What are the stages of seeking knowledge that one must go through?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : He asks, are there stages in seeking knowledge that one must pass through?
The Shaykh : He asks, are there stages?
The questioner : Yes.
The Shaykh : I do not know. In truth, I do not imagine that there is a stage in Islamic knowledge that can be bypassed, because knowledge is attained gradually. So I do not know the answer to this question except to say that there are no stages; rather, one proceeds as the poet said:
"If you seek knowledge, it is vast, *** and your life is too short to acquire it all.
So prioritize the most important of it over the next most important." I think this is the answer to such a question for some Muslims. A student of knowledge distinguishes between the Arab and the non-Arab. If he is an Arab, it can be said that he is able to bypass the stage of learning what is known as grammar (nahw), morphology (sarf), and the language and its vocabulary. This is unlike the non-Arab, for whom it is obligatory to study these sciences until he is able to understand the Book and the Sunnah. But the reality we see and feel with our own hands is that Arabs today have become close to non-Arabs in their inability to understand the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. So it seems they must also study these sciences that non-Arabs study, perhaps in a shorter period than the time a non-Arab spends studying the language, its morphology, rhetoric, and so on. On this occasion, I advise the student of knowledge, if he is not able to study these linguistic sciences, to increase his study of the Qur'an, its recitation, and his reading of the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). For in that lies the correction of his tongue and the enrichment of his mind and thought. This is all I have.
The Shaykh : He asks, are there stages?
The questioner : Yes.
The Shaykh : I do not know. In truth, I do not imagine that there is a stage in Islamic knowledge that can be bypassed, because knowledge is attained gradually. So I do not know the answer to this question except to say that there are no stages; rather, one proceeds as the poet said:
"If you seek knowledge, it is vast, *** and your life is too short to acquire it all.
So prioritize the most important of it over the next most important." I think this is the answer to such a question for some Muslims. A student of knowledge distinguishes between the Arab and the non-Arab. If he is an Arab, it can be said that he is able to bypass the stage of learning what is known as grammar (nahw), morphology (sarf), and the language and its vocabulary. This is unlike the non-Arab, for whom it is obligatory to study these sciences until he is able to understand the Book and the Sunnah. But the reality we see and feel with our own hands is that Arabs today have become close to non-Arabs in their inability to understand the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. So it seems they must also study these sciences that non-Arabs study, perhaps in a shorter period than the time a non-Arab spends studying the language, its morphology, rhetoric, and so on. On this occasion, I advise the student of knowledge, if he is not able to study these linguistic sciences, to increase his study of the Qur'an, its recitation, and his reading of the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). For in that lies the correction of his tongue and the enrichment of his mind and thought. This is all I have.