Guidebook to God
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Ep. 2: The obligation of seeking knowledge | Guidebook to God
What is the status of those who seek knowledge? Why is seeking knowledge an important aspect of faith?
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is light. And knowledge is the one thing that nobody can restrict from you if you seek it. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the Qur'an, وَفَوْقَ كُلِّ ذِي عِلْمٍ عَلِيمٍ Above everyone who has knowledge, there's one who is more knowledgeable. Until you come to that level of the knowledge of the Prophet ﷺ, and of course then that which is after it, that nobody is beyond the knowledge of al-'alim, the all-knowing, the Almighty Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. One of the most important aspects of our character, of our ethics and ethos as Muslims, of the things that makes us people of faith, is that we are sent to be those who are witnesses onto mankind with the evidence provided to us by Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. In fact, one of the most important aspects of our faith in Allah, of our dealings with each other, is that we seek to have it على بصيرة أنا ومن اتبعني. Allah says to us in the Prophet ﷺ that he commanded the Prophet ﷺ to say to humanity, I have been sent to call you to a place of righteousness upon basira, upon insightfulness, clear-sightedness. We are not people who have faith in Allah without seeking to develop it through an understanding, an opportunity of learning. And therefore you see of the first instructions given to the Prophet ﷺ, is that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, فَعَلَمْ أَنَّهُ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ Come to know, come to a certainty of knowledge that none is worthy of worship through Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And one of the ways that we come to appreciate Allah is through science, is through knowledge, is through learning,
is through the knowledge of the material world, knowledge of the esoteric world, knowledge of the inward aspects of our life, knowledge of the physical environments that surround us, knowledge of the things that are beyond us. Notice how Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala speaks about the relationship he developed within Ibrahim for himself. That Ibrahim ﷺ as a very young child, he would ask his father who was an egregious unbeliever, one who was full of wickedness and sinfulness, one who was committed to the graven images and the idolatry of his purpose and worship to the point that he wanted to even murder his own child to preserve his standing within his community as the chief priest and idol maker. He asked his father, Ya abati, my father, does this idol that you worship, yasm'auna aw ya'lamun aw yamfa'un, do they hear, do they benefit, do they speak, do they hold any regard for you? And his father, of course, doesn't have a sufficient answer that can prove to Ibrahim that thought. And therefore of the first steps of Ibrahim coming to faith, wasn't that he received revelation, wasn't that an angel came to provide him knowledge of God, is that Ibrahim began to think. And anyone who begins to think, they begin to appreciate that that which is material, that which is man-made, that which is of substance, that which had life and therefore the consequence of death, that which was brought into existence by the hands of those who will at one point not exist, cannot be the ultimate power, cannot be the ultimate being who has brought everything into existence. Ilm is therefore one of the most stressed upon aspects of the Quran. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala encourages us to be from those who pursue knowledge.
The Prophet ﷺ of the very earliest revelation that was sent to him, the very beginning of the Quran was ikra, read, recite, read to yourself, read out loud so others hear you, read often, read in a deliberate tone that other people can appreciate that there's more than what they may know of themselves. Ikra, bismi rabbik, but seek in it the name of your Lord, your Lord, Ya Muhammad ﷺ, my Lord as an individual that I have a possessiveness over Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that to me it's as if he is mine and I turn everybody else away, that I want it and I want that relationship with Allah of exclusivity. Alladhi khalaq, you will come to know that he is the only one who has brought creation, not manufacturing, not bringing things from other smaller parts into bigger parts, not through genetic modifications or tinkering with DNA, but actually bringing min al-adam, from that which was nothingness, something. Badee'u s-samawati wal-ard, knowledge and awareness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala becomes one of the most important ways of knowing who we are. You know, very early on, philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, you know, they all have this statement, know thyself, know who you are, and for you to know who you are, you have to know where you came from, who brought you into this world, who gave you the consciousness and the awareness that you have. And therefore, when people would come and question the Prophet ﷺ about whether there would be resurrection, whether there would be life after death, he would at times turn back people from joining him in a military expedition, going out to defend the lands of Islam. Could you imagine on the day of Badr, the Prophet would turn back Zayd ibn Thabit radiAllahu anhu, Abdullah ibn Umar radiAllahu anhum, and he would say,
you stay behind, there's other things that I want you to do. Zayd ibn Thabit, I want you to learn to read and write. What is a greater contribution than standing next to the Prophet ﷺ on the day of the great onslaught where the numbers of the believers were dwindled in amount, where there was the chance that if they were eliminated in battle, that there would be no more faith, and that the Prophet's life was a danger, that every man counts, but the Prophet ﷺ turns them back and says to Zayd, you have a greater purpose in your study of language, in your study of learning, because you will carry forward the tradition after me. The greatest of people who inherit from the Prophet ﷺ, who inherit from the Prophet are the ulama. The Prophet ﷺ said, الأنبياء لم يورثوا دينار ولا درهما، إنما ورثوا العلم، فمن أخذه أخذ بحظ وافر. Know that the Prophets of God do not leave behind any estates or monetary finance to be inherited from them. What they leave behind is knowledge. فمن أخذه, the one who takes hold of it, the one who masters it and is able to convey it to others, has taken something substantial. The Prophet ﷺ tells us in the authentic hadith that طلب العلم فريضة Seeking knowledge, seeking to learn, seeking an opportunity to know something you did not know yesterday, is an obligation على كل رجل مسلم ومسلمة, upon every man and woman, Muslim man, Muslim woman. This is an obligation that all of us should seek to know not just aspects of our faith that are important for our practice of faith, but to go beyond it so that we are able to teach and instruct others.
And therefore you will find that after the enlightenment of the Qur'an came the enlightenment of the sciences and language and poetry and the study of physics and astronomy. All of this was part and parcel of the renaissance that the world experienced. It began in the dark ages of Europe where the radiant days of Islam and Islamic lands. The canon of medicine that was studied for nearly 800 years as the primary textbook was written by Muslim physicians. The optics that we put in front of our eyes as glasses today, its origin was Islam. Algebra, algebra, al-Jabr, to make numbers into smaller and fractioned concepts comes very much from Islamic roots. In fact, the Arabic numeral system and the concept of a sifr or a cipher or a zero comes from the lands of Islam. Know as well that the greatest Muslim theological scholars were not people who were ignorant of the sciences. Al-Imam al-Nawawi, all of us, we read the 40 hadith of Al-Imam al-Nawawi. All of us, we hear of Riyad al-Saliheen. He was a physician and an astronomer and a physicist. And he was also a master of the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wasallam and a master of the sunnah and tradition. Let us come back to achieving the heights of Islam, the glory of Islam by taking the first step after believing in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, which is to learn about our obligations to Him, our obligations to each other, and to pursue the material sciences that bring us closer to each other. Iqra bismi rabbika allathee khalaq.
Wa sallillahumma wasallim wazid wabarak ala sayyidina wa habibina wa nabiyina Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
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