ATLANTA based scholar and descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, Shaikh Muhammad ibn Yahya Ninowy, visited the Azzawia in Cape Town for an evening of dhikr. In a brief talk the Shaikh said that the phrase “al-adab miftah ul-‘ilm” (good conduct is the key to knowledge) was not just a statute, or a construct. It meant that a person had to have etiquette in everything – one’s relationship with other people, one’s relationship to one’s worship, one’s relationship with one’s Creator. Without this context, the application of the axiom was meaningless.
