ON KNOWLEDGE…

The Lord Who created me manufactured my teeth to be tightly packed. Therefore, after every hearty meal I would struggle to get stuff out from between my teeth. I detested toothpicks because they tended to injure my gums. So I ‘invented’ the use of threads to clean between my teeth. Sometimes the thread would break […]

The Lord Who created me manufactured my teeth to be tightly packed. Therefore, after every hearty meal I would struggle to get stuff out from between my teeth. I detested toothpicks because they tended to injure my gums. So I ‘invented’ the use of threads to clean between my teeth. Sometimes the thread would break and get stuck, and I had to look for stronger thread to get the first one out.

Then one day in the early 1990s in Cairo, in the flat I shared with fellow expatriate graduate students of the American University, I found in the spare bathroom a small plastic container with the word ‘FLOSS’ written on it. I had no idea what it was. Out of curiosity, I read the small print. And may the Lord be praised! That was how I discovered floss. To this day, I can’t thank God enough for this Great Discovery which changed my life. That day, I had sat in amazed wonderment about how much knowledge is out there.

We all remember The Story of Musa (Moses, upon whom be peace) and The Guide (Khidr, may Allah be pleased with him), narrated by the great Islamic historian Ibn Kathir (from Qur’an Kahf – The Cave 18:60-82). It began: “One day, Musa delivered such an impressive sermon that all who heard it were deeply moved. Someone in the congregation asked: ‘O Messenger of Allah, is there another man on earth more learned than you?’ Musa replied: ‘No!,’ believing so, as Allah had given him the power of miracles and honored him with the Torah. However, Allah admonished Musa and revealed to him that no man could know all there is to know. There would always be another who knew what others did not.”

So Allah sent Musa to meet Khidr, a saint Allah had endowed with knowledge. Ubai ibn Ka’b (may Allah be pleased with him) also narrates the full story in a hadith from Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, who said: “Once Musa stood up and addressed Bani Isra’il. He was asked who was the most learned man amongst the people. He said: ‘I.’ Allah admonished him as he did not attribute absolute knowledge to Him (Allah). And then ensued the long story of Musa and Khidr, so well known to the students of Islam (read further at www.islamicity.com).

That was Musa, one of the Five Greatest Messengers of Allah. Don’t we all, therefore, much wonder when mere mortals claim to be ‘learned’? For we all know, and believe, it is only Allah that is Omniscient. The Quran says: God is aware of all that exists on the face of the earth and in the depths of the oceans. He knows of every leaf that falls and every seed that is hidden in the darkness of the earth. All things, fresh and dry, are clear and evident to Him. (Qur’an An’am – The Cattle 6:59).

In The Islamic Concept of Knowledge (quoted on www.al-islam.org) Sayyid Akhtar states that “there is no other religion or ideology that has so much emphasized the importance of knowledge (ilm) as Islam. In the Qur’an the word alim (the knowledgeable; the scholar) has occurred in 140 places, while ilm in 27. In all, the total number of verses in which ilm or its derivatives and associated words are used is 704. The aids of knowledge such as book, pen and ink amount to almost the same number. The Qur’an itself started with the word iqra’ (‘read!’ or ‘recite!’).”

We are rarely allowed to discern ‘knowledge’ from so-called ‘natives’, as defined by arrogant others. But sometimes it just escapes:

“Back in the 1960s, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo Moon Mission took the astronauts near Tuba City [in the US] where the terrain of the Navajo Native American Reservation looks very much like the Lunar surface. Along with all the trucks and large vehicles, there were two large figures dressed in full Lunar spacesuits.

“Nearby a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange creatures walk about, occasionally being tended by personnel. The two Navajo people were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel. Since the man did not understand or speak English, his son asked for him what the strange creatures were and the NASA people told them that they are just men that are getting ready to go to the Moon. The man became very excited and asked if he could send a message to the Moon with the astronauts.

“The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea so they rustled up a tape recorder. After the man gave them his message, they asked his son to translate. His son would not. Later, they tried a few more people on the reservation to translate and every person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to translate. Finally, with cash in hand, someone translated the message, ‘Dear Moon. Watch out for these guys; they come to take your land.’”

And we may all have read this, but it is always worth repeating: “A group of four students spent the night doing things other than studying, and so were late for a very important test the next morning. Knowing the professor to be a very strict disciplinarian, on their way to college the students debated what excuse to give him.

“After much heated argument, they settled on appealing to the professor’s sense of emotion. They arrived just after the test had concluded and the professor asked them why they could not make it. ‘We had a flat tyre on our way here. And you know that is one thing we would have no control of,’ they chorused.

“After pondering for a few moments, the professor seemed to accept their excuse and asked them to wait a few minutes while he put together a new test for them. The students congratulated each other, and appreciated their own intelligence. A few minutes later, the professor came out of his office and placed each of the four students in a different room and gave each the question paper. It had only one question: “Which tyre?”

Life is tough. It is tougher if one is stupid. And Allah finishes it all beautifully: Wa Fawqa Kulli Thee Ilmin Aleem: “And Above Every Possessor of Knowledge, There Is One More Learned.” (Qur’an Yusuf – Joseph 12:76).