ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Guiding the Youth of the New Generation The Best Students From this point, we realize that there is another issue which we are able to understand which is that the best students of the philosophers are the same people who lived at their time and saw them - which is at variance with the best students of the Prophets and the intimate friends of Allah (the Awliya).

The best students of Plato, Aristotle or Abu ʿAli Sina were those who were directly in their study circle. The person who best understand the thoughts of Abu ʿAli were people such as Bahmanyar or Abu ʿAbid Jawzjani. However, who were the best students of the Noble Prophet (S), Amirul Moʾminin ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (a.s.) or Imam Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq (a.s.)? Are their best students only those people who lived at their time and who lived with them? No, this is not the case!

There is a point which the Noble Prophet (S) himself had alluded to in one of his speeches. It is possible that those people who lived at the Prophet’s (S) time did not correctly understand the true meaning of these words (with the exception of people such as Salman (r.d.a.), Abu Dharr (r.d.a.) and Miqdad (r.d.a.), others may not have completely understood his words).

“May Allah show kindness to that servant who hears my words...” The Prophet (S) then said: رُبَّ حٌامِلٍ فِقْهٍ غَيْرَ فَقِيهٍ وَ رُبَّ حٌامِلٍ فِقْهٍ إِلـى مَنْ هُوَ أَفْقَهُ مِنْهُ “How possible it is that sometimes a person possesses a deep understanding of the religion whereas he himself is not a Faqihi (one firmly grounded in the Islamic sciences) and how possible it is that sometimes one would transfer his knowledge to another person but that other person is actually more knowledgeable than the one transferring the knowledge.” [^2] The lexical meaning of the word Fiqh (فقه) in the religion of Islam actually refers to the reality and the true wisdom of the din (religion) which must be achieved through deep study and thought and thus, the meaning in this hadith is the truth and the words which people hear directly from the Imam (a.s.).