THE ULTIMATE END of the ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION Muhammad Majid Sabir

Ultimate End of Islamic Education Philosophy The Dialogue THE ULTIMATE END OF THE ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION Muhammad Majid Sabir ALL HEAVENLY MESSAGES have placed a special emphasis on people’s education in order to properly develop their natural potentials and bestow on them happiness both here and in the Hereafter. Islam is the final and greatest of all divine messages. Hence, its profound interest in the upbringing of mankind: “0’ You who believe guard yourselves and your families against afire whose fuel is men and stones, and over which are angels stern and strong who disobey not Allah in what He commands them and do what they are commanded.” (Quran, 66:6) In the aforementioned verse, Allah the Glorious commands believers to properly educate themselves and their families, so that they could constitute the best possible human society. The Islamic teaching has neither been exclusively religious nor material. It has accommodated both the religious and the worldly affairs, since it has to prepare people for success in this world and in the hereafter. The holy Quran refers to this point, as: “And seek by means of what Allah has given you the future abode and do not neglect your portion of this world.” The Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H.) stated: “The best of you are not those who neglected the worldly affairs for the Hereafter or the affairs of the Hereafter for the worldly. It is surely they who take from both.” So the ultimate end of the philosophy of Islamic education is two- fold. One is the achievement in this world and the other is for the hereafter by purifying one’s self. End of philosophy of education in this world is the command over science and technology, while hereafter is through purifying oneself to open a passage towards heaven. Each of the factors involved is discussed here in detail. 95 Majid Sabir The Dialogue The author is a Research Scholar at Education Department, Qurtuba University, Peshawar Campus, N.W.F.P., Pakistan SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ISLAM HAS ACCEDED to science and its creative capability of developing, maturing and achieving the social prosperity. It has also believed that any society that rejects science is reactionary and it may retard its own progress and prosperity in life. The Prophet said, “My nation’s expiry occurs when they disdain knowledge.” Since its earliest stages, Islam declared war against ignorance and indolence. It has adopted positively the advocacy to knowledge and the florescence of the conceptual horizons. It has considered it as an essential element of forming the social, as well as, the individual lives and the motive behind the cultural, economical and social renaissance of the nation. Islam has regarded the seeking of knowledge as one of the precepts and the most significant elements of constructing the society and designing the civilisation. The West claimed that Islam combats conceptions and eradicates the freedom of opinions and interdicts the seeking of knowledge. Pierre Lute refutes this opinion. He says, “We, the European, look at Islam as the religion of the conceptual gloom that events from enlightenment. We also suppose that Islam calls to extremity and poses many obstacles in the path of progression.” First, this proves the Western people’s ultimate ignorance of the Prophet’s instructions. It is also regarded as an ignorance of the historical witnesses. Since its early centuries, Islam went on developing and proceeding in variant fields. We can realise the prompt elevation that the first caliphs did to Islam.” We have not seen any accusable, weaker and cheaper than the previous. A look to the factuality of this great religion will easily prove the falsity of such an accusation. Islam has cited the seeking of knowledge on the top of its precepts and projects. It has also alluded at the big differences between the educated and the ignorant and established amounts of professions and knowledge as the criteria of people’s variance and preference. According to Hazrat Ali, “People are evaluated according to what they master.” Human-self is the origin and source of all actions, deeds, sayings, virtues and vices. If he is reformed, one's success in both worlds is assured. But if it becomes contaminated will turn into a source of 96 Ultimate End of Islamic Education Philosophy The Dialogue vices and will bring a catastrophe for this as well as the next world. If, he started walking on the righteous path might even surpass God's most favorite angels; but if showed indifference towards the “jewel-of-humanity” (Gowhar-e-Insaniyat) and selected the animalistic way of life would become even lower than them, falling into the darkest valleys of ignorance. Religion and science have always been considered twin sisters by Islam and today at a time when science has taken great strides, they still continue to be associated. Furthermore, certain scientific data are used for a better understanding of the Quranic text. In a century where, for many, scientific truth has dealt a deathblow to religious belief, it is precisely the discoveries of science that, in an objective examination of the Islamic revelation, have highlighted the supernatural character of various aspects of the revelation. After a study, which lasted ten years, the famous French physician Maurice Bucaille addressed the French Academy of Medicine in 1976 and expressed the complete agreement to the Quran with the established findings of modern science. He presented his study of the Quran concerning physiology and reproduction. His reason for doing that was: “our knowledge of these disciplines is such that it is impossible to explain how a text produced at the time of the Quran could have contained ideas that have only been discovered in modern times.” Decades later a noted embryologist Keith L. Moore and expert in his field upon being presented with the statements made in the Quran regarding the stages of the formation of the embryo from the mixing of the male and female gametes up to the embryo’s full development remarked: “It has been a pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Quran about Human Development. It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God or Allah because almost all of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later.” Professor Moore presented his findings to scientists at several conferences. Several Canadian periodicals published many of Moore’s statements and in addition he presented three television programmes in which he highlighted the compatibility of modern science with what has been revealed in the Quran more than1400 97 Majid Sabir The Dialogue years ago. Consequently, he was asked: “Does this mean that you believe that the Quran is the word of God?” to which he replied, “I find no difficulty in accepting this.” In fact Professor Moore was so amazed at the accuracy of the descriptions and the terminology used for the various stages of the development of the embryo that he modified his own textbook on the subject. He incorporated all the relevant Quranic passages and authentic statements of the Prophet Muhammad into his book, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology With Islamic Additions, which was published by W. B. Saunders in 1987 and was a standard university textbook in the United States. The book now contains passages of the Quran and the Hadith (verified statements of the Prophet Muhammad) for every stage of development and Professor Moore has also adopted the classification used in the above two sources. Consider also the statement of Tejatet Tejasen (Professor at the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang-Mei University, Thailand) after his study on the passages of Quran in dealing with embryology: “From my studies and what I have learnt at this conference I believe that everything that has been recorded in the Quran 1400 years ago must be true. That can be proved the scientific way.” The statement of E. Marshal Johnson (Professor and Chairman, Dept. of Anatomy, Daniel Bough Institute, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA) is also important to consider: “The Quran describes not only the development of external form but emphasises also the internal stages—the stages inside the embryo of its creation and development, emphasising major events recognised by contemporary science . .. If I was to transpose myself into that era, knowing what I do today and describing things, I could not describe the things that were described... I see no evidence to refute the concept that this individual Muhammad had to be developing this information from some place. so I see nothing in conflict with the concept that divine intervention was involved . ..” Upon being presented with hadiths (verified statements of the Prophet Muhammad) concerning dominant and recessive characteristics, Joe Leigh Simpson (Professor of Obstretics and 98 Ultimate End of Islamic Education Philosophy The Dialogue Gynecology, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois, USA) said: “... these Hadeeths could not have been obtained on the basis of the scientific knowledge that was available at the time of the ’writer’ . .. It follows that not only is there no conflict between genetics and religion (Islam) but in fact religion (Islam) may guide science by adding revelation to some of the traditional scientific approaches . .. There exist statements in the Quran shown centuries later to be valid which support knowledge in the Quran having been derived from God.” According to T. V. N. Persaud (Professor and Head, Dept. of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Manitoba, Canada): “Muhammad was a very ordinary man, he couldn’t read, didn’t know how to write, in fact he was an illiterate . were talking about 1400 years ago, you have some illiterate person making profound statements that are amazingly accurate, of a scientific nature .

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