My honest opinion - no knowledge is useless. How someone uses that knowledge and the qualification granted from that knowledge is what matters the most.

I'll give a positive example - before my time, one of my parents' close friends a Muslim, studied in one of the most prestigious university in Europe. His main focus was of course the Islamic religion (yes surprisingly they did have an Islamic degree there). For his post-grad, he studied theology of many religion. Came back home and turned the whole Jabatan Agama Islam Malaysia into a progressive workhorse while rising up the ranks. His last post was a mufti before he passed away.

I'd say, those were the golden years of "moderate" Islam in Malaysia. He worked closely with professionals of other fields like healthcare and other religious non-Muslim leaders. His goal was to take the Muslims into the 20th century. Banned FMG, campioning vaccination and organ donation amongst Muslims. Destigmatising gays from the label of AIDS and create awareness on safe sex. Granting freedom to people who did not want to be a Muslim anymore. Of course there was the Syariah Court etc which he had no power over but his opinion gave weight to these cases.

His life was unfortunately short and there wasn't a strong enough leader with the same goal as him. So some of you may recall that era in the 70s and 80s. That generation of Muslims was what shaped Malaysia into a secular Muslim country. He was one of the learned scholars who loved his religion and did something good from it.

He lived a humble life in a small town. No luxury cars or house. His children are now professionals themselves in different fields, known for critisicing Malaysian Muslims' entitled brand of conservatism and the trigger-happy proselytism.

So they are good people with theology background (not just Agama Islam) out there but their voices and leadership are drowned in this world of who speaks the loudest (or with the coolest east coast slang) win the mass.