Respect Our Seats

There was a hearsay that eventually everybody will be doctors because with the ever growing of information accessibility, sooner or later each and every one of us will be able to tell what a person is suffering from. Simple as it may seem, there was more to look into it. How can we tell if a person is suffering from any diseases? We based our assumption on symptoms that person were experiencing. For instance we would count a person who did not put on weight while having a good appetite, urinate often, drink more than usual and have trouble of lethargy as being diabetic. How do we know about these symptoms? Yes, we get it from years of research done by the doctors, the experts in healthcare. Then the best we could do is to offer a few suggestions of exercises or precautions and some might go extra miles in suggesting certain treatments or medications but if the problems resist we eventually will say, “ I think you better get yourself checked by a professional,” smiling shyly.
There is absolutely no wrong in us wanting to know and educate ourselves in whatever field we desire yet there is one thing we should always hold firm. When everybody can be the jack of all trade not everybody can be the master of all. That is the Gracious of Allah. He let us understand generally and bestow perfect understanding to the fundamentals of knowledge, ilmu in some. Thus we have the more chance to interact with each other and learn. If possible and it is something that we should all work on is how we can integrate our different knowledge and make a better person of ourselves and our world.
Nowadays, thanks to democracy when every body wants to exercise their right to say what they want to say and let the majority wins, a trend of interpreting knowledge without being knowledgeful in certain subject has flourished. We have lawyers interpreting Islamic shariaat and almost everybody quotes from the Holy Quran and Hadith either in their speeches or in their paperworks and proposals. Not saying that it is wrong to do so but we must only do so within our capacity of knowledge. Otherwise it will be like sending a woman with a gynecology problem to a dentist. There is a Malay saying ‘Seperti tikus membaiki labu’, literally translated into giving a pumpkin to be mended by mice. Of course the pumpkin will be doomed in the mice hand. They will only ruin it!
Before thee, also, the messengers We sent were but men, to whom We granted inspiration: if ye realize this not, ask of those who possess the Message.
Al Anbiya’:7
It is clearly shown that in order to understand something we must ask those who has more in depth knowledge than us. If we care to ask the right person on the right subject we can save many wasted time arguing on things that in fact is clearly outlined by Allah.
For instance women around the world are fighting for their equal rights and we have our women not satisfied with the division of wealth or faraid as women get half of what men get. The problem lies in the shortage of knowledge. Islamic shariaat should never be analyzed partially. It should be seen as a whole. Otherwise you will be examining a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and wonder why the picture is never right.
Asking those who possess the Message can be translated into asking the professionals. If we want to talk about Islam, let those scholars of Islamic studies do it. Not saying we must put a solid barrier between all fields but there are those who have more qualification to speak than us.
When an artiste talks about Islamic shaariaat while he/she is not practicing it, the results is hazardous as their fans tend to follow them. More than that, the way they explain their understanding is sometimes misleading. We cannot force our belief to be the most justified and should be publicized.
Each of us has been given our seats in this world to be taken care of and to exercise our duty within our seats. A writer must implement Islam in his/her writings while an artiste must show the beauty of Islam in his/her act, an Islam scholars with his/her duty to educate as many as possible on Islam, a doctor performs his/her duty as a Muslim… nobody is less than the other only we are more qualified on our seats than in others because Allah knows we can serve Him best from where we seat thus respect our seats and shy not to ask.