Does seeking worldly knowledge fall under the virtue of following the path of knowledge?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh : And this is Najib ibn 'Abdullah, who asks: Does it fall under the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) Sahih Muslim 2699a? Does seeking religious knowledge fall under that? What is the intention? Hmm? Like chemistry and the like, even though he does not intend to support Islam and the Muslims? You must know that whenever the virtue of knowledge is mentioned, the intended meaning is religious knowledge only. As for other knowledge, it is a means; if it is a means to good, then it is good, and if not, there is no reward in it. And if it is a means to evil, then it is evil. Everything mentioned regarding the virtue of knowledge refers to knowledge in the Shari'ah. The evidence for this is the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) Sahih Muslim 1037a. So all the hadiths regarding the virtue of knowledge are understood in this sense. I heard Mustafa ibn Jabir say
he who treads the path in search of knowledge, Allah would make that path easy, leading to Paradise for him
من سلك طريقا يلتمس فيه علما سهل الله له به طريقا إلى الجنةHe upon whom Allah intends to bestow goodness, He confers upon him an insight in religion
من يرد الله به خيرا يفقهه في الدين
Source
الفتاوى الثلاثية (2) -1 — binothaimeen.net (5:37)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.