The Methodology of Seeking Knowledge (2/2)

2. Acquiring knowledge from qualified teachers

The basis of acquiring knowledge is by way of learning from qualified teachers and not through books alone. Sacred Knowledge is acquired through transmission, not autodidact-ism. The student-teacher chain that leads back to the Prophet (sallAllahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) is the mechanism by which Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) preserves and defends His religion against revisionism, innovation (bid’ah) and heresy (zandaqa.)

It is said that “whoever enters knowledge alone, will emerge alone.”[1] (i.e. he comes out without knowledge accompanying him.)

It is also said that “from the greatest afflictions and tribulations are those who become ‘scholars’ through the parchments.” (i.e. from before they had books.)

There is almost a consensus on this point, except for a tiny minority of scholars who disagreed. E.g. Al-Imam Adh-Dhahabi (rahimahullah) said about Ali Ibn Ridwan Al-Misri At-Tabib (rahimahullah) in his biography that “he did not have a shaykh. Rather he engaged himself in taking from the books and he wrote a book about acquiring a skill by reading from the books and how it is more prosperous for the learner. This is wrong.”[2]

Al-Imam Ash-Shafi’i (rahimahullah) said that “whoever seeks Sacred Knowledge from the belly of books will let the rulings go to waste.”[3] (i.e. by not understanding them or applying them correctly.)

Al-Imam Az-Zubaydi (rahimahullah) said in Sharh Al-Ihya “there are things that exist in the book that divert from knowledge that are non-existent in the teacher. They may be due to distortion that occurs due to the resemblance of the letters, the absence of vowels, the mistakes that occur due to straying of the eyes, lack of experience in i’rab (i.e. implementing the rules of Arabic grammar), corruption of the existing book, handwriting that cannot be read or reading that which is not written, not knowing the madhab of the author, poor quality of the scripts, poor transcription, lack of stopping at the correct punctuation, mixing up terminology of different subjects, using the terminology of one subject in context of another and the existence of Greek terminology [that] the writer did not take from the [Arabic] language. All of the things mentioned obstruct knowledge and the learner is relieved of them when he reads to the teacher. If the situation is such, then reading to the scholars is more advantageous and virtuous than personal study, and this is what we wanted to explain...As-Safadi said: ‘For this reason the scholars said: do not take knowledge from a person who acquires it from the scripts, and do not take the Qur'an from a person who has recited the Qur'an from the mushaf. Meaning: do not recite the Qur'an to a person who just read it from the mushaf (without reciting it to a shaykh), or hadith etc. from a person who acquired [hadith] by reading from the scripts.”[4]

Al-Imam Al-Awza’i (rahimahullah) said that “this knowledge used to be noble, passed down [from men] to men, but when it entered the books the wrong people became involved in it.”[5]