Having Only a Religious Background Creates Worthless Religious Teachers

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

If anyone has to choose between “secular” subjects and “religious” subjects, then I strongly recommend “secular” subjects first.  This might seem as if I am recommending putting the world first, but a Muslim must fullfill his amanah before Creation and acquire a means to earn a living.  And if possible, travel a bit.  This was how it was with Imam Abu Hanifah Nu’man ibn Tsabit (r.a.) and others. 

If someone learns fiqh, for example, but has no experience with society, then whatever he has learnt cannot be translated practically to the people since he has not walked in those shoes.  And that is the problem with the madrasah students in many places of the world.  They know how to recite the Qur’an, they can quote from the text, but they do not know the people.  They have made the religion obsolete with mere regurgitation of past rulings.  An ustadz who has only ever been an ustadz will likely be very unhelpful when approached about issues ordinary Muslims face.  The shari’ah has become black and white, and ikhtilaf and nuance is ignored. 

In most cases, a religious teacher should have a means of livelihood independent from his work as an ustadz.  Imam Abu Hanifah (r.a.) was a trader.  A close examination of the biographies of our classical scholars would show that they had a variety of professions from gemsmith to blacksmith to goldsmith to mechanical engineer to court administrator to tax collector to scientist to mathematician to herder. 

And when one has a job, he has no need to depend on his religious knowledge to earn a living.  This is important.  If the students are the main source of income, they become a market demographic, and the teacher might be hesitant to tell them what they do not want to hear for fear of diminishing his income.  This populism is detrimental to our religion.  The result we have now is that people made famous by social media platforms such as YouTube are now hailed as authorities, and many of them will not take an unpopular stand on certain issues because that is their source of income.  And we have teachers in the mosques who will not stand up for certain things because they might lose their teaching stint.  This fasad, corruption, perpetuates itself and the ummah is diminished.