An Encyclopedia of Information

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

There are lots of information out there about Islam but most people don't have the knowledge of Islam. Some of you might know people who are encyclopedias of Islamic knowledge or people who memorized verses of Qur'an and hadiths but they are short in their practice of what they know. They might not follow the sunnah of the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace. They might lie, cheat and break promises. They might smoke, backbite, envious, arrogant, have a temper, not respecting others and the environment, throw garbage on the street, throw rocks at dogs. In short they might have a bad character.

This is because there is a difference between information and knowledge. Knowledge is something you use to improve your state of being, otherwise it is information which is useless.

Many of us are a packrat of information. It is very easy to obtain information, especially nowadays with advent of the internet. We have libraries of files in our laptops on Islam, not to mention books and CDs in our homes, some you probably have forgotten that you have them. When you go to Islamic lectures/conventions/retreats, you transcribed everything the speakers said. Those who brought laptops to the lessons would be busy typing away what the teacher said.

Do you know that while you were busy doing that you automatically missed out on the meaning of what the teacher said because your heart wasn't listening. It didn't travel to your heart because your eyes were busy on the screen, your fingers were busy on the keyboard and of course your brain has to coordinate all these actions. So, you were not 100% focusing on what the teacher said. And you are distracting others as well and thus depriving them from getting the potential knowledge. Imagine if you have 100 people in a class/hall clicking away on the keyboard transcribing what the teacher said!

Now with all these information you gathered and stored, have they changed anything about you? Have they brought you closer to Allah? If they haven't, then you have to start clearing your shelves and your storage and start over. Learn from a real teacher, someone who can teach and guide you.

May Allah grant us tawfiq to the highest station. Ameen. Please don't foget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam