Intentions of Seeking Knowledge

Youth of today often misunderstood the true meaning of seeking knowledge. Students of universities, colleges, high schools or even elementary schools have this weird trend of seeking knowledge, in which is very common and normal to the people of the world today. The truth is, we seek knowledge for the sake of exams and high marks. There's no denial. There's no buts. There's no justifying this concrete fact. It does not matter how you put it or how you wanna say it. Its always gonna be about straight As. The means of seeking knowledge is by studying so so hard until you get to the very end, which is the marks on your piece of transcript.

The prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) said: “The son of Adam will not pass away from Allah until he is asked about five things: how he lived his life, and how he utilized his youth, with what means did he earn his wealth, how did he spend his wealth, and what did he do with his knowledge.” [Imam At-Tirmithi]

The vast and competitive world of today may not let us escape of having to seek knowledge just for the sake of achieving high marks. You may not have the power to solely seeking knowledge of Engineering, Economics, Law, etc. just for the sake of Allah SWT because the way we are structured in the system of today's education is that, we tend to gain more in self-study or lectures just for the sake of doing good in exams. Seeking knowledge is no longer the ends that we are looking for. Its just the means to an end. Or I should say; seeking knowledge is just a medium that is applied to gain a result. There's no joy in it. There's no fun in it. There's no passion in it. People would just use it as a tool, and throw it away afterwards. Let is slide. Keep 'em comin. But there's aint gonna be any of these later on. Because we are subjugated by these education system that takes us in. It influence us to become the 'nurture of knowledge' for the sake of Dunya and we may not conceive the truth of those knowledge that we comprehend. Heck, we may even never knew what we ever learn from Year 1 if the intentions of seeking knowledge was just about passing exams.

I would say that the hikmah of all this is that we are being tested. A challenge from Allah to any person that declares himself as a Muslim to have the true intentions of seeking knowledge. Seek knowledge of the dunya because of Allah, and reset your mind. Try to achieve something from what we are seeking. Try finding the signs of God through the science of the dunya. Learn the truth of Allah through His creations and phenomenons of the earth. I shall leave you with this famous hadith:

On the authority of Omar bin Al-Khattab, who said : I heared the messenger of Allah salla Allah u alihi wa sallam say :
"Actions are but by intention and every man shall have but that which he intended. Thus he whose migration was for Allah and His messenger, his migration was for Allah and His messenger, and he whose migration was to achieve some worldly benefit or to take some woman in marriage, his migration was for that for which he migrated." [Bukhari and Muslim]