The Fitna of People of Knowledge

Shaykh Abdullah used to tell us in Medina get used to saying I don't know, train yourself to say I don't know. Because every single class of people has a certain fitna, or a certain trial. And the fitna of people of knowledge is arrogance, and pride. And so you have to actively train yourself upon humility. And one of the more humbling ways is, even if you think, you know, say, I don't know, right, and be prepared to turn down questions, if you're answering every single thing that comes to you, or 90% of the things that comes to you. It's, you're probably punching above your weight, you're probably addressing too many things. There's the famous story of Imam Malik right. And most

many of the Imam of the past have said that, you know, saying I don't know is half of knowledge itself, right. And so you've got EMA Malik, you know, the Imam of Medina in his time, and people traveled across the Muslim world to come and ask him questions. And they come and they have a list of questions, dozens of questions, and he only responds to a few of them. He says, I don't know, the rest. And then you know, the exchange is very revealing, because they kind of put them on the spot. They said, like, like, we've come from so far away. And like, we're supposed to go back empty handed and tell people that you didn't know. So look at the kind of thing how the audience think about

social media and YouTube and all this stuff, like look at how the audience will actually try to put you in a position where you're answering things that you're not comfortable with. And then EMA. Malik had the courage and the stones to say, you know, like, you go back to your people and tell them that EMA Malik doesn't know, you know, so that's what it takes, right? It takes that willingness, and that doesn't come from nowhere, you have to train us, you have to make it a habit, right. Like I've even known some people that just out of the habit, even if they're about to answer a question, they'll say, I don't know, first,

you know, just to keep themselves it's like, you know, so they say, I don't know, and then they give themselves a second. And then if they actually have something that benefit, then they will, you know, it's like but maybe this or but the prophesize hadn't said that or whatever. But they've started with I don't know, because then even knowledge, even knowledge is is from a loss power data and a knowledge can be taken away. It's granted a lot of people think that it's just this mechanistic thing where you Yes, there are means that Allah has created you study you memorize, you review these sorts of things, but true understanding is granted by Allah subhanaw taala. And the

ability to remember those things when somebody asks you a question is from the last panel data, which is why the amount of the past if they were vexed by a certain question, they wouldn't always just hit the books, they would hit the prayer mat, and they would pray they would ask a lot for Delphia and for for guidance. And so yeah, we asked a lot to keep was sincere and for a lot to enable us to stay within a healthy scope and be able to admit when something is out of our out of our expertise.