The era of Social media has kept us available everything for us on just a single click. For the understanding of anything before the social media age. A person today doesn’t have to do much research to get to know things because of the Internet. It takes a single click to know anything that confuses you are makes you curious. Chat GPT and Grok have made things much simple . But let this thing be very much known. Before all this existed gaining knowledge was very much difficult. All books used to be hand written. People had to travel kilometres to learn a single topic. But today we get a whole book just by a single click. The more easily we have knowledge available we are becoming ignorant.
In this age of “Social media” and availability of “Internet data” at cheap rates. We have everyone being too much active on social media. High speed data is helping people scroll through reels and upload things very easily. From watching whole video which extended upto 2 hours, now has shrined into a reel of not longer than 2 minutes . Now people especially the Gen Z doesn’t have time to watch the videos on You tube. They instead rely on Instagram reels to gather information. And these reels have made them limited to information. They believe the person they’re seeing in reels. Just because he’s speaking about Hadith number, verse number and so on. But is that all to verify a person is speaking truth or not? No, it isn’t . Being a scholar isn’t just referring to Verse of Quran or Hadith. You must be able to interpret the verse of Quran and Hadith properly and keeping in view every aspect of it. For every Ayat of Quran there’s a thing called “Shaan E Nazooul”. Which means why was the verse reviled. To understand what the verse or verses want to convey the Shaan E Nazooul. Plays an important role.
With social media becoming a daily routine. Social media is giving birth to many new things. Social media has given birth to many self proclaimed “Islamic scholars ”. They put up Islamic books around them and appear before people. Then they start explaining Hadith that confuse people and then make people believe that the “Scholars” they have been following have misled them. And unfortunately the common masses believe in it and come up with the thing “We don’t want scholars” . And then these social media scholars feed them with “Study yourself don’t follow these scholars ” . I have no problem with “Study yourself” phrase. But the thing is when you start studying yourself, you rely on the texts that are available and they have also been written by some “Scholar”. And those who feed you with this phrase have also read the same scholars. So how do they come up with “Don’t follow scholars ” when they have acquired all the knowledge because of scholars?
They actually don’t have a problem with scholars the only problem with them is. If they don’t take away people from scholars, their business shall not become portable.
While they preach people to follow Quraan and Hadith they don’t tell people about a Hadith in Sunan Tirmidhi which States Abu Darda reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Whoever travels a path in search of knowledge, Allah will make him traverse a path to Paradise. Verily, the angels lower their wings in pleasure for the seeker of knowledge. The inhabitants of the heavens and earth, even the fish in the depths of the water, seek forgiveness for the scholar. The virtue of the scholar over the worshiper is like the superiority of the moon over the stars. Verily, the scholars are the inheritors of the Prophets. The Prophets do not leave behind gold or silver coins, but rather they only leave behind knowledge. Whoever takes it has taken hold of an abundant fortune.”
Source: Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2682
Read the line “Verily, the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets”. Which means they are one who take the mission of prophets ahead . Once prophets leave the world , the mission that Prophets take up is kept alive by the scholars. The same Hadith is quoted in Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith: 3636
Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith: 223
Sahih Ibn Hibban; Al Ihsan, Hadith: 88.
Those who keep telling people that scholars have kept things hidden have never explained this Hadith to their followers, because they know that if their followers come to know about this Hadith, it’ll blow up their propaganda that they have built up to take people away from the truth.
If we keep going on with this thinking “We don’t need scholars” we shall be left with nothing. The tafseer “Explanation of Quran” have been written by scholars. The explanations of Hadiths have been written by scholars. Every single thing that we have what we call “Research” is written by “Scholar”. And every scholar has a different ideology and have seen things in a very different way. If you remove scholars from islam. You’ll have nothing, it’s these scholars who have put things simplified for us. All these Tafseer (Explanation of Quran) have been written by these scholars after reading for years and after consulting thousands of books.
Let’s take a look at this. Imam Bukhari (ra) was a student of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (ra). Imam Hanbal (ra) taught him Hadith. Now if we see it in a way, Imam Hanbal (ra) might have taught Imam Bukhari (ra) his school of thought supporting Haidths. But that’s in no way the case. Bukhari is the most accepted book after Quran. All the Four Fiqahs of Sunni Sects accept it and find Haidths that support their Fiqah. Which means Imam Bukhari(ra) wasn’t a guy who was limited to single thought. Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman(ra) was the teacher of Imam Abu Hananfi (ra). Now question your self. When Hammad Ibn Abi sulayman (ra) was teacher of Abu Hananfi (ra) who became an Imam of a Fiqah. Which Fiqah did his teacher belong to? The answer is none. So Abu Hananfi (ra) has been a student of a person who belonged to no Fiqah. Imam Abu Hananfi (ra) was a student of “Zayd ibn Ali: A scholar and descendant of the Prophet (PBUH) “. Abu Hananfi (ra) is also a student of Jafar Sadiq (ra). Imam Anas bin Malik(ra) was the teacher of Imam shafi(ra) . Both Fiqah Malik and Fiqah shafi has different understanding. Ibn Hurmaz (ra) was the teacher of Imam Malik(ra) . Imam Malik (ra) was also student of Jafar Sadiq (ra) . Imam Al Shafi (ra) was the teacher of Imam Hanbal (ra). One must understand that all the Imams have studied by different Teachers. And some imams have studied by imam of different Fiqah but still they have become of different Fiqah. So all the Four Imams can’t be accused of having limited knowledge or having been taught to be crafted into the ideology of their teacher. Imam Muslim (ra) was the student of Imam Bukhari (ra) and also Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (ra). Imam Tirmidhi (ra) was the student of Imam Bukhari (ra) . Imam Bukhari (ra) taught Imam Tirmidhi (ra) the knowledge of Hadith. And Imam Tirmidhi’s (ra) book The Tirimidh is now one among the famous Hadith books.
People nowadays have an opinion which they have crafted out by themselves. “Why should we follow these people?” “They have given opinions related to a single Fiqah ” . But do they know how have they crafted this opinion? No, they don’t. Had they take few minutes and done some real “Research” they would never had such opinion. They come across a guy, who wears turban (Amama) he quoted Hadith numbers and knows how to read Arabi. They consider him someone who can give his opinion on things/issues related to islam. And under the influence they start saying they don’t follow any “Scholar” they do “Research”. The only flaw in their Research is that , their research material is his lectures. Understanding Fiqah and Hadith you need a Scholar. You can’t understand Fiqah and Hadith without them. The thing is people nowadays work on confuse the youth. So that they can’t frame a particular opinion. And they are in loop . When all the rescrach/s have been done and completed . Things have been sorted long before. What’s the need to tell people “Rescrach”? The only thing is that they want to keep people in the loop.
One more category of people is that we don’t follow Hadith. We follow ” Quraan ” . Yes, everyone has to follow Quraan. But the only problem with these people is same as them of those who say we don’t follow scholars. Had these people read quraan. They would have never said so. Allah has mentioned in Quraan
Surah Ali ‘Imran 3:31: “Say, [O Muhammad], ‘If you should love Allah, then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins…”.
Surah An-Nisa 4:59: “O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you…”.
Surah An-Nisa 4:80: “He who obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allah…”.
Surah Al-Ahzab 33:21: “There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern [of conduct] for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day…”.
Surah Al-Hashr 59:7: “…And whatever the Messenger has given you – take; and what he has forbidden you – refrain from…”.
Surah Al-Nur 24:54: “Say, ‘Obey Allah and obey the Messenger; but if you turn away -then upon him is only that [duty] with which he has been charged, and upon you is that with which you have been charged. And if you obey him, you will be [rightly] guided…”.
Surah Al-A’raf 7:158: “…So believe in Allah and His Messenger, the unlettered prophet, who believes in Allah and His words, and follow him that you may be guided”.
Allah has not only once but many times mentioned about following the command of Prophet Muhammad (saw) . Where do we find the command of our prophet Muhammad (saw) ? In Quraan? No, in Hadith. So when you reject Hadith you reject the command of the Quraan.
Remember everyone on social media isn’t a scholar. We need to be very careful while we come across people who come out with different opinion.
Author is a law student.
