['Aalim Network QR] Importance of Fiqh and Ilm

[Mustafa Rawji <mrawji@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>]

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|       In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the All-Merciful       |\
|  Greeting of Allah be upon Muhammad and the pure members of his House |\
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Salaamun alaykum,

	The reply to the following question was kindly provided by Mulla
Asghar.

Wasalaam,

Mustafa Rawji
Moderator, 'Aalim Network
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Asalaam alaaykum,

The following hadith appeared in a forum recently, and some friends and
were discussing it and found we could not understand it very well.

> One hadees from Imam Jafar(AS) says if you have 24 hrs left of your life,
> memorise as many practical laws of Islam as you can !! He did not advise
> Quran/Dua etc etc which would normally occur to us.

First, we are unable to verify the hadith, perhaps you can.

Secondly, our main point of confusion is this:  we can understand studying
the practical laws in order to apply them or teach them.  We understand
the importance of action.  If we had twenty four hours left we can see the
value of doing dua for others or teaching or many other things but have a
hard time to understand why it is preferable to learn a lot of laws never
to be applied in your lifetime.  There is another hadith from the Prophet
(saw) which says, "An hour spent in acquisition of knowledge is better
than sixty years of worship."  Again, we understand this if the knowledge
is to be used, applied, and passed on, but if we only had 24 hours left we
understand other things to be more useful, thus we have trouble
understanding the point of this hadith.  Basically, we would like any
insight you can provide on this.  Thank you very much for your time and
effort. 

ANSWER:

In both the Hadeeth, the analogy is to convey the importance of FIQH and
ILM. In such analogies, one has to understand that the apparent comparison
is of secondary importance.  Primarily, it is to convey that FIQH and ILM
are of basic importance, without which the worship is quite a ritual. 

Asgharali M.M. Jaffer