Duty Upon Every Muslim

Mu`awiyah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah (saws) said, "When Allah wishes good for someone, He bestows upon him the understanding of Deen.''

[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

Explanation: Knowledge and understanding of Deen (religion) here stands for the understanding of the Qur'an and Hadith, religious injunctions, and knowledge of the lawful and the unlawful. This Hadith highlights the excellence of knowledge and the fact that it is a sign of Allah's Help to the person who possesses it and acts upon it.

There are three categories of people:

First, those who acquire knowledge of the Qur'an and Hadith, act upon it and also impart it to others. Such people benefit from this knowledge themselves and extend this benefit to others also. By virtue of this quality they are the best of all.

Second, those people who acquire knowledge and impart it to others, but do not fulfill the requirements of that knowledge. Such people are inferior in rank to the people of the first category and can be taken to task for their omissions.

Third, those who shun the knowledge of the Qur'an and Hadith. Neither they study and hear the two themselves for their own benefit, nor do they acquire knowledge to impart it to others for their benefit. This is the worst category of people.

Every Muslim should try to be in the first category of the people.

it is a quality of a Muslim that he is very much concerned about acquiring virtues and doing good, and he is never tired of struggling for them and live by them so much so that in this struggle he reaches the end of his life.

No matter whether one has more or less knowledge, he must communicate it to others. There is no justification to presume that preaching or inviting to the Message of Allah is the duty of religious scholars and those who are well-versed in this sphere. In fact, it is a duty upon every Muslim, so much so that if a person knows even a single Verse of the Qur'an, that is to say if he knows only one injunction of Allah, he is duty bound to communicate it to other people.