Seeking knowledge in order to teach people and not for the purpose of showing off
Question

                If a person learns one of the branches of religious knowledge in order to play his role in the village where he lives, and he memorizes Qur’aan in order to lead the young men in praying at night in Ramadaan, will that be a kind of minor shirk (al-shirk al-asghar)?
Praise be to Allah.It is known from the evidence of sharee’ah that seeking knowledge 
          and seeking to understand the religion is one of the best acts of worship 
          and obedience. The same is true of studying the Qur’aan and trying to 
          recite it a lot and to memorize it or as much as one can. All of these 
          are among the best acts of worship. If you do what you should of teaching 
          the people of your village, guiding them, leading them – the young men 
          and others – in prayer, all of these are good deeds which will be appreciated 
          and for which you will be rewarded. This is not showing off and it is 
          not shirk, if your 
          aim is to seek the pleasure of Allaah and the Hereafter, and you are 
          not doing it to show off to people and earn their praise, but to help 
          them and increase their knowledge and understanding of their religion. 
          That could be minor shirk 
          only if you did it to show off to people or to earn their praise. The 
          Prophet  (peace and blessings of 
          Allaah be upon him) said, “The thing that I fear most for you is minor 
          shirk.” He was asked 
          what that was, and he said, “Showing off.” “When a man stands up to 
          pray and he makes his prayer beautiful because he thinks that the people 
          are looking at him.” On the Day of Resurrection, Allaah will say to 
          those who show off, “Go to those for whom you used to show off in the 
          world, and see whether you find any reward with them.” Showing off means 
          that you do something with the aim of people seeing you and praising 
          you; reputation is a part of that. For example, if you read Qur’aan 
          so that people will praise you and say, “He is a good reader” or “He 
          reads well”; or you do a lot of dhikr 
          so that they will praise you and say, “He does a lot of dhikr”; 
          or you enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil so that people will 
          praise you. This is showing off, and this is minor shirk. 
          It is essential to beware of that and to do what you do for the sake 
          of Allaah alone, not for the sake of showing off to people and earning 
          their praise. But you should learn in order to act upon that knowledge 
          and to teach your brothers and lead them in prayer, and hope for the 
          reward that is with Allaah. You should do that with the aim of helping 
          them, not for the purposes of showing off or enhancing your reputation. 
          If you read from the Mus-haf 
          there is nothing wrong with that if you lead your brothers in prayer 
          reading from the Mus-haf 
          in Ramadaan. The freed slave of ‘Aa’ishah (may Allaah be pleased with 
          her) used to lead her in prayer reading from the Mus-haf. 
          So it is OK to read from the Mus-haf 
          when praying at night in Ramadaan if you have not memorized it, but 
          if one has learned it by heart and can recite it from memory, that is 
          better, but there is nothing wrong with reading from the Mus-haf 
          if necessary.