The Education of Young Muslims in the UK

Islamic Educational Needs and Possibilities in the UK Educational Context

(Abridged and Re-gendered for Young Muslim Women 1999) 

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

Salaamu aleikum

I should begin by saying that the compression required to fit the topic of this paper into a short talk is a serious impossibility, so when I've finished I'll leave you this document which I hope you may find useful for reading and discussion amongst yourselves later.

Some years ago, I gave a short talk to a group of non-muslims, in which I tried to summarise the muslim criticisms of the secular system, and the alternative muslim understanding of education. This was in the main, excerpted from one book in the series issuing from the First World Conference on Muslim education at King Abdulaziz University, `The Aims and Objectives of Islamic Education' by Syed Muhammad al-Naquib al-Attas. Then I expanded it for the Muslim Education Council in the Central Mosque, and now that I'm down to less time again I've reduced it to its essentials for you. What I have also done, however, (which I thought was quite fun) was change the language specially for you, to make it just a little bit more female. But it's just a few pronouns that I've changed, and actually what was originally written was for muslims in general, and applies to all of us. So here we go.

CRISIS IN WESTERN EDUCATION

"At the moment we have a crisis in our secular/humanist so-called education system, not just for the children of believers, but for all of western civilization. When rational woman discarded her faith she lost touch with an essential element of what is required to truly educate a woman - values.

There is a difference between education and instruction. Education helps in the complete growth of an individual personality, whereas instruction is training to do some mental or physical task efficiently. A woman may be a fine doctor or lawyer, engineer or accountant, and still be ill mannered, unjust, amoral, cruel, dissatisfied, unhappy, and obviously only partially educated.

When we see an educated woman what we recognise is her "goodness". A `good' woman does not mean a `complete' woman, as there is no end to human growth throughout a life, so an educated woman is outward looking, modifying her understanding and behaviour as her life is enriched with knowledge and experience. This knowledge and experience, as well as the basic values and assumptions on which it is based, a woman learns from the society that surrounds her. She is an individual and part of a structured community, and both are necessary to the survival of each other, as unfettered individualism means anarchy and the breakdown of all systems, whereas excessive social control leads to stagnation, degeneration, and violent social upheaval (as what is rigid shatters like glass, rather than bending like steel).

Education preserves societal structures, conserving basic values and understandings, and transmitting them to the next generation, while at the same time looking to the reality of human needs and interests in all their variety, by nurturing personal growth, helping woman to satisfy her yearning for a quality of life through the understanding of fundamental values. A quality of life which satisfies woman's yearnings on many different levels. How you understand this quality of life, this aim of education, is basic to the way your education system works.

ISLAMIC EDUCATION - AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM

The aim of muslim education is the creation of "the good and righteous woman" whose purpose is to worship God in the full Islamic meaning of the word, and build up the structure of her earthly life according to the laws required of God's creation.

Worship in Islam is not restricted to performance of rituals, but embraces all woman's activity - faith, thought, feeling, and work, and to give woman the tools to carry out this purpose, worship, her education must achieve two things. It must enable woman to understand her 'Rabb', and it must enable woman to understand creation.

Islam makes this goal something balanced and comprehensive. Woman is regarded as the vicegerent of God on earth. God has given woman authority over creation, and in order to realise this authority in actual life woman must acquire wisdom, which transforms her into a good woman, and turns her into a wise leader. It is therefore a comprehensive process, training emotional, intellectual, and sensual faculties simultaneously. God has revealed to woman her nature, and the laws that lead woman to the complete flowering of her personality. Woman is expected to learn through experiments and work out the details of the process whose broad foundations are given to humankind in the Qur'an and whose human example was seen in the life activities and sayings of the messenger Muhammad.

Thus Islam has a supreme ideal and an unshakeable norm for educationists to aim at when working out education systems and methodology. These normative values save mankind from vague humanist secularist drifting, yet these universal norms are eminently compatible with rationality. It provides the concept of One God, one humanity, and one religion from the days of Adam, the norm of human values being considered to be the same for all humanity in all ages.

It teaches woman humility by showing her that all power over Nature or herself is power delegated to her by God. It is not her own. This leads to a better understanding of others and happiness among nations and races.

Last but not least, the framework of values depends on the concept of faith in the hereafter. Woman is to consider this life not as an end in itself, but as a process leading to a complete and better life in the hereafter, cultivating acceptance of faith and action according to a revealed norm.

In order  that action may lead to the betterment of woman and society, a methodology of self-analysis and social criticism is taught which generates sensitive individuals aware of rights, duties, and responsibilities, and conscious of their own shortcomings.

Love of God and the Prophet are the major means of acquiring this sensitivity necessary to balance the purely intellectual. Science and values are made to play complementary roles, with values providing guidance and aims. This is far more satisfying than the dry intellectualism of humanism because it gives cardinal importance to love, and hence to human sensibilities." (M.A.M. February 1988)

"When we talk about religious education, the formal and the traditional lessons on religion immediately come to mind. And even if our imagination flew beyond the normal limits of the rigid religious lesson, it would seize on a sermon or a religious speech, not more, and there it would come to a halt. We do not, in fact, impart education in our schools, particularly Islamic education.

"If the schools set up in most parts of the Muslim world are reluctant to carry out religious education, or if they are willing to adopt it but do not know how, the final result is the same in either case - we do not, in actual fact, bring our children up according to the ideals of true Islamic education. The impact of the genuine Islamic spirit on our school curricula is hardly noticeable. We ought to consider, however, that a formal and traditional lesson on religion will not be sufficient to meet the desired human requirements, particularly in contemporary life. An overdose of a religious speech or sermon would, instead of rendering religion pleasant, interesting and likeable, create a repellent and damaging effect .................... Religion as we feel and approach it now, has dwindled from the integrated inclusiveness known to earlier Muslim generations into something more or less akin to the Western ecclesiastical approach, namely, an emotional relationship between Lord and servant outside the sphere of actual life. This fact, which we ought to acknowledge frankly and unequivocally if we are to deal with our subject honestly and seriously, casts its thick and impenetrable shadow over our entire lives; besides, it is closely relevant to education curricula." Muhammad Qutb - The Role of Religion in Education (from Aims and Objectives of Islamic Education ed.S.N.Al-Attas)

"Islamic education .............. fluctuated in periods of prosperity and periods of decline, the latter being caused by the weakening of spiritual values, the disintegration of the Islamic Ummah, political and military disorders, and the weakening of the social and economic structure in most Muslim countries.

A number of factors brought about educational decay, the painful repercussions of which are being felt to this day:

(i) The Muslim mind lapsed into inertia and dropped creativity for imitation, and the substance for ephemeral appearances and style. In some Muslim countries, the purpose of education became the learning of texts by heart whether understood or not. Learners became content with the repetition of what older scholars had said, and confined their interest to interpreting a limited number of books and adding comments in the margins. Original and profound thought became rare, and very few would devote time to discovering the mysteries of nature or the laws of society which would contribute to its solidarity and prosperity, and which would help to disseminate the Islamic spirit and foster continued progress.

(ii) Another factor was the failure to promote technical and scientific knowledge although it flourished at one time in the Muslim world, and the renunciation of the branches of knowledge which were formerly studied by the Muslims, such as medicine, mathematics, chemistry and astronomy, on the erroneous assumption that they would lead to scepticism, uncertainty and unbelief.

(iii) Failure to educate women in a planned and regular manner as required by Islam.

(iv) Colonization...........................

"There are certain truisms about education, regarded as a cultural process, which it is necessary to recall....................First of these is that we must educate our students in such a manner that they acquire the capacity to educate themselves for the rest of their lives." A.K.Brohi - Education in an Ideological State (from Aims and Objectives of Islamic Education ed.S.N.Al-Attas)

IS IT POSSIBLE TO TEACH ISLAM THIS WAY?

"Training in the mosque university was a combined activity in which both student and teacher took part. The student had to be persuaded rather than instructed and the teacher had to argue his case rather than dictate it. In this way the personality and the intellectual ability of the student was allowed to develop and grow..........traditional Islamic education measured its activity by the fact that it stimulated the community as a whole to take an interest in the higher issues so fundamental to its nature and survival." Traditional Islamic Education: Its Aims and Purposes - Zaki Badawi (from Aims and Objectives of Islamic Education ed.S.N.Al-Attas)

" Islamic education must build into the minds of Muslim youth a resilience, an adaptability and a mechanism for adjustment in worldly matters other than fundamental beliefs. The Arabs were the first people to demonstrate such a resilience and adaptability during the heyday of Islamic intellectual effervescence. They acquired the Greek learning, subjected it to investigation, experimentation and expansion in such diverse fields as algebra, geometry, astronomy, navigation, chemistry and medicine and evolved the scientific principles of empiricism. The essence of empirical scientific attitude consisted of moving away from dogmatic beliefs and practices in worldly matters and raising healthy doubts about all propositions. By questioning everything that could be questioned, by asking at every step: `is that so?' this empirical attitude gave immense freedom to human curiosity and became the cause of major scientific discoveries. Scientific beliefs came to be held tentatively rather than dogmatically, in the hope that further investigation and experimentation would lead to alternative beliefs. The Arabs carried this new empirical scientific attitude to Spain among other places and from there this attitude burst out into Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and caused the Renaissance.

The Islamic education system must now adopt the same scientific empiricism in worldly matters which the Muslims had themselves invented but had forgotten during the past five centuries. The values of adaptability, experimentation, and tolerance (as opposed to dogma) must be embodied in the new system. This will, in all probability require the institution of ijtihad or interpretation of the Islamic law..............The new educational system must be an integrating force and must prepare women for ijtihad where it is due." Dr.A.M.Khusro - Education in the Islamic Society