A “Claim of Divinity”: a Hafiz about His Pupils

Question

A certain hafiz “claims divinity”: he says that the boys of this place can never learn, “and if they do, bury me alive.” From this it plainly follows that this man knows the unseen, whereas no one has knowledge of the unseen except Allah. What is the ruling on such a person?

Answer

When the boys have no eagerness to learn and the parents have no desire to have them taught, all the teacher’s labour goes to waste. If the teacher, exasperated by this, says, “The boys of this place can never learn,” that is neither a claim of divinity nor a claim of knowledge of the unseen; rather, an opinion is formed from a general estimate of the situation.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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