Judgement and Knowledge

Yūsuf grew up in the house of al-ʿAzīz.

And when Yūsuf reached his full manhood, We gave him wisdom and knowledge; thus do We reward those who do good. Ḥukm and ʿilm: ḥukm is judgement, and ʿilm is knowledge. Why did Allah (swt) not say ḥukm alone, or ʿilm alone? Because these are two different things — good judgement, and knowledge — and Allah gave Yūsuf both.

Had Allah (swt) said only that He gave him knowledge, knowledge could mean that you have memorised a great deal of Qur'an and know a great many hadith. But if you do not process that information well — if you do not have good judgement — you cannot really do much with it. And we find people who have a great deal of knowledge but are limited in their ability to benefit from it and to make use of it.

Good judgement — ḥukm — is the ability to judge events: the correct estimation and assessment of things. You look at something, and you have wisdom in how you assess that event, how you analyse it, how you deal with it and how you act on it. That is a skill, and knowledge is something else. Put the two together and you have the complete personality: good judgement and knowledge together. That is something Allah (swt) gave the prophets. It is fahm, understanding in the dīn.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: rubba ḥāmili fiqhin ilā man huwa afqahu minh — the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is telling us that you may be carrying fiqh, delivering fiqh, to someone who understands it better than you do.