Self-Study Is Important

Self-Study is Important – حاتم بن عارف العوني

There was an old saying:

من كان شيخُه كتابَه غلب خطؤه صوابَه
“Whoever takes his book as his Shaykh, his mistakes will exceed his rectifications.”

This statement is outdated in the 21st century (age of technology).

Muhadith al-Shaykh Haatim al-‘Awni wrote:

فاليوم العكس هو الصحيح غالبا
كم من رجل كان شيخُه شيخًا من شيوخ العصر (وليس شيخُه كتابَه) ففاق خطؤه صوابَه ؛ لأن شيخه كان شيخَ جهل
“The opposite of this is usually true today!
How many people have taken a real Shaykh from our times as their Shaykh, (and they have not taken a Book as their Shaykh) – and their mistakes exceeded their rectifications, because their Shaykh was an ignorant Shaykh?!”

End quote.

MISGUIDED SHAYKHS VS MISGUIDED BOOKS

Just like a Book can mislead, so can a misguided or ignorant Shaykh mislead people.

A person who has done self-study will make mistakes, but so will a person who has learned from a Shaykh.

SELF-STUDY IS GOOD

We need to let go of this demonization and stigma around self-study – it’s outdated.

EMBRACE MODERNITY & TECHNOLOGY

Technology itself is not good or bad – its just a tool, it depends on how we use it.

It’s like a knife – one person will take it to chop vegetables, someone else will take it to commit murder.

The knife itself is not good or bad, it’s just a tool – it’s how we use it.

Some people still think old-school, like:

“Students of knowledge should not be on Facebook!”
“Real students should not have a Smartphone!”

This thinking is out-dated in the 21st century:

There are 1000000’s of Islamic lessons live-streamed online
There are 1000000’s of audio lectures online
There are 1000000’s of Books online

This is all knowledge … literally dropping in our laps!

People used to travel 2,000km on foot, to reach a Shaykh and learn from him – now, technology has allowed us access to these scholars at our finger-tips.

There is no difference between physically sitting in Delhi, Kabul or Peshawar – and between following a live-stream of that same lesson from another continent.

I’ve noticed that many scholars of Afghanistan now live-stream their lessons. With their local classes, they may reach 20-30 people of their village – but when they live-stream it, they educate 1,000’s of people, worldwide.

The impact is MUCH greater!

Every Friday, 100000’s of masajid – all over the World – live-stream their Friday Khutbahs online.

In their Masjid, they may reach 40 people – but online, they will reach THOUSANDS.

This is the future!

Even Madaris are going online-distance learning!

And knowledge is not physically transferred “knee to knee”, its not Bluetooth or WiFi … knowledge is taken by seeing, listening and absorbing.

This can be equally achieved offline & online.

Millions of ‘awaam are on social media – if scholars want to reach them, they have to utilise technology.

If they don’t – they will be left behind.

Offline, we only have LOCAL access – ONLINE, we have GLOBAL access – we can learn from thousands of scholars, world-wide.

Why do we need to restrict ourselves locally?

TIMES ARE CHANGING

Worldwide Libraries are scanning 1000000’s of old books in digital form and making it available for public.
Print companies are going bankrupt, because not many people print books anymore.
It’s all going digital – which is good.

Encyclopaedia Britannica stopped print publication after 244 years!!!
You can get an entire library – 1,000,000 Books – on 1 small USB stick.
This is amazing.

In the past, a scholar used to search 3-4 MONTHS, to find a reference he was looking for! But with online digital books – you can utilise the search function and it will skim through 100000’s of pages for you – finding your answer, within seconds!

In the 1990’s, many scholars explained , Bukhari, Muslim, Nasai, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, each of them in 700-800-900 cassettes … they were sent to distant countries, benefitting people.

If distance learning was a bad thing – why would they record these?

The old mindset is slowly changing in the youth … and we always respect our elders, we don’t blame them, because they are not tech savvy, hence why they are slow to respond to this change – as the saying goes: الناس أعداء ما جهلوا

DISTANCE LEARNING

Thousands of Universities now teach DISTANCE LEARNING Degrees & Masters. It carries exactly the same value as attending University physically.

The students never see a teacher, nor a physical book.

They do self-study and then get assessed – which means self-study is working.

DISCLAIMER:

I’m not implying that we don’t need scholars – I’m saying: these online lessons are given to us by scholars and the Books we read are also written by reputable scholars.

We rely on scholars at all times.

Allaahu A’alam