Islamic Morals [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Lesson: 49 The Ugliness of Ignorance, Doubt and Confusion

In the Shariat
of Islam it has been ordained that it is the duty of the Islamic society to
be either a learning one or a teaching group of people. Ignorance should never
take over an Islamic society. The ignorant and ignorance have been severely
censured in Islam. In the beginning we must know that the teachers of morals
have divided ignorance in two categories:

1- Simple or common ignorance and

2- Compound ignorance.

Common ignorance
means man's remaining without knowledge. Though this sort of ignorance is not
as bad as the compound jahl, the continuance of simple ignorance also results
in dangers. The late Naraqi writes in Jami al-Sadat: This ignorance can be removed
in three ways:

A: It should
be know that an ignorant man is no man at all, because the superiority of man
over all other creation is only due to his knowledge. If he has no knowledge,
then how is he superior to animals?

B: One should pay
attention to what has been said about ignorance in the Shariat of Islam. The
Holy Prophet (s.a.w.s.) is reported to have said:

There are six groups
who will enter hell due to six things even before accounting in the Hereafter
and among them are the residents of deserts and villages who will go to hell
because of their being ignorant.

C: Quranic verses
and the words of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.s.) and Imams (a.s.) should be studied
and acted upon.

What is meant
by compound ignorance is that, despite having no knowledge a man considers himself
to be knowledgeable. In other words, he does not know and yet thinks that he
knows and is wise. And this kind of ignorance is ailment which is difficult
to cure. It is narrated that the Prophet Isa (a.s.) is reported to have said
that: Though I cure the illnesses like Akmah and leprosy and blindness I am
unable to remedy a fool, because if he believes in falsity, it is very difficult
to remove that false belief and to replace it by a true one. This couplet is
also very famous:

The one who
does not know and yet does not know that he does not know remains in his compound
ignorance forever.

Yet, if, even
despite this, one prepares himself for getting the knowledge truth, eve if he
had understood it wrongly, he is likely to learn the truth sooner.

Doubt and
confusion

Doubt and confusion
means being unable to extract truth and to reject the untruth and these defects
too are considered dangerous for man. But the initial doubt, in the opinion
of Martyr Mutahhari (r.a.), is not only not undesirable but is also desirable
because it is a means of finding the fact. What has been censured is to continue
in doubt, not the doubt itself.

Verses

1. He it is Who created you from clay, then He decreed a term; and there is
a term named with Him; still you doubt.

2. And among
men is he who serves Allah standing on the verge, so that if good befalls him
he is satisfied therewith, but if a trial afflict him he turns back headlong;
he loses this world as well as the hereafter; that is a manifest loss.

3. The believers
are only those who believe in Allah and His Apostle then they doubt not and
struggle hard with their wealth and their lives in the way of Allah; they are
the truthful ones.

Traditions

1. The Holy
Prophet (s.a.w.s.) has reportedly said: The best deed in the sight of God is
Faith in which there is no doubt.

2. Amirul Mo-mineen
(a.s.) has said: Really those who are in doubt and sin are in hell these two
are not from us and they do not come toward us.

3. Hazrat Sadiq (a.s.),
while explaining the verse In this way the Lord Almighty puts impurity on these
who do not believe says here impurity means doubtfulness.

From these
verses we conclude that doubtfulness is very condemnable and it is not compatible
with Faith is God and in the Hereafter. Of course, doubt is different from Vaswasaa
(enticement) which sometimes is created by satan in the heart of man. So we
read in a narration; Someone asked Imam Moosa bin Ja'far (a.s.): and in another
instance said: A man asked the Imam: I feel big enticements in my heart. The
Imam replied: Say: laa ilaaha illallah or laa hula walaa quwwata illa billah.