What It Means to Be a “Student of Knowledge”

Assalamualaykum!

We’ve started our Week 5, alhamdulillah!!  It’s getting pretty crazy and I’ve been so busy with the program.  I am still in disbelief that I am actually a student of Bayyinah’s Dream program for this year, and I’m starting to really feel how heavy the journey I’m taking is becoming.  There is so much that I am entrusted with as a student of knowledge and I pray that I can live up to that title.  It still hasn’t felt like I’ve reached it, I feel as if I’m not working hard enough and that I am getting distracted and wasting time or being lazy and tired.

I came across this amazing khatirah that was sent to me by a dear friend from SoCal.  I got so much benefit out of watching it, I thought I would share it with everyone else!  I feel like I am being directly addressed in this video, and I already have listened it to a few times when I feel off-track and like I am slacking off.

Cure to Laziness and Idleness in Seeking Knowledge

I am still trying to figure out what it means to be a student of knowledge, and what it is I need to do to become a true طالبة العلم and what I need to do to take full advantage of this beautiful blessing I’ve been given.  To be honest, I don’t think I will ever be able to ever reach the point where I deserve to be called a “student of knowledge”…

Ustadh Nouman shared an amazing story today in one of his much-needed tangents on our grammar intense days.  He was telling us the story of an African American sister who was taking his Arabic class in college.  She spoke in perfect fusha from the very first day, so confused, he asked her more about herself, and if she was Muslim.  Today were were learning about the فعل (verb) كان واخواتها (“kaana” and her sisters).  When he asked her if she was Muslim, she responded and told him

كنتُ مسامةٌ

I was a Muslim.

Turned out this girl’s father had hired a shaykh from Sudan to come and teach them Islam and they had been studying for 10 years with him.  She was a hafidha, had memorized 300 ahadeeth, knew perfect fusha, but after the first bombing attack on the World Trade Center in NYC in the 90’s, her father became nervous about showing their “Muslimness” and in an attempt to protect his family from society, he encouraged them to stop practicing Islam so openly.  Cutting back on the practicing outside the home also cut down the practicing inside as well and they had digressed to the point where the girl was no longer Muslim and after having looked into many other religions, she settled with the fact that she believes in God but no afterlife.

That is a very frightening story that reminds us of a reality that we pray we are never to be faced with, may Allah allow us to die upon His Submission according to the message brought by His Final Messenger, ameen.

The little gem that I took out of the story is taken from an example Ustadh Nouman was giving about a dam. It is very paraphrased and constructed by myself, so it’s not a direct quote from him, but rather a way to capture an example he shared with us insha’Allah.

A person’s iman is water that is held in a dam.  If there’s a small crack in the wall which is left as it is, all the water will eventually leak out, either gradually over time or rapidly as the crack continues to grow.

*Enter into Islam completely* and hold on to what little you already have dearly, because if you let go a little bit, eventually it will be all gone.

It’s been cloudy for the past week and it has been raining a little bit as well.  Here’s a picture I managed to snap on the way to dinner on Friday afternoon!