بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
وَٱتْلُ عَلَيْهِمْ نَبَأَ ٱلَّذِىٓ ءَاتَيْنَـٰهُ ءَايَـٰتِنَا
فَٱنسَلَخَ مِنْهَا فَأَتْبَعَهُ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ فَكَانَ مِنَ ٱلْغَاوِينَ
وَلَوْ شِئْنَا لَرَفَعْنَـٰهُ بِهَا وَلَـٰكِنَّهُۥٓ أَخْلَدَ إِلَى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَٱتَّبَعَ هَوَىٰهُ
Watlu ʿalayhim naba’a alladhī ātaynāhu āyātinā fansalakha minhā fa-atbaʿahu ash-shayṭānu fa-kāna mina al-ghāwīn. Wa law shi’nā la-rafaʿnāhu bihā wa-lākinnahu akhlada ilā al-arḍi wa-ttabaʿa hawāh.
“Relate to them the story of the one to whom We gave Our signs, but he slipped away from them, so Satan pursued him, and he became one of those who went astray. Had We willed, We would have raised him by those signs, but he clung to the earth and followed his desire.”
Excerpt from Sūrat al-Aʿrāf 7:175–176
A person may know the Qur’an well enough to explain a verse to others, yet struggle to let that same verse correct him.
He may remember its words, recognise its meaning, and turn away from what it asks of him.
That is what unsettles me about these verses. They describe someone who had received Allah’s signs and then abandoned them. Learning, even sacred learning, had not made him immune to desire.
فَٱنسَلَخَ مِنْهَا
He slipped out of them.
The Arabic evokes the shedding of a skin. It is a disturbing image: something once so close to a person is left behind. He may still be able to recite, explain, and teach what he knows, while his choices are taking him further from it.
Those of us who teach, study, or raise children should sit with that possibility.
A child may be quick to spot a mistake in someone else’s answer. Learning how to correct it without humiliating the other child requires another kind of education.
A teacher may remember every detail of a lesson. It takes humility to listen when a student notices something the teacher has missed.
A parent may have a convincing explanation for a decision. There are still moments when the truthful thing to say is, “I was wrong.”
We put considerable effort into helping children become capable learners. We need to give the formation of their character the same care.
The Qur’anic accounts, the reports preserved by scholars, and the parables of the poets approach this concern in different ways. Read together, they ask us to examine what our learning is doing to us.
Does knowing more make us more willing to listen? Can we receive correction without treating it as an insult? Adab includes manners, but reaches further: it concerns our conduct before Allah, our treatment of people, and our willingness to be governed by the truth we recognise.
The first mirror is Iblis
Consider the answer Iblis gave when Allah questioned his refusal to prostrate.
He offered a comparison: fire was his origin, and clay was Ādam’s.
Allah had commanded him to prostrate before Ādam عليه السلام. His reply reveals the judgement he had placed above that command:
I am better than him.
You created me from fire.
You created him from clay.
“I am better than him” comes first. The comparison follows.
That order matters. His reasoning serves a judgement about his own superiority. He takes what he knows about their origins and makes it a reason to refuse Allah.
Iblis treats his preference for fire over clay as though it settles the matter. He disregards both the command and the honour Allah has given to Ādam.
Obedience would have required him to accept that honour, even though it contradicted his estimate of himself.
There is something recognisable here. Once we have decided that another person is beneath us, we become remarkably resourceful in finding reasons to dismiss them. Learning can supply those reasons unless we are willing to examine the pride behind them.
This is a misuse of intelligence that can be difficult to recognise from within.
We feel that we are defending a principle, while defending our position. The explanation grows more elaborate as the willingness to reconsider shrinks.
Commenting on Sūrat al-Aʿrāf 7:12, Ibn Kathir identifies the fault in Iblis’s comparison: he considered the material of creation while disregarding the honour Allah had bestowed on Ādam. (Alim)
The warning deserves careful attention. Being able to defend a choice does not establish that the choice is right.
The angels obeyed. Iblis refused and defended his refusal. His argument gave expression to his pride.
The second mirror is the one who slipped out of the signs
The man in Sūrat al-Aʿrāf is left unnamed. We are told what he received and what he did with it.
That leaves us with a question closer to home than the question of his identity: how does someone come to abandon knowledge that could have guided him?
وَٱتْلُ عَلَيْهِمْ نَبَأَ ٱلَّذِىٓ ءَاتَيْنَـٰهُ ءَايَـٰتِنَا
Relate to them the story of the one to whom We gave Our signs.
The signs had been given to him. He had access to guidance. Through it, he could have been raised.
وَلَوْ شِئْنَا لَرَفَعْنَـٰهُ بِهَا
Had We willed, We would have raised him by them.
The verse then names the direction he chose:
وَلَـٰكِنَّهُۥٓ أَخْلَدَ إِلَى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَٱتَّبَعَ هَوَىٰهُ
He clung to the earth and followed his desire.
Tafsir reports often identify this man as Balʿam ibn Bāʿūrā. Their details vary, and the Qur’an itself gives no name. In the account related in Maʿārif al-Qur’an, his people ask him to pray against Musa and his followers. He initially refuses, knowing whom they are asking him to oppose.
His first response recognises the seriousness of the request.
Musa عليه السلام is Allah’s prophet. Balʿam understands that directing his supplication against him would endanger his own standing before Allah.
Then his people persist, and valuable gifts become part of the appeal.
Their insistence continues. He accepts what they offer. Eventually, he agrees to pray against those he had known he should not oppose. His knowledge has ceased to govern his decision.
Read alongside the verse, the report makes the warning painfully concrete.
He had understood the boundary, had recognised the consequences, and had once refused to cross it. The pressure succeeded where his knowledge should have held him firm.
Maʿārif al-Qur’an reads the account of his opposition to Musa عليه السلام as a warning about disregarding Allah’s guidance. It explains slipping out as abandoning the knowledge he had received, leaving him exposed to Satan’s pursuit. (Quran.com)
The compromises in our own lives may look much smaller.
We know a statement is unfair, yet repeat it to please our circle. We recognise a dishonest practice, yet explain why our circumstances require it. Over time, the explanation becomes easier to repeat than the truth is to follow.
It is useful to ask what we know. It is harder to ask what we are willing to lose to remain faithful to it. Approval, advantage, belonging: which of these makes our convictions negotiable?
The third mirror is Qārūn
Qārūn’s story begins with wealth on a scale that is difficult to imagine.
He belongs to the people of Musa. Allah has given him immense treasures, and he has become overbearing towards his people. Even the keys to those treasures burden a group of strong men.
His people advise him to seek the Hereafter through what Allah has given him, to remember his share of this world, and to do good. Their counsel gives his wealth a purpose beyond possession and display.
He can enjoy what he has been given, while remembering its source and the responsibilities that accompany it.
Seek the Hereafter with what Allah has given you.
Do good as Allah has done good to you.
Do not seek corruption in the land.
Their counsel, paraphrased above from Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ 28:77, asks him to remember how much he has received.
Qārūn answers by directing attention to himself:
إِنَّمَآ أُوتِيتُهُۥ عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍ عِندِىٓ
I was only given this because of knowledge I possess.
It is easy to recognise a contemporary version of that answer.
A person has worked hard, made difficult decisions, and built something substantial. In telling the story of that achievement, he gradually leaves out the people who helped, the opportunities he was given, and his dependence on Allah throughout.
Effort and skill deserve acknowledgement. Gratitude requires us to see them within the larger account of what made an achievement possible.
Qārūn’s reply closes that account around himself. He treats possession as evidence of deservingness, and his success as a reason to dismiss advice. The blessing has become an argument for his own importance.
When he appears before his people in his splendour, some wish they had been given the same. Those described as having knowledge remind them that Allah’s reward is better for those who believe and do good. The same display has produced two very different judgements.
Then Allah causes the earth to swallow Qārūn and his dwelling.
The people who had wished for his position reconsider. They now recognise Allah’s favour in having spared them his fate.
The reversal exposes how little outward prosperity tells us about a person’s standing before Allah.
Ibn Kathir reads Qārūn’s reply as a dismissal of advice and a claim that his wealth reflects what he deserves. That is the spiritual danger within his answer. (Alim)
This story asks something of anyone who has been given ability, influence, or opportunity.
We should be able to recognise our effort, acknowledge those who helped us, receive advice, and remain answerable for how we use what we have.
Gratitude gives achievement its proper proportion: Alḥamdulillāh. I have been given much, and much is entrusted to me.
Entitlement makes us harder to advise: What I have achieved should be enough to silence your criticism.
We can often tell which attitude is taking root by noticing how we respond to an unwelcome reminder.
The fourth mirror is Musa عليه السلام with Khidr عليه السلام
Musa’s meeting with Khidr offers a different way of approaching knowledge.
Musa عليه السلام has received revelation. Allah has spoken to him. He has confronted Pharaoh and led his people through danger. Yet there is knowledge he is willing to travel to learn.
When he meets Khidr عليه السلام, he asks permission to accompany him and learn.
His request begins:
هَلْ أَتَّبِعُكَ
May I follow you?
He makes room for an answer. His rank does not make him demanding, and his own knowledge does not make learning beneath him.
He asks to be taught something of the right guidance Khidr has been taught (Sūrat al-Kahf 18:66).
There is much for a student, and perhaps still more for a teacher, to learn from that request.
To seek another person’s knowledge is to acknowledge a limit in our own. That acknowledgement can be difficult, especially when we are accustomed to being the one others consult.
Musa is willing to accompany another. He agrees to learn under a condition requiring patience. His willingness does not spare him difficulty: the journey will confront him with events he cannot reconcile with what he knows.
Ibn Kathir draws attention to the gentleness of Musa’s request and its freedom from coercion. He presents it as an example of how a seeker should address someone from whom he wishes to learn. (Quran.com)
The events that follow test Musa’s patience severely.
Khidr damages a boat. He kills a boy. Later, he repairs a wall in a town whose people have refused them hospitality.
Musa protests at the damage and the killing. At the wall, he asks why Khidr did not seek payment. His responses arise from what he can see and from the demands of justice as he understands them.
At their parting, Khidr explains what Musa could not have known.
Damaging the boat would spare its poor owners from a king who seized sound vessels. Khidr explains that the boy would burden his believing parents with rebellion and disbelief; he speaks of Allah giving them a child purer and more compassionate. The wall concealed the treasure of two orphans whose father had been righteous; repairing it would safeguard their inheritance until they were grown.
Khidr ends by saying that he did not act on his own authority (18:82). That statement is essential to understanding the account.
The story concerns knowledge and authority given by Allah. It gives no teacher or spiritual guide permission to justify harm by claiming a hidden wisdom.
Musa’s concern for justice remains part of the lesson. So does the limit of what a human being can know.
We encounter an event from within our own experience. Allah knows it in full.
Remembering that difference should make our judgements more careful. It should leave us willing to ask what we have yet to understand.
That willingness has a place in ordinary life too.
Before judging a situation, we can listen to those involved, ask what information is missing, and distinguish what we have observed from what we have assumed.
In a school, these habits matter whenever an adult interprets a child’s behaviour.
A child who has stopped working may need help we have not yet understood. Calling the child lazy can end our enquiry too soon.
A question that sounds challenging may be a sincere attempt to understand. We need to hear it before deciding how to respond.
Children can learn this care from us. They see it when we listen fully and revise a judgement after hearing more.
The fifth mirror is Rumi’s grammarian
In the Mathnawī, Rumi places a grammarian in a boat with a man who has never studied grammar.
The grammarian is sure of his learning. He knows the rules of language, and the boatman’s lack of that knowledge seems to him a measure of the man’s worth.
He asks the boatman whether he has studied grammar. The boatman answers that he has not. The grammarian declares that half his life has been wasted.
It is an astonishing judgement to make about the man conducting him across the water.
He has reduced another person’s life to the absence of his own speciality.
Rumi tells us that the remark hurts the boatman, who holds his tongue.
For the moment, the grammarian has the last word. The insult has gone unanswered. Then the wind drives the boat into a whirlpool.
The danger changes the conversation. The boat is sinking, and the boatman has a question of his own.
Does the grammarian know how to swim? He does not. The boatman replies that his whole life is now at risk, since the boat is going down.
The reversal is sharp. The man who had judged another’s knowledge now depends on a skill he lacks.
Grammar remains worth learning. Swimming is suddenly indispensable. Neither person’s knowledge warrants contempt for the other.
Rumi then turns from the danger in the boat to the spiritual condition of the learner.
He plays on naḥw, grammar, and maḥw, the effacement of the self.
The sea becomes a metaphor for what the proud self cannot master. Rumi uses it to ask whether learning has loosened our self-importance or merely given it a larger vocabulary.
The passage appears in the Mathnawī, Book I, beginning at line 2835. Its movement from grammar to self-effacement takes the story beyond a joke at a scholar’s expense.
It also belongs in our conversations about education. Children learn from what adults admire and what they allow.
When a fluent child mocks a hesitant speaker, our response teaches something. When we praise an answer that has humiliated a classmate, our praise teaches something too. We can value the knowledge and address the cruelty in its use. Both are part of the teacher’s responsibility.
The boatman’s knowledge had been invisible to the grammarian. The danger made its value unmistakable. Humility might have allowed him to recognise it earlier.
The sixth mirror is Bayazid Bistami
Al-Qushayrī preserves a report about Bayazid Bistami رحمه الله and a man reputed to possess spiritual distinction.
Bayazid goes to see this man, whose renunciation has attracted attention. The visit offers an opportunity to observe someone others regard highly. Before any conversation takes place, however, Bayazid sees how the man behaves as he enters the mosque.
He has come to meet a man with a reputation for holiness. What he observes is an ordinary action.
There is no difficult theological dispute, no examination of spiritual experiences, and no occasion for an impressive speech.
The man enters the mosque and spits towards the qiblah.
Bayazid turns away without greeting him.
His reason, as the report gives it, concerns the gap between the man’s claim and his conduct.
The man is known for renunciation, yet disregards an adab taught by the Messenger of Allah. Bayazid refuses to let the reputation outweigh what he has seen.
His response may be paraphrased: if this man cannot be trusted to observe an adab of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, how can he be trusted in what he claims?
Al-Qushayrī also records a warning attributed to Bayazid: even extraordinary feats should not distract us from examining a person’s observance of Allah’s commands, prohibitions, and the Shariah. Both reports appear in his account of Abu Yazid in the Risālah. (Al-Risālah al-Qushayriyyah)
The report gives us a useful way to examine what impresses us.
A reputation can make us reluctant to notice ordinary failures of conduct.
Someone speaks confidently, uses the language of spiritual experience, and attracts a devoted following. Soon, the following is taken as evidence of wisdom, the confidence as evidence of certainty, and the vocabulary as evidence of nearness to Allah. After that, ordinary questions about conduct can begin to seem impertinent. Bayazid’s reported response refuses that bargain.
We would do well to keep asking about the life that accompanies the words.
How does this person receive correction? Are promises kept? What happens when someone with little influence needs their attention? Do they honour the Sunnah in daily conduct? Does their learning make them more conscientious? Can those around them speak honestly without fear?
Such questions bring our attention back to conduct. They deserve a place beside our admiration for someone’s gifts.
Spiritual claims call for discernment. Steadiness in ordinary obligations matters.
We are often drawn to what is unusual. Bayazid’s reported example directs us towards the care a person takes with what is already required.
What we should cultivate
These accounts should deepen our responsibility for intellectual gifts.
Memory helps us retain what we learn. Reasoning helps us test a claim. Imagination opens possibilities. Eloquence helps us communicate. Each can serve people well when its use is guided by truth and responsibility.
Allah has given us these capacities. Part of gratitude is learning to use them faithfully.
The formation of the mind includes its habits: what it attends to, how it handles disagreement, and whether it remains willing to be corrected.
There is intellectual discipline in saying “I do not know.” There is moral discipline in saying “I was wrong.” And there is servanthood in accepting Allah’s command when the self would prefer to argue for an exemption.
The stories give us several ways to examine ourselves.
Iblis defends his superiority. The man in al-Aʿrāf abandons the signs he has received. Qārūn treats his possessions as proof of deservingness. Rumi’s grammarian belittles knowledge outside his own field. The report about Bayazid asks whether spiritual reputation is supported by daily conduct.
Musa’s request to learn offers a practice we can return to.
He asks permission to accompany someone who can teach him. A student can learn to listen with that willingness. A teacher can make room for a question that exposes a gap in her explanation. A leader can receive criticism without punishing the person who brings it. A parent can apologise to a child. A scholar can acknowledge the limits of his knowledge. These are ordinary opportunities to practise adab.
Schools have a particular responsibility because children learn how knowledge is used by watching the adults who hold it.
We teach adab when we hear a child’s question to the end, correct an error without ridicule, and acknowledge a mistake of our own. We teach it when the quiet child receives time to speak, the capable child learns to help without patronising, and disagreement is handled with care. Reverence for the Qur’an and Sunnah should shape these daily decisions. Respect for teachers and elders grows more credible when adults practise the care they ask of children.
Children should be able to question respectfully, seek help when something is wrong, and speak about harm without fear. Adab asks adults to receive that trust responsibly.
A warning attributed to Mawlana Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi رحمه الله addresses the same concern.
The following is a summary of the advice circulated in his name:
Intellectual ability needs the companionship of respect and good conduct. A person may be highly intelligent and still use that intelligence in ways that lead him astray.
The warning points to learned people whose abilities did not protect them from error, and urges us to take the formation of character seriously from our youth.
Reverence for the Qur’an and Sunnah, regard for the Shariah, and adab towards teachers and elders belong within the education of the learner. They help shape how knowledge is received and used.
— Adapted summary of advice attributed to Mawlana Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi. Secondary reference: Majālis-e Ali Miyan, p. 606, as cited by IslamicTube.
May Allah make our knowledge a means of drawing nearer to Him.
May He help us recognise pride in ourselves and receive correction with humility.
May He give our children understanding, kindness, and courage.
May He make us worthy of the trust of teaching them.
And may He grant us the adab to live by what we learn.
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