Can an older person seek knowledge? We have heard that Ibn Hazm and al-‘Izz ibn ‘Abd al-Salam sought knowledge after the age of forty.
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: There are those who sought knowledge in old age and became scholars, such as Imam Ibn Hazm and al-‘Izz ibn ‘Abd al-Salam, whose ages were over forty. He asks: What is the guidance in this matter, and can an older person grasp it as a young person does?
Answer:
If he sincerely intends for the sake of Allah to seek knowledge with sincere intention and dedication, may Allah guide him, even if he is old. However, it is rare for an older person to be like a young person. The young person is more rooted in knowledge and more focused on knowledge than the older person. We do not say that an older person cannot learn; he can learn and become a scholar, but this is rare. This is one of the rare matters.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: There are those who sought knowledge in old age and became scholars, such as Imam Ibn Hazm and al-‘Izz ibn ‘Abd al-Salam, whose ages were over forty. He asks: What is the guidance in this matter, and can an older person grasp it as a young person does?
Answer:
If he sincerely intends for the sake of Allah to seek knowledge with sincere intention and dedication, may Allah guide him, even if he is old. However, it is rare for an older person to be like a young person. The young person is more rooted in knowledge and more focused on knowledge than the older person. We do not say that an older person cannot learn; he can learn and become a scholar, but this is rare. This is one of the rare matters.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [50 -308] هل يمكن للكبير طلب العلم فقد سمعنا أن ابن حزم والعز بن عبد السلام طلبا العلم بعد الأربعين؟ — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.