The individual obligation is the knowledge without which acts of worship cannot be performed. It is the learning that no Muslim may neglect: the rulings of ablution, prayer, zakat, fasting, pilgrimage, and the like. Whatever a Muslim must know to worship correctly becomes personally binding to learn. Thus we require the wealthy person to study the laws of zakat, whereas we do not require one who owns no wealth to do so.

The same applies to pilgrimage: we oblige the prospective pilgrim to master the rulings of Hajj, while we do not oblige the one who is not going to perform it.

The communal obligation is the knowledge by which the Sharia is preserved—knowledge that, were it abandoned, the religion itself would be lost. If a sufficient number of people undertake this study, the duty falls from the rest. Suppose one person in a town fulfils this task, acquires the requisite learning, issues legal verdicts, teaches, and instructs the public; in that case, seeking this knowledge becomes merely recommended for everyone else, and that is the third category.

Accordingly, the student of sacred knowledge may earn the reward of a recommended act, of a communal obligation, or of an individual obligation. The essential point is that we cannot safeguard the Sunnah and its etiquette until we first know the Sunnah and its etiquette.

The author then cites verses from the Book of Allah, among them His words: “Say, ‘If you love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you’” (Āl ʿImrān 3:31). Some scholars refer to this as the Verse of Trial or the Verse of Testing, because Allah, exalted is He, tested a people who claimed to love Him. They said, “We love Allah,”—a simple assertion, yet every claimant must furnish proof. Allah said: “Say, ‘If you love Allah, then follow me.’” Thus, whoever claims to love