How to Arrange Your Studies of Islamic Sciences

Every student of knowledge faces the same questions sooner or later: where do I begin? What do I study next? And how deeply do I need to go? This seminar addresses those questions directly, drawing on the classical wisdom of Imam Sajuqlizadah’s Tartīb al-ʿulūm.

Sajuqlizadah lays out a carefully reasoned sequence for acquiring the Islamic sciences — one that begins with the obligations of faith and Quran before advancing through grammar, logic, jurisprudence, theology, and the hadith sciences. He is equally clear about depth: drawing on al-Ghazālī, he distinguishes three levels of mastery in every discipline — limited, moderate, and thorough — and specifies what each one looks like in practice. The seminar also tackles a question that is rarely asked honestly: what does it actually mean to be a "complete" scholar? Sajuqlizadah's answer is searching and unsparing, and speaks directly to the credential culture of any era.

Taught by Dr Talal Al-Azem, a teacher and researcher specialising in fiqh, Islamic education, and formations of the self in Islam, this seminar offers students of knowledge a principled framework for structuring their learning — one that is rooted in the tradition and immediately applicable to their own path.

1. Understand the correct sequence for acquiring the Islamic and instrumental sciences as prescribed by Imam Sajuqlizadah: beginning with faith and Quran, progressing through grammar, logic, and jurisprudence, and culminating in hadith and tafsīr.
2. Identify the three levels of mastery — limited, moderate, and thorough — for each discipline, and understand how to apply al-Ghazālī's framework practically to one's own course of study.
3. Appreciate why the individual religious obligations (farḍ ʿayn) must take precedence over all instrumental sciences, and why neglecting them is a grave error even for advanced students.
4. Understand what true "completeness" in Islamic learning means, and distinguish genuine mastery from superficial credentialling — a problem Sajuqlizadah diagnoses sharply in his own era and for ours.
5. Gain a practical classical framework for structuring a lifelong curriculum of sacred learning, grounded in over a millennium of scholarly wisdom about the proper ordering of the sciences.

1. Age group: Adults (18+)
2. Target demographic: Students of Islamic knowledge at any stage — from beginners wondering where to start, to advanced students seeking to evaluate and order their studies. Also valuable for teachers, scholars, and academics in Islamic studies.
3. Interest types: Islamic education and pedagogy, fiqh, hadith, Quranic sciences, theology (kalām), Islamic intellectual history, personal development and the ethics of knowledge-seeking.

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Host or Publisher SeekersGuidance: The Global Islamic Seminary