Muslim Youth And Modern Educational Challenges
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Muslim Youth And Modern Educational Challenges
A science without an end has no merit in Islam, and so a knowledge. The Islamic approach toward the cultivation of knowledge has always been holistic and integrated.
By Junaid Ahmad - July 7, 2018 4
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Islam is not based on ignorance and illiteracy. This is why a believer is constantly asked to seek knowledge. To demonstrate the importance of knowledge in Islam, it is pertinent to mention that the very first verse which was revealed came down with the order to read. Similarly, the saying of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) that the seeking of knowledge is an incumbent duty on every Muslim puts more stress on the importance of knowledge. It was due to such emphasis on knowledge that a very strong zeal among Muslims was found to seek it, and hence we see that the mosques were great centers of learning, and remained the main centers of learning for centuries.
The inspiration and the morality given by Islam for the acquisition, dissemination, and advancement of knowledge is now universally recognized. History is a witness to the fact that Muslim philosophical thought and scientific knowledge in its golden period was a moral and religious base. The first five centuries of the present hijri era, i.e. , from the eight to twelfth century A.C., is considered a period of Islamic glory. It was a period of phenomenal rise and remarkable achievements in Muslim thinking and understanding. During this period, Muslims developed a great thirst for learning, a craving the like of which had not been known in the history before. Islamic civilization reached its zenith and Muslims became world leaders in many spheres of knowledge. These successes were largely due to the tremendous ideological motivation provided by Islam.
The greatness of Muslim scholars in the golden era lies in developing the disciplines and establishing the relevance of Islam and its values to each discipline. They contributed greatly in all fields and they utilized the new knowledge efficiently to their advantage. When Muslims went into decline and slumber, demoralized and repulsed from the political scene, non-Muslims came to occupy the vacuum left by Muslims, and gradually with their clear vision, unwavering spirit and determination, they became undisputed masters of all the disciplines.
Defeats and tragedies inflicted upon the Muslim world in the last two centuries, prompted great Muslim leaders in Turkey and Egypt to launch an Islamic revival movement, with the sole objective to re-establish the political, economic and military authority of Muslims. These attempts were made by westernizing the Ummah, which was bound to fail. In Turkey, it paved the way for Mustafa Kamal Ataturk to abolish all Islamic institutions and to reject every traditional Islamic principle affecting public life. Today, after two generations, Turkey has not been able to achieve any substantial gain in any aspects and is just as weak as other Muslim countries. In Egypt, where Westernization was pursued with less consistency, a Western system was implemented alongside the traditional Islamic system. The two systems competed with each other; and, despite the wholehearted support from the West, both failed to achieve anything valuable, rather, this competition resulted in weakening both as well as the Ummah.
On the educational front, some prominent Muslims attempted to reform educational system by modernization of Muslim community with an ultimate objective of improving their economic prosperity. Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Abduh were two prominent names who emerged as champions of this cause. Their strategic plan was converted into action by bringing modern universities into existence. Their efforts, however, did not yield the desired results due to the simple reason that their belief rest on the assumption that the so-called modern subjects are harmless and can only contribute to strength of Muslims. What they failed to realize is that the modern social sciences, namely economics, political science, sociology, psychology, etc., are the products of Western culture and society. They can flourish and perform a problem solving function effectively only in a Western environment and secular economic framework. They cannot be equally effective in an Islamic framework because the basic assumptions of the two systems are different. That is why their reforms bore no fruit. On one hand, the stagnant quality of Islamic learning was left untouched. On the other, the added “new” learning never produced any excellence such as it produced in its own homelands.
Over the years the Islamic clergies founded a number of Islamic institutions with hundreds of branches in India aimed to equip Muslim youth adequately with knowledge of Islam and its related sciences from the total Islamic perspective. Ideologically these institutions were opposed to the Western liberal education as propagated by liberal thinkers, and therefore, these theological seminaries did not introduce any modern system of education in their curricula. The leadership of this movement was obsessed to build up a future worthy of Islamic traditions hence; they did not wish to create any environment for encouraging their students towards acquisition of modern knowledge.
Consequently, the institutions, namely, “traditional Islamic institutions” and “modern liberal universities” typically produced two types of scholars. First, the traditional ‘ulema’ well versed in Islamic History, Islamic Law, and Islamic Jurisprudence (fiqh), mastered the Quran and the Sunnah and indeed regarded the authorities in early Islamic scholarship with very little knowledge of modern philosophy and science. Second, the scholars who have been educated in the Western system of education have good knowledge of the modern social or natural sciences. However, their knowledge of Islam is restricted to prayers, fasting, and various rituals for different occasions. There are very few Muslim scholars at home with the knowledge of Islam equally with the knowledge of modern social natural sciences.
Today, we see strong urge on the front of Muslim youth to acquire the modern knowledge. Everywhere, the race is on at maddening speed toward completing the Western educational model. In an attempt to catch up, parents have been eagerly sending their students abroad where they are severely subjected to endless challenges. In the universities of the Muslim world, non-Muslim books, achievements, worldview, problems and ideals are currently being taught to Muslim youths. Muslim students enter the university with very little understanding of Islam they acquired at home or in elementary or secondary school or virtually no knowledge at all. The youth in the universities confronts alien ideologies presented to him in textbook or classroom and find themselves ill-equipped with counter-presentation of Islamic understanding which naturally leads them to become suspicious of the majority of the guardians of the legacy, the ulama’. In addition, due to inadequate knowledge of Islam and its theology, most of the modern Muslim scholars trained in a Western system of education are not capable to handle, problems rationally in an Islamic framework.
Today Muslim youth is passing through a critical time. Everything Islamic is challenged and attacked; the perfection of the Qur’anic text, the veracity of the Sunnah, the comprehensiveness of the Shari’ah, and the glories of Muslim achievements with an aim to inject doubt into the Muslim’s confidence in himself, in his Ummah, and in his faith and ancestors. Due to lack of spiritual stamina necessary for resistance, they succumb to this conspiracy. The integrity of Islamic culture and the unity of the Islamic style of life is being shattered in their own persons, in their thought and actions, in their homes and families
The greatest task of the present time is to solve the problem of education. There can be no hope of a genuine revival of the Ummah unless the educational system is overhauled and its error corrected. The task is to bring Islamic knowledge to the secular system and modern knowledge to the Islamic system. It is criminally negligent to enroll Muslim youths at the elementary and secondary education levels into missionaries or non-Muslim institutes. Every Muslim youth is entitled to receive full instruction in the religion, ethics, law, history, and culture of Islam. We are legally responsible and, in the justice of Allah (SWT), criminally indictable if we fail to give instruction in Islam, including its conceptions and objectives, to every Muslim child.
For the Muslim, the only cause that can really be a cause is Islam. Lacking it, the Muslim teachers who studied in the West never reached the totality of knowledge. Never in Islamic history has the cry of Islamic cause been more needed on the intellectual level as it is today. Today, we see that the teachers in Muslim universities do not possess the vision of Islam and, therefore, are not driven by its cause is certainly the greatest calamity of Muslim education.
It is most regrettable to see overwhelming urge among Muslims to equip their children with secularized and westernized education without realizing the potentially adverse effects resulting from westernized model of education to their lives. Students become the target of anti-Islamic propaganda in and outside the university. In the college classroom and through assigned reading projects, they are constantly presented with alien ideologies in the name of science and modernism. Their mind is not mature enough to understand the claim. Therefore, their attachment to the Islamic position is born out of sentiment, not out of reasoned conviction. This is why, in the absence of any counter-presentation of Islamic understanding, the same scientific orientation, and the same appeal of modernity the Muslim college student succumbs to the secular claim and converts to it.
There is no denying that the Muslim students are entitled to master all the modern disciplines. What is needed is to equip oneself with knowledge of fundamental principles of Islam and the precious treasures of the legacy of the ancestors as pre-requisite to pursue the modern knowledge. Every student in the university must study the Islamic civilization regardless of his or her area of specialization. It must be born into the mind of every student that Islam is the comprehensive religion the vision of which is relevant to every human activity and to every endeavor – whether physical, social, economic, political, cultural or spiritual. It is to be emphasized that the vision of Islam is needed to defend the whole people against alien ideologies invading their consciousness.
There is a paradigm shift in the thinking of the people. An apparent trend is to get the children enrolled in missionary-run schools driven by passion toward modernized and westernized model of education. The result is a great surge in students enrolled in missionary-funded schools and dramatic decline in number of students enrolled in Islamic institutes. What is more alarming is that Islamic institute only draw students mainly from the starving Muslim peasantry and working and lower middle classes. Parents enjoying relatively slightly improved rank in the society in terms of wealth and position, are very keen to get their children into modern and liberal school which are producing doctors, engineers, scientists and scholars of modern subjects with an ultimate objective of improving their economic prosperity and securing so-called bright future of their kids. They seem to be unaware of systematic brainwashing of their children at the hands of liberal educators. They fail to understand that the role of Islamic institutes is to create passion in the teachers and students to seek knowledge for the sake of Allah (SWT) alone, which is the necessary condition for any successful search for the truth. By undermining the role of these Islamic institutions at primary and secondary level, which constitutes the foundation for higher learning in Islamic principles and related sciences, we are undoubtedly depriving our children of acquiring the mastery of the Islamic disciplines.
It is unbecoming of Muslims to think that the mastery in western education will ultimately help uplifting the status of Muslims in general and Ummah in particular. Look at the teacher, the professor, with a doctorate from a Western University. Since he was not Islamically motivated, he sought knowledge for a materialist goal, he could not digest what he learned, neither sought to rehabilitate it within the Islamic vision of knowledge. Rather he was satisfied to pass, to obtain the degree, to return home and achieve a position of eminence. On the other hand, we see a Muslim equipped with Islamic vision, will and dedication to pursue the truth for the sake of Allah alone, got mastery in modern disciplines is well equipped to tackle the problems confronting the human race today.
A science without an end has no merit in Islam, and so a knowledge. The Islamic approach toward the cultivation of knowledge has always been holistic and integrated. Today, when we see the educational system currently prevalent in the Islamic word we find that it is incapable of inspiring the Muslim youth or helping them to solve the problems of Muslim ‘Ummah. The system needs a complete transformation. There has to be a change of character and a transformation of the value system and ethical practice.
The harsh reality is that Muslims suffer from a threateningly dangerous malaise. There can be no doubt that the intellectual and methodological decline of the Ummah is the core of its malaise. The educational system is the breeding ground of the disease. Considering the fact that education is the most powerful instrument of bringing any meaningful change, it is imperative to stress immensely on acquisition of knowledge. The knowledge of fundamental principles of Islam, its civilization is must and far more important than westernized and secularized education. A balance should be maintained in between Islamic and modern education. There is no bar put by Islam to acquisition of knowledge. A Muslim can be master of modern education without devaluing the Islamic vision. The Muslim scholars with the knowledge of Islam equally with the knowledge of modern sciences are more capable to handle the problems confronting the human race in general and the Ummah in particular rationally in an Islamic framework.
Muslim Youth And Modern Educational Challenges
A science without an end has no merit in Islam, and so a knowledge. The Islamic approach toward the cultivation of knowledge has always been holistic and integrated.
By Junaid Ahmad - July 7, 2018 4
FacebookTwitter
Islam is not based on ignorance and illiteracy. This is why a believer is constantly asked to seek knowledge. To demonstrate the importance of knowledge in Islam, it is pertinent to mention that the very first verse which was revealed came down with the order to read. Similarly, the saying of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) that the seeking of knowledge is an incumbent duty on every Muslim puts more stress on the importance of knowledge. It was due to such emphasis on knowledge that a very strong zeal among Muslims was found to seek it, and hence we see that the mosques were great centers of learning, and remained the main centers of learning for centuries.
The inspiration and the morality given by Islam for the acquisition, dissemination, and advancement of knowledge is now universally recognized. History is a witness to the fact that Muslim philosophical thought and scientific knowledge in its golden period was a moral and religious base. The first five centuries of the present hijri era, i.e. , from the eight to twelfth century A.C., is considered a period of Islamic glory. It was a period of phenomenal rise and remarkable achievements in Muslim thinking and understanding. During this period, Muslims developed a great thirst for learning, a craving the like of which had not been known in the history before. Islamic civilization reached its zenith and Muslims became world leaders in many spheres of knowledge. These successes were largely due to the tremendous ideological motivation provided by Islam.
The greatness of Muslim scholars in the golden era lies in developing the disciplines and establishing the relevance of Islam and its values to each discipline. They contributed greatly in all fields and they utilized the new knowledge efficiently to their advantage. When Muslims went into decline and slumber, demoralized and repulsed from the political scene, non-Muslims came to occupy the vacuum left by Muslims, and gradually with their clear vision, unwavering spirit and determination, they became undisputed masters of all the disciplines.
Defeats and tragedies inflicted upon the Muslim world in the last two centuries, prompted great Muslim leaders in Turkey and Egypt to launch an Islamic revival movement, with the sole objective to re-establish the political, economic and military authority of Muslims. These attempts were made by westernizing the Ummah, which was bound to fail. In Turkey, it paved the way for Mustafa Kamal Ataturk to abolish all Islamic institutions and to reject every traditional Islamic principle affecting public life. Today, after two generations, Turkey has not been able to achieve any substantial gain in any aspects and is just as weak as other Muslim countries. In Egypt, where Westernization was pursued with less consistency, a Western system was implemented alongside the traditional Islamic system. The two systems competed with each other; and, despite the wholehearted support from the West, both failed to achieve anything valuable, rather, this competition resulted in weakening both as well as the Ummah.
On the educational front, some prominent Muslims attempted to reform educational system by modernization of Muslim community with an ultimate objective of improving their economic prosperity. Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Abduh were two prominent names who emerged as champions of this cause. Their strategic plan was converted into action by bringing modern universities into existence. Their efforts, however, did not yield the desired results due to the simple reason that their belief rest on the assumption that the so-called modern subjects are harmless and can only contribute to strength of Muslims. What they failed to realize is that the modern social sciences, namely economics, political science, sociology, psychology, etc., are the products of Western culture and society. They can flourish and perform a problem solving function effectively only in a Western environment and secular economic framework. They cannot be equally effective in an Islamic framework because the basic assumptions of the two systems are different. That is why their reforms bore no fruit. On one hand, the stagnant quality of Islamic learning was left untouched. On the other, the added “new” learning never produced any excellence such as it produced in its own homelands.
Over the years the Islamic clergies founded a number of Islamic institutions with hundreds of branches in India aimed to equip Muslim youth adequately with knowledge of Islam and its related sciences from the total Islamic perspective. Ideologically these institutions were opposed to the Western liberal education as propagated by liberal thinkers, and therefore, these theological seminaries did not introduce any modern system of education in their curricula. The leadership of this movement was obsessed to build up a future worthy of Islamic traditions hence; they did not wish to create any environment for encouraging their students towards acquisition of modern knowledge.
Consequently, the institutions, namely, “traditional Islamic institutions” and “modern liberal universities” typically produced two types of scholars. First, the traditional ‘ulema’ well versed in Islamic History, Islamic Law, and Islamic Jurisprudence (fiqh), mastered the Quran and the Sunnah and indeed regarded the authorities in early Islamic scholarship with very little knowledge of modern philosophy and science. Second, the scholars who have been educated in the Western system of education have good knowledge of the modern social or natural sciences. However, their knowledge of Islam is restricted to prayers, fasting, and various rituals for different occasions. There are very few Muslim scholars at home with the knowledge of Islam equally with the knowledge of modern social natural sciences.
Today, we see strong urge on the front of Muslim youth to acquire the modern knowledge. Everywhere, the race is on at maddening speed toward completing the Western educational model. In an attempt to catch up, parents have been eagerly sending their students abroad where they are severely subjected to endless challenges. In the universities of the Muslim world, non-Muslim books, achievements, worldview, problems and ideals are currently being taught to Muslim youths. Muslim students enter the university with very little understanding of Islam they acquired at home or in elementary or secondary school or virtually no knowledge at all. The youth in the universities confronts alien ideologies presented to him in textbook or classroom and find themselves ill-equipped with counter-presentation of Islamic understanding which naturally leads them to become suspicious of the majority of the guardians of the legacy, the ulama’. In addition, due to inadequate knowledge of Islam and its theology, most of the modern Muslim scholars trained in a Western system of education are not capable to handle, problems rationally in an Islamic framework.
Today Muslim youth is passing through a critical time. Everything Islamic is challenged and attacked; the perfection of the Qur’anic text, the veracity of the Sunnah, the comprehensiveness of the Shari’ah, and the glories of Muslim achievements with an aim to inject doubt into the Muslim’s confidence in himself, in his Ummah, and in his faith and ancestors. Due to lack of spiritual stamina necessary for resistance, they succumb to this conspiracy. The integrity of Islamic culture and the unity of the Islamic style of life is being shattered in their own persons, in their thought and actions, in their homes and families
The greatest task of the present time is to solve the problem of education. There can be no hope of a genuine revival of the Ummah unless the educational system is overhauled and its error corrected. The task is to bring Islamic knowledge to the secular system and modern knowledge to the Islamic system. It is criminally negligent to enroll Muslim youths at the elementary and secondary education levels into missionaries or non-Muslim institutes. Every Muslim youth is entitled to receive full instruction in the religion, ethics, law, history, and culture of Islam. We are legally responsible and, in the justice of Allah (SWT), criminally indictable if we fail to give instruction in Islam, including its conceptions and objectives, to every Muslim child.
For the Muslim, the only cause that can really be a cause is Islam. Lacking it, the Muslim teachers who studied in the West never reached the totality of knowledge. Never in Islamic history has the cry of Islamic cause been more needed on the intellectual level as it is today. Today, we see that the teachers in Muslim universities do not possess the vision of Islam and, therefore, are not driven by its cause is certainly the greatest calamity of Muslim education.
It is most regrettable to see overwhelming urge among Muslims to equip their children with secularized and westernized education without realizing the potentially adverse effects resulting from westernized model of education to their lives. Students become the target of anti-Islamic propaganda in and outside the university. In the college classroom and through assigned reading projects, they are constantly presented with alien ideologies in the name of science and modernism. Their mind is not mature enough to understand the claim. Therefore, their attachment to the Islamic position is born out of sentiment, not out of reasoned conviction. This is why, in the absence of any counter-presentation of Islamic understanding, the same scientific orientation, and the same appeal of modernity the Muslim college student succumbs to the secular claim and converts to it.
There is no denying that the Muslim students are entitled to master all the modern disciplines. What is needed is to equip oneself with knowledge of fundamental principles of Islam and the precious treasures of the legacy of the ancestors as pre-requisite to pursue the modern knowledge. Every student in the university must study the Islamic civilization regardless of his or her area of specialization. It must be born into the mind of every student that Islam is the comprehensive religion the vision of which is relevant to every human activity and to every endeavor – whether physical, social, economic, political, cultural or spiritual. It is to be emphasized that the vision of Islam is needed to defend the whole people against alien ideologies invading their consciousness.
There is a paradigm shift in the thinking of the people. An apparent trend is to get the children enrolled in missionary-run schools driven by passion toward modernized and westernized model of education. The result is a great surge in students enrolled in missionary-funded schools and dramatic decline in number of students enrolled in Islamic institutes. What is more alarming is that Islamic institute only draw students mainly from the starving Muslim peasantry and working and lower middle classes. Parents enjoying relatively slightly improved rank in the society in terms of wealth and position, are very keen to get their children into modern and liberal school which are producing doctors, engineers, scientists and scholars of modern subjects with an ultimate objective of improving their economic prosperity and securing so-called bright future of their kids. They seem to be unaware of systematic brainwashing of their children at the hands of liberal educators. They fail to understand that the role of Islamic institutes is to create passion in the teachers and students to seek knowledge for the sake of Allah (SWT) alone, which is the necessary condition for any successful search for the truth. By undermining the role of these Islamic institutions at primary and secondary level, which constitutes the foundation for higher learning in Islamic principles and related sciences, we are undoubtedly depriving our children of acquiring the mastery of the Islamic disciplines.
It is unbecoming of Muslims to think that the mastery in western education will ultimately help uplifting the status of Muslims in general and Ummah in particular. Look at the teacher, the professor, with a doctorate from a Western University. Since he was not Islamically motivated, he sought knowledge for a materialist goal, he could not digest what he learned, neither sought to rehabilitate it within the Islamic vision of knowledge. Rather he was satisfied to pass, to obtain the degree, to return home and achieve a position of eminence. On the other hand, we see a Muslim equipped with Islamic vision, will and dedication to pursue the truth for the sake of Allah alone, got mastery in modern disciplines is well equipped to tackle the problems confronting the human race today.
A science without an end has no merit in Islam, and so a knowledge. The Islamic approach toward the cultivation of knowledge has always been holistic and integrated. Today, when we see the educational system currently prevalent in the Islamic word we find that it is incapable of inspiring the Muslim youth or helping them to solve the problems of Muslim ‘Ummah. The system needs a complete transformation. There has to be a change of character and a transformation of the value system and ethical practice.
The harsh reality is that Muslims suffer from a threateningly dangerous malaise. There can be no doubt that the intellectual and methodological decline of the Ummah is the core of its malaise. The educational system is the breeding ground of the disease. Considering the fact that education is the most powerful instrument of bringing any meaningful change, it is imperative to stress immensely on acquisition of knowledge. The knowledge of fundamental principles of Islam, its civilization is must and far more important than westernized and secularized education. A balance should be maintained in between Islamic and modern education. There is no bar put by Islam to acquisition of knowledge. A Muslim can be master of modern education without devaluing the Islamic vision. The Muslim scholars with the knowledge of Islam equally with the knowledge of modern sciences are more capable to handle the problems confronting the human race in general and the Ummah in particular rationally in an Islamic framework.
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