1) Knowledge is the basis of all Islamic work. Those seeking to revive the ummah must have a basis in knowledge and base their own activities, objectives and methods upon knowledge.

2) Those calling to Islam are faced with two obstacles i) The obstacle of blind taqleed ii) The obstacle of talfeeq and abandonment of u’lemaa’ and the principles and tools of knowledge.

3) Both extremes in following u’lemaa blindly without any scale or abandoning them altogether lead to shirk. This is because u’lemaa are the not the source or cause of knowledge but only and means to knowledge. As for the other extreme then, shirk will be entered upon due to denying the ability of Allah to bestow knowledge through any means. It is also a denial of the ayaat and ahadeeth that command us to refer to the predecessors and also to refer to the u’lemaa’. It is also an arrogance to claim the understanding of the deen is contained within ourselves.

4) The time we are living in is full of ignorance and confusion and mistrust. This is confirmed by various ahadeeth concerning akhir az Zamaan. We ourselves thus need a correct scale and refernce point for knowledge and the people also require that from us in order to receive the deen from us. ‘This knowledge is the deen so look to whom you take your deen from. (MUSLIM from Ibn Sireen) Note. The concept of ijaaza is established from the fact that Nabi (saw) sent specific sahaabah to certain areas to teach (e.g. Musab bin Umayr, Abu Moosa al Asha’ri, Muadh ibn Jabal) and told the people to learn the Quran from certain sahaabah. And only some sahaabah were given knowledge of some issues, such as Ibn Abbaas and Ibn Masood and A’li with regards to Tafseer. This is also confirmed by the fact that only some of the sahaabh were prolific narrators of hadeeth (e.g. Abu Hurayrah, Anas bin Maalik) and only some gave fataawa.

5) We ourselves must guard from shirk, bida’ and dalaalah with regards to the way we view knowledge and with regards to the way we aquire it and with regards to the action we perform that are based upon our knowledge.

6) We must seek to open every means of I’lm from Allah (swt)

7) This is a time when many firaq are calling to the Fire, we must make sure that we are not being called to it and nor that we are calling to it ourselves. Refer to the hadeeth of Hudhayfah ibn al Yaman.

8) We must seek the path of ease in knowledge and not the path of difficulty, we must seek to apply Islam and not delay it. We must follow the straightest path to the objectives and this is implied by ‘Siraatul Mustaqeem’. It is the Sunnah of Allah in creation for us to lean towards ease and correctness when persuing our objectives. We do not make our own lightbulbs from raw materials when they already exist fully functional. This is the same with regards to knowledge. We are dependent upon the predecessors for many branches of knowledge just as we are dependent upon experts and specialists in every field. However, there is a scale of conviction and proof which is a safety and balance.