Khutba on Acting on Knowledge

الحمد لله، الحمد لله الذي جعل منفعة العلم في الأعمال، ونجاح العمل بالإخلاص فيه لله الواحد الفعال، نحمده تعالى ونستعينه، ونشكره تعالى ونستغفره ونستغيثه، نعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا، من يهد الله فهو المهتد ومن يضلل فلن تجد له وليا مرشدا، ونشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، له الملك و له الحمد، يحيي ويميت، بيده الخير، وهو على كل شيء قدير،  ونشهد أن سيدنا و مولانا محمداً عبده ورسوله، وحبيبه وصفيه، بلغ الرسالة وأدى الأمانة ونصح الأمة، النبي الأمي الذي أرسله الله بالهدى والدين الحق، بشيرا ونذيرا بين يدي الساعة، صلى الله عليه وسلم وعلى آله وأصحابه ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.

أما بعد! فيا عباد الله اتقوا الله حق تقاته ولا تموتن إلا وأنتم مسلمون. يأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله وقولوا قولا سديدا يصلح لكم أعمالكم ويغفر لكم ذنوبكم. ومن يطع

الله ورسوله فقد فاز فوزا عظيما. اتقوا الله فيما أمر وانتهوا عما نها عنه وزجر. قال الله سبحانه وتعالى في كتابه الكريم: “هَلْ يَسْتَوِي الَّذِينَ يَعْلَمُونَ وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ”

            Allah says in His Noble Quran, the translation of which is, “Are they the same – those who know and those who do not know?”

وقال: يَرْفَعُ اللهُ الذِينَ ءَامَنُوا والذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ دَرَجَاتٍ

            and He says in another aya, the translation of which is, “Allah will raise in rank those who believe and those who have knowledge” Knowledge is one of the greatest gifts that Allah has given mankind, of that there can be no doubt. And the people to whom it has been given rank amongst the highest of creation. But like every great gift, it comes with a weighty responsibility – it must be conveyed accurately and truthfully and it must be acted upon.
The first of these, tabligh, implies passing on the message as you received it, not altering it and re-interpreting it in the light of your own limited understanding. It is necessarily accompanied by tremendous taqwa and fear of Allah. Allah says about His Prophets, those whom He commands us to follow and emulate,

الَّذِينَ يُبَلِّغُونَ رِسَالَاتِ اللَّهِ وَيَخْشَوْنَهُ وَلَا يَخْشَوْنَ أَحَدًا إِلَّا اللَّهَ

The translation of which is, "those who conveyed Allah’s Message and had taqwa of Him, fearing no one except Allah." If it is accompanied by ego and fear of, or respect for, the enemies of Allah, or by a desire to profit financially from what you have learnt, then it could very well be a source of misguidance for people. And, unfortunately that is the case for all too many ulama today. It was these ulama against whom the Messenger of Allah was warning us when he said,

ويل لأمتي من علماء السوء يتخذون هذا العلم تجارة يبيعونها من أمراء زمانهم ربحا لأنفسهم لا أربح الله تجارتهم.

“Woe to my Ummah from the ‘ulamā’ as-sū’ who take this knowledge as a trade which they sell to the people in command in their time for a profit for themselves, may Allah not give any profit to their trade."
Today, the din is seen by these people and their ilk as but another form of trade, another way of enriching themselves. Knowledge is seen as an occupation, with the most successful being those who can turn it to the greatest profit. In a truly shocking recent study, reported by reuters, it states,
“There are over 400 sharia scholars (sic) worldwide but only around 15 to 20 prominent and experienced ones, which creates demand for scholars to sit on multiple boards. The top 20 scholars hold 14 to 85 positions each, occupying a total of around 620 board positions or 55 percent of the industry.”
“And this leads to sky-high fees paid to the top scholars. A senior banker at an Islamic lender said some scholars could be paid $1,000 to $1,500 per hour of consultation — in addition to an annual bonus of between $10,000 and $20,000 per board seat.”
These are the people issuing the fatwas that the majority of Muslims follow, these are the people misleading the masses. These are the people raised up on pedestals and revered as ulama and in whom we put our trust and to whom we delegate our affairs. We even have suc people and such organisations here in South Africa, profiting from the ignorance of the masses. But they are not ulama, they are not people of knowledge. Rather, they are the doubly ignorant, for they think they know when they do not. They are like Qarun who said about his wealth,

إِنَّمَا أُوتِيتُهُ عَلَى عِلْمٍ عِندِي

the translation of which is, “I have only been given it on account of some knowledge I possess.” But they are deluded and as Ibn Mas’ud said,

 كفى بخشية الله تعالى علما وبالاغترار جهلا

“Fear of Allah, exalted is He, is sufficient for knowledge and being deluded is sufficient for ignorance.” May Allah protect us from ignorance and from the ignorant, and give each and every one of us the furqan/ the discrimination to distinguish the ulama al-khayr from the ulama as-su, the ulama who fear Allah and seek to pass on his deen truthfully from those who place their trust elsewhere and rewrite the deen for personal gain. In reality, they have sold the deen for a paltry price and will end up the biggest losers.

أقول قولي هذا و أستغفر الله لي و لكم و لسائر المسلمين من كل ذنب فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرَّحيم.
الحمد لله الحمد لله رب العالمين، وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله، صلى الله وسلم وبارك عليه وعلى آله وصحبه، والتابعين وتابعي التابعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.

أما بعد! فيأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله ما استطعتم واسمعوا وأطيعوا وأنفقوا خيرا لأنفسكم. يا عباد الله أوصيكم وإياي بتقوى الله وطاعته وأحذركم وإياي عن معصيته ومخالفته قال الله تعالى في كتابه العزيز: ادْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةَ بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ

            Allah says in His Mighty Quran, the translation of which is, “Enter the Garden because of what you did.” The second criterion by which the people of knowledge are judged is action. Do they act by what they know, or is it simply words on a page they have memorised. For the truth of the matter is that knowledge which is not translated into action harms the human being – it does not benefit him. Bashar ibn al-Harith said,

العلم حسن لمن عمل به ، ومن لم يعمل ما أضره

            “Knowledge is good for the one who acts by it. But there is nothing more harmful than it for the one who does not act.” And it was upon that basis that the Messenger of Allah taught the deen to his Companions, carefully doling it out to them in amounts that he knew they would be able to take on and immediately put into practice in their lives. He never taught them anything that they could not do or that he himself was not already doing. And that is one of the reasons that the Quran was not all revealed at once, but rather over the space of twenty-three years. To give the Muslims the opportunity to put everything they were taught into practice. For the great fear of the Messenger of Allah for his umma was not that they would lack knowledge, but rather that they would not act by what they knew. Mu’adh ibn Jabal narrated that he said,

إني لست أخاف عليكم فيما لا تعلمون ولكن انظروا كيف تعملون فيما تعلمون

            “I have no fear for you with regard to what you do not know. Rather you must look to how you put what you do know into action.” The Prophet feared that the people of knowledge of his umma would become like those of the Bani Isra’il, about whom Allah says:

مَثَلُ الَّذِينَ حُمِّلُوا التَّوْرَاةَ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَحْمِلُوهَا كَمَثَلِ الْحِمَارِ يَحْمِلُ أَسْفَارًا

            the translation of which is, “The metaphor of those who were charged with the Torah but then have not upheld it, is that of a donkey loaded with weighty tomes.” In other words, knowing but not acting is like going through life, carrying a lot of pointless baggage. And all that baggage does is slow us down and weaken us. It is of no use to us whatsoever, but rather is a danger and hindrance. The man who knows one aya and acts by it is far better than the man who has memorised the whole Quran and Bukhari and Muslim without putting them into action. That is why the sahaba were so careful. That is why Umar Ibn al-Khattab took twelve years to learn Surat al-Baqara, not moving from one aya to the next until he had fully understood and implemented it in his life. Ilm is not information. That is a common misconception and the great danger of academia – everything becomes theoretical and not real and so everything can be called into question. Nothing is solid or real and so it can all be interpreted and reimagined. And that is what we see in the world today where many of our ulama are university graduates who spend their days arguing over the minutiae of matters of Islamic law that are not being practiced anywhere, instead of taking those first steps to put those things into place. They are not ulama. Sufyan Ibn Uyayna said,

من عمل بما علم فهو العالم، ومن ترك العمل بما علم فهو الجاهل  

            “The one who acts by what he knows is an alim. While the one who does not act by what he knows is a jahil.” The deen is not theoretical, it is not a series of principles and grand ideas. It is not a pile of information written in books. The deen is practice, action. The deen is the sunna and example of the Messenger of Allah and his Companions. And the ulama are the ones tasked with preserving that and keeping it alive for the next generations. As the Prophet said,

العلماء ورثة الأنبياء

And that can only be done by a combination of action and transmission, by themselves being the exemplars for their communities.
The ulama are not some special category of people separate from the rest of the Umma: each and every one of us has the capacity to be alim. It simply means that we know something of the deen and put it into practice. Each of us here has knowledge, and through the teaching of our shaykh, have knowledge that has been lost to much of the Muslim Umma. Allah has given us an understanding of the sickness of the world in which we live and has taught us the cure. So it is on us to transfer that knowledge into action and transmit it. It is a fard ayn on each of us. We must put into practice the solutions we talk about, otherwise we will become like those who say what they do not do.
            And remember why it is we give these khutbas and why it is you come to them. Not to absorb information, but rather to learn things that one can implement in one’s life. We do not, for example, talk about the marketplace or the waqfs simply to relay interesting tidbits about how Islam was in the past, but rather to encourage everyone here to go out and do what they can to bring that about. That is Islam. That is the Sunna of the Messenger of Allah, who put into practice every ayat of the Quran so that Aisha said about him that his character was the Qur’an, and that is the Sunnah of the Companions and all of those who followed in their footsteps. So we ask Allah to place us upon their footsteps and give us the success and strength to put into practice the knowledge that He has given us. And we ask Him to protect us from knowledge that we do not act upon.

إِنَّ اللهَ وَمَلَائِكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ، يَا أَيُهَا الذِينَ آمَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسْلِيماً. اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلِّمْ وَبَارِكْ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ  أَجْمَعِينَ. وَارْضَ اللَّهُمَّ عَنِ الْخُلَفَاءِ الرَّاشِدِينَ أَبِي بَكْرٍ وَعُمَرَ وَعُثْمَانَ وَعَلِيٍّ، وعن خديجة وعائشة وسائر أزواج النبي، وَعَنْ سَائِرِ الصَّحَابَةِ أَجْمَعِينَ، خُصُوصاً اِلأَنْصَارَ مِنْهُمْ وَالمُهَاجِرِينَ، وَعَنِ التَّابِعِينَ وَتَابِعِي التَّابِعِينَ وَمَنْ تَبِعَهُمْ بِإِحْسَانٍ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ.

اللَّهُمَّ اهْدِ وُلَاةَ أُمُورِ المُسْلِمِينَ لِمَا يُرْضِيكَ وَلِاتِّبَاعِ سُنَّةِ نَبِيِّكَ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَهُمْ عَلَى الصِّرَاطِ المُسْتَقِيمِ، وَأَصْلِحْهُمْ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ.

اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى شَيْخِنَا، وَعَلَى أَمِيرِنَا، وَعَلَى جَمِيعِ أُمَرَاءِ وَزُعَمَاءِ المُسْلِمِينَ. 

اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى المُسْلِمِينَ فِي هَذِهِ المَدِينَةِ، وَوَفِّقْهُمْ لِمَا تُحِبُّهُ وَتَرْضَاهُ يَا أَكْرَمَ الأَكْرَمِينَ.

اللَّهُمَّ أَعِزَّ الإِسْلَامَ وَالمُسِْلمِينَ (3) وَاخْذُلِ الْكُفْرَ وَالْكَافِرِينَ، وَانْصُرِ المُجَاهِدِينَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللهِ. وَاجْعَلْ كَلِمََتَكَ هِيَ العُلْيَا وَكَلِمَةَ الْكُفْرِ هِيَ السُّفْلَى.

رَبَّنَا ءَاتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقَِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ.

إِنَّ اللهَ يَامُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَى، وَيَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ، يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَّكَّرُونَ، وَلَذِكْرُ اللهِ أَكْبَرُ وَاللهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ. وَقُومُواْ إِلَى صَلاتِكُمْ يَرْحَمُكُمُ اللهُ