From al-Baḥr al-Madīd:

Rabīʿ ibn Anas said, “The one who does not fear God has no knowledge.” Ibn ʿAbbās said, commenting on this verse, “Renunciation is knowledge enough.” Ibn Masʿūd said, “God- fearing is knowledge enough, and excuse-making is ignorance enough.” One of al-Iskandarī’s aphorisms reads, “The best knowledge is that which is accompanied by fear.”

Al-Iskandarī’s “Book of Illumination” (al-Tanwīr) reads, “Whenever the Qurʾān and Sunna speak of knowledge, they mean beneficial knowledge which is accompanied by fear and shrouded in reverence. God says, Only those among His serv- ants who know, fear God, which shows that fear must accom- pany knowledge. This means that the people of knowledge are those who have fear.”

Shaykh Ibn ʿAbbād said, “Beneficial knowledge is and has always been recognized as the knowledge that leads the one who attains it to fear and pious reverence, and inspires in him humility, lowliness, and the other qualities of faith. This causes him to disdain the world and abstain from it, and to prefer the hereafter to it, and to maintain proper courtesy with God, and other such sublime attributes.”

Al-Iskandarī says in his “Subtle Graces” (Laṭāʾif al-Minan), “The true knowledge that God desires is evidenced by fear, and fear is evidenced by conformity to the divine command. If knowledge is accompanied by desire for the world, ingratiating oneself to worldly people, aspiration for wealth, pride, covet- ousness, ambition, and neglect of the hereafter, then someone characterized by such qualities is as far removed as possible from being an heir of the Prophets. Can an inheritance pass to an heir in any other attribute than the one in which it was held by the one who bequeaths it? A scholar with attributes such as these is like a candle, which provides light to others even as it burns itself. God makes such a person’s knowledge a proof against him, and a cause of manifold punishment.”

The literal phrasing of the Qurʾānic verse [God, among His servants, is only feared by those who know] mentions God’s name first, and mentions those who know (al-ʿulamāʾ) last, indi- cates that only the godfearing servants can be called “knowers.” Had He said it other way around, with “Those who know only fear God,” it would mean that they fear nothing but Him.

The Prophet ﷺ reportedly said, “God will say to the know- ers on the Day of Resurrection when He sits upon His pedestal to judge His servants, ‘I placed My knowledge and My forbear- ance within you only so that I might forgive you on account of it, and I care not!’” Al-Mundhirī said, “Consider His words ‘My knowledge and My forbearance,’ and you will see that by attrib- uting it to Himself, He did not mean most of the knowledge that people today possess, which is bereft of praxis and sincerity.” Another narration has, “I placed My wisdom within you only because I intended good for you. Enter Paradise on account of what is within you!”

The Prophet ﷺ also said, “On the Day of Resurrection, the ink of the learned and the blood of the martyrs will be weighed, and the ink will outweigh the blood.”

Spiritual allusion of the verse: there are two kinds of know- ers: those who know the laws of God, and those who know God. Those who know His laws fear His wrath and punish- ment, while those who know God fear to be veiled and dis- tanced from Him. Those who know His laws strive to avoid sin, while those who know Him strive to avoid discourtesy in His Presence. The fear of those who know God is subtler and deeper. They take their knowledge from God, while those who know His laws take their knowledge from the dead.

Shaykh Abū Yazīd said of the narrators, “Poor things! They receive their knowledge from one dead man after another, while we receive ours from the Living One who never dies.”

The learned man has khawf of being remiss before his Lord; the gnostic has khashya of falling short of proper courtesy and respect with Him, such as by being expansive at the wrong time, uttering a word at the wrong time, or failing to do what is abso- lutely best.”

Al-Wartajbī [Rūzbihān Baqlī] said, “Khawf is general, while khashya is specific. The Almighty links khashya to knowledge, meaning knowledge of God and His majesty, power, and lord- ship, and one’s servitude to Him. True khashya is the presence of awe for God in the hearts of the gnostics, combined with rev- erence and recognition of His grandeur and might. None can attain this but one who has witnessed beginninglessness, end- lessness, eternity, and subsistence. As knowledge of God increases, so does fear of Him. Thus the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘I know God better than any of you, and fear Him the most.’”

Al-Iskandarī states in one of his aphorisms, “Beneficial knowledge is that whose rays expand within the chest, and which lifts the veil from the heart.” Thus, knowledge is a gnos- tic ray of Light which, when it expands within the heart, lifts the veil of otherness and duality. The darkness of creation comes to nought, and the attributes of the Creator are made manifest as His Lights spread through the heart. This is what beneficial knowledge means: to witness the Light of God and His Messenger.

The true nature of knowledge, then, is to adorn oneself with the Light of the lordly presence sent down by the Lamp of knowledge in the Glass of our master the Messenger of God ﷺ, manifest by the Niche of revelation, hidden in the Planet of union in the night of concealment, kindled from the Tree of the secret beyond the traces of spatiality.

May God reward Imam Shāfiʿī who said:

When I complained to Wakīʿ of my poor memory,

He advised me to give up my sinful ways;

For knowledge, he told me, is a Light,

And God’s Light is not granted to a sinner.

Knowledge, then, is Light, not lines upon a page. It is a Light by which God’s intent is apprehended with every breath; it is holy water sent down from the heavens of the unseen to the earth of the believer’s heart.

Observe, may God have mercy on you, how the Prophet ﷺ, who never spoke out of caprice, described the levels of people with regard to knowledge in this parable. First there are the people of Light, the true folk of knowledge; then there are those who have only the semblance of knowledge; then finally there are those who have neither true knowledge nor the semblance of it.

The first are those who are receptive of the water of pro- phetic knowledge in the land of their virtuous souls, which burst into outward verdure by the meanings of the divine names, then produce the fruits of knowledge. The Beloved ﷺ likened them to fertile land that produces much grass and herbs, because of how they receive the water of revelation in the good land of their hearts, and recognize the descents of the names in the attributes, and the attributes in the acts, and the acts in the laws. They speak to people in the measure of their understanding, and manifest at all times what is most benefi- cial for their hereafters. A poet said of such people:

With the water of the unseen make your ablution,
If you have the secret; and if not, with earth or stone.

Send forth an imam whom you once placed behind you,

And offer the dawn prayer when the afternoon comes.

This is the prayer of those who know their Lord;
If you are one of them, sprinkle the ocean upon the land.

The second group are those who retain the water and give it to others. This is the way of the outward scholars, particularly in our times, who memorize things and then recite what they have memorized. The Beloved ﷺ described how they benefit other people by retaining the water of the unseen, though they do not benefit from it themselves except in the form of the pay- ment they receive for retaining it. They will be rewarded, but the first group will benefit from their retention of the water of the unseen by drinking, watering their animals, and irrigating.

Then there is the third group, the abyss that neither retains the water nor produces plants; they neither receive reward for outward memorization, nor possess the secret of preserving the inward Lights. God spare us!

Knowledge, then, is not merely a matter of memorizing then reciting what you have memorized. This makes you no better than an audiorecording. True knowledge is to learn the verse, then act upon it, then reap the fruit of your action in the form of Lights by which you understand God’s intent. It is then that you may give each thing its rightful due with courtesy, spiritual state, and experiential taste.