Seeking knowledge from the hands of scholars is better than reading alone

Question:
May Allah reward you with good and do you good. A man describes himself as Shaykh Salih and says: I am diligent in looking into books and collecting them. Do you advise me to read from one person or to diversify among books and authors? Please inform us, may you be rewarded.

Answer:
We advise you to study under one of the shaykhs, one of the jurists among you, in books of creed, in books of jurisprudence, in books of hadith, in the beneficial books, and in books of grammar, in order that you may learn. As for limiting yourself to your own self and limiting yourself to reading books, this is not of much benefit; rather, it may harm you more, unless you have already sought knowledge from the shaykhs and have acquired scientific rules by which you can distinguish between what is correct and what is not correct in these books. In that case, there is no harm in you reading and increasing your reading and diversifying; that is better than limiting yourself to one book or one author, as long as you have the qualification to distinguish between what is beneficial and what is not. However, if you are a beginner or have not previously sought knowledge from the scholars, what we advise you to do is not to limit yourself to reading books, but rather you must seek out a scholar from among the scholars and seek knowledge from his hand, so that you may take from him the scientific rules and the correct path in seeking knowledge.