Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen was asked:

Question:

A beginner student of knowledge finds difficulty in memorizing, so what is your advice about this?

Answer:

“I see that a beginner student of knowledge should be eager to memorize the matoon [summarized texts] because it is as it is said: the young one does not forget. Memorizing the matoon is knowledge. Do not consider the statement of the one who says: “knowledge is understanding”. This is wrong. Allah, the Exalted did not benefit us except by what we memorized from before when we were young. We fetch expressions/phrases we memorized from long ago. Like that, you find those who rely purely on understanding that they do not have knowledge. This is because they did not establish themselves upon anything”

Translated by

Faisal Ibn Abdul Qaadir Ibn Hassan
Abu Sulaymaan