May Peace Be Upon You!

May Peace Be Upon You!

Knowledge: The pleasure of learning

The very first of verse in the Quran revealed to mankind says:
"Read! In the name of Your Lord who created man from a clot of congealed blood.
Read! And Your Lord is the Most Generous who taught (the use) of Pen, taught men that which he knew not." (Al Alaq 96:1-5)


Imagine that. The first and foremost word by Allah is to "Read!"

Even our most beloved Prophet(s.a.w) encouraged the pursuit of knowledge. Below I list down some of my favourite hadith(Prophet's sayings) regarding knowledge:

-Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave
-God has revealed to me, 'Whoever walks in the pursuit of knowledge I facilitate for him the way of heaven
-The best form of worship is the pursuit of knowledge
-Acquire knowlege: it enables the possessor to distinguish right from the wrong, it lights the way to the heaven, it is our friend in the desert, our society in solitute, our companion when friendless - it guides us to happiness, it sustains us in misery, it is an ornament among friend and an armour against enemies.


From personal experience, I believe that the pleasure of learning is universal. However I note that there are many dull people in the world. Unfortunately, this was because due to some teachers in schools that made some subjects in school so boring and monotonous due to their bad teaching, isolation and following a routine life-style.

Nevertheless I believe that biologically, people possess the same basic instinct towards learning. The fact that learning is indeed a pleasure could be seen from an example of Archimedes. When he discovered the principle of specific gravity by observing his own displacement of water in a bath tub, he leaped put with great joy, and shouted, "Eureka, Eureka!" ("I have found it. I have found it!"). He was overwhelmed with joy and ran naked in town!
Of course, I wouldnt expect any of my readers to do the same. But the point is clear: Im sure we all are joyful when we manage to solve that difficult mathematics question in our secondary school life.

The natural pleasure of learning is inborn and instinctive and is one of the essential pleasures of the human race. Without learning, survival itself is threatened. It is said that the propagation of the human race might be endangered if the knowledge of sex through seeing, reading or hearing is withheld from everyone.

There are many people in this world who have played themselves to death, or eaten and drunk themselves to death. However nobody in the world ever died because of thinking or learning. People who avoid learning or abandon it, find no joy in life and find that life is drained by.

Are those equal, those who know and those who do not know? It is those who are endued with understanding that receive admonition. (Al Zumar 39:9)

"My Lord! Enrich me with knowledge!" (Ta Ha 20:114)


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Acknowledgement:
-Holy Quran
-Hadith
-Dr Ibrahim B.Syed Phd