Knowledge Only Comes by Learning
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال:۔
إِنَّمَا الْعِلْمُ بِالتَّعَلُّمِ”۔”
(وصححه الشيخ الألباني رحمه الله في السلسلة الصحيحة برقم 342)
Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, narrates, that the messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said:
“Verily, knowledge only comes by learning”
(silsilah as-saheejah 342)
The said hadith throws light on one of the most important aspects of learning Islam. It states that knowledge isn’t something that is copy pasted from here and there but it is gained through proper and systematic manner wherein there is a mua’llim( teacher) who imparts it to his or her students in a progressive way . There is a great wisdom behind going to an institution and learning there which is evident through the early years of the prophethood when all the companions (may Allah b pleased with them)learned deen in Darul Arqam(home of Arqam bin Abi Arqam r.a). our Prophet (pbuh) was the teacher and the first Muslims were students there. They informed the other Muslims about what they had learned there within possibilities. In this sense, we can regard Arkam’s house the first Islamic school, the first university that the Prophet had taught.
Moreover the beloved prophet(pbuh) himself learned Quran in 22 years.
So education has always been given in piece-meals. One might think why is this so . We might sum up its wisdom in the following lines:
1. Affirmation ( in order to accept it)
2. To act upon it( as to live by what is learnt).
3. Patience( to develop patience over what one faces on acting upon it)
4. Self discipline ( it creates a sense of responsibility when one has to be accountable to his or her teacher )
5. Consistency (all the above mentioned facts lead to one thing and that is determination to learn more and act upon it ).
Thus a student starts working hard to achieve his goals. This long discussion boils down to only one thing and that is, seeking knowledge is more about self disciplining which can be achieved only through halaqat of learning. Not through searching and downloading web content about various matters. It no doubt saves time ,gives instant reply and so on . But it doesn’t discipline the soul which continues to be ignorant.
Remember the the Noble companions (may Allah be pleased with them all) weren’t guaranteed Paradise for stuffing themselves with knowledge but for living by it . It was only possible through slow injecting of knowledge to them by the beloved prophet (pbuh).
There’s one more false notion that who to seek knowledge from.
Once shiekh Saad as Suhaimy and Ramadhan alHajiri hafidahumullah were invited by Jamiat Ahli Hadith Hind. Then someone posed them a question that is there anyone to learn from. The Shiekh was surprised on this like anything. He said how can you ask such a question when you have those scholars here from whom even our teachers have learned. So it’s not a right approach to think there’s nobody worth teaching here. This land is home to some highly eminent scholars of all the times like Shiekh Ramzan Buzluvi, Shiekh Zahoor Ahmed Shah, Shaikh Zubair yaseen hafidahumullah etc.
One more point to mention here is that one must refrain from learning from self taught moulanas who are in abundance these days because hadn’t it been important to learn from a teacher Jibreel (A.S.) wouldn’t be chosen to teach the prophet pbuh. Also such people have always been harmful for the society at large. So it’s better to learn from someone who’s a scholar and is worth it like we have so many madni ulemas here or a student who has lived and learned in the ambience of some Shiekh.
At the end I quote the saying of Ibn seereen rahimahullah.
“Verily this knowledge is your deen, see to it from whom you are taking it”.
