Two kind of "Ustaz"
There are two kind of ustaz. The first one is a
teller. With his qualification and knowledge, he can tell the others
everything that he knows. He can cite any Surah, he can refer to any
hadith. He remember all of them. And of course, he can tell the previous
religious scholar's legal opinion (fatwa). But, that is how far he can
go.
The second one is a thinker. He basically have everything that the
first ustaz have. But, he is a thinker. He is able to differentiate
between the TEXT and CONTEXT. He also able to relate between the hadith
and surah in order to come up with a new legal opinion, relevance to the
current community.
But yes, there is another parameter that
we should consider before deciding whether he is a good ustaz or not.
His political view. Simple, if he is biased, then he is not a good
ustaz. Unless, he is willing to critics his own party if his party did
something wrong.
I like to quote Tariq Ramadan in Islamic Reform forum before :
"If you come and you work for government, and if you come with a
specific question, ask your intention. Who do you want to please?
Because some governments...as it was said, I haven't seen a government
giving money - not only in the West, but in Muslim majority countries -
when they give money, they *[37] have a specific intention.
So it's a very important point here. So this is why we should never have
scholars today working for specific governments. Here, or there. Never.
"
