I was revising my anatomy to strengthen my clinical skills. I did read a few books about anatomy including the Netter’s Atlas of anatomy before. However, few things come out in my mind. How can I sustain in memorizing all the parts of the body in details? Am I required to memorize all the parts of the body to become a good doctor? My school back in Ireland is not a very well-known University for its anatomy and Medical lectures.

However, things are changing when i read Clinical Anatomy written by Prof Stanley Monkhouse. In the few pages earlier, he explained the way he write the books. He is one of the senior lecturer in Anatomy. I would like to quote few sentences from the manual and philosophy of his book;

“It is impossible to learn anatomy in great detail. This has 2 disadvantages. First, it is mind-numblingly boring, and secondly you may be lulled into false sense of security, there is much variation from person to person, and from birth to death. So a choice has to be made; it has to be recognized that some items of information are important, and some are not; lines has to be drawn between what is ‘need to know’ and what is ‘nice to know’.”

Wow, this is amazing. This is the philosophy of the key of knowledge. Many medical students nowadays, when they go to the lecture hall, they are not ready to learn. Many of them simply write and elaborate what the lecturer has been saying without further thinking on classification, dividing, defining the terms, and searching to differentiate between what is need to know and what is nice to know.

The consequences is, they might fall asleep or they go to the library and read Kumar and Clark without proper understanding and becoming more confused. As a student, now we should be able to understand the lecture, get the definition, classify and harvest the important part of the lecture and becoming Adil.

So what is Adil? Adil is putting the right things in the right place. For example, you always put your car key on the refrigerator. And because it is always there, you will know and you won’t have to recall your memory. It is just your habit without you realize it. You will only realize that if you misplace it and of course, your best friend drives your car without asking any permission.

This is the same thing apply to the knowledge. You must have the ilmu (knowledge) and also the right place to put it ( the heart). The learned scholars of Islam knows about this and they are Adil on learning. For example, we know that the opinion of the students of Imam Abu Hanifah is different from their teacher. They appreciate the knowledge given, but at the same time, they are not a spoon-fed generation. They will argue the ilmu, classify, try to understand in the proper context and put it properly inside the heart. They might argue with their teacher, but they argue in the best way. Even among the students, they have the value of agree of their disagreement as the they see differences is variation, which good for the ummah.

The second thing is the place to put the knowledge which is the heart. That is why the previous scholars are very particular of taking care of their action so that they have the best place to put their knowledge. If we can be Adil to the knowledge, that we can be a good student, who can memorize and even better, practise the knowledge into life.

As I was reading a surah from Quran, Allah talks to us about his verses that is you need to know and also the verses that is nice to know. This is what we call the clear verse (muhkamat) that is clear in terms of the meaning and also required to understand, and also the verses of Mutasyabihat, the verses that has vague meaning that can only be fully understood by Allah SWT, which is nice for us just to know it.

Furthermore, the lines of demarcation between verse muhkamat and verse mutasyabihat is relative and has different spectrum in different people. Some scholar that study Islamic sciences such as Ulum Quran and Hadith might have plenty verses that is muhkamat to him, while a lay person who has basic knowledge of Arabic language, might have more verses of mutasyabihat.

It is the duty of every muslim to try to understand the verses of Al-quran according to their level of understanding. Muslim must learn the quran, but at the same time try to reach and make ijtihad only limited to themselves. Without proper understanding and limited ijtihad, how can we expect the muslim to practise the Quran as their habits?

Anyway, thanks to Prof Monkhouse. After teaching and serving his time in medical teaching field, he now devoted fully his life as a good Christian in the monastery. Wow, he has the same appearance of Imam Ghazali, but in the medical version ;-)

Now, I can continue my study! So, guys remember, classify between what is nice to know, and what is need to know!
- imported post.. to win the world with knowledge, to win the hereafter with knowledge, to win both with knowledge too.. Knowledge is not just an information that you have to accept without process it, knowledge covers more than that... fikr.. zikr