Seeking knowledge in order to teach people and not for the purpose of showing off

It is known from the evidence of sharee’ah that seeking knowledge
and seeking to understand the religion is one of the best acts of worship
and obedience. The same is true of studying the Qur’aan and trying to
recite it a lot and to memorize it or as much as one can. All of these
are among the best acts of worship. If you do what you should of teaching
the people of your village, guiding them, leading them – the young men
and others – in prayer, all of these are good deeds which will be appreciated
and for which you will be rewarded. This is not showing off and it is
not shirk, if your
aim is to seek the pleasure of Allaah and the Hereafter, and you are
not doing it to show off to people and earn their praise, but to help
them and increase their knowledge and understanding of their religion.
That could be minor shirk
only if you did it to show off to people or to earn their praise. The
Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) said, “The thing that I fear most for you is minor
shirk.” He was asked
what that was, and he said, “Showing off.” “When a man stands up to
pray and he makes his prayer beautiful because he thinks that the people
are looking at him.” On the Day of Resurrection, Allaah will say to
those who show off, “Go to those for whom you used to show off in the
world, and see whether you find any reward with them.” Showing off means
that you do something with the aim of people seeing you and praising
you; reputation is a part of that. For example, if you read Qur’aan
so that people will praise you and say, “He is a good reader” or “He
reads well”; or you do a lot of dhikr
so that they will praise you and say, “He does a lot of dhikr”;
or you enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil so that people will
praise you. This is showing off, and this is minor shirk.
It is essential to beware of that and to do what you do for the sake
of Allaah alone, not for the sake of showing off to people and earning
their praise. But you should learn in order to act upon that knowledge
and to teach your brothers and lead them in prayer, and hope for the
reward that is with Allaah. You should do that with the aim of helping
them, not for the purposes of showing off or enhancing your reputation.
If you read from the Mus-haf
there is nothing wrong with that if you lead your brothers in prayer
reading from the Mus-haf
in Ramadaan. The freed slave of ‘Aa’ishah (may Allaah be pleased with
her) used to lead her in prayer reading from the Mus-haf.
So it is OK to read from the Mus-haf
when praying at night in Ramadaan if you have not memorized it, but
if one has learned it by heart and can recite it from memory, that is
better, but there is nothing wrong with reading from the Mus-haf
if necessary.