Religious illiteracy

"Religious illiteracy" - a new term that I learned today in a video by Dr. Afifi Al-Akiti... It was used by him to describe Muslims who only practices the fardhu ain part of Islam without pursuing the knowledge part of Islam... 

I am not going into detail on this topic, just that this term actually stimulate me to comment on the a popular thing that is going on especially in facebook and the internet... 

Many people nowadays like to write their own short articles on Islam... This is a commendable act of da'wah only IF the articles are actually based on Islam itself... 

Sadly, quite a large number of these da'wah messages are written without being based on Islamic texts or scholars...

• Some people share with other people hadiths without knowing the status of the hadith...
• Some people post hadiths which are indeed sahih but added their own comments which are not exactly the interpretation of the hadiths but rather their own opinion...
• Some people use a particular Islamic text and from there, they make their own analogy (qiyas) of any hukum...
• Some people based their messages on their thinking and emotion instead of being based on the proper Islamic sources...

These are just few of the examples of religious illiteracy that I can think of... It is disheartening to read these misinterpretation of Islam by Muslim themselves... 

What makes it even worse is that chains of people like to share these "knowledge" with their other friends which actually disseminate these wrong information, and further worsening the religious illiteracy of our community...

I am not going to point out any specific examples on any issues, just that I hope people who want to share their knowledge should verify the knowledge first before disseminating them, just so that you will not be a part of people who convey the wrong information...

Foot note:

I know not all people actually post this kind of information, a larger number of people share good and reliable information on Islam on the net, which is a good reminder to fellow Muslims... These people convey information which they received from verified sources... For this group of people keep up the good work...