from it, he is just like a trader who buys and sells only to increase his capital.
As for the first category—the one who studies Allah’s sharia and the disciplines that support it—this is knowledge that must be sought purely for Allah’s Face. Whoever seeks it for worldly ends will not smell the fragrance of Paradise on the Day of Resurrection. What a severe warning this is, God’s refuge is sought! It shows that anyone who makes the study of the Sacred Law a means to some worldly advantage has committed a major sin, and the blessing will be stripped from his knowledge.
For example, a person might say, “I want to study so that people will turn toward me, respect me, and hold me in esteem,” or, “I want to study so I can become a teacher and draw a salary,” and the like. Such a person—Allah protect us—will not smell the fragrance of Paradise on the Day of Resurrection.
This passage has confused, and even alarmed, some students in formal institutions—such as institutes and colleges—who study in order to earn a certificate. The answer is: obtaining a certificate is not necessarily a purely worldly goal. It can be for this world alone, or it can be for the Hereafter as well. If a student says, “I am seeking knowledge so that I may earn the certificate and thereby secure teaching positions through which I can benefit people,” or, “so that I may become a director of a department and guide those under me to what is good,” then that is praiseworthy, a sound intention, and free of sin or censure.
Sadly, however, in our present time competence is judged almost exclusively by these certificates. If you possess one, you are hired and appointed to leadership in proportion to it. A person may come with a doctorate and be given a teaching post in colleges and universities, yet he is among the most ignorant of people; a gifted high-school student could well be better than him. This is something we witness: there are holders of doctorates today who know nothing at all—perhaps they passed by cheating, or by superficial success that never allowed knowledge to take root—yet they are employed simply because they hold a PhD. By contrast, an excellent student of knowledge—someone far better for the people and for himself, a thousand times better than that “doctor”—finds no opportunity to teach in the colleges, solely because he lacks the doctoral certificate. Since circumstances have shifted and declined to this state, we say: if you pursue knowledge in order to obtain a certificate that will enable you to assume teaching posts