Al-Kitabah
Definition
Al-kitabah — writing — is the skill traditionally attributed to Idris as the first human to write with a pen. This attribution connects him to the Quranic emphasis on the pen as a supreme instrument of knowledge: the first words revealed to the Prophet ﷺ were 'Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous — Who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know.' For Ibn Kathir, Idris's association with the origin of writing positions him as the symbolic patriarch of all human learning, record-keeping, and the transmission of knowledge across generations — making his role in the prophetic chain not only spiritual but civilizational.
As understood in the classical tradition of Ibn Kathir and the scholars of his school.
How the scholars use Al-Kitabah.
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"God protected and preserved, and all lands of Islam and its people, ameen. He said, Some jurists told me that the Shaykh wrote the book, Nihayat al-Muhtalib, and I had a habit of writing known pages at night. One night I was writing, I looked at the lamp and found its oil insufficient to complete the task. I was writing and became distracted, forgetting my supplication until I completed the task and counted the pages."
— Imam al-Nawawī, The Garden of the Gnostics
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"Disliked actions include frivolity and games that are not forbidden, and writing things with no benefit in this world or the hereafter. Recommended actions include writing anything beneficial for religion or useful to a مُسْلِم, helping with one's hand by assisting a craftsman, making something for someone unskilled, pouring water from one's bucket into another's, carrying someone on one's mount, holding it for them to mount, or assisting them with what they need."
— Ibn al-Qayyim, Volume One
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"These individuals spent their entire lives on the minutiae of grammar, the craft of poetry, and rare linguistic details. Their example is like one who spends their entire life learning calligraphy, perfecting letters, and claiming that knowledge can only be preserved through writing. Had they been wise, they would have realized that it’s enough to learn the basics of writing, enabling one to read regardless of form, and the rest is surplus."
— Imam al-Ghazali, Book 30: The Condemnation of Self-Delusion
Appears in
1 book in the library
Hear the term in context.
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