10. Shaykh Nizār’s Job: Responding to Those Who Use His Employment as a Criticism Against Him

Among the most absurd criticisms leveled against Shaykh Nizār is the attempt to fault him simply because he works for a living. As has been reported, Shaykh Nizār undertakes a physically strenuous job through which he earns a lawful livelihood to provide for his family and children.

Yet some have attempted to turn this very fact into a criticism against him, contrasting his employment with teaching lessons or other activities associated with seeking and transmitting knowledge. In their estimation, apparently, working a demanding job to earn one’s own provision and support one’s family somehow detracts from a person's standing as a student or teacher of knowledge.

This is a strange standard indeed. Since when has earning a lawful livelihood and providing for one’s dependents been a deficiency in a person of knowledge? Lawful employment does not diminish a person’s knowledge, virtue, or standing; nor does teaching or seeking knowledge require a person to abandon honest work and become dependent upon others.

If anything, Shaykh Nizār’s willingness to undertake strenuous work to provide for his family demonstrates independence from people and a willingness to earn his provision through his own efforts. There is nothing shameful in that. The shame would be in turning an honorable means of earning a lawful livelihood into a supposed defect merely because one wishes to manufacture a criticism against a scholar.

Resources

How Astonishing It Is to Criticize Scholars for Earning a Lawful Livelihood (Shaykh Nizar As-Sudani as an Example)

Shaykh Abu Abd al-Rahman ibn Musa al-Tunisi

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