THE LEVELS OF KNOWLEDGE: IBN AL-QAYYIM The next point now is the levels of knowledge. Ibn al-Qayyim, in Miftaah Daaris-Sa’aadah said, the levels of knowledge are six, these are the ladders of knowledge The first one is asking and pursuing correctly, Some people are deprived of knowledge because they do not perfect asking or seeking it in the proper way. *And this is something I already mentioned in the first class, they may not ask at all, some people may not ask, they have a question, they may not ask at all. Or some may ask about something, when there is something more important and essential that they should be asking or searching or pursuing. So they ask about that which is least important for them and for their religion and they ask about something which is least important, rather than that which is most important. *That is a problem with many of those who are ignorant and trying to learn on their own, without at least foundation of how to learn. *Some Salaf said, your way in asking or pursuing in knowledge is half of knowledge and that is very true. Asking or pursuing or seeking knowledge in the right manner, is half of knowledge they said. *For example, if one got into studying Islam and jumped into laws of inheritance, al-Faraa’id, but does not know the Fiqh of purification, is that acceptable? Or more practical example for us here, someone goes to al-‘Aqeedah at-Tahaawiyyah and tries to understand it. That is a very difficult book that gives scholars a hard time, he goes to that but has never studied the basic books before that, now that is the first one. *The second one is listening and being silent. It is allegedly said that Ali Ibn Abi Talib said, if you sit with a scholar, be more eager to hear than you are to speak. Be more wanting to listen than you are to talk. *Third one is understand, which is obvious. *The fourth one is Hifdh, memorise. There are things, especially in our knowledges that you got to memorise. *The fifth one is Ta’leem, you got to teach, and all these, we will go through them later but you should know them for now. *The sixth one is the fruit of the knowledge, which is to act accordingly to what you learned and stay within the limits and boundaries of what you learn. *Ali said, knowledge calls for action, if it responds it stays, if it does not respond, it moves away. *Ash-Sha’bi said, our support for memorisation of our knowledge used to come from acting upon it. *Al-Fudhayl Ibn Iyyaadh, Muhammad Ibn Nadr, Sufyaan Ibn ‘Uyaynah, Umar Ibn ‘Ala, and others said very similar quotes about that. *A side thing is al-Khalaal said, when he wanted to study grammar he said I went to study grammar, I stayed one year SILENT. The next year, I considered and looked into it. The third year, I pondered over it. In the fourth year, I began to ask my Shaykh. So it took him four years, do not go to that level, I am just showing you some stuff old scholars said. *That is to show you the level of patience that they had also in attaining the knowledge and that it is a structured study, it is not a sporadic thing.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 04:22:39 +0000