“We no longer ask what is the best approach to educating our children, we ask only how we can minimize the flaws in our current approach. We talk always of “reform” and never of rebirth.”
— Andrew J. Coulson, in his work “Delivering Education”
So much is being written, said, debated and talked about Madāris these days that I could not simply elude the temptation to explore the concept. Wikipedia defines Madrasah as “…Arabic word of Semitic origin … for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious (of any religion).” Wikipedia further categorizes Madāris as public school (Madrasah āmah), religious school (Madrasah dīniyyah),university (Madrasah Jāmiah), and so on. Note that this definition does not coagulate to the hitherto insignia of Madāris being considered as schools meant for religious. Unfortunately, Madāris as we know them today have been brandished as religious schools that are outright orthodox and breed extremism. How and why this has happened might be more political than pedagogical in nature. However, it unquestionably calls for looking at how we have treated our Madāris that lead to their predicaments, and what we can do to alter the situations.
Refer to the comments of Dr. Mahatir Mohammad in one of the previous mails – “But around the 15th Century of the Christian era, fatwas were made by Muslim Ulamas that "Iqraq" or read was intended for reading and studying religion only…”
This might have been something done with great reasoning and precaution (since the muftis issuing these fatwas must have been definitely much learned than us individuals debating this issue here); which however, has left a scar on our educational edifice that only deteriorates with each passing day. What I fail to understand on this front is how we could disintegrate religion and worldly affairs as separate domains, when Islam testifies to be a way of leading our lives in this very world, not just limited to spiritual discourses. Was it an anomaly springing from the separation of State from the Church in the Christian world? But then, it never signifies the Islamic way of life, where politics, economics, and social wellbeing are all inseparable components of the religion.
If at all [I stress on if at all, since I am too shortsighted to make any confident comment on this analogy] this assumption and premise [that denouncing modern education was an offshoot of the separation of State from the Church] is to be believed, we definitely need to give it some thought. What lead to the separation of State and Church is nothing other than the greed for power, supremacy, and authority, something that has intensely touchbased the Muslim society as well. This hunger for supremacy, power, and authority has been very cogently scripted by Dr. Wasim Ahmed sb in his earlier write up “Maulana and Mr: A Dialog”.
I would not blame anyone for this greed of power for two primary reasons – firstly that human by nature is power-thirsty, and secondly that at times the system compels one to adopt this greed for power to survive. My benign exploration tempts me to believe that it is a combination of these two factors in case of this rotten insignia; the latter being more dominant. For example, how the system in general evaluates education – an education is inferior if it cannot create prudent job opportunities. Therefore, we are insolent towards educations such as Arts and Social Sciences, perhaps, as compared to science, engineering, and medicine. Religious education would actually be at an all time abysmally low rank in that context, spurring an acute inferiority in terms of theological discourses. Probably the origin of the divide between theological and worldly education has its roots embedded somewhere in this paradox. The fatwa against conforming to worldly or scientific education might then be seen as a direct reflection of an authoritative divergence by the theologians to survive this inferiority complex.
How this inferiority might have crept amongst us might be a separate and voluminous topic of discussion altogether. I might be tempted to summarize that the West took it up as a strategic move to cease the progression of Muslims during their Dark Ages, which might have been further fortified with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. [That is when and why we might say the best education is one that creates prudent job opportunities.] This; however, might be a very narrow acumen to interpret the situations. However, what we need to see is how we can emerge out of it. This is where we need to emphasize on reform and rebirth, rather than merely talking about minimizing flaws in the current system.
The number of Muslim students going to Madāris is much larger than the students attending contemporary schools. Let us not resign from the bitter fact that most of these students attend Madāris because of want of financial support. That is maybe because Madarsa education is probably low-priced [not cheap, mind it, for there is a big difference between these two!!] and parents can afford it. Even those who attend contemporary schools drop out largely due to financial reasons. Therefore, we should [and we are] help them financially to continue with their education. These efforts are highly commendable, indeed, because it requires a lot of pain to part with even the slightest portion of one’s hard-earned money. However, we surely need a parallel movement [not substitute] to this. I say this because in the long-run, we might not be able to equate the amount of our financial help with that of the number of needy in the years to come – that is, if things go on as they are at the present rate.
One good thing with our Madāris is that they offer low-priced education. This is a strength that we can employ to reinstate their lost glory. Quality education today is very dear, but also very profiting. The strategy at hand has two dimensions to it. First, we need to channelize our financial contributions more collectively and in a way that it takes care of uplifting the quality of education of our Madāris, and also ensures a healthy and content employment opportunity to the teachers. Unless we ensure this, we may not be able to implement the second dimension, that of inculcating and imbibing quality education [quality education combining theology and contemporary subjects] in our Madāris. Both these dimensions demand very acute visualization, planning, and distinct implementation. The two strategic domains are incisively distinct and important because at this point, we simply cannot afford to miss out on either low-price or quality education. We would need money to pay decent wages to the teachers as well as empower them with pedagogical affluence to ensure that they impart quality education. Can we unite for this cause?
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