We would like to provide you with further explanations...

We would like to provide you with further explanations whereby you can come to know how clear the issue of knowledge and acting upon it is and the fruit of each, and you will find what makes up this chapter the preference of knowledge and its fruits; so, let us say that it is well known that knowledge is useless if not acted upon. It is just like doing something without knowledge. But a servant of Allah is ordered to adhere to both of them: each of them supports and strengthens the other.

One who seeks knowledge not to act upon it but to brag about it, to cover with the beauties of knowledge and its prevalent beauty and glitter among the people the ugliness of his own actions as well as his ugly dispositions, there is no doubt that he is a friend of Eblis the accursed. His knowledge is his own curse, and the curse of others, so much so that even the inmates of hell complain about his harm. He is one of those who bear their burdens and the burdens of others as well.

He is a demon in a human form; we seek refuge with Allah against him. Such is the case also of one who uses knowledge as a habit on which he accustoms himself[^1], thus turning it into a pretense and a reputation commended by people without knowledge or insight, such a person is a donkey tied to the first, though he is less harmful to the servants of Allah.

But if one is rational in his comprehension, seeking what reforms himself and brings him happiness in this world and in the next, he is the one who turns to Allah, seeking what is with Him, and he is the one to whom the addresses of this art are directed in order to cultivate him, raise his status with regard to what he seeks. Let him know that whenever a gate to knowledge opens for him, acting upon it becomes easier, and it increases his agility and desire.

Whenever he acts upon what Allah grants him of knowledge, this will let him inherit the knowledge of that which he did not know before, thus increasing his knowledge, as we are told by (‘a) who have said that one who acts upon the knowledge which he acquires will inherit the knowledge of what he never knew before.

This, in reality, renders his action a norm of knowledge, for such knowledge shall succeed him and earn good things for him, so he becomes included among those who seek the type of knowledge which many narratives have praised and preferred. Also, his knowledge, learning and teaching are all among the best branches of knowledge.