Counsels to the students of knowledge
The Eighth Counsel (O Student of Knowledge) is:
الحرص على التعبد لله
DEVOTION TO WORSHIP OF ALLAAH
As an obligation, you must have a devotion by the Qur’an which you preserve and never misses out on, and are consistent with, and you should also have devotions from different kinds of worships, from night prayers, from being persistent with voluntary prayers, and never to break the practice except if you fall sick or for other excuses deemed appropriate by the Shari'a
And let the basis with you be consistency with your adhkaar (devotional remembrance), the morning adhkaar and the evening adhkaar, and consistency with you devotion by the Qur’an, and consistency with your devotion with the night prayer, and not to make your knowledge be just plain knowledge without devotion; because if that is the case you will find an emptiness within your soul, and your learning knowledge without engaging in worship is a crooked course.
Just as the one who worships without knowledge is erring, the one who go through proper learning but does not become a worshipper is also erring.
As for what is connected to obligatory matters like the five daily prayers and what is similar to them, the student of knowledge is the most distant of people from toiling with them, and as a result of this concentrate on the voluntary prayers; because they are the aspect in which some students of knowledge have fall short, but as for the five obligatory prayers then we seek refuge with Allah for every student of knowledge from having with them any form of negligence in them (the prayers), whether in observing them with the congregation or in observing them at their prescribed periods, for in this affair the student of knowledge is the forerunner in educating and exhorting (the people) and at the forefront in keenness towards observing them in the manner pleasing to Allah the one from whom blessing is sought, the exalted.
Al-Wasaayaa Litulaabil Ilm (21 - 22) — Ash-Shaykh Dr. Abdullah bin Abdul'Azeez Al-‘Anqariy
