Education: A grave concern

When our time in this world has passed
In our grave, three questions will be asked
About our Deen, our Nabi and our Lord,
On them will depend the punishment or reward.

B.S., M.S., PhD, top grades,
Will they help answer the questions of the grave?
A status in Dunya we so crave, 
Forgetting the truth: we are slaves.

Time is our most precious gift
Yet in its wasting, we are so swift
The education system, we must admit,
Is the one causing this big rift.

We opt to learn math, bio and physics
But what about our Aqeedah basics?
Are we well aware of the Quranic ethics? 
And have any idea of the Muslim relics?

We know all about the Romans and the Greeks
We have rote learned the ten top peaks
To ace an exam we’re taught techniques
But a sentence of Arabic can we speak?

When it comes to Fiqh, we grow skeptic,
Being told, it only concerns a cleric.
We’re required to read that English classic,
Rather than Seerah or Hadith – how tragic!

We know not how to mend, sew or cook,
Our learning is confined to the textbook,
It seems that we have hardly understood  
The value of Islamic lifestyle and outlook.

Our ‘education’ becomes our disability,
Distorting our purpose and identity. 
To enemy’s plan, our conformity
Can only be labeled as insanity!

Our learning isn’t priortiesed well enough:
First Dunya, then Deen: is that not a bluff?
We’ve lost the way of Sahabah and Salaf,
Who were clear about ‘ilm and its hadaf. *

It’s time, now, to fix our errors,
And follow our pious predecessors:
Let’s put Deen first in all matters, 
High so shall fly Islam’s banners!

*Hadaf  is an Arabic word for goal, target. The Goal of seeking ‘ilm is to produce Allah’s Khashiyyah in one’s heart and to lead towards righteous ‘amal in all spheres of life.

(This is an old family effort of ours that was published in the Homeworks magazine many years ago under the pen name of Aneesa Qamaruddin).

Homeworks magazine is a unique resource presenting the Muslim perspective on education and examples from the local homeschooling community of Pakistan. It is available at Dawah Books:
https://dawahbooks.com.pk/product/homeworks-magazine-pack-of-12-issues/

 

Divergent Thinking

They say that schooling children at an early age destroys their inherent capability of divergent thinking … of thinking out of the box… of finding new solutions and new answers. In school there is ‘one correct answer’ that the teacher knows and students have to learn and reproduce to get ‘full marks’ or good grades.

Homeschooling on the other hand lets children develop their faculty of divergent thinking without oppression and fear of failure or ‘low marks’. I have seen numerous examples of this in our 10+ years of homeschooling, but here is one on record:

H (the big Sis or Biggie) was preparing her presentation on ‘The Silver Dirham – the Power of Shahadah’. Her sisters and I were the dummy audience. She began by showing coins from different countries and saying that they all carry the message of nationalism. Then she asked the audience, “what can money be used for or what is its purpose?”. The answers were:

A (the mid sis or Middie): It can be used to buy stuff. It can also be used to fool someone, who is not careful enough, to make him greedy and get him too involved in gathering money so that he turns away from his Lord.

H2 (the lil sis or Lillie): You can use it to pay at the toll plaza if you’re going to the village!

Mom (getting clue from the girls): It can be used to earn Jannah (heaven) if you spend it in Allah’s way.