Since
God is the creator of the world, Islam assigns transcendental value both to
things empirical and to knowledge of them. It is God who created the world out
of nothing, and it is He who is the source of all knowledge about it. All
knowledge begins and ends with Him. The object of knowledge is nothing but the
realisation of God; both teaching and learning are directed to achieve this
objective.
Knowledge
is a gift of God to man; it is He who taught man the use of the pen and taught
him that which he knew not; he bade him to read with His blessed name. What He
taught man is no secret. He taught Adam among, other things 'the names of all
things' of the world in which his lot was cast. Names are of two kinds: proper
and common. Proper names are non-connotative; they are not given because of any
essential attribute inherent in the objects named. They denote individuals, but
connote no attributes.
For
example, Jawa Tengah, Pekalongan and Irwan and Marpaung are the names of
individual cities and men which serve the social purpose of identification.
Common names which God taught to Adam are denotative as well as connotative.
They are given because of the attributes which essentially belong to the
objects named. They not only denote the individuals of a class, but also
connote their attributes. For instance, the essential attributes of man are
animality and rationality. We call him man because of the possession of these
attributes.
Thus
when God taught Adam 'the names of all things', He made him conversant with the
essences of things of the world where he was destined to be sent. He did not
bless angels with this knowledge, for they did not need it in heaven. It is the
possession of knowledge of the things of the world which gave Adam a higher
position than the angels in deference to which they had to bow before Adam.
God
gave this knowledge to Adam as a weapon to control his environment. But he did
not give him knowledge of each particular thing of the world. He gave him
analytic as well as speculative intellect as the source of the knowledge,
respectively of the concrete and the abstract and thereby gave him instant
knowledge of 'all things' of the world. "The first thing God
created was the intellect," said the Prophet (SAWS).
Rationality
is the specific differense of man, distinguishing him from the rest of the
animals. Animals are devoid of reason and so they are not required to learn how
to live in the world. They are born fully equipped with a natural way of life
and live at the level of instinct. They are armed with physical weapons of
defence, e.g., horns, hoofs, paws, sharp teeth, swift running feet, feathers,
etc., to protect themselves against possible dangers. This is not the case with
man. He has to learn everything in the world and invent weapons to defend
himself against threats to his life. Not nature, but he himself is his teacher.
God-given knowledge comes to his rescue and gives him power over himself as
well as his environment. It not only preserves his life, but also makes it
worth living. It is his only weapon in the struggle for existence; without
knowledge he cannot survive on this planet.
Knowledge has not only survival but
immense cultural value for man. It is knowledge which makes man a human, a
creature of high ideals and values, the moral agent of God on earth. It
beautifies his life and infuses him with the spirit of godliness.
