The Four Kinds of Men

The man who knows and he knows that he knows: This is the Scholar, so follow him.
The man who knows but he does not know that he knows: This is the Forgetful One, so wake him.
The man who does not know, and he knows that he does not know: This is the Seeker, so guide him.
The man who does not know, but he does not know that he does not know: This is the Ignoramus, so leave him.

One reason I enjoy my weekly Arabic classes is that points of grammar or vocabulary are illustrated by proverbs, hadith and verses of Quran. We learned the saying above a few weeks ago. It reminds me of an old essay by Shaykh GF Haddad on Jahl Murakkab, Compound Ignorance, the fourth condition in the saying.

[Update: Sidi Khalil Moore wrote to suggest the translation be improved by changing “what” to “that”. I appreciate someone of his caliber taking the time to review my amateur work, and have made the change in the text above.]

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You’re currently reading “The Four Kinds of Men,” an entry on Bin Gregory Productions

Published:: 08.08.06 / 10am

Category:: Islam

Briefly

Anwar Ibrahim and the Opposition: Malaysian Seeks End to Decades of Firm Rule - a pretty decent roundup of political developments in Malaysia, from the New York Times.

The Spiritual Aspirant: Sidi Khalil Moore will be in Singapore conducting a workshop for The Spiritual Aspirant, to be held 27 June to 5 July. I had the pleasure to hear Sidi Khalil speak in Detroit back in 2002 in conjunction with the US tour of Habib Ali Al-Jifri. I regret I won't be able to make the short trip across the South China Sea to attend, but I recommend it to anyone in the area. The workshop is being sponsored by Simply Islam, under the capable hands of some of the fine people who put on the Journey to Ihsan event a couple years ago, which I did attend and enjoyed immensely.

Collapse Preparedness: The transition from the USSR to the republic of Russia was a catastrophic event for the people who lived through it. The eventual (imminent?) collapse of the US will be much much worse, warns Dmitry Orlov. The USA has a Collapse Gap. Orlov realizes

that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the United States collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who wanted more or less the same things – things like technological progress, economic growth, full employment, and world domination – but they disagreed about the methods. And they obtained similar results – each had a good run, intimidated the whole planet, and kept the other scared. Each eventually went bankrupt.

Valuable lessons on what to expect and how to prepare follow. Read it yourself, but the condensed advice is this: Live on the margins of society. One encouraging sign that Americans are picking up the skills they will need to survive: haggling at the mall.