The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity - Independent Media Center

Quite the opposite in fact. The Author of the Qur'an commands Its own last Messenger to pray
to his Creator to increase his own "ilm" as a virtue:
“and say: My Lord! Increase me in knowledge.” (Holy Qur’an, Surah Ta-Ha,
20:114
, Arabic: وقل"رب‎4‎زدنىعلم‎0‎ا ) And therefore, since the Author's last Messenger is also the Exemplar for his followers, the
commandment is to the Exemplar's followers as well, i.e., to the Muslims, to do the same:
“and say: My Lord! Increase me in knowledge.” This pithy prayer is recited by many
Muslims in their daily prayers. Unfortunately, this increase evidently hasn't come to pass for a
vast majority of us.
What's more, the author of the Qur'an even advocates pursuing boundless “ilm” thusly:
“Thou seest not, in the Creation of the All-Merciful any imperfections. Return thy
gaze, seest thou any fissure, Then return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze
comes back to thee dazzled, aweary.” (Holy Qur’an, Surah Al-Mulk, 67:3-4,
Arabic: ماترى‎Z‎فيخل"قالرح"م‏Zنمن"تفاوتۖفار"جعال"بصرهل"ت‏eرى‎Z‎م‏eن"فط‏eور‏ ثمار"جعال"بصركرتي"نين"قلب"إلي"كال"بصرخاسئ‎0‎اوهوحسيرT
) The profound significance of these pithy verses of Surah Mulk to knowledge, to “ilm”
acquisition can perhaps also be judged from the fact that Muslim physicist Dr. Abdus Salam
rehearsed it in Stockholm upon accepting The Nobel Prize in Physics 1979, boldly stating [6] at
the Nobel Banquet on December 10, 1979, before other Nobel laureates, scientists and
dignitaries, the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Academy of Sciences, that: “This in effect is,
the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more
is the dazzlement for our gaze.”
But does the author the Qur'an advocate such pursuits, singlemindedly, to the exclusion of all
else, such that such pursuits become the self-serving pursuit of the 'American Dream'?
Or, is such an advocacy for the pursuit of “ilm” as a noble endeavor, made an essential
component of a greater all encompassing moral imperative by the author of the Qur'an? A
categorical imperative which devolves upon man an even greater system of personal and
social responsibility for which the wholehearted pursuit of “ilm” is necessary, but not sufficient?
The answer is obvious, despite the question not being merely rhetorical.
The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity 180 / 334 Zahir Ebrahim