The advice of a teacher to his student

[strivingobserver98]

A great piece of advice from one of my closest teacher:
"Studying under experts removes impulsive and reckless behavior from a student and replaces it with tolerance and well thought-out responses."

I remember exactly the when he said and it only sank in when I began to observe my attitude to the views of others. I remember as a student in the early days I was quite reckless in responding to the statements of other people without considering the plausibility of it.

We had all sorts of students in our 1st year class. Some of them were following the Maliki fiqh others, Shafis, Hanbalis and Hanafis. You can imagine the kind of debates ehem i mean 'discussions' ;) we end up having especially after one of the students didnt fold his hands or another who cut his finger & prayed without repeating wudhu and so on...

Difference of opinions in practicing is truly a mercy from Allah.

The problem is when we don't have the capacity to tolerate and appreciate this. Guidance from teachers and their continuous scrutiny is a extremely important ingredient in studying with a balanced approach.

Studying knowledge under experts has definitely made me a different person and made me see my past reflection in new students of today.

Studying knowledge makes you mature in more ways than one.

So dont just learn but find a a good teacher to benefit from.

- Liaquat Zaman

[noraina]

I can understand how invaluable the guiding hand of a teacher would be, and their words of wisdom when they try to ensure your knowledge does not lead to pride or arrogance, or that in your over-zealousness you don't become intolerant of other's opinions.

But I think the way of learning knowledge for our great scholars is very different compared to today, where a lot of the time it isn't possible to find a good teacher. Such as the fact we live in non-Muslim countries, or that today many Muslims, especially younger ones, are learning pretty much most of their Islamic knowledge on their own, through books and the internet, like myself.

I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. I'd love to be able to sit at the feet of great teachers, attend gatherings of sincere students of the deen, and learn about Islam that way. But here at least it's not possible - the way of learning has changed so much subhanAllah and so quickly in the past fifty years, and with them the methods and ideas of knowledge, I think this huge difference within so little time can be hard to grasp.

[Umm Abed]

"Seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim" - Baihaqi.