Education being the main vehicle of civilization, undoubtedly occupies the attention of serious Muslim minds. In the last century, Muslim scholars were very much preoccupied with finding causes to the failure of the Muslim Ummah to rise to a level of dynamism that once characterized the Muslim Intellectual and Scientific Traditions. As rightly pointed out by Rosenthal, that Islamic civilization is characterized by ‘ilm for ‘ilm is of those concepts that have dominated Islam and gives the Muslim civilization its distinctive shape and complexion. This is further supported by Iqbal by stating that the birth of Islam is truly the birth of inductive intellect. Hence, the birth of Muslim scholars whom were not only known to be multi disciplinary and encylopedic but competent in providing original Islamic solution to the problems of their time. Sadly however, element of high intellectualism is missing in today’s Muslim education. Sardar observes that both the classical and the modern approaches to Islamic studies concentrate on Islam as a religion and culture. Whether it is memorizing the Qur’an or Hadith, mastering the opinions of the classical jurists or learning Islamic history, the emphasis is on rote learning and collecting facts, thus amounting to students being vast storehouses of facts and opinions. As a consequent, the Muslim mind does not have enough courage to analyze its intellectual legacy or what it holds as sacred resulting in not understanding what is really important, distinguishing between what is fundamental and absolute, and what is temporary and limited as emphasized by AbuSulayman. It is timely to note the point made by Rahman that Islamic intellectualism should be the essence of especially higher Islamic education for the growth of genuine, original and adequate Islamic thought is the real criterion for judging the success or failure of an Islamic education system. As practioners of Islamic education, our vision as proposed by Sardar should be to produce insan whose strength lies in the ability to perceive Islam not as a mere religion but as a dynamic world-view, to synthesize the historical and the modern, and to appreciate the concerns of the traditional sectors of the Muslim population while possessing the intellectual apparatus to communicate with the modernists.
Of importance, the future system should concentrate on providing an intellectual atmosphere that will encourage and ensure the development of truly inquisitive minds, original thinking, and creativity. This significant change will ensure that the products of the system are in a position to employ the contemporary Islamic Asalah solutions to changing circumstances. These initiatives are towards generating a new breed of Muslim intellectuals, scientists, technologists, scholars, specialists and others with the ability to deal with challenges of the contemporary world by providing Islamic solution to the problems of their time in an effort to play their roles as ‘abd (Allah’s SWT obedient servant) and khalifah (Allah’s SWT vicegerant on earth) in their respective fields of specialization.
Comment : This abstract is meant to be elaborated to a complete working paper.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
