5. Seeking Knowledge:

A) Importance of knowledge

Seeking knowledge is one of the most salient and prominent facets of Islam whose importance can never be overstated. The Salaf themselves sought knowledge and encouraged others to seek knowledge.

It is reported that Abū Al-Dardā – Allāh be pleased with him – said:
You will never be pious (a person of taqwā) until you become knowledgeable, and you will never be beautiful with your knowledge until you act [by it].
(Ibn ʿAbd Al-Barr, Jāmiʿ Bayān Al-ʿIlm wa Faḍlihī article 1239)

Abū Hurayrah – Allāh be pleased with him – once passed by the market in Madinah.
He stopped at the market and said, "O people of the market, how incapable you are!" They said, "And how is that Abū Hurayrah?" He replied, "Over there the inheritance of Allāh's Messenger SA is being distributed and you are here! Won't you go and take your share?" "Where is it?" they asked. He replied, "In the Masjid." So they hurried to the Masjid and Abū Hurayrah waited for them until they returned. When they came back, he said, "What's the matter?" They replied, "Abū Hurayrah! We went to the Masjid but we didn't see anything being distributed." Abū Hurayrah asked them, "And you didn't see anyone in the Masjid?" They replied, "Indeed we did; we saw people praying, others reciting Qur'ān and others studying the regulations of ḥalāl and ḥarām." So Abū Hurayrah said, "Woe to you! That is the inheritance of Muhammad SA."

(Al-Ḥāfidh Al-Mundhirī said in Al-Targhīb wa Al-Tarhīb, "Reported by Al-Ṭabarāni in Al-Awsaṭ with a ḥasan chain of narrators." Also graded ḥasan by Shaykh Al-Albānī. See his Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Targhīb wa Al-Tarhīb Vol. 1 p19)

One of the reported instructions ʿUmar wrote to Abū Mūsā Al-Ash'arī and those under his governance during the former's Caliphate was, "Seek knowledge and understanding of (fiqh) the Sunnah and seek knowledge and understanding of Arabic."
(Ibn Abī Shaybah, Al-Muṣannaf Vol.6 p126)

It is reported that ʿAbdullāh b. Al-Mubārak – Allāh's mercy be upon him – was criticized for spending on [other people in] other lands and not his own. In response, he said, "I know the locations of virtuous, sincere, and truthful people who seek and study ḥadīth and do it well because people are in need of them. They are needy, and if we leave them, their knowledge will be lost; but if we help them, they will spread knowledge to the Ummah of Muḥammad SA. I do not know of anything more virtuous, after Prophecy, than spreading knowledge."
(Al-Dhahabī, Siyar A'lām Al-Nubalā', in his biography of ʿAbdullāh b. Al-Mubārak)

It is reported that Muḥammad b. Sīrīn – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
There were people who abandoned knowledge and sitting with the scholars, and [instead] took to their chambers and prayed until their skin dried [from exertion in worship]. Thereafter they began to contradict the Sunnah and thus were destroyed. By Allāh, never does a person act without knowledge, except that he spoils and corrupts more than he fixes and rectifies.
(Al-Aṣbahānī, Al-Targhīb wa Al-Tarhīb 3:98)

It is reported that Al-Ḥasan Al-Baṣrī – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
One who acts without knowledge is like one who travels off the path; and the one who acts without knowledge corrupts more than he rectifies. So seek knowledge in a way that does not harm your worship, and seek to worship [Allāh] in a way that does not harm [your seeking of] knowledge. For verily, there were people (the Khawārij extremists) who sought to worship [Allāh] but abandoned knowledge until they attacked the Ummah of Muḥammad SA with their swords. But if they had sought knowledge, it would not have directed them to do what they did.
(Quoted by Ibn 'Abd Al-Barr, Jāmi' Bayān Al-'Ilm wa Faḍlihi article 905)

It is reported that Abū Al-Dardā' – Allāh be pleased with him – used to say, "Learn knowledge before it is taken away, and it is taken away by its people (scholars) being taken away. The scholar and the student are partners in good and there is no good in any other people. The richest of men is the knowledgeable man whose knowledge is needed: he benefits those who need him and if done without, he benefits himself with the knowledge Allāh 'azza wa jalla has placed with him. So how is it I see your scholars dying yet the ignorant amongst you not learning? I fear that the predecessor will depart and the successor will not learn. If the scholar studies, he only increases in knowledge, and he does not take anything away from knowledge. And if the ignorant studies, he will find knowledge firm and established. So how is it that I see you full up with food, yet starved of knowledge?"
(Ibn ʿAbd Al-Barr, Jāmi' Bayān Al-'Ilm wa Fadlihi Vol. 2 p233)

It is reported that Al-Ḥasan Al-Baṣrī – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
To learn a single topic of knowledge and teach it to a Muslim is more beloved to me than having the whole world and giving it in the cause of Allāh.
(Al-Khaṭīb Al-Baghdādī, Al-Faqīh wa Al-Mutafaqqih article 53)