Proper Islamic Education & upbringing and parent's responsibility

ذمّہ داری

[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 fealtyto 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

Islamic Religious Education and the Debate on its Reform Post-September 11

The place of Islam and Muslims in the West has been a source of much debate in the post-September 11 era, not least in the area of Islamic education – an area seen by some Western commentators as a major source of anti-Western attitudes, and a breeding ground for terrorism. Such simplistic views of Islamic religious educational systems and institutions ignore the complex history of Islamic education and the diverse forms that it has taken across different times, places and cultures. This chapter from the book Islam and the West: Reflections from Australia explores the development of Islamic religious education over time, tracing its growth and decline in the pre-modern period and moves towards reform in the modern era. This is followed by a discussion of the generally simplistic perception, held particularly among Western commentators post-September 11, 2001, that Islamic religious education is closely linked to terrorism. Saeed notes that the hijackers involved in the 2001 attacks were not graduates of traditional Islamic education, a fact overlooked by many commentators. Although many prominent Muslim academics and scholars have been working to reform Islamic education over the past century, Saeed argues that these efforts may well have been hindered rather than helped by the authoritarian and coercive forms of reform which are being called for by some commentators in the West. In fact, the war on terror may well be the biggest stumbling block to the reform of Islamic religious education.

Islamic Education : Who's responsible

What do you give to your son on his wedding night as a gift? A Mitsubishi Lancer, a Honda Accord, or do you give him the ever useful toaster?

When Ibn Al-Qayyim’s son was getting married, he found himself in this gift dilemma. He thought and thought and decided upon a gift that would not only benefit his son, but all the Muslims. He lit a candle, dipped his pen in the ink, and began writing. The gift, you ask? A book dedicated to his son and daughter-in-law about marriage and the rights of children. He named the book, Tuhfatul Wadood, bi Ahkaam al-Mowlood. The value of the gift? Priceless.

Many times we hear about the respect due to parents – because it is often the parents who are speaking. Yet, how often do we hear about the rights of children? Indeed, they have many rights that go farther back than 9 months before their creation. For example, they have the God given right that their future mother or father choose a spouse that will teach them about Allah and be an excellent example for them In his book, in Chapter 25, Ibn Al-Qayyim discusses the obligation of teaching the children, disciplining them, and being just between them. Additionally, one of the rights of children is the right to an Islamic education.

Allah ta'aala commands us: "O you who believe, protect yourselves and your families from a fire whose fuel is people and stones …"(At-Tahreem 66/6)

We are commanded by Allah ta'aala to save ourselves from Hellfire. But it does not end there. The commandment extends to our family; we must save them also. Using all our resources we must save them from Hellfire, and the biggest weapon we have to protect them is knowledge of what Allah and His Messenger require from them. For verily, a human is enemy to that which he does not understand.

In another verse, we see the example of Luqman with his son: "But if they endeavor to make you worship others with Me – that of which you have no knowledge, then do not obey, yet accompany them in (this) world with appropriate kindness" (Luqmaan 31/15).

Notice how Allah ta'aala mentions the shirk that the child is being called to as something which he has no knowledge of. Meaning, no knowledge of its divinity, for there can be no knowledge about something which is non-existent and untrue.

And yet in another situation, Allah ta'aala describes the exchange between Nuh and his son:

…And Nuh called to his son who was apart (from them), "O my son, come aboard with us and be not with the disbelievers." / (But) He said, "I shall take refuge on a mountain to protect me from the water." (Nuh) said, "There is no protector today from the decree of Allah except for whom He gives mercy." And the waves came between them, and he was among the drowned (Hud 11/42-43).

It has been said that about 90% of everything a child learns, he learns it within the first 5 years of his or her life. If that is not enough cause for concern, the children at that fragile age are ever so keen to please the adults in their lives, especially the ones they see day after day. Subhan Allah, it is a survival skill that Allah ta'aala created in humans. For had they not had this desire to please the 'teacher', they most likely would not develop intellectually.

If you went to public school, imagine back to your public school kindergarten class or grade 1 class and how you used to act with the teacher. Did you try to please him or her every chance you got? Would you do things just to win her pleasure? I know for me, when our school play for the Christmas Concert was coming up, the teacher chose me to play one of the lead roles because of how good an actor I was. Mind you, I disliked the part and when a boy offered me a handful of corn puffs to switch parts with me, I readily accepted. I took him to Mrs. Mitchell and proudly announced that Jason would be taking my part. She was disappointed and said how much she wanted me to do the part. I could not bear to see her disappointment, so I continued with the part. At the time, I was in kindergarten.

The horror story begins when the child is entrusted to a non-Muslim – to someone who knows nothing about our obligation to Allah and His Messenger sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam, someone who our Muslim children are so eager to please.

There once was a little girl in a public school in a Muslim country whose teacher was not practicing Islam. The little girl, following the blessed example of her mother, would go to school with her hijab on. The hijab, however, was something displeasing to her teacher, so she told the girl to take it off and not dare come back to school with it on the next day or she would suffer the consequences.

Home this girl went and told her mother of how the teacher did not want her to wear hijab in school and how she did not want to upset her teacher. Her mother calmly said, "Who do you want to please then, your teacher or Allah?" The little girl looked her mother in the eye and said, "Allah!"

The next day, the little girl returned with her hijab on, defiant. When the teacher saw her, she exploded in chastisement, "How dare you disobey me?"

The painful words kept coming and coming until the little girl lowered her head, sobbing. Then she shouted back, "I don’t understand who I am supposed to please – you or Him?"

"Who’s Him?" asked the teacher.

"Allah!"

Her eyes widened and a chill ran through her. The teacher stopped talking. From behind her tears, the little girl said, "No, I shall please Allah and Allah alone."

That day the teacher sent a letter home to the little girl’s mother with the words, "Today your child taught me who I was and truly who is Allah. Thank you for raising such a blessed daughter."

Television sets and public schools are spreading a subtle devastating poison through the bloodstream of our youth. Take a random class of Muslim high school students from public school and reflect on their habits and their knowledge of Islam. If a parent has chosen public school for his son, in the final year when he looks over the school yearbook and sees a picture of his son standing hand in hand dancing with a kafir woman, at that time it will be too late to question his upbringing. Now is the time to question it, now, before it’s too late.

Al-Hasan ibn Ali radi Allahu anhu used to say, "Educate yourselves today, for today you are the youth of the community but tomorrow you shall be the seniors."

Alhamdulillah, there are many exceptionally smart adults out there. When you are in their company, you cannot help marvelling at their intellect. However, a question comes to mind: "What could this person have done for Islam and the Muslim community if his parents had educated him about the deen?"

There is a child, in grade 3, who has memorized almost 7 juz of the Qur’an . He is 8 years old. This child, more than likely, knows more Qur’an than most adults. There are other children just as smart as him thrown to public school, their intelligence squandered on the Incas and the pyramids, while they cannot recite the very letters of their mother tongue.

Yahya ibn Humayd said, "We went to Imam Hammad ibn Salamah once and found him sitting with children narrating hadith to them. When he completed and the children left, we approached him and said, 'O Abu Salamah, we are the seniors of your tribe. We have come to you to learn. Why do you leave us and turn instead to these children?'"

"He replied, 'I once saw in a dream that I was sitting on the banks of a river, bending over with a bucket to get water to drink. After drinking, I turned around and saw these children standing there, and so I gave them the bucket of water after me'" (Ibn Abee Ad-Dunya, Kitaab al-Ayaal).

A poet once said:

Young trees, if you raise them firm, they will grow straight,

They will not slouch if kept firm with a stick.

Perhaps discipline for young ones brings benefit

But that same discipline will no longer bring results in a senior.

PART II

Sa’eed ibn Rahmah Al-Asbahee used to tell his students: "I used to camp out in the masjid in the hopes of getting the best seat in the halaqah of Abdullaah ibn Al-Mubaarak. I had friends my age, but none of them would do as I did. When the time for the halaqah would arrive, Ibn Al-Mubaarak would come and with him would be the seniors. They would complain to him, 'These children have overcome us at the halaqah, there is no place near you for us.'

"Ibn al-Mubaarak would reply, 'These children are dearer to me than you. You – how long shall you live? These children, however, perhaps Allah shall carry them far.'"

Sa’eed would then say to his students, "Today there is no one alive from that halaqah of Ibn al-Mubaarak except me."

When children work on a science experiment, an instrument that they might use is a thermometer. This is a device that reflects the heat coming from an object or area. At home we all have this thing called a thermostat. When we are too hot, it cools us down. And if we get cold it warms us up. Not only does it reflect the heat, it does something about it.

When we look at the Muslim ummah, we will see that many of our communities are nothing more than thermometers. When there is heat coming from Bosnia, it registers a reaction in our salah, our du’aas, and our checkbooks. And when there is heat in Chechnya, it registers a reaction in our salah, our du’aas, and our checkbooks. This is the action of a thermometer. What we must become is thermostats; cooling things down when they get too hot and warming things up when they get too cool.

Today everyone is looking to our brothers and sisters in Palestine and pulling their hair because they cannot seemingly do anything. We must not let the things we cannot do stop us from doing what we can do.

By Allah, the long-term goal is the children. If we do not stand up to the challenge of educating them in Islam and raising them as best we can, we – with our own hands – are paralyzing the future of Islam in this country.

All of you are shepherds and all of you shall be questioned regarding your flock.

Never think that the work you do for the betterment of our children’s Islamic education goes in vain. There is an English word called sacrifice. Some Muslims when translating the idea of sadaqah may incorrectly use this concept of sacrifice. A more correct word is 'to deposit'. We are not spending these dimes hoping for nothing in return. Nay, we are investing it for an enormous return; we are depositing it in the Hereafter.

"What’s in it for me?" we always ask. Of the many blessings…

Firstly

Allah ta'aala will protect your children because of your piety. The example given to us in the Qur’an is that of Khidr. When he built the wall without any compensation, he told Musa why:

"And as for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the city, and there was beneath it a treasure for them, and their father had been righteous. So your Lord intended that they reach maturity and extract their treasure, as a mercy from your Lord…" (Al-Kahf 18/82)

Secondly

By educating and protecting the Muslim children, you would be fulfilling the amaanah (trust) that Allah has placed upon you. And in the fulfillment of ones trust lies success and a 401k plan in Paradise.

Allah ta'aala says: "Certainly successful are the believers …they who to their trusts and their promises are attentive / And they who carefully maintain their payers – those are the inheritors / Who will inherit al-Firdaus wherein they will abide eternally."

In conclusion, I would like to pose the question, who is responsible for these Islamic schools? We are all responsible – every one of us. This school and everything in it is our ra'eyyah and we shall be questioned for it.

As I was speaking to a good brother recently, he asked me about the situation of our Islamic school. We spoke about the upcoming fundraiser, and then he said to me, "A’aanak Allah (May Allah help you)."

I said, "No. You said it wrong. It’s a'aanan Allah (may Allah help us), because brother, you’re just as responsible for these Islamic schools as I am."

The Muslims need to adapt a modern mindset which requires changes traditional education

Has the closing of the gates of ijtihad let to intellectual decay?The above idea is something which I used to pooh-pooh once when I was very narrow-minded and ignorantly self-righteous but now, after thinking deeply about it, I think that a case can be made that once the Muslims lost the appetite for critical thinking and critically evaluating the works of their ancestors, the intellectual rot set in and led eventually to the ascendency of the West and the pathetic state which we are in now.

So, should we not re-open the gates of ijtihad? Not by every Tom, Dick and Harry (as the Salafis want) but by those who are trained to do so; someone who has a PHD in Islamic Studies--or its equivalent--should surely be allowed to do so? The problem, for me, is that since the 12th century when these gates were traditionally ’closed’, human thought--especially in the West--has advanced beyond recognition and yet our scholars are stuck in the 12th century in terms of the mental training they get. To use a simple example, the ulama do not study any post-Peripatetic philosophy (which was refuted successfully by al Ghazali) whereas human philosophy as understood now is unrecognisable from that classical philosophy. The most that they’ll study is Ishraqi philosophy of Mullah Sadra but that too is centuries old. I am inclined to the view expressed by Tabataba’i that Islamic philosophy is more able to tackle the problems posed by modern Western thought than Islamic theology or doctrine but for that I think the Sunni world needs to reopen and reexamine its stance on ijtihad (independent interpretation of the legal sources); after all, Islam is a dynamic religion yet we’ve made it into a static one.

The following recommendations by Smock (2004) are ones I broadly agree with a few alterations which I will mention later in this article:

• Many Muslims believe that they must choose between Islam and modernity or between Islam and democracy, but these are false choices. To reinterpret Islam for the twenty-first century, the practice of ijtihad (interpretation and reasoning based on the sacred texts) must be revived.

• Religious scholars effectively terminated the practice of ijtihad five hundred years ago. But the principles of interpretation are well established and the need for contemporary interpretation is compelling.

• New interpretations of the texts are particularly important in relation to the status ofwomen, relations between Sunnis and Shiites, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, the role of Muslims in non-Muslim societies, and Islamic economic theories.

• Most scholars would limit the practice of ijtihad to specialists who have not only knowledge of the Qur’an and the hadiths but also broad familiarity with a wide range of modern scholarship in Arabic grammar, logic, philosophy, economics, and sociology.

• Other scholars assert that interpretation of the texts should not be confined to legal scholars but should be open to those with creative imagination.

• Restrict ions on the contemporary practice of ijtihad are imposed both by religious establishments and by repressive governments in Muslim countries. Democracy and freedom of inquiry and expression are essential to the practice of ijtihad and to the successful reconciliation of Islam and modernity. Reform of Muslim educational systems is also essential.

• Muslim scholars and leaders in the United States and other Western societies have particular opportunities as well as a responsibility to lead a revival of ijtihad. Muslim scholars in the West have the freedom to think creatively while still being faithful to the texts, and their new interpretations could stimulate new thinking among the more traditional religious establishments in Muslim countries.

I believe that this last recommendation is particularly important. Where I differ slightly is that I believe that reinterpretation of the source texts should be done by competent scholars within the principles [usool] of the established Schools of Thought [madha’ib] as there is no need to create a whole new set of principles when such a body of work already exists.

I think closely related to this issue is the one of training competent scholars who are able to bridge the worlds of classical Islamic learning and the modern secular world with ease. This means making changes to the traditional madrassah syllabi (as I have indicated above). Of course, one of the reasons why the majority of scholars produced by the madrassahs today is abysmal is that the quality of people entering them has diminished immensely. Once upon a time parents would send their most brilliant and academically gifted children to become scholars and jurists and muftis. Nowadays, the brightest are sent off to become doctors, lawyers and engineers etc. and only the riff-raff and the academically challenged, and these overwhelmingly from the poor, are sent off to the madrassah. Therefore, like any other education system, if the input is poor, the output will also be poor.

Assuming and accepting these socio-economic and demographic realities, let us look at the ‘elite’ scholars of today; the ones who make it as it were. I have yet to come across a single, intellectually rigorous (i.e. without just relying on quoting the Qur’an and hadiths and saying, ’It says so here’ therefore that is our proof: I am a Muslim and for me personally that is usually enough but for a skeptic it will not be; such arguments—as Imam Ghazali showed—do not convince those without faith (I will come to this later.) Muslim response to (post)modern and even post-Renaissance Western thought and philosophy.

So, accepting that most students of sacred law have to put up with abject conditions and also accepting that the least able are sent there, yet there must be *some* bright sparks who get through, right? Where are there works to defend Islam against the intellectually attacks of the West? The only half-decent effort I personally have come across is that of Pir Karam Shah Sahib and even that was dated since his refutations were based on 19th/early 20th century critiques and not current ones.

Are we saying that we cannot produce one scholar who has produced thought --similar to al Ghazali--by which one may convincingly argue with the modern Western thinker on a level playing field without bringing matters of faith or dogma into it, like Imam Ghazali did to Aristotelian philosophy? Has there not been a single scholar to do the same for post-Renaissance philosophy? The only Muslim thinker I can think of who has even tried to tackle these issues is Iqbal yet he did not have a classical madrassah training.

I am not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater! Madrassahs are important elements of our civilisation but I am deeply concerned about the state of Islamic civilisation and each year we are falling further and further behind. When the West is discussing nanotechnology as a practical reality in the next 50 years we cannot--combined--make a single fighter plane from scratch (just to take one example).

I think what we need to do is change the madrassah syllabus; the Dars-e-Nizami is centuries old. We need to add to it a study of the English language, physics, chemistry, biology, and of Western philosophy and of the philosophy of science and of history. These need to be thorough too (and get rid of some subjects which might be superfluous now like, e.g. my beloved Farsi). Then we can have ulama who can reply to the West’s best thinkers and are ready for the modern world’s challenges.

At the moment even the best scholars I’ve heard speak base their arguments on logic which even a bright undergrad student of philosophy could refute since they are the same arguments made by medieval scholars. Arguments which Hume and Kant etc. refuted amongst others (e.g. the First Cause argument or the Design Argument and which Dawkins, in his excellent recent polemic, The God Delusion has again refuted).

The problem is that these ulama have only been trained to think in a certain manner, reflective of the past, whereas human thinking and knowledge has itself changed. It is the classical position of Ghazali (and Sunni Islam) that God’s existence cannot be proven by reason alone and hence faith, by its very definition, is not rational (which also answers the otherwise noteworthy rational arguments of Dr. Dawkins!—since a non-rational belief cannot be proved/disproved by rational means.). However, the Muslim must be thoroughly conversant with such rationality in order to see its limits. This requires a modern mindset which requires modern knowledge. A medieval mindset will not do to convince modern minds.

Allow me to make my point with an example: ‘ulama traditionally have identified Dhulqarnayn in the Qur’an with Alexander the Great of Macedon. Historical research though has proved that he was a polytheist beyond doubt, thought of himself as the Son of Zeus, and was probably bisexual. Now, it is clear such a person cannot be a wali or a Prophet (according to Islamic criteria). So, wouldn’t it be silly of ulama today to still insist Dhulqarnayn is Alexander simply because the classical exegeses (tafsir) have said so? I hope that illustrates my point. If an apparent meaning of the Qu’ran or hadith contradicts a known fact then surely we have to accept that the traditional accepted meaning was wrong (since the Word of God itself cannot be wrong) and reinterpret it in light of our new knowledge?

I also think that Muslim mindset has to change where this material world also becomes important per se and not just the Afterlife. This thought process also occurred in the Renaissance in Europe and was the key moment when their material condition began to approve.

Nor am I suggesting we ape the West in everything: but knowledge is the lost property of the believer and he takes it from anywhere.

I am saying we are well behind in knowledge and I am looking at/thinking of ways to catch up if you will.

Let me narrow my argument and make it very specific: let us leave Kalam (speculativetheology) alone. Belief I accept is based, by definition, on faith. I do too. I accept that for the Next World faith in Islam is required. I want to restrict the discussion to this world only since it is in this worldly life that we are so far behind the West in every field of human activity and which concerns us here. (We are (mostly) material people in a material world to paraphrase Madonna!) Why is this so? Why does the US occupy our lands and rob us of our resources without even an apology? Why is the Islamic world so politically, economically and technologically behind the West? These are issues which affect our daily life in this world and it is answers to this I am looking for. The answer I would suggest is that it is because of our material (economic, technological) weakness.

Of course, I realise I am not new in seeking answers to these things, practical answers. Nor am I so enamoured of the West that I uncritically accept everything its philosophers/media say. I am saying there is some underlying reason for the backwardness of the collective Muslim world and I think it is due to our mindset. (In spiritual matters, in the realm of the soul, we are way ahead-even now--of any other civilisation (and that is the weakness in Dawkins book!) but that doesn’t change our material situation in this world.

I think therefore that the mindset of the Muslims needs to change, and foremost that of our scholars since they are the elite and change in them will lead to change in the masses’ mindset eventually. Here is another, deliberate, rhetorical question: when we Muslims harp on with misty eyes about our glorious past (and justifiably so) what is it exactly we are so proud of? Isn’t it that at that time we were the *worldly* superpower, the numero uno civilisation?

Let me try to be as precise as I can and state the crux of my argument in one sentence so we can then debate its merits or otherwise:

Traditional Islamic learning needs to be enhanced by the addition of modern subjects such as post-Renaissance philosophy, hard sciences, modern mathematical logic and history and IT to enable them to better understand the modern world they inhabit and thus be better equipped to lead Muslim masses and lead to an Islamic Renaissance by altering the Muslims’ medieval mindset into a modern mindset.