I read a recent post by Dr Rozaimi, which claimed that Ibn Qayyim, an influential Islamic scholar from the medieval period, wrote some of his books when he was travelling (musafir).
I did a simple research on my own, and found out that the said books were Zad al-Ma'ad, Rawd'at al-Muh'ibbin, and Bada'i al-Fawa'id.
I never read those books, never even heard them before. But it makes me marvel how Ibn Qayyim managed to pull off such a feat.
Nowadays, people rarely write (let alone writing serious stuff) when on travel. We would rather play with our tablet/smart-phone than pouring our thoughts on a script of paper.
What makes Ibn Qayyim's feat more remarkable is his ability to draw largely from his memory and distinguish facts from fictions from the tip of his mind.
I read a short memoir of him which states that Ibn Qayyim possessed a library full of books in his house.
But I highly doubt he brought that many books during his travel.
With today's technology and convenience at hand, logically we should be producing more books (or at least write more) and becoming more adept in discerning facts from fictions.
But sadly, that's not the case.
Today, we did indeed write more, but most of what were written are rubbish.
See the comment section from any particular popular facebook sites for example, it is full of garbage.
But some of us had the tenacity to go through all the comments.
Looking for jokes, they said.
That precious time was better spent somewhere...reading good articles/books, for example.
This is a self reminder to me, not to waste any more time.
