When it comes to university, we all know how learning works. If we want to become a doctor, then we know that we must start with introductory biology and chemistry so that the year after we can take organic chemistry so that we can then move on to more complicated subjects. We know that we must first build a foundation of basic essentials and then slowly build upon this foundation, layer by layer, until we eventually reach an understanding of medicine that allows us to treat people. To help us along in this process, our university devises curricula so that when we make the decision to be a doctor, we know what courses to take. After all, how are we supposed to figure out, on our own, without any knowledge, what exactly a doctor must learn? In any course, the process is similar. When learning French, we start with the alphabet and pronunciation, then some basic words, then some bits of grammar, etc. We do not start with learning the conditional if we don't even understand the verb avoir. This is common sense. It would be ridiculous to attempt to learn medicine by simply going to a chemistry lecture one day and then a surgery training the next. We don't create our own curriculum about a subject we know almost nothing about.

Somehow, these principles disappear when we approach Islamic knowledge. How many of us actually went to a scholar well versed in Islam or to a reputable institution and asked, “I want to learn about my religion, what should I do?” How many of us actually follow a curriculum, not invented on our own, but actually recommended to us by someone who already has the knowledge we need? How many of us are laying a foundation before proceeding to more difficult subjects?

Instead, we follow the two shaykhs Google and YouTube. We watch a clip here, a clip there. Maybe we like Shaykh Hamza Yusuf or Shaykh Yasir Qadhi, so we listen to all their clips. We click on whatever lecture we see popping up in our news feed on facebook. Is it ever part of our curriculum? Or are we just clicking on whatever sounds good? We seem to devour any topic we find: tafsir, hadith, fiqh, aqeeda, without bothering to sort them all out. And soon we know the intricacies of the Arabic in the first ten verses of Al-Baqara, the fiqh of wiping over cotton socks in all four madhabs, the differences of Ash'ari and Athari aqeeda...

The result? A disjointed, incoherent, feeble understanding of our religion. We may know al-Baqara, but we have no idea of the tafsir of al-Fatiha, we know the fiqh of cotton socks, but not the fiqh of salah, we know the differences of aqeeda, but we don't know its required elements. We amass a great amount of knowledge, little of which is actually relevant. What's worse, we begin to see ourselves as intelligent and knowledgeable, because we spew random Islamic facts and people commend us for that. Yet our hearts are still black and all this knowledge is not doing anything to wash the dirt away.

On top of all of this, much of our knowledge is useless. Who cares about the difference between the Ash'aris and Atharis if we have no qualifications to consider their points? Yet this becomes our favorite point of debate at the table: Salafis versus Sufis, Hamza Yusuf versus Yusuf Estes. Let's be honest: what have those debates done for us that was of benefit? I can find nothing. Yet somehow we are dragged into this day after day. This is truly the Shaytan's doing: convincing us that we are gaining benefit when we are just wasting our time instead.

The revolution of information that the Internet age has brought is a wonder, but it is also a danger. We begin to think ourselves self-sufficient in learning religion, even though we would never consider doing the same with biochemistry. We forget that Islam, throughout its millennium-and-a-half long history, has always been taught through the apprentice model: with a teacher's guidance and explanation. Unlike today, knowledge was understanding, not the amassing of facts. That is why hearts were cleaner, souls were purer in the times of our predecessors. Despite the fact that they didn't have the same access to knowledge, they at least knew what to do with they knowledge they did have access to.

As a personal reflection, this is a reminder first and foremost to myself. I ask Allah the Exalted to grant us true knowledge of His religion, to help us be firm in it, and to protect us from that which has no benefit. Ameen.

Anton is a 22 year old Russian-American convert to Islam. He has studied at the University of Toronto for the past two years, but will be returning home to America in September. He has been heavily involved both with interfaith and Muslim communities, serving as an exec at the University of Toronto St. George MSA over the past year. He occasionally writes for his own blog and has recently begun video blogs under the name of El Musafir (http://elmusafir.wordpress.com and http://www.facebook.com/pages/El-Musafir/124559040888113). His interests include learning about Islam, reading, and tea.