Question: According to The Majlis, praising a buzrug after his death (eulogy) is not permissible. Will this also apply to writing a biography of the buzrug?

Answer
Yes, it will apply to ‘buzrugs’ of our current era. However, in general, writing a biography and organizing a function to eulogize a person are not the same. There is considerable difference between the two. The former does not require an assembly of people to listen to a mureed excessively (and even falsely) heaping praise and accolades on his sheikh.
In a biography, the naseehat of the Shaikh is narrated at length. Whereas the emphasis of the function is to advertise the holiness and greatness (whether real or imaginary) of the sheikh, the biography concentrates on valid Naseehat whilst the history of the Shaikh is secondary or should be secondary.
Furthermore, eulogizing has been criticized in the Hadith. In addition, the eulogizing ceremonies which are nowadays conducted relate to such ‘shaikhs’ who truly are undeserving of the accolades which their dumb mureeds shower on them. These ceremonies are a waste of time, a waste of brains and border on untruths and imagined miracles attributed to the poor shaikh. These name-promoting functions are deceptions.

There is no need to write even biographies of current era Ulama/Shaikhs when there is a deluge of biographies of genuinely great Mashaaikh of the Salfus Saaliheen available. The lives of contemporary shaikhs of our era most certainly do not mirror the Sunnah. On the contrary, their ‘deeni’ activities have worldly and nafsaani goals. Their personalities are not a reminder of Allah Ta’ala nor do they bring their mureeds closer to Allah Ta’ala. They search for loopholes which they extravasate from isolated and obscure statements and views of the Akaabir Ulama – they do so to pamper the secular objectives of their wealthy mureeds who keep their bogus ‘khaanqas’ operating.

These shaikhs who are ‘deified’ have excised reprimand and rebuke from their ta’leemi/tarbiyat syllabus. Their primary salient feature is bid’ah halqah thikr, long public duas in which they shed crocodile tears to impress the moron audience, and to cast themselves into self-deception, thus bringing themselves within the purview of the Qur’aanic Aayat:

“They deceive Allah…. But (in reality) they deceive only themselves.”

TAKEN FROM THE MAJLIS 26-02