Self-Study

The concept of self-study in the age of internet is an important concept. It is important that we understand what is self-study and how it can help to eliminate or reduce ignorance amongst the Muslims in both the ‘acquired’ or ‘secular’ and ‘revealed’ fields of knowledge.

What we really mean by self-study here is the study environment in the absence of a live teacher and students. One studies on his own at his home or anywhere else. But the one who is teaching on the internet is actually a teacher. This is because the book is actually written by a teacher or the videos are actually made by a teacher. Only certain conclusions drawn will be done by the student alone. But the more a person studies, the more perspectives he gets on a particular field and the better conclusions he can draw. The reason attention is being drawn to self-study in this age is because of the overwhelming presence of entertainment on social media as well as to eliminate the problems of procrastination and ignorance.

People who spend their free time ‘just hanging around’ or people who spend their time watching useless TV shows, or much worse, shameless TV shows need a better place to direct their lives. If we are wasting our time, it is much better for us to utilize the internet to learn useful knowledge which can be either ‘acquired knowledge’ such as sciences, philosophy etc. or ‘revealed knowledge’ such as the Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah. Another benefit is that studying on our own is helpful in eliminating general ignorance in our society. It also helps us to stop supporting social media which require our views to run them but which are inherently bad for the society such as shameless movies etc.

I also feel that the Muslim community at large is very ignorant about their religion. If everyone cannot easily find scholars around them, it is always useful to start gaining knowledge from the internet so that at least they can begin to become aware of the teachings of Islam. When I think about people wasting hours, I feel like a valuable part of the Muslim community is being wasted which could have served to strengthen this ummah.

Of course this self-study does not mean that we should’t study with our teachers. But the point being presented here is that if we are not part any educational institution to study, especially study Islam, then it is important that we at least study something on our own, rather than not studying anything at all. We should utilize the blessing of internet positively. Ignorance can be fought through mass education and if no national / international educational systems are setup so far, at least we can take individual responsibility to educate ourselves. It is only after gaining authentic knowledge that we can know how to properly worship Allah and not become misguided. May Allah guide us through His book and the authentic sunnah.