A try to find meaning in the basis of this place, the house I’ve been living for almost two years.
Everyone knows what knowledge is. Many dictionaries say knowledge is a fact, information, skills, or understanding about a subject which acquired through experience or education. But as the title of this page sounds quite philosophic, I will take the philosophical definition from Oxford Dictionary: true, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed to opinion.
Since their first grade in elementary school, people were stuffed with tons of knowledge that were supposed to help them survive the world. A proverbial say,
knowledge is power.
We give people knowledge so they have the power to face their own present and future. That reason only is quite enough to motivate you to gain knowledge. But there is something even more demanding.
Iqra! Read!
That was the first word Allah revealed to our prophet Muhammad saw. Islam has made seeking knowledge the first duty upon mankind. Yes, you can say it is a religious obligation.
But Allah didn’t stop there.
…in the name of your Lord Who created.
It is all for good causes. All knowledge should be for good causes. The pursuit of knowledge for the purpose of delivering our duty to the Lord; to take care of the world, to prosper the earth, to save people from themselves, to save us from ourselves. To do amar ma’ruf nahi munkar.
Allah has given us the faculty of reason and argument, one aspect that differentiates us from all other kinds of creation. Then we should use that very capability of reasoning and argue! To obtain knowledge, to use knowledge, to pass knowledge, and most importantly, to defeat the wrong and reveal the truth!
“Whoever takes a path upon which to obtain knowledge, Allah makes the path to Paradise easy for him.”
Jami at-Tirmidhi 2646