Studying Islam

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The word ‘guidance’ conveys different meanings in different context, you’d agree. In the perspective of a religion, guidance means Divine Guidance. As far as this sort of guidance is concerned, it has been given to mankind through ultimate sources, the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah. Both sources are secure and protected; the former in the hearts of the Muslims and the latter in the practice of the Muslims. These both sources suffice the needs of mankind regarding divine guidance for their life in this world.

Since both sources are subject to human interpretation; difference however arise. It is this point where a person needs to turn to other people. Because Muslim scholars devote their lives to understanding the religion, they should be benefited from in this regard. But their opinion is not more than the expert opinion of an Architect or Engineer. And because we do not accept such experts to be error free and weigh their opinion in the scales of sense and reason, the opinion of scholars should also b objectively judged. If found sound and appropriate, this opinion should be accepted. This is what I meant by the relationship of a teacher and student. You may call it a relationship of a mentor and pupil. And this is indeed desirable. It would be foolish to bypass the expert scholars and start learning  Islam all by yourself.

As our parents teach us good manners and etiquette, some of our teachers also do the same. Sometimes, they can do this thing far better than our parents can since the former usually have read a lot about the Prophets of Allah and other great personalities of human history; these teachers know well when, how, where a student should be told about his mistake and thereafter be asked to rectify it. As you see, this whole thing depends upon the experience of the teacher and is not of the divine nature. Therefore, a student should learn from many teachers and not one. He should assess what thing he can learn better from one teacher and what from the other. There is no question of one mentor because he is not going to be error free—some type of superhuman.

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