Perpetual praises are due to Allah, Who designated wisdom as the ‘great good’;¹ endless salutations are in order upon His holy prophets, who by the graces of his Eminence, the Seal of Prophethood, Muḥammad (ṣ), incessantly kept the house of wisdom open; boundless benedictions are owing upon the Immaculate Family (‘a)—especially his Eminence, the Seal of Sainthood, the extant and promised Mahdī—who were and are the conduits of knowledge and wisdom amongst humanity; we wish to near ourselves in friendship to these sacred souls and distance ourselves from their nefarious foes.

The tradition of knowledge and learning in Islam is primarily an oral tradition.² All knowledge, ‘ilm, pertains to Allah—al-‘Alīm—Who taught man what he did not know.³ He taught the first man and His khalīfah the Names, all of them,⁴ just as he taught the greatest and most perfect of men (ṣ) the Qur’ān.⁵ The most noble Prophet (ṣ), in his turn and by his right, taught his companions in general and his waṣī or trustee in particular.⁶ They in their turn taught their companions and students. In this way, by a continuous unbroken chain of teachers and students, something of the knowledge taught by Allah and His prophets and immaculate guides (‘a) has come down to us today as an invaluable heritage.⁷ This great heritage is inherited by those who recognize these authentic unbroken channels and who make the efforts to be connected with them in a real way.⁸ The Ḥawzah ‘Ilmiyyah is the traditional institute in which such connections are made and true knowledge acquired. The Six-Month Primer Course in Traditional Islamic Sciences seeks to introduce this luminous tradition of knowledge and learning to those who are seriously in search of it and are willing to commit a number of months within their busy schedule for this purpose. The content and methodology of the Course consists of the introductory year of the formal program of the Ḥawzah. The presence of teachers, who themselves have been and continue to be students of the Ḥawzah, will seek to initiate the participants into the fuller and more substantial aspects of the luminous and living tradition of Islamic knowledge and wisdom.

¹Qur’ān, 2:269.

²قَالَ النَّبِيُّ ص خُذُوا الْعِلْمَ مِنْ أَفْوَاهِ الرِّجَالِ

³Qur’ān, 96:5.
⁴Qur’ān, 2:31.
⁵Qur’ān, 55:2; 53:4-5.
⁶Qur’ān, 2:129,151; 3:164; 62:2.

⁷عن امام مُوسَى بْنُ جَعْفَرٍ ع قال يَا هِشَام‏ لَا عِلْمَ إِلَّا مِنْ عَالِمٍ رَبَّانِيٍّ

⁸أَمِيرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَقُولُ أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ اعْلَمُوا أَنَّ كَمَالَ الدِّينِ طَلَبُ الْعِلْمِ وَ الْعَمَلُ بِهِ أَلَا وَ إِنَّ طَلَبَ الْعِلْمِ أَوْجَبُ عَلَيْكُمْ مِنْ طَلَبِ الْمَالِ إِنَّ الْمَالَ مَقْسُومٌ مَضْمُونٌ لَكُمْ قَدْ قَسَمَهُ عَادِلٌ بَيْنَكُمْ وَ ضَمِنَهُ وَ سَيَفِي لَكُمْ وَ الْعِلْمُ مَخْزُونٌ عِنْدَ أَهْلِهِ وَ قَدْ أُمِرْتُمْ بِطَلَبِهِ مِنْ أَهْلِهِ فَاطْلُبُوهُ