The Superiority of the Scholar over the Worshipper

The Shaykh:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions. O brothers and sisters, peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings. Welcome to this blessed meeting on the program *Light on the Path*.

The presenter:
The guest of this meeting is His Eminence Shaykh Salih ibn Fawzan al-Fawzan, a member of the Committee of Senior Scholars and a member of the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta. Welcome, Shaykh, to this meeting. May Allah keep you safe and bless you.

The questioner:
We begin this meeting with a message from the questioner Abu 'Amir, from Syria. He says: Which is better, Honorable Shaykh, the ascetic worshipper who devotes himself to worship and asceticism, or the scholar who teaches people good? And what has been reported regarding the virtue of the scholar?

The Shaykh:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions. To proceed: Both are upon good. The ascetic worshipper and the scholar who teaches people good. However, the scholar who teaches good is better than the worshipper, because the benefit of the ascetic worshipper is limited to himself, whereas the benefit of the teaching scholar is for himself and for others.
And among what indicates the superiority of the scholar over the worshipper is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
And because the worshipper may be ignorant and not know the rulings of the Shari'ah, unlike the scholar, who knows the rulings of the Shari'ah and issues fatwas. The worshipper may issue a fatwa based on error, as evidenced by the story of the one who killed ninety-nine souls. He asked a worshipper if he had any chance of repentance. The worshipper said, "No, you have no repentance." He issued a fatwa out of ignorance, so the man killed him and completed the hundred. Then he went to a scholar and said, "I have killed a hundred souls. Do I have any chance of repentance?" The scholar said, "Yes. And who can stand between you and repentance?" Look at the answer of the worshipper and the answer of the scholar. Yes.

The presenter:
May Allah reward you.