Importance of knowledge for being a Muslim

In this first part of a few series of article, I will endeavored to portray Islam in its entire perspective. The purpose is to provide Muslims and particularly non-Muslims with a brief treatise giving a lucid, comprehensive and all-embracing view of Islam. It is the duty of us as muslim to invite our non muslim neighbours to Islam. It’s then their role to reflect, contemplate and further search for the truth and choose to embrace Islam as a way of life or not.

In order to set a guideline for the discussion, I’ll attempt to summarize Abu A’la Maududi’s rahimahullah (rh) book entitled “Fundamentals of Islam” chapter by chapter.

In the first chapter, Maududi’s (rh) stressed that being a muslim is not a racial asset which we automatically inherit from our parents and clings to us mechanically whether we bother about it or not. Being a muslim requires that one person makes an effort to be a muslim. The person must take an extra effort to really understand what does it take and what does it mean by being a muslim – that is, to submit to the Creator’s Will.

Islam comes from knowledge and putting them into practice. It is impossible to become a muslim while remain a muslim if in a state of ignorance. A person becomes a muslim by accepting Islam through a deliberate and conscious decision and act accordingly. Therefore, the differences between a muslim and a disbeliever or kafir is not because of a name or a dress or to which ethnicity the person is from, the real difference is of knowledge.

The person is considered kafir because the person does not know what relation has God with him and what relation he has with God and what is the right path for him or her to lead the life in the world in accordance with the wish of God. If the person is a born muslim yet does not submit to God but instead pursuing other ways of life, what difference between the person and the disbeliever? How do one differentiate then? A person is considered muslim in a real sense when the person knows what Islam stand for and affirms his or her faith with full consciousness. Unless the muslim acquires the knowledge and learn the complete teaching of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and act according to it, the person can’t really claim that they’re muslim in a real sense.

A muslimah wears a hijab because of her knowledge that wearing a hijab, pleases Allah.

A muslim lowers down his gaze, not because of “it’s my custom”. No, because the person know such act pleases Allah.

A muslim, decided not to celebrate Valentine – because deep in the person’s hears it pleases Allah.

A muslim or muslimah avoid smoking because of the knowledge that anything that an act that purposely harms his or her body, angers Allah.

A muslim or muslimah supports hudud because of the knowledge that hudud is small part of a bigger system that Allah has prescribed for His slaves.

Thus, this is how a true muslim behaves. For any action, the person will think whether such act pleases or anger Allah the Almighty. A muslim will pursue any actions that pleases Allah. A muslim will avoid from any behaviour or position that may lead to Allah’s anger.

To know this, one must then has the right tool to help the person steer to the right direction. What is that tool? Knowledge.

Many of us are expert in our profession (especially in the age of Facebook everyone seems to be the jack of all trades) but when it comes to Islam, people tend to take Islamic knowledge for granted and assume that whatever knowledge we learned during our primary or secondary school is enough. We spend a great deal of time for our profession but probably less when it comes to iman. Why is it then we behave in such manner when Iman is more precious than life? We spend years and work long after office hours for our profession but when it comes to Islam we spend less than 1/10th of our time to learn more about it?

We don’t have to learn 10-12 years continuously and reading volumes of books all night long but it is enough to spend one or two hours every day to learn about aqidah and Islam as a way of life. Learn about the essence of Quran and why it is being revealed. Learn about the mission of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and what wrong he wanted to abolished and what right he wanted to established. Learn what Allah has ordained for us as muslims in His syariat.

In this day and age, one can easily spend 1 hour either to listen from various international muslim speakers in Youtube such as Ahmad Deedat rahimahullah, Dr Zakir Naik, Bilal Philips, Yasir Qadhi, Nouman Ali Khan, Suhaib Webb, Yusuf Estes, Khalid Yasin, Hussein Yee etc. For those who wishes to listen to Islamic lectures about aqidah in local flavour they can listen to Maulana Asri, Dr Abdul Basit, Abdullah Yasin etc.

Not much time is required to attain this knowledge. If Iman and living on the true path is really important, then spending not more than 1 hour in a day to learn about Islam is the least we can do.