When a Scholar Errs: Shaykh Rabīʿ al-Madkhalī on the Correct Manhaj Towards the ʿUlamāʾ

The Question

May Allah grant you much good. These are two questions regarding the methodology a student of knowledge should follow when a mistake occurs from some of the mashāyikh who are scholars, and some students of knowledge are heard reviling them, speaking against them, and criticising them. What is your guidance in such a matter, especially if a mistake may have occurred from some of these mashāyikh?

The Answer

Shaykh Rabīʿ ibn Hādī al-Madkhalī replied:

The correct manhaj in this is acknowledging firstly that the scholar may err, and he may even be ignorant of something. Some people, when a scholar makes a mistake, say: “He is ignorant,” and this is indeed a destructive methodology.

Mālik ibn Anas (d. 179 AH/795 CE) used to be asked about forty affairs, and he would answer eight, six, or only four of them, and regarding the rest he would say: “Allah knows best, Allah knows best, I do not know.”

ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī (d. 198 AH/814 CE) said: a man came to Mālik ibn Anas asking him about something. Mālik said to him: “I do not know.” The man said: “Shall I report from you that you do not know?” He said: “Yes, narrate from me that I do not know.”

Thus, the truthful and sincere scholar does not care whether it is said about him that he is a scholar or ignorant. The student of knowledge, meanwhile, must be well-mannered and should not have this unjust standard.

A person may make one mistake, two mistakes, ten, twenty, do not belittle him! He has knowledge, my brother, and no one knows everything, nor has anyone encompassed all knowledge. No one has encompassed all of knowledge, not ash-Shāfiʿī (d. 204 AH/820 CE), nor Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241 AH/855 CE), nor Mālik, nor the Ṣaḥābah. Even the most senior of the Companions, some aḥādīth would escape them while those below them would memorise them. Yet no one belittled them, and no one considered them ignorant, and Allah’s refuge is sought.

Now in the arena there are types like this: if a person makes one mistake or is ignorant of an issue, they say: “By Allah, he is ignorant!” Such methodologies are destructive.

It is obligatory that we respect the ʿulamāʾ, and respect the students of knowledge, and that the Muslims respect one another, and that we do not violate people’s honour at the slightest opportunity. An error is not an opportunity for one to seize upon to attack your Muslim brother.

References

Rabīʿ ibn Hādī al-Madkhalī, Faḍl al-ʿIlm wa-l-ʿUlamāʾ, Mīrāth an-Nabawī edition, pp. 167-168.