A Practical Attitude for Religious Knowledge

The best knowledge is religious knowledge. Why is that? It is because this knowledge teaches us how to be nearer to our Lord, how to worship him, and how to live ethically so we can draw closer to Allah while benefiting our fellow human beings at the same time. 

Therefore, religious knowledge is practical knowledge which needs to be acted out in our daily lives. When we seek Islamic knowledge, we must always keep this in mind. 

This was the way of the great scholars of the past. Mālik used to say that he hated pointless discussions, and he attribute this attitude to the earliest generations of Muslims. He would advise his students to focus their research efforts on matters that had relevance to their daily lives. He was dignified and kept himself aloof from questions that were frivolous and presented in his study circle for the sake of disputation. Sometimes he would reprove the people who asked such questions. He did this to preserve the dignity and status of religious knowledge, especially since his lessons took place in the Prophet’s mosque. When a person acted like he was not taking the lesson seriously or showed himself to be ill-mannered towards the sacred texts, Mālik would order him to be removed from his study circle. 

This was the norm for the four imams and generally for the earlier generations of Muslim scholars. They did not entertain hypothetical questions, especially those which had no practical relevance. They disliked pointless disputation, especially in matters of the unseen in the absence of direct textual evidence. 

Even in questions as critical as Allah’s names and attributes, they accepted as a matter of faith what they found mentioned in the sacred texts on its face value without trying to interpret it or qualify it. They accepted it on whatever meaning Allah and His Messenger intended by it. In this way, the earliest generations of scholars showed their reverence and respect for the sacred texts, and upheld the sanctity of what they were dealing with. They did not get sidetracked probing into matters of the unseen that went beyond the limits of human knowledge, except what is explicitly mentioned in the sacred texts. In this way, they protected the public from a lot of idle and fruitless controversy. 

A Wrong Turn 

Later generations of scholar began to delve more and more into speculative questions, especially when it came to exploring the ramifications of established rulings and principles. They went to great lengths in doing so, and defended their practice by claiming it contributed to a deeper understanding of the issues at hand and allowed them to anticipate problems that would come up in the future. They were not content to leave such questions to future generations to address for themselves when and if they needed to. 

A second group of scholars began to occupy themselves with speculative theology, which became a rigorous and dry academic discipline that did nothing for the spiritual upliftment of those who engaged in it. Their theology was more akin to mathematics and astronomy than it was to the devotional contemplation of the Companions and earlier generations. All the same, it led to nothing but greater confusion and bewilderment. It interfered with their worship. Every time they intended to pray, their minds turned to those theological disputes and how they can counter their opponents’ arguments. 

 

These scholars lost the ability to open the Qur’an and find spiritual solace or learn lessons they could apply to the problems of life and the needs of society. Instead, they would obsess over a verse like “His hands are outstretched” [al-Mā’idah: 64] and recall all of the interpretations people have ventured about it and all of the deviant ideas that can be applied to it, forgetting the essential message of Allah’s mercy that the verse conveys. Instead of the verse making them turn to Allah with love in their hearts, beseeching Him with their hopes and needs, they left their reading with their heads full of the upcoming debate they were going to have. 

How could it be otherwise? This is the way they approached the study of religion from the beginning of their careers, and this is how they perceived their faith. Whenever someone tried to remind them of what really matters, they would mistake it as an attack on the Islamic creed or an attempt to misguide them. 

A third group of scholars in the later days went to another extreme and turned a blind eye to the changes taking place in the world around them. They ignored the political and social realities in which they lived, and continued to speak about Islamic legal questions as if they still lived in an idealistic bygone age. As a result, they could not relate their religious knowledge to the practical concerns of their day, and they were ineffectual in making any positive change. 

They lost the skill to apply reason to religious matters, because their attitude was that the solutions arrived at by their predecessors were the final answers for all time. They knew only how to memorise and regurgitate received wisdom. Moreover, they did not have a deep enough understanding of this received knowledge to build upon it or appreciate the thinking that went into it, so they could not relate it to their needs or apply it effectively in their lives.

Sheikh Salman al-Oadah (Apr.30, 2013)
Source: en.islamtoday.com