Right now Muslim character puts everyone to shame. Read Iqbal’s Jawab-e-Shikwah if you don’t believe me. As for education, what education are we talking about? What kind of an educational system do Muslims of India, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria and other places have in place?
In a blistering letter to his former teachers, 17th-Century Mughal ruler Aurangzeb bemoaned the sad state of Muslim education during his days. I wonder what he would have be saying to himself in his grave about the state of Muslim education in India today.
It isn’t as if the whole world is making a beeline for Delhi and Lahore and Dhaka to get their education. It isn’t as if the lands of Islam – you name your own favorite places – are in direct competition with Europe, America, Russia and other places in the world as the great centers of learning and enlightenment.
So, should I rest my case that Muslim education, in India and all over, is in dire and desperate need of complete overhauling, renovation, rebuilding and rejuvenation?
As for where you should start, whether you should start with education or character, it is all the same. It does not really matter which you consider to be the first and which second, for, they are both so closely interlinked that you cannot have one without the other.
But what is of critical importance is that we understand and take both these terms and concepts, (education and character, Ta’aleem and Tazkiyah) in their most inclusive, comprehensive and dynamic sense.
These Goals Are Attainable and Easily So
And what is more, from a practical point of view, both these goals are perfectly attainable and fairly easily so. All we need is the right vision, the right plan, the right leadership, the right resources and the right kind of people to bring all these things together and make the total and comprehensive transformation of the Muslim Ummah, the blessed Ummah Marhoomah, a reality.
Starting out, if that is where you want to start, with education – ta’aleem as the Qur’an calls it. Whether the target area you have in mind is India, or some other place, or the globe as a whole. And, frankly, whether it is just Muslims you are thinking about or all of humanity.
Let us start with education and go.
Let us give Muslims of India – and of the rest of the world – Ta’aleem and see what happens. Maybe that is why nobody talks about education and Muslims in the same breath. Because that puts a huge scare in the hearts of Iblis and his Majlis-e-Shura, as Iqbal called the Devil’s minions and cronies.
“What will happen to our hegemony of the world,” the Devil seems to be telling his underlings, “If the Muslims ever get educated? If their Deen ever gets to be linked to its core foundation of Ta’aleem once again? What will happen to all the grand plans and schemes we have in store for this miserable planet on which Adam’s children still live?”
“Didn’t we have enough the first time around, when the Muslims used to be the best and the most educated people in the world? In fact, they used to be almost the only educated people in the world then. Don’t you remember the havoc they caused at that time? They made light and dispelled darkness wherever they went. They spread truth everywhere, foolish people!”
“Don’t you remember how hard they made it for us to fool and mislead Adam’s kids? And how our favorite pastimes of aggression and injustice, lies and deceit, had to be put in cold storage waiting for a better day of darkness and ignorance to dawn?”
“And look what wonders we have been able to accomplish in this world ever since Muslims embraced ignorance in place of the enlightenment of Islam! We made the very names and concepts of Zulm and Sidq disappear from this world. No more all that nonsense about truth and justice.”
No doubt there are nightly celebrations fireworks in all the Devil’s dens everywhere at the wretched and deplorable educational condition of Muslims – in India and around the world.
So, Ta’aleem and Tazkiyah – education on the one hand and character on the other hand. That is the name of the game as they say.
Ta’aleem and Tazkiyah: Two Peas in a Pod
But the question is can there be one without the other? Can there be Ta’aleem without Tazkiyah or Tazkiyah without Ta’aleem? The answer is no.
What happens when you try to force them to go their separate ways? That is, when you give the world one without the other? Exactly what is happening now: education without character and attempts at character building without the guiding light of education to illumine the path.
The result: a perfectly messed up world. Pretty much the way it is and pretty much the way it has been, except when Islam came and joined Ta’aleem with Tazkiyah.
The fact is that these two are not only interactive but completely interdependent. They are interrelated, intertwined, interactive, integrated and interdependent, which makes the relationship between the two a necessary one – in a mathematical sense. That means one cannot happen without the other. Nor can you cut one loose from the other.
Tell me this. Is training Muslims – or anyone else – to be doctors, carpenters, engineers or computer scientists a matter of character training or simple education? When children spend endless hours doing their math or language homework, is it part of their education or is it part of their character?
How can people who don’t have the will and the discipline – character shall we say? – to go to school regularly; to work hard at school; to do their homework on time and well; and to endure all kinds of hardships and challenges that a superior education throws their way; how can people like that ever expect to be educated?
So what is it when you are staying late to do your homework? And walking five miles to go to school because that is how far the nearest school happens to be? And what is it when you are still doing your homework indoors when so many other kids are playing outside or watching a movie?
When other children are having a good time playing or watching television, you are delaying your gratifications – an essential of character formation – and putting in some extra hours in your school work, is that character or education? The fact is that it is both.
That is because you cannot separate one from the other. They are two peas in a pod. They only work in tandem. And that is why the Qur’an combines the two of them together. Because that is how Allah created human beings. And that is the perfect plan – joining Ta’aleem to Tazkiyah, character to education – he devised to educate them and train them to excel in this world as well as to be successful in the next world: combining character training with educational training.
