Aslam

Praise be to Allah.It is known from the evidence of sharee’ah that seeking knowledge

and seeking to understand the religion is one of the best acts of worship

and obedience. The same is true of studying the Qur’aan and trying to

recite it a lot and to memorize it or as much as one can. All of these

are among the best acts of worship. If you do what you should of teaching

the people of your village, guiding them, leading them – the young men

and others – in prayer, all of these are good deeds which will be appreciated

and for which you will be rewarded. This is not showing off and it is

not shirk, if your

aim is to seek the pleasure of Allaah and the Hereafter, and you are

not doing it to show off to people and earn their praise, but to help

them and increase their knowledge and understanding of their religion.

That could be minor shirk

only if you did it to show off to people or to earn their praise. The

Prophet (peace and blessings of

Allaah be upon him) said, “The thing that I fear most for you is minor

shirk.” He was asked

what that was, and he said, “Showing off.” “When a man stands up to

pray and he makes his prayer beautiful because he thinks that the people

are looking at him.” On the Day of Resurrection, Allaah will say to

those who show off, “Go to those for whom you used to show off in the

world, and see whether you find any reward with them.” Showing off means

that you do something with the aim of people seeing you and praising

you; reputation is a part of that. For example, if you read Qur’aan

so that people will praise you and say, “He is a good reader” or “He

reads well”; or you do a lot of dhikr

so that they will praise you and say, “He does a lot of dhikr”;

or you enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil so that people will

praise you. This is showing off, and this is minor shirk.

It is essential to beware of that and to do what you do for the sake

of Allaah alone, not for the sake of showing off to people and earning

their praise. But you should learn in order to act upon that knowledge

and to teach your brothers and lead them in prayer, and hope for the

reward that is with Allaah. You should do that with the aim of helping

them, not for the purposes of showing off or enhancing your reputation.

If you read from the Mus-haf

there is nothing wrong with that if you lead your brothers in prayer

reading from the Mus-haf

in Ramadaan. The freed slave of ‘Aa’ishah (may Allaah be pleased with

her) used to lead her in prayer reading from the Mus-haf.

So it is OK to read from the Mus-haf

when praying at night in Ramadaan if you have not memorized it, but

if one has learned it by heart and can recite it from memory, that is

better, but there is nothing wrong with reading from the Mus-haf

if necessary.