The obligation of Muslims to take knowledge from its people, and the meaning of His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): “So ask the people of knowledge if you do not know”

The Shaykh : There are today a few individuals scattered throughout the Islamic world whom we can call guides who purify Islam from the many creedal, jurisprudential, and behavioral innovations that have entered it. However, these people—along with others—have not yet been given the opportunity to fulfill the duty of educating even a group of Muslims in Islamic morals. Among these morals is that the Muslim knows his own worth and remains far from being deceived by his knowledge. This trait is currently not realized in many young students of knowledge. You find one of them merely feeling that he has learned something, and then he writes a thesis. This thesis contains nothing of the knowledge he gained from his long study and practice; rather, he wanted to appear before people as an author, so he placed two, three, or four books before him, taking a text from here and a text from there, and wrote a thesis claiming it was the authentication of so-and-so, while he does not yet know much about Islam, especially this purified Islam that we speak of. Furthermore, no one has educated him in Islamic morals, let alone him being able to educate himself in what came in the Book and the Sunnah.
This is what I wanted to remind you of; so I hope our young brothers in the pursuit of the knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah know from whom this knowledge is to be taken.
Some of the texts of the Shari'ah include His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): ; this verse: is an address to the entire Ummah. The necessary implication of this address is that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) made the entire Ummah into two groups, or two types of people: a type who do not know, and a type who know. He made obligatory upon each of the two groups a duty that is not obligatory upon the other. He made it obligatory upon the first group—those who do not know—and they are undoubtedly the majority of the Ummah, as evidenced by His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): —that this larger section must ask those from the other section—the smaller one—who are the scholars. The scholars are those who are characterized first by Islamic knowledge, and then by the implications of this knowledge that lead to the fear of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). As for the knowledge that educates these scholars and makes them among those who are humble before Allah, it is the knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah, and according to what the righteous Salaf were upon, as we mentioned earlier. And it is made obligatory upon them that when they are asked by the larger section, they must answer, just as it is made obligatory upon the larger section to ask.
So now, when some people begin to seek knowledge, they are either from the larger section, or they are from the smaller section; that is, the section of the people of knowledge whom the larger section was commanded to ask , or they are from the larger section.