Mutliq, member of the Board of Senior Ulema, reserved sharp words for staff and students alike in a speech at Umm Al-Qura University earlier this week. Al-Watan Arabic daily reported Monday Al-Mutliq as describing professors who pass examination papers “without even reading them” as guilty of “a breach of trust”, and students who are only in search of certificates as “insulting the university”. “These students graduate and enter the job market and they are failures. And the first thing that comes to mind is the university from where students like these graduate,” Al-Mutliq said. The sheikh said that he had seen how the learned sheikhs before him were dedicated to work and the pursuit and propagation of knowledge. “Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz used to work around the clock, even when he was in hospital, and records show that he took no holidays but spent his whole life seeking and spreading knowledge,” he said. He continued by saying that the quest for knowledge should be considered a form of worship and noted how the Qur'an praises scholars. He also said that knowledge is not limited to Shariah knowledge but includes all forms of “beneficial knowledge”. Shariah knowledge, he said, includes this world and the hereafter, while the other sciences serve civilization and are also a beneficial form of knowledge. Al-Mutliq concluded by expounding on the importance of planning ahead for successful work practices in the long-term, and praised Umm Al-Qura University's efforts to set up a Center for Academic Accreditation of the Arabic Language and Shariah Sciences. “This is as it should be, for we have a leading and pioneering role in Arabic and Islamic sciences,” Al-Mutliq said. “Universities and seekers of knowledge should turn to us and Umm Al-Qura University, the Islamic University and the Imam Muhammad Bin Saud University for accreditation in those sciences.”
