The eminent scholar Ahmad Shakir said: “It means writing.” I say: The hadith contains a strong indication of the concern shown by governments today in most countries to teach people reading and writing and eradicate illiteracy, to the point that governments have begun to boast of it, announcing that their illiteracy rate has fallen until it has nearly been eliminated! Thus, the hadith is one of the signs of his Prophethood—may my father and mother be sacrificed for him.

This does not conflict—as some may imagine—with what is authentically reported from him, peace and blessings be upon him, in more than one hadith: that among the signs of the Hour are the disappearance of knowledge and the emergence of ignorance. What is meant is sacred knowledge, through which people come to know their Lord and worship Him as He deserves to be worshipped, not writing and the eradication of illiteracy. This is shown by what is observable today: many Muslim peoples, let alone others, have gained from learning reading and writing according to modern curricula nothing but ignorance and remoteness from the Islamic Shariah—apart from rare exceptions, which carry no weight.

Further evidence for what we have said is his statement, peace and blessings be upon him: “Allah does not take away knowledge by snatching it from His servants; rather, He takes away knowledge through the death of the scholars. Then, when no scholar remains, people will take ignorant leaders. They will be asked and will issue legal rulings without knowledge, thus going astray and leading others astray.” It was narrated by the two Shaykhs and others, on the authority of Ibn Amr, and Aishah corroborated it. It is referenced in al-Rawd al-Nadir (no. 579).

It then became clear to me that the hadith is authentic through another route: it occurs in al-Tayalisi with precisely the wording of al-Bukhari’s hadith, in which al-Hasan explicitly stated that he heard it directly. Allah, Most High, knows best.

Note: In the hadith of Ibn Masud narrated in al-Adab al-Mufrad, there is an important addition from which two highly important legal rulings may be derived. I have explained them in many of my writings, among the