Preservation (of knowledge)

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Do your utmost to preserve the knowledge by implementing it and following it. Al- Khateeb said: “It is incumbent upon the seeker of knowledge to purify his intention in seeking knowledge, and it should be achieving the pleasure of Allaah. He Should beware of making it a way to achieve materialistic gain, and a way of gaining [worldly] compensation; for the penalty of such has been set aside for the one who seeks that with his knowledge.
He should beware of boasting or showing off with it , and making his intention in seeking hadeeth for the sake of leadership, and to gain following or to summon gatherings ( Where hadeeths are narrated) , for these were the flaws that some scholars fell into.

He should preserve hadeeth by paying attention to it , and not just by narrating it , for the (verbal) narrators of knowledge are many and those who preserve it (by action) are few , and many-a-time a person who is present ( physically and absent mentally) is as good as absent person, and a knowledgeable person is as good as an ignorant person, and a carrier of hadeeth who has nothing of it in his possession due to his rejection of its rulings is on the same level as one does not know it or rejects learning it.

The seeker of hadeeth should also be distinguished in his general affairs from the common people by implementing the narrations of the Messenger of Allaah (  ) as much as he can , and implementing the traditions upon himself; for verily Allaah said:
لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِیْ رَسُوْلِ اللّٰهِ اُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ
[Soorah al- Ahzaab (33;): 21]

“indeed in the messenger of Allaah  you have a good example”
Ref: The Ettiquette of Seeking Knowldge

By: The Noble Shaykh Bakr Abu Zayd ( Rahimullaah )