Humility in seeking knowledge

In order to seek knowledge and attain it, you must be humble, not arrogant, and have patience and good manners
When seeking knowledge, we find dozens, even hundreds of stories from the Quran, Sunnah, and stories of the Salaf
that are filled with the humility of seekers of knowledge, no matter how great their status is. We will mention a famous story in the Quran, and we must learn from it how to be good-mannered in seeking knowledge, and also when conveying it to people.

 

God mentioned the story of Moses and (Al-Khidr) in Surat Al-Kahf so that we may know that there is always someone who is more knowledgeable than us, and God teaches us all. A man asked Moses, peace be upon him, “Do you know someone who is more knowledgeable than you?” Moses said to him, “No.” So God rebuked Moses and said to him, “There is a servant named (Al-Khidr) in a place called (Majma’ Al-Bahreen) in Egypt who is more knowledgeable than you, so go and learn from him.”

 

God said to Moses, “The sign of his place is to take a fish, and when you lose the fish, you will find this knowledgeable servant who has mercy.” Indeed, Moses and his servant traveled on a long, arduous journey, and when they lost the fish – it was prepared for food, but God He revived it and moved it to the sea.

 

He found this slave (Al-Khidr) so he greeted him and asked him to accompany him to seek knowledge, but Al-Khidr stipulated that he should not ask about anything until Al-Khidr told him about it. So they boarded a ship without a fee, so its owners did not ask for a fee from them, but Al-Khidr made faults in it.

 

Here Moses was surprised and denounced the matter, so Al-Khidr reminded him of the condition that he should not ask about anything until he told him about it. After that, they went down to the shore and found a young boy, so Al-Khidr killed him. Here Moses was very surprised and denounced the matter strongly, and here Al-Khidr reminded him of the condition a second time.

 

Moses responded to him and said, If I ask you about anything after this, we will separate, and do not accompany me again.

 

They went to a village and asked the people of the village for food, but the people of the village refused because they were stingy.

 

Then Al-Khidr found a wall that was about to collapse, so Al-Khidr fixed it to be good again, so Moses said to him, If you want to take a fee for that, then that is your right because they refused to feed us. Here Al-Khidr said to him, This is a separation between me and you, so how can you be patient with difficult matters that you saw and do not know.

 

The purpose and wisdom behind it. Al-Khidr said to him: I will tell you all the things. As for the ship, it belonged to poor people who worked at sea. There was a king who would take every ship that had a defect in it, so I wanted to make it defective so that he would not take it. As for the boy, his parents were righteous, but the boy would be an infidel when he grew up and would make his parents infidels if he grew up. So, Allah’s mercy was to replace them with a Muslim boy instead.

As for the wall, it belonged to orphan children and their father was righteous and they died. The wall was going to fall and underneath it was a treasure. If it fell, the people of the village would take the treasure before the children grew up. So, he built it so that he could preserve it for them when they grew up. The father, who was righteous, constructed the wall to safeguard a hidden treasure for his orphaned children, as the impending collapse posed a risk of others seizing the riches before the children came of age.