Abdal Hakim Murad – Duties of the Student

Cambridge Muslim college training the next generation of Muslim

thinkers Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah

while he was off the woman while up, as we move deeper into this

blessing it austere, uplifting, transformative time of the year,

we think about another of the important aspects of Ramadan,

which is learning. Students ship, the fatawa and the adverb of the

teacher and the student, particularly this time of the year

if you're in the UK or other Western countries, because Ramadan

coincides with the examination season for very many of us.

And I was impressed when last year, the two best students in my

faculty at the University of Cambridge in their final exams,

which is a formidable test,

we're both Muslim students, and with a fasting so we can excel in

Ramadan is not just a time of endurance. But it's a time when by

recalibrating ourselves our expectations and mastering our

metabolic needs, we can do better than we can we can outperform our

norm, but the student

and there are hundreds of 1000s of Muslim students just in this

country now

has to know through his or her Nia, that he or she is embarked on

something of unique nobility. And very often Muslim students aren't

quite sure how to relate Dean to what they're studying if they're

doing engineering or not.

And then they go to the university program they feel as a certain

disconnect or cognitive dissonance. How can they connect

the two?

Are they commuting between parallel universes? Well,

obviously some activities feel more reminiscent of the divine

presence than others and the new has always been like that. But it

helps to remember

that the pursuit of knowledge that is going to be useful to humanity,

not just religious knowledge is something that is something that

the angels can fold with their wings in the Hadith.

And Allah subhanaw taala says

she Shaheed Allahu Allahu Allah ilaha illa, who, well, Mala ICA

were all invited me to call him and Bill cast

allows as a witness

that there is no deity but he and the angels and the people of

knowledge, upright in just balance.

So, a lot is bearing witness to his unity. The angels bear witness

to his unity, they can do nothing else. People of knowledge, bear

witness to his unity, these three categories in the universe,

through

mental cognition, knowledge, perfection, having the quality of

island everything else in creation, bears witness to the

Divine unity just by being just by being one of the air that that are

yet the gifts and the signs that

the human being can speak can bear witness and make the shahada and

let you know it Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah, and properly speaking

the believer, whatever he or she is studying will be simply as it

were embroidering upon that shahada

and making it more evident.

So

this is a high degree Yata on lava Medina Eminem income when, when,

when leadin auto alignment or adapt

those who are given knowledge amongst them, Allah raises

them up and those who believe by degrees.

And it's often said that this is one of the castle as the special

features of the religion and of the Quran that it has such an

emphasis on

knowledge, the nobility of knowledge, the nobility, of

knowing the refusal of the distinction between the sacred and

the profane, the holy and the secular because

condoms, I will call it him everything is submissive to him,

obeys Him, bears witness to his beauty and His Majesty, there is

nothing that is not a perfect signpost if you know how to read.

And when we learn insha Allah with the right intention, we learn how

to read a little bit better.

The medic gets to see amazing things about creation. The

engineer

With his equations and calculations gets to see amazing

things about the laws of creation. It's all a matter of the cognitive

frame with which you perceive the bit of creation that you're

studying. So that in terms of the classical lessons about knowledge,

I just wanted briefly to end with

a list of 10 was our if 10 functions or duties which the

student has to bear in mind, which are 900 years old, that I think

are still really useful to ourselves.

The first of these, he says when you're studying,

and remember his mainly talking about sacred knowledge, because

that was the Rolls Royce of the disciplines in his date. These all

apply to whatever legitimate thing it is we're studying.

He says, You begin

with purity of soul to heart and NIFS.

In other words, you don't go into your degree course or your mother

or so with a mass of conflicting intentions and insecurities and

anxieties and questions as a kind of mass of confusion, but you have

purity. And your intention is to serve Allah to serving humanity in

the deen and in the dunya. And that is predicated on knowledge of

the self, you have to have some self awareness is saying before

you can be aware of anything else. So that's number one.

He says also, number two, use your studies as a way of helping you to

reduce your attachments to dunya.

Now, given the state of student grumps these days and tiny cells,

which students have to occupy, it's often an austere existence.

And the fact you have to travel away from home comfort, remember,

because it says, Yeah, this can be a way of reducing or dunya

attachments, living in a more strange, unsettling thought

provoking, less dunya kind of environment.

And this can be shaped through the right intention, as a way of

reducing reliance on dunya. And being more concentrated on on

akhira.

He says, rule number three is humility.

Part of which is respect for one's teachers. Don't try to outsmart

your teacher.

Even if you know that teacher is wrong on a particular issue, use

add up and maybe even indicate to the teacher afterwards, as long as

nobody is actively misled.

Number four, if you're a beginner, he says, Don't gratify your ego,

by diving into controversial issues.

Understand what the teacher is saying correctly, first of all,

and when you consider different views, and even in the sciences,

there's no shortage of different views. See if you can find a

teacher or a lecturer who knows those different views and can

explain them rather than just list them.

That's going to be really important, you'll benefit more.

Number five says, Don't over specialize. But know at least the

outline of every discipline nowadays, because there's so much

Zahid of stuff that is known, we have a tendency to do that. So the

engineer will never have read Shakespeare or doesn't know

anything about law and we need to have an all round type of

education.

Number six, that Imam says A student should recognize what's

really important and focus on that. So when reading a book, or

listening to a lecture,

make sure you're aware of the real important takeaways, and the key

points that are being made. Don't be distracted by things that are

subsidiary.

Number seven, he says Be methodical. In other words, when

you have learned something, make sure you've really understood it

before you move on to studying the next thing. So don't turn the fade

until you've understood what's on on that page.

Number eight,

he says, knowledge is noble because of its outcomes, not

because of the strength of the proofs.

So he says medicine is a nobler science than mathematics, even

though it's proofs a weaker why?

Because quite defensively, he says medicine enhances very obvious

aspects of human wellbeing and can save babies and prolong life and

cure fevers and so forth. Because of its outcomes. It's a nobler

science than something that is just about

working

equations, even though that which is

strictly, purely scientific and mathematical, might have stronger

proofs, it's a less noble discipline.

Number nine, he says, You must have the right intention. And the

intention has to be to properly

integrate what you know into the holistic reality of your Muslim

existence. In other words, to become a better person, not just

to get a job, or to be able to press a button and then suddenly

become a GP in the local surgery. But overall, to become a better

person, person have greater follow the law.

And then the final thing, he says,

it's an obligation to know how each thing you learn relates to

the purpose of that discipline. So don't get lost in some really

complicated calculation, inheritance law just for the sake

of it, but know what good it can be. And also ultimately know how

it relates to religion. Sometimes, the strand may seem rather

tenuous, but an all these things that are useful for mankind that

have a general and therefore, you can study law in order to save

people from being deported, for instance, or to save people from

the gallows.

You can save lives to medicine, help people through engineering,

these things can be abused, but they can also be used. And you

have to be clear about how this relates to your theme, and how

your dean is going to be supported.

Rather than challenged by this other thing that's developing, and

if so, these are the 10 principles in them look sad and unsafe. I

find them really, they really cut through to the heart of the

matter.

And in this month of Ramadan, when suddenly the distractions are

behind us and beside us, let's try and check our intentions and see

if we can enable the sometimes apparently worldly things that

we're studying as we move into the examination season and beyond, so

that we are uplifted as Muslims, rather than just as taxpayers. By

all of the stuff that we're learning. bollock. A lot of people

will often leave us alone why they come to

Cambridge Muslim College, training the next generation of Muslim

thinkers.