Both of you have correct and important points, allow me to contribute a little here:
It is true that Islam does not encourage religious hierarchy at all and encourages people to gain knowledge themselves; however, it does not discourage the concept of having learned people either. There is nothing wrong with having ulema, as long as one does not raise them to the level of Prophets (astaghfirullah) - All ulema are humans and should be challenged on a regular basis.
I am very much and vocally in favor of people having knowledge themselves. But the fact is that the fields of Fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence and Islam in general are very, very vast - there is no way we can master them without devoting our life to them, i.e by making it our profession, which is exactly what ulema and molvis are supposed to be doing.
That is why I agree with
@niaz here, we need to have decent ulema to help us solve our problems. After all, even if we focus on individual (Islamic) education for everyone, we will still need someone to actually educate them - they won't, in most occasions, do it on their own.
BUT - What we also need is people to start challenging the mullahs and molvis who propagate wrong things in the name of Islam and rejecting them, allowing for the (relatively rare) decent ulema to actually be productive instead of being dragged into
Mullah antics.
I appreciate your analysis. I am not fundamentally disagreeing with you or Niaz Saheb for I myself see the need for modern and enlightened Islamic scholars. However, instead of leaving religious matters
solely in the hands of the so-called '
professional' Mullah (or Moulana or Mufti whatever), we should go ahead and take those matters in our own two hands. I even gave example that until few decades ago (verify with your grand parents), the role of the '
professional' mullah was very limited. In the time of Prophet (PBUH) or even in the time of
Khulafa and even after them, there was no such thing as '
professional' mullahs. There were Muslims among the rest who were more knowledgeable but that was about it. Those more knowledgeable Muslims were nothing like '
professional' Mullah or Mufti of our time. Those were ordinary professionals with relatively more knowledge about Islam either because of their circumstances or interest.
We are debating here but if I conduct a poll and the participants respond honestly, I bet my friend, 99% of participants here have not finished reading complete Quran let alone with its translation. Those who lash
Hadith left and right have not even read few chapters of
Bukhari and
Muslim let alone other
Sihah. With this level of '
knowledge' about Islam, there are only two outcomes as follows:
1. A Muslim who is only Muslim in name, otherwise has nothing to do with Islam (no prayers, no fasting, no zakat, no Hajj) and believes firmly that
this (not following any Islamic teachings/requirements)
and his Islam is the true Islam. These are the so-called liberal Muslims.
2. A Muslim who is looking towards the so-called 'professional' Mullah for guidance and buys
any and
everything from those Mullahs
as is, for this type of Muslims have no other choice. The result is narrow or closed -minded Muslims who are inclined to become fanatics.
Now, obviously both the above types are not very desirable are they? So in order to avoid that, we need to study Islam so we could repulse ideologies that are spread by the liberals (type-1) and '
professional' mullah (type-2) that go against the fundamental teachings of Islam.
Islam (or any religion for that matter) is not difficult at all. Allah is not going to judge me on how I say my prayers, with hands folded or straight, he will judge me on whether I truly wanted to say prayer, he will judge my '
niyyat' and not the deed
per se. We have got ourselves entangled in petty issues, while conveniently ignored that fundamental teachings and requirements (by its followers) of Islam. The professional Mullahs of our time are solicitors, rather pimps (in Urdu we have better words 'دلال' and 'بھڑوا'), who exploit us and our love for Islam. Unfortunately, it is we who have empowered them to exploit us because we don't want to learn religion by ourselves in the pretext that we don't have time for that (learning). In-fact, religion is not our priority; I can always find time to do things that matter me and for those that do not, I have one hundred excuses.
My parents encouraged (but never made or forced) me to study Islamic literature from very beginning. I read Quran (with translation), books of Hadith, Fiqh etc. and work of eminent Islamic scholars (such as tafseer kabeer) etc. I did all this before my matriculation and I studied in a normal public school and no Madrassah by the way. This education enabled me to rely pretty much on my own when it comes to religious matters and not on the advice or guidance of the so-called '
professional' mullah or Mufti. Even if I am in need of a piece of information, I know where to look for rather than asking some religious pimp about it and receiving twisted or doctored information.
