

Pedagogy of Justice

October 28th, 2018

Meinhaj Hossain

"Read: And your Rab is the Most Bounteous, Who teaches by the pen, teaches man that which he knew not." (96:3-5, Al-Quran)

# In Praise of Pedagogy of Justice

The British Colonial education system in Pakistan was designed to stop critical thinking and limit the application and advancement of knowledge so the colonies are unable to catch up with them. This is not the current colonial education system in their countries but through research and development they have elevated the art of instruction and higher order thinking in students to a higher platform. In good schools the learner is free to think and act as a democratic individual grounded in moral values, logic and a sense of Justice, freedom and equality.

It is not the replication of the western education that is required but the methodology of application to extract an integrated philosophy of learning that can be beneficial to a Pakistani future education's ideological implementation and can be acted upon in the classroom.

Indeed the neuro physiological pathways may not have been networked enough due to the practice of repetitive and non-variable inputs that aim to dis-engage the student kinaesthetically and mentally to the point of a much lesser 'use' of the brain in active learning and engaging teaching.

The colonialists knew about the rote learning of the Al-Qura'n in Maadrassa's and they used that fact to introduce more repetitive learning curricula and pedagogy so that their subjects would be trapped in their mind long after their departure from the colony. This would limit not only research and development but also the Islamic spiritual development thus suppressing the nourishment of the free Muslim soul that creates the medium of the acceptance and absorption of knowledge to enlighten that intelligent Muslim brain.

We as the 'slaves' of colonials must be careful not to fall into the frying pan when trying to get out of the fire. Our hate of them and the regret of our past must not let us abandon the good in their education policies and systems and we must be cautious in rejection of their 100 years of research and development into education, However, saying this, the _Insaaf_ ideology on education must be independent of any western secular principles and solely based on the Qura'n and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (Salla la ho alley he wassallam).

The continuance of the most successful ideology from the time of the golden ages in your _Insaaf_ education policy is truly a 'Great Revival' for not only Pakistani's but also for a wider Ummah is truly inspirational and revolutionary. Well done Sirs.

One of the most important values in the British Education System is the Equality Act, which essentially means all; whether rich or poor, disabled or not, women and men have the right to an equal quality and fair provision of education.

The rich in our societies always have had a 'head start' by being able to access high quality education and instruction due to affordability but most importantly the presence of private institutions that cater for the elite. There would be _insaaf_ for all Pakistani's when there is standardisation of measurable quality learning and teaching in all State schools which is comparable to the private institutions. This would not only provide a 'Great Escape' from those metallic mind constraining devices but also invigorate something more important imagination 'An idea of a Great Nation that can achieve Great things' in the heart and minds of all our citizens and the wider Muslim world.

Student punishment in schools which involved caning was stopped in England in the 1970's. Laws for Child protection were brought in and now a day's even sarcasm towards the students can be considered as cruelty if intended to psychologically perturb the child. Child protection and bullying policies have been developed carefully to ensure that the student's cognitive development is not being made sluggish. This is what Ibn-e- Khaldoon proposed so long ago but in the west this has been researched, developed and even branded as the product of secular societies. One can find this pattern in mathematics, sciences and work has been done to link the advancements to the Muslim research and development during the Golden Ages. So learning from the secular societies education ideas can also be viewed as learning from the original Muslim ideas and just as the west expanded on them we can also further, refine and modify them with the Islamic vision on knowledge and learning.

Our natural resources if to be utilised should be channelled into the development of a revolutionary education system that has an aim not to school the masses for human obedience but to 'Hukm' submissiveness of their wills to Allah and a code of conduct as the Prophet Muhammad (Sallal la ho alley he wassallam) taught and exemplified. I believe that your papers core ideology is this and I humbly commend you for it.

You have as they say 'nailed it on the head' the problem entrenched in the minds of the Pakistani youth due to the observable world around them created to be confined to be used as tools of manipulation by mass media to meet a perpetual 'end' and aren't able to express themselves without fear of lack of knowledge and confidence in their Pakistani heritage.

I entirely agree that we must go back to the basic of 'what' made Islamic education and the process of learning and development in line with the truth of spiritual 'gain' and the alignment, expression and synthesising of knowledge with this vision. This is the ideology that will determine the objective, the values, the pedagogy, the school models, the curricula, the policies. This is the heart of hearts which will (InshAllah) cleanse the mind of minds in the revived education of Pakistan.

It is amazing the you have researched the Qura'n and highlighted the verses that show levels of cognitive development and when you consider the type of questioning in the Qura'n it also puts into action the higher order thinking, the type of questions that blooms taxonomy shows minus the most important 'metaphysical' or spiritual development.

The education policy must strike the right balance and calculated temperance between the flourishing of democracy to be in Pakistan when _Insaaf_ begins and religious integration into the nation's hearts and minds through the education ideology of _Insaaf_. Religious organisations in Pakistan have also been the victims of the underlining problem in our current education philosophy and systems so they are not viewed upon historically as the ones that can bring social and technological change that the people want and consider as positive movement in the direction of a stronger economy, technological advancement and freedom of expression, therefore, the presentation of the essence of Pedagogy of _Insaaf_ to the lay man must be short, direct, simple but hope giving, energetic, inspirational, promising, fair to all and uniting in purpose and passion for the ultimate goals.

The concepts of Tawheed and Tassuwuff or shall I say the core spiritual thinking and moral platforms that are the grounding of all reason and the media of all application of knowledge of Muslim scholars come across as the purifiers of all knowledge that is to be investigated through inquiry and logic. It is very likely that these 'correctors' or 'authenticators' of learning may automatically guide an intelligent Muslim brain through the scrolls of western knowledge and simplify it or expand it according to the Will of Allah and the Love of the Prophet Muhammad (Sallal la ho alley he wasallam).

For example understanding the theory of relativity from the Qura'n and Sunnah opens up more in depth lines of enquiry and contains the possible Islamisation of Knowledge that it is possible to travel faster then the speed of light and hence comprehend space-time to the next level.

The Big Bang theory can be understood again through the Islamisation of western knowledge by synthesising knowledge from the Qura'n and Sunnah that the universe was filled with water and that there are smaller particles than the 'Zarrah' which are opposites to each other.

But to achieve this state of mind and purity of heart must be harnessed through the process of mental Islamisation to calibrate the intellectual faculties to enlighten and operate in spiritual 'mode'.

The Great Allama Iqbal mentioned something to the effect that the birds nest that is made on weak and wobbly foundation will not be lasting. This brings home the importance of Islamisation of knowledge and indicates the methodology of getting there.

The greatest Islamisation of Knowledge in the sub-continent was achieved by Allama Iqbal. His philosophy came out of the vast philosophical learning he undertook in Germany i.e. studying Goethe. He was also well versed in the forms of western philosophy but he Islamasised the knowledge and synthesised it to be pure of unIslamic ideology. His works therefore must form a core in any educational programme in Pakistan and indeed the ideology.

The strategy that follows the chosen paradigm or a 'new' paradigm should be careful of a worldview of Islamic education as a starting point and then moving into the localised context of Pakistan. The aim surely is to improve the condition of Pakistani's and therefore, a situation based solution that is efficient in its implementation should also be focussed on. Like it is said 'charity begins at home'. The potential inherent in the paradigm must be designed to achieve the educational vision systematically and with relative political and strategic ease.

There are two aspects here on one the end of the golden ages where the Muslim view and flow of knowledge advancement was stopped and the knowledge was taken by the Christians and Jews in Cordoba. They weren't able to develop the learning Islamically and hence the secularisation of Muslim idea began. It is highly unlikely for Muslims today to just start where we once were; we are therefore forced to learn from the west. The body of the car i.e. the knowledge was inferred from the Qura'n and the Hadiths. These ran in parallel with scientific knowledge, philosophy, and logic, poetry, Social sciences and the arts. The importance was placed on the construction of the human 'body', the heart providing the fountain of spiritual showers needed to think creatively, imaginatively but with reason immersed in Islamic commands of the Qura'n and the Sunnah. One can say the art of reason governed the soul of peace to obey the will of 'Hukm'. There was no room for existentialism and doubt.

The car is fixed and has bounds but the paramount knowledge of the Qura'n evolves with the depth of devotion and the belief in sincerity.

For example the theory of evolution has created doubts in the minds of many students and they may have been accepting it as a fact. The secularists have forbidden the religious fact of the creation of Hadrat Adam (Aley he salaam) to be taught in schools.

One main difference between the western and Muslim civilisations is that the Muslims have the option of submission of their instincts to God. But once the value and confidence in this service is lost then the society is taken over by the western cultural and materialistic notions. But the question is why? And how do we raise the self-esteem of Muslims to be proud of their revealed knowledge and accept their cultural heritage with open arms. The acceptance of western ideas and especially objects is considered to be the best thing to do in almost all Middle Eastern countries even if they are resourcefully self-sufficient. Their societies have disengaged themselves from the organism of civilisation.

The holistic view of civilisation and societies within it is the view of God and the last messenger Prophet Muhammad (Sallal la ho alley he wassallam) as he was sent to the whole of human kind. The humanistic view of the secular world based on the human rights charter in comparison overtime has shown to be more compassionate when put against some of the Middle Eastern rulers and the condition and freedom of the people they rule, hence the Arab spring.

It is the right approach to look at the Muslim and even wider civilisations when reviving the educational ideology for a new nation.

The policy paper is thorough and evidence based in explaining the ideology of educating a civilisation while developing its culture and perturbing a positive change intrinsically linked to individuals 'moving' the nation towards their goal.

I am humbled by the broad and balanced research and your conclusions and directives are well informed logically from the choice of the conceptual paradigm. I hope any of my inspired ideas after reading your paper can be any use.

Regards,

Sulman Janjua-London.

# Preface

This book covers a number of different aspects of the South Asian and Muslim education systems within the context of the global and historical education debate. It covers classical education in the Muslim world, its decline, and the over-reliance on the West for subsequent educational reform and inspiration. It aims to offer the definitive Muslim alternative education model of the modern age and although it applies these recommendations to South Asia, it hopes to trigger a deeper intellectual discourse on education within South Asia and the wider Muslim world.

In regards to Muslim South Asia itself, this book offers an analysis of its history on the development of its own educational theory and how to steer this towards a genuinely South Asian system rather than an imitation of the global system. It takes into consideration factors ranging from the dominant national characteristics of the South Asian people to its demographic realities of tribal, feudal and westernised peoples and finally its religious character within Islam.

It looks into current attempts at addressing the key issue of Islamic education, notably the Islamization of Knowledge Movement and the IIIT movements respectively who have put themselves at the forefront of the issue. It evaluates, broadly, their histories, influence and ultimately makes an assessment of its effectiveness in addressing the wider issue as well as its individual mandates.

Finally, this book offers a number of practical recommendations to help address the issues that have been raised. These borrow from a number of different sources, from alternative education narratives from the West, to Islamic attempts at educational revival and the individual efforts of the authors themselves to offer alternative assessments based on their own intuition and research. It offers the relevant evidences in regards to identified issues and tries to establish a precedent for future discourse on the topic.

Meinhaj Hossain

Assistant Professor

College of Business Administration

International University of Business Agriculture and Technology

Table of Contents

In Praise of Pedagogy of Justice
Preface

1. Introduction to the Pedagogy of Justice

2. The Problems of Education

The Problem of Recent Islamic Education: The Great Mistake – A Historical Perspective of the Degeneration of Islamic Education Systems

The Problem of Contemporary Western Education: The Advent of Mass Schooling

Perpetual Childhood

3. Background to Islamic & Human Education Solutions

A Muslim Worldview of Acquiring Knowledge

History of Islamic Education Reform

4. A Specific Solution to Human Sciences

A New Structure for the Human Sciences

Social Education

5. A Theory of the Basic Impulses of Man

6. A Solution for Teaching Islam

The Quran Explained

Emphasis on Practice

Dawah Training

Rhyme & Rhythm

7. The Challenge of Effectively Building the Natural Sciences & Engineering

A Meaningful Downstream: Defence R&D

8. Additional Policy Solutions: Implementing Justice

Open Source Learning

Importance of K-12 Education

Reading

The Finnish Education System in Brief

Bibliography

Recommended Reading List

Pedagogy of Justice:

A Comprehensive Education Paradigm for Muslim South Asia

# 1. Introduction to the Pedagogy of Justice

In an international standardized measurement in 2001 and since, Finnish children came top or very close to the top for science, reading and mathematics. In addition to beating countries like the US, Finns easily beat countries with a similar demographic, such for instance, neighbor Norway which is of a similar size and featuring a similar homogeneous culture, and which follows the same strategies as the USA and only achieves similar (significantly lower than Finland) rankings in international studies.

This book expounds a view that lies in the same paradigm as the Finnish model.. It shares a brethren in its perspective to Aamir Khan's famous movie _Three Idiots._ The paper as such is fundamentally against the present education systems South Asia is mired in.

This book is in many ways radical, because it looks not to accept modern Western concepts of _mass schooling,_ nor traditional Islamic madrassa education, but rather, to look critically at both, and to find a holistic revised solution. For one, when we discuss education today and how beneficial it is to the people, we are making some fundamental assumptions and these may require a closer look.

The two words thrown in relation to the education debate are 'school' and 'education', and these are often used interchangeably. This book argues, however, that whilst to school can mean to educate, in a very particular way, to educate does not mean to school but is far broader. For example, you can school an animal to become housebroken but you don't educate the animal to so, it is a result achieved by control and conditioning. Whilst the animal will, after this point, reproduce the same response as required, the process did not draw out more of its potential; it in fact, retarded some of it.

In the same way, what people often talk about is not education per se, but education as conceived originally in the Prussian state around the 1820s, which now forms the basis of the modern schooling system. This form of education spread throughout Europe and eventually to the United States with Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts Board of Education. It thereafter became the world standard of "education", but we shall call it Mass Schooling for the purposes of this book.

Finally, we are implying that this form of education (Mass Schooling) is not a universal and untainted "good" that must be accepted. Such a viewpoint would essentially make Mass Schooling a "religion" built on blind faith, often deemed beyond serious critique of its pre-suppositions. In our reading of educational programs and questions of reform throughout the Muslim world, these fundamental questions are never raised and perhaps are unknown; For instance, if we are looking to replicate a circuit board, a metaphor would be that we are too busy copying the circuit board to ask the fundamental question – "what does the circuit board actually do?"

Because of this gap in knowledge, some of the assertions made in this book will seem questionable. We do not have the space to provide evidence for every single startling assertion, but to those who want to inspect the arguments further, we would highly recommend _Weapons of Mass Instruction,_ by John Taylor Gatto a high school teacher with 30 years in public schools. He resigned from teaching during the year he was named New York State's official "Teacher of the Year" and has since spent years tirelessly talking about the problems of the present global schooling system. He has travelled extensively to lecture on the subject and his book, _Dumbing Us Down_ , has sold over 100,000 copies. Should any further recommendations be needed, we have recommended a reading list at the end of the paper. Let us however, now first start with, briefly, what South Asia presently has.

# 2. The Problems of Education

There are three kinds of education prevalent in South Asia today. The first is created for the elite, involves a foreign-language, specifically English, and is based on the Western education model. The education lacks any real substance in Islam, our culture our history, but replaces it with a history, philosophy and social science that propagate a world-view centred on the superiority of Western civilization. This education provides a westernized worldview, from being dressed in Western attire to absorbing an alien culture, and renders these elites without respect for their own culture and roots. They then serve as agents of foreign powers in controlling the country in a form of neo-vassalage: a puppet government. Let us consider the plan of our former colonial masters:

Thomas Babbington Macauley (1800-1859) was a British philosopher and employee of the East India Company. He advised the company in his Minute on Indian Education (1835):

Official funds should only be spent on English and Western Education in India to produce a class of persons who would be racially Indian, "But English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect." Such people would also be loyal to the British out of recognition of their moral worth.i

This above quote reflects one of the most important historical aspects of South Asia's history: its status as a former colony of the British Empire. Education today is a result of that colonial legacy, which is an attempt to replicate the British education system: admiring and mimicking traits of a conqueror, and creating a cheap copy. Students, particularly of the upper class grow up speaking English, behaving, dressing, thinking and talking like Britons. They study in the O / A Level system and are often sent abroad to an Anglo-Saxon country. They come back as Macauley's children.

The second form of education is the diametric opposite, _madrasah_ education given to the lower classes. Here the Quran is recited and memorized but without real, if any, comprehension, reflection and analysis. People are devoted to the Quran, but their love of the book is _not_ one of reflection and understanding, but of formalistic and ritualistic reading, learning by heart and various petty sciences of pronunciation, recitation, pseudo-legalism and more. What are produced are people who can recite, memorize and obey commands, but neither understands Islam, their active role in Islam, or their position in the greater scheme of things.

The third form of education is government sourced and involves a heavy dose of rote learning but just enough practical curriculums to be able to function in various jobs and roles that any state and economy inevitably needs. These typically serve the middle classes. This follows the general pattern of the colonial education system the British left and is a direct descendant to Macauley's plan, albeit made dysfunctional with ham-fisted reform over the past 60 years. We can see that our education system is clearly lacking and astoundingly many of the core issues seem to have become worse rather than better.

The Problem of Recent Islamic Education: The Great Mistake – A Historical Perspective of the Degeneration of Islamic Education Systems

Our present education crisis did not start now; Brother Mahathir Muhamad points out in his blog _CheDet_ that in the 15th century Muslims decided to separate worldly knowledge from religious knowledge and focused on the latterii. The divorce of practical knowledge (often monopolised as 'secular' knowledge by The West) from a religious compass, has led to the decline of the Muslims since the "Islamic Golden Age".

Perhaps the issue started even earlier when the Asharite School started using reason and logic as a defensive tool only and Imam Ghazali debated those influenced by Greek philosophers. However, the victory seemed one not against the philosophers but against the use of reason and logic itselfiii. The understanding of logic itself was caused to be confused, pushed aside by the political success of the theologians and philosophy itself resigned to speculative theology. This is exemplified by Al Ghazali's rejection of the cotton on fire; the fire was argued by him to have been caused by Allah and not the cotton, confusing cause and effect.

Historically, this era when this theological change came about, was also marked by the doors of _ijtihad_ being closed. In fact, it can be directly traced to specific statements made by Al-Ghazali's teacher and the work of the immediate generations of scholars thereafteriv.

The consequence of this confusion of logic and closing of _ijtihad_ was firstly that, education increasingly discounted teaching logic, and subjects such as mathematics that develop this critical element of the brain. Instead, it began to focus disproportionately upon memorization and its natural corollary – conformity and imitation. Secondly, our valuation of knowledge changed and caused what Dr. Mahathir Muhamad described as the separation of knowledge. With the end of ijtihad, we developed an education that discounted logical and philosophical faculties and depended upon imitation, much to our detriment.

Mysticism aided this process as Ibn Khaldun notes:

" _The Sufis are very much concerned with achieving this great joy through having the soul achieve that kind of perception. They attempt to kill the bodily powers and perceptions through exercise,_ _and even the thinking power of the brain_ _. In this way, the soul is to achieve the perception that comes to it from its own essence, when all the disturbances and hindrances caused by the body are removed. (The Sufis) thus achieve inexpressible joy and pleasure."_ v

The Muslim world thus entered an era that, seemingly, discounted the intellect and tried to limit it. To perpetuate the pursuit of _inexpressible joy and pleasure_ this era saw an end to _ijtihad_ and the beginning of _taqlid_ , and in time created an education system to match. No doubt, these people had good intentions - to preserve what they believed to be right - yet conceivably this began the stasis of the Ummah. The result has been the inability to react to the ever-dynamic realities of ever-dynamic times. Centuries later, the West continued on these intellectual traditions, using the light that Islam gave us, and went forward, and through their hands, perhaps Allah subhanahut'ala has shown us how far we have gone astray.

Social-psychological diseases often manifest themselves in very peculiar ways. It should be noted, for example, that Confucianism erred towards perfectionism and, over centuries degenerated toward foot binding; it was believed small feet were a desirable quality in women. Chinese families forced girls to wear small wooden shoes, with each pair of small feet requiring a bucket of tears. For Muslims, we do not see the damage we are doing to our children, yet it is far more profound than the feet of those poor Chinese girls; given that the brain is far more defining of a being human than the foot can ever be.

There is in fact one case where the Muslim equivalent became clearly visible; in South Asia there are many Sufi shrines where people go to pray for various desirables to a dead "saint", reminiscent of Catholicism. In one such shrine, Dawlay Shah, people ask for children, often for fertility problems. If the couple then have children, they give their first born to the shrine. The child's head is put inside a metal helmet-like enclosure and grows up with a small brain. Such small-brained children serve the shrine, begging and performing other income-generating activities. They are known as Dawlay Shah deyChuhay or Dawlay Shah's rats.

How else did this situation come about? Malek Bennabi in his book _The Question of Ideas in the Muslim World_ points out that the impetus toward mysticism came from a Muslim society that reacted to an increasingly materialist order within itself by an increasing indulgence in the rejection of the material. This was compounded, according to Arnold J Toynbee in _The World and the West_ , by the encroachment of Western civilisation assaulting Muslim society. To this threat the Muslim world could've reacted either with blind religious fervour, Zealotry, or Herodianism: importing Western Civilisation to supersede their own. His predictions proved shockingly accurate with the Muslim world simultaneously manifesting both qualities.

One should not, however, be excessively critical of previous generations. The Sufis attempted to correct an imbalance in their society at the time. This push to subordinate reason and logic and aim for asceticism created an opposite reaction of secularizing Muslim society. One polar extreme pushed the other, and distorted the middle way.

The subordination of reason and logic and the mysticism that established itself has had cascading consequences upon our society. Muslim society has been trapped between these two poles arguably from even earlier than the times of both Imam al-Ghazzali and Ibn Taymiyyah, whose views more than any other scholars, have been misappropriated by literalist and spiritualist forces within the Muslim Ummah.

Today we can see the results before us; the materialism-mysticism polarization and the anti-logic religious tendencies invariably leads to secularism, whose very core is the separation of "religious" and "secular" knowledge, to give each group its own domain. Now defined by these two extremes, we see a very polarized Ummah. Yet, Islam, in its essence, is the _Middle Way_ , a way from which we have erred.

The Manufacturing of Zombies

Bennabi describes the great crisis of civilization as the epoch of humanity moving from the world of objects to the world of ideas. He describes the critical age when our children begin to enter this world of ideas as starting from seven years, as supported by cognitive development theorists such as Piaget and Case. We do the greatest harm to our children when we forced them to block the development of the thinking process and instead make them memorize endless texts, whether in religious schools or "secular" ones. This helps define one of the core education failings that this book hopes to address, the need to formalize a teaching process for logical inquiry.

In South Asia today if a child is "lucky", and her parents are wealthy enough to send her to an elite Western school, she is robbed of her Islam in all but name. She is robbed of her culture, her language, her history, her worldview. Or if she is sent to a madrassa she will be indoctrinated as memorizers of texts, and blind obeyers of commands.

Such children do not have the energy, passion or intellectual strength to make a difference either to the fulfilment of their own dreams, their country or the Ummah. They have been drained of these in a systematic manner, and been actualised as zombies preoccupied with the pursuit of material wealth.

The point poignantly reflects the concerns highlighted in a report by the Trilateral Commission ominously titled "The Crisis of Democracy". The paper poses the argument that in any given society there are a number of institutions that perform "the indoctrination of the young" and that these institutions (including education) were failing in this task. It recommended that these systems should exert more control, indoctrination and enforce debt slavery as a form of enforcing conformity of the populace.

In keeping with the above recommended procedures, a society could meet its economic requirements, even if not the educational requirements of its people. It is true that, on occasion, these with overlap, however the focus should be, we hope people will agree, that if the educational need of the populace is adequately met, the economic realities can be addressed. It is important to stress, these are not conspiracy theories of any kind, the information is plainly available for everyone to access and understand.

Severity Destroys Fortitude & Creates Deceit

Severity to our children and strictness in instruction also zaps them from their spirit and energy, that vital power that can make them individuals that can change the world. Ibn Khaldun notes:

Severe punishment in the course of instruction does harm to the student, especially to little children, because it belongs among (the things that make for a) bad habit. Students, slaves, and servants who are brought up with injustice and (tyrannical) force are overcome by it. It makes them feel oppressed and causes them to lose their energy. It makes them lazy and induces them to lie and be insincere. That is, their outward behavior differs from what they are thinking, because they are afraid that they will have to suffer tyrannical treatment (if they tell the truth). Thus, they are taught deceit and trickery. This becomes their custom and character. They lose the quality that goes with social and political organization and makes people human, namely, (the desire to) protect and defend themselves and their homes, and they become dependent on others. Indeed, their souls become too indolent to (attempt to) acquire the virtues and good character qualities. Thus, they fall short of their potentialities and do not reach the limit of their humanity. As a result, they revert to the stage of "the lowest of the low.

_That is what happened to every nation that fell under the yoke of tyranny and learned through it the meaning of injustice. One may check this by (observing) any person who is not in control of his own affairs and has no authority on his side to guarantee his (safety). One will thus be able to infer (from the observable facts) that things are (as I have stated). One may look at the Jews and the bad character they have acquired, such that they are described in every region and period as having the quality of khurj, which, according to well-known technical terminology, means "insincerity and trickery." The reason is what we have (just) said._ vi

How can we create a nation of _Justice_ when the education system is creating generation after generation people raised on "deceit and trickery", no desire to defend themselves and their homes, who accept tyranny and in South Asia vote for them in fits of unexplained passion being easily deceived! Ibn Khaldun's words, written so many years ago, ring true as if written for South Asia today.

He writes further to say:

When laws are (enforced) by means of punishment, they completely destroy fortitude, because the use of punishment against someone who cannot defend himself generates in that person a feeling of humiliation that, no doubt, must break his fortitude.

_When laws are (intended to serve the purpose of) education and instruction and are applied from childhood on, they have to some degree the same effect, because people then grow up in fear and docility and consequently do not rely on their own fortitude..._ vii

A defeated people, still colonized mentally, perpetuated that mental slavery via their own education system – students at madrassas or secular schools are punished severely by people who have no right to do so, nor are the students treated fairly during such punishments. This injustice or _zulm_ is exactly against the principle of _justice_ or justice that Islam stands for. It is creating the greatest damage to our children. Furthermore, Islamic religious education originally did not have this impact. In this regard, Ibn Khaldun notes that:

"It is no argument that the men around Muhammad observed the religious laws, and yet did not experience any diminution of their fortitude, but possessed the greatest possible fortitude. When the Muslims got their religion from Muhammad, the restraining influence came from themselves, as a result of the encouragement and discouragement he gave them in the Quran. It was not a result of technical instruction or scientific education. The laws were the laws and precepts of the religion that they received orally and which their firmly rooted belief in the truth of the articles of faith caused them to observe. Their fortitude remained unabated, and it was not corded by education or authority. Umar said, "Those who are not (disciplined) by the religious law are not educated by God." Umar's desire was that everyone should have his restraining influence in himself. His certainty was that Muhammad knew best what is good for mankind."viii

Clearly, the pretended orthodoxy of the present religious institutions is in reality a monstrous deviation from Islam. We cannot bring our children into the world of ideas as long as these issues persist. As a basic premise, to think about ideas, one has not to be constantly afraid of whether the religious instructor with the stick will hit you if you break-off to think about what you're reciting.

## The Problem of Contemporary Western Education: The Advent of Mass Schooling

As noted earlier in this book, the present global education system ("Mass Schooling"), started in Prussia and spread throughout Europe and the United States, becoming a world standard copied by numerous lesser nations. The system was designed to create a stable workforce: technically competent to the degree required (and no more) and willing to work for money. The system was also designed to provide mass consumerism to buy the products that centralized industrial mass production was designed to create.

In 1843 it was Horace Mann who helped propagate this system from Prussia to the United States. This is the same Horace Mann who explicitly states that school is the best jail – "a jail you sentence the mind to is harder to escape than any iron bars". Orestes Brownson was publicly denouncing what he termed as the _Prussianization_ of American schools as far back as the 1840s. Adam Smith's publisher, William Playfair, noted that "proper" schooling teaches "negatively" and only allows the poor "to read sufficiently well to understand what they do read". That if they were educated any better, the "ladders of privilege" would collapse and the children of the elite would not be able to hold their privileged positions. Even further back in history, a similar policy was pursued in China bluntly called "The Policy of Keeping People Dumb".

Perhaps one of the most influential people of the 20th Century was James Conant. Conant was president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive of the atomic bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany post-WWII, and these are but some of his laurels. Gatto notes that Conant was one of the key individuals who brought Prussian Mass Schooling to fruition. In _The Child, the Parent and the State,_ he noted that the modern school today was the result of a "revolution" between 1905 and 1930. He directs readers in his book to _Principles of Secondary Education_ (1918) by Alexander Inglis where "one saw this revolution through the eyes of the revolutionary".

Inglis, after whom Gatto notes that an honour lecture in Harvard is named, makes it clear in his book that the purpose of this modern education was to act as a fifth column to the democratic rise of the lower classes who increasingly wanted to play a greater and more _Justice_ based role. Gatto summarizes Inglis' views in the following words:

"Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical intervention into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole. Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modern schooling into six basic functions, anyone of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals of education listed earlier:

1. The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2. The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function" because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3. The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record" Yes, you do have one.

4. The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed" children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits – and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5. The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the 13 avoured races" In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit – with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments – clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6. The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor." (Gatto, Weapons of Mass Instruction)

Again, to address those who fall into the comfort of declaring the uncomfortable as conspiracy theory, all this is happened in full public view and is very extensively recorded in history, if one is willing to spare the time to search. These are policies and decisions made by managers and executives of the West's education system and as such are documented in their writings and works. Some other big names of the time involved include George Peabody, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

### Perpetual Childhood

Children, like all humans, learn through interaction with others, if these others are predominantly children, they will remain children. A hundred years ago a man was made from ages in the early teens, today you have many grown up boys, some older than 30, but fewer men. This, Gatto argues, is deliberate:

Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years already, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley was an intimate colleague of Dr. Inglis: both were in charge of textbook publishing divisions at Houghton Mifflin – Cubberley as chief of elementary school texts; Inglis of secondary school texts. Cubberley was dean of Stanford's influential School of Education as well, a friendly correspondent of Conant at Harvard.

This serves to not only create a docile and child-like populace that perpetually looks up to authority with child-like reverence, but also a population that is easy to manipulate through marketing techniques. Open source learning will seek to keep the environment mixed-age and heterogeneous to enhance children's ability to learn and grow up, as is natural – a child always seeks to copy his or her elders, sons are frequently seen copying their fathers, this is natural and the way children learn to grow up and must not be artificially inhibited. Gatto's sentiments are also strongly echoed, in Neil Postman's excellent work "The Disappearance of Childhood" who again chronicles the infantilization of society. Incidentally in his equally important work, "The End of Education" he describes how the lack of a spiritual compass for education ultimately is a lack of a true education. These are all obvious observations from the Islamic world view.

Space does not allow us to go further to provide evidence, we instead point you to John Gatto, our recommended reading list at the end, and are ourselves available for those curious to further delve into the evidence. To sum up, the Western education system we are so enamoured with, has a horror movie back-end and a purpose and meaning that we must understand before we start replicating it wholesale upon the minds of our children. Even if we were careless or sinister enough to do this to our people, we must understand that the system is designed for a mass production society and not for the kind of country South Asia, or much of the Muslim world, is.

The West mistakenly believes they are the first to have discovered education as a means of pacifying the people and turning them into a dumbed down human resource, but if the reader has read the section on our legacy of the Islamic education system then we can see a clear parallel. Our system may just have been even more effective; it managed to freeze history, if that is anything to be proud of. So many centuries later the West is now crawling towards a similar end – "The End of History".

We have described the problems of the Islamic and Western education systems. With these problems in mind, let us now look at how we can move our children to the world of ideas, to reach their full potential, instead of turning them into mindless zombies via the mass education system.

# 3. Background to Islamic & Human Education Solutions

Worldviews and Education

Our education must be based on our worldview to be effective. Bennabi explains that our core beliefs are fundamentally different from the West's in the following illustrations:

1. Man either looks at his feet or at the stars

2. Objects and forms, techniques and aesthetics, versus truth and virtue

3. Industrial time versus extemporized time

4. Positivism and dialectic materialism versus morality and revealed knowledge

The question that comes to mind is, given the completely different core viewpoints of the two worlds, can we attempt to Islamize Western knowledge in the manner we are attempting at present? As an example, consider the subject of Economics where the dominance of Economic theory in the West aligns with the dominance of the material; the very term "Econom(y)ics" resides in the material, though the original Greek meaning is perhaps strongly misunderstood. Simply attaching "Islamic" to form a "new" "Islamic Economics" seems dishonest to our true principles, to our very different core principles. It seems that the very aspect of Islamizing knowledge today does not reach out and spring forth from our core, but attempts to fit our principles into a Western worldview.

Perhaps Bennabi's words are apt for this:

Islamic thought sinks to mysticism, to vagueness and fuzziness, into imprecision and into mimesis and craze vis-à-vis the Western "thing"

We must ask ourselves what we are trying to achieve, or who we are trying to impress with this approach. In the sixth chapter of the same book, Bennabi describes the issue of a lack of ideas or dead ideas leaving empty brains, helpless tongues and infantilism. He quotes Nicholas Boileau, a French literary critic from the 17th century thus:

That which is properly thought out is said clearly,

And the words to express it come forth easily.

Islamizing Knowledge as illustrated by "Islamic Economics", attempting to keep the Western framework and simply attempt to replace "Un-Islamic elements", is fundamentally flawed in creating an Islamic revival. Scholars react by reflexively stating that we cannot "go back" and start from scratch, but they miss the point that there is a large gulf between dressing up Western sciences to meet Islamic _hijab code_ and "starting from scratch" on the other. In many ways this is a false dichotomy – either follow the West or start from scratch – that ignores the truth that, particularly at present, Islam must reclaim its social transformative power to compliment its spiritual transformative power. If that requires going back to basics, so be it: Islam began as something strange, and so too will it end.

### A Muslim Worldview of Acquiring Knowledge

But, what is the nature of knowledge and why is it important to us? Even before touching upon the question of Islamizing knowledge, we must first identify the interaction between Islam, Muslims and knowledge because knowledge must be understood and applied in a context. Modernity has reduced it to merely a necessary tool for the survival of the material world and, globally, universities churn out degree holders to feed our economies in the hope of competing with the West. We then 'Islamize' our text to make them more palatable and claim an Islamic revival, often just appending an extra prohibition, if that.

Yet, this mimics the West using its core of materialism. Our focus on the reason, purpose and relationship of knowledge to us has to be fundamentally different. It has to reach out to our spiritual core. There may be many different means by which we can develop this connection, but it is our intellectual responsibility to take up this challenge. This challenge has been taken up by the IIIT and the Islamization of Knowledge (IOK) movement. Thus far however, the IOK movement has failed with the Faruqi and Attas paradigms. Furthermore, the Faruqi and Attas paradigms are well-entrenched and unlikely to be superseded easily, creating yet another problem, stagnation, rigidity and, ultimately, becoming obsolete.

We feel that the IOK movement would have avoided ideological pitfalls had it taken greater reference of Allama Iqbal's and Malek Bennabi's works respectively. However, they appear to have been too busy with plagiarism and appropriating each other's (and other's) work and making tall claims about how they were the first people to discover the problems with Western knowledge.

Returning to the question of rebuilding a meaningful connection between seeking knowledge and Islam, the connection is expressed in the following section based on this authors' understanding. It is noted that these are but merely two ways out of many to think about the issue. The first paradigm outlined below is similar approximately to that given in Allama Iqbal's _Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam_.

A First Paradigm:

The story begins (and Allah knows best) when Adam was created and Allah (swt) taught him the "names of things" or "nature of things". And Adam was asked to tell the angels their "names" or "natures". And this was seen as the triumph of man and convinced all but Satan. All were told to bow to man – what an ultimate honour to be bowed to by Allah's creation!

At first glance it seems confusing. What is this term "names of things" or "nature of things" and why was it so special? For many people this would just be something they will not understand or contemplate over. Was it that the angels did not understand and simply bowed to anyone that can take their name or show their nature? Moreover, what is the point being made by the Quran? What is the real meaning in this?

However, it may be that for a student of psychology this bit of information may prove to be of interest. Consider the fact that studies of the human mind have shown that the mind has an amazing ability that other beings known to man do not have – the ability to classify things – both material and non-material (i.e. ideas). This ability to classify and organizing information is not shared with other creatures. If one reads about the philosophy and epistemology of science, we find that this quality of classifying and organizing data and thereby investigating their natures is perhaps the key factor to what science essentially is. In fact, it is what science is built upon; it's very fundamental building structure.

These classifications contain various branches, sub-branches, sub-sub-branches and so forth. This makes the investigation of the nature of things possible at incrementally increasing levels.

To clarify, our purpose is to worship Allah (swt). But does worship mean going to the masjid and banging our head to the floor a number of times while and then leaving?

As always, when in doubt, investigate the Quran. The Quran constantly and repeatedly calls to reflecting, thinking, contemplating about the world Allah (swt) has created around us. One such example:

And all things We have created by pairs, that haply ye may reflect. (51:49, Al-Quran, Pickthall)

The second element that comes to our notice is that the Quran talks about the natural world (botany, zoology, evolution, etc.), about the stars, planets, the beginning of the universe (Astronomy, Astrophysics), the mountains (Geology and Geography), and more. Again, it simultaneously (and repeatedly) tells us to think, reflect, and contemplate. Islam goes so far as to challenge man to find a fault within the Quran.

Islamic scholarship, although de-emphasizing in the last couple of hundred years, has always accepted two kinds of revelations (ayat) of Allah subhanahut'ala:

1. Ayat-ul-quraniya (revelations of the Scripture)

2. Ayat-ul-quwaniya (revelations of the external world) Allah knows best, but the purpose of this can perhaps be best understood in the following manner:

Imagine that I make an acquaintance. I can say hello, ask his name and meet the individual repeatedly. But after a million hellos, I may not truly know him any better than the first day I met him. If I really want to know the individual in question, I could perhaps take another approach. If the acquaintance was a painter, I could go down to look at his painting and attempt to understand him through his works. My mind may wonder: what does my friend paint about – women, cars, landscapes or science fiction? What choice of colours does he use? Is he a cubist? What size are his paintings? What's so defines his work?

On the other hand, if the acquaintance was an engineer and had built a bridge, I could go down take a look at the bridge, see what it's like – is it mechanically efficient? Aesthetic? Both? Is it sporting a postmodern look? Or does it look like it's out of the 18th century? What choice of materials did my friend use? By noting the works of my acquaintance, I could get to know him in a more meaningful way than having spent years saying hello and goodbye. Perhaps even more than if I chatted with him about the weather, the news, politics, religion, philosophy and had tea with him every weekend.

In a similar vein, if we wish to know our Creator, one critical method could be to contemplate, reflect, and think about His amazing creation (and Allah knows best). But to effectively do so, we need to understand the nature of the things around us. We need to have some idea of art to understand a painter and some idea of the engineering of bridges to appreciate our engineer friend who built one.

This brings us back to the parable of Adam: defining, understanding and manifesting in being. This mental process may seem obvious, once articulated, but it crucially defines our intellectual superiority to animals.

There is also a very apparent idea that we find embedded within this story of Adam, which actually encapsulates the quintessence of education itself, one defined also by the Christian theologian Dorothy Sayers. Adam was taught, the "names of things" and the "nature of things which are both explicitly mentioned, but what is implicit within the story is that he also manifest that knowledge in his very being, through his worship of Allah.

So a Muslim, who actually reads the Quran with understanding and contemplation, not mindless babbling while rocking left, right, forward and backwards, will inevitably become an investigator, a author, a thinker, a philosopher, a scientist. What is more, this is closely linked with tauheed and tasawuf.

Tauheed is often described as understanding the Oneness of Allah and knowing his attributes. Only by being an investigator, scientist, thinker, can we get a deeper understanding of the Oneness of Allah, through not only the _ayat-ul-quraniya,_ but also the _ayatul-quwaniya,_ which is expressed in all His creation. Otherwise, repeating the Names of Allah will neither yield a deeper understanding of those Names nor will it be sufficient to attempt to understand our Creator with the full force of the resources and capabilities available at our disposal. Thus, our scientific endeavour is central to the goal of reaching a more meaningful and deeper understanding of tauheed.

However, charting a destination is different to walking to a destination. When we begin our investigations, we quickly find that our mind digresses with specifics and forgets the whole. If we use our bridge example, we start admiring the bridge, the materials, and the architecture but forget about the engineer who was the original purpose of our investigation, and who we had hoped to better appreciate. This is where the role of tasawuf begins; the constant remembrance of Allah; in our case, specifically during our investigation. Without this, we lose perspective and become mired in the world of objects and people.

Thus, tauheed, scientific inquiry and tasawuf (or dhikr) are inextricably linked. None can bloom in their essence in isolation but are joined like a jugular vein to the other. In the great contemporary battle between the Wahabis / Salafis who nominally uphold tauheed and Sufis who nominally uphold tasawuf, both sides have missed the essential symbiosis of the two concepts. If anything, all sides consider the investigation of "secular" knowledge as beyond their realms and subject matter.

A Second Paradigm:

Another possible paradigm on how Muslims can relate themselves to knowledge is from the perspective of jihad. It is imperative for the Muslim world to overcome external threats in order to revive and defend itself, and acquiring the necessary knowledge, technology and capacity thus becomes a part of jihad.

Using this knowledge of the world, we can overcome our enemies or at least defend more effectively against them. It is this approach that allowed Pakistani scientists to overcome sanctions and a lacking technological and industrial base, and build a highly competent nuclear industry at break-neck speed.

A Serious Word of Warning about these Paradigms:

Somehow it appears that we believe that building a theoretical bridge on why we need knowledge will change the Muslim world and everyone will go _"Eureka!"_ but that is far from the truth. The truth of the matter is that this only happens in the minds of _twiddle-dee_ academics that are so cut off from reality that they will believe anything that will keep them comfortable. Simply repeating these or similar paradigms of knowledge will not change our circumstance.

The fact is that children are born with a thirst for knowledge; this is in the innate nature of man, it needs no theological construct. The hard truth is that we make the greatest effort in destroying that thirst and turning that into abject hate. Genius does not need be engineered; we only need to stop destroying it.

## History of Islamic Education Reform

The following section describes the Islamization of Knowledge (IOK) movement, which has been attempting for at least the past 5 decades, to make sense of the Human Sciences for the Muslim world. We then narrow down to a specific paradigm within the IOK movement and derive a human science theory and structure.

Introduction to the Islamization of Knowledge Movement

Syed Naqib Al-Attas, possibly the first scholar to coin the term Islamization of Knowledgex, defines "Islamization" as:

"The liberation of man first from magical, mythological, animistic, national-cultural tradition, and then from secular control over his reason and his language". (Al-Attas S. M., 1993, p. 44)

The word _knowledge_ , according to the Webster's dictionary (Merriam-Webster, 2011) is defined as "a (1): the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique". Al-Attas notes that the term knowledge ( _ilm_ ) requires no definition; it is naturally apprehended by man's knowledge of knowledge, for it is one of man's most important attributes and is already clear to him (p. 144). He notes a general classification designed to be applied to a system of order and discipline in the educational system. The word "knowledge" in the context of "Islamization of Knowledge" has further meaning, Al-Attas describes this in terms of the challenge of knowledge that the Islamization, as defined above, is to tackle "not as against ignorance; but knowledge as conceived and disseminated throughout the world by Western civilization; knowledge whose nature has become problematic because it has lost its true purpose due to being unjustly conceived, and has thus brought about chaos in man's life instead of, and rather than, peace and justice; knowledge which pretends to be real but which is productive of confusion and scepticism, which has elevated doubt and conjecture to the "scientific" rank in methodology and which regards doubt as an eminently valid epistemological tool in the pursuit of truth; knowledge which has, for the first time in history, brought chaos to the Three Kingdoms of Nature; the animal vegetal and mineral." (Al-Attas S. M., 1978, p. 133)

In sum, "Islamization of Knowledge", attempts to use Islam to counter the perceived threat of Western contemporary knowledge. Al-Attas' methodology of approaching the problem is to first "isolate the elements including the key concepts which make up that culture and civilization" (Al-Attas S. M., 1978, p. 162) and only after this separation, implant key concepts with the Islamic elements which form the base of the education. This, in brief, is Al-Attas' view and definition of Islamizing Knowledge.

An important salient going forward is how, as Al-Attas mentions, even in his definition of knowledge, there is an element emanating from epistemological and methodological roots. As we shall see in the work of Al-Faruqi, this aspect is missing and is a key differentiator between their ideas of Islamization of Knowledge.

Al-Faruqi (1982, p. 19) defines Islamization of Knowledge "in concrete terms" as the attempt to "Islamize the disciplines or, better, to produce university-level textbooks recasting some twenty disciplines in accordance with Islamic visions". Conspicuous in this definition is the absence of any discussion of epistemological and methodological issues related to the Western contemporary knowledge. Instead, Al-Faruqi focuses on producing "Islamized" textbooks. Haneef (2009, p. 20) notes that it was this focus on making textbooks that was given "too much attention" without adequate consideration of those conducting the Islamization or to the methodological issues touched upon earlier. Al-Faruqi also founded the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) which, on the one hand do not seek to give a "strictly inclusive and exclusive definition" (Alwani, 1995, p. 83)xi and that it should be understood "in general terms only," yet notes in the same article that:

"The Islamization of Knowledge, as understood by the International Institute of IslamicThought, is a systematic methodological concept that the Institute, its branches, and representatives are attempting to develop and realize in practical terms. It appears, however, that the concept in general is one that has appealed to several different quarters and that these, in turn, have produced in its name (or in similar names they have chosen either with or without care) various publications. The Institute in no way considers itself responsible for the work done by such groups or for their views. In fact, the work they have produced fails to express the issue in terms of the methodology and comprehensiveness that characterize the Institutes's [sic] concern with it as evinced through its literature and publications." (Alwani, 1995, p. 100)

While this latter statement appears self-contradictory in terms of defining IOK and the (lack of) methodology of the founder of the institute, Al-Faruqi, the statement can be understood from a political point of view. The above statement can also be construed indirectly to imply that the IIIT is the authoritative source for IOK, however, this cannot stand the test of an examination of the IOK movement.xii For now, it suffices to state that the author and then president, Al-Alwani, sought to redefine IOK from how Al-Faruqi had stated. This point is supported within the same article by the absence of Al-Faruqi's definition of IOK, and only mentions it in passing, and in words that support the assertion of Al-Alwani wanting to redefine IOKxiii.

Al-Alwani instead prefers to give the definition of IOK from Imad al Din Khalil, who defines it in the following words:

The Islamization of Knowledge means involvement in intellectual pursuits, by examination, summarization, correlation, and publication, from the perspective of an Islamic outlook on life, man and the universe. (Alwani, 1995, p. 83; Khalil, 1991, p. 3)

The net result of Al-Alwani's redefinition of IOK is generally reversing Al-Faruqi's plan (Haneef, 2009, p. 33), and thus being closer to the epistemological and methodological approach originally put forward by Al-Attas. Ragab (On the Nature and Scope of the Islamization Process: Toward Conceptual Clarification, 1995), reinforces the importance of this by stating that IOK is primarily "some sort of integration of knowledge based on Islamic sources and that generated by modern social science methods"; a "creative engagement" with contemporary Western knowledge (Ragab, Creative Engagement of Modern Social Science Scholarship: A Significant Component of the Islamization of Knowledge Effort, 1997).

Wyn-Davies (Rethinking Knowledge: Islamization and the Future, 1991, p. 231) provides another view of IOK and defines it as "focusing on the nature of Muslim identity, modernity and the ways of thinking about present and future Muslim reality." She further defines the IOK project as a "civilizational project of rethinking, taking the Qur'an as the frame of reference"(p. 231) and that the debate should be about "how to ask questions, about what are appropriate questions, and how to recognize appropriate answers, a debate about human problems of contemporary existence, and how to generate appropriate alleviation efforts that will create a better quality of human existence in the future."(p. 231) This definition appears to be an action oriented definition and focuses on a practical purpose of IOK. Wyn-Davies shares a similar viewpoint with Sardar (1989, p. 27) who looks at the Islamization of Knowledge debate which to him is an "effort to develop a contemporary understanding of the notion of Islamic science, and shape a vision of a dynamic, thriving future civilization of Islam"(p. 27). Sardar also states that the IOK debate is essentially part of the same debate as the "Islamic Science" debate, noting that it was hard to distinguish where one began and the other ended.

Statement of the Problem

The Islamization of Knowledge debate has been described and defined extensively in this section, and, in brief, focuses on how Muslim scholars seek to assimilate Islam and modern Western knowledge. The primary reason they seek to do so is that they see Muslim countries as backward and to make Islam relevant to a world that is perceived as increasingly secular and Western (Haneef, 2009, p. 2). Sardar (1987, p. 71) describes the state of the Ummah in the following words:

"Alienated from their ideology and world-view, the Muslim people have developed a sense of dispossession which has given rise to the belief that Muslim civilization will not make it."

Sardar (1989, p. 5) refers to Manzoor (1989) who defines Shariah-minded legalism, Sufism and philosophy as the three dominant historical trends of Muslim thought and notes that they have all failed as a solution against the West. Given still the presence of the challenge from the West, Malek Bennabi (The Question of Ideas in the Muslim World, 2003b) highlights the danger to the Muslim Ummah, stating that the Muslim world today is at a risk of being overwhelmed by the West, at the very moment that the West is in decline.

In attempting to counter these circumstances, some Muslims have sought to take up martial resistance and militancy, others have chosen social and political action and still others, such as those scholars involved in the Islamization of Knowledge, have sought education as a solution. Within those who have sought education as a solution, there are those who seek to bring traditional Islamic education to the people, those that bring Western education and those that are attempting to bridge the former with the latter. The last group is, in essence, the space that the Islamization of Knowledge movement is involved with.

Safi (1993) criticized the IOK movement, noting that even after a decade it was still stuck in the "pre-methodological" stage. Al-Alwani (1995) implicitly accepts this thesis, although believes that the entire process may take a long period of time, noting that:

"The Islamization of Knowledge School is not blind to the fact that it may take decades before the methodological and epistemological issues involved in this proposition are clarified in a definitive manner." (Alwani, 1995, p. 82)

However, there is a view that perhaps the approach of Islamization of Knowledge debate has not been on the correct rail track, and that:

The reality, sadly, is otherwise. The debate has become entwined with those elements that have consistently marginalized Muslim identity and stimulated antagonisms through self-interested obfuscation. The repercussions lead to difficulties within the development of Islamization itself, cause detrimental impositions on the project and generate misapprehensions among both participants and observers. (Wyn-Davies, 1991, p. 231)

In his review of the Islamization of Knowledge literature, Sardar (1989, p. 5), notes that the notion of Islamizing the disciplines, as is the case with Faruqi's action plan, is "erroneous and irrelevant to Muslim societies". He also notes earlier that such Islamization of the disciplines work has been of "rather poor intellectual quality" (p. 4).

Thus, an effective and genuine synthesis of Islam and Western contemporary knowledge, with Islam as paramount, then becomes of critical importance. Bennabi (2003) notes that if it seeks to follow in the footsteps of Europe, it will always lag behind the West as it has to go through the same steps that the West has already long passed. He notes that we cannot make history by following beaten tracks; it is only possible to do so by opening new paths. Bennabi explains that making history will only be possible for us if we return to our genuine principles from Islam and derive from them efficient solutions for today. Finding a paradigm that can achieve this _insh'Allah_ is the task set for this research project. The book seeks to do this by studying the philosophical and methodological patterns utilized by Malek Bennabi in his own writings as a tangential way to derive a relevant paradigm for the Islamization of Knowledge.

Literature Review of IOK

The Islamization of Knowledge (IOK) project is an Islamic educational and intellectual movement seeking to solve the Ummah's problems and perceived backwardness through reordering and rejuvenating Muslim education and knowledge. The IOK movement is thus characterized by non-militancy and moderation, seeking to exchange and interact with modern knowledge but at their own terms.

The proponents of IOK also see the root cause of all problems as that of knowledge, not as against ignorance, but knowledge that has been interpreted through the western worldview and developed through methodologies that are not in-line with the Islamic worldview and its epistemological foundations. It is important at this juncture to state that all scholars who claim to be promoting the IOK agenda have to be by definition, supporting interaction with modern knowledge rather than adopting a rejectionist stance. By definition, IOK implies supporting the position that solutions to contemporary problems require the synthesis of both Islamic heritage and contemporary knowledge. However, as will become clear in the paragraphs that follow, the emphasis on these inputs, what exactly needs to be done to these two inputs and how to go about creating this synthesis, are points of contention.

The Early Period

IOK, thus defined can perhaps be traced to the Aligarh University (originally Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College) started by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898). Khan found the Muslims to be in a state of rejection of the Western sciences and as a result, backward under British colonial rule. He set about correcting this situation by starting the Aligarh University, where both Islam and the Western sciences were taught side by side. Khan advocated direct interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah in light of the (then) current circumstances, thus advocating a return to _ijtihad_. (Esporito, 1984; c.f. Furlow, 2005) Khan used the notion of "conformity to nature", a form of naturalism, that everything should be testable by reason. While he accepted the Quran, he rejected hadith (at least partially), _fiqh_ and _taqlid_. (. Bariun, 1993, p. 181; Grahman, 1909)

Jamaluddin Afghani (1838-1897) also believed that the Western sciences and Islam should be combined; however, he criticized Khan's approach to combining Islamic and Western knowledge, noting theological problems (Masud, Iqbal's Approach to Islamic Theology of Modernity, 2007) . He denounced Khan because of his "naturalism" and his adopting English as the language of education (Bariun, 1993, p. 181; Grahman, 1909). He attacked not only Khan but others who he labelled as materialists. He charged Khan's political motives as sowing division between Muslims and Hindus to strengthen the hand of the British. (Keddie & Afghani, 1983; Gibb, 1947)

Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) also sought to create a synthesis of Western and Islamic thought. He was distinguished from others in the philosophical depth of his thinking; Iqbal combined a deep understanding of Western philosophy and Islamic ideology. He found that the question was not only one of combining the two, but _what_ to combine from the two. He described the present state of Islam as being covered by a "dead crust" (Iqbal, 2011, p. 64) and thus advocated a rethinking of Islam as well as a deeper understanding and insight of the West. While Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Afghani both emphasized a return to _ijtihad_ , Iqbal sought to look deeper at reformulating what is part of the _Islam_ and what is part of the _West_.

Many other scholars came and went and advocated combining Western knowledge and Islam, while holding to the primacy of Islam. Some of the more prominent scholars include Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), Rashid Rida (1867-1935), Ali Shariati (1933-1975), Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), Hassan Al-Banna (1906-1949), among others. These and others were all prior to what is recognized today as the contemporary Islamization of Knowledge movement.

Contemporary Islamization of Knowledge Movement

This movement is typically traced from the 1960s and 1970s, with different authors starting their literature reviews from different points. Mohamed Aslam Haneef, in his survey (Haneef, 2009) begins from Al-Attas and Al-Faruqi. Louay Safi (The Quest for an Islamic Methodology: The Islamization of Knowledge Project in its Second Decade, 1993) begins from Al-Faruqi and generally focuses on his work and the work done subsequently by the IIIT. In contrast, Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud (Daud, 1998) focuses on Al-Attas, although he also includes Al-Faruqi and the IIIT. Ziauddin Sardar (Islamization of Knowledge: A State of the Report, 1989) begins his literature review from Jaffar Sheikh Idris, who in his seminal paper at the Association of Muslim Social Scientists in 1975, discussed Islamization of the social sciences. It is here that this author chooses to begin the literature review of the contemporary Islamization of Knowledge debate, for the sake of completeness and because Idris predates the major works of Al-Attas and Al-Faruqi.

Sardar (1989) considers Jaffar Sheikh Idris to be the first Muslim scholar to "attack the cultural bias of western social sciences" (p. 29). Idris notes that Muslim social scientists must shed the western philosophical assumptions and underlying ideology in favour of an Islamic perspective (Idris, Islamic Social Science: Its Meaning and Desirability, 1976):

It is this [western] ideology which delineates its boundaries, determines the nature of its theories of explanation and even the ways in which it can be made use of. (Idris, 1976; Sardar, 1989)

A critical element to highlight here is that Idris thus understood that the very definition of the boundaries of the social sciences were underpinned in assumptions and ideologies that may not necessarily be suitable for the Muslim world, or indeed have absolute validity in the western world. Idris noted that this difference in worldviews did not translate into wholesale rejection of input from western sciences. Thus:

When we say that western science is based on a faulty ideology, we do not mean to imply that all its results should, therefore, be faulty. And this is so, (a) because not all the results are logically deduced from the basic assumptions, and (b) because some of what that faulty ideology asserts is true. It is true that there are discoverable laws of nature and society and it is true that the behaviour of large scale material things is influenced by the behaviour of their constituent elements, but it is not true that these constituent elements are all that there is; and it is not true that so-called laws of nature are laid down by nature for nature. The defect of the faulty ideology is not that it denies reality altogether, but that it unjustifiably limits its scope and, therefore, unnecessarily confines the sphere of scientific theories of explanation. One might say after Eddington that the scientific net which it casts in the sea of reality admits only fish of a certain size. It would be wrong to conclude that it is only that type of fish which actually exists in the sea. (Idris, 1976, p.9)

Idris was thus deeply cognizant of the deeper epistemological and methodological issues with the western sciences. Idris emphasized that there are degrees of truth and delineated the key difference of knowledge and claims to knowledge; that worldviews determine what people see as truth, evidence or facts, and these in turn influence what is researched and prioritized. (Sardar, Islamization of Knowledge: A State of the Report, 1989) (Idris, The Islamization of Sciences: Its Philosophy and Methodology, 1987)

Starting with the two world conferences: The World Conference on Islamic Education in Makkah (1977), and the International Conference on the Islamization of Knowledge; the Islamization of Knowledge movement bloomed. Key scholarly milestones were Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas' book _Islam and Secularism_ (Al-Attas, 1978), Ismail Al-Faruqi's _Islamization of Knowledge: The Problem, Principle and Work Plan_ (Al Faruqi, 1982), S. H. Nasr's _Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study_ (Nasr, Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study., 1976), among others, although S. H. Nasr's work came before the two world conferences of 1977.

The Islamization of Knowledge term was perhaps first coined by Al-Attas who formulated and wrote extensively in over 400 public lectures and various conferences starting from the 1960s. In a letter to the Islamic Secretariat in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia dated 15th May, 1973, Al-Attas urged the Secretariat to convene a gathering of reputable scholars of Islam to discuss the subject. Al-Attas notes that:

"There is no doubt that these ideas have been instrumental in the convening of the First World Conference on Muslim Education held at Mekkah in early 1977, where the substance of Chapter V of this book [Islam and Secularism] was published in English and Arabic and read as a keynote address at the Plenary Session." (Al-Attas, 1993:p.xi)

If Al-Attas' claim is to be believed, then the idea of the World Conference on Islamic Education held in 1977 in Mekkah was brought about at least partially as a result of his input. Indeed, Al-Attas notes that the very term and idea of 'Islamization of Knowledge' was first coined by him and can be found in his keynote address of the 1977 conference in Mekkah (Al-Attas S. M., 1977, pp. 35-37; Al-Attas S. M., 1993). He makes a serious allegation that Al-Faruqi was given a manuscript of his book with the hope of that he (Al-Faruqi) would publish the work but instead, Al-Faruqi started using these terms without acknowledgement and holding conferences with this theme where Al-Attas (1993:xii) was not invited.

That such an unfavourable situation would develop that brings to question the ethics and moral and academic integrity of key individuals was an ominous sign for the birth of the IOK movement. Al-Attas (1993: xii) makes the following warning:

Muslims must be warned that plagiarists and pretenders as well as ignorant imitators affect great mischief by debasing values, imposing upon the ignorant, and encouraging the rise of mediocrity. They appropriate original ideas for hasty implementation and make false claims for themselves. Original ideas cannot be implemented when vulgarized; on the contrary, what is praiseworthy in them will turn out to become blameworthy, and their rejection will follow with the dissatisfaction that will emerge.

As we shall see later, this controversy and division has had cascading effects on the Islamization of Knowledge debate, but for now we note that there appears to be another cause other than plagiarism and imitation, Al-Attas and Al-Faruqi appear to be from different factions of Islam – Al-Faruqi being of a Salafi/Wahabi bend, while Al-Attas is from a Sufi background and thinking (Rosnani & Rossidy, 2000, p. 36). It seems that this factional division has found its way into academics and the Islamization of Knowledge debate.

The division within the IOK debate remains a key facet and Al-Faruqi, who founded the International Islamic Institute of Thought (IIIT), studiously avoided Al-Attas. To this day, the IIIT refuses to discuss Al-Attas and barely, if ever mentions his work. Academics attempt to marginalize the controversy, thinking that perhaps this may help improve the cohesion of the movement.xiv It is possible that Al-Faruqi and the IIIT may have taken this as a challenge to pre-empt Sufi influence to the education movement.

In his book _Islamization of Knowledge: The Problem, Principle and the Workplan_ (Al Faruqi, 1982) sought to outline the IOK movement in practical terms with a clear work plan. The 12-step work-plan is given in Figure 2-1. Al-Faruqi's main focus was on Islamizing Western disciplines and creating Islamized textbooks. He founded the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) that continued his work. With the perceived failure of this approach, the Abu Sulayman (Islamization of Knowledge, 1989) and later Al-Alwani (Islamization of Knowledge: Yesterday and Today, 1995) progressively revised the work-plan. Figure 2-2 illustrates Al-Alwani's Six Discourses, which has replaced Al-Faruqi's plan.

It must be noted that a reading of Malek Bennabi's works would have saved the Ummah considerable time in having avoided the pitfall of Al-Faruqi's plan of action. Bennabi (2003) notes for instance that if the Muslim Ummah seeks to follow in the footsteps of Europe, it will always lag behind the West as it has to go through the same steps that the West has already long passed. He notes that we cannot make history by following beaten tracks; it is only possible to do so by opening new paths. Bennabi explains that making history will only be possible for us if we return to our genuine principles from Islam and derive from them efficient solutions for today.

The Al-Faruqi approach is characterized by what can best be described as "Islamization of Disciplines", an approach which seeks to work within the given institutional framework and work towards an evolutionary change within the context of Western disciplines. Wyn-Davies (1991) touches upon some of the more prominent weaknesses of the approach in the following terms:

"Islamization as a goal-oriented process built on the need to incorporate Islamic injunctions in institutional form has its consequences. On the whole it tends to give a heightened authenticity to the history of Muslim civilization since this history is a potent source of models for institutions, modes of organization, operation and ideas. History is also an alluring source of legitimacy for the end-product, the pieces of Islamization, that are major changes in the status quo of Muslim existence today. Its pitfall is in taking history as a self-evident source that has less diversity and ambiguity than the present.

"The focus on injunctions and institutions also has an effect on the nature of the rethinking that is necessary to generate what is ultimately a finite vision of Islamization as a process that can be formally undertaken and completed. There is no guarantee that focusing on the injunctions does not do injustice to the totality of the Islamic frame of reference. Indeed, it can be argued that too narrow a view of the essential injunctions can be taken, that the emphasis is placed on particular injunctions that have been highlighted during the rise of marginality, their prominence being a function of the process of marginality rather than their importance in the frame of reference itself.

Al-Faruqi considers the works of previous Muslim reformers as less relevant because he feels that they did not know or experience the clash of Western social sciences and the vision of Islam and that they were concerned only with utilizing Western knowledge and power. Al-Faruqi makes the bold statement that:

"It is our present generation that first discovered the conflict as we lived it in our own intellectual lives" (Al Faruqi, 1982; Sardar, 1989, p. 31)

However, Sardar notes that this very criticism has been made by other scholars prior to Al-Faruqi including Mutahhari (Society and History, 1985) in the 1950s, Shariati (On the Sociology of Islam, 1979) in the 1960s (Sardar, 1989, p. 31-32). The works of Bennabi in the 1950s and 1960s is also ignoredxv, as is the work of Muhammad Iqbal in the 1930s (The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 2011). The last can perhaps be called, in this author's opinion, as the first to bring into account the conflict of Western contemporary knowledge and Islam; Iqbal provided a seminal defence of Islam against contemporary Western philosophy. This included, for instance, a charge by Spengler that the Muslim mind suffered from atomism, prime grounds of what we consider social science related debate. (Iqbal, 2011)

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study., 1976) calls for a return of the Islamic civilization to its Golden Age – at the time of the eminent scholars such as Al-Ghazali among others. Nasr wants to establish Islamic science fundamentally on the terms of traditional Islamic scientific organization, as expounded by the classification of teaching system and educational institutions of such traditional Islamic scholars as Al-Farabi and Ibn Khaldun (Nasr, Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study., 1976, pp. 59-62). This Nasr considers the first necessary step and he considers it necessary to stop imitating the West. Nasr wants to view knowledge "in an integral manner as part and parcel of the total Islamic intellectual tradition" (Nasr, 1985, p. 7).

The Ijmali group involves another group of scholars and include Ziauddin Sardar, Parvez Manzoor, Munawar Ahmad Anees, Gulzar Haidar, Ibraheem Sualaiman, Merryl Wyn-Davies, and this group can be extended to a number of other scholars including Hussein Ateshin and Zaki Kirmani. They reject the Islamization of contemporary Western disciplines but unlike Nasr, they look to develop a new set of disciplines that are built on an Islamic worldview.

There are many other scholars and thinkers in this field but brevity does not allow the author to expound the views and thoughts of them all. Haneef's (A Critical Survey of Islamization of Knowledge, 2009) survey of the literature for instance includes 104 articles, 27 books/chapters in books, papers from 16 conferences and numerous other articles.

The author will seek to make sense out of the vast literature by focusing on, what he considers as three basic paradigmsxvi. These paradigms, which will be using the term approaches synonymously in the next section seeks to clarify three broad movements and their worldviews on IOK.

Three Paradigms

We have described some of the major works in the IOK field. This author believes that it may be fruitful to divide the various scholars into three paradigms. The first and most dominant paradigm has been coined as the "Institutional Approach" by Wyn-Davies (1991) and has been championed by Al-Faruqi and the IIIT.

The second paradigm is categorized here as the "New Traditional Approach" championed by Al-Attas, Nasr and Bakr and the third paradigm is the "Conceptual Approach" again borrowing Wyn-Davies' term for the paradigm, perhaps started by Idris and led by the Ijmalis. It must be noted that Wyn-Davies uses a two paradigm approach while this author has divided the movement into three paradigms so there may be some differences in the manner Wyn-Davies and this author uses the terms "Conceptual Approach".

Institutional Approach:

The Institutional Approach focuses on holding the Western disciplines constant and Islamizing each discipline. An analogy would be to take a car and customize the car to one's requirements, including a different set of tires, brake pads, seat covers, giving the car a different paint scheme and a different stereo system, but not re-building the car. The Institutional Approach is objective and institution oriented and takes its starting point as the injunctions within the original sources of Islam and seeks specific institutions that will give these injunctions a contemporary form and means of operation. (Wyn-Davies, 1991)

Wyn-Davies (1991) notes that this predominant paradigm is the easiest to implement or "doable" of the three paradigms, partially because it resides within the institutional structure that is a given and looks for incremental rather than revolutionary change.

New Traditional Approach:

The New Traditional Approach seeks to carefully sift through Western knowledge and consider it within the structure of traditional Islamic knowledge, emphasizing the importance of the latter. A simplified analogy would be to squeeze lemon juice onto one's regular meal, and avoiding the seeds and other undesirable elements from the lemon from getting into the food. The approach in practice may take a number of forms. The approach is hard to clearly identify, define or for that matter criticize because it is generally worded more vaguely or philosophically. Commenting on Al-Attas, Haneef (2009, p. 37) notes that:

The first thing that strikes anyone who reads al-Attas and is looking for his views on 'how' to do IOK, is the absence of 'work-plans,' despite his long contribution to this area. In his writing, al-Attas does not open his views to the criticisms of scholars like Rahman and Sardar who have taken Faruqi to task for trying to chart out maps and plans to Islamize knowledge.

Rosnani & Rossidy (2000, p. 12) explains this vagueness by noting that the emphasis is on understanding the Islamic worldview:

He does not outline in specific the procedures probably because he feels that once an individual understands the Islamic worldview and its metaphysics, and internalizes its corresponding values, Islamization of contemporary knowledge would logically follow.

However, why Attas' Islamic worldview should be taken as the definitive Islamic worldview remains unanswered. To put into perspective, Attas' views are basically an exposition of "an Islamic metaphysics that is a synthesis of ideas traditionally upheld by Muslim theologians, philosophers and Sufis or _ahl at-tasawwuf_." (Rosnani & Rossidy, 2000, p. 4)

Perhaps one possible way to more concretely understand the New Traditional Approach is to consider actual propositions and implementations of the proponents of this approach. In an ethnographic participant-observation study, Furlow (2005) relates the perspective of some of Nasr's students:

"S. H. Nasr's student wanted GSISS to abandon the idea of becoming an American style graduate school and instead become an "Islamic Academy" specializing in usul al-fiqh, 'ilm al-kalam, Islamic economics, and related fields with the goal of promoting an Islamic alternative to secularism along the lines advocated by S. H. Nasr."

Two other prime examples of the New Traditional approach the author has identified include prominently the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) and the Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge (IRK) of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). IIUM is a hybrid of the Institutional Approach and the New Traditional Approach in that the various departments and colleges operate on the broad guidelines of the Institutional Approach while the IRK and ISTAC operate within the New Traditional Approach paradigm outlined. The difference between the IRK and ISTAC being that the latter is a somewhat more independent organization originally a separate entity setup by Al-Attas and his associates, and focused exclusively on postgraduate studies.

The IRK website (International Islamic University Malaysia, 2012) notes that "its formation represents a drive to integrate Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences disciplines as part of a comprehensive educational reform for the betterment of mankind." The undergraduate programme at the IRK is separated into Bachelors of Human Sciences and Bachelors of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Heritage. The first point to ponder is that this separation cuts at the heart of all the talk about the unity of knowledge but the IRK seeks to integrate the Modern and Islamic knowledge streams by introducing Islamic perspectives within the subject and removing un-Islamic aspects and at the same time introduce Islamic modules. The IRK's teaching of traditional religious subjects along with contemporary knowledge also brings status to the traditional sources of knowledge which Al-Attas had rued was being neglected and not respected.

ISTAC (ISTAC, 2012) is arguably even more radically New Traditional in its approach, as opposed to Institutional. This author's judgment is that the subjects are built around Islamic traditional knowledge and deeply embedded within an Islamic historical context and simultaneously seeking to define and understand the Western paradigm within the former context and knowledge.

Conceptual Approach:

The Conceptual Approach focuses on refusing the present structure of Western knowledge and disciplines, learning from them and building an alternative paradigm rooted in Islam, without appending Islamic knowledge in its traditional structure. So, while the Institutional Approach is flexible with the Islamic knowledge aspect and the New Traditional Approach is flexible with the Western contemporary knowledge aspect, the Conceptual Approach is flexible with both aspects. The Conceptual Approach focuses more on the Islamic values rather than injunctions, a wider view and more systemic approach that conceives Islam "as an integral system of concepts whose dynamic principles are its values, which are exemplified through the specific injunctions" (Wyn-Davies, 1991, p. 240), An analogy in relation to the analogy of the car given in Section 3.2.3.3.1 would be to _carefully study a successful car model, and then build a car to one's own requirements using the parts bin of the successful car model where possible._

The approach requires more extensive rethinking. Wyn-Davies (1991, p. 241) notes two key aspects of this approach – Islam as a way of knowing and Islam as a body of knowledge. Islam as a body of knowledge is given by the known set of concepts and values derived from the Quran and Sunnah. By way of knowing, Wyn-Davies (and scholars such as Sardar and the Ijmalis) means comprehending the meaning and implications of the eternal concepts and values in relation to the transient world around us. The conceptual approach explicitly and pre-eminently brings Islamic values and concepts to the disciplines of knowledge. (Wyn-Davies, 1991)

This perspective highlights IOK as asking different questions in different ways from the conventional. The Conceptual Approach looks at whether even the boundaries of Western disciplines is relevant to us, and whether even this needs to be re-thought. Wyn-Davies (1991, p. 242) notes that they are conveniences of history, not inflexible necessities.

Comparison of the Three Paradigms:

Table 1 and 2 give a broad comparison of the three defined paradigms. There are clearly two elements of IOK – the part that relates to what constitutes "Islam" and the portion that relates to what exactly is "Western knowledge".

Table 1

In Table 1, we note that the Conceptual Approach looks to reform and critically analyse both the factors, while the other two paradigms tend to find fault with the West exclusively. Table 2 indicates how the three paradigms differ on three points: (1) General methodology; (2) Educational philosophy; and (3) Focus of solution. A key characteristic here is that the Institutional Approach appears to emphasize the validity of Western knowledge more than the other two paradigms.

Another contrast is how the Conceptual Approach has a more dynamic understanding of Western knowledge as a vector in motion that, if we attempt to get to its current location, by the time we get there, the West may have already moved elsewhere. The New Traditional Approach's focus on making good Muslims appears to lack a clear answer to how the same Muslims would be effective and efficient in competing with non-Muslims. The Institutional Approach clearly appears to try to find the fastest possible way to catch up with the West. Concerning the focus of the solution, it appears that both the Institutional and the New Traditional Approach are generally focused at the university level. The Conceptual Approach on the other hand looks to have a civilizational outlook that wants to customize knowledge to the requirements of the civilization, and thus represents a more theoretical paradigm that can be interpreted widely but becomes harder to define in definite operational terms.

Having considered these three paradigms, it is noted that the Bennabian paradigm would fit into the Conceptual Approach. This makes the Bennabian paradigm highly relevant because this third paradigm is the least recognized paradigm of the three and is often dismissed as mere criticism of the IOK movement (Haneef, 2009), perhaps because it has not been articulated in as much detail and practical application as the other two paradigms. While one of the authors of this bookxvii studied at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) at a postgraduate course titled Islamic Economic Thought, the perspective of Sardar, a scholar within this Conceptual Approach, was taught as an "external critic" of the IOK project, a polite way of saying that this approach is not part of the Muslim movement, so all these people are "outside of Islam". This shows how marginalized this approach has been. A Bennabian paradigm would help reinforce the Conceptual Approach and thus contribute to the discourse of IOK.

# 4. A Specific Solution to Human Sciences

In the following chapter, we move on from the literature review to an actual solution, which we discuss as the Bennabian paradigm, a paradigm we identify within the Conceptual Approach of the earlier section.

Mohamed Tahir El-Mesawi, one of the foremost exponents of Malek Bennabi's work notes that "...little heed, if any, has been has been given to the fundamental theoretical and methodological framework underlying Bennabi's treatment of such issues." (Bennabi, 1998, p. xiii) This section attempts to utilize a Bennabian paradigm to the Islamization of Knowledge (IOK) with the aim of addressing this very issue, and taking it a step further.

While Bennabi does not use the term Islamization of Knowledge and was not part of the contemporary Islamization of Knowledge movement, his works are nevertheless of relevance because he is engaged in the actual task of Islamization of Knowledge and spoke of issues related to the topic at hand. Sardar (1989, p. 41) notes a similar circumstance with the works of Ali Shariati, who he describes as entering the Islamization of Knowledge debate "tangentially". Sardar states the circumstance of Ali Shariati's works in the following terms:

"The Significance of Shariati is often missed because he is doing the thing itself, Islamic social science, rather than discussing how it can be done. Only when one is aware of a social science rooted in an Islamic conceptual framework can one recognize that Shariati is using terminology familiar in western sociology but using it to refer to different ideational constructs." (Sardar, 1989, p. 41)

On occasion however, Bennabi even spoke of the issues more directly, Mohamed Tahir El-Mesawi, in his introduction to Bennabi's _On the Origins of Human Society,_ describes Bennabi's perception of the problem of acquiring Western knowledge wholesale in the following words:

"To put it more clearly, modern social sciences have evolved and taken shape, according to Bennabi, within the western historical and civilizational context and they are therefore marked by the specific experience of western societies. For that matter, they derive their main concepts and categories from the cultural and philosophical foundations of that experience. Moreover, social problems and phenomena, Bennabi points out, have their own history and different courses of development respective to the cultural and civilizational context in which they arise." (Bennabi, 1998, p. xviii) (Bennabi, 1987, p. 60)

Bennabi explicitly discusses _social education_ and touches upon education on numerous occasions including in a chapter titled "The Notion of Social Education" (Bennabi, 1998, p. 88) and another chapter titled "Foundations of Social Education" (Bennabi, 1998, p. 121)

Regarding the significance of Bennabi's work and its relevance to the contemporary world, El-Mesawi notes that perhaps the first Arab academic to have drawn attention to Bennabi's work was Fahmi Jad'an who described Bennabi's work in the following words:

"Bennabi was the most prominent Arab thinker, since the time of Ibn Khaldun, to have concerned himself with the question of civilization." (Bennabi, 1998, p. xiii; Jad'an, 1988, p. 416)

Having established the importance of Bennabi's intellectual work and coming now to the Islamization of Knowledge itself, in simple terms, this is a movement that attempts to address the problem of how to combine and symbiotically synthesize knowledge and contemporary worldly knowledge, which is predominantly from a Western and non-Muslim source, in an effective and genuine manner; that is neither imprinted with secularism nor with any aspects that are un-Islamic. The movement seeks to solve this problem to solve a bigger problem – that of a stagnant Muslim Ummah that is significantly behind in terms of education, research, economic, political, industrial and social progress compared to Western and emerging nations.

### A New Structure for the Human Sciences

The Reason and Purpose behind a New Structure for the Human Sciences

There is no methodology to how the social/human sciences have been organized, Dr. Wyn-Davies notes that it is a "convenience of history" rather than something Western educationists have methodologically determined:

_Islamization of knowledge is about asking different questions in different ways from the conventional requirements of the academic disciplines we are familiar with. This brings the realization that the boundaries of disciplines we accept today are conveniences of history, not inflexible necessities._ (Wyn-Davies, 1991, p. 242)

Ibn Khaldun also notes that the organization of knowledge and the degree of its specialization varies with the stages of civilization: the temporal nature of the division of sciences is thus highlighted, and Ibn Khaldun directly speaks of this difference in terms of how the sciences "develop only where civilization is large and sedentary culture highly developed". (Khaldun, 1967, p. 343)

Ibn Khaldun also supports this viewpoint by noting that "scientific instruction is a craft" (Khaldun, 1967, p. 340) and:

_Crafts become excessive when civilization develops excessively. Thus, we learn that there are Egyptians who teach dumb creatures like birds and domestic donkeys, who produce marvelous spectacles which give the illusion that objects are transformed, and who teach how to dance and walk on ropes stretched in the air, how to lift heavy animals and stones and other things._ (Khaldun, 1967, p. 315)

In this, Khaldun supports the Conceptual Approach thesis within the context of a civilization cycle; if the Western civilization has a specific division appropriate to its present development stage, it is not necessary that the Islamic civilization would find the same division relevant in its own present stage.

If Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1904) is to be seen as a work of moral philosophy (Evensky, 2005) and that his work can be summed up as"a system of moral philosophy of which political economy forms but a part" (Oncken, 1897, p. 449), and even as natural theology (Waterman, 2002), this implies that today Smith's work may not be accepted as a work within the field of economics, nor that it would find currency as a dissertation from an Economics faculty.

Another argument for a rethink in the structure of the Human Sciences, is that of a conceptual one: we will see in the next sections how our basic and most important unit of study is the civilization, rather than the nation or the tribe, and that we treat civilization as an organism. If the Human Sciences accepts the thesis that society, civilization, nations, etc. (whatever they take as the primary unit of study) is an organism, then it becomes pertinent first and foremost to study the entire organism and not portions of it in isolation. Thus, the study of Human Biology becomes a relevant analogy, to cure the illnesses of man, a doctor must invariably be a general practitioner even if he later specializes in a specific sub-field.

In recap, the definition and the boundaries of a science are not absolute but rather dependent on the state of civilization (Khaldun), that our civilization and state of knowledge is at a different stage and thus copying the West's structure is sub-optimal if not outright detrimental to our goals, and the boundaries and structure of today's disciplines "are conveniences of history, not inflexible necessities" (Wyn-Davies, 1991, p. 242). Finally, that society and civilization is best studied as an organism, rather than the sum of its parts, and the separation of disciplines in the Human Sciences does not fundamentally engender this level of analysis, rather in an ancillary method through cross-specialization.

The first task therefore is to determine the appropriate structure and boundaries for a Human Science paradigm, as appropriate for the Muslim Ummah. In this regard, the following factors would need to be kept in mind:

1. The present civilizational stage of the Ummah

2. The fundamental differences of worldview between the Islamic and Western civilizations

3. The immediate needs of the present Muslim societies

4. Contextualized within the pedagogic plan to revive Muslim societies.

5. Going beyond Western inconsistencies in methodology.

Let us consider each of these points in turn.

The Present Civilizational Stage of the Ummah:

Bennabi discusses three stages of a society:

Pre-civilized society

Civilized society

Post-civilized society

He also correlates these three societies to three ages – the _Realm of Objects_ , where the focus in on material objects, the _Realm of Persons_ and the _Realm of Ideas_ , the highest age, where Ideas are the most important element. Civilization is reached when the Realm of Ideas is dominant and is in post and pre-civilizational stage when the Realm of Objects is more dominant. He describes these stages like a person growing up – a baby is focused on things, as he grows older he learns the world of persons, and finally he enters the world of ideas. He notes that while Islam took us from the world of things to the world of Ideas, we have degenerated back to the Realm of Objects and post-civilized society. (Bennabi M. , 2003b, pp. 17-21)

He describes the post-civilized society as one that has reversed the direction of its movement and is now moving backwards. Bennabi considers the Islamic civilization to be a post-civilized society that has now regressed back to a world of objects and persons. He describes how Islam started in _Jahili_ society where man lived in the world of objects and people. Islam broke this mold and brought the society into civilization and the world of ideas within three decades. (Bennabi M. , 2003b, pp. 20-21). However, in post-civilization, we have returned to jahiliyaxviii.

Like Ibn Khaldun, Bennabi points to the vital importance of society and civilization to man: without it, man can barely survive. Like Ibn Khaldun he describes civilization as a cyclical process, however, it his cycle is different from Ibn Khaldun's. While Ibn Khaldun looks to describe the cycle in terms of Bedouin tribal cohesion, sedentary life, luxury and finally decay, Bennabi describes his in three stages, starting with an instinctive stage, a rational stage and a spiritual stage (Bariun, 1993, pp. 116-117). He states that the will and power of society gives civilization its objective character. Society's will and power differs depending on what phase society is in. He illustrates these stages by using a diagram similar to the one illustrated in the Figure below. (Bennabi M. , 2003b, p. 24)

Figure: Civilization cycle of the Islamic Civilization

To him, it represents the psycho-temporal values of civilization. Describing Figure 4-1, the Islamic Civilization began at the origin point in Ghar-e-Hira. Here was born our purpose, will and morality. Until 38 Hijri, we had a rapid rise as we remained faithful to our spirit, values and methods. In 38 Hijri, after the Treaty of Siffin and the division of the Islamic state, Bennabi notes that we lost our "soul". Thereafter, we continued in a plateau trajectory which Bennabi describes as "reason" with many scientific developments and a continuation of the intellect. Between point B-C we began to move away from Reason and move increasingly towards taqlid on the one hand and mysticism on the other. Bennabi marks the decline of the Muslim civilization with the fall of Grenada in the West and the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in the East. (Bennabi M. , 2003b, p. 24)

Given that we are in a different point in our civilization cycle than the West, and given Khaldun's views earlier noted regarding the number of crafts in a given stage of civilization, it does not make sense for the Islamic civilization to copy the structure and boundaries of the Western disciplines to address its own needs. Given that we are behind in our civilizational development, a simpler, holistic and more unified human science organization may be more appropriate.

The Fundamental Differences of Worldview Between the Islamic and Western Civilizations:

Bennabi describes the solitude of man. He describes this as a cosmic void within man that he (Man) then attempts to fill. Two different ways to fill this void are described – either with the material or the metaphysical. Obviously, there are many other ways; for instance, filling oneself with the realm of people whose extreme can be seen in personality cults. However, all else tend to fit in between the two extremes that Bennabi mentions – the realm of objects and the realm of the spiritual. (Bennabi M. , 2003b, pp. 3-5)

Bennabi describes this setting beautifully with the following illustrations:

1. Man either looks at his feet or at the stars

2. Objects and forms, techniques and aesthetics, versus truth and virtue

3. Industrial time versus extemporized timexix

4. Positivism and dialectic materialism versus morality and revealed knowledgexx

The differing worldviews are also illustrated beautifully by the folk stories of two individuals in isolation – Robinson Crusoe and Hayyibn Yaqdhan. While Robinson Crusoe fills his days with his struggle against the material world, Hayyibn Yaqdhan is shown to spend his isolation in the contemplation of the spiritual. Bennabi also makes the observation that for each of the two civilizations, the point of failure comes to the overindulgence of its core; for Islam it is the overindulgence of mysticism and for the West it is the overindulgence of materialism. (Bennabi M. , 2003b, pp. 3-5)

These diametrically opposite worldviews need to reflect in the emphasis of the Human Sciences, and this would impact the content, structure, and intra-disciplinary relationships. For instance, it is natural from the materialistically centered Western worldview to hold economics as a separate discipline from sociology, but this is less clear from the Islamic point of view. Religious and spiritual education is also de-emphasized and separated from the Human Sciences, again a paradigm that does not make sense for the Islamic civilization to follow. As a result, the structure of the Human Sciences should be adequately different from the Western equivalent.

The Immediate Needs of the Present Muslim Societies:

Muslims today are facing acute social, economic and political crisis. Therefore, the study of the Human Sciences should be geared to equipping students to cope with and overcome those challenges. In contrast, the Western study of the Human Sciences is focused on teaching specific skillsets for the benefit of the job market.

Contextualized Within the Pedagogic Plan to Revive Muslim Societies:

Since we are in the process of researching and constructing new a pedagogic approach, we are at an ideal position to customize both the pedagogy and the structure of the disciplines to ideally suit the Islamic civilization.

Going beyond Western Inconsistencies in Methodology:

As was earlier noted the Western disciplines "are conveniences of history, not inflexible necessities" (Wyn-Davies, 1991, p. 242). This state of affairs is not scientific, nor acceptable in the effective management of the Human Sciences. This is one area where we can upstage the West in finding the most appropriate structure particularly for the Human Sciences.

Characteristics of the A New Structure for the Human Sciences

The following are some of the characteristics we believe would be beneficial based on the characteristics of Bennabi's works:

1. Interdisciplinary approach

2. Beyond the dogma of different schools

3. Macro-micro simultaneous approach

While an interdisciplinary approach is increasingly common in the Western Human Sciences, the Western human sciences still remain fragmented in their structure. A better approach may therefore be to, instead of attempting to bridge this gap inter-faculty, it may be more meaningful to create a unified structure. Such an approach would also take advantage of the nascent nature of our revived civilization, which requires synthesis more than specialization.

The following structure may thus be considered:

Islam divides the revelations of Allah as _ayat-ul-quraniyah_ (revealations from the Scripture) and _ayat-ul-quwaniyah_ (revelations from the external world). Both kinds of revelation do not stand in isolation but help understand each other. The diagram above indicates a separate Revealed Human Knowledge that focuses exclusively on what revealed knowledge has to say about mankind. Revelation would also be studied in each of the other fields of study.

At the generalist level, such a structure would allow the teaching of the most important and basic elements of each of the present sciences, their cross-referenced understanding and the holistic view of how the human sciences make meaning within the Science of Civilization (Ilm-ul-Umran). This would mean that such graduates would be able to make more meaning of the social world around them than today's graduates from the various disciplines of the human sciences, who, despite often being taught courses in various subjects, are frequently unable to integrate and understand the wider subject matter in a holistic manner.

The Science of Civilization (Ilm-ul-Umran) would thus be a single discipline, and will be studied as such with specific specializations, or as a wider general subject. This would allow for a much more holistic approach from the very beginning, rather than having to bridge gaps between entrenched ideas and structures among different faculties. We now move on to defining an outline for the Science of Civilization, as the fundamental paradigm of studying the Human Sciences.

The Fundamentals of the Neo-Bennabian Science of Civilization

In this section we begin an outline of the new Science of Civilization (Ilm-ul-Umran). This Science here defined is the heart of the diagnosis and is broadly the thesis of Ibn Khaldun, Allama Iqbal, Muhammad Asad, Ali Shariati, Muhammad Abduh and Malek Bennabi, among others. Ibn Khaldun's study into the social cohesion of groups is the first basis, the foundation upon which students of his work, including Malek Bennabi and Allama Iqbal built their analysis. The latter's work can only be alluded to indirectly as being part of this thesis, while Bennabi directly builds this thesis in his works. Malek Bennabi, who had also read Allama Iqbal has perhaps taken the diagnosis to its greatest maturity, is the biggest influence of this work and thus, while this diagnosis is indebted to the lifetime research of multiple great thinkers, it is essentially a summary and small-scale extension of Bennabi's viewpoint. Building upon each other, we have finally come to a clear picture and understanding, insh'Allah.

Yet, there is an additional problem – understanding the diagnosis for those outside. The problem of the matter is that to even understand the diagnosis, we will need to first educate ourselves to a whole new science that these aforementioned scholars have implicitly or explicitly created. The foundations of this science were first created by Ibn Khaldun. The closest Western equivalent is Sociology. However, this science of ours is wider in scope and, in terms of the Western sciences be highly "interdisciplinary". Furthermore, many of the definitions used in the West are not helpful because, as Malek Bennabi notes, those definitions are normative in nature and rooted within their cultural context and worldview, thus cannot be readily understood or even effective for those outside that context. This science can perhaps be loosely defined as "The Science of Civilization".

To the reader familiar with Sociology, you will find that even the basic definitions here are different from the Western standard and Marxist perspectives, even for concepts such as civilization and culture. This is the only way forward for us to effectively grapple with our condition.

So, before we can get to the diagnosis, we will have to take a step back and delve into at least the basics of this science. In the following pages I shall rely largely on Bennabi, in particular _On the Origins of Human_ Society, _The Question of Ideas in the Muslim World_ and _The Question of Culture._ It may be considered that Bennabi's work is the most developed form of this science. I will not have the space to do this in detail, but will condense everything to the most concise possible.

A final note to consider before we start is as Bennabi warns – some things have simple definitions and these are like simple two dimensional drawings. However, what is at hand is a more complex drawing. This is like an engineering drawing that requires multiple drawings to fully explain the engineering of the object. It is this latter kind of complex definitions and explanations we are about to engage in.

Society & Civilization

Let us start with the basic unit we are studying – society. Bennabi notes that the term society is used for a wide variety of social phenomena but there are two fundamental types of society, natural or primitive society and historical society. The primary difference between the two is that in the former there is no fundamental change in its characteristics since its inception and the primitive society is essentially stationary, while the later transforms and evolves over time and is essentially dynamic. From here on end society will only mean historical society.

There are two origins of historical society, ones that evolve from a primitive state of nature organically and the historical society that is formed from elements of another historical society that is left over to create a new society. A historical society may be brought to its state of perpetual change by a challenge that is either a natural circumstance creating a geographical type society or by the appeal of a certain ideal, which creates an ideological society. Thus, two types of historical society:

1. Geographical historical society

2. Ideological historical society

The term society can then be described as:

" _A group of human beings which perpetually changes its social features by creating itself the means of change, and which perceives the objectives it seeks to achieve through such a process of change."_ (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 15)

In addition, society is defined as an _organism_ which has the following characteristics:

1. Perpetual movement; change and evolution

2. Generation of the means of movement

3. Purpose of movement

Both Bennabi and Allama Iqbal note movement as a central characteristic of society (Bennabi M. , 2003a ; Bennabi M. , 1998 ; Iqbal, 2011). Bennabi states:

" _The human group acquires the quality of society when it starts moving, that is to say, when it begins changing itself in order to achieve its goals. This event coincides in the historical perspective, with the moment when a civilization emerges."_ (Bennabi M. , 1998, pp. 16-17)

The key element of society is what he describes as the "social relations network". He notes that "the network of relations is the first historical task a society carries out upon its birth". (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 29)

The Social Relations Network

Bennabi describes the social relations network both quantitatively and qualitatively. He notes that a community having _N_ individuals, and _K_ total number of relations for every individual, will have the following equation:

K = N – X

Where X = Index of development from the quantitative point of view

And: 1 < X < N

The total number of relations in the community is then L where:

L = NK = N(N-X)

In the peak of its development, society can be represented as:

L1 = N (N-1)

Society in its final state of disintegration, where social relations are dissolved would then be represented by:

L2 = N (N-N) = 0

The qualitative component of the social relations network is the efficiency of the network, and what Bennabi describes as the psycho-temporal level. Bennabi makes a convincing case that the birth of social relations takes place through moral values and through religious relationships; that religion plays a key role in building civilization.

In summary, and to clarify the relationship of society and civilization, we here define civilization as synonymous with historical society once it is able to meet its challenge of either an ideological or geographical nature. Civilization is thus a state of being for historical society and it begins to decline when the challenges it faces in its environment begin to overwhelm it.

Some Fundamental Variables of Civilization

Having thus put the study of society and civilization on a solid definitional foundation, let us consider some fundamental variables other than the social relations network through which we can study the complex phenomenon of civilization. These fundamental variables include:

1. Man as a religious animal

2. The three realms of objects, people and ideas

3. Two worldviews

4. The civilization cycle

5. Culture

6. Trade or Economics

Man as a Religious Animal

Bennabi frames the theological debate of theism and atheism as a debate between two religions, noting that:

The debate is rather between two religions: between theism and materialism, between the religion which has God as its basis and that which postulates matter as an absolute. (Bennabi M. , 2001, p. 31)

Bennabi gives evidence to show how humanity has always faced, at regular intervals, a metaphysical problem, and that this has happened through all phases of his development. He notes that sociologists have recognized this issue and characterized man as "a fundamentally religious animal". (Bennabi M. , 2001, p. 30)

El-Mesawi sheds more light in this regard utilizing a wide selection of western philosophers and sociologists. Thus he notes Plutarch as having stated "we find cities without walls, kings, civilizations, literature or theatres, but never has man seen a city without places of worship or worshippers" (Plutarch, 1883; Izzetbegovitch, 1989, p. 16; cf. El-Mesawi, 1998, p. 14), he also notes Henri Bergson as stating:

We find in the past, we could find today human societies without neither science, nor art, nor philosophy. But there has never been a society without religion. (Bergson, 1978, p. 92; cf. El-Mesawi, 1998, p. 14-15)

El-Mesawi also accounts this view to sociologists, noting that Durkheim, Malinowsky, Weber and Freud have all agreed, and he cites Boudon and Bourricaud's dictionary of sociology in this regard, which further notes:

Religion is a phenomenon that is a characteristic of all human societies, past, present and future. (Boudon &Bourricaud, 1982, pp. 292-293; cf. El-Mesawi, 1998, p. 14-15)

Bennabi notes that there are two divergent theories that can follow from the definition of man as a religious animal:

1. Innately by an original disposition of his nature

2. A cultural psychic osmosis spread through an initial accident of history

Western thought has followed the second route without examining the first, while Bennabi highlights the validity of the first. El-Mesawi notes in this regard that while a number of Western philosophers and scholars have attempted to take the first route outlined above, they have fallen short of taking their thought to its conclusion and explained it in confusing terms (Bennabi M. , 2001, p. xviii). He expresses Jung's views in this regard:

_In an attempt to avoid the inaccuracies of the materialist conception of the psyche, Jung developed a "theory of archetypes" according to which "religion can best be understood by relating it to a collective unconscious" that constitutes a "psychic reality shared by all humans."_ (Morris, 1987, p. 168) _As he put it, this "collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind's evolution born anew in the brain structure of the individual."_ (Jung, The Portable Jung, 1971, pp. 45-46)

_However, despite the suggestive importance of the idea of a common universal "spiritual heritage" of mankind, Jung did not pursue his inquiry to its logical end by addressing the essential question as to the origins and nature of this collective heritage. In fact, he simply dismissed it by referring to human evolution. One reason for this might be the following; succumbing to the dominant positivistic paradigms, Jung "eschewed from any metaphysical and philosophical considerations. (Jung, 1966, p. 2; c.f. Clarke, 1992, p. 35) To put it differently, it seems as if there are certain boundaries set up by the dominant episteme, which the mind must not cross!_ (Bennabi M. , 2001, pp. xviii-xix)

El-Mesawi elaborates on Jung's mistake and those _boundaries_ in the following words:

_In effect, he answered it away by simply referring to mankind's evolution. A possible explanation is that, being philosophically inspired by the Kantian tradition_ (Clarke, 1992, p. 32) _..._

... _As he manifestly states it, his "standpoint is exclusively phenomenological, that is, it is concerned with occurrences, events, experiences, in a word, with facts"_ (Jung, 1966, p. 2) _. He even felt malaise because some critics and commentators considered him a philosopher_ (Jung, 1966, p. 2)

_Ironically, it is exceedingly clear that, being reminiscent of Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas_ (Clarke, 1992, p. 118) _, Jung's theory of archetypes or 'primordial images' is incontestably a philosophical construct and is, therefore, an excursus into philosophical and metaphysical thought. In other words, the dominant episteme, to use Michel Foucault's notion, did not allow Jung to pursue his investigation of the issue under consideration to its logical limits, but rather compelled him to evade it, as it did with many a scholar._ (El-Mesawi, 1998, p. 40)

Thus, the positivist and materialist approach can only side-line religion if it ignores that religiosity is an innate human attribute, despite itself admitting the universality of religious phenomenon and almost reaching the same conclusion through Jung. If instead they had taken the first argument, religion would be impossible to ignore. In this regard El-Mesawi notes that, according to Bennabi's argument, and in a widespread belief during the Victorian Era:

_That religion and science are mortal enemies, is due to the misunderstanding of the meaning and scope of both of them._ (El-Mesawi, 1998, p. 23)

The Three Realms: Objects, People & Ideas

The world revolves around three key elements – objects, people and ideas. Of these three elements, the realm of people is the key realm that helps organize all three realms. It is the realm of persons that brings together the realm of objects and ideas. Bennabi makes this point by noting that Germany after WWII had lost all its objects but could regain herself because of its realm of persons and ideas. He notes on the other hand that the Islamic civilization declined catastrophically under the blows of such new nations as Spain, despite having the best libraries and thus realm of ideas, while these new nations had a relatively poor stock of ideas. Yet, in its early period, even with a vast scarcity of objects in relation to the two civilizations it faced in opposition, Islam was able to succeed. The fundamental importance of the realm of people, and the social relations network as we have defined, is spoken of at great length, not only by Bennabi but by Ibn Khaldun.

However, if the realm of people is the most important of the three realms, the realm of ideas is the development goal of civilization. If society is an organism, then its development can be described similar to the development of man; Bennabi describes the development of a child as he moves from recognizing objects to people and finally, to understanding ideas between seven and eight years of age.

Thus, as a child develops, he grows from first identifying objects, i.e. the realm of objects, then recognizing people, i.e. the realm of people and finally reaches the stage of understanding ideas. The cycle then reverses and at senility man returns to his original childlike stage of objects.

" _A half-open mouth, ready to grab and suck anything, is a salient feature of the small child. However, as he grows older, his mouth closes as if driven by some internal springs. This morphological detail actually corresponds to a specific phase in the child's psychological development."_ (Bennabi M. , 2003b, p. 14)

He notes that these physiological differences are also observed between those who are educated and the illiterate. Bennabi notes that the three realms of objects, people and ideas hold different levels of strength over an individual depending on the individual and the society he lives in. If the society is object and people focused, the aggregate of individuals that it reproduces will share that balance. Bennabi points to the object and people focus of Muslim society today as the symptom of our decadence, i.e. that we are in the senility of our civilization cycle.

Bennabi writes that the conditioning power of ideas, the ability to effect changes in society, is not the same for different civilizations. He illustrates how the ability to effect change in the material world is harder for the West because of their cultural roots. He gives the example of the Prohibition in the United States and its ineffectiveness while for Muslims, it was a simple matter of the Prophet (peace be upon him) prohibiting alcohol, the drinking of which vanished overnight without any needs for extensive policing. Bennabi believes that this conditioning power varies within the Muslim civilization's passage through history, in its civilization cycle.

Impressed & Expressed Ideas:

The power of ideas is dependent on how effective the impressed (or original, universal principles) are in their transformation to the expressed ideas (or derived ideas). In their original use, the impressed ideas are in their peak of potency. However, as time changes and the world around us changes, the ideas become less effective in their application. An attempt to create an effective new interpretation of the original ideas can often lead to the expressed ideas becoming betrayals of the original ideas. Betrayal can lead to vengeance from the original idea; an ill-constructed bridge will collapse and the tragedy that follows would translate to the vengeance of the betrayed ideas.

Society, civilization and empires fall in the same way. Dead ideas leave a void in the brain which in turn causes an inability for society (and individuals) to express themselves effectively. Dead ideas as attracting deadly ideas, which are ideas foreign to the host civilization that are harmful for the host because of their alien origins, just as in the case of an introduction of a creature into an ecology from outside can cause havoc in the host ecology. Dead ideas cause the basis for colonization and Bennabi expresses this state as _colonizability_.

Bennabi identifies three levels regarding the parameter of actions where ideas can be betrayed:

1. The political, ideological and ethical level concerning the realm of persons.

2. The logical, philosophical and scientific level concerning the world of ideas.

3. The sociological, economic and technical level concerning the world of objects.

The distortion of original ideas takes place on these three levels, over time and space.

Genuineness & Efficiency of Ideas:

Bennabi makes the point that Europe has given primacy to efficiency in its colonial order. This has caused the secular elites in the Muslim world, who are impressed by the Europeans, to focus exclusively on the efficiency of ideas. Europe's other face is one of an inward ego and a peculiar ethical order. This is not visible to the secular elites who are impressed by the efficiency of her ideas and adopts wholesale all ideas in the belief of their effectiveness. Because they can only view this one side, they are unaware that ideas have another key aspect: their truthfulness or genuineness.

Ideas and Social Dynamics:

Bennabi views the world of ideas as not merely an intellectual endeavour that does not impact the world, but rather one which is centrally important to reviving society. He states that the purpose of planning is to revive social dynamics and the methodology and formation of the plan must be honest to the intrinsic ideas of the civilization. He notes that this planning can only be effected from a wider viewpoint than Economics can provide; for the economist inevitably denigrates the non-economic aspects and does not have a holistic view of society.

He notes that our plans cannot be a mixture of planning methodologies because "any project conceived according to the ideas of one doctrine and implemented according to the means of another will lead nowhere" (Bennabi M. , 2003b, p. 79). We have to look at the problem and build on our own methodology that is honest to our intrinsic principles if we are to have the desired effect on our society's problems.

Two Worldviews

Bennabi describes the solitude of man. He describes this as a cosmic void within man that he (Man) then attempts to fill. Two different ways to fill this void are described – either with the material or the metaphysical. Obviously, there are many other ways; for instance, filling oneself with the realm of people whose extreme can be seen in personality cults. However, all else tend to fit in between the two extremes – the realm of objects and the realm of the spiritual. The former is illustrated by the West and the latter by the Islamic civilization. Historically, perhaps all civilizations can be classified within these two categories, as the core _Zeitgeist_ of any civilization.

Bennabi describes this setting beautifully with the following illustrations:

Man either looks at his feet or at the stars

Objects and forms, techniques and aesthetics, versus truth and virtue

Industrial time versus extemporized time

Positivism and dialectic materialism versus morality and revealed knowledge.

We do not have the space here to do justice to these illustrations but let us make a cursory note of the differing worldviews through the illustration of the classic folk stories of two individuals in isolation – Robinson Crusoe and Hayyibn Yaqdhan. While Robinson Crusoe fills his days with his struggle against the material world, Hayyibn Yaqdhan is shown to spend his isolation in the contemplation of the spiritual. Bennabi also makes the observation that for each of the two civilizations, the point of failure comes in the overindulgence of its core; for Islam it is the overindulgence of mysticism and for the West it is the overindulgence of materialism.

The implication of this is that any ideas, policies and actions that are not derived and true to our Islamic core and rooted in the Western materialistic worldview will not be helpful to us, and may in fact become another deadly virus for our civilization. The great challenge is to derive effective policies and actions from ideas that are genuine to our Islamic core. Thus, we must pass the test and criteria of genuineness to our core and effectiveness to the world around us if we are to avoid the pitfalls of dead and deadly ideas.

The Civilization Cycle

There are three stages to the cycle of civilization, these are namely:

1. Pre-civilized society

2. Civilized society

3. Post-civilized society

Allegorical Description

As we earlier considered in the context of the three realms, these three stages of historical societies can be correlated to three ages – the Things Age, where the focus in on material objects, the Persons Age, when society enters the "Realm of Persons" and the Ideas Age, the highest age, where Ideas are the most important element. We earlier discussed these stages within the allegory of a person growing up – a baby is focused on things, as he grows older he learns the world of persons, and finally he enters the world of ideas. He notes that while Islam took us from the world of things to the world of Ideas, we have degenerated back to the _Things Age_ and thus post-civilized society.

Bennabi describes the post-civilized society as one that has reversed the direction of its movement and is now moving backwards, like our allegory of a person ageing. Bennabi considers the Islamic civilization to be a post-civilized society that has now regressed back to a world of objects and persons. Islam started in Jahili society where man lived in the world of objects and people. Islam broke this mold and brought the society into civilization and the world of ideas within three decades, through the catalyst of revelation and the transformative elements of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the sahaba.

Psychological Description

The three stages of civilization can also be described as:

1. Spiritual

2. Rational

3. Instinctive

The will and power of society gives civilization its objective character. Society's will and power differs depending on what phase society is in. He illustrates these stages by using a diagram similar to the one illustrated below.

Bennabi describes the stages through psychoanalysis thus:

"Looking at the individual at the zero point of the diagram drawn, we find him in the state which some Muslim scholars call "fitrah" (natural disposition). This means that he is fully "equipped" with all his inborn instincts thus being in the state of "homo natura". The function of the religious ideal manifests itself in subjecting those instincts to a process of conditioning and adaptation representing what is known in Freudian psychology as "Repression". Yet, this process is far from eradicating those instincts; instead, it regulates them in an integrated functional relationship with the imperatives of the religious ideal. Thus, the vital energy represented by the instincts is not abolished; it is rather channeled according to a specific order.

"In this stage, the individual is partly liberated from the natural laws which govern his biological structure in such a way that his being is almost totally under the control of the spiritual forces awakened in him by the religious ideal; thus, he leads a new life governed by the laws of the soul.

"It was according to such laws that Bilal, despite the severe torture inflicted on his body, was raising his finger, repeating in a defying manner "Ahad, Ahad". It is quite obvious that these words do not reflect the reaction of the natural instincts which were put under control, nor does it reflect the judgment of reason, for reason is unable to react in such a state of severe pain! It is nothing other than the voice of the soul which was liberated from the bondage of the instincts being now entirely subordinated to the power of the "faith" that had imbibed Bilal bin Rabah's self.

"Similarly, the Islamic society was undergoing the same process of transformation. Like Bilal, it was not expressing itself in the language of flesh and blood. The voice of reason was not as yet heard in that nascent society. Thus, all the language used at this stage was based on the "logic" of the soul for it was exclusively the manifestation of the spiritual forces inherent in the human being.

"This is the first stage of civilization, the stage at which all the instincts of man are "tamed" and integrated in a specific order that pulls their reins and restrains their drive." (Bennabi, On the Origins of Society)

When the society's social relations network expands even further and the conditioning power of religion weakens, the intellect rises in prominence as the integrating force. This is the age of reason, as labeled in the diagram. However, reason is a weaker force and does not fully control the instincts of man, and as civilization wanes, instincts play an increasingly more dominant role until they dominate. When instincts begin to dominate, the power of religion is weakened and morality fades, society begins to lose its integrity through a failing social relations network, which leads to the decline of civilization.

Historical Description

Describing the diagram in historical terms, the cycle of the Islamic Civilization began at the origin point in Ghar-e-Hira. Here was born our purpose, will and morality. Until 38 Hijri, we had a rapid rise as we remained faithful to our spirit, values and methods. In 38 Hijri, after the Treaty of Siffin and the division of the Islamic state, Bennabi notes that we lost our "soul". Thereafter, we continued in a plateau trajectory which Bennabi describes as "reason" with many scientific developments and a continuation of the intellect. Between point B-C we began to move away from Reason and move increasingly towards taqlid on the one hand and mysticism on the other. Bennabi marks the decline of the Muslim civilization with the fall of Grenada in the West and the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in the East.

This then is the historical description of the cycle.

Bennabi describes the first spiritual phase as one where the newly formed society deals with its problems by suppressing needs and maximizing utilization and distribution of resources at hand. He describes this stage as the most beautiful forms of asceticism exemplified by the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the generosity of the Sahabah in giving their wealth to the greater cause.

As the resources of the society expand in conjunction with the spiritual and intellectual endeavor, the power of the society also expands, marking the dramatic rise of the initial state in Medina. Bennabi notes that the power of the will is kept intact because of the strength and vitality of the ideas that creates a tension within every Muslim. He notes that this is a distinguishing characteristic of the origin-to-A phase. In the A-B phase, gradually the power of the idea weakens and the realms of people and objects take increasing prominence until it takes hold, particularly in the B-C phase.

Culture

If society is an _organism_ which is engaged in perpetual movement, generation of the means of that movement and has defined a purpose for its movement, culture is the conditioning of those functions, in line with a macro-definition of Pavlov's operant conditioning. A post-civilized society would also have a culture, but a static culture that enforces the singular state of that society and thus acts as an anti-civilizational element. In fact, such a culture would be highly resistant to any change, as the culture would become increasingly fixed, as is the present state of the Muslim Ummah. Both Bennabi and Allama Iqbal point to the need for movement and change in our cultural bearings but such words fall on deaf ears in the Ummah.

However, in a healthy civilized society culture plays a productive role of regulating the functions of society as noted earlier. Only in senility does culture become a straightjacket for society. It is thus that we define here the definition of culture within the context of the Science of Civilization (Ilm-ul-Umran).

Man is born with vital energies that derive from his original state of fitra. These include but are not exclusively derived from his instincts. The great task of civilization and of religions, and in particular of Islam is to condition and channel those vital energies for a greater purpose, for the good of society, for Man's role as the vice-regent on earth and for the ultimate purpose of worshiping Allah comprehensively. Conversely, the purpose of the Western civilization is to worship Man and to work for the greater benefit of himself. The task of culture is to transform those vital energies for those greater purposes. However, in post-civilized society culture stops fulfilling those functions and enters a state of rigid pathology.

Trade or Economics

Ibn Khaldun notes that trade creates the basis of civilization, because it allows for productivity through specialization, without which there would not be enough of the skills required to run even a simple agrarian society. However, it is the Quran that best makes the case of connecting trade to civilizationxxi, providing the following historical evidence of the impact of trade:

For the civilizing of Quraysh,

For their civilizing, (We cause) the caravans to set forth in winter and summer,

So let them worship the Lord of this House,

Who has fed them against hunger,

And has made them safe from fear.(Surah Quraysh)

Conventionally, it may be understood that trade is a by-product of civilization, but here the Quran reverses the order, that in fact trade causes civilization. Trade causes man to follow his self-interest (Adam Smith) within a societal framework where he is dependent on those beyond his family, then beyond his tribe or village, and finally even beyond his race, language and religion. At a hypothetical no-trade, hunter-gatherer level, his self-interest is being pursued internally, through his own effort, or improving his own skills, or those of his tribe or family. However, trade pushes the idea of self-interest outwards, and once that conception is initiated, self-interest migrates to an ever wider social circle. Self-interest thus pushes man to behave by ways and means that would further his self-interest, this being in terms of socialization, morals, ethics and language; in becoming part of an ever wider circle, and thus serving his self-interest progressively better.

Trade simultaneously, through the increased wealth of a specializing economy, allows him the time and resources to pursue such an investment in way of his self-interest. Again, only possible when " _He has fed them against hunger, and made them safe from fear"_ , or as Maslow indicates in his hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943), only when man can satisfy his more basic needs, can he reach a higher form of being. Furthermore, the relationship of self-interest, once established, opens up channels for other relationships, including relationships which allow for mutual protection in an ever widening circle of relations. Thus, the social relations network germinates from the relationship of self-interest in trade.

###

Conclusion Concerning the Science of Civilization (Ilm-ul-Umran)

This then, in a concise manner, is how we here define our science of civilization. The task before us is to revive the social relations network both qualitatively and quantitatively and repair the mistakes made, reflecting on the original state of Islam and then finding solutions for today that are honest and genuine to the original principles.

Within the framework we can analyze:

1. Our Present circumstance, concluding that the Islamic civilization has come full circle and is now at a post-civilized state and looking to either be reborn or die

2. The fundamental indicators that can serve to analyze its future development

3. The fundamental variables that need to be effected to bring about change and the nature and identity of those elements that are degenerative and blocking its rebirth

As the proposed central Human Science of the Muslim Ummah, we can iteratively include and combine elements from Revealed Social Science, Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and other subjects. The basic and most pertinent knowledge from each of these sciences can be integrated within the wider Science of Civilization.

However, we shall stop here and leave the full elucidation of this science for a different paper, insh'Allah. We will consider, in this book, a social education program that can help bring about that rebirth, by encouraging the factors that bring about civilization, and discouraging the anti-civilizational elements.

### Social Education

One of the defining characteristics of Bennabi's scholarship is to take the philosophical and the academic to an actual meaningful solution for Muslim society. This can be seen even in his sociological work where he uses his definition of civilization and culture as the foundations for bringing social change. This is apparent, for instance in his work _On the Origins of Human Society_ (Bennabi M. , 1998)where he dedicates entire chapters to social education, and has two chapters specifically named "The Notion of Social Education" (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 88) and "Foundations of Social Education". (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 121) As we shall see in the following paragraphs, in _The Question of Culture,_ Bennabi is careful to define the difference of education and culture, and how culture can be transformed using education.

Bennabi describes the interplay and difference between culture and education by noting that there is a misconception between the two terms in the Muslim world, and that this is a problem for the Ummah:

" _The dual role of culture [positive and negative renewal] will have no effect unless this grave confusion between the meanings of culture and education, widespread in the Muslim world, is abolished"._ (Bennabi M. , 2003a, p. 50)

He describes the difference between culture and education as one of a theory of behaviour rather than a theory of knowledge (Bennabi M. , 2003a, p. 50). He explains this difference between education and culture as:

"...thing more general than knowledge and more closely related to the character than accumulation of data..." (Bennabi M. , 2003a, p. 51)

And:

"... A set of moral qualities and social values that influence the individual from birth." (Bennabi M. , 2003a, p. 51)

Bennabi asks the question whether social education can "guide the march of society in history" and answers to the affirmative. (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 88) For this end, he stresses that the general rules for such a social education must derive from history, sociology and psychology. (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 89)

He defines the rules of social education thus:

"...In order to influence the way of life in a given society as well as the behaviour of its archetypes i.e., in order to construct an efficient system of social education it is imperative to have a manifest and clear-cut idea about the relations and reflexes that govern the utilization and orientation of the vital energy at the level of both the individual and the society." (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 92)

Bennabi equates social education to culture, and to transforming society. He believes social education should not be to "just teach people to say or write nice words" but rather to "teach every individual the art of living with his fellow humans. That is how to be civilized." (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 117)

From this viewpoint, we can clearly see that Bennabi is seeking to find the solutions of culture and civilization through education. This coincidentally has been the aim of the Islamization of Knowledge movement.

In a chapter titled "Foundations of Social Education" (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 121), Bennabi calls for a non-mechanical approach to such an education. He also notes that such an education plan cannot be borrowed because not all the elements are identical in different cultures. (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 122) In this he answers a pertinent question that we saw earlier regarding the three paradigms outlined in Section 2.1.3, that of the extent and nature of borrowing from the West. Bennabi explains the position thus:

"...in order to handle properly and efficiently the problems facing our society, we should never rely on borrowed solutions no matter how relevant and successful they might be in the countries from which they are borrowed. This is because the relevance and success of any borrowed solution are inextricably linked to the social environment within which it has 'taken shape' and to the 'spirit' which has 'shaped' it."

Bennabi frames the methodology by noting:

1. The importance of learning from others but rejection of ready-made solutions

2. That any 'borrowed' solutions should be adapted to the cultural and social variables

3. The climate and conditions of the borrowing country is also another variable dimension that must be considered and effected as part of any social education plan (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 123)

Bennabi notes that the key task for an Islamic renaissance is "to reorganize and reorient our vital energies". (Bennabi M. , 1998, p. 128) He believes society needs to make a concerted effort to revive itself by regulating rather than repressing natural instincts. He connects this with the social function of Islam, noting that to make Islam beyond merely a historical document we need to make these ideas of practical relevance by using an educational system. (Bennabi M. , 1998, pp. 129-135)

Defining the Vital Energies that Need Reorganization and Reorientation

As we noted above, Bennabi wants us to reorganize and reorient our vital energies. What those vital energies are then becomes of importance. In this regard, Bennabi notes:

The Pavlovian School has shed the first light on the conditioning process in general. In an interesting book entitled Le Viol des Foules, Serge Tchakhotine, one of its followers, has given us a pertinent analysis and classification of the vital energy under what he has named "natural impulses". (Bennabi M. , 2003b, p. 27)

Using the Pavlovian school's vital energies as the starting point, and with the disclaimer that the four impulses noted by the school describe the entire vital energy or not (Bennabi M. , 2003b, p. 27), Bennabi analyses the vital energies as the framework within which society operates, describing this relationship as:

It is evident that if we could, by supposition, get rid of one of the forms of the vital energy such as what Tchakhotine [Tchakhotine, 1998, pp. 50-51] calls the 'nutritive impulse', the 'acquisitive or the reproductive impulse', all the biological forces and possibilities of social life would have been abolished in one go. Had we, also by supposition, done the contrary by liberating the vital energy from all kinds of restrictions, a purely natural order would have substituted the social order. Consequently, the individual would be living under the law of natural selection, the law of the jungle, which permits the survival not of the best but of the fittest.

Therefore, when we abolish the vital energy, we in fact destroy society, whereas when we liberate it completely, it itself destroys society. So it has necessarily to function within the framework of two limits. (Bennabi M. , 2003b, p. 28)

Serge Tchakhotine was in fact a WWII propagandist (Laberge, 1993) and used his identified four impulses for that purpose. He noted the power of using those impulses for propaganda, equating it to "raping the masses", a translation of the title of his book _Le Viol des Foules_ (Tchakhotine, 1998) _._ For our less gory purposes of formulating a social pedagogic program, the four impulses that Tchakhotine highlights may still be of use, and are given as (in declining order of potency):

The combative or defensive impulse

Nutritive impulse, and

Reproductive impulse

Protective parental or maternal impulse

While there are a large number of alternative ideas, we shall consider two more theories and then formulate our own theory. Maslow (Maslow, 1943) defines what motivates people as based on a contingency theory of what their needs are. The diagram below illustrates his motivation theory, as further developed during the 1990s (McLeod, 2007). In the diagram, as lower end needs are fulfilled, people move increasingly to higher end needs.

Imam Shatibi, defines his Five Elements of Existence instead in the following manner:

Life

Property

Faith

Intellect

Posterity

Be these theories as they may, we instead attempt to come up with our own set of valuations of the basic impulses of man, and attempt to incorporate some of the features of these three theories. The _real politic_ of Tchakhotine's rankings are seen here as valuable, as is Maslow's contingency aspect. The inherent nature of faith highlighted by Imam Shatibi also fits perfectly with our earlier point about the inherent religiosity of man.

5. A Theory of the Basic Impulses of Man

Following is a derivation of our own theory of the basic impulses of man:

Combined, these constitute our template for the natural vital energies in man. The task of education is to condition these impulses for the betterment of society and the individual. In conditioning these impulses, we need to:

1. Strengthen certain impulses, moderate certain impulses

2. Target multiple impulses within a specific education plan for synergy and maximum effect

These vital energies or impulses have not been ranked, a task that would take considerable research and experimentation, beyond the resources available for this book. However, the following impulses may be seen as most important for a social education program to urgently target, given the contingency of the state of South Asian society:

1. Ahad impulsexxii

2. Human association impulse

3. Sexual impulse

4. Intellectual impulses

Our Four Emphasized Impulses

Why each of these impulses is important, and how we are to deal with them is outlined below.

Ahad Impulse:

The natural impulse is to worship Allah. However, when this impulse is ignored, man begins to worship other things ranging from money, career, sex, property, status, to musicians (i.e. Beetles), actors and actresses (i.e. Hollywood / Bollywood), athletes and even football club (i.e. Manchester United).

For instance, a person may claim he does not believe in God, and that religion is irrational and meaningless to him. Yet, he may in fact be a Manchester United fan, and any negative discussion concerning his team may ignite the same passion and anger that an avowedly religious man may express if his religion is discussed negatively. Today, man is busy worshipping a wide variety of items, activities and people. They are holding two jobs sometimes and struggling but spending their utmost time, effort, passion and energy on something that is often observed as irrational by an outside observer. However, for them, that is what is most important to their being; that is what they, in essence, worship.

The word " _kafir_ " originates from the word _kafara,_ meaning to cover or to hide. If you observe virtually any individual long enough, they will inevitably have something that is most important to them, often something that they hide. Islam is a mercy to mankind precisely because it saves us from worshipping things, people, activities that would cause pain and suffering in us and in the world. This is additionally so, as that which we worship provides us with are ideals and archetypes, that which we emulate and want our children to emulate (Jung's theory of archetypes, Plato's theory of forms and ideas). Only worshipping the perfect, eternal, unmatched, incomparable, _Ahad,_ can truly save us from the cascading consequences of worshipping the imperfect creation. In the present circumstance of the world today, the South Asian child needs to be protected by the enlightenment of worshipping _Ahad,_ the best armour against the rampant corruption today.

Human Association Impulse:

The social relations network is fundamental to a healthy society and civilization. The human association impulse must be moderated to fulfil reinvigorate the social relations network. A defining feature of Muslims today is that they are unable to discuss issues with each other in a civil manner, and unable to build meaningful associations beyond family, social status, sectarian grouping, tribe, race, etc. Communication is largely hierarchy-based and vertical rather than laterally effective. This must be changed through a social education program,one that:

Teaches the etiquettes of discussion

Actively engages people / students in discussion.

Teaches the process by which real consensus is built

It must also be taught that Islam is focused on the collective. Today we have the widespread phenomenon of Muslims that pray five times, keep a beard, wear Islamic attire, but behave as if they were an island onto themselves. This is fundamentally wrong and contradictory to Islam and yet has established itself as a result of certain historical-structural consequences of the establishment of the theological class. The theological class train themselves to studiously avoid any form of politics, a point well-taught at Al-Azhar and other such institutions, and thus have created a separate ethics than that of Islam for themselves. The consequence of this is that people have been following their ethics rather than the ethics of Islam.

The ethics of Islam are almost diametrically opposite to this "man as an island" practice. A short exposition of this here will suffice to make this point:

Islam is a complete way of life. It is vital for Muslims to deal with all that takes place around them as is written in the Quran; enjoin good and forbid evil. Islam is not merely a passive religion that we keep in our personal lives. It is not "I", it is "we". We recite Surah Al-Fatiha at least 17 times a day, repeating again and again iyyaqn'abudu (you we worship), waiyyaqn'asteen (you we ask for help). Ihdinus (guide us). That is a minimum of 3*17=51 collectives and not a single singular "I" in the entire Surah. That is, only if we read our fard and not our sunnah, or other optional prayers. And what duwah do we pray after the shahada? Allahuma...

The repeated collective in revelation, prayer and the practice of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the sahaba, the repeated action-orientation against wrong and the enjoining of right, all belie the ethics of the theological structurexxiii that Allama Iqbal calls a "dead crust" over Islam. This ethics of Islam must be taught widely, and the ethics of the theologians exposed _en grande._

Sexual Impulse

Google Trendsxxiv suggests that South Asia has a very large viewership of pornography, with being the number one country searching for the term "sex" and this has been brought to light in a number of articles in newspapers, magazines and the internet. Any careful study of South Asian society suggests that sex, its search, its contemplation, makes up a significant portion of thought for teenagers and young adults in South Asia.

The human physiology is no different from the natural world's animal kingdom. Our basic physical configuration, with bones, muscles, tissues, blood, nervous system, etc. is not unique in this planet. We too need to eat, sleep and drink, like all other creatures on God's Earth. Should sex then be held to a different standard? There is no reason to believe so. When a horse, a camel, a dog or cattle comes of age, they are not restricted by man-made laws on when and if they can copulate. Man should not impose upon himself artificial standards of when his kind can come of age. These rules are set by Allah, and relate to the natural biological process of menstrual cycles for women, and the awareness of sex for men.

This was no different than what was practiced before industrialization took place. As the complexity of the world required ever increasing amount of training and schooling, and the needs of labor and economics caused the employment of an ever increasing age limit, men and women pushed marriage further and further off. But what have been the adverse side effects of this? For when one changes the variables in any equation, those changes can have wide ranging effects on the ultimate outcome.

The first impact has been a fixation on sex, prizing it as one of the central concepts in society. The laws of Economics dictate that when supply is restricted demand does not go down but the value society attaches to the element being considered increases. In addition to this unnatural and artificial imposition of law, society bombards these young adults with all forms of obscenities and shamelessness. As a result, our teenage children and young adults are today disproportionately focused on sex, even perhaps above everything else in their lives. It is perhaps the issue that is most in their minds and central to many of their other wants and aspirations.

The gel on their hair, the car driven, the latest item in fashion, the clothes, being successful in sports and even down to the job that they can get: all become subservient to their sexual desire. As a result, man today is centrally focused on sex and is led around the world like a donkey is led with a carrot dangled in front of him. It is this that they then worship.

The second impact is that of fornication and masturbation. When an essential and natural element is restricted unnaturally by the laws and norms of an artificial society, such that sexuality, after the initialization of our natural inclinations, is repressed from anywhere between a decade to two decades, the result will be that man will develop pathologies to channel his natural urges.

Masturbation attempts to simulate the basic mechanism of a natural sexual release, but does not have the necessary level of stimuli to recreate the experience adequately. As a result, other aids become prevalent, psychological and visual such as pornography. But the worst impact is perhaps that the mind takes over part of the stimulus function. This brings the mind to seek fantasies and since the stimuli can never be as good as the "real deal", man consequently compensates by making those fantasies ever more extreme. This results in sexual perversion. David Morgan, a British psychologist, attests to this impact, that watching pornography leads to more extreme material.

This impact is fundamental in understanding the ever increasing number of gays and sexually perverted individuals. The most natural and innocent of feelings have been turned into the most grotesque and hideous elements in man.

At the societal level, we need to educate parents, and to effect, in the long-term, a change in South Asian culture along the following lines:

1. Educate parents about the great ills of restricting marriage for career or education

2. To reduce the barriers to entry of marriage by:

a. Lowering the costs of weddings and other economic barriers

b. Creating meaningful exchange networks for match-making

c. Reconstituting social expectation of ageism,

Intellectual Impulses

The intellectual impulse is the natural desire of man to be inquisitive about everything and anything, to desire to know, to desire to name, to classify, to solve, to gain information. This is a natural impulse is not nurtured by modern mass schooling; it is in fact inhibited with operant conditioning. Books, studies, research, thoughts, are presented as a painful and cumbersome activity, and students predictably react negatively to them.

# 6. A Solution for Teaching Islam

### The Quran Explained

The methodology of instruction in Islam must de-emphasize from the present focus on memorization and instead move to explanation, understanding and practice. This would help Islam be of practical use and be a living element in students' lives, rather than treat them as surplus hard-drives. Such a change would help students not only understand Islam but also to love Islam – we make it difficult for people to love Islam by putting upon their heads the tedious and onerous task of memorization, as a result they shun Islamic learning for the rest of their lives.

The methodology should focus on the Quran, particularly its explanation and understanding in a language understandable to students. A Quran-centered methodology has been highly successful in the US, where Brother Nouman Ali Khan, a South Asian-American, through his _Bayyinah Institute_ has successfully taught Islam and the Quran. His lectures are now listened to worldwide, and provide lifeblood in understanding Islam. Young students are eager to hear these lectures as they are directly relevant to them and thus meaningful. The Bayyinah Institute's methodology should be taken as the model on which Quranic Studies courses can be taught in Secondary and Tertiary school. Brother Nouman Ali Khan can perhaps be consulted in this regard and insh'Allah could change the face of Islamic education in South Asia.

His methodology involves giving a balance of comprehensive and relevant explanation of the Quran. Students should gain such an explanatory understanding of the entire Quran, in their years in secondary school.

### Emphasis on Practice

The methodology of teaching Islam in the time of the Sahabah and the Prophet (peace be upon him) was to read a verse or a section, understand it, reflect upon it, implement it in their lives, and lastly to memorize it. Implementing Islam in students' lives should be an important part of the education program, where students can take back such innovative "homework" and report on their attempts.

### Dawah Training

Dawah is an important and integral part of Islam, and a duty for all Muslims. It is conducted today in South Asia mainly by the _Tableegi Jam'at_ who are perfectly incompetent at doing it properly. Despite _TableegiJam'at_ membership being in the millions worldwide, Islam is losing ground in Indonesia, large parts of Africa, Malaysia, among other countries. In South Asia, Christian missionaries have focused on the lowest classes, by offering them material benefits.

### Rhyme & Rhythm

Rhyme and rhythm help young students learn and love Islam, not as an onerous task forced by the shouting and beating of the local mullah, but as something that children can learn to cherish from a young age. The importance of rhyme and rhythm is captured by Judge Abu Bakr b. al-'Arabi in the following manner:

He placed instruction in Arabic and poetry ahead of all the other sciences, as in the Andalusian method, since, he said, "poetry is the archive of the Arabs. Poetry and Arabic philology should be taught first because of the (existing) corruption of the language". (Al-Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun)

A return to poetry and song is already helping students, a method pioneered in the contemporary period most by Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) and Daud Wharnsby, among others. Strenuous effort needs to be made to adapt their work and/or create similar material to educate young primary school goers. Perhaps Yusuf Islam could be invited to spearhead such an effort, albeit to South Asian requirements (such as being in the Urdu language).

# 7. The Challenge of Effectively Building the Natural Sciences & Engineering

Norman Augustine, one of America's most distinguished leader in industry, in government, engineer, academic and business leader, who holds 23 honorary degrees and was selected in who's who of American Library of Congress of 50 great Americans, has the following to sum up in a talk titled _Re-engineering Engineering_ about what had the most impact for the United States:

In America it's basic research that creates the new knowledge, then it's engineering that takes that new knowledge and translates it into useful products and services. It's the working together of engineers and business people that takes those products and services then through entrepreneurship, introduces them into the market where they create jobs for other people, not engineers or scientists or business people.

Indeed the race for prosperity today is really a race for leadership in science and engineering. There have been eight different studies that I'm familiar with conducted in recent decades that have indicated that public investment in science and technology produces a societal rate of return of between 20 and 67 percent. There have been a number of other studies that have shown that somewhere between 50 and 85 percent of the growth in gross domestic product in this country in the last half century is attributable to advancements of science engineering. And the Federal Reserve Board concluded that about two thirds of the increase in productivity in this country in the last two decades is attributable to advancements in science and engineering.

This has also been emphasized by many prominent individuals and institutions; including Alan Greenspan and brevity causes me to move on and accept the point that science-engineering is the key sector of importance for South Asia to take up, and for government to be involved in. Augustine wants innovative, creative engineers, not the route-learned, _zombified_ beings we are churning out. And he notes the dependence of the US in importing such engineers to remotely keep its edge over other nations. Both Augustine and Greenspan note the internal crisis the US is facing in creating a good supply of innovative and creative engineers. If you've read the above section on Mass Schooling that is compulsory (by force of the police) in the US, you may know why that may be.

The bottom line however is that scientists and engineers are critical to the development of a real industrial economy, and they must be a priority for any future South Asian government. To emphasize science-engineering and technical education, South Asia needs to focus on creating polytechnics and engineering colleges and universities and then properly funding research and development institutions. South Asia needs such colleges to provide the best possible and cutting-edge education to create not line-men but the kind of innovative, creative engineers that Augustine wants. Space does not allow us to go into exactly what such a cutting-edge engineering and scientific education should be and on what lines to reform the present, we instead point the reader to a close scrutiny of Norman Augustine's 16 Laws of Re-engineering Engineeringxxv.

### A Meaningful Downstream: Defence R&D

Research and development is a critical element in then utilizing the graduates produced, unless our aim is to send them to the United States where they desperately need such men, or in fact to people multinational companies; it is vital to make sense of the entire Education-R&D-Development cycle. When a nation does not have money for or means to employ engineers, it makes little sense to spend so much effort in produce them in the first place.

Brother Asad Mahmood of the Insaf Research Wing, in his paper _Industrial Development in South Asia,_ gives evidence that military developments in Europe drove her industrial development. He states:

Some authorsxxvi argue that it was military developments that drove the early process of industrialisation. As gunpowder (and thus cannons and muskets) became dominant on the battlefield, there was a need for an integrated industrial system that controlled raw material, was responsible for the production of weapons (especially as cannons became more sophisticated and powerful) and their maintenance and distribution. In most European countries this was primarily a function of the statexxvii, but the resulting technologies spilled over into wider use.

For South Asia to make meaningful use of the engineers and scientists we are seeking to manufacture insh'Allah, the defence research and development sector has to play a key role, and similar to what it played for Europe, in her nascent industrial age. Even today, the defence research establishments of countries tend to spearhead R&D for most major economies, so it is critical for South Asia to get this right. South Asia already has a start, but one of the key elements is to manage an effective R&D effort; it is a very difficult program to master but it must be done for the R&D-Education cycle to be complete.

The problem of running a proper R&D effort is a universal one, and there are far more cases of incompetence and blunders than ones that get it right. One of the most widely known success stories has been Lockheed Martin's "Skunk Works", legendary R&D organization that has created a large number of constant successes. Skunk Works is perhaps America's greatest weapon; they have won wars long before those wars started; for instance the F-117s stealth planes over Iraq at the early dawn of Gulf War I. Ben Rich, one of the key men who ran Skunk Works after the legendary Kelly Johnson, describe the difference of Skunk Works from other R&D programs. On receiving an offer from a rival company that Rich revealed to his then boss Johnson, this was the reaction he got:

Hell, in the main plant they give raises on the basis of the more people being supervised; I give raises to the guy who supervises least. That means he's doing more and taking more responsibility. But most executives don't think like that at all. Northrop's senior guys are no different from all of the rest in this business: they're all empire builders, because that's how they've been trained and conditioned. Those guys are all experts at covering their asses by taking votes on what to do next. They will never sit still for a secret operation that cuts them out entirely. Control is the name of the game, and if a Skunk Works really operates right, control is exactly what they won't get. (Ben Rich, Skunk Works)

The bottom line is that a very radically different organization structure and modus operandi exists in Skunk Works that is worth carefully studying and replicating. On the basis of Kelly Johnson's 14 Rules of Skunk Works, South Asia needs to replicate Skunk Works-like programs that are characterized by lack of vertical control, minimum bureaucracy and accountants and auditors, close cooperation with the customer, clear autonomous funding and budget control, and decision making by engineers and those engaged in R&D rather than non-technical bureaucrats. Space does not allow us to go further here, but it must be reiterated that effective R&D is key and that the present system is stupendously inefficient.

# 8. Additional Policy Solutions: Implementing Justice

## Open Source Learning

Now that we understand the problems in great detail and had a glimpse of some solutions, let us look at a new paradigm for the education of our children built on what Gatto calls Open Source Learning. Incidentally, this form of learning is very similar to how Muslims learned in the early Islamic period. Let us look at a brief comparison of Open Source Learning and Mass Schooling:

Let us briefly explain a few of these points as brevity does not allow us here to go into all of them. Making mistakes is a central part of learning as it allows an individual to get real feedback and then experiment with correcting his or her actions. Imran Khan for instance, found that his style of bowling was not going to help him be a fast bowler and through his personal feedback loop, he corrected this bowling action, something many experts thought was not possible for him to achieve. This is a perfect example of the open source learning that Imran Khan mastered, knowingly or unknowingly.

It is my belief that South Asians survived the full blast of the Mass Schooling system simply because of the dysfunctional nature of schooling in South Asia and because of cricket. Cricket has taught South Asians what the Mass Schooling system has attempted to destroy. An interesting anecdote concerns Dr. Zafar Altaf, one of the key individuals behind South Asia's Silent Green Revolution of the 1990s in agriculture and a long-term manager of the South Asia cricket team. Dr Altaf, related how he was able to finish his PhD from the London Business School in 18 months, without having any academic background for decades. He noted that his ability to concentrate on the pitch (Dr. Altaf is a former test cricketer) allowed him to focus for long stretches, sometimes 8-18 hours at a time, something his tutors at the London Business School found astonishing. No doubt, it also helped him accomplish his feats at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Let us take a step back to assess the impact of cricket and judge its impact on the basis of Gatto's Harvard, Cambridge campus brochure for nine qualities that students need to have to deal with the international economy of today:

The ability to ask hard questions of data, whether from textbooks, authorities, or other "expert" sources. In other words, do we teach dialectics?

The ability to define problems independently, to avoid slavish dependence on official definitions.

The ability to scan masses of irrelevant information and to quickly extract from the sludge whatever is useful.

The ability to conceptualize.

The ability to reorganize information into new patterns which enable a different perspective than the customary.

The possession of a mind fluent in moving among different modes of thought: deductive, inductive, heuristic, intuitive, et al.

Facility in collaboration with a partner, or in teams.

Skill in the discussion of issues, problems or techniques.

Skill in rhetoric. Convincing others your course is correct.

Points 7, 8 and 9 are self-evident and needs no further discussion. The South Asian paradigm of cricket helps point 2, in that street cricket seeks to find innovative ways to look at specific issues. For instance the reverse swing or Saqlain Mustaq's "dusra" both looked to define the problem of defeating the batsman in a very different way than was conventionally understood in cricket. Such innovations are to be found in a great variety and to diverse degrees in street cricket throughout South Asia. Point number 1 is shown in the example earlier of Imran Khan's bowling action, by which Khan, through a dialectic method evolved his action. Many similar processes are constantly taking place in the streets and _gullees_ of South Asia.

However, cricket is but an ad hoc manner in which South Asians are learning what schooling should have helped them learn. The question we come back to is how we can design a schooling system that can actually help rather than hinder our children. How can we implement open source learning? How can we use education to uplift South Asia? Let us attempt to answer these meaningful questions.

Firstly, we must de-legitimize the system of credentials and certificates. Secondly, we must focus on activity-impact. Thirdly, we need to take the venom out of the poorly mimicked Mass Schooling system. By de-legitimizing the system of credentials and certificates, we mean to say that matriculation and FSC grades should not be the basis for college enrolment. Instead, colleges should have a basic test of mathematics, sciences and language that assess the minimum needed to cope with college-level education. The corridors of privilege and power that cause _safarish_ can then be removed further by choosing randomly (via a computer) from those that pass such a qualification test. All such tests must ensure that they are not repeated with same or similar questions, a problem which perpetuates the route learning tragedy South Asia so deeply suffers from. People will also not be rejected based on their age – whether it is a 9 year old or a 90 year old. We do not know where talent lies and when they bloom. Certificates and other paperwork need to be delegitimized at every level of the education system.

In focusing on activity-impact, it is meant that the government must engage in what is of most importance to the country, with the highest impact.

## Importance of K-12 Education

A vital and important part of any education to benefit national development is to focus on K-12 education, something spoken of by Ibn Khaldun, who in particular talked about early educational instruction. It is also emphasized by men such as Alan Greenspan who has focused a major portion of his effort in trying to make K-12 education more effective, particularly the kind of education that can produce good scientists and engineers. Gatto notes some important aspects that an education should be able to accomplish. He calls it the Real Learning Index. These include:

1. Self-knowledge

2. Observation

3. Feedback

4. Analysis

5. Mirroring

6. Expression

7. Judgment

8. Adding value

To this we add:

9. Excellence over mediocrity - ihsaan

10. Ethical and religious values.

11. Synthesis, particularly synthesis of Islam and the contemporary world.

These eleven points should form the basis of any real education system. It is with great surprise that we sometimes find individuals supposedly religious but have very poor ethical and moral applied practice. This theme is endemic and a systematic problem, the evidence of the latter being that it is present across the Islamic Ummah and not just a characteristic of South Asian society Perhaps the main problem lies in a distortion of the original practice of how Islam was taught; during the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the Sahaba, students would read a portion of a surah, reflect upon it, apply it, and lastly memorize it. Today, we have skipped all the steps except the last, destroying the value of our faith and turning it into a meaningless prattle. This has to be corrected both at the schools and at the madrassas. And in one stroke we can create an Islamic renaissance, insh'Allah.

Bringing proper Islam and replacing the mullahs at the local madrassas will take a lot of grit and determination to achieve, with "liberal" and US-backed groups trying to manipulate such reform to further their purposes, and at the same time ultra-backward groups trying to hold on to what they have. The best way to deal with this is to create a genuine committee of world-renowned scholars and Muslims. Men like Nouman Ali Khan, an American of South Asian origin, respected by all groups and sects (at least the major ones). Men like Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) who single-handedly built the best Muslim educational school-chain in the UK, so much so that the demand for a place in his schools outstrips the supply. Men like Zakir Naik, who has done similar education projects in India and whose stature and argumentation can shut any dissenting voices. Some other names include Dr. Totonji (a founder of the MSA), Hamza Yusuf, Yusuf Estes, Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Hakim Murad, Abdur Raheem Green. Yes, they are from diverse backgrounds and this will make them disagree, but as long as the platform is given they could come up with a plan.

The big secret about education is that it is not trying to achieve some immense greatness; it is really about stopping damage and damage control. We need to ensure that the Chinese foot binding equivalent of brain damage on our children does not continue. We need to ensure that children are given proper schooling where they are encouraged to think, reason, understand, discuss and apply effectively and practically, whether it is the Quran or the sciences.

The earlier the age, the more critical the damage done and conversely, the more powerful and effective the impact of the education can be. The first aspect to learn for a child is language, whether educationists decide that include Urdu, English, Arabic or even C++. Mathematics is the language of engineering and also must be taught, perhaps immediately after conventional language(s). The important aspect here is not to make children hate school and be taught language through painful classroom lessons in grammar and syntax. The progression and manner of early education is captured by Ibn Khaldun in the following words:

In his Rihlah, Judge Abu Bakr b. al-'Arabi made a remarkable statement about instruction, which retains (the best of) the old, and presents (some good) new features. He placed instruction in Arabic and poetry ahead of all the other sciences, as in the Spanish method, since, he said, "poetry is the archive of the Arabs. Poetry and Arabic philology should be taught first because of the (existing) corruption of the language. From there, the (student) should go on to arithmetic and study it assiduously, until he knows its basic norms. He should then go on to the study of the Qur'an, because with his (previous) preparation, it will be easy for him." (Ibn al-'Arabi) continued: "How thoughtless are our compatriots in that they teach children the Qur'an when they are first starting out. They read things they do not understand and work hard at something that is not as important for them as other matters." He concluded: "The student should study successively the principles of Islam, the principles of jurisprudence, disputation, and then the Prophetic traditions and the sciences connected with them." He also forbade teaching two disciplines at the same time, save to the student with a good mind and sufficient energy."

Now, I am not certain if I want my children to study principles of jurisprudence, but the general _lay-of-the-land_ that Judge Al-Arabi sketches seems astute and an effective early education. Certainly, poetry, rhymes and songs can work to make language so much more meaningful and fun for children, and mathematics is critical to develop a logical and analytical mind, not to mention its critical importance to the sciences and engineering.

Poetry, rhymes and classic literature would be far better than syntax for the early education of a child, as Judge Al-Arabi has noted. Here the great enemies are "children's editions" of books – books that are abridged mockeries of their originals. They are the bane of learning, uninteresting to read as the literature doesn't flow, and teach mediocrity, not excellence.

The last point to be raised is that the children's development should be seen more holistically, and focuses on Mind, Body and Spirit. Education should not merely be about the first, but be about each of them in balance. We have focused on the mind, more needs to be said about the body and spirit.

### Reading

The teaching of reading is both straightforward and elusive at the same time. In many regards it is dependent on both the language being taught and the general receptivity of the student to the method of instruction. In the case of English, this is perhaps the most difficult of the identified languages in this education paper, because it is not a straightforward language and in a number of instances has several exceptions to its identified norms. Having said this, arguably English can be taught without a great difficulty, partly because the language is the de facto international standard, which necessitates a number numerous instruction methods.

Aside from this fact, letters in the English languages can have a variety of different corresponding sounds depending on the letter combinations, and also similar combinations of letters can produce different sounds. For example:

Have – H/A/V/E - the vowel in this word has a sound within a higher note range.

Grave – G/R/A/V/E – the vowel in this word has a sound within a lower note range.

There is nothing within the English language itself that would actually help you to differentiate between these two distinct sounds apart from, simply, memorizing the sounds they make. This, of course, proves troublesome when one stumbles across an unfamiliar word and without reference to someone who has familiarity with the word, one will struggle to reach the correct articulation.

The most successful method of instruction for English is based upon phonics or phonetics, which is literally breaking a word into its constituent sounds and sounding out these segments to make the word. The specific version of this method recommended by this book is the one expressed in the book _Why Johnny Can't Read_ by Rudolph Fleisch which concisely and accurately details a very user-friendly method of instruction including exceptions to the language rules. All methods of phonics would suffice, but this is a more effective method in these authors' experiences.

Numerous other methods have also been put forward by various publications and quasi-education authorities, but they have been either exposed as elaborate money-making schemes or unsuitable for use. These include the whole word method, which through numerous erroneous studies was, and still is, used by education establishments in the US, and the rise of its use has coincided with a decline in functional literacy. Other methods focus similarly on pseudo-science and gimmicks and, eventually, sound educational theory returns to the same method: Phonics.

Regarding the other 2 languages mentioned: Urdu and Arabic, we find, at least we should find, this problem does not exist because both are languages that do not have many linguistic exceptions, if any, in relation to its norms and rules. The other consideration in regards to both languages is that the letters within both alphabets always take on fixed sounds i.e. and alif has a specific sound which is normally emphasized by a suitable grammar marker (zabar, zair, peish in urdu, fut-ha, kasra, thum-ma in arabic). In time, these can be dropped once a generally familiarity with both the linguistic norms and vocabulary is established within both languages.

## The Finnish Education System in Brief

The Finnish Education system is a model of the kind of education paradigm this book is proposing, albeit one suited specifically to Finnish needs, and ours would have to be suited to South Asia's needs. In an international standardized measurement in 2001 and since, Finnish children came top or very close to the top for science, reading and mathematics. In addition to beating countries like the US, Finns easily beat countries with a similar demographic, such for instance, neighbor Norway which is of a similar size and featuring a similar homogeneous culture, and which follows the same strategies as the USA and only achieves similar (significantly lower than Finland) rankings in international studies.

• Finnish children don't start school until they are 7

• They rarely take exams or do homework until they are well into their teens.

• The children are not measured at all for the first six years of their education.

• There is only one mandatory standardized test in Finland, taken when children are 16.

• All children, clever or not, are taught in the same classrooms.

• Finland spends around 30 percent less per student than the United States.

• 66 percent of students go to college.

• The difference between weakest and strongest students is the smallest in the World.

• Science classes are capped at 16 students so that they may perform practical experiments every class

• 93 percent of Finns graduate from high school.

• 43 percent of Finnish high-school students go to vocational schools.

• Elementary school students get 75 minutes of recess a day in Finnish versus an average of 27 minutes in the US

• Teachers only spend 4 hours a day in the classroom, and take 2 hours a week for "professional development".

• The school system is 100% state funded

• All teachers in Finland must have a master's degree, which is fully subsidized.

• Teachers are selected from the top 10% of graduates

• Teachers are given the same status as doctors and lawyers

This book has dealt with a number of education issues and presented some solutions. Other areas also need to be addressed that has not been dealt with here. This includes physical education and sports, national sports programs, public outreach for understanding education paradigm, and much more. The work here is a start. A Linux kernel for others to build on, after all, knowledge, it's classification and expansion are works that are beyond encyclopedic.

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# Recommended Reading List

How to Read a Book Adler, Mortimer J.

How to Speak, How to Listen Adler, Mortimer J.

Homeschooling for Excellence Colfax, David

Why Johnny Can't Read: And What you can do about it Flesch, Rudolf

A Different Kind of Teacher Gatto, John Taylor

The Underground History of American Education Gatto, John Taylor

Weapons of Mass Instruction Gatto, John Taylor

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Gatto, John Taylor

How Children Fail Holt, John

How Children Learn Holt, John

Learning All the Time Holt, John

Teaching Your Own Holt, John

Deschooling Society Illich, Ivan

The Montessori Method Montessori, Maria

The Absorbent Mind Montessori, Maria

Montessori's Notebook Montessori, Maria

Secret of Childhood Montessori, Maria

Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the inside out Petrash, Jack

Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative Robinson, Ken

The Element: How finding your passion changes everything Robinson, Ken

A Is for Ox Sanders, Barry

The Lost Tools of Learning and the Mind of the Maker Sayers, Dorothy

#

i Sharp, H. (1965). Bureau of Education: Selections from Educational Records, Part I (1781-1839). Dehli: National Archives of India.

iiTaha Jabir Al-Alwani writes similarly in his work Ijtehad, IIIT.

iiiIbn Khaldun in Al Muqadimah sheds much light upon the use of logic by what he describes as "recent scholars":

"(Scholars) studied the basic premises the earlier theologians had established. They refuted most of them with the help of arguments leading them to (a different opinion). Many of these were derived from philosophical discussions of physics and metaphysics. When they probed them with the yardstick of logic, it showed that they were applicable only to those (other disciplines and not to theology, but) they did not believe that if the argument were wrong, the thing proven (by the arguments) was also wrong. This approach differed in its technical terminology from the older one. It was called "the school of recent scholars". Their approach often included refutation of the philosophers where the (opinions of the) latter differed from the articles of faith, because, in most respects, there is a relationship between the opinions of the innovators and the opinions of the philosophers.

"The first (scholar) to write in accordance with the new theological approach was al-Ghazzali. He was followed by the imam Ibn al-Khatib. A large number of scholars followed in their steps and adhered to their tradition.

"The later scholars were very intent upon meddling with philosophical works. The subjects of the two disciplines (theology and philosophy) were thus confused by them. They thought that there was one and the same (subject) in both disciplines, because the problems of each discipline were similar.

iv See Taha Jabir Al-Alwani, Ijtehad, IIIT.

v See also:

"The arguments and proofs belong in the category of corporeal perceptions, because they are produced by the powers of the brain, which are imagination, thinking, and memory. The first thing we are concerned with when we want to attain this kind of perception is to kill all these powers of the brain, because they object to such (perception) and work against it."

vi Khaldun, I. (2004). The Muqaddimah. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p.264

vii Ibn Khaldun (1986) The Muqaddimah, Trans. Franz Rosenthal, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and Henley. p.259

viii Ibn Khaldun (1958) The Muqaddimah, Princeton University press, Princeton. p.96

ix Malek Bennabi (2003b) The Question of Ideas in the Muslim World, Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur. p.7

x As claimed by him see Islam and Secularism(Al-Attas S. M., 1978, pp. xi-xii)

xi Al-Alwani, at the time of writing the referenced journal article was the President of the IIIT, Herndon, Virginia and can be said to have represented authoritatively the views of the IIIT.

xiiAs will become obvious from the literature review in this dissertation.

xiii Al-Alwani mentions Al-Faruqi and his definition in passing in the following words: "The first edition of the Islamization of Knowledge pointed out the principles essential to any attempt to fashion an Islamic paradigm of knowledge based on the Islamic worldview and its unique constitutive concepts and factors. It also addressed, briefly, the intellectual aspect of the Islamization of Knowledge. The main focus, however, was on the practical aspects of producing textbooks for use in teaching the social sciences, as this was considered the first priority at a time when the Muslim world was losing its best minds to the West and the western cultural and intellectual invasion." (Alwani, 1995, p. 81)

In fact, Al-Alwani went further and redefined Al-Faruqi's 12 points to 6 "Discourses" (Alwani, 1995)

xiv This author himself has been advised to not discuss this issue in his thesis. However, he believes that avoiding the issue will not solve the problem and such censorship is not acceptable in contemporary academics and may in fact be detrimental to the long-term health of the movement.

xv See for instance The Question of Culture (Bennabi, 2003a)

xviThe Webster's dictionary provides the definition of the term paradigm as "a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly: a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind" (Merriam-Webster, 2011). Williams (Research and Paradigms, 1998), in defining paradigm quotes Burrell and Morgan (1979, p. 24) who defines the term as:

"To be located in a particular paradigm is to view the world in a particular way."

Williams (1998) notes this definition to be similar to Patton's (Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, 1990), who uses the term "world view". Williams (1998) however settles on the comprehensive definition given by Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1970, p. viii) who defines paradigm as "universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners". Williams (1998) further quotes Kuhn (1970, p. 113) who elaborates on the term as "something like a paradigm is a prerequisite to perception itself" and "it stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values and techniques, and so on shared by the members of a community." (Kuhn, 1970, p. 175)

xvii Meinhaj Hossain

xviii Bennabi notes that this form of Jahiliya is far harder to correct.

xix Bennabi calls this the de-temporization of time, where the Islamic world undervalues "time" and focuses instead on a "time" based on spiritual events. This writer would note that practicing Muslims are most driven by "time" measured by the yardstick of the five daily prayers, the sacred months, the major religious holidays and so forth.

xxBennabi actually describes it using the phrase "the love of good and the aversion for evil"

xxi I diverge here from Bennabi; while staying in the spirit of his principles, I differ in that Bennabi instead looks to define the circumstance as Man+Soil+Time=Civilization.

xxii See Section 3.2.4.2.2.1.

xxiii This structure developed historically after religious and political leadership was severed, beyond the first four Khulafa. The religious leadership would move increasingly towards de-politicization, to accommodate this change. Since every social issue has at some level a political implication, direct or indirect, over time this has meant the disconnection of the now theological priesthood of the ulema.

xxiv http://www.trends.google.com/

xxvSPIE Defense, Security and Sensing symposium in April 2009, "Re-engineering Engineering."

xxvi Brother Mahmood quotes William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1984).

xxvii Ibid.

