Salam to all,
Two main bodies of knowledge as per an Islamic view: 1. The empirical 2. The accumulative.
1. The empirical Knowledge as in experience combined with what is learned about Islam or what is learned through experience and then evaluated trough knowledge as to it's Islamic significance.
2. The accumulative knowledge as in remembrance of all that is learned and then to find it's practical significance in Islam.
In an analogy to evaluate the two an example:
One person has designs and detailed plans for a high tech house.
Another person has Building skills but no plans
One can definitely see that one without the other would be useless.
The perfect example of combined empirical and accumulative knowledge would be the prophet s.a.w.
He had to live through the revelations, sometimes, first by experiencing then shown the answer by revelation.
What occurred in later centuries amongst the scholars is well recorded in Islam's history.
I would like to mention one only example and that is Imam Malik rahimullah.
When he was asked as how come since he knew tens of thousands of Ahadith (some say 100,000 even more) he only used just over 7,000 (some of which where repetative); to which he replied that he only managed to experience that many. A example of that statement would be when he was asked once about the merits of freeing a slave he told that person to come for the reply the following week. When the person returned he asked the Imam how come you could not give me a reply straight away; to which the Imam replied "I had no slave to free so i had to purchase one then set him free so I could give you a better answer"
My question is, which of the two types of knowledge is the most accepted today and why ?
Masalam
Two main bodies of knowledge as per an Islamic view: 1. The empirical 2. The accumulative.
1. The empirical Knowledge as in experience combined with what is learned about Islam or what is learned through experience and then evaluated trough knowledge as to it's Islamic significance.
2. The accumulative knowledge as in remembrance of all that is learned and then to find it's practical significance in Islam.
In an analogy to evaluate the two an example:
One person has designs and detailed plans for a high tech house.
Another person has Building skills but no plans
One can definitely see that one without the other would be useless.
The perfect example of combined empirical and accumulative knowledge would be the prophet s.a.w.
He had to live through the revelations, sometimes, first by experiencing then shown the answer by revelation.
What occurred in later centuries amongst the scholars is well recorded in Islam's history.
I would like to mention one only example and that is Imam Malik rahimullah.
When he was asked as how come since he knew tens of thousands of Ahadith (some say 100,000 even more) he only used just over 7,000 (some of which where repetative); to which he replied that he only managed to experience that many. A example of that statement would be when he was asked once about the merits of freeing a slave he told that person to come for the reply the following week. When the person returned he asked the Imam how come you could not give me a reply straight away; to which the Imam replied "I had no slave to free so i had to purchase one then set him free so I could give you a better answer"
My question is, which of the two types of knowledge is the most accepted today and why ?
Masalam
