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Old 06-27-2012, 03:04 AM   #11
nancywind

Join Date
Oct 2005
Posts
545
Senior Member
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I made a thread about something relevant to the OP of Shaykh Maripat. Let me add that here.

I have been thinking about an issue the last few year and i would like to know the opinions of members about it.

How relevant our madrassah system is in this age? Is it good enough to be allowed to continue as it is right now or do we need some reformation in it? Secular education vs Islamic education is a topic which has been widely discussed ever since the time of Sir Sayyed Ahmed khan. Sir Sayyed Ahmed khan lived in an age when the scientific revolution combined with the social enlightenment had taken a grip over the popular imagination in the west and its effects were reflected on the subcontinent for the first time. Sir Sayyed Ahmad khan can be taken as the first reaction (or first victim of) to the western enlightment. It was Sir Sayyed Ahmad khan who opted for deistic doctrines to bring science and Islam out of the "conflict" (he thought that there was). His doctrines included the rejection of anything which collided with scientific determinism or for which the physical laws (which he thought be the only laws governing the whole of the reality) had no explaination. The first causalities of his re-interpretation of Islam were miracles and angels, he denied the former and renamed the later as natural laws. Sir Sayyed then established the Muslim anglo-oriental college which would later become the Muslim Ali Garh university.

The reaction against this was obvious. The Ulama did Takfeer of Sir Sayyed and reportedly started to advice Muslims not to get their children admitted in MAO college. This was the start of rivalry between the secular education and Islamic education. The graduates of MAO college would be called Misters and the graduates of Islamic madrassahs would be known as Mullahs. This division of MR and Mullah and the rivalry is still there , though the terminologies have changes , the scenario has changed and the tones have changed on both sides. The secular education has gained very much acceptability and almost no one rejects or castigates it now in the Islamic circles. The madrassahs have been unfortunate not to gain that much acceptability till now and it seems hard in future as well. The Misters oppose them with the full threshold of their throats and many more words have been added to the vocabulary of the modernists which did not exist in the era of Sir Sayyed . The word "Mullah" is used and taken in negative sense now. The various issues related to 9/11 and "terrorism" have added to the pains of madrassahs.

So where do we stand now? Should we do some kind of reformation in our madrassah system to make it compatible with the age or they are fine as they are? The second issue is that should we conclude that Madrassahs teach Islam and schools teach science so one can visit the both and their is no need to induce any scientific educational system in madrassahs and hence no need for the unification of both OR science has taken a grip over our daily lives to such an extent that Islam must say something about it and it is trivial to separate Islamic and scientific education so they must take place together? The third issue is that these are the graduates of universities who acquire vital roles in various countries not the graduates of madrassahs so we must bring worldly educated "Mullahs" to take a hold on the policy making institutes or otherwsie the secularists would keep on ruling?


The basic problem with our Ummah is that they are still not sure whether learning science, math etc are benefical or not? Whenever we have any discussion about learning science and math, we have some people up in arms about how detached these educated folks get from Allah (swt) - IMO this is indeed a very flawed conclusion. Most of these educated people are detached because they have no deeni foundation, and our Ulemas have not tried to bring these two streams together. What every Madrassah should have are two streams (specialization), one stream should only focus on deeni education, while the other stream let those who want to explore science etc to get that education along with deeni-lite education.

We have to stop looking down at science, math, geography etc (note I did not use secular keyword as it brings severe response from some folks) and must try and provide every Muslim kids with such education. There are a lot of places in Quran Shareef where Allah (swt) talked about scientific things such as where Allah (swt) mentions about the expanding of universe, or iron, etc, how are we going to understand completely when we have no foundation about the subject? Why did Allah (swt) created Aqal - just to acquire deeni knowledge or to acquire other knowledge as well so that we can serve its creation better?

To understand some of the peoples perspective better I want to ask a question here - whether Allah (swt) created us to just have deeni taleem and he place science, math, geography, etc as a distraction and test (though even deeni knowldge can be a source of test)?
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