"I Will Not Stop, Even If It Takes Years" — A Prophet Who Went Looking for a Teacher
Musa (peace be upon him) was once asked whether he was the most knowledgeable person on earth, and he answered yes. Allah corrected him — there was a servant of His, at the junction of two seas, who knew something Musa didn't. Musa's response wasn't pride or dismissal. He set out immediately: "La abrahu hatta ablugha majma'al-bahrayni aw amdiya huqba" — "I will not cease [traveling] until I reach the junction of the two seas, or I will continue for a long time" (18:60). A prophet, already spoken to directly by Allah, willing to travel for years to sit and learn from someone else.
What "'ilm" actually covers
The Arabic word 'ilm is usually translated as "knowledge," but its scope in Islamic tradition is wider than that single word suggests. It includes understanding the Quran, studying hadith and applying the Sunnah, learning the Arabic needed to access these sources directly, and pursuing beneficial knowledge of the world — medicine, science, anything that genuinely serves people. The Quran asks directly: "Qul hal yastawil-ladhina ya'lamuna wal-ladhina la ya'lamun" — "Say: Are those who know equal to those who do not know?" (39:9). The contrast drawn is between knowledge and ignorance broadly, not narrowly between religious and worldly learning.
The first word ever revealed
When the Quran began, its opening word wasn't a command to pray, fast, or give charity. It was a single instruction: "Iqra" — "Read" (96:1). Before any ritual obligation was laid out, the very first thing Allah asked of His final Prophet ﷺ was to read, to learn, to receive knowledge. The root letters of 'ilm appear across the Quran hundreds of times — a frequency scholars have long pointed to as evidence of exactly how central this idea is to the entire message.
A rank raised, degree by degree
The Quran describes a direct spiritual elevation tied to knowledge. In Surah Al-Mujadila: "Yarfa'illahul-ladhina amanu minkum wal-ladhina utul-'ilma darajat" — "Allah will raise those who have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees" (58:11). Belief alone is named, and then knowledge is named again, separately, as its own path to elevation — not a replacement for faith, but a distinct and additional cause for rank.
A dua for more, not enough
The Prophet ﷺ was instructed to keep asking for increase, never to consider his knowledge complete. The Quran records the exact words: "Wa qul rabbi zidni 'ilma" — "And say: My Lord, increase me in knowledge" (20:114). This is one of the few duas the Quran hands a person verbatim, and it asks for something that, by definition, never runs out — there is no verse anywhere telling a believer they've learned enough.
A companion of the road, wherever it leads
What Musa's journey shows most clearly is that seeking knowledge was never meant to be passive. He didn't wait for the knowledge to come to him. He committed to years of travel, uncertain exactly where the destination was, on nothing more than Allah's word that someone there knew something worth learning. The willingness to go that far — for a prophet who could have reasonably assumed he already knew enough — sets the standard for what genuine pursuit of 'ilm actually looks like.
Read the full story of Musa and Al-Khidr
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