The answer is too obvious, for those who know the real one, and to know the real one it is assumed that they know what knowledge is. But misconceptions about knowledge are so rampant today, and one of those misconceptions is the belief that ‘knowledge’ is actually just an ‘opinion’. In other words, there is no difference between a person who claims to have knowledge of something, and the other who has an opinion of it.
This, we said, is a misconception, and it has a huge implication. When the difference between knowledge and opinion is not recognized, how would one know the difference between the knowledgable and the ignorant? Anybody may have an opinion of something, but not everybody has knowledge about it. An opinion might turn out to be true or false, whereas knowledge must always be true.
So, we must realize that the question above betrays a deep-seated ignorance and misconception of something that is very important. It also betrays the failure of the kind of education that has produced such a person.
So what? One might retort. Well, if one cannot tell the difference between the knowledgeable from the ignorant, to whom would he give the trust of leadership? Nobody who is in the right state of mind would knowingly allow an ignorant to take care of his interests on his behalf. So, if an ignorant somehow happens to rise to the rank of leadership, it must have happened either by the means of brute force, or by deception, not by rational choice.
Rational choice dictates that the best person be the leader. But we all know that most of the time that is not the case. People could be made to believe that a person is qualified to lead, while in reality he is not. And when that happens we must say that they have been deceived.
The question of false ulama is raised because the majority of the Muslims, including their leaders, have been deceived into believing that they are the real ones. And for the mass deception to happen, they must have been trained in such a way that the false are believed to be true and, hence, allowed to thrive. This is what, al-Ghazali thought, was happening in the society of his time. He believed that they had been misled by the false ulama, into believing in ‘false knowledge’ and ignoring ‘the real one’. Only when ‘false knowledge’ is believed to be ‘true knowledge’, ‘false ulama’ will be accepted as ‘true ulama’; there is no other explanation.
So al-Ghazali was talking about the misconception of knowledge, in particular of religious knowledge. During his time, the fuqaha (sing. faqih: the jurist) are generally considered the learned or the ulama, and because of that, Islamic law (known as fiqh) became a very popular science, and at the expence of other religious sciences. This, according to al-Ghazali, is caused by the distortion of the true meaning of fiqh, which originally means the knowledge of religion that brings about the genuine fear of God. This distortion happened when the meaning of fiqh gradually became restricted to Islamic law, and further on restricted to trivial rulings.
When the fuqaha (who are actually the jurists) came to be known as the ulama, and they began to assume the leadership of the society, the confusion became widespread and more systematic. Now the whole education system would be built upon the wrong conception of knowledge.
This is precisely what is happening today, and hence the never-ending bickering regarding the true and false ulama. The bickering goes on because the Muslims, including the learned among them, still do not really understand the root cause of their problem, namely the problem of knowledge. So the problem is left unattended, and it is getting worse day by day, while they are busy with politics.
What we mean by the problem of knowledge here is the confusion and error in knowledge. It does not mean knowledge as against ignorance, but knowledge that is wrongly conceived, leading to confusion and error, instead of clarity, truth and certainty.
What need to be understood properly is the nature and purpose of knowledge, because that understanding is the key to knowing the real place of a particular science, and its position in relation to other sciences. Without this understanding it is not possible to have a proper system of education. Al-Ghazali pointed out to us how the science of Islamic law became blameworthy just because it is sought by the student without realizing the higher purpose of knowing. As a result, it has been sought beyond its useful limit, and worse, at the expense of other more important sciences that are needed for the realization of one’s purpose of existence.
Today the problem is getting even more complicated due to the widespread influence of western education, which is based upon a secular conception of man and knowledge. Hence, there is a greater need now to clarify the fundamental difference between Islam and the West with regard to the nature and purpose of knowledge. The false ulama would not be able to do that because knowledge is not their preoccupation. They are too busy with what they are trained for: politics and power.