LONDON:

Taji Mustafa, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain said “the tactics are now well understood by most Muslims. You demonise aspects of Islamic beliefs and values linking them to selective quotations, distortions or misrepresentations about Islam in the hope  that Muslims will denounce every aspect of Islam that  contradicts secular liberal values.”

“The programme talked of ‘diagrams about the punishment for thieves’, verses from the Qur’an, and the unsurprising Islamic view that homosexuality as a sin against the law of the Creator, and presented these as evidence that such Islamic views are unacceptable and Muslims must reject them.”

“Muslims are increasingly used to seeing the myth of liberal tolerance being replaced with the truth of liberal supremacy, having seen similar attacks by some politicians and sections of the media pressurising  Muslims to embrace secular values.”

“We doubt if Mr Gove, the Education Secretary, would show consistency and ban H.E. Marshall’s ‘Our Island Story’ – a favourite of conservative educationalists – from school because it talks about ‘Turks’ and ‘Saracens’ in such jingoistic and derogatory terms.”

“Muslims have been expected by the British establishment to concede they have ‘false grievances’ about the West’s foreign policy, that occupation of Muslim lands must go undefended, that attacks on the Shariah are legitimate, and that they should laugh off attacks on the Blessed Prophet Muhammad (phuh). Now aggressive liberal secularists demand that Muslims endorse same sex relationships as a natural lifestyle choice and distance themselves from Shariah punishments, the effect of which is to deter the levels of criminality all too common in Western cities.”

“Michael Gove and Panorama should perhaps concentrate more on the real problems in British education:  the rising levels of attacks on teachers;  the  bullying of children due to their faith; and the fact that society has rising levels of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease and antisocial behaviour.”

“It is precisely for these reasons that Muslims seek to encourage their children to chose Islamic values, so that they can be wholesome, decent, productive people, who have respect for others – especially for women and the elderly – as well as for themselves, no matter where they are in the world.”

”Despite the huge pressure on Muslims in the west to remain silent in the face of this coercive assimilation campaigns, we will continue to expose such liberal totalitarianism and urge Muslims to engage in the wider debate about the damaging effect of some liberal values on society at large.”

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Hizb ut-Tahrir News Release

THE way in which we view education has a lot to do with our past; how we grew up, societal influences, and the way we were schooled ourselves. It is the legacy that we pass on to our children. Tragically, the current way our education system is engineered, it appears our children seem doomed to be unsuccessful.

We live in a time where our schools are failing, our children are unhappy and overworked, and the current system becomes more obsolete every year. Something needs to change if we want our children to be happy, and our country to be successful, once again. The system we have now was built on a fault line and it has become increasingly evident that the cracks are growing exponentially. It isn’t too late to change that model.

We could talk about how to improve schools, maybe more money or less political involvement, but in the long run those are not the things that stand in the way of our children’s futures. What stands in the way is an archaic mindset build on false education and an inability to look past the norm. With our country in a dire economic situation with mass joblessness and stifled innovation, it is time to step outside of the box that public education has put us in to find solutions.

1. Our schools are failing miserably: That’s not to say that some students do not do well in public school and end up happy, but statistics do not lie. At an annual average cost of over $10,000 per student, the U.S. is lagging behind countries that don’t spend half that much. Money does not appear to be the problem, so throwing more into a broken system is just adding fuel to the fire. No Child Left Behind has been a total failure, where states are suing the federal government over this catastrophe. NCLB puts extreme emphasis on tests — as if still trying to churn out worker bees — yet, the U.S. ranks far below most industrialized nations. We seem to be wasting money letting political agendas decide what is best, rather than the parents or teachers who know what children need.

Unsettling Education Statistics

• Students are not faring well on national assessments. The most recent NAEP assessments indicate that less than one third of U.S. fourth graders are proficient in reading, mathematics, science, and American history.
• More than half of low-income students cannot even demonstrate basic knowledge of science, reading, and history.
• U.S. eighth graders ranked 19th out of 38 countries on mathematic assessments and 18th in science.
• U.S. twelfth graders ranked 18th out of 21 countries in combined mathematics and science assessments (Source: The Heritage Foundation)

History shows that modern-day schooling started with the Industrial Revolution, but many still refuse to accept that the people who funded its inception did not have children’s education as their main priority. Men like Rockefeller and Carnegie wanted good obedient workers to take the jobs they needed filled. They didn’t want free-thinking students to reach their potential; they wanted a large dumbed-down class, just disciplined and smart enough to show up on time and work their factory jobs.

John Taylor Gatto, teacher for over 30 years, NY Teacher of the Year, bestselling author, and homeschooling supporter, states: “The secret to American schooling is that it doesn’t teach the way children learn, nor is it supposed to. Schools were conceived to serve the economy and the social order rather than kids and their families….that is why it is compulsory.” This is a system set up for all the wrong reasons, and it is a system whose goals were set deep inside of ulterior motives and still are today. Maybe schools are not the best places for our children to gain knowledge.

2. Our children are unhappy: Our children are unhappy, overworked, and not learning what they need in order to be successful. The first thing that needs to change is how we define that word success. We hear it all the time used as a measure of how our children are doing in life, but what if the way we define success has been wrong all along? What exactly are we as parents supposed to focus on? Is happiness even on the radar screen when success is discussed?

It seems most parents these days get so caught up in competition that they can forget that our ultimate goal should be our children’s happiness. Who’s to blame them, as we are all conditioned to survive in the rat-race dog-eat-dog economy. But this ultra-competitive model seems to make school an unhappy place, as a record number of children are now on mood-altering drugs to handle their pressure-cooker lives. It is a place where strangers with corporate-government mandates are controlling the minds and bodies of our children.

We cannot expect our children to be free-thinking independent adults if they are kept under lock and key, segregated by age, fully controlled by rules, and forced to learn a federally-mandated curriculum. It is an institutional and cold conditioning of the mind. Americans have been taught to think of the word success as being dependent on excelling at school, but it seems societal success is more dependent on knowledge — and the two are not synonymous. If we can change our thinking about success then it can equal happiness — the ultimate human success.

In 2007, for the first time, UNICEF did a study on the wellbeing and happiness of children in 21 industrialized nations. The US and UK, two of the wealthier nations on the list, came in dead last. This alone should raise some eyebrows and prove the point that our children are not happy, and that more money is not the answer to the problem.

Another study was conducted in 2009 by the American Psychological Association to survey stress levels in children; they found some alarming information. To start, it showed that stress levels in adults and children have risen dramatically over the past few years, but even more upsetting is that parents seemed mostly clueless to the fact that their children were stressed at all. What were the main issues causing stress in children? Worry about grades, about getting into college, and family finances top the list. These problems are causing children to experience headaches, nausea, and trouble sleeping. If our goal is happiness, the school system is again, a failure.

3. School has become obsolete: The last 10 years has seen more technological advancement than in the entire century before. All of the world’s information is now literally available in the palm of our hands. Almost the entire world’s wealth of knowledge is accessible through the Internet and integrated into our everyday life. Small improvements have occurred to incorporate this new lifestyle, but not nearly enough to catch up with the rest of the world. In fact, some researchers suggest that students would be better off with self-directed learning using the Internet, because we all learn better when it is something that we are interested in.

The current system is repetitive, memorization and test driven, and downright boring. It’s a place that resembles prison where, “Very little of what is taught is learned, very little of what is learned is remembered, and very little of what is remembered is actually used,” as John Holt states in How Children Learn. Couple that with the fact that 50% (technological knowledge) of what is learned in the first year of college is worthless by graduation, and you just have to ask yourself: What is the point? And can’t we do better than this? Our children not only deserve better, they require better in order to compete in a market with nearly 10% official unemployment.

College seems to be less cost-effective every year. Rising college costs put our children in insurmountable debt due to the lack of viable employment. Tuitions have skyrocketed in the past few years (Harvard University is now $60,000 per year). To make matters worse, universities are now making kickback profits from credit card companies, while graduates aren’t even able to find jobs. With over 1/3 of college graduates now taking low-skill jobs, and over 65% graduating with crippling debt, it is now legitimate to question if college is the right path to put our children on.

4. The wrong people control the system for the wrong reasons: “The education system was deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens in order to render the populace ‘manageable.’” — Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, Sr. Policy Advisor for the US Dept. of Education, and whistleblower on government activities to deliberately dumb our children down.

She also notes that the system is set up to make good consumers, as well as standardize people to keep them predictable and easy to control. Does this sound like something you want to support? Do we really want our children controlled and held back in life?

The Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 were the first steps toward a large government role in education. What people failed to realize was that the money from these Acts became obligations to play by their rules and it continues today. Because the Feds were financially supporting the schools, they could control what was taught, thus bringing another facet of American life under their control. This is proven again and again when we see how difficult they make it for people to choose alternative education options for their own children.

It is clear that the purpose of school has become to serve corporations and government. This is evidenced most recently when we learn that BP played a role in writing the environmental curriculum in California. I think we all can agree that public schools should only serve the taxpayer’s families and their children’s best interests — not the corporations that write the curriculum. When the day comes that the people in charge make families (and not greedy corporations) the priority then maybe, just maybe, our children will be learning what is really important, rather than learning how to serve the very people who set up this failing system.

Conclusion

In a time when our economy desperately needs more innovators, how can we change education to expand the potential of each child? It seems we must do some things we did NOT learn in school: Question assumptions about education; think for and believe in ourselves; speak up against what we know is wrong; and challenge what we’ve been taught to believe is right. It is each parent’s right and responsibility to decide the best way to guide their child to maximum human potential.

It seems that our modern world provides all of the tools to support a child’s natural curiosity to drive their own education. Homeschooling and unschooling may be the most powerful form of revolt against an establishment which is terrified of individuals that question authority and refuse to be good little worker bees. John Holt said it well: “To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves … but most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” We also must begin to trust our own abilities as parents to guide our children toward happiness and independence, not to blindly trust the failed government standards that have resulted in anxiety and stress conditioning.

It is time for all of us to look outside the box for solutions to our education system to ensure our children’s happiness — this should be deemed the ultimate success.

Author Mary Hickcox is an unschooling advocate, mother, and life guide to three sons (11, 7, 3).

Dissident Voice

This is a series of articles for the understanding of the history of centuries old Madrasah and Islamic Education System in South Asian perspective published in Muslims Weekly, New York, USA, in 18 series of the weekly column “Personal Notes.”

First Published: Muslims Weekly; June 5, 2004, Issue No.#223

“…Those truly fear Allah, among His Servants, who have knowledge…” (Al-Qur'an 35: 28). “They will further say: "Had we but listened or used our intelligence, we should not (now) be among the people of the Blaze” (67: 10). “…Say: ‘Lord, increase me in knowledge’” (20: 114).

Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) said, “The search for knowledge is a duty for every Muslim man and woman,” and, “Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.”

The guidance of the Qur’an and of the Hadith (teachings of the Prophet) inspires every man and woman to seek knowledge. Hazrat Aisha (r.a.), the youngest wife of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), was the most learned lady of her time. One of the reasons that the Prophet married Aisha in her youth, the part of life most pliable and conducive for learning, was in order to inculcate the values needed to lead and influence the sisterhood of Muslim women. Aisha had an outstanding quality of intelligence and memory and, by virtue of these qualities, is considered to be one of the most reliable sources of Hadith. She reported more than a thousand ahadith and is regarded as one of the greatest teachers of the Hadith. She had expertise in the Qur’an, shares of inheritance, lawful and unlawful matters, poetry, Arabic literature, Arab history, genealogy, and general medicine. Men and women both attended her teaching sessions. Imam Ibn al Jawzi mentioned in the Cream of the Cream from Hisham ibn Urwa that Urwa said to Aisha, “Umm! I am not surprised at your knowledge of poetry since you are the daughter of Abu Bakr, but I marvel at your knowledge of medicine.”

The first Madrasah for women and with a female teacher was established in the home of Aisha (r.a.), the mother of Muslims. With a curtain separating the men from the women, men also attended Aisha’s classes.

Both men and women also received knowledge and instruction from the Prophet’s other wives and from female companions like Umm Sulaym, Umm ad Darda’, Fatima bint Qays al-‘Adawiyya, and other women after them. When Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) came to Madina, he ordered the women of the Ansar to gather in one house, and he sent Umar ibn al-Khattab to them to convey the teachings of Islam, reported Umm ‘Atiyya (Ibn Sa’d’s Kitab at-Tabaqat al Kabir). This was the first Madrasah for women taught by a man. The Prophet even commanded that the slave girls be educated, and he asked Shifa bint Abdullah to instruct his wife Hafsah bint Umar. Both men and women have attended lectures of the Prophet, and by the time of the Prophet’s death, there were many women scholars.

Asma bint Abi Bakr was another highly knowledgeable person. She was also an expert in the science of dream interpretation. Amra bint Abdur Rehman was a student of Aisha (r.a.) and very close to her. Her opinions overrode the views of other authorities. Ibn Saad refers to her as an aalima, or scholar. In the Muwatta she is taken as the authority of three legal issues: the prohibition against digging up graves, the ban on selling unripe fruit, and the effect of crop damage on the sale of agricultural produce.

In the long list of scholars in the early centuries of Islam, one was Nafisa bint al-Hasan (d.208/824), a female teacher of Imam Shafi‘i, one of the five most famous Imams (founders of a school of opinion). The Imam sat in Nafisa’s circle in al-Fustat at the height of his fame in Egypt. In his History of Damascus, Hafiz Ibn Asakar (1175) mentioned the names of eighty women from whom he studied the knowledge of Hadith. The Imam of tasawwuf, Hafiz Ibn-e Asakar, was the student of Shuhda bint Abi Nasr (d. 574/1178), one of the best scholars of her age. She used to lecture publicly in one of the main mosques of Baghdad on various topics.

In Islamic history, there are several examples that Muslim men taught women and Muslim women taught men. However Imam Bukhari, after referring to some examples from Hadith, set some principles for teaching the opposite sex (in his chapter on warning and teaching women). He allowed the presence of women at meetings and assemblies on the condition that they would be safe from sexual temptation.

Women of Islam took great interest in spreading mass education in different parts of the world. The sister of Ghazi Slahuddin Ayyubi (1193), Zammurd, and niece Uzra, founded two separate Madrasahs. A Muslim woman Fatima bint Muhammad al-Fihri is the founder of the oldest living university of the time (much older than Oxford and Al-Azhar), the University of Qarawiyyin (founded in 245H/859A), Fes, Morocco. Her father was a rich businessman, and she spent all her inheritance money to build and decorate the university. To become closer to Allah, she fasted continuously during the construction of the university. The university building is along the finest standard of architect. Within the university is a masjid in which thirteen thousand people can pray at one time, and there is a huge, unique library. Students from Algeria, Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, and other African nations come here to seek knowledge and higher education.

Razia Begum (637H/1240A) the third ruler of Muslim India, established two Madrasahs in Delhi; Moazzia and Naseriya. In the period of Sultan Muhammad Shah Tughlaq (d. 752H/1351A) there were one thousand Madrasahs in Delhi, and several of them were for women. There were Madrasahs for women all over Muslim India. During his journey in South India, the famous Moroccan voyager Ibn Battuta (d. 779H/1377A) mentioned about two girls’ Madrasahs in the Islamic state of Hunnoor. In the castle (secretariat and capital) of the ruler of Malwa, Sultan Gyasuddin Khilji (d. 906H/1500A), there were ten thousand women employees. According to the famous historian Farishta, thousands of them were Haafizat (memorizers of the Qur’an), Qariyat (expert in recitation of the Qur’an), Aalimat (scholars), and Mualimmat (teachers).

Women’s education must have a system to fulfill the three basic responsibilities of women as defined in the Qur’an and Hadith: 1. the bearing of children; 2. the evolving, nurturing, and training of kids; 3. the providing of comfort and peace in the home.

In the Western civilization, a woman is a commodity, an advertisement tool, a material producer, and a sex idol, and family life is optional. But in the Islamic civilization, a woman is a wife, a mother, a sister, and a daughter, and family life is obligatory. Women are exalted spiritually because of her contribution in the natural reproduction of the best creature on this earth, human beings. “And We have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him, and in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), ‘Show gratitude to Me and to thy parents: to Me is (thy final) Goal’” (Al-Qur’an 51: 14). It is reported that a man came to the Prophet and asked, “Messenger of Allah, who is the most deserving of good care from me?” Three times the Prophet replied, “Your mother,” then he said, “then your father, then your nearest relatives in order.” In another hadith, the Prophet said, “Paradise lies at the feet of mothers”; in other words, Paradise awaits those who cherish and respect their mothers.

Population growth has decreased dangerously low in all Western and Western-influenced countries, but birth and reproduction is necessary to continue the human race. Nurturing and training young boys and girls is the woman’s primary job, and this is the best job in the eyes of the Creator. Earning an income and struggling for livelihood is an inferior job and is a responsibility solely assigned to men.

The kindergarten of even an uneducated and untrained woman’s lap is better than the information center of public kindergarten. A woman of any knowledge or no knowledge is the best educator for her baby. Through providing milk, singing, and telling stories, a mother can teach love, respect, sympathy, sacrifice, attachment, and other moral qualities. By sending children to pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, or day care centers operated by secular teachers (now even gays and lesbians) or to secular baby sitters, parents morally slaughter and bury their children. All the most noble, respectable, and highly moral and spiritual people were trained in the laps of good women of high character.

Biographies and articles of Khaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki (d.1235), Khawja Nizamuddin Mahboob Ilahi (d.1225) of medieval India, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1818-1898), Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar (1873-1931), and Dr. Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1931) of modern India who did great services to Ummah (community), confirmed that they were the products of wonderful mothers. On the other hand, the kindergartens of broken and disturbed families produce evil and revengeful personalities, as confirmed by the biographies of Hitler and Mussolini.

A duty of the married woman is to provide comfort in the home. When her husband comes home after a hard day’s work, she should welcome him with a smile, warm hugs, comfort, and love. She should develop an environment where everyone in the home can find peace and stability.

The elementary or primary education of the Madrasah was co-education; boys and girls attended together until the age of nine or ten. There was also a tradition of lady teachers operating girls’ Madrasahs from their homes, and young boys also attended these schools.

The syllabus of the women’s Madrasah was different from men’s Madrasah and was designed to equip a woman to fulfill her responsibilities assigned by the Creator. Although there was not an organized or uniform syllabus, information gathered from different sources shows the syllabus of women’s education were as follows: Tafseer, Hadith, Fiqah, responsibilities of women, Akhabar –e-salf (life history of prophets, scholars and other great people of Islam), Milad (birth and seerah of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), calligraphy, cooking, handicrafts, sewing, and weaving. In Muslim India, higher education for women was neither obligatory nor highly recommended (especially when it negatively affected family life), but it was never banned. Women of high-class society --from the homes of rulers, government officials, and from the homes of Islamic scholars-- generally received higher education.

Selected examples in different disciplines of education recorded by Professor Muhammad Saleem:

1. Knowledge of Hadith: Several women learned Mishkaat with the help of its Farsi translation. Maulana Shah Ismail Shaheed educated her sister with Mishkat. The daughter of Muhammad Bashir Sahsawani Muhaddis was also a Muhadissa (an expert of Hadith).

2. Tasawwuf: Several women learned Fawad ul Fawwad, the sayings and writings of Nizam uddin Mahboob e Ilahi and Masnavi Maulana Room. Jahan Aara Begum, the daughter of Emperor Shahjahan, has written a book on the life of Sufis.

3. Fiqah: The daughters of Maulvi Abdul Ahad, Malik Matba Mujtabai were scholars and poets. Most of the women of the Shirwani family were high scholars.

4. Arabic Language: The niece of Nawab Ammad ul Mulk had written letters to her uncle in the Arabic Language. She also knew the English language. The daughter of Muzammil ullah Khan was a poet in the Arabic language.

5. Logic: Sharful Mulk Nawab Ghaus Mohammad Khan, chief minister of Karnataka, studied logic from her mother.

6. Medicine: The daughters of Hakim Abdul Majid Khan Dehlavi were all practicing medical doctors.

7. Skills of Warfare: The women of the family of emperors were trained in the skill of warfare. When the emperor Humayun was leaving India and going to Iran without any force, his sister Gulbaden Begum joined him and was fully armed. Zeenat Mahal, wife of Bahadur Shah Zafar (d.1274H/1857A) commanded a battalion in the freedom movement in 1857 against the British occupation force.

8. Expertise in Official Affairs: Nawab Sikander Jehan Begum Bhopali (d. 1285H/1868A), learned “Daftar Abul Fazal,” was an expert in mathematics and could read extremely broken handwritings.

9. Wide-ranging Knowledge: When Nawab Shahjahan Begum of Bhopal was on a tour of Calcutta in 1870, a woman submitted a job application to her. The applicant had mentioned, “This applicant belonged to the ruined city of Delhi. I have an expertise in the Farsi and English language and poetry and know various skills and art crafts, know the history of cities, learned calligraphy from Hafiz Muhammad Punja Kash Dedlavi (pioneer of one of the schools of calligraphy), and Bahadur Shah awarded [this applicant] the title ‘Nadir Raqam.’ I can write the court cases like a Munshi, and also have full authority in the field of medicine, particularly in gynecology.”

10. The daughter of a famous man of literature of style, Maulana Muhammad Hussain Azad (d.1328H/1910A), was a noted scholar and literary person. Azad wrote, “There was not a single book of mine that was not edited by my daughter.”

11. Propagation of Education: Women took great interest in the propagation of education. A lady servant of Emperor Akbar founded Madrasah Maham Anga. Fatima Sughra Begum from Bihar left a huge property as a trust called “Sughra Waqf State” for education. A learned woman from Calcutta, Saulat un Nisa, presented a huge amount of thirty thousand rupees to Maulana Rahmatullah Kiranwi Muhajir. Maulana built a Madrasah in Haram, Macca named Madrasah Saulatia (1291/1874) in the name of the donor. This Madrasah is still alive.

Jawed Anwar can be reached at: jawed@TheMuslim.ca

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