Aslam

Praise be to Allah.

There are two ways of acquiring knowledge:

1 – Acquiring it from trustworthy books,

which have been written by scholars who are known for their knowledge

and trustworthiness and whose ‘aqeedah (belief) is known to be free

of innovations (bid’ah) and myths.

Taking knowledge from books can help

a person to reach a certain level, but there are two obstacles:

The first obstacle is that this takes

a long time, because one needs a lot of time and a lot of painstaking

effort until he gets the knowledge he wants. Many people may not be

able to overcome this obstacle, especially when they see that those

around them have wasted their time without gaining anything, so they

get bored and tired, then they do not get what they want.

The second obstacle is that the knowledge

of the person who acquires knowledge from books is usually weak, because

it is not built on a solid foundation. Hence we find many mistakes made

by those who take their knowledge from books, because they have no guidelines

or principles with which to deal with minor issues referred to in the

Qur’aan and Sunnah. We find some people come across a hadeeth which

is not mentioned in the reliable books of Saheeh and Musnad, and this

method goes against the principles followed by the scholars and indeed

by the ummah, then they take this hadeeth and build their belief on

it. Undoubtedly this is wrong, because the Qur’aan and Sunnah have principles

around which the minor issues revolve, and if there is something that

contradicts these principles and cannot be reconciled with them, then

that should be abandoned.

2 – One of the ways of gaining knowledge is to learn

from a scholar who is trustworthy with regard to his knowledge and his

religious commitment. This way is quicker and is more reliable, because

in the first method the seeker of knowledge may go astray without realizing

it, either because of misunderstanding or because he is lacking in knowledge,

or for some other reason. But in the second method he can discuss, give

and take with his teacher, which will open to the student many doors

to understanding and examining, how to defend the correct views and

refute weak views.  The student should prioritize and read book

which summarize knowledge before studying it in depth. In this manner

he will progress gradually. He should not move on to the next level

before he has thoroughly grasped the current level; in this way his

progress will be sound.