Tom Facchine – Knowledge & Virtue

			We need to really get back to a virtuous knowing and Islam encourage us to know virtuously not just
to know, just to know, because information or knowledge alone doesn't do anything, you know, the
devil knows that Allah subhanaw. Taala is the only true God. And yet that knowledge doesn't benefit
him whatsoever. He chose to reject obedience, despite his knowledge, which is what makes him so bad,
right? So we live in a very, very difficult time, because we have this separation between knowledge
and virtue, right? People go to school, they get their MBA, or they get their, you know, they would
go on to become a doctor. And, you know, if you take a course on ethics, it's optional. It's not a
		

			mandatory part of your curriculum, you know, nobody's really very concerned with is the knowledge
that I know virtuous knowledge is a knowledge that I should have, and what am I doing with it? And
that carries over to the religious sphere, as well, as some people have commented, because we can
get in the habit where we're just studying, just to know, but what does it mean, just to know,
really, it's to appear a certain way in front of people to answer questions. If it's not about
embodying that knowledge and living that knowledge, then it's actually a burden and you're actually
doing it wrong. And we know this, the Companions, they took this very, very seriously every single
		

			thing that you know, the more that you know, the more responsibility you have, right, you're going
to be accountable for it. And that's a salute Neoma in any name, Allah subhanaw taala says and
sorrows at the cattle that you're going to be asked that day about every blessing is acknowledged
blessing every single thing that you know, right? We saying ignorance is bliss, and it's not really
true, but this is what people mean by that, you know, I had a friend a long time ago, you know, he
was your ordinary Muslim kind of practicing, he prayed Hamdulillah. But he used to joke, you know,
he said, you know, if somebody hit the lottery, like, give them the money, but don't tell him it was
		

			from the lottery. Right? So it was a joke, and he was just kidding. But you know, his idea was that
the, the point was that the more that you know about something that the greater responsibility you
have, and that is true, the more that you know about Islam, the greater responsibility you have to
live by it, to do good by it, to spread it to others to teach and especially to embody it and if
your knowledge and it's true, most of us, I think these days our knowledge outpaces our practice,
and that's a very scary thing, and we hope that Allah forgives us