THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE

 What is the reality of knowledge? Some people have this misconception that knowledge refers to words on paper.

That is just the outer form and appearance of knowledge. It is not the reality of knowledge. First of all, we have to clear this up that when we say knowledge, "ilm", we are referring to only the knowledge of Deen, not any other type of knowledge, because all of that isn't knowledge at all, just information that keeps changing. Yesterday they told us aspirin is very good, today they tell us it's bad. You can't call that ilm. Ilm is only that which has remained unchanged for more than 1400 years, and will remain like that till Qiyamah.

Okay, so knowledge in reality is not black on white, but rather it is a noor, a celestial light, which Allah puts into the hearts of his chosen ones. Because of this noor, a person gains the full understand of Deen, wisdom, and his heart expands to allow him to understand the reality of the world around him.

This expansion of the heart is known as Sharhus Sadr, and there are 3 signs that indicate towards it - 1)  Turning away from this world full of deception.
2.) Turning towards the place of eternity, the hereafter.
3.) Preparing for death before it comes.

This is the knowledge that we have to stive for, the noor of the heart.

My ustadh once told us that when he had gone to Palestine, he was told about a Jewish woman who had been teaching one of the hardest tafseers ever written, called Jalaalain, for the past 20 years! Imagine that, and she still never became Muslim!
What does that mean? It simply proves the fact that knowledge is from Allah. For this woman, it was just words on paper, the reality never entered her. That's not what we want.

May Allah grant all of us this reality, this noor, through which we can attain eternal success, amin.