Intelligence vs. Wisdom in Islam (And What Iblis Teaches Us) | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine

[00:00:05]Intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom. It's a vision that some say is dysfunctional.

[00:00:10]>> What's so upsetting on you? You say you you claim that you care about using AI for good, but Microsoft is selling AI weapons to the Israeli military. 50,000 people have died.

[00:00:20]>> A woman got up and started shouting about the use of Microsoft technology by the Israeli military.

[00:00:25]>> There's a whole lot of smart people in the world and a great many of them are probably going to be in the hellfire.

[00:00:30]>> Alhamdulillah. No, I say alhamdulillah not because we want anyone in the hellfire, but because it would be difficult if entrance into Jannah was an IQ test. But this is really really important because you'll find things that make you scratch your head. You'll find somebody who maybe they are a PhD in Islamic studies, fluent in Arabic, fluent in Persian, fluent in Ottoman and Urdu, reviewing manuscripts, but they're not a Muslim. So you're wait a minute, how could that possibly happen? How does such a thing even come to be? Well, part of that comes to be with separating knowledge from action. And separating knowledge from action is something that all of the scholars warned us about. And in fact, many of them start their books of ahadith with this warning that action without knowledge is craziness, but knowledge without action breeds hypocrisy. And what greater hypocrisy could there be than somebody who is, I don't know, a PhD in Quranic studies, but actually doesn't follow the Quran.

[00:01:19]Is knowledge just then a good no matter what? Just more and more knowledge knowledge knowledge? No. The companions understood this and this is why the companions when they learned even the Quran, they made sure to take it bit by bit. learn the Quran the way we push our kids to learn the Quran today, cranking out huffaz left and right that have no clue what they're saying. They took it 10 verses at a time and they didn't go on until they implemented what they learned because they understood that knowledge without action breeds hypocrisy and that that knowledge would actually be a case against them or a proof against them in the afterlife. If you knew something, but you failed to act on it, that actually was going to cause you harm in the afterlife as opposed to if you didn't know it at all.

[00:01:59]If you didn't know it at all, you might have had an excuse. But if you know it, you're going to be asked about it.

[00:02:04]You're going to be required to act on it. And there's no better archetype of this than Iblis himself. Iblis had more knowledge of Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala than you or I. Iblis was in that type of company with the angels. Iblis knew very, very well Allah's attributes and his magnificence and his power and his might and his knowledge and everything.

[00:02:24]And yet did that knowledge benefit him?

[00:02:27]Did he act on that knowledge such that it will benefit his afterlife? No, he actually acted in contrary to that knowledge. And Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala reminds us in Surat al-Jumu'ah that the same is true of people that you don't want to become He compares it to donkeys. Donkeys carrying tomes of scripture and commentary and what's a donkey going to do with it? Donkeys They can't even read it, let alone understand it, let alone implement it. So, we have to realize that knowledge has an ethical dimension that cannot be removed. be separated. Knowledge is a test. And it's good to seek knowledge and it's good to increase your knowledge. It's the one thing in the Quran that we have as a dua to ask for increase in is knowledge. But that knowledge has to come with action in order for it to be ethical knowledge, it has to come with action.