is the ray of gnosis and the heart of belief. Whoever is denied caution
is not a man of knowledge, even if he can split hairs in dealing with
obscure items of knowledge. Allah said,
Only those of His servants who are possessed of knowledge fear Allah.
(35:28)
Men of knowledge are ruined by eight things: greed and miserliness,
showing off and partisanship, love of praise, delving into things whose
reality they cannot reach, affectation by taking excessive pains to beautify
their speech with superfluous expressions, lack of modesty before Allah,
boastfulness, and not acting upon what they know.
‘Isa [a] said, 'The most wretched of all people is he who is known for
his knowledge, not for his actions.'
The Holy Prophet said, 'Do not sit with every presumptuous caller
who summons you from certainty to doubt, from sincerity to showing
off, from humility to pride, from good counsel to enmity, and from abstinence
to desire. Draw near to the person with knowledge, who summons
you from pride to humility, from showing off to sincerity, from
doubt to certainty, from desire to abstinence, from enmity to good counsel.'
None are fit to preach to creation except that person who has gone
beyond these evils by his truthfulness. He sees the faults of speech and
knows what is sound from what is unsound, the defectiveness of
thoughts, and the temptations of the self and his fancies.
'Ali said, 'Be like the kind, compassionate doctor who places the remedy
where it will be of benefit.' They asked ‘Isa [a], 'With whom shall we
sit, O Spirit of Allah?' 'With one the sight of whom reminds you of
Allah,' he replied, 'and whose speech increases you in knowledge, and
whose actions make you desire the next world.'
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Ref: Lantern of the Path, a collection of sayings of Imam As-Sadiq (as). Chapter on this topic by its full name.
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