Wednesday 29 June 2011

Islamic education in Bangladesh and its genealogical relation to Deobandian School of Thought

The central objective of the research is to understand the diversified systems of Islamic education in Bangladesh based on the case of a local district town—Brahmanbaria. This study also investigates how and in what extent the system of Islamic education is influenced by the Deobandian School of Thought—Ahle Sunnat wal Jammaat—promoted and maintained by a nineteenth century school of Islamic education—Deoband which was established in the Province of Uttar Pradesh in India. This study presumes that Deoband had and has a profound influence on the genre of Islamic education in South Asian countries including Bangladesh.
For such inquests in the context of Bangladesh the fieldwork of the study has been conducted in the east-central district town of Brahmanbaria. In addition with primary field-research done in Brahmanbaria town some other fieldworks have also been conducted in some government and non-government offices and organizations concerned for Islamic education in Bangladesh. Methodologically the study depends on ethnographic field-method employing several data collection procedures such as open-ended interviews, participant observation, key-cultural conversation and textual method. The entire period of the fieldwork was nearly for one and half month, from February 13 to March 27, 2007.
Primarily, the findings of the fieldwork suggest that there are two kinds of madrasas, schools for imparting Islamic education, in Bangladesh: Ali’a and Quawmi or Kharizi’a madrasa. The first type of madrasa is being accommodated in government’s mainstream system of education and managed, operated and funded by government while the Quawmi madrasa functions independently and managed by public charity, religious alms and by endowments. According to Bangladesh Madrasa Education Board, the institution that is responsible for supervising and controlling the Ali’a madrasas in all over the country, established in 1978, the number of Ali’a madrasas is 15,941 in 2006. On the other hand, regarding the number of Quawmi madrasas Bangladesh government has no data available at its hand. In Brahmanbaria district town (that is called Upazilla, a sub-district administrative tier of government) there are 17 Ali’a madrasas while the number of Quawmi madrasas is higher than that. There is a private board of Quawmi madrasa namely edara-e talimi’a functioning under a big Quawmi madrasa—Jamia Islamia Yunusia Madrasa at the center place of Brahmanbaria district town. A number of 69 Quawmi madrasas from all over Bangladesh are affiliated with the private board of which 29 madrasas are located in Brahmanbaria town area. Moreover, there are some other madrasas, which are functioning independently beyond the private board of Quawmi madrasa in Brahmanbaria. The number of such Quawmi madrasas could not be confirmed because of unavailable sources of information. But according to some personal contact with the teachers of madrasas the number of such madrasas could range from 50 to 70 in Brahmanbaria district town and its contiguous areas i.e. Upazilla.
Though the nature of madrasa education in South Asia is diversified in nature in terms of their different schools of thought and of their different sectarian split such as Deobandian, Ahl-i-Hadith, Barelwi, Jamaate Islami and the Shias but the Quawmi madrasas in Brahmanbaria are predominantly Deobandian in nature. During the fieldwork not a single madrasa was found that is morally and principally maintain other school of thought except Deobandian tradition. Like Deoband Madrasa these Quawmi madrasas maintain the principal Islamic thought—Ahle sunnat wal jammaat, which is based on the Koran, the tradition of the Prophet and on the Hanafi madhhab, Islamic school. The influence of Deobandian thought on such madrasas is manifested through their curriculum and in other Islamic activities. Like Deoband these madrasas prioritize on teaching the Koran and its exegesis; fiqh—Islamic law and jurisprudence; and hadith, the tradition of the Prophet. For instance, it was found that the curriculum of Jamia Islamia Yunusia Madrasa is almost identical with the curriculum of Deoband Madrasa. It is said that Jamia Islamia Yunusia Madrasa is the oldest madrasa in Brahmanbaria established in 1914 by a Deobandian follower in the then who came from India namely Mawlana Abu Taher Muhammad Yunus, after whom the Madrasa was named. Then Yunusia Madrasa was headed by another Deobandian—Fakhre Bangal Allama Tazul Islam, who followed by Deobandian graduate Mawlana Sirajul Islam and at present continued by another Deobandian alim, Islamic learned person—Mufti Nurullah. Though currently there is no direct relation with Deoband Madrasa Yunusia Madrasa is still maintaining the tradition of Deobandian school of thought and the graduates of the Madrasa are spreading in different parts of Bangladesh some of whom launch new Quawmi madrasa based on Deobandian principal—Ahle sunnat wal jammaat.
On the contrary, in this research it was found that the Ali’a madrasas in Bangladesh are less influenced by Deobandian school of thought since it is a hybrid system of education comprising both modern and Islamic education. Interestingly enough, the Deobandian follower i.e. graduates of Quawmi madrasas consider Ali’a madrasa’s system of Islamic education as “corrupted” version, as I was told by an interviewee, of Islam since its schooling was first patronized by the British colonizer (the first Ali’a madrasa was established in Calcutta by the British government in 1780) and since it reduces the “important” content of Islamic education. But socially the graduates of Ali'a madrasas are more privileged as compared to the graduates of Quawmi madrasa because the certification of two major degrees—Dakhil, secondary level; and Alim, higher secondary level—are recognized by government system of education. According to an officer of Madrasa Education Board, government is taking necessary steps for recognizing other two major degrees—Fazil, bachelor level; and Kamil, Master level—of Ali’a madrasa. Government is also planning to establish a separate Quwami Madrasa Board responsible for supervising all such madrasas. If it is implemented the principal degree of Quawmi madrasaDaora hadith, expertise on the tradition of the Prophet would be equivalent to Master level of education. Long before such plan a non-government Quawmi Madrasa Board named by Befaqul Madaris has been functioning independently. The Secretary General of the Board, Mawlana Abdul Jabbar expressed that at present there are two hundred Quawmi madrasas affiliated with the Board from all over the country, all of which Deobandian in nature. According to him if government formally recognize the Quawmi system of education they would not prefer to change their principal nature and its curriculum. Thus, how the system of Quawmi madrasa education will be accommodated in the modern education system is a question of further research.

The Philosophy of Islamic Education: Classical Views and M. Fethullah Gülen's Perspectives

Introduction
Islam is frequently characterized as a "religion of the Book," the Book in question being the Qur'an, the central revealed scripture of Islam. The first word said to have been uttered by the angel Gabriel in roughly 610 CE which initiated the series of divine revelations to the Prophet Muhammad was Iqra'! ("Recite" or "read). The full verse (96:1) commands "Read in the name of your Lord Who has created [all things]." The act of reading or reciting, in relation to Islam's holy book and in general, thus took on an exceptionally sacrosanct quality within Islamic tradition and practice as did the acquisition of particularly religious knowledge by extension. "Are those who know and those who do not know to be reckoned the same?" asks the Qur'an (39:9). The Qur'an depicts knowledge as a great bounty from God granted to His prophets and their followers through time (2:151-52; 4:113; 5:110;12:22; 28:14, etc.).
Believers also took to heart the Prophet's counsel, "Seek knowledge even unto China," which sacralized the journey, often perilous, undertaken to supplement and complete one's education, an endeavor known in Arabic as rihlat talab al-'ilm ("journey in the search for knowledge"). The "seeker of knowledge" (Ar. talib al-'ilm) remains until today the term used for a student, normally in its abbreviated form (talib [masc.]/ taliba [fem.]) for all levels of education. Another equally well-known statement of the Prophet exhorts, "The pursuit of knowledge is incumbent on every Muslim, male or female," a statement that has made the acquisition of at least rudimentary knowledge of religion and its duties mandatory for the Muslim individual, irrespective of gender. "The scholars are the heirs of the prophets" is another important hadith invoked as proof-text to underscore the extraordinary importance of learning and its dissemination in the shaping of communal life and as a basic, integral part of an individual's religious growth. Sanctioned by both the word of God and the words of His prophet (the latter recorded in what is known in Arabic as hadith, lit. "speech"), the pursuit of knowledge (Ar. 'ilm) is regarded as a religious obligation on a par with prayer, charity, etc. It is customary to find these sacred proof-texts extolling the merits of 'ilm assembled and recorded in many treatises on learning and education in both the pre-modern and modern periods in order to exhort the believer to embark on the noble pursuit of knowledge.[1]
In this article, I will first provide a brief survey of classical Islamic education and its institutions, formal and informal, as well as identify its underlying principles and rationale. I will then discuss some of the key features of Gülen's perspectives on what constitutes ideal Islamic education. The strong correspondences between the classical views and Gülen's perspectives will be indicated, establishing thereby a continuity and innovative engagement on the latter's part with the classical heritage.
Classical Centers of Education
The earliest venue of education was the mosque, the place of formal worship in Islam. During the Prophet Muhammad's time, his mosque in Medina served both as the locus of private and public worship and for informal instruction of the believers in the religious law and related matters. The mosque continued to play these multiple roles throughout the first three centuries of Islam (seventh through the ninth centuries of the Christian or the Common era). Typically, instruction in the religious and legal sciences would be offered by a religious scholar to students who sat with him (and, less frequently, with her) in teaching circles (Ar. halqa, majlis), either inside the mosque or outside in its courtyard. By the tenth century, a new feature, the hostel (khan) was increasingly being established next to "teaching mosques" in Iraq and the eastern provinces of the Islamic world which allowed students and teachers from far-flung areas to reside near these places of instruction. The emergence of the mosque-khan complex at this time is a consequence of the lengthier and more intensive period of study required to qualify as a religious scholar. Religious learning had expanded by this time and study of the religious law (Ar. al-Shari'a) became more detailed and sophisticated, reflected in the establishment of the four prominent Sunni schools of law (Ar. madhahib; sing. madhhab) by the tenth century.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries of the Common Era, another important institution developed and proliferated known as the madrasa, literally meaning in Arabic "a place of study."
The madrasa was a logical development of the mosque-khan complex, being both a teaching and residential institution. In addition to the impetus of the greater systematization of knowledge, particularly of the legal sciences, which led to the emergence of the madrasa, the development of this institution has also been attributed in part to a reassertion of Sunni Muslim identity in the wake of the collapse of the various Shi'i dynasties that had ruled much of the Islamic world in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In the tenth century, a Shi'i dynasty called the Buwayhids (or Buyids) established their control over 'Abbasid Iraq and Iran, with the Sunni 'Abbasid caliph remaining as the nominal ruler. The Buwayhids retained their control until the eleventh century when they were beaten back by the Sunni Saljuqs, a Turkic-speaking people from Central Asia . In 969 CE, another Shi'i dynasty from North Africa later called the Fatimids gained power in Cairo, Egypt and ruled the Sunni population until 1171 when they were defeated by the Saljuqs as well. One of the Fatimids' enduring intellectual legacies was the establishment of the oldest continuing university in the world - the al-Azhar mosque-madrasa complex in Cairo -- in 972 CE to propagate Fatimid-Shi'i doctrine and learning. With the fall of the Fatimids, there was subsequently a concerted Sunni effort to roll back the Shi 'i influence of the past two centuries. The madrasa became in many ways the locus classicus for waging this campaign of religious and intellectual reclamation. This is dramatically reflected in the transformation of al-Azhar into the foremost Sunni center of higher learning in the twelfth century, a position it enjoys until today.
Perhaps the most prominent name associated with the spread of madrasas particularly in Iraq was Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), the redoubtable Saljuq vizier (Ar. wazir, a "minister"). His name is associated with the famous Nizamiyya academy in Baghdad, which boasted the presence of famous scholars like Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111). In the twelfth century, the Zengid ruler Nur al-Din ibn Zangi and the famous Ayyubid ruler Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub (known as Saladin in the West) were prominent patrons of madrasas in Syria and Egypt. Henceforth, the madrasa became the principal venue and vehicle for the transmission of religious education in the major urban centers of the Islamic world, such as Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusalem. It was the institution of higher learning comparable to a modern college of which it was its precursor, as will be further discussed below.
Other Venues of Education
In addition to mosques, mosque-khans, and madrasas, other institutions developed over time which played important, supplementary roles in the dissemination of learning. One of the most significant institutions of this type was the burgeoning libraries from the ninth century on. The larger mosques often had libraries attached to them containing books on religious topics. Other semi-public libraries would additionally have books on logic, philosophy, music, astronomy, geometry, medicine, astronomy, and alchemy. The first academy in the Islamic world, known in Arabic as bayt al-hikma (lit. "House of Wisdom"), was built by the 'Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun (813-33), which had a library and an astronomical observatory attached to it. In this academy, many Arab Christian scholars under their Muslim Abbasid patrons translated significant classical Greek works first into their native Syriac and then into Arabic. Works of Euclid, Galen, Plato etc. were thus made accessible to the following generations of primarily Arabic speaking scholars, influencing the development of a humanistic tradition. Sometimes wealthy private individuals endowed a library in their residences, such as 'Ali b. Yahya (d. 888). The library known as khizanat al-hikma (Ar. "Treasury of Wisdom") allowed students to study all branches of learning without fee in it; it was particularly renowned for astronomy. Other specialized institutions of learning were dar al-qur'an (lit: "house of the Qur'an"), which specialized in the study of the Qur'an and its sciences; dar al-hadith,(lit. " house of the Prophet's statements"), which concentrated on the study of the sunna, the sayings and customs of the Prophet Muhammad; dar al-'ilm ("house of rational sciences"), which was concerned with the philosophical and natural sciences, and madrasat al-tibb ("schools of medicine"), which were dedicated to the medical sciences. Three more terms - ribat, khanqa, and zawiya - referred to Sufi lodges and conventicles where the traditional sciences were pursued. Medical instruction also took place primarily in hospitals (maristan / bimaristan) which served as schools of medicine, and also in mosques and the madrasas. At all times, informal and formal instruction was offered by men and women in their own homes or in the private homes of scholars and wealthy individuals. In most areas of the medieval Islamic world, such modes of private education was more the norm than formal, collective education in a madrasa.[2]
Organization and Curricula of Madrasas: the Parameters of Religious Education
Religious education was based upon what is termed in Arabic al-'ulum al-naqliyya (lit: the "transmitted sciences"), which consists primarily of the Qur'anic sciences, the hadith sciences, and jurisprudence (Ar. fiqh). In addition to the "transmitted" or religious sciences were al-'ulum al-'aqliyya ("the rational sciences"), which included logic, philosophy, mathematics, and the natural sciences. The rational sciences were also termed the "foreign sciences" or "sciences of the ancients" pointing to their largely classical Greek provenance.
In the pre-'Abbasid period, madrasas, like the "teaching" mosques before, were primarily devoted to religious learning based on the study of the transmitted sciences (study of the Qur'an, hadith, and the religious law), supplemented by the ancillary sciences of grammar and literature. George Makdisi, who has done pioneering work on Islamic education and demonstrated the influence of the madrasa on the development of the medieval European college, has given us a comprehensive idea of medieval curricula of study and the organizations of learning.[3] As far as the traditional or religious sciences were concerned, it was customary for the student to learn in sequence: the Qur'an, hadith, Qur'anic sciences which included exegesis, variant readings of the text, and hadith sciences, which involved the study of the biographies of the hadith transmitters. The student would then proceed to study two "foundational sciences:" usul al-din, referring to the principles or sources of religion, and usul al-fiqh, the sources, principles, and methodology of jurisprudence. The student would additionally learn the law of the madhhab (school of law) he[4] was affiliated with, the points of difference (Ar. khilaf) within the same madhhab and between the four schools of law, and dialectic (Ar. jadal), also called disputation (Ar. munazara).[5] Following dialectic came the study of adab or belles-lettres, including poetry, prosody, and grammar. These subjects in essence constituted the curriculum and meant to be sequentially studied as indicated here - at least as preferred by the educational theorists. In reality, however, the method and course of study tended to be informal and unstructured and were often dependent on the proclivities of the teachers and sometimes of the students. Thus a typical day of instruction for the famous jurist Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi'i (d. 820) would involve teaching a course on Qur'an before any other topic in the day, then one each on hadith and disputation in that order, followed by a late morning course on the classical language, grammar, prosody, and poetry until about noon.[6]
In his famous Prolegomena written in the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun lists a similar curriculum for the religious sciences, with an emphasis on the Qur'an and its sciences, hadith and its sciences, including the study of specific hadith terminology, jurisprudence (fiqh) with an emphasis on the complex law of inheritance and the sources of jurisprudence but with the addition of theology (al-kalam), Sufism (Islamic mysticism; called in Arabic al-tasawwuf), and the science of the interpretation of dreams or visions (ta'bir al-ruya).[7]
The madrasa was typically funded by a waqf, a charitable foundation or trust, a form of institutional organization that was borrowed by the West from the Islamic world towards the end of the eleventh century.[8] Waqf rendered a person's property safe from confiscation by the state by freezing it as a public asset but which could be passed on to the founder's descendants. Wealthy men and women thus served as benefactors of madrasas, which were sometimes named after them or their families, out of both pious interest and pragmatic concerns. Many had a genuine interest in furthering public education and women played a prominent role in this particular charitable activity. For example, a renowned madrasa was endowed in the fourteenth century by Barakat, the mother of the Mamluk Sultan al-Ashraf Shaban, which became known as Athe madrasa of the mother of al-Ashraf Shaban.[9] Another woman named Alif (Ulaf?), a member of the distinguished scholarly Bulqini family also from the Mamluk period, created endowments to support Quran reciters in her grandfathers madrasa.[10]
Methodology of Instruction and Learning
The method of teaching was by lecturing and dictation; for legal studies, munazara or disputation was important as well. The student was expected to memorize, first of all, the Qur'an and then as many hadiths possible. The teacher, commonly called a shaykh, would repeat the hadiths three times so as to allow the student to remember it. In the case of hadith, dictation (imla') was particularly important since the text had to be precisely established. Problems of jurisprudence were also dictated as were linguistic and literary subjects. In relation to the Qur'an and hadith, learning by heart (talqin) was the principal method of acquiring knowledge and a retentive memory was, therefore, greatly prized. But, at the same time, the importance of understanding was emphasized and the students were expected to reflect on what they had learned. The saying "learning is a city, one of whose gates is memory and the other understanding" captures this two-pronged approach to learning well. The Arabic term used for "understanding" is diraya and is distinct from, although related to, the activity of memorization and transmission of particularly hadiths, a process known in Arabic as riwaya. Diraya was decisively the higher "gate" of learning since it referred to the individual's ability to comprehend the contents of hadith, not merely passively memorize and transmit it, and use them to expound upon the religious law. The related term for jurisprudence fiqh means essentially "understanding" as well and reflects the importance attached to active comprehension of and engagement with one's subjects in the educational system.[11]
In the study of law, the scholastic method of disputation (munazara) prevailed, a pedagogical method that originated quite early in the Islamic milieu. It is known that the 'Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid encouraged the holding of disputations at his court. The famous jurist Malik b. Anas used to deputize his student 'Uthman b. 'Isa b. Kinana (d. 797) to engage another well-known jurist Abu Yusuf in munazara. Al-Husayn b. Isma'il (d. 942), a hadith scholar and jurisconsult (mufti) who was the judge of the Iraqi town of Kufa for sixty years, held regular sessions of legal disputations at his home during his period of judgeship, often attended by other prominent jurisconsults. Other examples of regular disputation sessions abound in the legal literature. These sessions tended to be very popular and often attracted large audiences, frequently running from sunset to midnight.[12]
The method of disputation required that the disputant have a) a comprehensive knowledge of khilaf, which referred to the divergent legal opinions of jurisconsults; b) a thorough acquaintance with jadal or dialectic; and acquire skill through practice in c) munazara. Law students had to have memorized a thorough list as possible of the disputed matters of law and know the answers for them. By virtue of their skill in disputation the students earned their licence or certificate, known in Arabic as ijaza, to teach law and issue legal opinions.[13]
The "rational" or "ancient" sciences
The so-called "rational sciences" (al-'ulum al-'aqliyya) or "the sciences of the ancient" (al-'ulum al-awa'il) usually consisted of seven main components: 1) logic (al-mantiq) which was the foundation of all others; 2) al-arithmatiqi, arithmetic, including accounting (hisab); 3) al-handasa, geometry; 4) al-hay'a, astronomy; 5) al-musiki, music, which dealt with the theory of tones and their definition by number, etc.; 6) al-tabi'iyyat ("the natural sciences"), which was concerned with the theory of bodies at rest and in motion - human, animal, plant, mineral and heavenly, important subdivisions of which were medicine (al-tibb) and agriculture (al-falaha); and, finally, 7) 'ilm al-ilahiyyat, metaphysics.[14]
As early as the middle of the 8th century during the Abbasid period, strong interest began developing in the learning of the ancient world, particularly its Greek sources, but also to a lesser extent in its Persian and Indian ones as well. The intellectual awakening that this interest spawned has rendered this age especially illustrious in the annals of Islamic and world history. Due to the political and territorial expansion of Islam beyond the original Arabian peninsula, Muslims became the heir of the older and more cultured people whom they conquered or encountered. In Syria and Iraq, they adapted themselves to the already existing Aramaic civilization which had been influenced by the later Greek civilization in Syria and by the Persian civilization in Iraq. In three-quarters of a century after the establishment of Baghdad, the Arabic-reading world was in possession of the chief philosophical works of Aristotle, of the leading Neo-Platonic commentators, and of most of the medical writings of Galen, as well as of Persian and Indian scientific works. In only a few decades Arab scholars would assimilate what had taken the Greeks centuries to develop.
India acted as an early source of inspiration, especially in the wisdom literature and mathematics. About 771 CE, an Indian traveller introduced into Baghdad a treatise on astronomy which by order of the caliph al-Mansur was translated by Muhammad al-Fazari (d. between 796-806). Al-Fazari subsequently became the first astronomer in Islam. The stars had of course interested the Arabs since pre-Islamic times, but no scientific study of them was undertaken until this time. Islam had a particular interest in the study of astronomy as a means for fixing the direction of prayer towards the Ka`ba. The famous mathematician al-Khwarizmi (d. 850) based his widely known astronomical tables (Ar. zij) on al-Fazari's work. From al-Khwarizmi's name we get the word "algorithm." Other astronomical works were translated in this period from Persian into Arabic, especially during the time of Harun al-Rashid. In the field of literature and the arts, the Persian contribution was the strongest.
In 765, the Caliph al-Mansur, afflicted with a stomach disease which had baffled his physicians, sent for Jurjis ibn Bakhtishu', a Nestorian Christian physician from Iraq who served as the dean of the hospital at Jundishapur (Gondishapur) in Persia. In the ancient world, Jundishapur was noted for its academy of medicine and philosophy said to have been founded about 555 by the great Persian king Anushirwan. When the school of Alexandria was closed during the Christian period, many of its scholars are said to have fled to the school at Jundishapur. The science of the institution was based on the ancient Greek tradition, but the language of instruction was Aramaic. Jurjis soon won the confidence of the caliph and became the court physician while retaining his Christian faith. It is reported that on being invited by the caliph to embrace Islam, he retorted that he preferred the company of his fathers, regardless of whether they were in heaven or in hell.[15] He appears not to have suffered any ill consequences on account of his candor. In Baghdad, Ibn Bakhtishu` became the founder of a brilliant family dynasty of medical practitioners which for six or seven generations, that is covering a period of two centuries and a half, exercised an almost continuous monopoly over the court medical practice. Jurjis' son Bakhtishu' (d. 801) and his grandson Jibril (Gabriel) served as court physicians to Harun al-Rashid.[16]
At the time of the Arab conquest of the Fertile Crescent, the intellectual legacy of Greece was unquestionably the most precious treasure at hand. Under the two Abbasid caliphs al-Mahdi and his son Harun al-Rashid in particular, the Muslim army won decisive victories over the Byzantine enemy forces. The young Harun actually led his father's campaign against the Byzantines; in 782, the Arab army reached the Bosphorus, at the very doors of Constantinople itself. The Byzantine queen-regent at that time, Irene (who held the regency in the name of her son Constantine VI) was forced to sue for peace and conclude a treaty with the Muslims. The various Abbasid military excursions into the land of the Byzantines or as the Arab chroniclers say, the land of the Romans, resulted in the introduction, among other objects of booty, of Greek manuscripts. Al-Ma'mun is said to have sent his ambassadors as far as Constantinople, to the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Armenian himself, in search of Greek manuscripts. Al-Mansur is requested and received a number of books, including Euclid, from the Byzantine emperor. The Arab Muslims were not able to read the Greek originals; therefore they had to depend on translations made by their subjects who did know Greek: Nestorian Christians. The Nestorians first translated the Greek works into Syriac and then from Syriac into Arabic.
One of the most important achievements of al-Ma'mun's rule is his establishment of the previously mentioned Bayt al-Hikma (the House of Wisdom) in 830. This House of Wisdom was a combination library, an academy, and a translation bureau. One historian has described the Bayt al-Hikma as the most important educational institution since the foundation of the Alexandrian Museum in the first half of the third century B.C. Under al-Ma'mun, the Bayt al-Hikma became the center of translation activity. This era of avid translation would last through the early tenth century.[17]
Before the age of translation was brought to an end, practically all the works of Aristotle that had survived to that day, had been translated into Arabic. Two Muslim chroniclers tell us that no less than a hundred works of Aristotle, whom the Muslims called "the philosopher of the Greeks," had been translated. Some of these works attributed to Aristotle, however, are now known to be forgeries. This intellectual floruit in the Islamic world was taking place while Europe was almost totally ignorant of Greek thought and science. Its later rediscovery of it was through the Arabic translations which in turn would spur the Western Renaissance. One modern historian has remarked, "While al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun were delving into Greek and Pesian philosophy, their contemporaries in the West, Charlemagne and his lords, were reportedly dabbling in the art of writing their names."[18] Aristotle's works on logic and particularly two of his works, Rhetoric and Poetics, became, along with the study of Arabic grammar, the basis of humanistic studies (Ar. adab) in Islam. As these works available in translation progressively took intellectual circles by storm, the Islamic world, like Patristic Christianity before it, had to grapple with "the problem of how to assimilate the 'pagan' knowledge of the Greeks to a conception of the world that included God as its creator."[19] The tension between the two led to a creative accommodation and synthesis as well as to a festering uneasiness and outright hostility in the medieval world, a range of responses that in some measure still influences modern discourses on the nature and parameters of education in Islamic societies.
In the early 'Abbasid period, the rational sciences were taught in special institutions called dar al-'ilm (lit. "house of knowledge") which flourished until about the middle of the eleventh century when they began to cede ground to the madrasa. Like the madrasa, the dar al-'ilm was also often a waqf institution, established by a private Muslim individual using his or her private property for a public charitable purpose. In addition to these institutions, the rational sciences were typically taught in private homes and in other non-institutional locations. Because of the largely non-institutional nature of this kind of education, it has been assumed by some historians that instruction in the rational sciences considerably declined and then well-nigh disappeared after the twelfth century, just as Europe was beginning to experience a surge in learning inspired by its contacts with the Islamic world. It appears that these historians had been looking for 'ilm in all the wrong places because once the madrasa with its mandated curriculum of religious sciences became the predominant institution of formal learning, the rational subjects were taught primarily in informal study circles in private homes, libraries, and in the dar al-'ilm institutions until they faded away. Since most modern scholars have tended to focus on the madrasa as the locus classicus of Islamic education, non-formal and non-institutionalized modes of learning tended to be downplayed.
Recent research based on unpublished manuscripts, charitable foundation deed documents, and biographical works on scholars yields a revised picture. In favorable circumstances, the rational sciences continued to be taught and studied openly even in madrasas, sometimes even in mosques, and certainly in informal study-circles and libraries. This was a natural consequence of the fact that the broadly educated person who had acquired mastery in several fields, including the Hellenistic subjects, remained the ideal throughout the pre-modern period, in contradistinction to our era of specialization. Thus biographical dictionaries from the Mamluk period (1256-1571) refer to shaykhs (professors and learned notables) in Damascus who had achieved enviable mastery (Ar. riyasa, imama) in a number of subjects, including theology, belles lettres, medicine, mathematics, natural science, and the Hellenistic sciences. A Hanafi jurist is described in one biographical entry as having taught logic and scholastic dialectic in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus during the Mamluk period.[20] In a mosque or madrasa environment, the studying and teaching of Hellenic philosophy could be the most problematic, since some of its postulations were at variance with monotheistic doctrines such as the existence of an omnipotent, personal, and providential God, the finiteness of the world, and bodily resurrection. Thus a philosopher who had studied with the well-known theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209) was accused by some of his colleagues of corrupting his students at the madrasa where he lived and taught. The rational sciences along with the Islamic sciences could always be taught discreetly by professors who had a partiality for both types of learning under a neutral or concealing umbrella rubric like hadith. Even in unfavorable political circumstances, such as during the reign of the twelfth century Ayyubid rulers al-Mu'azzam and al-Ashraf who tried to forbid the teaching of philosophy, the teaching of the Hellenistic sciences continued unabated.[21] George Makdisi, who still remains after his death the preeminent scholar on Islamic education, has pointed to the fact that the "ancient sciences" remained accessible and avidly pursued through the High Middle Ages, even by "conventional" scholars such as the Shafi'i jurisconsult Sayf al-Din al-Amidi (d. 1234). In regard to these sciences, he remarked that "Not only was access easy, it was in turn concealed, condoned, allowed, encouraged, held in honour, according to different regions and periods, in spite of the traditionalist opposition, the periodic prohibitions, and autos-da-fé."[22]
Humanistic studies (Adab)
Another very important part of education in the Islamic milieu was the humanistic sciences, termed in Arabic adab, which was based primarily upon the study of literature (poetry, belles-lettres, prosody) and the linguistic sciences (grammar, syntax, philology). In addition to religious or sacred literature, "profane" or secular literature was also being produced since the Umayyad period (661-750). In the field of literature and the arts, the Persian contribution was the strongest. The earliest literary prose work in Arabic that has come down to us is Kalila wa-Dimna, a translation of a wisdom tale from Pahlavi (Middle Persian), which in turn was a translation from the Sanskrit. The original work was brought to Persia from India, together with the game of chess, during the reign of the Persian King Anusharwan (531-78) and would become hugely popular in world literature upon its translation into various languages. The book Kalila and Dimna was part of the burgeoning mirrors-of-princes literature and thus intended to instruct princes in the art of administration by means of animal fables. It was rendered into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqaffa', a Persian Zoroastrian convert to Islam, whose life spanned the late Umayyad and 'Abbasid periods. Ibn al-Muqaffa' was a member of the powerful, highly educated secretarial class which was largely responsible for the emergence and development of adab. As Islamic realms expanded and a sophisticated, complex bureaucracy evolved, the epistolary (prose-essay) genre arose which eventually would spawn a rich secular, administrative literature. Many from among this class of royal secretaries and courtiers continued to provide adaptations and translations of Indian-Persian wisdom literature for the entertainment and edification of the upper class. Among the translated works were ancient histories and legends, fables and proverbs - almost anything that appealed to the literary sophisticate and social dilettante. Poetry had dipped in popularity in the early Islamic period but began to enjoy a resurgence in the eighth century. Pre-Islamic poetry in fact was minutely studied by Muslim philologists and religious scholars because of the proximity of its language to that of the Qur'an and thus it's beneficial role in elucidating abstruse words or locutions in the sacred text.
As a consequence of these intellectual and cultural trends, a specifically Islamic humanism emerged based on the concept of adab, which according to probably the most famous belle-lettrist in Arabic literature, Amr b. Bahr al-Jahiz (d. 869), may be defined as "1) the total educational system of 2) a cultured Muslim who 3) took the whole world for his object of curiosity and knowledge."[23] Adab, according to the first part of this definition, is the equivalent of the Greek notion of paideia, according to which a holistic education contributes to the moral development of the individual. One can even speak of a multiplicity of humanistic trends (humanisms) in this period of extraordinary intellectual and cultural floruit, including philosophical, religious, and legalistic humanism.[24] As our sources show, adab in the broad sense of humanistic studies became an integral part of the curriculum in mosques, madrasas, and libraries. The sciences of the Arabic language ('ulum al-'Arabiyya) were necessary ancillaries to the religious sciences from the very beginning. According to the well-known philologist al-Anbari (d. 1181), a full range of offerings in the Arabic sciences would include grammar, lexicology, morphology, metrics, rhyme, prosody, history of the Arab tribes, Arab genealogy, as well as the science of dialectic for grammar and the science of grammatical theory and methodology.[25] Secular, belle-lettristic works were sometimes taught even in mosques; the biographer al-Safadi mentions that a shaykh taught al-Hariri's famous Maqamat and other adab works in the Umayyad mosque.[26] Being a polymath was a matter of pride and scholars won renown for their breadth of learning in various religious and secular subjects rather than for a narrow specialization. Thus the elder Subki, father of the famous biographer and chronicler Taj al-Din Subki, is described by his son as not atypically having mastery over jurisprudence, hadith, Qur'anic exegesis and recitation, didactic and speculative theology, grammar and syntax, lexicography, belles-lettres and ethics, medicine, scholastic dialectic, khilaf (points of difference among the law schools, logic, poetry, heresiography, arithmetic, law, and astronomy.[27] Physicians were also commonly learned in adab and the legal sciences just as many jurists were also learned in medicine.[28]
Role of Women Scholars
The master narrative on Islamic education in both Islamic (Arabic, Persian, Urdu, etc.) and Western languages has traditionally minimized the role of women in scholarship, creating the impression that their influence has been slight. Yet, not-as-frequently consulted sources like biographical dictionaries establish that women's contribution particularly in the transmission of hadith and in other areas of religious scholarship has been considerable and recognized as such by their contemporaries. For example, 'A'isha, the Prophet's widow, was a prolific transmitter of hadith; a significant number of her reports have been recorded by al-Bukhari (d. 870), author of the most authoritative Sunni hadith compilation. She was also renowned for her exegesis of the Qur'an and was consulted widely by the closest associates of the Prophet on account of her knowledge of the religious law.[29]
During the later period, we have evidence of impressive scholarship evinced by women as recorded in biographical dictionaries, such as the one composed by Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sakhawi (d. 1497).[30] An overwhelming number of the 1,075 women referred to in al-Sakhawi's chapter on women are distinguished for their exemplary religious piety and for their excellence in and dedication to religious scholarship. The general picture that emerges is of women who were active in both receiving and imparting religious knowledge, particularly in the transmission of hadith. The notion of sexually segregated space that we take for granted as a defining feature of medieval Muslim society is challenged by what these biographical accounts have to tell us about the formal and informal settings in which women scholars conducted their activity. Women are depicted as freely studying with men and other women; after becoming credentialed as teachers, they would go on to teach both men and women. The settings include the madrasa, informal study circles (halaqas) and private homes. Two of the most important madrasas mentioned by name are the Zahiriyya and the Salihiyya in Cairo, Egypt where some of these women received their education and later taught.[31] Our protagonists are mostly women from elite backgrounds; almost without exception, they are described as being of noble birth, and/or from families which were already distinguished for a tradition of learning, and for producing religious and legal scholars. The male relatives of these women appear to have been quite encouraging of the desire of these women to acquire advanced religious instruction. Clearly, these women were empowered by their specific social and familial circumstances which appear not to have recognized a gender barrier in the acquisition and dissemination of religious scholarship.
These women scholars, like their male counterparts, spent years in scholarly apprenticeship, making the usual rounds of academic circles, choosing to study closely with particular, renowned teachers, and finally earning the coveted ijaza, the teaching certificate which permitted them to instruct others. Like their male colleagues, they clearly worked hard to make their entré into the world of formal religious training. The actual academic training of the best of these women scholars appear to match that of the best male scholars in rigor and thoroughness, a fact that was acknowledged in their own time, given the amount of academic recognition that came their way as a result. This is reflected primarily in the number and quality of the students they supervised, which included al-Sakhawi himself, and prior to him, his own teacher, the famous Ibn Hajar, for example. Some women traveled quite far and wide in their scholarly quest. For example, Fatima bt. Muhammad b. >Abd al-Hadi obtained her teaching certificates in Damascus, Egypt, Aleppo, Hama, Homs and other places, studying with renowned scholars like the famous hadith scholar Muhammad Ibn >Asakir, among others.[32] Rabi, daughter of the celebrated Ibn Hajar mentioned above, received teaching certificates from a large number of Egyptian and Syrian scholars. Her rihlat talab al-ilm (Atravel in the pursuit of knowledge@) began at the age of four when her father took her to Mecca to listen to al-Zayn al-Maraghi.[33]
A key descriptive term used for some of these distinguished women scholars is ra'isa (literally, "a female leader") and the more elevated form kathirat al-ri'asa ("having plenitude of leadership"). These terms are particularly significant since they connote exceptional mastery in the scholar's field(s) of expertise and her authority. One scholar, Halima bt. Ahmad b. Muhammad, who is described as possessing kathirat al-riyasa or "plenitude of leadership," is clearly deserving of this accolade. She is described as having being subjected to a rigorous examination before being granted her certificate to teach by her board of examiners which was constituted by a number of the most distinguished scholars of the day. After her certification, prominent scholars audited her transmission of hadith.[34]
Participation of Religious Minorities
The participation of religious minorities, mainly Christians and Jews, in the intellectual and academic life in Islamic societies is well-documented in various sources. We have already referred to the enormous contributions of Jacobite and Nestorian Christians to the efflorescence of Islamic civilization starting in the 8th century through their translation activities funded by their Muslim patrons. Inter-faith dialogue and dialectics were sometimes conducted at the caliphal court to promote a critical understanding of the other's religion. For example, the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi (d. 785) convened formal discussions on theological matters with the Catholicos Timothy, leader of the Nestorian church in Iraq in the eighth century.
Biographical sources in particular are a valuable repository of information about inter-religious scholarly exchanges and collaboration taking place in study-circles and other venues. One source mentions that a certain Muslim scholar learned in grammar and the rational sciences held study sessions in his house attended not only by Muslims but also by Jews, Christians, "heretics," and Samaritans,[35] while another shaykh, 'Izz al-Din al-Hasan al-Irbili (d. 1262) is said to have read rational sciences and philosophy with fellow-Muslims, the "People of the Book," and philosphers.[36] Other such examples occur in valuable biographical works of the period. Lessons in non-Muslim scriptures were also sometimes given by Muslim scholars. According to one source, a professor in Damascus convened study-circles on the New Testament which were attended by Christians, and held others on the Old Testament attended by Jews.[37] The celebrated Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, called in Arabic Musa ibn Maymun, served as Saladdin's court physician and wrote most of his philosophical treatises in Arabic. Highly respected for his scholarship, he moved easily in learned Muslim and Jewish circles. When he died in 1204, his death was officially mourned by Jews and Muslims alike for three days in Cairo where he was born. In Persia, the Syrian Jacobite Catholicos Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-'Ibri (d. 1286) lectured in the thirteenth century at the famous Il-Khanid observatory and library of Maragha on Euclid and Ptolemy.[38] This kind of ecumenical scholarly collegiality was a major ingredient in the formidable edifice of learning in the medieval Muslim world.
M. Fethullah Gülen's Views on Education
Our survey to date established the general receptivity of early Muslims to knowledge, religious and secular, regardless of its provenance, as long as the acquisition of such knowledge did not contribute to moral turpitude and did not violate Islamic norms of decency. As we discussed earlier, Greek, Persian, Indian, and Syriac learning was selectively synthesized with Islamic scholarship and values which enriched the religious sciences and fostered the cultivation of the natural sciences, philosophy, belles-lettres, and mathematics, among other disciplines. We have recorded instances of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and "heretics" (as called by some of the sources) studying with and learning from one another in a common educational enterprise. Education, in many ways, was a great equalizer. Therefore, as we have seen, women often had the opportunity to excel in the study and teaching of the religious sciences, whose names and accomplishments are gratefully recorded in their works by their male students and colleagues. As noted before, local rulers, notables, and the state sometimes tried to impose restrictions on the curricula of madrasas but many scholars simply ignored them or found creative ways to circumvent them.
Education served its best purpose when it fostered honest, intellectual inquiry based on critical study of texts and dialectal (and, ideally, also respectful) engagement with one's peers. Scholarly disagreement was welcomed and, as we saw, even publicly staged, in legal and intellectual circles. A statement attributed to the Prophet states, "There is mercy in the differences of my community." This hadith embodies a deep-seated awareness that the hermeneutics of reading scripture - or any other text - yields a multiplicity of equally valid readings at any given time or place. Re-emphasis upon scriptural and classical Islamic values of tolerance for a diversity of opinions and of reasoned dissent and receptivity towards the participation of religious minorities and women in public and intellectual life are in accord with the orientation of liberal educational systems.
Upon careful study, Fethullah Gülen's philosophy of a wholistic educational system which promotes spiritual enrichment and critical thinking for men and women, Muslim and non-Muslim, appears to be very closely derived from and highly compatible with the classical philosophy of Islamic education which prevailed in the early pre-modern era. As we have already affirmed, the foundational texts of Islam emphasize the acquisition and dissemination of learning as a fundamental religious duty. Thus the Qur'an (3:79) states, "Be you masters in that you teach the Scripture and in that you yourselves study [it]." Fethullah Gülen's passionate commitment to learning as a means of training both the body and the soul to do the will of God in this world is well-documented and along the lines of classical Muslim pedagogical principles based on the Qur'an and sunna. Gülen thus remarks in one of his works, "We are creatures composed of not only a body or mind or feelings or spirit; rather, we are harmonious compositions of all these elements."[39] Proper training of all these aspects of the human condition in concert promote the wholistic development of the individual - spiritually, morally, rationally, and psychologically.
In his pedagogical views, Gülen does not set up a misleading demarcation between an assumed hermetically sealed religious sphere and a secular sphere. As is well-known, he realized the importance of mastering the physical sciences and rightly emphasized that there was no cognitive disjunction between spiritual truth and scientific inquiry, and thus no dissonance between Islamic principles and scientific methodologies. Like al-Ma'arri, he bemoaned the artificial rupture effected by some between faith and reason and saw that as a violation of Islam's true purpose in bringing about a synthesis between the two. In a recent study of the Gülen movement, a young biology teacher from the movement was quoted as saying, "For a Muslim, studying or learning science is equivalent to worship. The same is true for teaching science."[40] This statement encapsulates Gülen's personal reverence for the sciences and its centrality to a wholistic educational program which blends faith and science. The Qur'an after all exhorts humans to "reflect on the creation of the heavens and Earth (3:190), which Gülen understands as an invitation to discover the Divine mysteries in the book of the universe and through every new discovery that deepens and unfolds the true believer, to live a life full of spiritual pleasure along a way of light extending from belief to knowledge of God and therefrom to love of God; and then to progress to the Hereafter and God's pleasure and approval - this is the way to become a perfect, universal human being. [41]
Studying God's creation is thus a natural consequence of an individual's faith in and love for Him, leading to deeper knowledge of matters of the mind and the spirit and ultimately to "annihilation in and subsistence with God."[42] Expressed in Sufi terms, this last quoted phrase underscores the desirability of rooting one's scientific learning in the higher purpose of serving the Almighty (hizmet) and not for material gain or worldly glory. Hizmet, service to God through one's work, particularly teaching, is a central crucial tenet of Gülen's educational philosophy and has been taken to be indicative of "worldly asceticism" on his part.[43]
It should be noted, however, that teachers in Gülen schools in a highly secular country such as Turkey and outside of Turkey do not currently overtly proclaim their adherence to Islam nor teach the sciences from a religious perspective, since both might invite the disapproval of the authorities. Gülen suggests instead that it is enough to be a faithful Muslim while imparting secular knowledge because "knowledge itself becomes an Islamic value when it is imparted by teachers with Islamic values and who can show students how to employ knowledge in the right and beneficial Islamic way."[44] In a similar vein, Gülen emphasizes the importance of temsil for his followers in general: to represent the best of Islam through their personal behavior and interactions with others.[45] Exemplary, loving conduct towards others is the best witness one can provide for one's moral integrity and fidelity to God.
In addition to the sciences, Gülen also lays emphasis on a humanistic approach to education, which reflects earlier pattersn of classical education in the Islamic world. Such a broad-based humanistic approach, according to Gülen, would include the inculcation of religious, ethical and traditional cultural values,[46] values which in their application are universal and broadly humanitarian. One should also not be severed from the history of one's community, whether as individuals or as nations, because a highly developed historical consciousness lends valuable contextualized perspective on one's contemporary life. Gülen comments, Improving a community is possible by elevating the coming generations to the rank of humanity, not by obliterating the bad ones. Unless the seeds of religion, traditional values, and historical consciousness germinate throughout the country, new bad elements will inevitably grow up in the place of every bad element that has been eradicated.[47]
Gülen evinced much admiration for the Ottoman empire and the values of the high civilization it had spawned, for which he was sometimes labeled a "reactionary" (irticaci) by those unsympathetic to him and his cause.
The Role of Women and Religious Minorities
The Gülen movement supports increased educational and work opportunities for women. Many women work particularly as educators in schools and universities, and sometimes as administrators in certain areas. Women's access to religious education in particular was never disputed in the medieval period and during some eras led to a remarkable floruit in women's scholarship, as we have previously remarked.[48] The Gülen schools continue this venerable tradition in the contemporary period.
With regard to religious minorities, Gülen, like his mentor Said Nursi before him, was a firm believer in dialogue and the establishment of cordial, tolerant relations with them. On account of such tolerant proclivities, fostered in fact by a strong Islamic identity on the part of the teachers, Gülen schools have been successful in putting down roots in various milieux, in and outside of Turkey. In return, they have been welcomed in places as diverse as Albania and Russia. Gülen often quotes Mevlana Rumi's comment to the effect that the individual should be "like a pair of compasses, with one end in the necessary place, the center, and with the other one in the 72 nations [millet]," referring to the different millets or religious communities which co-existed peacefully under the Ottomans.[49] Gülen schools, whose curricula are not specifically religious, are open to students of any faith background. Such a spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness reflects the spirit which characterized the madrasas and informal learning circles of the medieval period, which, as we indicated before, welcomed the active participation of religious minorities in their intellectual life. The inter-faith academic milieu provided valuable opportunities for dialogue and friendly debate in medieval learning circles, as it does now. Inter-faith dialogue in fact remains a priority for Gülen and his followers today, as evinced in the following statement made by Gülen, Interfaith dialogue is a must today, and the first step in establishing it is forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments, and giving precedence to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones.[50]
Emphasis on shared universal values provide the point of departure for inter-faith educational and dialogic activities.
Conclusion
The spread and success of the Gülen schools within and outside Turkey testifies to the efficacy of his educational philosophy which lays equal stress on the inculcation of Islamic ethical values and a sound training in the secular sciences. Gülen's emphasis on reason wedded to faith is perfectly in accord with the spirit of the golden age of Islamic civilization with its flourishing culture and learning as well as with the spirit of our own age, as we have established. Madrasa reform in the wake of September 11 in particular is currently receiving serious attention in a number of Muslim countries and its implementation has begun in earnest in several of them.[51] In this context, the Gülen schools and their philosophy of education deserve closer attention since they are worthy of emulation in the contemporary period.

Beyond Cattle and Sheep:The Islamic Education and Finance Industries in AustraliaThe land of cattle and sheep. That is how the Australian halal industry seems to be perceived by non Australians. True, New Zealand is better known for sheep (or at least for Australians), but whenever the halal industry is discussed outside of Australia, the most common interest is in Australian meat. Australia does produce quality meat products. With the keenness of the abattoirs to meet Islamic requirements and the non shortage of halal certifying bodies in Australia (18 bodies at last count) halal meat is easily obtainable. Melbourne, a multicultural city of 5 million and regularly rated as the world’s most livable city is home to more than 100,000 Muslims. Halal butchery is always a short drive away. Sydney Road, (the road that links Melbourne to Sydney, albeit almost 900km away) is scattered with Turkish kebab shops, Lebanese grocers and several major butcheries. The sign board for Medina Halal meat, one of the most popular halal butchers can be easily seen amidst others notifying the customers of Persian rugs and Harley Davidson motorcycles. However, meat is not all that the halal industry or even Muslims in Australia has to offer. While the Muslim population is slowly increasing, the Islamic market is expanding in leaps. Two important emerging industries are education and finance. Education is an important industry in Australia. With quality universities like University of Melbourne, Monash University, Australia National University and with more than 230,000 international students from about 195 countries, the education industry is fast recognized as valuable and vital. Malaysia has 19,500 students in Australian tertiary institutions. However, the emerging Australian education industry is not confined to tertiary education. Islamic education in Australia is fast growing with more than 20 Islamic colleges around the country. Still in its nascent stage, with most Islamic colleges established only in the 1990s, the growth and its engagement with the wider society and government makes Australian Islamic colleges an excellent platform for students who want to study in Australia and yet retain their Islamic identity. Islamic Colleges follow the state sanctioned curriculum with Islamic subjects included as part of the curriculum. Mr Selim Kayikci, Vice Principal of Ilim College illustrated, “Ilim College provides an Islamic environment that encourages high achievement and focused ambition and equip students with enough knowledge and confidence to put Islamic beliefs, values and morals into practice in their own lives.” Islamic colleges provide a strong foundation for students to enroll in Australian universities. By the time students enroll in university, their command of English, knowledge of culture and the educational system will be well established. Bridging the divide between Islam and the West, graduates of Islamic colleges in Australia gain greater appreciation living as Muslims in an Islamic environment in a Western country. The bridging of the Islam-Western divide is done on various scales in Australia. Apart from the various community-government and multicultural organisations that seek to improve relations, the government’s continued appreciation of Islamic finance as an industry that is due recognition provides a stronger platform for the continuous mutual respect and understanding between the cultures. One example of the respect accorded to Muslims is the relative ease with which the Muslim Community Cooperative (Australia) Ltd, Australia’s largest Islamic finance and investment organization engaged with the Victorian government for the exemption of double stamp duty. Founded in 1989 with an initial capital a little more than AU$20,000, MCCA initially started by providing Murabaha and Musharakah type house financing to the Muslim community. However, given the need for assets to be transacted in both systems, MCCA clientele had to pay stamp duty in multiples when the property is first purchased by MCCA and sold at the end of the contract. However, when the team led by Dr Abdul Rahim Ghouse, General Manager of MCCA met with the Victorian State Revenue Office (SRO) in October 2003 and in subsequent meetings, they found the SRO not only tolerant of Muslim needs, but also appreciative of the development of Islamic financing. As a result, in just 1 year since the initial meeting, the Victorian government gave bipartisan support to the Tax amendment to exempt payment of double stamp duty in Shariah compliant financing with Royal Assent granted on 19th October 2004. MCCA then proceeded to engage the Office of State Revenue in New South Wales and has been given a waiver for Murabaha financing from double stamp duty. During The World halal Forum, it was illuminating how much Muslims in Australia is able to engage on equal footing with the federal and state governments. While Muslims in other Western countries detailed their difficulties in gaining recognition for Islamic financing, MCCA has been able to not just encourage the state government to amend the Tax Act, but was able to work with the regulators on various levels. MCCA also engaged with the Uniform Consumer Credit Code Management Committee, the organization that governs consumer-financing organization relationship, to exempt Islamic financing from using the word “interest”. These recognitions of Islamic requirements reflects the openness from both sides, the Muslim community and the government to not only engage, but work out mutually beneficial solutions. As a result, Australia is now able to provide financing products that suit Islamic requirements. And as a consequence, it allows organisations such as MCCA to develop more products that complies with both, Australian and Islamic laws. As an example, MCCA is launching in July 2006, the Crescent Ethical Managed Discretionary Account (Crescent Ethical MDA), an investment product that allows investors to invest in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) through Shariah screened shares. It attracts investments from Muslims internationally who wants to invest in the strong Australian market but requires it to be done according to Shariah requirements. In the next few months, MCCA is launching several other investment products to attract greater investment, which will not only benefit the Muslim community, but also Australia as a whole. While the cattle and sheep market has dominated discussions about the halal industry in Australia, the education and Islamic finance industries are emerging to provide greater avenues for development of the halal industry in Australia while serving the international Muslim market.The land of cattle and sheep. That is how the Australian halal industry seems to be perceived by non Australians. True, New Zealand is better known for sheep (or at least for Australians), but whenever the halal industry is discussed outside of Australia, the most common interest is in Australian meat. Australia does produce quality meat products. With the keenness of the abattoirs to meet Islamic requirements and the non shortage of halal certifying bodies in Australia (18 bodies at last count) halal meat is easily obtainable. Melbourne, a multicultural city of 5 million and regularly rated as the world’s most livable city is home to more than 100,000 Muslims. Halal butchery is always a short drive away. Sydney Road, (the road that links Melbourne to Sydney, albeit almost 900km away) is scattered with Turkish kebab shops, Lebanese grocers and several major butcheries. The sign board for Medina Halal meat, one of the most popular halal butchers can be easily seen amidst others notifying the customers of Persian rugs and Harley Davidson motorcycles. However, meat is not all that the halal industry or even Muslims in Australia has to offer. While the Muslim population is slowly increasing, the Islamic market is expanding in leaps. Two important emerging industries are education and finance. Education is an important industry in Australia. With quality universities like University of Melbourne, Monash University, Australia National University and with more than 230,000 international students from about 195 countries, the education industry is fast recognized as valuable and vital. Malaysia has 19,500 students in Australian tertiary institutions. However, the emerging Australian education industry is not confined to tertiary education. Islamic education in Australia is fast growing with more than 20 Islamic colleges around the country. Still in its nascent stage, with most Islamic colleges established only in the 1990s, the growth and its engagement with the wider society and government makes Australian Islamic colleges an excellent platform for students who want to study in Australia and yet retain their Islamic identity. Islamic Colleges follow the state sanctioned curriculum with Islamic subjects included as part of the curriculum. Mr Selim Kayikci, Vice Principal of Ilim College illustrated, “Ilim College provides an Islamic environment that encourages high achievement and focused ambition and equip students with enough knowledge and confidence to put Islamic beliefs, values and morals into practice in their own lives.” Islamic colleges provide a strong foundation for students to enroll in Australian universities. By the time students enroll in university, their command of English, knowledge of culture and the educational system will be well established. Bridging the divide between Islam and the West, graduates of Islamic colleges in Australia gain greater appreciation living as Muslims in an Islamic environment in a Western country. The bridging of the Islam-Western divide is done on various scales in Australia. Apart from the various community-government and multicultural organisations that seek to improve relations, the government’s continued appreciation of Islamic finance as an industry that is due recognition provides a stronger platform for the continuous mutual respect and understanding between the cultures. One example of the respect accorded to Muslims is the relative ease with which the Muslim Community Cooperative (Australia) Ltd, Australia’s largest Islamic finance and investment organization engaged with the Victorian government for the exemption of double stamp duty. Founded in 1989 with an initial capital a little more than AU$20,000, MCCA initially started by providing Murabaha and Musharakah type house financing to the Muslim community. However, given the need for assets to be transacted in both systems, MCCA clientele had to pay stamp duty in multiples when the property is first purchased by MCCA and sold at the end of the contract. However, when the team led by Dr Abdul Rahim Ghouse, General Manager of MCCA met with the Victorian State Revenue Office (SRO) in October 2003 and in subsequent meetings, they found the SRO not only tolerant of Muslim needs, but also appreciative of the development of Islamic financing. As a result, in just 1 year since the initial meeting, the Victorian government gave bipartisan support to the Tax amendment to exempt payment of double stamp duty in Shariah compliant financing with Royal Assent granted on 19th October 2004. MCCA then proceeded to engage the Office of State Revenue in New South Wales and has been given a waiver for Murabaha financing from double stamp duty. During The World halal Forum, it was illuminating how much Muslims in Australia is able to engage on equal footing with the federal and state governments. While Muslims in other Western countries detailed their difficulties in gaining recognition for Islamic financing, MCCA has been able to not just encourage the state government to amend the Tax Act, but was able to work with the regulators on various levels. MCCA also engaged with the Uniform Consumer Credit Code Management Committee, the organization that governs consumer-financing organization relationship, to exempt Islamic financing from using the word “interest”. These recognitions of Islamic requirements reflects the openness from both sides, the Muslim community and the government to not only engage, but work out mutually beneficial solutions. As a result, Australia is now able to provide financing products that suit Islamic requirements. And as a consequence, it allows organisations such as MCCA to develop more products that complies with both, Australian and Islamic laws. As an example, MCCA is launching in July 2006, the Crescent Ethical Managed Discretionary Account (Crescent Ethical MDA), an investment product that allows investors to invest in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) through Shariah screened shares. It attracts investments from Muslims internationally who wants to invest in the strong Australian market but requires it to be done according to Shariah requirements. In the next few months, MCCA is launching several other investment products to attract greater investment, which will not only benefit the Muslim community, but also Australia as a whole. While the cattle and sheep market has dominated discussions about the halal industry in Australia, the education and Islamic finance industries are emerging to provide greater avenues for development of the halal industry in Australia while serving the international Muslim market.The land of cattle and sheep. That is how the Australian halal industry seems to be perceived by non Australians. True, New Zealand is better known for sheep (or at least for Australians), but whenever the halal industry is discussed outside of Australia, the most common interest is in Australian meat. Australia does produce quality meat products. With the keenness of the abattoirs to meet Islamic requirements and the non shortage of halal certifying bodies in Australia (18 bodies at last count) halal meat is easily obtainable. Melbourne, a multicultural city of 5 million and regularly rated as the world’s most livable city is home to more than 100,000 Muslims. Halal butchery is always a short drive away. Sydney Road, (the road that links Melbourne to Sydney, albeit almost 900km away) is scattered with Turkish kebab shops, Lebanese grocers and several major butcheries. The sign board for Medina Halal meat, one of the most popular halal butchers can be easily seen amidst others notifying the customers of Persian rugs and Harley Davidson motorcycles. However, meat is not all that the halal industry or even Muslims in Australia has to offer. While the Muslim population is slowly increasing, the Islamic market is expanding in leaps. Two important emerging industries are education and finance. Education is an important industry in Australia. With quality universities like University of Melbourne, Monash University, Australia National University and with more than 230,000 international students from about 195 countries, the education industry is fast recognized as valuable and vital. Malaysia has 19,500 students in Australian tertiary institutions. However, the emerging Australian education industry is not confined to tertiary education. Islamic education in Australia is fast growing with more than 20 Islamic colleges around the country. Still in its nascent stage, with most Islamic colleges established only in the 1990s, the growth and its engagement with the wider society and government makes Australian Islamic colleges an excellent platform for students who want to study in Australia and yet retain their Islamic identity. Islamic Colleges follow the state sanctioned curriculum with Islamic subjects included as part of the curriculum. Mr Selim Kayikci, Vice Principal of Ilim College illustrated, “Ilim College provides an Islamic environment that encourages high achievement and focused ambition and equip students with enough knowledge and confidence to put Islamic beliefs, values and morals into practice in their own lives.” Islamic colleges provide a strong foundation for students to enroll in Australian universities. By the time students enroll in university, their command of English, knowledge of culture and the educational system will be well established. Bridging the divide between Islam and the West, graduates of Islamic colleges in Australia gain greater appreciation living as Muslims in an Islamic environment in a Western country. The bridging of the Islam-Western divide is done on various scales in Australia. Apart from the various community-government and multicultural organisations that seek to improve relations, the government’s continued appreciation of Islamic finance as an industry that is due recognition provides a stronger platform for the continuous mutual respect and understanding between the cultures. One example of the respect accorded to Muslims is the relative ease with which the Muslim Community Cooperative (Australia) Ltd, Australia’s largest Islamic finance and investment organization engaged with the Victorian government for the exemption of double stamp duty. Founded in 1989 with an initial capital a little more than AU$20,000, MCCA initially started by providing Murabaha and Musharakah type house financing to the Muslim community. However, given the need for assets to be transacted in both systems, MCCA clientele had to pay stamp duty in multiples when the property is first purchased by MCCA and sold at the end of the contract. However, when the team led by Dr Abdul Rahim Ghouse, General Manager of MCCA met with the Victorian State Revenue Office (SRO) in October 2003 and in subsequent meetings, they found the SRO not only tolerant of Muslim needs, but also appreciative of the development of Islamic financing. As a result, in just 1 year since the initial meeting, the Victorian government gave bipartisan support to the Tax amendment to exempt payment of double stamp duty in Shariah compliant financing with Royal Assent granted on 19th October 2004. MCCA then proceeded to engage the Office of State Revenue in New South Wales and has been given a waiver for Murabaha financing from double stamp duty. During The World halal Forum, it was illuminating how much Muslims in Australia is able to engage on equal footing with the federal and state governments. While Muslims in other Western countries detailed their difficulties in gaining recognition for Islamic financing, MCCA has been able to not just encourage the state government to amend the Tax Act, but was able to work with the regulators on various levels. MCCA also engaged with the Uniform Consumer Credit Code Management Committee, the organization that governs consumer-financing organization relationship, to exempt Islamic financing from using the word “interest”. These recognitions of Islamic requirements reflects the openness from both sides, the Muslim community and the government to not only engage, but work out mutually beneficial solutions. As a result, Australia is now able to provide financing products that suit Islamic requirements. And as a consequence, it allows organisations such as MCCA to develop more products that complies with both, Australian and Islamic laws. As an example, MCCA is launching in July 2006, the Crescent Ethical Managed Discretionary Account (Crescent Ethical MDA), an investment product that allows investors to invest in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) through Shariah screened shares. It attracts investments from Muslims internationally who wants to invest in the strong Australian market but requires it to be done according to Shariah requirements. In the next few months, MCCA is launching several other investment products to attract greater investment, which will not only benefit the Muslim community, but also Australia as a whole. While the cattle and sheep market has dominated discussions about the halal industry in Australia, the education and Islamic finance industries are emerging to provide greater avenues for development of the halal industry in Australia while serving the international Muslim market.

The land of cattle and sheep. That is how the Australian halal industry seems to be perceived by non Australians. True, New Zealand is better known for sheep (or at least for Australians), but whenever the halal industry is discussed outside of Australia, the most common interest is in Australian meat. Australia does produce quality meat products. With the keenness of the abattoirs to meet Islamic requirements and the non shortage of halal certifying bodies in Australia (18 bodies at last count) halal meat is easily obtainable. Melbourne, a multicultural city of 5 million and regularly rated as the world’s most livable city is home to more than 100,000 Muslims. Halal butchery is always a short drive away. Sydney Road, (the road that links Melbourne to Sydney, albeit almost 900km away) is scattered with Turkish kebab shops, Lebanese grocers and several major butcheries. The sign board for Medina Halal meat, one of the most popular halal butchers can be easily seen amidst others notifying the customers of Persian rugs and Harley Davidson motorcycles. However, meat is not all that the halal industry or even Muslims in Australia has to offer. While the Muslim population is slowly increasing, the Islamic market is expanding in leaps.
Two important emerging industries are education and finance. Education is an important industry in Australia. With quality universities like University of Melbourne, Monash University, Australia National University and with more than 230,000 international students from about 195 countries, the education industry is fast recognized as valuable and vital. Malaysia has 19,500 students in Australian tertiary institutions. However, the emerging Australian education industry is not confined to tertiary education. Islamic education in Australia is fast growing with more than 20 Islamic colleges around the country. Still in its nascent stage, with most Islamic colleges established only in the 1990s, the growth and its engagement with the wider society and government makes Australian Islamic colleges an excellent platform for students who want to study in Australia and yet retain their Islamic identity. Islamic Colleges follow the state sanctioned curriculum with Islamic subjects included as part of the curriculum. Mr Selim Kayikci, Vice Principal of Ilim College illustrated, “Ilim College provides an Islamic environment that encourages high achievement and focused ambition and equip students with enough knowledge and confidence to put Islamic beliefs, values and morals into practice in their own lives.” Islamic colleges provide a strong foundation for students to enroll in Australian universities. By the time students enroll in university, their command of English, knowledge of culture and the educational system will be well established. Bridging the divide between Islam and the West, graduates of Islamic colleges in Australia gain greater appreciation living as Muslims in an Islamic environment in a Western country.

The bridging of the Islam-Western divide is done on various scales in Australia. Apart from the various community-government and multicultural organisations that seek to improve relations, the government’s continued appreciation of Islamic finance as an industry that is due recognition provides a stronger platform for the continuous mutual respect and understanding between the cultures. One example of the respect accorded to Muslims is the relative ease with which the Muslim Community Cooperative (Australia) Ltd, Australia’s largest Islamic finance and investment organization engaged with the Victorian government for the exemption of double stamp duty. Founded in 1989 with an initial capital a little more than AU$20,000, MCCA initially started by providing Murabaha and Musharakah type house financing to the Muslim community. However, given the need for assets to be transacted in both systems, MCCA clientele had to pay stamp duty in multiples when the property is first purchased by MCCA and sold at the end of the contract. However, when the team led by Dr Abdul Rahim Ghouse, General Manager of MCCA met with the Victorian State Revenue Office (SRO) in October 2003 and in subsequent meetings, they found the SRO not only tolerant of Muslim needs, but also appreciative of the development of Islamic financing. As a result, in just 1 year since the initial meeting, the Victorian government gave bipartisan support to the Tax amendment to exempt payment of double stamp duty in Shariah compliant financing with Royal Assent granted on 19th October 2004. MCCA then proceeded to engage the Office of State Revenue in New South Wales and has been given a waiver for Murabaha financing from double stamp duty. During The World halal Forum, it was illuminating how much Muslims in Australia is able to engage on equal footing with the federal and state governments. While Muslims in other Western countries detailed their difficulties in gaining recognition for Islamic financing, MCCA has been able to not just encourage the state government to amend the Tax Act, but was able to work with the regulators on various levels. MCCA also engaged with the Uniform Consumer Credit Code Management Committee, the organization that governs consumer-financing organization relationship, to exempt Islamic financing from using the word “interest”.

These recognitions of Islamic requirements reflects the openness from both sides, the Muslim community and the government to not only engage, but work out mutually beneficial solutions. As a result, Australia is now able to provide financing products that suit Islamic requirements. And as a consequence, it allows organisations such as MCCA to develop more products that complies with both, Australian and Islamic laws. As an example, MCCA is launching in July 2006, the Crescent Ethical Managed Discretionary Account (Crescent Ethical MDA), an investment product that allows investors to invest in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) through Shariah screened shares. It attracts investments from Muslims internationally who wants to invest in the strong Australian market but requires it to be done according to Shariah requirements. In the next few months, MCCA is launching several other investment products to attract greater investment, which will not only benefit the Muslim community, but also Australia as a whole. While the cattle and sheep market has dominated discussions about the halal industry in Australia, the education and Islamic finance industries are emerging to provide greater avenues for development of the halal industry in Australia while serving the international Muslim market.

State-sponsored Islamic Education

The state was also well aware of the impact of their systematic efforts to undermine religion, and in the case of Islam, sought to redress some of the damage by establishing Islamic colleges throughout the country to offer formal training for imams (known as ahong in Chinese, from the Persian akhund). In all, some ten colleges were established in different cities in China to serve the needs of distinct regions.9 In the early years these colleges were fully funded by the state and provided students with modest stipends. In addition to offering four-year programs that included instruction in Arabic, Qur’an, Hadith, Islamic law, Chinese language, and Chinese history, these colleges also offer three-month intensive “refresher” courses for imams. By acting quickly to establish comprehensive Islamic studies colleges, the government was able to both begin to rebuild that which they had helped destroy, but they also were able to have a strong influence in how Islam, or at least the study of Islam, was reconstituted in China. Although most Muslims appreciated these efforts, and continue to do so even to this day, there are others who worry that these schools are not sufficiently independent. The government strictly controls which teachers are hired to teach, which students are selected, and the content of the courses taught. Despite these reservations, many of the most respected older scholars of Islam have accepted teaching positions in these schools, and many of the most outstanding young students have chosen to study there. Four years after they were established, it was the graduates of these schools who were the first Chinese Muslims in over fifty years to go overseas to continue their Islamic studies.

In recent years, many of the students who have completed their studies abroad and returned to China have taken up positions as teachers (of course after being vetted by state authorities) in these colleges. Furthermore, although these schools, like all public schools in China, are now fee-paying, the tuition is relatively low, and for many poorer Muslim families, especially in rural areas, these schools offer an important alternative to more expensive standard schools. Many of these schools now also offer classes in English and computer studies. [5]


Private Islamic Colleges

Perhaps as a consequence of the lingering reservations about the government-run Islamic colleges, beginning in the late 1980s different communities began to establish independent Islamic colleges. One of the earliest, and most respected of these schools was set up in a village outside Dali, in western Yunnan province. This school was the brainchild of several retired Hui schoolteachers. Opened in 1991, its very first class included students from every region of China; from Xinjiang in the northwest to Hainan Island, off China’s southeast coast. Indeed, that this small school in a relatively remote part of China was able to attract students from such a wide-range of places so quickly speaks to the complex networks of communication linking Muslim communities throughout China. Many of these schools also have their own websites.

Although there was a government-run Islamic college in the provincial capital Kunming, these teachers had been able to convince authorities of an additional need for Islamic studies schools. The courses offered included Arabic, Chinese, and the traditional Islamic Studies courses; with English and computer classes added later. The first group of students included many outstanding students, who upon graduation continued their studies overseas, or became teachers at the school. Most, however, were sent to teach in villages needing teachers. In order to place the teachers, the head of the school would travel to different villages to find out which were in need of teachers and what local conditions were like. He would then match students who were about to graduate with specific communities. Before graduation they would be sent off for a one-month trial teaching assignment to see if they would be suitable for a two-year assignment.

There are dozens of these independent Islamic colleges throughout China, mostly established in the 1990s, and according to several informants, the government has not recently allowed any new ones to be established. Some are co-educational, some for men only, and some for women only. They play a crucial role in the development of local Muslim societies as they are independent, supported by local communities, and developed with the needs of the community in mind. Some have argued that more so than the government-run Islamic colleges, and even the famous foreign Islamic colleges, these schools offer the best training for teachers and imams. For in addition to receiving advanced training in Islamic studies, students also learn about the Muslim communities in which they live, their unique histories, customs, and values.

Another important role played by these schools is attracting students from distant regions of China. Both a school in Inner Mongolia and in Henan may equally attract a diverse student body from Xinjiang, Shanghai, Guizhou, and Tibet. These students bring to their school their own life experiences as well as the experiences of their communities back home, so that during their studies, not only do they learn a tremendous amount about the communities in which they live, they bring that knowledge back to their home village upon completing their studies. In addition, there are many teachers from different regions of China who met and married while in school. These relationships serve to further develop ties between Muslim communities scattered across China.


Mosque-based Education

Mosque based education, known as jingtang jiaoyu (education in the hall of the classics) is the most common form of Islamic education, and is found throughout all regions of China (except for Xinjiang), in both large cities and small villages. Classes are offered for children of all ages, adults, and the elderly. However, for school-age children, classes are only offered during times when regular school is not in session, for example in the early morning, late afternoon, or during summer vacation. The government maintains strict control over the curriculum in state schools and seeks to maintain uniform content. Thus, although schools in areas with predominantly minority populations might have some classes in their native language during the first few years of school, they are not allowed to offer classes that cover their own history and culture.

These mosque-based schools are extraordinary in their range of size, condition, and quality of instruction. Some are brand-new multi-storied classroom buildings equipped with computer labs, while others might consist of one small blackboard attached to the outside wall of a slowly crumbling mosque. The size and quality of the classrooms is mostly a reflection of the economic status of the village or community, as well as their commitment to Islam. The quality of instruction also depends on the communities’ ability to attract good teachers. There are some teachers who have studied overseas, speak three languages fluently, and have extensive knowledge of Islam. However, in some extremely poor and remote villages, there are others who seemed barely literate in Chinese, and appeared to have only a rudimentary understanding of Islam. Nevertheless, as increasing numbers of young people complete their Islamic studies, one can find qualified teachers in the most remote and poor regions. In some cases a teacher would have returned to their home village upon graduation, whereas in others there are graduates who volunteered to be sent wherever they were most needed.­

The students also represent a wide range of ages and backgrounds. Morning classes are usually held for the retired and elderly. In the late afternoon and evening, classes are offered for those who work full-time. In cities, on the weekends there might be classes for university students who take time away from their regular studies to learn Arabic and study Islam. Many mosque schools also offer pre-school programs for 3 - 6 year olds. These pre-schools are especially important in larger cities where once the children are enrolled in elementary school, they may find themselves one of only a handful of Muslims in their school.

The impact of these schools on community life was made clear when one visited a small village in Yunnan province in one afternoon. It appeared as quiet and ordinary as most Chinese villages on a late summer afternoon. Gradually as the sun began to set, dozens of children appeared in the mosque courtyard, and soon there were hundreds of children there, many having walked in from neighboring villages. The children were lively and high-spirited, and while most of the boys played outside until it was time for classes to begin, many of the students had gone up to their classrooms early to review for their classes and socialize with their friends. For Muslim communities who have lived through difficult and sometimes devastating times, it must mean a great deal to them to see their latest generation embrace the study of their faith so enthusiastically. The classroom building in this particular village was especially impressive as well. Five stories high and towering over the village buildings, it had been built by funds raised by several neighboring villages, and served the entire community. [6]


Studying overseas

Beginning in the early 1990s, Chinese Muslim students were allowed to continue their studies overseas. The first group of students went to Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan. Shortly thereafter the Saudi government instituted a scholarship program that required students to first pass an Arabic exam before being eligible. A few years later, Iran also began a scholarship program, and there are now students also studying in Malaysia and Turkey.

Proper Islamic Education & upbringing and parent's responsibility

[A translation of an article published in Tameer-e-Hayat magazine published fortnightly from Nadwatul Ulama, Lucknow, India. For more information about the magazine please see  the author of this article in Urdu is Hadhrat maulana sayyed abulhasan ali hasani nadwi rahmatullahi aleyh]
[Disclaimer: Please remember that by no means this is a perfect translation and it is bound to have some mistakes. Please leave a comment if you find one]

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا وَقُودُهَا النَّاسُ وَالْحِجَارَةُ عَلَيْهَا مَلائِكَةٌ غِلاظٌ شِدَادٌ لا يَعْصُونَ اللَّهَ مَا أَمَرَهُمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ
066.006 O ye who believe! save yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is Men and Stones, over which are (appointed) angels stern (and) severe, who flinch not (from executing) the Commands they receive from Allah, but do (precisely) what they are commanded.

Al-Qur'an, 066.006 (At-Tahrim [Banning, Prohibition])
Text Copied from DivineIslam's Qur'an Viewer software v2.913
People, I just read a verse of holy Quran before you that would have been read numerous times before you in the past and you would have come across the verse while reciting Quran; but it is not necessary that one ponders over something that one sees everyday. You just go past the road; the billboards have been hanging for years, you even look at them but ask yourself how many times you actually read them attentively and remembered what was written on them.
Only few will be able to recall, if asked about the billboards that they saw while driving past a road.
The Quranic verse puts one in amazement. This verse is such that if there was no danger, that something that one sees and confronts daily, loses its importance, I would have said and urged that this verse be inscribed on walls and hung (i.e for it to be seen) in mosques.
Allah says O people who have believed “ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا" the word آمَنُوا is a past form of the verb. Pay attention to each word; None of the words of Quran are mere co-incidence or just used to fill in and complete the sentence. This is not some poetic art. It could have been said “ايها المومنون", it could have been said “ايها المسلمون". O you who believe or O you muslims.Instead the group of believers are addressed “ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا" O you people who themselves have believed “ قُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا وَقُودُهَاالنَّاسُ وَالْحِجَارَةُ". Save yourself, your family members, your contacts, your subordinates from a fire whose fuel is men and stones.
The addressees of this verse were muslims, companions of the prophet (صلّى اللة علية وسلّم) who were present at the time when Quran was revealed. Those were the first and foremost addressees. However, all muslim generations until the judgement day and anyone who is born and calls himself muslim is addressed by this verse.
The first among the addressees were the companions of the prophet (صلّى اللة علية وسلّم), who had believed in the prophet's hand, those who had given their hand to him, those who were given the blessing of companionship of the prophet. And verily those who will swear fealty to the prophet were also addressed. Those who had decided to lay their life and swore fealty to the prophet at the treaty of Hudaibiyah, about whom the verse is
048.018 لَقَدْ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذْ يُبَايِعُونَكَ تَحْتَ الشَّجَرَةِ فَعَلِمَ مَا فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ فَأَنْزَلَ السَّكِينَةَ عَلَيْهِمْ وَأَثَابَهُمْ فَتْحًا قَرِيبًا
048.018 Allah's Good Pleasure was on the Believers when they swore Fealty to thee under the Tree: He knew what was in their hearts, and He sent down Tranquillity to them; and He rewarded them with a speedy Victory;
Al-Qur'an, 048.018 (Al-Fath [Victory, Conquest])
Text Copied from DivineIslam's Qur'an Viewer software v2.913”
Allah was happy with those who had received this blessing and was happy with those who had received a Sanad (synonymous to authority and authenticity) from Allah. The people with authority and high status who took part in the Ridwan Fealty (bayat-e-Rizwan) are also addressed by this Quranic verse. The ten promised paradise (Ashrah Mubashsharah) are also surely included in this. High ranking companions of the prophet are also included in this address. “Living Martyrs” of Ohud and Badr (Names of two millitary campaigns) are also the addressees of this Quranic verse.
Now I ask you, does anyone throw their children and family into fire ? Let's them go into fire ?
What does it mean when Allah says to those who believed, 'Now it is your duty to save yourself, save your family members from the Hell fire'? Have you seen or read any incident where a companion of the prophet (صلّى اللة علية وسلّم), may God forbid, allowed their child to fall into fire, or if the children wanted to proceed towards fire and the companions if prophet(صلّى اللة علية وسلّم) and muslims of that time let them do this without saying or doing anything. Has anyone seen or read an incident like this ?
So, is this statement made without any purpose that O you who believed it is now your duty to save yourself and your family from fire? Which fire is referred to here ? And when did this incident occur ? Or was about to occur ? That muslim children wanted to jump into fire and parents were sleeping; oblivious? When was it that Allah sent down a revelation (Quranic Ayah), everyone was caught by surprise and worried that their children should not jump into fire?
Then what was referred to by this verse ? Can the verse mean something besides the protection of one's children and one's family members, from the things that lead towards fire ? The upshot of which, will be that these people end up in hell fire. Otherwise, are their some people who see their children heading towards fire and don't stop them ?
The only danger is that one doesn't know that doing this will result in burning in hellfire. So to protect from hellfire actually means to protect from the means that lead towards hellfire. This is termed as “اسباب مؤدیہ(Urdu, unable to translate this) in islamic legal terminology (Fiqh). In other words those means that lead towards the result. According to islamic jurists (Fuqahaa') these means also take the ruling of the end result. For example, if a person is being given a medicine which results in death (sooner or later) then this act is considered murder. Simply because the person who gave the medicine undertook means that certainly result in death. Law would call such a person murderer; Medical personnel would also consider him a murderer. So it is understandable that protection here refers to protection from the things that take or lead towards hellfire.
Now, I say to you and this is the current situation: Not arranging islamic education for the children, letting the children free in such an atmosphere and leaving them at the mercy of the atmosphere which can in no way give the children the education on which our salvation depends; the education brought to us by the prophets, the neglect of which endangers our faith (Iman), is ruining our hereafter (Akhirah); So, we should now think, that how is this being allowed for the child ?
Current education system is not merely secular, but it is a positive system of education, Hindu mythology is a part of it. During the british rule of India, the education system was secular; the stories circled around dogs and cats. Many of us have studied english during british period. During those times neither the basic education system affected anyone's creed (Aqidah) nor it led to the idea of sanctification of any creation (Creation refers to anything else besides Allah) and it didn't show power and control of any creation in this universe. During those times children used to read stories of cats, dogs and other various animals and used to return home unaffected (i.e their faith and creed remained unaffected). The current situation is different. The government school's syllabus consists of lessons, stories and articles that affect our creed (Aqeedah). Teachers leave no stone unturned in making sure that anything that is left mis-understood or not understood has been understood by the students. The students have to do things that are against islamic belief of monotheism. (Tauheed)
Let me ask you, consider this, there is a downhill path, one is not even able to hold his feet firmly because of steepness of the slope, a child is riding his bike and moving downhill and heading towards a chasm, the bicycle brakes are ineffective, the father sees all this and knows well that bicycle brakes are dysfunctional and ineffective, and also knows that there is no other way his child will be able to survive (except that he saves his child), then would it not be appropriate to say that the father consciously and knowingly allowed his child to reach the dead-end and fall off? Can any person not agree to this statement ?
If you agree to this then I ask you how can the child's religion (Islam) be protected if there is no provision for external and additional islamic education (which is comparable to the bicycle brakes in our analogy mentioned above) which is a means of protection?
That whatever the child learns from school is rectified, and if the child is given an islamic monotheistic dose, attending morning or evening islamic classes, is attending circles of islamic education, listens to an islamic book, parents practice and inculcate islam (deen) into him, narrate interesting and appropriate islamic events and stories, the atmosphere at home is islamic, then this is comparable to the bicycle brakes mentioned in the analogy above.
And, if it isn't like this, it is as if you've whispered into your child's ears “accept everything that you learn at school”. If you admitted your child to a school and did nothing separately to protect him (i.e his faith/iman) then it is like you have told your child to accept everything that you learn at school. Neither he knows Urdu that he may study islamic books nor there is any islamic institution in the locality.
Now tell me, are we not the ones who are addressed to in this Quranic verse (Ayah) ?
There was a large attendance of women in one ladies gathering in lucknow. I said to them let me tell you a story of a mother.
One educated lady was attending a feast gathering. Other women noticed that she was fairly anxious and worried and didn't seem much interested in the conversation that was going on. Her close friends and women were enjoying the interesting talk that was going on. They had gathered after a long hiatus but it appeared as if her mind and heart are not present and are thinking of something else..
So, she was asked 'Sister, what's wrong?' , 'Are you ill?', 'Do you have a problem?'. After repeated questioning she said nothing major, I just forgot to hide the matchbox in my house and my child is at home. I am worried that the child may pull out a matchstick from the matchbox, kindle it and may burn his clothes. Other women asked may god save, 'What is your child's age?', Lady answered just about 2 years.
Now think whether the child knows how to open the matchbox or not ? Even if the child manages to open the matchbox woule he be able to rub the matchstick correctly on the matchbox and start a fire ? But …..
عشق است و ہزار بدگمانی
Love produces such things; after all she is a mother, God has given her deep affection towards her children and that is why inspite of things that are highly practically improbable and that occur seldom, she has drawn a complete sequence of events in her mind of how the child may get burnt. It goes like this:
'The child obliviously reaches a matchbox while playing, lifts it up, and the child had once seen his elder brother or sister using it in the past, he imitates them and burns his clothes, when we reached we found that this incident (May God forbid) had happened.'
The lady was anxious and worried from such a remote possibility and behaving as if someone is standing on a burning stone or someone is sitting on an array of thorns.
Are the possibilities of losing one's faith and religion (iman and deen), in an atmosphere that is against islamic teachings (deen), not greater than the possibilities of losing one's life ?
The same possibilities that disturbed this mother's (story of women mentioned earlier in this article) heart and made her anxious? Our kids that are studying in schools and you didn't explain to them even once what is meant by islamic monotheism (Tauheed)? You didn't make any arrangements for the child to study in an islamic institution (deeni makatib)? The children could have studied there and then they would have acquired the capability to safeguard their faith (Iman) while going to schools (Usual schools). Neither the kid's home has such an atmosphere nor the locality and neighbourhood. Why should I blame schools, I am a person who is related to arabic islamic institutions (Madrasas) and the condition is such that the students that are coming to these islamic institutions are unaware of such basic fundamental teachings which, during our childhood days, we could not have imagined that a muslim child can be unaware of.
What will be the upshot of all this ? Generations after generations, will become deprived of deen, would not be able to read Urdu. The current situation is such that once there was a requirement for a traditional medical student (student of Tibb, Hakeemi/Unani medicine) of a reputed medical college, that has a reputation in history, to write an article or a letter. So it was thought that these students study Tibb books which are usually in Arabic or persian (Farsi) and if we descend even lower, then in Urdu (perhaps because there may be some contemporary Unani medicine books in Urdu). This student was told to write and he kept on writing and people kept thinking that he has finished writing. It was later discovered that it was in Hindi!. He was asked that you study Unani Tibb and can not even write Urdu ? He answered ' This is what we have been taught'.
So, not the possibility of such a generation, but, we are already seing such a generation, lack of awareness of basic fundamental islamic teachings, unaware of basic tenets of faith, unaware of islamic creed of God (Allah) and prophet (صلّى اللة علية وسلّم) that is instilled in our minds and hearts. This generation has already taken birth and is reaching the stage of youth and maturity. The beginning era has gone. It has been observed, a speech of prophetic biography (Seerah) is to be delivered, in an islamic school, college, university, and someone gives an article of prophetic biography to a matured muslim islamic student, he brought it written in Hindi, and read it in Urdu, words used were from Urdu language but written in Hindi script. This script (رسم الخط) is such a thing that Arnold Toynbee, a big Historian philosopher of recent times, has said that during these times there is no need to burn a library, changing the script is enough. This changing of the script will break the bonds between the nation and its past and its complete culture will become meaningless to him, and then they can be lead to whichever direction you want. The thing that joins a nation, with it's past, with its religion and with its culture is the script. No sooner that the script changes the generation changes. This is what is happening in India today. Sectarian riots just defame the country, they are of no benefit. Changing the education system will be enough (i.e it will do enough damage). Sixty years ago Akbar (probably an urdu poet) said

شیخ مرحوم کا قول مجھے یاد اٌتا ھے
دل بدل جائںگے تعلیم بدل جانے سے
A long term plan is in place, only little time will pass, In about thirty to forty years without any effort a generation will become ready, to them the distinction, between faith and disbelief, between islamic monotheism and polytheism, between tenets of faith and Madhhab (madhhab could mean a school of islamic jurisprudence and it sometimes is also used just to mean religion in Urdu), will all be non-sensical, nothing will be needed to be done.
Muslim parents, for the fear that their child's career will be spoiled, don't let their children write their mother tongue as Urdu, don't make provisions for the education of islamic jurisprudence (Deeniyat). Can this thinking and faith (Iman) go hand in hand? A muslim's matter is such that if by any means he comes to know that Islam is not destined for his child, or god forbid he will not be a muslim, then he should ask God (Allah) that He lifts the child with goodness and well-being. This is a muslim's affair (شاْن).
Hadhrat Khansaa' (Radiyallaho Anha) is a female companion of prophet Mohammad (صلّى اللة علية وسلّم) and a big poetess of her time. She posseses a heart full of pity. All her life she read elegies of her brothers who had died (داغ مفارقت was the term used here in Urdu). It can be said that such a great volume of elegies that she sung can not be found elsewhere. Her whole diwan (A collection of poems of a poet.) is filled with elegies of her brothers. Such a lady with a heart full of pity calls one of her sons on the occasion of a muslim campaign (Jihad), and tells him “My son, go. This is the day for which I reared you. Go and sacrifice you life in Allah's cause.” Then she calls her second son and then her third son. When finally the news of martyrdom of her sons reaches her, she says “الحمد لله الذى اكرمنى بشهادتهم" Thanks to the God who honoured me by their (her sons') martyrdom. This is the matter(شاْن) of faith (Iman) that everything is sacrificed for Islam