing to do with anything in your life … you start reading about it, then your mind goes off into space and then you get distracted for a few hours. - Or you read about something that basically doesnt really involve you but it begins to emotionally take over you, etc….

… The less you interact with the internet*, the safer you will be… People look at things they shouldnt look, they do things they shouldnt do, they are getting involved in things that they shouldnt get involved in….
Either you place yourself in a position that you never thought you would be in - or you get caught by someone else in a position you shouldnt be in, or you end up reading something that you shouldnt have been reading and it psychologically impacts you tremendously - [like] reading all the news and reading about all the deaths and the gory - and that has a huge effect on us; Spiritually it can cause depression, cause us to be disheartened, it can cause you to start questioning Allah himself and why he does certain things - and when those things arise it can become very difficult to cure!

[* of course, this doesnt include hahmed.com, lol]

2. Everyday from Asr to Maghrib, he used to serve his teachers

Your teachers are like a sponge… and you basically hold that sponge over your head and you squeeze out the benefit…. It’s up to you to decide how much you want to squeeze.

3. During his free time, he would gather the people of his village and speak to them about the Deen.

May Allah allow all of us who are students to implement these steps so we too can achieve success in our studies.