Value of studying concise books:
Scholars paid great attention to authoring these concise books and invested their efforts in summarizing and briefing them, then kept them for their students as fundamentals to benefit themselves and others.
Starting with these summarized books is the basis for students. The student of knowledge should learn gradually, starting from the knowledge fundamentals and so on. These summarized books serve as a means to elaborate ones. The elaborate books cannot be understood without gradually grasping the summarized ones.
Therefore, they commented on the meaning of what Allāh said: “On the contrary (he would say):
“Be you Rabbaniyyun (learned men of religion who practice what they know and also preach others) because you are teaching the book, and you are studying it.” [Sūrah ʾĀl-ʿImrān (3):79]
Rabbaniyyun refers to who starts teaching the simple matters before the complicated ones, as Al-Bukhari said on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās (May Allah be pleased with him): “Be you Rabbaniyyun”: means patient and learned.” It is said that Rabbani is the one who teaches people the simple matters of knowledge before the complicated ones.
