Tarbiyah or Disturbia?

“Knowledge is what benefits. Knowledge is not what one has memorized.” Imam al-Shafi

So before I jump into my article, Tarbiyah is an Arabic word that linguistically means increase, growth, and loftiness. I guess in practical terms, it would involve the pursuit of knowledge and acting on it for personal spiritual and mental growth. Disturbia on the other hand which is basically disturb, in English means to interrupt rest, peace.

It’s like when your sleeping and someone screams at you to wake you up, or you wake up from the smell of strong onions from the kitchen! I know some of you know what I’m talking about. =) Just don’t go to the masjid with onion or garlic breath, the angels don’t like that according to the hadith. It can also be looked upon as when you sin and how that disturbs the peace within you, more particularly within your heart and soul.

Anyways, since I’m graduating in a couple of weeks from college insh’Allah. I gave my academic career to this point some thought and to be honest if Pre Kindergarten to the end of Bachelors was the ocean of knowledge, I haven’t even started swimming yet.  More importantly, in contrast to knowledge of the deen I can the say same, not even a little goldfish.

I wanted to talk about how the acquisition of knowledge and how that should play a role directly in improving ones life as a Muslim, speaking for myself first. It always fascinated me that some people who are experts in certain subjects act against their best knowledge.

Sort of like when you see a lung cancer specialist smoking a cigarette, yea strange human behavior. Or even more sadly which I’ve begun to notice on a small scale are hafiz’s gone wild. Your rational would tell you that someone is who is carrying the book of Allah in their mind would be more conscious of their actions. Not to say that people can’t change for the better during personal trials, no we pray that everyone does but my point is that once we know truth and falsehood we should stick to the truth or at least be consistent in our principles.

More importantly, all of the knowledge we acquire throughout our lives, what will it translate to in terms of our actions. How will it benefit us in this life and in the next? For me, I studied marketing. But if I can’t apply all those marketing concepts and strategies I’ve learned in creative ways that help myself and those around me then it’s wasted. Better yet, how will I give back to the deen? By that, I mean help in Daw’ah.

The other day I had the chance to quickly review what the average day is like when your memorizing the sahih sitta (6 major books of hadith), and while there are brothers and sisters around the world who have memorized thousands and thousands of hadith. What’s is scary is that the more knowledge we acquire of the deen whether it be Qu’ran, Hadith, etc. We now have an obligation to follow it. There is no doubt, we’ll have our ups and downs. Emaan increases and decreases. The challenge is how to we step up our game and maintain a high standard for ourselves indivdually as believers, because once you know what’s right we should try our best to not be swayed from it.

If the struggle is completing the five daily prayers, then make that your priority. But if you got that locked down and your consistent then move to the next, try to wake up for Tahajjud. It’s all relative.

So whatever knowledge we’re gaining in life, we need to ask ourselves what we’re going to do with it and individually evaluate ourselves. The sahabah’s (May Allah be pleased with all of them) when they heard revelation, they reacted accordingly and change their lifestyle to how Allah swt commanded them to do so. That’s Tarbiyah.

Anyways, those are some thoughts I wanted to write about.  insh’Allah I’ll write soon again. It’s 2 a.m., time to knock out don’t disturb me, ha!

May Allah swt allow all the knowledge we receive to benefit us in this life and in the next, Ameen.

Wasalaam Yo.