By Dr Wasim Ahmad,
It has been asked that I should pay back to the madrasah whatever it has spent on me before writing….. Yes, I want to but there are some difficulties which I would like to share. How will I be able to pay back to the madrasah while allowing it to continue with only Muslim students? How can we exclude one of the ‘two eyes of the bride’? What will happen to our integration in the larger society? If there is a threat of the Muslims losing their identity why do we allow that in the cases of a huge majority? Why do we have two standards in dealing with Muslim kids? Why do we expect one thing from some of them and another from the rest of them? Why not what is good for one is good for the other? Why don’t we give them a free choice as per their natural inclination in terms of selecting their disciplines?
Does paying back to the madrasah mean that if I joined a madrasah that propagates one school of thought then I should never come out of it? Should I deny my existence to prove the existence of someone else? Should I renounce my right to think and exist? Should I think more about Islam or a given school of thought? What is more important? If I studied in a madrasah that glorifies a particular personality I should keep doing so for the whole of my life?
Whom should I pay back? Should I pay back to the madrasah or I should pay back to the community that spent on my education? Did the community pay to the madrasah so that the graduates pay back to the madrasah or to the community? This we need to decide.
Jamiatul Falah in Azamgarh [Photo by jamiatulfalah.org]
Also, what if someone continued his education after the madrasah and joined a University which “stands for humanism, for tolerance, for adventure of ideas, experimentation and unceasing quest and diversity of opinions” as described by Jawaharlal Nehru? How could we reconcile the paying back with these objectives of a University – if one is a graduate from a madrasah and a University both? Because someone has studied in a madrasah he should disregard the objectives of a University?
Now there is a dilemma as to whom I should pay back more? To a madrasah or to a University? The University also spent a lot on me. I would never have been able to hire any of those professors and all those facilities for even an hour. And I benefited from the same for years together. Should I pay back to some and not to some others? Should I be selective in paying back? The fact that the educational institutions should not be contradictory to each other and should be in harmony is beside the point.
Should I disregard the fact that the country, too, has invested a lot in me and I should pay back to the country as well? Where did the country pay from? From the taxpayers’ money. The taxpayers who comprised the Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Should we disregard the taxes paid by non-Muslims? What will happen to the justice that Islam wants us to uphold and administer?
Does paying back mean that I remain in a perpetual state of self-contradiction which is precisely what I don’t want to be in and am seeking to come out of? Or it doesn’t matter? If it doesn’t matter then we should stop our quest for truth. And should not pray for it. Then we should not read and recite Soorah al-‘Asr and stop relating and applying it.
“Paying back to the madrasah” to me means keeping the divide between deen and dunyaa alive. Perpetuating the division between deeni and dunyaawee till eternity. Anyone who has followed my submissions will know that I stand against it. How could I then pay back to the madrasah without first contradicting myself? If I contradict myself it means I am not concerned about truth (which is free from self-contradiction) and that I don’t stand for anything. How can I not stand for anything knowing that our bane is that we do not know what we stand for?
How can I pay back to the same madrasah which I don’t find contributing substantially towards the building of the modern India? How can it contribute towards this goal with the current exclusivist and isolationist approach? It does not serve the purpose of even increased communication with the different sections of the larger society – leave alone addressing any other areas of importance and common concern.
I want to know how can I pay back to the same madrasah which I find a psychological barrier in the path of Muslims’ excellent performance in all the walk of life because of truncated exposition of Islam? I want to know how I can pay back to the same madrasah which is instrumental in creating a self-doubt among the ‘modern educated’. Because of the continuing deep-rooted divide between deen and dunyaa and deeni and dunaawee the ‘modern educated’ harbour a degree of self-doubt about the pursuance of various disciplines. This acts as a psychological barrier and takes away excellence. How could there be any excellence with a degree of self-doubt? Just as an individual human being may have some psychological barriers, a people may also have, I guess.
I should pay back and in a coin which has already been visualized and maybe in which already a lot is being paid back? Is there any option for me to figure out anything about the coin itself? Or I should be like a mechanical organ from which some mechanical actions are expected? If we are able to define and describe the coin in advance then there is something seriously wrong in our education system. Instead of trying to figure out what that wrong thing is we ask for only paying back.
If we are able to describe the coin in advance it means that there is and has been some problem at the cognitive level. The human beings are not a “product” or “item”. A seat of learning is expected to groom an individual to the maximum possible extent and give full expression to his uniqueness and peculiarity. There are no repetitions when it comes to the human beings. We are able to describe the coin because of a faulty education system.
How could we know what the graduates of an educational institution should be like and that they should pay back in a given coin? We should not be able to know that in advance and we should not be able to find a pattern. The human beings are not for sampling. We are able to do ‘sampling’ because we do not nurture creativity and thinking skills. “The most demanding work of our students is memorizing facts for regurgitation. The product of this educational culture is deficient in the inquiry, investigation, and reasoning skills”. Our students focus on obtaining marks which indicates that we are not fostering “problem-based and enquiry-based learning, which will develop their powers of investigations and critical thinking”. (Excerpts of Prof. William K Lim’s letters from ‘Nature, 465, 13 May 2010’ and ‘Science, 327, March 26, 2010’; courtesy Dr Abdul Jabbar Khan – [email protected])
We need to keep in mind that learning involves: “knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation”. But “unfortunately, in our traditional education system learning means developing recall ability only. The other five aspects are generally ignored. That is why our curriculum is unable to induce critical and scientific thinking among its pupils. This problem has long been realized in scientifically developed societies and remedial measures were developed. Unfortunately, we are still living in the flat world.” (Courtesy Mr Pervez Ahmed [email protected])
Please help me come out of this dilemma as regards my paying back. In the meantime, I think the community needs ideas and this is what we should provide to the best of our capacities. The community needs to look at its age-old notions in a fresh manner. I have heard about “Islam (read Muslims) ki nash’at-e thaaniyah”. What does it mean? Does it entail any painful exercise? Will it come by without any adjustments? I seriously doubt it. If there are any short-cuts (which we are used to) please enlighten.
On the other hand, I think that I am trying to pay back to the madrasah and the community by sharing my submissions and by telling them what I think is wrong about them. But we don’t listen to those who pay back a bit differently. We are mindful of the huge investment made in them but we actually don’t want them to pay back. We want them to do the easier job. We should actually ask them to do the most difficult job on earth (thinking). What a paradox!?
(The author is Head of the Dept of Islamic Studies, Preston University, Ajman, UAE. He can be contacted at Mob:+971505363235 Email: [email protected])