slaveofAllah88
Slave of Allah (swt)
aslam o alaikum wa rahmatuAllahi wa barakatuhu,
the notes are only on the 1st 30 min of the video, since it was more beneficial at a individual level, and how a student can direct his islamic education inshAllah, hopefully this way everyone can benefit from this important lecture.
[video=youtube;amb4n2TEasQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amb4n2TEasQ[/video]
Aslam o aliakum wa rahmatuAllahi wa barakatuhu.
Sura: Al-Alaq
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ [٩٦:١]
Recite in the name of your Lord who created -
خَلَقَ الْإِنسَانَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ [٩٦:٢]
Created man from a clinging substance.
اقْرَأْ وَرَبُّكَ الْأَكْرَمُ [٩٦:٣]
Recite, and your Lord is the most Generous -
الَّذِي عَلَّمَ بِالْقَلَمِ [٩٦:٤]
Who taught by the pen -
عَلَّمَ الْإِنسَانَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ [٩٦:٥]
Taught man that which he knew not.
I was invited here to speak about Islamic education institutions and I actually picked this title, the coming islamic renaissance. And I felt this is important to have especially with educator and muslims in generals about how we will be educating muslims and the ummah and by extension the world about islam, how will we engage in this massive.
Alhumdulilah, with the very beginning of this ummah education has been a priority the very first revelation itself is iqra (read). And in the first passage Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) mentions verbs like Iqra, Alama (teaching/he taught) , al qalam , ilm, ma lam ya lam, already from the very birth of the ummah education is a priority, unfortunately today the education about islam itself has taken a backseat, it suffered, it’s a result because a lot of result history.
First I want to set for you the 3 parts of islamic education, then what approach has been taken and how our efforts will be different, so what changes do we need to bring to really effectively engage in the education of the ummah.
Education into three things
1. Information
2. Understanding
3. Application
Just to make this very simple, a child can memorize surah ikhlas, even the entire quran, inside of that child he has a lot of information, what they don’t yet posses is what understanding. Information is one thing its an important thing but its different from understanding, and its important but different from application. These are three separate things, what happens sometimes is we emphasize application, but application is actually the third piece before you got to have understanding and information.
One example Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) gives in the quran,
وَتِلْكَ الْأَمْثَالُ نَضْرِبُهَا لِلنَّاسِ*!ۖ وَمَا يَعْقِلُهَا إِلَّا الْعَالِمُونَ [٢٩:٤٣]
And these examples We present to the people, but none will understand them except those of knowledge. 29:43
So Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) mentioned the information first and then he mentioned the understanding, so both of them go hand in hand, offcourse if one does not have knowledge of the arabic language, no knowledge of what Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) says , no knowledge of tafaseer, what Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalay-hi wa-sallam) himself explained about the ayah, then you can forget about understanding, the next step is not even going to happen. My teacher used a different terminology, there is a difference between saying this person has a lot of information and this person has a lot of knowledge, there is a difference between those two things, the argument is you can say someone has knowledge when the first two pieces are combined. Information + understanding = knowledge, there is a lot of information on the internet, you can read a lot of books, but unfortunately that information does not increase in our knowledge, cause there is a gap between those things.
Now in islamic terminology, you have ilm (information) , aqal (understanding) and when you have this together, and you act on it, al amal, that’s actually what is called wisdom. When you have knowledge and application together, that’s the third stage hikmah.
What happened in islamic history, the information of islam has been available, arabic education was wide spread, quran education was wide spread, arabic language was common language of the muslims for a very long time. Vast majority of the mufasiron were not arab, they took in arabic, and all of them authored their works in arabic cause arabic was accessible knowledge, but the thing about understanding was, you have to go to the ilm to understand, people would travel to different land to sit under a scholar and understand, try to understand the quran/ sunnah better.
Historically, people individuals were institutions we didn't have university, we had scholars that students would go and flock to them, so you would go to them. On a side note: The highest form of education is doctorate, and in the doctorate program you end up with one mentor that is going to guide you in your PHD, so in your highest form you end up with where the ummah begin its education, with a mentor that is going to guide you in your process.
So the reason for having that mentor, was not to just get the information, you also wanted to get the understanding, but not even that in their company you would learn how to act on that knowledge, the scholar themselves was the case study, how you act on this knowledge, so when you have the scholar of the hadith, every time he is about to quote the hadith he goes and makes wudu and then he tells the hadith, or before he teaches about the quran he makes dua to Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) and then he starts teaching. The students would see that and say our teacher has a lot of respect for what he does, he realizes he is dealing with something very powerful and look how he turns to Allah before he turns to us. You cant do that from book you have to sit in a class, there are many terms for that but the modern english word I used was application. So you also learn from their character, so after this you can learn how to apply this stuff yourself.
When we talk about Islamic education we cannot forget we have to give importance to information, we have to have the right information, authentic, clear concise information, and then you got to have a good method for developing the right understanding, cause there are people who read the same thing and come up with different understanding, there has to be a method by which you understand. And those that have gone through this process and trained themselves, and are educated in not just understanding but teaching you how to understand, how to think, that’s a important process it needs to be in place.
Information is a project by itself, understanding a separate project by itself and whats the point of all this information if nothing changes practically.
So far, there was originally an emphasizes on information. For example muslims in india/Pakistan, their focus is on information. Understanding does not come from books , you cannot just read books and claim you have genuine understanding, it comes from discussion, Questions and Answers, so long as we are relying on books alone, our emphasizes is on information.
In western education, there is a great deal of emphasizes on understanding but unfortunately, there is a lack of emphasizes on information, they don’t make you memorize anything. Its all about understanding, and in Muslim countries students are memorizing all day. The problem is both of these approaches have a weakness, you can memorize something and still don’t know why you did it. On the other hand, the other problem is you understand it really well, but you don't have the information in your head, so both approaches have a strength and a weakness as well.
In islamic tradition, this used to be the case, they would argue children when they are younger are better able to take in information, their understanding has not developed but their ability to absorb information is very powerful , now when people get older, their ability to understand gets very powerful but their ability to absorb information gets weakness. So the approach was when children are young whatever you can get them to memorize get them memorize, lets just have them memorize as much as they can when they are young, since the information is already sitting there then as they start getting older, we can start developing understanding, it’s a pretty intelligent approach, so when people get older they have a hard time memorizing, retaining information even though their understanding becomes a lot better. That was the original classical approach, but unfortunately we left that building half way, so what we started doing in muslim world that for children islamic education is memorize memorize memorize, forget about the understanding, so it never happened, the understanding phase never came, so kid memorized the entire quran but the arabic, tafaseer training never came so you have hundred of thousand of memorizers of quran but they never went into a program that would allow them to engage with the information they have memorized beside just the tajweed, we didn't develop a system for that.
the notes are only on the 1st 30 min of the video, since it was more beneficial at a individual level, and how a student can direct his islamic education inshAllah, hopefully this way everyone can benefit from this important lecture.
[video=youtube;amb4n2TEasQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amb4n2TEasQ[/video]
Aslam o aliakum wa rahmatuAllahi wa barakatuhu.
Sura: Al-Alaq
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ [٩٦:١]
Recite in the name of your Lord who created -
خَلَقَ الْإِنسَانَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ [٩٦:٢]
Created man from a clinging substance.
اقْرَأْ وَرَبُّكَ الْأَكْرَمُ [٩٦:٣]
Recite, and your Lord is the most Generous -
الَّذِي عَلَّمَ بِالْقَلَمِ [٩٦:٤]
Who taught by the pen -
عَلَّمَ الْإِنسَانَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ [٩٦:٥]
Taught man that which he knew not.
I was invited here to speak about Islamic education institutions and I actually picked this title, the coming islamic renaissance. And I felt this is important to have especially with educator and muslims in generals about how we will be educating muslims and the ummah and by extension the world about islam, how will we engage in this massive.
Alhumdulilah, with the very beginning of this ummah education has been a priority the very first revelation itself is iqra (read). And in the first passage Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) mentions verbs like Iqra, Alama (teaching/he taught) , al qalam , ilm, ma lam ya lam, already from the very birth of the ummah education is a priority, unfortunately today the education about islam itself has taken a backseat, it suffered, it’s a result because a lot of result history.
First I want to set for you the 3 parts of islamic education, then what approach has been taken and how our efforts will be different, so what changes do we need to bring to really effectively engage in the education of the ummah.
Education into three things
1. Information
2. Understanding
3. Application
Just to make this very simple, a child can memorize surah ikhlas, even the entire quran, inside of that child he has a lot of information, what they don’t yet posses is what understanding. Information is one thing its an important thing but its different from understanding, and its important but different from application. These are three separate things, what happens sometimes is we emphasize application, but application is actually the third piece before you got to have understanding and information.
One example Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) gives in the quran,
وَتِلْكَ الْأَمْثَالُ نَضْرِبُهَا لِلنَّاسِ*!ۖ وَمَا يَعْقِلُهَا إِلَّا الْعَالِمُونَ [٢٩:٤٣]
And these examples We present to the people, but none will understand them except those of knowledge. 29:43
So Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) mentioned the information first and then he mentioned the understanding, so both of them go hand in hand, offcourse if one does not have knowledge of the arabic language, no knowledge of what Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) says , no knowledge of tafaseer, what Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalay-hi wa-sallam) himself explained about the ayah, then you can forget about understanding, the next step is not even going to happen. My teacher used a different terminology, there is a difference between saying this person has a lot of information and this person has a lot of knowledge, there is a difference between those two things, the argument is you can say someone has knowledge when the first two pieces are combined. Information + understanding = knowledge, there is a lot of information on the internet, you can read a lot of books, but unfortunately that information does not increase in our knowledge, cause there is a gap between those things.
Now in islamic terminology, you have ilm (information) , aqal (understanding) and when you have this together, and you act on it, al amal, that’s actually what is called wisdom. When you have knowledge and application together, that’s the third stage hikmah.
What happened in islamic history, the information of islam has been available, arabic education was wide spread, quran education was wide spread, arabic language was common language of the muslims for a very long time. Vast majority of the mufasiron were not arab, they took in arabic, and all of them authored their works in arabic cause arabic was accessible knowledge, but the thing about understanding was, you have to go to the ilm to understand, people would travel to different land to sit under a scholar and understand, try to understand the quran/ sunnah better.
Historically, people individuals were institutions we didn't have university, we had scholars that students would go and flock to them, so you would go to them. On a side note: The highest form of education is doctorate, and in the doctorate program you end up with one mentor that is going to guide you in your PHD, so in your highest form you end up with where the ummah begin its education, with a mentor that is going to guide you in your process.
So the reason for having that mentor, was not to just get the information, you also wanted to get the understanding, but not even that in their company you would learn how to act on that knowledge, the scholar themselves was the case study, how you act on this knowledge, so when you have the scholar of the hadith, every time he is about to quote the hadith he goes and makes wudu and then he tells the hadith, or before he teaches about the quran he makes dua to Allah (subhanu wa ta'ala) and then he starts teaching. The students would see that and say our teacher has a lot of respect for what he does, he realizes he is dealing with something very powerful and look how he turns to Allah before he turns to us. You cant do that from book you have to sit in a class, there are many terms for that but the modern english word I used was application. So you also learn from their character, so after this you can learn how to apply this stuff yourself.
When we talk about Islamic education we cannot forget we have to give importance to information, we have to have the right information, authentic, clear concise information, and then you got to have a good method for developing the right understanding, cause there are people who read the same thing and come up with different understanding, there has to be a method by which you understand. And those that have gone through this process and trained themselves, and are educated in not just understanding but teaching you how to understand, how to think, that’s a important process it needs to be in place.
Information is a project by itself, understanding a separate project by itself and whats the point of all this information if nothing changes practically.
So far, there was originally an emphasizes on information. For example muslims in india/Pakistan, their focus is on information. Understanding does not come from books , you cannot just read books and claim you have genuine understanding, it comes from discussion, Questions and Answers, so long as we are relying on books alone, our emphasizes is on information.
In western education, there is a great deal of emphasizes on understanding but unfortunately, there is a lack of emphasizes on information, they don’t make you memorize anything. Its all about understanding, and in Muslim countries students are memorizing all day. The problem is both of these approaches have a weakness, you can memorize something and still don’t know why you did it. On the other hand, the other problem is you understand it really well, but you don't have the information in your head, so both approaches have a strength and a weakness as well.
In islamic tradition, this used to be the case, they would argue children when they are younger are better able to take in information, their understanding has not developed but their ability to absorb information is very powerful , now when people get older, their ability to understand gets very powerful but their ability to absorb information gets weakness. So the approach was when children are young whatever you can get them to memorize get them memorize, lets just have them memorize as much as they can when they are young, since the information is already sitting there then as they start getting older, we can start developing understanding, it’s a pretty intelligent approach, so when people get older they have a hard time memorizing, retaining information even though their understanding becomes a lot better. That was the original classical approach, but unfortunately we left that building half way, so what we started doing in muslim world that for children islamic education is memorize memorize memorize, forget about the understanding, so it never happened, the understanding phase never came, so kid memorized the entire quran but the arabic, tafaseer training never came so you have hundred of thousand of memorizers of quran but they never went into a program that would allow them to engage with the information they have memorized beside just the tajweed, we didn't develop a system for that.