al-Raghib al-Isfahani #15 – Education

Rogal as for Hani says that if you want to develop yourself, if you want to reach your full potential, so that you become a Khalifa so that you become a steward of Allah's creation, then you need to develop yourself in four ways, through education, through restraint, through patience, and through justice. And if you're able to apply these things within your life, each of them leads to certain benefits or they operate towards certain goals. So for example, none of them is necessarily an end in and of itself, it's something that is a tool to be used to work on the self, so that it produces a certain result. So if you are talking about education, okay, the the purpose of education

is not just to gain knowledge, it's not just to accumulate information, right? The purpose of education is to develop wisdom, and wisdom in the Arabic language means to place everything in its proper place, right, nothing is out of place. Because you might have something that is technically correct. But if you put it or you mention it at the wrong time, or the wrong place, then it might be not only completely useless, it might actually be harmful, right? Take all of the knowledge of Islam, all the knowledge of the Koran, all the knowledge of the Hadith, if you have somebody who has a sincere heart, a pure heart, a good intention and wisdom, then that knowledge is going to benefit

people. If you have somebody who has a poor intention who has disease in their heart, then that knowledge they're going to use that knowledge for evil, they're going to use it to benefit themselves in the dunya they're going to hurt other people, they're going to manipulate other people with that knowledge. So knowledge is not just some inherent Good, okay. It has to do with knowledge can be for you or against you. It has to be developed into wisdom, it has to be applied properly. And I found the there were some really impactful stories that happened to me or that I heard of when I was studying a Medina. In this vein, one of my close professors who I had for two semesters he

taught us was sort of felt and he worked for a while he worked in giving fatwah giving fatawa for people. So he told me a story once where he had somebody they came from, they came for hydro, they came from Umrah, and they were I think they were Moroccan and they were living in Spain. There was a woman and she was she had no opportunity. She had like a sick father. And she had no economic opportunity. She was supporting her father. And so she was working in an alcohol factory in Spain. And her question to my professor at the time was, I want to send my father on Hajj, she's never been on Hajj. But I know that my money is made in this way. And I know it's not right. I know it's haram

Can I send my father on Hajj was the question. And my professor told me said look, it's like, I know the Hadith, that Allah is pure and he only accepts what is pure. I know that technically correct answer, but I also knew the impact of what my response was going to have on her. And so what my professor ended up telling her was that send your father on Hajj and tell him when he's at the kava to ask Allah for Halal wealth. And she did that. And the sheikh told me that he happened to come across this family again, like 10 years later, and they're live their lives had turned around entirely because she sent her father on Hajj. Yeah, with some dodgy money. But he may do at Aqaba,

he asked her how that wealth. And then in those years, their lives had turned around entirely. They weren't so practicing before now that were very practicing. She got a completely different job, they were in a lot better situation. They were doing things they were striving for a lot, right? And the professor told me, he said, If I had told them just the kind of cut and dry technical answer, what would have happened, right, they would have been prevented from a lot of hype from a lot of good. So putting things in their proper context, mentioning them at the right time. Not everything that is technically correct, is suitable for every single time and circumstance. Sheikh Abdullah used to

tell us all the time, he used to say that filter is not knowing how and how wrong, that filter is knowing the lesser of two evils. Or fifth is knowing the better of two goods is that there's * that has to do with, we could say theoretical physics, and then there's applying it in people's lives. How are you going to put people on a path to get closer to their Sustainer to become stronger Muslims and realize that sometimes that you have to tolerate a certain amount of a certain amount of evil, to put somebody on a better path. This is wisdom. So a lot of us were when he says that the purpose of education is not just education for education sake, we're not just accumulating degrees

and credentials and this that the other the purpose of education is to develop to develop it into wisdom so that you're able to manage and benefit the entire creation.

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