A thorough survey to Islamic historiography, leads us to observe that Muslims suffer from a dangerous problem. This problem moves in two directions:

1- The problem of practicing something without possessing the knowledge of it;

2- The problem of possessing the knowledge without practice.

Throughout the Islamic history, we either read about, or encounter, militants who remained faithful to their beliefs. Such people deserve our respect, but later we realize that these people lack the depth of the knowledge. They are shallow and marrow minded.

This trend is so dangerous that it adds ignorance to the society, simply because these people could attain others’ trust and thus they impose their ignorance on their Islamic society. On the other hand, there are other people who possess the knowledge, but they are not responsible enough to benefit their Islamic society of what they know. The Islamic stance from this group of people is quiet decisive, and the following tradition clarifies this stance: “There are two societal fatal blows: an ignorant loner and a dissolute thinker.”

How did the infallibles treat these two trends?

The Prophet (p.) and the Infallibles (a.s.) attempted at discussing and dealing with these two trends through out their career. Let us have a look at what and how they realistically viewed them:

The first trend: practice without knowledge.

The Infallible, Imam Jaa’far As-Sadiq (a.s.) , had purposely considered such issues with great concern. He instructed his students with the most important points that help in solving these two societal diseases. Accordingly, one of his students recounted the following: “I heard AbiAbdullah saying that the scholar who doesn’t have a goal in his life, or in what he is doing, is similar to someone who has taken the wrong path which ultimately drove him to the wrong destination.” Which means that for taking any way in our lives, we must draw our plans and our objectives as well, otherwise all our efforts would go astray. We must acquaint ourselves with the knowledge of this path and with everything related to it. If you don’t familiarize yourself with the beginning and with the end of your road, you would find yourself very far away from your intentions, and you would be totally deviated if you don’t think deeply about all the details that lead you to your destiny.

The Interaction between the Holy Message and the reality.

Hussien Al Seikel, another companion of Imam As-Sadiq (a.s.) claimed that he had heard AbiAbdulah saying: “Allah doesn’t approve any action without knowledge”. Which means that God, the most exalted, motivates us to acquire a pre –knowledge of what we are about to do before we begin. In fact, our actions should not be our principle motif, but rather the action that embodies the idea and the goal; it is the action in which the message integrates with the reality, for if we are ignorant of the message, than whatever we do, in the name of this message, would be a departure of the holiness of the message.

The greatness of the Holy Messengers was emphatically revealed in the embodiment to both action and knowledge. They became the embodiment of their religious task. Consider yourself a faithful person but at the same time you are as much ignorant as your faithfulness. Such faithfulness wouldn’t strengthen you spiritual relation with your creator. You should realize that you weren’t faithful to Allah, your Lord, but you were faithful to what you think is for Allah.

Thus, you weren’t faithful to the truth itself, and your faithfulness is deviated from the right path due to your ignorance of many things. According to Imam As-Sadiq (a.s), both the Knowledge and the action should be in harmony. They can’t be detached; once this happens, then the person would certainly mislead his way. Our beliefs neither are mere ideas detached from our actions nor are they actions detached from the ideas.

Love is Knowledge.

Your love should be built on the true and real knowledge of Allah, His messengers, and the Members of the House as well. This kind of love would help you in your justifications to your actions before God, the most exalted, on the Day of Judgment. Accordingly, to call for Islam, you should know what you are calling for quite well. You should be familiar with all the methodological terms of Islam, and all the solutions, which Islam presents to the world. You can’t be a successful leader to any educational, political or social position without a real and purified knowledge of Islam, and more specifically of the Quran. The real knowledge of the Quran would enlighten our dark path and it would protect us against any deviation. That is why we are suffering from the problem of the ignorance of the Quranic instructions. Most of our religious scholars are still ignorant to what the Quran says. To know Islam, we have to be fully aware of everything related to this path; otherwise we might mislead our path thinking that we are serving Islam while we are, in actual fact, deforming it.