Human Knowledge vs. Divine Knowledge - Portal Gems #39

Est. Read time: 5 min
Edition Number: 39
Adapted from: Ulu Al-Azm: The Resolute Prophets
Instructor: Shaykh Hamzah Imtiaz

Assalamu Alaykum,

Today’s gem is from Shaykh Hamzah Imtiaz’s course, Ulu Al-Azm: the Resolute Prophets. In this gem, Shaykh Hamzah explains the difference between our knowledge and Divine knowledge.

Hope you enjoy!

We begin in the Name of Allah ﷻ, the Most Merciful and Compassionate,
We ask that He ﷻ sends Peace and Blessings upon our noble and beloved
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Human knowledge is knowledge from our fitrah, nature, or the knowledge that the creativity of our brains would allow us to figure it out. These are things that we can do on our own. Technology, science, all the advancements that humans have made, these are things that Allah ﷻ did not need to send down a prophet for. 

He ﷻ gave us the ability to think it through, to make the discovery, to find a way to execute it, and we're seeing that all throughout our lives. We see amazing new discoveries, what humans are doing all around the world, and what they've done throughout history.

Divine knowledge is knowledge that Allah ﷻ considered the most sacred, and that's why He ﷻ sent prophets to give us that knowledge. 

What's the difference between Divine knowledge and human knowledge? 

When we compare the knowledge that the Prophets brought us, what's in the revelations, versus what we know, we realize that our knowledge pales in comparison.

As much technological and scientific advancement as we've made, the things we don't know are far greater than the things we do know. And I'm not speaking about Divine knowledge - I'm speaking about just plain human knowledge right now.

Many people will go to the doctor and explain their symptoms and the doctor will say, "Well, you know there's really nothing that we have for this yet. There's a couple studies but no clinical trials or promising treatment plans at this point. There's nothing we can do about it.” 

So all of a sudden, we quickly realize that not every illness has a cure. Not every problem has a solution. The financial problems that countries face, government problems, how much do we actually know about solving these problems? The solar system around us, the depth of the oceans. We realize that what we have is really very little.

Anything that we try to study, we immediately realize that we don't have all the answers. And we're not even talking about the answers that Prophets come with about the afterlife and the purpose of life. We're talking about routine things in this life, routine subjects of study. We don't have the answer to everything.

So that is an important point to start off with: that our knowledge is limited, and Allah's knowledge is not limited. Our knowledge is finite; Allah's knowledge is infinite. Our knowledge is fallible; Allah's knowledge is infallible.

We experiment on things; we work through things until we get them right. We continue to edit and continue to update until we get it right. We mess it up the first time, maybe the second time, the third time, we still keep improving. That's not how Allah's knowledge works.

And if we understand these few preliminary points, we understand we as humans need prophets to tell us what's moral and immoral, to tell us who to worship, to tell us how to worship. We know that we need somebody else, and that's why Allah ﷻ says that He ﷻ has done a favor on believers. Really, it's a favor on humanity because He sends a prophet from amongst themselves who recites for them, brings to them Allah's book, and purifies them.

May Allah grant us tawfiq to learn Divine knowledge.

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم، فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرحيم

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