The 365 · Verses · Day 78 · Knowledge
Only those who know Him truly fear Him. The fear scales with the knowledge. Pause after learning.
Qur'an Q 35:28
وَمِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ وَٱلدَّوَآبِّ وَٱلْأَنْعَـٰمِ مُخْتَلِفٌ أَلْوَٰنُهُۥ كَذَٰلِكَ ۗ إِنَّمَا يَخْشَى ٱللَّهَ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ ٱلْعُلَمَـٰٓؤُا۟ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَزِيزٌ غَفُورٌ
“...It is those of His servants who have knowledge who stand in true awe of God. God is almighty, most forgiving. (Abdel Haleem)”
Svenska: ...Ingen av Hans tjänare utom de som har [en djup inre] kunskap fruktar Gud [så som Han bör fruktas]. Han är allsmäktig men alltid beredd att förlåta. (Knut Bernström)
The story
Ibn Kathir cites Ibn 'Abbās on this verse: 'The one among His servants who knows about ar-Rahman is the one who does not associate anything in worship with Him; the one who accepts as lawful that which He has permitted and accepts as unlawful that which He has prohibited; he obeys His commands and is certain that he will meet Him and be brought to account for his deeds.' Sa'id ibn Jubayr said: 'Fear is what stands between you and disobeying Allah.' Al-Hasan al-Basri said: 'The knowledgeable person is the one who fears ar-Rahman with regard to the unseen, who likes that which Allah wants him to like, and who shuns that which angers Allah.' The verse therefore defines the 'ulamā' not by credentials but by the depth of their khashyah (awe-fear) of Allah.
In the language
يَخْشَى (yakhshā) is from khashyah, a particular form of fear. Classical scholars distinguish khashyah from khawf: khawf is fear of harm, khashyah is fear that arises from knowing the magnitude of the One feared. Khashyah requires knowledge to exist; khawf does not. The verse uses khashyah precisely: it is the fear that scales with knowledge. The closing of the verse names two of Allah's names that bracket this khashyah: 'Aziz (Almighty, the One whose power earns the fear) and Ghafur (Forgiving, the One whose mercy keeps the fear from despair).
Why this verse
The verse defines the 'ulamā' not by credentials but by the depth of khashyah (awe-fear) of Allah. Khashyah is the fear that scales with knowledge: it requires knowledge to exist. The work of seeking knowledge is therefore the work of cultivating proper awe.
Bring it into today
After reading anything about Allah's attributes (a tafsir of one of His names, a chapter on His mercy, a discussion of His judgment), pause for thirty seconds and let the awe settle. Khashyah is built in pauses, not in volume of reading. The knowledge that does not produce a pause has not yet become the verse's 'ilm.
A reflection to carry
Ibn Kathir reports a useful classification from a classical scholar: people are of three types regarding knowledge of Allah. (1) One who knows Allah and knows His commands: he fears Him correctly and obeys Him correctly. (2) One who knows Allah but not His detailed commands: he fears Him but his obedience is incomplete. (3) One who knows the commands but does not know Allah: he obeys mechanically but does not fear. The first type is the verse's ''ulamā'.' The work of seeking knowledge is to grow into the first type: to know Allah AND to know His commands together.
Read the longer reflection
The verse 35:28 is one of the most quoted verses in the classical Islamic literature on the merit of seeking knowledge. Its precision is remarkable: it does not say 'those of His servants who fear Him are the 'ulamā''; it says 'only the 'ulamā' truly fear Him.' The implication is that without knowledge, the fear is incomplete; the soul cannot fear what it has not seen as fearsome. Each piece of knowledge about Allah's attributes (His power, His justice, His mercy, His knowledge of the unseen, His tracking of every deed) deepens the khashyah. The work of the seeker of knowledge is therefore not just intellectual; it is a project of cultivating proper awe. As you learn more about Him, you fear Him more correctly, and you love Him more fully. The combination is what the verse names as 'ilm.
Sources: Ibn Kathir. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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