Evils of Ignorance: The How and Why

One of the reasons why ignorance is so evil is that it leads to the oppression not just of oneself by disobeying Allah and earning His Punishment, but it leads to harming others as well. Shirk, which is the greatest sin continues to plague the Ummah rendering many acts of worship null and void.

The harms of ignorance on a gigantic political level can be seen from people’s ignorance of history. Without this knowledge a person will not know his or her place in the scheme of things and the social political landscape that one finds themselves in. Nations continue to exploit other nations because of the ignorance of people in their history. If they were knowledgeable of history, they would not have allowed themselves and their nations to be exploited by others for their wealth because they would have known from the past how these things occur and would recognize the pattern. The ignorance of history also causes people and nations to blindly copy and emulate the culture of those who exploited their nations before and thereby end up victims of “the sincerest form of flattery” which is blind imitation.

Another example which is particular to Muslims is ignorance within the sphere of marriage. A man who is ignorant of the rules of marriage goes into married life simply because he wants to enjoy the pleasures of a woman without understanding that marriage is a sacred bond and is an act of worship. He forgets that he is dealing with a human being like himself which leads in many cases to physical oppression.

Ignorance can also lead the man to exploit the woman for her wealth, kindness, generosity and many other things. There is also a strong link between ignorance and negative behavior. One can observe this even in local language such as when a person says about another that he is “acting ignorant!”

Another example where there is still so much ignorance is within the prayer. Many Muslims still do not know how to pray properly and so are deprived of getting the full rewards, and some may even be losing all of their rewards even when we have detailed descriptions of the way that the Messenger prayed.

Knowledge is a pre- requisite for doing acts of worship as Imam al Bukhari placed a section in his Sahih collection entitled: “Knowledge precedes Speech and Action”. This was based on his deep and clear understanding that one cannot possibly act correctly in Islam without having knowledge of what he is doing. I he did so, it would lead to chaos and leading oneself and others astray. Ignorance of the seriousness of prayer can lead to carelessness. The Prophet ﷺ mentioned this in a hadeeth narrated by Ammar ibn Yasir where he said:

What this narration shows is that ignorance of the importance of focus in prayer can lead to the deficiency in its reward. Another hadeeth shows the importance of asking when in doubt or when one does not know.

Another important benefit of knowledge is as it relates to speech and guarding ones tongue. Many people are hurt and many lose rewards because of idle speech or talking badly about people or passing on information without verifying. Some people fall into another kind of problem and that is not speaking up about something when asked for clarification on an individual. We see this happen often in issues of marriage. A man proposes to a woman for marriage and she does not ask about his character for fear of falling into back-biting. This is the opposite extreme. Allah said in His Book:

These are just a few examples of how ignorance can be damaging, and there are endless other examples. What is necessary for us to do is to learn out deen and apply that knowledge in our lives that perhaps we can be from those who achieve success in this life and the Hereafter.