Intellectual Humility

I write this is just because there is something that call my heart and my finger to make a post here, recently after watching Ustad Nouman’s video, which talk about intellectual humility. Suddenly I remember how much comments appeared on social media that blame our leaders, directors of companies owned by state, or even our comment about one of leader and functionary of a famous university when there are some issues about corruption. I think those have strong relation with this video.

Ustad Nouman give an example about someone who looking for deen knowledge through learning hadits or Quran. Even we have learned so many things about the deen, we couldn’t be judgemental to someone who doing faults. We couldn’t say they’re wrong, that is not good.  We shouldn’t say something we don’t really understand. It should be the more we learn about deen, the more we can be a humble human. Our knowledge is still limited. We aren’t really qualified to judge people because we dont know what's inside in every human heart, and what's people intention in doing something.

If we use our knowledge only for debating something or commenting to other people faults, please check your heart, is there any arrogance, do we really qualified to say those things. There are a lot things we haven’t known yet. According to Ustad Nouman, if we use our limited knowledge, for example taking one ayat from Al Quran, and make it as a reason to debating or just to judge others  , it have desert from sunnah that has been taught by Rasulullah. Even if we just read an article about the explanation of something, we couldn’t make those as a reason to judge others. If we not truly understand what is the meaning, then we should learn more, or looking for people who more qualified to be asked.

Learning something is also need basic understanding or pre knowledge. Ustad Nouman tell that Imam Asy  Syafii afraid of teaching about hadits to particular people who not really have strong knowledge in Arabic language. As we all know, Arabic language is a rich language, and a basic understanding of Arabic is not enough to be the pre knowledge of learning hadits. Learning hadits isn’t only learn what is the meaning. There are other components that should be known such as syarah, the story behind the hadits, and the history about the context. I can’t imagine, how awesome the ulama who learn hadits to convey the meaning for common people like us in order get more understanding. So, how dare us using our shallow knowledge to judge people.

Please be careful on our behave and our saying about other people. Ustad Nouman also said that when someone who still young, everything seem very clear. He/she feel free to say or comment anything with all knowledge he/she has.  May be we think we know many thing. And when we start to learn from people who have more knowledge, we’ll think how stupid we are, judging others without enough understanding and experiences.

Lets check our heart, is there any arrogance? When someone who bring haram thing like liqueur in the store, we can see clearly that it is a bad thing, it is open and manifest. But when there is arrogance in our heart, it’s unseen, even sometimes we don’t realize its existing. It is really more dangerous than bringing haram thing isn’t it? If there is arrogance inside our heart, that is unacceptable to Allah, even in a smallest bit.

“When you look at person who bring haram thing, then you say, Hei you Moslem, how can you do that, how can you do such desertion to Allah, how you calling yourself as a moslem. When you look inside youself too. When you got an ego problem, and your ego problem make you intellectually arrogance, and you think you just learning the deen to arguing debate others, check yourself, really watch yourself..”

That’s only an example of learning deen. I think it is applicable in learning anything. We sometimes consider that we know many thing and free to criticize any other people who not match with our point of view. Then we become so easy to judge.

I just wanna say to those who always judge if there is something that look unclear, look unfair from one side. Please being a humble person. We still learn, and we don’t know too much what is really happen. If we find something that we think it’s unacceptable or it’ll cause danger or suffer people, please confirm first to the related person. Is it truly like that? Don’t you fear that your statement is only a slander? Don’t you fear that it is your intellectual arrogance?