Friday, February 26, 2010

Semua Ilmu Penting

:: bismillahirrahmanirahim ::

As mentioned in one of my comments in article "Ptosis Evaluation", I'd like to share a story written by Umar Muhammad Noor (Imam at Assyafaah Darul Hadith, Singapore) in his article Semua Ilmu Penting which I read in the latest issue of magazine Solusi #16, page 28-29




Here is the story:



There was an "ahli hadith" named al-Hafiz* Abu Bakar Ahmad bin Ibrahim al-Isma'ili from Jurjan (died 371 H),  a great scholar (ulama) who was very knowledgable in fields of Hadith and Fiqh. He was very negative against Ahli Kalam because he hated Ilmu Kalam* and those who studied Ilmu Kalam. Due to this hatred, he'd never interested to study Ilmu Kalam until something happened to him.

One day, when Abu Bakar al-Isma'ili was performing sunat prayer in a mosque, he'd overheard two men discussing about Ilmu Kalam. As he hated it very much, he hastened to finish his prayer in order to leave the place immediately. But there was one point in the discussion that resided in his memory, when one of the two mens said:

"Actually the teaching of Syiah Ismailiyyah is very stupid. Any ulama doesn't need to give dalil while debating with followers of Syiah Ismailiyyah. We just need to ask them 'why?', then they won't be able to answer anything back."



Not so long after that, there was a group of Syiah Ismailiyyah followers making an open confession regarding their apostasy (murtad) and told the Sultan about it by letter, saying that they won't accept Islam unless that Muslims can prove the truth of Islam in a debate. The Sultan had to select one of his citizens as a representative for Muslims to be debating against the representative from the Syiah Ismailiyyah.

The Syiah Ismailiyyah's representative requested the Sultan to choose Abu Bakar al-Hafiz to be the Muslim's representative as he knew that Abu Bakar al-Hafiz was only knowledgeble in Hadith but knew nothing about Ilmu Kalam; and unfortunately the Sultan agreed. This selection made other ulamas worried since they knew that Abu Bakar al-Hafiz would lose the debate as he was unknowledgeable in Ilmu Kalam.

For Abu Bakar al-Hafiz, he knew that Ilmu Kalam was not his field of expertise but he couldn't refuse from being the representative of Muslims because it was a Sultan's order. This made him regretted himself for not studying anything about Ilmu Kalam. This time only he realized the importance of studying Ilmu Kalam as it can be used as an agrument in such debate to defend our sacred religion of Islam.

But Allah is always by our side. Abu Bakar al-Hafiz suddenly remembered the saying about Syiah Ismailiyyah that he overheard in a mosque the other day, and this gave him strength to face the representative of Syiah Ismailiyyah. During the debate session, the Syiah's representative enthusiastically and confidently explained the content of Syiah Ismailiyyah teaching. When it was the turn for Abu Bakar al-Hafiz to speak, can u guess what he said?

Yeah, he only said "Why?" but the representative couldn't answer anything to defend his strayed teaching. So, the Muslims won the debate by the hand of Abu Bakar al-Hafiz and of course, with the help of Allah. Abu Bakar al-Hafiz was very grateful to Allah for helping him in that critical situation and since then, he was so motivated to learn Ilmu Kalam. What I wanna stress here is not the stupidity of Syiah Ismailiyyah but particularly the importance of mastering a wide range of knowledge. You can think of other moral values from this story by yourself.

:: wallahu a'lam ::




* al-Hafiz adalah gelaran terhormat bagi ahli hadis yang telah menghafal hadis pada kuantiti tertentu, manakala mereka yang menghafal al-Quran pula sepatutnya digelar al-Muqri. Tapi di Malaysia, kita dah terbiasa menggunakan gelaran al-Hafiz untuk mereka yang menghafal Quran.

* Ilmu Kalam secara ringkasnya ialah ilmu yang membahas ajaran-ajaran dasar bagi sesuatu agama, termasuk ajaran-ajaran agama lain.

6 comments:

  1. Another short yet motivating story about knowledge is regarding an 11-year-old boy in time of our Prophet Muhammad s.a.w, whose name was Zaid bin Thabit. At once, Rasulullah s.a.w ordered him to learn the language of Jews as to protect Islam from being manipulated by Jews people.

    Amazingly, Zaid could successfully master the language in only 17 days, including the writing and speaking skills. See, how the people in those time of Islamic glory striving very hard in seeking new knowledge, that such a young boy can master a foreign languange in less than a month!

    How about us the current people of Islam... Why are we taking too long to master a subject? Why are we left behind far from the others?
    Yezza... it's all about attitude ---> we know the answer but very little action has been taken to improve our attitude towards knowledge. Let's ponder~

    wallahu a'lam

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  2. Kak dil, such a valuable story u wrote up here - the importance of mastering all knowledge- i have always been one of those debating the plight learning umpteen knowledge but then end up practise very few of them..

    as u quoted in ptosis evaluation:
    “Bahawa semua ilmu penting dipelajari sebab kita tidak pernah tahu apa kesulitan yang sedang menunggu kita pada masa depan. Boleh jadi, ilmu yang tidak kita sukai itu sangat diperlukan dalam kerjaya kita pada masa akan datang” (Umar MN, Solusi #16, 2010, page 28)

    absolutely true!.. plus, viva is juz around d corner n im beginning to feel anxious.. mayb its d time huh?

    Alhamdulillah, dpt gak tempias blog kak dil kt cni.. syukran ^^

    ReplyDelete
  3. Me either... hehe. Common complaint:
    "Kenapa la kena belajar semua benda ni... macam tak signifikan je." Huhu~

    But then this story lightened me up, that's why I share this lesson to all of you.

    Just FYI:
    The stories here are written in my own words as they're translated from Malay version. So... any grammatical error or unsuitable use of any phrase or sentence is my own mistake and is open for critiques from anyone.

    :: sedia menerima teguran & sedia untuk berubah ::

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  4. Moral of the story, JGN MERUNGUT BILA PENSYARAH MINTA BUAT TU BUAT NI. semuanya untuk kebaikan pelajarnya.INSYAALLAH GRADUAN IIUM ADALAH YG TERBAIK

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  5. Insaf dengan ayat :
    "JGN MERUNGUT BILA PENSYARAH MINTA BUAT TU BUAT NI''

    moral:
    banyak betul perkara menginsafkan kebelakangan ni :)

    k.dil, thanx for nice post here :: SEMUA ILMU PENTING::

    sekadar renungan....just simple word from me...

    kita sebagai umat islam, amatlah dituntut untuk menguasai segala ilmu..dengan adanya ilmu, barulah dapat mengenal siapa pencipta yang agung, pemimpin agung kita,nabi muhammad (اللهم صل على سيدنا محمد وعلى اله وصحبه وسلم), mendidik dan membentuk jiwa yang bertarbiyah, dan membantu umat islam itu sendiri...(too general statement, but something to ponder, apa yang kita telah buat dengan ilmu yang kita ada?just belajar suka2?or to benefit others?kemegahan sbb bnyk ilmu? lu pikir la sendiri(cam kasar jer.ehh, pinjam tagline nabil)..

    semoga ilmu2 yang kita dapat diberkati dan diredhaiNYA..

    nak berkongsi satu DOA (Doa menuntut ilmu), just versi translation:

    Ya Allah ya Tuhanku, sesungguhnya aku memohon kepada Mu ilmu yang bermanfaat, amalan yang diterima dan rezeki yang bagus (baik).

    Ya Allah ya Tuhanku, sesungguhnya aku berlindung dengan Mu dari ilmu yang tidak bermanfaat, hati yang
    tidak khusyuk, doa yang tidak di dengar (makhbul) dan amalan yang tidak di naikkan (diterima).

    ......namun dek kesibukan menuntut ilmu, jgn dilupakan tanggungjawab kita pada Allah, pada manusia (hablun minallah wa hablun minanas) termasuklah tanggungjawab kepada ibubapa, adik beradik, pensyarah, sahabat dan orang sekeliling...cuba hadirkan diri dalam apa jua keadaan dan hargailah orang sekeliling ;)..


    muni_Aab, 1.21am
    ||Cahaya Yang Menerangi|| ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Zul commented verbally and directly to me regarding this post:
    "Too long post will demotivate people from reading it."

    I said:
    "That's already the summarized version of the story. If u read the original article, u'll find that it is far lenghtier than what I wrote."
    "It's not compulsory for u to read, I put it there just to share."
    "Bla-bla-bla"


    Zul:
    "Yela… ko menang." (Sebab tak larat nak dengar my hujah yang tahpape)

    Whatever people are saying, I'm still addicted to writing. Sharing something with others gives an unexplainable self-satisfaction. That's why the tagline of Saifulislam.com is "Erti Hidup Pada Memberi", and I really believe in that as well as in the saying of our beloved Rasulullah s.a.w:
    "Pass on knowledge from me even if it is only one verse."

    Whether people read my writing or not, it doesn't really matter, but I believe that there is still a number of people who love to read any topic outside the optometric field as to fulfill Allah's command:
    "Read in the name of your Lord (Allah), who has created…" (Iqra' 96: 1)

    I'm now in the process of improving my reading and writing skills as I believe that these skills were amongst the important contributing factors to the rise of Islamic Empire some centuries ago. Muslim people at that time extremely loved to read and write; every of us knows that they'd written a huge number of books that some of the books had been the references for non-Muslims and Westerners. Among the books was Kitab al-Manazir, written by Ibn al-Haytham in Arabic and had been translated to other languages into The Book of Optics (English), De aspectibus / Perspectivae (Latin) etc.

    This was the first book in history that initiated a scientific revolution primarily in optics and visual perception and also laid the foundation for modern optics. Later, many western theories had come out from the initial idea of Ibn al-Haytham, one of them was the work of Roger Bacon.

    Quoted from wikipedia.com:
    "The Book of Optics also contains the earliest discussions and descriptions of the psychology of visual perception and optical illusions, as well as experimental psychology, and the first accurate descriptions of the camera obscura, a precursor to the modern camera. In medicine and ophthalmology, the book also made important advances in eye surgery, as it correctly explained the process of sight for the first time."

    See… How valuable was the masterpiece by our former Islamic scholar and of course, it should be noted that he could only create this legacy by extensive works of reading and writing. So… Let's altogether READ and WRITE! These skills are also part of knowledge, and again... semua ilmu adalah penting~

    ---> This post is a reminder for myself as well.
    ---> dD and Muni, congrats that u managed to READ this post and I can see that u're now getting more interest in WRITING. Good Luck in benefiting Ummah~ May Allah bless this small effort of ours.

    ReplyDelete

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