The Devils Deception by Imam Ibn AL-Jawzi

Chapter Eleven: The Devil's Deception of the $iijis
ney to Makkah. But later, I regretted doing so more than getting rid
of all of my wealth."
It has already been stated how knowledge is light, and how the
lblis persuades a man to extinguish the light in order that he, the
devil, may get the man into his power in the darkness, there being no
darkness like ignorance. Iblis, fearing that these people might go back
to reading their books, how they might obtain insight into his deceptions,
persuaded them to bury or destroy them. It is indeed a
wicked and illicit action, involving ignorance of the purpose of books.
The explanation of this is that knowledge is the Qur'an and the
Sunnah; the the Shan ... ah, being aware that memorising there is difficult,
has ordered the writing of the Qur'an and of the l,l.adith.
With regard to the Qur'an, when ever a verse was revealed to the
Messenger (), he used to ask the scribes to document it on palmbranches,
stones, and shoulder-bones. Afterwards, the Qur'an was
collected into the form of a book by Abii Bakr (rat/!JAl/tihu 'anhu),
with the view of preserving it. And so did 'Uthman (rat/iyAl/tihu 'anhu)
and the rest of Companions. All of this was done to preserve the
Qur'an.
With regard to the Sunnah: at the commencement of Islam, the
Prophet () restricted people to the Qur'an, saying: "Write nothing
you hear from me except the Qur'an."247
Only when l,l.adiths multiplied, and he saw people's inaccuracy, he
gave permission for them to be written down. It is recorded that
Abii Hurayrah (rat/!yA//tihu 'anhu) used to complain of forgetting many
of the hadiths of the Prophet (). One day the Prophet () said:
"Whoever spreads his upper garment till I finish my speech and
247 Muslim #3004.
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