Defining Sacred Knowledge and Clarifying What Is Not Knowledge
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
The questioner: What is your opinion of this statement that scholars in the past focused on three different types of knowledge: asceticism, spiritual elevation, and realizing servitude, and that history books like *Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah* (The Beginning and the End) were written, whereas now some people protect certain supplications with politics, interpret events, and neglect other aspects?
Answer:
Knowledge is the knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah: interpreting the Qur'an, explaining the hadiths, explaining jurisprudence, and the words of the jurists. You present it to the people and clarify it for them; this is teaching. As for talking about events and politics, criticizing some countries and praising others, that is not knowledge. Its harm is greater than its benefit, if it has any benefit at all, and it is not knowledge.
The questioner: What is your opinion of this statement that scholars in the past focused on three different types of knowledge: asceticism, spiritual elevation, and realizing servitude, and that history books like *Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah* (The Beginning and the End) were written, whereas now some people protect certain supplications with politics, interpret events, and neglect other aspects?
Answer:
Knowledge is the knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah: interpreting the Qur'an, explaining the hadiths, explaining jurisprudence, and the words of the jurists. You present it to the people and clarify it for them; this is teaching. As for talking about events and politics, criticizing some countries and praising others, that is not knowledge. Its harm is greater than its benefit, if it has any benefit at all, and it is not knowledge.
Source
لقاء مفتوح 06-09-1435هـ — alfawzan.live (22:25)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.